Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-mp689 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T01:23:24.310Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Meaning, metaphor, and argument structure

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2019

TIM NISBET Open the ORCID record for TIM NISBET [Opens in a new window]
TIM NISBET*
Affiliation:
Coventry University
*
Author’s address: School of Humanities, Coventry University, Coventry CV1 5FB, UKtim.nisbet@coventry.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper challenges what it calls the semantic determinist hypothesis (SDH) of argument licensing, according to which the syntactic realisation of a verb’s arguments is a function of its semantic properties. Specifically, it takes issue with ‘event schema’ versions of the SDH applied to the English ditransitive alternation (give/send {Jesse the gun/the gun to Jesse}), which claim a systematic, syntactically predictive distinction between ‘caused possession’ and ‘caused motion’. It is first shown that semantic and syntactic irregularities among the alternating verbs disconfirm such a mapping. More crucially, however, it is argued that ‘non-prototypical’ (metaphorical and idiomatic) usage (The news report gave Walt an idea, Walt’s actions gave the lie to his promises, The discovery sent Jesse into a fury) is fatal to the SDH, since the hypothesis entails the existence of semantic constraints on argument realisation which these expressions violate.

Based on an analysis of the semantically-related verbs give, send, and put, it is claimed that prototypical, metaphorical and idiomatic expressions of a verb can all be licensed straightforwardly, but only if theory maintains separate syntactic and semantic representation of arguments in lexical entries, observing the ‘parallel architecture’ of Jackendoff (1997, 2002), and only if argument tokens are licensed by the syntactic representation alone. A type of structure called a Lexical Argument Construction is proposed, which can describe all the relevant properties of verbs and verbal idioms.

Keywords

argument structureconstruction grammarditransitivedouble objectidiomsmetaphor
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 56 , Issue 3: Aspect beyond time , 01 August 2020 , pp. 629 - 662
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

The main ideas in this paper were presented at the International Symposium on Verbs, Clauses and Constructions at the Universidad de La Rioja on 27 October 2016. I thank the organisers and the participants for helpful comments. Three anonymous Journal of Linguistics referees have improved this paper by providing many sound comments and suggestions. All remaining errors are mine.

