Taalportaal - the digital language portal

Dutch1
Frisian
Saterfrisian
Afrikaans

Show all

1.2.4.Linking the syntactic and semantic classifications

quickinfo

The mental lexicon must encode in some way the form and meaning of the lexical items as well as certain syntactic information. We have seen, however, that there seem to be specific systematic relations between the relevant semantic and syntactic information; agents, for example, are normally external arguments and therefore typically appear as the subject of an active clause. Given that we do not want to include predictable information like this in the lexicon, it is an important question as to whether more of such correlations can be established. This section therefore aims at linking the syntactic classification in Section 1.2.2, sub II, to the aspectual event classifications based on participant roles in Section 1.2.3, sub II.

I. Valuing classifications
II. Some correspondences

[+] I. Valuing classifications

An advantage of aspectual event classifications based on participant roles, such as the one in (77), repeated here as (94), is that they are explicitly linked to syntactic verb classifications of the kind sketched in Section 1.2.2. Van Voorst (1988), for instance, claims that originators and delimiters typically correspond to, respectively, external agent/cause and internal theme arguments. Such linking is a priori desirable because form and meaning can normally be considered two sides of the same coin.

Activity:
Achievement:
Accomplishment:

The requirement that the syntactic and semantic classifications should be linkable may also prevent these classifications from diverging too much, and can thus be used to evaluate individual proposals. The examples in (95), for instance, suggest that the traditional distinction between monadic (intransitive) and dyadic (transitive) verbs is incompatible with the aspectual event classification in (94) because it does not succeed in providing a natural account for the fact that while lachen'to laugh' denotes an activity, overlijden'to die' denotes an achievement.

a.	Jan lacht.	activity
	Jan laughs
	'Jan is laughing.'

b.		Jan verongelukte.	achievement
		Jan was.killed.in.an.accident

The alternative syntactic classification developed in Section 1.2.2, sub II, fares better in this respect, as it distinguishes two types of monadic verbs: the contrast between the two examples in (95) follows from Van Voorst's (1988) claim that external arguments of intransitive verbs like lachen'to laugh' typically function as originators, while internal theme arguments of unaccusative verbs like overlijden'to die' typically function as delimiters. This clearly favors the alternative classification in Table 3 of Section 1.2.2, sub III, which is repeated here as Table 6, over the traditional one.

Table 6: Classification of verbs according to the type of nominal arguments they take

	name	external argument	internal argument(s)
no internal argument	intransitive	nominative (agent)	—
	impersonal	—	—
one internal argument	transitive	nominative (agent)	accusative (theme)
	unaccusative	—	nominative (theme)
two internal arguments	ditransitive	nominative (agent)	dative (goal) accusative (theme)
	nom-dat verb	—	dative (experiencer) nominative (theme)
	undative verb	—	nominative (goal) accusative (theme)

Dyadic verbs can likewise denote states, activities, achievements or accomplishments. The traditional classification with an undifferentiated set of dyadic verbs provides no means to describe these differences, whereas according to the alternative classification in Table 6 at least the verb hebben differs from all other verbs in (96) in that it is an undative verb and thus does not have an agentive argument. If it turns out that undative verbs typically denote states, this can again be seen as an argument in favor of the alternative classification.

a.		De jongen	heeft	een kat.	state
		the boy	has	a cat

b.		De jongen	droeg	een kat.	activity
		the boy	carried	a cat

c.		De jongen	ontdekte	een kat.	achievement
		the boy	descried	a cat

d.		De jongen	verborg	een kat.	accomplishment
		the boy	hid	a cat

Of course, it may be the case that the semantic and the syntactic classification do not reflect each other in all respects. The semantic distinctions between the examples in (96b-d), for instance, are reflected neither by the traditional nor by the alternative syntactic classification and may thus be due to additional restrictions imposed by the verb on their arguments in the way indicated in table (97): although originators and delimiters may typically correspond to, respectively, external agentive and internal theme arguments, it may be the case that external and internal arguments do not necessarily function as originators and delimiters; see also the linking rules in Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1995: Section 4.1).

	external argument = originator	internal argument = delimiter
dragen'to carry'	+	—
ontdekken'to discover'	—	+
verbergen'to hide'	+	+

The discussion of the examples in (96) therefore suggests that the distinction between (96a) and (96b-d) is syntactic, whereas the distinctions between the examples in (96b-d) may be of a purely semantic nature. This may also account for the sharp contrast between the attributive (a)-examples in (98), on the one hand, and the remaining ones, on the other.

a.	*?	de	een kat	hebbende	jongen
		the	a cat	having	boy

a'.	*	de	gehadde	kat
		the	had	cat

b.		de	een kat	dragende	jongen
		the	a cat	carrying	boy

b'.		de	gedragen	kat
		the	carried	cat

c.		de	een kat	ontdekkende	jongen
		the	a cat	descrying	boy

c'.		de	ontdekte kat
		the	descried cat

d.		de	een kat	verbergende	jongen
		the	a cat	hiding	boy

d'.		de	verborgen	kat
		the	hidden	cat

[+] II. Some correspondences

Subsection I has shown that the traditional syntactic classification based on the adicity of the verb cannot straightforwardly be linked to the aspectual event classifications of the type in (94) and that the alternative proposal in Table 6 based on both the number of arguments and the distinction between internal and external arguments fares much better in this respect. This subsection will show that, on the assumption that (depending on the semantic properties of the verb) external arguments are optionally interpreted as originators and internal theme arguments are optionally interpreted as delimiters, it is indeed possible to relate the syntactic classification in Table 6 to the aspectual event classification in (94). Given that goal, but not experiencer, arguments may function as the "new location" of a theme, we will also briefly consider whether the second internal argument can be interpreted as a terminus (a point of termination) in the sense of Tenny (1994); see the discussion of example (82) in Section 1.2.3, sub II, for this notion.
In order to maximize contrasts and to highlight a number of potential problems, we will group the verbs on the basis of their adicity. We will not discuss impersonal verbs like regenen'to rain' and vriezen'to freeze', because we have little to say about them in this context. Note further that the discussion below is occasionally somewhat tentative in nature and presents a research program in progress rather than a set of well established facts/insights; the discussion below will therefore point out that there are still a number of questions that require further investigation.

[+] A. Verbs with one argument

At first sight the case of monadic verbs seems rather simple: as predicted, verbs with the behavior of prototypical intransitive verbs like lachen'to laugh' denote activities, whereas verbs with the behavior of prototypical unaccusative verbs like arriveren'to arrive' denote achievements.

a.		Jan heeft/*is	gelachen.
		Jan has/is	laughed

a'.		Jan is/*heeft	gearriveerd.
		Jan is/has	arrived

b.	*	de	gelachen	jongen
		the	laughed	boy

b'.		de	gearriveerde	jongen
		the	arrived	boy

c.		Er	werd	gelachen.
		there	was	laughed

c'.	*	Er	werd	gearriveerd.
		here	was	arrived

There are, however, a number of monadic verbs exhibiting mixed behavior and seem to refer to states: this is illustrated for the verbs drijven'to float' and bloeden'to bleed' in (100). The selection of the auxiliary hebben as well as the impossibility of using the past participle attributively suggest that we are dealing with intransitive verbs, whereas the impossibility of impersonal passivization suggests that we are dealing with unaccusative verbs.

100

a.		Jan heeft/*is	gebloed.
		Jan has/is	bled

a'.		Jan heeft/*is	op het water	gedreven.
		Jan has/is	on the water	floated

b.	*	de	gebloede	jongen
		the	bled	boy

b'.	*	de	gedreven	jongen
		the	floated	boy

c.	*	Er	werd	gebloed.
		there	was	bled

c'.	*	Er	werd	gedreven.
		there	was	floated

That we are not dealing with an activity is clear from the fact that the subject can be inanimate, whereas the subjects of verbs denoting an activity normally take animate subjects or a small set of inanimate subjects like computer that can be construed as performing the action. That we are not dealing with an achievement is clear from the fact that there is no logically implied endpoint.

101

a.		Jan/de wond	bloedt	heftig.
		Jan/the wound	bleeds	fiercely

b.		Jan/de band	drijft	op het water.
		Jan/the tire	floats	on the water

Given that we have adopted as our working hypothesis that internal and external arguments only optionally function as, respectively, originators and delimiters, there is no a priori reason for assuming intransitive or unaccusative status for these verbs. If we assume that drijven and bloeden are unaccusative, we have to conclude that selection of the auxiliary zijn'to be' and attributive use of the past participle are sufficient but not necessary conditions for assuming unaccusativity; Subsection B2 will show that there is indeed reason for assuming that auxiliary selection and attributive use of the past participle not only depend on unaccusativity of the verb but are subject to additional aspectual conditions; see Mulder (1992) and Levin & Rappaport Hovav (1995) for similar conclusions.

[+] B. Verbs with two arguments

Table 6 distinguishes three types of dyadic verbs: transitive, nom-dat and undative verbs. The following subsections will discuss these three groups.

