From mcginnis at ucalgary.ca Wed Feb 6 16:26:42 2002 From: mcginnis at ucalgary.ca (Martha McGinnis) Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2002 09:26:42 -0700 Subject: Martha McGinnis: Unaccusatives and special meaning Message-ID: Dear DM-list, In their book "Unaccusativity," Levin & Rappaport-Hovav argue that verbs undergoing the causative alternation are underlyingly transitive. One of their arguments is based on the claim that these verbs are more restricted in their intransitive use than in their transitive use: (1) a. I broke the record/the promise/the contract. b.*The record/the promise/the contract broke. (2) a. The waiter cleared the table. b.*The table cleared. If true, this claim is a bit problematic for a "DM-style" analysis of the alternation, whereby a root can combine either with a causative little-v or an unaccusative little-v (cf. Harley, Nishiyama, Marantz, Embick, L. Siegel, etc.). Under such an approach, cases like (1) and (2) are unproblematic, but there should be no general asymmetry: that is, special uses of [unaccusative little-v + root] should be just as possible as special uses of [causative little-v + root]. The theoretical "fixes" that first occurred to me turned out to make their own wrong predictions, so I went back to the claim itself. I think I've come up with some examples showing that actually there's no asymmetry: in addition to cases like (1)-(2), there are also intransitive uses that are impossible in the transitive, just as the DM-style analysis predicts: (3) a. My eyes popped. b.*{Bill/The news} popped my eyes. (4) a. I snapped. b.*{Bill/The news} snapped me. (5) a. The sun rose. b.*{God/The earth's rotation} raised the sun. (6) a. My heart sank. b.*{Bill/The news} sank my heart. (7) a. The penny dropped. b.*{Bill/The news} dropped the penny. If there is no asymmetry, as these facts suggest, this settles a long-standing dispute I've had with Heidi Harley as to whether causatives properly contain inchoatives or not (i.e. whether or not causative little-v is always just added on top of unaccusative little-v). She's always maintained they don't, and it would seem that she's right. If anyone has any comments, additional examples, etc., please send them along. Cheers, Martha mcginnis at ucalgary.ca From mcginnis at ucalgary.ca Wed Feb 6 17:30:04 2002 From: mcginnis at ucalgary.ca (Martha McGinnis) Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2002 10:30:04 -0700 Subject: Heidi Harley: Unaccusatives and special meaning (reply to Martha McGinnis) Message-ID: Hi all -- v. nice examples, marf! here's another one, with "break" itself the wave broke (on the shore) *the shore broke the wave it seems to me that i had once heard of or thought of some others along those lines but can't remember 'em anymore. Rolf, do you? my position w/r to the stacking of little v, as martha says below, has always been that (within lexical items) it's not. it's always seemed to me that the semantic 'feel' for an embedded inchoative in sentences like "m. cleared the table" comes from our understanding of how the world works. After all, in "M. made the table clear/ M. made J. happy..." etc. there's no inchoative, and yet we understand the table to have become clear and John to have become happy. This makes me want to re-open a question for you all. In my own little universe of argument structure, I can distinguish, to my own satisfaction, between causatives (transitive open, give, put), inchoatives (intransitive open, arrive, fall), semelfactives (hit, cough), verbs of creation/destruction (foal, build, eat) and states (know, have). Causatives and inchoatives, and the verbs of creation and destruction, are mostly Vendler's accomplishments. Here's the problem: Most of Vendler's acheivements (distinct from semelfactives because they involve a change of state, and are not iterated in the progressive) don't fit, unless they have the same structure as accomplishments. If that's so, then the fabled difference between acheivements and accomplishments must be an encyclopedic effect: because we *know* that kicking the bucket, winning the race, and reaching the top only takes an instant in time, the interpretive effects that caused Vendler to distinguish them in the first place are effects of interaction with encyclopedic structure, much like the inference that an inchoative must be entailed by a causative. At least, this is what I hope is true. If it is, then I don't need to revise my ideas about how argument structure and event structure interact; if it's not, then I need to make room for acheivements. But there really are differences between accomplishments and acheivements, notably the "pre-event" focus that you get in the progressive (contrast "Mary's winning the race" with "mary's building the house"). Others are discussed by Anna Mittwoch in her paper in the Belgian journal of linguistics, "In Defense of Vendler's Achievements." (her actual arguments escape me