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In my Cahuilla Grammar (Seiler 1977:276-282) and in a subsequent paper (Seiler 1980:229-236) I have drawn attention to the fact that many kin terms in this language, especially those that have a corresponding reciprocal term in the ascending direction – like niece or nephew in relation to aunt – occur in two expressions of quite different morphological shape. The following remarks are intended to furnish an explanation of this apparent duplicity.
It is by now a weIl-known topic in semantics that there are striking similarities between the meanings of nominal and verbal expressions, insofar as the mass:count distinction in the nominal domain is reflected in the atelic:telic distinction in the verbal domain (cf. Leisi 1953, Taylor 1977, Bach 1986, to cite just a few authors). However, these supposed similarities have not be made explicit in formal representations.
This paper addresses the syntax and semantics plurals, and then applies it to reciprocal expressions. In the course of this investigation, I address two problems for the conventional view that a reciprocal makes essentially the same semantic contribution to the sentence as other noun phrases, but has an interesting internal structure. I will show that both problems are properties of plurality in general, and can be successfully explained along these lines. As a result, the paper is more about plurality in general than reciprocals though the goal of the paper is to account for the two problems relating to reciprocals.
The paper investigates the issue whether the stage-level/individual level contrast introduced by Carlson 1977 requires the assumption of two homonymous copulas depending on the categorization of the predicative. We argue that instead of a uniform stage-level/individual level distinction we have to distinguish several similar but independent contrasts, none of which crucially depend on the semantics of the copula. In the second part of the paper, we concentrate on one group of phenomena-the distribution of weak subjects-and propose an explanation in terms of an interaction between topic/comment structure and aspectual properties of the predicate.
In this paper I investigate the properties of the copula-like verb 'ficar' in Brazilian Portuguese using Pustejovsky's generative lexicon (GL). The verb 'ficar' can be translated as 'stay' or 'become', depending on its complement. With locatives, only the STAY reading is possible. With adjectival complements, both BECOME and STAY readings are possible. I propose that 'ficar' takes an eventuality as its complement and I argue that there is no need to create multiple lexical entries for it, since the readings are the result of the possible combinations between the transition denoted by 'ficar' and the properties of the stative complements.
I argue that the BECOME reading with adjectival predicates is the result of combining part of the qualia of the adjectival predicate with the TRANSITION of 'ficar'. The STAY readings of 'ficar'+adjective are the result of shadowing the transition. In the case of 'ficar'+locative, the BECOME reading is unavailable. Departing from the hypothesis that subevents have to be linked to arguments in order to be able to be modified by certain types of modifiers or be selected by certain types of heads, I argue that the transition, in the case of locative complements, is not associated to any argument because nothing in the qualia of the locative complement is compatible with a transition, given that there is not motion component in either 'ficar' or the locative. Unlinked to any argument, the TRANSITION can only be part of the 'constant' meaning of the verb, which explains why it is not available for modification.
Der vorliegende Band setzt im Anschluß an den Band ZAS Papers in Linguistics 14 (1999) die Vorpublikation von Arbeiten fort, die innerhalb oder im Umkreis des von der DFG geförderten Projekts "Schnittstellen der Semantik: Kopula-Prädikativ-Konstruktionen" am ZAS entstanden sind. Das Rahmenthema, wie es in ZASPiL 14 einleitend knapp umrissen wurde, wird derzeit im Projekt in drei Untersuchungssträngen bearbeitet. Sie beinhalten
(1) die Klärung der in der Literatur auch weiterhin häufig bemühten, aber keineswegs eindeutig verankerten, sondern auf mehrere Domänen zu verteilenden Distinktion von Stage Level Predicates vs. Individual Level Predicates (kurz: SLP/ILP-Problematik);
(2) die Klärung des Situationsbezugs von Kopula-Prädikativ-Konstruktionen (KPK) im Hinblick auf die ontologische Natur, die lexikalische Fundierung und die syntaktische Verwaltung des referentiellen Arguments von KPK (kurz: Argumentstruktur von KPK);
(3) die vertiefte Analyse der notorisch idiosynkratischen Kopulaverben in Prädikationsstrukturen, nicht zuletzt im Hinblick auf diejenigen Vorkommen solcher Verben, in denen sie gemeinhin als "Hilfsverben" gelten, was wiederum eine umfassende Analyse der infiniten Verbformen einschließt (kurz: lexical vs. functional category features).
