Functional Constraints in Grammar

On the unergative–unaccusative distinction

Authors
Susumu Kuno | Harvard University
Ken-ichi Takami | Tokyo Metropolitan University
HardboundAvailable
ISBN 9789027218216 (Eur) | EUR 99.00
ISBN 9781588115553 (USA) | USD 149.00
 
e-Book
ISBN 9789027295217 | EUR 99.00 | USD 149.00
 
Google Play logo
 
Netlibrary e-BookNot for resale
ISBN 9781423761297
This book examines in detail the acceptability status of sentences in the following five English constructions, and elucidates the syntactic, semantic, and functional requirements that the constructions must satisfy in order to be appropriately used: There-Construction, (One’s) Way Construction, Cognate Object Construction, Pseudo-Passive Construction, and Extraposition from Subject NPs. It has been argued in the frameworks of Chomskyan generative grammar, relational grammar, conceptual semantics and other syntactic theories that the acceptability of sentences in these constructions can be accounted for by the unergative–unaccusative distinction of intransitive verbs. However, this book shows through a wide range of sentences that none of these constructions is sensitive to this distinction. For each construction, it shows that acceptability status is determined by a given sentence's semantic function as it interacts with syntactic constraints (which are independent of the unergative–unaccusative distinction), and with functional constraints that apply to it in its discourse context.
[Constructional Approaches to Language, 1] 2004.  ix, 242 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Table of Contents
“[...] highly recommended to both generative and functional syntacticians.”
“Kuno and Takami's book ranks among the best books on syntactic issues published in the last year. [...] The methodological strenght of the volume renders the volume an important tool for teaching the cautious analysis of linguistics issues.”
“[...] the book is challenging to generative grammarians who accept unaccusative hypothesis, as well as informative for functional grammarians who are interested in how the syntactic phenomena widely discussed in generative grammar are to be handled from the perspective of functional syntax. [...] K&T's intention of showing 'how dangerous it is linguistic research to draw sweeping generalizations on the basis of a limited set of data' is successfully accomplished. Their emphasis on emperical data is particularly important to linguistic research aiming for descriptive adeguacy. No future descriptive research on the constructions discussed in the book can ignore K&T's contribution.”
Cited by

Cited by 22 other publications

Cheng, Gong & Hai Xu
2022. Treatment of theWay-Construction in English-Chinese Learners’ Dictionaries: A Construction Grammar Approach. International Journal of Lexicography 35:1  pp. 107 ff. DOI logo
Clary, Todd
2014. The unaccusative hypothesis and case selection of cognate complements in Latin. Glotta 90:1-4  pp. 87 ff. DOI logo
De Mulder, Walter & Dany Amiot
2013. En  : de la préposition à la construction. Langue française n°178:2  pp. 21 ff. DOI logo
Deal, Amy Rose
2009. The Origin and Content of Expletives: Evidence from “Selection”. Syntax 12:4  pp. 285 ff. DOI logo
Farkas, Imola-Ágnes
2021. Aspectual cognate objects in Hungarian. Folia Linguistica 0:0 DOI logo
Farkas, Imola-Ágnes
2021. Aspectual cognate objects in Hungarian. Folia Linguistica 55:2  pp. 389 ff. DOI logo
Felfe, Marc
2018. Marcello lächelt sein Mastroianni-Lächeln. Zeitschrift für germanistische Linguistik 46:3  pp. 355 ff. DOI logo
FRANCIS, ELAINE J. & LAURA A. MICHAELIS
2017. When relative clause extraposition is the right choice, it’s easier. Language and Cognition 9:2  pp. 332 ff. DOI logo
Gafter, Roey J.
2014. The Distribution of the Hebrew Possessive Dative Construction: Guided by Unaccusativity or Prominence?. Linguistic Inquiry 45:3  pp. 482 ff. DOI logo
HIGUCHI, MARIKO GOTO
2011. Cognitive Domains and Prototypes in Constructions. ENGLISH LINGUISTICS 28:2  pp. 344 ff. DOI logo
KOIKE, KOJI
2019. SUBEXTRACTION FROM NP AND CYCLIC LINEARIZATION. ENGLISH LINGUISTICS 35:2  pp. 297 ff. DOI logo
MINO, TAKASHI
2020. A CONSTRUCTIONAL ANALYSIS OF THE <i>THERE SPEAK</i> EXPRESSION WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO CONTEXT. ENGLISH LINGUISTICS 36:2  pp. 145 ff. DOI logo
MINO, TAKASHI
2024. The usage of there sentences with become: the relationship between change of state and appearance/occurrence. English Language and Linguistics 28:1  pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
MIRTO, Ignazio Mauro
2011. Cognate and Reaction objects as predicative nouns of support verb constructions. Écho des études romanes 7:1  pp. 21 ff. DOI logo
Ploscaru, Mihaela-Alina
2021. Exploring Cognate Object Constructions in Japanese. Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai Philologia 66:1  pp. 281 ff. DOI logo
Podhorodecka, Joanna
2021. Real-life pseudo-passives: The usage and discourse functions of adjunct-based passive constructions. Poznan Studies in Contemporary Linguistics 57:1  pp. 33 ff. DOI logo
Rodríguez Arrizabalaga, Beatriz
2022. On the transitivisation of intransitive verbs. A Spanish-English contrastive corpus-based analysis of the verbs dormir and sleep. Complutense Journal of English Studies 30  pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
TANAKA, HIROYOSHI
2011. ON EXTRAPOSITION FROM NP CONSTRUCTIONS: A PHASE-BASED ACCOUNT. ENGLISH LINGUISTICS 28:2  pp. 173 ff. DOI logo
van Dam, Wessel O. & Rutvik H. Desai
2016. The Semantics of Syntax: The Grounding of Transitive and Intransitive Constructions. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 28:5  pp. 693 ff. DOI logo
Zhang, Niina Ning
2018. Non-canonical objects as event kind-classifying elements. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 36:4  pp. 1395 ff. DOI logo
吴, 丽丽
2021. A Comparative Study of Surface Unaccusativity in English and Chinese at the Syntax-Semantics and Syntax-Discourse Interface. Modern Linguistics 09:06  pp. 1456 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 16 march 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Subjects

Main BIC Subject

CF: Linguistics

Main BISAC Subject

LAN009000: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General
ONIX Metadata
ONIX 2.1
ONIX 3.0
U.S. Library of Congress Control Number:  2004055096 | Marc record