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Families of Constructions: The English Resultatives [?]Adele E. Goldberg and Ray Jackendoff

1. Introduction

There has been a trend in linguistic theory to attempt to explain syntactic distributions of argument structure in terms of very broad classifications based on aspectual classification of events (a la Vendler) and temporal relations among a sentence's subevents (Van Valin 1990; XXXX). This hypothesis has been greatly extended to proposals that attempt to derive all of syntactic argument structure from aspectual or temporal considerations (e.g. Tenny 198x, Borer 1994; [Ritter, 1996 #183]). While each of us is an advocate of semantics-based approaches to grammar, each of us has criticized particular instances of the aspectual-based approach on various occasions (Goldberg 2001a, to appear; Goldberg and Ackerman 2001; Jackendoff 1996). Instead, we have advocated an approach to argument structure based more directly on the intimate details of verb semantics.

Another growing trend in approaches to argument structure is to state generalizations only in a maximally general way. Reference to very general verb classes is often assumed to be sufficient for accounting for all argument structure patterns. While we acknowledge that verb classes are important, we advocate a return to the recognition that individual verbs and individual verbal distributions are often somewhat idiosyncratic (Grimshaw 1979; Pollard and Sag 1987; Boas XX). That is, narrow generalizations exist alongside certain broad generalizations; these narrow generalizations or minor patterns also require explanation.

A sterling example of the broad-based aspectual-based approach has recently been proposed by Malka Rappaport Hovav and Beth Levin (2001) (henceforth RH & L) to account for English resultatives. We choose this analysis to focus on because it represents in many ways the best that an aspectual approach has to offer. RH & L pay careful attention to the semantics of verb classes and have based their analysis on a wealth of attested data. Their approach also epitomizes the move away from syntacticocentric accounts and toward analyses that pivot on aspectual/semantic dimensions. That is, for many years prior to this article, the authors had advocated a more purely syntactic approach to resultatives themselves (e.g. Levin and Rappaport Hovav 1991, 1995, ...) Their recent paper acknowledges counterexamples to their previous proposal and recognizes that the distribution of resultative forms follows from semantic constraints, a position we and others have separately advocated for over a decade (Goldberg 1992, 1995; Jackendoff 1990, 1997a, 2002; see also Van Valin 1990; Weschler 1997, Pustejovsky 1991…).

However, HR&L take a different view of the semantic constraints from most previous ones, emphasizing a claim that temporal aspectual structure is pivotal. They also implicitly assume that the construction is completely productive. We think it's worth presenting a comparison from our point of view; we welcome their perspective on the comparison. Moreover, we think such a comparison is more generally useful as an example of the contrast between our respective overall views on argument structure and semantics.

Let's start by establishing some terminology.

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• An identifying characteristic of a resultative sentence is an AP or PP that occupies the normal position of a verbal argument but is not subcategorized by the verb, for instance the italicized phrases in (1).

(1) a. Herman hammered the metal flat.b. The critics laughed the play off the stage.

We will call this phrase the "resultative phrase" or "RP."

• One of the NPs in the sentence is normally understood as undergoing a change of state or a motion whose endpoint is expressed by the RP; we will call this the "host" of the RP.

• A resultative may contain a direct object, in which case the RP follows the object, as in (1); we will call such cases "transitive resultatives." Or a resultative may lack a direct object, in which case the RP is immediately after the verb, as in (2); we will call these "intransitive resultatives."

(2) Intransitive resultativesa. The pond froze solid. [RP=AP]b. Bill rolled out of the room. [RP=PP]

• In some transitive resultatives, the direct object can be selected by the verb in the absence of an RP. In others it cannot. We'll call the former cases "selected transitive resultatives" and the latter "unselected transitive resultatives."

(3) Selected transitive resultativesa. The gardener watered the flowers flat. [RP=AP]

[cf. The gardener watered the flowers.]b. Bill broke the bathtub into pieces. [RP=PP]

[cf. Bill broke the bathtub.](4) Unselected transitive resultatives

a. They drank the pub dry. [RP=AP][cf. *They drank the pub.]

b. The professor talked us into a stupor. [RP=PP][cf. *The professor talked us.]

• A special case of unselected transitive resultatives has a reflexive object that cannot alternate with other NPs. This is often called a "fake reflexive".

(5) Fake reflexive resultativesa. We yelled ourselves hoarse. [RP=AP]

[cf. *We yelled ourselves; *We yelled Harry hoarse]b. Harry coughed himself into insensibility. [RP=PP]

[cf. *Harry coughed himself; *Harry coughed us into insensibility]

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With this terminology in mind, we can proceed.

2. RH & L's approach

In their earlier work, RH & L appear to be addressing essentially the following two questions about resultatives:

(6) a. Why, in transitive resultatives, is the host of the RP invariably the object? For example, in (1) the metal becomes flat, not Herman, and the play, not the critics, ends up off the stage.

b. Why are intransitive resultatives possible only with unaccusative verbs? For instance, freeze and roll in (2) are unaccusative. But the unergatives yell and cough cannot form intransitive resultatives (*We yelled hoarse; *Harry coughed into insensibility); rather they form fake reflexive resultatives as in (5). (Hence the term "fake reflexive.")

RH & L's answer to these two questions took the following form in their earlier work (Levin and Rappaport Hovav 1995):

(7) a. Direct Object Restriction (DOR): The host of an RP must be an underlying object.

b. Unaccusative Hypothesis: The surface subject of an unaccusative verb is an underlying object that undergoes NP movement.

Thus unergative intransitive verbs, which have no underlying object, cannot form resultatives.

RH & L 2001 advocate abandoning this position for two reasons. First, there are transitive resultatives whose subjects host the RP:

(8) a. Bill followed the road into the forest.b. John danced mazurkas across the room.1

1    ?RJ, at least, found examples like (8b) crashingly ungrammatical back in 1990 when he was working on resultatives. Perhaps it doesn't sound so bad now.

Ray--This example seems like did a cartwheel/summersault, which also allows a directional:

John did cartwheels off the stage.

It’s tempting to describe both as complex predicates. As a unit, they are like motion verbs and so can take a path phrase—it’s more grist for a constructional mill, since the path phrase is not

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c. We drove Highway 5 from SD to SF.

Second, some intransitive verbs of manner of motion (9) (RH & L's (16)) and sound emission (10) (RH & L's (17)) occur in both intransitive and fake reflexive forms, suggesting (implausibly on their hypothesis) that they are simultaneously unaccusative and unergative. (11), based on RH & L's (21-23), presents absolute minimal pairs.

(9) a. The dogs padded ... up the path.b. Walk yourself into a coma.

(10) a. The elevator creaked to the ground floor.b. If the telephone bell rang, it could ring itself silly.

(11) a. She kicked (herself) free.b. She wriggled (herself) free.c. It wiggled (itself) loose.

As a consequence, RH & L abandon questions (6a,b) and instead ask the following two questions (pp. 774-5):

(12) What semantic factors determine the host of the RP in a transitive resultative?(13) "What must the semantic relation be between the event denoted by the verb and

the event represented by the result XP [i.e. by the RP -- AG & RJ] in order for the result XP and the verb to be combined without the mediation of a reflexive?"

Their answer to the first question, based roughly on Jackendoff 1990, is:

(14) a. A direct object can be host of the RP if it can be understood as the "recipient of force" ("patient" in the terms of Jackendoff 1990, Goldberg 1992, 1995). b. [Auxiliary assumption] If the direct object in a resultative is not a recipient of force, the subject can be the host of the RP. (pg 786)

Since the direct objects in (8) cannot be understood as recipients of force, these examples are free to have the subject as host of the RP, according to RH & L.

Their answer to the second question is based on the following proposed Argument Realization principle (779):

licensed by a single word but by the complex as a whole. But they don’t just fall out of the particular constructional accounts we’ve suggested, I don’t think.

.

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(15) "Argument-per-subevent condition: There must be at least one argument XP in the syntax per subevent in the event structure."

The Argument Realization Principle is understood to only recognize subevents that are distinct temporally; i.e., two potential subevents are only considered distinct if they do not overlap temporally completely2. Thus the answer to (X) is that the reflexive is required when there exist two subevents that are not coextensive in time. And indeed, in padded up the path, the padding and the motion up the path must coincide temporally; while in walk yourself into a coma, the walking may entirely precede the going into a coma.3 More generally, according to their proposal, predications involving one subevent may be intransitive or transitive, whereas predications involving two (temporally distinct) subevents are necessarily transitive.

As clarified in their Appendix B, RH & L classify the following examples as resultatives with simple event structure, i.e., resultatives in which the action denoted by the verb and the result denoted by the RP unfold at the same time. As they put it, "the happening in the world described by ..[the] resultative is not linguistically construed as two distinct events":4

(16) a the pond froze solid intransitive, change-of-state verb b Robin danced out of the room intransitive, non-change-of-state verb c. The wise men followed the start out of B'hem. trans. with no “recipient of force” arg.d. We pulled the crate out of the water. trans. With “recipient of force” arg.

The following examples are classified as having complex event structure in which two subevents need not be temporally dependent:

(17) a. The joggers ran the pavement thin. unsubcategorized DO, based on intrans. verbb) We yelled ourselves hoarse. Reflexive DO, based on intrnas. verbc)They drank the pub dry. Unsubcategorized DO, based on trans. verbd. The cows ate themselves sick reflexive DO, based on trans. verbe) The critics panned the play right out of town subcategorized DO, based on trans. verb2 Goldberg 1997 also proposes that distinct subevents can be identified if they are non-coextensive in time. However, as discussed below, the idea that each subevent must be “identified” by an argument (or an adjunct) is not adopted.3    ?RH & L use the term "temporally dependent" rather than "temporally coincident." But surely there is a temporal dependence between the subevents of a causative: the cause cannot follow the effect. The term "temporally coincident", we believe, more properly expresses RH & L's intention.

4 As indicated by the descriptions on the right, this class is otherwise heterogeneous, both syntactically and semantically, a point we return to below.

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[we need to explain this—or else move it below—it sounds like a strongly positive aspect of their account—not clear it is true except as wishful thinking on their part] A crucial part of RH & L's vision of resultatives is present in both their earlier and current accounts: the principles governing the distribution of resultatives are taken to be totally general. Nothing special has to be said about resultatives to explain their distribution; the resultative is taken to be a natural consequence of principles independently necessary for other features of English. We believe this is in fact part of the general vision of language that underlies many approaches to argument structure based on aspectual structure. As it turns out, this is a fundamental way in which we differ from RH & L, as will be seen in a moment.

Before turning to our own approach, we pause briefly to challenge several key aspects of RH & L's account. The resolution of these challenges will turn out to highlight some of the virtues of our approach.