[+] 1. Transitive verbs

The examples in (97b-d), repeated here as (102), have already illustrated that prototypical transitive verbs can denote activities, achievements and accomplishments. In fact, this was the original motivation for our claim that internal and external arguments only optionally assume the roles of originator and delimiter; see Table (97) in Subsection I.

102

a.		De jongen	droeg	een kat.	activity
		the boy	carried	a cat

b.		De jongen	ontdekte	een kat.	achievement
		the boy	descried	a cat

c.		De jongen	verborg	een kat.	accomplishment
		the boy	hid	a cat

[+] 2. Nom-dat verbs

Nom-dat verbs are characterized by the fact that the subject can follow the object, which appears as a dative noun phrase in German in the unmarked case. Given that this also holds for passivized ditransitive verbs, Den Besten (1985) concluded that the subjects of nom-dat verbs are internal theme arguments.

103

a.	dat	die meisjesnom	Peter/hemdat	direct	opvielen.
	that	those girls	Peter/him	immediately	prt.-struck
	'that Peter/he noticed those girls immediately.'

b.		dat	Peter/hemdat	die meisjesnom	direct	opvielen.
		that	Peter/him	those girls	immediately	prt.-struck

This analysis immediately accounts for the fact that examples such as (103) are interpreted as achievements: nom-dat verbs are like monadic unaccusative verbs in that they lack external arguments that could function as originators and that their internal arguments may function as delimiters. The Nom-dat verbs we have discussed so far furthermore exhibit all the typical properties of monadic unaccusative verbs: they select the auxiliary zijn, their past participles can be used attributively to modify a head noun that corresponds to the subject of the clause, and they resist passivization.

104

a.		dat	die meisjes	Peter/hem	direct	zijn/*hebben	opgevallen.
		that	those girls	Peter/him	immediately	are/have	prt.-struck

b.		de	hem	direct	opgevallen	meisjes
		the	him	immediately	prt.-struck	girls

c.	*	Er	werd	Peter/hem	direct	opgevallen.
		there	was	Peter/him	immediately	prt.-struck

The claim that internal arguments only optionally function as delimiters predicts, however, that there are also nom-dat verbs that do not involve some implied endpoint and thus denote simple states. And, in fact, Den Besten (1985) does list a number of nom-dat verbs with this property. One example is the verb smaken'to taste' in (105).

105

a.	dat	de broodjes	Peter/hem	smaakten.
	that	the buns	Peter/him	tasted
	'that Peter/he enjoyed his buns.'

b.		dat	Peter/hem	de broodjes	smaakten.
		that	Peter/him	the buns	tasted

Although the relative order of the object and the subject in (105b) unambiguously shows that the subject de broodjes is an internal argument, it should be noted that verbs like smaken do not exhibit all of the properties that we find in (104). Like all unaccusative verbs, they do not allow impersonal passivization, but they select the auxiliary hebben instead of zijn, and their past participles cannot be used attributively to modify a head noun that corresponds to the subject of the clause.

106

a.		dat	Peter/hem	de broodjes	hebben/*zijn	gesmaakt.
		that	Peter/him	the buns	have/are	tasted

b.		de Peter/hem	gesmaakte	broodjes
		the Peter/him	tasted	buns

c.	*	Er	werd	Peter/hem	gesmaakt.
		there	was	Peter/him	tasted

It is interesting to note that the pattern in (106) is like the pattern established for the stative verbs drijven'to float' and bloeden'to bleed' in (100). This supports the suggestion in Subsection A that the verbs drijven and bloeden are also unaccusative verbs and that their mixed behavior with respect to the unaccusativity tests should be accounted for by assuming that auxiliary selection and attributive use of past participles are subject to both syntactic and aspectual conditions.

[+] 3. Undative verbs

Undative verbs do not have an external argument and we would therefore expect that there is no originator; undative verbs therefore denote either states or achievements depending on whether their internal theme argument functions as a delimiter or not. The examples in (107) show that this prediction is indeed borne out: depending on the verb in question, we are dealing with a state, an achievement, or a special type of state that we may call an anti-achievement.

107

a.		Jan heeft	het boek.	state
		Jan has	the book

b.		Jan krijgt	het boek.	achievement
		Jan gets	the book

c.		Jan houdt	het boek.	anti-achievement
		Jan keeps	the book

The achievement reading in (107b) may be due to the fact that the IO-subject Jan functions as a goal, which, in turn, triggers a delimiter interpretation of the internal theme argument; if so, this would support our suggestion in the introduction to this section that goals function as a terminus (point of termination) in the event.
This claim that goals function as a terminus may also account for the fact that the IO-subjects of cognition verbs like weten/kennen'to know' in (108a), which we will show in Section 2.1.4 to be part of a second set of undative verbs, must be interpreted as experiencers; the fact that these verbs normally denote states would then be incompatible with a goal/terminus interpretation of the dative phrase. The dyadic verb leren'to learn' in (108b) stands in an anti-causative relationship to the triadic accomplishment verb leren'to teach'; cf. Marie leert Jan de fijne kneepjes van het vak'Marie is teaching Jan the tricks of the trade'. The indirect object of the triadic and the subject of the dyadic verb both act as a goal, which introduces a point of termination in the event; this leads to the achievement reading of (108b).

108

a.	Jan kent	de fijne kneepjes van het vak.	state
	Jan knows	the detailed tricks of the trade
	'Jan knows the tricks of the trade.'

b.		Jan leert	de fijne kneepjes van het vak.	achievement
		Jan learns	the detailed tricks of the trade

Given the discussion of the examples in (108), it may be tempting to analyze other ditransitive verbs with experiencer subjects, like the perception verbs horen'to hear' and zien'to see', likewise as undative verbs; we will leave it to future research to investigate whether this might be on the right track.

[+] C. Verbs with three arguments

Indirect objects of ditransitive verbs normally function as goals. If goal arguments introduce a terminus, we would expect that (definite) theme arguments would normally function as a delimiter. If so, we would also expect that, depending on whether the subject functions as an originator or not, ditransitive verbs would normally denote achievements or accomplishments. The examples in (109) show that this expectation is indeed borne out.

109

a.		Zijn succes	gaf	Peter een prettig gevoel.	achievement
		his success	gave	Peter a nice feeling

b.		Jan	stuurde	Peter	een mooi boek.	accomplishment
		Jan	sent	Peter	a nice book

[+] D. Conclusion

It seems that the semantic classification in (94) and the syntactic classification in Table 6 can to a certain extent be linked. At present, we are able to show this only for the more prototypical cases; future research will have to show whether this is also possible with less prototypical cases. We expect such research to reveal certain potential problems for some of the claims adopted in the discussion above. For example, the unaccusative verbs overlijden'to die', arriveren'to arrive' and vertrekken'to leave' in (110) seem to differ in the extent to which the subject is able to control the event. Whereas the subject of overlijden has no control at all, the subject of vertrekken does have control over the event; the subject of arriveren seems to take some intermediate position in this respect.

110

a.		Jan overlijdt	morgen.
		Jan dies	tomorrow

b.		Jan vertrekt/arriveert	morgen.
		Jan leaves/arrives	tomorrow

The contrast might be accounted for either by assuming that the internal argument of an unaccusative verb is not only able to function as a delimiter but also as an originator, or by assuming that assignment of the property of control is not linguistic in nature but reflects our knowledge of the world. Given that the former would open many new classification options, we can only determine whether such an approach would be feasible by investigating whether the newly predicted verb classes do indeed exist.

References:

Besten, Hans den1985The ergative hypothesis and free word order in Dutch and GermanToman, Jindřich (ed.)Studies in German GrammarDordrecht/CinnaminsonForis Publications23-65
Besten, Hans den1985The ergative hypothesis and free word order in Dutch and GermanToman, Jindřich (ed.)Studies in German GrammarDordrecht/CinnaminsonForis Publications23-65
Levin, Beth & Rappaport Hovav, Malka1995Unaccusativity at the syntax-lexical semantics interfaceCambridge, MA/LondonMIT Press
Levin, Beth & Rappaport Hovav, Malka1995Unaccusativity at the syntax-lexical semantics interfaceCambridge, MA/LondonMIT Press
Mulder, René1992The aspectual nature of syntactic complementationLeidenUniversity of LeidenThesis
Tenny, Carol L1994Aspectual roles and the syntax-semantics interfaceDordrechtKluwer
Voorst, Jan van1988Event structureAmsterdam/PhiladelphiaJohn Benjamins
Voorst, Jan van1988Event structureAmsterdam/PhiladelphiaJohn Benjamins

⇑ Back to top

About this article

Author(s): Hans Broekhuis, Norbert Corver

Category: Dutch Syntax

Keywords: Non-main VerbPerfect AuxiliaryVerb

Version: 1.0, January 2016

Version history:

version	editor(s)	date	remarks
1.0	Hans Broekhuis, Norbert Corver	January 2016

report errorprintcite

Jump to:

introduction
references
related articles