Semantic Structures for the Syntax of Complements and Auxiliaries in English 9783110831849, 9789027934789

Table of contents :
Preface
Contents
List of Tables
1. Some Theoretical Concerns
2. Some Support for Transfer Features and Semantic Governance of Syntactic Forms
3. Studies on English Complement Structures
4. The Verbal Complements in English
5. Studies on the English Modal Auxiliaries
6. Further Studies on the English Modal Auxiliaries
7. A Semantic Feature Analysis of the English Modal Auxiliaries
References
Index of Names

Citation preview

Semantic Structures for the Syntax of Complements and Auxiliaries in English

JANUA LINGUARUM Studia Memoriae Nicolai van Wijk Dedicata edenda curat

C. H. van Schooneveld Indiana University

Series Minor 171

Semantic Structures for the Syntax of Complements and Auxiliaries in English

James W. Ney

Mouton Publishers The Hague • Paris • New York

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Ney, James W. Semantic structures for the syntax of complements and auxiliaries in English. (Janua linguarum. Series minor ; 171) Includes index. 1. English language - Syntax. 2. English language Semantics. 3. English language — Grammar, Generative. I. Title. II. Series. PE1380.N49 425 81-11170 ISBN 90-279-3478-9 AACR2

© 1981, Mouton Publishers, The Hague, The Netherlands Printed in The Netherlands

Preface

The matters contained in this work have been long in the making. The notion which led to the adoption of Weinreich's 'transfer features' as a tool for linguistic analysis found expression in a manuscript that was developed in approximately the year 1972 but which was not published until two years later (Ney, 1974). This notion was first formulated under the cover term of 'floating semantic features.' (See Ney, 1976.) Similarly, research has been conducted for a number of years on the subject of the studies presented here; namely, the auxiliaries and the complements in English. The first of these articles appeared in (1976). Later studies appeared in (1977) and (1978). As a result, the thinking here represents an on-going line of research. Just as the studies here differ from the earlier studies, so later studies will differ from them also. More and more this thinking has centered on the notion of 'transfer features' as a device for linguistic model-building which permits the notion of the native speaker's choice in selecting differing linguistic forms to be formalized exactly. Thanks is expressed here to Professor M. Fisher for seeking support for the publication of this study and to Arizona State University, the Dean of Liberal Arts, Dr. G. Weigend, and the Office of Research Grants and Contracts, Dr. Harold B. Hunnicutt, for providing the support. Tempe, Arizona April 1981

James Ney

Contents

Preface list of Tables

v ix

1. Some 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0 6.0 7.0 8.0

1 1 1 3 4 7 7 9 H

Theoretical Concerns Some Goals for linguistic Theory On Generative Systems On the Use of Data for Theory Building The Nature of Language and linguistics Systems Preoccupation with Trivial Problems Linguistic Theory and Language Acquisition Linguistic Theory and Partial Regularities The Weinreich Proposal for Semantic Interpretation

2. Some Support for Transfer Features and Semantic Governance of Syntactic Forms 1.0 A Description of Current Practices 2.0 Inherent and Non-inherent Features 3.0 Semantic Governance of Syntactic Rules

14 14 15 17

3. Studies on English Complement Structures 1.0 The Rosenbaum Study of Complementation in English 2.0 The Pizzini Study of Complements in English 3.0 The Iwakura Study 4.0 The Bresnan Study 5.0 Other Studies on Complements in English 6.0 Summary of Review on Complementizers

25 25 34 40 42 46 49

4. The Verbal Complements in English 1.0 Reasons for the Abandonment of the Autonomous Syntax Position 2.0 Meaning and the Distribution of Complements 3.0 Semantic Features and the Distribution of Complements

50 50 51 52

viii 4.0 5.0 6.0

Contents Classes of Verbs in the Study Rules for the Verbal Complements Summation

55 59 69

5. Studies on the English Modal Auxiliaries 1.0 The Palmer Study 2.0 The Leech Study 3.0 The Newmeyer Study

70 70 77 81

6. Further Studies on the English Modal Auxiliaries 1.0 The Pullum and Wilson Study 2.0 The Woisetschlaeger Study 3.0 The Huang Study 4.0 The Cook Study

93 93 105 108 115

7. A Semantic Feature Analysis of the English Modal Auxiliaries 1.0 Initial Assumptions 2.0 Features for the Modal Auxiliaries 3.0 Support for Feature Names and Matrices 4.0 Semantic Rules and Phonological Rules 5.0 Rules for the Modal Auxiliaries 6.0 Pattern in the Modal Auxiliaries 7.0 Definiteness and the Modal Auxiliaries 8.0 Further Studies on the Modals 9.0 New Questions about these Studies

125 125 128 130 134 135 152 152 156 157

References Index of Names

159 165

List of Tables

I

II III IV V VI VII

vni IX

X

Feature Matrices for Complement Taking Verbs Palmer's Assignment of Meanings to the Modals Leech's Assignment of Meanings to the Modals Huang's System of Semantic Interpretation for the English Modal Auxiliaries Cook's System of Semantic Interpretation for the English Modals Cook's View of External and Internal Negation Internal and External Negation with the Modal Auxiliaries in English Feature Specifications for the English Modals Feature Specifications for the Meanings of the English Modals Feature Specifications for the Surface Forms of the English Modals

64-67 71 78 114 115 117 118 130 130 132

1. Some Theoretical Concerns

1.0

SOME GOALS FOR LINGUISTIC THEORY

It is not the purpose of this brief introduction to develop a full-blown theory of linguistic analysis. Such attempts in the past have tended to come to grief on one point or another. For instance, Chomsky's theory of transformational grammar included in it the nativistic hypothesis which led to the assertion of a construct that has as its primary substance the fact that children learn language from an essentially 'degenerate corpus' (Chomsky, 1965). It has since been conclusively demonstrated that such is not the case. Cross (1977: 151—152), for example, has shown that children do not learn from a degenerate corpus. Besides this, Snow (1977:36) through her studies has come to the conclusion that " . . . mother's speech to children . . . is simple and redundant, . . . it contains many questions, many imperatives, few past tenses, few co- or sub-ordinations, few disfluencies,... it is pitched higher and has an exaggerated intonation pattern." It would thus seem that Chomsky's initial statements were premature to say the least and they proved also to be in error. Because of errors such as this that have been made in the past in attempts to formulate theories, no such attempts will be made here. Rather a few comments will be made on theoretical issues, indicating the underlying assumptions of this study.

2.0

ON GENERATIVE SYSTEMS

Chomsky (1957) attacked the structural grammars of the 1950's on the basis of the fact that they were mere taxonomies. This attack was and still is unwarranted and unjustified since all grammars in one sense are taxonomic and in another sense are generative. In the early transformational grammars, this can be seen in the fact that rules such as the following rely on the existence of taxonomies before they can operate:

2

Some Theoretical Concerns

2.1 Sentence -> NP + VP VP Verb + NP ' NPsing NP NPpL NPsing • T + N + 0 NPpl - T + N + S'

Before the rules in (1.1) can be made to operate, a taxonomy must be created. Some words in the English Language must be assigned to the category T and others to the category N and so on. In fact, Chomsky himself does the classification in the taxonomy for his generative system by setting up 'rules' such as the following: 2.2 T ->• the N -*• man, ball, etc. Similarly, when Kiparsky and Kiparsky (1970) classify verbs and adjectives as factive and non-factive they are creating a taxonomy, a classification of verbs and adjectives. Yet as recently as (1974), the charge that a linguist is creating a taxonomy is used to dismiss a whole series of theoretical proposals with a cavalier wave of the hand. Dougherty (1974) says that " . . . Fillmore has deceitfully superimposed on this mere taxonomy (Fillmore's Case Grammar) the trappings of a generative grammar." So it is that the Kiparsky and Kiparsky taxonomy is all right since the authors of it do not attack the dominant paradigm nor recommend a paradigmatic shift but the Fillmore taxonomy is all wrong because it is seen as being an attack on the dominant paradigm and a proposal which requires a paradigmatic shift. In the same way that all grammars are taxonomic, all grammars are generative. Jespersen did not write his grammar merely to describe the sentences in a corpus. His idea, and the idea of all that preceded and followed him, was to provide models, examples and rules for language learners to create sentences in the languages that they are learning. For instance Longacre (1964) specifically points out the generative power of his tagmemic formulae. Although Chomsky should be commended for formalizing the notion of generativity, this concept cannot be used to certify the validity of one grammar or the non-validity of another since all grammars are generative in

On the Use of Data for Theory Building

3

one sense of the word or another. Furthermore, Chomskyan grammars fail on the issue of generativity on one point: they cannot generate intentionally ambiguous sentences. (See Chapter 4, Section 3.1 and Chapter 5, Section 3.8 for support of this statement). Nevertheless, the Chomskyan point has been well made. It is not possible now to attempt to write a grammar or a portion of a grammar without paying attention to the concept of language as an indefinitely large system which is capable of generation from a finite set of rules. This concept is adhered to in this study and, as a result, much of the Aspects-moAtl for linguistic description is assumed.

3.0

ON THE USE OF DATA FOR THEORY BUILDING

Currently, there are two widely divergent views on the use of data for theory building. On the surface, this seems not to be the case since Chomsky himself frequently refers to 'empirical motivation' ( 1 9 6 5 : 7 3 , 9 9 ) or 'empirical justification' (1970:204) in his writings. He even states: Of course, it is necessary to stipulate with care the precise conditions under which complex symbols can be formed, at each level, or else the system of a grammar becomes so powerful as to lose empirical interest (Chomsky, 1970:208; Italics, mine). It would appear to this observer, however, that Chomsky is interested in empirical epistemology only in a rather loose sense of the word. Anna Wierzbicka points this out in the following terms: The question of the empirical validity of his (Chomsky's) constructs was crucial. At first, one criterion of empirical validity was thought to be provided by the concept of grammatically: since Chomsky initially maintained that the distinction between grammatical and ungrammatical sentences was an intuitive given, he could in principle check his constructs against this datum. But of course he soon revised his theory on this crucial point, and came to claim that grammatically, too, was a theoretical construct.... Thus, despite its early empirical promise transformational grammar became increasingly unfalsifiable and unempiricaL Chomsky himself as much as acknowledges the Wierzbicka complaint. In a comparison of the approach to data characteristic of advocates of the Ptolemaic view of the universe and the view of Galileo, he states the following: Now, as a descriptive system, the Ptolemaic system was no worse than the Galilean system, maybe even a bit better, but it lacked d'epth of explanation. This shift of intellectual attitude from concern for coverage of data to concern for insight and depth of explanation, and the related willingness to deal with highly idealized systems in order to obtain depth of explanation - this shift of point of view has taken place very rarely, I

4

Some Theoretical Concerns

think, in the history of thought. In linguistics, I don't think it has taken place, really. Most linguistic work, for better or for worse, is concerned with accumulation of data, organization of data, making sure that any generalization isn't apparently refuted by some half-described phenomenon that someone noticed somewhere. (Saporta, Interview, 1978:311)

Chomsky has stated his position in such a way that any who would disagree with him seem to be in agreement with the Ptolemaic view of the universe. Nevertheless, whether the advocates of the Ptolemaic view took this or that position in reference to the data or whether Galileo took this or that position is a qualitative judgement. There is no question that Galileo removed himself from the data in somewhat the fashion indicated by Chomsky. But the real question is this: Just how far did he remove himself from the data? And a second question would be this: What sort of an anology can be drawn between Galileo's approach to his data on the physical universe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and Chomsky's approach to his data on linguistics in the twentieth century? In what ways are the situations similar and in what ways are they different? Wierzbicka obviously feels that Chomsky has gone too far in removing himself from the data; Chomsky feels that he and his colleagues have not gone far enough. Wierzbicka states her position in this manner: Thus, in my view, autonomous syntax which postulates invisible underlying structures and rules is unacceptable because there is no reason to believe that (and no way to find out whether) they correspond to anything in the mind. It is of course acceptable as a purely intellectual exercise, as a game, as a more or less clever way of 'handling the data', but it is not acceptable as a theory of the human mind (1978:122).

The position taken in this study is that of Wierzbicka: Chomskyan linguistics has divorced itself so far from the data that it is no longer an empirical science. The attempt, then, will be made here to stay much closer to the data for support of various positions although it is freely acknowledged that such an attempt is not without difficulty. (See Botha (1973).)

4.0

THE NATURE OF LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTIC SYSTEMS

A slight shift from many currently popular beliefs about the nature of language will be made. This shift can be formulated in two assumptions on the nature of language and will provide a modus operandi from which the study will proceed. Both of these assumptions have been articulated by Langacker (1978). The first is that the autonomous syntax position must be rejected in language study as being incapable of revealing interesting facts

The Nature of Language and Linguistics Systems

5

about language. This rejection does not imply the acceptance of the position of the generative semanticists who hold a similar position to that of this author (and of Langacker). But whereas the position of the generative semanticists leads them to believe that the deep structure of a language is its logical structure, this is not the case for this author. Here, this position is rejected because the partially regular system of language cannot be made to fit the rigorous, completely regular system of symbolic logic. This is not to say that nothing can be learned about language by studying it from that point of view. It would simply seem that since, from the generative semanticists point of view " . . . the resulting picture of semantic structure is different in many respects from what either linguists or logicians are used to operating with . . . " (McCawley, 1976:319) then the question might be raised as to why the logician's point of view should be adopted in the first place. 1.1 The second position of Langacker to be adopted here is not so familiar as the first and cannot be so readily conceptualized. As a result it will be dealt with in greater detail. He describes it thus: I would suggest that any adequate linguistic theory must be able to accommodate straightforwardly... cases of partial regularity in the domain of lexicon and morphology. Semi-regularities of this kind are pervasive in language; and a theory should enable us to regard them as expected phenomena, rather than anomalies which shouldn't happen and cannot easily be described.

To demonstrate how the refusal to acknowledge 'partial regularities' has influenced linguistic research, the lexicalist hypothesis is chosen - a hypothesis which is still espoused by linguists such as Jackendoff and which, according to Jackendoff, states " . . . roughly that transformations do not perform derivational morphology" (1972:12). 4.2 This hypothesis was originally formulated because of the Katz and Postal theory of semantic interpretation, a theory which is still espoused by TG grammarians such as Jackendoff (1972:9) in at least one version, and the requirement that transformations be meaning-preserving. Since, as the original argument went (Chomsky, 1970), proposal and proposing are different in meaning and thus cannot be related by meaning-preserving transformations as in sentences (1) and (2), the nominalization and the verbal must be listed separately in the lexicon; in Jackendoff s own words, " . . . it is necessary to list, for example, both a verb andits nominalization in the lexicon" (1972:22). (1) The king's proposing of the proclamation created a furor.

