[Lingtyp] Distinction between semantic arguments and semantic adjuncts

[Chao Li]

Hi Juergen,



Thank you for your detailed response. It’s clear that you use “oblique” in
a restrictive sense to mean oblique arguments. In my mind, “oblique”, like
the traditional use, refers to marked case marking (or marked flagging in
an extended sense). I believe that’s why we find each other’s phrasing a
bit confusing or problematic. By the way, it also shows how messy and murky
linguistic terms are!



Back to semantic arguments, if *go* is analyzed as a three-argument verb,
as suggested by your example, it creates some tension or at least some
uneasiness when it is typically analyzed as a monovalent verb. Similarly,
back to *buy* and *sell*, a four-argument analysis of them, whether
standard or not, also creates some tension when they are often analyzed as
or assumed to be bivalent verbs. This also brings us to prototypical
two-argument verbs. In the literature on linguistic typology, *hit*, *kill*,
and the like are generally presented as prime examples of such verbs. The
question, however, is how to (semantically) rule out the tool used in a
hitting action, for example, as a non-argument (maybe the tool in a cutting
action has a different cognitive status than the one in a hitting action,
but I’m not sure). An ideal solution to me is coming up with a definition
of semantic argument that can successfully accomplish this and also match
(more) with our intuition (e.g. intuitively the four participants involved
in *buy/sell* are not equal in status).



(As a side clarificatory note not truly related to the content of your
message, semantic arguments are not necessarily tied with verbs, as
event-denoting nouns, for example, may also require one or more semantic
arguments.)



Best regards,

Chao

On Mon, Jul 8, 2024 at 9:56 AM Juergen Bohnemeyer <jb77 at buffalo.edu> wrote:

> Hi Chao – Yes, _*buy*_ and _*sell*_ have four semantic arguments
> (standard analysis since Fillmore (1982?) and Jackendoff (1990?) (citing
> from memory without having checked these specific works) and _*cut*_ has
> three.
>
>
>
> But the phrase ‘formally realized as an oblique’ seems problematic to me.
> In my view, there is no clear morphosyntactic difference between obliques
> and adjuncts except that a proper subset of obliques are more or less
> obligatory and to that extent could be argued to be subcategorized for by
> the verb (or governed by the verb, in the traditional (pre-GB) sense of
> ‘government’).
>
>
>
> But this obligatoriness should in my view not be taken to be a
> definitional property, because that would cut out the vast majority of
> obliques, which are not obligatory, yet are semantically clearly not
> modifiers. And that is, afaik, the whole point of distinguishing between
> obliques and adjuncts: to capture the fact that the latter, but not the
> former, are modifiers.
>
>
>
> The primary difference between obliques and adjuncts is not
> morphosyntactic, but semantic. To be sure, it is never a happy outcome when
> semantic properties are needed to underpin morphosyntactic categories or
> vice versa. But the closer one gets to talking about form-meaning mapping,
> the harder it becomes to avoid such hybrid definitions.
>
>
>
> Time location specifications are usually treated as adjuncts = modifiers.
> One exception (among a few) is _*last*_ as in (1). Locatives are usually
> treated as adjuncts = modifiers. One exception (among a few) is _*live*_
> as in (2). Motion verbs commonly take path obliques, as illustrated in (3):
>
>
>
> (1)          *The meeting lasted from 9am until 10:20.*
>
> (2)          *Sally lived in Buffalo in those days.*
>
> (3)          *Floyd went from the Dean’s office to the library.*
>
>
>
> Finally, a puzzle: every event necessarily occupies a spacetime region. So
> (2) and (3) describe eventualities that we know must have occurred during
> particular moments in time, regardless of whether these are specified. So
> how then can we say that *in those days* in (2) is a modifier, whereas *in
> Buffalo* is an oblique? This is not at all a trivial problem. I could
> imagine treatments in which all time-positional and locative expressions
> are regarded as obliques. However, I would argue that is precisely the fact
> that all eventuality designators are by necessity compatible with spacetime
> specifications that limits the predictive power of the former for the
> occurrence of the latter.
>
>
>
> HTH! – Juergen
>
>
>
> Fillmore, C. J. (1982). Frame semantics. In The Linguistic Society of
> Korea (ed.), *Linguistics in the Morning Calm*. Soeul: Hanshin. 111-137.
>
> Jackendoff, R. (1990). *Semantic structures*. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
>
>
>
>
>
> Juergen Bohnemeyer (He/Him)
> Professor, Department of Linguistics
> University at Buffalo
>
> Office: 642 Baldy Hall, UB North Campus
> Mailing address: 609 Baldy Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260
> Phone: (716) 645 0127
> Fax: (716) 645 3825
> Email: jb77 at buffalo.edu
> Web: http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/
>
> Office hours Tu/Th 3:30-4:30pm in 642 Baldy or via Zoom (Meeting ID 585
> 520 2411; Passcode Hoorheh)
>
> There’s A Crack In Everything - That’s How The Light Gets In
> (Leonard Cohen)
>
> --
>
>
>
>
>
> *From: *Chao Li <chao.li at aya.yale.edu>
> *Date: *Monday, July 8, 2024 at 07:39
> *To: *Juergen Bohnemeyer <jb77 at buffalo.edu>
> *Cc: *<LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> *Subject: *Re: [Lingtyp] Distinction between semantic arguments and
> semantic adjuncts
>
> Hi Juergen,
>
>
>
> Thank you for all your information. If semantic arguments are participants
> predictable from the verb’s meaning (regardless of how they are overtly
> realized in real use), will *buy* and *sell* have four semantic arguments
> to you? Will *cut* have three?
>
>
>
> (Also, were you defining obliques as semantic arguments
> (morpho)syntactically realized as an oblique? Or were you intending such
> semantic arguments as a subset of obliques as far as formal realization is
> concerned? If the former, what would you call those expressions that
> denote, for example, time or location but are also formally realized as an
> oblique?)
>
>
>
> Thanks again,
>
> Chao
>
>
>
> On Sun, Jul 7, 2024 at 10:31 PM Juergen Bohnemeyer <jb77 at buffalo.edu>
> wrote:
>
> Dear Chao – In theory, true adjuncts are modifiers, meaning they are not
> predictable based on the semantics of the verb. In contrast, obliques –
> semantic arguments that are expressed like adjuncts – must be predictable
> from the verb’s meaning. In practice, though, predictability is a matter of
> degree. For example, Koenig et al. (2008) show that English verbs form a
> continuum in terms of predicting an instrument. Regarding specifically
> verbs of cutting, Bohnemeyer (2007) compares the argument structure
> properties of such verbs across languages. – Best – Juergen
>
>
>
> Bohnemeyer, J. (2007). Morpholexical Transparency and the argument
> structure of verbs of cutting and breaking. *Cognitive Linguistics*
> 18(2): 153-177.
>
> Koenig, J.-P., G. Mauner, B. Bienvenue, & K. Conklin. (2008). What with?
> The anatomy of a role. *Journal of Semantics* 25(2): 175-220.
>
>
>
> Juergen Bohnemeyer (He/Him)
> Professor, Department of Linguistics
> University at Buffalo
>
> Office: 642 Baldy Hall, UB North Campus
> Mailing address: 609 Baldy Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260
> Phone: (716) 645 0127
> Fax: (716) 645 3825
> Email: jb77 at buffalo.edu
> Web: http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/
>
> Office hours Tu/Th 3:30-4:30pm in 642 Baldy or via Zoom (Meeting ID 585
> 520 2411; Passcode Hoorheh)
>
> There’s A Crack In Everything - That’s How The Light Gets In
> (Leonard Cohen)
>
> --
>
>
>
>
>
> *From: *Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of
> Chao Li via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> *Date: *Sunday, July 7, 2024 at 21:12
> *To: *<LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> *Subject: *[Lingtyp] Distinction between semantic arguments and semantic
> adjuncts
>
> Dear Colleagues,
>
>
>
> The distinction between argument and adjunct is crucial for many
> linguistic analyses and much linguistic theorizing. However, how to define
> the argument and the adjunct and how to clearly distinguish between the two
> are controversial. Further complicating the issue is the existence of two
> related levels, semantic and (morpho)syntactic (e.g. what is semantically
> considered an argument may be (morpho)syntactically realized as an adjunct,
> as evidenced by passive formation in English). To be clear, this query is
> about the distinction between semantic arguments and semantic adjuncts (or
> semantic non-arguments). Specifically, in the case of verbs like *buy*
> and *sell* and in the context of a business transaction that generally
> involves a buyer, a seller, a transfer of goods, and a transfer of money,
> how many semantic arguments does each verb have, what are they, and what is
> the rationale behind the analysis? Similarly, in the case of *cut*, how
> many semantic arguments does it have and will that include the tool used in
> the cutting too? After all, isn’t the tool a necessary participant of the
> cutting action and how often do we cut something without using any tool?
> Likewise, how many semantic arguments in the case of *bring*?
>
>
>
> Particularly, without looking at the different syntactic frames and
> constructions where these verbs occur or without paying any attention to
> how they are really used, on what (semantic) grounds can we say that
> Participant X is an argument of *buy*, *sell, cut, *or* bring* or that
> Participant Y is an adjunct of the same verb? For colleagues who’d like to
> make a further distinction between core arguments and peripheral arguments
> in addition to the distinction between arguments and adjuncts, then the
> following questions arise. Namely, if without looking at the different
> syntactic frames and constructions where these verbs occur, on what
> (semantic) grounds can we say that Participant X is a core argument, a
> peripheral argument, or an adjunct (of *buy*, *sell*, *cut*, or *bring*)
> and what is the difference between a peripheral argument and an adjunct?
>
>
>
> Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much in advance for
> your time and help!
>
>
>
> Best regards,
>
> Chao
>
>
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