Lexical Semantics, Syntax, and Event Structure, 2010
The chapter empirically sorts out morphological alternations often grouped together under the lab... more The chapter empirically sorts out morphological alternations often grouped together under the label causativization. A careful analysis of Japanese versus Hungarian morphological causatives reveals new evidence that the former must be formed in the syntax, while the latter have to be derived before any syntactic structure is available, that is, in the lexicon. The chapter then specifies and contrasts the formation of morphological causatives in the syntax and in the lexicon.
Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 1997
Several recent studies have proposed a principled explanation of why D is the head of the noun ph... more Several recent studies have proposed a principled explanation of why D is the head of the noun phrase (Szabolcsi 1987, 1989, Stowell 1989, 1991, Longobardi 1994). Somewhat simplified, their insight is that D determines the referential capacity of the nominal expression, which consequently is able to act as an argument. In this respect, Szabolcsi (1987, 1989) argues, D functionss on a par with the complementizer of sentential complements: each renders its complement (NP and IP, respectively) an expression that is able to bear a θ-role. In this chapter I discuss a novel facet of D, which supports the functional analogy between articles and complementizers: I claim that D can act as the relative complementizer of certain clausal structures.
Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs [TiLSM]
... I am grateful to my infor-mants: David Hron and Sven Siegmund (Czech), Marc-Ariel Friedemann ... more ... I am grateful to my infor-mants: David Hron and Sven Siegmund (Czech), Marc-Ariel Friedemann (French), Julia Horvath (Hungarian), Guglielmo Cinque and Alessandra Lukinovich (Italian), Alex Grosu (Romanian), Alyona Belikova and Nora Goldshlag (Russian), Marijana ...
This chapter examines the syntactic decompositional view of event structure. On this view, the ev... more This chapter examines the syntactic decompositional view of event structure. On this view, the event is composed of distinct syntactic heads that correspond to its meaning ingredients. The chapter critically reviews the various arguments presented in the literature for a decompositional analysis of pairs of verbs that differ roughly in that one of them has one more argument than the other. It focuses on the inchoative alternation, comparing it to the Japanese and Hungarian causative alternations. The chapter shows that these alternations differ from one another in important respects, and only the Japanese causative alternation deserves a syntactic decompositional treatment. The chapter thus contributes a critical evaluation of the scope and limitations of syntactic representations of lexical decomposition.
The paper provides evidence that Grammar and Parser have access to the same computational tools. ... more The paper provides evidence that Grammar and Parser have access to the same computational tools. The empirical array consists of the so-called Garden Path sentences, which the human parser manages to analyze only after perceptible breakdown and conscious reanalysis (e.g., 'After Susan drank the water evaporated'). The paper examines garden path sentences of various patterns and in a variety of languages (English, Hebrew, Hungarian and Japanese). It is first argued that grammar and parser build structure based on the same principles. Differences in the structure building mechanism follow from the fact that the former builds structure based on internal intentions while the latter is fed with an external string. Licit reanalysis during processing is argued to be movement. Hence, whenever the target of relocation does not c-command the source, movement fails and breakdown is sensed. The distinctions between reanalysismovement and syntactic movement concern copies (traces) and lo...
The study investigates the potential effects of the internal structure of idioms on their acquisi... more The study investigates the potential effects of the internal structure of idioms on their acquisition. It tested school-children (1st to 3rd graders) acquiring Hebrew. Comprehension and production experiments examined the effect of two structural factors on the acquisition of verb phrase idioms: (i) whether the idiom was a full lexically fixed constituent or involved an open slot, namely a free, lexically unspecified obligatory constituent; (ii) whether or not the idiom was decomposable. While neither (i) nor (ii) influenced idiom comprehension in these age groups, idiom production was affected by both. In the production experiment, performance with nondecomposable idioms was significantly better than performance with decomposable idioms across age groups. Further, an analysis by age group showed significant interactions of factors (i) and (ii) for second and third graders. We propose that the main effect of (non)decomposability is due to two distinct techniques (available in gramma...
The article sheds new light on the so-called dative dispositional construction in Russian. We rev... more The article sheds new light on the so-called dative dispositional construction in Russian. We revise the characterization of the classes of verbs able to feed the construction, showing that its input is best defined in terms of the Theta System (Reinhart’s (2002, 2016) approach to thematic relations). To resolve controversies in the literature regarding the licensing conditions of the construction and its possible interpretations, we ran two surveys whose design and findings we report. We then discuss the properties of the construction comparatively, define the operation deriving it, and provide evidence that the operation is lexical. This has consequences regarding the nature of the lexical component.
This paper is a study of 55 ditransitive idioms in Hebrew, to the best of our knowledge, the firs... more This paper is a study of 55 ditransitive idioms in Hebrew, to the best of our knowledge, the first of its kind. The examination of these idiomatic constructions reveals asymmetries in their composition, thereby providing us with new insights into their internal structure and the principles governing their formation. In particular, we show that idioms reflect properties of their literal counterparts, explain word order patterns ditransitive idioms exhibit, argue that idioms do not have to be continuous constituents, and investigate the distribution of their free position. In addition, the paper provides support for Rappaport Hovav and Levin’s (2008) “verb sensitive” approach to the dative alternation and Landau’s (1994) seminal observation that Hebrew manifests the alternation, though it fails to mark it morphologically.
Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 2002
... 23, 24 (48) a. rina yefat mar'e. Rina beautiful look 'Rina is good looking.' b... more ... 23, 24 (48) a. rina yefat mar'e. Rina beautiful look 'Rina is good looking.' b. rina ve-dan'orxey sratim. Rina and-Dan edit (BENONI) movies 'Rina and Dan are movie editors.' (49) a. ha-yalda nixnesa 1-a-xeder'adumat'eynayim. ...
Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 1997
Traditionally the noun phrase has been structurally represented as an NP, the maximal projection ... more Traditionally the noun phrase has been structurally represented as an NP, the maximal projection of N, with the determiner in its specifier position (Jackendoff 1977, among others):
1. Introduction: The Theta System 2. The Linguistic Expression of Causation 3. The Content of Sem... more 1. Introduction: The Theta System 2. The Linguistic Expression of Causation 3. The Content of Semantic Roles: Predicate-argument structure in language and cognition 4. Combine 5. In the Event of a Nominal 6. Lexicon Uniformity and the Causative Alternation 7. In Defense of the Non-causative Analysis of Anticausatives 8. Hidden Entries: A psycholinguistic study of derivational gaps 9. To Have the Empty Theta-role 10. Emission Verbs 11. Verbal Passives in English and Hebrew: A comparative study 12. An Event Semantics for the Theta System 13. Children Acquire Unaccusative and A-movement Very Early on
Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory VOLUME 40 Managing Editors Liliane Haegeman, Un... more Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory VOLUME 40 Managing Editors Liliane Haegeman, University of Geneva Joan Mating, Brandeis University James McCloskey, University of California, Santa Cruz Editorial Board Carol Georgopoulos, University of Utah ...
The paper reports and discusses two studies we conducted to systematically assess the distributio... more The paper reports and discusses two studies we conducted to systematically assess the distribution of English phrasal idioms across various diatheses (transitive, unaccusatives, adjectival and verbal passives). Both studies, a quantitative survey of idiom dictionaries and an experiment using invented idioms, show that the distribution of phrasal idioms depends on the diathesis of the idiom's head. While transitives, unaccusatives and adjectival passives can head idioms specific to them, verbal passive idioms uniformly have a transitive (active) version. This pattern, we argue, shows that phrasal idioms are stored in the (pre-syntactic) lexicon as subentries of the entry of their head (not as independent entries). Further, it reinforces proposals that the verbal passive is a post-lexical output, which consequently lacks its own lexical entry, contrasting in this respect with the other diatheses we examined. Our findings also provide evidence that the lexicon comprises derived ent...
Lexical Semantics, Syntax, and Event Structure, 2010
The chapter empirically sorts out morphological alternations often grouped together under the lab... more The chapter empirically sorts out morphological alternations often grouped together under the label causativization. A careful analysis of Japanese versus Hungarian morphological causatives reveals new evidence that the former must be formed in the syntax, while the latter have to be derived before any syntactic structure is available, that is, in the lexicon. The chapter then specifies and contrasts the formation of morphological causatives in the syntax and in the lexicon.
Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 1997
Several recent studies have proposed a principled explanation of why D is the head of the noun ph... more Several recent studies have proposed a principled explanation of why D is the head of the noun phrase (Szabolcsi 1987, 1989, Stowell 1989, 1991, Longobardi 1994). Somewhat simplified, their insight is that D determines the referential capacity of the nominal expression, which consequently is able to act as an argument. In this respect, Szabolcsi (1987, 1989) argues, D functionss on a par with the complementizer of sentential complements: each renders its complement (NP and IP, respectively) an expression that is able to bear a θ-role. In this chapter I discuss a novel facet of D, which supports the functional analogy between articles and complementizers: I claim that D can act as the relative complementizer of certain clausal structures.
Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs [TiLSM]
... I am grateful to my infor-mants: David Hron and Sven Siegmund (Czech), Marc-Ariel Friedemann ... more ... I am grateful to my infor-mants: David Hron and Sven Siegmund (Czech), Marc-Ariel Friedemann (French), Julia Horvath (Hungarian), Guglielmo Cinque and Alessandra Lukinovich (Italian), Alex Grosu (Romanian), Alyona Belikova and Nora Goldshlag (Russian), Marijana ...
This chapter examines the syntactic decompositional view of event structure. On this view, the ev... more This chapter examines the syntactic decompositional view of event structure. On this view, the event is composed of distinct syntactic heads that correspond to its meaning ingredients. The chapter critically reviews the various arguments presented in the literature for a decompositional analysis of pairs of verbs that differ roughly in that one of them has one more argument than the other. It focuses on the inchoative alternation, comparing it to the Japanese and Hungarian causative alternations. The chapter shows that these alternations differ from one another in important respects, and only the Japanese causative alternation deserves a syntactic decompositional treatment. The chapter thus contributes a critical evaluation of the scope and limitations of syntactic representations of lexical decomposition.
The paper provides evidence that Grammar and Parser have access to the same computational tools. ... more The paper provides evidence that Grammar and Parser have access to the same computational tools. The empirical array consists of the so-called Garden Path sentences, which the human parser manages to analyze only after perceptible breakdown and conscious reanalysis (e.g., 'After Susan drank the water evaporated'). The paper examines garden path sentences of various patterns and in a variety of languages (English, Hebrew, Hungarian and Japanese). It is first argued that grammar and parser build structure based on the same principles. Differences in the structure building mechanism follow from the fact that the former builds structure based on internal intentions while the latter is fed with an external string. Licit reanalysis during processing is argued to be movement. Hence, whenever the target of relocation does not c-command the source, movement fails and breakdown is sensed. The distinctions between reanalysismovement and syntactic movement concern copies (traces) and lo...
The study investigates the potential effects of the internal structure of idioms on their acquisi... more The study investigates the potential effects of the internal structure of idioms on their acquisition. It tested school-children (1st to 3rd graders) acquiring Hebrew. Comprehension and production experiments examined the effect of two structural factors on the acquisition of verb phrase idioms: (i) whether the idiom was a full lexically fixed constituent or involved an open slot, namely a free, lexically unspecified obligatory constituent; (ii) whether or not the idiom was decomposable. While neither (i) nor (ii) influenced idiom comprehension in these age groups, idiom production was affected by both. In the production experiment, performance with nondecomposable idioms was significantly better than performance with decomposable idioms across age groups. Further, an analysis by age group showed significant interactions of factors (i) and (ii) for second and third graders. We propose that the main effect of (non)decomposability is due to two distinct techniques (available in gramma...
The article sheds new light on the so-called dative dispositional construction in Russian. We rev... more The article sheds new light on the so-called dative dispositional construction in Russian. We revise the characterization of the classes of verbs able to feed the construction, showing that its input is best defined in terms of the Theta System (Reinhart’s (2002, 2016) approach to thematic relations). To resolve controversies in the literature regarding the licensing conditions of the construction and its possible interpretations, we ran two surveys whose design and findings we report. We then discuss the properties of the construction comparatively, define the operation deriving it, and provide evidence that the operation is lexical. This has consequences regarding the nature of the lexical component.
This paper is a study of 55 ditransitive idioms in Hebrew, to the best of our knowledge, the firs... more This paper is a study of 55 ditransitive idioms in Hebrew, to the best of our knowledge, the first of its kind. The examination of these idiomatic constructions reveals asymmetries in their composition, thereby providing us with new insights into their internal structure and the principles governing their formation. In particular, we show that idioms reflect properties of their literal counterparts, explain word order patterns ditransitive idioms exhibit, argue that idioms do not have to be continuous constituents, and investigate the distribution of their free position. In addition, the paper provides support for Rappaport Hovav and Levin’s (2008) “verb sensitive” approach to the dative alternation and Landau’s (1994) seminal observation that Hebrew manifests the alternation, though it fails to mark it morphologically.
Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 2002
... 23, 24 (48) a. rina yefat mar'e. Rina beautiful look 'Rina is good looking.' b... more ... 23, 24 (48) a. rina yefat mar'e. Rina beautiful look 'Rina is good looking.' b. rina ve-dan'orxey sratim. Rina and-Dan edit (BENONI) movies 'Rina and Dan are movie editors.' (49) a. ha-yalda nixnesa 1-a-xeder'adumat'eynayim. ...
Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 1997
Traditionally the noun phrase has been structurally represented as an NP, the maximal projection ... more Traditionally the noun phrase has been structurally represented as an NP, the maximal projection of N, with the determiner in its specifier position (Jackendoff 1977, among others):
1. Introduction: The Theta System 2. The Linguistic Expression of Causation 3. The Content of Sem... more 1. Introduction: The Theta System 2. The Linguistic Expression of Causation 3. The Content of Semantic Roles: Predicate-argument structure in language and cognition 4. Combine 5. In the Event of a Nominal 6. Lexicon Uniformity and the Causative Alternation 7. In Defense of the Non-causative Analysis of Anticausatives 8. Hidden Entries: A psycholinguistic study of derivational gaps 9. To Have the Empty Theta-role 10. Emission Verbs 11. Verbal Passives in English and Hebrew: A comparative study 12. An Event Semantics for the Theta System 13. Children Acquire Unaccusative and A-movement Very Early on
Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory VOLUME 40 Managing Editors Liliane Haegeman, Un... more Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory VOLUME 40 Managing Editors Liliane Haegeman, University of Geneva Joan Mating, Brandeis University James McCloskey, University of California, Santa Cruz Editorial Board Carol Georgopoulos, University of Utah ...
The paper reports and discusses two studies we conducted to systematically assess the distributio... more The paper reports and discusses two studies we conducted to systematically assess the distribution of English phrasal idioms across various diatheses (transitive, unaccusatives, adjectival and verbal passives). Both studies, a quantitative survey of idiom dictionaries and an experiment using invented idioms, show that the distribution of phrasal idioms depends on the diathesis of the idiom's head. While transitives, unaccusatives and adjectival passives can head idioms specific to them, verbal passive idioms uniformly have a transitive (active) version. This pattern, we argue, shows that phrasal idioms are stored in the (pre-syntactic) lexicon as subentries of the entry of their head (not as independent entries). Further, it reinforces proposals that the verbal passive is a post-lexical output, which consequently lacks its own lexical entry, contrasting in this respect with the other diatheses we examined. Our findings also provide evidence that the lexicon comprises derived ent...
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