English Result at Ives

English Resultatives Revisited
Stella Markantonatou and Louisa Sadler University of Essex
October 29, 1996
This paper focusses on the English adjectival resultative construction, as exempli ed in examples (1)-(4). (1) (2) (3) (4) John hammered the metal at. The river froze solid. The dog barked itself hoarse. The dog barked the neighbours awake.
Result predication occurs with both transitive and intransitive verbs. In the transitive case, the result state is predicated of the object (1). For intransitives, (2) shows that a result state may be predicated of the subject of an unaccusative predicate.1 When the intransitive verbs is unergative, a result state may be predicated of the single argument by introducing an additional syntactic complement to the verb, coreferential or in some other way closely related to the subject itself (3). However it is also possible to introduce an object, referentially distinct from the subject, of which the result state is predicated. Not all resultatives are interpreted causatively ((2) is not, for example), but note that bark gives causative resultatives in (3) and (4) even though the verb itself is not causative. In gross terms, two di erent styles of analysis have been proposed in the extensive literature on English resultatives. The construction based approach (as in (Goldberg 1995)) holds that
An earlier form of this paper was presented as the Argument Structure Workshop at the Grenoble LFG Workshop, August 1996. 1The terms unaccusative and unergative are used purely descriptively in this paper - we do not postulate a level of syntax at which they are distinct.
2 both the verbal predicate and a further entity, namely the construction itself, contribute syntactic and semantic properties. This approach is motivated by the observation that resultatives appear to have some semantic properties which do not come from either the verb or the adjective. We may contrast this approach with what we call the predicate-centred approaches, which deny the existence of a separate constructional contribution. Proponents of this view see result predication as a fact about the (verbal) predicate itself (which is then viewed as optionally subcategorising for a result state). In principle, we can further distinguish in this latter group between predicate-extension analyses, in which the construction is taken to be structurally complex (that is, involving an embedded predication) at the appropriate level of syntactic description, and complex predicate or predicate fusion analyses, in which the verb and the adjective are assumed to fuse in the appropriate sense at some level of syntactic representation, although we have not come across the latter in the literature on English resultatives. All the existing proposals fail in one way or another to capture all the semantic and syntactic facts about English resultatives. The constructional approach of (Goldberg 1995), besides a certain degree of redundancy, fails to capture correctly the facts concerning the syntactic optionality of the result predication under resultative readings of the predicate and also introduces an unwarranted division of resultatives into two groups. Predicate-centred approaches to date all fail to capture the fact that the semantics of resultatives is not always compositional in the straightforward sense of resulting from the semantics of the verb and that of the resultative complement. Many predicate-centred approaches are basically syntactic and have little to say about the rigid selectional restrictions holding in resultative constructions, or more generally about the semantics of resultatives. A number of analyses to postulate an essentially syntactic restriction, namely that a result may be predicated only of an (underlying) object ((Simpson 1983),(Carrier and Randall 1992)). Previous treatments of resultatives within LFG, which is the syntactic framework adopted here, are syntactic predicate-extension approaches ((Simpson 1983), (Bresnan and Zaenen 1990)) and essentially involve a lexical rule which adds the extra subcategorised result state predication to the argument structure of the predicate. Although one can envisage an alternative, complex predicate approach in LFG, we are not aware of any such proposal. In this paper we present some empirical evidence in favour of the predicate complement analysis. We then formulate a predicate complement analysis which takes account of the shared semantic properties of resultative constructions without recourse to the postulation of constructions, and also expresses the strong lexical selection that the verb exerts on the resultative AP. Our account is based on a highly structured lexical semantics and avoids resort to a syntactic notion of an underlying object (Simpson 1983) or to an intermediate level of an argument structure ((Bresnan and Zaenen 1990), (Rappaport-Hovav and Levin 1995)), or to a set of lexical rules to generate further verb meanings. On our account, then, verbs with meanings which may be extended by result predication are not lexically ambiguous. The analysis is here couched in LFG, although it requires a signi cant departure from the normal assumptions of that theory, and in particular from the view of the syntax-semantics interface adopted in Lexical Mapping Theory. The analysis could also be straightforwardly expressed in HPSG.
draft of October 29, 1996
3 The rest of this paper is structured as follows. In Section 1 we brie y characterise the key semantic characteristics of result predication. In Section 2 we discuss the previous work which is most pertinent to our proposal, and especially the construction grammar approach of (Goldberg 1995) which captures a number of key semantic insights, but also has a numebr of problems. In Section 3 we discuss the syntax of the construction before turning to the details of our proposal and exempli cation in Sections 4 and 5. Finally, 5.4 contains some very speculative remarks about relating argument structure and f-structure in LFG.
1 The English Resultative Construction

In this section, we argue that the semantics of English resultatives involves two key components: a constructional meaning, which is common to all resultatives, and the lexical semantics of the matrix verb predicate.
1.1 The constructional aspect of the semantics of resultatives

English resultatives share a number of semantic properties. This fact suggests that they encode a special type of semantic relation (henceforth a relation type) and distinguishes them from other ways in which the meaning of a verbal predicate can be extended. There is a good deal of agreement in the literature about what these shared semantic properties are. The main property is the following: (5) A resultative attribute describes the state of an argument resulting from the action denoted by the verb (Simpson 1983, 143).
Some of the verbs that appear in the resultative construction independently entail a changeof-state for one of their arguments (the direct object in (6)). In this case the semantics of the construction and the semantics of the verb both entail a change-of-state and are clearly compatible. (6) The fridge froze the water. Other verbs do not entail change-of-state for their arguments in contexts other than the resultative construction (an example is bark, see (3)). In this case, the change-of-state entailment must be attributed to the resultative context itself as one of its salient semantic properties. The observation that the resultative context can co-occur only with predicates which are at least consistent with this semantic property is due to (Simpson 1983, 146). Thus note that a perception verb like see is not consistent with the entailment that the \seen" object is somehow a ected by the seeing event, and therefore cannot appear in the construction. (7) * Medusa saw the hero stone/into stone.
4 Other semantic properties (listed below) are shared by all resultative constructions. We draw here especially on the summary in Goldberg (1995). 1. Resultatives (with both transitive and intransitive verbs) denote that an argument undergoes a change of state which must occur simultaneously with the end point of the action denoted by the verb (no intermediary time intervals are possible) (Goldberg 1995, 194). We will call this situation \simultaneous causation". Thus (8) can not mean that Sam cut himself, causing his captors to free him and (9) cannot mean that Pat expired several hours after the shooting event (Goldberg 1995, 194-195). Similarly, (10) can not mean that the neigbours woke up some time after Felix stopped barking. (8) Sam cut himself free. (9) Chris shot Pat dead. (10) Felix barked the neighbours awake. While simultaneous causation may seem natural with predicates that entail a change of state for one of their arguments such as freeze (2), this is certainly not the case with unergative predicates such as bark (3),(4). This particular dimension of the semantics of resultatives must be contributed by the semantics of the construction rather than the semantics of individual verb predicates. 2. The resultative phrase is subject to an \end-of-scale" constraint. That is, it generally expresses the idea that the activity denoted by the verb was carried out to the extreme (especially with unergative predicates). It follows that normally only non-gradable adjectives are allowed in the resultative construction (Goldberg 1995, 195). (11) He hammered the metal beautiful/safe/tabular. This property of resultatives, we think, sets them apart from other ways in which verb meanings may be extended. Consider the following: (12) The waiter wiped the table clean. (13) The waiter wiped the table. (14) The waiter wiped the stains o the table. (Rappaport-Hovav and Levin 1996a) point out that both (12) and (14) are accomplishments, and both are derived from (13) in which wipe is an activity denoting predicate, as shown by its compatibility with durational adverbials (The waiter wiped the table for nearly ve minutes). Despite this similarity, (12) and (14) are di erent, their di erence being manifest as follows. First, both (12) and (14) entail a change of state for an argument, however, in each of these examples the change of state entailment is attributed to semantically di erent arguments. Thus, (12) attributes the entailment to a location
5 denoting argument while (14) attributes it to a locatum denoting one. Second, (12) preserves the subcategorisation properties of the activity denoting homonymous predicate as in (13) it is again the location argument which features as the object of the verb. In (14) on the other hand, it is the locatum denoting argument which features as the object of the verb while the location argument is demoted to the position of a prepositional object. The constrast between (12) and (14) systematically occurs with verbs of removal (such as sweep, rub etc). However, while the syntax and the meaning of the resultative construction (12) shares the semantic and syntactic features of resultative constructions with matrix verb predicates from a variety of semantic classes (such as hammer, shoot, etc), (14) is a phenomenon which occurs with removal predicates only (Levin and Hovav 1991) and is due to the lexical semantics of this class of predicates (Rappaport-Hovav and Levin 1996a). Thus, while both (12) and (14) denote accomplishments related to the same activity denoting verb predicate, they are not instances of the same phenomenon. 3. No deverbal adjectives can appear as resultative phrases. The reasons behind this constraint are poorly understood although its existence is widely acknowledged (Goldberg 1995, 197). (15) She painted the house red. She painted the house reddened.
We take these properties as signi cant evidence that English resultatives form a unique semantic class (a relation type). If this is correct, it follows that the semantics of the construction is not constructed solely from the meaning of the verb itself. In the next section, we turn to the semantic contribution of the verb.
1.2 The Semantics of the Verb

