Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T04:34:39.139Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Transparent Adjuncts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

Claudia Borgonovo  and
Ad Neeleman
Claudia Borgonovo
Affiliation:
Université Laval
Ad Neeleman
Affiliation:
University College, London
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article explores an unexpected extraction pattern out of adjuncts, as in What did John die whistling? and What did John hurt himself trying to fix? in English. This type of extraction is possible if the adjuncts are predicative and the matrix verbs are either ergative or (inherent) reflexive. The predicativity of the adjuncts is essential in getting these adjuncts interpreted as arguments; this requires coindexation with a thematic role of the verb, which is shown to obtain. Once transparent adjuncts are integrated into the thematic structure of the clause, the resulting representation exhibits the hallmarks of reflexivity. Reflexive predicates must receive appropriate marking. This explains the second requirement on transparent adjuncts: the matrix verbs are precisely of the type capable of licensing reflexivity.

Résumé

Résumé

Cet article examine des phénomènes d’extraction grammaticale à partir d’adjoints, du type What did John die whistling? et What did John hurt himself trying to fix? en anglais. Cette extraction est possible lorsque l’adjoint est un prédicat et le verbe principal est ergatif ou réflexif. Le caractère prédicatif de l’adjoint permet qu’il soit interprété comme un argument, ce qui requiert la coïndexation avec un rôle thématique du verbe. Les adjoints transparents étant ainsi intégrés dans la structure thématique de la phrase, la représentation qui en résulte est formellement réflexive. La réflexivité d’un prédicat doit être légitimée par une marque explicite, ce qui explique la deuxième condition imposée aux adjoints transparents, c’est-à-dire que le verbe principal soit un ergatif ou un réflexif.

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 45 , Issue 3-4 , December 2000 , pp. 199 - 224
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association 2000

Access options

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

References

Borgonovo, Claudia. 1994. The parametric syntax of gerunds. Doctoral dissertation, Brandeis University.Google Scholar
Borgonovo, Claudia. 1997. Parasitic gaps and participials. Revue de langues et linguistique 23:19–29.Google Scholar
Burzio, Luigi. 1986. Italian syntax. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Chierchia, Gennaro. 1989. A semantics for unaccusatives and its syntactic consequences. Ms., Cornell University.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1986. Barriers. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1992. A minimalist program for syntactic theory. MIT Occasional Papers in Linguistics 1. MIT, Cambridge, Mass.Google Scholar
Cinque, Guglielmo. 1990. Types of A′ -dependencies. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Everaert, Martin. 1986. The syntax of reflexivization. Dordrecht: Foris.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evers, Arnold. 1975. The transformational cycle in Dutch and German. Doctoral dissertation, Utrecht University. Distributed by the Indiana University Linguistics Club.Google Scholar
Grimshaw, Jane. 1982. On the lexical representation of Romance reflexive clitics. In The mental representation of grammatical relations, ed. Bresnan, Joan, 87–148. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Grimshaw, Jane. 1989. Argument structure. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Haegeman, Liliane. 1990. The syntax of motional goan in West Flemish. In Linguistics in the Netherlands, ed. Bennema, Reineke Bok and Coopmans, Peter, 81–90. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Higginbotham, James. 1985. On semantics. Linguistic Inquiry 16:547–593.Google Scholar
Hoekstra, Teun. 1984. Transitivity: Grammatical relations in government-binding theory. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Levin, Beth and Rapoport, Tova. 1988. Lexical subordination. In Papers from the Twenty-fourth Regional Meeting, 275–289. Chicago Linguistic Society, University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Manzini, Maria. R. 1992. A theory of locality conditions. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Marantz, Alec. 1984. On the nature of grammatical relations. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
McNulty, Elaine. 1988. Secondary predicates in Spanish and English. Doctoral dissertation, University of Connecticut.Google Scholar
Neeleman, Ad. 1993. Complex predicates: A comparative analysis of Dutch and English verb-predicate constructions. Doctoral dissertation, Utrecht University.Google Scholar
Reinhart, Tanya, and Reuland, Eric. 1993. Reflexivity. Linguistic Inquiry 24:657–720.Google Scholar
Rizzi, Luigi. 1990. Relativized minimality. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Roberts, Ian. 1988. Predicative APs. Linguistic Inquiry 19:703–710.Google Scholar
Rothstein, Susan. 1983. The syntactic forms of predication. Doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Google Scholar
Williams, Edwin. 1980. Predication. Linguistic Inquiry 11:203–238.Google Scholar
Williams, Edwin. 1981. Argument structure and morphology. The Linguistic Review 1:81–114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Edwin. 1989. The anaphoric nature of θ-roles. Linguistic Inquiry 20:425–56.Google Scholar