• We cannot make sense of RH & L's term in (X), "the event represented by the resultative XP." Neither an AP or a PP represents an event. Rather, the event they are trying to refer to is either (a) the host's change of state, terminating in the state represented by the RP, or, (b) if the RP represents a spatial path, the host's motion along that path. In a classic example like Bill sneezed the handkerchief off the table, there is no word in the sentence that expresses motion and that can therefore be used to construct the subevent in question. A hallmark of our own approach is that the event structure of resultatives must be constructed by adding semantic elements not contributed by the words of the sentence. • We find (13), the "one-overt-syntactic-argument-per-subevent condition," to be empirically problematic. RH & L standardly treat causation and caused motion as separate subevents. Hence an expression of caused motion has two subevents and therefore, according to (15), requires an obligatorily transitive verb. However, contribute is semantically causal and yet can optionally appear intransitively (She contributed to his campaign). Verbs of bodily emission also allow the theme argument to be unexpressed (She sneezed onto her computer screen). Moreover in constructions such as the passive, causal verbs routinely appear without two overt arguments. Finally, in Korean, Japanese, Hindi, Hungarian and many other languages, any argument which is given and non focal may be left unexpressed; thus complex events are routinely expressed with none or only one overt argument.5 Goldberg (2001, to appear) and Goldberg and Ackerman (2001) discuss these and other exceptions in some detail.6 The one-

5 Moreover, the principle in (15) is in previous papers argued to be a biconditional. I.e., it is explicitly argued that there should not exist obligatorily transitive verbs with simple event structure (RH&L 1998: XX). However, activities are generally acknowledged to have simple event structure in RH&L’s sense and yet activity predicates such as touch, caress, wrestle, scan, are obligatorily transitive. Perhaps the more recent formulation indicates a recognition of these types of verbs.6 [Ray I put this in a footnote, because I think they would counter with “we mean the syntactically relevant subevents” and because their proposal is patently wrong even the way they intend

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argument-per-subevent condition is what is claimed to predict the presence of the “fake” object reflexives. Thus its empirical validity is crucial to the account.

• The recognition of the follow-type expressions in (8) is what motivated the move away from a syntactic account (in terms of the DOR) and toward an aspectual account. However, the generalization intended to account for the expressions in question is much too weak. As stated in (X), they claim that if resultatives apply to the “recipient of force”; if there is no “recipient of force” then the resultative can apply to any argument (pg 786). However, there are a multitude of transitive verbs in which the direct object is not a recipient of force including receive, own, sing (a song), and yet none of them allows a resultative phrase at all, either predicated of the subject or the object:

(18) a. *She received the package into the hall. (intended, “She moved into the hall in order to receive the package”)b. *She owned the stock rich. (intended, “She became rich from owning the stock”)c. *She sang songs hoarse. (intended, “She sang songs until she became hoarse).

Something more needs to be said about the follow-type expressions, beyond the fact that they do not involve a “recipient of force.”

• Though RH & L attempt to explain the distribution of resultatives and syntactic structure based on semantic principles, their account assumes that the examples in (16a-d) form some sort of natural class as distinct from the examples in (17). However, the examples in (16a-d) include intransitives (16a-b) as well as transitives (16c-d), verbs that have a “recipient of force” argument (16c) as well as verbs that don’t (16d), and resultative phrases that are predicated of the subject (16a,b,d) as well as resultatives that are predicated of the object argument (16c).

The class of expressions in (17) likewise fails to hang together on any particular dimension that distinguishes it from the set of examples in (16). Expressions (17a-d) involve unsubcategorized objects, but expression (17e), The critics panned the play right out of town, does not. All of the examples in (17) are transitive, but so are examples (16c, d). All of the

it to apply] Beyond these problems which accept the proposal to decompose verbs into the most general, simple event structures along the lines proposed in Dowty (1979) is the fact that the real semantics associated with verbs is typically much more difficult to decompose and arguably often involves many more subevents. For example, consider the potentially intransitive verb juggle. In order to juggle, one must at minimum cause multiple objects to move through the air. That is, juggling crucially involves multiple acts of tossing and multiple acts of catching, each of which has two subevents; moreover, the tossing and catching of any particular ball must be temporally separate. Thus according to (13), juggle should require some large number of arguments; it could not possibly be intransitive.

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examples in (17) are object-oriented resultatives, but so is (16d). RH&L suggest that all of the examples in (16) are non-causal where as all of the

examples in (17) are causal; however, it is unclear why example (16d, We pulled the crate out of the water) is considered non-causal; notice it is naturally paraphrased by “we caused the crate to move out of the water by pulling.”

In any case, in order to defend the idea that the temporal dimension explains the relationship between syntax and semantics, one would presumably want to claim that it correlates with some general syntactic dimension of variation. But we see that it correlates neither with inherent transitivity of the verb, nor with overt syntactic transitivity of the resultative expression, nor with whether the resultative is subject-oriented or object-oriented. In fact it only distinguishes “fake” object resultatives from intransitive resultatives, a generalization that accounts for only a proper subset of data from (16) and (17). Other formal attributes of resultatives, such as their overt transitivity are not addressed.

In fact, even the weak correlation between the proposed temporal dimension and whether a reflexive is required, is not without exception, as discussed below.

• RH & L assume that all intransitive resultatives involve events in which the action denoted by the verb and the resultant state denoted by the RP are temporally coextensive. The following examples raise doubts as to the empirical validity of the claim:

(19)A.She tripped into the ravine. b.Milk spilled all over the floor.