at this precise second because it's been a long time since i read it -- I'll go back and recheck soon). But I was just wondering what take you all had on this problem. I know a number of folks have the same wish that I do (that accomplishments and acheivements do not differ significantly in argument structure)... but are there arguments? or is it all motivated theory-internally, as it is for me? I think the "inference to pre-event progressives" approach has some plausibility (esp if you accept the argument about inchoatives that I want to sell), but it'd be nice if there were real reasons. (E.g. VPs that could be manipulated by object selection into being accomplishments with one object but achevements with another... it occurs to me that "break" might be an example: john is breaking the record --> achievement, pre-event focus mary is breaking the news --> is this an accomplishment? internal event focus? let me know if you have any thoughts or references I should know about -- all the best, hh >-- Original Message -- >Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2002 09:26:42 -0700 >Reply-To: The Distributed Morphology List > >From: Martha McGinnis >Subject: Martha McGinnis: Unaccusatives and special meaning >To: DM-LIST at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG > > >Dear DM-list, > >In their book "Unaccusativity," Levin & Rappaport-Hovav argue that >verbs undergoing the causative alternation are underlyingly >transitive. One of their arguments is based on the claim that these >verbs are more restricted in their intransitive use than in their >transitive use: > >(1) a. I broke the record/the promise/the contract. > b.*The record/the promise/the contract broke. > >(2) a. The waiter cleared the table. > b.*The table cleared. > >If true, this claim is a bit problematic for a "DM-style" analysis of >the alternation, whereby a root can combine either with a causative >little-v or an unaccusative little-v (cf. Harley, Nishiyama, Marantz, >Embick, L. Siegel, etc.). Under such an approach, cases like (1) and >(2) are unproblematic, but there should be no general asymmetry: that >is, special uses of [unaccusative little-v + root] should be just as >possible as special uses of [causative little-v + root]. > >The theoretical "fixes" that first occurred to me turned out to make >their own wrong predictions, so I went back to the claim itself. I >think I've come up with some examples showing that actually there's >no asymmetry: in addition to cases like (1)-(2), there are also >intransitive uses that are impossible in the transitive, just as the >DM-style analysis predicts: > >(3) a. My eyes popped. > b.*{Bill/The news} popped my eyes. > >(4) a. I snapped. > b.*{Bill/The news} snapped me. > >(5) a. The sun rose. > b.*{God/The earth's rotation} raised the sun. > >(6) a. My heart sank. > b.*{Bill/The news} sank my heart. > >(7) a. The penny dropped. > b.*{Bill/The news} dropped the penny. > >If there is no asymmetry, as these facts suggest, this settles a >long-standing dispute I've had with Heidi Harley as to whether >causatives properly contain inchoatives or not (i.e. whether or not >causative little-v is always just added on top of unaccusative >little-v). She's always maintained they don't, and it would seem >that she's right. > >If anyone has any comments, additional examples, etc., please send them along. > >Cheers, >Martha > >mcginnis at ucalgary.ca --------------------------------------------------------------------- Heidi Harley Department of Linguistics Douglass 200E University of Arizona Tucson, AZ 85721 Ph: (520) 626-3554 Fax: (520) 626-9014 hharley at u.arizona.edu From mcginnis at ucalgary.ca Wed Feb 6 22:10:41 2002 From: mcginnis at ucalgary.ca (Martha McGinnis) Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2002 15:10:41 -0700 Subject: Dan Everett: Unaccusatives and special meaning (reply to Martha McGinnis) Message-ID: The first comment that comes to mind is that the examples Martha uses to illustrate symmetry are all nonliteral, frequent but idiosyncratic constructions that do not seem to generalize. It is unlikely that one could find similar examples with similar properties in other languages, especially nonIndo-European. And if one did, I suspect that they too would be nonliteral and of little generality. But this gratuitous opinion of mine is not based on any research whatsoever. DLE From mcginnis at ucalgary.ca Wed Feb 6 22:27:09 2002 From: mcginnis at ucalgary.ca (Martha McGinnis) Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2002 15:27:09 -0700 Subject: Martha McGinnis: Unaccusatives and special meaning (reply to Dan Everett) Message-ID: I think Dan may have misread my message. The examples I gave were supposed to be idiosyncratic uses. The degree of idiosyncrasy varies a bit, as it does in the L&R examples: in "the sun rose", the sun really rises (in some naive-science sense); in "X's eyes popped", something really happens to X's