References

Baker, Mark. 1988. Incorporation: A theory of grammatical function changing. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Beck, Sigrid & Johnson, Kyle. 2004. Double objects again. Linguistic Inquiry 35, 97–124.10.1162/002438904322793356Google Scholar
Boas, Hans C. 2008. Determining the structure of lexical entries and grammatical constructions in Construction Grammar. Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics 6, 113–144.10.1075/arcl.6.06boaGoogle Scholar
Bruening, Benjamin. 2010. Ditransitive asymmetries and a theory of idiom formation. Linguistic Inquiry 41, 519–562.10.1162/LING_a_00012Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1965. Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1981. Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1986. Knowledge of language: Its nature, origin, and use. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1995. The minimalist program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Croft, William. 2003. Lexical rules vs. constructions: A false dichotomy. In Cuyckens, Hubert, Berg, Thomas, Dirven, Rene & Panther, Klaus-Uwe (eds.), Motivation in language: Studies in honour of Günter Radden, 49–68. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/cilt.243.07croGoogle Scholar
Culicover, Peter W. & Jackendoff, Ray. 2005. Simpler syntax. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Den Dikken, Marcel. 1995. Particles: On the syntax of verb–particle, triadic, and causative constructions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Di Sciullo, Anna Maria & Williams, Edwin. 1987. On the definition of word. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Emonds, Joseph E. & Whitney, Rosemarie. 2006. Double object constructions. In Everaert, Martin & van Riemsdijk, Henk (eds.), The Blackwell companion to syntax, vol. 1, 73–144. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Everaert, Martin. 2010. The lexical encoding of idioms. In Rappaport Hovav, Malka, Doron, Edit & Sichel, Ivy (eds.), Lexical semantics, syntax, and event structure, 76–98. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199544325.003.0005Google Scholar
Goldberg, Adele. 1995. Constructions: A construction grammar approach to argument structure. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Green, Georgia. 1974. Semantics and syntactic regularity. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Gropen, Jess, Pinker, Steven, Hollander, Michelle, Goldberg, Richard & Wilson, Ronald. 1989. The learnability and acquisition of the dative alternation in English. Language 65, 203–257.Google Scholar
Hale, Ken & Keyser, Samuel J.. 1993. On argument structure and the lexical expression of syntactic relations. In Hale, Ken & Keyser, Samuel J. (eds.), The view from Building 20: Essays in linguistics in honor of Sylvain Bromberger, 53–109. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Harley, Heidi. 2003. Possession and the double object construction. In Pica, Pierre & Rooryk, Johan (eds.), Linguistic variation yearbook, vol. 2, 31–70. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Herzig Sheinfux, Livnat, Melnik, Nurit & Wintner, Shuly. 2017. Representing argument structure. Journal of Linguistics 53, 701–750.10.1017/S0022226716000189Google Scholar
Horn, George M. 2003. Idioms, metaphors and syntactic mobility. Journal of Linguistics 39, 245–273.Google Scholar
Hudson, Richard. 1992. So-called ‘double objects’ and grammatical relations. Language 68, 251–276.Google Scholar
Jackendoff, Ray. 1987. The status of thematic relations in linguistic theory. Linguistic Inquiry 18, 369–411.Google Scholar
Jackendoff, Ray. 1990. Semantic structures. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Jackendoff, Ray. 1997. The architecture of the language faculty. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Jackendoff, Ray. 2002. Foundations of language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198270126.001.0001Google Scholar
Kay, Paul & Fillmore, Charles J.. 1999. Grammatical constructions and linguistic generalizations: The What’s X doing Y? construction. Language 75, 1–33.Google Scholar
Koenig, Jean-Pierre & Davis, Anthony R.. 2001. Sublexical modality and the structure of lexical semantic representations. Linguistics and Philosophy 24, 71–124.10.1023/A:1005616002948Google Scholar
Koenig, Jean-Pierre & Davis, Anthony R.. 2006. The key to lexical semantic representations. Journal of Linguistics 42, 71–108.Google Scholar
Lakoff, George. 1987. Women, fire, and dangerous things. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Larson, Richard K. 1988. On the double object construction. Linguistic Inquiry 19, 33–91.Google Scholar
Larson, Richard K. 2017. On ‘dative idioms’ in English. Linguistic Inquiry 48, 389–426.10.1162/ling_a_00248Google Scholar
Levin, Beth & Rappaport Hovav, Malka. 1995. Unaccusativity: At the syntax–lexical semantics interface. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Levin, Beth & Rappaport Hovav, Malka. 2005. Argument realization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Marantz, Alec. 1984. On the nature of grammatical relations. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
McCawley, James D. 1968. Concerning the base component of a generative grammar. Foundations of Language 4, 243–269.Google Scholar
McCawley, James D. 1971. Where do noun phrases come from?. In Steinberg, Danny D. & Jacobovits, Leon A. (eds.), Semantics: An interdisciplinary reader in philosophy, linguistics and psychology, 217–231. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Müller, Stefan & Wechsler, Stephen. 2014. Lexical approaches to argument structure. Theoretical Linguistics 40, 1–76.Google Scholar
Newmeyer, Frederick J. 2001. Grammatical functions, thematic roles, and phrase structure: Their underlying disunity. In Davis, William D. & Dubinsky, Stanley (eds.), Objects and other subjects: Grammatical functions, functional categories, and configurationality, 53–75. Dordrecht: Kluwer.10.1007/978-94-010-0991-1_3Google Scholar
Nunberg, Geoffrey, Sag, Ivan A. & Wasow, Tom. 1994. Idioms. Language 70, 491–538.Google Scholar
O’Grady, William. 1998. The syntax of idioms. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 16, 279–312.10.1023/A:1005932710202Google Scholar
Pesetsky, David. 1995. Zero syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Pinker, Steven. 1989. Learnability and cognition: The acquisition of argument structure. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Postal, Paul. 2004. Skeptical linguistic essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rappaport, Malka & Levin, Beth. 1988. What to do with $\unicode[STIX]{x1D703}$-roles. In Wendy Wilkins (ed.), Thematic relations (Syntax and Semantics 21), 7–36. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.10.1163/9789004373211_003Google Scholar
Rappaport Hovav, Malka & Levin, Beth. 2008. The English dative alternation: The case for verb sensitivity. Journal of Linguistics 44, 129–167.Google Scholar
Sag, Ivan A. 2012. Sign-based construction grammar: An informal synopsis. In Boas, Hans C. & Sag, Ivan A. (eds.), Sign-based construction grammar, 69–202. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Stowell, Tim. 1981. Origins of phrase structure. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Sullivan, Karen. 2013. Frames and constructions in metaphoric language. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
van Gestel, Frank. 1995. En bloc insertion. In Everaert, Martin & van der Linden, Erik-Jan (eds.), Idioms: Structural and psychological perspectives, 75–96. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar