Past Participle Constructions Research Articles

Decomposing unaccusativity: a statistical modelling approach

ABSTRACT While the two types of intransitive verbs, i.e. unergative and unaccusative, are hypothesised to be syntactically represented, many have proposed a semantic account where abstract properties related to agentivity and telicity, often conceptualised as binary properties, determine the classification. Here we explore the extent to which graded, embodied features rooted in neurobiological systems contribute to the distinction, representing verb meanings as continuous human ratings over various experiential dimensions. Unlike prior studies that classified verbs based on categorical intuition, we assessed the degree of unaccusativity by acceptability of the prenominal past participle construction, one of the unaccusativity diagnostics. Five models were constructed to explain these data: categorical syntactic/semantic, feature-based event-semantic, experiential, and distributional models. The experiential model best explained the diagnostic test data, suggesting that the unaccusative/unergative distinction may be an emergent phenomenon related to differences in underlying experiential content. The experiential model’s advantages, including interpretability and scalability, are also discussed.

What do we learn when we adapt to reading regional constructions?

We present four experiments investigating adaptation to a regional grammatical structure through reading exposure, using both the needs + past participle construction (e.g., The car needs washed) and the double modal construction (e.g. You might could go there). In each experiment, participants read two stories containing informal dialogue. Half of the participants were exposed to one of the regional constructions and half were not. Those readers exposed to the regional constructions adapted, gradually reading the novel constructions faster over 9 to 15 exemplars. The degree to which the exposed group learned the construction was tested in two ways. In the first two experiments, learning was measured by comparing reading times to acceptable and unacceptable variants of the novel constructions. Readers did not learn either the verb tense rule for the needs construction (Experiment 1) or a simple ordering rule for double modal constructions (Experiment 2). Similarly, in Experiments 3 and 4, metalinguistic judgments used to test learning revealed that participants had failed to acquire the regional grammar of either novel construction. These experiments suggest that the adaptation effects reflect learning some general properties of the experimental stimuli, not learning the syntactic constructions themselves.

On word order and Case in Old Italian past participle constructions

While in Modern Italian, V1 is mandatory in absolute constructions, no such restriction is operative in Old Italian. On the surface, such a fact could be interpreted as a sign of residual V-to-Comp movement in Modern Italian. However, it is not: In Old Italian, participles targeted a position lower than Comp and, hence, the V1 pattern of Modern Italian is an innovation rather than a residue from the earlier stage. The difference between the two grammars lies in the interaction of independent properties of Old Italian and Modern Italian: First, in Old Italian, two arguments can be case licensed because of the presence of a Tense Phrase in the participle clause. In Modern Italian, where no Tense Phrase is projected, nominative can only be licensed by focus as an instance of default case assignment. Second, a general change relating to information structure has as its consequence that a focused argument is realized post-verbally in Modern Italian, which explains the obligatory V1 pattern.

Adjunct control in German, Norwegian, and English

This paper presents an overview of adjunct control in German, Norwegian, and English, comprising adverbial infinitives, adverbial present and past participle constructions, as well as adverbial small clauses headed by the particle als in German, som in Norwegian, and as in English. We show that the height of the adjunction site (and thus, following scope-based adjunct theories, the underlying semantics of the adjuncts) determines the control possibilities. Based on a large set of data, we argue that event- and process-modifying adjuncts, i.e. adjuncts adjoined in the verbal domain (at the vP- or VP-level, respectively), display obligatory control (OC) properties, whereas sentence and speech act adverbials, which are adjoined at the TP- and CP-level, respectively, rather involve non-obligatory control (NOC). To capture these data theoretically, we propose a structural account that assumes that OC relations are syntactically licensed under upward Agree with PRO being the referentially defective probe that needs to be referentially identified in the course of the derivation by the controller, i.e. the goal. If the adjunct is adjoined in the verbal domain, such an Agree relation can be successfully established and OC is derived. If adjunction occurs in higher adjunction sites, i.e. outside of the verbal domain, feature valuation under Agree fails; as a last resort strategy, the control relation is then licensed on the basis of pragmatic factors, which yields NOC.

Register effects and the Spanish adjectival construction sin + INF in historical corpus data

This study analyzes the usage of the Spanish adjectival sin + infinitive verb construction (un libro sin terminar ‘an unfinished book’) and the no + past participle construction (un libro no terminado ‘an unfinished book’) in historical corpus data, with the objective of quantitatively assessing Pountain’s (1993) analysis of the emergence of adjectival sin + INF as motivated in part by register formality. A logistic regression analysis finds that the usage of adjectival sin + INF over no + PP is significantly favored by the text register of Prose Fiction, and significantly disfavored by the register of Legal Texts. Furthermore, this preference increases with time in the register of Prose Fiction. These findings support Pountain’s claim, in showing that register effects significantly influence the usage of the novel construction. Ultimately, this study stresses the importance of measuring register effects in the analysis of language change in corpus data.

Морфологическая аналитическая конструкция с глаголом get в английском языке

The aim of the study is to analyse the functioning of morphological analytical constructions of passive voice in modern English. The paper considers the gradual change in morphological status of analytical constructions with the verb get. Scientific originality of the paper lies in conducting a comprehensive analysis of grammaticalisation dynamics characterising the get + Past Participle structure over the period from the XVIII to the XX century and in identifying stages of its development in British and American English. As a result, the researcher has proved that at different stages of its development the construction is characterised by different lexical valence and asymmetric distribution of grammatical and lexical meanings. The paper presents the development of the get + Past Participle construction as a three-stage grammaticalisation model.

Further remarks on the deflexion and grammaticalization of the Old English past participle with habban

This article deals with the transitive construction involving habban and the past participle in Old English, and focuses on the loss of the adjectival segment of the participial inflection. The analysis is based on data retrieved from the York–Toronto–Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose. Inflectional morphology and constituent order, including the relative and the absolute position of the past participle, are considered. The data indicate that the reanalysis the habban+past participle construction is nearly over by the end of the period.

Ereigniskontrollierte Adjunkte im Deutschen

AbstractThe present paper investigates small clause adjuncts displaying the phenomenon referred to as ‘event control’ in literature. Many languages, including German, employ non-finite clauses (besides finite clauses) as propositional adjuncts, for instance infinitival, participial and small clause adjuncts. The subject of these adjunct clauses is left unexpressed and must generally be interpreted co-referentially with the subject or object of the matrix clause (subject or object control), but the matrix event itself can also be interpreted as the controller. Adjuncts involving event control have, to my knowledge, never been examined jointly or particularly thoroughly. The aim of this paper is therefore to provide insight into German data involving event control in different kinds of non-finite propositional adjunct clauses, by examining common and diverging syntactic and semantic properties. The data comprises nominative DPs (Germ.Satzappositionen), adverbial infinitives headed byum(Engl.in order to), adverbial present and past participle constructions, and adverbial small clauses headed by the particleals. Furthermore, I discuss briefly how these data could be captured theoretically, by analyzing them as adjuncts in different syntactic-semantic domains and as obligatorily controlled (OC) adjuncts according to the OC-properties described by Landau (2013).

Exaptation, Refunctionalization, Decapitalization—BE + Past Participle with Intransitive Verbs in Mediaeval and Early Modern Spanish

The chapter presents the current state of research concerning the development of the BE + past participle constructions from Latin to Spanish. Starting from the description in Rosemeyer (2014) and the theoretical background collated in Kailuweit and Rosemeyer (2015), it will be shown that the functional change does not follow traditional grammaticalization paths. Several concepts that deal with cases contradicting traditional grammaticalization theory will be discussed. ‘Exaption’ (Lass 1990, 1997), focusing on total defunctionalization does not account for the fact that the resultative value of the BE + past participle construction, marginal in Latin, becomes central in Mediaeval Spanish. ‘Refunctionalization’ Smith (2008, 2011) captures this aspect in a more appropriate way. However, the development of the construction could be also conceived as the opposite of what Pountain (2000) describes as ‘capitalization’: a process of ‘decapitalization,’ by which a feature is exploited, not for wider, but for more restricted purposes.

Phi-Agreement in Past Participle Constructions

I argue in this paper that agreeing past participles are merged externally in the derivation in V endorsed with a feature [+resultative], whereas non-agreeing past participles are bound to value a feature [+perfective] against the have-auxiliary. Phi-agreement on the former kind of participle occurs since the meaning [+resultative] denotes a property of the logical object, which happens to merge in the position of sister to V-en. As postulated in standard frameworks, phi-agreement consists in that the V-en form values uninterpretable phi-features against the DP object. In contrast with agreeing past participles, non-agreeing past participles are merged externally in the form of V and they get their –en suffix in v valued against the have-auxiliary once the latter enters the derivation. The meaning or interpretation of this –en suffix is [+perfective] or [+anterior]. No phi-agreement occurs between these V-en forms marked [+perfective] and their logical object (whenever they select for one) since [+perfective] is a property of the event or situation as a whole, and not of the object. It is further suggested that the specific Agree relation that is phi-agreement appears not to be subject to configurations of asymmetric c-command, but to just occur on external Merge of the DP that bears the corresponding valued, interpretable phi-features.

El disco está besado por Justin, la novela ya está leída: a propósito de las construcciones resultativas con estar

Este trabajo tiene por objeto indagar sobre dos aspectos de las construcciones resultativas formadas por un participio y el verbo estar: por un lado, la vinculación de estas construcciones con el concepto de ‘estado resultante’; por otro lado, la existencia de construcciones resultativas de sentido atributivo que incorporan complementos referidos al agente y/o no están formadas por verbos que incluyan en su estructura léxica un estado resultante. El examen muestra que “estado resultante” se usa al menos con dos sentidos que se relacionan asimismo con dos tipos de construcciones resultativas: unas de sentido atributivo o cualitativo, más comúnmente reconocido, otras con un sentido “de fase” más temporal, asociado a la interpretación del “aspecto perfecto”. Muestra igualmente que las complementaciones agentivas contribuyen a formar el sentido cualitativo propio de las construcciones atributivas y que ninguna de estas dos clases de construcciones se restringe a verbos que incluyan en su estructura léxica un “estado resultante” ni su formación puede explicarse tomando como base las clases léxico-aspectuales de predicados o rasgos exclusivamente gramaticales sin tomar en consideración aspectos contextuales y pragmáticos.

The past participle constructions LEE(NE)- + PTCP and SAA- + PTCP as future time reference devices: the example of Livonian against a Southern Finnic background

The present article studies the semantic functions and syntactic behaviour of past participle constructions in Livonian: līdõ ‘will be’ + active past participle (APP) / passive past participle (PPP) and sǭdõ ‘get; become’ + APP / PPP. Parallels are drawn with the corresponding constructions in the other Southern Finnic languages, as well as Northern Finnic and the Indo-European contact languages. The main focus is on Livonian līdõ ‘will be’ + APP. Considering the primary meaning element, time reference (future, past, or present), and the clause type (main or subordinate), a distinction is made between two main functions: (i) expressing anteriority, and (ii) epistemic modality. It is argued that Livonian līdõ + APP deserves to be regarded as the future perfect, as its primary function is to express anteriority in the future domain. Furthermore, līdõ + APP is shown to stand out with regard to the usage of temporal (future) meaning in subordinate clauses, as it is more common for a future-marking device to be redundant in subordinate clauses or associated with modal meanings. The expression of epistemic modality is regarded as its secondary function and possibly a later development; the epistemic usage is primarily associated with the construction occurring in main clauses.

The Evolution of Ergativity in Iranian Languages

This paper presents an attempt to investigate the origins of ergativity in Iranian languages, drawing upon diachronic and synchronic analyses. In so doing, I will trace the development of the ergative structure back to Old and Middle Persian where, it is argued, the roots of ergativity lie. I will specifically show that the ergative pattern as currently obtained in the grammatical structure of some Iranian languages has evolved from a periphrastic past participle construction, the analogue of which is attested in Old Persian. It will further be argued that the predecessor past participle construction imparted a resultative construal in Old Persian and, subsequently, in the transition to Middle Persian, has assumed a simple past reading. The bottom-line of the analysis will be represented as a proposal regarding the nature of the ergative verb, to the effect that an ergative verb, as opposed to a regular (non-ergative) transitive verb, is semantically transitive, but syntactically intransitive.

The grammaticalization of the have perfect in Dutch – a corpus study of contextual extension and semantic generalization

The article investigates the grammaticalization of the have perfect in Dutch by means of a corpus study of historical legal texts dating from the middle of the thirteenth century until the end of the eighteenth century. The focus of the investigation is on the gradual extension of the have+past participle construction in contexts that were not attested before. The study of the status of the subject, the direct object and the past participle in the corpus shows that the construction is increasingly used in a wider array of contexts. Moreover, the corpus search indicates that meaning components of the have+past participle construction are lost in the process of contextual extension. More specifically, the construction is increasingly used in the background of the discourse in order to expand on events that happened before the time of reference.

The be + past participle construction in spoken English, with special emphasis on the passive

The be + past participle construction in spoken English, with special emphasis on the passive

The be + past Participle Construction in Spoken English, with Special Emphasis on the Passive

The be + past Participle Construction in Spoken English, with Special Emphasis on the Passive