6

Some Theoretical Concerns (2) The king's proposal of a proclamation created a furor.

The lexicalist hypothesis still holds true for linguists such as Jackendoff who states: Under the Extended Lexicalist Hypothesis, transformations cannot perform derivational morphology. How then can we capture the semi-productivity of morphological processes? . . . one could propose that the regularities are expressed within the measure of information itself, as redundancy rules that say that certain shared features of the nominalization do not count as independent information.... We will suppose, t h e n , . . . a set of morphological and semantic redundancy rules . . . which specify independent phonological information content. These redundancy rules will enable us to express the concept 'separate but related lexical items' without the use of transformations (Jackendoff, 1972:22-23).

Nevertheless, since proposing and proposal are listed separately in the lexicon, they cannot be described as being related semantically in the grammar although they could be related as per the previous quotation from Jackendoff as empty forms in the phonology, "separate but related." Impressionistically, it would appear that if the grammar describes language adequately, it would have to describe proposal and proposing as being related to the underlying semantically related verb propose, through a productive morphological process and not as items in a list. This is true because a grammar which cannot relate these forms by transformation in the deep structure but which also relates meaning to form through projection rules from the deep structure or the surface structure fails to describe language if it cannot do this. 4.3 But the lexicalist hypothesis does not stop here. It leads Jackendoff (1972:55) into proposing that all adverbs and adjectives be listed separately in the lexicon. If, at this point, the grammar is psychologically real, it states that careful and carefully are not related productively in the minds of native speakers. They are separate but related items in the lexicon (Jackendoff (1972:48)). The same could be said for entire series of adjective/adverb pairs such as slow/slowly, beautiful/beautifully, sad/sadly and so on merely because of the lexicalist hypothesis and the fact that mere/merely, utter/ utterly and virtual/virtually cannot be related by meaning preserving transformations. To state this in different terms, English manifests a partial regularity in the relation of adverbs to adjectives. Obviously, slow and slowly are related to each other semantically and phonologically. But utter and utterly cannot be related in this fashion neither can proposal and proposing. However, it seems ludicrous to abandon the use of a device to relate slow and slowly just because such a device does not work for utter/utterly or proposing/proposal. A grammar of a natural language must be written so that it can describe the regularities and the partial regularities of language.

Preoccupation with Trivial Problems 5.0

7

PREOCCUPATION WITH TRIVIAL PROBLEMS

One of the results of the 'transformationalists' position intimated by Langacker in the preceding section (4.0), namely, that language is rule governed, is a terrifying preoccupation with trivial problems. There is no doubt that much of language is rule governed, but not in the sense that the current transformationalists who are supporters of the extended standard theory (EST) would have it. They would rather have ten rather complicated rules to describe a single isolated phenomenon than admit to one irregularity. A case in point is the contortions that Pullum and Wilson (1977:777) must go through to have the auxiliaries generated in their system. In any case, a number of studies have been written on io-contraction in an attempt to describe how seven verbs in English are related to their homographic or homophonic forms: want to and wanna, used to and useta, going to and gonna, have to and hafta, ought to and oughta, got to and gotta, and supposed to and supposta (Lakoff, 1970; Baker, 1971; Bresnan, 1971; Baker and Brame, 1972; Selkirk, 1972;Morin, 1973; Pullum, 1976; and in discussions of Trace Theory; Chomsky, 1976a; Lightfoot, 1976; Chomsky, 1976b; and Chomsky and Lasnik, 1977). From a perusal of the evidence, it is obvious that the argument is over a 'partial regularity' and that some of these forms cannot be related by rule but must be listed separately in the lexicon. (See Pullum and Postal, 1978.)

6.0

LINGUISTIC THEORY AND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

In any case, it turns out that the decision to give the Langacker constructs quasi-theoretical status does not necessitate abandoning the attempt to develop a theory of language which also provides evidence for a theory of language acquisition. The reason for this is that recently a two stage theory of language acquisition has been formulated by William Gallagher (1976) within which the existence of 'partial regularities' in language can be neatly accommodated. In formulating this theory, Gallagher used the Hughlings Jackson model (1932) as a starting point for his model of language acquisition which asserts that " . . . linguistic forms are initially stored in neural areas separate from the creative language center" (1976:93). This thinking leads to the hypothesis that: Two neuiolinguistic hypotheses are considered in this paper: (1) features of language processed in the primary language area of the brain are different in nature from features processed in a posited initial processing area of the brain, and these differences are relevant to a description of language; and, (2) an increased memory load on the posited

8

Some Theoretical

Concerns

initial language processing area is responsible for the generation, projection and storage of mental grammar "rules" (1976:89).

From this point, language learning, as conceived by Gallagher, requires a large amount of memorization which is the precursor of rule formation in the human brain. The reason for this is that the language learner first learns to memorize phrases through the use of imitation a n d ' . . . these phrases appear to accumulate until memory load forces the formation of a generalization or "rule" . . . ' (1976:93). Although the idea which he expresses is undoubtedly correct, the terminology which he employs at this point seems unfortunate since it is unlikely that overload on the memory "forces" the learner of a language to do anything. It is more likely the case that the brain as a matter of its normal mode of operation uses two different strategies for the learning of language. In fact, Gallagher seems to say as much when he states that: " . . . imitation and memorization do play a role in acquisition of 'automatic' or 'formula' speech, which may in turn, trigger 'rule' acquisition" (1976:93). 6.1 For support of this hypothesis, Gallagher cites a dichotic listening test which he himself devised and administered. In this test, 78 students who had acquired English as a second language listened to formulaic speech in the right ear and normally created sentences in the left ear for one experimental condition. For the other experimental condition the procedure was reversed. The error rate was significantly lower for the condition which would be the natural condition from the point of view of the theory; that is, with the formulaic expressions being processed through the left ear for the right hemisphere of the brain and the 'creative' sentences being processed through the right ear for the left hemisphere of the brain, the area in which the speech centers of the brain are located. Hence, dichotic listening tests tend to support his theory. 6.2 Gallagher also cites several studies of language acquisition in which the learners go through periods when they largely imitate words and phrases provided by various models in their environment. It would appear to this observer that such evidence does indeed support a two stage hypothesis for language acquisition, but it is curious that Gallagher does not find support for his hypothesis in the very nature of language itself. Students of foreign languages remember with pain the irregular verbs of any number of IndoEuropean tongues. Thus, it is easy for them to see how Spanish compran and compraron can be related to each other by rule but it is difficult to see how ponen and pusieron can be related by the same rule. The same could be said for English need and needed when they are compared with English go and went. Or these same students might wonder at the irregularity

Linguistic Theory and Partial Regularities

9

in the Japanese verbs sum 'do', and kuru, 'come.' (See Hetzron (1975) for any number of phenomena such as these.) The fact of the matter is that the irregular forms of a language must be memorized and it is quite likely that they are stored differently from the regular forms which can be related to each other by rule. All languages have both regular and irregular forms and it would seem to this observer that such evidence would also support a two stage theory of language acquisition since the irregular forms of language must of necessity be memorized and stored as memorized items while the great bulk of language is produced by rules which govern the structure of sentences in utterances. Gallagher hints at the possibility of using this as evidence when he says t h a t ' . . . features of language processed in the primary language area of the brain are different in nature from features processed in a posited initial processing area of the brain, and these differences are relevant to a description of language . . . ' (1976:89) but he never quite articulates the argument. He does, however, suggest the strategy that the argument implies when he writes " . . . if the hypothesis is correct, the anecdotal notion that learning a second language requires a great deal of memorization will be validated" (1976:979).

7.0

LINGUISTIC THEORY AND PARTIAL REGULARITIES

Now, such a theory of language acquisition does not require that all of the transformational model be rejected. Since much of the language is rulegoverned and can be described by a generative model, much of the transformational model can be used for the description of language. Furthermore, a system of semantic interpretation has been developed with devices that can accommodate the 'partial regularities of language.' This system, developed by Weinreich (1972), can also be used to accommodate partial regularities on the level of syntax. In this model, there is a semantic calculator which scans strings of feature matrices, computes their value to see if they are compatible and then adjusts the strings through the use of assigned or transfer features in cases where the features incorrectly predict mal-formed strings. 7.1 To be more explicit, Weinreich assumed the validity and the usefulness of much of the Aspects model of transformational generative grammar and incorporated it into his model for semantic interpretation. He envisioned the use of a sentence generating device which would produce strings, some of which would be grammatical and some of which would be ungrammatical. The same could be said for the semantic well-formedness of the strings which would be produced; some would be semantically well-formed; others would

10

Some Theoretical Concerns

be semantically anomolous. The semantic calculator, which is positioned at or near the surface structure, would then scan the strings after lexical insertion with semantic and syntactic features in place and compute their value. When ungrammatical or semantically anomolous strings would be encountered, the semantic calculator would then either block them from occurring in the surface structure or make adjustments in the underlying feature matrices through the use of transfer features so that the strings could occur. The usefulness of this device becomes apparent when, for instance, the difference between inherent and transfer semantic features are considered. In Weinreich's own words, " . . . we may want to retain this distinction (between inherent and transfer features) even for clusters of features in order to represent the fact that a contradiction between a transfer feature and an inherent one (e.g. pretty man, loud circle, the dog scattered) is less clashing than one between two inherent features (female man, square circle, numerous dog, slightly delicious)" (1972:63). For this study, inherent features are those assigned to the surface forms in the lexicon; transfer features are those which are assigned by rule in the semantic calculator.

7.2 Thus, the model of linguistic description for this study assumes the following: 1. A sentence generating device, a base component, which produces strings of formatives and which contains a transformational component that rearranges these formatives according to given rules. 2. A lexicon in which lexical units are listed with their feature matrices in such a way that unambiguous readings of each item can be fully specified. 3. Lexical insertion is accomplished after all the rules of the base component and the transformational component have applied. The semantic calculator then scans the strings which are developed as in paragraphs 1. through 3. above and performs the following functions: 4. It blocks non-grammatical strings from appearing in the surface structure. 5. It assigns semantic readings to linguistic forms according to their occurrence in given syntactic environments or according to their compatability with other syntactic or semantic features in the strings.

The Weinreich Proposal for Semantic Interpretation

11

6. It adjusts the readings of some feature matrices in some environments so that the meanings of items not specified in the lexicon will be possible in given environments. For the present, a single rule schema is used for all three functions in 4., 5. and 6.; in the future, it may prove advantageous to develop different kinds of rules in differing rule schemas to perform the three functions.

8.0

THE WEINREICH PROPOSAL FOR SEMANTIC INTERPRETATION

Thus, this study is chiefly concerned with the semantic interpretation of facets of English structure using the transformational model for sentence generation which is known as the Aspects-motel, but modifying it so that those features of the Aspects-motel which are inextricably related to the Katz—Postal proposal for semantic interpretation are disregarded. This is done in an attempt to show how Uriel Weinreich's proposals for semantic interpretation could be incorporated into a transformational grammar. In particular, within the Aspects-motel, theoreticians have formulated a construct which states that transformations have no effect on meaning. This construct is often referred to under the catch phrase 'transformations are meaning-preserving.' In one sense, within Weinreich's model this construct is maintained. Weinreich himself stated that transformations " . . . are without semantic effect" (1972:81). In another sense, this is not true since if any item evidences a change of meaning due to insertion in a string or due to the nature of the transformations that the string had undergone, then adjustments in the underlying feature matrices would be made through the use of a semantic calculator which scans strings, computes their value and makes adjustments in their underlying semantic matrices through the assignment of'transfer' features. These devices, then, permit the linguist to deal with many of the problems that have been noticed by linguists such as, for instance, the difference of interpretation of quantifiers in active and passive sentences and which have been problematic in the Aspects-motel. In this sense, Weinreich and the model which he developed acknowledged the fact that meaning changes occurred in transformed sentences. 8.1 It is not the purpose of this study, however, to document these instances nor to show how the Weinreich model is applicable to problems described by them. It is rather the purpose of this study to investigate certain aspects of English structure and to attempt a development of the Weinreich model which will be sufficient to accommodate whatever problems are noted in the interpretation of these. Furthermore, like Weinreich, this investigator

12

Some Theoretical Concerns

does not believe that syntax can be studied apart from semantics (as noted previously). In Weinreich's terms, "The . . . approach outlined here makes no attempts to fence off mutually exclusive domains for syntax and semantics" (1972:113). Besides this, it is the belief of this investigator that the autonomous syntax position and constructs derived to support it has done harm for linguistic analysis. In particular, the belief that transformations are in effect meaning preserving has to a large extent blinded investigators to the fact that in some cases there are meaning changes under transformation. This doctrine, that transformations preserve meaning, is a tenet which many transformationalists are now abandoning but which Jackendoff (1972) still adheres to. The reason that it has blinded investigators to the existences of transformations which do in fact change meaning is that there are any number of instances where transformations do change meaning. Investigators must adopt an ostrich policy towards the data to maintain their position. The most celebrated of the long-neglected cases where transformations change meanings seems to have been discovered by Jackendoff (1968, 1969) and discussed by G. Lakoff (1971) among others. (8) Many arrows didn't hit the target. (9) The target wasn't hit by many arrows. The sentence at (8) indicates that a few of the arrows hit the target while the sentence at (9) indicates that a few of the arrows missed the target. Thus, since the only difference between sentence (8) and sentence (9), in the TG model, is the passive transformation, it must be this transformation that changes meaning. This at least is the implication of the discussions such as that of Jackendoff (1972:305—308) since every effort is made to keep the quantifiers out of the passive transformation through the postulation of multiple S nodes, some of which dominate only the quantifiers. Changes of meaning under transformation do not affect quantifiers alone nor do they involve the passive transformation alone. Another case centers on the interplay of the negative contraction rule, a transformation, and the auxiliary inversion rule, another transformation. This was evidently first noticed by Jackendoff (1972:335) but seen in slightly different environments by Ney (1977:497). Thus, sentences (10) and (11) are quite different in meaning although in the standard TG model they would differ by only one transformation, negative contraction. (10) Won't you please get into the swimming pool. (Please do get into the swimming pool.)

