Adele E. Goldberg. Constructions, Lexical Semantics and the Correspondence Principle:

Accounting for Generalizations and Subregularities in the Realization of Arguments.

In Languages like English, there are regularities in which arguments tend to be obligatorily expressed. Researchers introduced an Argument Realization Principle to capture these tendencies.

Goldberg argues that the Argument Realization Principle fails to account for counterexamples.

However, constructions, Lexical Semantics and discourse factors can account for the general tendencies and the classes of exceptions.

Constructions are a network of learned pairings of form and function. In the constructional approach adopted here motivation is the main concept for each posited construction.

Motivation explains why it is possible and natural that this particular form-meaning correspondence should exist in a given language.

Argument Realization Principle (ARP):

There must be one argument XP in the syntax to identify each subevent in the event structure template.

Subevents include actions, causes and states: [x ACT <MANNER>] (activity)

[x <STATE>] (state) [BECOME [x <STATE>]]

(achievement) [[x ACT<MANNER>] CAUSE [BECOME [y <STATE>]]] (accomplishment)

The ARP implies that at least one argument associated with each subevent must be syntactically expressed. Thus it accounts for the tendency of theme arguments to be explicitly expressed if motion is predicated of them.

1a. * Phil swept onto the floor. 1b. Phil ACT <swept> BECOME [dust <onto the floor>] 1c. Phil swept the dust onto the floor.

According to the ARP, example (1a) is unacceptable because there is an overt syntactical argument missing. Example (1b) correctly illustrates that there must be two independent subevents, first the sweeping action and then the motion of the dust onto the floor caused by the sweeping.

Also, according to the ARP, causative verbs should obligatorily express the argument that undergoes the change of state in all contexts.

2. The owl ACT <killed> Become <prey killed>

The ARP says that an argument must identify the second subevent designating a change of state, therefore the patient argument must be clearly expressed.

However, languages like Russian, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Hindi, Hungarian, Arabic, Thai, and Laos allow arguments that represent given information to be unexpressed.

Q: Did Ivan buy a newspaper? A: Net, ne kupil. No, (he) didn’t buy (it). Q: Did you introduce Ivan to Masha? A: Da, predstavil. Yes, (I) introduced (him) (to her).

Also in English, there are counterexamples to the ARP.

3. Margaret sneezed onto the computer screen. 4. Bill blew into the paper bag. 5. Celia spit into the wind. 6. Pat vomited onto the front seat.

Even though there is an overt directional in each example, the theme argument is unexpressed.

The semantic decomposition of example (3) is isomorphic with the semantic decomposition of (1b). Both entail a caused motion of a theme to a location. However, the possibilities of argument realization are distinct.

3b. Margaret ACT <sneeze> BECOME [mucus <onto the computer

screen>]

Verbs like sneeze, blow, spit and vomit are often described as being intransitive, but the principles of argument realization apply to the semantic decompositions of propositions. The semantics of verbs in isolation is not relevant.

Two participants are involved in all of the examples (3)-(6), an unexpressed theme argument that is caused to move to the location designated by the evident PP. Thus such verbs can optionally be transitive.

3’. Margaret sneezed mucus onto the computer screen.

4’. Bill blew air into the paper bag. 5’. Celia spit saliva into the wind. 6’. Pat vomited her lunch onto the front seat.

It could be argued now that the semantics in examples (3)-(6) is directly reflected in the syntax. This means that a direct object is syntactically incorporated into the verb. It could be claimed that the ARP is actually a constraint on a level of underlying representation.

Support for such a view could be that for example the verb spit is morphologically related to the corresponding nominal form spit. However, verbs like sneeze and blow do not have any nominal morphological counterparts.

It could be argued now that the verbs sneeze and blow are derived from nouns, so that there is a morphological gap with the result that the nouns cannot be realized in their bare form. However, the difference between example (1a) and examples (3)-(6) is still not explained.

Another critical point is that the theme arguments cannot be semantically incorporated into the meanings of the verbs in all examples. Therefore it seems that semantic decomposition does not directly determine argument realization.

Also verbs of contribution can appear without an overt theme argument, even though a directional phrase is explicitly stated.

7. Pat contributed to the Leukemia Foundation.

In conclusion, verbs of bodily emission and verbs of contribution can be realized without a theme argument, even when an overt directional phrase exists.

The ARP also predicts that causative events that include two subevents should therefore also have two overt arguments. However, the patient argument can be omitted.

8a. Owls only kill at night. 8b. Pat gave and gave, but Chris just took and took. 8c. The kindergartener cut in straight lines.

According to the ARP, there are no more obligatory arguments than subevents. As an example, verbs of surface contact are never obligatorily transitive, when the omitted argument is semantically recoverable. But there is one subclass of verbs of surface contact that resists object omission.

9. [Pat observes Chris petting a cat.] Chris pet *(her) yesterday, too.

10. [Chris approaches a cat that is known to bite.] You’d better not stroke *(it)!

11. [Pat and Bob were very affectionate at the restaurant.] They caressed *(each other) throughout the meal.

All these instances are counterexamples to the claim of the ARP that each subevent must be identified by exactly one argument.

A constructional approach can help!

There appear to be two generalizations in English:

(I) If motion is predicated of a theme argument, the theme argument is generally overtly expressed.

(II) If a change of state is predicated of a patient argument, the patient argument is generally overtly expressed.

How are these empirical generalizations motivated?

The overt expression of arguments is determined by lexical semantics and constructions. Constructions that involve argument structure generalizations have semantic roles associated with them. These are defined as argument roles and correspond to the traditional thematic roles. The role labels capture the semantic properties associated with the respective slots in an argument structure construction.

Argument roles are defined in terms of the semantic requirements of particular constructions, therefore they are more specific and there are more choices than with traditional thematic roles.

Only specific argument roles are particularly discourse-prominent, or profiled. In English clauses for example, only roles that are realized as subject, direct object, or the second object in ditransitive sentences are considered to be profiled. Such roles are highly discourse prominent, usually they are either topical or focal in the discourse.

Argument roles capture generalizations over participant roles of individual verbs. Every verb is conventionally associated with a specific number of participant roles. The roles that are lexically profiled are obligatorily expressed.

Specific types of argument roles are more likely to be profiled, and therefore obligatorily expressed, than others. Generally, animate roles are more central and relevant to be expressed than place or location roles.

A participant role of the verb must be ‘fused’ with an argument role of a construction to become clearly expressed.

Fusion can be described as the relation between these two roles, because the constraints on both roles must be simultaneously met by the argument which requires the two roles.

The Semantic Coherence Principle and the Correspondence Principle restrict the ways in which participant roles of a verb and argument roles of a construction are fused.

The Semantic Coherence Principle:

The participant role of the verb and the argument role of the construction must be semantically compatible. The more specific participant role of the verb must be construable as an instance of the more general argument role. General categorization processes are responsible for this categorization task and it is always operative.

The Correspondence Principle:

The semantically salient profiled participant roles are encoded by grammatical relations that provide them a sufficient degree of discourse prominence: i.e., by profiled argument roles.

An exception arises if a verb has three profiled roles; in this case, one can be represented by an unprofiled argument role (and realized as an oblique argument).

The Correspondence Principle can be overridden by specifications of particular constructions.

The Correspondence Principle is a default principle, it can be overridden by certain constructions.

Constructions can increase the prominence of an argument, and constructions can also deemphasize a specific argument.

The theme argument of a change of location predication and a patient argument of a change of state predicate are usually profiled, which means they are central participants within the discourse. Thus they are obligatorily accessed for the respective semantic representation.

Generally, it is not necessary to assert that a participant changes state or location unless the attention is focused on that participant.

In case the argument is an inherent argument of the verb, it is a profiled participant role.

According to the default Correspondence Principle, profiled participants will be overtly expressed in English.

Thus the semantics of such predications along with the Correspondence Principle accounts for the two generalizations in (I) and (II).

Since the Correspondence Principle is a default principle, there are also constructions in which a theme or patient argument is becoming deemphasized.

As seen above, verbs of bodily emission and contribution can appear without a clearly expressed theme argument. This violates generalization (I).

The Implicit Theme Construction can help here. According to this construction, the identity of the theme argument is semantically recoverable by an inference based on the meaning of the verb.

In the case of verbs of contribution, the combination of verb and construction is as follows:

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Two factors motivate the Implicit Theme Construction, semantic recoverability and politeness.

Semantic recoverability is a necessary condition concerning argument omission. If speakers refer to unexpressed arguments that are not recoverable, they will not be understood.

Also, these verb classes involve concerns about politeness. The more explicit a description, the less polite it is. The nominal counterparts to the verbs are even ‘less polite’, because nouns are more ‘imagable’ than verbs. Therefore there is a pragmatic motivation to leave the theme argument unspecified.

11a. He spit into the wind. 11b. His spit flew into the wind.

The requirement of semantic recoverability is satisfied in each of the following examples:

12a. Owls only kill at night. 12b. Pat gave and gave, but Chris just took and took. 12c. The kindergartener cut in straight lines.

In these examples, a further discourse condition is necessary to allow object omission.

Principle of Omission under Low Discourse Prominence:

Omission of the patient argument is possible when the patient argument is construed to be deemphasized in the discourse vis à vis the action. That is, omission is possible when the patient argument is not topical (or focal) in the discourse, and the action is particularly emphasized (via repetition, strong affective stance, contrastive focus, etc.). [Goldberg 2000]

There is no language in which focal elements are omitted.

In English, usually all topical arguments must be expressed. However, if the action is specifically emphasized, there is the possibility to exclude arguments that are predictable (= non-focal) and non-relevant (= non-topical).

The Deprofiled Object Construction represents this combination of discourse and syntactic characteristics.

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The Deprofiled Object Construction is motivated by the fact that it is not necessary to mention non-focal, non-topical arguments, because they are predictable and also non-relevant in the discourse.

Additionally it can be noticed that the object is more likely deemphasized when the predicate is emphasized.

It can also happen that arguments which should be omitted according to the ARP, are nonetheless obligatory.

The transitive verbs drink, smoke, sing and write can sometimes appear intransitively. The ARP correctly predicts that they should be optionally intransitive.

These verbs occur frequently in generic contexts along with a habitual interpretation. A context which is ‘covered’ by the Deprofiled Object Construction.

Pat drinks; Pat smokes; Chris sings; Sam writes. The result of the frequent use of these verbs in such

a context is the grammaticalization of a lexical option.

Thus, if a verb occurs frequently in a specific discourse context that license the omission of the non-subject argument, it will become over time a conventional and grammaticalized option for the verb to leave out the argument.

Therefore listeners will reanalyze the intransitive use of the verb as a lexical option instead of being licensed by a specific discourse context by means of the Deprofiled Object Construction.

The fact that synonyms of these verbs do not allow object omission and also have lower frequencies, supports the idea that the high frequency of verbs like drink, smoke, sing and write is an important point for their historical reanalysis.

13. Pat drank/#imbibed last night. 14. Pat wrote/#drafted last night.

Verbs such as imbibe and draft have a low frequency and thus do not appear regularly in the context of the Deprofiled Object Construction.

Their rare appearance in this context has not enabled a reanalysis to regard the intransitive use as a lexical option.

As a result, the Deprofiled Object Construction can motivate currently productive cases as well as lexicalized idiosyncratic cases.

Verbs of surface contact like pet, stroke, and caress are obligatorily transitive verbs, which directly contradict the predictions of the ARP.

It is normal to pet, stroke, or caress animate beings that are usually prominent in the discourse.

In the discourse context captured by the Deprofiled Object Construction, animate participant roles can be omitted because they become less prominent.

15. The devoted zoo-keeper patted and stroked all day.

16. The well-trained masseuse always caressed with a firm hand.