Universidad de La Rioja International Symposium on Verbs, Clauses and Constructions Logroño, 22. – 24. 10. 2014 The syntax-semantics interface of PP resultatives in Italian and English Rainer Osswald 1 & Anna Riccio 2 1 Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Germany 2 Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale”, Italy SFB 991
1 Rainer Osswald & Anna Riccio The syntax-semantics interface of PP resultatives in Italian and English VCC 2014 / Logroño, 24.10.2014 Outline 1. Examples of PP resultative constructions in English and Italian 2. Informal semantic analysis of the different types of PP resultatives 3. Role and Reference Grammar and the syntax-semantics interface 4. Decompositional frame semantics 5. Syntactic analysis of PP resultative constructions 6. Constructional schemas with frame semantics for PP resultatives 7. Formal decomposition of the constructional schemas
VCC 2014 / Logroño, 24.10.2014 f. The syntax-semantics interface of PP resultatives in Italian and English Rainer Osswald & Anna Riccio d. c. b. (3) a. d. c. b. 2 g. (2) a. e. [cf. Carrier & Randall 1992, Boas 2003, Goldberg & Jackendoff 2004, Gehrke 2008, etc.] d. (1) a. c. b. PP resultatives English John cut the meat in ( to ) cubes. Mary tore the sheet into strips . The grocer ground the beans ( in ) to a fine powder . They gathered the wood into a pile . She pounded the dough into a pancake . The iceberg broke into several small pieces . The butter melted into a lumpy liquid . Kim swept the leaves into a pile . She ran her sneakers to tatters . The professor talked us into a stupor . He sang himself to exhaustion . John ran / danced into the kitchen . The ball rolled under the table . John pushed / rolled the barrel into the kitchen . Mary sneezed the tissue off the table .
VCC 2014 / Logroño, 24.10.2014 e. The syntax-semantics interface of PP resultatives in Italian and English [cf. Napoli 1992, Kaufmann & Wunderlich 1998, Folli & Ramchand 2006, Riccio 2014, etc.] (4) a. Rainer Osswald & Anna Riccio c. b. b. (6) a. c. ‘ He runs his shoes to pieces. ’ 3 d. PP resultatives Italian Gianni ha rotto il vaso in mille pezzi . ‘ Gianni broke the vase in a thousand pieces. ’ La lastra di cristallo si è rotta in cinque pezzi . ‘ The crystal platter broke into five pieces. ’ Il metallo fonde in una massa bollente . ‘ The metal melted to a boiling mass. ’ La cuoca ha pressato la carne a fettine sottili . ‘ The cook pressed the meat to thin slices. ’ Hanno rastrellato le foglie in un mucchio . ‘ They raked the leaves into a pile. ’ (5) a. #Hanno spazzato le foglie in un mucchio . ‘ They swept the leaves into a pile. ’ b. # Corre le sue scarpe a brandelli . Gianni è corso /# danzato nella stanza . ‘ Gianni ran/danced into the room. ’ La palla rotolò sotto il tavolo . ‘ The ball rolled under the table. ’ Ho spinto il pianoforte nella sala da pranzo . ‘ I pushed the piano into the dining room. ’
VCC 2014 / Logroño, 24.10.2014 4 The syntax-semantics interface of PP resultatives in Italian and English Rainer Osswald & Anna Riccio in resultative constructions. [cf. Washio 1997] change expressed in the construction. expressed in the construction. PP resultatives English • High flexibility with respect to adding (and dropping) semantic arguments • The meaning of the verb does not necessarily entail or implicate the type of → strong resultatives are allowed Italian • Only arguments of the verbal predicate can occur in resultative constructions. • The meaning of the verb naturally entails or implicates the type of change → only weak resultatives are permitted
VCC 2014 / Logroño, 24.10.2014 into a stupor The syntax-semantics interface of PP resultatives in Italian and English Rainer Osswald & Anna Riccio [≈ Kaufmann & Wunderlich 1998, Levin & Rappaport Hovav 2004, Riccio 2014, among others] off the table sneeze 5 talk Semantic analysis The event structure of strong resultatives • An additional (telic) subevent is added by the meaning of the result PP which is (interpreted as being) caused by the event denoted by the verb. • The additional subevent is about a change of state or location of an entity which is (usually) not referred to by an argument of the verb. • The composition of the semantic representations is (fairly) straightforward: do ′ ( x , talk ′ ( x )) BECOME be-in-a-stupor ′ ( y ) → [ do ′ ( x , talk ′ ( x ))] CAUSE [ BECOME be-in-a-stupor ′ ( y )] do ′ ( x , sneeze ′ ( x )) BECOME NOT be-on ′ ( table , y ) → [ do ′ ( x , sneeze ′ ( x ))] CAUSE [ BECOME NOT be-on ′ ( table , y )]