It would seem that the tripping entirely precedes the movement into the ravine in (e) and that the spilling event likewise entirely precedes the movement of the milk all over the floor in (f). Conversely, there exist certain “fake” reflexive expressions that seem to entail a tight temporal connection between subevents. The example in (c) for example cannot be used to refer to a situation in which Alice ate a meal and later became sick, but can only be used to mean that Alice ate continuously until she reached a point of feeling sick (Goldberg 1995: 194):

c. Alice ate herself sick.

• RH & L assert (783, n. 15 that "the second subevent in a resultative's event structure must be telic." In point of fact, however, resultatives that express spatial motion of the host, the resultative is telic if and only if the RP is end-bounded:

(20) End-bounded spatial PPs:a. Bill floated into the cave (*for hours [on non-repetitive reading]).b. Bill pushed Harry off the sofa (*for hours [on non-repetitive reading]).Non-end-bounded spatial PPs:c. Bill floated down the river (for hours [non-repetitive]).d. Bill pushed Harry through the forest (for hours [non-repetitive]).

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While APs normally involve non-gradable adjectives denoting endstates of change (Goldberg 1991, 1995; Weschler XX), some APs do not, and when serving as RPs they create atelic resultatives:

(21) Non-end-bounded state of change denoted by an AP:a. Bill heated the mixture hotter and hotter (for hours [non-repetitive]).b. Bill hammered the metal flatter and flatter (for hours [non-repetitive]).

Jackendoff (1996) formalizes in detail the correlation between end-boundedness of spatial PPs and telicity of motion along the paths denoted by those PPs, and generalizes this analysis to non-end-bounded APs as well.

To summarize…

3. Our overall approach

The questions we asked about resultatives in our earliest work, and the questions we still think are most important, are these:

(22) a. What do resultatives mean?b. How do they get their meaning, given that (as noted above), some of the meaning

is not expressed by the words?c. What licenses the RP and non-selected direct objects?d. To what extent can the answers to (19a,b,c) be predicted on general principles,

and to what extent must a speaker of English learn something special?e. To what extent is the distribution of resultatives fully productive?

Note that RH & L's questions can be subsumed under these goals. In particular, the choice of host is at bottom an issue of meaning: which NP is asserted to change state or position? The possibility of construing a direct object as a recipient of force also is an issue of meaning. Finally, the impossibility of intransitive resultatives with (most) unergatives is an issue of syntactic patterning.

Our answers, in the most general terms, are presented in (23). The rest of the paper is devoted to substantiating them.

(23) a. Resultatives are the product of a family of constructions (or constructional idioms) that assign a meaning to a piece of syntactic structure, over and above the words in the syntactic structure.

b. This meaning is conventionalized and must be learned by speakers of English, just as they must learn the words and idioms of English.

c. The syntactic properties of resultatives follow from the way the meaning of the construction maps into syntax.

d. Differing narrow classes of resultatives have different patterns of productivity.

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The overall vision of language in which these answers are situated differs in an important respect from mainstream generative grammar. An almost unspoken dogma of the field is that all the semantic structure of a sentences is derivable (or "interpretable") on the basis of gluing together the meanings of the words along lines dictated by the sentence's syntactic structure -- but that the syntactic structure itself contributes no semantic substance to sentence meaning. This dogma seems to go back at least to Frege; and it is certainly preserved in mainstream generative grammar, where the tendency has been to view constructions such as the passive as epiphenomenal outcomes of general principles of movement. [a Chomsky quote here?]

Within such an outlook it is impossible to consider answers like (20a,b,c). By contrast, working separately in the late 1980s, we both arrived at the conclusion that pieces of syntactic structure can carry inherent meaning. Among advocates of constructional approaches, there is some disagreement as to how pervasive constructional meaning is in the grammar of natural languages. For instance, Cognitive Grammar believes it is all-pervasive (Langacker 1987; 1991), while practitioners of Construction Grammar allow for generalizations of pure form, they generally view formal patterns as having associated functions (Fillmore, Kay, and O’Connor 1988; Goldberg 1992, 1995; Fillmore et al. forthcoming). RJ holds that generalizations based on pure form are quite common. But in any case it is a major departure from mainstream generative grammar even to believe that there is any constructional meaning.

3.1The Resultative Construction

We argue that the syntax of resultative expressions follows from the argument structure and that the argument structure in turn follows from the meaning. Event structure properties also follow from the semantics. We ultimately argue that it is necessary to recognize differing degrees of productivity and semantic constraints among subclasses of instances. Before addressing issues of partial productivity, however, it is worth focusing on the generalizations.

Our own previous analyses turn on the idea that there are a related family of resultative constructions in English, each with a relational meaning. Below we defend the following generalizations:(24)

a) RPs that designate states can be applied to arguments that can be construed as patients, i.e. can be construed as undergoing a change of state as a direct result of the action denoted by the verb.

b) RPs that designate paths or spatial configurations can be applied to arguments that can be construed as themes, i.e., can be construed as undergoing a change of location as a direct result of the action denoted by the verb.

c) Causative relations such as CAUSE-BECOME or CAUSE-MOVE are expressed transitively

d) Inchoative relations such as BECOME or MOVE are expressed intransitively.

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The generalizations in (24) clearly follow from what resultative expressions mean: it is unacceptable to predicate a change of state of an argument that cannot be construed as potentially undergoing a change of state; it is also unacceptable to predicate a change of location of an argument that can’t be construed as potentially undergoing a change of location.

