Cover not available
Part of
Verb Valency Changes: Theoretical and typological perspectives
Edited by Albert Álvarez González and Ia Navarro
[Typological Studies in Language 120] 2017
► pp. 51–77

Two types of locative alternation

 | CLT-Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Talmy’s (1991, 2000) well-known typological distinction between satellite-framed languages and verb-framed languages can be shown to be relevant when arguing for two types of locative alternation. In particular, I deal with this typological variation in the light of a formal distinction between incorporation and conflation (see Haugen 2009; Mateu 2012 and Acedo-Matellán 2013, i.a.). According to the Talmian typology, verb-framed languages (i.e., those languages where Path/Result lack independent morphophonological status with respect to the verbal root) are predicted to lack the satellite-framed pattern of locative alternation variants that involve Manner conflation (e.g., Sue sewed up the entire dress with buttons; cf. Sue sewed buttons on the dress). In contrast, locative alternation variants that only involve Result incorporation (e.g., The children loaded the stones on the cart / The children loaded the cart with stones) are expected to be found in verb-framed languages. Special attention will also be paid to the ungrammaticality triggered by the elimination of the satellite in locative alternation variants like Sue sewed *(up) the dress with buttons or John poured the glass *(full) with water. Their ill-formedness will be shown to run parallel to that of satellite-framed constructions like John danced the night *(away) or John *(out)danced Sue, which, descriptively speaking, have been said to involve an increase of the verb valency thanks to the presence of a Path/Result satellite.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Incorporation and conflation processes: A syntactic approach
  • 3.The locative alternation variants as resultative-like constructions
  • 4.The prefixed variants of locative alternation
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 30 September 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.120.03mat
References (81)
References
Acedo-Matellán, Víctor. 2010. Argument Structure and the Syntax-Morphology Interface. A Case Study in Latin and Other Languages. Universitat de Barcelona. PhD dissertation. <[URL]>
Acedo Matellán, Víctor. 2013. Merging roots in bare phrase structure and the conflation/incorporation distinction. NELS 42: 1–14.Google Scholar
Acedo Matellán, Víctor & Mateu, Jaume. 2015. Parameters and argument structure, I: Motion predicates and resultatives. In Contemporary Linguistic Parameters, Antonio Fábregas, Jaume Mateu & Michael Putnam (eds), 99–122. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Acedo-Matellán, Víctor & Real-Puigdollers, Cristina. 2014. Inserting roots into (functional) nodes: Categories and cross-linguistic variation. Linguistic Analysis 39(1–2): 125–168.Google Scholar
Alexiadou, Artemis & Anagnostopoulou, Elena. 2011. The locative alternation crosslinguistically. Implications for resultative formation. Handout delivered at the Workshop on Verbal Elasticity, 3–5 October, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
Baker, Mark. 1988. Incorporation: A Theory of Grammatical Function Changing. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
. 2003. Lexical Categories. Verbs, Nouns, and Adjectives. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Beavers, John, Levin, Beth & Wei Tham, Shiao. 2010. The typology of motion expressions revisited. Journal of Linguistics 46: 331–377. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Boas, Hans. 2003. A Constructional Approach to Resultatives. Stanford CA: CSLI.Google Scholar
Bowerman, Melissa. 1982. Reorganizational processes in lexical and syntactic development. In Language Acquisition: The State of the Art, Eric Wanner & Lila Gleitman (eds), 319–346. New York NY: CUP.Google Scholar
Brinkmann, Ursula. 1997. The Locative Alternation in German. Its Structure and Acquisition [Language Acquisition and Language Disorders 15]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 2001. Beyond explanatory adequacy. MIT Occasional Papers in Linguistics 20: 1–28.Google Scholar
Damonte, Federico. 2006. Classifier incorporation and the locative alternation. In Proceedings of the XXX Incontro di Grammatica Generativa, Nicola Munaro, Giuseppina Turano & Walter Schweikert (eds), 83–103. Venezia: Cafoscarina.Google Scholar
Demonte, Violeta. 1991. Detrás de la palabra. Estudios de gramática del español. Madrid: Alianza Universidad.Google Scholar
den Dikken, Marcel. 2010. Directions from the GET-GO. On the syntax of manner of motion verbs in directional constructions. Catalan Journal of Linguistics 9: 23–53.Google Scholar
Dowty, David. 1991. Thematic proto-roles and argument selection. Language 67: 547–619. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2000. ‘The Garden Swarms with Bees’ and the fallacy of ‘argument alternation’. In Polysemy, Yael Ravin & Claudia Leacock (eds), 111–128. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Espinal, M. Teresa. 2017. Morphosyntactic defectiveness in complex predicate formation. In Verb Valency Changes: Theoretical and Typological Perspectives [Typological Studies in Language 120], Albert Álvarez González & Ía, Navarro (eds). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Embick, David. 2004. On the structure of resultative participles in English. Linguistic Inquiry 35: 355–392 DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Folli, Raffaella & Ramchand, Gillian. 2005. Prepositions and results in Italian and English: An analysis from event decomposition. In Perspectives on Aspect, Henk Verkuyl, Henriette de Swart & Angeliek Van Hout (eds), 81–105. Dordrecht: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Folli, Raffaella & Harley, Heidi. 2011. An alternative to deficiency approaches to the manner-alternation parameter. Paper presented at the Workshop on Verbal Elasticity, 3–5 October, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
. 2014. Against deficiency-based typologies: Manner-alternation parameters in Italian and English. Paper presented at the Going Romance 28th , Lisboa, 4–6 December.
Gehrke, Berit. 2008. Ps in Motion. On the Semantics and Syntax of P Elements and Motion Events [LOT Dissertation Series 184]. Utrecht: LOT.Google Scholar
Goldberg, Adele. 1995. Constructions. A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure. Chicago IL: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Goldberg, Adele & Ackerman, Farrell. 2001. The pragmatics of obligatory adjuncts. Language 77(4): 798–814. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Grimshaw, Jane & Vikner, Sten. 1993. Obligatory adjuncts and the structure of events. In Knowledge and Language, Vol. II: Lexical and Conceptual Structure, Eric Reuland & Werner Abraham (eds), 145–159. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
de Groot, Casper. 1998. How to butter a sandwich. On ‘spread’ in Dutch and Hungarian from a typological perspective. In Typology of Verbal Categories. Papers presented to Vladimir Nedjalkov on the occasion of his 70th birthday, Leonid Kulikov & Heinz Vater (eds), 61–72. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. DOI logo
Gruber, Jeffrey. 1965. Studies in Lexical Relations. PhD dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Hale, Kenneth L. & Keyser, Samuel Jay. 1993. On argument structure and the lexical expression of syntactic relations. In The View from Building 20: Essays in Linguistics in Honor of Sylvain Bromberger, Kenneth L. Hale & Samuel Jay Keyser (eds), 53–109. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
. 2002. Prolegomenon to a Theory of Argument Structure. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Harley, Heidi. 2005. How do verbs get their names? Denominal verbs, manner incorporation, and the ontology of verb roots in English. In The Syntax of Aspect. Deriving Thematic and Aspectual Interpretation, Nomi Erteschik-Shir & Tova Rapoport (eds), 42–64. Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2011. A minimalist approach to argument structure. In The Handbook of Linguistic Minimalism, Cedric Boeckx (ed.), 427–448. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Haugen, Jason D. 2009. Hyponymous objects and late insertion. Lingua 119: 242–262. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Herslund, Michale. 1995. The applicative derivation and the “spray paint” alternation in Danish. University of Trondheim Working Papers in Linguistics 25: 43–59.Google Scholar
