filcat.uab.catfilcat.uab.cat/pagines_clt/activitats/barcelona2.docx · web view(6)spanning o...

Día 2Antonio Fábregas [email protected] - Universidad de Tromsø

2. Subespecificados, pero descompuestos: evidencia sintáctica de la complejidad interna de las categorías léxicas

Ross-Lakoff y esencialmente todo lo que se ha escrito en lingüística cognitiva desde mediados de los ochenta:

(1) Las categorías léxicas tienen límites difusosa. hay un núcleo protípico y una periferiab. no se pueden definir propiedades artistotélicas ‘necesarias y

suficientes’c. Lo que llamamos A, N, V son ‘puntos cardinales’ o ‘coágulos’ dentro

de una masa continua de propiedades (‘category squish’)

(2) Igual que ‘paloma’ es mejor prototipo de pájaro que ‘pingüino’, ‘mesa’ es mejor prototipo de sustantivo que ‘guerra’ o ‘el constante beber cerveza de Juan’

Ignore at your own risk: sí parecen tener razón en que hay algo que se parece mucho a las clasificaciones continuas cuando hablamos de clasificar las palabras en categorías. Al menos:

i. la tipología es mucho más rica de lo que habíamos pensadoii. las propiedades ‘prototípicas’ no se implican bidireccionalmente (eg.,

género y antecedente de un pronombre)iii. las categorías gramaticales comparten mucho

Escalas y aspectoSheehan & Hinzen sobre relaciones entre C y DKayne sobre relaciones entre C y PRelaciones entre A y NRelacione entre V y N...

iv. Casi todos los días encontramos palabras que tienen alguna propiedad de la categoría X y alguna de la categoría Y

chez, entre P y N (Axial Parts)auxiliares, verbos ligeros, verbos copulativos...nombres clasificadores, nombres cuantificadores...casi cualquier adjetivodistinto, entre D y Ainfinitivosparticipios de aproximadamente seis o siete tipos

Pero no todo lo que sugieren es cierto. Específicamente:

i. Las propiedades, cada vez que tenemos lo que parece una escala continua, se implican unidireccionalmente

Por dar una visión bastante simplificada:

1

mailto:[email protected]


Papeles temáticos

Plantilla argumental

Restricciones aspectuales (en sentido amplio)

Anclaje a T

Verbo pleno sí sí sí síVerbo ligero no sí sí síVerbo copulativo

no no sí sí

Verbo auxiliar no no no sí

ii. Los contactos existen, pero no son irrestrictos:a. no hay verbos con género marcadob. no hay sustantivos con marca de tiempo (cf. Tonhauser 2007)c. no hay adjetivos con concordancia de persona...

¿Cómo conservamos lo bueno de las dos tradiciones? Afortunadamente existen versiones de la nanosintaxis que pueden dar cuenta de todo.

(3) Cartografía: lo que llamamos N en realidad es el nombre descriptivo que damos a una serie de núcleos en una zona determinada

Como antes, con áreas o dominios ontológicos rígidamente ordenados y universales, y dentro de cada dominio con libertad posicional (restringida por los principios de merge habituales) y la posibilidad de tener núcleos no universales

De aquí se sigue (a) que habrá casos prototípicos (donde el mismo elemento cubre todas las áreas) y casos periféricos (donde un elemento cubre solo un subconjunto propio de las áreas); (b) que las propiedades se van a implicar unidireccionalmente (porque hay una jerarquía entre las áreas)

(4) Donde antes decíamos V, ahora...v V

O bien Init Proc ResO mucho más

Evt ing Init Proc Path ResO quizá más; es una cuestión empírica

(5) Rasgos subcategoriales: existen rasgos que son independientes del dominio, y que podemos situar estructuralmente por debajo de los núcleos anteriores, o componerlos con ellos en matrices:

Por ejemplo: []------

(6) Spanning o Phrasal Spell Out: donde antes suponíamos que un exponente = un núcleo en algún nivel de representación (típicamente la sintaxis, salvo que se acepten reglas de adaptación léxica como en la Morfología Distribuida), ahora un exponente puede cubrir un constituyente sintáctico.

2



a. El morfema de infinitivo puede cruzar entre el dominio de V y el dominio de N

b. El morfema de gerundio parece capaz de cruzar desde el dominio de V hasta el de P

(etc.)

(7) Cómo queda la situación:a. Efectivamente, hay categorías difusas y versiones más o menos prototípicas de una categoríab. Pero esto se resuelve ya si aceptamos que (a) hay subespecificación de rasgos; (b) las descomposiciones sintácticas son ricas; (c) los exponentes no materializan un núcleo cada vez

2.1. La descomposición tiene que ser sintáctica

(1) a. ¿Qué llegó [silbando qué ]María? what arrived-3SG whistling María?

‘What did María arrive whistling?’b. ¿Qué entró [diciendo qué ]Juan? what entered-3SG saying Juan?

‘What did John came in saying?’

These gerunds do not have an argumental nature, nor are they analysable as forming periphrases with the main predicate. Analysing them as adjuncts would seriously undermine well-established syntactic principles: at least since Huang’s (1982) Condition on Extraction Domains it has been established that adjuncts are islands, and the generalisation seems to be robust in Spanish for true adjuncts (adverbial subordinate clauses):1

(2) *¿Qué entró Juan [para que María nos dijera qué]?

what entered-3SG Juan so that María us told-3SG‘What did John came in to say?’

Borgonovo and Neeleman (2000) treat cases like (1), and argue for an analysis where the gerund –which, following Borgonovo (1994), is always an adjunct in Spanish– is L-marked; this L-marking makes extraction possible. Other accounts, such as Demonte (1987), posit an operation of reanalysis (Zwart 1993; Stowell 1995) and use a modified definition of c-command to account for similar cases. Finally, Truswell (2007) has proposed that the pattern should receive a purely semantic analysis.

1 The validity of CED has been called into question since it was proposed in the 80’s. See Haegeman et al. (2014) for an overview of the problems that the CED has to face and for a proposal based on the decomposition of the island constraint into different rules. Also, Ignacio Bosque (p.c.) points out to us that there are sentences like el juguetei que tu hija se pondrá muy contenta [si le compras ti] ‘the toyi

that your daughter will be very happy [if you buy her ti]’, which are apparent extractions from a conditional clause. However, we disagree with this claim. Such constructions are ungrammatical if the alleged extraction involved a prepositionally marked constituent *el chico al que tu hija se pondrá muy contenta si le presentas ti, ‘the boy a-that your daughter will be very happy if you introduce her ti’. This suggests that here we have no movement and that the analysis should involve base-generation of the putative antecedent in a peripheral position.

3



(3) InitP

DP Init

Init ProcP

DP Proc

Proc RhemeP

finite verb DP Rheme

Rheme ...

Gerund structureLet us concentrate on the structures in (1). In this section we show that the gerunds cannot be analysed as part of a periphrasis or as arguments of the main verb. These gerunds do not behave in the expected way if they formed a periphrasis with the main verb. The gerund is not selected by the main predicate, since its absence does not trigger any change in meaning or ungrammaticality (compare 4 with 5).

(4) Juan está *(fregando los platos).Juan is-3SG washing the dishes‘Juan is washing the dishes.’

(5) María llegó (silbando una canción).María arrived-3SG whistling a song‘María arrived whistling a song.’

The first requisite in Spanish, and the one which is most relevant to our purposes, has to do with the Aktionsart of the main predicate. The extraction is possible with achievement main verbs (see all the previous acceptable examples). Accomplishments (7) produce ungrammatical results, as do activities (8).

(7) a. Juan adelgazó comiendo arroz blanco.Juan slimmed-3SG eating rice white‘Juan lost three kilos of weight eating plain rice.’

b. *¿Qué adelgazó [comiendo qué] Juan? what slimmed-3SG eating Juan‘What did Juan lose three kilos eating?’

(8) a. El tonel rodaba por el monte perdiendo aceite.the barrel rolled-3SG by the mount losing oil‘The barrel rolled down the hill losing oil.’

b. *¿Qué rodaba [perdiendo qué] el tonel? what rolled-3SG losing the barrel?

‘What was the barrel rolling down the hill losing?’(9) *María odia las acelgas [hirviendo en la olla].

María hate-3SG the chards boiling in the pot‘María hates chards boiling in the pot.’

(10) a. *Vi a María odiar las acelgas. saw-1SG to María hate the chards

4



‘I saw Mary hate chards.’

b. *María está odiando las acelgas. María be-3SG hating the chards

‘Mary is hating chards.’

A simple statistical analysis performed over the speakers’ judgements shows that this difference is quite sharp. A question-answer pair like (6) above received high grades (mean = 7.2732, median = 8, standard deviation (sd) = 2.99, and a variation coefficient (vc) = 0.41). In contrast, a pair like (11), with an activity as main predicate, was considered ungrammatical (mean = 2.16, median = 1, sd = 2.06, vc = 0.95).

(11) A: *¿Qué corría escuchando María? what ran-3SG listening María?‘What did María run listening?’

B: María corría escuchando la radio. María ran-3SG listening the radio

‘María was running listening to the radio.’

Since Maienborn (2003, 2005), alongside the ‘classical’ activities represented by (11), a class of non-dynamic activities (also known as Davidsonian states) has been distinguished (eg., wait, shine). As illustrated in (12), the ungrammaticality is also sharp with Davidsonian states (mean = 2.32, median = 1, sd=2.06, vc=0.99), showing that with respect to this phenomenon there is no need to differentiate the two subgroups.

(12) *¿Qué esperaba leyendo María? what waited-3SG reading María?‘What did María wait reading?’

We also ran a Pearson’s chi-square test with Yates’ continuity correction to compare the number of positive answers (6 or more) vs. the number of negative answers (5 or less) in the group formed by the sentences whose finite verb was an achievement, vs. the group with accomplishments or activities. This was made, of course, to assess the likelihood that the difference in answers was not due to chance. As chi-square does not measure the effect size, we ran over those results a Cramér’s V test. The comparison shows that there is a significant tendency, and that the effect is big (chi-squared=1059, 594; degrees of freedom (df)=1, p-value < 2.2e-16, V value=0.78). The following boxplot representation summarises the contrast between the two groups, which is visually sharp; notice, however, that individual speakers are outliers.

5



Figure 1

The possibility of extraction in Spanish tends to be dependent on the immediate adjacency of the main verb to the gerund. Contrast the previous sentences with those in (13). Without adjacency, these forms are degraded.

(13) a. *¿Qué llegó María [silbando qué]? what arrived-3SG María whistling‘What did María arrive whistling?’

b. *¿Con quién volvió María [cantando con quién]?2 with whom returned-3SG María singing ‘Who did María return singing with?’

The results of the test confirm this. (6) above contrasts with (13a), minimally, in the position of the subject. If the results for (6) were high, (13a) received much lower grades, with a significant dispersion, suggesting that the sentence is also degraded for speakers (mean=5.31, median =5, sd=3.47, vc=0.65). Again, a Persons’s chi-square shows a distribution that is unlikely to be due to chance (chi-squared =16.53, df=1, p-value < 4.787e-05), although with a moderate effect size (V=0.22). The following graphical exploration shows the differences.2 Note that the preposed operator starts within the gerund clause. The example in (8) can be grammatical if the fronted constituent is part of the argument structure of the main predicate llegar ‘arrive’ or volver ‘return’. This is not the reading that we are focusing on here.

6



Figure 2

In the grammatical sentences in Spanish, the prepositional complement expressing the result location of movement does not appear in the sentence with the extraction out of the gerund, as in (14a). This cannot be due only to adjacency. Even when the goal phrase can be separated from the main predicate, the result is worse than the version where the goal is implicit, as illustrated respectively in (14b) and (14c).

(14) a. *¿Qué llegó a casa [silbando qué] María? what arrived-3SG to home whistling María?

b. * ¿Qué llegó [silbando qué] a casa María? what arrived-3SG whistling to home María

c. ¿Qué llegó [silbando qué]María? what arrived-3SG whistling María?‘What did María arrive whistling?’

Again, the statistical analysis confirms this. A sentence like (14b), vs. (14c) – identical to (6) – got lower grades (mean=2.79, median=1, sd=2.69, vc=096). A chi-square comparison of the same sentences with and without an overt goal gives x-squared=87.48, df=1, p-value < 2.2e-16, with V=0.52, that is, a highly significant difference with a considerable effect. Note that there are, however, some outliers.

7



Figure 3

A final condition that has been identified has to do with the argument structure of the main predicate. This property is uncontroversial in Spanish, as reported by Demonte (1987/1988), and in English according to Truswell (2007): only if the main predicate has an internal argument is the extraction possible. Contrast in this respect (15a), containing an unergative verb, with (15b), involving an unaccusative.

(15) a. *What did Mary dance whistling?b. What did Mary arrive whistling?

However, one could blame the contrast on the different aspectual nature of each predicate. We have to concentrate, therefore, on transitive achievement verbs to be sure that this property holds. In (16) the extraction is accepted and the gerund clearly takes the internal argument as its subject.

(16) a. Encontré a Juan hablando con María.found-1SG to Juan talking with María‘I found Juan talking to María?’

b. ¿Con quién encontraste hablando a Juan? with whom found-2SG talking to Juan?‘Who did you find Juan talking to?’

8



(17) a. Encontré el error hablando con el técnico.3

found-1SG the mistake talking with the technician‘I found the mistake talking to the technician.’

b. *¿Con quién encontraste hablando el error? with whom found-2SG talking the mistake?‘Who did you find the mistake talking to?’

a) The gerund secondary predicate tends to be immediately adjacent to the main predicate when extraction is possible.

b) For extraction to be possible, the main predicate must have an internal argument, which is the subject of the gerund.

c) The main verb must be an achievement. d) Constituents expressing the result location must be absent.

Proposal:

a) Following Ramchand (2008), the maximal expansion of one single Aktionsart structure is [Init [Proc [Res ]]].

b) Proc can additionally take a Rheme projection, which contains material –paths or other entities– whose internal structure will be identified with the event described in Proc.

c) Gerunds that allow extraction are introduced as RhemeP, with the result that the unbounded event they express is identified with the event expressed by the main verb.

d) Consequently, the gerund and the main predicate can integrate in one single Aktionsart only if the main predicate does not have its Rheme position already occupied.

e) Conditions on linear order, unavailability of result locations and the restriction that the gerund must be predicated of an internal argument directly follow from the integration we propose.

The first piece of the puzzle is to spell out our assumptions about the decomposition of Aktionsart inside a constructionist approach to lexical aspect. Here we will basically follow Ramchand (2008: 38-56) in her proposal that the three main subevents independently identified in the tradition (Dowty 1977, Dowty 1979; Pustejovsky 1991, a.o.) correspond to distinct syntactic heads. Ramchand’s proposal is that there are three event-related heads. They are:

a) Initiation: the head that codifies the cause component inside an eventuality. A predicate that has an argument expressing an initiator –cover term used by Ramchand to group agents and causers– contains this projection; that is, John broke the glass has it, but The glass broke does not have it.

b) Process: the head that provides the eventuality with the event part, denoting a dynamic part. Verbs that denote events have it; that is, John learnt English has it, but John knows English does not have it.

3 Note that in this example we do not have the judgement interpretation of encontrar ‘to find’, as in I found your story to be badly written.

9



c) Result: the head that expresses the subsequent state after a telic event has arrived to its endpoint. This head is only present when the verb must compulsorily be telic and is able to license result interpretations of prepositions and other items that do not express change in themselves. That is, in The glass broke into one thousand pieces there is a ResP that licenses the reading of into one thousand pieces as the subsequent state attained after the breaking event; in contrast, there is no ResP in John ate the ham.

(26) a. John run (through the forest).b. InitP

John Init

Init ProcP

John Proc

Proc RhemeP<e>

run through the forest

(27) a. John ran into the forest.b. InitP

John Init

Init ProcP

John Proc

Proc PathP

John Path

run Path ResPto

John Res

Res PPø in the forest

(29) a. [Init [Proc [Rheme [Res]]]]b. John ran into the water.

Structures like (30), where the spine of the tree contains two identical heads in strict adjacency are impossible:

(30) a. *[Init [Init [Proc [Res]]]]

10



b. *[Init [Proc [Proc [Res]]]]c. *[Init [Proc [Res [Res]]]]d. *[Init [Proc [Rheme [Rheme [Res]]]]]

The next piece in the puzzle is to show that achievements – which are the only verbs that allow extraction from a gerund clause – do not fill the Rheme position available inside the verbal structure, and as a result they do not denote changes that occupy a temporal extension co-described through the mereological properties of another entity. Two pieces of evidence, originally due to Piñón (1997), support the idea that achievements lack internal duration. Both accomplishments and achievements allow in-phrases setting a limit.

(32) a. Juan escribió la carta en dos horas.Juan wrote-3SG the letter in two hours‘Juan wrote the letter in two hours.’

b. Juan alcanzó la cima en dos horas.Juan reached-3SG the summit in two hours‘Juan reached the summit in two hours.’

(33) a. Juan escribió la carta tras dos horas.Juan wrote-3SG the letter after two hours‘Juan wrote the letter after two hours.’

b. Juan alcanzó la cima tras dos horas.Juan reached-3SG the summit after two hours‘Juan reached the summit after two hours.’

(34) a. Juan está escribiendo la carta.Juan be-3SG writing the letter‘Juan is writing the letter.’

b. Juan está llegando.Juan be-3SG arriving‘Juan is arriving.’

(35) a. Juan está a punto de escribir la carta.Juan be-3SG to point of write the letter‘Juan is about to write the letter.’

b. Juan está a punto de llegar.Juan be-3SG to point of arrive‘Juan is about to arrive.’

In Ramchand’s theory, this means that with achievements Proc does not spell out RhemeP; consequently, the internal argument of an achievement will not co-describe the event. Achievements are punctual transitions, and as such they do not contain internal topological properties that require identification with another entity. As can be seen in (36), an achievement combines directly with a Result state as the argument of Proc; the result of this is that, instead of identifying the internal topological properties of the event, the process is interpreted as lacking internal structure and leading immediately into a result state: hence the punctuality.

(36) a. John arrived home.b. InitP

John Init

11



Init ProcP

John Proc

Proc ResP

John Res

arrive Res PPhome

(37) [Init [Proc [Rheme [Res]]]](38) *[Init [Proc [Rheme(path) [Rheme(gerund) ([Res])]]]]

In this section we argue that there are reasons to support the idea that in the Spanish transparent gerund constructions studied here, gerunds are introduced as RhemePs. Take a structure like (39). where the gerund fills the Rheme position (Ger is for the time being a descriptive label; we will be more specific about its internal structure in Section 4.4).

(39) ProcP

Proc GerP (=Rheme)<e>

DP Ger

Ger ...

If our proposal is right, we would expect the situation denoted by the gerund to co-describe the event. However, given that the achievement verb does not select for the gerund (in contrast with, say, an aspectual auxiliary), we would not expect there to be event identification between the gerund and the main verb. As one anonymous reviewer points out to us, it is possible to say John carefully cleaned the table sloppily singing the Marsellaise without contradiction, which means that the two actions are not necessarily identified in the interpretation component.

(40) a. John saw Mary {stealing / steal} the jewel.b. John spotted Mary {stealing / *steal} the jewel.

(41) GerP

Ger ProcP <…+++…> <e>

(43) Main verb: tei

Gerund: ...(tg tg tg) tgi (tg tg tg tg tg tg)...

We propose the specific structure in (44) for a Spanish gerund introduced as a Rheme: the gerund contains verbal structure, but is introduced as Rheme via an additional

12



head. This head, following among others Fábregas (2008) and Gallego (2010b), is a relational head, and more specifically a preposition. Thus, as other Rhemes, like Path Phrases, the gerund projects as a PP. That preposition introduces the subject of the gerund in its specifier (cf. Bowers 2000), and defines the aspectual value of the gerund as imperfective (see Hale 1986 and Hale and Keyser 2002 for the view of prepositions as aspectual-denoting heads).

(44) ProcP

Proc PathP

DP Path

Path ProcP(arrive)

wh-element Proc

Juan Proc ...

-ndo silba--ing whistl-

Unlike Gallego (2010b), we propose here that the gerund’s preposition in Spanish is a Path preposition, not a Central Coincidence Preposition. The difference between our proposal and Gallego’s might be, to some extent, purely terminological: Gallego’s proposal is couched in a theory where imperfectivity has to be associated with Central Coincidence relations (cf. Hale 1986); the opposite kind of P, Terminal Coincidence, defines a change of state and triggers telicity, which is clearly the wrong value for a gerund. In this system there is no, per se, Path preposition as denoting an extended sequence of points (but see Koopman [1997]; Den Dikken [2003]; Ramchand [2008] and Svenonius [2010] for a different view of this kind of element).Recall that extraction from the gerund construction is not possible in Spanish when the main predicate is an accomplishment or an activity. What these two classes have in common, in terms of the syntactic decomposition of the verbal constituent, is that they fill RhemeP with a path, which gives their events internal development and therefore identifies their temporal extension. InitP is present only if the event is causative, and ResP only if it culminates in a result state. In such cases, the RhemeP position the gerund would occupy is already filled.

(51) (InitP)

(Init) ProcP

Proc RhemeP

Rheme (ResP)

Conversely, extraction is possible if the event is an achievement, which, as we have seen, lack internal duration. In such cases RhemeP is filled in Spanish by the gerund construction.

13



(52) (InitP)

(Init) ProcP

Proc ResP

Gerund constructions are projected as RhemeP. Given this, a gerund can combine with an achievement, as in (53), in one single verbal structure, because the main verb does not project Rheme.

(53) (InitP)

(Init) ProcP

Proc RhemeP

main verb Rheme (ResP)

gerund

In the case of accomplishments and activities, the integration is not possible, because two RhemeP would have to be projected. Either we get a tree like the one in (54), which is illicit because the same label is duplicated and the event would only unify with the closest Rheme, or two distinct verbal constituents have to be defined. In either case, the gerund cannot integrate with the finite verb in one structure, and extraction of an argument of the secondary predicate is expected to be ungrammatical.

(54) *(InitP)

(Init) ProcP

Proc RhemeP

Rheme RhemeP

main verb Rheme (ResP)

gerund

Beyond the general ban on having a head selecting itself, one distinct problem in this configuration would be that the rheme’s nature as a co-describer of the event could not be performed by the lower projection of RhemeP, given that it is not the complement of the head Proc. This accommodates, in our syntactic analysis, Truswell’s (2007) generalisations about why Aktionsart delimits the acceptable and unacceptable extractions: as his analysis made clear, the two verbs must be part of the same event structure inside the same syntactic expansion of the verbal phrase. Here we capture the restriction structurally. There is, therefore, no need to postulate an operation of semantic reanalysis that acts independently of syntax. The two predicates, as far as syntax is concerned, are only

14



one verb, because the maximal expansion of the verbal domain is filled by both forms at the same time. We can, thus, propose the informal principle in (55), which explains what reanalysis tried to explain in previous accounts: (55) For two verbs to integrate in one single syntactic space, the combination of the

projections of both constituents must not exceed the maximal structural space of a single verbal event structure.

Remember that pure stative verbs do not license gerund clauses, making it (vacuously) impossible to extract arguments from them. Of course, the fact that pure stative verbs reject depictive predicates – as well as other modifiers and adjuncts – has been repeatedly noted in the literature (eg., Demonte and Masullo [1999:2475–2477]), but our analysis can suggest an explanation to this restriction.Pure stative verbs, like hate, know or exist, lack an event argument; this means that they lack ProcP. If the gerund construction –perhaps, more in general, all depictive secondary predicates– is introduced as RhemeP, and the role of Rheme is to co-describe the situation expressed by the main verb, then we expect gerunds not to be available as Rhemes of stative verbs. In other words, (56) is expected to be ungrammatical.

(56) *InitP

Init RhemeP

Rheme ...gerund

(57) *Juan sabe inglés contento. Juan know-3SG English happy

Intended: ‘John knows English while he is happy.’

(58) InitP

DP Init Katherine

Init DPfears nightmares

(59) InitP

John Init

15



Init ProcP

John Proc

Proc ResP

John Res

Res ...

(60) InitP

John Init

Init ProcP

John Proc

Proc RhemeP

John Rheme

Rheme ...

(61) * InitP

John Init

Init ProcP

Mary Proc

Proc RhemeP

John Rheme

Rheme ...

For the same configurational reason, the adjacency between the main verb and the gerund that is necessary when the gerund allows for subextraction in Spanish also follows trivially: they are the two members inside the same structure, so, by virtue of the restricted syntactic space they share, they are expected to be adjacent to each other. We just need to assume that no movement operations take place in such a way that RhemeP moves above InitP, for instance – and as far as we know, nobody has made such proposal.

(63) InitP

John Init

16



Init ProcP

John Proc

Proc RhemeP

John Rheme

Rheme ResP whistling

Res ... **

arrive

(64) a. ¿Qué llegaste [silbando qué]? what arrived-2SG whistling‘What did you arrive whistling?’

b. *¿Qué llegaste [silbando qué] a casa? what arrived-2SG whistling to home‘What did you arrive home whistling?’

(65) InitP

Init ProcP

Proc RhemeP

arrive gerund

One argument in favour of this account is that English does allow overt result locations in our contexts (What did John arrive home whistling?). Note, crucially, that English is also able to license strong result adjectival phrases, something that is impossible in Spanish.

(66) a. John hammered the metal flat.b. *Juan amartilló el metal plano. Juan hammered-2SG the metal flat

‘Juan hammered the metal flat.’

2.2. Properties of light verbsEven though these are well known properties (Hook 1974, Cattell 1984, Rosen 1989, Neelemann 1994, Wilson 1999, Butt & Geuder 2002, Deo 2002, Butt & Ramchand 2003, Bowern 2002, Alonso Ramos 2004, Butt 1995, 2010, Sanromán 2014, 2015), it is useful to revise them one by one because:

a) Only by reviewing them carefully can we make sure that we use the same properties to diagnose if there are real light nouns and adjectives

b) Still, there seems to be a grey area between at least auxiliaries and light verbs

17



(i) Monoclausality

In contrast to control and raising verbs, a light verb construction is the domain of one single clause (like auxiliaries). Several tests (Butt 2010, Huang 1992, Aissen & Perlmutter 1983):

(1) NPI licensinga. *Chelswu-nun [anwu-to pam-ul ilk-ess-ta]-ko an malha-ess-ta. [Korean] Chelswu-TOP nobody N-acc eat-pass-d-comp not say-past-dIntended: ‘Chelswu did not say that nobody ate the chestnut’b. anwu-to pam-ul an mek-E chiw-ess-ta. nobody N-acc not eat-E clean-past-d‘Nobody has eaten up the chestnut’

(2) Clitic climbinga. *Juan se lo obligó a leer. [Spanish] Juan SE it forced to readIntended: ‘Juan forced her to read it’b. Juan lo quiere leer. Juan it wants read‘Juan wants to read it’

(ii) Joint predication

Unlike auxiliaries, light verbs co-define the argument structure of the predicate by imposing conditions on the selection of the subject, and / or define the number of arguments (Alsina 1996; Samek-Lodovici 2003).

(3) a. Juan va a caerse. [Spanish] Juan goes to fall-se‘Juan is going to fall’b. El edificio va a caerse. the building goes to fall-se‘The building is going to fall’

(4) a. Juan quiere caerse. Juan wants fall-se‘Juan wants to fall’b. #El edificio quiere caerse. the building wants to fall

(5) a. Juan pilló un resfriado. [Spanish] Juan caught a coldb. *Juan le pilló un resfriado a María. Juan her caught a cold to MaríaIntended: ‘Juan gave a cold to María’

(6) a. #Juan dio un susto. Juan gave a scare‘Juan scared’b. Juan le dio un susto a María. Juan her gave a scare to María‘Juan scared María’

18



(iii) Form identity to a full verb

This has become to be known as Butt’s generalisation. It essentially predicts that verbs like ser ‘be’, estar ‘beSL’ or haber ‘have.aux’ in Spanish can never be classified as light verbs, and indeed they never co-define argument structure. Note, however, that this is not a biconditional: there are auxiliaries that also are related to full verbs:

(7) a. Juan volvió a su casa. Juan came.back to his house‘Juan returned to his house’b. Juan volvió a ir a su casa. Juan came.back to go to his house‘Juan went to his house again’

(iv) Verbalisation

Light verbs can be used to verbalise nouns and adjectives, that is, to let them function as verbal predicates. The division of labour is sometimes like this: the light verb makes argument structure slots available and is used as a place holder for verbal inflection, up to TP, while the adjective or noun play the biggest role in defining the conceptual class of the subject (human, artifact, natural object, etc.) (Alonso Ramos 2004).

(8) a. Juan pilló una depresión. Juan caught a depression‘Juan got depressed’b. Juan dio una explicación. Juan gave an explanation‘Juan explained something’c. Juan se llevó un disgusto. Juan SE carried an upset‘Juan got upset’d. Juan soltó un suspiro. Juan let.go a sigh‘Juan sighed’

(9) a. Juan se mantiene en forma. Juan SE keeps in shape.b. Juan siguió triste. Juan continues sad‘Juan is still sad’c. Juan cayó enfermo. Juan fell sick‘Juan got sick’d. Juan anda despistado. Juan walks absent-minded‘Juan is usually absent-minded’

(v) Access to conceptual semantics

19



Light verbs, unlike auxiliaries, sometimes show idiosyncratic selectional properties of the kinds of nouns or adjectives that they can combine with. It seems that the right generalisations are very conceptual in nature, requiring classes which in all likelihood are grammatically indistinguishable (meaning that we do not want to differentiate them with trees or structural semantic formulas).

(10) European Spanish: coger with means of transportation and sicknessa. coger un coche catch a carb. coger un taxi catch a taxic. coger un barco catch a boatd. coger un resfriado catch a colde. coger el sarampión catch the measles

(11) European Spanish: tomar with drinks and fooda. tomar un café catch a coffeeb. tomar un bocadillo catch a sandwichc. tomar una cerveza catch a beer

(12) a. #coger un café catch a coffeeb. #tomar un resfriado catch a coldc. #tomar un enfado catch an anger

(13) a. caer enfermo fall sickb. caer en coma fall in a comac. caer herido fall woundedd. *caer triste fall sad

(vi) Possibility of demotivated, idiosyncratic, non compositional meanings

It is a delicate test, because the light verb is always going to have a non-literal meaning. However, in all the previous cases the noun or adjective that co-predicates has its literal meaning; not all cases are like that:

(14) a. tomar el brazo take the arm

‘use someone up to the point where it is abusing’(keeps the ‘consume for one’s own sake’ meaning of tomar)b. coger la puerta

20



catch the door‘exit, leave, abandon’(keeps the ‘start a movement’ meaning of coger)

(vii) Modifiers of one element can be interpreted as modifiers of the other element

Sometimes a modifier of the noun / adjetive (which frequently is not a legitimate modifier of the noun alone) can be interpreted as refered to the verb:

(15) a. tomar un café rápido take a coffee fast‘to quickly drink a coffee’ (not ‘to have instant coffee’)b. rápidamente tomar un café quickly take a coffeec. */?? He pedido un café rápido. have ordered a coffee quick

This already gives us a set of diagnostic tests to know if we have a light verb. Interestingly, one result that emerges from here is that semicopulative verbs seem to be classifiable as light verbs, but copulative verbs are up in the air.

Table 1. Comparison between 4 classes of verbsLight verbs Auxiliaries Control /

RaisingCopulative verbs

Conceptual meaning on the verb

Yes (although abstract)

No (just aspect, mood and voice)

Yes No (just aspect)

Monoclausality Yes Yes No YesJoint predication

Yes No (auxiliaries do not select arguments)

No (because of biclausality)

No (copulative verbs do not select arguments)

Full verb version

Yes Sometimes Yes (only full verbs)

No

Verbalisation Yes No (an auxiliary always combines with another verb)

No (control and raising combine with another verb)

Yes

Access to conceptual semantics

Yes Not clearly (typically, sensitive to Aktionsart and other systematic, grammaticalised properties)

No (typically indifferent to it or sensitive to argument structure)

Perhaps in some cases (the two meanings of some adjectives with different copulative verbs)

Idiomatic meanings

Yes No No No

21



Shared modifiers

Yes No No No (the copulative verb does not have meaning to show anyways)

2.3. Semicopulative verbs as light predicates: testing ground for a theorySemicopulative verbs (Morimoto & Pavón Lucero 2007) can be diagnosed by the previous tests as light verbs. We will show it and use them to propose a particular analysis of light verbs in general.

(16) MonoclausalityJuan no se volvió nada.Juan not SE came.back nothing‘Juan became nothing’

(17) Conceptual information: they encode meanings of volitionality, for instancea. Juan se volvió comunista. Juan se came.back communist‘Juan became a communist’b. Juan se hizo comunista. Juan se made communist‘Juan willingly became a communist’

(18) Joint predicationa. Juan se conserva bien. Juan SE preserves well‘Juan is still in a good state (because he takes care of himself)’b. *La máquina se conserva bien. the machine SE preserves wellIntended: ‘The machine is still in a good state’

(19) Full verb versiona. ponerse ‘to put on’ / ‘to become’b. quedarse ‘to stay’ / ‘to become’c. volverse ‘to return’ / ‘to become’d. mantenerse ‘to keep’ / ‘to still be’e. conservarse ‘to preserve’ / ‘to still be’...

(20) Verbalisation(21) Access to conceptual semantics

quedarse combines well with properties that imply lacking somethinga. quedarse {ciego / sordo / cojo / tuerto} become blind / deaf / one-legged / one-eyed}b. quedarse viudo become widowerc. quedarse {atónito / pasmado / incapaz de reaccionar} become astonished / puzzled /unable to reactd. quedarse sin {dinero / café / palabras} become without money / coffee / words

(22) Idiomatic meaningssalir rana

22



exit frog‘to become a failure’

Proposal: a light verb construction is a structure where inside the same syntactic space, the position that otherwise is occupied by one single lexical verb is now occupied by 2 or more distinct exponents.

(23) InitP

Initiator Init

Init ProcP

Undergoer Proc

Proc ResP

Resultee Res

Res Rheme of result

InitP: the subevent that introduces the causative state that relates an agent with a processProcP: the body of the event, with temporal extension, that in a dynamic verb defines a process that might (if the verb is telic) end in a culminationResP: the subevent that introduces the result state that follows the culmination in telic verbs

(23) InitP

John Init

Init ProcP

the vase Proc

Proc ResP

break the vase Res

Res PPin one thousand pieces

(24) ProcP

Juan Proc

Proc ResP

23



Juan Res

ponerse‘become’ Res AP

gordo ‘fat’

(i) Monoclausality, joint predication, access to conceptual semantics (two lexical layers), preservation of the conceptual meaning of the verb, shared modifiers, relation to a full verb

(ii) Idiomatic meanings: tendency to define the domain of idioms internally to vP (excluding the agent).a. [pass gass] = idiomatic meaningb. [John pass] X = non idiomatic meaningc. [a little bird] told me = idiomatic meaning restricted to DP

Predictions: given linear order, and assuming a minimum of movement operations internal to these three heads, we expect several possibilities, but not others:

(25) a. light verb Init > other predicate Process (+ Result)b. light verb Process > other predicate (Result) statec. light verb Init + Process > other predicate (Result) stated. *light verb Process > other predicate Inite. *light verb Result > other predicate Processf. *light verb Process + Result > other predicate Init...

(26) a. querer {correr / caer} want run / fallb. andar triste walk sad‘to be (for some time) sad’c. ponerse enfermo become sickd. unattestede. unattestedf. unattested

What is an auxiliary, then? Following the moderate cartographic approach of Ramchand & Svenonius (2014), let us assume a universal ordering of areas or domains, within which different languages allow variation, or even inside the same language different orderings are allowed. Let us distinguish here a domain of events (lexical verbs), a domain of situations (perspective or viewpoint = Aspect, mood) and a domain of propositions (Complementiser and Tense). See also Wiltschko (2014).

(27) Propositions > Situations > Events

Auxiliaries would be constituents with the morphological shape of a verb that are introduced in the situation area, above events. Thus we expect them not to display joint predication, to be insensitive to conceptual semantics, but still to be monoclausal.

24



(28) MoodPSituation

Mood AspP domain (auxiliaries)

Asp InitP

Agent Init

Init ProcP Event domain

Undergoer Proc (light verbs)

Proc ResP

Control and raising verbs would be verbs that, through subordination, select propositions (CP, perhaps TP).

Open question: what are copulative verbs? I don’t have much to say, except that they do not fall neatly into this typology.

- all copulative verbs, to my knowledge, double as auxiliaries or raising / control verbs

- unlike auxiliaries, they do not select other verbs- perhaps they are manifestations of the event domain with a very

impoverished semantics- perhaps they are auxiliaries, and we must accept that the situation

domain can be built over a domain that is not the event domain, perhaps involving coercion of the complement

- who knows...

2.4. There are light nouns: propertiesThe goal of this section is to argue that in Spanish there are also light nouns, as previously claimed in other works (Bosque 2001; Sanromán 2005, 2012); moreover, their behaviour complies with our structural proposal.

Generalised light X hypothesis: a light X is lexical material that spells out a constituent within the same domain as another piece of lexical material.

eg. a light verb is a lexical verb that spells out only part of the event domain

A light noun should be a lexical noun that spells out only part of the individual domain, and combines with another lexical noun whose meaning is conceptually full.

I am going to argue that at the very least the following constructions involve a light noun:

(29) a. una taza de café [partition of a mass noun] a cup of coffeeb. un plato de lentejas [partition of a mass plural]

25



a plate of lentilsc. un hatajo de idiotas [group of entities] a bunch of idiotsd. un color de ojos [formal properties of an entity] a colour of eyese. un tipo de tigre [class denotations] a type of tigerf. una muestra de dolor [assimilated to partitions?] a sign of paing. una situación de peligro [assimilated to kinds?] a situation of danger

Let us look at the properties to show that this is indeed the case:

a) Mono-individuality (≈ mono-clausality): both refer to the same entity.

(30) a. Se bebió un vaso de cerveza. SE drank a glass of beer‘He drank a glass of beer’b. #Se bebió un vaso. SE drank a glass‘He drank a glass’c. al borde de una situación de peligro [Bosque 2001] at.the edge of a situation of dangerd. al borde de un peligro at.the edge of a dangere. *al borde de una situación at.the edge of a situation

(31) Possessive raisingel color de sus ojos > su color de ojosthe colour of his eyes his colour of eyes

(32) su taza de caféhis cup of coffee[Not his cup, but his coffee]

b) Conceptual meaning in the light noun has to be kept to some extent:

(33) Se bebió...SE drank...

a. una botella de vinoa bottle of wine

b. un vaso de vinoa glass of wine

c. una garrafa de vinoa carafe of wine

d. un tonel de vinoa cask of wine

26



Each of these define different measures of wine; while none denotes the physical object, they refer to quantities that naturally are contained in the containers they mean as full nouns.

c) Joint definition of the individual

Take the nouns that are used to give measures. There are reasons to believe that they are defining properties of the individual together with the full noun. This is visible in several grammatical properties:

(34) They add information that the full noun cannot have by itselfa. *dos aires two airsb. dos bocanadas de aire two mouthfuls of air

(35) A pronoun refering back to the nominal construction refers to both nounsa. Le preparé [un plato de sopa]i. Se loi comió rápidamente. him prepared a plateful of soup SE it ate quickly‘I prepared him a plateful of soup; he ate it quickly’

(36) Whatever notion they express cannot be expressed internally to the full nouni. If they are giving partitions, the full noun cannot be partitioned itself

a. medio café half coffee‘half a measure of coffee’b. *una taza de medio café / media taza de café a cup of half coffee half cup of coffee

ii. If they give properties, the full noun cannot have the property specified

a. ojos verdeseyes green

b. *un color de ojos verdes / color verde de ojosa colour of eyes green / colour green of eyes

iii. Control: note this never happens if the first noun is used as a full noun

a. Tengo que pintarlo del color verde de tu abrigo morado.I.have to paint-it of.the colour green of your coat purple[Assume the purple coat is green inside]

b. medio plato para dos centilitros de sopahalf a plate for two centiliters of soup

d) Full noun versione) Used to nominalise

This one is more difficult to assess, as the second noun is always introduced by a P. One could think that the first noun turns the PP into a noun, but this would be circular. Perhaps it is more convincing to note that the first noun is necessary to license the combination with for instance demonstratives inside the construction:

27



(37) a. Me bebí aquel vaso de vino. me drank that glass of wineb. *Me bebí aquel vaso de este vino. me drank that glass of that wine

f) Access to conceptual semantics

(37) a. una rodaja de chorizo (rodaja for round pieces) a slice of chorizob. una loncha de jamón (loncha for elongated thin pieces) a slice of hamc. una rebanada de pan (rebanada for flour-based products) a slice of bread

g) The modifier of one can affect the other

(38) a. un delicioso plato de lentejas a delicious plateful of lentilsb. un plato de deliciosas lentejas a plateful of delicious lentilsc. grandes muestras de dolor great signs of paind. muestras de gran dolor signs of great pain

h) Idiomatic meanings

(39) saco de pulgasbag of fleas‘something physically insufficient’

(40) saco de alacranesbag of scorpions‘something very dangerous’

Unlike with light verbs, in Spanish light nouns can combine with each other, and interestingly they follow the following order:

groupers > kind > property > divisor

(41) kind > divisoresta clase de vaso de vinothis class of glass of wine

(42) grouper > divisorun montón de vasos de vinoa bunch of glasses of wine

(43) grouper > kind > divisorun montón de clases de vaso de vinoa lot of classes of glass of wine

(44) property > divisor

28



un tamaño de vaso de vino‘a size of glass of wine’

(45) grouper > property > divisorun montón de tamaños de vaso de vinoa lot of sizes of glass of wine

(46) grouper > kind > property > divisorun montón de clases de tamaño de vaso de vinoa lot of classes of sizes of glass of wine

Interestingly, this sequence sort of looks like what we expect in syntax for a lexical noun (famous unresolved problem: are kinds built from individuals or individuals from kinds? The ordering suggests one moves from individuals to kinds, but maybe one started from sets of properties that can also be read as ‘kinds’)

(47) QP

Q ...KindPlot

Kind FPclasses

F DivPsizes

Div NPglass wine

What is ‘of’ in these constructions? One thing is clear, it is not a possessive / genitive marker:

(48) a. una botella de vino --*--> su botella a bottle of wine its bottleb. una clase de animal --*--> su clase a class of animal its classc. un color de ojos --*--> su color a colour of eyes their colourd. un montón de chicos --*-->su montón a lot of boys their lot

Proposal: you need ‘de’ to be able to introduce a derivation that bottoms in a root:

(49) FP (DivP by feature identification between spec, head)

DivP F

Div NP F NPde

N √taza N √café

(50) ProcP

Proc FP

29



beberQP F

[mogollón] Q....√ F FP

deKindP F[tipos]

Kind...√ F FPde

PropP F [tamaños] Prop...√ F FP

deDivP F[vasos]

F NPde cerveza

The ordering seems motivated: start from a predicate, as a set of properties; determine whether it is stuff or it has to be divided to denote partitioned entities; then add additional properties to that predicate; then define a kind with it (taking into account all properties it has); then you can put plural and quantify it.

Facts derived:

(51) Selection skipping all guys introduced by FP in spec (heads do not select specs)Bebí mogollón de tipos de vasos de cerveza

(52) Only the highest will carry DP:este mogollón de tipos

(53) Only number marking above Div (assuming -s is Div)

Irresponsible suggestion: the preposition internal to some periphrases in the verbal domain might be doing the same work: to allow the auxiliary to bottom down in root without preventing the main verb from appearing.

(54) voy a Vacabar de Vdeber de V...(all verbs that carry P in the periphrasis as auxiliaries have a strong version)

Going back to these cases now:

Interestingly, adjectives distribute with respect to the nouns in this sequence:

Low adjectives, such as relational nouns and colour adjectives, need to modify the second lexical noun.

30



(49) a. #una taza negra de café a cup black of coffeeb. una taza de café negro a cup of black coffee

(50) a. *una taza arábiga de café a cup arabic of coffeeb. una taza de café arábigo a cup of coffee arabic

Other facts about ordering seem to be semantically motivated, again supporting a moderate cartographic approach where the hierarchy affects areas, and there is some conceptual motivation for those (Svenonius 2008): size adjectives must be defined over partitions.

(51) a. un plato pequeño de carne a plateful small of meatb. *un plato de carne pequeña

a plateful of meat small‘a small plateful of meat’

But some properties can be defined of both stuff and partitions, and in such cases the adjectives can modify either.

(52) a. una deliciosa taza de café a delicious cup of coffeeb. una taza de delicioso café a cup of delicious coffee

(53) a. un plato caliente de sopa a plateful warm of soupb. un plato de sopa caliente a plateful of soup warm

But note that only one adjective per class is allowed in the whole sequence, which is probably an effect of the two noun codefining the same entity:

(54) #un plato caliente de sopa hirviendo a plateful warm of soup boiling-hot

Consequence: the light nouns are rigidly ordered, but the adjectives can alternate, and most of their restrictions can receive a semantic interpretation --> there is no rigid, syntactically defined sequence of adjectives, with the possible exception of relational adjectives.

2.5. There are no light adjectivesConsider now adjectives: can we talk about a class of light adjectives? Here we will claim that these objects actually do not exist. First note:

(55) a. Sequence of two verbs: lo quiere leer ‘it wants to read’b. Sequence of two nouns: un plato de sopa ‘a plateful of soup’

31



c. Sequence of two adjectives: ?? [note: some relational adjectives, but for independent reasons]

But it could be that, as with most light verbs, the second element belongs to another category and the light adjective allows it to behave as an AP.Potential candidates:

(56) a. bueno en matemáticas good in mathematics‘good at mathematics’b. difícil de leer difficult of read‘difficult to read’c. ancho de hombros wide of shoulders‘wide-shouldered’

Some initial reasons for hope:

(i) co-predication: the property is defined by both elements at the same time

(57) a. El libro es difícil {de leer / #de lavar} the book is difficult to read / to cleanb. {Juan / #El edificio} es ancho de hombros. Juan the building is wide of shouldersc. El perro es bueno {#en ajedrez / en cazar pájaros}

the dog is good in chess / in catching birds

(ii) the adjective allows the PP / NP to have the distribution of an adjective

(58) a. Juan es *(bueno) en matemáticas. Juan is good in mathematicsb. muy *(bueno) en matemáticas very good in mathematics

(iii) Obvious monoclausality

However: there are reasons to think that in actuality the PP is acting as a restrictor, not as a predicate that adds additional properties to the semantically underspecified adjective. The co-predication impression is given by a natural property of restrictors, namely that they define the domain to which the property has to be applied. The other properties expected of light Xs do not follow:

(i) Shared modifiers: no

(59) a. muy difícil de amar very difficult to loveb. difícil de amar mucho difficult to love a.lot

32



(ii) There is no clear conceptual desemantisation of the adjective

(60) a. Juan es ancho. Juan is wideb. Juan es ancho de hombros. Juan is wide of shoulders

(61) bueno and difícil are probably already semantically weak

(iii) Access to conceptual semantics is unclear

(62) Even though (for understandable reasons) ancho combines well with body parts, it is not the only class of nouns (and body parts could have a distinct syntax):

ancho de {cara / hombros / hermosura / manga}wide of face / shoulders / beauty / sleeve

(iv) Idiomatic constructions?

Clearly not with bueno or difícil; perhaps with the dimensional adjectives sometimes, but not clearly.

(63) largo de manoslong of hands‘groper’

But:

(64) tener manos largasto.have hands long‘to be a groper’

Then it seems that we do not have light adjectives. The closest we can get to them is this series, which looks more like light nouns used as quantifiers that can take adjectives:

(65) a. un montón de guapo a lot of handsome‘very handsome’b. igual de guapo same of handsome‘equally handsome’

But igual is not your prototypical adjective anyways: it does not show inflection here, and as an adjective it rejects for instance degree modifiers. It however has one property typically associated to light Xs, absence of inflection (although note that this property is not general of light nouns or verbs in Spanish).

(66) a. *más igual que X more equal than X

33



b. igual de listas same of clever.f.pl.

Also, note that what igual de does is to quantify / modify the degree, and we know that quantification / degree, even though it is a well-defined syntactic context, is not exclusive of adjectives (or even possible for all adjectives): verbs, adverbs, some nouns and prepositions allow it.

2.6. Why are there no light adjectives?

Main claim: there is no designated area of adjectives, with extended functional projections, unlike what it is the case with verbs and nouns.

Thus, if a light X is a type of X that spells out only part of the syntactic space of X, together with another member, the consequence is that there cannot be light adjectives, for there is no syntactic space of adjectives.

There are some facts that suggest that, unlike nouns and verbs, adjectives are not categories imposed by UG. Adjectives, as a distinct morphological category, is lacking from some languages (as discussed in great detail in Stassen 1997). McCawley (1992) claimed that Mandarin Chinese lacks them; the claim has also been maide for Muna (van der Berg 1989), Swedish Sign Language (Bergman 1983), Acehnese (Durie 1985) and some varieties of Aleut (Golovko & Vaxtin 1990). We consider that the fact that so many typologically unrelated languages have been diagnosed to lack a category ‘adjective’, morphosyntactically distinct from verbs or nouns should be taken seriously as meaning that UG does not encode among the primitives of natural language this category. Secondly, even in languages where there is a category, distinct from nouns and verbs, used to modify nouns, it has proven extremely difficult to characterise these objects as a natural class defined by positive properties. Baker (2003), in fact, defines adjectives as negative categories, those that lack the positive properties of verbs –able to introduce their subjects by themselves– or nouns –able to carry an index of identity–. Moreover, several authors have proposed that adjectives, in languages that have them, are derived categories. Hale & Keyser (2002) argued that adjectives (X in 67b) are derived parasitic categories.

(67) a. X (verb) b. h* (adjective)

X Y Y h*

h* X

Mateu (2002) explicitly argues that adjectives behave structurally as nouns combined with prepositions: h* in (67b) is a relational category that takes both a complement and a specifier, which is what characterises prepositions as categories in Hale & Keyser (1993, 2002). Mateu (2002) essentially claims that adjectives do not exist, and should be analysed as covert nouns introduced by prepositions.The list of things that adjectives cannot do and verbs or nouns do goes on and on; to give two further examples, Baker (2008) convincingly argues that adjectives are unable to agree in person cross-linguistically, and Kamp (1975) showed that

34



adjectives, unlike nouns, cannot define kinds because they are fuzzy predicates that, before combining with degree, cannot define the set of objects included in their extension. Finally, in languages with an open class of adjectives, adjectives do not have specific properties that define them as a natural class (at least in syntax). Agreement with the noun is a typical property of adjectives in Romance languages, but note that other word classes, such as determiners, also behave exactly in the same way (68). Some adjectives allow degree modifiers, but not all of them, and also verbs and PPs allow degree modification (69), sometimes using exactly the same quantifiers as adjectives.

(68) former / previo(69) a. Te quiero mucho.

you.acc love a.lot‘I love you in a high degree’b. muy de levantarse tarde very of waking.up late‘much into the habit of waking up late’

2.8. Consequences

(i) The absence of light adjectives supports a view where there is no designated syntactic space for adjectives; adjectives can be viewed as Ns or other categories with relators to license predication

(ii) Lexical categories are not lexically defined, but built by the incremental addition of sets of heads

(iii) The syntactic space is rigidly ordered among domains, and plausibly motivated semantically / conceptually

RefsAissen, J. & D. Perlmutter. 1983. Clause reduction in Spanish. In D. Perlmutter (ed.),

Studies in relational grammar. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, pp. 360-403.

Alonso Ramos, M. 2004. Las construcciones con verbo de apoyo. Madrid, Visor.Alsina, A. 1996. The role of argument structure in grammar. Stanford, CSLI

Publications. Baker, M. C. 2003. Lexical categories. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.Baker, M. C. 2008. The syntax of agreement and concord. Cambridge, Cambridge

University Press.Bergman, B. 1986. A comparison between some static sentences in Swedish Sign

Language and in English. In B. T. Tervoort (eds.), Signs of life. Amsterdam, Dutch Foundation for the deaf, pp. 52-56.

Bolinger, Dwight. 1971. The nominal in the progressive. Linguistic Inquiry 2. 246–250.

Borer, Hagit. 2012. In the event of a nominal. in M. Everaert, M. Marelj and T. Siloni (eds.), The theta system. Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 103-150.

Borgonovo, Claudia and Ad Neeleman. 2000. Transparent adjuncts. Canadian Journal of Linguistics 45: 199-224.

Borgonovo, Claudia. 1994. The parametric syntax of gerunds. Unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, Brandeis University.

35



Borgonovo, Claudia. 1996. Gerunds and perception verbs. Languages et linguistique 22: 1-19.

Bosque, I. 2001. On the weight of light predicates. In J. Herschenson et al. (eds.), Features and interfaces in Romance. Amsterdam, John Benjamins, pp. 23-38.

Bowern, C. 2002. How light are North Australian ‘Light Verbs’? Ms., Harvard University.

Bowers, John. 2000. Predication, in M. Baltin and C. Collins (eds.), The handbook of contemporary syntactic theory. Oxford, Blackwell, pp. 299-333.

Brody, Michael. 2000. Mirror theory: syntactic representation in perfect syntax. Linguistic Inquiry 31: 29-56.

Butt, M. & G. Ramchand. 2003. Complex aspectual structure in Hindi / Urdu. In N. Ertischik-Shir & Tova Rapoport (eds.), The syntax of Aspect. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Butt, M. & W. Geuder. 2002. On the (semi)lexical status of light verbs. In N. Corver & H. van Riemsdijk (eds.), Semi-lexical categories. Berlin, De Gruyter, pp. 323-370.

Butt, M. 1995. The structure of complex predicates. Stanford, CSLI Publications.Butt, M. 2010. The light verb jungle: still hacking away. In M. Amberber et al. (eds.),

Complex predicates. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 48-78. Caha, Pavel. 2009. The nanosyntax of case. Doctoral dissertation, University of

Tromsø.Cattell, R. 1984. Composite predicates in English. Sydney, Academic Press Australia.Chomsky, Noam. 2004. Beyond explanatory adequacy, in A. Belletti (ed.), The

cartography of syntactic structures, vol. 3, Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 104-131.

Chomsky, Noam. 2008. On Phases, in R. Freidin, C. P. Otero, M. L. Zubizarreta (eds.), Foundational issues in linguistic theory. Essays in honor of Jean-Roger Vergnaud. Cambridge (Mass.), MIT Press, pp. 133-166.

Cinque, Guglielmo. 1990. Types of A’-dependencies. Cambridge (Mass.), MIT Press.Cinque, Guglielmo. 1999. Adverbs and functional heads. Oxford: Oxford University

Press.Creswell, M. J. 1978. Prepositions and points of view. Linguistics and Philosophy 2,

pp. 1-41.Demonte, Violeta and Pascual J. Masullo. 1999. La predicación: Los complementos

predicativos, in I. Bosque and V. Demonte (dirs.), Gramática Descriptiva de la Lengua Española. Madrid, Espasa, pp. 2461-2525.

Demonte, Violeta. 1987 / 1988. Remarks on secondary predicates: c-command, extraction and reanalysis. The linguistic review 6: 1-39.

Demonte, Violeta. 1991. Temporal and aspectual constraints on predicative APs, in H. Campos and F. Martínez-Gil (eds.), Current studies in contemporary Romance linguistics, Amsterdam, John Benjamins, pp. 413-450.

Den Dikken, Marcel. 2003. On the syntax of locative and directional adpositional phrases. Ms., City University of New York.

Den Dikken, Marcel. 2006. Relators and linkers. Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press.Deo, A. 2002. A diachronic perspective on complex predicates in Indo-Aryan. Ms. Di Tullio, Ángela. 1998. Complementos no flexivos de verbos de percepción física en

español. Verba 25: 197-221. Dowty, David R. 1977. Toward a semantic analysis of veerb aspect and the English

‘imperfective’ progressive. Linguistics and Philosophy 1: 45-77. Dowty, David R. 1979. Word meaning and Montague grammar. Dordrecht: Reidel.

36



Durie, M. 1985. A grammar of Acehnese. Dordrecht, Foris Publications Fábregas, Antonio. 2008. Categrías híbridas en Morfología Distribuida. El caso del

gerundio. In M. J. Rodríguez-Espiñeira and J. Pena (eds.), Categorías híbridas y límites intercategoriales. Santiago, Universidad de Santiago, pp. 57-87.

Fortuny, Jordi. 2008. The emergence of order in syntax. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Gallego, Ángel. 2010a. Phase theory. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Gallego, Ángel. 2010b. On the prepositional nature of non-finite verbs. Catalan

Journal of Linguistics 9: 79-102.Gärtner, Hans-Martin. 2002. Generalized transformations and beyond. Reflections on

Minimalist Syntax. Berlin: Akademie Verlag.Golovko, E. & N. Vaxtin, N. 1990. Aleut in Contact: The CIA Enigma. Acta

Linguistica Hafniensia 22, pp.97-125. Haegeman, Liliane, Ángel L. Jiménez-Fernández and Andrew Radford. 2014.

Deconstructing the Subject Condition in terms of cumulative constraint violation. The Linguistic Review 31 (1). 73–150.

Hale, K. & S. J. Keyser. 1993. On argument structure and the lexical expression of syntactic relations. In K. Hale & S. J. Keyser (eds.), The view from Building 20. Cambridge (Mass.), MIT Press, pp. 53-109.

Hale, K. & S. J. Keyser. 2002. Prolegomenon to a theory of argument structure. Cambridge (Mass.), MIT Press.

Hale, Kenneth and Samuel J. Keyser. 2002. Prolegomenon to a theory of argument structure. Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press.

Hale, Kenneth. 1986. Notes on world view and semantic categories. Some Warlpiri examples, in P. Muysken and H. van Riemsdijk (eds.), Features and projections. Dordrecht, Foris, pp. 233-254.

Halle, Morris and Alec Marantz. 1993. Distributed morphology and the pieces of inflection, in K. Hale and S. J. Keyser (eds.) The view from Building 20. Cambridge (Mass.), MIT Press, pp. 111-176.

Hook, P. 1974. Aspectogenesis and the compound verb in Indo-Aryan. In M. K. Verma (ed.), Complex Predicates in South Asian Languages. Delhi, Manohar, pp. 97-113.

Huang, C. J. 1992. Complex predicates in control. In R. Larson et al. (eds.), Control and grammar. Dordrecht, Kluwer, pp. 109-146.

Huang, James. 1982. Logical relations in Chinese and the theory of grammar. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.

Jackendoff, Ray. 1983. Semantics and cognition. Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press.Jiménez-Fernández, Ángel L. 2009. On the composite nature of subject islands: A

phase-based approach. SKY Journal of Linguistics 22: 91-138.Jiménez-Fernández, Ángel L. 2012a. What information structure tells us about

individual / stage predicates. Borealis: An international journal of Hispanic linguistics 1 (1): 1-32.

Jiménez-Fernández, Ángel L. 2012b. A new look at subject islands: the phasehood of definiteness. Anglica Wratislaviensia 50: 137-168.

Jiménez-Fernández, Ángel L. and Mercedes Tubino. 2014. Variación sintáctica en la causativización léxica. Revista Española de Lingüística 44 (1). 7–37.

Kamp, H. 1975. Two theories about adjectives. In E. Keenan (ed.), Formal semantics of natural language. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 123-155.

Kempchinsky, Paula. 2000. Aspect projections and predicate type, in Héctor Campos et al. (eds.), Hispanic Linguistics at the Turn of the Millenium. Somerville, Cascadilla Press, pp. 171-187.

37



Koopman, Hilda. 1997. Prepositions, postpositions, circumpositions and particles. The structure of Dutch PPs. Ms., UCLA.

Kratzer, Angelika. 1995. Stage-level and Individual-level predicates. In G. Carlson et al. (eds.), The Generic Book. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, pp. 125-175.

Krifka, Manfred. 1987. Nominal reference and temporal constitution: towards a semantics of quantity, in J. Groenendijk, M. Stokhof and F. Veltman (eds.), Proceedings of the 6th Amsterdam Colloquium. Amsterdam, University of Amsterdam, pp. 153-173.

Krifka, Manfred. 1989. Nominalreferenz und Zeitkonstitution. München: Wilhelm Fink.

Landman, Fred. 1992. The progressive. Natural Language Semantics 1: 1-32. Levin, Beth and Malka Rappaport-Hovav. 1995. Unaccusativity: At the syntax-lexical

semantics interface. Cambridge (Mass.), MIT Press. Maienborn, Claudia. 2003. Die logische Form von Kopula-Sätzen. Berlin: Akademie

Vorlag.Mateu, J. 2002. Argument structure. Relational construal at the syntax-semantics

interface. Ph.D. dissertation, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.Mateu, Jaume. 2002. Argument structure: relational construal at the syntax-semantics

interface. Ph.D. dissertation, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.McCawley, J. 1992. Justifying part-of-speech assignments in Mandarin Chinese.

Journal of Chinese Linguistics 20, 2, pp. 211-46. Morimoto, Y. & M. Pavón Lucero. 2007. Los verbos pseudocopulativos del español.

Madrid, Arco Libros.Neeleman, A. 1994. Complex predicates. Utrecht, OTS Dissertation Series. Pesetsky, David. 1995. Zero syntax. Cambridge (Mass.), MIT Press.Piñón, Christopher. 1997. Achievements in Event Semantics. Proceedings of SALT

VII, 276-293.Pustejovsky, James. 1991. The Syntax of Event Structure. Cognition 41: 47-81.Ramchand, G. & P. Svenonius. 2014. Deriving the functional hierarchy. Language

Sciences 46, pp. 152-174. Ramchand, Gillian. 2008. Verb meaning and the lexicon. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.Rizzi, Luigi. 1982. Issues in Italian syntax. Dordrecht: Foris.Rosen, S. 1989. Argument structure and complex predicates. PhD thesis, Brandeis

University. Rothmayr, Antonia. 2009. The structure of stative verbs. Amsterdam: John

Benjamins.Rothstein, Susan. 1999. Fine-grained structure in the eventuality domain: the

semantics of predicate adjective phrases and ‘be’. Natural Language Semantics 7: 347-420

Samek Lodovici, V. 2003. The internal structure of arguments and its role in complex predicate formation. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 21, pp. 835-881.

Sanromán, B. 2005. Individual-level and stage-level predicates: the Spanish emotion nouns. Vostok-zapad, pp. 417-431.

Sanromán, B. 2012. Aspecto léxico, sentido y colocaciones: los nombres de sentimiento. Borealis 1, pp. 63-100.

Sanromán, B. 2014. La alternancia ‘dar / hacer’ en construcciones con verbo de apoyo y nombre de comunicación. Borealis 3, pp. 185-222.

38



Sanromán, B. 2015. The role of determiners in Spanish light verb constructions. Word 61, pp. 178-200.

Stassen, L. 1997. Intransitive predication. Oxford, Clarendon Press.Stepanov, Arthur. 2007. The end of CED? Minimalism and extraction domains.

Syntax 10 (1): 80-126.Stowell, Timothy. 1995. Remarks on clause structure, in A. Cardinaletti and M. T.

Guasti (eds.), Syntax and Semantics 28: Small Clauses. San Diego, Academic Press, 271-286.

Svenonius, P. 2008. The position of adjectives and other phrasal modifiers in the decomposition of DP. In L. McNaly & C. Kennedy (eds.), Adjectives and adverbs. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Svenonius, Peter. 2010. Spatial prepositions in Syntax, in G. Cinque and L. Rizzi (eds.), Mapping spatial PPs: Cartography of syntactic structures, vol. 6. Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 127-160.

Tenny, Carol. 1986. Grammaticalizing aspect and affectedness. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.

Truswell, Robert. 2007. Extraction from adjuncts and the structure of events. Lingua 117: 1355-1377.

van den Berg, R. 1989. A grammar of the Muna language. Dordrecht, Foris Publications.

Vendler, Zeno. 1967. Facts and Events, in Zeno Vendler, Linguistics in Philosophy: 122-146.

Verkuyl, Henk J. 1993. A theory of aspectuality. The interaction between temporal and atemporal structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Vlach, Frank. 1981. The semantics of the progressive, in P. Tedeschi and A. Zaenen (eds.), Syntax and semantics 14: Tense and Aspect. New York: Academic Press.

Wilson, S. 1999. Coverbs and complex predicates in Wagiman. Stanford, CSLI Publications.

Wiltschko, M. 2014. The universal structure of categories. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Zwart, Jan-Wouter. 1993. Dutch syntax: A minimalist Approach. Ph. D. Dissertation, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen.

39


filcat.uab.catfilcat.uab.cat/pagines_clt/activitats/barcelona2.docx · web view(6)spanning o...

Documents