As suggested in (24c) and (24d) taken together, we argue that the semantic distinction between causative and inchoative is primary in determining whether the expression will be transitive or intransitive. Note that this generalization, namely that causative relations are expressed transitively while inchoative relations are expressed intransitively, requires no construction-specific stipulation. On this view, semantic properties, not aspectual properties, determine valence. Notice that each of the Dowty/Vendler event types can appear both transitively and intransitively. This can be seen clearly in the chart below from Van Valin and LaPolla (1997: 107):

State The boy is afraid.Causative State The dog frightened/scares the boy.Achievement The balloon popped.Causative achievement The cat popped the balloon.Accomplishment The ice melted.Causative accomplishment. The hot water melted the ice.Activity The ball bounced around the room.Causative activity The girl bounced the ball around the room.

Table X (from Van Valin and LaPolla 1997: 107Thus, the accurate generalization is that a lexical semantic property, causality, not an aspectual property predicts transitivity.7 More specifically, we argue that the following syntactic patterns are associated with the following meanings:

(22) Subj V Obj RP(i) CAUSE-MOVE (cause theme path)(ii) CAUSE-BECOME (agt pat result)

(23) Subj V RP(i) MOVE (theme path)(ii) BECOME (pat result)

As implied by the difference between between i) and ii), we distinguish state RPs from path RPs. We demonstrate below that recognizing this difference is critical to accounting for the full range of data.

7 We will see below that this prediction is only a one way implication; there do exist certain transitive expressions that are non-causal.

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That is, we posit, four related constructions: the caused-motion (22i), the transitive resultative (22ii), the intransitive motion (23i) and the intransitive resultative (23ii). We return to the relationships among the constructions in section XX.

3.2. Variable valence verb classes

RH&L observe certain instances in which verbs of certain types can appear either as intransitive or transitive resultatives in 9-11, repeated below. For example, manner of motion verbs can appear intransitively with a RP (9a) or with a so-called “fake” object reflexive (9d)

(9) a. Walk yourself into a coma.b. The dogs padded ... up the path.

(10) a. The elevator creaked to the ground floor.b. If the telephone bell rang, it could ring itself silly.

(11) a. She kicked (herself) free.b. She wriggled (herself) free.

c. It wiggled (itself) loose.

Given this data alone, it almost looks as if many verbs freely vary between whether they require a reflexive argument or not. However, the distribution of reflexive resultatives is actually quite constrained. Consider the following minimal variants of (9)-(11):

(9’) a. *Walk into a coma.b. *The dogs padded themselves up the path.

(10’) a. *The elevator creaked itself to the ground floor.b. *The elevator creaked silly.c. *If the telephone rang, it could ring silly.

(11’) a. *The toy wiggled itself loose.

We demonstrate here that the generalizations in (21)-(23) account for the cases in (9’)-(11’) as well as those in (9)-(11) without any ad hoc stipulation. These examples can in fact be accounted for either using the theoretical ideas proposed in Jackendoff XX, or the Construction Grammar approach developed in Goldberg (1995).

The Construction Grammar approach allows us to distinguish between a verb’s semantic roles (“participant roles”) and the roles associated with a phrasal constructional pattern (“argument roles”). Participant roles are verb-specific: they capture the detailed selectional restrictions that the verb places on each argument. Argument roles, on the other hand, are more general, arising from generalizating over many verb-specific roles. Argument roles capture slots in the constructional semantics; these correspond more closely to traditional role labels such as agent, patient, recipient, theme, etc., but they are actually construction-specific and can vary in subtle ways from construction to construction.

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In order for a verb to appear in a general phrasal pattern, the obligatory participant roles of the verb must “fuse” or “unify” with argument roles of the construction. Goldberg (1995) has suggested a general principle that constrains this process, a principle of Semantic Coherence: in order for a participant role of the verb to be fused or unified with an argument role of the verb, the former must be construable as an instance of the latter. That is, the “kicker” role of the verb kick can be fused with an “agent” role because a kicker can be construed to be a type of agent. The “kicker” role cannot fuse with a patient role because the kicker is not a type of patient. Traditional tests for agent, patient etc. suffice to determine whether a particular participant role can be construed as a type of agent, patient, etc.

[will supply tests]

Manner of motion verbs such as walk, pad, run, jog, etc. lexically require a single participant role, the entity that moves, and have a second participant role, the path, which is obligatory for some verbs (e.g., pad) and not for others (e.g., walk). Obligatory participant roles are represented in the diagrams below by bold-faced labels. Comparing (9a,b) with (9’a,b), we see that there must be an intervening reflexive in walk yourself into a coma, while the RP must be predicated directly in pad up the stairs, despite the fact that both involve manner of motion verbs.

Let us consider first the verb walk. The role that encodes the moving entity can be labeled, a “walker.” This verb-specific role is intended to capture the semantic properties of the argument of walk, including the fact that the walker must be moving at a particular relative rate and moving its legs in a particular manner. That is, “walker” is intended as shorthand to capture our rich frame-semantic or encyclopedic knowledge of what it means to walk.

The entity that fills the role of the “walker” clearly has both theme-like and agentive properties, since walking involves self-controlled motion. Thus, the “walker” role is naturally construed as simultaneously both an agent and a theme. A walker cannot be construed as a type of patient, however, insofar as the action of walking implies only motion and not any other change in the argument.

Jackendoff explicitly assigns manner of motion verbs such as walk both roles of agent and theme (Jackendoff 1972, 1987, 1990, 1996). It is the theme-like quality of the “walker” that ensures that it will fuse directly with the theme role of the intransitive motion construction. The integration of verb and construction can be represented as below:

Sem: MOVE (theme path ) | | |walk (walker path )

Syn: V Subj Obj

The dogs walked out the door.Figure X: Intransitive motion construction + walk

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The first row aside the “Sem(antics)” features is the semantics of the intransitive motion construction, and corresponds to (24X). The main predicate is MOVE and it as two arguments, a theme and a path. The verb walk integrates with the intransitive motion construction by fusing or unifying its two roles, the walker and path roles with the roles of the construction (the theme and path roles, respectively). The expression, He walked himself into a coma, is generated by integrating walk into the caused-motion construction. The patient and result roles are contributed by the construction. Because the patient role is coreferential with the agent, it appears as a reflexive.

Sem: CAUSE-BECOME (agt pat result)| | | |

walk walker Syn: V Subj Obj RP

He walked himself into a coma.

On the other hand, agent arguments cannot be construed as potentially undergoing a change of state caused by the action denoted by the verb; in order words, agents cannot be construed as a type of patient.8 This observation is predicted by Jackendoff (19XX) insofar as agent and patient are roles on the same tier, whereas agent and theme are roles on distinct tiers…The unacceptable expression, *He walked into a coma, would require that the walker role be fused with a patient role. This is not acceptable, since walkers are not types of patients.

Sem: BECOME (pat result)| X |

walk walker Syn: V Subj RP

*She walked into a coma.Figure X: attempt to combine walk with intransitive resultative construction

The relevant distinction between (9a) and (9b) is that the RP in (9a) codes a path while the RP in (9b) codes a state. Thus making the distinction between motion and change of state as proposed in X, is critical.

8 There do exist minor patterns which appear to lend themselves to an analysis in which a single argument is simultaneously construed as both agent and patient including a few idiosyncratic “subject” oriented resultatives in Chinese (XX); verbs such as dress, shave, wash, and symmetric predicates appearing intransitively such as John and Mary kissed.

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Highly specific lexical semantic properties are also relevant. The path role is obligatory for pad and not walk, despite the fact that both verbs are manner of motion verbs:

*She padded all day.She padded up the stairs.

She walked all day.She walked up the stairs.

This difference accounts for the fact that only walk can appear in the resultative construction. Pad, cannot appear either transitively or intransitively with a state RP, since path and state RPs are incompatible (Goldberg 1991) and the path RP is required:

*She padded into a coma.*She padded herself into a coma.

We see from the comparison of walk and pad that 1) reference to details of individual lexical items and not only broad classes are critical, and 2) reference to the distinction between path and state RPs as indicated in (24a, b) is necessary.

[more clarification is needed below:]Turning now to the examples in (10), we can see why verbs of sound emission are not normally acceptable in transitive (causative) resultatives. Their single argument is not naturally construed as a type of agent. Thus the contrast in XX:

The elevator creaked to the ground floor.??The elevator creaked itself to the ground floor.

Schematically,

Sem: MOVE (theme path)| | |

creak creaker

[NEED TO GET INTO RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN V and CONSTRUCTION HERE—to explain that creaking has to be construed as result of motion; cf. *She shouted herself out of the room.]

Sem: CAUSE-MOVE (agt theme path)| X |

creak creaker

So what can be said about example 10b cited by HR &L?

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10b If the telephone rang, it could ring itself silly.

This is clearly a case of metaphorical personification whereby the “ringer” argument is construed to be agentive. After all, becoming crazy or silly can only be predicated of sentient beings. Thus the construal of the predicate is as if it were a verb of manner of speaking; it therefore patterns like other manner of speaking verbs such as the following:

She could scream herself hoarse (for all he cared).Let him sing himself silly.

Sem: CAUSE-BECOME (agt pat result)| | |

creakpersonified creaker-agt

Since the transitive resultative construction in (24X) involves an agent argument, 23a cannot appear transitively since the subject argument (the race car) is not agentive:

*one of the race cars wiggled itself loose.

Finally let us consider the following cases in which a single verb can appear transitively or intransitively:

21a. ...she kicked free and fled.b. ..Beckett lunged around the office with one leg of his pants on fire, trying to kick himself free.

22a. Red-Eyes grabs her roughly by the arm and pulls her into his lap. She wriggles free, but remains seated obediently beside him.b. Mr. Duggan became alarmed about being caught in the door of a lift which was about to begin its descent and wriggled himself free.

23a. One of his race cars wiggled loose inside the transporter and caused damage to both of his cars.b. [the snake] wiggled itself loose and jus sank its fangs on my knuckle" pg 774

The relevant distinction to account for these examples is whether the agent argument is understood to be acting on his own body, treating his body as a separate entity. In each of the transitive examples, the subject argument is acting on a particular part of its body. For example, in 22b, Mr. Duggan wriggles the part of his body that is caught in the door free. In 21b, Becket attempts to kick his leg free from the fire.

To summarize, the semantic structures required for independent reasons are sufficient to account for variable valence resultatives. A distinct, although related semantic representation is required to account for the follow subclasses.

3.3 The follow subclasses

As HR&L observe, following Weschler (1997) and Verspoor (1997) there exist transitive expressions in which the resultative phrase is predicated of the subject argument. In one class of

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cases, the subject argument is an agentive theme that follows the direct object argument. The verbs follow, track, and trace all pattern this way:9

() a. Bill followed the clues/the signs/his hunch right into the haunted house.b. Bill followed the sound/the leak/the radio beacon/the river to its source.c. Bill tracked the criminals to their lair (they need not be moving!)d. Bill traced the sound/leaking water/river/leak to its source.

In another class of cases, the subject argument is an agentive theme that uses a particular route in order to move along a path. The verbs take, drive, ride, fly, travel, sail all work this way as does follow in a slightly difference sense than above:

() a. I took the turnpike/USAir to NY.  c. Bill drove the turnpike to NYd. Chris rode the Oregon Trail to Kansas.f. Ray flew the coastal route to Buffalo. g. Bill traveled the turnpike to NY.h. Pat sailed the ocean around the world.i. Follow the yellow brick road!

The generalization in (a) holds of these cases in a straightforward way. RPs that designate paths or locations can be applied to arguments that can be construed as themes, i.e., can be construed as undergoing a change of location as a direct result of the action denoted by the verb. The subject argument moves because of the following, tracking, or riding action. [not so well for take!]

Notice that the generalization in (c) above does not make any prediction about the syntax of these cases. That is, we argued that expressions that encode the relation CAUSE-MOVE are expressed transitively with the causer argument encoded as subject, the theme argument as direct object and the path phrase expressed as a RP. The implication only goes one way. Since the examples in () and () are not semantically causal, no prediction is made. We need to recognize that certain semantic relations in addition to causal ones are expressed transitively; this of course should be expected since every study of transitivity has observed certain non-causal transitive relations. To account for () and (), we need to recognize that the following specific semantic relations are expressed transitively:10

9 Contra Visser (XX), RH&L (2001), these cases do passivize despite their clear subject control property:

() The leak was traced to its source. () The criminals were tracked to their lair.10 Certain of these predicates can be used to depict stative spatial relations:

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MOVE-AFTER (Agent/theme sought-after path)

MOVE-BY WAY OF (Agent/theme route path)

These semantic representations capture the semantic properties of the follow subclasses. These representations serve to make two additional predictions. First, they predict that only path phrases and not change of state resultatives apply to the follow subclasses. This prediction is borne out:

*We drove Highway 5 silly.

*We followed them silly.

Secondly, these representations insure that this class is only productive with verbs that can be construed to involve agent/theme and either “sought-after” or “route” roles. As expected, other verbs cannot integrate with these semantic templates:

*We noticed the thieves into the building.

() The road follows the river to NY/into the forest.

However predicates that only have stative interpretations do not allow resultatives:

() *The road lies to Decatur.() *The road sits to Decatur.() a. The road parallels the river *to NY/???into the forest.

b. The road parallels the river all the way to NY.

Notice that while ()b is acceptable, 'all the way to NY' is a measure adjunct and can appear with any activity:

() a. John sang songs all the way to NY.  b. John ate all the way to NY.

[will summarize: spatial resultatives apply to arguments that can be construed to be themes; the subjects of these verbs can in fact be construed to be themes, because of their lexical semantics. (Ray, this story would presuppose fictive motion is involved in certain of the above—that predicts why inherently stative verbs disprefer resultatives; also allows us to keep our general story general).]

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[Represent semantics of these two classes—Ray would you like to put it in RJ-formalism? ]

3.4 Relating the various semantic structures

[will add intro]

(24) Subj V Obj RP(i) CAUSE-MOVE (cause theme result)(ii) CAUSE-BECOME (agt pat result)(iii) MOVE-AFTER (agt/theme sought-after path)(iv) MOVE-by-way-of (agt/theme route path)

(25) Subj V RP(i) MOVE (theme result)

(ii) BECOME (pat result)

Do we have in (24) and (25), respectively, instances of constructional ambiguity or constructional polysemy? That is, is there a way to relate the meanings posited for the syntactic structure in (24) and for those posited for that in (25)? Goldberg (1991, 1995) argues that the meanings in (24i) and (24ii) are systematically related via metaphorical extension as are those in (25i) and (25ii). The relationship between the constructions in (22) and (23) can also be captured via an inheritance hierarchy of constructions with the causative construction being linked to the non-causal construction via a “subpart” link (see Goldberg 1995, chapter 3).

The two new semantic structures given in (24iii) and (24iv) can be directly related to that given in (24i). Consider the following expressions:

(26)a. She chased him over the hill. CAUSE-BECOME (agt/theme theme path)b. She followed him over the hill. MOVE-AFTER (agt/theme sought-after path) c.She followed his trail over the hill. MOVE-AFTER (agt/theme sought-after path)d. She followed the road over the hill. MOVE-by-way-of (agt/theme route path)

[I need to work this out, but the basic idea is that it involves a case of semantic chaining. There is a cline from a-d and that this can be used to motivate the further semantic extensions from (24i).]

3. Productivity

There exist some generalizations about the productivity of resultative expressions. To take a specific case, consider the expressions in (25):

(25) a. The ball rolled down the hill.b. The bottle floated into the cave.

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c. The runners zigzagged out of the woods.

These expressions are so simple that they were not even recognized as very interesting for many years, until it was observed independently by Talmy (1985) and Carter (197x) that one cannot translate all of these sentences word-for-word into such languages as Spanish, Japanese, and Hindi. In these languages, verbs like go and come can appear freely with path expressions such as into the cave, but verbs of manner of motion such as roll, float, and zigzag cannot.

Talmy claimed that English is capable of "lexically conflating" a motion verb, which selects a path expression, with a manner of motion verb, producing a single verb which simultaneously expresses both. This proposal was incorporated into L's early work (Levin and Rappoport 1988) in terms of a "lexical rule" of English that augments the argument structure of manner of motion verbs to include a path of motion. We do not know the status of this rule in RH & L's current theory: RH & L (2001) does not tell us how it is that the construction is quite productive in English but is very restricted in Spanish, Hindi, and Japanese (Aske 1989; Narisimhan (sp XX), Nakamura 1997).

