Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure (Cognitive Theory of Language and Culture Series)

277 Pages·1995·103.07 MB·English

by  Adele E. Goldberg

CONSTRUCTIONS
Cognitive Theory of Language and Culture
A series edited by Gilles Fauconnier.
George Lakoff, and Eve Sweetser
CONSTR U CTI NS

A Construction Grammar
Approach to
Argument Structure
Adele E. Goldberg

The University of Chicago Press
" .r
.Y
J Chicago and London
ADELE E. GOLDBERG is assistant professor of linguistics at the University of
California, San Diego.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
:t; [995 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 1995
Primed in the United Slates of America
04 03 02 01 00 99 98 97 96 95 5 4 3 2
[SBN (cloth): 0-226-30085-4
[SBN (paper): 0-226-30086-2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Goldberg, Adele E.
Constructions: a construction grammar approach to argument ,tructl.lre /
Adele E. Goldberg.
p. cm. - (Cognitive theory of language and culture)
Originally presented as the author's thesis (Ph.D.)-University of California,
[992.
Includes bibliographical references (p.) and index.
[SBN 0-226-30085-4 (cloth). - [SBN 0-226-30086-2 (pbk.)
l. Grammar, Comparative and general-Syntax. 2. Semantics.
3. Generative grammar. I. Title. ll . Series.
P29l.G65 1995
41 5-dc20 94-20705
CIP
@ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the
American National Standard for Information Science~-Pcrmanencc of Paper for
Printed Library Materials, ANS[ Z39.48-1984.
This book is printed on acid-Free paper.

Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction
1.1 The Concept of Constructions
1.2 A Brief Introduction to Construction Grammar 6

1.3 An Alternative Account: Lexicosemantic Rules 7

1.4 Advantages of the Construction Account 9

1.5 Traditional Motivations for Lexical Rules 21

2 The Interaction between Verbs and Constructions 24

2.1 Frame semantics 25

2.2 The Nature of Verb Meaning 27

2.3 The Nature of Constructional Meaning 31

2.4 The Integration of Verb and Construction 43

2.5 Possible Relations between Verbs and Constructions 59

2.6 Conclusion 66

3 Relations among Constructions 67

3.1 Relevant Psychological Principles of Language Organization 67

3.2 Motivation 69

3.3 Representing Motivation by Inheritance 72

3.4 Relating Particular Constructions 81

3.5 Multiple Inheritance 97

3.6 Inheritance within Constructions 98

3.7 Conclusion 99

4 On linking 101

4.1 Transformational Approaches of Argument Structure 10 I

4.2 Generalizations across Constructions 108

4.3 Conclusion 11 9

5 Partial Productivity 120

5.1 Introduction 120

5.2 Indirect Negative Evidence 122

5.3 Circumscribing Verb Classes 125

5.4 Exceptions J29

5.5 Accounting for the Exceptions: A Usage-based Account 133

5.6 Conclusion 139

vii
viii Contents
6 The English Ditransitive Construction 141
6.1 Introduction 141
6.2 The Existence of the Construction 141
6.3 The Semantics 142
6.4 Conclusion 151
7 The English Caused-Motion Construction 152
7.1 Introduction 152
7.2 The Existence of the Construction 153
7.3 The Various Interpretations 161
7.4 Semantic Constraints 164
7.5 The Load/Spray Alternation 175
7.6 Conclusion 179
8 The English Resultative Construction 180
8.1 Introduction 180
8.2 The Status of the Postverbal NP 182
8.3 Middle Formation 183
8.4 Other Accounts 185
8.5 The Existence of a Resultative Construction 188
8.6 Constraints on the Resultative Construction 193
8.7 Conclusion 198
9 The Way Construction 199
9.1 Introduction 199
9.2 The Existence of the Construction 199
9.3 The Semantics of the Way Construction 202
9.4 Semantic Constraints 212
9.5 The Lexical Complex Predicate Approach 214
9.6 Relation to Resultatives 215
9.7 Conclusion 217
10 Conclusion 219
10.1 Other Constructional Approaches 219
10.2 Summary 224
Notes 22 9
Bibliography 243
Index 261
Acknow ledgments

This book grew out of my Ph.D. thesis (Goldberg 1992b), which was
completed at the University of California, Berkeley. An enormous debt is owed
to my advisor, George Lakoff, for his wisdom, enthusiasm, and encourage­
ment, his ever-ready example and counterexample, and for sharing his time
and his deep insights with incredible generosity.
I'd like to thank Charles Fillmore for instilling in me a deep respect for the
complexities of the data, and for sharing his wisdom. His enduring insights
have profoundly influenced this work in innumerable ways. I'm also grateful
for his spearheading the development of the theory of Construction Grammar,
on which the present work is based.
Work in Construction Grammar includes, for example, Fillmore, Kay and
O'Connor's analysis of the let alone and the more, the merrier constructions
(1988), Brugman's analysis of have constructions (1988), Kay 's work on even
(1990), the "What, me worry?" construction of Lambrecht (1990), and Sweet­
ser's analysis of modal verbs (1990). Construction Grammar is also developed
in Fillmore (1985b, 1987, 1988, 1990), Fillmore & Kay (1993), Filip (1993),
Jurafsky (1992), Koenig (1993), and Michaelis (1993). The present work owes
its greatest debts to Lakoff's in-depth study of there constructions (1984) and
to Fillmore (1987), who suggested that the meaning of an expression is arrived
at by the superimposition of the meanings of open class words with the mean­
ings of grammatical elements.
I'm grateful to Dan Slobin for his encouragement and guidance, and for
providing a reality check on the plausibility of psychological claims. In the
final stages of writing my dissertation, I was fortunate enough to work closely
with Annie Zaenen. I am immensely grateful for her advice, her many leads to
relevant literature, and for our many interesting and helpful discussions, which
have deeply inAuenced my work.
Other members of the Berkeley faculty contributed in countless ways to my
education. Eve Sweetser tirelessly read and offered valuable comments on
many papers; Paul Kay provided much helpful input, and was consistently will­
ing to lend an ear and a critical eye; Robert Wilensky offered many helpful
discussions and some wonderful data. Len Talmy was always willing to discuss
all manner of ideas. Visitors Don Forman, Knud Lambrecht, Minoko Nakau,
ix
x Acknowledgments
Frederika Van der Leek, and Robert Van Valin offered different perspectives
and very helpful discussions.
I'd like to offer personal thanks to Claudia Brugman. Michele Emanatian,
Hana Filip, Jean-Pierre Koenig, and Laura Michaelis for support of every kind,
including countless enlightening discussions on topics related to almost every
aspect of this monograph. I'm also grateful to Jess Gropen, Beth Levin, Steve
Pinker, and Ray Jackendoff, for their own inspirational work and for their help­
ful feedback and discussion.
During the writing and rewriting of this manuscript, I was able to spend a
good deal of time at Berkeley, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, Stanford, and
the University of California, San Diego, so there are many people to thank for
very helpful suggestions and discussions, including Farrell Ackerman, Joan
Bresnan, Tony Davis, Jane Espenson, Gilles Fauconnier, Joe Grady, Marti
Hearst, Kyoko Hirose, Rolf Johnson, Dan lurafsky, Suzanne Kemmer, Yuki
Kuroda, Ron Langacker, Maarten Lemmens, John Moore, Terry Regier, Hadar
Shem-Tov, Eve Clark, Cleo Condoravdi, Mark Gawron, Jess Gropen, Geoff
Nunberg, Ivan Sag, Tom Wasow, Ali Yazdani, and Sandro Zucchi. Several
UCSD students carefully read the manuscript and made very helpful sugges­
tions, particularly Kathleen Ahrens, Michael Israel, and Bill Morris. For help
preparing the manuscript I would like to thank Kathleen Ahrens, Bill Byrne,
and Nitya Sethuraman. Finally, for editorial assistance I thank Geoff Huck and
Karen Peterson, and for the most careful, well-informed copy-editing I could
have imagined, I thank Christine Bartels.
Excerpts of this book first appeared, in different form, as articles or book
chapters. I thank the publishers for permission to include revised material from:
"The Inherent Semantics of Argument Structure: The Case of the English
Ditransitive Construction," Cognitive Linguistics 3(1): 37 - 74, 1992; "A Se­
mantic Account of Resultatives," Linguistic Analysis 21 :66-96, 1991; " It
Can't Go Down the Chimney Up: Paths and the English Resultative," BLS )7;
"Making One's Way Through the Data," in A. Alsina, 1. Bresnan, and P. Sells
(eds.), Complex Predicates, CSLI Publications, forthcoming; "Another Look
at Some Learnability Paradoxes," in Proceedings of the 251hAnnual Stanford
Child Language Research Forum, CSLI Publications.
For providing financial support, comfortable offices, and stimulating envi­
ronments, I'd like to thank the Sloan Foundation, who funded the Cognitive
Science Institute at Berkeley, the International Computer Science Institute
(ICSI), the Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI), and
Xerox PARe.
A crucial debt is owed to my family: my mom, Ann Goldberg, for being a
voice of reason on topics related to this monograph and on all others; my sib­