Hoekstra, Teun. 1988. Small clause results. Lingua 74: 101–139. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hoekstra, Teun & Mulder, René. 1990. Unergatives as copular verbs: Locational and existential predication. The Linguistic Review 7: 1–79. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Iacobini, Claudio & Masini, Francesca. 2007. The emergence of verb-particle constructions in Italian: locative and actional meanings. Morphology 16: 155–188. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Iwata, Seizi. 2008. Locative Alternation. A Lexical-constructional Approach [Constructional Approaches to Language 6]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jackendoff, Ray. 1983. Semantics and Cognition. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kratzer, Angelika. 1996. Severing the external argument from its verb. In Phrase Structure and the Lexicon, Johan Rooryck & Laurie Zaring (eds), 109–137. Dordrecht: Kluwer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Labelle, Marie. 1992. La structure argumentale des verbs locatifs à base nominale. Linguisticae Investigationes 16(2): 267–315. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2000. The semantic representation of denominal verbs. In Lexical Specification and Insertion, Peter Coopmans, Martin Everaert & Jane Grimshaw (eds), 215–240. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Laffut, An. 1998. The locative alternation: A contrastive study of Dutch vs. English. Languages in Contrast 1(2): 127–160. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Levin, Beth & Rappaport Hovav, Malka. 1991. Wiping the slate clean: A lexical semantic exploration. Cognition 41: 123–151. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1998. Morphology and lexical semantics. In The Handbook of Morphology, Arnold Zwicky & Andrew Spencer (eds), 248–271. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
. 2015. Lexicalization patterns. Ms, Stanford University and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. <[URL]>
Levinson, Lisa. 2010. Arguments for pseudo-resultative predicates. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 28(1): 135–182. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lewandowski, Wojciech. 2014a. La alternancia locativa en castellano y polaco: Un análisis tipológico construccional. PhD dissertation, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.Google Scholar
Mateu, Jaume. 2000. Why can’t we wipe the slate clean? A lexical-syntactic approach to resultative constructions. Catalan Working Papers in Linguistics 8: 71–95.Google Scholar
. 2002. Argument Structure. Relational Construal at the Syntax-semantics Interface. PhD dissertation, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. <[URL]>
. 2005. Arguing our way to the Direct Object Restriction (DOR) on English resultatives. Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 8: 55–82. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2008. On the lexical syntax of directionality/resultativity: The case of Germanic preverbs. In Syntax and Semantics of Spatial P [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 120], Anna Asbury, Jakub Dotlačil, Berit Gehrke & Rick Nouwen (eds), 221–250. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2012. Conflation and incorporation processes in resultative constructions. In Telicity, Change, and State. A Cross-Categorial View of Event Structure, Violeta Demonte & Louise McNally (eds), 252–278. Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2014. Argument structure. In The Routledge Handbook of Syntax, Ch. 2 , Andrew Carnie, Dan Siddiqi & Yosuke Sato (eds), 24–41. New York NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Mateu, Jaume & Rigau, Gemma. 2002. A minimalist account of conflation processes: Parametric variation at the lexicon-syntax interface. In Theoretical Approaches to Universals [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 49], Artemis Alexiadou (ed), 211–236. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2010. Verb-particle constructions in Romance: A lexical-syntactic account. Probus 22(2): 241–269. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Matushansky, Ora. 2006. Head movement in linguistic theory. Linguistic Inquiry 37(1): 69–109. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Maylor, Roger. 2001. On the status of Dutch. Durham Working Papers in Linguistics 7: 81–96.Google Scholar
Mayoral Hernández, Roberto. 2010. The locative alternation: On the symmetry between verbal and prepositional locative paradigms. Probus 22(2): 211–239.Google Scholar
McIntyre, Andrew. 2004. Event paths, conflation, argument structure, and VP shells. Linguistics 42(3): 523–571. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2007. Particle verbs and argument structure. Language and Linguistics Compass 1(4): 350–367. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Michaelis, Laura A. & Ruppenhofer, Josef. 2001. Beyond Alternations: A Constructional Model of the German Applicative Pattern. Stanford CA: CSLI.Google Scholar