In our own constructional approaches, we have both proposed a principle statable informally as (26):

(26) The construction V - PP may have a constructional meaning expressed approximately by 'traverse the path PP by V-ing,' V constrained to manner of motion verbs.

[As above, do we need to treat each verb class as necessarily involving a different construction?; I’ve generally assumed that one construction is associated simultaneously with several classes of verbs. If there is a difference in meaning that is not plausibly associated with the verb class, then I do agree we need a different subconstruction, but in this case, can’t we just say there’s one intransitive motion construction—V – PP, which allows 1) verbs of motion, 2) verbs which can be construed as designating the means by which the motion is achieved –e.g., float, roll; and 3) verbs of sound emission? There is a cross-linguistic and intra-linguistic implicational hierarchy whereby 1 is more likely than 2 which is more likely than 3 to be associated with the construction, but it is essentially the same construction. Is there a reason to do it one way or another? Given that constructions seem pretty stipulative already, we probably want to keep their proliferation to the minimum necessary to account for the facts. Maybe we should talk it over on the phone at some point.--AG]

This construction is available to English but not to Spanish, Hindi, and Japanese (at least in its full generality).

An outlying extension of this construction pointed out by RH & L (Levin and Rappaport 1990b) uses verbs of sound emission instead of verbs of manner of motion:

(27) a. The trolley screeched around the corner.b. The boulder rumbled down the hill.c. The bullets whistled past us.

For many but not all native speakers, sound emission must be caused by the manner of motion:

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the trolley's screeching is caused by its rubbing the rails, and so on. If the sound emission is independent of the manner of motion and just accompanies the movement, this construction is unacceptable to many people (dialect variation indicated by “%”).

(28) a. % The car honked around the corner.b. %Sue grumbled down the hill.c. % Bill whistled past us.

Notice that the difference between the examples in (27) and those in (28) depends on the pragmatics of the verb. For instance, when bullets whistle, the whistling is caused by their motion, but when people whistle, it is independent of their locomoting.

We take it that this limited extension is not predicted by any general principles, and we see none such cited in the recent approach of RH & L. In the constructional approach, there is no problem adding a special subcase of (26):

(29) The construction V - PP may have a constructional meaning 'traverse PP a) by V-ing (V a verb of manner of motion) or (b) which results in V-ing (V a form of sound emission) or for some speakers (c) co-occuring, non-causal V-ing (V a form of sound emission)'

We would expect that no language would have case (b) without case (a), nor (c) without (b); but it is conceivable that some language would have case (a) without case (b) and many speakers have (a) and (b) without (c) (see Goldberg 1997 for discussion of this implicational hierarchy).

4.2 Varying productivity.

A wide range of prepositional XPs are freely predicated of theme arguments. The productivity of adjectival RPs, however, is much more restricted. It has often been observed that particular adjectives occur more freely as RPs than others (Green 1972; Goldberg 1995; Verspoor 1997; Boas 2000). Boas (2000) performed a detailed large-scale study involving the British National Corpus of approximately 10 million words of spoken (10%) and written (90%) texts. He observes that apart, awake, black, clean, dead, dry, flat, full, hoarse, off, open, shut, silly, thin, to death, to pieces, to sleep each occur with a variety of verbs; on the other hand, calm, crooked, deaf, dirty, empty, famous, fat, ill, safe, sober, sore, stupid, tender, tired, wet only occur with a very restricted set of one or two verbs (often only with the verb make).

Boas further notes that the choice of resultative is often largely dependent on the main verb involved. The verbs stab, bat, put, batter, frighten, crush, scare, burn only occur with the RP to death and never with dead. Shoot on the other hand occurs with dead (408 times) compared with to death(11 times).

Several verbs lexically specify a semantic restriction on result-type, while not specifying its exact form. For example both pry (transitive) and come (intransitive) can only appear with RPs that express a semantic notion that corresponds roughly with “apart”:

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() He pried it apart/open/loose/free/*flat/*together.() It came apart/open/loose/free/*flat/*together.

The verb drive when used with a resultative requires that the resultative be interpreted as meaning “crazy” (Goldberg 1995: ):

() He drove her crazy/bonkers/bananas/mashugena/mad/over the edge/up the wall.() * He drove her sick/silly/free.

Another idiosyncracy involving resultatives is that certain phrases including to death and to pieces only appear as RPs.

For many speakers, minimal variants of highly conventional patterns are noticeably disprefered. For example, cry is most conventional with to sleep:

(42) a. He cried himself to sleep.b. ? He cried himself asleep.

c. ??She cried herself calm/wet.

Eat is most conventional with sick:

(41) a. He ate himself sick.d. ??He ate himself ill/nauseous/full.

The following minimal variants of (40a) and (41a) are markedly odd (Goldberg 1995:XX):

(42) a. ?He cried himself sick.b. ?He ate himself asleep.

Verspoor (1997: 119) cites the following minimal variants to also make the point that there is a great deal of conventionalization associated with the resultative construction:

(43) a. He laughed himself to death.b. *He laughed himself dead.c. He laughed himself to sleep.d. *He laughed himself sleepy/asleep.

(44) a. He danced himself to fame.b. *He danced himself famous.c. *He danced his feet to soreness.

[summarize restricted distribution—discuss Boas 2000, etc]

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5. Conclusion