Article published in:
Constructions and Frames
Vol. 12:2 (2020) ► pp. 171–205

Valency coercion in Italian

An exploratory study [*] *

| Aston University
| Universiy of Pisa
| University of Birmingham
The paper investigates valency coercion effects in Italian by means of an acceptability rating task on nine argument structure constructions. The experimental design follows Perek & Hilpert (2014) in presenting three conditions: grammatical, impossible and coercion stimuli. This design allows us to test several factors: the acceptability of creative coerced structures, the role of age and – most importantly – the influence of the construction itself. Results overall confirm our hypotheses: valency coercion is identified as an intermediate level between grammaticality and ungrammaticality, with varying degrees of “coercibility” across constructions. An influence of age is not in evidence for coercion sentences, suggesting that the systematic variation in acceptability is due to the influence of different constructions. We propose that coercion resolution results from the interaction of constructional and lexical semantics.
Keywords: coercion, argument structure constructions, Italian, acceptability ratings, age grading
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Models of argument structure realization
    • 1.2Coercion phenomena
    • 1.3Coercion effects in Italian
  • 2.An acceptability rating task on Italian valency coercion
    • 2.1Materials
    • 2.2Stimuli selection
    • 2.3Subjects
    • 2.4Procedure
  • 3.Analyses and results
    • 3.1First model
    • 3.2Cxn type variation
    • 3.3Variation between age groups
  • 4.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 30 October 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/cf.00039.bus
References
Ahrens, K. V.
(1995) The mental representation of verbs. PhD Dissertation, University of California, San Diego.Google Scholar
Asher, N.
(2011) Lexical meaning in context. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Audring, J., & Booij, G.
(2016) Cooperation and coercion. Linguistics, 54(4), 617–637. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Baayen, R. H.
(2008) Analyzing linguistic data: A practical introduction to statistics using R. Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Baggio, G., Choma, T., van Lambalgen, M., & Hagoort, P.
(2010) Coercion and compositionality. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 22(9), 2131–2140. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Barðdal, J.
(2008) Productivity: Evidence from case and argument structure in Icelandic (Constructional Approaches to Language, Vol. 8). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2013) Construction-based historical-comparative reconstruction. In T. Hoffmann & G. Trousdale (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of Construction Grammar (pp. 438–457). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Baroni, M., Bernardini, S., Ferraresi, A., & Zanchetta, E.
(2009) The WaCky wide web: A collection of very large linguistically processed web-crawled corpora. Language Resources and Evaluation, 43(3), 209–226. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bartoń, K.
(2018) MuMIn: Multi-model inference. R package version 1.15. 6.Google Scholar
Bates, D. M., Maechler, M., Bolker, B., & Walker, S.
(2015) Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4. Journal of Statistical Software, 67(1), 1–48. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bencini, G. M., & Goldberg, A. E.
(2000) The contribution of argument structure constructions to sentence meaning. Journal of Memory and Language, 43(4), 640–651. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Boas, H. C.
(2011) Coercion and leaking argument structures in Construction Grammar. Linguistics, 49(6), 1271–1303. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2014) Lexical and phrasal approaches to argument structure: Two sides of the same coin. Theoretical Linguistics, 40(1–2), 89–112.Google Scholar
Boas, H. C., & Gonzálvez-García, F.
(2014) Applying constructional concepts to Romance languages. In H. C. Boas & F. Gonzálvez-García (Eds.), Romance perspectives on Construction Grammar (pp. 1–35). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Buchstaller, I.
(2006) Diagnostics of age-graded linguistic behaviour: The case of the quotative system1. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 10(1), 3–30. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Busso, L., Pannitto, L., & Lenci, A.
(2018) Modelling Italian construction flexibility with distributional semantics: Are constructions enough? In E. Cabrio, A. Mazzei, & F. Tamburini (Eds.), Proceedings of the Fifth Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics (CLiC-it 2018) (pp. 68–74). Torino: Accademia University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bybee, J.
(2010) Language, usage and cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Cennamo, M., & Fabrizio, C.
(2013) Valency classes in Italian. In I. Hartmann, M. Haspelmath, & B. Taylor (Eds.), Valency patterns Leipzig. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Available online at http://​valpal​.info​/languages​/italian.).
Cerruti, M., & Regis, R.
(2014) Standardization patterns and dialect/standard convergence: A northwestern Italian perspective. Language in Society, 43(1), 83–111. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Cheshire, J.
(2005) Syntactic variation and beyond: Gender and social class variation in the use of discourse-new markers1. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 9(4), 479–508. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, N.
(1965) Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Coseriu, E.
(1980) Historische Sprache und Dialekt. In J. Göschel, I. Pavle, & K. Kehr (Eds.), Dialekt und Dialektologie (pp. 106–122). Wiesbaden: Steiner.Google Scholar
Dąbrowska, E.
(1997) The LAD goes to school: A cautionary tale for nativists. Linguistics, 351, 735–766. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Dehé, N., Rackendoff, R., McIntyre, A., & Urban, S.
(Eds.) (2002) Verb-particle explorations. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
de Roberto, E.
(2012) L’oggetto interno tra lessico, semantica e sintassi. In S. Ferreri (Ed.). Lessico e lessicologia: Atti del XLIV Congresso Internazionale di Studi della Società di Linguistica Italiana (SLI) (pp. 131–142).Google Scholar
de Swart, H.
(1998) Aspect shift and coercion. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 161, 347–385. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Downes, W.
(1984) Language and society. Fontana Paperbacks.Google Scholar
Dowty, D. R.
(1991) Thematic proto-roles and argument selection. Language, 67(3), 547–619. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Eckert, P.
(2017) Age as a sociolinguistic variable. In F. Coulmas (Ed.), Handbook of sociolinguistics (pp. 151–167). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Ellis, N. C.
(2012) Formulaic language and second language acquisition: Zipf and the phrasal teddy bear. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 321, 17–44. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Fagard, B., Stosic, D., & Cerruti, M.
(2017) Within-type variation in satellite-framed languages: The case of Serbian. STUF-Language Typology and Universals, 70(4), 637–660.Google Scholar
Fillmore, C. J.
(1968) Lexical entries for verbs. Foundations of Language, 4(4), 373–393.Google Scholar
Fox, J., & Weisberg, S.
(2011) An R companion to applied regression. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, Calif: SAGE Publications.Google Scholar
Fried, M., & Östman, J.-O.
(2004) Construction Grammar: A thumbnail sketch. In M. Fried & J.-O. Östman (Eds.), Construction Grammar in a cross-language perspective (pp. 11–86). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Friederici, A. D., Opitz, B., & von Cramon, D. Y.
(2000) Segregating semantic and syntactic aspects of processing in the human brain: An fMRI investigation of different word types. Cerebral Cortex, 10(7), 698–705. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gleitman, L., & Gillette, J.
(1995) The role of syntax in verb learning. In P. Fletcher & B. MacWhinney (Eds.), The Handbook of child language (pp. 413–427). London: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Goldberg, A. E.
(1995) Constructions: A Construction Grammar approach to argument structure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
(2002) Surface generalizations: An alternative to alternations. Cognitive Linguistics, 13(4), 327–356. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2006) Constructions at work: The nature of generalization in language. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Goldberg, A. E., & Ackerman, F.
(2001) The pragmatics of obligatory adjuncts. Language, 771, 798–814. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Goldberg, A. E., & Bencini, G. M. L.
(2005) Support from language processing for a constructional approach to grammar. Language in use: Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics Series, 3–18.Google Scholar
Gonzálvez-García, F.
(2007) ‘Saved by the reflexive’: Evidence from coercion via reflexives in verbless complement clauses in English and Spanish. Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 5(1), 193–238. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gries, S. Th.
(2005) Syntactic priming: A corpus-based approach. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 34(4), 365–399. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2013) Data in construction grammar. In T. Hoffmann & G. Trousdale (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of Construction Grammar (pp. 93–108). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hare, M. L., & Goldberg, A. E.
(1999) Structural priming: Purely syntactic. In M. Hahn & S. C. Stoness (Eds.), Proceedings of the 21st Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 208–211). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Hilpert, M.
(2009) The German mit-predicative construction. Constructions and Frames, 1(1), 29–55. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2014) Construction Grammar and its application to English. Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Holmes, J.
(1992) An introduction to sociolinguistics. Longman.Google Scholar
Hopper, P. J., & Thompson, S. A.
(1980) Transitivity in grammar and discourse. Language, 56(2), 251. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Iacobini, C., & Masini, F.
(2007) The emergence of verb-particle constructions in Italian: Locative and actional meanings. Morphology, 16(2), 155–188. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Ibarretxe-Antuñano, A. H.-G. I.
(2015) New horizons in the study of motion (1st edition). Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar
Jackendoff, R.
(1997) The architecture of the language faculty. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Jezek, E., & Lenci, A.
(2007) When GL meets the corpus: A data-driven investigation of semantic types and coercion phenomena. In P. Bouillon, L. Danlos, & K. Kanzaki (Eds.), Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Generative Approaches to the Lexicon (pp. 10–11). Paris, Université de Paris VII.Google Scholar
Johnson, M. A., & Goldberg, A. E.
(2013) Evidence for automatic accessing of constructional meaning: Jabberwocky sentences prime associated verbs. Language and Cognitive Processes, 28(10), 1439–1452. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kako, E.
(2006) The semantics of syntactic frames. Language and Cognitive Processes, 21(5), 562–575. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kay, P. & Fillmore, C. J.
(1999) Grammatical constructions and linguistic generalizations: The what’s X doing Y? construction. Language, 75(1), 1–33. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kemmer, S.
(2008) New dimensions of dimensions: Frequency, productivity, domains and coercion. Presentation at the Meeting of Cognitive Linguistics, Dubrovnik, Croatia.
Koch, P.
(2001) Lexical typology from a cognitive and linguistic point of view. In M. Haspelmath, E. Koenig, W. Oesterreicher, & W. Raible (Eds.), Language typology and language universals: An international handbook (pp. 1142–1178). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar
Kuznetsova, A., Brockhoff, P. B., & Christensen, R. H. B.
(2017) lmerTest package: Tests in linear mixed effects models. Journal of Statistical Software, 82(13). CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Labov, W.
(1994) Principles of linguistic change. Vol 1: Internal factors. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
(2001) Principles of linguistic change. Vol. 2: Social factors. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Landau, B., & Gleitman, L. R.
(1985) Language and experience: Evidence from the blind child. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Lauwers, P., & Willems, D.
(2011) Coercion: Definition and challenges, current approaches, and new trends. Linguistics, 49(6), 1219–1235. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Lebani, G. E., & Lenci, A.
(2017) Modelling the meaning of argument constructions with distributional semantics. The AAAI 2017 Spring Symposium on Computational Construction Grammar and Natural Language Understanding (pp. 197–204). Technical Report SS-17-02. Stanford: AAAI Publications.Google Scholar
Lenci, A., Lapesa, G., & Bonansinga, G.
(2012) LexIt: A computational resource on Italian argument structure. In N. Calzolari, K. Choukri, T. Declerck, M. Uğur Doğan, B. Maegaard, J. Mariani, A. Moreno, J. Odijk, S. Piperidis (Eds.), Proceedings of the Eight International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC, 12) (pp. 3712–3718).Google Scholar
Length, R.
(2019) Emmeans: Estimated Marginal Means, aka Least-Squares Means. R package version 1.3.5.1. https://​CRAN​.R​-project​.org​/package​=emmeans
Levin, B.
(1993) English verb classes and alternations: A preliminary investigation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Levin, B., & Rappaport-Hovav, M.
(2005) Argument realization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Loporcaro, M.
(2013) Profilo linguistico dei dialetti italiani. Bari: Laterza.Google Scholar
Lukassek, J., Prysłopska, A., Hörnig, R., & Maienborn, C.
(2017) The semantic processing of motion verbs: Coercion or underspecification? Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 46(4), 805–825. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Malchukov, A., & Siewierska, A.
(2011) Impersonal constructions: A cross-linguistic perspective. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Marelli, M.
(2017) Word-embeddings Italian semantic spaces: A semantic model for psycholinguistic research. Psihologija, 50(4), 503–520. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Masini, F.
(2005) Multi-word expressions between syntax and the lexicon: The case of Italian verb- particle constructions. SKY Journal of Linguistics, 181, 145–173.Google Scholar
(2009) Phrasal lexemes, compounds and phrases: A constructionist perspective 1. Word Structure, 2(2), 254–271. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2012) Costruzioni verbo-pronominali “intensive” in italiano. In V. Bambini, I. Ricci, & P. M. Bertinetto (Eds.), Language in the brain: Semantics, Atti del XLII Congresso Internazionale di Studi della Società di Linguistica Italiana (SLI) (pp. 1–22). Pisa, Scuola Normale Superiore.Google Scholar
(2016) Grammatica delle costruzioni. Roma: Carocci.Google Scholar
Massam, D.
(1990) Cognate objects as thematic objects. Canadian Journal of Linguistics, 35(2), 161–190. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Melloni, C., & Masini, F.
(2017) Cognate constructions in Italian and beyond: A lexical semantic approach. In L. Hellan, A. L. Malchukov, M. Cennamo (Eds.), Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, Vol. 237 (pp. 220–250). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Michaelis, L. A.
(2004) Type shifting in construction grammar: An integrated approach to aspectual coercion. Cognitive Linguistics, 15(1), 1–67. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Mirto, I.
(2011) Oggetti interni e reaction objects come nomi predicativi di costrutti a verbo supporto. Echo des Etudes Romanes VII1, 11, 21–47.Google Scholar
Moens, M., & Steedman, M.
(1988) Temporal ontology and temporal reference. Computational Linguistics, 14(2), 15–28.Google Scholar
Moore, E.
(2004) Sociolinguistic style: A multidimensional resource for shared identity creation. Canadian Journal of Linguistics, 49(3–4), 375–396. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Moro, A., Tettamanti, M., Perani, D., Donati, C., Cappa, S. F., & Fazio, F.
(2001) Syntax and the brain: Disentangling grammar by selective anomalies. NeuroImage, 13(1), 110–118. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Nakagawa, S., & Schielzeth, H.
(2013) A general and simple method for obtaining R2 from generalized linear mixed-effects models. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 4(2), 133–142. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Perek, F.
(2015) Argument structure in usage-based construction grammar: Experimental and corpus- based perspectives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Perek, F. & Hilpert, M.
(2014) Constructional tolerance: Cross-linguistic differences in the acceptability of non-conventional uses of constructions. Constructions and Frames, 6(2), 266–304. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Perek, F. & Goldberg, A. E.
(2017) Linguistic generalization on the basis of function and constraints on the basis of statistical preemption. Cognition, 1681, 276–293. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Pereltsvaig, A.
(1999) Cognate objects in Russian: Is the notion “cognate” relevant for syntax? Canadian Journal of Linguistics, 44(3), 267–291. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Piñango, M. M., Winnick, A., Ullah, R., & Zurif, E.
(2006) Time-course of semantic composition: The case of aspectual coercion. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 35(3), 233–44. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Pustejovsky, J.
(1995) The generative lexicon. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
(2011) Coercion in a general theory of argument selection. Linguistics, 49(6), 1401–1431. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Pustejovsky, J., & Jezek, E.
(2008) Semantic coercion in language: Beyond distributional analysis. Italian Journal of Linguistics, 20(1), 175–208.Google Scholar
Real-Puigdollars, C.
(2008) The nature of cognate objects. A syntactic approach. In S. Blaho, C. Constantinescu, & B. Le Bruyn (Eds.), Proceedings ConSOLE XVI (pp. 157–178).Google Scholar
Rice, S.
(1987) Towards a transitive prototype: Evidence from some atypical English passives. In Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, Vol. 13 (pp. 422–434). Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society.Google Scholar
Rostila, J.
(2014) Inventarisierung als Grammatikalisierung: produktive Praepositionalobjekte und andere grammatikalisierte Linking-Muster. In A. Lasch & A. Ziem (Eds.), Grammatik als Netzwerk von Konstruktionen: Sprachwissen im Fokus der Konstruktionsgrammatik. (pp. 97–116). Berlin: de Gruyter. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Schütze, H.
(1995) Ambiguity in language learning: Computational and cognitive models. PhD Thesis, Stanford University.Google Scholar
Simone, R.
(2008) Verbi sintagmatici come categoria e come costruzione. In M. Cini (Ed.), I verbi sintagmatici in italiano e nelle varietà dialettali. Stato dell’arte e prospettive di ricerca (pp. 13–30). Frankfurt: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Singmann, H., Bolker, B., Westfall, J., Aust, F., Højsgaard, S., Fox, J., Christensen, R. H. B.
(2015) Afex: Analysis of factorial experiments. R package version 0.13–145.Google Scholar
Tagliamonte, S. A.
(2012) Variationist sociolinguistics: Change, observation, interpretation. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Talmy, L.
(1985) Lexicalization patterns: Semantic structure in lexical forms In T. Shopen (Ed.), Language typology and syntactic description (pp. 36–149). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M.
(2005) Constructing a language: A usage-based theory of language acquisition. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Torre, E.
(2012) Symmetry and asymmetry in Italian caused-motion constructions: An embodied Construction Grammar approach. Constructions, 11, 1–38.Google Scholar
Townsend, D. J.
(2013) Aspectual coercion in eye movements. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 42(3), 281–306. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Vazquez-Rozas, V.
(2007) A usage-based approach to prototypical transitivity. In N. Delbecque & B. Cornillie (Eds.), Interpreting construction schemas from action and motion to transitivity and causality (pp. 17–38). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Wagner, S. E.
(2012) Age grading in sociolinguistic theory. Language and Linguistics Compass, 6(6), 371–382. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Yamada, Y., & Neville, H.
(2007) An ERP study of syntactic processing in English and nonsense sentences. Brain Research, 11301, 167–180. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Yong, S.
(2014) A new perspective on the relation between construction and its slot filler: Construction and lexicon interactive coercion model. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 4(12), 115. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Yoon, S.
(2013) Correlation between semantic compatibility and frequency: A usage-based approach. Linguistic Research, 30(2), 243–272. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2016) Gradable nature of semantic compatibility and coercion: A usage-based approach. Linguistic Research, 33(1), 95–134. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Zeschel, A.
(2012) Incipient productivity: A construction-based approach to linguistic creativity. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Zucchi, S.
(1998) Aspect shift. In S. Rothstein (Ed.), Events and grammar (pp. 349–370). Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Zúñiga, F., & Kittilä, S.
(Eds.) (2010) Benefactives and malefactives: Typological perspectives and case studies. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Busso, Lucia
2020. Constructional creativity in a Romance language. Belgian Journal of Linguistics 34 ► pp. 17 ff. Crossref logo
Busso, Lucia, Florent Perek & Alessandro Lenci
2021. Constructional associations trump lexical associations in processing valency coercion. Cognitive Linguistics 32:2 ► pp. 287 ff. Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 11 november 2021. 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.