Cognate Objects Research Articles

Null vs. cognate objects and language contact: Evidence from Hellenistic Greek

Both “pleonastic” clitics instead of referential null objects and cognate objects in the Septuagint and the New Testament have been analyzed as resulting from contact between Greek and Hebrew. We examine the hypothesis of Hebrew interference and argue that the syntactic characteristics of Hebrew of referential overt objects and activity/event noun cognate objects are not transferred directly to Greek. We propose a second hypothesis according to which language contact (between Biblical Hebrew and Greek) results in semantic changes and these semantic changes affect transitivity. The semantic changes related to language contact concern the aspectual features of Greek: the development of the verbal aspect in Greek from expression of situation-type oppositions to expression of viewpoint (+/ − perfective) aspect oppositions can explain the changes observed in transitivity in Hellenistic Greek.

A note on cognate objects: Cognation as doubling

This note considers some of the problems raised by so-called “cognate objects” in the light of Hale & Keyser’s (1993, 1997, 1998) analysis of unergative verbs, which involves incorporation of a noun occupying the internal argument position. Unless we assume that the cognate object is post-syntactically inserted in the internal argument position (which already contains a trace/copy left by the element undergoing incorporation), this element should not be licensed. I propose that this tension can be solved if the incorporating noun (or root) and the cognate object start off as part of the same syntactic object: a big NP/DP. From such perspective, cognation can be seen as a subcase of a more general phenomenon: doubling.

The physical attribute construction in Japanese and the cognate object construction in English

Abstract This paper deals with the physical attribute construction (PAC) in Japanese such as Cameron Diaz-wa kireina me-o siteiru ‘Cameron Diaz has beautiful eyes’. This paper points out that the PAC shares some properties with the cognate object construction (COC) in English such as The tree grew a century's growth within only ten years. The properties include: (i) the obligatory presence of the modifier, (ii) the semantic focus on the modifier, (iii) the inability to be passivized and (iv) the inability to be operator-moved. Based upon these properties, this paper reaches the conclusion that the English COC involving unaccusative verbs is the counterpart of the Japanese PAC. Furthermore some principled accounts are given to those properties.

The family of English cognate object constructions

In the Cognate Object Construction (COC) a typically intransitive verb combines with a postverbal noun phrase whose head noun is morphologically or semantically cognate to the verb. I will argue that English has a family of COCs which consists of four different types. The COCs share common core properties but differ with respect to some of their syntactic and semantic properties. I will capture the ˋˋcognateness'' between the verb and the noun in all COCs by token identities at the level of their lexical semantic contribution. I will use an inheritance hierarchy on lexical rule sorts to model the family relations among the different COC types.

Structure and Types of Cognate Object Constructions

Structure and Types of Cognate Object Constructions

Null objects in child language: Syntax and the lexicon

Object realization or omission has both a syntactic component (what kinds of mechanisms govern the licensing and recoverability of null objects) and a lexical component (what types of verbs allow optional realization of their direct object argument). In this paper, we consider early object omissions in two experimental studies with French and English speaking children. Our goal is to evaluate the extent to which early object omission is the result of deficits in the syntactic or lexical representation of objects. Our approach relates developmental rates to the complexity of the input: differences in the rate of object omissions depend directly on the extent and variety of null object constructions available in the target grammar. All children go through a stage of object pronoun optionality. This stage does not reflect difficulty in computation, but rather the free availability of referential null cognate objects. Children exposed to a language like French retain the referential reading of the null cognate object longer because they are exposed to a wider variety of null object contexts. The results of our experimental work support the conclusion that lexical learning in the verbal domain is driven by syntax.

Adverbial Cognate Objects

Adverbial Cognate Objects

L'objet interne existe-t-il ?

<titre/> The basic idea behind this paper is the analysis of the complement of some French verbs such as vivre or dormir. As the complement of these verbs, which integrate all or some morphological and/or semantic features of the verb that monitors it, scholars contend about its syntactic function. In fact some theoretical approaches hesitate about its definition and classification. In our view, this complement must be considered a direct object complement and a new analysis is proposed so as to provide such an evidence. By studying the basic properties and features of this complement we conclude that there is no reason to consider it as a cognate object, but a full direct object complement.

Polysemy: Theoretical and Computational Approaches (review)

Reviewed by: Polysemy: Theoretical and computational approaches ed. by Yael Ravin, Claudia Leacock M. Lynne Murphy Polysemy: Theoretical and computational approaches. Ed. by Yael Ravin and Claudia Leacock. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Pp. xi, 227. $24.95. This volume distinguishes itself by its very catholic table of contents, including a wide variety of theoretical views as well as several computational approaches to the problem of disambiguation. [End Page 207] Ravin and Leacock’s ‘Polysemy: An overview’ (1–29) gives a concise history of the progress and problems in accounting for polysemy in four approaches: classical models of definition, prototype approaches, relational models, and computational approaches. In doing so, they highlight the contributions made by the chapters in this volume to each of these traditions and thereby give a semblance of coherence to this wide range of work. It’s interesting to note, however, that the word pragmatic(s) does not appear here. Polysemy is considered a semantic problem, such that ‘The challenge for semantic theories lies in formulating mechanisms to trigger the relevant meaning components in the appropriate contexts’ (22). Given the wide range of applications of the word semantics in the diverse approaches presented here, that these triggering mechanisms should be assumed to be a semantic problem is legitimate only in the widest understanding of the term semantic: ‘having to do with meaning’. In the conclusion of his ‘Aspects of the microstructure of word meanings’ (30–51), Alan Cruse helpfully names this context-sensitive approach to meaning ‘soft semantics’. Cruse’s chapter demonstrates the range of variation among polysemes using a variety of ambiguity and unity tests and proposes three sources of discontinuity in meaning: subsenses, facets, and ways-of-seeing. This taxonomy of different meaning types is presented against the backdrop of a view which holds that meaning is ‘infinitely variable and context sensitive’, but that ‘there are nonetheless regions of higher semantic “density”. . . forming as it were more or less well-defined “lumps” of meaning with greater or lesser stability under contextual change’ (30). Subsenses are diagnosed if two referents of the same use of the word must be of the same type and if the meanings have independent truth conditions and different sense relations. On these criteria, Cruse argues that knife has subsenses corresponding to the various types of knife (scalpel, cutlery, penknife). Unlike subsenses, facets cannot be so clearly separated. Cruse uses the example of book, whose tome and text meanings are clearly different but can be evoked by a single use of the word, as in an interesting and well-produced book. Ways-of-seeing (WOS) correspond loosely to Pustejovsky’s qualia categories and are less distinct than subsenses or facets. Cruse acknowledges that the implications of his views are not entirely worked out, and there is a fair amount of vagueness in this chapter as to the nature of the semantic muck in which lumps and nodules form. Nevertheless, his taxonomy is a useful one, and he concludes that word meanings cannot be isolated outside of context because they are ‘irreducibly complex’ and that prototypes are likely insufficient to capture the nuances of semantic unity and discontinuity. Christiane Fellbaum’s chapter on ‘Autotroponymy’ (52–67) looks at verbs with superordinate and subordinate senses, in which the subordinate sense conflates some argument or modifier. While these types are not regular, Fellbaum finds some generalizations among them. James Pustejovsky’s ‘Lexical shadowing and argument closure’ (68–90) focuses on a much more specific area of verbal polysemy, accounting for two types of optional argument expression, risk-type verbs and cognate object verbs like dance. The chapter depends on previous familiarity with and acceptance of Pustejovsky’s generative lexicon framework. Charles Fillmore and B. T. S. Atkins give us ‘Describing polysemy: The case of crawl’ (91–110), in which they present a semantic network of crawl’s meanings (derived from corpus data) and compare crawl to the French ramper. Their methods have obvious applications for lexicography, and they suggest reasons why semantically similar words do not follow the same polysemous patterns crosslinguistically. The next two chapters bring into question the boundary between the syntactic and the...

Polysemy, polyvalence, and linking mismatches: the concept of RAIN and its codings in English, German, Italian, and Spanish

Based on an ontological frame for comparative onomasiological lexicology which embeds the RAIN eventity type as an exponent-shaped activity into a general linguistic ontology as well as an ontology of motion, the words for RAIN in two Germanic and two Romance languages are compared with respect to their semantic and syntactic variability. It turns out that the Germanic forms are more flexible than the Romance forms. English rain has the highest variability: It can be used with eight valencies, a nominal and seven verbal ones, and with five different meanings, and it is the only one to display a valence that combines an expletive subject with a cognate object as well as a causativized eventity meaning. On the other hand only German regnen has a resultativized meaning. The Romance languages too show some internal variance: In allowing both an impersonal construction with a generalized meaning and a source construction, Spanish llover is slightly more flexible than Italian piovere. Finally, an Optimality Theoretic account of the data is adumbrated in terms of three principles: Avoid linking mismatches, Avoid heterogeneity of sentence patterns, and Avoid redundancy.

A SEMANTIC ACCOUNT OF ISLAND-EXTRACTION

This paper points out the fact that the resultant object shows strong deviancy when it is extracted out of a wh-island, which cannot be explained within Rizzi's (1990) ECP account. I argue that the acceptability of island extraction is subject to a semantic constraint and propose the pre-existence condition. Furthermore, our analysis provides a unified account of the unacceptability of island-extraction of some other postverbal constituents: eventive objects, true cognate objects, nominal idiom chunks, lexically selected manner adverbials, adjectival predicates, some types of measure phrases, and fake objects in unergative resultatives.

Modern Hebrew for Biblical Scholars (review)

Hebrew Studies 41 (2000) 227 Reviews various constructions is analyzed and interpreted will be of considerable interest to teachers of biblical Hebrew as well as to scholars. J. Glen Taylor Toronto School o/Theology Toronto, ON Canada jgtaylor@chass.utoronto.ca MODERN HEBREW FOR BIBLICAL SCHOLARS. By Takamitsu Muraoka. Weisbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. 1998. pp. xlv + 183. Paper. 48.00DM. This book constitutes a revised and enlarged edition of a work published by the author in 1982. The first thirty pages of the book (pp. xvi-xlv) are introductory in nature. providing an outline of modern Hebrew grammar. They focus mainly on the following topics: a) the components of modern Hebrew in terms of spelling and pronunciation; b) morphology, focusing on the diverse kinds and functions of the modern Hebrew pronoun (personal . suffixal. demonstrative. relative. reflexive. emphatic, interrogative. indefmite. and comparative). the noun, the adjective, the verb. the adverb, and the preposition; c) syntax. which includes inter alia a discussion of the nominal clause and copula. word order. modal expressions. diverse kinds of clauses (relative. circumstantial. and conditional); d) rhetorics and pragmatics. including discourse markers and abbreviations. The object of this introductory grammatical outline, the author stresses. is not meant to teach basic Hebrew grammar per se, but rather to "highlight the major differences in linguistic structure between Biblical Hebrew and Modern Hebrew as is used in a specific literary genre. namely, academic and scholarly writings." (p. xi). The heart of the book constitutes a chrestomathy of 28 texts (pp. 2-137). divided into three sections: Hebrew and Semitic linguistics (13 texts). general biblical studies (10 texts). and Palestinian archaeology (5 texts). Each text is extensively annotated. They include texts of C. Rabin. Joshua Blau, H. Yalon, E. Y. Kutscher. M. H. Goshen-Gottstein. A. Hurvitz. Z. Ben-l:Iayyim. Sh. Morag. Sh. Talmon, H. Yeivin, E. Tov, J. Gutman, Y. Kaufmann, N. H. Tur-Sinai. A. Malamat, M. Haran, U. Cassuto, J. Licht, Y. Aharoni. B. Mazar, Y. Yadin, H. Tadmor and Sh. Ahituv. and P. Artzi. The texts are extensively annotated; English transla- Hebrew Studies 41 (2000) 228 Reviews tion for only three of them is provided. The first text of each of the three sections is fully vocalized, while others are partially vocalized, the extent of the vocalization decreasing gradually. The book ends with a HebrewEnglish glossary (pp. 140-183). One wonders as to the justification for yet another book on Hebrew grammar, morphology, and syntax when numerous detailed and in-depth studies in these areas have been published by Israeli scholars in Hebrew, parts of which, as the author admits, are available in West-European languages . The author seems to have anticipated such a question on the part of readers. The main objective of this work, he rationalizes, is to meet the needs of those Hebraists, Biblical scholars and Semiticists to whom "unpointed Hebrew publications remain a terra incognita." This book, he hopes, will help make these works accessible to non-Hebrew readers. Indeed, the author painstakingly and commendably takes the reader through a discussion of almost every aspect of Hebrew grammar, including its components and usage in comparison with biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew . The grammatical outline includes discussion on conjugations (binyanTm), inflection of verbs, dagesh lene and dagesh forte, distinction between shewa mobile and shewa quiescent, proclitic particles, diverse kinds of pronouns, subordinate clauses, cognate objects, asyndetic relative clauses, etc.-all with good examples from modem Hebrew. I have detected some errors in the book. Here are a few of them: In his discussion of biblical words and idioms which have fallen into disuse, the author states that the word ID'M "is only rarely used in the sense of man (= male), for which -ol is the nonnal expression" (p. xvii). I fmd this statement to be inaccurate. In addition to the meaning of male, the word ,:u carries in modem Hebrew the connotation of a person with qualities conventionally regarded as manly, such as strength and courage. The word ~R is far from being rare when referring to an adult male; in fact, it is rather common. The author's discussion of modem Hebrew pronunciation (pp. xviii-xx) seems to reflect an earlier linguistic situation...

Cognate Objects in Russian: Is the Notion “Cognate” Relevant for Syntax?

AbstractThis article is concerned with cognate objects (COs) in Russian, of which there are shown to be two types. Only one type of CO exhibits argument properties, while the other type is shown to pattern with predicative nominals. Furthermore, it is argued that the two types of COs pattern with non-cognate nominals with the same function. It is therefore proposed to analyze argument COs on a par with their non-cognate counterparts as thematic direct objects, checking their accusative case in the specifier of Aspect Phrase. In contrast, the non-argument COs are analyzed as secondary predicates over the event argument projected by the main predicate of the clause. Finally, it is argued that a narrow, English-based definition of a CO (i.e., based on zero affixation) cannot be applied to other languages with richer derivational morphology. Yet, once the definition is widened to include all nominals based on the same root as the verb, it is concluded that being cognate is not relevant for the theory of syntax and must therefore be relegated to the morphological component of the language.

Impersonal se Constructions in Romance and the Passivization of Unergatives

Romance constructions of the type SE Vunerg (e.g., si dorme) are shown to rely not only on nominative SE, as in Italian finite clauses, but also on accusative middle-passive SE. The latter analysis is needed for Romanian, because this language does not have nominative SE, as well as for Italian nonfinite clauses, in which nominative SE is illegitimate. According to my restatement of Cinque's (1988) generalizations, [+/−1arg] features are not needed. I assume a constrained theory of passivization, according to which the suspended Agent role cannot surface in the syntax as either -en or SE. The passivization of unergatives depends on analyzing unergatives as transitives with null cognate objects.

Modularity in Thematic versus Aspectual Licensing: Paths and Moved Objects in Motion Verbs

AbstractThis article investigates the nature of argumenthood and adjuncthood, through an examination of the behaviour of the internal arguments of two classes of motion verbs in English. A highly modular view is put forth, in which three separate distinctions influencing argument-like or adjunct- like behaviour must be recognized: aspectual versus thematic licensing, structural versus inherent case assignment, and referentiality versus non-referentiality. Of these three, only referentiality is a graded rather than a binary distinction. The distinction between aspectual and thematic licensing is developed and elucidated. A picture emerges in which aspectual structure may itself be thematically licensed by a verb, and this aspectual structure may have its own arguments, which are then indirectly licensed by the verb. Cognate objects and Romance measure phrases are also discussed in light of these theoretical conclusions.

Cognate Objects as Thematic Objects

This paper examines cognate object (CO) constructions such as those in (1).(1)a.Dorothea smiled a smile.b.Dorothea smiled a wicked smile.c.Dorothea has smiled all her smiles.The central question which is raised by such constructions regards the status of the CO with respect to both its syntax and its semantics. That this question is not a new one, nor one confined to theoretical linguistics is seen in Harper’s English Grammar where we read: “Some authorities . . . contend that cognate verbs — verbs which are followed by objects that repeat their meaning — are intransitive. However the verbs in such expressions asHe slept a peaceful sleepandHe lived a useful lifeare by the majority of grammarians regarded as transitive verbs” (Opdycke 1941:106).

Cognate objects and the Case-filter

The main concern of this paper is sentences like the following containing so-called ‘cognate objects’: (1) (a) John died a gruesome death. (b) Harry lived an uneventful life. (c) Bill sighed a weary sigh.

The Lewis Evans Collection at Oxford

RECENT ADDITIONS. WHEN the oldest of British museums was reopened for the scientific treasures presented to the University of Oxford by Dr. Lewis Evans, it was foreseen that that fine collection must act as;a lodestone and attract cognate objects to itself. This expectation has been realised in a remarkable measure by gifts and loans of apparatus, and by the discovery and reconstruction of long-forgotten instruments. The first fruits of the reversion of a part of the Old Asbmolean building to its original use as a Science Museum are now on exhibition.