eyes, though it's not clear that it's the usual sense of "popping"; in "the penny dropped," there are no pennies and no dropping, in the usual sense. But yes, the whole point of my message was that these are intransitive phrasal idioms, whose idiomatic sense doesn't carry over to the transitive counterpart. >The first comment that comes to mind is that the examples Martha uses to >illustrate symmetry are all nonliteral, frequent but idiosyncratic >constructions that do not seem to generalize. It is unlikely that one could >find similar examples with similar properties in other languages, especially >nonIndo-European. And if one did, I suspect that they too would be >nonliteral and of little generality. > >But this gratuitous opinion of mine is not based on any research whatsoever. > >DLE mcginnis at ucalgary.ca From mcginnis at ucalgary.ca Thu Feb 7 15:06:22 2002 From: mcginnis at ucalgary.ca (Martha McGinnis) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2002 08:06:22 -0700 Subject: Dan Everett: Unaccusatives and special meaning (reply to Martha McGinnis) Message-ID: Well, Martha, pardon me then. As the Gilda Radner character on Saturday Night Live used to say, 'Nevermind'. (Remember, when she argued in favor of 'violins on television') -- DLE ----- Original Message ----- From: "Martha McGinnis" To: Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2002 8:27 PM Subject: Martha McGinnis: Unaccusatives and special meaning (reply to Dan Everett) > I think Dan may have misread my message. The examples I gave were > supposed to be idiosyncratic uses. The degree of idiosyncrasy varies > a bit, as it does in the L&R examples: in "the sun rose", the sun > really rises (in some naive-science sense); in "X's eyes popped", > something really happens to X's eyes, though it's not clear that it's > the usual sense of "popping"; in "the penny dropped," there are no > pennies and no dropping, in the usual sense. But yes, the whole > point of my message was that these are intransitive phrasal idioms, > whose idiomatic sense doesn't carry over to the transitive > counterpart. > > >The first comment that comes to mind is that the examples Martha uses to > >illustrate symmetry are all nonliteral, frequent but idiosyncratic > >constructions that do not seem to generalize. It is unlikely that one could > >find similar examples with similar properties in other languages, especially > >nonIndo-European. And if one did, I suspect that they too would be > >nonliteral and of little generality. > > > >But this gratuitous opinion of mine is not based on any research whatsoever. > > > >DLE > > > mcginnis at ucalgary.ca From mcginnis at ucalgary.ca Thu Feb 7 15:07:21 2002 From: mcginnis at ucalgary.ca (Martha McGinnis) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2002 08:07:21 -0700 Subject: Rolf Noyer: Another example of special unaccusative Message-ID: I thought of these too: 1. a. During the recession, Allison's daring new dot-com folded. b. *During the recession, Allison folded her daring new dot-com. 2. a. During the derivation, the DP raises to check Case. b. *During the derivation, the need to check Case raises the DP. Clearly the "new" _raise_ is a back-formation from the causative _raise_. But is it unaccusative? How about: 3. a. After every point, the volleyball team rotates (i.e. each player assumes a new position on the court). b. ?? After every point, the rules rotate the volleyball team. 4. a. I never get a tan, instead I burn and peel. b. I never get a tan, instead the sun burns me (*and peels me). --Rolf From mcginnis at ucalgary.ca Thu Feb 7 15:06:58 2002 From: mcginnis at ucalgary.ca (Martha McGinnis) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2002 08:06:58 -0700 Subject: Rolf Noyer: Unaccusatives with special meaning (reply to Martha McGinnis) Message-ID: Martha, those are good examples! Here is what I can think of, but some cases are uncertain and colloquial so I expect some people would not have these judgments. --Rolf 1. a. In these unfortunate circumstances, John collapsed. ("had a nervous breakdown") b. ?? In these unfortunate circumstances, stress collapsed John. 2. a. After the robbery, the three gunmen split ("fled"). b. ?? Fear of being captured split the three gunmen. 3. a. The air grew cold in the evening. b. *The evening grew the air cold. 4. a. At first Victoria was quiet and calm, but then she exploded. ("raged") b. *Feelings of anger exploded Victoria. 5. a. The summer passed uneventfully. b. *No noticeable events passed the summer. 5. a. After he heard the news, Valentinian just flipped. ("lost control, went crazy") b. *The news just flipped Valentinian. Other cases seem to have ellipsis, at least, the idiomatic reading must have arisen from the omission of a modifier or complement of some kind. These cases remind me a little of Levin & Rappoport's "John flossed" cases -- "his teeth" is a covert object; these are distinct from "Fido bites"-- which is only habitual. 1. a. Regardless of how hard Alice tried to be accepted, she found that she just didn't rate. ("wasn't esteemed highly enough") b. ?? Regardless of how hard Alice tried to be accepted, the others didn't rate her. 2. a. I'm afraid that in this hot weather this chicken salad will never keep. ("will spoil") b. ?? I'm afraid that this hot weather will never keep this chicken salad. 3. a. After three hours in the sun, the chicken salad has surely turned. ("spoiled") b. ?? After three hours, {the sun's rays/bacteria} have clearly turned the chicken salad. 4. a. During the mating ritual, when the male animal wants to display itself to the female, it is said to "be presenting." b. ?? The mating ritual "is presenting" the male animal to the female. There are also may be cases of unaccusatives which have idiomatic readings with particles or prepositions where the corresponding causative has no such idiomatic reading. I haven't thought about what these might tell us. 1. a. Instead of providing practical advice, the counsellor just told Gawain to hang in there. b. *The counsellor tried to hang Gawain in there, instead of giving him practical advice. 2. a. Instead of listening to the lecture, the student just tuned out. b. ?? The lecture was so boring it tuned the student out. (cf. "The student tuned the noise out." 3. a. When a teacher is ill, the main office finds a substitute to fill in for the day. b. ?? When a teacher is ill, the main office {fills in a substitute/fills a substitute in} for the day (cf. perhaps: "fill in a form", but note also "fill in for" purely intransitive). 4. a. The gunmen raided a convenience store, then took off ("fled"). b. Fear of being captured took off the gunmen. In some cases one has the sense that we are dealing with "two" verbs, whatever that means: 5. a. Despite great odds, Marcia at last succeeded. b. Marcia succeeded Fritz as president of the club. This may hold true of (4) "took off", etc. But I find it hard to understand what "two verbs" means in DM. Must think more. From mcginnis at ucalgary.ca Fri Feb 15 20:29:38 2002 From: mcginnis at ucalgary.ca (Martha McGinnis) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2002 13:29:38 -0700 Subject: Karine Megerdoomian: Unaccusatives and special meaning (reply to Martha McGinnis) Message-ID: Hello, >In their book "Unaccusativity," Levin & Rappaport-Hovav argue that >verbs undergoing the causative alternation are underlyingly >transitive. ... I'm coming into this discussion a bit late I guess but I have been working on causative alternation verbs in Armenian recently and I believe that there is enough evidence to show that (at least in this language) some verbs are underlyingly transitive. These verb categories don't exactly correspond to Levin and Rappaport Hovav's verbs though. So, for instance, a verb such as "break", "cook", "sink" would belong to the underlyingly transitive category but verbs such as "dry", "widen", "grow" do not. The difference between the two verbs comes from various morphological and syntactic phenomena. Morphologically, to transitivize the verb "dry" an overt causative morpheme "ts(n/r)" needs to be added to the verb (1). On the other hand, the transitive form of "break" does not have any overt morphology but its intransitive form has a passive/reflexive morpheme (2). (1) mirk-e chor-a-tsr-etsi fruit-acc dry-Th-Caus-past.1sg [Th=thematic vowel] 'I dried the fruit' (2) a. bajak-e k'ot'r-etsi glass-acc break-past.1sg 'I broke the glass' b. bajak'-e k'ot'r-v-ets glass-nom break-Pass/Refl-past.1sg 'The glass broke' But more importantly, the syntactic/semantic behavior of the two verb categories are also different. So for instance, in forming an adjectival participle, when the morpheme "atz" (Resultative)is added on the intransitive form of "dry", there is no causer present but if it is added on the causative version, then a causer is implied in the event (3). The "break" verb in (4), in its morphologically unmarked form clearly corresponds to the causative reading in (3b) (3) a. chor-ats-atz mirk-e dry-Aorist-Res fruit-nom 'the dried fruit' (only result is known; no causer) b. chor-a-tsr-atz mirk-e dry-Th-Caus-Res fruit-nom 'the dried fruit' (someone caused the fruit to become dry) (4) k'ot'r-atz bajak'-e break-Res glass-nom 'the broken glass' (someone caused the glass to break) Based on these examples and other syntactic tests, I think that the "break" verbs are underlyingly transitive/causative. But I also think that this may vary from one language to another. For instance, in Persian, verbs such as "sink" or "dry" are formed the same way: (5) a. xoshk/qarq shodan dry/sink become 'dry/sink (intr)' b. xoshk/qarq kardan dry/sink make 'dry/sink (tr.)' I think the idea that some verbs are underlyingly transitive is a valid problem to investigate since, as Martha McGinnis points out, it raises a problem for the DM approach. I'd love to hear your comments and suggestions. -Karine From mcginnis at ucalgary.ca Wed Feb 6 16:26:42 2002 From: mcginnis at ucalgary.ca (Martha McGinnis) Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2002 09:26:42 -0700 Subject: Martha McGinnis: Unaccusatives and special meaning Message-ID: Dear DM-list, In their book "Unaccusativity," Levin & Rappaport-Hovav argue that verbs undergoing the causative alternation are underlyingly transitive. One of their arguments is based on the claim that these verbs are more restricted in their intransitive use than in their transitive use: (1) a. I broke the record/the promise/the contract. b.*The record/the promise/the contract broke. (2) a. The waiter cleared the table. b.*The table cleared. If true, this claim is a bit problematic for a "DM-style" analysis of the alternation, whereby a root can combine either with a causative little-v or an unaccusative little-v (cf. Harley, Nishiyama, Marantz, Embick, L. Siegel, etc.). Under such an approach, cases like (1) and (2) are unproblematic, but there should be no general asymmetry: that is, special uses of [unaccusative little-v + root] should be just as possible as special uses of [causative little-v + root]. The theoretical "fixes" that first occurred to me turned out to make their own wrong predictions, so I went back to the claim itself. I think I've come up with some examples showing that actually there's no asymmetry: in addition to cases like (1)-(2), there are also intransitive uses that are impossible in the transitive, just as the DM-style analysis predicts: (3) a. My eyes popped. b.*{Bill/The news} popped my eyes. (4) a. I snapped. b.*{Bill/The news} snapped me. (5) a. The sun rose. b.*{God/The earth's rotation} raised the sun. (6) a. My heart sank. b.*{Bill/The news} sank my heart. (7) a. The penny dropped. b.*{Bill/The news} dropped the penny. If there is no asymmetry, as these facts suggest, this settles a long-standing dispute I've had with Heidi Harley as to whether causatives properly contain inchoatives or not (i.e. whether or not causative little-v is always just added on top of unaccusative little-v). She's always maintained they don't, and it would seem that she's right. If anyone has any comments, additional examples, etc., please send them along. Cheers, Martha mcginnis at ucalgary.ca From mcginnis at ucalgary.ca Wed Feb 6 17:30:04 2002 From: mcginnis at ucalgary.ca (Martha McGinnis) Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2002 10:30:04 -0700 Subject: Heidi Harley: Unaccusatives and special meaning (reply to Martha McGinnis) Message-ID: Hi all -- v. nice examples, marf! here's another one, with "break" itself the wave broke (on the shore) *the shore broke the wave it seems to me that i had once heard of or thought of some others along those lines but can't remember 'em anymore. Rolf, do you? my position w/r to the stacking of little v, as martha says below, has always been that (within lexical items) it's not. it's always seemed to me that the semantic 'feel' for an embedded inchoative in sentences like "m. cleared the table" comes from our understanding of how the world works. After all, in "M. made the table clear/ M. made J. happy..." etc. there's no inchoative, and yet we understand the table to have become clear and John to have become happy. This makes me want to re-open a question for you all. In my own little universe of argument structure, I can distinguish, to my own satisfaction, between causatives (transitive open, give, put), inchoatives (intransitive open, arrive, fall), semelfactives (hit, cough), verbs of creation/destruction (foal, build, eat) and states (know, have). Causatives and inchoatives, and the verbs of creation and destruction, are mostly Vendler's accomplishments. Here's the problem: Most of Vendler's acheivements (distinct from semelfactives because they involve a change of state, and are not iterated in the progressive) don't fit, unless they have the same structure as accomplishments. If that's so, then the fabled difference between acheivements and accomplishments must be an encyclopedic effect: because we *know* that kicking the bucket, winning the race, and reaching the top only takes an instant in time, the interpretive effects that caused Vendler to distinguish them in the first place are effects of interaction with encyclopedic structure, much like the inference that an inchoative must be entailed by a causative. At least, this is what I hope is true. If it is, then I don't need to revise my ideas about how argument structure and event structure interact; if it's not, then I need to make room for acheivements. But there really are differences between accomplishments and acheivements, notably the "pre-event" focus that you get in the progressive (contrast "Mary's winning the race" with "mary's building the house"). Others are discussed by Anna Mittwoch in her paper in the Belgian journal of linguistics, "In Defense of Vendler's Achievements." (her actual arguments escape me at this precise second because it's been a long time since i read it -- I'll go back and recheck soon). But I was just wondering what take you all had on this problem. I know a number of folks have the same wish that I do (that accomplishments and acheivements do not differ significantly in argument structure)... but are there arguments? or is it all motivated theory-internally, as it is for me? I think the "inference to pre-event progressives" approach has some plausibility (esp if you accept the argument about inchoatives that I want to sell), but it'd be nice if there were real reasons. (E.g. VPs that could be manipulated by object selection into being accomplishments with one object but achevements with another... it occurs to me that "break" might be an example: john is breaking the record --> achievement, pre-event focus mary is breaking the news --> is this an accomplishment? internal event focus? let me know if you have any thoughts or references I should know about -- all the best, hh >-- Original Message -- >Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2002 09:26:42 -0700 >Reply-To: The Distributed Morphology List > >From: Martha McGinnis >Subject: Martha McGinnis: Unaccusatives and special meaning >To: DM-LIST at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG > > >Dear DM-list, > >In their book "Unaccusativity," Levin & Rappaport-Hovav argue that >verbs undergoing the causative alternation are underlyingly >transitive. One of their arguments is based on the claim that these >verbs are more restricted in their intransitive use than in their >transitive use: > >(1) a. I broke the record/the promise/the contract. > b.*The record/the promise/the contract broke. > >(2) a. The waiter cleared the table. > b.*The table cleared. > >If true, this claim is a bit problematic for a "DM-style" analysis of >the alternation, whereby a root can combine either with a causative >little-v or an unaccusative little-v (cf. Harley, Nishiyama, Marantz, >Embick, L. Siegel, etc.). Under such an approach, cases like (1) and >(2) are unproblematic, but there should be no general asymmetry: that >is, special uses of [unaccusative little-v + root] should be just as >possible as special uses of [causative little-v + root]. > >The theoretical "fixes" that first occurred to me turned out to make >their own wrong predictions, so I went back to the claim itself. I >think I've come up with some examples showing that actually there's >no asymmetry: in addition to cases like (1)-(2), there are also >intransitive uses that are impossible in the transitive, just as the >DM-style analysis predicts: > >(3) a. My eyes popped. > b.*{Bill/The news} popped my eyes. > >(4) a. I snapped. > b.*{Bill/The news} snapped me. > >(5) a. The sun rose. > b.*{God/The earth's rotation} raised the sun. > >(6) a. My heart sank. > b.*{Bill/The news} sank my heart. > >(7) a. The penny dropped. > b.*{Bill/The news} dropped the penny. > >If there is no asymmetry, as these facts suggest, this settles a >long-standing dispute I've had with Heidi Harley as to whether >causatives properly contain inchoatives or not (i.e. whether or not >causative little-v is always just added on top of unaccusative >little-v). She's always maintained they don't, and it would seem >that she's right. > >If anyone has any comments, additional examples, etc., please send them along. > >Cheers, >Martha > >mcginnis at ucalgary.ca --------------------------------------------------------------------- Heidi Harley Department of Linguistics Douglass 200E University of Arizona Tucson, AZ 85721 Ph: (520) 626-3554 Fax: (520) 626-9014 hharley at u.arizona.edu From mcginnis at ucalgary.ca Wed Feb 6 22:10:41 2002 From: mcginnis at ucalgary.ca (Martha McGinnis) Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2002 15:10:41 -0700 Subject: Dan Everett: Unaccusatives and special meaning (reply to Martha McGinnis) Message-ID: The first comment that comes to mind is that the examples Martha uses to illustrate symmetry are all nonliteral, frequent but idiosyncratic constructions that do not seem to generalize. It is unlikely that one could find similar examples with similar properties in other languages, especially nonIndo-European. And if one did, I suspect that they too would be nonliteral and of little generality. But this gratuitous opinion of mine is not based on any research whatsoever. DLE From mcginnis at ucalgary.ca Wed Feb 6 22:27:09 2002 From: mcginnis at ucalgary.ca (Martha McGinnis) Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2002 15:27:09 -0700 Subject: Martha McGinnis: Unaccusatives and special meaning (reply to Dan Everett) Message-ID: I think Dan may have misread my message. The examples I gave were supposed to be idiosyncratic uses. The degree of idiosyncrasy varies a bit, as it does in the L&R examples: in "the sun rose", the sun really rises (in some naive-science sense); in "X's eyes popped", something really happens to X's eyes, though it's not clear that it's the usual sense of "popping"; in "the penny dropped," there are no pennies and no dropping, in the usual sense. But yes, the whole point of my message was that these are intransitive phrasal idioms, whose idiomatic sense doesn't carry over to the transitive counterpart. >The first comment that comes to mind is that the examples Martha uses to >illustrate symmetry are all nonliteral, frequent but idiosyncratic >constructions that do not seem to generalize. It is unlikely that one could >find similar examples with similar properties in other languages, especially >nonIndo-European. And if one did, I suspect that they too would be >nonliteral and of little generality. > >But this gratuitous opinion of mine is not based on any research whatsoever. > >DLE mcginnis at ucalgary.ca From mcginnis at ucalgary.ca Thu Feb 7 15:06:22 2002 From: mcginnis at ucalgary.ca (Martha McGinnis) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2002 08:06:22 -0700 Subject: Dan Everett: Unaccusatives and special meaning (reply to Martha McGinnis) Message-ID: Well, Martha, pardon me then. As the Gilda Radner character on Saturday Night Live used to say, 'Nevermind'. (Remember, when she argued in favor of 'violins on television') -- DLE ----- Original Message ----- From: "Martha McGinnis" To: Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2002 8:27 PM Subject: Martha McGinnis: Unaccusatives and special meaning (reply to Dan Everett) > I think Dan may have misread my message. The examples I gave were > supposed to be idiosyncratic uses. The degree of idiosyncrasy varies > a bit, as it does in the L&R examples: in "the sun rose", the sun > really rises (in some naive-science sense); in "X's eyes popped", > something really happens to X's eyes, though it's not clear that it's > the usual sense of "popping"; in "the penny dropped," there are no > pennies and no dropping, in the usual sense. But yes, the whole > point of my message was that these are intransitive phrasal idioms, > whose idiomatic sense doesn't carry over to the transitive > counterpart. > > >The first comment that comes to mind is that the examples Martha uses to > >illustrate symmetry are all nonliteral, frequent but idiosyncratic > >constructions that do not seem to generalize. It is unlikely that one could > >find similar examples with similar properties in other languages, especially > >nonIndo-European. And if one did, I suspect that they too would be > >nonliteral and of little generality. > > > >But this gratuitous opinion of mine is not based on any research whatsoever. > > > >DLE > > > mcginnis at ucalgary.ca From mcginnis at ucalgary.ca Thu Feb 7 15:07:21 2002 From: mcginnis at ucalgary.ca (Martha McGinnis) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2002 08:07:21 -0700 Subject: Rolf Noyer: Another example of special unaccusative Message-ID: I thought of these too: 1. a. During the recession, Allison's daring new dot-com folded. b. *During the recession, Allison folded her daring new dot-com. 2. a. During the derivation, the DP raises to check Case. b. *During the derivation, the need to check Case raises the DP. Clearly the "new" _raise_ is a back-formation from the causative _raise_. But is it unaccusative? How about: 3. a. After every point, the volleyball team rotates (i.e. each player assumes a new position on the court). b. ?? After every point, the rules rotate the volleyball team. 4. a. I never get a tan, instead I burn and peel. b. I never get a tan, instead the sun burns me (*and peels me). --Rolf From mcginnis at ucalgary.ca Thu Feb 7 15:06:58 2002 From: mcginnis at ucalgary.ca (Martha McGinnis) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2002 08:06:58 -0700 Subject: Rolf Noyer: Unaccusatives with special meaning (reply to Martha McGinnis) Message-ID: Martha, those are good examples! Here is what I can think of, but some cases are uncertain and colloquial so I expect some people would not have these judgments. --Rolf 1. a. In these unfortunate circumstances, John collapsed. ("had a nervous breakdown") b. ?? In these unfortunate circumstances, stress collapsed John. 2. a. After the robbery, the three gunmen split ("fled"). b. ?? Fear of being captured split the three gunmen. 3. a. The air grew cold in the evening. b. *The evening grew the air cold. 4. a. At first Victoria was quiet and calm, but then she exploded. ("raged") b. *Feelings of anger exploded Victoria. 5. a. The summer passed uneventfully. b. *No noticeable events passed the summer. 5. a. After he heard the news, Valentinian just flipped. ("lost control, went crazy") b. *The news just flipped Valentinian. Other cases seem to have ellipsis, at least, the idiomatic reading must have arisen from the omission of a modifier or complement of some kind. These cases remind me a little of Levin & Rappoport's "John flossed" cases -- "his teeth" is a covert object; these are distinct from "Fido bites"-- which is only habitual. 