Moreno Cabrera, Juan Carlos. 1998. Las alternancias locativas en el marco de la semántica de los esquemas eventivos. IV Jornadas de Lingüística, 143–171. Universidad de Cádiz.Google Scholar
. 2003. Semántica y gramática. Sucesos, papeles semánticos y relaciones sintácticas. Madrid: Antonio Machado Libros.Google Scholar
Mulder, René H. 1992. The Aspectual Nature of Syntactic Complementation. PhD dissertation, Leiden: HIL Dissertation Series.Google Scholar
Oya, Toshiaki. 2009. Ground arguments in German particle verbs: A comparison with Dutch and English. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 21(3): 257–296. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pinker, Steven. 1989. Learnability and Cognition: The Acquisition of Argument Structure. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Pylkkännen, Liina. 2008. Introducing Arguments. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ramchand, Gillian C. 2008. Verb Meaning and the Lexicon. A First Phase Syntax. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rappaport Hovav, Malka & Levin, Beth. 1998. Building verb meanings. In The Projection of Arguments. Lexical and Compositional Factors, Miriam Butt & Wilhem Geuder (eds), 97–134. Stanford CA: CSLI.Google Scholar
Real-Puigdollers, Cristina. 2013. Lexicalization by Phase: The Role of Prepositions in Argument Structure and its Cross-linguistic Variation. PhD dissertation, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.Google Scholar
Rosen, Sara Thomas. 1996. Events and verb classification. Linguistics 34: 191–223. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Salkoff, Morris. 1983. Bees are swarming in the garden: A systematic synchronic study of productivity. Language 59: 288–346. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Svenonius, Peter. 2004. Slavic prefixes inside and outside VP. Nordlyd 32: 205–253.Google Scholar
Talmy, Leonard. 1985. Lexicalization patterns: Semantic structure in lexical forms. In Language Typology and Syntactic Description, Vol. 3, Timothy Shopen (ed.), 57–149. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
. 1991. Path to realization: A typology of event conflation. Berkeley Linguistics Society (BLS) 17: 480–519. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2000. Toward a Cognitive Semantics. Typology and Process in Concept Structuring. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Washio, Ryuichi. 1997. Resultatives, compositionality and language variation. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 6: 1–49. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wechsler, Stephen. 2005. Resultatives under the ‘event-argument homomorphism’ model of telicity. In The Syntax of Aspect. Deriving Thematic and Aspectual Interpretation, Nomi Erteschik-Shir & Tova Rapoport (eds), 255–273. Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zubizarreta, María Luisa & Oh, Eunjeong. 2007. On the Syntactic Composition of Manner and Motion. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Cited by (7)

Cited by seven other publications

Hopperdietzel, Jens
2024. Manner/result polysemy as contextual allosemy: Evidence from Daakaka. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory DOI logo
Schirakowski, Barbara
2024. Result lexicalization with manner verbs in French: an experimental investigation of the material/product alternation and the packaging of meaning. Journal of French Language Studies ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Mangialavori Rasia, M. Eugenia & Nora Múgica
2022. Fugu Me! Roots and Denominal Verb Productivity: New Data. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 15:2 ► pp. 291 ff. DOI logo
Bigolin, Alessandro & Josep Ausensi
2021. A new resultative construction in Spanish? A reply to Rodríguez Arrizabalaga. Folia Linguistica 55:2 ► pp. 517 ff. DOI logo
Bigolin, Alessandro & Josep Ausensi
2021. A new resultative construction in Spanish? A reply to Rodríguez Arrizabalaga. Folia Linguistica 55:2 ► pp. 517 ff. DOI logo
Folli, Raffaella & Heidi Harley
2020. A Head Movement Approach to Talmy’s Typology. Linguistic Inquiry 51:3 ► pp. 425 ff. DOI logo
Rasia, Maria Eugenia Mangialavori
2019. Stativity in the Causative Alternation? New Questions and a New Variant. Open Linguistics 5:1 ► pp. 233 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 8 november 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.