New Solution to an Old Puzzle: Syntactic Approach to ...+3 Overview Thesis: Structural effects in novel verb learning can be explained by taking a syntactic approach to MRC A Lexical

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New Solution to an Old Puzzle: Syntactic Approach to Manner/Result Complementarity Explains the Structural Effects in Novel Verb Learning

Sherry Yong Chen University of Oxford

19 June 2017University of Cambridge vP Workshop

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Following the spirits of Roots V 2017!

■ But from an experimental perspective

■ vP is……

■ the “lexical” domain where verb stems are constructed

■ the “event” domain where event situations are structured and classified

■ Relevance to manner/result complementarity (MRC):

■ Manner can be read off the adjunction relation to v

■ Result can be read off a SCR(Small Clause Result)-like predicate

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Overview

■ Thesis: Structural effects in novel verb learning can be explained by taking a syntactic approach to MRC

■ A Lexical Approach: Levin & Rappaport Hovav

■ Processing MRC: Naigles & Terrazas

■ A Syntactic Approach: Mateu & Acedo-Matellán

■ New Explanations

■ Conclusion, Implication, & Future Direction

Lexical Approach Processing MRC Syntactic Approach New Explanations Conclusion & Implication

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Manner/Result Complementarity

■ The manner and result components of verbs are in complementary distribution (L & R-H, 1992, 1995, 2006; R-H & L, 1998, 2010)

■ Seconded by Berrebi & Bassel at Roots V (“Manner Islands”, 17 June 2017, QMUL)

■ (1) a. Mary waltzed.

b. Mary waltzed her feet sore.

■ (2) a. John broke his leg.

b. #John broke his leg bloody.


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L & R-H’s Proposal: a Lexical Constraint

■ “A [verbal] root can only be associated with one primitive predicate in an event schema, as either an argument or a modifier.” (R-H & L, 2010, p. 25)


■ There is a limited inventory of event structures that verbal roots associate with

■ (3) a. Manner schema: λxλe1 [ DO(e1, x) & root(e1) ]

b. Result schema: λxλe1 [ ∃e2 [ BECOME(e1, e2) & root(e2, x) ]

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Prediction for Processing

■ Result verbs represent a more complex schema than manner verbs

■ e.g. McKoon and Love (2011)

■ Due to this additional complexity of the result schema, manner meanings are expected to be the default interpretation during processing


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A Novel Verb Learning Study

■ Naigles and Terrazas (1998) examined the hypothesis that manner meanings are the default by using a novel verb learning paradigm

■ Today’s focus: English-speaking adult participants


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Training Phase

■ Three training videos showing a motion event (e.g. A woman moving towards a tree while skipping) paired with a novel verb (e.g. kradding) that appeared in one of following sentence frames:

■ (4) a. She’s kradding (neutral)

b. She’s kradding towards the tree (manner-biased)

c. She’s kradding the tree (result-biased)


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Test Phase

■ Participants were shown two more videos

■ ‘manner preserving’: a woman moving away from a tree while skipping

■ ‘result preserving’: a woman moving towards a tree while marching


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Test Phase

■ Participants were asked to choose which of the two videos was consistent with their interpretation of ‘kradding’

■ Answers were taken to indicate whether the participants had assigned the novel verb a manner or result interpretation

Lexical Approach Processing MRC Syntactic Approach New Explanations Conclusion & ImplicationPhoto credit: Experimental Psychology, Oxford

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Results

■ She’s kradding

■ In the neutral context, English speakers showed a preference for manner interpretations


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Results

■ She’s kradding towards the tree

■ When presented with verbs in manner-biased sentence frames, English speakers showed a strong preference for manner preserving videos, suggesting that they had interpreted the novel verb as a manner verb


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Results

■ She’s kradding the tree

■ However, when the verb was in the result-biased frame, English speakers showed no preference for manner or result preserving videos

■ Not predicted by the lexical constraint account.


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Explanation (or the lack thereof……)

■ Naigles and Terrazas (1998):

■ “When the semantic implications of the (syntactic) frame were at odds with a language’s conflation pattern, speakers were ambivalent and less consistent in their choices.”

■ “Adults’ lexical generalisations can be influenced by the perspective given by the frame.”

■ But…… how?


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A Syntactic Approach

■ Processing work suggests that more than just lexical complexity is involved during processing; structural cues are also at play

■ How exactly does syntax influence the acquisition and interpretation of a novel verb?

■ Mateu and Acedo-Matellán (2012) approached MRC as a constraint not on the lexicon but rather one that arises from general syntactic principles

■ See also Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou (2012)


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M & A-M’s Proposal

■ A verbal root can either adjoin to v as in (5a), or initially form a small clause followed by incorporation with v as in (5b):

■ (5) a. Manner construction: [vP [v √V v ] ]

b. Result construction: [vP v+√V [SC DP √V ] ]

■ Interpretation is derived from the position that the root occupies in the structure


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Consequences

■ According to this analysis, MRC arises as a simple syntactic fact: a verbal root cannot occupy both positions simultaneously in a single structure

■ Formally: a root cannot be incorporated (via Copy) and conflated (via Merge) at the same time (Haugen, 2009; Hale & Keyser, 1993)

■ Reason: morphophonological, which is that a single null head (i.e. v) may be specified with only one phonological matrix


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Implication of a Syntactic Approach (1)

■ Syntactic structure should affect whether a verb is interpreted as manner or as result

■ For instance, verbs like climb have been proposed as counterexamples to manner/result complementarity because they exhibit both meanings.

■ (6) a. The explorer climbed. (manner) [vP [DP the explorer ] [v √climb v ] ] b. The prices climbed. (result) [vP v+√climb [SC [DP the prices ] √climb ] ]


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■ But the two readings are in fact structurally conditioned

■ The presence of a directional PP triggers a manner interpretation because this phrase occupies the result argument within the small clause, forcing the verb to adjoin to v. In (7a), the ‘upward direction’ result of climb is unavailable and does not clash with the directional PP.


■ (7) a. The explorer climbed down the mountain. (manner) [vP [v √climb v][SC [DP the explorer][PP down the cave]]]

Implication (1) cont.

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■ Forcing a manner interpretation in (7b) results in oddity, perhaps because it is conceptually unclear how prices can ‘clamber’.


■ (7) b. ?? The prices climbed down the market.

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Implication of a Syntactic Approach (2)

■ Transitive constructions, too, condition the availability of manner and result interpretations

■ When the direct object is unaffected by the event, no change-of-state happens to it. Therefore, the only option is for the verbal root to adjoin with v

■ “Optionally causative manner verbs”, Alexiadou et al at Roots V (18 June 2017, QMUL)

■ However, if the direct object is affected by the event, the verbal root must begin its life as the result argument within the small clause and then incorporate with v


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■ Climb in these cases behaves like a manner verb because no change-of-state occurs to, for instance, the mountain in (8a), as compared with break, a result verb in (9b).


■ (8) a. The explorer climbed the mountain. (manner) [vP [DP the explorer ] [v’ [v √climb v ] [DP the mountain ] ] ]

b. ?? The prices climbed the market.

■ (9) a. ?? The explorer broke the mountain. b. The prices broke the market. (result)

[vP [DP the prices ] [v’ [v v+√break ] [SC [DP the market ] √break ] ] ]


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New Solution to an Old Puzzle

■ Back to Naigles and Terrazas (1998)……


■ Recall that there are three types of sentence frames:

■ (10) a. She’s kradding (neutral)

b. She’s kradding towards the tree (manner-biased)

c. She’s kradding the tree (result-biased)

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■ She’s kradding

■ In the neutral frame, the subject is clearly acting as an Agent. From an event structure perspective, Agents are arguments of DO and begin their syntactic lives in the specifier of v

■ Having no need for a small clause, a manner interpretation emerges as the preferred interpretative choice


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■ She’s kradding towards the tree

■ In English, the result-denoting prepositional phrase in the manner-biased frames occupied the result argument within the small clause, thus requiring the verb to adjoin to v and be interpreted as manner


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■ She’s kradding the tree

■ For the transitives in the result-biased frames, however, manner or result depended on whether participants considered the action to have a change-of-state, leading to a mixed result.


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Conclusion & Implication

■ The mixed results from Naigles and Terrazas (1998) can be captured by a syntactic approach to manner/result complementarity as proposed by Mateu and Acedo-Matellán (2012)

■ The complexity of manner/result meanings is structurally determined, and guides the acquisition of new verbal concepts


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Follow-up Studies


■ Joint work with Annelot de Rechteren van Hemert (Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford)

■ Novel verb learning paradigm

■ CHILDES corpus analysis

■ How do English (and Dutch) children interpret manner/result meanings of a novel motion verb?

+Selected ReferencesDen Dikken, M. (2010). Directions from the GET-GO. On the syntax of manner-of- motion verbs in directional constructions. Catalan

Journal of Linguistics, 9, 23–53. Hale, K., & Keyser, S. J. (1993). On argument structure and the lexical expression of syntactic relations. In K. Hale & S. J. Keyser

(Eds.), The view from Building 20: Essays in linguistics in honor of Sylvain Bromberger (pp. 53–109). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Harley, H. (2005). How do verbs get their names? Denominal verbs, manner incorporation and the ontology of verb roots in English. In

N. Erteschik-Shir & T. Rapoport (Eds.), The syntax of aspect (pp. 42–64). Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press. Haugen, J. D. (2009). Hyponymous objects and late insertion. Lingua, 119(2), 242–262. Hoekstra, T. (1988). Small clause results. Lingua, 74(2/3), 101–139. Kiparsky, P. (1997). Remarks on denominal verbs. In A` . Alsina, J. Bresnan & P. Sells (Eds.), Complex predicates (pp. 473–499).

Stanford: CSLI. Koontz-Garboden, A., & Beavers, J. (2010). Manner and result in the roots of verbal meaning (ms.). University of Manchester. Marantz, A. (1997). No escape from syntax: Don’t try morphological analysis in the privacy of your own lexicon. In A. Dimitriadis, L.

Siegel, C. Surek-Clark, & A. Williams (Eds.), Proceedings of the 21st Annual Penn Linguistics Colloquium. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics (vol. 4.2, pp. 201–225).

Marantz, A. (2009). Roots, re- and affected agents: Can roots pull the agent under little v? Paper presented at the workshop Roots: Word Formation from the Perspective of ‘‘Core Lexical Elements.’’ Universita ̈t Stuttgart, June 10–12.

Mateu, J. (2005). Arguing our way to the DOR on English resultatives. Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics, 8, 55–82. Levin, B. & Rappaport Hovav, M. (1992). The lexical semantics f verbs of motion: The perspective from unaccusativity. In I. M. Roca

(Ed.), Thematic structure: Its role in grammar, p.247-269. Berlin/New York: Foris Publications. Levin, B., & Rappaport Hovav, M. (2006). Constraints on the complexity of verb meaning and VP structure. Between, 40, 234-253. Mateu, J., & Acedo-Matellán, V. (2012). The Manner/Result complementarity revisited: A syntactic approach. In M. C. Cuervo, & Y.

Roberge (Eds.), The end of argument structure (pp. 209-228). Bingley: Emerald Group Naigles, L. R., & Terrazas, P. (1998). Motion-verb generalizations in English and Spanish: Influences of language and syntax.

Psychological Science, 9(5), 363-369. Rappaport Hovav, M., & Levin, B. (1998). Building verb meanings. In M. Butt and W. Geuder (Eds.), The projection of arguments:

Lexical and compositional factors (pp. 97-134). CSLI Publications. Rappaport Hovav, M., & Levin, B. (2010). Reflections on manner/result complementarity. In M. Rappaport Hovav, E. Doron, & I.

Sichel (Eds.), Syntax, Lexical Semantics, and Event Structure (pp. 21-38). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zubizarreta, M., & Oh, E. (2007). On the syntactic composition of manner and motion. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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+Related materials

■ Chen, S. Y. & Husband, E. M. ‘Decomposing event in real-time: Putting the pieces (back) together’. To appear in C. Cummins & N. Katsos (Eds), Handbook of Experimental Semantics and Pragmatics. Oxford University Press.

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+ Thank you!Acknowledgements: I thank Dr E. Matthew Husband and Annelot de Rechteren van Hemert for many helpful discussions.

This project is generously supported by China Oxford Scholarship Fund, Lincoln College Crewe Graduate Scholarship, and Faculty of Linguistics, Philology & Phonetics Graduate Travel Grant

Website: sherrychen.orgTwitter: @linguistsherryEmail: [email protected]

Documents

New Solution to an Old Puzzle: Syntactic Approach to ...+3 Overview Thesis: Structural effects in novel verb learning can be explained by taking a syntactic approach to MRC A Lexical