1. a. Regardless of how hard Alice tried to be accepted, she found that she just didn't rate. ("wasn't esteemed highly enough") b. ?? Regardless of how hard Alice tried to be accepted, the others didn't rate her. 2. a. I'm afraid that in this hot weather this chicken salad will never keep. ("will spoil") b. ?? I'm afraid that this hot weather will never keep this chicken salad. 3. a. After three hours in the sun, the chicken salad has surely turned. ("spoiled") b. ?? After three hours, {the sun's rays/bacteria} have clearly turned the chicken salad. 4. a. During the mating ritual, when the male animal wants to display itself to the female, it is said to "be presenting." b. ?? The mating ritual "is presenting" the male animal to the female. There are also may be cases of unaccusatives which have idiomatic readings with particles or prepositions where the corresponding causative has no such idiomatic reading. I haven't thought about what these might tell us. 1. a. Instead of providing practical advice, the counsellor just told Gawain to hang in there. b. *The counsellor tried to hang Gawain in there, instead of giving him practical advice. 2. a. Instead of listening to the lecture, the student just tuned out. b. ?? The lecture was so boring it tuned the student out. (cf. "The student tuned the noise out." 3. a. When a teacher is ill, the main office finds a substitute to fill in for the day. b. ?? When a teacher is ill, the main office {fills in a substitute/fills a substitute in} for the day (cf. perhaps: "fill in a form", but note also "fill in for" purely intransitive). 4. a. The gunmen raided a convenience store, then took off ("fled"). b. Fear of being captured took off the gunmen. In some cases one has the sense that we are dealing with "two" verbs, whatever that means: 5. a. Despite great odds, Marcia at last succeeded. b. Marcia succeeded Fritz as president of the club. This may hold true of (4) "took off", etc. But I find it hard to understand what "two verbs" means in DM. Must think more. From mcginnis at ucalgary.ca Fri Feb 15 20:29:38 2002 From: mcginnis at ucalgary.ca (Martha McGinnis) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2002 13:29:38 -0700 Subject: Karine Megerdoomian: Unaccusatives and special meaning (reply to Martha McGinnis) Message-ID: Hello, >In their book "Unaccusativity," Levin & Rappaport-Hovav argue that >verbs undergoing the causative alternation are underlyingly >transitive. ... I'm coming into this discussion a bit late I guess but I have been working on causative alternation verbs in Armenian recently and I believe that there is enough evidence to show that (at least in this language) some verbs are underlyingly transitive. These verb categories don't exactly correspond to Levin and Rappaport Hovav's verbs though. So, for instance, a verb such as "break", "cook", "sink" would belong to the underlyingly transitive category but verbs such as "dry", "widen", "grow" do not. The difference between the two verbs comes from various morphological and syntactic phenomena. Morphologically, to transitivize the verb "dry" an overt causative morpheme "ts(n/r)" needs to be added to the verb (1). On the other hand, the transitive form of "break" does not have any overt morphology but its intransitive form has a passive/reflexive morpheme (2). (1) mirk-e chor-a-tsr-etsi fruit-acc dry-Th-Caus-past.1sg [Th=thematic vowel] 'I dried the fruit' (2) a. bajak-e k'ot'r-etsi glass-acc break-past.1sg 'I broke the glass' b. bajak'-e k'ot'r-v-ets glass-nom break-Pass/Refl-past.1sg 'The glass broke' But more importantly, the syntactic/semantic behavior of the two verb categories are also different. So for instance, in forming an adjectival participle, when the morpheme "atz" (Resultative)is added on the intransitive form of "dry", there is no causer present but if it is added on the causative version, then a causer is implied in the event (3). The "break" verb in (4), in its morphologically unmarked form clearly corresponds to the causative reading in (3b) (3) a. chor-ats-atz mirk-e dry-Aorist-Res fruit-nom 'the dried fruit' (only result is known; no causer) b. chor-a-tsr-atz mirk-e dry-Th-Caus-Res fruit-nom 'the dried fruit' (someone caused the fruit to become dry) (4) k'ot'r-atz bajak'-e break-Res glass-nom 'the broken glass' (someone caused the glass to break) Based on these examples and other syntactic tests, I think that the "break" verbs are underlyingly transitive/causative. But I also think that this may vary from one language to another. For instance, in Persian, verbs such as "sink" or "dry" are formed the same way: (5) a. xoshk/qarq shodan dry/sink become 'dry/sink (intr)' b. xoshk/qarq kardan dry/sink make 'dry/sink (tr.)' I think the idea that some verbs are underlyingly transitive is a valid problem to investigate since, as Martha McGinnis points out, it raises a problem for the DM approach. I'd love to hear your comments and suggestions. -Karine