The present investigation is concerned with German participles II (past participles) as lexical heads of adjuncts.
Within a minimalist framework of sound-meaning correlation, the analysis presupposes a lexicalist conception of morphology and the differentiation of Semantic Form and Conceptual Structure. It is argued that participles II have the same argument structure as the underlying verbs and can undergo passivization, perfectivization and conversion to adjectives. As for the potential of participles to function as modifiers, it is shown that attributive and adverbial participle constructions involve further operations of conversion. Participle constructions are considered as reduced sentences. They do not have a syntactic position for the subject, for an operator (comparable to the relative pronoun in relative clauses) or for an adverbial relator (as in adverbial clauses). The pertinent components are present only in the semantic structure.
Two templates serve the composition of modifiers - including participle constructions - with the modificandum. It is necessary to differentiate between modification which unifies two predicates relating to participants or to situations and frame setting modification where the modifier is given the status of a propositional operator.
The proposed analysis shows that the high degree of semantic underspecification and interpretative flexibility of German participle II constructions resides in the indeterminacy of participles II with respect to voice and perfect, in the absence of certain constituents in the syntactic structure and in the presence of corresponding parameters in the Semantic Form of the participle phrases.
The paper investigates a recent proposal to resultativity by G. Jäger and R. Blutner (J&B). J&B say that the representation of result states of accomplishments by means of CAUSE and BECOME is not correct and should not be done in the syntax in terms of decomposition. They develop an axiomatic approach where each accomplishment/achievement is related to its result by a particular axiom. Modification of the result by "again" makes use of these axioms and the restitutive/resultative ambiguity is a matter of lexical ambiguity or polysemy. They argue that the classical decomposition theory cannot treat the restitutive reading of "A Delaware settled in New Jersey again" (there had been Delawares in New Jersey but not this particular one; and those earlier Delawares never moved to New Jersey but were borne there). I discuss (and dispute) these data and compare the two theories. J&B's contains an OT-part dealing with the disambiguating role of stress. While the decomposition theory cannot deal with the data mentioned, it can integrate the OT-part of J&B's theory.
Rethinking the adjunct
(2000)
The purpose of the present paper is twofold: first, to show that, when defining the adjunct, it is necessary to distinguish in a strict modular way between the syntactic level and the lexico-semantic level. Thus, the adjunct is a syntactic category on a par with the specifier and the complement, whereas the argument belongs to the same set as does (among others) the modifier. The consequence of this distinction is that there is no direct one-to-one opposition between adjuncts and arguments. Nor is there any direct one-to one relation between adjuncts and modifiers.
The second and main purpose of the paper is to account for the well-known difference between the position of a specific set of modifiers (cause, time, place etc.) in, on the one hand, English and Swedish, on the other, German. In English and Swedish the default position of these modifiers is postverbal, whereas in German it is preverbal. Further, in English and Swedish, these modifiers occur in a mirror order compared with their German counterparts, an order which, from a semantic point of view, is not the expected one. I shall demonstrate that this difference is due to the different settings of the verbal head parameter, the former languages being VO-languages and the latter being OV -languages. I shall further argue that in English and Swedish these modifiers are base generated as adjuncts to an empty VP, which is a complement of the main verb of what I shall call the minimal VP (MVP), whereas in German they are adjuncts on top of the MVP. Finally, I shall argue that the postverbal modifiers move at the latest at LF to the top of the MVP, in order to take scope over it, the restriction being 'Shortest move'. The movement results in the correct scope order of the postverbal modifiers.
The proposed structure also accounts for the binding data, in particular for the binding of a specific Swedish possessive anaphor 'sin'. This pronoun, which may occur within the MVP, must not occur within the postverbal modifiers in the empty VP. This supports the assumption that there is a strict borderline between the MVP and the assumed empty VP. The account is also in accordance with the focus data, the specific set of modifiers being potential focus exponents in a wide focus reading in English and Swedish, but not in German.