VCC 2014 / Logroño, 24.10.2014 rake (= gather with a rake ) The syntax-semantics interface of PP resultatives in Italian and English Rainer Osswald & Anna Riccio does so (e.g., fare scivolare ‘(make) slide’). This issue is closely related to the question of the proper semantic representation of the event representation associated with the verb. form of the resulting accumulation accumulation (scale) 6 into a pile location of the end point of the path path (scale) into the room run describes some (final) value on that scale. Semantic analysis The event structure of weak resultatives • The result PP does not introduce an additional subevent but imposes a result condition on a (dynamic) component of the event denoted by the verb. • The event denoted by the verb can be characterized as a change along a certain dimension or scale (of one of the arguments), and the result PP • The semantic composition operation needs to access the internal structure of active accomplishments ! [ → Van Valin, yesterday’s talk] Remark: Weak resultatives can also denote complex events given that the verbal predicate
VCC 2014 / Logroño, 24.10.2014 [on PP resultatives see, e.g., Folli & Ramchand 2005, Mateu 2012] The syntax-semantics interface of PP resultatives in Italian and English Rainer Osswald & Anna Riccio the level of syntactic representations. [Van Valin, Bresnan, Sag, Wunderlich, etc.] 7 “Linking” frameworks [Hale & Keyser, Ramchand, and many others] “Syntactocentric” frameworks The syntax-semantics interface Two kinds of frameworks • Assumption of a tight coupling of event structure and morphosyntax. • Predicate decompositions are regarded as syntactic representations. • Assumption of a very abstract level of syntax. • Elimination of the traditional distinction between the lexical and the phrasal level. • A more concrete and surface-oriented notion of syntax. • The distinction between the syntactic and the semantic levels is maintained. • A linking theory is concerned with the interaction between syntax and semantics. → The difference between strong and weak resultatives may not be visible at
VCC 2014 / Logroño, 24.10.2014 8 The syntax-semantics interface of PP resultatives in Italian and English [e.g. Van Valin 2005] Rainer Osswald & Anna Riccio The syntax-semantics interface Overall organization of Role and Reference Grammar (RRG) SENTENCE CORE LDP CLAUSE RP NUCL RP PP P r CS CORE PERIPHERY CORE PRED RP NUCL PP RP NUCL PRED PRED V ADV RP PP Syntactic Syntactic representation inventory Discourse-pragmatics Linking Constructional algorithm schemas � M ORPHOLOGY — � � S YNTAX Juncture: nuclear � � Lexicon Semantic representation � Nexus: cosubordination � � Construction: � CORE � � � � RP NUCL RP � [ do ′ ( x , ∅ )] CAUSE [ INGR shattered ′ ( y )] � � NUCL 1 NUCL 2 � � � � � IF INT � TNS PRES � ASP PERF PROG � do ′ ( Kim, [ cry ′ ( Kim )] ���� � Linking: default � � � S EMANTICS [SEM NUCL 1 ] CAUSE [SEM NUCL 2 ] � � � P RAGMATICS unspecified �
VCC 2014 / Logroño, 24.10.2014 8 The syntax-semantics interface of PP resultatives in Italian and English [e.g. Van Valin 2005] Rainer Osswald & Anna Riccio The syntax-semantics interface Overall organization of Role and Reference Grammar (RRG) SENTENCE CORE LDP CLAUSE RP NUCL RP PP P r CS CORE PERIPHERY CORE PRED RP NUCL PP RP NUCL PRED PRED V ADV RP PP Syntactic Syntactic representation inventory Discourse-pragmatics Linking Constructional algorithm schemas � M ORPHOLOGY — � � � S YNTAX Juncture: nuclear � Lexicon Semantic representation � Nexus: cosubordination � � Construction: � CORE � � � � RP NUCL RP � � � NUCL NUCL � � � � � Linking: default � � CAUSE EFFECT � S EMANTICS � � � P RAGMATICS unspecified �
Recommend
More recommend
