Instrument–Subject Alternation: A Further Case Study in Lexical Pragmatics

Abstract

The instrument–subject alternation is a cross-linguistic phenomenon in which a verb’s semantic argument with an instrument thematic role can be expressed syntactically not only as an adverbial phrase but also as a subject instead of an agentive subject. Using data from Hungarian, in the present paper I attempt to work out an account of this alternation that has the following advantageous features. First, by means of a pragmatically oriented weaker notion of causation (Koenig et al., J Semant 25:175–220, 2008) a solid basis is assumed to determine which verbs alternate and which verbs do not. Second, syntactic alternations are not treated as lexical or constructional phenomena (as are in lexical or constructional approaches, respectively). However, they fit a lexical-constructional approach which naturally extends to lexical pragmatics (Bibok, From syntactic alternations to lexical pragmatics, 2010). After establishing corresponding verbal meaning representations the lexical pragmatic account can also contribute to the understanding of the syntactic alternation under discussion presumably in other languages than Hungarian.