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ASPECTS OF
THE ORGANIZATION OF REDUNDANCY RULES
I N THE LEXICON
Raghavachar i A m r i t a v a l l i
M . A . , Bangalore U n i v e r s i t y , 1972
M . A . , Simon F r a s e r U n i v e r s i t y , 1977
A THESIS SUBMITTED I N PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
i n t h e Department
of
Languages, L i t e r a t u r e s , and L i n g u i s t i c s
@ Raghavachar i A m r i t a v a l l i 1980
SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY
29 August 1980
A l l r i g h t s r e s e r v e d . T h i s work may n o t be reproduced i n whole o r i n p a r t , by photocopy
o r o t h e r means, w i t h o u t p e r m i s s i o n of t h e a u t h o r .
APPROVAL
Name : Raghavachari ~ m r i t a v a l l i
Degree: Doctor of Phi losophy
T i t l e o f D i s s e r t a t i o n : Aspects o f t h e O r g a n i z a t i o n o f Redundancy
Rules i n t h e Lexicon.
Examining Committee:
Chairman : Ross Saunders
Richard C. DeArmond S e n i o r S u p e r v i s o r
B r i a n E. Newton
'. Thomas Wasow E x t e r n a l Examiner A s s o c i a t e P r o f e s s o r S t a n f o r d u n i v e r s i t y S t a n f o r d , C a l i f o r n i a , U.S.A.
PARTIAL COPYRIGHT LICENSE
I hereby g r a n t t o Simon F ra se r Un ive r s i t y t h e r i g h t t o lend
my t h e s i s o r d i s s e r t a t i o n ( t he t i t l e of which i s shown below) t o u s e r s
of t he Simon F ra se r Univers i ty Library , and t o make p a r t i a l o r s i n g l e
copies on ly f o r such u s e r s or i n response t o a r eques t from the l i b r a r y
of any o the r u n i v e r s i t y , o r o the r educa t iona l i n s t i t u t i o n , on i ts own
beha l f o r f o r one of i t s u s e r s . I f u r t h e r agree t h a t permission f o r
mu l t i p l e copying of t h i s t h e s i s f o r s c h o l a r l y purposes may be gran ted
by me or the Dean of Graduate S tudies . It is understood t h a t copying
or pub l i ca t i on of t h i s t h e s i s f o r f i n a n c i a l ga in s h a l l no t be allowed
without my w r i t t e n permission.
T i t l e of Thesis I ~ i s s e r t a t i o n :
Author :
( s igna tu re )
(name )
( d a t e )
ABSTRACT
This thesis examines the lexical redundancy rules for
derivationally related words, and draws two theoretically
relevant conclusions: that subcategorizational correspondences
must be captured by lexical rules stated in terms of thematic
functions, and that the rules for semantic and morphological
redundancies are independent.
Subcategorizational correspondences in sentences and noun
phrases are currently captured (by the X-bar theory of phrase
structure) by generalizing the grammatical relations of the S to
the NP. This strategy is shown to fail for deadjectival
nominals, and to be inappropriate for deverbal nominals. In
Chapter Two, an apparently irregular subcategorizational pattern
is shown to arise for a semantically coherent class of verbs:
causative verbs whose objects are "Experiencers. " Crucial evidence comes from verbs which take both Experiencer and
non-Experiencer objects, which are shown to have two patterns of
nominalization.
In light of these data, the role of thematic functions in
lexical rules is examined in Chapter Three. A distinction
between "majorw and ltminorW lexical rules is retained, and two
possible accounts of minor rules are compared: one where both
grammatical and thematic information are accessed, another where
only thematic information is accessed. The latter hypothesis is
C
iii
argued to be superior.
In Chapter Four, data are presented showing the
cross-classification of morphological and semantic relationships
between words, and this is shown to be problematic for the
theory of word based morphology advocated by Aronoff. A model of
the lexicon is developed which expresses the
cross-classification.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I wish t o thank t h e Canadian Commonwealth S c h o l a r s h i p and
F e l l o w s h i p Committee f o r g i v i n g m e t h e o p p o r t u n i t y t o t r a v e l t o
Canada and s t u d y a t t h i s u n i v e r s i t y , and t h e C e n t r a l I n s t i t u t e
o f E n g l i s h and F o r e i g n Languages, Hyderabad, I n d i a , f o r g r a n t i n g
m e l e a v e f o r t h e d u r a t i o n of my s t u d i e s .
To t h e members of my s u p e r v i s o r y committee, P r o f e s s o r s
R ichard DeArmond and B r i a n Newton, I am i n d e b t e d f o r t h e i r
gu idance , t h e i r p a t i e n c e and encouragement , and t h e i r k indness .
My s t u d y of t h e l e x i c o n was i n i t i a t e d by J o e l Hust ; my
t h a n k s t o him.
I a m g r a t e f u l t o P r o f . Wasow f o r h i s comments on a n e a r l i e r
v e r s i o n of some of t h e material p r e s e n t e d i n t h i s t h e s i s .
My t h a n k s a l s o t o my f r i e n d s a t SFU and e l s e w h e r e : ~ e r m i n ,
R i t a , Margarita, Terence , M a l i l l o , Mohan and T a r a , f o r s h a r i n g
w i t h me t h e e x c i t e m e n t o f new i d e a s , and f o r t h e i r l o v e and
f r i e n d s h i p .
TABLE OF CO-8 . . Approva 1 .............................................................. i i
.. . Abstract ............................................................. 111 Dedication ............................................................. v Acknowledgements ...................................................... v i
CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION .......................1.................*............ 1
1 . Overview ........................................... 1 2 . L e x i c a l Redundancies i n Aspects and Remarks ........ 6
3 . The wLoca lneasw of L e x i c a l Ru les .................. 16
FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER ONE .............................. 5
CHAPTER TWO THE DESCRIPTIVE INADEQUACY OF GRAMMATICAL RELATIONS ..................................................... 30 1.An Al leged P a r a l l e l i s m ............................. 30 2 . The S u b j e c t l e s s n e s s o f P r e d i c a t e A d J e c t i v e s ....... 32
3 . An " I r r e g u l a r w Class of Deverbal Norninals ......... 49
FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER TWO ......... .................... 64
CHAPTER THREE THE EXPLANATORY FAILURE OF GRAMMATICAL FUNCTIONS ...................................................... 72
1 . Two Hypotheses .................................... 72
2 . Major and Minor L e x i c a l Ru les ..................... 75
3 . A Cross-Morphological R e g u l a r i t y .................. 83 .................... 4 . The Themat ic -Syn tac t i c Mapping 99
P o s t s c r i p t : Thematic F u n c t i o n s ...................... 110
FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER THREE ............ .............,12 2
v i i
CHAPTER FOUR MORPHOLOGICAL AND SEMANTIC ASPECTS OF WORD
FORMATION
1 . Preliminaries .................................... 135 2 . The Cross Classification of Morphology and
Semantics ........................................ 137 3 . A Model .......................................... 155 4 . Implications for Productivity and Semantic
Coherence ........................................ 171 5 . Residual Issues .................................. 177 6 . Concluding Remarks ................................ 190
........................... FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER FOUR 193
BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................. 206
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1. Overview - In 1970, Chomsky argued in Remarks - on Nominalization for a
substantial reduction in the power of transformations. The
revision of syntactic theory that he proposed was to isolate and
remove from the transformational component all matters
pertaining to derivational morphology, and to concomitantly
enrich the phrase structure and the lexicon, in order to provide
the grammar with alternative mechanisms for capturing
generalizations which were now excluded from the purview of
transformations. The theoretical position outlined in Remarks - on
Nominalization has come to be known as the Lexicalist
Hypothesis, and in the last decade it has had important
consequences for research in two major, hitherto neglected,
areas: the base, and the lexicon. In this thesis we shall be
concerned mainly with the lexicon, in particular, with the
notion Hlexical redundancy rule." I shall propose a hypothesis
regarding the mode of operation of one type of lexical
redundancy rule, and follow up the consequences of my hypothesis
for the theory of word formation. /
Remarks - on Nomina l i za t ion ( h e n c e f o r t h Remarks) c o n s t i t u t e s
t h e f i rs t acknowledgement w i t h i n t h e t h e o r y of t r a n s f o r m a t i o n a l
grammar t h a t t h e i n t e r n a l o r g a n i z a t i o n of t h e l e x i c o n might be
t h e o r e t i c a l l y i n t e r e s t i n g . We may t r a c e t h e e v o l u t i o n o f t h e
l e x i c o n as a l e g i t i m a t e f i e l d o f i n q u i r y from S y n t a c t i c
S t r u c t u r e s (Chomsky 1957), where t h e l e x i c o n i s e n t i r e l y a b s e n t
( l e x i c a l items b e i n g i n t r o d u c e d by c a t e g o r i a l r u l e s o f t h e
base), through Aspects of t h e Theory of Syntax , where i t i s -- - t a k e n t o be "simply a n unordered l i s t of a l l l e x i c a l f o r m a t i v e s m
(Chomsky 1965:84) t o g e t h e r w i t h t h e i r " e s s e n t i a l l y
l d i o a y n c r a t i c w p h o n o l o g i c a l , s y n t a c t i c and s e m a n t i c f e a t u r e s , t o
t h e l e x i c o n of Remarks, w i t h i t s p r o v i s i o n f o r t h e 9 9 n e u t r a l w
l e x i c a l e n t r y , u n s p e c i f i e d as t o s y n t a c t i c c a t e g o r y , w i t h i n
which are o r g a n i z e d words o f t h e same morpho log ica l f l family" and
t h e f e a t u r e s s h a r e d by them. I l l u s t r a t i n g how such a l e x i c a l
e n t r y can be g i v e n f o r verb-noun p a i r s l i k e r e f u s e - r e f u s a l ,
d e s t r o y - d e s t r u c t i o n , Chomsky s u g g e s t s t h a t t h i s is t h e g e n e r a l
s i t u a t i o n w i t h i n t h e l e x i c o n :
We can e n t e r r e f u s e i n t h e l e x i c o n a s an i t e m w i t h c e r t a i n f i x e d s e l e c t i o n a l and s t r i c t s u b c a t e g o r i z a t i o n f e a t u r e s , which i s free w i t h r e s p e c t t o t h e c a t e g o r i a l
- f e a t u r e s [noun] and [verb] . F a i r l y i d i o s y n c r a t i c morpho log ica l r u l e s w i l l de te rmine t h e p h o n o l o g i c a l form o f r e f u s e , d e s t r o y , e t c . , when t h e s e items a p p e a r i n t h e noun p o s i t i o n . The f a c t t h a t r e f u s e t a k e s a noun p h r a s e complement o r a reduced s e n t e n t i a l complement and d e s t r o y on ly a noun p h r a s e complement, e i t h e r a a a noun o r as a v e r b , i s e x p r e s s e d by t h e f e a t u r e s t r u c t u r e of t h e n n e u t r a l w l e x i c a l e n t r y , as a r e s e l e c t i o n a l p r o p e r t i e s . . . .
Let us propose, then, as a tentative hypothesis, that a great many items appear in the lexicon with fixed selectional and strict subcategorization features, but with a choice as to the features associated with the lexical categories noun, verb, adJective. (Chomsky 1970:lgO)
With the evolution of the lexicon from a mere list
(presumably of morphologically primitive words only) into a more
extended component with internal structure, questions arise as
to how much and what kind of information there is in the
lexicon, what information is idiosyncratic and what predictable,
and how the predictability is to be encoded. The "neutralv
lexical entry was proposed by Chomsky as one such device for
encoding predictability. In addition, Chomsky (1970) suggested
that regularities in the lexicon be expressed by lexical
redundancy rules.
The notion wlexical redundancy rulew is not unique to
Remarks; it had been introduced earlier, in Aspects -- of the
Theory - of Syntax (henceforth Aspects). However, with each
modification in the conception of the lexicon and its contents,
different types of redundancies are uncovered that are
apparently lexical, and the roles envisaged for lexical
redundancy rules change and multiply. We shall see that at
present the notion of a lexical redundancy is invoked for a
variety of phenomena, and the types of lexical rules we can now
identify are rather different in form and function from the
lexical redundancy rules originally proposed in Aspects. The
situation of the lexical rule today is analogous to that of the
transformational rule in the early, pre-lexicalist, phases of
generative grammar. Since the theory at that time provided
little alternative to the transformational rule for
characterizing the many kinds of distributional regularities
observed in a language, this one rule-type was employed to
capture diverse kinds of generalizations. What Chomsky attempted
in Remarks was to separate out from a number of allegedly
transformational phenomena those that could legitimately be so
characterized. This precise articulation of the domain of
transformations was only the first step towards arriving at a
narrower and more restrictive definition of transformational
rules; subsequent research has postulated many other conditions
on the form and function of these rules -- compare, for example, the typology of transformations presented in Emonds (1970,
1976), and the proposals of Chomsky in Conditions - on
Transformations (1973) and subsequent work.
Much of the ground that the transformational rule has lost
has been gained by the lexical redundancy rule. The principal
outcome of Remarks was to transfer to the domain of the lexical
rule from that of the transformational rule the regularities
exhibited by derivationally related words. The framework
provided by Remarks and the typology of transformations proposed
by Emonds also paved the way for a further erosion of the domain
of transformations, widely proposed in the current literature:
the elimination of all structure-preserving transformations in
favor of lexical redundancy rules. While this negative
characterization of the domain of the lexical rule is not
perhaps entirely justified, it does serve to indicate the rapid
and successive extensions in the functions accorded to these
rules, and to point out the need for any discussion of lexical
redundancies to clarify its assumptions.
We may distinguish three stages in the evolution of the
lexical rule: the Aspects stage, the Remarks stage, and the
post-Remarks stage. My object will be to show that these three
evolutionary stages correspond to three distinct rule-types (or
sub-types). My main concern will be with the Remarks-type
lexical rule, and the hypothesis I present applies to rules of
this type. I shall argue that the Remarks-type rule differs from
the Aspects-type rule in crucial respects. I hope to demonstrate
that the distinction between the Remarks-type and the
post-Remarks type (1.e. the kind of lexical rule postulated by
Bresnan 1978) can be motivated on grounds other than theoretical
conservatism. For this, I shall draw support from the insights
of Wasow (1977, 1980).
2. L e x i c a l Redundancies i n Aspects and Remarks - - - I n Aspec t s , Chomsky (1965:167) g i v e s t h e l e x i c a l redundancy
r u l e (I), and i t s i n t e r p r e t a t i o n :
(1) ( = h i s ( 2 6 ) ) [ t - NP Manner] ---> [t-NP]
t o be I n t e r p r e t e d i n t h e f o l l o w i n g manner: i f ( D , C ) i s a l e x i c a l e n t r y w i t h d i s t i n c t i v e f e a t u r e m a t r i x D and complex symbol C c o n t a i n i n g [t - NP Manner], t h e n C i s r e p l a c e d by C 1 , which c o n t a i n s each s p e c i f i e d f e a t u r e [@F] o f C , where F # [ t - NP], and a l s o t h e s p e c i f i e d f e a t u r e [t - NP] .
For example, t h e v e r b - h i t might be e n t e r e d i n t h e l e x i c o n
as ( 2 ) :
(2)(=Chomsky1s ( 2 8 1 1 ) ) ( h i t , - [t - NP Manner, . . .I) By r u l e (I), supplemented by a g e n e r a l conven t ion (op. c i t . : 165)
which n e g a t i v e l y s p e c i f i e s t h e e n t r y f o r a l l f e a t u r e s i t is n o t
p o s i t i v e l y s p e c i f i e d f o r , w e d e r i v e a l e x i c a l e n t r y ( 3 ) f o r - h i t :
( 3 ) (=Chomskyls ( 2 9 1 1 ) ) ( h i t , - [t - NP Manner, t - NP,
- Manner, - - -3 . I >
That is , - h i t must a lways a p p e a r w i t h a d i r e c t o b j e c t , b u t i t can
a p p e a r w i t h o r w i t h o u t a manner a d v e r b i a l .
The l e x i c a l redundancy r u l e (1) i s e s s e n t i a l l y t h e
s y n t a c t i c ana logue of redundancy r u l e s i n phonology. The l e x i c a l
e n t r y f o r a l e x i c a l i t e m i s minimal ly s p e c i f i e d f o r i t s r e l e v a n t
f e a t u r e s ; on t h e b a s i s o f t h i s minimal f e a t u r e s p e c i f i c a t i o n ,
t h e r u l e f i l l s i n p r e d i c t a b l e f e a t u r e s i n t h i s l e x i c a l e n t r y ,
f o r t h e same l e x i c a l item.1 - The redundancy r u l e above i s concerned w i t h c o n t e x t u a l
f e a t u r e s , and i t i s hypo thes ized t o be l a n g u a g e - p a r t i c u l a r
(Chomsky 1965:168) . There i s one o t h e r t y p e o f word- In te rna l
redundancy c o n s i d e r e d i n Aspects : t h i s i n v o l v e s i n t r i n s i c
f e a t u r e s t h a t a r e f i l l e d i n by u n i v e r s a l redundancy conven t ions .
(Note t h a t t h e s e are n o t redundancy r u l e s . ) Where a l e x i c a l I tem
c o n t a i n s i n h e r e n t f e a t u r e s t h a t are h i e r a r c h i c r a t h e r t h a n
c r o s s - c l a s s i f y i n g , f e a t u r e s h i g h e r up on t h e h i e r a r c h y can be
p r e d i c t e d , g i v e n f e a t u r e s lower down. Chomsky t h e r e f o r e s u g g e s t s
(1965:165):
L e t u s s a y t h a t t h e sequence of s p e c i f i e d f e a t u r e s ([@I F l ] , . . . ,[o(n Fn]) (d l= t o r - ) i s a h i e r a r c h i c se uence w i t h r e s e c t t o t h e &rammar G i rP- 1 P i 1 i s t h e b c - d e a t u r e - ? h K t l y d o m i n ~ t i f i ~ ' ~ ~ i + l F i t l ] , f o r e a c h i < n , i n G. . . . Where such r e l a t i o n s h i p s o b t a i n , w e can u t r l i z e them t o s i m p l i f y l e x i c a l e n t r i e s
H e s u g g e s t s t h e f o l l o w i n g conven t ion ( i b i d ) :
Suppose t h a t ( [ d 1 F1 1 , . . . , [o(n Fn] ) is a maximal h i e r a r c h i c sequence w i t h r e s p e c t t o t h e grammar G , and t h a t ( D , C ) i s a l e x i c a l e n t r y of G , where C c o n t a i n s [dn Pn]. Then C i s extended a u t o m a t i c a l l y t o C 1 c o n t a i n i n g C a l o n g w i t h a l l o f t h e s p e c i f i e d f e a t u r e s [dl F i ] , f o r each 1, 1 - <i <n.
Thus g i v e n t h e s u b c a t e g o r i z a t i o n r u l e s (4) (Chomsky 1965 :82) ,
w e can s i m p l i f y t h e l e x i c a l e n t r y f o r boy from ( 5 ) t o (61, t h e
f e a t u r e s [+N] and [+Animate] b e i n g p r e d i c t a b l e (Chomsky
1965:166).
( 5 ) (boy, [ t N , +Common, +Animate, +Human, +Count . . -1)
I n g e n e r a l , t h e n , t h e l e x i c a l r edundanc ies d i s c u s s e d i n Aspects
a r e concerned w i t h t h e f e a t u r e m a t r i x o f a s i n g l e l e x i c a l i tem.
There a r e , however, i n d i c a t i o n s ( a l r e a d y ) i n Aspects t h a t
l e x i c a l s t r u c t u r e s and l e x i c a l r edundanc ies may t u r n o u t t o be
more complex. Thus Chomsky writes:
If we r e g a r d a l e x i c a l e n t r y as a s e t of f e a t u r e s , t h e n items t h a t a r e similar i n sound, meaning o r s y n t a c t i c f u n c t i o n w i l l n o t be r e l a t e d t o one a n o t h e r i n t h e l e x i c o n . For example, t h e I n t r a n s i t i v e "groww o f " t h e boy grewn o r "corn grows, and t h e T r a n s i t i v e ngrowfl o f "he grows corn1' would have t o c o n s t i t u t e two s e p a r a t e l e x i c a l e n t r i e s , d e s p i t e t h e meaning r e l a t i o n t h a t h o l d s between them . . . The same would be t r u e o f "dropm i n " t h e p r i c e dropped," "he dropped t h e b a l l , " "he dropped t h a t s i l l y p r e t e n s e " ; o r of wcomrnandN i n t h e example d i s c u s s e d on p.119, and i n innumerable o t h e r c a s e s o f many d i f f e r e n t k inds . A l t e r n a t i v e l y , such r e l a t i o n s h i p s can be e x p r e s s e d by t a k i n g a l e x i c a l e n t r y t o be a Boolean f u n c t i o n of f e a t u r e s . Although i t i s l i k e l y t h a t such a m o d i f i c a t i o n o f t h e t h e o r y of l e x i c a l s t r u c t u r e i s n e c e s s a r y , i t raises many problems o f f a c t and p r i n c i p l e t o which I have no answer, and I t h e r e f o r e c o n t i n u e t h e e x p o s i t i o n wi thou t d e v e l o p i n g it. (Chomsky 1965:214, f n . 1 5 )
The c a s e of command t h a t Chomsky refers t o above p o s e s t h e
problem o f c a p t u r i n g a n a p p a r e n t dependency between t h e
s e l e c t i o n a l f e a t u r e s o f t h e s u b j e c t and o b j e c t o f t h i s word.
T h i s dependency i s i l l u s t r a t e d below:
( 7 ) a . H e commanded t h e p l a t o o n .
b. *His d e c i s i o n t o r e s i g n h i s commission commanded t h e
p l a t o o n .
(8 ) a. H e commanded o u r r e s p e c t .
b. H i s d e c i s i o n t o r e s i g n h i s commission commanded o u r
r e s p e c t .
Chomsky n o t e s t h a t command when i t t a k e s a n a b s t r a c t o b j e c t (as
i n ( 8 ) ) h a s a " d i f f e r e n t though n o t t o t a l l y u n r e l a t e d s e n s e w
from command i n ( 7 ) ( 1 9 6 5 : l l g ) . He t e n t a t i v e l y s u g g e s t s t h a t t h e
s e l e c t i o n a l f e a t u r e s f o r command s p e c i f y t h e dependency between
n o n - a b s t r a c t o b j e c t and non-abs t rac t s u b j e c t . Thus command might
be g i v e n t h e two f e a t u r e s [[+Animate] Aux - D e t [+Animate]]
and [ [ + A b s t r a c t ] Aux - D e t ( + A b s t r a c t ] ] , b u t n o t t h e f e a t u r e
[ [ + A b s t r a c t ] Aux - D e t [+Animate]]. However, Chomsky
acknowledges t h a t
t h e grounds f o r t h i s d e c i s i o n a r e ve ry weak, s i n c e a c r u c i a l q u e s t i o n -- namely, how t o e n t e r l e x i c a l items w i t h a range o f d i s t i n c t b u t related s y n t a c t i c and semant ic f e a t u r e s -- i s f a r from s e t t l e d . (1965: l lg-120) .
Within t h e framework of Remarks, where in t r a n s f o r m a t i o n s
were p r o h i b i t e d from per fo rming d e r i v a t i o n a l morphology, t h i s
q u e s t i o n cou ld no l o n g e r be l e f t u n s e t t l e d . I t became n e c e s s a r y
t o c a p t u r e r e g u l a r i t i e s i n t h e f e a t u r e m a t r i c e s of
morpho log ica l ly r e l a t e d words, each of which was p r e s e n t i n t h e
l e x i c o n i n i ts own r i g h t . Thus w e p o i n t e d o u t i n t h e p r e v i o u s
s e c t i o n t h a t t h e " n e u t r a l n l e x i c a l e n t r y f o r d e r i v a t i o n a l l y
r e l a t e d words i s a t t h e c o r e of t h e Remarks l e x i c o n . A l e x i c a l
e n t r y is no l o n g e r s imply a c o n j u n c t i o n o f t h e f e a t u r e s f o r a
s i n g l e l e x i c a l i tem; i t i n c o r p o r a t e s d i s j u n c t i v e c h o i c e s o f
f e a t u r e s , w i t h each set o f c h o i c e s l e a d i n g t o a " s e p a r a t e b u t
r e l a t e d n l e x i c a l item. Hust (1978) i l l u s t r a t e s s c h e m a t i c a l l y t h e
s t r u c t u r e o f such a l e x i c a l e n t r y . (L - refers t o t l e x i c a l
e n t r y 1 . )
Phono log ica l , s y n t a c t i c and semant ic f e a t u r e s
common t o a l l branches of L
Other f e a t u r e s s p e c i f i e d Other f e a t u r e s s p e c i f i e d f o r L , i f L i s s p e c i f i e d f o r L, i f L is s p e c i f i e d w i t h t h e f e a t u r e - f w i t h t h e f e a t u r e g
He s ta tes : " t h e f e a t u r e complexes which r e s u l t a t t h e t e r m i n a l
nodes i n such a b ranch ing diagram a r e t h e words ( l e x i c a l i t e m s )
of t h e l anguage , s u b j e c t t o l e x i c a l i n s e r t i o n . "
Such a m o d i f i c a t i o n o f l e x i c a l s t r u c t u r e a l l o w s us n o t
mere ly t o e x p r e s s r e g u l a r i t i e s between m o r p h o l o g i c a l l y r e l a t e d
words, such as r e a d and r e a d a b l e ; i t a l s o o f f e r s a method o f
d e a l i n g w i t h words t h a t are a p p a r e n t l y t h e nsamell word, but
which have a range of r e l a t e d meanings and s y n t a c t i c p r o p e r t i e s ,
such as d r o p and command i n t h e examples g i v e n by Chomsky. We
can now s a y t h a t command i n ( 7 ) i s a s e p a r a t e l e x i c a l item from
command i n ( 8 ) , but r e l a t e d t o i t . Such a n a n a l y s i s o f command
i s mot iva ted i n d e p e n d e n t l y of semant ic c o n s i d e r a t i o n s i n Hust
(1978) . R e c a l l t h a t i f command i s t o be t r e a t e d as a s i n g l e
l e x i c a l item, i t i s n e c e s s a r y f o r s e l e c t i o n a l f e a t u r e s t o encode
s u b j e c t and o b j e c t dependencies . Hust shows t h a t t h e i n c l u s i o n
of such dependenc ies l e a d s t o a n e x p o n e n t i a l i n c r e a s e i n t h e
number o f s e l e c t i o n a l f e a t u r e s i n t h e grammar.2 H e proposes
i n s t e a d t h e f o l l o w i n g ( p a r t i a l l y s p e c i f i e d ) l e x i c a l e n t r y f o r
command, where each t e r m i n a l node r e p r e s e n t s a l e x i c a l i t e m , and
t h e f e a t u r e s s p e c i f i e d f o r a node " p r e c i p i t a t e w o n t o t h e nodes
dominated by it.
command
t NP
-[-human] - (by precipitation)
+ NP - + NP -
This entry shows that when command takes an object like platoon,
it must have a human subject; but when It takes an abstract
object, it is free with respect to subject selection. Hust
points out that "the fact that differences in the meaning of
command correlate with differences in the syntactic feature . constellation lends support to the analysis proposed here,
since, in general, each terminal node in a branching lexical
entry will have certain idiosyncratic features peculiar to just
that lexical item.11 In this and other cases, Hust stresses that
the structure of his lexical entries is not motivated by
semantic conalderations, but that semantic facts follow
neveptheless from his analysis.
We shall in the course of our investigation encounter many
such cases, where non-semantic considerations motivate a
differentiation of homonymous lexical items, and semantic facts
follow from thia differentiation. The differentiation of
homonymous l e x i c a l items i n f a c t t u r n s o u t to b e c r u c i a l f o r t h e
a n a l y s i s of l e x i c a l r edundanc ies , 1.e. f o r t h e e x t r a c t i o n of
r e g u l a r i t i e s i n t h e s u b c a t e g o r i z a t i o n a l frames of
morpho log ica l ly r e l a t e d words. I w i l l show, f o r example, t h a t
t h e v e r b d e p r e s s i n i t s p h y s i c a l s e n s e canno t be t r e a t e d a s t h e
same word a s d e p r e s s i n t h e emot iona l s e n s e . S i m i l a r l y , I w i l l
show t h a t a noun l i k e amusement, i n t h e s e n s e o f a n emot iona l
s t a t e , must be a d i f f e r e n t word f rom t h e noun ( a n ) amusement, i n - t h e s e n s e o f something which can t r igger t h a t emot iona l s t a t e .
Such d i s t i n c t i o n s must be main ta ined r e g a r d l e s s of whether w e
adop t t h e f t n e u t r a l w l e x i c a l e n t r y , o r t h e f u l l y s p e c i f i e d
l e x i c a l e n t r y w i t h t t c o s t l e s s w i n f o r m a t i o n ( s u g g e s t e d by
Jackendoff 1975) . -
The complex i ty of l e x i c a l s t r u c t u r e r e v e a l e d by such c a s e s
h a s a b e a r i n g on t h e t h e o r y of word f o r m a t i o n , as we s h a l l see
i n Chap te r Four. The e x i s t e n c e o f more t h a n one word d r o p o r
d e p r e s s r e v e a l s , moreover, a d i f f e r e n t f a c e t o f t h e n o t i o n
" s e p a r a t e b u t r e l a t e d l e x i c a l item." The r e l a t i o n between d r o p
on a p h y s i c a l s c a l e and d r o p on a n a b s t r a c t s c a l e o f v a l u e s
( such as p r i c e ) is , f o r example, an i n t u i t i v e l y r e g u l a r one
which i s i n s t a n t i a t e d i n many o t h e r c a s e s . However, o u r
i n v e s t i g a t i o n o f t h e l e x i c a l r e l a t i o n s h i p must h e r e base i t s e l f
n o t on r e g u l a r i t i e s i n t h e s u b c a t e g o r i z a t i o n a l c o n t e x t s of t h e
r e l a t e d words, bu t on t h e c o n c e p t u a l s t r u c t u r e t h a t p e r m i t s t h e
observed semant ic r e l a t i o n s h i p s . Jackendof f (1972,1976,1978)
provides very interesting analyses of such cross-field
generalizations in terms of thematic functions. The development
of such a theory of lexical relationships might vindicate our
decision to postulate many homonymous lexical items in such
cases, rather than a single lexical item with a range of
interdependent syntactic and semantic properties.
The expansion of the scope of the lexical entry in Remarks
was accompanied by a corresponding enlargement in the scope of
the lexical redundancy rule in this model. Thus Hust (1978 :76)
writes :
Within the framework of the Lexicalist Hypothesis . . ., lexical redundancy rules seem to take on quite a different function . . . In addition to filling in feature specifications for a given lexical item on the - basis of the minimal feature specification of the lexic,al entry, lexical redundancy rules are proposed as a means to account for regularities regarding selectional restrictions, strict subcategorization features, etc., which hold between pairs of derivationally related lexical items.
The lexical redundancy rule thus becomes a tool for analyzing
the relationship between a base word and its morphological
derivative, and the theory of lexical redundancies may now be
viewed as the inverse of a theory of word formation.
I shall show that this type of lexical rule is very
different from the lexical rule of Aspects. However, the
formalism originally proposed by Chomsky (1970) for such rules
makes them appear essentially similar to rule (1). Consider for
example Chomskyls p r o p o s a l f o r t h e l e x i c a l r u l e which c a p t u r e s
t h e p a r a l l e l i s m i n t h e o b J e c t s of v e r b s l i k e read and t h e
s u b j e c t s o f t h e c o r r e s p o n d i n g a d j e c t i v a l p r e d i c a t e s l i k e
r e a d a b l e :
. . . it can be fo rmula ted as a l e x i c a l r u l e t h a t a s s i g n s t h e f e a t u r e [ X ] t o a l e x i c a l item [V-able] where V h a s t h e i n t r i n ~ s e l e c t i o n a l f e a t u r e [ - T. (Chomsky 1970:213)
S t a t e d i n t h i s f a s h i o n , t h e r u l e a p p e a r s t o b e "only a ve ry
minor e x t e n s i o n o f t h e form and f u n c t i o n o f l e x i c a l redundancy
r u l e s proposed i n Aspects" (Hust 1978 :78) ; f o r i t t a k e s as i n p u t
one s u b c a t e g o r i z a t i o n f e a t u r e , and o u t p u t s a n o t h e r
s u b c a t e g o r i z a t i o n f e a t u r e . Moreover, i f r e l a t e d l e x i c a l items
a r e p a r t o f a s i n g l e , " n e u t r a l n l e x i c a l e n t r y , t h e Remarks t y p e
r u l e s cou ld s t i l l be c o n s i d e r e d a s r u l e s which f i l l i n
p r e d i c t a b l e f e a t u r e s w i t h i n a s i n g l e l e x i c a l e n t r y .
One of my main arguments i n t h i s t h e s i s (however) w i l l b e
t h a t t h e Remarks t y p e l e x i c a l r u l e shou ld n o t be f o r m u l a t e d a s a
mapping between s u b c a t e g o r i z a t i o n a l f e a t u r e s as such , bu t as a
mapping between argument s t r u c t u r e s .
