Stephen M. Wechsler (wechsler@mail.utexas.edu)
Fri, 23 Aug 1996 20:06:42 -0500 (CDT)
HPSGians, I've written a short, rough draft (16pp) on English resultatives in HPSG, entitled 'Explaining Resultatives Without Unaccusativity.' It concerns constructions like the following: (1) a. John hammered the metal flat. b. The water froze solid. c. *The dog barked hoarse. d. The dog barked itself hoarse. A standard view holds that English resultative phrases must be predicated of 'deep objects'. This is said to explain why transitives (a) and unaccusatives (b) are OK, while unergatives are bad (c); most strikingly, the 'fake reflexive' in (d) can save the unergative, suggesting again that the result phrase must be predicated of the object (and that purely semantic accounts are difficult). I try to show that unaccusativity is neither necessary nor sufficient to explain the distribution of resultatives. Instead, it can be explained without any construction-specific stipulations, in terms of (semantic) selectional restrictions imposed by verbs, together with independently attested properties of control and raising. I'd be in interested in hearing any comments on the draft. It can be downloaded as a .ps file from my web site (URL below); follow the link to 'recent papers'. If that doesn't work, let me know and I will get it to you another way. Thanks, Steve o----------------------------------------------------------------o | Stephen Wechsler, Assistant Prof. of Linguistics. 403 Calhoun | | Fall 96 office hrs: TBA. MAIL: Linguistics Dept.,| | 501 Calhoun, U. of Texas, Austin, TX 78712-1196.(512) 471-1701 | | http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~wechsler/ | o----------------------------------------------------------------o
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