predicatives and adjuncts

[Stefan Müller]

Dear Milena,

> As for secondary predicatives (example 3), the tendency is to treat the
> phrases in question as adjuncts since they are not obligatory and do not
> satisfy argument requirements but add to the semantics of the VP they
> modify. (Certainly, we have to be aware of the fact that in this
structural
> configuration the issue of complementation and adjunction is strongly
> defined by the subcategorization properties of the verbs). The tendency
of
> this analysis can be retraced in Pollard & Sag 1987, Pollard & Sag 1994.
>
> 3)
> Jenata                           vleze       v       stayata
> vesela.
> Woman-the[fem,sg]            go-past   into   room-the
happy[fem,sg]
> 'The woman entered the room happy.'

Not all secondary predicates are analyzed as adjuncts. Wechsler 1997 and
Wechsler and Noh 2000 discuss resultative constructions and suggest
treating the resultative predicate as a complement of the main
predicate. The test for obligatoryness does not help as far as secondary
predicates are concerned, but there are other facts that suggest that
depictive secondary predicates should be treated as adjuncts and
resultative secondary predicates should be treated as complements:

In German the resultative predicate behaves like a part of the predicate
complex (it fits nicely into the general picture of the verbal complex
which is well-studied in the HPSG literature). There is evidence from
fronting and from serialization in the Mittelfeld.

Depictive secondary predicates are not part of the predicate complex
they may be serialized freely in the Mittelfeld and parts of the
predicate may be fronted without fronting the depictive predicate.

Furthermore depictive secondary predicates and resultative constructions
differer in focus projection as Winkler (1997) has shown.

You will find an extended discussion of the phenomena mentioned above
and further references in Mueller (2000).

> The question is: are you aware of any attempts in the HPSG community to
> analyze primary predicative phrases as adjuncts?

The problem of such an approach would be that one has to exclude the
sentences without the predicative adjunct.

(1) a.   That Peter did not come is terrible.
    b. * That Peter did not come is.

Since modification is optional and since the adjunct is not
subcategorized by the copula (1b) is a maximal projection and therefore
it should be grammatical.


Greetings

        Stefan

@PhDThesis{Mueller2000d,
  author      = {Stefan M{\"u}ller},
  title       = {Complex Predicates: Verbal Complexes, Resultative
Constructions, and Particle Verbs
                in {German}},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t des Saarlandes},
  address     = {Saarbr{\"u}cken},
  type        = {Habilitationsschrift},
  note        = {http://www.dfki.de/~stefan/Pub/complex.html},
  year        = 2000
}

@InCollection{Wechsler97a,
  crossref    = {BM97a},
  author      = {Stephen Wechsler},
  title       = {Resultative Predicates and Control},
  booktitle   = {Texas Linguistic Forum 38: The Syntax and Semantics of
Predication. Proceedings of
                the 1997 Texas Linguistics Society Conference},
  editor      = {Ralph C. Blight and Michelle J. Moosally},
  pages       = {307--321},
  year        = 1997
}

@Article{WN2001a,
  author      = {Stephen Wechsler and Bokyung Noh},
  title       = {On Resultative Predicates and Clauses: Parallels
between {Korean} and {English}},
  journal     = {Language Sciences},
  volume      = 23,
  pages       = {391--423},
  year        = 2001
}

@Book{Winkler97a,
  author      = {Susanne Winkler},
  title       = {Focus and Secondary Predication},
  series      = {Studies in Generative Grammar},
  number      = 43,
  publisher   = {Mouton de Gruyter},
  address     = {Berlin, New York},
  optisbn     = {3-11-015057-3},
  pages       = {481},
  year        = 1997
}

--
PD Dr. Stefan Müller
Institut für Germanistische Sprachwissenschaft
Friedrich Schiller Universität Jena
Fürstengraben 30
D-07743 Jena

Tel: (+49) (+3641) 9 44 320     http://www.dfki.de/~stefan/
Fax: (+49) (+3641) 9 44 322
http://www.dfki.de/~stefan/Babel/Interaktiv/Babajava/