Much discussion has ensued in the literature on the question of what selectional restrictions the verb exerts on the resultative AP and the NP of which it is predicated. It seems clear that transitive and unaccusative predicates exert selectional restrictions on both NP and AP. The verb accepts in the resultative construction only those NPs which it \normally" accepts as arguments, and the AP itself also exerts selectional restrictions over the NP of which it is predicated. The resultative phrase must express some sort of canonical or expected result of the activity denoted by the verb. Thus (Rappaport-Hovav and Levin 1996b) suggest that the content of the result phrase must be construable as as part of the prototypical event described by the verb. As for the unergatives, a number of previous accounts take the view that neither the resultative phrase nor the NP is selected by the predicate itself. Many researchers have concluded that the object NP in resultatives with an unergative matrix verb predicate is not an argument of the verb at a lexical semantic level ((Simpson 1983), (Carrier and Randall 1992), (Rappaport-Hovav and Levin 1996b), (Goldberg 1995)). Evidence includes failure to satisfy
6 the selection requirements of the verb (16), non-occurrence as subject of the corresponding middle formation (17) and in corresponding nominalisations (18)2 . (16) Felix barked the neighbours awake. Felix barked the neighbours. (17) The neighbours bark awake easily. (18) The barking of the neighbours awake has caused much trouble to its owners of the pet. On the other hand, this NP has certain characteristic argument properties. It is accusative, typical of direct objects (19) and it appears as the subject of passives (20) (Goldberg 1995, 186). On this basis, some accounts treat it as a syntactic but not a semantic argument of the verb ((Simpson 1983) (Wechsler 1996)). (19) Sally laughed herself silly. (20) The baby was barked awake every morning by the neighbours noisy dog. (Rappaport-Hovav and Levin 1996b) and (Wechsler 1996), amongst others, take the view that the AP of unergative resultatives is not lexically selected by the verb predicate (but its occurrence may depend on pragmatic factors (Wechsler 1996, 3)). (Rappaport-Hovav and Levin 1996b, 3) explicitly argue that the unergative resultatives of the bark type (16) are not formed at a level of lexical semantics but by some kind of syntactic process operating either in the phrase structure or at a level of syntactic argument structure.3 In the remainder of this section we will argue to the contrary that the resultative AP is in fact lexically selected by the matrix verb predicate although no selection of the postverbal NP by the matrix verb predicate seems to occur. We will rst show that the diagnostics which (Rappaport-Hovav and Levin 1996b, 3) employ to distinguish between lexically and syntactically derived accomplishments do not o er su cient evidence in favor of this distinction and in fact, they seem to create some confusion about the nature of the data. Then, we will argue that bark like resultatives (16) are not subject solely to pragmatic constraints but are subject to a form of lexical selection as well.
1.2.1 The Rappaprot-Hovav/Levin diagnostics for syntactic formation

In the following, we rst provide the diagnostic they suggest and then comment on it. 1. Object NPs in resultatives with unergative matrix verbs are arbitrary { they never occur as arguments of the verb in some \simpler" construction headed by this verb. It is true that the object NPs occur only in the resultative construction. But this does not constitute evidence that the construction is syntactic rather than lexically driven.
As (Goldberg 1995) points out, undergoing middle is not a necessary condition for argumenthood. In her account, the NP is an argument of the construction, but not of the verb itself. 3Levin and Rappaport consider argument structure as an ordered set of place holders.
2
7 2. bark-like resultatives are much more transparently derived from the intransitive form of the verb|either intransitive or allowing for unspeci ed object deletion. Obligatorily transitive verbs do not allow for resultative formation. Although it is di cult to see the relevance of this observation outside the very speci c assumptions about lexical meaning that the authors make, it also does not seem to be re ected in the data: ((21) and (22)). (21) John wiped the table clean ?? John wiped (22) John hammered the metal at ?? John hammered. 3. bark resultatives preserve the meaning of the verb (the intransitive verb, that is). Presumably the argument here is that syntax can not alter lexically determined meaning. However, as we have seen, bark resultatives introduce a cause dimension which does not exist in the \original" meaning of the verb. This claim therefore seems simply incorrect. 4. Middle formation. bark type resultatives do not form middles. The mechanism of middle formation is not su ciently understood. (Goldberg 1995, 183) points out that resultatives headed by transitive predicates also fail to have middle counterparts (compare John loaded the washer full, The washer loads full easily). Goldberg concludes that . . . although there may well be an implication that if X occurs in the middle construction and adjectival passive construction and nominalisation construction, then X is an argument, the converse is clearly false. 5. (Rappaport-Hovav and Levin 1996b, 10) note: \syntactically derived accomplishments . . . do not have to denote events of direct causation". We have already seen that bark like resultatives denote events of direct causation. While this property does not necessarily entail a lexical semantic derivation of resultatives, it is certainly consistent with it.
Our conclusion is, thus, that the claimed contrast between syntactically and lexically derived accomplishments is not well established. Furthermore, the diagnostics provide no clear judgement for resultatives like John swept the oor clean. This construction seems to satisfy some of the diagnostics of lexical formation and fail some others:
In favour of lexical derivation: clean is the conventional goal of sweeping (Rappaport-Hovav and Levin 1 6). In (Rappaport-Hovav and Levin 1996b, 8) it is stated that lexical derivation is characterised by compatibility between the verb meaning and the added material while syntactic derivation is not necessarily characterised by such compatibility. In favour of lexical derivation: (Rappaport-Hovav and Levin 1996b, 3,4): the resultative is derived from the transitive form of the verb (while syntactically formed ones are derived from the intransitive form).
8 In favour of lexical derivation: it forms middles. In favour of syntactic derivation: it preserves the original meaning of the verb (which is a feature of syntactic derivation) In favour of syntactic derivation: cross-linguistically, it does not occur in all languages (for instance, such resultatives do not occur in Modern Greek).
1.2.2 Lexical Selection of the resultative AP

The position that unergatives do not lexically select the resultative AP is undermined by the fact that these predicates are actually rather choosy about which state-denoting adjectives they will combine with to form resultatives (23). (23) Felix barked itself hoarse/*dead/*exhausted. What should be highlighted here is the lexical selection relationship which holds between the resultative AP and the matrix verb predicate. We have already noted that an AP, if selected, should express a canonical, or generic result (or intended result) of the action denoted by the verb. We propose that (16) ts these requirements if the information contributed by the resultative construction is taken into account. bark resultatives have a causative interpretation which does not come from the verb itself but is part and parcel of the resultative meaning. When bark is reconstrued as causative then a result is possible | this result should conform to the restrictions mentioned above. bark is a sound emission denoting predicate which, at the same time, speci es the manner in which sound is produced and emitted. Consider now the kind of resultative APs it selects under a causative interpretation: (24) Felix barked itself hoarse. (25) Felix barked itself dead. Clearly, the resulting state is generic in the sense that the extensive use of the sound-producing organs of Felix will naturally result in somehow damaging them. At the same time (25) is not possible as sound emission is unlikely to cause an entity to come to the state described by dead. Same arguments apply to examples such as Felix barked the baby awake as this is a generic result of a sound emission predicate when interpreted causatively. In short, the resultative AP must denote a state which can plausibly be caused by the activity denoted by the verb and thus we conclude that there is some sort of selection involved here.
1.3 Conclusion
We have tried to establish two observations in this section. Firstly, we have argued that there is an independent relation type in English, the resultative relation, which is a salient
9 component of the semantics of all resultative constructions. Secondly, we have argued that the verbal predicates in resultative constructions select the resultative AP, and that transitive and unaccusative predicates also select the NP the result is predicated of.
2 Previous Work on English Resultatives

A complete review of the existing literature on the English resultative is clearly outside the scope of this paper. Here we provide a brief overview of only two aspects of that literature most relevant to our own proposal, namely previous work in LFG, and the Construction Grammar approach developed in Goldberg (1995).
2.1 Other Approaches

Previous work on the resultative in LFG have been mainly concerned with syntactic aspects and has little to say about the semantics of the construction. (Simpson 1983, 149) proposes a lexical rule (26) which adds a resultative complement to a predicate and also adds a functional control equation to the lexical entry. The e ect of the lexical rule in providing a resultative semantic form (valence frame) for shout (for I shouted myself hoarse) is illustrated in (27): (26) xcomp Addition Rule Add a resultative attribute xcomp Add the control equation: xcomp subject = Verb's object a. shout < (SUBJ) > (input form) b. shout < (SUBJ)(XCOMP) > (OBJECT) (addition of xcomp) (27) xcomp subj = verb's object This approach neatly captures some key properties. Because XCOMPs are necessarily thematic, it is in e ect de nitional that the predicate can exert some selectional restrictions over it, although the actual facts of selection are not treated. As an XCOMP, the resultative phrase is treated as a separate predication domain, which is right. The account generalises to unergative resultatives, because the functional control equation itself serves to introduce a non-thematic object where the input predicate does not itself already subcategorise for an object. On the other hand, because the controller must be an object, the account does not extend straightfowardly to the unaccusative resultatives, in which the result is predicated of the surface subject.4 In subsequent work, Bresnan and Zaenen (1990) show how a more abstract charaterisation of the controller of a result predication may be given in Lexical Mapping Theory, thus permitting
Note further that because the account is predicate-centred, it treats the verb as lexically ambiguous, rather than as acquiring the extended \sense" in the context of the resultative.
4
10 Simpson's approach to be extended to the unaccusative resultatives while still treating the single non-result argument of these predicates as a subject. In LMT the a-structure of a predicate is an ordered set of semantic roles paired with a syntactic characterisation of each semantic role terms of the features +/- o(bjective), +/- r(estricted)] (28),(29) (Bresnan and Zaenen 1990, 52). These syntactic underspeci cation features guide the mapping from argument or role structure into syntactic functions. The feature -r] is assigned to semantic arguments which can can be mapped onto subj or obj. Non-thematic arguments are by de nition characterized as -r]. A-structures, then, are well equipped to express the notion of an underlying object without reference to some syntactic \deep structure object". (28) (29)
pound < agent theme > -o] -r] bark < agent > -o]
The basic idea in (Bresnan and Zaenen 1990) is thus that resultatives are predicated only of -r] arguments (unaccusative subjects, transitive objects, non-thematic objects of unergative predicates). While this certainly plugs a gap in the syntactic treatment of (Simpson 1983), a number of issues are left open in the LMT account. That is, no a-structure operation adding the result predicate itself to the argument structure of the predicate is formulated, no mapping principles are formulated for such predicative arguments, and the a-structure correlate of the functional control equation is not actually speci ed.
2.2 Goldberg's Construction Grammar Approach

A construction grammar approach to resultatives posits a constructional (essentially phrasal) template which fuses with the independent lexical contribution of the verbal predicate. Constructions themselves may be thought of as unique constellations of semantic and syntactic properties. The approach is attractive because it o ers an analysis of how the causative interpretation of unergative resultatives such as (3) comes about. This is a di culty for predicatecentred analyses because the semantics of the verb itself (here bark) does not appear to contain a causative element, and thus it is di cult how the semantics of the resultative construction can be derived compositionally from the verb and result predicate. Goldberg (1995, 189) proposes the construction shown in (30). The construction imposes an \agentive" (or \causal") argument which fuses with the single argument of the unergative predicate and provides the requisite semantics. The arguments in bold must be mapped to direct grammatical relation (such as subject and object) in the syntax, and all arguments of the construction are obligatorily expressed overtly in the syntax.
Sem cause-become < agt pat result-goal >

pred
11
(30) Syn
<
subj obj oblAP=PP
>
A di erent construction is required for examples like (2) where no causative interpretation is obtained. This construction is (31) which lacks an agentive argument and involves a di erent semantic predicator. Sem become < pat result-goal > (31) Syn
pred v
<
subj oblAP=PP
>
Thus although the approach does o er an account of how the causative interpretation is imposed in the unergative cases, it can only handle the unaccusative resultatives at the cost of a further construction. This is inelegant, not least because the relationship between the constructions is not captured formally in the theory. Some evidence against the approach may be adduced from the syntactic optionality of result predications. A sentence like (32) with a non-durative adverbial may be interpreted resultatively, indicating that syntactic expression of the result phrase is not strictly necessary to the interpretation. This reading is, however, unavailable in the presence of durative adverbials. (32) John hammered the metal in three days. (33) John hammered the metal ( at) for three days. The construction approach runs into di culty here precisely because it speci es that all syntactic constituents of the resultative construction are obligatory (30). It is of course this assumption which accounts for the fact that unergative intransitive predicates such as bark has an obligatory object in the resultative construction. Some room is made for syntactic optionality, however, by permitting a verb to specify that a particular argument is optional (notationally, the semantic argument is enclosed in square brackets) (Goldberg 1995, 178). Furthermore, certain mechanisms are proposed which apply to the so-called pro led participants, that is, the logical arguments of the verb that are obligatorily expressed in the syntax, suppressing or altering the syntactic expression of the pro led participant but without eliminating it from the semantics of the verb predicate. 5 Returning to the case of hammer and the data in (32) and (33), to allow for (32), given the assumption about the impossibility of specifying optionality of syntactic expression in the
On the other hand, it is not clear whether the mechanism called "cut" (Goldberg 1995, 57) eliminates pro led participants or simply blocks their syntactic realisation (even as adjuncts).
5
12 construction itself, the lexical entry for hammer must specify that it takes an optional resultative complement. If this is so, then hammer entails that a result state exists, whether this is overt in the syntax or not. But now in order to account for (33) we need a further lexical entry for hammer which does not entail a result state. This situation is hardly satisfactory because we need multiple lexical entries, in an approach which which is intended to obviate the need for such lexical ambiguity. If, on the other hand, we departed from (Goldberg 1995) and postulated a resultative construction with an optional resultative XP we would allow verbs like bark to receive a resultative interpretation in the absence of the resultative complement which we clearly wish to avoid. The approach is also redundant in another sense. As illustrated in (1)-(4), resultatives share with other constructions the generalisation that \causers always link to subjects". This generalisation holds very widely in the grammar and is directly expressed as a generalisation in more modular theories of the syntax-semantics interface. In the construction grammar approach, on the other hand, it must be restated on a case by case basis in the construction itself.6 Thirdly, the approach appears to run into di culties with what we might refer to as recursive construction application, for example, the application of the passive construction to the output of the constructions providing the locative alternation, and so on. Consider (2.2): (34) (a) The donkey was loaded with grapes (b) The grapes were loaded on the donkey In principle, the construction approach could either postulate two di erent passive constructions, one corresponding to each type of passivised locative alternation, and so on, for every kind of alternation, or de ne templates (constructions) that operate on constructions. The rst is excessively redundant and the second is not explored in (Goldberg 1995).7 For reasons such as these, we have opted for a more modular approach which decouples the lexical semantics from syntax. On the semantic level, however, we adopt the key insight of the construction approach, namely that resultatives are indeed a type of relation.
3 The Syntax of Resultatives

The standard syntactic analysis of resultatives in LFG involves a predicative complement to the verb. Recent work on a variety of constructions involving some form of complex predication, even where the complex predication is not morphologically expressed, raises the possibility of an alternative, complex predicate analysis for the resultatives. In this section we will present
Of course, one can imagine factoring this information out of constructions and expressing it as a higher level generalisation in the grammar, but this is not done. 7Again, we are not claiming that this is not possible, just that the theory as current formulated does not seem to envisage this.
6
13 some evidence in support of the former, predicate syntactic complement approach. 8 The LFG complement analysis of (3), repeated here as (35) for convenience, is shown in (36). (35) The dog barked itself hoarse. 2 PRED bark < (" SUBJ)(" XCOMP) > (" OBJ) 3 6 7 PRED dog] 6 SUBJ 7 6 7 7 (36) 6 OBJ 1 PRED itself ] 6 7 # " 6 7 PRED hoarse < (" SUBJ) > 4 5 XCOMP SUBJ 1 The alternative f-structure which would result from complex predicate formation (at a-structure) is given in (37). PRED bark ? hoarse < (" SUBJ)(" OBJ) > 6 (37) 4 SUBJ PRED dog] OBJ PRED itself ]
2 3 7 5
Deciding between these syntactic alternatives is complicated by the fact that unfortunately, very few of the diagnostics proposed for complex predicates apply to English, given the poverty of both the morphology and the inventory of anaphoric pronouns. Nonetheless, we think there is evidence against the complex predicate analysis from three sources, the optionality of the result predication (under the relevant reading), the non-occurrence of verb-result complexes in prenominal position, and binding behaviour. Arguments may be omitted and inferred in appropriate contexts but it is not possible to omit part of a complex predicate. Thus, while an xcomp argument may be implicit in certain situations, no part of a complex predicate can be left implicit. For English resultatives the following seems to be true: 1. When the verb itself contributes a \theme" argument (a transitive or an unaccusative verb), the resultative phrase can be inferred. Structures like (38) are vague and, in context, permit a resultative reading. (38) The blacksmith hammered the metal. That is, in contexts where an accomplishment reading of the example above is available, the resultative phrase can be inferred. Such contexts are formed, for instance, when an appropriate adjunct is present.
Earlier predicate complement analyses involved postulating multiple lexical entries, perhaps related by lexical rule. The complex predicate analysis would not avoid this problem. However, as we show in this paper, the predicate complement analysis can be adopted without leading to lexical ambiguity, so long as lexical entries are appropriately underspeci ed, and given type inference in the semantics.
8
(39) The blacksmith hammered the metal in three days.
14
Crucially, structures like (38) can receive an activity interpretation (40) under which no result state is inferred: (40) The blacksmith hammered the metal for three days. 2. Some verbs are always accomplishments and never activities (41). For these predicates, it seems that a resultative interpretation can always be inferred whether or not a resultative complement is present. (41) The river froze overnight/*for a night. 3. The result AP appears never to be optional with the unergative transitive verbs. Because these verbs basically denote activities (42) an accomplishment reading can only be induced by an overt delimiter, in this case by an overt resultative phrase. (42) Felix barked for an hour/*in an hour. For transitive and unaccusative verbs, then, there is evidence against the complex predicate analysis of resultative constructions. Two further pieces of evidence point to the same conclusion. In English, there is a general constraint barring adjective with complement(s) from prenominal position (43), (44). If resultatives were complex predicates, however, we would expect the corresponding passive adjective to occur freely in the prenominal position. In fact, such examples are generally ungrammatical (see (Jackendo 1991), (Goldberg 1995) for some discussion of examples) and those that are marginally acceptable seem to be xed phrases like the phrasal compounds which also appear, marginally, in prenominal position. (43) The hammered metal looked nice. (44) ? The hammered- at metal looked nice. Finally, we note that the result phrase itself constitutes a binding domain | the data in (45) are from (Alsina 1996a, 20):9 (45) I talked my neighbours sick of me/*myself. (46) I talked my neighbours into a bait with me/*myself. In summary, we think there is evidence that the correct syntactic analysis of the resultative involves postulating a phrasal predicate result complement to the verb. That is, there is no syntactic level at which the predicate and the result complement form a complex predicate.
9
The somewhat marginal character of this argument must, however, be noted.
15 We are now in a position to present our analyses of the English resultative. We have reviewed the salient descriptive facts about the construction, and have pointed out a number of de ciencies of previous accounts of the resultative construction. We have presented evidence that English resultatives are better dealt with with a predicate centered account whereby predicates lexically select their resultative complements, but have also shown that there is evidence of a shared semantic communality across the di erent instances of result predication (the constuctional \e ect"). The rest of the paper is organised as follows. In the following section, we outline our proposal for the semantics of predicates. The approach is quite general, and the hierarchies are motivated by consideration of a number of constructions other than resultatives. The approach follows HPSG in using a type hierarchy to structure the information domain and assumes that the syntax semantics interface is mediated by a mapping or linking theory of the relation between semantic arguments and syntactic functions. In the next two sections we outline our linking theory and then go on to show how the semantics that we assume may be combined with the f-structures of LFG. This approach involves replacing the PRED values of LFG fstructures with a more structured representation of the semantic argument structure. In a nal, speculative section we consider the possibility of exploiting LFG's projection architecture to factor out these two di erent types of information into separate projections.
4 The Lexical Semantic Type Hierarchies

We share the intuition of construction grammar (as in (Goldberg 1995)) that all English resultatives share several semantic properties which suggests that a \resultative relation type" exists. An adequate account of resultatives must allow for the correct interactions between the independently motivated lexical semantic relation types of verbs and the resultative relation type, without requiring us to postulate a multiplicity of lexical entries. In this section we present a theory of lexical semantics which captures this interaction, encoded as a multiple monotonic inheritance network of relation types. We rst describe the network of predicate types and then turn to the arguments of those predicates.
4.1 The network of relations

A set of relation types is de ned and organised in a monotonic multiple inheritance network. Relation types will serve as values of the sem(antics) feature of verbs. Relations are types which are appropriate for a number of features. Some of the features represent what we will call \ rst level arguments of a relation" and will be assigned values of type argtype. LINK link rel (47) argtype OTHER set of other entailments
" #
argtype (47) is appropriate for two features: link and other. The values of link are of type link rel and provide the information crucial to the linking rules. The type link rel is at the top
16 of a hierarchy of \argument types" (loosely speaking) which is based on the sets of proto-agent and proto-patient entailments presented in (Dowty 1991). We discuss this in 4.2. The feature other takes as values a set of entailments which are not important to linking.10 The relation type hierarchy is given below. Each type is associated with a constraint over features structures of that type. Since the hierarchy of relation types is far more extensive than the fragment that we need to account for resultatives, to avoid undue verbosity we will only mention those constraints which are directly relevant to the resultative predications, though others are shown in the hierarchy. To aid the reader, in a few cases we have also inserted into the network itself some of the constraints which are speci ed at various of the types we are most concerned with here. (48)
relation state controlled sem.cons.
extc extc2
extended
res p extc p extc0
versatile RES
state ARG1 jL ppr ]
ARG1 j L
causer ppr
ARG1 j L ARG1 j L
link rel ncauser
int eve
ARG1 j L
ppr
ARG2 j L
extc2e
extc res
int res
ARG1 j L 1 RES j ARG1 j L 1
int eve0
exct20
extc2 res
ARG2 j L 1 RES j ARG1 j L 1
p extc res
Relations are divided into states, controlled, extended and versatile. Following work by (Smith 1970) and (Rappaport-Hovav and Levin 1995) relations like hammer and bark are classi ed as controlled relations. Such relations are taken to encode eventualities the development of which is under the control of some appropriate controller (entity, situation, force,. . . ). The versatile relations are not described in detail here. Only a subtype of them is given, int(ernal) eve(nt). Such relations encode events where no controller (in the sense of (Smith 1970)) is explicitly involved, such as the eventualities denoted by freeze and arrive. The controlled relations are divided into externally controlled (extc) and to potentially externally controlled relations (p(otentially) extc). Potentially externally controlled eventualities denote eventualities which are not necessarily driven by a cause such as laugh. Externally controlled relations encode eventualities driven by some cause such as hammer, such as bark in Felix
Clearly, other needs further structuring but since this is not crucial to the discussion here nothing more will be said about it.
10
17 barked the neighbours awake and such as march in The general marched the soldiers to the barn. Causative eventualities always involve a participant which is somehow a ected by the action of the causer, but this participant is not de ned in the type extc. The reason is that the \a ected" participant may be a rst level argument of the relation as in hammer or may be contributed by another relation embedded in a relation of type extc (see below as well). Examples of such relations are the causative use of predicates such as bark in the resultative construction and of march when construed as a directed motion denoting predicate. The subtyping of extc re ects this fact | the diagram shows subtypes corresponding to two place relations extc2 and to resultative relations which have relations of type state embedded as values of the feature res (see below). In previous work, we have proposed that a number of cases of valency alternation involving prepositional complements to verbs may be compactly and intuitively handled (without introducing lexical ambiguity) by recognising the existence (in the hierarchy of relation types) of relations which combine with and semantically extend the relation types of verbs.11 These are the extended relations of (48). This type is further partitioned into the cases where a predicate's semantics is elaborated or extended by the semantics of appropriate prepositions (Gawron 1986), (Markantonatou and Sadler forthcoming) such as load (these are of the subtype sem.cons) and the resultative relations res, that is, relations whose semantics is further elaborated or extended by the semantics of state denoting predicates. extended relations are a source of \embedded" relations. Relations encoding a resultative event are all subsorts of the type res(ultative). This re ects the fact that all English resultatives share a number of semantic properties (see Section 1). res itself is not appropriate for a causer, since not all resultatives receive a causative interpretation. On the other hand, res encodes the semantic generalisation which mainly characterises resultatives, repeated here as (49), which does not specify whether an \action" is driven by a cause or not. (49) A resultative attribute describes the state of an argument resulting from the action denoted by the verb (Simpson 1983, 143).
Members of the type res and its subsorts are appropriate for a feature called res(ultative). This is an instance of an \embedded" relation as noted above. res takes values of type state, a subtype of relation (see the diagram in (48)) which is de ned as in (50). To capture general properties of resultative relations we assume that state is further subtyped to capture the semantics for instance, of non-gradable adjectives, deverbal adjectives etc (see Section 1), though this is not shown here. Such subtyping seems to be independently necessary anyway.
LINK (50) state ARG1 argtype
11 h
pprole]
Building especially on the insights of (Gawron 1986), (Markantonatou and Sadler forthcoming) motivates the idea of extended relations and provides a proposal to introduce and link oblique complements using an embedded relation introduced by the type sem.cons.
18 Further down in the hierarchy subtypes of res are de ned corresponding to the di erent kinds of \action" falling under (49). We will go through them in some detail.12 extc res (51) is a subtype of both extc and res. The type inherits an arg1j link of type causer and a res of type state (shown in (50)) from the type res. This type is the most general type of resultative relations with a causative interpretation. Its subtypes extc2 res (53) and p extc res (55) re ect the division between resultatives with a transitive matrix verb predicate and a resultatives with an unergative matrix verb predicate.
ARG1 j LINK causer ARG1jLINK pprole (51) extc res RES state
"
extc2 res (53) is a subtype of both extc res and extc2 and provides the relation type for examples like (52), resultatives headed by a transitive verb with a causative interpretation. The type inherits an arg1jlink of type causer and an arg2jlink pproles from extc2, and a arg1jlink of type causer and a res of type state from the type extc res. The constraint associated with extc2 res itself coindexes the two pprole arguments. This expresses both a fact about resultatives and a general constraint on relation types, that the same entailment type can not be assigned to distinct arguments (in other words, a relation cannot have two controllers,and so on). We will not go into details about how this global contraint takes e ect in the network of relation types.
(52) John hammered the metal 2 ARG1 j LINK 6 6 ARG2 j LINK 4 (53) extc2 res RES
at. causer 1 h ARG1 j LINK 1 pprole
3 7 7 i 5
p extc res (55) is a subtype of extc res and p extc and relates to (54). The feature value speci cation arg1jlink causer is inherited from the type extc res as expected as p extc res is a type of a causative relation in general and of a resultative relation in particular. This re ects the fact that unergative predicates receive a causative interpretation only in the context of a resultative interpretation.
(54) The dog barked itself hoarse. " ARG1 j LINK causer h RES ARG1 j LINK pprole (55) p extc res
# i
The type int(ernal) res (57) relates to the non-causative resultatives such as (56). No causer argument is present. As with (53) the constraint at this type simply provides the appropriate reentrancy.
Taking full account of the selectional restrictions predicates impose on their resultative complements may lead to further subtyping in this domain.
12
(56) The river froze solid. 2 ARG1 j LINK h1 4 RES ARG1 j LINK 1 pprole (57) int res
19
3 i 5
Notice that in (48) the subtypes of the type of the extended relations, namely res and sem.cons. are mutually exclusive. This re ects that fact that these two types of extension do not seem to co-occur (58): (58) John talked himself hoarse to Mary. To summarise so far, a structured type representing a \basic" relation looks like (59) and like (60) when a resultative interpretation is available. REL 6 6 ARG1 6 4 ::: (59) relation ARGn 2 REL 6 6 ARG1 6 6 ::: 6 6 4 ARGn (60) relation RES
2
constant 3 argtype 7 7 7 5 ::: argtype 3 constant 7 argtype 7 7 7 ::: 7 argtype 7 5 state
To recap so far, relation types serve as values of the sem feature of verbs. Verb entries are assigned an appropriately general (or underspeci ed) sem value. For instance, the lexical entry of hammer which can receive both a resultative (telic) and non-telic interpretation, will have a sem value of type extc2. By force of the requirement that in the syntax verbs eventually have a maximal type as value of their sem feature and with the help of type inference driven by contextual information, the sem value of hammer will be xed to extc2 in the case of an atelic reading (33) and to extc2 res in the case of (1). Provided that semantics is linked to the syntax with an appropriate linking mechanism, this allows set up allows for a treatment of diathesis alternation phenomena without using lexical rules or other devices which would e ectively result in de ning multiple lexical entries for the same predicate (lexical ambiguity). We return to these points in Section 5.3.
4.2 The network of entailments

We turn now to the network of entailments relevant to linking. The approach takes as its departure point the sets of proto-agent and proto-patient entailments given in (Dowty 1991). However we make two further assumptions which provide further structure to these entailments.
20 Firstly we assume an inheritance relation among them, and secondly, we de ne new entities corresponding to speci c subsets of entailments. This gives us the network in (61).
link rel null vol controllers
(61)
int prop
motion ndm dm pp pproles ch pp incr pp
causer
ncauser
vol caus vol ncaus sentient int cntrl
nvol caus caus int prop
ndm ncaus ndm pp
The hierarchy of entailments shown here is more extensive than needed for the treatment of resultatives and re ects insights from a number of sources, most notably Dowty (1991), Carlotta Smith (1970) and Rappaport-Hovav and Levin (1995). controllers, pproles and null represent the three most general or `fundamental' types of arguments of (semantic) relations, and these types are mutually exclusive. Three other classes of entailment types, vol(itional), int(ernal) prop(erty) and motion further cross-classify these `fundamental' types. The type controllers is partitioned into the subtypes causer and n(on)causer. causers may be vol(itional) causer as in John killed the dragon, n(on)vol(itional) causer as in The wind broke the vase or caus(e) int(ernal) prop(erty) as in John laughed himself silly. Amongst the ncausers we recognise the vol(itional) ncaus(er) as in John received a parcel, the sentient as in John loves Mary, the int(ernally) cntrl(controlled) as in John laughed and the ndm ncaus as in John runs. There are four subtypes of the type pproles: d(irected)m(otion) pp as in The soldiers marched to the barn, ch pp as in The river froze, incr pp as the house in John built the house in ve years and ndm pp as in The door rolls. null corresponds to the entailments that are neither of type of controller or of type pprole, for example the tree in John saw the tree. This view of the space of argument properties permits us to deal monotonically with cases where apparently non-causers appear as causers: Sally laughed versus Sally laughed herself silly. (Goldberg 1995) notes that this alternation is allowed only with volitional or animate subjects (see also Section 1). In our set up, volitionality is the crucial property. Volitional subjects of
21 intransitive unergative predicates encoding potentially externally controlled eventualities can vary between a causative and a non-causative interpretation once the appropriate semantic context is xed; constraints on the context are speci ed with the relation hierarchy (48).
4.3 Using a Type Hierarchy Approach

Although something of a novelty within LFG, using a multiple inheritance network to model the semantics of relations has a number of advantages. First, encoding relations as types permits us to capture some co-occurrence dependencies which are not straightforwardly expressible if the proto-agent and proto-patient properties of (Dowty 1991) are seen as atomic separate units, characterizing individual participants of relations in isolation. But the \cause" entailment necessarily co-occurs with a Proto-Patient entailment over a semantic argument of the verb other than the \causer". Second, using a network of types of relations permits us to capture the communality among resultative constructions. As discussed in Section 1, all such constructions share some semantic properties: a participant undergoes a change of state, this state corresponds to an end-of-scale situation and cannot be denoted by a gradable adjective while states which are denoted by deverbal adjectives are not allowed. Such semantic generalisations can be captured by positing a speci c type for the resultative relation. Third, the approach permits a compact treatment of variation in the interpretation of a predicate - these variants will correspond to di erent instantiations of the same relation type or to di erent subtypes. Consider (62) and (63) in which the participant entailed to undergo motion, the \marcher", can appear as the subject of an unergative verb (62) or as the object of a transitive verb (63). (62) The soldiers marched their way to the barn. (63) The general marched the soldiers to the barn. The use of inheritance and subtyping in the network will allow \moving" entities to be interpreted as the marchers (\controllers") or as the marchees (\themes") of a marching event while retaining the property of \motion" on the basis of incoming contextual information. 13 Finally, the use of a network of richly structured relation types permits us to avoid postulating an intermediate syntactic argument structure purely for linking. There is a many-to-one \correspondence" between lexical semantics and syntax in the sense that di erent lexical entailments (or combinations of them) are related to the same grammatical function. This \correspondence" is usually understood as a mapping mechanism from the set of semantic entities to the set of
The same argument can be illustrated with resultative predicates. Unergative verbs such as bark and laugh do not assign a \cause" entailment to their unique argument when intransitive but they always do when in the resultative construction (Felix barked the neighbors awake). Using two lexical entries would capture the facts, but lose the generalisations.
13
22 grammatical functions. Mapping may be accomplished in one or more steps. The use of an independent \syntactic argument structure", allows for a certain degree of exibility as di erent pieces of information can come to bear at di erent levels. English resultatives, in particular, have been used as an example case of syntactic unaccusativity, whether the latter is represented at some deep syntactic level or some (more or less evident) level of syntactic argument structure level ( understood as a list of syntactic place-holders) (Bresnan and Zaenen 1990), (Rappaport-Hovav and Levin 1995).
5 The Interface to the Syntax

In this somewhat speculative section, we will explore a number of alternative ways of relating the sort of lexical semantic structure introduced in the previous section to the predicate complement syntax that we argued was the correct treatment of English resultatives. We will assume that there is no intermediate level of syntactic argument structure which mediates this mapping, though if it should turn out that there are compelling reasons for adopting such an additional level, our treatment of resultative constructions could be adapted to that assumption. By syntactic argument structure, we refer to a level which encodes the arity of a predicate and some ordering (ultimately derived from semantic properties) of the arguments. We have argued that predicates like hammer should be lexically speci ed with a semantics which subsumes that of the resultative use of hammer. In this way, we avoid treating such predicates as lexically ambiguous. This \underspeci ed" semantics is then driven down to some maximal (most speci c) type in the hierarchy by the context of use, in this case, by the semantics of the result predicate itself and by the syntactic constraints. The semantic network of relations (48) provides the machinery for the inference procedure. The inference procedure is guided or constrained by a set of constraints called here linking constraints. If this is right, a consequence is that the assignment of syntactic functions to arguments of relations cannot take place in the lexicon, rather linking must be a dynamic, on-line process. A similar conclusion is reached in recent work in LFG dealing with complex predicate formation ((Alsina 1993), (Butt 1995)). Since the assignment of syntactic functions to semantic arguments takes place in the syntax rather than in the lexicon, the semantic structure must be visible in the syntax. In this section we explore two di erent ways in which this notion may be made concrete. One option is to replace the PRED values, which are generally thought of as containing the syntactic functions resulting from the mapping from a-structure, with the semantic argument structures themselves. A similar move is taken by (Alsina 1993), although his PRED values are less contentfully semantic in essence than ours. This proposal amounts to embedding the semantic argument structure in the syntax. We explore this option in the rst section. A second possibility is to keep the semantic argument structure and the f-structure separate, and relate them by means of projections. A similar proposal has been made in (Andrews 1996a). Intuitively, this maintains conceptual clarity by keeping the two sorts of information distinct. It may well turn
out, however, that these two approaches are essentially notational variants. In the rst subsection, the common ground is given, namely the linking proposal itself.
23
5.1 The linking proposal

It is convenient to factor linking into two discrete sets of conditions - general interface conditions (which have to do with the licensing of arguments) and speci c principles constraining the linking or syntactic expression of particular argument types. Recall that we use the term \embedded relation" to refer to a value of type relation of a attribute of a relation, while a \ rst level argument" is any value of type argtype of an attribute of a relation. The formulation that we give here takes full account of the optionality of syntactic realisation, without necessitating multiple or disjunctive lexical entries.
Conditions on the syntax-semantics interface

1. 2. 3. 4.
Subject Condition: Verb predicates subcategorise for a subject. Dependency: Only the rst level arguments of overt predicates can be overt. Optionality: Linking of embedded relations is optional. Embedded Relation Completeness: All rst level arguments of linked embedded relations must be linked.
5. Linkability: At any time, all rst level arguments of all relations must be linkable. 6. Uniqueness: Grammatical Functions are unique. 7. Correspondence: Each syntactic argument must be linked to one semantic argument.
The Linking Principles

1. 2. 3. 4.
Controllers must link and link to subjects of verbs. PProles must be linked, and link to subjects and to objects of verbs. Null (unspeci ed) arguments link to objects of predicates (verbs and prepositions).
14Clearly a detailed study of the correspondence between lexical semantics and open/close functions is needed but this goes well beyond the scope of this paper.
Embedded relations (such as the value of res) link to open or closed functions depending on the type of their semantics. The semantics of the heads of such functions is subsumed by the semantics of embedded relations. We will assume that states link to open functions.14
5.2 Semantic Argument Structure in F-structures
24
We assume that the linking principles should be expressed as general constraints over f-structures, similar to the current global constraints over f-structures, completeness and coherence (but note that these latter constraints are no longer required in our model). The principles are expressed using inside-out functional uncertainty. The f-structure is enriched to permit the expression of the semantic argument structure. Rather than embedding this in the values of PRED features, we eliminate the latter in favour of the feature sem, whose value is a relation type, speci ed in the lexical entry for the predicate, and link, for non-predicative nominals, which takes values of type linking relation In what follows paths like subjjlink and objjlink will be freely assumed to be de ned. The rst linking principle states that controllers must link, and that they link to subjects of verbs. Since controllers, if present, must be linked and are obligatorily expressed, this is an obligatory constraint. Here and in what follows we intend argi to range over ARG features of the type relation and its subtypes. (64) semjargi jlink controller ) ((semjargi jlink")subjjlink)= " The consequent of (64) says that the value of the path subjjlink must be structure shared with the value of an existing path semjargi jlink. The precondition speci es that this value is of type controller. The e ect of this constraint is that an f-structure which has a path semjargi jlink controller which is not standing in a path equation relation with subjjlink is ruled out and alternative solutions sought. According to the second linking principle pproles must be linked, and link to either the subject or the object of a verb. This is again an obligatory constraint, but with two di erences: pproles (unlike controllers) link to both subjects and objects and may be deeper embedded in the semantics of a predicate. This last possibility is expressed by the Kleene-star expression gf in the constraint. (65) gf jsemjargi jlink pprole ) ((gf jsemjargi jlink")subjjlink) = " _ ((gf jsemjargi jlink") objjlink) = " ^ ((gf jsemjargi jlink") subjjlink) 6= ((gf jsemjargi jlink") objjlink) ]] (65) is a disjunctive constraint which links pproles to subjects of verbs or to objects in the presence of a subject. Notice that (64) and (65) together with the hierarchy of semantic relations (48) satisfy the Subject Condition because (i) there is no relation without either a controller or a pprole; if a controller exists then a subject is guaranteed (ii) the case where only a pprole exists but it is linked to subject is ruled out by the second disjunct of (65) which speci es that the value of the path objjlink is not structure shared with the value of the path subjjlink.
25 The third linking principle states that null arguments link to objects of predicates (ie, verbs and prepositions). (66) gf jsemjargi jlink null ) (gf(gf jsemjargi jlink") objjlink) = " This is an obligatory linking rule because it actually covers part of the range of applications of the Embedded Relation Completeness. The intuition here is that an embedded relation may be speci ed for a number of (semantic) arguments, some of which may be related to no entailments at all (and are consequently of type null). For instance, the door in John kicked at the door is not related to some entailment (it is not a controller and it is not a pprole either). (66) makes sure that if the door is made syntactically explicit, then the predicator which introduces it, that is the preposition at is overt in the syntax as well. Finally, the fourth linking principle provides for the linking of embedded relations (such as the value of res) to open or closed functions depending on the type of their semantics. The semantics of such functions is subsumed by the semantics of embedded relations. We will assume that states link to open functions. (67) ((semjres ")
state ) (semjres ")xcompjsem) = ")
This is an optional rule as, by optionality, embedded relations are not always linked. The formalisation as given satis es the global conditions. The Dependency Condition is satis ed because all principles state that a path semj . . . is present. Such a path can only come with a predicate and is therefore necessarily rst level. The Embedded Relation Completeness is satis ed under the assumption that a controller can not be introduced by an embedded relation, which we believe is a plausible assumption. Linkability results from the monotonic nature of the constraints. As for Uniqueness, this is a formal assumption which is indepedent of the linking theory itself. Finally, Correspondence must be stated as a global constraint. We now show how the semantics and the linking proposals, together with our assumptions about f-structure, permit us to predict the full range of resultative constructions, without undue multiplication of lexical entries.
5.3 Exempli cation