3. The wlocalness~ of Lexical Rules. -- - The redundant relation between lexical items that the
lexical rules in Remarks try to capture concerns the
regularities in their subcategorizational frames. Thus the fact
that the object of transitive grow is selectionally parallel to
the subject of intransitive grow, or that the object of - read is
selectionally parallel to the subject of - be readable, is of
interest to this type of rule. The obvious way to capture these
relations would seem to be to postulate a rule which operates on
the subject, obJect etc. of an input word, to assign its
features to the subject, object etc. of a derived word. This is
the natural interpretation of the rule L- r X] ---> [ X ] for
verbs and their -able adjectival derivatives in Chomsky
(1970:213); for Chomsky here assumes the framework of Aspects,
wherein selectional restrictions are defined on heads of phrases
linked by grammatical relations. His rule assigns the
selectional features of the verb's object to the subject of the
corresponding adjectival predicate. It has thus been widely
assumed in current research that the lexical rule of Remarks
operates on grammatical relations; the clearest articulation of
this position is in Wasow (1977).
I shall argue that such a formulation of these lexical
rules is fundamentally in error. I show that a rule which refers
to grammatical relations at all is incapable of explaining, or
predicting, the full range of subcategorizational
correspondences in the frames of derivationally related words. I
propose instead that lexical rules relate the argument
structures of words, specified in terms of thematic functions.
The observed correspondences in subcategorizational frames are
viewed as the outcome of general principles governing the
assignment of thematic structures to syntactic frames, as
suggested by Anderson (1977).
A maJor argument for formulating lexical rules of the
Remarks-type in terms of grammatical relations is the necessity
of characterizing the "localw property of these rules. This
argument is given by Wasow (1977), in the context of an
insightful examination of the differences between lexical rules
and transformations (structure-preserving or otherwise). I quote
below the third of Wasow1s five criteria for distinguishing
lexical redundancy rules, and his Justification of this
criterion.
Lexical Rules Transformations
nlocalH; involve only need not be "localn; NPs bearing formulated in terms of grammatical relations structural properties to items in question of phrase markers
. . . lexical rules must be more "localw than transformations. Whereas transformations are mappings between entire phrase markers, lexical redundancy rules are mappings only between lexical items. Hence, lexical rules ought not to be able to refer to aspects of the environments In which the lexical items appear, other than those aspects that must for independent reasons be included In the lexical entries anyway. . . .
. . . one rather strong hypothesis to put forward is that the only elements of a verb's (footnote omitted) environment that may enter into the statement of lexical redundancy rules are the NPs bearing deep structure grammatical relations to it (viz., its subject, direct object and indirect object). In an intuitive sense that is hard to pin down, these NP1s are the elements of a verbls environment most closely associated with it. There can be little doubt that they must enter into the statement of contextual features; indeed, informal statements of both selectional restrictions and strict subcategorization are typically formulated in terms of these relations . . . Thus, I claim that a natural way of stating the lllocalnessn property of lexical rules is to insist that they be llrelationalll in this sense. I assume that transformations, in contrast, are defined in the usual way, in terms of structural relations of phrase markers (footnote omitted). (Wasow 1977:330)
Although Wasow adopts this as a working hypothesis, he in fact
leaves the question open. In the concluding section of his
paper, he acknowledges the possibility of llsome other way of
characterizing the 'localness* property of lexical rulesf1
(1977:354) (possibly in terms of thematic functions), stressing
only that tlCriterion 3 or some other llocalnessl condition is
needed. l1
Let us briefly consider the evidence Wasow provides that
some l*localnessw condition is necessary. Consider the rule which
relates transitive and intransitive verbs:
(10) a. (=his (5a)) John showed hostility.
b. (=his (5b)) Hostility showed.
This rule must relate the object of the transitive verb to the
subject of the intransitive verb. The number of idiosyncratic
exceptions to the rule argue that it is lexical, not
transformational. Thus drop but not lower, shatter but not
demolish, - move but not transport, exhibit this alternation.
The fact to be explained is that even a verb which normally
exhibits this alternation fails to do so in certain
constructions. Thus show when it occurs In the -9
accusative-infinitive ("raised to objectw) construction, has no
Intransitive counterpart.
(11) a. (=his (5c)) John showed hostility to be a result of
cold weather.
b. (=his (7b))*Hostility showed to be a result of cold
weather.
Similarly, drop does not exhibit the causative alternation in
the ndouble objectw construction (13), although it does so
otherwise ((12)).
(12) a. (=his (8a)) They dropped the rope 100 feet.
b. (=his (8b)) The rope dropped 100 feet.
(13) a. (=his ( 8 ~ ) ) They dropped John the rope.
b. (=his (lob)) John dropped the rope. (#a)
Thus the transitive-intransitive rule does not simply relate any
immediately post-verbal NP to the subject. It is in addition
sensitive to some information in the verb's lexical entry: It Is
l1 local. l1
Wasow gives examples of two other lexical rules which
relate objects to subjects: the -able rule, and the adjectival
passive rule. Once again, these rules fail to apply in
constructions like the accusative-infinitive and the double
object. Thus there is a consistent contrast in the acceptability
of the verbal passive, which (Wasow hypothesizes) is a
transformational rule, and the adjectival passive, which is a
lexical rule, when the passive applies to these two
constructions. This contrast is illustrated below. The tests for
an adjectival passive are prefixability with - un-, and
cooccurrence with verbs like seems, sounds, etc.
(14) a. (=his (62b)) John is known to be a communist.
b. (=his (62c)) *John is unknown to be a communist.
(15) a. (=his (56b)) Bill was told (the story).
b. (=his (56d)) *Bill was untold (the story).
Consider also (16), which shows that the adjectival passive
cannot prepose a chunk of an idiom in immediately post-verbal
position, although the verbal passive can.
(16) a. (=his (64a)) Advantage is easily taken of John.
b. (=his (64a)) *Advantage sounds easily taken of John.
What is it about these constructions that prohibits the
lexical rules from applying to them? Wasow points out that in
all these constructions, the immediately post-verbal NP is not
the verb's direct object. In the accusative-infinitive
construction, the post-verbal NP is arguably the subject of the
complement clause. In the double object construction, the
indirect object of the verb precedes its direct object. For
idiomatic verbs like - take advantage -9 of a structure like
[[take] [advantage] of] is plausible, in which case the direct V N V
object would be not the idiom chunk advantage, but the NP
following the entire idiom - take advantage - of.
We can now account for the above facts by hypothesizing the
lexical rules to be llrelationalll; they relate only direct
objects to subjects. Even if some other NP occupies the normal
direct object (immediately post-verbal) position, they cannot
relate this NP to the subject.3
But an alternative explanation of these facts in terms of
thematic functions is suggested by Anderson (1977) . We know that
the lexical entry of a verb contains a semantic representation
in terms of thematic functions (Jackendoff 1972); it also
contains information correlating thematic functions with
syntactic positions. Suppose now that the lexical rules we
considered were sensitive to the notion Theme. Then they would
apply to direct objects, since direct objects are generally
Themes. But they would not apply to the post-verbal NPs in the
other constructions, for
Indirect Objects are Goals (usually); idiom chunks have no thematic status, and NPs from a lower clause bear no thematic relation in a higher one. (Anderson 1977:371)
(Anderson's hypothesis that the rule relates Themes is also
consistent with Wasow1s observation that (13a) and (13b),
although they are both grammatical, must not be related because
"John - in [ (13b)J is the agent, not the goal of drop1' (op. cit.:332). In (12), on the other hand, - the rope would be
identified as the Theme in both sentences, for it is the entity
that moves.)
The lllocalnessv of lexical rules is therefore not a
compelling argument for requiring these rules to be formulated
in terms of grammatical relations. 4 However, given that
grammatical relations and thematic functions can equally well
account for the same range of facts, there is no compelling
evidence (at this point) for deciding between them either. I
shall in the following chapters present some new evidence that
bears on this question.
The obvious problem for any theory of lexical redundancy
rules which appeals to thematic functions is the problem of
adequately defining these functions. However, I believe that
this problem is not insurmountable. Moreover, the definition
problem is not unique to thematic functions; for defining the
appropriate range of grammatical relations for lexical rules
t u r n s o u t t o be s i m i l a r l y p r o b l e m a t i c . Chomsky (1965) p r e s e n t e d
a s t r i c t d e f i n i t i o n of " ~ u b j e c t ' ~ and l l o b j e c t " i n te rms of
s t r u c t u r a l c o n f i g u r a t i o n s , b u t ( a s Wasow n o t e s ) i t i s n o t
obv ious t h a t t h e n o t i o n " i n d i r e c t o b j e c t " can be s i m i l a r l y
d e f i n e d . (Wasow1s 1977 model i m p l i c i t l y r e j e c t s Chornskyls
d e f i n i t i o n s : compare h i s h y p o t h e s i s t h a t h e l p and thank t a k e
on ly i n d i r e c t o b j e c t s . ) F u r t h e r , if l e x i c a l r u l e s a r e ' t o be
f o r m u l a t e d i n te rms of grammat ica l r e l a t i o n s , i t becomes
n e c e s s a r y t o d e f i n e t h e s e r e l a t i o n s f o r c a t e g o r i e s o t h e r than
ve rbs . Thus Wasow w r i t e s :
My C r i t e r i o n 3 r e q u i r e s t h a t NPs mentioned by l e x i c a l r u l e s b e a r grammat ica l r e l a t i o n s t o t h e i t e m s undergoing t h e r u l e s . T h i s r e q u i r e s e i t h e r t h a t a l l l e x i c a l r u l e s i n v o l v e v e r b s , o r t h a t grammat ica l r e l a t i o n s be d e f i n e d f o r i t ems of o t h e r c a t e g o r i e s . The fo rmer a l t e r n a t i v e i s probably u n t e n a b l e ( s i n c e , e .g . , t h e r e a r e d e - a d j e c t i v a l nouns ) , and t h e l a t t e r a l t e r n a t i v e f u r t h e r c o m p l i c a t e s t h e a l r e a d y d i f f i c u l t problem of d e f i n i n g grammat ica l r e l a t i o n s . (Wasow 1977:354)
The o n l y e x p l i c i t p r o p o s a l s t h a t have s o fa r been made f o r
e x t e n d i n g grammat ica l r e l a t i o n s t o c a t e g o r i e s o t h e r t h a n v e r b s
a r e t h o s e o f Jackendof f (1974a, 1 9 7 7 ) , working w i t h i n t h e X-bar
t h e o r y of p h r a s e s t r u c t u r e ; and i t i s w i t h a c o n s i d e r a t i o n of
t h e problems f a c e d by t h i s a t t e m p t t h a t we w i l l b e g i n o u r
i n v e s t i g a t i o n . The l e x i c a l r u l e s we w i l l examine a r e t h e r u l e s
f o r t h e n o r n i n a l i z a t i o n s of v e r b s and a d j e c t i v e s . The o p e r a t i o n s
performed by t h e s e r u l e s have s o fa r been assumed t o be ve ry
s i m p l e : they t a k e a s i n p u t t h e v e r b ' s o r t h e a d j e c t i v e ' s s u b j e c t
o r o b j e c t , and a s s i g n t h e s e same NPs t o t h e noun, a s i t s
l l sub jec t l l o r l lobjec t l l . The d i s c u s s i o n h a s t h u s c e n t e r e d n o t s o
much on t h e r u l e s themse lves , a s on how t o c a p t u r e t h e
s u b c a t e g o r i z a t i o n a l l l p a r a l l e l i s m u which a p p a r e n t l y r e s u l t s
between t h e S and t h e NP. I show t h a t t h e r e i s no such g e n e r a l
p a r a l l e l i s m i n t h e S and t h e NP, and t h a t t h e n o m i n a l i z a t i o n
d a t a are much more complex.
FOOTNOTES - TO CHAPTER ONE
It may be questioned whether a rule like (1) is
necessary, since the information it provides could equivalently
be given by a contextual feature with an optional element, e.g.
c +- N~(~anner)]. However, there are problems with using
optional elements in contextual features, in the Aspects model.
This is because
a set of frames in which the symbol A occurs imposes a corresponding subclassification on A, with one subclassification corresponding to e a c h s t e d context. (Chomsky 1965:94, emphasis added)-
In Aspects, transitivity is treated as a contextual feature.
Thus given Chomskyls lexical entry (loc. cit. ) for grow,
(i) (=his (41)) &row, C+V, + - NP, + - #, + A d j ]
nothing would prevent the abbreviation of the contextual
features for transitive and intransitive grow as [+ - (NP)#], if
parenthesized elements were allowed. But with this abbreviation,
the transitive-intransitive subclassification would be lost.
I have argued elsewhere (Amritavalli 1979) that
transitivity is not a contextual feature, but an intrinsic
feature of the verb. If so, transitive and intransitive grow
would be treated as two lexical items, the contextual features
for which could not be collapsed. Further evidence is available
to support treating transitive and intransitive verbs as
separate lexical items. Thus Hust (1978) notes that intransitive
grow, but not transitive grow, can occur with a quantifier
phrase :
(ii) The corn grew a foot.
(iii) *John grew the corn a foot.
Similarly, DeArmond (1980) observes that we can choose a
locative prepositional phrase for open when it occurs in the
frame - #, but not when it occurs in the frame - NP : (iv) The door opens onto the patio.
(v) *John opens the door onto the patio.
If we can thus distinguish the true optionality of contextual
elements for a word from the case where optionality is a symptom
of a differentiation in lexical items, it becomes possible to
abbreviate contextual features for a given lexical item, and
rules like (1) become unnecessary. We may note that informal
statements of contextual features in the literature have
utilized abbreviatory conventions freely, and few other
redundancy rules like ( 1) have been posited.
It would also result in the definition of a false grammatical
relation "Subject-Object". In the Aspects theory, any two
grammatical functions can potentially define a grammatical
relation. According to Chomsky, what distinguishes the
"irrelevant psuedorelation Subject-Object" from the "legitimate
and traditionally recognized grammatical relation Subject-Verbw
is the irrelevance of Subject-selection to Object-selection:
"the choice of Main-Verb is determined by the choice of Subject
and Object, though Subject and Object are in general chosen
independently of one another and, correspondingly, have no
grammatical relation of the sort in question holding between
themw (Chomsky 1965:73-74).
3 Wasow here makes the assumption that Dative Movement and
Raising to Object are not transformations. If they were, the
inapplicability of lexical rules to indirect objects and
I1raised" objects could be explained without reference to
nlocalness.~ Since lexical rules precede transformations, the
relevant NPs would not be in immediately post-verbal (direct
object) positlon when the lexical rules applied.
Notice however that the wlocalnessll condition is still
needed to account for (16b). A reference to relational
information also appears necessary to rule out (ii) and (iv)
below, where - John is generated in immediately post-verbal
position:
(i) Someone helped John.
(ii)*John seems helpable/(un)helped.
(iii) Someone thanked John.
(iv)*John appears thankable/(un)thanked.
Wasow hypothesizes that help and thank take only indirect
objects. He observes that the cognate German verbs helfen and
danken take dative objects, and that the preposition which
appears in the corresponding nominalization is - to, usually a
marker of indirect objects:
(v) Our help ?to the hostess went unacknowledged.
thanks *of
Anticipating a little, note that Anderson's alternative
explanation in terms of thematic functions is possible here as
well. Thus if the objects of help and thank are analyzed as
Goal, a lexical rule sensitive to the notion Theme would not
apply to them.
4 A weaker argument (in Wasow1s 1977 framework) for utilizing
grammatical relations in lexical rules is that this serves to
differentiate lexical from transformational rules. However,
Anderson points out that it is - a priori doubtful if the locus of differentiation for transformational and lexical rules lies in
the sensitivity of the latter rule-type to grammatical
relations. For although grammatical relations do not directly
figure in the statement of transformations, they do figure in
conditions on the applicability of transformations (so that a
transformation might, for example, apply differentially to
subjects and non-subjects). Anderson concludes that ll(t)he
criterion of sensitivity to grammatical relations (at least to
llSubjectll) is therefore not a sufficient condition for the
assignment of a r u l e t o the category of lexical redundancy
ru les" ( 1977 ~ 3 6 6 ) . (See a l s o DeArmond (1980) ) .
CHAPTER TWO
THE DESCRIPTIVE INADEQUACY OF GRAMMATICAL RELATIONS
1. An Alleged Parallelism - The system of phrase structure known as X t Syntax,l
developed by Jackendoff (1974a, 1977), receives its impetus from
the Lexicalist Hypothesis, which calls for a lexical account of
cross-categorial parallelisms. Since the Lexicalist Hypothesis
was first articulated (in Chomsky 1970) with respect to the
relation between sentences and derived nominals, X f Syntax takes
the expression of subcategorizational parallelisms in Ss and NPs
to be one of its major areas of concern. In particular, there
are in related Ss and NPs regular correspondences in the
syntactic positions on which an identical set of selectional
restrictions must be imposed. X 1 Syntax attempts to account for
such correpondences by generalizing the grammatical relations of
the S to the NP, with a view to generalizing the projection
rules which enforce selectional restrictions on corresponding
positions in the S and the NP. Since grammatical relations are
defined (as in the standard theory) by phrase structure
configurations, subcategorizational parallelism Is ultimately
sought to be expressed in terms of structural parallelism.
In this chapter and the next, I present evidence that the
subcategorizational correspondences in Ss and NPs cannot be
adequately expressed in terms of generalized grammatical
relations, or even as a mapping between (two sets of)
grammatical functions. I argue for an alternative theory of
subcategorizational correspondences, based on (a refined notion
of) thematic functions, and general principles assigning
thematic functions to syntactic positions. In section 2, I
consider one of the two major cases of parallelism that the
generalization of grammatical relations purports to account for
(namely, the case of Ss with adjectival predicates, and
deadjectival derived nominals); and show that
subcategorizational parallelism is not matched by structural
parallelism in this case. Thus an explicit formulation of
projection rules, in the manner envisaged by X t Syntax, reveals
that the rules for adjectives and deadjectival nouns cannot be
generalized by referring to a common set of grammatical
relations.
In later sections, I demonstrate that there is no general
parallelism in grammatical relations in the case of Ss with
verbal predicates and deverbal derived nominals (the second
major case). A group of apparently idiosyncratic exceptions to
the postulated parallelism is examined, and the thematic
function Experiencer is seen to be crucially involved in all
these cases. I argue that the pattern of correspondence in the
subcategorizations of the verbs and deverbal nouns under
consideration is not an irregularity in the language, but an
instance of a regular subcategorizational pattern which obtains
wherever this particular combination of thematic functions
occurs. I show that a constant pattern of correspondences in the
subcategorizational frames of verbs, nouns and adjectives can be
predicted for a constant set of thematic functions, irrespective
of whether it is the verb, the adjective or the noun which is
morphologically 'basic.'
It is seen that the generalizations that can be made about
subcategorizational correspondences in Ss and NPs are not
amenable to an approach which compares only pairs of
subcategorizational frames (at a time). But the lexical rules in
a theory based on grammatical relations (advocated in X' Syntax)
can relate only the subcategorizational frames of a pair of
words such that one is morphologically derived from the other,
and are therefore incapable of capturing the required type of
generalizations.
2. The Subjectlessness of Predicate Adjectives -- - Jackendoff (1974a, 1977), discussing the arguments against
a transformational derivation of a deverbal nominal like John's
criticism -- of the play from a sentence like John criticized the
play, observes that
(o)ne of the stronger arguments for deriving this nominal from a sentence is that the selectional restrictions parallel those of the sentence John - criticized the play; the range of noun phrases that can - occupy possessive position in the derived nominal is identical with the range of possible subjects in the sentence, and the range of noun phrases following of is - identical with the range of direct objects in the sentence. In order to capture this generalization for a wide range of nominals, we do not want to state twice in the grammar the selectional restrictions shared by criticize and criticism; nor do we want to state twice the set of rules which enforce these selectional restrictions, once for NP and once for S. (Jackendoff 1974a:9, 1977:16)
A non-redundant specification of the selectional features of
criticize, criticism (as of other lexically related words) can
be given in a llneutralll lexical entry (cf. Chomsky 1970, Hust
1978; and Jackendoff 1975 for an alternative formalization).
Regarding the non-redundant enforcement of identical selectional
restrictions in the S and the NP, Jackendoff suggests that
along with a generalization of the base rules. . ., there is a corresponding generalization in the projection rules. For example, the notion "subject ofw can, where semantically appropriate, be generalized to possessive NPs, and "object of" can be generalized to postnominal NPs. This generalization ensures that the rules enforcing selectional restrictions on criticize and criticism are in fact the same rules in 3s and NPs, and they need not be stated twice. (Jackendoff 1977:16)
A similar selectional parallelism is seen in the S John is -- perverse, and the (deadjectival) nominal John's perversity. Once
again,
we must account for the generality of selectional
restrictions, e.g. for the fact that the subject in (2.37) (i.e. John's be in precisely the same way that perversity restricts the genitive phrase in (2.38) (1.e. John's perversity, R.A.). (Jackendoff 1977:21)
Once again, the subject-possessive NP parallelism is to be
expressed in terms of the generalized notion "subject of," and a
generalized projection rule referring to this notion:
Since the genitive NP in (2.38) is to be considered the subject of (2.38), the rules which impose selectional restrictions on grammatical subjects will apply equally in (2.37) and (2.38). Thus, as in section (2.1) (1.e. the case of verbs and deverbal nouns, R.A.), the Lexicalist Hypothesis requires a cross-category generalization to be expressed, but this time in terms of adjectives and nouns. (op.cit.:21)
Let us examine how the proposed generalization of grammatical
relations and projection rules works for verbs and deverbal
nouns. Jackendoff first modifies the structural configurations
of S and NP, to ensure a parallelism in the position of the
"subjectw in both.2 An important innovation in the interests of
structural parallelism is the identification of S with V"'.
Compare the configurations (la, lb) with (2a, 2b) below. An
obvious difference between (la) and (lb) is that the subject NP
in (la) is not dominated by the V w whose head V imposes a
selectional restriction on it; whereas in (lb), the possessive
NP is dominated by the N" whose head N selectionally restricts
it:
John p a s t c r i t i c i z e
s u b j e c t s p e c i f i e r head NP of V t t V
1 : I J o h n ' s c r i t i c i s m
Poss-NP head N s p e c i f i e r
of N t t
I n ( 2 a ) , S i s V V t t . The s u b j e c t NP i n ( 2 a ) and t h e p o s s e s s i v e NP
i n ( 2 b ) are b o t h dominated by t h e X t t l c a t e g o r y whose l e x i c a l
head - X ( V I n ( 2 a ) , N i n ( 2 b ) ) s e l e c t i o n a l l y r e s t r i c t s them.
John past briticize
subject head V NP
specif ier of V"'
John s criticism
Poss-NP head N specif ier of N1ll
A generalized definition which picks out the subject of the
sentence and the possessive NP in the nominal can now be given
as [N1ll, X1ll] (the N1ll immediately dominated by an X1ll). In
Jackendoff1s system of phrase structure, nouns and verbs share
the feature [tSubj], and he therefore gives the generalized
definition for "subject off1 as [N"', [tS~bj]"~] (op.cit.:41).
The generalized definition of llobject off1 is similarly given as
[N1ll, [sSU~J]~] (the N1ll immediately dominated by N1 or V1)
(op. cit. ~42).
Jackendof f does n o t f o r m a l i z e t h e p r o j e c t i o n r u l e s f o r
c r i t i c i z e and c r i t i c i s m , t o d e m o n s t r a t e i n what r e s p e c t t h e s e
r u l e s " a r e i n f a c t t h e same r u l e s i n S s and NPs," once t h e
n o t i o n s " s u b j e c t o f " and " o b j e c t o f " a r e g e n e r a l i z e d . But w e may
f o r m a l i z e t h e r u l e f o r t h e i r w s u b j e c t s n a s i n ( 3 ) :
( 3 ) Given a l e x i c a l e n t r y wi th t h e f e a t u r e [ t S u b j ] ( N o r
V) :
s u b s t i t u t e t h e r e a d i n g o f [ N 1 * ' , [ + S u b j l l l l ] ( " i t s
s u b j e c t " ) , where [ t S ~ b j ] ' ~ ' i s t h e p h r a s a l c a t e g o r y
w i t h t h e l e x i c a l e n t r y a s head, f o r argument - x i n t h e
e n t r y ' s f u n c t i o n a l s t r u c t u r e . 3
The p r o j e c t i o n r u l e f o r t h e " o b j e c t s " of c r i t i c i z e and c r i t i c i s m
can be f o r m u l a t e d a l o n g t h e same l i n e s . Thus t h e
s u b c a t e g o r i z a t i o n a l p a r a l l e l i s m s of v e r b s and d e v e r b a l nouns a r e
c a p t u r e d by g e n e r a l i z e d p r o j e c t i o n r u l e s r e f e r r i n g t o t h e i r
n ~ ~ b j e ~ t ~ " and " o b j e c t s . "
L e t us now t r y t o g i v e a similar g e n e r a l i z e d p r o j e c t i o n
r u l e f o r a d j e c t i v e s and d e a d j e c t i v a l nouns, as s u g g e s t e d by
Jackendof f (1977:21) . Consider f i r s t t h e s t r u c t u r e s ( 4 a ) and
( 4 b ) -
P r e s I
p e r v e r s e
s u b j e c t head p r e d i c a t e NP V a d j e c t i v e
John s p e r v e r s i t y
Poss-NP Head N s p e c i f i e r
o f N t f 1
I t i s immedia te ly a p p a r e n t t h a t t h e s t r u c t u r a l r e l a t i o n between
John and p e r v e r s e i n ( 4 a ) i s n o t t h e same a s t h e s t r u c t u r a l
r e l a t i o n between -- J o h n l s and p e r v e r s i t y i n ( 4 b ) . The
n o n - p a r a l l e l i s m between ( 4 a ) and ( 4 b ) i s similar t o t h e
n o n - p a r a l l e l i s m between ( l a ) (where in S was n o t t r e a t e d a s
v f t ' ) , and ( l b ) . I n ( 4 a ) , a s i n ( l a ) , t h e s u b j e c t N ' " i s
o u t s i d e t h e X " ' whose head X imposes a s e l e c t i o n a l r e s t r i c t i o n
on i t . I n ( 4 b ) , a s i n (lb), t h e p o s s e s s i v e N u 1s dominated by
t h e X I 1 ' whose head X imposes a s e l e c t i o n a l r e s t r i c t i o n on i t .
Rule ( 5 ) r e p r e s e n t s my a t t e m p t t o s t a t e t h e p r o j e c t i o n
r u l e s f o r p e r v e r s e and p e r v e r s i t y . L e t u s t a k e nouns t o be
[+Subj , -Obj], a d j e c t i v e s t o be [-Subj, -Obj], and v e r b s t o be
[+Subj , +Obj] ( f o l l o w i n g Jackendof f 1977:32-33). The r u l e has
two s u b p a r t s . Subpar t ( i ) a p p l i e s i n t h e NP, i .e. ( 4 b ) . I t i s
s i m i l a r t o r u l e ( 3 ) . Subpar t (ii) a p p l i e s i n t h e S , i . e . (4a) .
Note t h a t h e r e t h e r u l e must r e f e r t o t h e " s u b j e c t o f u t h e V"',
r a t h e r t h a n o f t h e A " ' domina t ing t h e A ( t h e l e x i c a l e n t r y . )
( 5 ) Given a l e x i c a l e n t r y w i t h t h e f e a t u r e [-Obj] ( N o r A ) :
i. if t h e e n t r y i s a l s o [+Subj] ( i . e . N ) ,
s u b s t i t u t e t h e r e a d i n g of [Nw', [ + S u b J I H t ] ( " i t s
s u b j e c t f 1 ) , where [+Subj] i s t h e p h r a s a l c a t e g o r y
w i t h t h e l e x i c a l e n t r y a s head , f o r argument - x i n t h e
e n t r y ' s f u n c t i o n a l s t r u c t u r e .
il. i f t h e e n t r y i s a l s o [-Subj] ( i .e . A ) ,
s u b s t i t u t e t h e r e a d i n g of [NIf', [ + S u b j I u ' ] , where
[ + S u b j I t 1 ' i s t h e p h r a s a l c a t e g o r y whose head s t r i c t l y
s u b c a t e g o r i z e s t h e X t f l c a t e g o r y of which t h e l e x i c a l
e n t r y i s t h e head ( " t h e s u b j e c t of t h e v e r b which
s t r i c t l y s u b c a t e g o r i z e s t h e AP dominat ing t h e
a d j e c t i v e " ) , f o r argument - x i n t h e e n t r y ' s f u n c t i o n a l
s t r u c t u r e .
There i s no s e n s e i n which ( 5 ) can be regarded a s a s i n g l e
p r o j e c t i o n r u l e . The p o i n t i s t h a t s i n c e t h e r e i s no p h r a s e
s t r u c t u r e c o n f i g u r a t i o n ( 6 a ) c o r r e s p o n d i n g t o ( 6 b ) and ( 6 c ) ,
and t h e r e f o r e t h e d e f i n i t i o n [ N w l , [ - O b j ] l l l ] does n o t p i c k o u t
a n y t h i n g i n t h e c a s e o f a d j e c t i v e s , t h e r u l e s f o r a d j e c t i v e s and
d e a d j e c t i v a l nouns canno t be g e n e r a l i z e d by r e f e r r i n g t o a
grammat ica l r e l a t i o n between a n X and t h e I N w t , X v l ] , as t h e
r u l e s f o r v e r b s and d e v e r b a l nouns can be.
I t i s i n t e r e s t i n g t h a t e l sewhere i n X 1 Syntax , Jackendof f - (1977:32, f n . 2 ) c i t e s p r e c i s e l y t h e absence o f a p h r a s e
s t r u c t u r e c o n f i g u r a t i o n ( 6 a ) i n s u p p o r t of a n a n a l y s i s
( i n d e p e n d e n t l y s u g g e s t e d i n Jackendof f ( 1 9 7 4 b ) ) where t h e
s e l e c t i o n a l r e s t r i c t i o n of a p r e d i c a t e a d j e c t i v e on t h e s u b j e c t
of t h e s e n t e n c e i s e n f o r c e d by a r u l e r e f e r r i n g t o t h e t h e m a t i c
r e l a t i o n Theme, and n o t t o t h e grammat ica l r e l a t i o n " s u b j e c t
o f " :
. . . i t i s o f t e n assumed t h a t John i n John i s t a l l i s - --- t h e s u b j e c t o f t a l l . T h i s a s sumpt ion i s i n c o r r e c t . Although t a l l imposes a s e l e c t i o n a l r e s t r i c t i o n on t h e NP i n - NP - m a l l -9 t h e NP b e a r s t h e g rammat ica l r e l a t i o n " s u b j e c t o f " t o t h e v e r b -3 be n o t t o t h e a d j e c t i v e . . . . An NP b e a r i n g t h e " s u b j e c t o f n r e l a t i o n t o a n a d j e c t i v e would have t o be c o n t a i n e d i n t h e AP, a s t h e s u b j e c t of a noun i s c o n t a i n e d i n t h e NP. S i n c e t h e r e i s no AP * J o h n ( ' s ) f e a r f u l co r respond ing t o t h e NP J o h n ' s f e a r , f o r example, we conc lude t h a t a d j e c t i v e s do n o t have s y n t a c t i c s u b j e c t s . For a d i s c u s s i o n o f how t h e s e l e c t i o n a l r e s t r i c t i o n i s Imposed w i t h o u t a grammat ica l r e l a t i o n , s e e Jackendof f (1974b) . . .
I n t h e a r t i c l e t o which he r e f e r s u s , Jackendof f p roposes a
Complex P r e d i c a t e Rule (CPR). Given a s e n t e n c e l i k e ( 4 a ) , John
i s p e r v e r s e , t h e CPR combines t h e i n t e r p r e t a t i o n o f t h e - a d j e c t i v e p e r v e r s e w i t h t h a t o f t h e v e r b be, t h e l a t t e r a c t i n g
"simply as a s e m a n t i c a l l y unmarked p l a c e h o l d e r , s o t h a t t h e CPR
can a p p l y and c r e a t e a v e r b a l one-place f u n c t i o n o u t o f t h e AP"
( Jackendof f 1974b:502). Once t h e CPR a p p l i e s ,
( t ) h e s u b j e c t , s t r i c t l y s u b c a t e g o r i z e d by be, can now be t a k e n as NP1 i n t h e new f u n c t i o n and i s i n s e r t e d by Argument S u b s t i t u t i o n , s u b j e c t t o t h e s e l e c t i o n a l r e s t r i c t i o n s o f t h e a d j e c t i v e . ( l o c . c i t . )
S i n c e i n t h i s i n s t a n c e i t i s t h e l l sub jec t l ' t h a t t h e p r o j e c t i o n
rule of Argument Substitution inserts into the functional
structure of the complex predicate - be perverse, it might appear
that the notion '!subject off1 is again useful for generalizing a
projection rule cross-categorially. The case of adjectives and
deadjectival nouns appears to differ from that of verbs and
deverbal nouns only in that in the first case, a complex
predicate V-AdJ must be created before the projection rule picks
out the llsubject of l1 the V or the N for argument substitution.
If so, the claim that "the rules which impose selectional
restrictions on grammatical subjects will apply equally" in John
is perverse and John's perversity could be substantiated. -
Unfortunately for this claim, Jackendoff' (1974b:488ff.) provides
independent evidence that argument substitution into complex
predicates must refer to thematic functions.
The CPR was originally motivated for the interpretation of
complex predicates like put/pin/place/fix - the blame - on and
take/get/receive/accept - the blame - for, which proceeds in the
following manner. The functional structure of the noun blame is
specified for (at least) two arguments: a 'blamer,' and a
'blamee. But in John put - the blame -- on Bill and in Bill took the --7
blame, the NPs which must be substituted into the noun's
functional structure do not appear as the syntactic tlsubjecttl or
llobjectw of the noun; they stand in grammatical relations to the
verbs put and take. The situation is thus similar to that of the
predicate adjective perverse. The CPR now applies to create the
complex p r e d i c a t e s put t h e blame ( o n ) and t a k e t h e blame ( f o r ) , - -- f o l l o w i n g which t h e arguments o f t h e v e r b s can be "borrowed1' f o r
i n s e r t i o n i n t o t h e noun ' s f u n c t i o n a l s t r u c t u r e .
But obse rve t h a t i f t h e v e r b i s put, i t s p r e p o s i t i o n a l
o b j e c t must be s u b s t i t u t e d f o r t h e Iblarneet a rgument , w h i l e i f
t h e v e r b i s t a k e , i t s s u b j e c t must be s u b s t i t u t e d f o r t h e same
argument. Jackendof f t h e r e f o r e a r g u e s t h a t t h e p r o j e c t i o n r u l e
does n o t s imply r e f e r t o grammat ica l r e l a t i o n s i n such c a s e s .
R a t h e r , i t r e f e r s t o t h e t h e m a t i c r e l a t i o n s of t h e ve rb . The
Goal i s a lways chosen a s t h e 'blamee. For put, t h e Goal a p p e a r s
a s a p r e p o s i t i o n a l o b j e c t , whereas f o r -, t a k e t h e Goal a p p e a r s a s
t h e s u b j e c t . Thus t h e a p p r o p r i a t e NPs ar9e chosen a s 'blameel i n
bo th c a s e s .
I t i s i n f a c t t h e t h e m a t i c b a s i s of argument s u b s t i t u t i o n
i n t o complex p r e d i c a t e s t h a t s e r v e s t o recommend t h e e x t e n s i o n
o f t h e CPR t o d e a l w i t h t h e s e l e c t i o n a l r e s t r i c t i o n s of
p r e d i c a t e a d j e c t i v e s , i n Jackendoff (1974b) . Jackendof f g i v e s
two arguments a g a i n s t b a s i n g argument s u b s t i t u t i o n on
grammat ica l r e l a t i o n s , i n t h e c a s e of p r e d i c a t e a d j e c t i v e s .
F i r s t l y , t h e NPs t h a t p r e d i c a t e a d j e c t i v e s r e s t r i c t a p p e a r i n
d i v e r s e s y n t a c t i c p o s i t i o n s , depending on t h e s e m a n t i c s t r u c t u r e
of t h e ve rb . Thus t h e a d j e c t i v e p e r v e r s e r e s t r i c t s t h e s u b j e c t
i n ( 7 a ) and ( 7 b ) , bu t i n ( 7 c ) , i t r e s t r i c t s t h e o b j e c t :
( 7 ) a . John i s p e r v e r s e .
b. John impresses (strikes) me as perverse.
c. I consider John perverse.
Jackendoff therefore suggests that
the modified NP is always the Theme of the adjective, and so, for the sake of the CPR, it must appear as the Theme of the main verb. (op. cit. :502)
The second argument concerns the range of syntactic positions
that can be selectionally restricted by rules referring to
grammatical relations. Thus Jackendoff (1974b:500) writes:
In the standard formulation of strict subcategorization and selectional restrictions (Chomsky 1965), a lexical item can place restrictions only on the occurrences of NPs and PPs within its major phrase. A verb can determine the nature of its subject and of constituents in the VP; that is, it restricts the arguments in the immediately dominating S. . . . Predicate adjectives present an apparent anomaly in this respect. . . . there is never an NP to the left of the adjective in an AP which functions as "subject. l1 . . . Thinking only of sentences like John is pilty, one is tempted to call the modified the subject of the adjective and to try to state a strict subcategorization (sic) - restriction on this basis. But since John is outside the AP and is in fact the subject of - J b e t h i s proposal goes against the generalization about strict subcategorization that we noted above.
The problem that Jackendoff discusses in the preceding
extract in fact arises only within the framework of X 1 Syntax.
The wgeneralization about strict subcategorization" that he
wishes to capture is the requirement in Chomsky (1965:gg-100)
that strict subcategorization be "strictly local.ll This
requirement does not apply to selectional restrictions in the
standard theory, and with good reason. Recall that in the
standard theory, S is rewritten as NP VP. Now if selectional
restriction were "strictly local,1' it would not be possible to
impose the selectional restrictions of a verb on the subject of
the sentence, since the subject is not dominated by the major
category (VP) which introduces the V.4 But selectional
restriction is not "strictly local,t1 and therefore it is no more
of a problem (for the standard theory) that the subject NP in - NP
be AP structures is outside the AP, than it is that the subject --
NP in -- NP VP structures is outside the VP.
Consider, however, a theory where S is V f t t . In such a
theory, the subject of the sentence is dominated by the major
phrase ( V H t ) that introduces the V. We can now legitimately
claim that the subject-verb selectional restriction is tlocalt
with respect to the X t t l category whose head X specifies the
restriction. The selectional restriction between the possessive
NP and the head N is also rlocalt in this sense. In this
framework it would indeed be an anomaly that a predicate
adjective restricts an NP (namely, the subject) which is not
dominated by the A " ' whose head A specifies the restriction.
Thus a nice constraint on selectional restriction which is made
possible by the identification of S with V t t l also serves as an
argument against a projection rule referring to "subject of,!'
for predicate adjectives.
The discussion of the problem of predicate adjectives is
complicated by the obliteration, in X1 Syntax, of the
distinction between the notions Ngrammatical functionll and
ngrammatical relation," made by Chomsky (1965:71,73). Thus
Jackendoff presents [N1ll, [+~ubj]'~'] as a definition of Ifthe
generalized grammatical relation fsubject-oflll (op. cit.:41,
emphasis added); but in the standard theory, this would be the
definition of a grammatical function. Chomsky defines
grammatical relations derivatively in terms of functional
notions. The grammatical function "subject-of" is defined for
the S, and the grammatical relation "Subject-Verb" is the
relation between the Subject-of the Sentence and the
Main-Verb-of the Predicate-of the Sentence (Chomsky 1965:73).
This being the case, there is nothing (in the standard theory)
to prevent the postulation of a grammatical relation
vSubject--Predicate Adjective," given appropriate functional
definitions. The subject of the S is thus accessible to the
selectional rules of both V and A . But X1 Syntax apparently
attempts to state selectional restrictions in terms of the
grammatical functions of a single phrasal category. Ss with an
adjectival predicate present a problem for this attempt.
Observe that the point at issue is not merely a matter of
evolving an alternative method of capturing the
subcategorizational parallelisms of adjectives and deadjectival
nouns; though this is not a trivial problem, given the
assumpt ions of X ' S y n t a x - 5 The m o t i v a t i o n f o r i d e n t i f y i n g S wi th
V I t t , and f o r g e n e r a l i z i n g t h e grammat ica l r e l a t i o n s of t h e S t o
t h e NP, i s i t s e l f c a l l e d i n t o q u e s t i o n . There i s no a p r i o r i - reason t o assume t h a t t h e S and t h e NP a r e s t r u c t u r a l l y
p a r a l l e l ; a s H o r n s t e i n (1977) p o i n t s o u t , t h e r e i s i n f a c t
ev idence t h a t they a r e n o t p a r a l l e l . (Thus S s have a u x i l i a r i e s
and complement izers , w h i l e NPs have d e t e r m i n e r s . ) Jackendof f
(1977:38-39, f n . 5 ) d i s m i s s e s t h e s e d i f f e r e n c e s as " i r r e l e v a n t , "
f o r " t h e X I Convention s a y s n o t h i n g a b o u t what t o do w i t h
n o n p a r a l l e l s t r u c t u r e s . . . . t h e X t Convention s a y s s imply t h a t
when p a r a l l e l i s m s e x i s t , t hey must be e x p r e s s e d . Now t h e
observed p a r a l l e l i s m i n t h e S and t h e NP t h a t t h e t h e o r y must
accoun t f o r is i n t h e s u b c a t e g o r i z a t i o n , and i t o b t a i n s f o r S s
w i t h two t y p e s o f p r e d i c a t e s ( v e r b a l , and a d j e c t i v a l ) and t h e
c o r r e s p o n d i n g NPs. By J a c k e n d o f f 1 s argument , t h e p o s t u l a t i o n o f
a s t r u c t u r a l p a r a l l e l i s m would be j u s t i f i e d ( r e g a r d l e s s of o t h e r
s t r u c t u r a l d i f f e r e n c e s ) i f i t succeeded i n e x p r e s s i n g b o t h t h e s e
c a s e s of d i s t r i b u t i o n a l p a r a l l e l i s m . But w e have s e e n t h a t one
c a s e of d i s t r i b u t i o n a l p a r a l l e l i s m remains unexpressed i n
s t r u c t u r a l terms.
Moreover, t h e s t r u c t u r a l p a r a l l e l i s m o f S and NP is
a c h i e v e d a t t h e c o s t o f o b s c u r i n g a g e n e r a l s t r u c t u r a l
d i f f e r e n c e between S and NP, and of c r e a t i n g a n o n p a r a l l e l i s m
between v e r b a l and a d j e c t i v a l p r e d i c a t e s . If S is n o t V t t t , t h e
s u b j e c t of t h e S i s a s p e c i f i e r o f n e i t h e r t h e V n o r t h e A ,
while the llsubjectv of the NP is always a specifier of the N.
The restriction against sentences in the possessive NP position
(but not in the subject position) may be attributed to this
difference (cf. Emonds 1976, Jackendoff 1977:44). The projection
rules for verbs as well as adjectives would have to refer to a
position (namely, the subject of the sentence) outside the major
phrase introducing the V or the A , and there would be no need to
assume a radical difference in the types of projection rules
involved.
In the light of these problems we might consider reverting
to a theory of phrase structure wherein S is not V f f l , and
relinquish the claim that the grammatical relations of the NP
are identical to those of the S. The NP could be allowed its own
set of grammatical functions, wPoss-NP" and "of-NP.'I - However, we
might still try to state subcategorizational correspondences in
terms of a correspondence in the grammatical functions of the S
and the NP. Thus we may claim that the Subject corresponds to
Poss-NP, so that a selectional rule which relates Subject-Verb
or Subject-Adjective in the S will relate Poss NP-head N in the
noun phrase; and that the Object corresponds to the - of-NP, so
that a selectional rule which relates Verb-Object in the S will
relate head N-of - NP in the noun phrase. This is essentially the suggestion in Chomsky (1970:201):6
. . . grammatical relations are defined by configurations in the deep structure, and selectional
f e a t u r e s re la te t h e heads of p h r a s e s t h a t a r e a s s o c i a t e d i n s p e c i f i c grammat ica l r e l a t i o n s . Then t h e words John and p roof a r e t h e heads o f t h e r e l a t e d p h r a s e s s e v e r a l of J o h n ' s and p r o o f s of t h e theorem i n s e v e r a l o f J o h n ' s p r o o f s -- of t h e t h e o r e m y a x t h e same s e l e c t i o n a l ~ e a t u r e t h a t a s s o c i a t e s s u b j e c t and v e r b i n John proved - t h e theorem w i l l r e l a t e t h e s e two i t e m s , d e s p i t e t h e ve ry d i f f e r e n t s y n t a c t i c o r i g i n o f t h e r e l a t i o n s h i p . (Chomsky 1970 :201)
The n e x t s e c t i o n i s a n a t t e m p t t o show t h a t even t h e weaker
c l a i m o u t l i n e d i n t h e p r e c e d i n g p a r a g r a p h must be r e j e c t e d . I
s h a l l a r g u e t h a t a mapping r u l e which r e f e r s t o grammat ica l
f u n c t i o n s ( a t a l l ) i s t h e wrong t h e o r e t i c a l mechanism f o r
s t a t i n g cor respondences of s e l e c t i o n a l r e s t r i c t i o n s between
d e r i v a t i o n a l l y r e l a t e d words; and t h a t ( i n i t s p l a c e ) w e need t o
u s e a r u l e which o p e r a t e s on t h e m a t i c f u n c t i o n s .
3 . An v I r r e g u l a r w C l a s s of Deverbal Nominals -- - Examples of v e r b s and d e v e r b a l nouns l i k e
c r i t i c i z e - c r i t i c i s m , d e s t r o y - d e s t r u c t i o n , which are commonly
d i s c u s s e d i n t h e l i t e r a t u r e , have l e d t o t h e s e t t i n g up of a
paradigm o f co r respondence between ( I ) t h e s u b J e c t of t h e
s e n t e n c e and t h e p o s s e s s i v e NP i n t h e nominal , and (ii) t h e
o b j e c t o f t h e v e r b and t h e - of-complement t o t h e noun. Hence t h e
a t t e m p t t o f o r m u l a t e p r o j e c t i o n r u l e s f o r t h e S and t h e NP i n
terms o f g e n e r a l i z e d grammat ica l r e l a t i o n s . If t h i s paradigm of
correspondence can be shown t o be u n j u s t i f i e d , t h e p r i n c i p a l
r e a s o n f o r g e n e r a l i z i n g t h e grammat ica l r e l a t i o n s of t h e S t o
t h e NP d i s a p p e a r s , I n what f o l l o w s I show t h a t t h e r e i s a
s e m a n t i c a l l y c o h e r e n t c l a s s of v e r b s and m o r p h o l o g i c a l l y
d e v e r b a l nouns f o r which t h e p o s t u l a t e d paradigm i s n o t v a l i d .
F u r t h e r , I show t h a t t h e s e v e r b s and nouns a r e n o t l l i r r e g u l a r l l
i n any way; and t h a t t h e y would i n f a c t be l l i r r e g u l a r l l i f t h e y
conformed t o t h e commonly assumed p a t t e r n of correspondence .
Chomsky (1970:188-189) n o t i c e d t h a t t h e d e v e r b a l nominals
amusement and i n t e r e s t do n o t show t h e l1expectedt1 p a t t e r n of
co r respondence w i t h t h e i r v e r b s :
(8) a. John amused ( i n t e r e s t e d ) t h e c h i l d r e n w i t h h i s
s t o r i e s
b. * J o h n l s amusement ( i n t e r e s t ) o f t h e c h i l d r e n w i t h
h i s s t o r i e s
I n t h e s e c a s e s , t h e s e t of p o s s i b l e o b j e c t s o f t h e v e r b
cor responds t o t h e s e t o f p o s s i b l e l t s u b j e c t s v i n t h e NP:
( 9 ) t h e c h i l d r e n 1 s amusement a t ( i n t e r e s t i n ) J o h n ' s
s t o r i e s 7
It has been s u g g e s t e d by Lakoff ( 1 9 7 0 ) , Jackendof f
(1975 :660-661), and (more r e c e n t l y ) by Wasow (1977 :359, fn . l 5 ) ,
t h a t t h e s u b c a t e g o r i z a t i o n a l p r o p e r t i e s of such nominals be
accoun ted f o r by r e l a t i n g them t o a n a d j e c t i v a l p a s t p a r t i c i p l e
r a t h e r t h a n t o t h e ve rb . Thus ( 9 ) would be r e l a t e d t o ( 1 0 ) :
(10) The children were amused at (interested in) John's
stories.
Wasow first motivates a distinction between "transformational1'
passives and 'llexicalll passives, and shows that the latter are
derived by a category-changing lexical rule. One criterion for
distinguishing a transformational from a lexical rule is that
the latter has idiosyncratic exceptions (Wasow1s Criterion 5).
Since the participles in ( 10) select idiosyncratic prepositions
like -* at - in, instead of the expected a, they are candidates for the lexical rule by this criterion. The nominals in ( 9 ) seem to
follow the adjectives1 idlosyncracy in preposition selection.
Neither the adjectives nor the nominals (unlike the verbs)
permit inanimate subjects.8
I give below a partial list of verb-participle-nominal
triplets for which the paradigm we noted in (8)- (10) seems to
hold.
(11) a. amaze, amuse, annoy, astonish, bore, confuse,
delight, disappoint, disgust, dismay, distress,
elate, embarrass, fascinate, frustrate, humiliate,
hurt, inspire, interest, irritate, (dis)please,
puzzle, relieve, surprise, vex
b. amazed (at), amused (at), annoyed (at), astonished
(at), bored (with), confused (by), delighted (at),
distressed (at), elated (at), embarrassed (at),
fascinated (with), frustrated (at), humiliated (by),
hurt (by), inspired (by), interested (in), irritated
(at), (d1s)pleased (at), puzzled (at), relieved
(at), surprised (at), vexed (by)
c. amazement (at), amusement (at), annoyance (at),
astonishment (at), boredom (with), confusion (*by),
delight (at), disappointment (with), disgust (at),
dismay (at), distress (at), elation (at),
embarrassment (at), fascination (with), frustration
(at), humiliation (*by), hurt (*by), inspiration
(*by), interest (in), irritation (at), (d1s)pleasure
(at), puzzlement (?at), relief (at), surprise (at 1,
vexation (*by)
Relating the nominals in (llc) to the participles in (llb)
neatly accounts for distributional facts. Further, it reinstates
the parallelism between the subject of the sentence and the
possessive NP in the nominal. Note, however, that it constitutes
no kind of explanation of why only a vpassivew nominalization
exists in just these cases09 It is not generally the case that
the existence of an adjectival passive implies that the
corresponding nominal is related to this adjectival passive and
not to the verb. We can argue for adjectival passives in the
case of collected and explored (since we have uncollected and
unexplored, and - un- attaches only to adjectives; cf. Siege1
1973, 1974, and Hust 1977), but collection and exploration must
be related to the verb: - the Church's collection - of tithes, the
Norwegians1 exploration -- of the Antartic. The analysis suggested
by Lakoff, Jackendoff and Wasow invites us to accept the fact
that a verb in (lla) does not have a related nominalization, or
the fact that a participle in (llb) has a related
nominalization, as (in each case) an arbitrary fact about the
individual lexical item. A lexical 'Igap1l needs no further
explanation. (Thus Jackendoff (1975:661), who considers only one
nominal, amusement, of the group of nominals (llc), expressly
states that "the existence of only one of the possible forms of
amusement is an -- ad hoc fact, expressed in the lexic~n.~)
But it is striking that the verbs for which the same -- ad hoc
fact must be expressed form a coherent semantic class. The verbs
in (lla) signify the causation of internal states in animate
(typically human) objects that are capable of experiencing these
states. It would appear that any attempt to explain the paradigm
(1la)- (llc) must mention some such semantic fact. Chomsky
(1970) suggested that this semantic fact is a feature [+cause]
of the verb.10 The explanation however cannot be (just) the
causative nature of the verb, for as Jackendoff (1975:660)
notes, "other causatives do have nominalizations~ (example (12b)
from Jackendof f ) :
(12) a. Gamma rays excited the protons.
b. the excitation of the protons by gamma rays
Let us tentatively hypothesize that the crucial semantic
fact is not the causativity of the verb as such, but the
semantic role of the verb's object. Let us call the animate
objects of the verbs in (lla), which are experiencing internal
states, Experiencers. As a first approximation, we may describe
the facts in (1la)- (llc) as follows: if the object of a
causative verb is an Experiencer, the verb does not have a
"regularw nominalization with a causative interpretation.
Instead, the subject of the verb appears, if at all, as a
prepositional object in the NP; and the verb's object appears as
"subject. Further, there is an adjectival passive which takes
the verb's object as subject. The nominal therefore appears to
be subcategorizationally parallel to the adjectival passive.
When considered more closely, the causative verb excite (of
(12)) and its nominalizations can be seen to provide a
particularly neat confirmation of our hypothesis. The verb
excite can take either inanimate objects, as in (12a), or
animate objects, as in (13a):
(13) a. The news excited Mary.
In (13a), Mary is an Experiencer. The interesting fact is that
(13a) does not have the nominalization (13b) (compare (12b)):
( 1 3 ) b. * t h e e x c i t a t i o n ( e x c i t e m e n t ) o f Mary by t h e news
R a t h e r , we have t h e d e r i v e d nominal (14a), which i s
s u b c a t e g o r i z a t i o n a l ~ l y p a r a l l e l t o ( 1 4 b ) :
( 1 4 ) a . Mary's e x c i t e m e n t ( * e x c i t a t i o n ) a t t h e news
b. Mary was e x c i t e d a t t h e news.
Observe t h a t t h e p a r t i c i p l e e x c i t e d - a t does n o t a l l o w inan imate
s u b j e c t s .
( 15 ) *The p r o t o n s were e x c i t e d a t gamma r a y s .
For e x c i t e , t h e r e a r e two d i f f e r e n t morpho log ica l forms of
t h e nominal ( e x c i t e m e n t , e x c i t a t i o n ) , each w i t h i t s s p e c i f i c
d i s t r i b u t i o n a l p r o p e r t i e s . There a r e o t h e r v e r b s whose nominals
have o n l y one morpho log ica l form, bu t t h e nominal once a g a i n
shows d i f f e r e n t s u b c a t e g o r i z a t i o n s depending on whether t h e
o b j e c t o f t h e v e r b i s inan imate , o r a n an imate Exper iencer . If
t h e o b j e c t i s i n a n i m a t e , t h e s u b c a t e g o r i z a t i o n o f t h e nominal
f o l l o w s t h a t o f t h e verb . If t h e o b j e c t i s an imate , t h e r e i s a
l e x i c a l l y r e l a t e d p a s t p a r t i c i p l e , and t h e s u b c a t e g o r i z a t i o n o f
t h e nominal f o l l o w s t h a t o f t h e p a r t i c i p l e .
(16) a . The a i r p r e s s u r e d e p r e s s e s t h e l e v e r .
b. t h e a i r p r e s s u r e ' s d e p r e s s i o n of t h e l e v e r
(17) a . The weather d e p r e s s e d Mary.
b. *the weather's depression of Mary
(18) a. Mary was depressed at the thought of going home.
b. Mary's depression at the thought of going home
(19) a. *The lever was depressed at the air pressure.
b. *the lever's depression at the air pressure
(20) a. The machine's rotary action agitates the soap
solution.
b. the agitation of the soap solution by the machine's
rotary action
(21) a. The (aide's) resignation agitated the official.
b. *the (aide's) resignation's agitation of the
official
(22) a. The official was agitated at (over) the aide's
resignation.
b. the official's agitation at (over) the aide's
resignation
(23) a. *The soap solution was agitated at (over) the
machine's rotary action.
b. *the soap solution's agitation at (over) the
machine's rotary action
( 2 4 ) a. The lexical entry satisfies the non-distinctness
requirement.
b. the satisfaction of the non-distinctness requirement
by the lexical entry
(25) a. The dress satisfies Mary.
b. *the satisfaction of Mary by the dress
(26) a. Mary is satisfied with the results.
b. Mary's satisfaction with the results
( 2 7 ) a. *The non-distinctness requirement is satisfied with
the lexical entry.
b. sthe non-distinctness requirement's satisfaction
with the lexical entry
(28) a. Indiscriminate mining exhausted the country's
resources.
b. the exhaustion of the country's resources by
indiscriminate mining
(29) a. The walk exhausted Mary.
b. *the walk's exhaustion of Mary
(30) a. Mary was quite exhausted (by the wa1k);ll the walk
left Mary exhausted; Mary seems very exhausted.
b. Mary's exhaustion (*by the walk)
(31) 'Indiscriminate mining left the country's resources
very exhausted; +the country's resources seem very
exhausted.
We have an interesting problem here. From the point of view
of lexical insertion, verbs like excite, exhaust, depress,
agitate and satisfy are free to take either animate or inanimate
objects. That is, these verbs need not be specified for the
features [t [+Animate]] or [t [-Animatell.12 But their
nominalizations differentiate between the animate and inanimate
NPs following these verbs. If this NP is inanimate, it is
assigned the - of-NP position in the noun phrase (and the subject
is assigned the Poss-NP position.) This is the "expectedv
correspondence. But if this NP is animate, it is assigned the
Poss-NP position, and the subject of the S fails to appear in
the NP, or appears as a prepositional object. This is the
"skewedu correspondence that we noticed between the verbs in
(lla) and the nouns in (llc). The basis for this differentiation
is obviously not a difference in the grammatical functions of
these NPs, which in both cases remain the verb's direct object.
Thus our model of a vsimplev mapping from the grammatical
functions "Subject of the Sentence" and "Object of the Verbn to
the grammatical functions llPoss-NPu and "of - -NPn apparently
breaks down.
Observe t h a t t h e problem i s n o t avo ided by p o s t u l a t i n g two
nominals , ( e . g . ) d e p r e s s i o n and d e p r e s s i o n , and r e l a t i n g one
of them t o t h e p a r t i c i p i a l a d j e c t i v e and t h e o t h e r t o t h e ve rb .
T h i s l l s o l u t i o n v o n l y s h i f t s t h e problem t o a n o t h e r r u l e of t h e
grammar. For w e n o t i c e t h a t t h e r u l e f o r t h e p a r t i c i p i a l
a d j e c t i v e must a l s o be s e n s i t i v e t o t h e f e a t u r e o f animacy of
t h e v e r b ' s o b j e c t . The s u b j e c t s of t h e p r e d i c a t e s - be e x c i t e d at,
be d e p r e s s e d at, be s a t i s f i e d w i t h , be a g i t a t e d a t and seem - - - exhaus ted must be an imate ; they cor respond t o o n l y t h e an imate
o b j e c t s o f t h e r e l a t e d v e r b s . T h i s means t h a t t h e r u l e r e l a t i n g
t h e v e r b and t h e p a r t i c i p i a l a d j e c t i v e must d i f f e r e n t i a t e
between t h e an imate and i n a n i m a t e o b j e c t s of t h e ve rb .
The problem becomes n i c e l y f o c u s s e d when w e l o o k a t t h e
fo rmal i sm o f l e x i c a l redundancy r u l e s . The g e n e r a l schema f o r
such r u l e s h a s been s u g g e s t e d by Chomsky ( 1 9 7 0 ) , f o r v e r b s and
t h e i r - ab le - d e r i v a t i v e s ( r e a d - r e a d a b l e ) , - and i t h a s been f u r t h e r
developed by Hust (1978) :
. . .a s u b r e g u l a r i t y . . . r e g a r d i n g s e l e c t i o n a l r u l e s i n t h e c a s e o f - a b l e . . . can be f o r m u l a t e d as a l e x i c a l r u l e t h a t ass= t h e f e a t u r e [ X - 1 t o a l e x i c a l i t e m [V-able] where V has t h e i n t r i n s i c s e l e c t i o n a l f e a t u r e [- X I . (Chomsky 1 9 7 m 1 3 , emphasis added)
The p o i n t t o n o t e is t h a t w i t h i n t h i s formal ism, t h e r u l e s can
mention on ly t h e i n t r i n s i c s e l e c t i o n a l f e a t u r e s o f t h e ve rb .
There fo re , if t h e v e r b ' s s e l e c t i o n a l f e a t u r e s s a y n o t h i n g a b o u t
t h e animacy of t h e d i r e c t o b j e c t , t h i s i n f o r m a t i o n w i l l n o t be
available to the lexical redundancy rules. In the framework of
Jackendoff (1975 ) , we must similarly differentiate between the
[ +- [+Animate]] and the [ + [-Animate]] subcategories of
these verbs. Jackendoff gives fully specified lexical entries
which are related by lexical redundancy rules. We must relate
excitation to excite [ + [-Animate]], and excitement to excite
[+- [+Animate]]; so also for the two senses of depression,
agitation, satisfaction, and exhaustion. We thus have a
situation where a selectional feature irrelevant to lexical
insertion must nevertheless be specified in order to capture
lexical redundancies. That is, verb subcategorization must
proceed beyond the requirements of lexical insertion, for these
verbs.
Given that it is necessary to set up [t [+Animate]] and
[ +- [-Animate]] subcategories of these verbs, it is now
possible to treat each subcategory as a separate lexical item.
But now (it could be pointed out) it is again possible to state
the required lexical redundancy rules simply in terms of
grammatical functions. The rules would not have the problem of
differentiating between the animate and inanimate objects of the
verbs, since this differentiation would be made available to
them as part of the subcategorization of different lexical
items. However, statements of correspondences in grammatical
functions once again conceal regularities in the data. It is not
accidental that of ten verbs (five homonymous verb pairs), it is
the five [ + [+Animate]] verbs which have a nominalization
with the object appearing in the Poss-NP position. Observe that
these animate objects are Experiencers; our hypothesis predicts
that they should appear in the Poss-NP position. Again, it is
only the five [ + [+Animate]] verbs that have adjectival
passives. If lexical redundancy rules referred only to
grammatical functions, we would not expect such a systematic
separation of five homonymous verb pairs into the classes
[ +- [+Animate]] and [ + [-Animate]] for purposes of rule
application, coincidental with a difference in the semantic role
of their objects. Thus regardless of whether excite, exhaust,
depress, agitate, and satisfy are each treated as one lexical
item or two, an explanation of the subcategorizational
correspondences in these cases cannot be given unless the
semantic role of their object NPs is taken into account.
Observe that it is the semantic role of the object, and not
its animacy or inanimacy per - se, that is relevant for lexical
redundancies. We may contrast the examples above with criticize
-criticism, where the inanimacy or animacy of the object does
not correlate with changes in its semantic role, and is (thus)
irrelevant for lexical redundancies. Compare John's critici~m - of
the play, John's criticism of Mary. Note also that the semantic - -
roles (thematic functions) to which lexical redundancy rules are
here claimed to be sensitive are much finer than notions like
Theme. Thus, for Jackendoff (1972), both - the lever and Mary as
objects of depress in (16a) and (17a) would be Themes; since
Themes include NPs whose location or change of location is
asserted by the predicate, and the notions vvlocationw and
"change of locationv1 are generalized to cover both physical
space and "abstract" space (such as points on an emotional
scale). Thus adjectives can function as abstract locations, and
the subjects of such adjectival predicates are considered Themes
(op. cit. :29-31). But, as we see, this gross classification will
not do for us.
The finer subcategorization of excite, exhaust, depress,
agitate and satisfy allows us to include the [+ [+Animate]]
subcategory of these verbs with the verbs in (lla) (all of which
take only animate objects), and to extend our generalization
about Experiencers to this new class of verbs, (llaf). That
finer subcategorizations may reveal underlying ~logicalv
relationships and allow the identification of Noverlappingtv
categories has been anticipated by Chomsky (1964). Chomsky
discusses the classification of lexical formatives into
hierarchies of categories, in the following terms:
1 Suppose we have a three level hierarchy. Then C1is the
2 class of all words. Let C1 =Nouns, C; =Verbs,
2 C: =Adjectives, C L =everything else. Let
3 3 1' . . . , C be subcategories of Verbs (pure .I
transitives, those with inanimate objects, etc.); . . .
(Chomsky 1964 :387)
H e then asks:
What i s t h e n a t u r a l p o i n t where cont inued refinement of t h e category h i e r a r c h y should come t o an end? This i s no t obvious. A s t h e grammatical r u l e s become more d e t a i l e d , we may f i n d t h a t grammar i s converging wi th what has been c a l l e d l o g i c a l grammar. That i s , we seem t o be s tudy ing smal l over lapping c a t e g o r i e s of fo rmat ives , where each ca tegory can be c h a r a c t e r i z e d by what we can now (g iven t h e grammar) recognize as a semantic f e a t u r e of some s o r t . . . (op. c i t . : 3 8 7 , f n . 8 )
I n t h e l i g h t of t h e program f o r grammar ske tched i n t h e
preceding e x t r a c t , we can s e e t h a t o u r a n a l y s i s has been i n t h e
r i g h t d i r e c t i o n . A "continued refinement of t h e ca tegory
h i e r a r c h y w ( i n t h e ca se of e x c i t e , e t c . ) a long semant ic l i n e s
revea led a c l a s s of verbs ( l l a l ) : a c l a s s of w c a u s a t i v e v verbs
wi th Exper iencer o b j e c t s . I n t e r e s t i n g l y , t h i s r e s u l t converged
wi th t h e r e s u l t of a s tudy of s u b c a t e g o r i z a t i o n a l
correspondences , which revea led t h e same c l a s s of verbs . The
d i scovery of such c a t e g o r i e s is what Chomsky views as a s t e p
towards f l l og i ca l " grammar.
FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER TWO
Fol lowing t h e p r a c t i c e o f Jackendof f ( 1 9 7 7 ) , I s h a l l r e p r e s e n t
b a r s as p r imes : e. g., 21x1.
A p r e v i o u s v e r s i o n o f t h e m a t e r i a l p r e s e n t e d i n t h i s
c h a p t e r and t h e n e x t i s t o a p p e a r i n L i n g u i s t i c A n a l y s i s , under
t h e t i t l e Express ing Cross -Ca tegor ia l S e l e c t i o n a l
Correspondences : - An A l t e r n a t i v e t o t h e Syntax Approach. I wish -- t o thank J o e l Hus t , R ichard DeArmond, K a r a t t u p a r a m b i l J a y a s e e l a n
and Al f redo Hur tado f o r u s e f u l d i s c u s s i o n s .