The Weinreich Proposal for Semantic Interpretations

13

(11) Will you please not get into the swimming pool. (Please do not get into the swimming pool.) It is almost unbelievable that rules which are supposedly psychologically real should be written on the basis of a principle which requires transformations to be meaning-preserving. And yet, it is perhaps understandable. 8.2 When some of the insights which impelled transformational grammar into the consciousness of a generation of scholars are examined, the response is positive; many of the insights can be accepted as axioms. For instance, the well-known distinction between John is easy to please and John is eager to please might be cited. Then when the question is asked about the disposition of such insights, some of the tenets of TG linguistics seem to follow quite naturally — deep and surface structure with deep and surface objects some of which might be deleted. And from this, if the question is asked, 'How shall we use the deep structure thus created?' the answer comes 'Use it as an algorithm from which to interpret surface structure.' And once this position is reached, the doctrine that transformations should not change meaning seems to be required. Yet, such a doctrine has led investigators away from facts that they should have discovered. Part of the purpose of this study, then, is to present a system of linguistic description which will aid investigators in their attempts to develop a model of language.

2 . Some Support for Transfer Features and Semantic Governance of Syntactic Forms

1.0

A DESCRIPTION OF CURRENT PRACTICES

Few working in the field of theoretical linguistics or English grammar would deny that the transformational revolution has had a considerable effect on studies in these areas. As Wallace Chafe (1970:7) has pointed out, one of the problems with the structuralism of the 1950's was its slavish adherence to concrete data which he described as its inability to move more than a phoneme's length away from the data. Transformationalism has broken this tendency and linguists today are quite willing to plunge into abstractions armed with such concepts as deep and underlying structure as contrasted with surface or superficial structure, propositional cores or base structure, linguistic competence and native speaker intuition, and the 'ideal speakerlistener' in 'a completely homogeneous speech community' (Chomsky, 1965:3). But still, even in the well worked-over grammar of English, there are at least as many insoluble problems as there are brilliant solutions and the transformational approach has uncovered many more interesting questions than it has found agreed-upon answers. (See, for instance, Fillmore (1970: 1-18).) Furthermore, under the concept of the 'ideal speaker-listener' in the completely 'homogeneous speech community,' linguists may be discarding data which they should be accommodating within their theories inasmuch as ideal speaker-listeners and homogeneous speech communities do not in fact exist. In other words, it is apparent from a reading of works such as the influential Irregularity in Syntax (Lakoff, 1970) that transformational theory in its present form can account for irregular, actually occurring sentences in a language only in an ad hoc fashion. Another way to state the same concept is to say that grammarians are so involved with stating the regularities under the concept of language as rule-governed behavior that they neglect many of the partial regularities (to use Langacker's term (1978)) so characteristic of natural language structure. For these reasons, it may be wise to review some assumptions within current transformational

Inherent and Non-inherent Features

15

thought and to subsequently operate under slightly revised versions of these assumptions.

2.0

INHERENT AND NON-INHERENT FEATURES

Some grammars treat features of lexical items as being inherent within these items. Thus, for instance, the noun water is very often marked [-COUNT] because it functions in English sentences in a manner similar to other nouns which have this marking. In the same way, the pronoun they is assumed to have the features [+COMMON] and [-SINGULAR] to distinguish it from he, she, and it which are marked [+SINGULAR] and either [+MASCULINE], [+FEMININE], a n d [-MASCULINE] [-FEMININE] respectively.

There are at least two reasons for treating some features as though they are optionally assigned to lexical items by native speakers within as yet undetermined limits. In the first place, speakers of natural languages use their languages as though at least some of the features are non-inherent and optionally assigned to different words. For example, it is conceivable to think of a dialect of English which recently had nouns such as beer and milk that were marked [-COUNT]. Such a dialect has been subject to change since now beer has come to be used in patterns such as the sentences at 2.1: 2.1 (1) I drank a beer. (2) I drank two beers. Similarly, milk has come to be used in such a way that sentences such as those at 2.3 are now common at school lunch counters. 2.2

(3) I drank a milk (4) I drank two milks So it is that native speakers have optionally assigned the features [+COUNT] or [-COUNT] to nouns such as milk so that the sentences at 2.1 exist side by side with the sentences at 2.2. If some day some native speakers use the sentence, / drank a water, they will be doing what all native speakers are

16

Transfer Features and Semantic Governance of Syntactic

Forms

capable of doing, optionally assigning the feature [+COUNT] to a noun which is usually marked [-COUNT]. 2.3 In the same manner, it is quite easy to find examples of language such as the following: (5) Madrid has been endeavoring . . . to demonstrate how much more liberal Spain is in its official dealings with the Arabs. . . . Spain feels herself to be a Mediterranean country and therefore wishes to consolidate her ties with her neighbors across the sea. {The Atlantic, (August, 1952), p. 8). One way to handle this kind of phenomena is to follow the lead suggested by Hockett (1958:233) and establish classes of pronouns composed of the overlap from each of the primary classes. (This is, in effect, the manner in which problems such as this would be solved in current transformational theory with separate listings in the lexicon for items which manifest different distribution). Another way to handle such phenomenon is to assume that the surface distribution of pronouns is determined by underlying features which can be optionally assigned to the differing surface forms. In the conventions adopted here, the two kinds of features are designated as inherent or non-inherent (transfer) features. Thus, the author of the few sentences at (5) is optionally assigning either the features [-FEMININE] [-MASCULINE] or [+FEMDMINE] to the noun phrase underlying the surface form, Spam, so that the first instance of the pronoun is manifested as it and the second item is manifested as her. 2.4 The second reason for believing that it may be fruitful to consider postulating non-inhering features is that some otherwise hard to handle grammatical phenomena admit to easy solution if features can be optionally assigned to items in the lexicon as they are for Weinreich's transfer features. This should be evident from a perusal of the sentences at 2.5: 2.5 (6) Everyone brought their umbrellas. (7) Neither Joan nor John can come, can they? (8) John and Joan can b o t h come, can't they? Now, if it can be assumed that they and their are marked [+COMMON] and

Semantic Governance of Syntactic R ules

17

[+SINGULAR] through the use of transfer features for sentences (6) and (7) but [+COMMON] and [-SINGULAR] by inherent features in the lexicon for

sentence (8), then these sentences can quite easily be generated by the mechanisms suggested in transformational grammars. Within the theory, it should be possible to specify the conditions under which transfer features can be used. Here it is apparent that the reason for the use of they in sentences (6) and (7) can be found in the fact that English has no third person pronoun marked [+SINGULAR] and [+COMMON]. Thus the only pronoun marked for common gender, they, must in some situations be marked [+SINGULAR] through the use of a transfer feature. The previously mentioned strategy, that of postulating double entries in the lexicon, has been developed by McCawley (1968:126), but this procedure would seem to proliferate the number of underlying forms (listings in the lexicon) unnecessarily. Postulating the existence of features which can be optionally assigned to differing lexical items would obviate the otherwise rapid expansion of the lexicon which would be needed to accommodate new usages that native speakers are forever inventing. It would also seem to be desirable since it would incorporate into the grammar a feature of language evidenced in the usage of native speakers and thus give credence to the claim that the rules of grammar are psychologically real.

3.0

SEMANTIC GOVERNANCE OF SYNTACTIC RULES

Currently, within the interpretive semantics viewpoint of the transformational framework (the EST, the extended standard theory), the assumption is made that the linguist can formulate a deep structure which is essentially syntactic in nature without first determining the patterning of the relevant aspects of the semantic structure. Among the transformationalists, only the generative semanticists believe that aspects of the semantic structure of a language, which apparently governs the distribution of at least some syntactic forms, must be described in conjunction with the writing of a grammar of these forms. There are some linguists, however, who do not espouse the transformationalist's creed but who see the relevance of meaning for the writing of a grammar. These include Wallace Chafe (1970:9 and 63) and Sydney Lamb (1964a and 1964b). It is the purpose of this brief discussion to examine some evidence that may be useful in any attempt to settle this problem. 3.1 The Nature of the Problems The problem of how to deal with meaning in linguistic analysis is not new. Henry Sweet, for instance, insisted that the study of morphology should not concern itself with meaning but that

18

Transfer Features and Semantic Governance of Syntactic Forms

the study of syntax should start from meaning and from this point should describe the distribution of the forms in the grammar of a language (1891: 204—205). The structuralists took the Sweet approach for morphology and applied it to every level of linguistic analysis or they tried to distinguish between referential and differential meaning for the purpose of using only the latter in linguistic analysis (Fries, 1958:57—68. See especially note 36.) Recently, linguists have been arguing over the use of meaning in linguistic analysis to ever greater extents but Chomsky (1970) and Katz (1972) have argued against using meaning in a fashion similar to that of the generative semanticists on the grounds that intermediate and surface structure contribute to the native speaker's understanding of a sentence. Here, first an argument will be presented from evidence that may be treated adequately within the interpretive semanticist's notion of presupposition, although how such a notion can be formalized is unclear. Then some evidence will be presented which seems not to be dealt with adequately from this viewpoint and which consequently requires a stronger conception of the role of semantics in grammar. For the first argument, in the debate over whether English conjunction is phrasal or derived, some instances of conjunction are obviously derived as in 3.2 (9) Bill went outside. (10) John went outside. (11) Bill went outside and John went outside. (12) Bill and John went outside. In the same manner, some conjuncts are obviously phrasal. Thus, it would be impossible to treat any of the following as derived conjuncts: 3.3 (13) They fought hammer and tongs. (14) It's raining cats and dogs. (15) They came through hell and high water.

Semantic Governance of Syntactic Rules

19

It may be, of course, that all of the preceding should be treated as idioms and assigned separate listings in the lexicon. But, on the other hand, there are conjoined elements which are ambiguously phrasal or derived conjuncts. Such an ambiguous sentence follows (16): (16) That pattern comes in green and blue. Sentence (16) is ambiguous, or, in terms of the currently popular terminology, speakers using as sentence such as (16) may have either of two different referents in mind: (i) the pattern comes either in greens or in blues, or (ii) the pattern comes in the combination of colors, green and blue. In the first reading (i), the intended meaning of the sentence can be illustrated by (17) and the meaning of the second reading (ii) can be illustrated by the sentence at (18): (17) You can buy that pattern in either greens or blues. (18) That pattern comes either in green and blue or in yellow and red. Now, for the elements conjoined by and in (18) and in the corresponding reading of (16), namely (ii), only the phrasal conjunction is possible. That is, the reading of (16) which is related to (18) cannot be derived from the following: 3.4 (19) That pattern comes in green. (20) That pattern comes in blue. (21) That pattern comes in green and that pattern comes in blue. But the reading of (16) which corresponds to (17), namely (i), can be derived from a sequence similar to the sentences at 3.4. Therefore, whether conjunction is phrasal or derived depends on the intended meaning that the speaker is trying to convey. Consequently, some notion such as presupposition can be used to determine whether the conjuncts in sentence (16) are phrasal or derived. It is also possible that the notion of presupposition can be used to arbitrate on the grammaticality of sentences within the interpretive model. For example, John Robert Ross treats the following sentence as ungrammatical (1970:234):

20

Transfer Features and Seman tic Governance of Syntactic

Forms

(22) * I am lurking in a culvert. This observer once addressed a secretary walking on the third floor — her usual place of employment was on the fifth floor of the building. To the question, "What are you doing here on the third floor?" she replied "I'm lurking about the halls." Regardless of the actually occurring instances, there is no theoretical justification for considering sentence (22) ungrammatical. Its grammatically or ungrammaticality can be determined solely from the speaker's perception of the situation. As a further illustration of this point, the following sentences should be compared: 3.5 (23) I am standing on a chair. (24) I am standing on the dime that you dropped. For the same reason that sentence (22) could be considered ungrammatical, sentence (23) could be considered ungrammatical. Actually, both sentences (22) and (23) appear odd or ungrammatical, because there is seldom any occasion to use these sentences. In all but a few hard-to-contrive situations (22) would be inappropriate since everybody within the sound of the speaker's voice would normally be aware of the situation; there would be no reason to produce the utterance. For a similar reason, there may never be an occasion to utter (22), since the intent of the speaker would be more or less obvious and the utterance itself would be more or less unnecessary. But by the same token, (24) would be perfectly grammatical because the hearers of the sentence may not be aware of the fact that the speaker is standing on a dime. Or, to put it another way, the intended meaning of the speaker and the presuppositions that the speaker has of the hearers influences the grammaticality judgements in the situation. Sentence (23) is different from sentence (24) in that the object on which the speaker is standing, the chair, can be easily seen by all members of the audience. For sentence (24), this is not true. Nobody in the audience can see the object on which the speaker is standing, a dime; consequently there would be reason to utter (24) but no reason to utter (23). Another way to highlight the same problem is to examine other bits of evidence that are used to support differing viewpoints within the transformational model and other models which have been influenced by the transformational linguists. For instance, Wallace Chafe, who has grappled with the problem of the relation of semantics to linguistic analysis and has reached conclusions which are somewhat different from those of other

Semantic Governance of Syntactic Rules

21

linguists is forced to use the notion of presupposition or the speaker's intended meaning implicitly when he considers the following sentence 'not natural' — presumably, ungrammatical (1970:82): (25) I assembled the dog. Now, if the term, dog, refers to a living, animate dog, this sentence is unnatural or non-grammatical. But, in the context of a person sitting over a toy mechanical dog which he has put together either from an attempt to repair it or from a kit, the sentence would be quite natural and grammatical. Thus, it would seem that the grammarian must grapple with the relation of utterances to situational meanings at least and, possibly also, to the speaker's knowledge of the real world. Thus also, whether the speaker intends the referent to be a toy, mechanical dog or a real dog for the sentence at (25) determines whether the sentence is grammatical or not. There are, however, problems in English grammar which cannot be quite so easily dismissed. These problems center on actually occurring but grammatically irregular sentence patterns. For example, native speakers of English produced the following sentences of English taken from Langendoen (1970: 13). 3.6 (26) I've got five cents in my pocket, haven't I?

(35)

(27) I've got five cents in my pocket, don't I?

(8)

(28) I've got five cents in my pocket, have I not?

(1)

(29) I've got five cents in my pocket, have I?

0)

(The numbers following the sentences indicate the number of informants using each pattern out of a total of 46. One informant gave no reply.) In looking at data such as sentences (26) through (29), the linguist can discard all but sentence (26) as being ungrammatical under the concept of the ideal speaker-listener put forward by Chomsky. However, since these are actually occurring sentences, (26) to (29), it would seem incumbent on the linguist to account for them unless there is strong theoretical reasons for not accounting for their formation. Unlike the previously discussed sentences it is not possible to account for the formation of these sentences with an appeal to presupposition or intended meaning. Yet, within the framework of transformational grammar, it is possible to account for the generation of these

22

Transfer Features and Semantic Governance of Syntactic Forms

sentences by postulating the existence of an underlying matrix of features which express the meaning of possession and which have at least two different surface manifestations, do have and have got. The rules of grammar would thus operate on this underlying feature matrix to produce either do have or have got with the respective tags. Sentences (28) and (29) are simply produced by native speakers optionally assigning the features [+NEGATIVE] or [-NEGATIVE] to the main verb and also by applying or not applying rules for the contraction of the main verb in the tag. Since the forms of the tag question in (26) through (29) are found in the bona fide language patterns of native speakers, it would seem to be in the interests of the linguists to account for their occurrence since supposedly every linguist is attempting to describe the natural language. Furthermore, the phenomenon with have got and does have has been independently corroborrated by this observer through the elicitation of language patterns from freshmen students. Thus, the following sentences occur in English: 3.7 (30) John hasn't got any money but Mary has.

(35)

(31) John hasn't got any money but Mary does.

(17)

(The number following the sentences indicates the number of informants using the forms in the sentences. Instances of individual students using both forms of the sentences at (30) and (31) have been observed.) Again, by assuming that rules operate on underlying semantic feature matrices which express possession and by permitting optional choices in the selection of differing surface forms, the occurrence of sentences (30) and (31) can be explained. 3.8 A Suggested Solution to the Problem. Implicit within the discussion in the preceding sections is the notion that the concept of underlying semantic feature matrices can be used (1) to account for the distinction between language patterns which manifest different readings due to the speaker's presupposition or intentional meaning, (2) to distinguish between semantically ambiguous readings of sentences so that their grammaticality can be adjudicated, and (3) to account for actually occurring but grammatically irregular language patterns. The second of these, (2), follows logically from the discussion used to support (3); if in fact underlying semantic feature matrices govern the grammaticality of actually occurring sentences, then the structuring of the semantic matrices can be used to decide on the grammaticality of the surface forms. The first of these, (1), follows from the fact that the speaker's

Semantic Governance of Syntactic Rules

23

intention of conveying this meaning or that meaning, expressed as underlying semantic feature matrix, determines whether the conjunct underlying sentences such as sentence (16) are phrasal or derived. 3.9 It would of course be naive to suggest that all of syntax in a language is governed by semantics. As suggested in the section on language acquisition (Chapter 1, section 6), language is stored in two different ways in the human brain. This accounts for the fact that language manifests so many 'partial regularities'. Some facets of the syntax of natural languages can be attributed to semantic governance of syntactic patterns; Other cannot. A case in point might be the patterning of verbs of sensation with the simple present to indicate action in the present. As Wolfson (1979:179) and others have noticed, these verbs constitute a natural semantic class. 3.10 (32) I hear music now. (*I'm hearing music now.) (33) The music sounds beautiful. (*The music is sounding beautiful.) (34) The painting looks marvelous. (*The painting is looking marvelous.) This kind of distinction holds for see, smell, feel, and taste, but it does not hold for listen, watch, touch, and other verbs of this nature. It would seem that listen and hear would belong to the same class of verbs of sensation or perceptual verbs, but they do not. Furthermore, in some sentences, even members of the established class may exhibit irregularities as evidenced by the sentences at 3.11: 3.11 (35) You're seeing things. (36) I must be hearing things. Thus, it is apparent that at this point in the relationship of semantics to syntax there are partial regularities. These regularities can be captured through the use of underlying matrices of semantic features, and the fact that the regularities are only partial can be accommodated through

24

Transfer Features and Semantic Governance of Syntactic Forms

the use of the distinction between inherent and non-inherent (or transfer) features. Another case in point is the passivization of some sentences. As Fiengo (1977:55) and others have pointed out sentences such as the one at (37)( i) can be derived from the passive but sentences such as the one at (38)(i) cannot. (37)(i) The wilderness is inhabited by wild beasts, (ii) Wild beasts inhabit the wilderness. (38X0 Antartica is uninhabited by man. (ii) *Man uninhabits Antartica. Again these sentences exhibit partial regularity. Obviously, sentence (38)(i) cannot be derived from a meaningful active counterpart such as the sentence at (38Xii)- However, with the concept of transfer features and a semantic calculator as suggested by Weinreich (1970), the grammar would generate sentences such as (38Xii) but sentences of this type would be assigned a feature (transfer feature) that would block them from occurring in surface structure.

3 . Studies on English Complement Structures

1.0

THE ROSENBAUM STUDY OF COMPLEMENTATION IN ENGLISH

The Rosenbaum (1967) study is one of the earliest studies of English complements from the transformational point of view. In his study, Rosenbaum had attempted to make a distinction between noun phrase complements and verb phrase complements but by the time he had finished, he found it necessary to place a disclaimer in the preface stating that: . . . the number of clear cases of verb phrase complementation has diminished to the point where their general existence becomes questionable. (The Appendix, which provides verb classifications, is correspondingly unreliable.) (Rosenbaum, 1967:ix)

It would thus appear that the central thrust of his study has been blunted somewhat. Nevertheless, the entire study does give some indication of the type of work which has been done on the complements from this point of view and will, therefore, be investigated in some detail. After presenting the phrase structure rules necessary for the study, Rosenbaum moves directly into the complement structures noting that they can be preposed into subject position with the passive as in the sentences at

0):

(1)(a) Columbus demonstrated that the world is not flat (b) that the world is not flat is demonstrated by Columbus (Rosenbaum, 1967:10) From this point, he moves on to an introduction of the concept of verb phrase complementation by demonstrating that, with some verbs, the complement cannot be moved into initial position with the passive. For evidence, he offers the sentences at (2): (2)(a)

1. I tended to think slowly 2. *to think slowly was tended by me

26

Studies on English Complement Structures (b) 1. John needs to go home early 2. *to go home early is needed by John (c) 1. she began to cry 2. *to cry was begun by her (Rosenbaum, 1967:11)

It never seems to occur to Rosenbaum that the reason for the differences between the sentences at (1) and the sentences at (2) has nothing whatever to do with a distinction between complements as objects of verbs (noun phrase complements) and complements which are in post-verbal position but are not objects of verbs. The distinction between the sentences at (1) and those at (2) seems merely to reside in the complement types. It would appear to this observer that, although complements can occur with passive verbs, they cannot occur in the subject position as evidenced by the sentences at (3): (3)(a) 1. Someone knows him to be rather strange. 2. He is known to be rather strange. 3. *To be rather strange is known. (b) 1. It is believed to be a strenuous job. 2. *To be a strenuous job is believed. From this, it would appear that the Rosenbaum evidence is spurious, not indicating the point that he wishes to make. It is thus because he views the evidence as it exists per se and not as it relates to other evidence in the system of language which is the English language. If there were in fact some verbs which could take the infinitival complement in subject position with the passive, then the fact that tend, need, and begin cannot take such a structure in such a position would mean something. But as it is, it means nothing. From this point of view, it would appear that the Rosenbaum sentence (1967:14) is also considered spurious. That sentence is as follows: (4) *to remain silent was preferred by everyone (The grammatical marking is mine, not Rosenbaum's (1967:14).) It would appear to this observer, that while sentences such as (4) are all right in the abstract, they are not the kind of sentence that would be freely generated by native speakers. 1.1 In his chapter on noun phrase complementation, Rosenbaum first discusses object complements with the that complementizer. As evidence he offers the following sentences:

The Rosenbaum Study of Complementation in English (5)(a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f) (g)

27

they doubt it that you will go they doubt that you will go they doubt you will go they doubt it very much that you will go they doubt very much that you will go that you will go is doubted by them it is doubted by them that you will go

Much of the discussion following the presentation of this evidence concentrates on the rule schema and the application of the rules to the generation of the sentences above and others like them. Although Rosenbaum feels that the rule schema which he uses can generate the sentences at (5), he does not feel that they can be used for the sentences at (6). (6)(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

nobody expected it of John that he could be so cruel nobody expected of John that he could be so cruel *nobody expected that he could be so cruel of John it wasn't expected of John that he could be so cruel that he could be so cruel wasn't expected of John (Rosenbaum, 1967:36)

Impressionistically, it is difficult to see how sentence (6)(b) is any more or less grammatical than sentence (6Xc). In any case, much of the ensuing discussion is directed at adapting the rules to the sentences at (6). From this point, Rosenbaum proceeds to discuss the fact that the complementizer that cannot be deleted in sentence initial position as in sentence (7)(c). (7)(a) that you will find him is doubted by them (b) it is doubted by them that you will find him (c) *you will find him is doubted by them Within his framework, Rosenbaum must resort to this kind of explanation to account for the fact that the complentizer cannot be deleted in sentences after the manner of (7)(c). ' . . . first of all, . . . the extraposition transformation be divided into an optional case and an obligatory case and, second, that the obligatory version be sensitive to more structure than simply the contiguity of the pronominal head of the complement construction with the complement sentence itself (Rosenbaum, 1967:39).

Nevertheless, this kind of solution is admitted to have difficulties, resulting in more discussion on how to block the that complementizer from being deleted

28

Studies on English Complement Structures

in subject position. Added to this difficulty is the difficulty with indefinite pronoun deletion. Acccording to Rosenbaum, sentences with the by phrase in the passive are ungrammatical if the complementizer has been deleted and if the by phrase has an indefinite pronoun as in the sentences at (8). (8)(a) (b) (c) (d)

it was thought by someone that you would come *it was thought by someone you would come it was thought that you would come it was thought you would come (Rosenbaum, 1967:40)

Interestingly enough, the sentence at (8)(b) seems no less grammatical to this observer than other sentences that Rosenbaum has marked grammatical, such as the sentence at (6Xb). Yet, great effort is expended in adapting the rules to accommodate what appears to be capricious judgements on what is or is not grammatical. 1.2 Following the discussion of complementation with that, Rosenbaum proceeds to deal with the POSS-ing complementizer otherwise known as the gerundive complement. His basic data is constituted of the following sentences: (9)(a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f) (g)

*everybody prefers it your driving slowly everybody prefers your driving slowly everybody prefers you driving slowly *everybody prefers it very much your driving slowly *everybody prefers very much your driving slowly your driving slowly is preferred by everybody *it is preferred by everybody your driving slowly (Rosenbaum, 1967:44)

Rosenbaum considers it striking that the pronoun head (in this case, it) cannot occur with the gerundive complement since he finds that such a pronoun can occur with the that complementizer as in sentence (6)(a). After discussing the passive with the gerundive complement, he moves on to the fact that " . . . the deletion of the complementizer "POSS' (possessive) is impossible in the event that an NP intervenes between the complementizer and the verb" (Rosenbaum, 1967:45). For evidence, he offers the sentences at (10). (10Xa) 1. I convinced Mary that he was honest. 2. I convinced Mary he was honest.

The Rosenbaum Study of Complementation (b)

in English

29

1. I convinced Mary of his being honest. 2. *I convinced Mary of him being honest.

In this data, it would appear that Rosenbaum is comparing two quite different things; namely, the deletion of the complementizer that and the substitution of a pronoun in the accusative for one in the genetive. The reason for this is that the deletion of the complementizer that does not change the status of any of the constituents in the sentence while the change in the pronouns with the gerundive complementizer does in fact change the grammatical status of the constituents involved. This is most readily apparent in the sentences as (11). (1 lXa) I am aware of his leaving. (Cf. I am aware of his abrupt leaving. I remember his careless wandering in the desert. I remember his brutal beating of the child. I reprimanded him for his brutal beating of the child.) (b) I am aware of him leaving. (Cf. *I am aware of him abrupt leaving. I remember him carelessly wandering in the desert. I remember him brutally beating the child. I reprimanded him for brutally beating the child.) In terms of the grammatical analysis that Rosenbaum uses, sentence (11 )(a) has an embedded sentence following the predicate be aware o f , that sentence is the object of the predicate. Sentence (1 l)(b) also has an embedded sentence in the predicate, but the subject of the verb in the embedded sentence is also object of the predicate in the main sentence. The difference, however, is found in the fact that although the pronoun in the predicate of both sentences serves a double function it has a quite different function. The his of sentence (1 lXa) acts as a possessive adjective related to the following verbal noun and functions as the subject of the verbal since it is derived from a pronoun in which it is the subject of the verb. The object pronoun in sentence (1 lXb) functions also as the subject of the verb leave in the embedded sentence but it also functions as an object of the predicate of the main sentence. As the example sentences demonstrate so accurately, there is a great difference between what Rosenbaum designates as sentences before the POSS-ing deletion and what he designates as sentences after the deletion of the POSS-ing complementizer. In fact, they are so different that, in the opinion of this observer, they cannot be derived from the same source. The first exhibits strong nominal characteristics as evidenced by the fact that it not only takes a possessive adjective but also takes true adjectives in the noun phrase evidenced

30

Studies on English Complement Structures

by the adjectives in the comparison sentences at (1 l)(a). The second exhibits strong verbal characteristics as evidenced by the adverbs modifying the verbal in the comparison sentences at (ll)(b). In terms of the bracketing used to indicate the structure of the sentences under discussion, the sentences at (11) would be parsed as follows: (12Xa) [I am aware of it] [he is leaving] (b) [I am aware of him] [he is leaving] The failure to notice this is a defect in the Rosenbaum study, and it would seem that it is a serious defect since not noticing such a phenomenon would preclude an accurate semantic interpretation. It is strange that Rosenbaum does not make such an observation since grammarians such as Jespersen, whom he cites (1967:112—113), were aware of it. (See Jespersen, V, 1970: 142ff. Jespersen discusses this distinction as a distinction between a participle and a gerund.) Making such an observation would preclude Rosenbaum from lumping the complements in sentences such as (9)(c) with the sentences containing the so-called POSS-ing complementizer. It would thus appear that the Rosenbaum discussion focuses so completely on subjects such as the identity erasure transformation and the ordering of transformations that it misses some important facts concerning the complements themselves. 1.3 Following the discussion of object complementation with the gerundive or POSS-ing complementizer, Rosenbaum moves on to the discussion of the for - to complement or the infinitival complement. For evidence, he offers the following: (13)(a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f) (g)

everyone would prefer it for you to come early everyone would prefer for you to come early everyone would prefer you to come early everyone would prefer it very much for you to come early everyone would prefer very much for you to come early it would be preferred by everyone for you to come early for you to come early would be preferred by everyone (Rosenbaum, 1967:53)

Together with these sentences, he offers similar sentences which have had identical subjects in the higher and lower sentences with the subjects of the latter deleted as in the following: (14Xa) everyone would prefer it to come early (b) everyone would prefer to come early

The Rosenbaum Study of Complementation in English

31

(c) everyone would prefer very much to come early (d) to come early would be preferred by everyone (e) it would be preferred by everyone to come early. Again, it would appear that some of the sentences which he offers as evidence are only marginally grammatical, if at all. Included among these would be the sentences at (13Xa), (13)(b), (13)(d), (13Xe), (14Xa), (14)(c) and (14)(d). Certainly, in some dialects, the for—to is seldom ever retained in the infinitival complement. In any case, Rosenbaum devotes almost five pages of text to demonstrating how the rule schema generates these sentences. From this point, Rosenbaum goes on to discuss subject raising with the now famous sentences at (15). (15Xa) I compelled the doctor to examine John. (b) I compelled John to be examined by the doctor. It is strange indeed that Rosenbaum notices the fact that John is the object of compel in sentence (15)(b) but does not notice the distinction between him and his in sentences similar to those at (11). From here, Rosenbaum proceeds to discuss subject complementation in English. Here, he admits from the outset that " . . . the number of intransitive verbs in English taking subject complements is comparatively s m a l l . . . " (1967:71). The class of verbs which can occur in this construction is constituted of appear, matter, came to pass, seem, happen and turn out with the that complementizer in sentences such as the following: (16)(a) it turns out that John is right (b) it happened that John came early (Rosenbaum, 1967:71) For these verbs, the extraposition transformation seems to be obligatory since sentences such as the following do not occur. (17)(a) *that John is right turns out (b) *that John came early happened These sentences turn out to create a puzzle since very similar sentences seem to be all right. (18Xa) 1. that John is right turns out to be the case 2. it turns out to be the case that John is right

32

Studies on English Complement Structures (b)

1. that John came early happened to annoy Bill 2. it happened to annoy Bill that John came early (Rosenbaum, 1967:72)

Rosenbaum distinguishes between the grammaticality of sentence (18)(a) and the ungrammatically of sentence (17)(a) by stipulating that the extraposition transformation be obligatory with these verbs when they occur before a sentence boundary. This may not be a sufficient condition since adverbs can follow the verbs without changing the grammaticality judgement as in the sentences at (19). (19X a ) *that John is right turns out, usually (b) it turns out that John is right, usually In any case, Rosenbaum himself admits to difficulties with the analysis. The discussion then turns to the for - to complementizer with these verbs. Here, Rosenbaum presents evidence as follows: (20)(a)

(b)

1. *for John to find gold happened 2. *it happened for John to find gold 3. John happened to find golf. 1. *for John to be unhappy appeared 2. *it appeared for John to be unhappy 3. John appeared to be unhappy.

The grammatical sentences in this evidence, those numbered (3), are derived from the sentences numbered (2) by pronoun replacement. This then accounts for the fact that the sentences at (21) are synonymous even though the (b) sentence is not derived from the (a) sentence in a strict sense. (21 Xa) John happened to mention Bill. (b) Bill happened to be mentioned by John. As Rosenbaum notes, the pronoun replacement transformation does not apply for transitive verbs. As a result, all three complementizers can be used in subject position with transitive verbs as in the following: (22)(a)

(b)

1. that you came early surprised me 2. it surprised me that you came early 1. for you to find me this way embarrasses me

The Rosenbaum Study of Complementation

in English

33

2. it embarrasses me for you to find me this way (c)

1. John's playing the bugle annoys me 2. *it annoys me John's playing the bugle.

In the section on oblique noun phrase complementation, Rosenbaum discusses the fact that some verbs require a preposition with the gerundive or POSS-ing complementizer as in sentence (23). (23) I decided on John's representing us. The question is raised in this discussion about whether the preposition should be introduced transformationally or with the phrase structure rules. In most grammars being written now, this is no longer an option. In any case, a preposition deletion transformation is needed with the preposition being introduced in the phrase structure with the that complementizer version of sentence (23) at (24). (24) I decided that John should represent us. He also discusses the fact that some transitive verbs which take complements cannot enter the cleft sentence transformation. Thus, sentence (25)(d) is ungrammatical: (25 Xa) (b) (c) (d)

I reminded John to visit his ailing mother I defied John to visit his ailing mother what I reminded John of was to visit his ailing mother *what I defied John (of) was to visit his ailing mother

Rosenbaum's observation is obviously correct. What is surprising is the fact that he does not relate the meaning of the verbs involved to the fact they do or do not occur in this or that structure. Thus, for this set of verbs, it is apparent that dare, threaten, and challenge also cannot take the cleft transformation although they can be associated with the infinitival complement in the predicate. It is obviously their meaning which permits them to enter one construction but blocks them from entering another. 1.4 Following this discussion, Rosenbaum proceeds to a chapter-long discussion on verb phrase complementation. Since, however, he has in fact admitted his inability to differentiate verb phrase complementation from noun phrase complementation, no attempt will be made here to discuss such a discussion. Similarly, since, according to Rosenbaum, the " . . . behavior of

34

Studies on English Complement Structures

predicate complement constructions in adjectival structures is, in many ways, remarkably similar to the behavior of these same constructions in the verbal structures discussed in earlier chapters" (1967:100), no attempt will be made to discuss them here.

2.0

THE PIZZINI STUDY OF COMPLEMENTS IN ENGLISH

This study starts with an admission that the Rosenbaum study has provided the basic framework for all subsequent studies on the complements in English written in the five year period from the publication of the former to the completion of the latter. The author of the study also states: There are many parts of Rosenbaum's (and subsequent) analysis which are disconcertingly ad hoc; the rules represent a way to handle the data, but many of them do not have much in the way of explanatory power. (Pizzini, 1972:4)

In particular, Pizzini refers to criticisms of the Rosenbaum work by G. Lakoff (1966), who, on the basis of new evidence, disputes the ordering of the transformation used by Rosenbaum. Evidently, reflexivization in sentences with complements requires a differing order of the transformations involved. Furthermore, evidently Chomsky (1970) suggests that the passive transformation, rather than requiring two steps, should be broken down into two transformations. This kind of thinking forces the use of only elementary transformations and therefore precludes the use of Lakoff s raising rule. R. Lakoff (1968) in her work on Latin complementation suggests that for English only a single complementizer be introduced, the complementizer that and that all other complements be derived from this. Kiparsky and Kiparsky (1970) suggest 'on systactic and semantic grounds' (Pizzini, 1972:12) that the noun fact be inserted as a head noun in structures with the that complementizer. They also require a reformulation of the raising rule. Of most interest in the Pizzini review of the literature is the fact that, according to him, R. Lakoff, G. Lakoff and Rosenbaum all view complementizer insertion as 'an idiosynctatic phenomen.' Undoubtedly, this is a result of the doctrine formulated by Chomsky in (1957) known as the independence of grammar there and autonomous syntax now. The Kiparskys evidently have changed this somewhat by suggesting that " . . . whether or not a particular complementizer is inserted (or remains) depends on the prior application of various transformations" (Pizzini, 1972:15). Pizzini criticizes all these authors for failing to relate the complementizer transformations to 'morphemes occurring elsewhere in the language.' As an example, he cites the progressive morpheme-/«^ and the complementizer-/'«^ neglecting the fact that Rosenbaum

The Pizzini Study of Complements in English

35

(1967:28) at least does this informally. Unlike Rosenbaum, Pizzini believes that verb phrase complementation does in fact exist and that it is a " . . . much more widespread phenomenon than Rosenbaum originally argued it to be" (1972:20). Pizzini's argument hinges on the fact that the passive affects sentences with verbs such as surprise in a different manner than it affects verbs such as demonstrate. This is evident in the sentences at (26). (26)(a) (b) (c) (d)

Columbus demonstrated that the world is not flat. That the world is not flat was demonstrated by Columbus. That the doctor came at all surprised me. I was surprised that the doctor came at all.

In his argumentation, he points out that (26)(a) is similar to any number of sentences with simple noun phrases in the passive. Such a passive is not possible for sentences with surprise as is evident from the examples at sentences (26)(c) and (26)(d). The English language, however, does have a way of preposing the complement sentence as in (26Xc). The difference between sentences with surprise and sentences with demonstrate does need to be marked, but there is some question as to whether the most effective way to mark this distinction is through the contrast between verb phrase complementation and noun phrase complementation. It is obvious that the difference between the sentences at (26) with surprise and those with demonstrate is similar to the difference between verbs known as converses such as lead and follow in the sentences at (27). (27)(a) The corporal followed the captain. (b) The captain lead the corporal. It would thus appear to this observer that marking the verbs in the lexicon for the kind of relationship which exists for converses would tie them into a series of systematic similarities which exist throughout the English language at least for verbs like demonstrate and surprise. Nevertheless, Pizzini offers as evidence for the NP — VP complementation difference the same evidence that Rosenbaum offers; namely, that the NP complements can enter the cleft sentence transformation while the VP complements cannot as in the sentences at (28). (28)(a) (b) (c) (d)

I hate for you to do things like that. What I hate is for you to do things like that. We tempted Mary to stay right here. *What we tempted was (for) Mary to stay right here.

36

Studies on English Complement

Structures

Again it would appear to this observer that the rather obvious meaning differences between tempt and hate account for their differing behavior in the sentences at (28). The effect of this meaning difference is discussed in a later chapter (Chapter 4). It may be something on the order of the difference between verbs which are marked [+INTERNAL] (so-called private verbs such as hate) and verbs which are marked [-INTERNAL] (so-called public verbs such as tempt). Stockwell and others (1972) support the grammaticality judgements made here; namely, they do not permit subjectless infinitives to be subjects of passive sentences. (See, for instance, the discussion of the sentences at (2), (3) and (4) in section 1.0 of this chapter.) They also argue that the cleft sentence argument is not valid on the basis of the fact that with sentences such as (28)(c) the ungrammatically is caused by the fact that the attempt is made to cleft two constituents and that the ungrammatically is a result of this, not of any such syntactic relation as verb phrase complementation. According to Pizzini, still yet another attempt at making a distinction between verb phrase complementation and noun phrase complementation was made by Emonds (1970), who suggests that -ing complements are dominated by the marker NP in deep structure and are NP complements but that for - to complements and that complements are not " . . . strictly speaking, NP complements," even though they are " . . . generated at the end of NP, VP,and AP (adjective phrase)" (Pizzini, 1972:25). Emonds bases his argument on the fact that the pseudo-cleft transformation is not a true test of 'NP-ness' and that, therefore, the analyses of Rosenbaum and Stockwell (and others) is in error. He also bases his argument on the similarity between gerundive complements and that complements and their difference from the infinitval complement. He correctly reports that the Kiparskys (1970) challenge Rosenbaum on introducing for and to with every infinitival complement. As far as they are concerned, only the emotive verbs take such a construction. Only those verbs which form the natural semantic class of emotives can take the infinitival complement with both for and to. Following this, Pizzini states his position asserting that he will: . . . take a position intermediate between that of Stockwell et al. and that of Emonds, yet distinct from that of Rosenbaum. This position is the ING and F O R - T O complements are embedded in NP's and THAT complements are ambivalent in this respect.

In arriving at his position, Pizzini relies on evidence which the other writers evidently had not considered. In particular, he used right and left dislocation, noting that the following sentences produced grammatical judgements as indicated:

The Pizzini Study of Complements in English (29)(a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f) (g) (h) (i)

37

Mary's leaving, I resent. Mary's leaving, I resent it. I resent it, Mary's leaving. *To be a fool, I consider Bill. *To be fool, I consider Bill it. *I consider Bill it, to be a fool. ?That John left, I regret. That John left, I regret it. I regret it, that John left.

At this point, it is strange that Pizzini pairs a double object verb consider with a verb which is not a double object verb resent to arrive at his conclusions. If the infinitival complement is used with a verb which does not require a double object, the results seem to be different. (30Xa) To live a good life, I tried. (b) To live a good life, I tried it. (c) I tried it, to live a good life. Certainly, the sentences at (30)(a)—(c) can hardly be considered the type that native speakers generate freely,but then,neither are the sentences at (29Xa)~ (c). From the point of view of this observer it is hard to differentiate between the two sets of sentences as far as intuitions of grammaticality are concerned. It would seem that Pizzini, like Rosenbaum, uses spurious evidence to support his case. Nevertheless, it is incorrect to conclude from this evidence, as Pizzini does, that the that complements are more similar to the gerundive complements than the infinitival complements. When he looks at sentence pronominalization, Pizzini comes to the conclusion that the infinitival complement is different than the gerundive complement on the basis of sentences such as those at (31). (31X&) Hortense defended Igor's stripping in the park, and Natasha defended it too. (b) *Gregor tried to antagonize the diva, and Sturdley tried it too. Again, it would seem that the evidence is spurious since (31)(b) seems every bit as acceptable as (3lXa) although Pizzini has the two sentences marked differenily. In the data, there are sentences with sentence pronominalization that do seem to be quite unacceptable such as the sentence at (32). (32Xa) *Boris forced Stanislaw to submit to his fiendish overtures, and Piotr forced (him) it too.

38

Studies on English Complement Structures (b) *Bill thinks Harry to be a troll, and Harry's mom thinks (him) it too.

Certainly the sentences with him at (32) are unacceptable but it would appear that these sentences are unacceptable on the basis of factors other than the interaction of the infinitival complement with sentence pronominalization. Again, Pizzini's argument relies on the grammatically or ungrammatically of the sentences at (33). (The markings reflect his grammatically judgements.) (33)(a) Bill regretted that John had been so rash, which Mary regretted too. (b) *Bill thinks Mary to be sick, which John regrets. And again, it would appear that Pizzini's grammaticality judgements are incorrect. In all probability, the sentence at (33Xb) is not as acceptable as the sentence at (33Xa) simply because the sentence with the infinitival construction itself is rather odd: Bill thinks Mary to be sick. Furthermore, Pizzini's position requires that the sentence What did John try? must be ungrammatical " . . . on the reading of try which can take an infinitival complement" (1972:43). It would appear that such a requirement stretches the credulity of the reader. Pizzini himself admits that there are "damaging counter examples" (1972:44). All of these involve sentences with the infinitival complement. In his summary statements, Pizzini admits that a grammar without VP complementation would in fact have a more simple set of phrase structure rules, but he seems to feel that " . . . discussion of relative simplicity is largely fatuous given the present state of the linguistic art" (1972:47). He thus feels that arguments from simplicity are a matter of 'subjective judgement' and that one analysis may prove to be as simple as another when all the facts of a grammar are taken into consideration. There then follows a long discussion of how to generate sentences involving negatives, modals and other structures and the various concepts of simplicity. He then comes to the conclusion that " . . . so-called VP complementation does not involve an otherwise unnecessary complication of the phrase structure grammar" (1972:53). Much of the remaining chapters deals with the formalism necessary to generate the structures as per the general outline established in the previous chapter. This formalism is cast in language such as the following: One fairly widely accepted tenet of transformational theory is that movement transformations apply only to single constituents. . . . However, no transformation can move B+C (or C+D or B+D), since it does not form a constituent. The only way to operate on both B and C is to move A, a single constituent, but that obviously requires that D also be moved. (Pizzini, 1972:85).

The Pizzini Study of Complements in English

39

Undoubtedly, such discussions are of importance within transformational theory but since they add little to the central thrust of this study; namely, how linguistic analysis can be developed in such a way that syntax and semantics are not consigned to separate domains, they will not be discussed intensively here. The facts of interest that come out of this part of the Pizzini study, however, are as follows: Pizzini finds it necessary to distinguish between two types of infinitival complements (i) those which are embedded to emotive verbs and require the for— to complementizer. The other type can produce the accusative plus infinitive construction and occurs with non-emotives. Pizzini thus certifies part of the Kiparsky and Kiparsky (1970) study. Besides this, following Friedin (1970) and Bresnan (1970), Pizzini notes that there is a radical difference in meaning between the infinitival and gerundive complements dominated by some verbs as in (34). (34Xa) John forgot to hit Mary. (b) John forgot hitting Mary. From this and from the fact that in his grammar all gerundive complements are dominated by nodes marked NP and no infinitival complements are so structured, Pizzini maintains that there is a meaning difference between all infinitival and gerundive complements (1973:173). He notices that there is a difference between the gerundive and infinitival complement on the order of the reification/hypothesis dimension suggested by Bolinger (1968) although he never cites the Bolinger work. Pizzini points out that there, nevertheless, is a puzzling aspect to this since the sentences at (35)(a) and (b) are obviously different, while the sentences at (35)(c) and (d) are not so obviously different on this dimension. (35)(a) (b) (c) (d)

John began to hit the cop. John began hitting the cop. John began to study. John began studying.

In (35Xa), it can be the case that John did not hit the cop while in (35)(b) this cannot be true. This relationship does not hold for sentences (35)(c) and (d). Pizzini is at a loss to explain this difference although, undoubtedly, the difference lies in a difference between the semantics of the verb hit and that of the verb study. In terms suggested by William Bull, the former is a cyclic verb while the later is a non-cyclic verb. In any case, Pizzini follows through with this distinction by using the test which is employed in the next chapter of this work; namely, comparing the infinitival and gerundive complements in sentences with but as in (36).

40

Studies on English Complement Structures (36)(a) John coaxed Mary to leave, but she never left. (b) *John coaxed Mary into leaving, but she never left.

Pizzini then discusses how this distinction does or does not hold true for verbs such as imagine, dream, suggest, talk, bully, convince, dissuade, prevent, save, accuse, suspect, and convict. He concludes that there is no principled way of distinguishing verbs which do or do not express reification with the gerundive complement. He states this in these terms: " . . . there is no apparent way to attribute the meaning difference . . . to the NP dominating the gerund" (1972:177). From this point, Pizzini attempts to find differing ways in which he can derive coax so that the differing meanings with the two types of complements are separate in the grammar. Unfortunately, his discussion is marred by the fact that at a critical point he wishes to mark the following sentences as indicated: (37)(a) John coaxed Bill to break the window until 3 o'clock. (b) *John coaxed Bill into breaking the window until 3 o'clock. His argument is therefore invalid since it would seem that the sentences at (37) are equally grammatical or ungrammatical. The Pizzini study, then, shows many of the characteristics of the Rosenbaum study. Its principal advance over that study, however, lies in the recognition of the difference in meaning between gerundive and infinitival complements with some verbs.

3.0

THE IWAKURA STUDY

Five years after the Pizzini dissertation, Iwakura has published an analysis which maintains that: . . . Rosenbaum's fications as those constructions, or plements as NP's

analysis of complement sentences need not undergo such radical modisuggested by Horn, who assigns nonsentential structures to gerundive those suggested by Emonds, who never treats that and for — to com(1977:307).

Iwakura then goes on to insist that the Rosenbaum analysis simply requires a 'slight modification' so that gerundive and WH-complements are introduced in a manner which is distinct from that and for — to complements. One of the reasons that Iwakura has for making these recommendations lies in the sentences at (38). (Sentences (38)(a) and (b) are taken from Horn (1974).) (38Xa) For you to do that I don't think would be wise.

The Iwakura Study

41

(b) That Susan would be late John didn't think was very likely. (Iwakura, 1977:308) (c) That Bill was a fool we believed to be obvious. (d) That Mary had left, John called to my attention. (Iwakura 1977:328,329) Again it would appear that the evidence is probably spurious since the positioning of the unconnected sentences I don't think and John didn't think in the sentences at (39)(a) and (b) create ungrammatical sentences. It would seem that linguists who are supposedly accounting for the sentences of the 'ideal speaker-listener' in a completely 'homogeneous speech community' would consider the sentences ungrammatical and would in their place suggest sentences such as (39) as their grammatical counterparts. (39)(a) (b) (c) (d)

I don't think it would be wise for you to do that. John didn't think it was very likely that Susan would be late. We believe it to be obvious that Bill was a fool. John called to my attention the fact that Mary had left.

Even if sentences such as those at (38) were to be found in a corpus there would be reason to consider them ungrammatical. Similar statements could be made about sentences such as (40) which are produced by Right Dislocation. (40)(a) It is wrong what you are doing. (b) He wondered if it was true what Mabel had said. The argument here is not that these sentences may not occur in speech. They occur in the same way that false starts and other anacolutha occur. The argument here is that such sentences are not grammatical when they do occur. There is no doubt that a complicated transformational machinery can be formulated to distinguish between sentences such as those at (41). (41 X&) What did it surprise you that John ate? (b) *What did it matter little who ate? But the question is this: Have grammarians who provide rules to describe one sentence suchas(85)(a)as grammatical and the other sentence such as (85)(b) as ungrammatical actually described a phenomenon that exists in language or are they describing a figment of their own imagination? The contention is here that the rules of language are made unnecessarily complex by describing as grammatical sentences which are in fact ungrammatical. As a result, the

42

Studies on English Complement Structures

Iwakura study suceeds mostly in refuting the Horn (1974) and leaving the study of the complements at a 1967 stage of development, the stage of development found in the Rosenbaum work.

4.0

THE BRESNAN STUDY

In a manner quite different from that of the other writers on the complements in English, Bresnan (1970) attacks the Rosenbaum study while mentioning it only in a footnote. Her basic criticism of this position centers on the fact that the transformational hypothesis requires //wi-complements, for—to complements and POSS-/wg complements to be indistinguishable in deep structure. This would also require that the complements have the same meaning and it would also create a situation in which every complement taking verb should in fact be able to dominate every complement from the viewpoint of Bresnan. However, it has been apparent that " . . . some characteristic of the higher verb or predicate affects the choice of complementizer" (Bresnan, 1970:298). The reason that characteristics of the higher verb cannot be incorporated within the transformational hypothesis is that: . . . complementizer insertion could not occur on the first cycle because the transformation would not 'know' which complementizers are permitted (after a particular verb) until the next cycle (the cycle after the complementizer had been applied). In other words, the structural description of any complementizer-insertion transformation cannot be limited to a complement clause, but must include the verb or adjective which that clause complements (Bresnan, 1970:299).

Besides this, the transformational hypothesis has the difficulty caused by a 'well-motivated universal' stated by Chomsky (1965:146), namely, that while transformations may remove material from embedded sentences, no transformation can insert morphological material into lower' sentences' (Bresnan, 1970:299-300). The disturbing aspect of Bresnan's work, however, can be found in the fact that " . . . some aspects of complementizer-choice cannot even be described within the transformational hypothesis without extending it in undesirable ways" (Bresnan, 1970:303). As a result, Bresnan proposes " . . . an alternative theory - 'the phrase-structure hypothesis'" (Bresnan, 1970:300). While Bresnan supports this theory she also hopes to show that complementizers are " . . . far from the semantically empty, syntactically trivial particles that they have been assumed to be in most previous generative work" (Bresnan, 1970:301). One of the differences from the conventional transformational treatment that this requires is that verbs must be subcategorized for the complement that they require since complements are not in

The Bresnan Study

43

fact the same in meaning. The necessity for this can be found in the fact that sentences such as (42Xa) and (b) are in fact different in meaning since the negative for one affects the lower sentence but the negative for the other does not. (42Xa) It may not distress John for Mary to see his relatives, (b) It may not distress John that Mary sees his relatives. (Bresnan, 1979:302) Similarly, Bresnan shows that the for-to complement is different from the that complement in that sentence (43) is grammatical with the that complement but not with the for to complement. (43) That he eats cabbage means that he is of low birth. *For him to eat cabbage means for him to be of low birth. Bresnan, like other methodologists, uses evidence to prove a certain hypothesis that builds towards the theory which forms the central thrust of a study. Thus, Bresnan finds that " . . . when that occurs in the object, for cannot occur in the subject" (1970:304). For support of this principle, she offers the following: (44) *For him to eat cabbage means that he will be sick. She does not seem to consider sentence such as the following, which may in fact be grammatical: (45) For him to eat cabbage means that things are bad. From native speaker intuition alone it is difficult to determine whether such sentences are in fact ungrammatical or grammatical. Nevertheless, Bresnan then states another principle which says that " . . . certain verbs prohibit noun phrase objects when they have sentential subjects" (1970:305). For evidence she offers the sentence at (46): (46) *That the first statement is true implies the second statement. Indicating that subcategorization of verbs is in fact quite detailed Bresnan argues from the evidence at (47) that subcategorization of verbs must do more than merely mark them for complement insertion since tell takes different kinds of complements depending on whether there is an expressed indirect object.

44

Studies on English Complement (47Xa) (b) (c) (d)

Structures

*Susie didn't tell that they had eaten. Susie didn't tell whether they had eaten. Susie didn't tell us that they had eaten. Susie didn't tell us whether they had eaten.

Interestingly enough, (47)(a) is grammatical under one reading; namely, the reading in which tell has the meaning of tell on or inform. With this reading, on would be deleted before the that complementizer. Bresnan neglects this reading of tell stating that " . . . these examples (those at (47)) suggest that that is permitted with tell only if the indirect object is specified in deep structure" (1970:305). She does pick up on a similar distinction, that is, on the distinction between tell someone and tell. But here again, it appears that the evidence presented is not completely accurate. The grammaticality judgements require the following sentence to be marked as ungrammatical. (48) *I always like to tell stories to someone — but not necessarily to anyone. (Bresnan, 1970:305). (There is some question as to why Bresnan finds it necessary to place a heavy stress on the preposition to in sentence (48).) It would appear to this observer that any sentence with a heavy stress of the preposition in a similar position would be ungrammatical and thus this particular example has no meaning whatsoever.) Typifying (48) as ungrammatical leaves unexplained sentences such as (49) which are identical in structure except for the inclusion of the adverbial marker just. (49) I always like to tell stories to someone — but not necessarily to just anyone. Again it would appear that the attempt to make an extremely fine (and probably non-existent) distinction between grammatical sentences of one type and non-grammatical sentences of another complicates the grammar unnecessarily. In any case, one of Bresnan's arguments that the transformational approach will not work for the derivation of the complements centers on the fact that conjunction reduction cannot be applied in a cyclic order to arrive at sentences such as (50). (50) It is strange that Kip flew to New York and Mary flew to Chicago. Again it would appear that Bresnan is using spurious evidence since she feels that sentence (50) is ambiguous between the readings in (51) and (52).

The Bresnan Study

45

(5 l)(a) Speaker A: It is strange that Kip flew to New York, but I'm not surprised that Mary flew to Chicago, (b) Speaker B: It is strange that Kip flew to New York and that Mary flew to Chicago. (52) It is strange both that Kip flew to New York and that Mary flew to Chicago. It is the opinion of this observer that, although an interpretation such as that in (51) can be placed on the sentence at (50), the sentence itself does not make such a distinction. Support for this can be seen in the fact that Bresnan must create a situation to impose this interpretation on the sentence. If the reading of (51) were to occur in a natural situation, individuals involved would undoubtedly need to clarify the sentence thus created. Following arguments such as these, Bresnan moves on to her arguments that WH is a complementizer in sentences such as (53). (53) How he acts early in the morning will show what he's really like. For this argument, there is in fact good evidence since sentences such as those at (54) do in fact exist. (54)(a) John didn't know how to amuse himself in the forest. (b) The Boy Scouts wondered who to obey. (c) They couldn't decide whether to strike or not. Certainly, such an argument is from one point of view uncontroversial. With the sentences at (54) finite predication is possible with little change of meaning. Thus the sentences at (55) are similar in meaning to those at (54). (55)(a) John didn't know how he could amuse himself in the forest. (b) The Boy Scouts wondered who they could obey. (c) They couldn't decide whether they should strike or not. In this respect, the for-to complements and the WH complements are similar. This is observable from a perusal of the sentences at (56). (56)(a) I told him to go. (b) I told him that he should go. Since this is so, it would seem that the WH complementizer is similar to the POSS-ing, for-to or that complementizers since they are readily paraphrasable

46

Studies on English Complement Structures

by complementizers of different types. However, it appears that the complementizer that is of a different nature from the WH complementizer since it can be readily moved to subject position with the passive. This seems not to be the case with the WH complements. (56)(a) That John is a futurist is known by everyone, (b) *How John is a futurist is known by everyone. In any case, the decision of whether to treat WH as a complementizer can be made simply from the point of view of the scope of the study. Here, WH is not included with the complementizers, partly for the reason noted above and partly because it has not been treated as a complementizer in the majority of studies reviewed. In any case, Bresnan ends her study by discussing Baker's (1970) Q-universal and incorporating her WH complements into this.

5.0

OTHER STUDIES ON COMPLEMENTS IN ENGLISH

The Schacter study starts with the following statement: "The first generative analysis of English gerundive nominals - and therefore essentially the only one - is due to Lees ( I 9 6 0 ) ' (Schachter, 1 9 7 6 : 2 0 5 - 2 4 1 ) . The statement is at best curious since it seems to pass over the works already reviewed here even though the Rosenbaum study is cited in the bibliography although most of the other studies are not, but then the writer acknowledges the Rosenbaum study, the Kiparsky and Kiparaky study, his own and that of Chomsky, but neglects all others. Like Bresnan, Schachter argues for a non-transformational analysis of the gerundive complements. His argument against the transformational analysis, however, is based on the existence of so-called subjectless gerunds in English. Thus all the (a) sentences at (57) could conceivably be derived from the (b) sentences. The assignment of subjects to the (b) sentences is, however, rather arbitrary since any subject in reality could be assigned to these gerunds. (57) (i) a. Fred enjoyed taking the bus. b. (Fred enjoy it) (he take bus) (ii) a. Taking the bus was fun. b. (it be fun) (we? he? she? they? you take bus) (iii) a. Fred recommended taking the bus b. (Fred recommend it) (we? he? she? you take bus)

Other Studies on Complements in English

47

Postal (1970) put forward the notion of 'implicit control' to describe sentences such as these, but it is doubtful that such a notion can be formalized within the transformational model since as Postal pointed out they would not permit the recoverability of deletions. The non-transformational approach does not need a concept such as 'implicit control' neither does it need statements on deletions or on the recoverability of deletions. However, it suffers from an inability to interpret sentences such as the (a) sentences of (57) as though they indeed have subjects in the gerund. Schachter (1976:215) feels that the subjects of sentences such as (57) can be predicted from whether the action in the sentence is particular or general. This does not, howver, provide an answer to the objection noted in reference to the sentences at (59). It would appear that such sentences do in fact have deleted subjects in the context of situation. (58) Jack to Jill: Fred recommended taking the bus. (Fred recommended it) (we take the bus) (59) Jack: I think that Jill took the plane to New York. George: I don't think so because Fred recommended taking the bus. (Fred recommend it) (she take bus) Any number of sentences such as those at (59) can be produced to show that the gerundive complements in sentences such as (57Xiii) can have quite a number of different subjects. It is apparent that sentence grammars cannot be written so that deleted subjects can be accurately supplied for sentences such as (57)(ii), (57Xiii) and (59). It is possible that discourse grammars could be written to accommodate some such information. But even with discourse grammars it would be impossible to create sentences in which the information necessary to predict the exact form of all deleted subjects is provided within the discourse. In such sentences, the deleted subjects are understood by both speaker and hearer from previous experiences shared by both. No grammar can then predict the exact deleted subject. The question might then be raised as to whether a grammar should supply this kind of information. Grammars cannot be constructed to provide information after the manner of mind readers. For sentences such as (57)(ii) or (57)(iii), the best that a grammar can do is to indicate that the deleted subject is indeterminate. To write a grammar in such a way that it is supposed to provide such information is to render the grammar unnecessarily complex in an attempt to provide information which is not obtainable for writing a grammar. Thus Schachter provides a determiner node to dominate the gerundive nominals, but this does not in any way specify the nature of the deleted subjects so that the grammar fails as a tool for supplying semantic interpretation.

48

Studies on English Complement Structures

Following this, Schachter, like Iwakura, discusses sentences with interposed higher sentences such as (60): (60)(a) (b) (c) (d)

Who do you think should get a prize? Tom I think should get a prize. Who do you want to get a prize? Tom I want to get a prize.

Sentences in the form of (60)(b) and (60)(d) turn out to be rated ungrammatical by 70% of students surveyed and unacceptable, that is, unusable in normal prose style, by 100% of these students. That these grammarians should find it necessary to describe them as grammatical is highly irregular. Sentences such as (60Xa) appear to possess a quite normally fronted WH-word, being derived from strings underlying sentences such as You think Tom should get a prize. From the point of view of this observer, the fronting of WH-words out of sentences with for to complements produces sentences which are not quite as acceptable as similar sentences with WH-words fronted in sentences with í/jflí-clause complements. From this point, Schachter proceeds to enumerate any number of sentences which cannot be derived transformationally and thus develop his position for the non-transformational generation of the gerundive nomináis or complements. He also finds it possible to specify just those that-c/awse complements which can be extraposed and separates them from those that cannot. In the Rosenbaum analysis, this is evidently impossible. In any case, Schachter is able to show also how a non-transformational derivation of infinitival nomináis also can distinguish between those infinitival nomináis which have a clearly specified subject which can be supplied from information in the higher sentence such as those in the (a) sentences at (61) and those which cannot such as those in the (b) sentences at (61), (61) (i) a. It was unfair of you to postpone the trip. b. It was unfair to you to postpone the trip. (ii) a. Mother promised to dress warmly. b. Mother said to dress warmly. (iii) a. Joe's aim was advice to get a good sleep. b. Joe's advice was to get a good night's sleep. Again, although under the normal implicational structure of the sentence the pronoun us would be expected. But under some conditions, predictable from discourse structure or from the shared knowledge of the speaker and hearer

Summary of Review on Complementizers

49

the pronouns could be different as in the case of the gerundive complements. The sentence at (61)(iii b) could have any of the following (62) as underlying sentences. (62)(a) Joe's advice was for the children to get a good night's sleep. (b) Joe's advice was for grandmother to get a good night's sleep. (c) Joe's advice was for the others to get a good night's sleep. Because of this, it is hard to see how either a sentence or a discourse grammar could in fact provide information for the prediction of the exact nature of the subjects in the complements of the sentences at (62). As a result, although Schachter's study is an interesting study of how a non-transformational approach would deal with such structures as subjectless gerundive complements, it is difficult to see how, in fact, it can succeed at every point. Goldsmith (1979:36—40) reviews the Bresnan complementizer constraint and finds that his no complementizer condition may be able to replace it. Both of these constraints are required so that the grammatical sentence at (63)(a) is permitted by the ungrammatical sentence at (63)(b) is blocked. (The grammatical markings are theirs.) (63)(a) Which one of his cats did Jack claim had eaten one of his apples, (b) *Which one of his cats did Jack claim that had eaten one of his apples. Goldsmith claims that his no complementizer condition is a linguistic universal since it performs similar functions in French.

6.0

SUMMARY OF REVIEW ON COMPLEMENTIZERS

From a review of studies on the complementizers, it would appear that these studies suffer from evidential defects. That is, they err in two directions: (1) they produce spurious evidence which makes the task of description more difficult than it would be if such evidence were not produced, and (2) they neglect evidence which might possibly change the conclusions of their studies if it were included. Furthermore, since they are written from the interpretivist position of the standard theory of transformational grammar, they do not attempt to relate the patterning of the complements with the semantic structure of higher verbs. The thrust of the study in the succeeding chapter attempts to remedy the latter defect in these studies directly. The attempt to remedy the previous two defects will be indirect and based on the use of evidence which should not be controversial.

4 . The Verbal Complements in English

1.0

REASONS FOR THE ABANDONMENT OF THE AUTONOMOUS SYNTAX POSITION

It is not enough to abandon the autonomous syntax position simply on the authority of one linguist or another. Such a position should only be abandoned in the face of evidence that its abandonment will produce good result for the linguist who has decided to pursue such a course. In the previous chapter (Chapter 2) some evidence was given to indicate that the autonomous syntax position should no longer be adhered to since evidence indicates that some generalizations will be neglected if this construct continues to be a basis for linguistic study. Besides this, if the direction established for linguistic analysis by J . L. Austin (1962) and developed by Zeno Vendler (1967,1972) is followed, then the linguistic tenet known as the independence of grammar or the autonomous syntax position will have to be abandoned. The reason for this is that Vendler establishes meaning based classes on the basis of the speech act and the speaker's relation to what is said. From this, he, for instance, sets up a class of commissives and predicts that these verbs will be followed by the infinitival complement (1972:24). He also specifies a class of expositives which occur with f/zaf-clause complements. Such an accomplishment is enough to indicate that his analysis is appropriately directed but he never succeeds in following it through since, for example, he neglects to point out that the commissives can also occur with iftaf-clause complements as in (1) and (2).

(1)

promise vow guarantee

to go to the store tomorrow.

(2)

promise vow guarantee

that I will go to the store tomorrow.

Meaning and the Distribution of Complemen ts

51

From this, it would appear that Vendler's scheme, though tantalizing, is not complete because he gives some insight into why his expositives are followed by a that-clause complement and why commissives are followed by infinitival complements, but he offers no explanation for the fact that his class of commissives occurs both with the infinitival and i/zai-clause complements.

2.0

MEANING AND THE DISTRIBUTION OF COMPLEMENTS

With this in mind, it might be wise to look at the meaning of the complements themselves and try to correlate them with the meaning of the higher verbs to see if some sort of an explanation can be found for why some complements occur with some verbs and not with others. Rosenbaum (1967:28) feels that the difference between the gerundive complement and the infinitival complement is to be found in the fact the -ing of the complementizer is the progressive -ing and offers as evidence sentences such as those at (3) and (4). (3) I felt the rope slip through my hand. (4) I felt the rope slipping through my hand. That kind of explanation is fine for the examples given, but it scarcely is sufficient for sentences in which there is a difference in meaning between the sentences with the infinitival and gerundive complement as in the sentences at 2.1.

2.1 (5) I stopped going to the movies. (6) I stopped to go to the movies. (7) I got to go. (8) I got going. In these sentences, (5) through (8), there might be something of the progressive associated with the gerundive complement but it is quite apparent that there is more to the difference between the meaning of the gerundive and the infinitival complement than the progressive marker -ing. 2.2

Bolinger sees this as the difference between reification and hypothesis

52

The Verbal Complements in English

or potentiality (1968:125). Once he establishes this, he makes a statement on the reason that some higher verbs occur with the gerundive complement and others with the infinitival. It seems to follow that the obligatory transformation by which want embeds an infinitive after it whereas relish embeds an -ing is actually a case of semantic compatability. Verbs such as want, wish, hope, expect, command, etc. apply to unrealized possibilities; the complement that goes normally with them is the infinitive. Verbs such as enjoy, visualize, detest, understand, deny, approve, etc. usually apply to actualities or possibilities conceived as actualities — literally or metaphorically they reify the action; their normal complements are -ing (1968:127).

Apart from the fact that metaphorical reification is hard to conceptualize, Bolinger's scheme does little to explain why some verbs take both the infinitival and gerundive complement as in sentences (9) and (10). like love to ski on a bright and cold day. hate

(9)

(10)

like love skiing on a bright and cold day. hate

Furthermore, Wood (1965:11) seems to feel that the very opposite of Bolinger's analysis is true. He states: The gerund denotes something more general, the infinitive something more specific. Contrast I don't like writing the papers (expression of general dislike) anil don't like to write the papers (on a particular occasion or subject). It is true that a general sense may sometimes attach to the infinitive, but usually as a succession or a recurrence of a specified fact or situation.

In Wood's system, then, the gerundive complement is the abstract form and the infinitival complement is the reified form. Thus, the difference between the meaning of the gerundive and the infinitival complements can hardly be described as a matter which is settled with some measure of agreement. The same might be said on the reason for some verbs taking the gerundive rather than the infinitival complement and other verbs taking both.

3.0

SEMANTIC FEATURES AND THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE COMPLEMENTS

Even though this is undoubtedly true, this is not to say that Rosenbaum's

Semantic Features and the Distribution of Complements

53

analysis of the difference between the meaning of the gerundive and the infinitival complement is completely incorrect. It may also be that Bolinger's insight is at least partly correct and that the gerundive complement marks realized possibility or reification. If this is the case, then the meaning of the gerundive complement might best be captured by the use of binary semantic features. Thus the gerundive complement in (5) might be marked [+REIFICATION] and [+PROGRESSIVE] while the infinitival complement might be marked [-PROGRESSIVE] and [+HYPOTHESIS]. This also leads to the possibility that a semantic description of the higher verbs in complement structures using binary semantic features might permit an accurate description of their meaning which can be used to predict the occurrence of the infinitival and gerundive complements with these verbs. Such a strategy, as previously intimated, requires that the autonomous syntax position of the standard theory of transformational grammar be disregarded in an attempt to relate the meaning of any verb to its patterning with verbal complements. 3.1 It turns out that such a strategy has advantages which are not immediately observable for the following reasons: In current conceptions of the nature of grammar, instances of polysemy manifested in any given lexical item are accommodated by using separate listings for any given form in the lexicon. These items in their separate listings are then subcategorized by selectional restrictions so that they are disambiguated and marked for insertion in strings generated by the base component of the grammar (Chomsky, 1965 and Botha, 1968). Because of this, it can be assumed that in a transformational grammar of English there would be a lexical item, stand, which would have at least four listings in the lexicon to account for the different meanings observable in the sentences at 3.2. 3.2 (11) The statue is still standing in the park. (12) Where do you stand on that issue? (13) I can't stand going to church on Sunday. (14) I stand to lose a lot of money on that deal. Each of the entries for stand needed to account for the polysemy evidenced in sentences (11) through (14) would be listed in such a way that the stand of sentence (11) is subcategorized so that it cannot occur in the environment for sentence (12) and so on. From this point, then, the grammar needs to produce two separate strings to account for the graffito at sentence (15).

54

The Verbal Complements in English (15) Where will your congressman stand when he takes his seat?

One string for the generation of the sentence at (15) would have stand—1 inserted in it with the selectional restrictions of stand in sentence (11); another string would have stand—2 inserted in it with the selectional restrictions of stand in sentence (12). From this point, it would be necessary to have the strings so generated coalesce into one surface structure string to produce the single ambiguous sentence at (15). Although the mechanics of such an operation seem not to be discussed in the literature, some operation of this sort would be necessary to generate a string with polysemous lexical items which underlies the sentence at (15) and all other sentences like it. 3.3 Impressionistically, such an operation seems inelegant and, besides this, it seems to miss an important fact about polysemy already noted in the discussion of the complements: — lexical items are polysemous because they share semantic features in any given environment. Thus, for example, it would appear that stand— 1 has a feature of meaning which can be paraphrased as 'take a position physically' as in sentence (11) and stand—2 has a feature of meaning which can be paraphrased as 'take a position mentally' as in sentence (12). If these facts are expressed in binary semantic features as suggested previously, then a pair of features could be employed to capture the relationship of stand— 1 to stand—2 somewhat in the following fashion: (16) stand—1 +POSITIONAI l+PHYSICAL

stand—2

1

l+POSITIONAL +MENTAL

If, too, the rules of grammar in a language map features into feature matrices, then the features which underlie stand— 1 and stand—2 would be mapped into a matrix to account for the ambiguity of stand in sentence (15) in a fashion which would result in the matrix at (17). (17) stand +posrriONAL +PHYSICAL -MENTAL

The matrix at (17) is only a rough sketch of the kinds of feature matrices that would be necessary in a grammar. Nevertheless, such a description of the ambiguity of stand in sentence (15) (and others like it) is intuitively satisfying

Classes of Verbs in the Study

55

since the ambiguity of stand in sentence (15) must reside in the fact that features of meaning common to stand— 1 in sentence (11) and stand—2 in sentence (12) are found in the occurrence of stand in sentence (15). The description employed here captures this fact. Furthermore, such a system of features not only provides an intuitively satisfying way to describe polysemous lexical items as in (16) but it also provides a device by which the semantic structure of a language can be related to the syntactic structure. The illustration of how such a device would operate by disregarding the classical transformational position of autonomous syntax or the independence of grammar is the subject of this study in reference to the complement taking verbs in English.

