Diathesis Alternations and Collocational Schemas of English EAT

Diathesis Alternations and Collocational Schemas of English EAT and DRINK in the BNC* JOHN NEWMAN SALLY RICE University of Alberta ICLC 8 University of La Rioja Logroño, Spain 20 -25 July 2003 *Many thanks to Hui Yin, our Research Assistant

I. Why do EAT and DRINK display such variable transitivity? some classic accounts. . .

Transitivity of EAT-v. 1 Huddleston, Rodney. (1988). English Grammar: An Outline, 59 -60. Cambridge University Press default She ate an apple. Monotransitive S P Od She ate. Intransitive S P “…the intransitive clause simply leaves unexpressed the second participant. ”

Transitivity of EAT-v. 2. 1 Van Valin, Jr. , Robert D. & Randy J. La. Polla. (1997). Syntax: Structure, Meaning and Function, 115. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. The “logical structures” of eat: do' (x, [eat' (x, y)]) x=consumer, y=consumed no default? do' (x, [eat' (x)]) x=consumer, y=consumed

Transitivity of EAT-v. 2. 2 Van Valin, Jr. , Robert D. & Randy J. La. Polla. (1997). Syntax: Structure, Meaning and Function, 115. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Transitivity of EAT-v. 2. 2 Van Valin, Jr. , Robert D. & Randy J. La. Polla. (1997). Syntax: Structure, Meaning and Function, 115. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. default

Transitivity of EAT-v. 2. 2 Van Valin, Jr. , Robert D. & Randy J. La. Polla. (1997). Syntax: Structure, Meaning and Function, 112. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. “…eat is not inherently telic, unlike kill and break; hence it must be analyzed as an activity verb, with an active accomplishment use. ” “The crucial point to be emphasized again is that it is necessary to distinguish the basic lexical meaning of a verb, e. g. eat as an activity verb, from its meaning in a particular context, e. g. eat a slice of pizza as an active accomplishment predication. ”

Transitivity of EAT-v. 3 Langacker, Ronald. (1991). Concept, Image, and Symbol. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Wimpy ate the hamburger. default Wimpy ate all day long.

Transitivity of EAT-v. 3. 1 Mere Complex Predicate ika kai-ika Tongan ‘Oku kai ‘e Mele ‘a e ika. PRES eat ERG Mary ABS ART fish Mary is eating the fish. default (in discourse) ‘Oku kai ika ‘a Mele. PRES eat fish ABS Mary eats fish.

SCALAR TRANSITIVITY Hopper & Thompson 1980 Thompson & Hopper 2001 HIGH A. Participants B. Kinesis C. Aspect D. Punctuality E. Volitionality F. Affirmation G. Mode H. Agency I. Affectedness of O J. Individuation of O LOW

SCALAR TRANSITIVITY Hopper & Thompson 1980 Thompson & Hopper 2001 HIGH LOW A. Participants 2 1 B. Kinesis action non-action C. Aspect telic atelic D. Punctuality punctual non-punctual E. Volitionality volitional non-volitional F. Affirmation affirmative negative G. Mode realis irrealis H. Agency A high in potency A low in potency I. Affectedness of O O highly affected O not affected J. Individuation of O O highly individuated O not individuated

SCALAR TRANSITIVITY Hopper & Thompson 1980 Thompson & Hopper 2001 HIGH LOW A. Participants 2 1 B. Kinesis action non-action C. Aspect telic atelic D. Punctuality punctual non-punctual E. Volitionality volitional non-volitional F. Affirmation affirmative negative G. Mode realis irrealis H. Agency A high in potency A low in potency I. Affectedness of O O highly affected O not affected J. Individuation of O O highly individuated O not individuated Mary ate the spaghetti in an hour.

SCALAR TRANSITIVITY Hopper & Thompson 1980 Thompson & Hopper 2001 HIGH LOW A. Participants 2 1 B. Kinesis action non-action C. Aspect telic atelic D. Punctuality punctual non-punctual E. Volitionality volitional non-volitional F. Affirmation affirmative negative G. Mode realis irrealis H. Agency A high in potency A low in potency I. Affectedness of O O highly affected O not affected J. Individuation of O O highly individuated O not individuated Mary ate.

SCALAR TRANSITIVITY Hopper & Thompson 1980 Thompson & Hopper 2001 HIGH LOW A. Participants 2 1 B. Kinesis action non-action C. Aspect telic atelic D. Punctuality punctual non-punctual E. Volitionality volitional non-volitional F. Affirmation affirmative negative G. Mode realis irrealis H. Agency A high in potency A low in potency I. Affectedness of O O highly affected O not affected J. Individuation of O O highly individuated O not individuated Mary ate spaghetti for an hour.

Thompson & Hopper (2001: 30) “Transitivity, clause, and argument structure” …transitivity in everyday conversation is very low

EAT and DRINK in the BNC Spoken BNC (SPOKEN) 10 million words 2623 hits for eat, eats, eating, ate, eaten 934 hits for drink, drinks, drinking, drank, drunk Sample Written BNC (WRITTEN) 90 million words 2, 000 random hits for eat, eats, eating, ate, eaten 2, 000 random hits for drink, drinks, drinking, drank, drunk

Managing the data Hits from BNC were brought into Filemaker Pro. Each hit was manually checked and classified: transitive verb (she drank the sherry) intransitive verb (she drinks) noun (she had a drink) adjective (she was drunk) reflexive (she drank herself silly) etc.

