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Serial Verb Constructions: Argument Structural Uniformity and Event Structural Diversity

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Serial Verb Constructions: Argument Structural Uniformity and Event Structural Diversity SERIAL VERB CONSTRUCTIONS: ARGUMENT STRUCTURAL UNIFORMITY AND EVENT STRUCTURAL DIVERSITY A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF LINGUISTICS AND THE COMMITTEE ON GRADUATE STUDIES OF STANFORD UNIVERSITY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Melanie Owens November 2011 © 2011 by Melanie Rachel Owens. All Rights Reserved. Re-distributed by Stanford University under license with the author. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- Noncommercial 3.0 United States License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/ This dissertation is online at: http://purl.stanford.edu/db406jt2949 ii I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Beth Levin, Primary Adviser I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Joan Bresnan I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Vera Gribanov Approved for the Stanford University Committee on Graduate Studies. Patricia J. Gumport, Vice Provost Graduate Education This signature page was generated electronically upon submission of this dissertation in electronic format. An original signed hard copy of the signature page is on file in University Archives. iii Abstract Serial Verb Constructions (SVCs) are constructions which contain two or more verbs yet behave in every grammatical respect as if they contain only one. This observation guides my approach to SVCs in this dissertation, in accord with which SVCs are de- fined through displaying (i) no markers of subordination or coordination, (ii) uniform tense, aspect and/or mood values, (iii) the phonological properties of a clause headed by a single verb, and (iv) any other properties that signify monoclausal status in the language concerned. But while (i)-(iv) are standard defining properties for SVCs, I propose a further new defining property: the Theta Structure Property for SVCs, which requires that a SVC display monoclausal argument structure. The Theta Structure Property – so called because it holds at the argument struc- ture level of Theta Structure in Lexical Decompositional Grammar (LDG) – requires that a SVC display the same number of structural arguments and the same list of configurationally-defined non-structural (oblique) arguments as some clause headed by a single verb (in some language). But while some SVCs, called ‘Possible Verb’ SVCs, satisfy this property straightforwardly by virtue of the fact that they have ex- actly the semantic content of a clause headed by a single verb, there is an additional, non-core class of ‘Impossible Verb’ SVCs for whom satisfaction of the Theta Structure Property is more complex. The basis for the Possible Verb-Impossible Verb distinction are LDG’s Possible Verbs constraints, which determine the semantic content of what can be expressed in a clause headed by a single verb. Possible Verb SVCs satisfy these constraints, but Impossible Verb SVCs, in not satisfying these constraints, have more complex semantic contents and argument structures. Special predicate combining operations iv (mainly consisting of argument coidentification operations) must apply in order for an Impossible Verb SVC to satisfy the Theta Structure Property for SVCs; these op- erations deliver (monoclausal) argument structural uniformity across SVCs, although SVCs still display considerable event structural diversity. Event structural analysis features prominently in this dissertation, primarily for the purpose of demarcating the boundaries of Possible Verb and Impossible Verb SVCs. In some instances these two types of SVC can be difficult to distinguish, as the case studies of instrumental and motion SVCs of Chapters 4 and 5 demonstrate. But if certain instrumental and motion SVCs present some rather subtle cases of Impossible Verb serialization, there are Impossible Verb SVCs outside these domains, such as (A), which more blatantly lack the semantic content or event structure of a clause headed by a single verb: ` (A) Oz´o kp`e´e `em`a d´e. Ozo beat drum buy ‘Ozo beat the drum (and then) bought it.’ (Edo; Stewart 2001, 49) Why are SVCs like (A), whose content could never be expressed in a clause headed by a single verb, behaving as if they contain only one verb? One of the most interest- ing answers to this question is that multi-event concepts are expressed in SVC form in those instances where they describe ‘recognizable event types’ – a combination of actions that cooccur so often as to be conceptualized as a single event. However, Stewart (2001) gives no indication that (A) expresses a recognizable event type. Are SVCs always constrained by some conceptualization of eventhood (recognizable event type or otherwise)? Are SVCs in some languages completely event structurally uncon- strained? And does (A) really behave in every grammatical respect as if it contains only one verb? These questions are addressed in the concluding chapter, drawing on the cross-linguistically expanded survey of SVCs built up in the preceding chapters. v Acknowledgements Although I don’t think I’ve broken any records, my dissertation completion timeline has definitely been of the extended variety, and so I’d like to thank my advisor Beth Levin for never giving up hope that I’d finish, and for her helpful advice and input right up until the very end. Beth is extremely dedicated to all her students, and in my case one manifestation of this was her effort to meet up with me several times in England, after I’d moved away from Stanford in 2005. I also thank Joan Bresnan for unquestioningly turning up at my dissertation defense in June, as if five years had never elapsed, and for her positive, encouraging and often funny outlook on linguistics and life in general. The other key faculty member who made the completion of my PhD possible this year was Vera Gribanova, who I’m so grateful to for joining my committee for the defense this summer, and for moreover engaging with what I’d written and asking helpful and thought-provoking questions. Many thanks also to Noah Goodman as the committee chair, to Tom Wasow for stepping in as the fourth reader, and to Arnold Zwicky for his help and insight in the early stages of my dissertation. Unfortunately it feels like years since I’ve been anywhere near Indonesia or things Indonesian, but I certainly owe a lot to my Bima friends who helped with the Bima components of my dissertation. First and foremost there is Yanti in New Zealand, who ignited my interest in her native language, and I also thank Mike Dukes for finding Yanti in the first place, and running a great field methods class around her at University of Canterbury. Many thanks also to all my Bima friends in Bima and Mataram who looked after me so well when I was there. When I think of my time at Stanford, what made it so enjoyable was of course vi the company of my fellow students, and for that I especially thank John, Itamar and Na’ama, Ela, Ivan, Andrew and Melissa, Judith, Lev, Philip, Lis, Jeanette, and Susanne. A huge thanks also to Dave SC, for being a kind of honorary linguistics student, but more importantly a great friend, and someone who put me up every time I came back to the Bay area. My final and most heartfelt thanks are naturally reserved for my family; for Mum, Dad, Sam and Jackie in New Zealand, for Philip and Ruth, who were instrumental in helping me complete the dissertation by way of providing childcare and support, and for Paddy, Ele, Alison, and Dorothy. Special thanks also to Lawrence, for being such a good little boy, and to Meredith for being a very good baby since her arrival seven weeks ago. But more than anyone else I want to thank my wonderful husband David, who has supported me, and my dissertation, in every way possible over the last few years. Over the last few weeks he has taken charge of my disastrously incomplete bibliography, which, although a major undertaking in itself, only forms a small part of everything he has done for me. vii Contents Abstract iv Acknowledgements vi 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Introduction................................ 1 1.2 PreviousworkonSVCs.......................... 8 1.2.1 DefinitionsofSVCs. .. .. 11 1.2.2 ArgumentstructureofSVCs. 16 1.2.3 SyntaxofSVCs .......................... 22 1.2.4 EventstructureofSVCs . 26 1.2.5 Conclusion............................. 38 1.3 Prospectus................................. 39 1.3.1 The Theta Structure Property for SVCs . 39 1.3.2 The Possible Verb-Impossible Verb distinction in SVCs.... 43 1.3.3 In search of Impossible Verb SVCs, and their limits . ... 46 2 The Theta Structure Property for SVCs 51 2.1 Introduction................................ 51 2.2 LexicalDecompositionGrammar . 53 2.3 TheThetaStructurePropertyforSVCs . 66 2.3.1 TheProperty ........................... 66 2.3.2 Structural arguments and the Theta Structure Property for SVCs 68 viii 2.3.3 Non-structural arguments and the Theta Structure Pro-perty forSVCs.............................. 71 2.4 Projecting the arguments of contiguous and non-contiguous SVCs . 77 2.4.1 Non-contiguousSVCs. 80 2.4.2 ContiguousSVCs ......................... 93 2.4.3 Conclusion............................. 100 2.5 Conclusion................................. 103 3 Possible Verb and Impossible Verb SVCs 109 3.1 Introduction................................ 109 3.2 PossibleVerbSVCs............................ 111 3.2.1 Satisfying the Possible Verbs constraints . ... 111 3.2.2 Serialization lexical rules and Possible Verb SVCs . ..... 115 3.2.3 Event structures for Possible Verb SVCs . 124 3.2.4 Conclusion............................. 130 3.3 ImpossibleVerbSVCs . .. .. 131 3.3.1 Event structures for Impossible Verb SVCs .
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