Such a s t r u c t u r a l p a r a l l e l i s m i s n e c e s s a r y i n a t h e o r y ( l i k e
t h e s t a n d a r d t h e o r y ) where in grammat ica l r e l a t i o n s a r e d e f i n e d
by s t r u c t u r a l conf i g u r a t i o n s . Thus Jackendof f writes : "The
g e n e r a l p r i n c i p l e e n t a i l e d by t h e X 1 Convention i s t h a t i f
p a r a l l e l grammatical r e l a t i o n s e x i s t i n two d i f f e r e n t
c a t e g o r i e s , t h e c a t e g o r i e s must be s y n t a c t i c a l l y p a r a l l e l w i t h
r e s p e c t t o t h a t grammat ica l r e l a t i o n w (1977:37-38).
We assume t h a t a rguments i n t h e f u n c t i o n a l s t r u c t u r e c a r r y
t h e m a t i c i n f o r m a t i o n (Agent , Theme, Goal , e t c . ) and o t h e r
semant ic i n f o r m a t i o n ( c o n c r e t e , an imate , human, e t c . ) ; c f .
J ackendof f (1972:36-43). Thus g i v e n t h e f u n c t i o n a l s t r u c t u r e
{ ( "Znt ' Theme Argumen t
the projection rule substitutes the reading of [Nwl,
[+SubjlH'] for the Agent argument.
Observe that verbs are never strictly subcategorized for
subjects in the standard theory, but selectional features for
subjects are included in their lexical entries.
5 Thus suppose we claim that a projection rule referring to the
notion Theme can be generalized for adjectives and deadjectival
nouns. We must then countenance two types of projection rules
--"grammaticaln and "thematicw -- in Ss and NPs. But now it becomes imperative to specify the conditions under which either
type of rule applies. Suppose we stipulate that the
wgrammatical~ rule applies for restrictions within an Xtl', and
the "thematicw rule applies elsewhere. This condition holds for
the S; but it fails for the NP, since the restrictions in
deadjectival as well as deverbal nominals involve the specifier
and the head of the same Xwl. We might argue that the type of
projection rule in the NP is determined by the type of
projection rule in the S. But this tells us nothing about NPs
for which there are no corresponding Ss. Selectional
restrictions must be enforced in yesterday's weather, John's
attitude, Mary's uncle; the theory we envisage provides no hint
as to whether the rules in these NPs refer to thematic
relations, or to grammatical relations.
Observe also how such a theory would account for the
subcategorizational correspondences between Ss; cf. (i) and (ii)
below:
(i) The door opens.
(ii) The door is open.
The restrictions on NPs occupying subject position In (1) and
(ii) are identical. But the rule in (li) enforces the
restrictions of a predicate adjective, and must therefore refer
to the notion Theme, whereas the rule in (i) refers to the
"subject-ofw the intransitive verb open.
6 In later work (Chomsky 1973, 1977), Chomsky adopts the
position that the possessive NP is the "subjectw of the noun
phrase. The motivation he provides is not subcategorizational
parallelism, but the behaviour of this NP with respect to the
Specified Subject Condition. If there are alternatives to this
condition (as suggested by Brame (1977)), then even this
argument for regarding the possessive NP as a "subjectw is not
very strong.
7 Nominals like ( 9 ) do have variants like (i), where the nominal
has an - of-complement:
(i) the amusement of the children (at John's stories)
However, this should not be taken as indicative of a parallelism
in the grammatical relations of amuse and amusement, for this
of-complement canno t cooccur w i t h a f i l l e d Poss-NP l l s u b j e c t l ' - ( c f . ( 8 b ) ) , o r w i t h a ( p o s t p o s e d ) by-phrase .
The - of-NP p o s i t i o n i n t h e noun p h r a s e i s ( u n d e r t h e
t r a d i t i o n a l llrnovementv a n a l y s i s ) f i l l e d i n one o f two ways. For
' t r a n s i t i v e 1 NPs l i k e d e s t r u c t i o n -- of t h e c i t y , t h i s p o s i t i o n i s
f i l l e d i n t h e base . For ' i n t r a n s i t i v e 1 NPs l i k e - t h e prowth - of
t h e c o r n o r t h e h e i g h t of t h e b u i l d i n g , a r u l e o f NP-postposing -- - -- ( c f . Jackendof f (1977 :gOff ) ) moves a n NP from t h e Poss-NP
p o s i t i o n t o t h e - of-NP p o s i t i o n . Thus t h e o c c u r r e n c e o f a n NP i n
t h e l a t t e r p o s i t i o n does n o t ( i n i t s e l f ) i n d i c a t e a
correspondence w i t h t h e o b j e c t o f a r e l a t e d v e r b .
C o n t r a s t s l i k e ( i b ) , ( l i b ) below appear t o be a n i c e
c o n f i r m a t i o n o f t h i s a n a l y s i s , which u t i l i z e s t h e d i s t i n c t i o n
between l 1 t r a n s f o r m a t i o n a l " and u l e x i c a l v p a s s i v e s .
(1) a . The c h i l d r e n were annoyed (amused) by J o h n ' s
s t o r i e s .
b. * t h e c h i l d r e n I s annoyance (amusement) by J o h n ' s
s t o r i e s
(ii) a. The c h i l d r e n were annoyed (amused) a t J o h n ' s
s t o r i e s .
b. t h e c h i l d r e n ' s annoyance (amusement) a t J o h n ' s
s t o r i e s
If annoyed Q, amused a, are a n a l y z e d as l l t r a n s f o r m a t i o n a l l l
p a s s i v e s , b u t annoyed aJ, amused -J a t as l l l e x i c a l p a s s i v e s " (by
Wasowls Criterion 5), the unacceptability of b~ in the nominal
follows from the inability of transformationally derived
structures to participate in lexical rules (compare Wasow
1977:359, fn.15, examples (a) and (c)).
However, we must also note some recalcitrant facts. The
llsubjects" of the nominals confusion, humiliation, hurt, and
inspiration correspond to the subjects of the participles - be
confused, - be humiliated, - be -3 hurt and - be inspired (and to the
objects of the corresponding verbs). We would therefore like to
analyze these participles as wlexicallf passives, and relate the
nominals to the participles. (Additional evidence that these
participles are adjectives is provided by the "unpassivesw
unhurt, uninspired; cf. Hust (1978), Siege1 (1973, 1974).) Now
these participles select &:
(iii) He seemed confused by the questions.
(iv) John seemed humiliated by the disclosures.
(v) I was very hurt by that remark.
(vi) The poet seemed more inspired by the dinner than by the
sunset . (Notice that - un- attachment, modification by very or -' more and
the context NP seem - - -9 are diagnostics for adjectives.) The &
here is apparently lexically selected. (As Wasow notes, "there
is nothing to prohibit a lexically derived passive from taking
Q as its associated preposition, or as one of several
alternativesw (1977:349)). But even this & is unacceptable in
the nominal:
(vii) his confusion (*by the questions)
(viii) John's humiliation (*by the disclosures)
(ix) My hurt (*by that remark)
( x ) the poet's inspiration (*by the sunset)
On the other hand, if we argue that this by is the l1regularW &
and the participles are Ntransforrnationalll passives, the
nominals cannot be related to the participles.
This imperfect correspondence in the syntactic frames of
the participles and nominals under consideration suggests that
their relation may be less direct than the
Lakoff-Jackendoff-Wasow analysis argues for.
9 Anderson (1977 :371-372) seems to make the same point. However,
he (incorrectly) assumes that Wasow advocates the derivation of
all nominals from past participles. He also advances an - alternative solution, namely, to subcategorize verbs like amuse,
annoy, etc., to take idiosyncratic prepositions ("we note that
these verbs have to contain, in their lexical entries,
information concerning idiosyncratic preposition selectionu),
and to derive the nominals from wintransltivew instead of
wtransitivell verbs. This solution is unworkable, since the verbs
amuse, annoy, etc. never take idiosyncratic prepositions; it is
only the participles in the context be which must be so
subcategorized:
( i ) * T h e news had annoyed a t Mary.
( i i ) * M a r y had annoyed a t t h e news.
10 Chomsky i n i t i a l l y s u g g e s t s (1970:192) t h a t s t r u c t u r e s l i k e
John amused - t h e c h i l d r e n are t r a n s f o r m a t i o n a l l y d e r i v e d from
John c a u s e [ -- t h e c h i l d r e n - be amused], j u s t as - John grows
tomatoes might be t r a n s f o r m a t i o n a l l y d e r i v e d f rom John c a u s e
[ tomatoes p o w ] . L a t e r , he t r e a t s [+cause ] a s a l e x i c a l f e a t u r e ,
which we must " r e s t r i c t . . . w i t h r e s p e c t t o t h e f e a t u r e t h a t
d i s t i n g u i s h e s d e r i v e d nominals" (op. c i t . : 2 1 5 ) .
l1 The p a r t i c i p l e exhaus ted i s one o f t h e p r o b l e m a t i c H l e x i c a l l f
p a s s i v e s which s e l e c t 9 ( s e e f n . ( 8 ) , above) . I t s a d j e c t i v a l
s t a t u s i n ( 3 0 a ) i s shown by i t s a b i l i t y t o o c c u r i n c o n t e x t s
d i a g n o s t i c f o r a d j e c t i v e s , i.e. l e a v e NP -9 seem , and i t s
a b i l i t y t o t a k e m o d i f i e r s l i k e ve ry . The examples i n ( 3 1 ) show
t h a t when t h e NP which i s modif ied i s i n a n i m a t e (and a
non-Exper iencer) , t h i s p a r t i c i p l e does n o t o c c u r i n c o n t e x t s
d i a g n o s t i c f o r a d j e c t i v e s .
l2 For c l a r i t y of p r e s e n t a t i o n , I d i v e r g e from t h e conven t ion of
t h e s t a n d a r d t h e o r y (a rgued f o r i n Chomsky (1965), and adop ted
by Hust ( 1 9 7 8 ) ) o f g i v i n g n e g a t i v e l y marked s e l e c t i o n a l
f e a t u r e s . The f e a t u r e [ + [+Animate]] Is e q u i v a l e n t t o t h e
f e a t u r e [- [ - ~ n i m a t e ] ] of t h e s t a n d a r d t h e o r y , and
[ +- [-Animate]] i s e q u i v a l e n t t o [ - [+Animate]].
CHAPTER THREE
THE EXPLANATORY FAILURE OF GRAMMATICAL FUNCTIONS
1. Two Hypotheses -- The question now arises whether we have merely identified a
class of principled l~exceptionstl to an otherwise valid paradigm
of correspondences, ltSub,ject of the S v and "Poss-NP, and
"0bJect of the Verbt1 and "of-NPtt - (much as we might identify a
class of principled exceptions to the rule of Passive); or
whether these verbs and nouns are not exceptional at all, and it
is the paradigm which is unjustified. The theoretical interest
of this question is whether lexical redundancy rules should
still be mappings between grammatical functions, but have access
to thematic information (at a cost); or whether thematic
functions are a more appropriate basis for stating these rules
(and subcategorizational correspondences). The latter approach
has been suggested by Anderson (1977), who proposes that
recurring correspondences of thematic and grammatical functions
in given syntactic frames be abstracted and stated as general
principles of (the) language, so that individual lexical rules
need no longer explicitly relate grammatical functions.
If lexical rules are mappings between grammatical
functions, we will apparently need two rules for the
nominalizations of transitive verbs, illustrated schematically
i. Subject V [-Experiencer] I 1 Objllf
POSS-NP N (of) NP
11. Subject V [+Experiencer]
1 1 Ob;.LI ( Prepositional N Poss-NP
Object
An alternative in line with the analysis suggested by Lakoff
(1970), Jackendoff (1975), and Wasow (1977), would dispense with
rule (I), subpart (11) above; it would derive NPs with
[+Experiencer] nsubjectsv by the "regular" rule for deadjectival
nominals, which can be illustrated as (2):
Subject (be) A (PP)
Notice however that even this solution must countenance rule
(li), which is thematically restricted.
Further, the rules which relate verbs and adjectival
passives must also contain thematic information. We have seen
t h a t whether o r n o t a v e r b h a s a n a d j e c t i v a l p a s s i v e i s n o t
e n t i r e l y u n p r e d i c t a b l e ; whi le v e r b s w i t h E x p e r i e n c e r o b j e c t s
c h a r a c t e r i s t i c a l l y have a d j e c t i v a l p a s s i v e s , t h e
[ +- [-Animate]] v e r b s e x c i t e , e x h a u s t , d e p r e s s , a g i t a t e and
s a t i s f y (which t a k e non-Experiencer o b j e c t s ) do n o t have
a d j e c t i v a l p a s s i v e s . The r e l e v a n t l e x i c a l r u l e must be s o s t a t e d
a s t o exc lude t h e l a t t e r c l a s s . We may t h e r e f o r e s a y t h a t i n
t h i s t h e o r y , l e x i c a l redundancy r u l e s ( i n g e n e r a l ) must t a k e
i n t o accoun t two k i n d s o f i n f o r m a t i o n : grammat ica l and
t h e m a t i c . 1 I s h a l l r e f e r t o a t h e o r y which s t a t e s a l e x i c a l r u l e
as a n o p e r a t i o n on grammat ica l f u n c t i o n s which i s s e n s i t i v e t o
t h e m a t i c i n f o r m a t i o n as t h e ? n i x e d u v e r s i o n o f t h e lfgrarnrnatical
f u n c t i o n s v h y p o t h e s i s of l e x i c a l r u l e s . (The "puren v e r s i o n o f
t h i s t h e o r y , where in l e x i c a l r u l e s a r e d e n i e d a c c e s s t o t h e m a t i c
i n f o r m a t i o n , h a s been shown t o be d e s c r i p t i v e l y i n a d e q u a t e . )
The t h e o r y I wish t o oppose t o t h e 9nixedw v e r s i o n of t h e
vgrammat ica l f u n c t i o n s v h y p o t h e s i s i s t h e " t h e m a t i c f u n c t i o n s w
h y p o t h e s i s . I n t h i s t h e o r y , l e x i c a l r u l e s relate argument
s t r u c t u r e s , and t h e s y n t a c t i c frames t h a t p a r t i c u l a r argument
s t r u c t u r e s are "mappedff i n t o a r e i n d e p e n d e n t l y s p e c i f i e d . Thus
t o accoun t f o r t h e d a t a c o n s i d e r e d s o f a r , w e s h a l l p o s t u l a t e a
r u l e which relates a v e r b w i t h t h e argument s t r u c t u r e (Causer ,
E x p e r i e n c e r ) t o a noun o r a n a d j e c t i v e w i t h t h e argument
s t r u c t u r e ( E x p e r i e n c e r , X ) , where XZCauser, and i s p o s s i b l y
n u l l .
*
I shall show that the "grammatical functions" hypothesis,
in either its l1pureW or its flmixed" version, imposes a
limitation on lexical rules that renders them incapable of
expressing the types of generalizations about
subcategorizational correspondences that need to be expressed.
But first, I wish to consider a model for lexical rules that has
recently been proposed by Wasow (1980). Wasow1s motivation for
including thematic functions in lexical rules is somewhat
different from ours, and he advocates the "mixed" theory that I
shall argue against. However, there are some interesting points
of convergence between his theory and the analysis we have so
far developed, which I shall point out.
2. Mador and Minor Lexical Rules. - - With the possibility of capturing distributional
regularities in the lexicon in the framework of Remarks, the
issue arose of the necessity for a class of structure-preserving
transformational rules in the grammar, distinct from lexical
rules. Wasow (1977) has described why a number of linguists
argued for the elimination of structure-preserving
transformations.
The primary motivation for structure-preserving transformations has been to account for regularities in co-occurrence restrictions. More specifically, when there are two syntactic constructions with the following three properties, then their relationship can be formulated as a structure-preserving transformation: (i)
they both can be generated by the rules of the base; (11) the morphological forms that appear in one construction are predictable from those that appear in the other; and (111) the co-occurrence restrictions in one construction are predictable from those in the other. Recently, several linguists have pointed out that it is, in general, also possible to relate constructions satisfying (1)-(111) by means of lexical redundancy rules. This is accomplished by isolating a key word in each construction (generally a verb) and expressing the regularities between the constructions in terms of the lexical entry for that word, especially the contextual features in the entry for that word. Freiden (1974, 1975) and Bresnan (1976) have suggested that all structure-preserving transformations can be reformulated as lexical redundancy rules. (Wasow 1977:328)
It has been suggested that such a reanalysis offers a
natural explanation for the fact that these rules preserve
structure; other advantages, such as reduced generative capacity
and a closer approximation to psychological reality, have also
been claimed in Its favor.
Initially, Wasow, in his well-known article
vTransformations and the lexiconw (1977), argued against the
elimination of structure-preserving transformations. The major
part of his article was devoted to an examination of the passive
in English, a paradigm case of a structure-preserving rule.
Wasow showed that there were in fact two rules of passive in
English, one the traditional rule which does not alter syntactic
category (the verbal passive), the other a rule which took verbs
as input to output past participial adjectives (the adjectival
passive). He illustrated that the two rules, though both
structure-preserving, differed in productivity and in conditions
on application. (Thus we saw in Chapter One that the adjectival
passive was lllocalll, in the sense that not every immediately
post-verbal NP could be preposed by this rule.) Wasow argued
that the differences between the verbal passive and the
adjectival passive were in fact the differences we would expect
between a transformational rule and a lexical rule. Thus, he
concluded that not all structure-preserving rules were lexical
rules.
The distinctions that Wasow pointed out between the verbal
passive and the adjectival passive were indisputable. What was
perhaps not equally evident was that these differences indicated
a transformational versus lexical dichotomy in
structure-preserving rules. The maintenance of a class of
transformational rules which were structure-preserving led to
the loss of an elegant demarcation between transformational and
lexical rules, and it left the structure-preserving property
unexplained. Acknowledging these problems, Wasow (1980) accepts
the structure-preserving property as the boundary between
lexical and transformational rules. The problem he addresses is
that of retaining the distinctions between a rule-type like the
verbal passive and a rule-type like the adjectival passive in a
framework wherein both these rules are lexical, and both are
stated as operations on grammatical relations. His solution is
to adapt the suggestions of Anderson (1977), and incorporate
thematic functions into lexical rules. He therefore makes the
f o l l o w i n g p r o p o s a l :
L e t u s suppose t h a t t h e f u n c t i o n a l s t r u c t u r e i n l e x i c a l e n t r i e s i s a s p e c i f i c a t i o n of which t h e m a t i c r e l a t i o n s shou ld be a s s i g n e d t o t h e e lements mentioned i n t h e s y n t a c t i c c o n t e x t . Then we may d i s t i n g u i s h two t y p e s of l e x i c a l r u l e s : t h o s e t h a t make r e f e r e n c e t o t h e m a t i c f u n c t i o n s and t h o s e t h a t do n o t . The fo rmer would cor respond t o r u l e s t h a t my e a r l i e r p a p e r c a l l e d l e x i c a l , and thJe l a t t e r t o t h o s e t h a t I c a l l e d t ransformat ions ' .
Un l ike t h e 1977 model, t h e 1980 model p r o v i d e s d e f i n i t i o n s of
grammat ica l r e l a t i o n s i n terms of " r a t h e r s u p e r f i c i a l s t r u c t u r a l
configuration^.^^ Thus Wasow c o n t i n u e s :
t h e d i s t i n c t i o n s my e a r l i e r p a p e r t r i e d t o c a p t u r e i n terms of t h e d i f f e r e n c e between s t r u c t u r a l r u l e s and r e l a t i o n a l r u l e s i s now t o be handled i n terms of t h e d i f f e r e n c e between ( s u p e r f i c i a l ) grammat ica l r e l a t i o n s and t h e m a t i c r e l a t i o n s .
Wasow t h u s p o s t u l a t e s two t y p e s of l e x i c a l r u l e s , which he
c a l l s 9 n a j o r n and "minoru l e x i c a l r u l e s . A t y p i c a l l e x i c a l r u l e
i s g i v e n t h e form ( n < - - - m ) . q i n d i c a t e s t h e morpho log ica l PU
e f f e c t , - P and Q a r e t h e grammat ica l c a t e g o r i e s o f i n p u t and
o u t p u t ( r e s p e c t i v e l y ) , and - n<---m - symbol izes t h e change from t h e
grammat ica l r e l a t i o n - m t o t h e grammat ica l r e l a t i o n - n. Major and
minor r u l e s a r e d i s t i n g u i s h e d i n t h e f o l l o w i n g ways:
a. Minor r u l e s s t i p u l a t e t h e t h e m a t i c r e l a t i o n of g, major r u l e s do n o t . b. I n major r u l e s , P and Q must be i d e n t i c a l . c . Only minor r u l e s may have i d i o s y n c r a t i c a l l y marked e x c e p t i o n s . (op. c i t . )
The verbal passive Is now a major lexical rule, which is stated
as follows: -en (I<---2). The adjectival passive is now a minor vv lexical rule, which is stated as follows: If 2=t(heme),
Note the reference to Theme in the adjectival passive rule.
The operations of the adjectival and the verbal passive are
otherwise here identical; both turn direct objects into
subjects. It is the thematic condition that precludes "indirect1'
objects (which are Goals) and wraisedll objects (which have no
thematic status) from undergoing the adjectival passive rule,
even when they occupy direct object (1.e. immediately
post-verbal) position. This is the wlocalnessll property that (as
we saw) distinguishes the adjectival from the verbal passive,
and the explanation here is essentially that suggested by
Anderson (1977).
Wasow1s main motivation for incorporating thematic
functions into (minor) lexical rules is thus a theoretical one;
it rests on the assumption that all structure-preserving rules
are lexical rules. If this assumption is denied, his case for
thematic functions is correspondingly weakened. What is needed
is empirical evidence to support the incorporation of thematic
functions into lexical rules. Our data provide this evidence. We
saw that the animate Experiencer objects of excite, exhaust,
agitate, depress and satisfy undergo the adjectival passive, but
that the inanimate obdects do not. If we tried to account for
this differentiation in terms of grammatical relations (as in
the 1977 model), we would be forced into the counterintuitive
position that the Experiencer objects of these verbs are direct
objects, but that the non-Experiencer objects are not.
To put the same point somewhat differently, there was some
initial plausibility to the view that the immediately
post-verbal NP in double object constructions, accusative-
infinitive constructions, and idiomatic constructions was not
the verb's direct object in the lexicon. The double object
construction V NP1 NP2 alternates with another construction V
NP2 to/for NP1, where the I1first objectw is a prepositional
object; the accusative-infinitive construction allows NPs like
there to follow the verb, showing that this Nobjectll has its
origin in the subject position of the complement clause; and the
idiom [[take]$advantage] of],+s possibly present as a unit in N the lexicon. The failure of such post-verbal NPs to undergo the
adjectival passive rule could therefore be conceivably due to
their non-direct object status. In the case of verbs like
excite, however, there is no such evidence for assigning
non-direct object status to inanimate objects at any stage. The
explanation here must appeal to thematic functions, irrespective
of whether the verbal passive is a transformational rule that
refers solely to structural properties, or a lexical rule that
refers to grammatical relations.
Notice that the verbal and adjectival passive again differ
in productivity. Verbal passives of the inanimate objects of
excite, etc., are possible:
( 3 ) a. The protons were excited by gamma rays.
b. The lever is depressed by the air pressure, and
water flows.
c. The soap solution is agitated by the machine's
rotary action, so that it lathers.
d. The non-distinctness requirement is satisfied by the
lexical entry, and lexical insertion goes through.
e. The country's resources were exhausted by
indiscriminate mining, resulting in dependence on
foreign oil.
Compare also (4)-(7), where only Experiencer objects appear as
subJects of an adjectival passive construction.
(4) a. John moved (touched) the stone.
b. *The stone seemed moved (touched).
(5) a. The story moved (touched) John.
b. John seemed (un)moved (touched) by the story.
(6) a. The authorities relaxed the regulations.
b. *The regulations seem relaxed.
(7) a. A shower and a shampoo relaxed John.
be John seems relaxed,
Moreover, our data show that reference to thematic
functions is a general property of minor lexical rules. The
characteristics of a minor lexical rule according to Wasow
(1980) are that it can alter syntactic category, and that it may
have idiosyncratic exceptions. On both these counts, the
nominalization rule is a minor lexical rule (it was its
idiosyncratic character that motivated the Lexicalist Hypothesis
in the first place). Thus it is significant that the
nominalization rule and the adjectival passive rule show a
common sensitivity to the Experiencer-non Experiencer
distinction, which the verbal passive rule is immune to. The
distinction between major and minor lexical rules is thus shown
to be consistent, and one that must be incorporated into a
framework where there are no structure-preserving
transformational rules. Wasowts model is unique in this respect
(as he notes, "Bresnants theory, as she has presented it so far,
says nothing about the major-minor rule distinctlon").2
Wasowls optimism concerning a satisfactory resolution of
the problem of identifying the thematic functions relevant to
lexical rules also turns out to be justified. He suggests lla
line of research (which) holds some promise," which is very
close to the method we pursued in Chapter Two. Noting that a
lack of rigorous justification for proposed thematic assignments
undermines the force of any explanation of wexceptionaln
behaviour, he observes that
(t)he ideal answer to this sort of charge would be a characterization of the semantic content of the thematic relations which Is precise enough to make their assignments as transparent to the intuitions of the native speaker as are control relations. However, given the failure of substantial previous efforts (e.g., Gruber (1965), Jackendoff (1976)) to achieve the requisite level of precision (see Hust and Brame (1976)), there is little cause for optimism on this score. An alternative means of lending substance to the thematic assignments could be provided by considering a wider range of minor rules. If I am correct in claiming that all such rules are sensitive to thematic relations, then each assignment will make predictions with respect to the operation of a number of different rules. These assignments would then predict a clustering of properties, and hence could not be said to be arbitrary.
It is precisely such a wclustering of propertiesv that was
seen above, that motivated the thematic function Experiencer.
Causative verbs with Experiencer objects were shown to
consistently have both an adjectival passive, and a "skewedn
nominalization subcategorizationally parallel to this adjectival
passive. This evidence was corroborated by evidence from "finerw
subcategorization, along the lines suggested by Chomsky (1964).
3. A Cross-Morphological Regularity - -
The question posed by the data in Chapter Two (repeated
here as (8), with the [ + - [+Animate]] subcategories of verbs
like excite included) was whether causative verbs with
Experiencer objects are "regularly exceptionaln in exhibiting a
llskewed" nominalization, subcategorizationally parallel to a
past participial adjective.
(8) a. agitate, amaze, amuse, annoy, astonish, bore,
confuse, delight, depress, disappoint, disgust,
dismay, distress, elate, embarrass, excite, exhaust,
fascinate, frustrate, humiliate, hurt, inspire,
interest, irritate, (dis )please, puzzle, relieve,
satisfy, surprise, vex
b. agitated (at, over), amazed (at), amused (at),
annoyed (at), astonished (at), bored (with),
confused (by), delighted (at), depressed (at),
disappointed (with), disgusted (at), dismayed (at),
distressed (at), elated (at), embarrassed (at),
excited (at), exhausted (by), fascinated (with),
frustrated (at), humiliated (by), hurt (by),
inspired (by), interested (in), irritated (at),
(d1s)pleased (at), puzzled (at), relieved (at),
satisfied (with), surprised (at), vexed (by)
c. agitation (at, over), amazement (at), amusement
(at), annoyance (at), astonishment (at), boredom
(with), confusion (*by), delight (at), depression
(at), disappointment (with), disgust (at), dismay
(at), distress (at), elation (at), embarrassment
(at), excitement (at), exhaustion (*by), fascination
(with), frustration (at), humiliation (*by), hurt
(*by), inspiration (*by), interest (in), irritation
(at), (d1s)pleasure (at), puzzlement (?at), relief
(at), satisfaction (with), surprise (at), vexation
(*by)
The theoretical interest of this question, we said, was whether
to adopt the "mixedw version of the llgrammatical functionsv
hypothesis of lexical rules, or the lfthematic functionsf1
hypothesis of lexical rules. A related question was whether the
nominalizations of these verbs should be related to the past
participial adjectives instead of to the verbs themselves, as
suggested by Lakoff (1970), Jackendoff (1975), and Wasow (1977).
I undertook to show that the verbs, adjectives and nouns under
consideration are not "irregularw in any way, and that it is the
requirement that lexical rules refer to grammatical functions
which prevents us from seeing the underlying regularity in the
observed pattern of subcategorizational correspondences.
In order to see the limitations of the wgrammatical
functions" hypothesis, let us briefly advert to the simplest
(and strongest) form of this hypothesis: the model that
Jackendoff (1977) and Wasow (1977) have in mind (call it the
"pure grammatical functionsw model). The prediction that this
model makes is that the subcategorization of a nominal N will
parallel the subcategorization of a predicate P - from which it is
morphologically derived. This may be schematized as in (91,
where the arrow indicates morphological derivation and the
dotted line indicates subcategorizational parallelism. The
predicate P is a verb in (gal, an adjective in (gb).
Examples (10a,b) and (lla,b) illustrate the schema above.
(10) a. John criticized the book.
b. John's criticism of the book
(11) a. The book is readable.
b. the book's readability
Now there may be other predicates to which the nominal N is
morphologically related, but from which it is not
morphologically derived. Consider for example the predicates
(be) critical and read. The subjects of these predicates (which
are not the morphological wbases't of criticism and readability)
may, or may not, correspond to the "subjectn of the nominal.
Thus we have (12)-(13):
(12) a. John was critical of the book.
b. John's criticism of the book.
(13) a. John read the book.
b. the book's readability
Observe that the subject (and of-complement) of be critical are - - parallel to the wsubjectll (and - of -complement) of criticism,
whereas it is the object of read that corresponds to the
"subjectw of. readability. But these correspondences do not
validate or invalidate (respectively) the model we are
discussing, for it makes no direct predictions in these cases.
Rather, we must first ascertain the morphological (and hence
subcategorizational) relation of - be critical to criticize and of
read to readable, since the latter predicates are the - morphological "basesI1 of the nouns. Thus, since the subject of
be critical is also the subject of criticize, it corresponds (as - expected) to the llsubjectll of criticism. But since it is the
object of - read that corresponds to the subject of readable, the
llsubjectsll of the verb and the,deadjectival noun are not
expected to be parallel; as indeed they are not.
Given a range of Ss and an NP with morphologically related
predicates, theref ore, the "pure grammatical functions l1 model
predicts a parallelism between only one of these Ss, and the NP.
The S that the NP1s subcategorizational frame is predicted to be
parallel to is that S whose predicate is the morphological
I1basew of the head noun. 3 Obviously, any claim that the NP1s
subcategorizational frame should parallel those of the whole
range of Ss with morphologically related predicates is
immediately refutable, since the Ss do not show such a
parallelism among themselves. The link with morphological
derivation is therefore a crucial one for this model.
This crucial dependence on the links provided by
morphological derivation is the reason why the problem of the
examples (8a-c) is not solved, for this model, by relating the
nouns in (8c) to the participles in (8b). Observe first that the
verbs in (8a) each have not one, but two adjectival
(participial) derivatives: present participial adjectives, and
past participial adjectives. The present participles take as
subject the subject of the verb, but the past participles take
as subject the object of the verb:
(14) a. The stories amused the children.
b. The stories were amusing.
c. The children were amused.
Given a noun amusement which is morphologically derived from
neither amusing nor amused, it is - a priori impossible to predict whether its "subjectw will correspond to the subject of - be
amusinq or of - be amused. This correspondence can only be
inferred from the subcategorizational correspondence of
amusement to (its morphological base) amuse. The prediction of
the "pure grammatical functionsw model is that the wsubjectw of
amusement will correspond to the subject of amuse, and
( t h e r e f o r e ) t o t h e s u b J e c t o f be amusing. The c a s e o f - amuse-amusement-(be) - amusing s h o u l d t h u s be p a r a l l e l t o t h a t of
c r i t i c i z e - c r i t i c i s m - ( b e ) - c r i t i c a l . I t i s p r e c i s e l y because
amusement l l v i o l a t e s n t h i s p r e d i c t i o n t h a t a p a r a l l e l i s m i s
observed i n t h e l l s u b j e c t s l l o f t h e nominal and t h e p a s t
p a r t i c i p i a l a d j e c t i v e ; t h i s p a r a l l e l i s m a r i s e s by v i r t u e of t h e
f a c t t h a t bo th t h e s e l l s u b j e c t s l l co r respond t o t h e v e r b ' s o b j e c t .
The a n a l y s i s which r e l a t e s amusement t o amuse$ a p p e a r s t o
accord w i t h t h e "pure1' v e r s i o n o f t h e l lgrammatical f u n c t i o n s v
h y p o t h e s i s , by r e s t o r i n g a p a r a l l e l i s m i n t h e l l s u b j e c t s l l of one
S and NP p a i r i n a paradigm o f m o r p h o l o g i c a l l y r e l a t e d
p r e d i c a t e s . But t h e p a r a l l e l i s m which i s t h u s r e i n s t a t e d i s
mere ly a n o b s e r v a t i o n , n o t a p r e d i c t i o n .
The p r o p e r t y of b e i n g a b l e t o e x p r e s s o n l y p a i r w i s e
r e l a t i o n s between l e x i c a l i t ems l1l inkedt1 by morpho log ica l
d e r i v a t i o n i s i n f a c t a g e n e r a l p r o p e r t y of l e x i c a l r u l e s a s
c u r r e n t l y f o r m u l a t e d . Thus t h e a c t i v e - p a s s i v e r u l e relates o n l y
a p a i r of S s , such a s ( 1 5 ) and ( 1 6 ) :
( 1 5 ) Someone r e a d t h e book.
( 1 6 ) The book was read.
I t does n o t ( d i r e c t l y ) r e l a t e (16) t o ( 1 7 ) o r (18) :
( 1 7 ) The book i s r e a d a b l e .
(18) The book reads well.
The choice of which pair of Ss to relate is obviously determined
by a (postulated) morphological derivation, which derives - be
read from transitive read and not from readable or intransitive -3
read.
Observe that the rules of the "mixed" version of the
"grammatical functionsH hypothesis are also subject to the same
restrictions. Such rules (cf. (1-2) above) may apply to finer
subcategories, by virtue of their containing thematic
information; but they may still express only pairwise relations,
the choice of the pair being determined by morphological
derivation. As a further illustration of this property, consider
again the formalism for minor lexical rules given by Wasow
(1980) : "if m=(some thematic function)&, then l@pQ(n<---m). l1 Such
a rule specifies a subcategorizational correspondence between - m and - n (e.g., and vsubjectll) in conjunction with a
morphological operation(P; it relates the subcategorization of a
pair of predicates such that one is morphologically derived from
the other. On the other hand, rules which relate only thematic
structures may predict a subcategorizational pattern in a range
of Ss and an NP. Further, they may apply to lexical items
exhibiting diverse patterns of morphological relationships.
(These points are illustrated below.)
I shall now show that there are generalizations about
subcategorizational correspondences which cut across different
morphological paradigms, and which cannot be expressed by
pairwise comparisons. Consider the four different morphological
paradigms schematically illustrated In (lga-d). The arrows
indicate morphological derivation, and the dotted lines indicate
observed subcategorlzational parallelism. Recall that the "pure
grammatical functionsft model predicts that the dotted line will
follow the arrow.
For the "pure grammatical functionsN model, the paradigms
represented by (lga) and (19d) are "irregular. Further, even
the vmixedv version of the wgrammatical functionsw hypothesis
cannot say anything about the relation indicated by the dotted
line in (lga) and (lgd). In order to express this relation, it
needs the presence of an "arrow," 1.e. a morphological
derivation. However, when the four sets of data exemplifying the
four schemata of (19) are represented in terms of argument
structures (thematic functions) alone -- ignoring morphological
derivation --, we obtain (as we shall see) the single general schema (20):
v (Causer, Experiencer)
Subject Object
N
(Experiencer, X )
POSS-NP PP
A
(Experiencer, X )
Subject PP
The generalization represented by (20) should be apparent.
Schema (19a) represents the relation of amuse to amusement
and amused (and the other examples in (8a-c)). It should be
clear that these data conform to the representation in (20).
Schemata (lgb-c) are exemplified in (21a-d).4
(21) a. The news saddened (gladdened, cheered, tired) Bill.
b. *The news1 sadness (gladness, cheerfulness,
tiredness) of Bill
c. Bill was sad (glad, cheerful, tired).
d. Bill's sadness (gladness, cheerfulness, tiredness)
In (21a) and (21d), as in (8a-c), the object of the verb
corresponds to the vsubJectw of the nominal. However, here we do
not readily see an instance of the "skewed1' paradigm, since the
nouns in (21d) are plainly deadjectival (as are the verbs sadden
and pladden). The ''pure grammatical functionsv model therefore
predicts the parallelism in (21c-d); the wsubjectw-object
correspondence in (21d), (21a) is to be inferred from the
relationship of the verbs in (21a) to the adjectives in (21~).
But observe that the same pattern of subcategorizational
correspondences is predicted by our hypothesis about
Experiencers. The verbs in (21a) are causative verbs with
Experiencer objects. The objects of the verb correspond to the
"subjectslt of the nominal and the subjects of the adjectival
predicates with Experiencer arguments, as expected. The
''thematic functions~ hypothesis thus allows us to treat (8a-c)
and (21a-d) as instances of the same pattern of
subcategorizational correspondences, namely (20).
The case of tire tire and tirednes is a particularly *' illuminating example of the problems created by morphological
derivation for the "pure grammatical functionsw model. The
adjective tired is morphologically a past participle, just like
the adjective exhausted (and the other adjectives in (8b)).
However, the noun tiredness is formed by -ness - attachment to the adjective, while the noun exhaustion (like the other nouns in
(8c)) is formed from the verb (suffixes like -ment -9 -(at)ion --'
characteristically attach to verbs, to form nouns). The ''pure
grammatical functionsu model therefore predicts that *the - walk's exhaustion - of Mary will be grammatical, but that *the - walk's
tiredness - of Mary will be ungrammatical. The wthematic
functions11 hypothesis, however, correctly predicts that the
semantically similar verbs tire and exhaust (strictly, the
subcategory of the latter with the feature [ + [+Animate]] 1,
and their adjectival and nominal derivatives, will have the same
pattern of subcategorizational correspondences.
Consider now the hypothetical situation wherein the
nominals in (8c) are subcategorizationally parallel to the verb,
1.e. where John's amusement -- of the children is grammatical. Such
a hypothetical paradigm would violate the generalization about
Experiencers. Our hypothesis thus not only accounts for (8a-c),
and generalizes it with (21a-d); it predicts that the language
would be more complex if the facts were otherwise.5 The llpure
grammatical functionsl1 model, on the other hand, predicts that
(8a-c) and (21a-d) should be non-parallel. Further, when this
prediction fails, this model is still unable to see (8a-c) and
(21a-d) as instances of the same subcategorizational pattern.
The morphology tells us that in (8a-c), there is a relation
between an S with a verbal predicate, and an NP; while in
(21a-d), there is a relation between an S with an adjectival
predicate, and an NP. The only way to reconcile the two
paradigms is to ignore the morphology, postulate a lexical llgapl'
where the nominalizations of the verbs (8a) should be, and
consider both the nouns in (8c) and (21d) as deadjectival.
Recall that this is the solution proposed by Lakoff, Jackendoff,
and ~ a s o w . 6
Consider next t h e schema ( l g d ) , i l l u s t r a t e d i n (22a-d).
( 2 2 ) a . The news t e r r i f i e d ( h o r r i f i e d ) Mary.
b. * the t e r r o r ( h o r r o r ) of Mary by t h e news
c. Mary was t e r r i f i e d ( h o r r i f i e d ) a t t h e s i g h t of
blood.
d. Mary ' s t e r r o r ( h o r r o r ) a t t h e s i g h t of blood
I n (22a) we have verbs which a r e morphological ly der ived from
t h e nouns i n (22d1.7 The same arguments t h a t mot ivated t h e '!pure
grammatical f u n c t i o n s H model f o r verbs and deve rba l nouns ought
t o apply I n t h e c a s e of nouns and denominal verbs . Observe t h e
p a r a l l e l i s m s i n (23) - (24) :8
(23 ) a. J o h n ' s apology t o B i l l
b. John apologized t o B i l l .
(24) a. J o h n ' s s c r u t i n y (summary) o f t h e a r t i c l e
b. John s c r u t i n i z e d (summarized) t h e a r t i c l e .
I n (22a-d), however, t h i s p a r a l l e l i s m does n o t ob t a in ; t h e
vsubjec t f l of t h e nominal corresponds t o t h e o b j e c t of t h e verb.
This i s a problem f o r t h e "pure grammatical f u n c t i o n s w
hypothes i s . If (22d) i s r e l a t e d t o (22a) on t h e s t r e n g t h of t h e
morphological evidence, t h e grammatical f u n c t i o n s of t h e S and
t h e NP do no t co inc ide . If (22d) i s r e l a t e d t o (22c ) , t h e
subcategorizational relation conflicts with the morphological
relation.9 Observe that once again, the thematic function
Experiencer is crucially involved. The object in (22a), and the
"subjectw in (22c-d), are Experiencers. The paradigm (22a-d)
thus generalizes with (8a-c) and (21a-d).
But now the "pure grammatical functions" model has not only
made a consistently wrong prediction in two different
morphological paradigms where Experiencers have appeared; in the
case of (22a-d), we have a strong intuition that the paradigm in
fact is regular. It seems to me that this intuition has its
roots in two facts: first, the subcategorization of the noun is
"given," since it is morphologically basic; second, verbs ending
in -= are causative verbs. In general, the subjects of intransitive (non-causative) constructions appear as the objects
of transitive (which Includes causative) constructions (compare
the Theme-Rule of Anderson (1977) ). The paradigm (22a-d) reveals
an interesting fact: when the relevant semantic factors are
sufficiently overt as to be available to unanalyzed intuition,
our expectations about the subcategorizational correspondences
in Ss and NPs depend on perceived semantic roles, and not on a
simple correspondence in grammatical functions.
We have thus far examined four morphological paradigms
where Experiencers are involved, and the same pattern of
subcategorizational correspondences has been seen to hold in all
four cases. The underlying unity in the subcategorizational
p a t t e r n emerged o n l y when t h e s y n t a c t i c frames of t h r e e
p r e d i c a t e s were compared a t once: a v e r b a l , a n a d j e c t i v a l and a
nominal p r e d i c a t e . The p a i r w i s e comparison o f S s and NPs canno t
r e v e a l such r e g u l a r i t i e s .
But we have s e e n t h a t such a p a i r w i s e comparison w i l l be a n
e s s e n t i a l f e a t u r e of any v e r s i o n o f t h e vgrammat ica l f u n c t i o n s H
h y p o t h e s i s . Thus c o n s i d e r how t h e wmixedu v e r s i o n of t h i s
h y p o t h e s i s w i l l d e a l w i t h t h e t h r e e morpho log ica l paradigms we
have d i s c u s s e d , To d e a l w i t h d e v e r b a l nomlnals s o as t o
d i s t i n g u i s h t h e d a t a o f (8a-c) ( i l l u s t r a t i n g t h e schema ( 1 9 a ) )
from t h e %ormalV c a s e s , it w i l l p o s t u l a t e t h e two "marked1!
r u l e s ( l i , ii) ( r e p e a t e d h e r e a s ( 2 5 ) ) :
( 2 5 ) 1- S u b j e c t V [ " f z i e n c e r ]
POSS-NP N ( o f ) NP
ii. S u b j e c t V Objec t 1 I [+Exper iencer ]
( P r e p o s i t i o n N PO&-NP -a1 O b j e c t )
I n t h e c a s e o f (21a-d) (illustrating t h e schemata ( l g b - c ) ) , i t
w i l l have no c a u s e t o p o s t u l a t e a Itmarked" r u l e men t ion ing t h e
t h e m a t i c f u n c t i o n E x p e r i e n c e r , s i n c e - a l l s u b j e c t s o f a d j e c t i v a l
p r e d i c a t e s co r respond t o t h e l l s u b j e c t s w of d e a d j e c t i v a l
nominals.10 The required rule is (2) (repeated here as ( 2 6 ) ) :
(26) Subject
In the case of denominal verbs, in order to distinguish the
"skewedN correspondence exhibited by (22a-d) from the vnormaln
correspondence in (23) and (24), the theory will need two
"markedI1 rules, which we may represent as (27) :
Subject V
Object V
It should be apparent that these rules do not express the
generalization we have noticed; nor do they constitute any kind
of explanation of the phenomena under consideration.
Let us conclude the discussion with a rather nice bit of
evidence for the Experiencer hypothesis (as against the pairwise
comparison approach). Among the examples in (8a-c) is the
verb-adjective-nominal triplet delight, delighted (at), - delight
(at) - :
(28) a. The news delighted Mary.
b. *the news1 delight of Mary
c. Mary was delighted at the news.
d. Mary's delight at the news
From (28a-d) we must conclude that delight Is one of the nouns
exhibiting the "skewedw pattern, being subcategorizationally
parallel to the participial adjective. However, there is an
intransitive verb delight, and this verb has a corresponding
nominalization:
(29) a. Mary delights in tormenting small insects.
b. Mary's delight in tormenting small insects
The wsubjectw of the noun delight Is thus at the same time
parallel and non-parallel to the subjects of the verbs delight.
The facts, however, are straightforward. The "subject of the
noun is an Experiencer; it corresponds to the subjects of those
Ss in which Experiencers appear as subjects.11
4. The Thematic-Syntactic Mapping --
There is thus a variety of evidence to show that the
parallelism in the grammatical functions of the S and the NP
postulated by Jackendoff is unjustified, and the proposal for
generalizing the projection rules of verbs and deverbal nouns
fails. One task which remains is to specify a general method of
enforcing the shared selectional restrictions of lexically
related words.12 The other task is to specify the formalism for
lexical redundancy rules under the "thematic functionsv1
hypothesis.
Let us consider in some detail the proposals of Anderson
(l977), to which I have made brief references earlier. Anderson
observes that there are recurrent regularities within a
language, and perhaps across languages, in the syntactic
positions in which certain thematic functions are
characteristically realized. He suggests that the grammar
provide for a statement of these regularities in the
thematic-syntactic mapping. Two such regularities he notes are
the preference of Agents for subject position, and the
occurrence of Themes as subjects of intransitive verbs or
objects of transitive verbs; and he informally designates these
regularities as the "Theme-Rulen and the "Agent-Rulew. Note that
such "mappingw rules would extract a core of regularities from
thematic-syntactic correspondences which, in existing
frameworks, are specified for individual lexical entries. Thus
Jackendoff (1972, section 2.4) assumes an an indexing procedure
for correlating syntactic positions and thematic functions, in
his illustrative examples of lexical entries. Similarly, Wasow
(1980) gives equations for thematic-syntactic correspondences,
e.g., "l( 1. e. subject )=a(gent)." The rules suggested by Anderson
do not therefore result In any ad hoc extension of the grammar. -- On the contrary, they simplify lexical entries, by allowing
thematic-syntactic equations or indices to be omitted from the
entry if the information contained in them is entirely regular
and predictable. 13
Assuming, then, that the grammar specifies a Theme-Rule and
an Agent-Rule, Anderson illustrates how this affects the minor
lexical rule relating transitive and intransitive verb pairs.
Jackendoff (1975) proposes the rule (30) :
Anderson points out that
+NP1
NP1 W A
. . .this rule . . . explicitly establishes the fact that the NP in Direct Object position In a clause with break(tr.) corresponds semantically to the NP in Subject m i o n In a clause with break(intr.). In light of the Theme-Rule, however, we can see that this association is exactly the natural one; and that it need not be stated as part of the lexical relation at all. In fact, neither verb need contain any explicit association of particular NP in its syntactic environment with particular positions in the semantic representation, for these will follow directly from the Theme-Rule and the Agent-Rule. (Anderson 1977 :368)
~-----t
NP2 CAUSE (NP1 W)
In this model, we may represent the relation between
transitive and intransitive verbs as follows:
We may now state the selectional restrictions of intransitive
' tv
tNP NP
(Agent, Theme)
+NP
(Theme)
and transitive verbs on the thematic functions Agent and Theme,
and the syntactic positions corresponding to these functions
will be automatically restricted by the Agent-Rule and the
Theme-Rule, which (thus) function as projection rules.14 Let us
-
illustrate this with the verbs break:
/brAk/
+v +NP
(Theme 1
+breakable
( Agent, Theme )
+concrete +breakable
If such a thematic-syntactic mapping can also be specified for
NPs, the same mechanism which enforces shared selectional
restrictions in the domain of the S, for Ss with lexically
related predicates, can be extended to account for the
subcategorizatlonal correspondences In Ss and NPs. As our
recognition of thematic functions is sharpened, we may postulate
more such functions; and there may be corresponding
modifications in rules like the Theme-Rule. We have already
noted that the notion "Themew is too gross for the statement of
lexical redundancies and subcategorizational correspondences.
The thematic-syntactic mapping (we expect) will typically be a
many-to-one mapping, since the number of syntactic positions
available will (likely) be much smaller than the number of
thematic functions.
We may conceptualize the mapping from argument structures
to syntactic frames in the following way. Let there be a
hierarchy of grammatical functions in the S and the NP, and a
hierarchy of thematic functions, approximately as in (33):15
(33) Thematic functions Grammatical functions
Causer 1 Subject/Poss-NP
Theme, Experiencer 2 Object/of-NP - X 3 Prepositional phrase
(X#Causer or Theme/Experiencer)
Let us hypothesize that the highest available thematic function
is mapped on to the highest available grammatical function. This
means that if there is a Causer in the argument structure,
Experiencer/Theme has the rank 2; if there is no Causer, it has
the rank 1. Thus given an argument structure (Causer,
Experiencer/Theme), and a syntactic frame Subject/Poss
NP-Object, Causer will occupy Subject or Poss-NP position, and
Experiencer/Theme will occupy Object or or-NP position. Given an
argument structure (Experiencer, X) or (Theme, X), (where there
is no Causer), and a frame Subject/Poss NP-PP, the Experiencer
or Theme will occupy the Subject or Poss-NP position. Note that
in the NP, the Poss-NP position is optional. In this case, if we
have the syntactic positions of-NP and PP, and an argument - structure (Experiencer,X) or (Theme,X), the Experiencer or Theme
will occupy the (higher) - of-NP position, and - X will go to the PP
pos i t ion.
We can now give a lexical entry the following schematic
The mapping specification correlates thematic functions with
syntactic positions. We assume that where this mapping is
predictable from the hierarchy in (33), it need not be stated as
part of the lexical entry.
representation. (We assume that each lexical
specified, as in the framework of Jackendoff
Given such a hierarchy, the lexical rules relating verbs,
nouns and adjectives can be viewed simply as rules relating
argument structures, for the subcategorizational correspondences
they produce will be predictable. In my attempts to formulate
(34) - 1. /phonological representation/
2. lexical category
3. subcategorization frame
4. semantic representation, 1. e
argument structure in terms of
thematic functions
5. mapping specification -
t h e r u l e s i n t h e s e terms, I s h a l l be assuming t h a t t h e r e a r e
s e p a r a t e morpho log ica l and semant ic redundancy r u l e s , and t h a t
t h e same semant ic r u l e can be p a i r e d w i t h more t h a n one a f f i x . I
s h a l l j u s t i f y t h i s s e p a r a t i o n i n t h e n e x t c h a p t e r , and show how
t h e s e m a n t i c r u l e s may be a c c e s s e d by r u l e s of a f f i x a t i o n .
L e t u s suppose t h a t i n t h e s i m p l e s t c a s e , t h e r e a r e r u l e s
l i k e t h e f o l l o w i n g :
( 3 5 ) For any v e r b w i t h a c e r t a i n argument s t r u c t u r e , form a
noun w i t h t h e same argument s t r u c t u r e .
(e .g. c r i t i c i z e - c r i t i c i s m , e x c i t e - e x c i t a t i o n )
( 3 6 ) For any a d j e c t i v e w i t h a c e r t a i n argument s t r u c t u r e ,
form a noun w i t h t h e same argument s t r u c t u r e .
(e .g .sad-sadness , - p u r e - p u r l t y , c a l l o u s - c a l l o u s n e s s )
(37) For any noun w i t h a c e r t a i n argument s t r u c t u r e , form a n
a d J e c t i v e w i t h t h e same argument s t r u c t u r e .
( e . g. f u r y - f u r i o u s , g l o r y - g l o r i o u s )
L e t us c a l l r u l e s l i k e ( 3 5 ) - ( 3 7 1 , r u l e s of I n h e r i t a n c e . L e t us
f u r t h e r h y p o t h e s i z e t h a t t h e o u t p u t of t h e r u l e s r e l a t i n g
argument s t r u c t u r e s i s s u b j e c t t o f i l t e r s , which e x p r e s s t h e
n o t i o n w p o s s i b l e argument s t r u c t u r e w f o r t h e o u t p u t c a t e g o r y ;
and t h a t t h e r e i s a ( p o s s i b l y language s p e c i f i c ) f i l t e r t h a t
r u l e s o u t nouns w i t h t h e argument s t r u c t u r e (Causer ,
E x p e r i e n c e r ) :
( 3 8 ) * N , (Cause r , E x p e r i e n c e r )
T h i s w i l l f i l t e r o u t t h e o u t p u t o f r u l e (35) f o r v e r b s wi th t h i s
argument s t r u c t u r e . Now t h e r e i s a r u l e of D e c a u s a t i v i z a t i o n ,
which we need f o r r e l a t i n g c a u s a t i v e v e r b s t o t h e i r p a s t
p a r t i c i p i a l a d j e c t i v e s . Suppose we s a y t h i s r u l e is more
g e n e r a l , and t h a t i t r e l a t e s v e r b s t o nouns as w e l l a s t o
a d j e c t i v e s . We can f o r m a l i z e t h i s g e n e r a l i z e d r u l e i n terms of
t h e f e a t u r e sys tem of Chomsky (1970) , where v e r b s have a f e a t u r e
[-N], and a d j e c t i v e s and nouns s h a r e a f e a t u r e [+N]. The
r e q u i r e d r u l e i s ( 3 9 ) :
( 3 9 ) [-N (1.e. V)
L ( ~ a u s e r , E x p e r i e n c e r ) ( E x p e r i e n c e r , (X) ) ]
T h i s r u l e w i l l p roduce a d j e c t i v e s and nouns l i k e amused and
amusement from amuse.
I n a d d i t i o n , we know t h a t t h e r e i s a r u l e of
C a u s a t i v i z a t i o n t h a t produces v e r b s from nouns and a d j e c t i v e s
( h o r r o r - h o r r i f y , &-sadden).
L(~x~eriencer, (X)
tNP NP
(Causer, Experiencer) 1 Notice now that rules (40) and (39) are inverses of each other,
and that rules (36) and (37) would be inverses of each other.
Moreover, corresponding to rule (35), there is an inverse rule
which retains the argument structure of the noun for the verb
(summary-summarize, scrutiny-scrutinize). In a theory wherein
the same rule specifies morphological and semantic information,
such inverse rules must be kept separate, in order to preserve
information about the "directionw of morphological derivation. I
have indicated, however, that I shall argue for a distinct body
of affixation rules. These affixation rule8 will be
unidirectional, and will supply the necessary information "is
derived from." This allows us to give the semantic rules simply
as bidirectional rules, expressing the notion "1s related tow.
That is, the language appears to have rules which relate the
argument structures of nouns, verbs, and adJectives, which are
neutral with respect to the direction of morphological
derivation.
We may therefore give the following semantic rules. I
indicate below each rule the lexical items related by it.
(41) Causativization-Decausativization
+ N ( i . e . N o r A ) -N ( 1 . e . V)
( P P ) 1 <----> kNP NP
( E x p e r i e n c e r , ( X ) ) (Cause r , E x p e r i e n c e r ) 1 amusement, amused amuse h o r r o r , h o r r i f i e d h o r r i f y t i r e d t i r e s a d sadden
( 4 2 ) I n h e r i t a n c e 1
! NP 1 <---- > IN +NP NP
(Argument, Argument) Argument)
c r i t i c i z e e x c i t e summarize
c r i t i c i s m e x c i t a t i o n summary
( 4 3 ) I n h e r i t a n c e 2
! I I
A
+NP ( P P )
(Argument, (Argument) ) (Argument, (Argument) )
s a d t i r e d f u r i o u s
s a d n e s s t i r e d n e s s f u r y
P o s t s c r i p t : Thematic Func t ions
The s t r a t e g y I have pursued f o r i d e n t i f y i n g a t h e m a t i c
f u n c t i o n E x p e r i e n c e r o f r e l e v a n c e t o l e x i c a l r u l e s h a s been t o
b e g i n w i t h a n examina t ion of s u b c a t e g o r i z a t i o n a l
co r respondences , r a t h e r t h a n w i t h a t h e o r y of t h e m a t i c
f u n c t i o n s . C o n s i d e r i n g t h e p r e s e n t l a c k of a c o n s t r a i n e d t h e o r y
i n t h i s area, t h i s i s pe rhaps t h e r i g h t s t r a t e g y . However, I
s h a l l i n t h i s s e c t i o n make a n a t t e m p t t o i n t e g r a t e t h i s t h e m a t i c
f u n c t i o n i n t o t h e f a m i l i a r s y s t e m of Gruber (1965) and
Jackendoff (1972,1976) , and p o i n t o u t some problems t o be
r e s o l v e d i n t h i s a r e a .
Jackendof f ( 1 9 7 6 ) , f o l l o w i n g Gruber ( 1 9 6 5 ) , h y p o t h e s i z e s
t h r e e b a s i c c l a s s e s of p r e d i c a t e s : Mot ional , P u n c t u a l and
D u r a t i o n a l . T h e i r schemat ic r e p r e s e n t a t i o n s are g i v e n below.
( 4 4 ) a. G O ( x , y , z ) ( M o t i o n a l )
b. BE ( x , y ) ( P u n c t u a l )
c. STAY ( x , y ) ( D u r a t i o n a l )
I n a d d i t i o n , t h e n o t i o n of c a u s a t i o n i s e x p r e s s e d by t h e
f u n c t i o n s i n ( 4 5 ) :
( 4 5 ) a. CAUSE ( x , e ( v e n t ) )
b. LET ( x , e ( v e n t ) )
We thus a r r i v e a t t h e fo l lowing familiar d e f i n i t i o n s .
( 4 6 ) a - Causer: 1 6 ~ i r s t argument of CAUSE o r LET
b. Theme: F i r s t argument of GO, BE o r STAY
c. Source: Second argument of GO
d. Goal: Third argument of GO
e . Location:17 Second argument of BE o r STAY
Our f i r s t t a s k i s t o r e f i n e t h e s e f u n c t i o n s , f o r we have
s t r e s s e d t h a t t h e system i n (46) does no t p rov ide enough
in format ion f o r l e x i c a l r u l e s . For i n s t a n c e , t h e sen tences - t h e
a i r - p r e s s u r e depressed - t h e l e v e r and -- t h e - news depressed Mary
would i n t h i s system have i d e n t i c a l semant ic r e p r e s e n t a t i o n s :
( 4 7 ) CAUSE(the a i r p r e s s u r e , GO(the l e v e r , BE(the l e v e r , not
dep re s sed ) , BE(the l e v e r , d e p r e s s e d ) ) )
1. e. dep re s s (Causer, Theme)
(48) CAUSE( t h e news, GO(Mary, BE(Mary, n o t dep re s sed ) ,
BE(Mary, d e p r e s s e d ) ) )
i. e. dep re s s (Causer, Theme )
We might e f f e c t t h e requi red ref inement by t a k i n g i n t o
account t h e ~ l o c a t l o n a l mode" t o which t h e f u n c t i o n s GO and BE
must be r e s t r i c t e d i n (47) and (48 ) . Jackendoff (1976:102)
p o s t u l a t e s u l o c a t i o n a l modesff such a s P o s i t i o n a l , Posses s iona l
and I d e n t i f i c a t i o n a l , which can be s p e c i f i e d as r e s t r i c t i v e
markers on GO, BE and STAY :
The marker Positional affixed to a semantic function . . . indicates that the Location or Source or Goal of that function specify claims about where the Theme is; the marker Possessional indicates that they specify claims about whose the Theme is. . . . A parameter Identificational . . . indicates that the Location or Source or Goal of the function to which it is affixed specify claims about what the Theme is.
The attractiveness of this proposal lies in the claim that
it is not accidental that a verb which can locate entities in
the physical domain can also locate entities in the abstract
domains of possession or identification: "in the simplest case,
the verb stays fundamentally the same, changing only the
restrictive modifier from one locational mode to anotherv (op.
cit.:103 -104). Thus Jackendoff suggests that the verbs turn in
the - coach turned into - driveway and the - coach turned into a -- pumpkin are both specified for a semantic function GO, but that
the locational modes differ (Positional in the former case,
Identificational in the latter). Similarly, keep in keep - the
book on the shelf and keep in keep the book are treated as --- -- differing in the modes Positional and Possessional, while
sharing a function STAY.
Since we have noticed a similar generalization in the
semantic fields of verbs like depress, a consideration of the
relevant locational modes would appear to be an appropriate
starting point for integrating the notion Experiencer into this
system. We may f i r s t r e v i s e t h e r e p r e s e n t a t i o n (47) t o ( 4 9 ) (we
w r i t e G O ( x , BE(x,not y ) , BE(x,y)) as BECOME y ( x ) , t o d i s t i n g u i s h
these two-place p r e d i c a t e s f rom p r e d i c a t e s l i k e ~ i v e ) :
( 49) CAUSE( t h e a i r p r e s su re , BECOME-posit DEPRESSED( t h e
l e v e r ) )
To s i m i l a r l y r e v i s e ( 4 8 ) , we must determine t h e a p p r o p r i a t e
l o c a t i o n a l mode. But t h e r e l e v a n t l o c a t i o n a l mode aga in appears
t o be P o s i t i o n a l . I n s ay ing t h e news depressed Mary, we a r e no t -- say ing - who Mary belongs t o o r - what she is; r a t h e r , we a r e aga in
s p e c i f y i n g h e r p o s i t i o n , but t h i s time i n terms of a s c a l e of
emotions: i n terms of t h e world wi th in .
Let us then p o s t u l a t e two new l o c a t i o n a l modes, Exte rna l
and I n t e r n a l , and add t h e s e as r e s t r i c t i v e markers t o GO-posit:
GO-posit. e x t ( e r n a l ) , and ~ o - ~ o s i t . i n t ( e r n a l ) . 18 We now r e v i s e
(49) t o (501, and (48 ) t o ( 5 1 ) .
(50) CAUSE ( t h e a i r p r e s s u r e , BECOME-posit.ext DEPRESSED(the
l e v e r ) )
(51 ) CAUSE ( t h e news, BECOME-posit.int DEPRESSED(Mary))
We may now d e f i n e what we have been c a l l i n g Exper iencer as t h e
f i r s t argument of GO-posit. i n t . , BE-posit. i n t , o r
STAY-posit. i n t .
The a n a l y s i s s o f a r sugges t s t h a t themat ic f u n c t i o n s may be
d e f i n e d a t two l e v e l s of s p e c i f i c i t y . On a f i r s t , b r o a d e r ,
l e v e l , they may be d e f i n e d as i n ( 4 6 ) ) w i t h r e f e r e n c e t o on ly
one of t h e f i v e semant ic f u n c t i o n s . A t t h i s l e v e l , t h e f u n c t i o n
Exper iencer was i d e n t i f i e d mere ly a s a Theme. On a second,
f i n e r , l e v e l , they may be d e f i n e d w i t h r e f e r e n c e t o t h e semant ic
f u n c t i o n s , as w e l l as t o t h e l o c a t i o n a l mode t o which t h e s e
f u n c t i o n s are r e s t r i c t e d . T h i s i s t h e l e v e l which d e f i n e s
n o t i o n s l i k e P o s s e s s o r o r E x p e r i e n c e r .
We have s e e n t h a t t h i s f i n e r l e v e l i s e s s e n t i a l f o r t h e
s t a t e m e n t of l e x i c a l r u l e s and s e l e c t i o n a l r e s t r i c t i o n s . The
q u e s t i o n t h e n a r i s e s i f t h e b r o a d e r l e v e l i s n e c e s s a r y a t a l l .
One m o t i v a t i o n f o r r e t a i n i n g t h i s l e v e l would be i f i t s u f f i c e s
f o r t h e t h e m a t i c - s y n t a c t i c mapping, and t h e r e i s some e v i d e n c e
t h a t t h i s might be t h e c a s e . Thus w e see t h a t w i t h r e s p e c t t o
t h i s mapping, E x p e r i e n c e r s a p p e a r t o behave l i k e Themes. They
occupy t h e o b j e c t p o s i t i o n of c a u s a t i v e v e r b s , s h a r i n g t h i s
p o s i t i o n w i t h (non-Exper iencer) Themes. Again, t h e r e a r e a few
c a s e s e x h i b i t i n g a cor respondence between a n E x p e r i e n c e r - o b j e c t
and a n E x p e r i e n c e r - s u b j e c t , which a p p e a r t o be s u b c a s e s of
Anderson 's Theme-Rule:
(52) a . Tormenting s m a l l i n s e c t s d e l i g h t s Mary.
b. Mary d e l i g h t s i n t o r m e n t i n g small i n s e c t s .
(53) a . H e w o r r i e s h i s mother.
b. H i s mother w o r r i e s ( a b o u t h im) .
We may anticipate that as our recognition of thematic functions
is sharpened, there will be a number of cases of lfcoincidencev
in the thematic-syntactic mapping. Now if we find that some set
of refined thematic functions tl, . . . tn which behave similarly with respect to this mapping can also be subsumed
(from the semantic point of view) under one broad thematic
function, the coincidences can be explained, and the statement
of the mapping rules simplified, if the broad level is retained.
This must, however, remain a very tentative proposal. For I
must also note some counterevidence against the inclusion of
Experiencer under Theme. Consider (54b):
(54) a. John touched the table.
b. The story touched John.
According to Gruber (1965:37) and Jackendoff (1972:43-44), the
verb touch takes Theme as subject, and Location as object. But
we have seen that the object of touch in (54b) is an
Experiencer. The behaviour of touch with respect to the
adjectival passive rule is entirely parallel to that of move:
(55) a. *The table seemed touched by John.
b. John seemed touched by the story.
(56) a. John moved the stone.
b. The story moved John.
c . *The s t o n e seemed moved by John.
d. John seemed moved by t h e s t o r y .