“transitivity in everyday conversation is very low” PARTICIPANTS % incidence with 2 participants in the BNC EAT DRINK SPOKEN WRITTEN 82% 68% 64% 56%

“transitivity in everyday conversation is very low” ASPECT -ing -en SPOKEN WRITTEN EAT DRINK 13% 21% 27% EAT DRINK 5% 6% 5% 3%

“transitivity in everyday conversation is very low” ASPECT -ing -en SPOKEN WRITTEN EAT DRINK 16% 28% 29% 37% EAT DRINK 6% 7% 6% 4%

“transitivity in everyday conversation is very low” INDIVIDUATION with EAT

“transitivity in everyday conversation is very low” INDIVIDUATION with DRINK

“transitivity in everyday conversation is very low” AFFECTEDNESS % all in OBJECT PHRASES

“transitivity in everyday conversation is very low” AFFECTEDNESS (Rank & incidence of all as collocate in OBJECT PHRASES)

EAT & DRINK are two highly unusual transitive verbs which generally predicate AFFECTEDNESS of both participants. . .

FOOTNOTE: A curiosity about searching corpora for syntactic (vs. lexical) phenomena % all in two very different spoken and written corpora

EAT/DRINK Infinitival Collocates with -thing in the BNC

something to eat OED In some dialects, something to eat is the common expression for ‘food’: The something to eat at the hotel was very good. (Sheffield)

Summary of Part I BNC (or even a small corpus) can yield much about the “syntax” of a verb: • relative valency distribution • TAM preferences • extra-propositional cohorts Small corpora, however, can’t return robust or comprehensive information about the lexical semantics of a verb: • semantic properties of its collocates • semantic inferences in the absence of collocates (e. g. , omitted object constructions)

II. What are the most common collocates of EAT and DRINK? 71% (or nearly 4, 300) of the total verbal returns in the BNC for EAT & DRINK were transitive. The collocates in the object phrases from these examples form the basis of the second half of the talk.

Eating and Drinking Habits

Favourite Foods in the BNC

Top food objects with inflected EAT forms in spoken BNC

20 top trigrams from EAT objects

Favourite Drinks in the BNC

Favourite Drinks in the BNC

Favourite Drinks in the BNC

Top 20 beverage objects with DRINK

Dictionary practice - DRINK American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1981) drink -tr. 1. to take into the mouth and swallow (a liquid). 2. To soak up (liquid or moisture); absorb; imbibe. 3. To take in eagerly through the senses or intellect; receive with pleasure. Often used with in. 4. To swallow the liquid contents of a vessel. 5. a. To give or make (a toast). b. To toast (a person or occasion, for example). –intr. To swallow liquid. 2. To imbibe alcoholic liquors, especially excessively or habitually. 3. To salute a person or occasion with a toast. Used with to.

Favourite Drinks in the BNC

% alcoholic object consumption in SPOKEN BNC 27% vs. 73% % alcoholic object consumption in (sampled) WRITTEN BNC 43% vs. 57%

Top 20 beverage objects with DRINK

Alcoholic beverages with inflected DRINK forms in spoken BNC

Top 20 trigrams from DRINK objects

Dictionary practice - EAT American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1981) eat –tr. 1. To take into the mouth, chew, and swallow (food). 2. To consume, ravage, or destroy by or as if by eating. Usually used with away or up. 3. To erode or corrode. 4. Vulgar Slang. To perform fellatio or cunninglingus upon. –intr. 1. To consume food; have or take a meal or meals. 2. To wear away or corrode by or as if by eating or gnawing.

20 top food objects with EAT

% consumption in SPOKEN BNC % consumption in (sampled) WRITTEN BNC

FOOD/MEAL objects with inflected EAT forms in spoken BNC

INTRANSITIVE INFERENCES EAT (FULL MEAL)? DRINK (ALCOHOL)? He has to eat. He has to drink. # He eats out. He drinks. # He drinks out. ? He’s eating again. ? He ate. He drank. He’s eaten. # He’s drinking again. He’s drunk.

Summary of Part II Transitivity is certainly scalar, but the transitivity of individual verbs or even individual verbs in specific inflections (or even in different registers) is idiosyncratic. Likewise, the semantics. EAT and DRINK (two rather comparable verbs which largely define a semantic field) are quite different in their selection of objects across valency alternations. The intransitive usages, for example, invite different kinds of inferences (e. g. , alcohol (specific), meal (generic). This idea that each inflected form warrants attention and behaves differently is commonplace in the corpus linguistic tradition. Unfortunately, it’s an idea that has been slow to find acceptance in theoretical linguistics, even in cognitive linguistics.

Variation in Semantic/Frequency Distribution EAT (s) inf 3 sg prog past perf Intr Tr-Act Tr-AA Refl

Variation in Semantic/Frequency Distribution EAT (w) inf 3 sg prog past perf Intr Tr-Act Tr-AA Refl

Thompson & Hopper (2001: 44) “Transitivity, clause, and argument structure” …among the things speakers know about verbs is the range of forms they collocate with according to the different senses they have. …the more different types of uses of language speakers are exposed to and participate in, the wider the range of options for a given verb sense they are likely to have entered and stored. …some collocations involving specific verb senses develop lives of their own.

Newman & Rice (2003) …some collocations involving specific verbs in specific inflections develop lives of their own.

thank you John. Newman@ualberta. ca Sally. Rice@ualberta. ca