4.0

CLASSES OF VERBS IN THE STUDY

To limit the scope of this study somewhat, only the following classes of verbs will be treated: I. Verbs which are marked [+IDENTITY ] and [-»GERUNDIVE] because they take the gerundive complement and require that the subject of the complement sentence and the main sentence be identical as in (18). (18) I loathe going to the dentist every day. (I loathe it) (I go to the dentist every day) II. Verbs which are marked [-IDENTITY] and [-»GERUNDIVE] because they take the gerundive complement but do not permit identical subjects in the main and complement sentences as in (19). (19) I saw him going home yesterday. (I saw it) (he go home yesterday) III.

Verbs which are marked [+IDENTITY ] and [+INFINITIVAL] because they permit identical subjects in the main sentence and the complement sentence as in (20). (20) I want to leave at once. (I want it) (I leave at one)

IV. Verbs which are marked [—IDENTITY] and [+INFINITIVAL] because they do not permit identical subjects in the main sentence and the complement sentence but do require the infinitival complement.

56

The Verbal Complements in English From this point, the features [»IDENTITY], [»INFINITIVAL] and [»GERUNDIVE] will be treated as variables. The attempt will be made to relate them to underlying semantic features assigned to the verbs in the study, drawn from Rosenbaum (1967) and Frank (1975). From this point, the following semantic features were established in an attempt to relate the underlying meaning-based structure of the verbs in the study to their distribution with the complements under the conditions noted above. V. [»AFFIRMATIVE] The existence of this feature is intimated in the R. Lakoff study (1969:611) in the discussion of sentence (22). (22) I warn you that, if you eat *some/any candy I'll whip you. It is suggested by Seuren (1972:253) who writes about verbs that have " . . . negative connotation . . . " and almost stated explicitly by Jackendoff who writes about inherently negative verbs (1972:342). In this study, to determine whether a verb is 'inherently negative' (here marked [-AFFIRMATIVE]), some/any suppletion is checked in the complement sentence. Thus, neglect would be marked [-AFFIRMATIVE] because both some and any can occur in the complement sentence dominated by neglect as the higher verb as in (23) and (24) and remember in (25) and (26) would be marked [+AFFIRMATIVE ] because only some can occur in the complement sentence dominated by remember. (23) I neglected to eat any vitamins today. (24) I neglected to eat some vitamins today. (25) *I remembered to eat any vitamins today. (26) I remembered to eat some vitamins today. Inherently negative verbs (or semantically negative verbs, that is, verbs marked [-AFFIRMATIVE]) do not behave like verbs in association with the syntactically marked negative with not. Thus, Hust is quite right in refuting the attempts of G. Lakoff to demonstrate that dissuade is similar to persuade not.

VI.

[»ACTUALITY ] This semantic feature is suggested Bladon's use of the term, 'actual,' in describing the use of like with a following gerundive

Classes of Verbs in the Study complement (1968:213). From this, it would appear that Bladon is describing the same feature as Bolinger when the latter uses the term 'reification.' The existence of this feature can be detected by contrasting the action of the verb in which it occurs with instances in which the action is described as not happening in sentences with but as in the sentences at (27). (Pizzini uses this test in his study (1972: 175) for the same purpose that it is used here.) (27Xa) I would like to go but I don't have the money, (b) *I would like going but I don't have the money. It would appear that the reason for the ungrammaticality of (27Xb) can be found in the fact that would marks the verb phrase as nonoccurring but since the gerundive complement expresses reification (Bolinger's term) or an action which actually occurs, it cannot be used with like when it is marked for potentiality or conditionality as it is in (27)(b). This is even more clearly evident in constructions with verbs that show a semantic shift when they occur with the infinitival complement as opposed to the gerundive complement as in (28) and (29). (28)(a) I stopped to go to the speakeasy but I didn't ever go. (b) *I stopped going to the speakeasy but I didn't ever go. (29Xa) I remembered to go to the doctor but I didn't go. (b) *I remembered going to the doctor but I didn't go. In this study, the verbs in (27), (28) and (29) will be described as being marked [-ACTUALITY] and thus not occurring with the gerundive complement in these environments.

VII.

["INTERNAL] This feature is suggested by the use of the distinction between public and private verbs by Schachter (1976:216) and others. Its force can be discerned in the distinction between like which is marked [+INTERNAL] andforce which is marked [-INTERNAL] . Verbs which are marked [+INTERNAL] usually describe states or processes which are internal to the individual.

VIII.

[»CAUSATION] This feature is used to distinguish those verbs whose actions affect a person other than the subject. Many of these verbs

57

58

The Verbal Complements in English are causative in nature. Hence the feature [»CAUSATION] is used to distinguish teach, marked [+CAUSATION], from learn, marked [-CAUSATION]. Verbs marked [+CAUSATION] and ^INTERNAL] such as like and love do not so obviously show the subject as affecting the object when they are in sentences such as (30) but they are marked this way to distinguish them from their occurrences in sentences such as (31). (30) I like him to go to the dentist annually. (31) I like to go to the dentist annually. Thus, like would be marked

[+CAUSATION]

in

(30)

and

[-CAUSA-

TION] in ( 3 1 ) .

IX. [*STATE] [»PROCESS] The difference between state and process verbs is well-known. Here, if verbs do not readily occur with the progressive tenses, they were marked [+STATE]; otherwise, they were marked, [+PROCESS].

X. [»EMOTIVE] This feature derives from the work of Kiparsky and Kiparsky (1970) in which verbs (and adjectives) are cross-classified into classes of factive and emotive verbs. It is supported by Vendler (1972:30) who sees the difference between wish and want largely in the fact that want is emotional in its connotations and wish is not. In the Kiparsky sense, the feature [+EMOTIVE] refers to " . . . all predicates which express the subjective value of a proposition rather than knowledge about it or its truth value" (1968:169). Quirk and his colleagues also establish a class of emotive verbs which take either the infinitival or gerundive complements (1972:836). For this study, Vendler's lead will be followed. Thus, wish is marked [-EMOTIVE] because a wish is always verbal in nature whereas want is marked [+EMOTIVE] since a want is not necessarily verbal.

XI.

[»ACCIDENTAL] This feature is used to indicate whether the individual mentioned in the subject is involved with the action, state or process expressed in the verb purposively or whether the subject is involved with the action, process or state expressed in the verb accidentally. Thus, verbs such as forget are marked ^ACCIDENTAL]

Rules for the Verbal Complements

59

since the subject is involved in the state of forgetting accidentally but verbs such as recall are marked [-ACCIDENTAL] because the subject of the verb is involved with the state of recalling purposively.

XII.

[*AMELIORATION ] [*PEJORATION] These features are assigned to verbs on the basis of subjective judgement alone. Verbs which appear to be neutral on the amelioration/pejoration dimension are marked [-AMELIORATION] and [-PEJORATION].

XIII.

[«INTENSITY] [*TENTATIVENESS] These features are also subjectively assigned. They in effect allow four degrees of intensity in marking verbs. Those verbs which are marked [-INTENSITY] and [-TENTATIVENESS] or [+INTENSITY ] and [+TENTATIVENESS ] are

of intermediate intensity. These features, dealing with intensity, are suggested by Nida (1975:102).

5.0

RULES FOR THE VERBAL COMPLEMENTS

As a starting point in the assignment of features, the assumption will be made that features are hierarchically organized and that redundancy rules can be specified so that not every feature need be present in every matrix. The assumption will also be made that verbs can be grouped together and assigned a given feature on the basis of a commonality of meaning. linguists such as Vendler (1972:35) proceed in this fashion when they group together verbs such as decide, resolve, choose and elect as a class of resolutives. If this strategy is followed and if the features established in sections (V) through (XIII) are assigned to the verbs according to their grouping in these classes as in Table 1, then a start can be made in relating the essentially semantic features in (V) through (XIII) to the distribution of the complements with these verbs. Furthermore, if a model of linguistic description similar to that of Weinreich (1972) is adopted, then a few rules can be written to relate the semantic features to syntactic features and capture the regularities noticed in the study. (This model is discussed in Chapter 1, Section 8 and will not be developed further here.) The rules, then, which follow, would assign features (Weinreich's "transfer features") to the matrices of the verbs as specified in Table I to relate the features there to the features which specify the nature of the complements as in (I) through (IV).

60

The Verbal Complements in English

Rule 1 MV +CAUSATION] Verbal Comp -+ [-IDENTITY]

"^OBSERVATION] -CAUSATION

Rule 2 Verbal Comp -* [+lDENTirY ]

/

MV

J

[-CAUSATION] IF NOT: [+OBSERVATIVE]

Rule 3 MV Verbal Comp -»• [+INFINITIVAL]

-ACTUALITY +COERCION +ACTUALITY

Rule 4 [•INFINITIVAL]

[-»GERUNDIVE]

/ MV

[-AFFIRMATIVE]

IF NOT: MV •PREFERENCE] -ACTUALITY J +CO NATIVE -AFFIRMATIVE +INTENSITY +TENTATIVENESS

Rule 5 Verbal Comp

[+GERUNDIVE ]

/

MV

+PATHOS] +OBSERVATIVE] •PREFERENCE"! •ACTUALITY J •INITIATION! •ACTUALITYJ •MEMORY -CAUSATION -ACCIDENTAL

Rule 1 states that any members of the class of verbs in Table 1 which would all be marked as taking verbal complements and which are also marked [+CAUSATION] would be marked [-IDENTITY] signalling the fact that these verbs will all have an object before the complement. There is also one class of verbs which are marked [-CAUSATION] but which would also have to be marked [-IDENTITY] to designate them as verbs requiring an object before the complement even though they are not marked [+CAUSATION ] . These are the verbs marked [+OBSERVATIVE ] and include such verbs as see, watch,

Rules for the Verbal Complements

61

hear, and so on. In other words, verbs in which the action of the verb is seen as affecting a person other than the subject require an object before the complement as in (32). (32) I asked him to go to the store. To this general rule, there is an entire class of verbs, verbs which are marked [+OBSERVATIVE ], that require a subsection of the rule to specify their behavior in reference to this phenomenon. These verbs require an object before the complement even though the action in these verbs can hardly be said to affect the persons named as objects in (33). (33) I

watched saw noticed

him go to the store.

Rule 2 is simply the reverse of Rule 1, stating that verbs in which the action is seen as affecting the subject of the main verb do not require a surface object; the deep object is deleted. (34) I stopped to go to the store. Even though this rule is stated to describe the syntax of the verbs with the features assigned in Table 1 and is descriptive of the data thus organized, there are some problems associated with the assignment of the feature [•CAUSATION]. In particular, some verbs, such as hate in (35), occur either with or without the surface object as in (35). (35Xa) I hate going with another man's wife, (b) I hate him going with another man's wife. Here the decision was simply made to assign verbs such as hate in (35Xb) the feature [-»CAUSATION] ;it may ultimately be necessary to assign different features to these verbs and specify them exactly as in the case of verbs marked [+OBSERVATIVE ] . Rule 3 states that verbs which express an action that is not reified as demonstrated in sentences with but (See section VII.) require the infinitival complement as in (36). (36) I long to go to the beach in Florida. In the corpus, there are three verbs which are exceptions to this general rule ;

62

The Verbal Complements in English

t h e y are force,

compel

a n d coerce a n d t h e y are separated f r o m t h e rest of

t h e n o n - e x c e p t i o n a l i t e m s b y t h e c o n t e x t [+COERCION ] a n d [+ACTUALITY ] .

(37)(a)

compelled *We forced coerced

(b) We

compelled forced compelled

h i m t o go b u t he d i d n ' t go.

h i m t o go and he w e n t .

Since the sentences at (37Xa) appear to be ungrammatical, it would be difficult to mark force, coerce and compel [-ACTUAL] ITY]. Thus, these items do not conform to the statement in Rule 3 and must be specified separately as in the second line of the rule. Rule 4 specifies a phenomenon associated with a number of diverse complement-taking verbs; namely that verbs which are marked [-AFFIRMATIVE] generally take the gerundive complement even though other markings would seem to indicate that they should take the infinitival complement. Thus, of the verbs marked [+SUASION ], most of which take the infinitival complement, dissuade and discourage take the gerundive. Similarly, of the verbs marked [+CO NATIVE] fear, dread, be afraid of, be frightened of and be terrified of all take the gerundive complement even though they are marked [-ACTUALITY]. Similarly, even some verbs which are marked [+ACTUALITY] and would qualify as taking the gerundive complement with this marking are also marked [-AFFIRMATIVE] and would presumably take the gerindive complement triggered by this marking. These include, regret, marked [+MEMORY ], stop from, quit and leave o f f , marked [+INITIATION], despise, loathe and abhor, marked [+PATHOS] , and dislike and hate, marked [+PREFERENCE ]. However, be afraid of and hate also cooccur with the infinitval complement. They are blocked from inclusion in this rule by the first and second lines of the rule. Representative examples of this phenomenon are seen below in the sentences at (38). (38Xa)

hate like long love encourage you

to go to the movies.

Rules for the Verbal Complements (b)

I 1 I / I I

hate dislike fear discourage you from am afraid of

63

going to the movies.

Rule 5 specifies those verbs which take the gerundive complement but are not covered by Rule 3. In the first line, it includes all of the verbs marked

[+PATHOS ] — enjoy, appreciate, relish, despise, detest, loathe and abhor,

(These verbs are in Bolinger's list because they are marked for reification with the feature [+ACTUALITY ] . ) In the second line, it specifies all o f the verbs marked [+OBSERVATIVE ] — see, watch, observe, hear, look at, listen to and notice. In the third line, of the set of verbs marks [+PREFERENCE ] , those which are also marked [+ACTUALITY ] take the gerundive complement. It would be expected that all of the members of this set would pattern in a similar manner. But with the complements, they pattern as in the examples at (39). (39)(a)

They (dislike to go to the park on Sunday, love

(b) We dislike ? love

them going to the park on Sunday,

(c)

They j *dislike to go to the park on Sunday, love

(d)

They

* dislike them to go to the park on Sunday. *love

It may be that the sentence at ( 3 9 X d ) with love is ungrammatical because o f a low level restriction since I would love for them to go to the park on Sunday seems much better than the sentence without the for-to or the would. In any case, marking the members o f this class which co-occur with the gerundive complement [+ACTUAL1TY] would seem to be legitimate because of the argument in section (VI) with the examples at (27). The same argument is true for hate because of its behavior in the sentences at (40). (40)(a) I would hate to go but I'm going, (b) * I would hate going but I'm going. Thus, in Table 1, these verbs have been marked with two separate feature

64

The Verbal Complements in English

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66

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