CAUSATIVE ALTERNATION IN PERSIAN COMPLEX PREDICATES: A FRAME-BASED ANALYSIS
In this paper, a frame-based description of verbal polysemy is used to answer some questions concerning syntactic behavior and argument structures associated with complex predicates in Persian. In Persian a number of CPs consisting of a light verb (LV) and a preverb (PV) participate in causative alternation. The causative variant is formed with the LV ændaxtæn 'cause to fall' and the anti-causative variant is formed with oftadæn 'fall'. In some contexts these verbs do not participate in causative alternatioin. In other words they do not have an anti-causative variant in such contexts. The peculiar behavior of these verbs in different contexts is explained in the framework of Frame Semantics [2]. I will argue that these verbs are associated with two semantic frames and just one of them is compatible with both causative and antiicausative form. The other frame is compatible with causative form but incompatibel with anticausative form hence no anticausative variant. As for the A-structure of CPs, using the notion of Frames [5] it is proposed that the whole construction including the CP determines its A-structure. It is not detrmined just by PV [9] or compositionally by PV and LV [6].
While nobody left any comments to this publication.
You can be first.
1. Fillmore, C. J. Frame Semantics. In Linguistic Society of Korea (ed.), Linguistics in the Morning Calm. 111-138. Seoul: Hanshin, 1982.
2. Fillmore, C.J., and B.T.S. Atkins. Toward a Frame-based Lexicon: The Semantics of RISK and its Neighbors. in: Lehrer, A., and E. Kittay (eds.), Frames, Fields and Contrasts: New Essays in Semantic and Lexical Organization, 75–102. Hillsdale: Erlbaum, 1992.
3. Fillmore, C.J., and B.T.S. Atkins. Starting where the Dictionaries stop: The Challenge for Computational Lexicography". in Atkins, B.T.S., and A. Zampolli (eds.). Computational Approaches to the Lexicon, 349-393. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.
4. Fillmore, C.J., and B.T.S. Atkins. Describing polysemy: the case of ‘crawl’. Ravin, Y., and C. Laecock (eds.). Polysemy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 91- 110, 2000
5. Fillmore, C. J. and C. Baker . A frames approach to semantic analysis. In B. Heine & H. Narrog (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Analysis. 313– 340. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010
6. Foley, R. , H. Harley and S. Karimi. Determinants of event type in Persian complex predicates. Lingua 115, 1365–1401, 2005.
7. Goldberg, A.E. Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
8. Haspelmath, M. More on the typology of inchoative/causative verb Alternations. in Comrie and Polinsky (eds.) Causatives and Transitivity. Amsterdam, 87-111, 1993.
9. Karimi Doostan, Gh. Light verb and structural case. Lingua 115(12): 1737– 1756, 2005.
10. Levin B. and M. Rappaport Hovav . Unaccusativity: At the Syntax-Lexical Semantics Interface. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995.
11. Nemoto, N. Wipe and trim: A study of the locative alternation from a
cognitive perspective. Kansai Linguistic Society, 16, 257-269, 1996.
12. Nemoto, N. Tagisei to Frame [Polysemy and Frame]. In Nakau Minoru, Kyoju Kanreki, Kinen Ronbunsyu Hensyuiinkai (Eds.), Imi to Katachi no Interface[The Interface between meaning and form] (185–194). Tokyo: Kurosio Publishers, 2001.
13. Nemoto, N. Verbal polysemy and Frame Semantics in Construction Grammar". In M. Fried and H.C. Boas (eds.), Grammatical Constructions. Back to the roots. 118–136. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2005.
14. Rappaport M. and Levin, B. Lexicon uniformity and the causative Alternation. in M. Everaert, M. Marelj, and T. Siloni, eds., The Theta System: Argument Structure at the Interface 150-176.Oxford University Press, 2012 .
15. Reinhart, T. The theta system: syntactic realization of verbal concepts. OTS working papers, 00.01/TL, 2000.
16. Reinhart, T. "The theta system–An overview. Theoretical Linguistics 28. 229–290, 2002