But -3 move u n l i k e t o u c h , i s c o n s i d e r e d t o have a Theme as i t s
o b j e c t . Thus we a r e f o r c e d t o say t h a t move h a s a n
Experiencer/Therne o b j e c t , whi le t o u c h h a s a n
Exper iencer /Loca t ion o b j e c t . 1 9
There i s a d e e p e r q u e s t i o n h e r e , namely whether t h e
t h e m a t i c s t r u c t u r e s of p r e d i c a t e s of emotion, c o g n i t i o n ,
p o s s e s s i o n , and s o on , can be reduced t o , and r e s t a t e d i n te rms
o f , t h e t h e m a t i c s t r u c t u r e s of p o s i t i o n a l p r e d i c a t e s . If t h e
t h e o r y m a i n t a i n s t h a t t h i s can be accompl ished, i t must o f f e r us
s t r i c t g u i d e l i n e s f o r t h e m e t a p h o r i c a l i n t e r p r e t a t i o n o f
n o n - p o s i t i o n a l p r e d i c a t e s i n terms of a w l o c a l i s t i c w system. I n
t h e absence o f such g u i d e l i n e s , t h e sys tem i s open t o abuse .
As an i l l u s t r a t i o n of t h e problem, c o n s i d e r t h e t r e a t m e n t
of p r e d i c a t e s of p o s s e s s i o n i n t h i s t h e o r y . Jackendof f
(1976:101) s tar ts o u t w i t h a sys tem where in t h e p o s s e s s e d i t e m
i s a lways Theme, and t h e p o s s e s s o r i s L o c a t i o n ( f o r s t a t i c
p r e d i c a t e s ) , o r Source o r Goal ( f o r dynamic p r e d i c a t e s ) . Thus we
have t h e t h e m a t i c a s s ignments i n ( 5 7 ) :
(57) a.
The book belonged t o t he l i b r a r y .
possessed
THEME
b.
pos ses so r
LOCATION
Max owned an iguana.
possessor possessed
LOCATION THEME
B i l l had no money.
possessor possessed
LOCATION THEME
However, Jackendoff ( fo l lowing up an obse rva t ion of G r u b e r l s )
n o t e s t h a t l l there i s a s o r t of converse of Possess ive l o c a t i o n
i n t h e fo l lowing exp res s ionsw (op. c i t . : 1 3 4 ) :
(58) a. Nelson r a n o u t of money.
b. A r i i s i n t h e money.
c. Fred came i n t o a l o t of money.
Reca l l t h a t Theme i s in formal ly c h a r a c t e r i z e d as the e n t i t y t h a t
moves, o r whose l o c a t i o n i s a s s e r t e d . By t h i s c r i t e r i o n , t he
Themes i n (58) seem t o be Nelson, - Ari and - Fred. Jackendoff
t h e r e f o r e p o s t u l a t e s a new l o c a t i o n a l mode - Poss l . I n t h i s
l o c a t i o n a l mode, t h e p o s s e s s o r i s Theme, and t h e possessed i t em
is Location (or Source or Goal).
Now in cases like (58a) and (58c), the flmovement" of the
subject away from or towards the money is perhaps fairly
obvious, and the inverse locational mode Possf is perhaps
identifiable.20 But the undesirable consequences of postulating
inverse locational modes are seen in the following analyses of
Ostler (1979).
Ostler attempts to develop a system of "linking rules"
(essentially our mapping rules) for argument structures and
syntactic frames. He notes that for a verb with the argument
structure (Possessed, Possessor), two syntactic realizations are
possible. In some frames, the possessed woutranksv the possessor
(the -- book belongs to the library). In other frames, the -- possessor "outranksw the possessed (Mary has/owns/possesses the
book). - A similar alternation of ranking is seen in the Dative
alternation: - John pave -- a book(possessed) - to Mary (possessor),
John gave Mary (possessor) 5 book (possessed). The solution - - Ostler proposes is the following. We know from Jackendoff's
analysis that there are two locational modes, Poss and Possl. We
may now say that belon4 - to is a Poss verb, while
have/own/possess are Posst verbs; and always require Theme to
outrank Location/Source/Goal. We thus arrive at the following
assignment of thematic functions, which may be compared with
those in (57) above. C
(59) a.
The book belonged to the library.
possessed
THEME
b.
possessor
LOCATION/GOAL
Max owned an iguana.
possessor possessed
THEME LOCATION/GOAL
C.
Bill had no money.
possessor possessed
THEME LOCATION/GOAL
In this system, Dative alternation verbs are simply specified
for both Poss and Possl modes. For example:
(60)
a.
John gave Mary a book.
possessor possessed
THEME LOCATION/QOAL
John gave a book to Mary.
possessed possessor
THEME LOCATION/GOAL
But this solution robs thematic functions of any semantic
content,21 without gaining anything by way of explaining the
facts. 22
In view of the latitude that the theory offers with regard
to the semantic content of notions like Theme, such notions are
at present of little value for formalizing lexical rules. In
conclusion, I must stress that the nature of thematic relations
is a very ill-understood area, and it has not been my intention
here to present a coherent system of thematic functions; I
believe such an attempt would be premature. My intention rather
has been to motivate one thematic function, and on the basis of
this, to suggest that this is the most appropriate level for
lexical rules. Hopefully, further investigation of lexical rules
will allow the development of a satisfactory system of thematic
functions. Whether the resulting system will be integrable into
the system we now have remains to be seen. In the meanwhile,
there is little option but to proceed along the lines suggested
by Chomsky (1965:75):
A linguist with a serious interest in semantics will presumably attempt to deepen and extend syntactic analysis to the point where it can provide the
information concerning subcategorization, instead of relegating this to unanalyzed semantic intuition, there being, for the moment, no other available proposal as to a semantic basis for making the necessary distinctions.
FOOTNOTES - TO CHAPTER THREE
There is some evidence that the rules far -- and -ive - adjectives must also refer to thematic information. Consider
( I-vi ) :
(I) The walk exhausted Mary.
(ii)*The walk was exhaustive.
(111) The walk was exhausting.
(iv) This list exhausts the possibilities.
(v) This list is exhaustive.
(vi) *This list is exhausting.
The walk in (I) is a "Causer," the list in (iv) is not. Compare -- -- also John/This example suggests - the following analysis, - this
example - is suggestive, *John - is suggestive.
See also DeArmond (1980).
30r vice-versa; cf. (23)-(24) below.
4~ince we are here interested only in the fact that in both
(lgb) and (19c) the noun is deadjectival, I have combined the
two paradigms.
This prediction has some consequences for the identification
of wexceptionsn in the lexicon. Thus although the majority of
causative verbs with Experiencer objects do not have a
nominalization with the Experiencer as llobject," nominals like
(i)-(iii) below are apparently acceptable for some speakers:
(I) John's disappointment of his audience
(ii) The teacher's inspiration of the students
(iii) John's embarrassment of Mary
Example (i) is cited by Anderson (1977:372); (11)-(iii) are
cited by Newmeyer (1979), who also cites Tomls disappointment - of
Sue. From the point of view of the Experiencer hypothesis, these - noun phrases must be regarded as exceptions. For the "pure
grammatical functionsv hypothesis, however, these nominals
represent the regular case. Apart from the statistical
difference in the number of "exceptions" under the two
hypotheses, note that the alleged correspondence in the frames
of the verb and the noun is subject to restrictions. Thus, - the
news1/ results1/ performance's disappointment -- of the audience
(equivalently, - the disappointment -- of the audience 3 - the news/
the results/ the performance), the sunset's inspiration of the - - - -- poet (equivalently, the poet's inspiration 3 - the sunset), and
the disclosurels embarrassment of Mary (equivalently, the - - embarrassment - of Mary Q - the disclosure) seem to me to be
totally unacceptable, although - the news/ - the results/ - the
performance disappointed - the audience, - the sunset inspired the
poet, and - the disclosure embarrassed Mary are perfectly
a c c e p t a b l e .
A more d i f f i c u l t counterexample t o t h e Exper iencer
h y p o t h e s i s i s provided by ( 1 v ) - ( v i ) :
( i v ) Mary charmed t h e hos t e s s .
( v ) The h o s t e s s was charmed.
( v i ) Mary 's charm
Assuming t h a t - t h e h o s t e s s i s an Exper iencer i n ( i v ) , we do not
get t h e expected Exper iencer s u b j e c t i n ( v i ) . I have no
e x p l a n a t i o n f o r t h i s . Notice t h a t ( v i i ) i s n e v e r t h e l e s s
ungrammatical :
( v i i ) * M a r y l s charm of t h e h o s t e s s
Advocates of t h e Jackendoff-Wasow a n a l y s i s might p o i n t ou t
that t h e theory of word based morphology proposed by Aronoff
(1976) appears t o a l low t h e morphological d e r i v a t i o n of
amusement, annoyance, i r r i t a t i o n , e t c . , from t h e corresponding
past p a r t i c i p l e s . I n t h i s theory we might p o s t u l a t e WFRs
p r o d u c i n g [ [ [ X I ed] ment] e t c . , and l l t runca te t l t h e p a r t i c i p i a l V A N
i n f l e c t i o n . This a n a l y s i s f a c e s a h o s t of morphological
p r o b l e m s , however. There a r e well-motivated s u f f i x e s -ment -9
-ance and - ( a t ) i o n -- which a t t a c h t o verbs . We must p o s t u l a t e
homonymous s u f f i x e s which a t t a c h t o [Xed] t h e s e cannot be t h e A '
' l s a m e N as t h e deve rba l s u f f i x e s , f o r a WFR ope ra t e s on a u n i t a r y
s y n t a c t i c o s e m a n t i c base (op. c i t . : 4 8 ) . Apart from t h e l a c k of
I n d e p e n d e n t evidence f o r "dead j e c t i v a l l 1 -ment -' -ance - and
- ( a t ) i o n -- -- t h e y do n o t a t t a c h t o any o t h e r a d j e c t i v a l bases
such as [Xable] [Xive] [XinglA-- t h e r e i s e v i d e n c e a g a i n s t a A' A'
p a s t p a r t i c i p i a l b a s e f o r t h e s e s u f f i x e s . Cons ide r f i r s t
morpho log ica l r e s t r i c t i o n s on b a s e - s u f f i x combina t ions . Given
t h e h y p o t h e t i c a l base [Xed] which i s f r e e t o combine w i t h -ment, A
-ance and - ( a t ) i o n , - - - we must e x p l a i n why from [ i r r i t a t e d ] w e ge t A
[ i r r i t a t i ~ n ] ~ and n o t * i r r i t ( a t e ) m e n t , * i r r i t ( a t e ) a n c e . T h i s
f a c t i s e x p l a i n e d i f w e t a k e i n t o accoun t t h e morpheme -ate - of
i r r i t a t e d , i g n o r i n g t h e -9; Xate is a t y p i c a l b a s e f o r Xat ion
(Marchand 1969:259). Again, Aronoff (op. c i t . : 5 6 , fn .10) n o t e s
t h a t X c i t e may t a k e e i t h e r -ment - ( i n c i t e m e n t ) o r - a t i o n
( c i t a t i o n ) . P r e c i s e l y t h i s v a r i a t i o n i s s e e n e x c i t e , e x c i t e m e n t ,
e x i t a t i o n ; i f [ e x c i t e d ] i s t h e b a s e of e x c i t e m e n t , t h e -ed must A -
once a g a i n be i g n o r e d i f t h e v a r i a t i o n i s t o be e x p l a i n e d . But
i f t h e p a r t i c i p i a l i n f l e c t i o n is i g n o r e d by b a s e - s u f f i x
combinatory p r i n c i p l e s , and t r u n c a t e d b e f o r e i t r e a c h e s t h e
s u r f a c e , t h e r e i s no e v i d e n c e f o r i t s p r e s e n c e a t any
t h e d e r i v a t i o n , i. e . no ev idence f o r a b a s e [Xed] . A
Secondly , t h e r e i s a " l e v e l o r d e r i n g w problem i n
h y p o t h e t i c a l d e r i v a t i o n . S i e g e 1 (1974) p o s t u l a t e d two
a f f i x e s : + boundary (Class I o r Level I ) a f f i x e s , and
s t a g e of
t h i s
c l a s s e s o f
# boundary
(Class I1 o r Leve l 11) a f f i x e s . Aronoff r e t a i n s t h i s d i s t i n c t i o n
( s e e a l s o A l l e n ( 1 9 7 8 ) , P e s e t s k y ( 1 9 7 9 ) , f o r j u s t i f i c a t i o n of
t h e two l e v e l s ) . I n word based morphology, t r u n c a t i o n o p e r a t e s
on ly b e f o r e + boundary s u f f i x e s . Thus i f t h e -ed - i s t o t r u n c a t e ,
the suffixes which attach to it must have t boundaries. Since t
boundary suffixes do not normally appear outside # boundary
suffixes, the -ed - must itself therefore be a + boundary suffix.
But Allen (op. cit.:38ff.) presents evidence that -ed - is a #
boundary suffix: (i) nominals and negations of - Xed are always
formed with Level I1 suffixes, and not with Level I suffixes,
e.g. tired#ness, *tired+ity; un#hurried, *inhurried;
un#announced,*in+announced; (11)-s is stress-neutral and
stressless, a typical characteristic of # boundary suffixes;
(iii) underlying non-syllabic r-, which appears in syllabic form
before # boundaries and non-syllabic form before + boundaries,
is syllabic before -ed - (sober, sobriety, sobered). Allen observes that this evidence is consistent with the fact that
"only Level I1 derivational suffixes exhibit the phenomenon of
lcopyingl the shape of inflectional affixes."
Thirdly, the impossibility of *unXment, *unXance, and
*unXation is further evidence against an adjectival base for
these nouns, since "un- - appears on nouns . . . only if these nouns have been derived from adJectivesn (Siege1 1973:303);
e.g., untruth, unkindness.
Interestingly, Aronoff motivates morphologically "abstractw
derivations like those considered above, partly on the basis of
semantic facts. We shall return to an examination of word based
morphology in Chapter Four.
7 Marchand (1969:300) notes that -3 has formed desubstantival and deadjectival derivatives in English from the sixteenth
century onwards. If the nouns in (22d) were formed from the
verbs in (22a), we would expect *terrification,*horrification;
cf. glory-glorify-glorification,
identity-identify-identification.
The suffix -ize - f orms desubstantival (winterize, lionize, dramatize) and deadjectival (peneralize, liberalize, popularize)
derivatives. Nouns formed from Vize end in -ism (criticism, - - plagiarism) or -ation (generalization).
I
Notice the shared preposition - at in the complements of the
adjective and the noun in (22c-d). (Compare also the parallelism
below in the - of-NP complements to the noun and the adjective:
Mary's terror - of growing old, Mary - Is terrified - of prowing old.)
Shared prepositions were one argument for relating the nouns in
(8c) to the past participles in (8b), although the nouns were
morphologically deverbal. By the same token, we must now relate
the morphologically basic nouns in (22d) to the past participles
of denominal verbs in (22c), instead of to the denominal verbs
(22a) themselves. It appears that once again a generalization is
being missed. The shared preposition should be accounted for not
by positing various arbitrary relations in the lexicon, but in
terms of shared thematic functions signalled by particular
prepositions.
lo Wasow (1980) does not consider minor lexical rules involving
adjectives. Since the primary function of thematic functions in
his framework is to encode the llexceptionalityll of lexical rules
for verbs arising out of their lllocalness,ll It is unclear to me
if he would require a reference to thematic functions in
apparently exceptionless cases. It could be argued that the
additional level of thematic functions should be accessed only
when necessary, in the interests of theoretical parsimony. If,
however, reference to thematic functions is obligatory for all
minor rules, rule (26) could be modified as follows:
Subject (be) A (PP)
11 There are also transitive verbs (and verbs which take other
types of complements) which have Experiencer subjects, and which
have nomlnalizations exhibiting the llnormallf correspondence; cf.
hate, hope, fear, love, re~ret, pity, repent, admire.
l2 This task (in fact) reveals the fundamental inadequacy of the
approach to this problem suggested In XI Syntax. The
cross-categorial generalization of grammatical relations
obviously cannot help In capturing the subcategorlzational
correspondences of a derivationally related pair like
read-readable. In fact, in the majority of cases of
derivationally related words, we must postulate lexical
redundancy rules that alter grammatical relations. However (for
some unclear reason) X I Syntax supposes that the generalization
strategy will be fruitful in the case of the nominal derivatives
of verbs and adjectives. Accordingly, the proposal of X1 Syntax
is confined to this small subdomain of derivational morphology.
But the task that the Lexicalist Hypothesis imposes on the
grammar is more general: it is to capture regularities in the
subcategorizational frames of - all lexically related words. The
"neutraln lexical entry, which economizes on the statement of
shared selectional restrictions, is one such general device.
What is needed is a device of similar generality which
economizes on the enforcement of shared selectional
restrictions, regardless of whether the syntactic positions
which must be thus restricted represent the same grammatical
functions or not.
13 The necessity for such rules was observed as early as
Jackendoff (1972); he notes that one mechanism that must be
built into the lexicon is "a set of rules describing
generalities among the lexical correlations of thematic and
grammatical relations," and suggests that the solution is to
"state a redundancy rule in the lexicon that would make lexical
items contain less independent information if they conform to
such generalizations. The redundancy could be expressed in terms
of not needing to specify superscripts in the lexical entryv
(op. cit. :42).
DeArmond (1980) attempts to develop such rules, in the
context of a discussion of the lexical entry for the verb open.
He introduces the "modal features" [+Transitive], [-Transitive],
and [+Instrumental] for process verbs, and gives rules for
predicting semantic functions from these features, as also the
syntactic positions occupied by these functions. See DeArmond
(op. cit.) for details. See also Ostler (1979).
14 Such an enforcement of selectional restrictions removes
Jackendoffts main argument for generalizing the grammatical
relations of the S to the NP. (Hornstein (1977) makes the same
point: if selectional restrictions are not placed on grammatical
functions, "the motivation for a generalized notion lsubject-ofl
evaporatesn (op. cit:141)).
Prof. DeArmond has pointed out to me that an argument could
still be made for a wsubjectw in the NP, based on facts like the
following:
(I) the tendency for John to forget his keys
(ii)Johnls tendency to forget his keys
Example (ii) appears to be the analogue, in the NP, of Raising
to Subject. However, it also appears to be a unique case. Verbs
like seem, appear, happen have no nominalizations; adjectives
like certain and likely, which have nominalizations, do not
permit raising in the NP (examples (111)-(v) are from Chomsky
(1970 ~188-189) ) :
(i1i)John is certain (likely) to win the prize.
(iv)*Johnts certainty (likelihood) to win the prize
(v) John's certainty that Bill will win the prize
I therefore wish to leave open the question of whether a
"subjectv in the NP can be justified on grounds other than
selectional parallelism.
l5 Cf. Jackendoff (1972) for an early attempt to set up a
hierarchy of thematic functions. Cf. also Hust and Brame (1976)
for some critical comments.
I use the term Causer rather than Agent to Indicate that the
first argument of CAUSE or LET need not be animate or exercise
volition.
17 Ostler (1979) suggests that Location is a static Goal.
Jackendoff (1978) suggests that Source and Goal be collapsed
into the function Path.
18 Jackendoff (op. cit. : 110) envisages the postulation of
additional locational modes as one way of enriching his system.
The occurrence of more than one locational mode as a restrictive
modifier has also been anticipated (op. cit.:138-139).
We might note that the predicates we have identified as
taking Experiencer arguments, and which we now suggest are a
realization of the locational mode Internal, coincide with a
class of predicates decomposed in terms of a semantic primitive
FEEL in the system of Wierzbicka (undated). She gives the
following as examples: sad, upset, glad, Joyful, regrett,
(un)happy, (un)pleasant, (dis)pleased, (dis)satisfied,
disappointed, surprised, amazed, angry, indignant, irritated,
afraid, worried, repentant, remorse, ashamed, embarrassed,
humiliated, proud, contempt, admiration, envious, jealous, pity,
compassion, grateful, and vengeful.
l9 We can of couree resolve this problem by saying that the two
senses of touch have different broad thematic assignments. This
is not implausible, considering that if one touches a table, the
table does not undergo a change of state, whereas if one is
touched by a story, one undergoes a change from an unsympathetic
to a sympathetic state. However, this would mean that the
generalization of the meaning of a verb involves more than a
simple switch in the locational mode.
Prof. DeArmond has pointed out to me that if Experiencers
are Themes, the sentences below must have Themes in subject
position, although the verbs are transitive and allow passivi-
zat ion.
(1) John enjoyed the party.
(ii) John p i t i e s Mary. f e a r s admi res r e s e n t s e n v i e s
T h i s c o n t r a d i c t s t h e h y p o t h e s i s of Jackendof f (1972:44) t h a t
s e n t e n c e s w i t h Themes as s u b j e c t s do n o t p a s s i v i z e . (See a l s o
Wasow ( 1 9 8 0 ) , DeArmond (1980) ).
However, t h e s e are n o t t h e o n l y counterexamples t o t h i s
h y p o t h e s i s . Hust and Brame (1975 :249) c i t e t h e f o l l o w i n g ( = t h e i r
(111) Washington i s bordered by Oregon, Montana and Canada.
( i v ) The k i n g ' s c a r r i a g e was f l a n k e d by two pha langes of the
r o y a l g u a r d .
( v ) The column was capped by a n o r n a t e s c r o l l .
( v i ) The cowboy was o n l y touched by t h e ambusher ' s b u l l e t .
( v i i ) T h i s s e n t e n c e i s preceded by t h e s e n t e n c e numbered
( 1 7 d ) and i t i s fo l lowed by t h e rest o f t h e paper .
I have a l r e a d y a rgued t h a t t h e v e r b a l p a s s i v e (whether l e x i c a l
o r t r a n s f o r m a t i o n a l ) i s n o t s e n s i t i v e t o t h e m a t i c i n f o r m a t i o n .
20 Not ice , however, t h a t -- run o u t can be used i n t r a n s i t i v e l y , and
t h e o b j e c t of t h e t r a n s i t i v e v e r b t h e n a p p e a r s as s u b j e c t :
( i) Nelson r a n o u t of money.
(ii) The money r a n o u t .
If t h i s i s a n i n s t a n c e o f t h e Theme-Rule, t h e n Nelson i n ( i)
cannot be t h e Theme.
P
21 The problem of giving content to these notions is seen again
in the thematic assignments of the verbs strike and regard in
Jackendoff (1972:45) and Wasow (1980): for Jackendoff, they have
inverse thematic assignments, while for Wasow, they have the
same thematic assignments, differing only in control.
22 Cf. Oerhle (1976) for an insightful discussion of the Dative
alternation.
CHAPTER FOUR
MORPHOLOGICAL AND SEMANTIC ASPECTS OF WORD FORMATION
1. Preliminaries. - In the previous chapter I hypothesized that semantic
lexical rules do not specify the morphological relationships
between the lexical items they relate. The exclusion of
morphological Information allowed us to isolate a set of
semantic relations for semantically similar verbs, nouns, and
adjectives, which occurred in paradigms wherein the lldirectionll
of the morphological derivation varied as shown below (the
arrows indicate morphological derivation):
amuse
N A N-A amusement amused tiredness tired
sadden horrify
sadness sad horror horrified
I argued that the independence of the "thematic functions~
hypothesis from morphological derivations was its crucial
advantage over the llmixedll version of the ugrammatical
functionsn hypothesis.
In this chapter1 I present evidence that the separation of
morphological and semantic redundancy rules in the lexicon is
necessary independently of the "thematic functionsu hypothesis.
I show in section 2 that even when the wdirectionw of
morphological derivation is held constant from a lexical
category - X to a lexical category - Y (as under the llgrammatical functionsu hypothesis), a single semantic rule may intersect
various morphological rules, and a single morphological rule may
intersect various semantic rules. The resulting
cross-classification of morphological and semantic redundancy
(which was first noticed by Jackendoff (1975)) cannot be
captured by rules required to specify both kinds of information.
In particular, the model of word formation rules (WFRs)
developed by Aronoff (1976) is seen to be inappropriate for
lexical redundancy rules, and to pose problems for the semantics
as well as the morphology of word formation. I argue for a model
of the lexicon wherein affixation rules do not specify semantic
operations, but access a body of independently existing semantic
operations. I show that such a conception of word formation can
be reconciled with a current theory of morphological structure.
2. The Cross Classification of Morphology and Semantics -- - -- That the lexicon must contain separate morphological and
semantic rules is suggested by Jackendoff (1975).2 Consider his
rule for noun-verb pairs like decide-decision (given below), and
his comments on it:
ABSTRACT RESULT 1 OF ACT OF NPl Is I Z-ING NP2 - - J
tNP1 (P) NP2
NP1 Z NP2 -
. . , redundancy rule (3) (is) a rule relating lexical items both at the morphological and semantic levels. In fact, this formulation will not do. It claims that there is a particular meaning, ABSTRACT RESULT OF ACT OF V-INQ, associated with the ending -ion. However, there are several different semantic rela-ns obtaining between -ion - nominals and their related verbs, and there are several nominalizing endings which can express the same range of meanings . . . The picture that emerges is of a family of nominalizing affixes and an associated family of noun-verb semantic relationships.
Jackendoff goes on to show that the three deverbal nominalizing
suffixes -ment -' -ion - and -a1 - (e.g., refuse-refusal) can each
express any of the three semantic relations "abstract result of
act of V-ing," "group that Vts," or "act or process of V-ing."
He s u g g e s t s t h a t t h e t h r e e morpho log ica l and t h e t h r e e semant ic
r u l e s be i n d e p e n d e n t l y a v a i l a b l e , such t h a t t h e c h o i c e o f one
r u l e from e a c h s e t y i e l d s a p a i r o f morpho log ica l and semant ic
r u l e s t o r e l a t e a p a i r o f words. T h i s is i l l u s t r a t e d i n t h e
t a b l e below (examples from J a c k e n d o f f ) , where each noun i s
r e l a t e d t o t h e c o r r e s p o n d i n g v e r b by t h e morpho log ica l r u l e a t
t h e head of i t s column, and t h e semant ic r u l e a t t h e l e f t of i t s
row.
Semantic r u l e s
S 1 ABSTRACT RESULT
OF ACT OF V-ING
S2 GROUP THAT V 1 s
S 3 ACT OR PROCESS
OF V-ING
Morphologica l r u l e s
M1 M2
- i o n -ment
d i s c u s s i o n argument
congrega t Ion government
c o p u l a t i o n e s t a b l i s h
-ment
M3
-a1
r e b u t t a l
r e f u s a l
The i s s u e t h a t Jackendof f l e a v e s u n r e s o l v e d , however, i s
whether t h e t h r e e r e a d i n g s he g i v e s d e v e r b a l nouns are indeed
p r o d u c t s of t h r e e s e p a r a t e semant ic r u l e s , o r o f one ambiguous
semant ic r u l e ; o r even whether t h e r e i s a p r i n c i p l e d way of
differentiating the two kinds of cases. This issue surfaces when
we notice that some words in the table above can occur in more
than one meaning slot. For example, refusal means "abstract
result of act of refusing11 (cf.Sl) in - a letter of refusal, and discussion means '!act or process of discussingw (cf. S3) in - our
discussion lasted - all night. If the semantic rules S1 and S3 are
distinct, the claim would be that there are two homonymous
lexical items refusal (related to refuse by (M3,S3) and (M3,Sl)
respectively) and two homonymous lexical items discussion
(related to discuss by (M1,Sl) and (Ml,S3) respectively). But if
S1 and S3 are the same rule, no such differentiation of lexical
items would be implied.
We see this problem when we compare the semantic
interpretation for nouns of the form Xousness (e.g.,
callousness) given by Aronoff (1976:38). Here too, three
readings are possible:
( 4 ) a. 'the fact that Y is Xous' --- - His callousness surprised me.= The fact that he was
callous surprised me.
b. - 'the extent - to which - - Y is Xousv
His callousness surprised me.= The extent to which
he was callous surprised me.
c. - 'the guality - or state - of being Xous'
Callousness is not a virtue.= The quality or state
of being callous is not a virtue.
The question is whether there are three discrete semantic rules
associated with -ness -, or only one ambiguous one. Jackendoff1s
system would appear to choose the former alternative. Aronoff,
however, adopts the latter hypothesis.3 He proposes a system of
WFRs which perform an operation that is "both syntacticosemantic
and morphophonological~ (op. cit.:85), and are governed by the
"one suffix, one rulev principle. In this theory, each affix
(strictly, the phonological operation of the WFR) is associated
with a syntacticosemantic operation, and the question of
cross-classification does not arise. We may conceptualize the
WFR as follows:
(5)
Base Word
Morphological rule -- WFR -- Semantic rule
~erivid Word
The issue of whether an affix can be associated with more
than one semantic rule is, as Aronoff observes, a difficult one
to resolve on semantic grounds alone. But we need not confine
ourselves to semantic intuition. We can instead examine whether
a semantic operation has characteristic syntactic consequences
which allow us to identify it, and whether the same consequences
consistently follow from the same semantic rule when it applies
across a variety of affixes. We can also examine if more than
one such identifiable semantic operation is paired with the same
affix. The results of such a procedure reveal that Jackendoff's
system is superior to that of Aronoff.
Let us, to begin with, consider again the list of verbs
with Experiencer objects. The nominals of these verbs are formed
with a variety of suffixes, as the sample in (6) shows:
(6) a. V, V+ment: amuse-amusement, excite-excitement
b. V, V+(at)ion: irritate-irritation,
inspire-inspiration
c. V, V+ance: annoy-annoyance
d. V, V+0: delight-delight, surprise-surprise
At least four morphological rules are needed to relate causative
verbs with Experiencer objects to their deverbal nominal
derivatives. We have seen, however, that the syntactic and
semantic relation between the verb and the noun is constant. The
noun's subcategorization is regularly the vinveraew of the
verb's (Subject corresponds to PP-complement, ObJect to
Poss-NP); and the noun's semantic interpretation is regularly
paraphrasable as "state of being V-ed." This semantic relation,
which relates the nouns to a semantically coherent class of
verbs, is crucial to any explanation of the noun's
subcategorization. The semantic rule is thus clearly
identifiable (from its subcategorizational consequences), and
can be readily distinguished from other semantic rules for
deverbal nouns (which do not have the same subcategorizational
consequences).
The semantic rule for verbs with Experiencer objects and
their nominal derivatives must thus generalize across the
morphological rules of -ment -9 -(at)ion - 9 -ance -9 and 0
nominalization. The "thematic functionsw hypothesis is now seen
to carry such a generalization of a semantic rule to its logical
conclusion. It proposes to isolate a single semantic relation,
with its characteristic subcategorizational correlates, across
not only paradigms wherein the fldirectionn of morphological
derivation is held constant while the affixes are allowed to
vary, but across paradigms wherein the l'directionw of derivation
itself varies.
Consider, on the other hand, how the facts in (6a-c) might
be handled in a theory wherein lexical rules are modelled on
WFRs, and the syntacticosemantic relation between the verb and
the noun is inseparable from the morphological relation. Four
rules will suffix -ment J -(at)ion --, -ance -9 and 0, to the verbs,
and output nouns. Each of these rules will specify that the
verb's object corresponds to the Poss-NP specifier of the noun,
and its subject to an optional PP-complement; and that the noun
has the interpretation "state of being V-ed." Thus even the
weaker generalization that these verbs have virregular,u
wskewedw n o m i n a l i z a t i o n s ( c o m p a ~ e d t o c r i t i c i z e - c r i t i c i s m ) w i l l
be s c a t t e r e d a c r o s s t h e f o u r r u l e s demanded by t h e morpho log ica l
r e l a t i o n s .
T h i s i s on ly one problem f o r l e x i c a l r u l e s which i m i t a t e
WFRs. For j u s t a s t h e same semant ic r u l e may g e n e r a l i z e a c r o s s
v a r i o u s morphologica l r u l e s , t h e same morpho log ica l r u l e may
g e n e r a l i z e a c r o s s v a r i o u s semant ic r u l e s ( c f . a n n e x a t i o n " t h e
a c t of annexing," v e x a t i o n " t h e s t a t e of b e i n g vexedw) . When
( f o r example) t h e same n o m i n a l i z i n g s u f f i x i s a t t a c h e d t o
homonymous v e r b p a i r s , t h e r e s u l t i s homonymous noun p a i r s which
a r e r e l a t e d t o t h e i r v e r b b a s e s by d i f f e r e n t s e m a n t i c r u l e s . We
have a l r e a d y encoun te red such c a s e s o f homonymity. R e c a l l t h a t
v e r b s , l i k e d e p r e s s , e x h a u s t , s a t i s f y and a g i t a t e have two
argument s t r u c t u r e s , w i t h two c o r r e s p o n d i n g p a t t e r n s o f
n o m i n a l i z a t i o n . The semant ic r u l e s f o r t h e two k i n d s of ve rbs
a r e h e r e d i f f e r e n t : " s t a t e of b e i n g V-edm i n one c a s e , " a c t ( i o n )
of V-ingfl i n a n o t h e r . However, t h e morpho log ica l r u l e t h a t bo th
t y p e s of ve rbs undergo i s t h e same:
I n f a c t , when we examine t h e n o m i n a l i z a t i o n s of
Exper iencer -ob jec t v e r b s more c l o s e l y , we f i n d t h a t t h e s e
nominals e x h i b i t a l s o a d i f f e r e n t t y p e o f homonymity: they o c c u r
i n [-Count] and [+Count] p a i r s . When t h e s e nominals mean Ifstate
of be ing V-edn (and a r e s u b c a t e g o r i z a t i o n a l l y p a r a l l e l t o a p a s t
participial adjective) , they must have a syntactic feature
[-Count]. Evidence for this is that the nouns cannot have a
plural form in the relevant subcategorizational frame.
( 8 ) *the children's amusements
' the stories
annoyances
disappointments embarrassments excitements surprises
interests In J
The non-pluralizability of the noun is here predictable from its
stative interpretation. In general, nouns denoting states or
qualities do not pluralize: compare John's sincerity
(*sincerities), deafness (*es), dumbness (*es) .4 We can formally
express this property of the nouns in (8) by giving them a
feature [-Count], as we do for a noun like sincerity.
There are, however, other contexts in which such nouns are
apparently specified for a feature [+Count], for here plural
forms are possible, as is the indefinite article - a(n): -
(9) a. The many amusements available to a tourist in
Jamaica include surfing and skin-diving.
b. We missed the plane and lost our baggage, but these
were minor annoyances (irritations).
c. John is an embarrassment and a disappointment to his
family .
d. The chocolate chip cookies were a rare delight.
The contexts for the [+Count] nouns do not show the regular
correspondences that we have noted, with the contexts for the
related verbs and adjectives. Thus non-animate possessive NP
specifiers are here possible, although non-animate NPs cannot
occur as the objects of the verbs or the subjects of the
adjectival predicates.
(10) a. The eveningfs chief amusement (excitement) was a
strip-tease by a male dancer.
(Cf. '*Something amused the evening; *the evening
was amused )
b. The day's surprises were not yet at an end.
(Cf. f*Something surprised the day; *the day was
surprisedf.)
Also, the [+Count] nouns, unlike the [-Count] nouns, cannot take
the verb's subject as an optional PP-complement:
(11) a. *Maryfs interests in the stories
b. Mary's interests include stamp-collecting and
head-hunting.
The specification of strict subcategorizational and selectional
features for the noun thus differs according to whether it is
[-count] or [+Count]. We must therefore postulate two lexical
Observe now that the [+Count] nouns are paraphrasable not as
"state of being V-ed," but as "events, activities, objects,
etc., that V.ll The countable and uncountable nouns must
therefore be produced from (or related to) the verb by distinct
semantic rules. Thus the difference in meaning correlates with
the differentiation of lexical items based on syntactic
considerations, proving again our point that it is possible to
motivate distinct semantic rules on grounds other than purely
semantic or intuitive ones.5 Now, the semantic rule ltevents,
activities, objects, etc., that Vw generalizes across nouns with
a variety of affixes (amusements, irritations -9 annoyances,
surprise0s). But more interestingly, the morphological rules of
ment (at)ion, ance and 0 are also seen to cut across the two -3 - - - semantic rules "state of being V-edw and "events . . . that V." The morphological relation between the verb and the [-Count]
noun is in every case the same as that between the verb and the
[+count] noun; only the semantic relation differs.6
items in such cases in order to ensure correct lexical
insertion, e.g. (12) : - amusement
[+Count]
idiosyncratic features
-
(12) - - amusement
[-Count]
+ (PP)
[+ - [+Abstract]]
.(=V1s subject) -
Consider ano the r c a s e of homonymity: t h e noun assurance. I n
( 1 3 ) , a s su rance i s ambiguous between t h e two read ings "ac t ion ,
o r r e s u l t of a c t i o n , of Viogtl and " s t a t e of being Ved,n shown i n
(131) and (1311) r e s p e c t i v e l y .
(13) The h a r e ' s assurance t h a t he would win t h e r ace
( I ) f a i l e d t o comfort t h e t o r t o i s e .
(11) was matched only by h i s l a z i n e s s .
But t h e noun i s disambiguated when i t occu r s wi th a - to-NP
complement, o r wi th a p l u r a l morpheme. Compare (14) - (15) :
(14) The h a r e ' s assurance t o t h e t o r t o i s e
( I ) was g iven i n t h e presence of a l l t h e s p e c t a t o r s .
(ii)*was matched only by h i s l a z i n e s s .
(15) The h a r e ' s a s su rances
(I) f a i l e d t o comfort t h e t o r t o i s e .
( i i ) * w e r e matched only by h i s l a z i n e s s ( e s ) . I n (15) and ( 1 4 ) , only t h e non-s ta t ive read ing of assurance is
poss ib l e . The ungramrnaticality of ( 1 4 1 1 ) shows t h a t t h e noun
wi th t h e s t a t i v e meaning "conf idence, sureness1' does no t
subca t ego r i ze a wGoalN argument, an e n t i t y t o whom t h e assurance
i s given.7 The ungrammatical i ty of (1511) shows t h a t ( l i k e o t h e r
s t a t i v e nouns) assurance on t h i s read ing cannot be [+Count].
There must t h e r e f o r e be two l e x i c a l i tems assurance , r e l a t e d t o
the verb by the same morphological rule but by different
semantic rules.8
We have now identified at least three semantic rules for
nominalizations, which must intersect four morphological rules.
This is illustrated in the table below. I have introduced, in
parentheses, lexical items which intuitively meet the
specifications
completeness.
Semantic Rules
Morphological Rules
state of events. . . act or result being V-ed that V of V-ing
amusement amusements (acknowledgements )
irritation irritations (derivations)
annoyance annoyances assurances assurance
surprise surprises (displays)
This is precisely the cross-classification of morphological and
semantic relationships noticed by Jackendoff. We have, however,
succeeded In tying the semantics to observable consequences,
justifying the separation of semantic rules. If we now require
the same lexical rule to specify morphological and semantic
information, we will need tweLve rules instead of seven, to
relate the nouns in (16) to their verbs. If we identify yet
another semantic rule, we will need sixteen rules instead of
eight; and so on. The loss of generalization is apparent,
Observe that the data above cannot be dismissed as
idiosyncratic (I. e., as products of vsemantic driftf1). The
semantic regularity of the nouns in the first column of (16) is
not in question. For the nouns in the second column, we were
able to give a paraphrase with a variable, This is the
traditional method of expressing regular semantic relationships,
and one which Aronoff informally adopts. We might note that it
is the readings "action of V-ingw and "event or state of being
V-edw that Aronoff (op. cit.:33) himself suggests as the
expected reading of deverbal nouns, and these are precisely the
two readings of assurance that we have identified.
This suggests that the inappropriateness of the WFR model
for this data arises from the inadequacy of the model itself.
For the justification for separating a theory of word formation
from a theory of word analysis is that existing words tend to be
peculiar, and acquire idiosyncracies. When such idiosyncracies
are removed and only regularities are taken into account, we
must expect a "matchw between the two theories; as Aronoff
observes, it is "possible, but highly unlikely," that the rules
for analyzing existing words are radically different from the
rules for making up new words.
Let us outline more explicitly how the WFR model will
handle facts like those in (16), to see at what points the model
is inappropriate. Aronoff assumes each word in the lexicon to be
a fully specified entity (as we have); there are no partially
specified lexical entries. The two subcategories of (e.g.)
amusement must therefore be given two fully specified lexical
entries. Further, the syntacticosemantic operation of a WFR
vspecifies the semantics of the output as a compositional
function of the meaning of the base, and assigns the output to a
specific major lexical category - - in a specific sub categorization^
(op. cit.:85, emphasis added). If so, the same
syntacticosemantic operation cannot have produced (e.g.) both
the [-Count] and [+Count] nouns amusement, which have different
subcategorizations. This again accords with our analysis, and
confirms that the WFR which performs the morphological operation
of -ment attachment does not perform a unitary
syntacticosemantic operation. We must rather speak of a WFR
which consists of the -ment attachment rule, and of (at least) - two syntactico- semantic operations: "state of being V-ed," and
"events . . . that V." The meaning and the subcategorization of
the derived noun amusement depends on which of these two
operations has applied.
But here there is a problem. We have hypothesized diverging
paths from the morphological to the semantic part of a WFR, and
bifurcated the latter part:
(17) WFR #ment - Morphology: [A] ----> [[A] #merit]
V V N Syntax and Semantics:
"state of being V-edw "events . . . that Vv Noun, [-Count] Noun, [+Count]
However, the postulation of such bifurcations is not a mere
matter of filling in the details of a WFRts semantic operation;
it violates the "very strict 'one suffix, one rule1 basisw (op.
cit. :89) of the theory. To preserve this principle, we must
postulate at least two WFRs of -ment for the case above, with - one morphological and one syntacticosemantic operation each.
The "one suffix, one ruleH principle is more clearly seen
in the unitary base hypothesis. This hypothesis states that "the
syntacticosemantic specification of the base, though it may be
more or less complex, is always uniquew (op. cit.:48). Under the
provision for wcomplexity,w a WFR may refer to the "category,
subcategory, selection and lexically governed entailment and
presupposition" of its base. What the unitary base hypothesis
prohibits is a disjunction in the base, with semantic operations
and derived subcategorizations sensitive to this disjunction;
for this would again bifurcate the WFR. Consider for example the
affix #able -9 which (Aronoff notes) attaches to verbs
(acceptable) and, less productively, to nouns (obJectionable,
marketable, profitable, knowledgeable, sizeable, saleable,
f a s h i o n a b l e ) , t o form a d j e c t i v e s . The d e v e r b a l a d j e c t i v e s have a
r e a d i n g l lcapable of b e i n g - Xed (where - X is t h e b a s e ) , " w h i l e t h e
denomlnal a d j e c t i v e s have a r e a d i n g ' ' c h a r a c t e r i z e d by - X (where - X
1s t h e base ) - "10 S i n c e t h e form o f t h e s u f f i x , i t s Level ( o r
boundary) s p e c i f i c a t i o n , and t h e c a t e g o r y of t h e o u t p u t , is t h e
same i n bo th c a s e s , w e might t r y t o combine d e v e r b a l and
denominal - a b l e - i n t o one r u l e . T h i s h y p o t h e t i c a l r u l e would
o p e r a t e on e i t h e r a v e r b - o r a noun, w i t h t h e semant ic o p e r a t i o n
v a r y i n g w i t h t h e l e x i c a l c a t e g o r y of t h e b a s e :
( 1 8 ) ( h y p o t h e t i c a l ) WFR # a b l e - CAIx----> C [ AIX#ableJA
where X = N o r V
Syn-sem op. 1 Syn-sem op.2
Base :X=N Base : X=V
' c h a r a c t e r i z e d by N 1 ' c a p a b l e of b e i n g V-ed
The u n i t a r y base h y p o t h e s i s p r o h i b i t s t h e d i s j u n c t i o n i n ( 1 8 ) ,
and p r e c l u d e s t h e p o s s i b i l i t y of a s i n g l e # a b l e - WFR. But c o n s i d e r now how t h e b a s e of t h e n o m i n a l i z a t i o n r u l e s
of -ment -3 - ( a t ) i o n - -3 -ance - and 0 must be s p e c i f i e d . We see t h a t
t h e s e s u f f i x e s s u r f a c e on b o t h l l r e g u l a r l l and llskewedll
n o m i n a l i z a t i o n s :
( 1 9 ) a. i. J o h n ' s acknowledgement o f t h e l e t t e r
11. the children's amusement (at his antics) - b, I. the annexation of Oudh by the British
ii. the children's irritation (at his antics) - c. I. John's acceptance of Mary's resignation -
ii. the children's annoyance (at his antics) - d. i. John's display of courage
ii, the children's surprise (at his antics)
We have shown that the pattern of nominalization, and its
semantics, is dependent on a disjunction in the
syntacticosemantic specification of the base. The disjunction is
not in the category, but in the subcategory. Let us illustrate
this with the rule of #ment. -
( 20) [A]~---- > CCAIV#mentlN Syn-sem Base 1 : Syn-sem Base 2 :
V with Experiencer Object V with non-Experiencer Object
Semantic operation: Semantic operation:
state of being V-ed action of V-ing
Subcategorization: Subcategorization:
inverse of V1s parallel to V18
There is no way to collapse the bases or the operations in
(20) without loss of descriptive adequacy. The unitary base
hypothesis thus forces us to postulate two sets of affixes
-ment, -(at)ion, -ance and 0, for the data in (19).
The result of the "one suffix, one rule" principle,
therefore, is the proliferation of homonymous affixes: if there
are - n different semantic operations associated with an affix, we must treat the affix as n different affixes.11 This is clearly - unsatisfactory, and the "one suffix, one rulev principle (from
which the unitary base hypothesis follows) must be given up.12
But it is apparent that the maintenance of the "one suffix,
one rule" principle is essential for maintaining the integrity
of the WFR as a rule relating a base word to a derived word at
two levels simultaneously: the morphological, and the
(syntactico)semantic. If this principle held, we should have
been able to state the relation between two words A and B simply
as "A is derived from B by the WFR of Wev Everything about the
morphological, the syntactic, and the semantic relation of A to
B would follow from this simple statement. Let us illustrate
this by assuming, for the sake of argument, that the WFR of +ee - has a unitary base [V, +transitive, +animate object] (as
suggested by Aronoff), and performs a unitary semantic
operation, (roughly) "recipient of the action of V." Now if we
said that employee was derived from employ by the WFR of +=, it would follow that employ was a transitive verb with an animate
object; the meaning of the derived word would also follow from
the rule, in a straightforward way. In contrast, to say now that
agitation or derivation is derived from agitate or derive by the
-(at)ion -- WPR is to say very little; for the WFR no longer has a
unique base, and no longer uniquely determines the semantic and
the subcategorizational relationship between the base and the
output. All that the statement now tells us for certain is the
morphological relationship. To determine the syntactic and
semantic relationship, we must probe again into the
syntacticosemantic subclass of the base ("is it an
Experiencer-obJect verb or not?"), and ascertain which semantic
operation has applied to this base.
In vertically bifurcating the semantic part of a WFR, then,
we have also bifurcated the WFR laterally, separating the
morphological process of word formation from the
syntacticosemantic process. In section 5 I suggest that this
separation has consequences for the morphology that are not
undesirable.
3. A Model - -
Our data suggest that the rules of afflxation which output
the morphological forms of words are not themselves specified
with semantic operations, but that they are able to access a set
of independently existing semantic operations in the lexicon.
Such a model would explain the "sharingw of semantic rules by a
range of affixes, and eliminate the redundant statement of the
same semantic rule as part of a number of affixation rules. As
regards the semantic operations, we may hypothesize that there
a r e b a s i c a l l y two k i n d s o f o p e r a t i o n s a v a i l a b l e . One k ind would
r e l a t e argument s t r u c t u r e s ( s p e c i f i e d i n t e rms of t h e m a t i c
f u n c t i o n s ) , and r e s u l t i n t h e obse rved r e g u l a r i t i e s i n t h e
s u b c a t e g o r i z a t i o n a l frames of r e l a t e d words. I n s t a n c e s of t h i s
k ind would be t h e r u l e s we gave i n Chap te r Three as redundancy
r u l e s , r e p e a t e d h e r e a s ( 2 1 ) - ( 2 3 ) .
( 2 1 ) S1: Causativization-Decausativization
( i . e . N o r A )
(PP)
( E x p e r i e n c e r , ( X I ) (Cause r , E x p e r i e n c e r )
S2: I n h e r i t a n c e 1
F i l t e r : *N, (Cause r , E x p e r i e n c e r )
L( Argument, Argument) ( Argument , Argument ) 1
(23) S3: Inheritance 2
A N
+ NP (PP) * +NP-(PP) (Argument, (Argument)) 1 I (Argument, (Argument)
The other kind of operation (we may hypothesize) does not
relate argument structures, and (therefore) does not give rise
to subcategorizational regularities. The words produced by the
latter kind of operation would have more idiosyncratic meanings
and syntactic features. Among operations of this kind, have
identified one we may call Concretization - * which produces [+Count] nouns like amusement:
(24) S4 : Concretization
Noun, +Count
CAUSER OF STATE
Let us now hypothesize that an affixation rule specifies
the following information. It specifies the category (or
categories) of its input, the category of its output, the
boundary, shape and position of the affix; and a list of
morphologically permitted bases. This much is essentially the
morphological part of the Aronovian WFR. For the semantics, let
us hypothesize that the rule contains a reference to a list of
semantic rules. Thus the #ment - affixation rule may be given as in (25):
t
[ A] ,--- > [ [ A ] #merit] N
List of morphological bases:
beX (bewilder)
enX (enjoy)
Xcite (excite)
Xuse (amuse)
etc.
Semantics:
Rule S1 (Causativization-Decausativization)
Rule S2 (Inheritance)
Rule S4 (Concretization)
etc.
Suppose now the lexicon contains the following lexical entry.
amuse
(Causer, Experiencer)
mapping: (redundant) -
Rule (25) says that given such a verb Xuse, we can suffix #ment -
t o i t t o form a noun. For t h e semant ics of t h e noun, i t r e f e r s
us t o r u l e s ( 2 1 ) - ( 2 4 ) above. The l e x i c o n t e l l s us t h a t amuse
has t h e argument s t r u c t u r e (Causer, Expe r i ence r ) . Rule ( 2 1 ) s ays
t h a t f o r verbs wi th t h i s argument s t r u c t u r e , t h e r e may be nouns
o r a d j e c t i v e s wi th t h e argument s t r u c t u r e (Exper iencer , ( X ) ) .
Thus we a s s i g n amusement t h i s argument s t r u c t u r e , and e n t e r t h e
word i n t h e lex icon . (We assume t h a t t h e f e a t u r e [-Count] f o r
t h e noun i s p r e d i c t a b l e from i t s semant ic i n t e r p r e t a t i o n ; c f .
fn .3 above.) Next we t a k e t h e same morphological form amusement,
and apply t h e r u l e (22) above; bu t t h e ou tpu t of t h i s r u l e i s
f i l t e r e d out . Running down t h e l i s t , we f i n d t h a t Conc re t i za t ion
i s a p p l i c a b l e . Thus t o t h e same noun-form amusement we a s s i g n a
reading "causer of s t a t e u and a f e a t u r e [+Count], d e r i v i n g
another noun amusement, which we e n t e r i n t h e l ex i con .
We t h u s have t h e fo l lowing r e l a t i o n s h i p s between amuse and
i t s d e r i v a t i v e s :
amuse
/phon. repr. /
v + NP NP
(Causer, Experiencer)
mapping: (redundant)
amusement
/phon. repr . / 1 N, +Count c
other features
amusement
Fphon. repr. /
(Experiencer,(X))
I mapping: (redundant) P=a t -L
This entry expresses the fact that the two nouns amusement are
derived from amuse by the same morphological rule, but by
different semantic rules. The correlation between the argument
structure and the syntactic frame is provided by the
thematic-syntactic mapping specified in the previous chapter. In
(27), the preposition - at selected by the noun may be regarded as
wcostlessfl if an appropriate characterization of the thematic
function - X can be given.
Let us now specify another affixation rule, which derives
adjectives from verbs and nouns.
(28) M2: #ed -
Y=V or N
List of morphological bases:
.
. Semantics:
Rule S1 (Causativization-Decausativization)
etc.
Notice that this affixation rule accesses the same semantic rule
S1 as the Ument rule did. Following a procedure similar to that
outlined above, we derive an adjective amused from amuse. We now
have the following morphological and semantic relationships
between amuse and its nominal and adjectival derivatives:
amuse
/phon. repr. /
v +NP - NP
(Causer, Experiencer)
mapping: (redundant)
amusement
/phon. repr. / by S4 [ N , +count 1 +-
other features
amused
I mapping : (redundant )
iphon. repr. /
N , -Count
+ NP (PP)
(Experiencer,(X))
mapping : (redundant )
P=at
The network above shows that while the two nominal
derivatives share a morphological relation with amuse but have
different semantic relationships, the [-Count] noun and the
addective have the same semantic relationship with amuse,
differing only in the morphological relationship. The
subcategorizational correspondences in the frames of amuse,
amused and amusement [-Count] now follow from this semantic
relationship, and the thematic-syntactic mapping. The fact that
the adjective and the [-Count] noun both select the same
preposition at may be regarded as non-coincidental if the thematic function - X in their argument structures is taken into account, and the selection of the preposition is dependent on
this thematic function.
Below I give additional samples of affixation rules, and of
the lexical entries related by these rules. Notice again the
recurrence of the semantic rules S1, S2 and S3 above In the
specifications of these affixation rules.
CAI,----> [ [ A +(at)ion] t N
List of morphological bases:
Xate (irritate)
Xify (glorify)
Xcite (excite)
etc.
Semantics:
Rule S1 (Causativization-Decausativization)
Rule S2 ( ~nheritance )
Rule S4 (Concretization)
etc.
(31) illustrates how this rule relates the two senses of agitate
to the two senses of agitation and the adjective agitated. (I
use the term "Ext(erna1) Themew to denote the first argument of
GO-posit.ext. We may speculate that the two senses of agitate
are themselves related by a redundancy rule like the following:
a g i t a t e
/phon. r e p r . / 1
tNP NP
(Causer , Ext .Theme)
mapping : ( redundant )I
a g i t a t e
/phon. r e p r e /
v
tNP NP
(Causer , Exper iencer )
a g i t a t i o n
C/phon. repr . /
1 (Causer, Ext .Theme)
mapping : ( redundant ) 1
a g i t a t i o n
/phon. repr . / 1
mapping: ( redundant ) I . P=at , over A
a g i t a t e d
/phon. repr . /
A
tNP (PP)
(Expe r i ence r , (X) )
mapping : ( redundant : . P=at , over
List of morphological bases :
Xor (terror)
etc.
Semantics :
Rule S1 (Causativization-Decausatlvizatlon)
etc.
List of morphological bases:
.
.
Semantics:
Rule S 1 (Causativization-Decausatlvlzatlon)
etc.
List of morphological bases:
. Semantics:
Rule S3 ( Inheritance)
etc.
by M4 I horr i fy
horror
/phone repr. /
N
t N P ( P P )
(Experiencer, ( X ) )
mapping: (redundant:
P=at -
horr i f l e d
/phon. repr. /
v tNP NP
(Causer, Experiencer)
mapping: (redundant)
/phone repr. / 1
(Experiencer , ( X ) ) I mapping: (redundant ) I
t i r e
Fphon. repr. / 1
I (Causer, Experlencer) I mapping : ( redundant )j
t i r e d t i r ednes s
/phon. repr. / -
repr. /
N
t N P
(Experlencer)
mapping: ( r e d ~ n d a n t ) ~ - mapping : ( redundant )-
- by M6
by S 3 -
sadness
/phon. repr . / N
+ NP
(Experiencer)
mapping: (redundant)
sad
jphon. repr. /
A
+ NP
(Experiencer )
-mapping: (redundant:
sadden
(Causer, Experiencer ) 1 mapping: (redundant) 1
4. Implications for Productivity and Semantic Coherence - - - Our conception of the process of word formation, which
allows us to examine the morphological and the semantic process
each in their own right, gives us a slightly different
perspective on notions like Nproductivity" and usemantic
coherence. " Consider first productivity. Aronoff shows that the morphological productivity of an
affixation rule varies with the morphology of the base. Thus
given the deadjectival nominalizing suffixes #ness and +=,
#ness - is in general the more productive suffix; but for adjectives of the form -9 Xile += is more productive than #ness - (servile, servility, *servileness). That is, there are more
Xility words than Xileness words in the language. Similarly,
#ment is very productive with - enX and - beX verbs (Aronoff op.
cit.:53, Marchand 1969:332). Aronoff therefore suggests that a
productivity index be associated with each morphological form of
the base of a WFR. We may indicate this as in (38):
(38) affix #ment - Forms of the base: beX, p. index 1
enX, p. index 1
Xcite, p. index 3
etc.
Given the assumption that the semantic base and the semantic
operation of a WFR are unique, this is as much as can be said
about the productivity of a WFR, in Aronoffls theory.
It appears, however, that there is another dimension to the
phenomenon of productivity, which our view of word formation
enables us to capture. We have said that an affixation rule may
have access to more than one semantic operation. The same rule
can therefore produce words belonging to different sense-groups.
It transpires that such a rule can exhibit a preference for one
of the semantic operations available to it, and produce more
words of that sense-group than of any other. Thus consider
Marchand1s comments (op. cit.:332) on the suffix Iment. - Marchand first notes that Xrnent nouns can have one of four
readings: (1) "act or fact of -", e.g. appointment, development;
(2) "something concrete or material connected with -", e.g.advertisement, equipment; ( 3 ) "the state of being -edn,
"chiefly from verbs denoting mental or emotional states," e.g.
astonishment, embarrassment; and (4) "the place connected with
-", e.g. encampment, settlement.
Marchandts sense group ( 3 ) is of course the class we have
identified as the nominalizations of Experiencer-object verbs,
derived by our rule S1 (see (21) above). Of this sense group,
Marchand observes that it
has been especially productive for the last 150 years. The following words, all with the basic meaning wembarrassment, bewildermentn or the like, were coined in the 19th century : astoundment , bedevilment, bemuddlement, bepuzzlement, besetment, betanglement, bewilderment, bewitchment, dazement, dazzlement,
disillusionment dispiritment, displeasurement f lusterment ,Mdlement, muddlement , perplexmeAt. More recent are perturbment 1901, puzzlement 1922.
The earliest words in this sense group that Marchand cites are
astonishment and amazement, in the 16th century. Considering
that "by 1300, -ment - was obviously a derivative suffix," the semantic rule S1 appears to have become available to the #ment
suffixation rule relatively late, and to have reached its peak
of productivity three centuries later.
Suppose now that not only the morphological forms of the
base of #ment -3 but also the semantic operations it permits, are
each assigned an index of productivity. We may then
conceptualize the history of the semantics of #ment - in the following way.
(39) 14th century: Inheritance
16th century: Inheritance (higher productivity)
Decausativization (lower productivity)
19th century: Decausativizatlon (higher productivity)
Inheritance (lower productivity)
Assigning an index of productivity to permitted semantic
operations might also explain why it is excitement, rather than
excitation, which is related to the Experiencer-object verb
excite. We may speculate that while the morphological base Xcite
is equally productive with the suffixes #ment - and +(at)ion, -- the
Decausativization rule has a higher productivity with #ment than
with +(at )ion. -- Consider next the phenomenon of wsemantic coherence." A
derived word is said to be semantically coherent, in Aronoffls
theory, to the extent that its semantics is predictable from the
semantics of its base and the (supposedly unitary) semantic
operation of the WFR. Aronoff associates semantic coherence with
productivity, and productivity (as'we have seen) with the
morphology of the base (op. cit. :62-63). Thus in this theory,
the coherence of a derived word may vary with the morphology of
the base. For example, +a derivatives from the base - 9 Xile
which (we have seen) is a highly productive base for this
suffix, would be expected to be more coherent than +a derivatives from the less productive base - Xous. Similarly, since
#ment - attaches most productively to - enX and beX verbs, we would - expect enXment and beXment nouns to be more coherent than other
Xment nouns. Moreover, a WFR which has few morphological
restrictions on its base is hypothesized to be likely to be more
productive, and therefore produce more coherent words, than a
WFR with many such restrictions.
However, Aronoff notes that although wproductivity goes
hand in hand with semantic coherence, . . . we have no real evidence as to which of these is primary, or even whether they
are really distinct matters. " In this context, it is striking that the [-Count] nominalizations of Experiencer-object verbs
are always semantically coherent, regardless of the particular
a f f i x on t h e noun, o r t h e morphology of t h e base ; whereas t h e
[+Count] d e r i v a t i v e s a r e n o t s o s e m a n t i c a l l y c o h e r e n t . T h i s
s u g g e s t s t h a t t h e coherence i s a p r o p e r t y of i n d i v i d u a l s e m a n t i c
o p e r a t i o n s , i - e . , t h a t o u r r u l e S1, which relates argument '
s t r u c t u r e s , is more c o h e r e n t t h a n o u r r u l e S4. Moreover, t h e
coherence of a n a f f i x a t i o n r u l e as such a p p e a r s t o be a f u n c t i o n
of t h e s e m a n t i c o p e r a t i o n s i t p e r m i t s o r p r e f e r s . We may
i l l u s t r a t e t h i s by comparing A r o n o f f t s a c c o u n t of t h e coherence
of d e a d j e c t i v a l nouns i n +a and #ness w i t h t h a t i n o u r -9
system.
R e c a l l t h a t nouns of t h e form Xousness have t h r e e r e a d i n g s :
( a ) t h e f a c t t h a t - Y i s Xous ( b ) t h e e x t e n t t o which Y is Xous -9 - -9
and ( c ) t h e q u a l i t y o r s t a t e of be ing Xous. Aronoff o b s e r v e s
t h a t #ness d e r i v a t i v e s have o n l y t h e s e t h r e e r e a d i n g s , whi le
+a d e r i v a t i v e s have t h e s e r e a d i n g s p l u s I fo the r r e a d i n g s :
t e c h n i c a l s e n s e s , c o n c r e t e nouns, count nounsw ( o p e c i t . : 3 8 ) . He
d e s i g n a t e s d e a d j e c t i v a l nouns w i t h t h e t h r e e r e a d i n g s above a s
s e m a n t i c a l l y c o h e r e n t , and c o r r e l a t e s t h e g r e a t e r p r o d u c t i v i t y
of #ness - w i t h i t s g r e a t e r coherence .
We now f i n d t h a t t h e r e are [+Count] nouns nouns i n #ness as - wel l . We f i n d a l s o t h a t t h e s e m a n t i c s of t h e += nouns i s
coheren t o n l y when they are [-Count], and t h a t t h e s e m a n t i c s of
t h e #ness - nouns i s n o t c o h e r e n t when t h e y are [+Count]. Thus t h e
semant ics of t h e nouns ( i n ) c r e d u l i t y ( * i e s ) , g a r r u l i t y ( * i e s )
tenacity(*ies), - and vivacity(*ies), derived from the (less
productive) base -3 Xous and fragility(*ies), servility(*ies),
derived from the (more productive) base -9 Xile is transparent.
The semantics of the [+count) +ity derivatives in (40) Is not so
transparent (examples f rom Aronoff ) :
(40) a. How many varieties of fish are there in the pond?
b. All the town's notables and notorieties were there.
c. They admired his dress, but only as a curiosity.
d. What a monstrosity!
e. There are many discontinuities in your story.
Similarly, the semantics of the [+Count] #ness - derivatives in (41) is not so transparent.
(41) a. I remembered his many kindnesses.
b. The awkwardnesses of the evening were soon
forgotten.
c. There are many weaknesses In your analysis.
In (41), Xness does not mean "the fact, quality, state or extent
of being X . " Kindnesses, weaknesses and awkwardnesses mean
winstances of kindness, weakness or awkwardness," just as
discontinuities means winstances of disc~ntinuity.~
The interesting fact is that #ness appears to produce fewer
[+Count] derivatives than +a. NOW, we have hypothesized that
there are two kinds of semantic operations accessed by
a f f i x a t i o n r u l e s ; one r e l a t i n g argument s t r u c t u r e s (and
a s s ign ing coherent r e a d i n g s ) , and ano the r kind which i s more
i d i o s y n c r a t i c . The +a r u l e appears t o a l l ow both kinds of
ope ra t ions , whi le t h e #ness r u l e appears t o f a v o r t h e former. - This "pre fe rencen i s what we have sugges ted be formal ized i n
terms of i n d i c e s of p r o d u c t i v i t y f o r pe rmi t t ed semant ic
ope ra t ions . The g r e a t e r semantic coherence of #ness nouns t h a t - Aronoff n o t e s i s a r e f l e x of t h i s p re fe rence .
5. Residual I s sues . - The c e n t r a l i n s i g h t of t h e theory of word based morphology
is t h a t t h e semant ics of word format ion must be based on t h e
word, and no t on t h e morpheme. There a r e morphemes without
meaning; t h e r e a r e morphological ly complex words whose meanings
a r e no t t h e sum of t h e meanings of t h e i r morphemes; t h e r e a r e
words which s h a r e morphemes without s h a r i n g any meaning ( s t a n d ,
unders tand, wi ths tand; t ake , under take) . The meaning of a
der ived word, i n s o f a r as i t is p r e d i c t a b l e , is p r e d i c t a b l e from
t h e meaning of a - word from which i t i s der ived . "The s i g n
g r a v i t a t e s t o t h e word."
This i s undoubtedly a va luab le i n s i g h t . Thus t h e semantic
r e l a t i o n s h i p s between t h e words i n each column of (42) a r e
t r a n s p a r e n t t o t h e i n t u i t i o n s of t h e n a t i v e speaker , while such
semantic r e l a t i o n s h i p s as may e x i s t between t h e words i n each
column of (43) a r e n o t :
(42)
a. d u r a b l e
d u r a b i l i t y
( 4 3 ) a . d u r a b l e - endure - d u r a t i o n -
b. endure c . e v a c u a t e d. vacan t
e n d u r a b l e evacuee vacancy
endurance e v a c u a t i o n
b. - v a c a n t
v a c a t i o n - vacuum - e v a c u a t e
A t h e o r y of t h e s e m a n t i c s of p r o d u c t i v e word f o r m a t i o n must
t h e r e f o r e b e g i n a t t h e l e v e l o f t h e word, and n o t of t h e
morpheme.