5.3.1 Transitive Predicates
We start with the resultative with a transitive verbal head. Recall that this resultative has a causative reading (68). (68) John hammered the metal at.
26 The lexical entry for the predicate hammer is as in (69), and provides the predicate hammer with an \underspeci ed" semantics, ie. which is not of a maximal type. REL hammer 6 LINK causer] 7 4 ARG1 5 (69) ARG1 LINK ch pp] " SEM = extc2
2 3
Nothing is said in the lexicon about the mapping to syntactic functions for this or any other predicate. We assume the (standard) PS rule shown in (70): (70) VP ! V (NP) (AP) " = # " OBJ = # " XCOMP = #
The f-structure (71) simply expresses the contraints from the lexical entry and the annotated c-structure rule.
2 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 4
(71)
REL hammer 6 LINKcauser] 7 5 4 ARG1 SEM extc2 ARG1 LINKch pp] SUBJ John] OBJ metal] i h XCOMP SEM state ARG1 pprole]
3 3 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 5
It does not satisfy correspondence as it stands, and neither is the semantics associated with the predicate a maximal type. Both type inference (for the semantic properties) and the linking constraints will work together to extend (71) into a legal f-structure. Because the linking principles are formulated using inside out functional uncertainty, no additional paths are inserted in an existing f-structure by linking itself. Syntactic paths will be supplied solely by the c- to f-structure mapping. The requisite \additional" semantic information (which will drive linking) will be supplied by type inference, from the maximal subtype(s) the semantics of the predicate subsumes. If an appropriate maximal semantic type is not found, given the syntactic context, the sentence is ungrammatical. In this case, however, extc2 can be extended to the maximal subtype extc2 res and the construct (72) is accepted as grammatical ( it satis es Uniqueness of GFs and Correspondence).
draft of2 October 29, 1996
REL hammer 6 6 6 ARG1 6 LINK 1 causer] 6 6 6 6 LINK 2 ch pp] 6 ARG2 6 6 4 6 ARG1jLINK 2 pprole] 6 6 SEM extc2 res RES # 3 state " 6 PRED 0John0 6 (72) 6 SUBJ 6 6 LINK 1 # " 6 6 PRED 0metal0 6 6 OBJ 6 LINK 2 6 # " 6 3 SEM 4 XCOMP SUBJ j LINK 2
3 3 7 7 7 7 7 5 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 5
27
Note that the lexical semantic information in this structure includes a structure sharing between the ARG2 of hammer and the ARG1 of at. If we maintain the current view of the syntax of predicative complements, the relevant syntactic structure sharing will be introduced by a slightly reformulated principle of functional control, as follows:15 (73) Modi ed Lexical Rule of Functional Control Let F be an f-structure and FL the set of grammatical functions it is speci ed for. If xcomp 2 FL, add to F ((xcomp subj") obj2) = " if obj2 2 FL; otherwise ((xcomp subj") obj) = " if obj 2 FL; otherwise ((xcomp subj") subj) = " if subj 2 FL.
We leave open for future research whether in fact there is any strong motivation for maintaining the independent statement of functional control at the syntactic level, noting only that the approach adopted here is suggestive of a semantically grounded theory of control. Recall that we showed above that a resultative interpretation is available with hammer even when the result phrase itself is absent. This is captured by the optionality of the linking of embedded relations. (75) corresponds to a resultative interpretation of (69) where the resultative phrase is implicit (74). (Of course, this analysis predicts that (74) is ambiguous between a resultative and a non-resultative reading). (75) satis es correspondence. (74) John hammered the metal.
15
This replaces the Lexical Rule of Functional which speci es that (Sells 1985, 167) (1) Lexical Rule of Functional Control Let L be a lexical form and FL its grammatical function assignment. If xcomp 2 FL , add to the lexical entry of L (" xcomp subj) = (" obj2) if obj2 2 FL ; otherwise (" xcomp subj) = (" obj) if obj 2 FL ; otherwise (" xcomp subj) = (" subj) if subj 2 FL .
draft of2 October 29, 1996
REL hammer 6 6 6 6 ARG1 LINK 1 causer] 6 6 6 6 LINK 2 ch pp] 6 6 ARG2 6 4 6 ARG1 2 pprole] 6 (75) 6 SEM extc2 res RES # state 6 " 6 PRED 0John0 6 6 SUBJ 6 LINK 1 6 " # 6 PRED 0metal0 4 OBJ LINK 2
3 3 7 7 7 7 7 5 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 5
28
5.3.2 Unergative Causative Resultatives

Examples like (76) di er from the transitive resultatives in that the result complement can never be implicit. (76) Felix barked itself *(hoarse). The lexical entry for bark is given in (77).
2
(77)
REL bark SEM p extc ARG1 LINKvolitional]
"
# 3 5
Once again, type inference gives us a more speci c (maximal) type, providing appropriate semantics type p extc res for the case where the unergative verb is accompanied by a result predication | this is shown in (78). Assuming the same PS rules and Functional Control constraints as in Section 5.3.1 we obtain (79) which satis es correspondence. REL bark 6 6 ARG1 causer h 4 ARG1 j LINK pprole (78) p extc res RES state
2 3 7 i 7 5
The crucial point here that the pprole argument is introduced by the embedded relation and is not identi ed (structure shared) with an argument of the matrix relation. Because the value of this argument is of type pprole, it will be necessarily linked to a syntactic argument by Linking Principle 2. As a result, the embedded relation that introduces it as its rst level argument will be linked by force of the Dependency Condition. Thus our proposal (i) predicts that the resultative phrase can never be implicit with unergative intransitive verbs (ii) accounts for the existence of the so-called \fake" objects (Simpson 1983) (which are obligatory only in the resultative construction but never occur with the bare matrix verb) without resort to some syntactic notion of a \deep object" such as unaccusativity nor to some lexical rule introducing the necessary constituent (76). In another sense, our proposal re ects, on the
29 lexical semantics level always, the intuition expressed in (Simpson 1983) where fake objects were imposed by a kind of predication condition expressed with an obligatory functional control equation. This predication condition would demand that predicative categories have always an overt subject, whether supplied by functional control or not. More precisely, a lexical rule operated on unergative intransitive predicates adding an xcomp function to their argument structure and a functional control equation: the missing Grammatical Function (obj) was supplied by this equation. Of course, the syntactic proposal of (Simpson 1983), as acknowledged in the original paper, required some notion of `deep' object in order to account for the socalled unaccusative resultatives like The river froze solid. These cases too are straightforwardly accommodated by our proposal. REL bark 6 6 6 ARG1 6 LINK 1 causer] 6 4 6 ARG1 2 pprole] 6 6 SEM p extc res RES # 3 state 6 " 6 REL 0Felix0 6 (79) 6 SUBJ 6 LINK 1 6 # " 6 REL 0itself 0 6 6 OBJ 6 LINK 2 6 # " 6 3 SEM 4 XCOMP SUBJ j LINK 2
2 2 3 3 7 7 7 7 5 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 5
As explained above, the proposal correctly allows for only one f-structure corresponding to the resultative semantics of the unergative intransitive predicate bark.
5.3.3 Non-causative (unaccusative) resultatives

The semantics of non-causative resultatives is of type int res (80). ARG1 LINK 1 pprole] 4 ARG1jLINK 1 pprole] (80) int res RES state
2 3 5
The argument of the embedded relation is identi ed with that of the matrix relation. As a consequence, it will be linked as a rst level argument of the matrix relation. This makes the linking of the embedded relation optional. Again, this satis es the intuition that the resultative phrase may be implicit with (81). (81) The river froze last night. The lexical entry for the verb freeze will be as follows
draft of October 29, 1996 2
1 pprole] 6 ARG1 4 ARG1jLINK 1 (82) int res RES state
argtype LINK
3 7 5
30
The PS rule needed is, as before, (70). Everything proceeds as before. The present proposal correctly predicts that (83) always allows for a resultative predication to be inferred whether or not a resultative complement is present. (83) The river froze.
5.4 Using Projections

Although we are not alone in positing the replacement of the purely syntactic PRED values in f-structure with some direct representation of the semantic argument structure of the predicate (similar proposals are made in both (Butt 1995) and (Alsina 1993)), one could argue that the approach in inelegant in being conceptually less than clear { f-structures become, in some sense, hybrid structures. We are rather sympathetic to a similar point made in (Andrews 1996b) about the approach to complex predicate formation (by composition of PRED values, essentially) proposed by (Alsina 1993). In this section, we make a very speculative rst attempt to recast the treatment spelt out in this section within a model which separates out the semantic argument structure into a separate projection (which we call ls-structure), leaving the f-structures as purely syntactic representations (though presumably they will not need PRED values if completeness and coherence are enforced in the ls-structure). The proposal, in so far as either is worked out, is similar in spirit to that in (Andrews 1996b). We assume a projection from c-structure to ls-structure, entirely parallel to the projection. We assume a set of PS rules, as before. These rules introduce f-annotations, which provide the basic f-structure skeleton. The lexicon provides grammatical feature information for the fstructure, but does not provide any grammatical function assignments, as before. The semantic argument structure of predicates is speci ed in the lexicon by assigning the predicate to a type, in the ls-structure. So, the lexicon contains equations which provide (grammatical feature) information about the f-structure and information about the lexical semantic structure of lexical items, but does not specify any direct relationship between f and ls. We will begin by simplifying a little, and assuming that the lexicon provides us with the appropriate maximal types. That is, we will abstract away for the moment from the issue of type inference in the ls-structure. Concretely then, the lexical entries for hammer, metal, John and at (in (68)) will all provide information about pieces of ls-structure . In particular, hammer will provide the ls-structure in (84):
draft of October 2 29, 1996
REL 6 6 ARG1 6 6 6 ARG2 4 (84) extc2 res RES

h
hammer LINK 1 causer] LINK 2 ch pp] state ARG1jLINK 2 pprole]

i
3 7 7 7 7 7 5
31
and at the ls-structure (85): (85) state ARG1 LINKpprole]
Note that these two ls-structure will not, at this point, share a common root. Each is, however, in indirect correspondence (via their relationship to a (set of) c-structure node(s)) with a piece of f-structure: hammer is associated with the outermost f-structure (call it f1) and at with the value of XCOMP within that (call it f2) f-structure. We now turn to the mapping principles. These will be expressed as co-descriptional constraints holding between ls and f structures. As before, the mapping principles will express correspondences between the lexical semantic structure and the functional structure | as a side e ect, they will serve to embed the semantic structures in the requisite manner.16 In the general case, where type inference is necessary to drive the semantic descriptions down to maximal types, the relevant machinery will be provided by the type hierarchies, as before. To express the mapping principles, we assume a function from ls-structure to f-structure. Intuitively, the sort of thing we want to say in the linking equations is: applying the function to ls1's ARG LINK gives us f1's SUBJ. Since ls-structure is projected from c-structure nodes, we will do that via reference to the c-structure nodes 17. The following states that a controller maps to the SUBJ function (the rst linking principle):18 (86) ( ( (M (*))) ARGij LINK) = ( " SUBJ) ^ ( ( (M (*))) ARGijLINK) controller
Turning now to the linking of pproles, we might express the fact that pproles can map to the OBJ function as follows: (87)
16
( (M (*)) (FEAT) j ARGi j LINK) = ( " OBJ) ^ ( (M (*)) ARGij LINK) pprole ^
This will happen becasue the two projections and , which are related by , both have the nodes of the c-structure in their domain, and thus they are driven o the same backbone. 17If we had adopted (Alsina 1996b)'s device of co-indexing the images of a linguistic object in di erent dimensions, the equation would look much less clumsy, but this appears to be simply a notational matter 18Alternatively, we can express this as follows: ( (m(*)) ARGi LINK) controller ^ ( (m(*)) ARGi LINK) = (( (m(*))) SUBJ) or as follows: (m(*)) ARGi LINK controller ^ ( ( ( m(*))) ARGi LINK) = ( (m (*)) SUBJ) To avoid confusion, we will stick with the rst method of expressing constraints throughout.
9 ( ( (M (*))) SUBJ) ^ ( ( (M (*))) SUBJ) = ( (M (*)) ARGijLINK) 6
32
This rather convoluted expression says that the pprole can map to OBJ, so long as there is a SUBJ. Since is a function, we do not need to further specify that SUBJ may not be the image of (M (*)) ARGi j LINK under the mapping . The notation (FEAT) is intended to abbreviate reference to the attributes which may introduce embedded arguments. Recall that pproles may also map to SUBJ, requiring us to disjoin (87) with 88): (88) ( (M (*)) (FEAT) j ARGi j LINK) = ( " SUBJ) ^ ( (M (*)) ARGijLINK) pprole
Linking principle 3 is straightforward, and we do not give it here. The fourth linking principle says that any XCOMP in the f-structure must be semantically justi ed. (89) ( (M (*)) RES) = ( " XCOMP) ^ ( (M (*)) LINK)
state
This does not exclude the possibility that a RES feature exists in the ls-structure, but is not realised. In order to complete the picture, we need a a general constraint on predicative complement linking, expressing our dependency condition. 19
6 Conclusion
We have described a proposal which encodes verb alternations at the level of semantics. Alternative forms of predicates are considered as semantic allomorphs of a \basic" underspeci ed meaning. English resultative constructions were used as a case example. The nal proposal caters for resultative formation without resource to multiple lexical entries, directional generation mechanisms or \supralexical" constructs. LFG assumptions had to be modi ed in order to allow for infering the correct semantics for predicates at syntax: lexical semantics was made visible at f-structure, linking constraints we allowed to apply apply on f-structure, semantic forms were dispensed with and coherence and completeness conditions were replaced with bijection-like conditions on linking.
Bibliography
Alsina, A. 1993. Predicate Composition: A Theory of Syntactic Function. PhD thesis, Stanford University, CA.
This might be expressed as follow: ( (M (*)) FEATn j ARGi LINK) =c (M(*))(GFn j GFs) where FEAT ranges over things other than ARGi, GF ranges over things other than SUBJ and OBJ, GFs ranges over SUBJ and OBJ and n 2 f0; 1; 2; : : :g.
19
33 Alsina, A. 1996a. Resultatives: A joint operation of semantic and syntactic structures. In M. Butt and T. H. King (Eds.), Proceedings of the First LFG Conference, 1{15. Rank Xerox Reserach Centre, August 26-28. Alsina, A. 1996b. The Role of Argument Structure in Grammar. Stanford,CA: CSLI. Andrews, A. 1996a. Causative Structures and Information Spreading. Unpublished, ANU. Andrews, A. 1996b. Causative structures and information spreading. ANU, July. Bresnan, J., and A. Zaenen. 1990. Deep Unacccusativity in LFG. In P. F. Katarzyna Dziwirek and E. Mejias-Bikandi (Eds.), Grammatical Relations: A Cross-Theoretical Perspective, 45{58. CSLI. Butt, M. 1995. The Structure of Complex Predicates in Urdu. Stanford, CA: CSLI. Carrier, J., and J. H. Randall. 1992. The argument structure and syntactic structure of resultatives. Linguistic Inquiry 23:173{234. Dowty, D. 1991. Thematic Proto-Roles and Argument Selection. Language 67:547{619. Gawron, J. M. 1986. Situations and Prepositions. Linguistics and Philosophy 9:327{382. Goldberg, A. 1995. Constructions: A Construction Grammar approach to Argument Structure. Chicago University Press. Jackendo , R. 1991. Semantic Structures. The MIT Press. Levin, B., and M. R. Hovav. 1991. Wiping the slate clean: A lexical semantic exploration. Cognition 41:123{151. Markantonatou, S., and L. Sadler. forthcoming. Linking Indirect Arguments: Verb Alternations in English. In D. Godard and J. Jayet (Eds.), Proceedings of CSSP95. Rappaport-Hovav, M., and B. Levin. 1995. Unaccusativity. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. Rappaport-Hovav, M., and B. Levin. 1996a. Building verb meanings. (to appear) in M. Butt and W. Geuder, eds, April. Rappaport-Hovav, M., and B. Levin. 1996b. Two types of derived accomplishments. In M. Butt and T. H. King (Eds.), Proceedings of the First LFG Conference, 375{389. Rank Xerox Reserach Centre, August 26-28. Sells, P. 1985. Lectures on Contemporary Syntactic Theory. Stanford, CA: CSLI Lecture Notes. Simpson, J. 1983. Resultatives. In A. Z. Lori Levin, Malka Rappaport (Ed.), Papers in LFG, 143{57. IULC.
34 Smith, C. S. 1970. Jespersen's "move and change" class and causative verbs in english. In E. C. P. M. A. Jazayery and W. Winter (Eds.), Linguistics and Literary Studies in Honor of Arhcibald A. Hill, Vol. 2, 101{109. The Hague: Mouton. Wechsler, S. 1996. Explaining resultatives without unaccusativity. August.

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English Resultatives Revisited

Stella Markantonatou and Louisa Sadler University of Essex

October 29, 1996

draft of October 29, 1996

1 The English Resultative Construction

1.1 The constructional aspect of the semantics of resultatives

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1.2 The Semantics of the Verb

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1.2.1 The Rappaprot-Hovav/Levin diagnostics for syntactic formation

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1.2.2 Lexical Selection of the resultative AP

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2 Previous Work on English Resultatives

2.1 Other Approaches

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2.2 Goldberg's Construction Grammar Approach

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Sem cause-become < agt pat result-goal >

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3 The Syntax of Resultatives

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(39) The blacksmith hammered the metal in three days.

The somewhat marginal character of this argument must, however, be noted.

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4 The Lexical Semantic Type Hierarchies

4.1 The network of relations

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link rel ncauser

ARG1 j L 1 RES j ARG1 j L 1

ARG2 j L 1 RES j ARG1 j L 1

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at. causer 1 h ARG1 j LINK 1 pprole

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constant 3 argtype 7 7 7 5 ::: argtype 3 constant 7 argtype 7 7 7 ::: 7 argtype 7 5 state

4.2 The network of entailments

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motion ndm dm pp pproles ch pp incr pp

vol caus vol ncaus sentient int cntrl

nvol caus caus int prop

ndm ncaus ndm pp

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4.3 Using a Type Hierarchy Approach

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5 The Interface to the Syntax

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5.1 The linking proposal

Conditions on the syntax-semantics interface

The Linking Principles

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5.2 Semantic Argument Structure in F-structures

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5.3 Exempli cation

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5.3.2 Unergative Causative Resultatives

REL bark SEM p extc ARG1 LINKvolitional]

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5.3.3 Non-causative (unaccusative) resultatives

9 ( ( (M ())) SUBJ) ^ ( ( (M ())) SUBJ) = ( (M (*)) ARGijLINK) 6