Verb-Particle Explorations 9783110902341, 9783110172287

Table of contents :
Preface
Contents
Introduction
Separable complex verbs in Dutch: A case of periphrastic word formation
And up it rises: Particle preposing in English
English particle constructions, the lexicon, and it the autonomy of syntax
Idiosyncrasy in particle verbs
Syntax or morphology: German particle verbs revisited
Particle placement
Extended VP-shells and the verb-particle construction
Swedish particles and syntactic projection
Dutch separable compound verbs: Words rather than phrases?
Particle verbs are heads and phrases
The influence of processing on syntactic variation: Particle placement in English
Accessing and parsing phrasal predicates
German particle verbs and word formation
Parsing verb particle constructions: An approach based on event-related potentials (ERP)
Index
Contributors

Citation preview

Verb-Particle Explorations

W DE G

Interface Explorations 1

Editors

Artemis Alexiadou T. Alan Hall

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

Verb-Particle Explorations

edited by

Nicole Dehe Ray Jackendoff Andrew Mclntyre Silke Urban

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

2002

M o u t o n de Gruyter (formerly Mouton, The Hague) is a Division of Walter de Gruyter G m b H & Co. K G , Berlin.

® Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines of the A N S I to ensure permanence and durability.

Die Deutsche Bibliothek — Cataloging-in-Publication

Data

Verb particle explorations / ed. by Nicole Dehe ... — Berlin; New York : M o u t o n de Gruyter, 2002 (Interface explorations ; 1) ISBN 3-11-017228-3

© Copyright 2002 by Walter de Gruyter G m b H & Co. K G , 10785 Berlin All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. N o part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Cover design: Christopher Schneider, Berlin. Printed in Germany.

Preface

Most of the articles in the present volume originated as talks in a workshop on verb-particle constructions held in Leipzig in February 2000. We would like to thank the participants of that workshop - the speakers for their contributions, the audiences for their interest in and their stimulating discussion of the questions that are elaborated on in this volume. We are grateful for the support from the Max-Planck Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience in Leipzig, especially Angela D. Friederici, for the use of their rooms and facilities during the workshop. We would also like to express our gratitude to the contributors to this volume, the majority of whom participated in the workshop. We wish to thank the following people for the time and expertise they contributed to the reviewing process: Marcel den Dikken, Hildegard Farke, Holden Härtl, Bernd Kortmann, Alec Marantz, Susan Olsen, Jean-Yves Pollock, Norvin Richards, Andrew Stringfellow, Peter Svenonius, along with some other linguists who requested anonymity. We are also very grateful to our student assistants Dayana Goldstein and Katja Keller for their diligent work in formatting the manuscript. The book may not have been possible without the help of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation), both for the employment of Nicole Dehe and Andrew Mclntyre in the research project 'Partikelverbbildung im Deutschen und im Englischen' (Particle Verb Formation in German and English), and, more generally, for assistance via the Leipzig graduate studies programme 'Universalität und Diversität' in financing the workshop on which this volume draws. Ray Jackendoff wishes to acknowledge financial assistance in the form of a Fellowship from the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin and in part by an NIH Grant DC 03660 to Brandeis University.

Contents

Preface

ν

Introduction

1

1. Particle verbs: Syntactic, morphological and semantic perspectives Separable complex verbs in Dutch: A case of periphrastic word formation Geert Booij And up it rises: Particle preposing in English Bert Cappelle English particle constructions, the lexicon, and the autonomy of syntax Ray Jackendoff Idiosyncrasy in particle verbs Andrew Mclntyre

21

43

67

95

Syntax or morphology: German particle verbs revisited Stefan Müller

119

Particle placement Ad Neeleman

141

Extended VP-shells and the verb-particle construction Fabrice Nicol

165

Swedish particles and syntactic projection Ida Toivonen

191

viii

Contents

Dutch separable compound verbs: Words rather than phrases? Jaap van Marie

211

Particle verbs are heads and phrases Jochen Zeller

233

2. Particle verbs: Statistical and psycholinguistic perspectives The influence of processing on syntactic variation: Particle placement in English Stefan Gries

269

Accessing and parsing phrasal predicates Dieter Hillert and Farrell Ackerman

289

German particle verbs and word formation Anke Lüdeling and Nivja de Jong

315

Parsing verb particle constructions: An approach based on eventrelated potentials (ERP) 335 Silke Urban

References

355

Index

381

Contributors

387

Introduction Nicole Dehe, Ray Jackendoff, Andrew Mclntyre, Silke Urban

The contributions in this book are a representative cross-section of current research on the Germanic constructions of the type in (1), known as particle verbs, verb-particle combinations, phrasal verbs or separable verbs. The book reflects our belief that progress towards solving the difficult problems raised by them is more likely under an eclectic approach, by which we mean that the book gathers insights from various linguistic subdisciplines (from psycholinguistics to pure linguistics), various theories and methodological strategies (e.g. minimalism, construction grammar, lexical functional grammar, as well as more theory-neutral, empirical approaches) and various languages (chiefly: Dutch, English, German and Swedish). (1)

1.

a. b. c. d.

ring up, throw away ringa upp, kasta bort opbellen, weggooien anrufen, wegwerfen

(Swedish) (Dutch) (German)

Basic facts and questions about particle verbs

We begin with a summary of some basic facts regarding the syntactic behaviour of particles. This will enable us both to identify some of the problems which make particle verbs (henceforth pv's) worth studying, and at the same time help readers to follow our attempt at integrating the contributions in this volume into the overall research landscape. Our overview gives the minimal information required for this; for more detailed summaries of the grammar of particles in each language, see the articles by Jackendoff (English), Booij (Dutch), Toivonen (Swedish) and Zeller (German). For a comprehensive

2

Introduction

cross-linguistic overview of the phenomena and literature concerning pv's, see Haiden (2001). In English, the particle can appear on either side of a direct object, unless it is a (non-contrastively accented) pronoun (cf.2). In Swedish, the particle obligatorily precedes the nominal object, as illustrated in (3) (cf. Toivonen, this volume). In German (4), a (non-topicalised) particle appears in a fixed position at the end of the clause, but preceding verbs in final position, if any. Thus, the particle and verb are separated by the verb-second phenomenon in main clauses, (4a-b), but are adjacent in embedded clauses (4c-d). Dutch behaves similarly, (5), except that Dutch embedded clauses allow the optional interpolation of an auxiliary between the particle and the verb, cf. (5c,d). (2)

(3)

English a. John called up the girl. b. John called the girl up.

John called her up. *John called up her.

Swedish a. Johnskrev upp numret. John wrote Part number.the b. *John skrev numret John wrote number.the 'John wrote down the number.'

upp. Part

(4)

German a. John rief das Mädchen an. 'John rang the girl up' b. *John anrief das Mädchen. c. ... daß John das Mädchen anrief d. *... daß John rief das Mädchen an

(5)

Dutch a. John beide het meisje op. b. *John opbelde het meisje. c. ...dat John het meisje wil opbellen. d. ... dat John het meisje op will bellen.

Introduction

3

These examples use prototypical particle-verb constructions, in which the verb is (homonymous with) an ordinary verb of the language, and the particle is homonymous with a preposition. But when we attempt to characterize the class of particle verbs (hereafter pv's) as a whole, we discover that as yet, there is no uncontroversial definition of particles which reliably demarcates them from similar items and has cross-linguistic validity. In lieu of attempting to formulate such a definition, we must content ourselves with a presentation of the relevant issues. A first approximation for a theory-neutral definition of (the unmarked case of) Germanic particles might run as follows. A particle is an accented element which is formally (and, often, semantically) related to a preposition, which does not assign case to a complement and which displays various syntactic and semantic symptoms of what may informally be called a close relationship with a verb, but without displaying the phonological unity with it typical of affixes. Some aspects of this close relationship are the following: 1. Particles often form idiomatic units with verbs. Significant numbers of pv's must be lexically listed since either or both of the constituents fails to make a contribution to the meaning of the whole structure which can be predicted on the basis of its behaviour outside it. Consider e.g. hold up a bank, Dutch aanvangen, begin 'catch on' or German aufhören, cease 'hear up'. 2. In English and Swedish, the particle can intervene between verbs and direct objects, a privilege not enjoyed by apparently functionally identical directional PP's and resultative AP's (particles in small caps; non-particles in ordinary type): (6)

a. b. c. d.

I carried {in/off/*inside/*into the house} the boxes. I wiped {down/*clean} the table. Johan skrev upp numret {*upp) (Swedish) 'J. wrote down the number' Johan ställer {*dar) glaset {dar}(Swedish) 'Johan puts the glass there'

3. There are derivational processes which take pv's as input where semantically parallel constructions are ruled out. This is most clearly

4

Introduction

seen in German and Dutch, in which pv's freely feed all kinds of affixation processes where semantically parallel PP and AP constructions are very marginal (modulo points noted by Lüdeling and de Jong, this volume). Minimal pairs like (7) are sometimes noted in the literature. (The Dutch examples in (7) are from Neeleman and Weerman 1993a: 439.) (7)

a.

Rumgelaufe 'running around' (