Gerunds (was Re: Filler-gap mismatches)

[Yehuda N. Falk]

At 11:37 08/05/01 +0200, Malouf R. wrote:
>Hi,
>
>Just to clarify this point: the argument in my dissertation is that mixed
>category constructions are universally characterized by lexical coherence.
>Part of the evidence for this is the existence of mixed categories (such as
>the Arabic masdar) which show lexical coherence but do not show phrasal
>coherence. Now, I certainly wouldn't want to claim that no mixed category
>construction shows phrasal coherence. On the contrary, the vast majority of
>such constructs show both kinds of coherence, which is what makes it so
>difficult to tease the two apart.  But, my claim is that the effects of
>phrasal coherence can be explained through the interaction between lexical
>coherence and other independently motivated constraints in the grammar.
>
>What I do predict is that you won't find any mixed category constructions
>which do not show lexical coherence, a generalization which, as far as I know,
>seems to hold true. As I understand it, the constructions which Bresnan (2001)
>discusses are all cases which show both lexical and phrasal coherence, and so
>don't really constitute counterexamples to my analysis.
>
>Since both approaches to mixed categories make largely the same predictions
>for those constructions which show both kinds of coherence, the empirical
>differences between the two analyses (if any) will be pretty subtle. However,
>the existence of constructions like the Arabic masdar would seem to pose a
>problem for the LFG approach. Or have I misunderstood something?
>
>--
>Rob Malouf
>malouf at let.rug.nl

Well, I think we agree that the issue is ultimately empirical. The problem
at this point is the interpretation of the empirical data. I don't know
enough about the Arabic construction to say anything, although as your
disagreement with Joan about the constituency of the Dagaare mixed category
shows the question of phrasal coherence depends on what constituency one
hypothesizes.

I have been looking recently at the Hebrew action nominal, and will be
presenting an analysis at the LFG conference (and the Israeli theoretical
linguistics conference). The Hebrew action nominal is morphologically a
noun and its phrase has the distribution of NP. My analysis is NP-over-VP,
with the VP cohead adjoined to NP. As I understand lexical coherence, the
Hebrew construction does not display it. In a (very small) nutshell, here
is how the construction works: The arguments can be realized either like
verbal arguments (except that the SUBJ looks like a possessor) or like
nominal arguments. The nominal-type realization of arguments is by far the
preferred one. Regardless of the realization of arguments, the nominal can
take either adjectival or adverbial modification. Given the constituency
that I argue for, the construction *does* display phrasal coherence: when
there are both an accusative OBJ and an adverb, they must be adjacent (and
in my analysis, form a VP).

So I think at best the direction that the empirical evidence will point
when it is better understoof is not yet clear, but it seems to me that
Hebrew works better under an LFG-type analysis.

Cheers!
Yehuda


                            Yehuda N. Falk
       Department of English, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
                     Mt. Scopus, Jerusalem, Israel
                        msyfalk at mscc.huji.ac.il
      Personal Web Site    http://pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il/~msyfalk/
     Departmental Web Site    http://atar.mscc.huji.ac.il/~english/

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