The p remise o f word based morphology, however, i s t h a t t h e
t h e o r y of t h e s t r u c t u r e of words must a l s o b e g i n w i t h t h e l e v e l
of t h e word. Here w e r u n i n t o problems, f o r t h e a f f i x does n o t
v g r a v i t a t e w t o t h e word: t h e r e a r e " r e g u l a r l y d e r i v e d words,
s e m a n t i c a l l y t r a n s p a r e n t , formed w i t h a f f i x e s which we know t o
be a l i v e and w e l l i n t h e i r o p e r a t i o n , which on t h e s u r f a c e do
n o t a p p e a r t o have been d e r i v e d from wordsn (Aronoff op.
c i t . : 8 8 ) . L e t u s t a k e A r o n o f f l s example, t h e s u f f i x +ee, which
forms nouns whose meaning i s a f u n c t i o n of t h e meaning o f
r e l a t e d t r a n s i t i v e v e r b s w i t h an imate o b j e c t s . T h i s s u f f i x
a p p e a r s sometimes on t h e ve rb , and sometimes t h e r o o t of
t h a t v e r b , which can be o b t a i n e d by d e l e t i n g i t s last morpheme1'
( l o c . c i t . ) :
(44)
a. pay-payee b. nominate-nominee
employ-employee evacuate-evacuee
present-presentee
Typically, verbs of the form - Xate have derivatives of the form
Xee instead of the expected *Xatee. The point of attachment of - the suffix is thus predictable from the morphology of the base.
A possible solution, then, would appear to be to allow the
affixation rule to vary with the morphology of the base: i.e.,
to say that each morphological form of the base defines a stem
for the suffix to attach to, which may or may not be identical
to the word.
But in a theory built on the "one suffix, one rulew
principle, where a WFR is a monolithic rule that outputs the
form of a derived word as well as its meaning and
subcategorization, this choice is not available. If the
morphological base of the +ee - WFR is evacu- or nomin-, while the semantic base is evacuate or nominate, there is no unitary base.
If the attachment rule for the suffix is sometimes word-based
and sometimes stem-based, there is a bifurcation in the
attachment rule; it is no longer the "same rulen (cf. Aronoff,
op. cit.:89-94). In this theory there is only one option, and
that is to let the suffix regularly attach to the word, and then
to "adjustv the shape of the incorrect output to the "vagaries
of reality" by rules of truncation.13
Below I discuss some problems with truncation rules. The
point of this discussion is that an examination of the
morphological process of word formation brings us to the same
conclusion that the examination of the syntacticosemantic
process did: the "one suffix, one rule" principle cannot be
maintained. There is no single rule of word formation that
outputs the form as well as the meaning of a derived word.
The obvious question about truncation is why it invariably
operates only before + boundary (Level I) suffixes, and never
before # boundary (Level 11) suffixes. These two classes of
affixes were first postulated by Siegel (1974),14 and are
retained by Aronoff (op. cit. :79ff. ) Given two classes of
affixes, Siegel showed that there is an interesting correlation
between the boundary and the manner of attachment of the suffix.
The + boundary suffixes may attach to stems as well as to words; the # boundary suffixes attach only to words. Truncation
recaptures this distinction at the surface; but in a theory
wherein both types of suffixes attach only to words, the
correlation between truncation and the + boundary appears
accidental.
A more important question is what exactly truncation rules
delete. They are presented as rules which "delete a morpheme
which is internal to an affix, in the following general manner:
[ [ root t A Ix+ B lY
1 2 3 ---- > I 0 3
where X and Y are major lexical categorie~.~
(op. cit. :88)
However, it appears that truncation rules must also (sometimes)
erase internal labelled bracketing.
In order to see why this is so, we must remember that this
theory of word formation purports to provide a motivated
labelled bracketing for words entering the phonological cycle.
As Aronoff observes, such labelled bracketing had previously
been sometimes determined in an "arbitrary and high-handedN
manner. In view of this, Brame (1974) proposed the Natural
Bracketing Hypothesis as a constraint on the assignment of
internal bracketings. His constraint was based on the
observation that the string constituting the domain of
application of the cycle of rules "itself shows up elsewhere as
an independent phonetic word sequencev (op. cit.:55). To express
this relation between a bracketed substring and its occurrence
as an independent word, Brame proposed the following definition,
(45) Definition
Two strings in phonological representations are said to
be equipotent if they are identical and at least one of
the two is not represented as a proper substring in
phonetic representations.
and the following constraint:
Natural Bracketinq Hypothesis
For a substring W to be bracketed, it must be equipotent to a string 6.
This constraint rules out bracketings like [[ortho[dox]]y] or
[[aristo[crat]]y], since - dox and - crat do not occur as words.
However, it still permits a bracketing [CfilJter] for a word
like filter, given the existence of a word - fill. To avoid the
possibility of this bracketing, Brame suggested a stronger
version of the Natural Bracketing Hypothesis:
Strong Natural Bracketing Hypothesis
For a substring Y of a string $J to be bracketed, )U must
be equipotent to a string 0, and the meaning of 9 must be a compositional function of the meaning of 0 and @ -
( @ minus VI 1.
(Brame 1974 5 6 - 5 8 ]
As Aronoff observes, it would be desirable for such a
constraint on natural bracketing to follow from a theory of
morphology. He remarks:
The question now naturally arises whether a constraint like that imposed by the Strong Hypothesis is a basic theoretical entity, or whether it falls out from more general principles. There obviously is some device which assigns these natural bracketings, and this device should have some other motivation than the mere fact
t h a t a s s i g n s n a t u r a l b racke t ings . . . . Within t h e theory of morphology o u t l i n e d above, a new word i s always formed by performing some phonological ope ra t ion on an a l r e a d y e x i s t i n g one. . . . The meaning of t h e new word w i l l a l s o be a composi t ional f u n c t i o n of t h e meaning of t h e word i t c o n t a i n s . S ince members of major l e x i c a l c a t e g o r i e s a r e always l a b e l l e d (N, V, Adj, Adv), s i n c e a l l r e g u l a r WFRs o p e r a t e on such l a b e l l e d words, and s i n c e t h e r e is no reason t o assume t h a t t h e s e l a b e l s a r e e rased i n t h e cou r se of t h e a p p l i c a t i o n of a WFR, WFRs w i l l , u n l e s s o the rwi se cons t r a ined , produce l a b e l l e d b racke t ings i n t h e i r output . I t i s c l e a r t h a t a l l t h e c o n s t r a i n t s imposed on int raword b racke t ings by t h e Natura l Bracke t ing Hypothesis a r e d i r e c t consequences of t h i s theory . I n f a c t , g iven t h i s theory , no o t h e r b r a c k e t i n g Is poss ib le . (op. c i t . :25)
With t h i s i n mind, consider t h e fo l lowing d e r i v a t i o n s
(suggested by Aronof f ) , assuming f i rs t t h a t t r u n c a t i o n l eaves
i n t e r n a l b racke t ings i n t a c t .
( 46 ) a. Base [evacu+ate$ b. [ i n c i s ( e ) + i o n k
WFRs [ [evacuta te t [ [ i n c i s ( e ) + i o n t t i v e l Truncat ion 1 2 3 1 2 3
Output [[evacu 1 p e e l N [ [ i n c i s ( e ) 1 fq+ive lA
The ou tpu t s of (46) a r e t h e i npu t s t o t h e phonologica l cyc le .
Here, t h e r e are l a b e l l e d bracke ts [ 1 around evacu-, and [ IN v around inc i se - . The Natura l Bracketing Hypothesis i s v i o l a t e d :
n e i t h e r evacu nor i n c i s e shows up as a word.
Consider a l s o t h e fo l lowing d e r i v a t i o n s of communicative.
I n (47) , t h e r e s u l t of t r u n c a t i n g t h e f i r s t - A t - i s shownl5; i n
( 4 8 ) , t h e r e s u l t of t r u n c a t i n g t h e second - A t i s shown. -
a. Base [communic+ate
WFRs +
[[corn~nunic+atel + A t +ion$ v [[[communic+ate] +At + ion v +i'"
1st At- t runcat ion 1 2 3 4 5
1 P' 3 4 5
- ion t r u n c a t i o n 1 2 3 4
1 2 B 4
Output [[[communic 1 A t v 1 ivelA
N
Once aga in , t h e ou tpu t makes t h e f a l s e c la im t h a t communic shows
up a s a verb, and communicate as a noun.
( 48)
b. Base [communictate] v WFRs [[communictate] +At +ionIN v
[[[communi~+ate]~+At +ion] +iveIA N
2nd -At truncation 1 2 3 4 5
1 2 b 4 5
-ion truncation 1 2 3 4
1 2 P 4
Output [[[communicate] v 1 tive] N A
Here there is an extra noun cycle on communicate, again
violating the Natural Bracketing Hypothesis.
These violations can perhaps be rectified if we assume that
truncation rules delete the labelled bracketings woutsidelt the
truncating morpheme. This will erase the Internal verb brackets
in evacuee, the internal noun brackets in incisive, and
(assuming that the second -At - truncates in communicative) the internal noun brackets in communicative.
Notice, however, that truncation must not erase the outer
(noun) bracketing in the following derivation (assuming again
that the second -& truncates):
Here the output is appropriately bracketed only if truncation
leaves bracketings intact. This means that truncation must
trigger erasure of bracketing only in some cases; it is not
clear that such a restriction can be formalized. Moreover,
truncation rules apply not cyclically, but in a block after all
WFRs (op. cit.:91). They must thus have access to internal
bracketing at any depth; they are a very powerful type of rule,
which can undo the work of any WFR.
The only motivatlon for retaining truncation in the
morphology is the "one suffix, one rulev principle. Since we
have shown (from an examination of the semantics of word
formation) that this principle must in any case be given up,
there remains very little justification for truncation rules.
But without truncation rules, the notion of a WFR falls apart.
Recently, Lieber (1980) has argued, from a purely
morphological point of view, for autonomous components of
nlexical structuret1 and vlexical semantics."16 She shows that in
languages like German and Latin, the sorts of stems for nouns,
verbs and adjectives which form bases for derivation and
compounding are also the sorts of stems which form bases for
i n f l e c t i o n a l p r o c e s s e s . T h i s i s s t r o n g s u p p o r t f o r t h e view t h a t
t h e l e x i c o n c o n t a i n s n o t o n l y words, but r e l a t e d s tems. L i e b e r
hypo thes izes t h a t each major c a t e g o r y N , V , A i n t h e l e x i c o n i s
subdivided i n t o n l e x i c a l c l a s s e s , 1 1 c o n s i s t i n g of words of t h a t
ca tegory type and r e l a t e d s tems. The i t e m s i n a l e x i c a l c l a s s
a r e r e l a t e d by a vmorpho lex ica l r u l e . " Thus f o r E n g l i s h s h e
g i v e s i l l u s t r a t i v e l e x i c a l c l a s s e s of v e r b s l i k e t h e f o l l o w i n g :
(50) ( = h e r ( 3 0 ) ) Class a : Xduce ' Xduct
( ( p r o d u c e , p r o d u c t ) , (conduce, c o n d u c t ) , . . . I
Class b: X s c r i b e ' X s c r i p t
{ ( p r e s c r i b e , p r e s c r i p t ) , ( i n s c r i b e , i n s c r i p t ) ,
( d e s c r i b e , d e s c r i p t ) , . . . I
Class c : X m i t X m i s
{ ( p e r m i t , p e r m i s ) , (commit, commis),
( t r a n s m i t , t r a n s m i s ) , ... )
( 5 1 ) ( = h e r ( 3 1 ) ) C l a s s d : X ' Xate
( (form, f o r m a t e ) , ( r e p r e s e n t , r e p r e s e n t a t e ) ,
( p r o c r a s t i n , p r o c r a s t i n a t e ) , ( e v a p o r , e v a p o r a t e ) , . . - 1
I n t h i s t h e o r y , bo th members of t h e l e x i c a l c l a s s a r e a v a i l a b l e
t o t h e (morpho log ica l ) r u l e s of word f o r m a t i o n . All al lomorphy
i s conf ined t o t h e s tem. The i n f o r m a t i o n a b o u t which member of
t h e l e x i c a l c l a s s i s t h e word, and which t h e stem, is provided
by subcategorizational frames in the lexicon: the stem is given
a frame which requires a following affix.
A detailed consideration of the morphological process of
word formation is outside the scope of this thesis. However, we
might note that in separating the morphological rules of
affixation from the semantic rules of word formation, we may
have made It possible to reconcile a theory of "lexical
structurev such as Lieberls, with Aronoff's view of ulexical
~ernantics.~ We may now weaken the hypothesis of word based
morphology to apply only to the semantics of word formation, and
say that the semantic base of (e.g.) evacuee is the word
evacuate, although the morphological base is evacu-. As Lieber
observes, the relation between the morphological base and the
semantic base provided by the morpholexical rules. Thus words
like stimulate, stimulant and stimulable can be related without
morphologically deriving the latter two forms from stimulate,
for
(v)erbs in -ate - . . . belong to a lexical class which is defined by the morpholexical rule X-Xate. Thus, every individual form Xate Is related by morpholexical rule to the correspondingwhich - is the base for affixation of -ant - and -able. (op. cit.:223)
These observations suggest that the (morphological part of) the
affixation rules given in the previous section can be refined in
the following way. First, the base may be given as a variable,
which may be either a lexical category or a stem. Secondly, the
list of morphological bases may be given in terms of
morpholexical classes. The morphological part of the tee - affixation rule may thus be as in ( 5 2 ) :
X= Stem or Verb
Forms of the base: XVy (pay, employ)
X(-Xate) (evacu-evacuate,
nomin-nominate)
etc.
Observe that with such a revision of affixation rules, we can
allow morphologically complex but semantically non-compositional
words (e.g. prob+able, rect+ify, gustatetion) to be formed by
the same affixation rules that apply in productive word
formation. Such words will have a morphological base, but no
semantic base. Thus when a noun pustation is formed from the
stem gustate, the semantic rule will look for a verb *pust or
*gustate, from which to derive its meaning. When this search
fails, no rule-governed meaning will be assigned to the word,
and an idiosyncratic meaning for this word will have to be
specified in the lexicon.
6. Concluding Remarks - I have argued that there is a type of lexical rule which
relates the argument structures (given in terms of thematic
functions) of derivationally related words, and suggested that
the domain of this rule type coincides with what Wasow (1980)
has identified as the "minorw lexical rule. Lexical items
related by this kind of rule display regular patterns of
subcategorizational correspondences; such correspondences are
here viewed as arising out of the principles governing the
assignment of thematic functions to syntactic frames. The
semantic rules relating lexical items were seen to be
independent of the affixation rules that output the
morphological forms of words. The separation of these rules in
the lexicon was supported by evidence from word formation.
A number of issues remain for further research. First, a
detailed examination of a wider range of such lexical rules is
necessary if we are to give content to the theory of thematic
functions, and to the thematic-syntactic mapping. Second, given
that we have postulated separate morphological and semantic
rules of word formation, questions arise as to the constraints
on each type of rule, and on the principles governing the
accessibility of semantic rules to affixation rules. Much is
known concerning the notion "possible morphological rulew; a
similar characterization of the notion llpossible semantic rulen
is lacking. It is to be hoped that we can isolate a small number
of "basic" semantic operations such as Causativization,
Decausativization, Inheritance, and so on, as the set of
possible relationships between argument structures. Such a
characterization of possible relationships might also allow us
to formulate general principles governing the assignment of
semantic operations to affixes. Thus we may ask if verbs and
adjectives are ever related by a rule of Inheritance; or if
nouns and adjectives are ever related by anything - but a rule of
Inheritance.
Again, we have suggested that deverbal nominalizing and
adjectivalizing affixation rules may share semantic operations,
as may denominal and deadjectival verbalizing suffixes. This
situation, where diverse affixes access a single semantic rule,
contrasts with the situation of suffixes like adjective-forming
-ed - or -able. - Here a single suffix (we have argued) may attach to either a noun or a verb; but the semantic operations accessed
by the suffix vary, depending on the category of the input. We
need to develop a theory which tells us why this state of
affairs obtains, rather than its opposite. That is, why do nouns
and adjectives function together in semantic rules, rather than
nouns and verbs? A possible answer is that only those lexical
categories which can be abbreviated in terms of a system of
syntactic features can function together in semantic rules. Thus
an investigation of the semantics of word formation may also
give us insights into the system of features for the
FOOTNOTES - TO CHAPTER FOUR
Some of the material in this chapter has been presented at the
Western Conference on Linguistics (1979) and the annual meeting
of the Canadian Linguistic Association (1980).
See also Newmeyer (1979).
He remarks: "It is not clear that we are dealing with
eparate readings rather than one tripartite or ambiguo~
three
1s one. I
lean towards the latter, but due to the present state of the art
of semantics, and perhaps to my own incompetence, I will leave
this very interesting question openw (op. cit.:38, fn.5).
For arguments that - n-ways ambiguous words should be treated as - n lexical items, see McCawley (1968).
'I Chomsky (1965 :215) suggests that "if the traditional view that
syntactic categorization is in part determined semantically can
be substantiated in any serious way, it can be expressed by a
redundancy rule determining syntactic features in terms of
semantic ones." The consistent correlation between the stativity
of a noun and the feature [-Count] would appear to be a good
candidate for such a rule: [+stative] ----- > [-Count].
5 Hust (1978) stresses this point.
6 Newmeyer (1979) makes the same point. The case of excitement,
excitation is unique among our examples in exhibiting a
morphological variation which apparently coincides with semantic
variation. However, we have noted that the conditioning factor
here is not the semantic rule, but the purely morphological fact
that the base Xcite is equally productive with the suffixes
-ment and (at)ion. -- We might note that another test for homonymity (1.e. words
produced by the same morphological operation but different
semantic operations) is to examine further derivational
processes that apply to words. Thus given a "regular" noun
satisfaction and a lfskewedll noun satisfaction derived from
satisfy [+- [+Animate]], we find that the prefix - dis- attaches
only to the latter:
(i) Mary's dissatisfaction with the dress
(ii)*the dissatisfaction of the requirements of lexical
insertion by the lexical entry
The adjective satisfied also undergoes - dis- prefixation.
(iii) Mary seems dissatisfied.
This test in fact leads Aronoff to recapture a distinction
between a noun government llbody that Vfsl1 and a noun government
"act or process of V-ing," that is provided by Jackendofffs
system in (3) above. Aronoff (op. cit.:54) first attempts to
place a negative restriction on the denominal adJectiva1 suffix
-al: - -a1 - "does not attach to the class of nouns of the form X ment (i.e. the class of nouns of the form Xrnent, where X is an -V-- independently occurring verb)," This fails to account for (iv):
(iv) The funds were used for purely governmental purposes.
Aronoff then notes that governmental in (iv) corresponds
semantically to the I1extended substantivieation" in (v), rather
than the "directly deverbaln sense of government in (vi):
(v) His government was defeated by a wide margin.
(vi) His government of the country has been roundly
criticized.
He proposes that "the difference between the two senses of
government can be represented in purely structural terms as
being that between Xrnent and - XVmentS -' governmental is clearly
derived from the former. If, therefore, we state the constraint
(on -a1 - attachment, R.A.) on X ment, then governmental is no II-
longer an exception" (loc. cit.). In other words, there are two
nouns government.
Notice that -%, when it attaches to constitution or
institution, again means "pertaining to the constitution or
institutionfi rather than "pertaining to the act or process of
constituting or institutingn (constitutional amendment,
institutional reform). This suggests that the relevant
restriction Involves the semantics of the nominal base rather
than its internal structure. As Aronoff (op. cit.:120) observes,
the suffix +(ic)al -- generally attaches to nouns "which denote
inherently definite things," e.g. &lobe, region, dialect,
continent, excrement, etc. An appropriate characterization of
its semantics might avoid the following two problems raised by
Aronoffls solution. First, it is not clear how the internal
bracketing is lost for one sense of government. The only
mechanism for loss of internal bracketing in this theory is
"semantic drift." But the meaning of government "body that V's"
is nowhere near as idiosyncratic as that of words like
transmission (of a car) and Prohibition (a period in U.S.
history), which are considered to have "drifted" and lost
internal structure; and there are other deverbal nouns with the
same meaning, e.g., administration, association, congregation,
organization.
Secondly, the negative restriction on the base violates the
Adjacency Condition of Siege1 (1977) and Allen(1978), to which
there are no other known counterexamples:
(i) No WFR can involve X and Y, unless Y is uniquely contained
in the cycle adjacent to X.
In a theory of morphology governed by this condition,
it becomes impossible for a WFR to refer to any conceivable property of the base at any possible cyclic depth. Rules which crucially involve the notions denominal, deverbal and dead ectival are not allowed
b t e s that a suffix X . . . For example, a ru e w - may attach only to denominal adjectives cannot be formulated, . . . since such a rule relates two items which are not in adjacent cycles; e.g. :
If the -a1 - affixation rule is to be restricted to non-deverbal nouns Xment, it must "look inside" the outer noun brackets.
Interestingly, Pesetsky (1979:36) cites an adjectival
suffix -isk - in Russian which does not attach to "abstract nouns1' which "lack semantically well-formed plurals," (e.g., nouns in
-ost - or -istv), and observes: -
the verb u ravitl 'to administer1 yields a nominaliza -R- on upravilenije, which has both meanings of the English word administration , 1. e. a body of people who administer and the process of administering . . . -isk - can apply to this word, but the meaning of the result is compositional only of the former, non-abstract
meaning.
7 Notice that we need to distinguish the optionality of a - to-NP
complement to assurance in its non-stative reading, from the
absence of a - to-NP complement to assurance in its stative
reading. Compare the discussion of optional elements in verb
subcategorization in Chapter One, fn.1.
8 The possibility of two nominalizations for assure suggests
that like depress, etc., this verb takes both Experiencer and
non-Experiencer objects. As we would expect if the object of
assure on one reading were an Experiencer, there is a related
adjective assured:
(i) The h a r e seems a s s u r e d t h a t he w i l l win.
The [-Count] noun and t h e a d j e c t i v e b o t h undergo
s e l f - p r e f i x a t i o n . - (ii) The h a r e seems ve ry s e l f - a s s u r e d .
(iii) The h a r e ' s s e l f - a s s u r a n c e was remarkable .
However, I have been unab le t o f u l l y u n r a v e l t h e complexi ty
i n t h e semant ics of a s s u r e . Thus t h e v e r b and t h e a d j e c t i v e have
a n o t h e r r e a d i n g wherein t h e v e r b i s n o t a "verb o f s a y i n g Y f ' and
n o t h i n g i s claimed about t h e menta l s t a te o f t h e v e r b ' s o b j e c t
o r t h e a d j e c t i v e ' s s u b j e c t :
( i v ) H i s slow and s t e a d y pace a s s u r e d t h e t o r t o i s e o f
v i c t o r y .
( v ) Vic to ry now seems a s s u r e d t o t h e t o r t o i s e . ( s a i d by
a s p e c t a t o r )
( v i ) The t o r t o i s e now seems a s s u r e d o f v i c t o r y . ( s a i d by
a s p e c t a t o r )
There i s no noun a s s u r a n c e on t h i s r e a d i n g .
Rardin (1975) n o t e s t h e e x i s t e n c e of homonymous [-Count]
and [+Count] nouns, where " t h e f e a t u r e [+Count] a p p e a r s t o be
a s s o c i a t e d w i t h i n t e r p r e t a t i o n s of one t y p e , [-Count] w i t h
a n o t h e r f 1 ( o p . c i t . : 3 6 ) . Using t h e many/much - t e s t , he shows t h a t
d e c i s i o n i s [+Count], but i n d e c i s i o n i s [-Count] (examples from
Rard in ) :
( v i i ) Did Martha make any d e c i s i o n s ? Some, bu t n o t many.
( v i i i ) Did Martha show any i n d e c i s i o n ? Some, b u t n o t much.
However, since indecision is stative and synonymous with
indecisiveness, he concludes that it is deadjectival. He gives a
similar argument for a dual, deadjectival as well as deverbal,
source for determination. Compare the ambiguity of (ix) (example
from Rardin) :
(ix) The committee's determination(s) angered Bill.
[-Count] reading: its determined state
[+Count] reading: what it determined
Notice that there is an adjective determined which appears
to be derived from the intransitive verb determine:
(x) Goodenough determined to win the election.
(xi)Goodenough is determined to win the election.
If the subject of (x) is an Experiencer, this might be an
argument that the Causer is optional in the input to the rule
deriving the adjectival passive. However, such a modification
does not appear to account for (xi1)-(xiii):
(xii) John opposes the changes.
(xiii) John is opposed to any change.
An explanation of these facts must await further research.
9 Thus it may be specified that the +ee - WFR requires verbs which are transitive and take animate objects, or that the prefix - re#
attaches only to verbs that entail a change of state (~ohn
punched Bill, *John repunched Bill; John punched - the holes - in
the paper, John repunched the holes in the paper). - - --
10 There is in fact a third class of able adjectives. These are
the ones whose meanings are related to intransitive verbs. (Hust
(1978) notes this fact, and credits the observation to Chapin
(1967)
(i) The weather is changeable.
(Cf. The weather changes. )
(ii) John is adaptable.
(Cf. John adapts easily. )
(iii) Foodstuffs are perishable.
(Cf. Foodstuffs perish. )
(iv) The weather is variable.
(Cf. The weather varies from day to day.)
These adjectives can be given the generalized reading "capable
of - X-ing (where - X is the base)." So our hypothetical WFR (18)
(below) strictly needs three branches, not two; but we shall
ignore this point in the discussion.
Compare Aronoff Is comment (op. cit. :48) on the treatment of
the ambiguity of fashionable ("in fashion," or "capable of being
fashionedw) and sizeable ("having great size," or "capable of
being sizedn): "Such a consistent correlation of homophony and
ambiguity can only be accounted for on the hypothesis that we
are dealing here with two different affixes, each with its own /
meaning and each with its own base."
Conversely, if - n different affixes take part in a semantic operation, we need - n different semantic operations.
12 We shall thus postulate homonymous affixes only in the cases
where (i) the Level specifications of the affixes are not the
same, or (ii) where the lexical categories output by the affixes
are not the same. (Examples of the former kind are the
adjectivalizing suffixes +able and #able -3 discussed by Aronoff
(op. cit.). Examples of the latter kind would be (i) the -en - in
redden, which is a verbalizing suffix, and the -en - in broken, which is a variant of the adjectivalizing suffix -ed* -3 (ii)
noun-forming and adjective-forming -a1 - (approve, approval, &lobe, global); and (iii) verb-forming and adjective-forming
un- (untie, unexplored).) A variation in the "semantics of the -
suffix" will not be taken as evidence for homonymous suffixes.
Allen (1978) makes a similar point, that the identification
of a suffix should be effected independently of its semantics.
Compare her comment on the adjectivalizing suffix -ed: -
. . . it was demonstrated that the -ed suffix is a Level 11, word-boundary suffix, #ed. Data presented in support of this argument included examples of both denominal and deverbal -ed. In all cases, denominal and deverbal -ed - showed idexical types of interactions with other morphological affixes. I will therefore assume that -ed - is a single adjectivalizing suffix which attaches to both nouns and verbs. (op. cit.:289, fn.21).
One argument given by Aronoff (op. cit. :48) for homonymous
suffixes in the case of denominal #able and deverbal #able is - that "the denominal adjectives always take the nominal ending
#ness and never + a (fashionableness, *fashionability;
sizeableness, *sizeability), while the deverbal adjectives show
no real preference (acceptableness, acceptability; movableness,
m~vability).~~ This argument is, however, defective. It must be
remembered that Aronoff postulates a total of not two, but three
-able suffixes: two deverbal (table and #able), and one - - denominal (#able). - What is at issue is not the distinction between the +able - and (either of) the #able suffixes; the issue - is whether there is a distinction between the two #able - suffixes. Now tity and #ness suffixation can serve as a test for
table versus #able. - This is because, under the hypothesis of a llLevel-orderedll morphology, t boundary suffixation precedes #
boundary suffixation. (Thus the fact that movable takes tity as
a suffix shows that the -able in that form is table and not -' #able.) Note (however) that ta and #ness suffixation cannot
distinguish between deverbal #able - and denominal #able. -
l3 Aronoff also invokes truncation for dealing with two other
problems, namely (i) the problem of productive word formation
from a stem which never shows up as a word, and (ii) the problem
of derived words sharing a meaning which is absent from the base
word. The first problem is illustrated by instances of *z, Xion,
Xive i n E n g l i s h ( e . g . , * i n c i s e , i n c i s i o n , i n c i s i v e ; c f . Aronoff
(op. c i t . : 2 9 ) f o r documentat ion of t h i s d a t a ) . To a c c o u n t f o r
t h i s , Aronoff s u g g e s t s t h a t ( a l l ) Xive/Xory words a r e d e r i v e d
from Xion and n o t X. T h i s s o l u t i o n i n v o l v e s t r u n c a t i o n . I n -' - s u p p o r t o f t h i s a n a l y s i s , Aronoff p r e s e n t s a h i s t o r i c a l argument
( " t h e - ion - form e n t e r e d t h e language b e f o r e t h e -* formq1), a
distributional argument ( l1the t o t a l number of words of t h e form
Xion fa r outnumbers t h e t o t a l number o f words i n a l l o t h e r
s u f f i x e s combined1@), and a t h i r d argument , which goes as
f o l l o w s :
when X does o c c u r a s an independent ve rb , and t h e s e m a n ~ i c s of X and Xion do n o t co r respond e x a c t l y , t h e meaning o f -9 ~ i v e e t c . , a lways cor responds t o t h a t of Xion. -
None of t h e s e arguments Is ve ry f o r c e f u l . From t h e p o i n t of view
of o u r p r e v i o u s d i s c u s s i o n , what t h e s e d a t a seem t o s u g g e s t i s
t h a t t h e a f f i x a t i o n r u l e s f o r d e v e r b a l nouns and a d j e c t i v e s
o f t e n s h a r e t h e same semant ic r u l e . Tha t i s , I n s t e a d of a
two-step d e r i v a t i o n where ( a ) t h e - ion - r u l e adds o r s u b t r a c t s a
meaning from i t s b a s e X, and ( b ) t h e - i v e / - o u - r u l e s o p e r a t e on
t h e a b s t r a c t base Xion t o r e t a i n t h i s ( m o d i f i e d ) meaning, we can
e n v i s a g e a d e r i v a t i o n where a r u l e which m o d i f i e s t h e meaning of
X i s s h a r e d by b o t h - ion and - i v e / - 9 . T h i s might p r o v i d e a - - - c l u e t o t h e paradigm *$, Xion, Xive/Xory.
1 4 S i e g e 1 argued t h a t Level I a f f i x a t i o n r u l e s preceded Level I1
a f f i x a t i o n r u l e s , w i t h t h e c y c l i c stress r u l e s i n t e r v e n i n g . She
showed t h a t such a n o r g a n i z a t i o n of t h e morphology e x p l a i n s why
( i ) Level I a f f i x e s a r e s t r e s s - d e t e r m i n i n g and t a k e s t r e s s ,
w h i l e Leve l I1 a f f i x e s a r e s t r e s s - n e u t r a l and stressless; ( i i )
t h e p h o n o l o g i c a l c o n d i t i o n s on t h e base of t h e a f f i x may i n c l u d e
i n f o r m a t i o n a b o u t s t r e s s f o r Level I1 a f f i x e s b u t n o t f o r Level
I a f f i x e s ; and (iii) Level I1 a f f i x e s a r e g e n e r a l l y found
"outs ide l l Level I a f f i x e s .
For f u r t h e r e v i d e n c e i n f a v o r o f a n l e v e l - o r d e r e d l l
morphology, c f . A l l e n (1978) and Pese t sky (1979) ( f o r ev idence
from R u s s i a n ) .
1 5 Aronoff l e a v e s open t h e q u e s t i o n of which - A t t r u n c a t e s i n
Xate+Ation. H i s r u l e ( 1 8 ) (op . c i t . : 9 5 ) d e l e t e s t h e f i r s t - A t .
But t r u n c a t i o n of t h e second - A t a p p e a r s t o b e n e c e s s a r y t o
accoun t f o r some stress f a c t s noted by Brame (1972) , as Aronoff
(op. c i t . : l O l , 114) o b s e r v e s . Brame shows t h a t t h e s t r e s s /
d i f f e r e n c e i n Xatory words l i k e d i v i n a t o r y ( p r e s u f f i x a l stress) /
and a s s i m i l a t o r y ( p r e - p r e s u f f i x a l s tress) i s p r e d i c t a b l e from
whether t h e morpheme - a t e - i s p a r t of t h e b a s e v e r b o r p a r t of
t h e s u f f i x . I n Bramefs a n a l y s i s , t h e s e words must have t h e
b r a c k e t i n g s shown below when they e n t e r t h e p h o n o l o g i c a l
component:
[ [ d i v i n ] A t +Or +y] [ [ ass imi l+At ] O r +y] V A V A
I n A r o n o f f l s t h e o r y , a s s i m i l a t o r y w i l l have t h e f o l l o w i n g
derivation prior to truncation (ignoring the brackets):
assimilate
assimilate + At +ion
assimilate + At +ion +ory
Two rules of truncation, -At truncation and -ion truncation,
must apply to this output. Now if the first -At truncates, the
-At in assimilator^ will appear outside the verb brackets.
On the other hand, if the second -At truncates, the -At
truncation rule here cannot be the same rule as that in evacuate
(as Aronoff observes). Notice also that truncating part of the
suffix is equivalent to saying that the form of the suffix which
attahes to Xate is -ion and not -ation. - -
l6 She writes:
. . . there is no more reason to believe that semantics should be part of the formal mechanics of word formation, than there is to suppose that semantics is part of the formal mechanisms of sentence syntax (i.e., phrase structure, transformations). It has long been a basic tenet of generative syntax that the syntax and semantics constitute autonomous components of the grammar. The claim will be made below that the "syntacticw or structural aspects of word formation should also be autonomous form lexical semantics. (op. cit. : 109)
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