Abstract
The relation between the meaning and the syntax of lexical items is among the more frustrating issues in linguistics: on the one hand it seems clear that the meaning of a lexical item determines at least to some degree the syntactic behavior of its participant roles; on the other hand, attempts to characterize the relation explicitly tend not to be very successful. In this paper I look at the unaccusative/unergative distinction in Dutch as an example of a distinction for which it is felt that some semantic correlates should be available (e.g. in traditional grammar, Pollmann, 1975; Perlmutter, 1978; Zaenen, 1988) but for which it has also been argued that no semantic criteria can be found (Hoekstra, 1984; and more generally, Rosen, 1984). Rosen (1984) remarks à propos of semantic criteria for unaccusativity that “one cannot state a semantic criterion that actually works: not animacy of the argument, not agentive or volitional meaning, not existential or presentential meaning”. I will show that even this state of affairs does not mean that one has to reject all forms semantic grounding of a particular syntactic behavior. Following Pesetsky (1987), I will call the hypothesis that such grounding can be found, the “transparency hypothesis”.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Belletti, A. and L. Rizzi (1988) Psych-verbs and Theta Theory, Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 6(3), 291–352.
den Besten, H. (1985) The Ergative Hypothesis and Free Word Order in Dutch and German. In J. Toman (ed.).
Bresnan, J. (1982) The Passive in Lexical Theory. In J. Bresnan (ed.), The Mental Represenation of Grammatical Relations, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 3–86.
Bresnan, J. and J. Kanerva (1988) Locative Inversion in Chichewa: A Case Study of Factorization in Grammar, Linguistic Inquiry 20, 1.
Cruse, D. (1973) Some Thoughts on Ergativity, Journal of Linguistics 10, 221–233.
Dowty, D. (1979) Word Meaning and Montague Grammar, Reidel, Dordrecht.
Dowty, D. (1988) Thematic Proto-Roles, Subject Selection, and Lexical Semantic Defaults, unpublished paper OSU, Ohio; published in a revised version as
Dowty, D. (1991) Thematic proto-roles and argument selection, Language 67(3), 547–619.
Everaert, M. (1986) The Syntax of Reflexivization, Foris, Dordrecht.
Geerts et al. (eds.) (1984) Algemene Nederlandse Spraakkunst, Wolters-Noordhoff, Groningen/Leuven (cited in Shannon).
Gerdts, D. and C. Youn (1988) Korean Psych Constructions: Advancement or Retreat? In Proceedings of the Chicago Society of Linguistics 24.
Grimshaw, J. (1990) Argument Structure, The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Haider, H. (1985) The Case of German. In J. Toman (ed.).
Hoekstra, T. (1984) Transitivity, Foris, Dordrecht.
Kirsner, R. (1975) On Subjectless “Pseudo-Passive” in Standard Dutch. In C. Li (ed.), Subject and Topic, Academic Press.
Levin, B. and M. Rappaport (1986) The Formation of Adjectival Passives, Linguistic Inquiry 17, 623–661.
Levin, L. (1986) Operations on Lexical Forms: Unaccusative Rules in Germanic Languages, Unpublished PhD thesis, MIT.
Levin, L. (1987) Toward a Linking Theory of Relation Changing Rules in LFG, CSLI report 115, Stanford University.
Perlmutter, D. (1978) Impersonal Passives and the Unaccusative Hypothesis. In J. J. Jaeger et al. (eds.), Proceedings of the 4th anaual meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, UC Berkeley, pp. 157-189.
Perlmutter, D. and P. Postal (1983) Some proposed Laws of Basic Clause Structure. In D. Perlmutter (ed.), Studies in Relational Grammar 1. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Pullum, G. (1988) Topic Comment: Citation Etiquette Beyond Thunderdome, Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 6(4), 579–588.
Rosen, C. (1984) The Interface Between Semantic Roles and Initial Grammatical Relations. In D. Perlmutter and C. Rosen (eds.), Studies in Relational Grammar 2, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Ross, J. R. (1972) ACT. In D. Davidson and G. Harman (eds.), Semantics of Natural Language, Reidel, Dordrecht.
Pesetsky, D. (1987) Binding Problems with Experiencer Verbs, Linguistic Inquiry 18, 126–140.
Pollmann, T. (1975) Oorzaak en Handelende Persoon, Doctoral Dissertation, University of Nijmegen.
Shannon, T. (1987) On Some Recent Claims of Relational Grammar, Proceedings of the thirteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkely Linguistics Society, Berkeley.
Toman, J. (ed.) (1985) Studies in German Grammar, Foris, Dordrecht.
Vendler, Z. (1967) Verbs and Times. In Z. Vendler, Linguistics in Philosophy, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY.
Wasow, T. (1977) Transformations and the Lexicon. In P. Culicover, A. Akmajian and T. Wasow (eds.), Formal Syntax, Academic Press, New York.
Zaenen, A. (1988) Unaccusatives in Dutch and the Syntax-Semantics Interface, CSLI report 123, Stanford University.
Zaenen, A. (in progress) Dutch Nominal Arguments and Wysiwyg Syntax, Xerox Parc/CSLI Stanford.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1993 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Zaenen, A. (1993). Unaccusativity in Dutch: Integrating Syntax and Lexical Semantics. In: Pustejovsky, J. (eds) Semantics and the Lexicon. Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy, vol 49. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-1972-6_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-1972-6_9
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-0-7923-2386-0
Online ISBN: 978-94-011-1972-6
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive