Lexical restrictions on grammatical processes in search of

Lexical restrictions on grammatical processes: in search of explanation

Course outline • Lexicon and grammar • Grammatical phenomena under analysis • Lability: a grammatical phenomenon with grammatical and lexical distribution • Complement clauses: grammaticalization of patterns and lexical restriction • Passives: lexical or grammatical restrictions? Morphology is also relevant • Types of explanations

Lexicon and grammar • In the ideal world: - Lexicon includes lexemes and (perhaps) some non-inflectional nonproductive processes. - Grammar (especially inflection) includes productive processes. - If a productive inflectional mechanism are impossible with some lexemes, this should result from their semantics: in some languages, deontic possibility marking is related to agentivity – and / or from their structural properties, which are directly related to the mechanism: in many languages, passivisation is impossible with verbs that have only one.

Lexicon and grammar • However, in many cases, grammatical phenomena are restricted by some groups of language units AND • These restrictions do not follow naturally from the semantics of these grammatical markers, constructions, etc.

Lability

Labile verbs • Verbs that can be either transitive or intransitive • Outline: - Distribution of labile verbs: lexicon vs. grammar - Spontaneity vs.

Labile verbs: spontaneity account • Nedjalkov 1969, Haspelmath 1993: the distribution of causative vs. anticausative type is regulated by spontaneity: Spontaneous (tend to occur by themselves) Non-spontaneous (tend to be caused) freeze-dry-melt-burn-fill-rock-gather-open-break-spill - Anticausative for naturally non-spontaneous situations (the spontaneous situation is marked) - Causative for naturally spontaneous situations (the non-spontaneous situation is marked) • What about lability?

Labile verbs: spontaneity account • The difference between the spontaneous vs. non-spontaneous parts of the scale is much less significant than with anticausaitve and causative types. • Often useful: in Adyghe, the non-spontaneous part is labile; in French, the spontaneous part • In many languages of Haspelmath’s sample, the ‘labile’ part is not continuous. German: freeze-dry-melt-burn-fill-rock-gather-open-break-spill Lezgian (Haspelmath 1993 a, 1993 b): freeze-dry-melt-burn-fill-rock-gather-open-break-spill • Other parameters?

Labile verb: lexical parameters (semantic class) • Number of labile verbs in different semantic groups: Class Phasal Average numer of labile verbs 6 (2 situations, 12 labiles) Destruction 3, 09 (11 situations, 34 labiles) Non-physical affect 2, 33 (3 situations, 7 labiles) Motion 1, 91 (11 situations, 21 labiles) Verbs with animate patient 1, 67 (3 situations, 5 labiles) • ! The difference is more significant than if we use spontaneity.

Lexical restriction? Yes and no. • Yes, labile verbs are more closely related to lexical properties than causativization and anticausativization. • Yet, there are languages ‘more grammatical’ and ‘more lexical’ lability • Lexical: German and, especially, Lezgian • Grammatical: Adyghe, English (lability of the whole scale or a continuous part of the scale AND: Lability is related to grammatical markers in that labile verbs sometimes exclude causativization or anticausativization.

Lexical restriction? Yes • Adyghe: q wəten ‘break; cause something to break’ ʁe-q wəten [CAUS-break] ‘cause someone to break something; *cause something to break’ The lexical phenomenon (lability) is a reason for the restriction on the grammatical phenomenon (causativization)? Or there is an independent restriction on causativization (e. g. , NO DESTRUCTION VERBS).

Complementation

Arguments of nominalizations: lexical restriction or different grammar? • Grimshaw (1990), Knjazev (2014) point out that not all nominalizations retain argument clauses. • Knjazev: the role of definiteness and thematicity (rhematic and indefinite nominalizations easier host argument clauses). • Russian: vazhnost’ ‘importance’ vozmozhnost‘ ‘possibility’

Vazhnost’ and vozmozhnost’ • Looks as a purely lexical context: *On znal o vazhnosti eto sdelat’. Intended: ‘He knew of importance to do it. ’ On znal o vozmozhnosti poexat’ v Angliju. ‘He knew of the possibility to go to England’. Semantic parameters? E. g. modal semantics (vozmozhnost’) vs. evaluation (vazhnost’)?

Back to grammar • Vozmozhnost’ can be: - A property (the fact that something is possible) - An abstract entity (the chance, the possibility which is open) • Vazhnost’ can only be a property.

PL The Russian situation is not unique DEF Romanian, French: ‘importance’ also retains arguments worse than thing. PL ‘possibility’ and / or ‘necessity’. Romanian: Toti intelegeau necesitate-a discuta astazi all understand. PST necessity. DEF discuss today ‘Everyone understood the necessity to discuss everything today. ’ *Toti intelegeau importanța de-a discuta astazi all understand. PST importance. DEF discuss today ‘Everyone understood the importance to discuss everything today. ’ totul. all. DEF totul. all. ‘I understand the importance to disc (6) *Je comprends l'étrangeté de d DEF

Further about complement clauses: the role of frequency? • Predicatives vs. verbs • Unreal vs. real clauses (see Dobrushina 2012, 2016)

Complement clauses: infinitives • Meshat’ vs. nravit’sja • Only nravit’sja allows infinitive: Mne nravit’sja by-t’ zametn-ym. ‘I like being noticeable / visible. ’ *Mne mesha-et by-t’ bol’n-ym. Mne mesha-et chto ja bolen. ‘It bothers me that I am seek / *to be seek. ’

Purely lexical? • It might seem that the restriction is lexical (in fact both meshat’ and nravit’sja are possible in co-reference situations, but only one of them allows infinitives). • However, there are two grammatical restrictions / tendencies.

Subject restriction • Infinitives in Russian are restrictedly possible in subject position. - Impossible in the subject position of transitive verbs: serdit’, zlit’. - Restrictedly possible in the subject position of intransitive verbs.

Grammaticalization and frequency • Infinitive is ‘most grammaticalized’ among all means of complementation. • The argument clause is the least autonomous when it is non-finite (no nominative subject, restricted set of adverbial modifiers (see Gerasimova 2015 on structural differences between infinitive constructions).

Another manifestation of the role of frequency • In general, Russian verbs compatible with the marker chtoby in different subject complement clauses, take infinitives in same subject constructions: Ja xochu pe-t’. ‘I want to sing. ’ Ja xochu chtoby ty pel. ‘I want you to sing. ’ However, there are exceptions.

Dobivat’sja and sledit’ • Dobivat’sja: всего — 6749, chtoby — 228, GEN — 3883 • Sledit’: всего — 20749, chtoby — 793, za – 13824 • Xotet’: всего — 418580, chtoby — 9417, GEN — 26792 • Trebovat’: всего — 58423, chtoby — 3817, GEN — 27285

Other restrictions on argument clauses: negation • The complementizer chto: the most productive and frequent of all Russian complementizers. • Compatible with both factive and non-factive verbs. Ja dumaju, chto on umer. ‘I think that he died. ’ Ja znaju, chto on umer. ‘I know that he died. ’

Negation: restrictions on something very productive • Some lexical? restrictions: oprovergat‘ otricat‘ ‘negate’ somnevat‘sja ‘doubt’ NB: ‘negative verbs’ (verbs that presuppose or imply that the embedded predication is false).

Negation: restrictions on something very productive • Not lexical restriction: rather a grammatical restriction that reveals the nature of chto: chto prefers contexts where the polarity of the main clause agrees with the polarity of the embedded clause. • Change of the polarity (addition of ne) turns the verb to the class of ‘positive’ verbs. • The restriction is useful for understanding of grammatical semantics of the marker.

Negation

Similar restrictions with chtoby Petja soglasilsja chtoby jemu pozvonili. ‘Petja agreed that someone call him. ’ ? ? Petja otkazalsja chtoby jemu pozvonili. Intended: ‘Petja refused that someone call him. ’

Syntactic doubling in Russian • Cases when the form of the embedded verb repeats the form of the main verb. • Only with several lexemes: nachat’ ‘begin’, zanjat’sja ‘occupy oneself with’, dojti do ‘reach, go as far…’ • Lexical restrictions

Inside doubling: another grammatical difference … ne ogranichivat’sja tem chto vsex rugat’ ‘… not to restrict oneself with scolding everyone…’ *Ne ogranichivajsja tem chto vsex rugaj! ‘Do not to restrict oneself with scolding everyone!’

Syntactic doubling • Implicative verbs (Karttunen 1977). • The main situation takes place iff the embedded one takes place. • BUT why verbs like zastavit’ ‘make’ or udat’sja ‘manage’ show no doubling? • Implicative verbs with high degree of contiguity of the two situations. • Only those verbs which modify the embedded verb (= denote a phase or an evaluation of the embedded verb).

Russian passivization: the role of morphology • Two ‘passive forms’ in Russian: • stroil-sja ‘was being built’ (IPFV) • by-l postro-en ‘was built’ (PFV) The combination of byt’ + participle is referred to as passive. The –sja-form is either referred to as passive or as middle (= the passive reading of form expressing generally transitivity and valency increase).

Some restrictions on sja- passive Those verbs do not have a sja-passive or it is highly infrequent: • Katit’sja (‘roll’, only anticausative) • Smotret’sja (‘look’, potential / modal reading like ‘look like’) • Meshat’sja (‘mix’, no passive reading) A lexical restriction?

Concurrence of grammar vs. lexicon • Prefixed verbs with the same roots form passives: Vykatyvat’sja ‘roll out (spontaneously; be rolled out) Prosmatrivat’sja ‘be visible; be watched (of a film)’ Razmeshivat’sja ‘be mixed’ • Not purely lexical restriction. • Rather, with non-prefixed verbs, anticausative and other semanticchanging operations prevail over passivization. • This is not the case with passive.

Concurrence of grammar vs. lexicon • Non-prefixed verbs: dictionary units • Sja-verbs keeped in the lexicon as single units (smotret’sja ‘look like’) • Prefixed verbs: derived, not purely dictionary units • The meaning of –sja is also derived • Various meanings are possible to construct (not restricted by the lexicon, built when it is necessary)

‘Lexical’ restrictions as a path to a more fine-grained description • ėto-pronominalization (reference to situations expressed by clauses): - Petja uexal. – Ja eto znaju. ‘Petja left. – I know it. ’ In the context of ‘also’ only some verbs are possible. - Ja znaju chto Petja uexal. – Ja tozhe ėto znaju. ‘I know that Petja left. – I know it too. ’ - Ja reshil uexat’. - *Ja tozhe ėto reshil. Intended: ‘I decided to leave. – I decided to do it too. ’

‘Lexical’ restrictions as a path to a more fine-grained description • In reality, ėto behaves differently when the antecedent clause is a complement clause or independent clauses: Petja uezzhaet. On ėto davno reshil. ‘Petja is leaving. He has decided it for a long time. ’ ? Petja reshil uexat’. On ėto davno reshil. ‘Petja decided to leave. He decided it for a long time. ’ A lexical restriction (with reshit’, ėto is less free than with znat’) + a restriction between two types of uses.

Conclusions • Some uses of -sja are rather ‘derivative’, others (passive) rather inflectional (no equivalence between all uses). • Lexical restrictions can result from the concurrence of grammatical (inflectional) and derivative devices. • See above on the concurrence of lability vs. derivational markers.

General conclusions • The phenomenon under analysis, virtually single, in fact include many small ‘parts’ (sub-systems). • These parts often seem to be arbitrary (lexical). • In reality, though, they are often grammar-dependent. • This subdivision shows that the grammatical phenomenon itself (lability, complementation) is more complicated than it was claimed in the beginning.

General conclusions • From ‘typology of categories (and their expression)’ to ‘typology of domains’: - Domains which often show productive mechanisms, not restricted lexically / semantically - Domains which show non-productive mechanisms (lexically motivated / motivated by more special grammatical restrictions) - Complementation: many non-productive mechanisms: the properties of the main verb tightly correlate with the properties of the embedded one.