JAUME MATEU I FONTANALS ARGUMENT STRUCTURE: RELATIONAL CONSTRUAL AT THE SYNTAX-SEMANTICS INTERFACE Tesi doctoral dirigida per la Dra. Gemma Rigau i Oliver Departament de Filologia Catalana Facultat de Filosofia i Lletres Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Any 2002 Acknowledgements I discovered the beauty of generative grammar thanks to Gemma Rigau: she is endowed with the admirable quality of embodying the perfect match of concern for data and theory. In the course of working out my ideas I have benefited greatly from discussions with her to the point that I am convinced that the best of this thesis is due to her sharp involvement in my work. Her unconditional support and friendship have also been very important to me. Maria Teresa Espinal deserves special thanks for sharing her vast knowledge of semantic theory with me, for showing me a constant concern for my unstable job at the university, and above all for her faith in me. My debt to Violeta Demonte is immense: I took the decision to work on the lexical semantics- syntax interface after reading her excellent works on this topic. Since then her work has been a constant source of inspiration to me. I am deeply grateful to Maria Teresa Ynglès for countless hours of support and encouragement. She has also provided my Cartesian character with good doses of cognitivism and/or experientalism that have enhanced my deep appreciation for Cognitive Linguistics. I would also like to thank all those anonymous reviewers who gave me the opportunity to present my ideas on argument structure at nearly thirty international conferences. Unfortunately, I cannot mention here all those linguists who provided me with positive feedback that has enormously enriched the present work, but let me say that I am in debt to Violeta Demonte, Marcel den Dikken, Heidi Harley, Pascual José Masullo, Andrew McIntyre, Juan Carlos Moreno Cabrera, and Steven Pinker, for their very constructive comments and criticisms. I am also grateful to the following colleagues for their support in some way or another: Magda Alemany, Sergio Balari, Anna Bartra, Magda Boix, Eulàlia Bonet, Zulema Borràs, Albert Branchadell, Josep Maria Brucart, Teresa Cabré, Carme Carbó, Daniel Casals, Albert Fontich, Anna Gavarró, Lourdes Güell, Maria Lluïsa Hernanz, Mireia Llinàs, Rafa Marín, Núria Martí, Joan Mascaró, Carme de la Mota, Montse Pascual, Carme Picallo, Dolors Poch, Pilar Prieto, Joan Rafel, Francesc Roca, Yolanda Rodríguez, Joana Rosselló, Juan Carlos Rubio, Jaume Solà, Eduardo Urios, Teresa Vallverdú, Joan Vilarnau, and Xavier Villalba. Special thanks go to Gretel de Cuyper, Aria Adli, and Jon Elordi for helping me with data from Dutch, German, and Basque, respectively. My warmest thanks go to my friends Tomás Saz and Rosa Maria Corney for sharing with me a deep respect for the Latin language and culture, and to Montse Casals and Laia Amadas for having been there when I needed them. This thesis is dedicated to my family, especially, to my mother Montserrat Fontanals, my aunt Concepció Fontanals, and my grandmother Montserrat Coch. [This research was partially funded by a FPI grant from Generalitat de Catalunya to the author, and by the projects BFF2000-0403-C02-01 (Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología) and 2001 SGR00150 (Generalitat de Catalunya)]. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS............................................................................................... iii Abstract...................................................................................................................v Resum...................................................................................................................... vi Chapter 1. The relational syntax and semantics of argument structure.......... 1 1.1. Hale & Keyser’s (1998, 1999a) syntactic theory of argument structure.............................1 1.2. Locative and locatum verbs revisited. Evidence from Romance.........................................6 1.2.1. Introduction............................................................................................................7 1.2.2. Three semantic approaches: Pinker (1989), Jackendoff (1990), and Labelle (2000).................................................................................................8 1.2.3. Hale & Keyser's (1998) lexical syntactic analysis revisited..................................11 1.3. On the non-primitive status of argument structure properties of ‘Adjectives’....................24 1.4. Argument structure meets homomorphism..........................................................................28 1.5. Towards a syntactically transparent semantic composition: The basics revisited...............44 1.6. Concluding remarks.............................................................................................................61 Appendix: Refuting some criticisms against syntactically transparent lexical decomposition...........................................................................................................63 Chapter 2. Unaccusativity: A relational syntactic and semantic approach..... 77 2.1. The Unaccusative Hypothesis..............................................................................................77 2.2. Auxiliary selection revisited................................................................................................84 2.2.1. Aux-selection and semantic proto-roles................................................................98 2.2.2. Aux-selection and gradiency effects..................................................................... 106 2.2.3. Aux-selection and ne/en-cliticization: Burzio's (1986) correlation regained........119 2.2.4. Aux-selection and linking rules.............................................................................124 2.3. Unaccusativity extended: On the complex argument structure of the progressive construction............................................................................................134 2.3.1. Bolinger's (1971) remarks on the English progressive..........................................136 2.3.2. On the relational syntax and semantics of the progressive construction...............139 2.3.3. Two alternative formal approaches to the progressive construction......................145 2.4. Conclusions..........................................................................................................................150 iii Chapter 3. Conflation processes and the elasticity of verb meaning.................151 3.1. Satellite-framed vs. verb-framed languages: A relational syntactic and semantic approach.........................................................................................................151 3.1.1. Lexicalization patterns and the elasticity of verb meaning....................................152 3.1.2. Semantic approaches to complex resultative constructions...................................154 3.1.3. Conflation processes in complex telic Path of motion constructions and resultative constructions: A relational syntactic and semantic account.................158 3.1.4. On some apparent counterexamples to Talmy's (1985, 1991) typology................182 3.2. Conflation processes in complex denominal verbs..............................................................190 3.2.1 Stiebels's (1998) LDG analysis of complex denominal verbs in German.............192 3.2.2. On the morphological structure of complex denominal verbs.............................. 193 3.2.3. Complex denominal verbs and 'Lexical subordination'.........................................195 3.2.4. Concluding remarks...............................................................................................205 3.3. Conflation processes and the locative alternation................................................................206 3.3.1. The lexical-semantic approach..............................................................................206 3.3.2. On the relational syntax and semantics of the locative alternation....................... 210 3.3.3. Lexicalization patterns and the locative alternation..............................................218 3.4. Conclusions.........................................................................................................................227 Chapter 4. Arguing our way to the Direct Object Restriction on resultative constructions ................................................................................ 229 4.1. On the DOR on resultative constructions............................................................................229 4.2. The way-construction: A relational syntactic and semantic account...................................239 4.2.1. Some previous approaches....................................................................................241 4.2.2. On the relational syntax and semantics of the way-construction.......................... 247 4.3. Regaining the DOR: Some counterexamples revisited....................................................... 258 4.4. Conclusions.........................................................................................................................272 Chapter 5. Climbing to the end........................................................................ 273 5.1. Jackendoff’s conceptual approach to 'multiple argument structures': The case of climb....274 5.2. The basic elements of argument structure...........................................................................275 5.3. Argument structure and lexical decomposition: