is realized as subject and mapped to the respective valence feature: spr in English. Such mappings can be language specific (see Section 9.1.1 and Müller (2018b) where I discuss Icelandic, which is an SVO language with subjects with lexical case).

In what follows, I discuss another set of examples that are sometimes seen as evidence for a movement-based analysis. The examples in (5) are instances of the so-called remote passive (Höhle 1978: 175–176).2

	- b. weil because der the Wagen car.nom oft often zu to reparieren repair versucht tried wurde was

'because many attempts were made to repair the car'

What is interesting about these examples is that the subject is the underlying object of a deeply embedded verb. This seems to suggest that the object is extracted out of the verb phrase. So the analysis of (5b) would be (6):

(6) weil because [IP der the Wagen*i* car.nom [VP oft often [VP [VP [VP \_*i* zu to reparieren] repair versucht] tried wurde] was

While this is a straight-forward explanation of the fact that (5b) is grammatical, another explanation is possible as well. In the HPSG analysis of German (and Dutch) it is assumed that verbs like those in (5b) form a verbal complex, that is, *zu reparieren versucht wurde* 'to repair tried was' forms one unit. When two or more verbs form a complex, the highest verb attracts the arguments from the verb it embeds (Hinrichs & Nakazawa 1989b; 1994; Bouma & van Noord 1998). A verb like *versuchen* 'to try' selects a subject, an infinitive with *zu* 'to' and all complements that are selected by this infinitive. In the analysis of (7), *versuchen* 'to try' selects for its subject, the object of *reparieren* 'to repair' and for the verb *zu reparieren* 'to repair'.

(7) weil because er he.nom den the.acc Wagen car zu to reparieren repair versuchen try will wants 'because he wants to try to repair the car'

Now if the passive lexical rule applies to *versuch*-, it suppresses the first argument of *versuch*- with structural case, which is the subject of *versuch*-. The next argument of *versuch*- is the object of *zu reparieren*. Since this element is the first NP with structural case, it gets nominative as in (5b). So, this shows that there is an analysis of the remote passive that does not rely on movement. Since movement-based analyses were shown to be problematic and since there are no data that cannot be explained without movement, analyses without movement have to be preferred.

2 See Müller (2002a: Section <IP_ADDRESS>) and Wurmbrand (2003b) for corpus examples.

3Oppenrieder (1991: 212).

This leaves us with movement-based accounts of local reordering (scrambling). The reviewer suggested that scrambling, passive, and nonlocal extraction may be analyzed with the same mechanism. It was long thought that scope facts made the assumption of movement-based analyses of scrambling necessary, but it was pointed out by Kiss (2001: 146) and Fanselow (2001: Section 2.6) that the reverse is true: movement-based accounts of scrambling make wrong predictions with regard to available quantifier scopings. I discussed the respective examples in Section 3.5 already and will not repeat the discussion here. The conclusion that has to be drawn from this is that passive, scrambling, and long distance extraction are three different phenomena that should be treated differently. The solution for the analysis of the passive that is adopted in HPSG is based on an analysis by Haider (1986a), who worked within the GB framework. The "scramblingas-base generation" approach to local reordering that was used in HPSG right from the beginning (Gunji 1986) is also adopted by some practitioners of GB/Minimalism, e.g., Fanselow (2001).

Having discussed the analyses in GB/Minimalism, I now turn to Dependency Grammar. Groß & Osborne (2009) suggest that *w*-fronting, topicalization, scrambling, extraposition, splitting, and also the remote passive should be analyzed by what they call *rising*. The concept was already explained in Section 11.5. The Figures 20.5 and 20.6 show examples for the fronting and the scrambling of an object. Groß and Osborne assume

Figure 20.5: Analysis of *Die Idee wird jeder verstehen.* 'Everybody will understand the idea.' involving rising

that the object depends on the main verb in sentences with auxiliary verbs, while the subject depends on the auxiliary. Therefore, the object *die Idee* 'the idea' and the object *sich* 'himself' have to rise to the next higher verb in order to keep the structures projective. Figure 20.7 on the following page shows the analysis of the remote passive. The object of *zu reparieren* 'to repair' rises to the auxiliary *wurde* 'was'.

Groß and Osborne use the same mechanism for all these phenomena, but it should be clear that there have to be differences in the exact implementation. Groß and Osborne say that English does not have scrambling, while German does. If this is to be captured, there must be a way to distinguish the two phenomena, since if this were not possible, one would predict that English has scrambling as well, since both German and English 20 Extraction, scrambling, and passive: one or several descriptive devices?

Figure 20.6: Analysis of *Gestern hat sich der Spieler verletzt.* 'Yesterday, the player injured himself.' involving rising of the object of the main verb *verletzt* 'injured'

Figure 20.7: Analysis of the remote passive *dass der Wagen zu reparieren versucht wurde* 'that it was tried to repair the car' involving rising

allow long distance fronting. Groß & Osborne (2009: 58) assume that object nouns that rise must take the nominative. But if the kind of rising that they assume for remote passives is identical to the one that they assume for scrambling, they would predict that *den Wagen* gets nominative in (8) as well:

(8) dass that den the.acc Wagen car niemand nobody.nom repariert repaired hat has 'that nobody repaired the car'

Since *den Wagen* 'the car' and *repariert* 'repaired' are not adjacent, *den Wagen* has to rise to the next higher head in order to allow for a projective realization of elements. So in order to assign case properly, one has to take into account the arguments that are governed by the head to which a certain element rises. Since the auxiliary *hat* 'has'

already governs a nominative, the NP *den Wagen* has to be realized in the accusative. An analysis that assumes that both the accusative and nominative depend on *hat* 'has' in (8) is basically the verbal complex analysis assumed in HPSG and some GB variants.

Note, however, that this does not extend to nonlocal dependencies. Case is assigned locally by verbs or verbal complexes, but not to elements that come from far away. The long distance extraction of NPs is more common in southern variants of German and there are only a few verbs that do not take a nominative argument themselves. The examples below involve *dünken* 'to think', which governs an accusative and a sentential object and *scheinen* 'to seem', which governs a dative and a sentential object. If (9a) is analyzed with *den Wagen* rising to *dünkt*, one might expect that *den Wagen* 'the car' gets nominative since there is no other element in the nominative. However, (8b) is entirely out.

	- b. \* Der the.nom Wagen car dünkt thinks mich, me.acc dass that er he.nom repariert. repairs

Similarly there is no agreement between the fronted element and the verb to which it attaches:

	- b. Die the Wagen cars.3pl scheint seem.3sg mir, me.dat dass that ihm him gefallen. please.3pl 'The cars, he seems to me to like.'
	- c. \* Die the Wagen cars.3pl scheinen seem.3pl mir, me.dat dass that ihm him gefällt. pleases.3sg
	- d. \* Die the Wagen cars.3pl scheinen seem.3pl mir, me.dat dass that ihm him gefallen. please.3pl

This shows that scrambling/remote passive and extraction should not be dealt with by the same mechanism or if they are dealt with by the same mechanism one has to make sure that there are specialized variants of the mechanism that take the differences into account. I think what Groß and Osborne did is simply recode the attachment relations of phrase structure grammars. *die Idee* 'the idea' has some relation to *wird jeder verstehen* 'will everybody understand' in Figure 20.5, as it does in GB, LFG, GPSG, HPSG, and other similar frameworks. In HPSG, *die Idee* 'the idea' is the filler in a filler-head configuration. The remote passive and local reorderings of arguments of auxiliaries, modal verbs, and other verbs that behave similarly are explained by verbal complex formation where all non-verbal arguments depend on the highest verb (Hinrichs & Nakazawa 1994).

### 20 Extraction, scrambling, and passive: one or several descriptive devices?

Concluding this chapter, it can be said that local reorderings and long-distance dependencies are two different things that should be described with different tools (or there should be further constraints that differ for the respective phenomena when the same tool is used). Similarly, movement-based analyses of the passive are problematic since passive does not necessarily imply reordering.

## **21 Phrasal vs. lexical analyses**

### coauthored with Stephen Wechsler

This section deals with a rather crucial aspect when it comes to the comparison of the theories described in this book: valence and the question whether sentence structure, or rather syntactic structure in general, is determined by lexical information or whether syntactic structures have an independent existence (and meaning) and lexical items are just inserted into them. Roughly speaking, frameworks like GB/Minimalism, LFG, CG, HPSG, and DG are lexical, while GPSG and Construction Grammar (Goldberg 1995; 2003a; Tomasello 2003; 2006b; Croft 2001) are phrasal approaches. This categorization reflects tendencies, but there are non-lexical approaches in Minimalism (Borer's exoskeletal approach, 2003) and LFG (Alsina 1996; Asudeh et al. 2008; 2013) and there are lexical approaches in Construction Grammar (Sign-Based Construction Grammar, see Section 10.6.2). The phrasal approach is wide-spread also in frameworks like Cognitive Grammar (Dąbrowska 2001; Langacker 2009: 169) and Simpler Syntax (Culicover & Jackendoff 2005; Jackendoff 2008) that could not be discussed in this book.

The question is whether the meaning of an utterance like (1a) is contributed by the verb *give* and the structure needed for the NPs occurring together with the verb does not contribute any meaning or whether there is a phrasal pattern [X Verb Y Z] that contributes some "ditransitive meaning" whatever this may be.1

	- b. Peter fishes the pond empty.

Similarly, there is the question of how the constituents in (1b) are licensed. This sentence is interesting since it has a resultative meaning that is not part of the meaning of the verb *fish*: Peter's fishing causes the pond to become empty. Nor is this additional meaning part of the meaning of any other item in the sentence. On the lexical account, there is a lexical rule that licenses a lexical item that selects for *Peter*, *the pond*, and *empty*. This lexical item also contributes the resultative meaning. On the phrasal approach, it is

	- b. Er he.nom stiehlt steals ihr her.dat den the.acc Ball. ball 'He steals the ball from her.'

1Note that the prototypical meaning is a transfer of possession in which Y receives Z from X, but the reverse holds in (i.b):

### 21 Phrasal vs. lexical analyses

assumed that there is a pattern [Subj V Obj Obl]. This pattern contributes the resultative meaning, while the verb that is inserted into this pattern just contributes its prototypical meaning, e.g., the meaning that *fish* would have in an intransitive construction. I call such phrasal approaches *plugging approaches*, since lexical items are plugged into readymade structures that do most of the work.

In what follows I will examine these proposals in more detail and argue that the lexical approaches to valence are the correct ones. The discussion will be based on earlier work of mine (Müller 2006; 2007b; 2010b) and work that I did together with Steve Wechsler (Müller & Wechsler 2014a,b). Some of the sections in Müller & Wechsler (2014a) started out as translations of Müller (2013a), but the material was reorganized and refocused due to intensive discussion with Steve Wechsler. So rather than using a translation of Section 11.11 of Müller (2013a), I use parts of Müller & Wechsler (2014a) here and add some subsections that had to be left out of the article due to space restrictions (Subsections 21.3.6 and 21.7.3). Because there have been misunderstandings in the past (e.g., Boas (2014), see Müller & Wechsler (2014b)), a disclaimer is necessary here: this section is not an argument against Construction Grammar. As was mentioned above Sign-Based Construction Grammar is a lexical variant of Construction Grammar and hence compatible with what I believe to be correct. This section is also not against phrasal constructions in general, since there are phenomena that seem to be best captured with phrasal constructions. These are discussed in detail in Subsection 21.10. What I will argue against in the following subsections is a special kind of phrasal construction, namely phrasal argument structure constructions (phrasal ASCs). I believe that all phenomena that have to do with valence and valence alternations should be treated lexically.

### **21.1 Some putative advantages of phrasal models**

In this section we examine certain claims to purported advantages of phrasal versions of Construction Grammar over lexical rules. Then in the following section, we will turn to positive arguments for lexical rules.

### **21.1.1 Usage-based theories**

For many practitioners of Construction Grammar, their approach to syntax is deeply rooted in the ontological strictures of *usage-based* theories of language (Langacker 1987; Goldberg 1995; Croft 2001; Tomasello 2003). Usage-based theorists oppose the notion of "linguistic rules conceived of as algebraic procedures for combining symbols that do not themselves contribute to meaning" (Tomasello 2003: 99). All linguistic entities are symbolic of things in the realm of denotations; "all have communicative significance because they all derive directly from language use" (*ibid*). Although the formatives of language may be rather abstract, they can never be divorced from their functional origin as a tool of communication. The usage-based view of constructions is summed up well in the following quote:

The most important point is that constructions are nothing more or less than patterns of usage, which may therefore become relatively abstract if these patterns

21.1 Some putative advantages of phrasal models

include many different kinds of specific linguistic symbols. But never are they empty rules devoid of semantic content or communicative function. (Tomasello 2003: 100)

Thus constructions are said to differ from grammatical rules in two ways: they must carry meaning; and they reflect the actual "patterns of usage" fairly directly.

Consider first the constraint that every element of the grammar must carry meaning, which we call the *semiotic dictum*. Do lexical or phrasal theories hew the most closely to this dictum? Categorial Grammar, the paradigm of a lexical theory (see Chapter 8), is a strong contender: it consists of meaningful words, with only a few very general combinatorial rules such as X/Y ∗ Y = X. Given the rule-to-rule assumption, those combinatorial rules specify the meaning of the whole as a function of the parts. Whether such a rule counts as meaningful in itself in Tomasello's sense is not clear.

What does seem clear is that the combinatorial rules of Construction Grammar, such as Goldberg's Correspondence Principle for combining a verb with a construction (1995: 50), have the same status as those combinatorial rules:

(2) The Correspondence Principle: each participant that is lexically profiled and expressed must be fused with a profiled argument role of the construction. If a verb has three profiled participant roles, then one of them may be fused with a nonprofiled argument role of a construction. (Goldberg 1995: 50)

Both verbs and constructions are specified for participant roles, some of which are *profiled*. Argument profiling for verbs is "lexically determined and highly conventionalized" (Goldberg 1995: 46). Profiled argument roles of a construction are mapped to direct grammatical functions, i. e., SUBJ, OBJ, or OBJ2. By the Correspondence Principle the lexically profiled argument roles must be direct, unless there are three of them, in which case one may be indirect.2 With respect to the semiotic dictum, the Correspondence Principle has the same status as the Categorial Grammar combinatorial rules: a meaningless algebraic rule that specifies the way to combine meaningful items.

Turning now to the lexicalist syntax we favor, some elements abide by the semiotic dictum while others do not. Phrase structure rules for intransitive and transitive VPs (or the respective HPSG ID schema) do not. Lexical valence structures clearly carry meaning since they are associated with particular verbs. In an English ditransitive, the first object expresses the role of "intended recipient" of the referent of the second object. Hence *He carved her a toy* entails that he carved a toy with the intention that she receive it. So the lexical rule that adds a benefactive recipient argument to a verb adds meaning. Alternatively, a phrasal ditransitive construction might contribute that "recipient" meaning.3 Which structures have meaning is an empirical question for us.

In Construction Grammar, however, meaning is assumed for all constructions *a priori*. But while the ditransitive construction plausibly contributes meaning, no truth-

2We assume that the second sentence of (2) provides for exceptions to the first sentence.

3 In Section 21.2.1 we argue that the recipient should be added in the lexical argument structure, not through a phrasal construction. See Wechsler (1991: 111–113; 1995: 88–89) for an analysis of English ditransitives with elements of both constructional and lexical approaches. It is based on Kiparsky's notion of a *thematically restricted positional linker* (1987; 1988).

### 21 Phrasal vs. lexical analyses

conditional meaning has yet been discovered for either the intransitive or bivalent transitive constructions. Clearly the constructionist's evidence for the meaningfulness of*certain* constructions such as the ditransitive does not constitute evidence that *all* phrasal constructions have meaning. So the lexical and phrasal approaches seem to come out the same, as far as the semiotic dictum is concerned.

Now consider the second usage-based dictum, that the elements of the grammar directly reflect patterns of usage, which we call *the transparency dictum*. The Construction Grammar literature often presents their constructions informally in ways that suggest that they represent surface constituent order patterns: the transitive construction is "[X VERB Y]" (Tomasello) or "[Subj V Obj]" (Goldberg 1995; 2006) 4 ; the passive construction is "X *was* VERB*ed by* Y" (Tomasello 2003: 100) or "Subj aux Vpp (PPby)" (Goldberg 2006: 5). But a theory in which constructions consist of surface patterns was considered in detail and rejected by Müller (2006: Section 2), and does not accurately reflect Goldberg's actual theory.5 The more detailed discussions present *argument structure constructions*, which are more abstract and rather like the lexicalists' grammatical elements (or perhaps an LFG f-structure): the transitive construction resembles a transitive valence structure (minus the verb itself); the passive construction resembles the passive lexical rule.

With respect to fulfilling the desiderata of usage-based theorists, we do not find any significant difference between the non-lexical and lexical approaches.

### **21.1.2 Coercion**

Researchers working with plugging proposals usually take coercion as an indication of the usefulness of phrasal constructions. For instance, Anatol Stefanowitsch (Lecture in the lecture series *Algorithmen und Muster*–*- Strukturen in der Sprache*, 2009) discussed the example in (3):

(3) Das Tor zur Welt Hrnglb öffnete sich ohne Vorwarnung und verschlang [sie] … die Welt Hrnglb wird von Magiern erschaffen, die Träume zu Realität formen können, aber nicht in der Lage sind zu träumen. Haltet aus, Freunde. Und ihr da draußen, bitte träumt ihnen ein Tor.6

The crucial part is *bitte träumt ihnen ein Tor* 'Dream a gate for them'. In this fantasy context the word *träumen*, which is intransitive, is forced into the ditransitive construction and therefore gets a certain meaning. This forcing of a verb corresponds to overwriting or rather extending properties of the verb by the phrasal construction.

4Goldberg et al. (2004: 300) report about a language acquisition experiment that involves an SOV pattern. The SOV order is mentioned explicitly and seen as part of the construction.

5This applies to argument structure constructions only. In some of her papers Goldberg assumes that very specific phrase structural configurations are part of the constructions. For instance in her paper on complex predicates in Persian (Goldberg 2003b) she assigns V0 and V categories. See Müller (2010b: Section 4.9) for a critique of that analysis.

6 http://www.elbenwaldforum.de/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=Tolkiens\_Werke&Number=1457418&page= 3&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=16, 2010-02-27.

'The gate to the world Hrnglb opened without warning and swallowed them. The world Hrnglb is created by magicians that can form reality from dreams but cannot dream themselves. Hold out, friends! And you out there, please, dream a gate for them.'

### 21.1 Some putative advantages of phrasal models

In cases in which the plugging proposals assume that information is overwritten or extended, lexical approaches assume mediating lexical rules. Briscoe & Copestake (1999: Section 4) have worked out a lexical approach in detail.7 They discuss the ditransitive sentences in (4), which either correspond to the prototypical ditransitive construction (4a) or deviate from it in various ways.

	- b. Joe painted Sally a picture.
	- c. Mary promised Joe a new car.
	- d. He tipped Bill two pounds.
	- e. The medicine brought him relief.
	- f. The music lent the party a festive air.
	- g. Jo gave Bob a punch.
	- h. He blew his wife a kiss.
	- i. She smiled herself an upgrade.

For the non-canonical examples they assume lexical rules that relate transitive (*paint*) and intransitive (*smile*) verbs to ditransitive ones and contribute the respective semantic information or the respective metaphorical extension. The example in (4i) is rather similar to the *träumen* example discussed above and is also analyzed with a lexical rule (page 509). Briscoe and Copestake note that this lexical rule is much more restricted in its productivity than the other lexical rules they suggest. They take this as motivation for developing a representational format in which lexical items (including those that are derived by lexical rules) are associated with probabilities, so that differences in productivity of various patterns can be captured.

Looking narrowly at such cases, it is hard to see any rational grounds for choosing between the phrasal analysis and the lexical rule. But if we broaden our view, the lexical rule approach can be seen to have a much wider application. Coercion is a very general pragmatic process, occurring in many contexts where no construction seems to be responsible (Nunberg 1995). Nunberg cites many cases such as the restaurant waiter asking *Who is the ham sandwich?* (Nunberg 1995: 115). Copestake & Briscoe (1992: 116) discuss the conversion of terms for animals to mass nouns (see also Copestake & Briscoe (1995: 36–43)). Example (5) is about a substance, not about a cute bunny.

The authors suggest a lexical rule that maps a count noun onto a mass noun. This analysis is also assumed by Fillmore (1999: 114–115). Such coercion can occur without any syntactic context: one can answer the question *What's that stuff on the road?* or *What are you eating?* with the one-word utterance *Rabbit.* Some coercion happens to affect the complement structure of a verb, but this is simply a special case of a more general phenomenon that has been analyzed by rules of systematic polysemy.

7Kay (2005), working in the framework of CxG, also suggests unary constructions.

### 21 Phrasal vs. lexical analyses

### **21.1.3 Aspect as a clause level phenomenon**

Alsina (1996), working in the framework of LFG, argues for a phrasal analysis of resultative constructions based on the aspectual properties of sentences, since aspect is normally viewed as a property that is determined by the sentence syntax. Intransitive verbs such as *bark* refer to activities, a resultative construction with the same verb, however, stands for an accomplishment (an extended change of state). Alsina supports this with the following data:

	- b. The dog barked the neighbors awake in five minutes.

The latter sentence means that the *barking* event was completed after five minutes. A reading referring to the time span of the event is not available for (6a). If (6a) is grammatical at all, then a claim is being made about the time frame in which the event begun.

If we now consider examples such as (7c), however, we see that Alsina's argumentation is not cogent since the resultative meaning is already present at the word-level in nominalizations. As the examples in (7) show, this contrast can be observed in nominal constructions and is therefore independent of the sentence syntax:

	- b. # weil because sie they in in fünf five Jahren years fischten fished
	- c. das the Leerfischen empty.fishing der of.the Nordsee North.Sea in in fünf five Jahren years
	- d. # das the Fischen fishing in in fünf five Jahren years

In a lexical approach there is a verb stem selecting for two NPs and a resultative predicate. This stem has the appropriate meaning and can be inflected or undergo derivation und successive inflection. In both cases we get words that contain the resultative semantics and hence are compatible with respective adverbials.

### **21.1.4 Simplicity and polysemy**

Much of the intuitive appeal of the plugging approach stems from its apparent simplicity relative to the use of lexical rules. But the claim to greater simplicity for Construction Grammar is based on misunderstandings of both lexical rules and Construction Grammar (specifically of Goldberg's (1995; 2006) version). It draws the distinction in the wrong place and misses the real differences between these approaches. This argument from simplicity is often repeated and so it is important to understand why it is incorrect.

Tomasello (2003) presents the argument as follows. Discussing first the lexical rules approach, Tomasello (2003: 160) writes that

### 21.1 Some putative advantages of phrasal models

One implication of this view is that a verb must have listed in the lexicon a different meaning for virtually every different construction in which it participates […]. For example, while the prototypical meaning of *cough* involves only one participant, the cougher, we may say such things as *He coughed her his cold*, in which there are three core participants. In the lexical rules approach, in order to produce this utterance the child's lexicon must have as an entry a ditransitive meaning for the verb *cough*. (Tomasello 2003: 160)

Tomasello (2003: 160) then contrasts a Construction Grammar approach, citing Fillmore et al. (1988), Goldberg (1995), and Croft (2001). He concludes as follows:

The main point is that if we grant that constructions may have meaning of their own, in relative independence of the lexical items involved, then we do not need to populate the lexicon with all kinds of implausible meanings for each of the verbs we use in everyday life. The construction grammar approach in which constructions have meanings is therefore both much simpler and much more plausible than the lexical rules approach. (Tomasello 2003: 161)

This reflects a misunderstanding of lexical rules, as they are normally understood. There is no implausible sense populating the lexicon. The lexical rule approach to *He coughed her his cold* states that when the word *coughed* appears with two objects, the whole complex has a certain meaning (see Müller 2006: 876). Furthermore we explicitly distinguish between listed elements (lexical entries) and derived ones. The general term subsuming both is *lexical item*.

The simplicity argument also relies on a misunderstanding of a theory Tomasello advocates, namely the theory due to Goldberg (1995; 2006). For his argument to go through, Tomasello must tacitly assume that verbs can combine freely with constructions, that is, that the grammar does not place extrinsic constraints on such combinations. If it is necessary to also stipulate which verbs can appear in which constructions, then the claim to greater simplicity collapses: each variant lexical item with its "implausible meaning" under the lexical rule approach corresponds to a verb-plus-construction combination under the phrasal approach.

Passages such as the following may suggest that verbs and constructions are assumed to combine freely:8

Constructions are combined freely to form actual expressions as long as they can be construed as not being in conflict (invoking the notion of construal is intended to allow for processes of accommodation or coercion). […] Allowing constructions to combine freely as long as there are no conflicts, allows for the infinitely creative potential of language. […] That is, a speaker is free to creatively combine constructions as long as constructions exist in the language that can be combined suitably to categorize the target message, given that there is no conflict among the constructions. (Goldberg 2006: 22)

8The context of these quotes makes clear that the verb and the argument structure construction are considered constructions. See Goldberg (2006: 21, ex. (2)).

### 21 Phrasal vs. lexical analyses

But in fact Goldberg does not assume free combination, but rather that a verb is "conventionally associated with a construction" (Goldberg 1995: 50): verbs specify their participant roles and which of those are obligatory direct arguments (*profiled*, in Goldberg's terminology). In fact, Goldberg herself (2006: 211) argues against Borer's putative assumption of free combination (2003) on the grounds that Borer is unable to account for the difference between *dine* (intransitive), *eat* (optionally transitive), and *devour* (obligatorily transitive).9 Despite Tomasello's comment above, Construction Grammar is no simpler than the lexical rules.

The resultative construction is often used to illustrate the simplicity argument. For example, Goldberg (1995: Chapter 7) assumes that the same lexical item for the verb *sneeze* is used in (8a) and (8b). It is simply inserted into different constructions:

	- b. He sneezed the napkin off the table.

The meaning of (8a) corresponds more or less to the verb meaning, since the verb is used in the Intransitive Construction. But the Caused-Motion Construction in (8b) contributes additional semantic information concerning the causation and movement: his sneezing caused the napkin to move off the table. *sneeze* is plugged into the Caused-Motion Construction, which licenses the subject of *sneeze* and additionally provides two slots: one for the theme (*napkin*) and one for the goal (*off the table*). The lexical approach is essentially parallel, except that the lexical rule can feed further lexical processes like passivization (*The napkin was sneezed off the table*), and conversion to nouns or adjectives (see Sections 21.2.2 and 21.6).

In a nuanced comparison of the two approaches, Goldberg (1995: 139–140) considers again the added recipient argument in *Mary kicked Joe the ball*, where *kick* is lexically a 2-place verb. She notes that on the constructional view, "the composite fused structure involving both verb and construction is stored in memory". The verb itself retains its original meaning as a 2-place verb, so that "we avoid implausible verb senses such as 'to cause to receive by kicking'." The idea seems to be that the lexical approach, in contrast, must countenance such implausible verb senses since a lexical rule adds a third argument.

But the lexical and constructional approaches are actually indistinguishable on this point. The lexical rule does not produce a verb with the "implausible sense" in (9a). Instead it produces the sense in (9b):

	- b. cause(kick(x, y),receive(z,y))

The same sort of "composite fused structure" is assumed under either view. With respect to the semantic structure, the number and plausibility of senses, and the polyadicity of the semantic relations, the two theories are identical. They mainly differ in the way this representation fits into the larger theory of syntax. They also differ in another respect: on the lexical view, the derived three-argument valence structure is associated with the phonological string *kicked*. Next, we present evidence for this claim.

9Goldberg's critique cites a 2001 presentation by Borer with the same title as Borer (2003). See Section 21.3.4 for more discussion of this issue. As far as we know, the *dine / eat / devour* minimal triplet originally came from Dowty (1989: 89–90).

21.2 Evidence for lexical approaches

### **21.2 Evidence for lexical approaches**

### **21.2.1 Valence and coordination**

On the lexical account, the verb *paint* in (4b), for example, is lexically a 2-argument verb, while the unary branching node immediately dominating it is effectively a 3-argument verb. On the constructional view there is no such predicate seeking three arguments that dominates only the verb. Coordination provides evidence for the lexical account.

A generalization about coordination is that two constituents which have compatible syntactic properties can be coordinated and that the result of the coordination is an object that has the syntactic properties of each of the conjuncts. This is reflected by the Categorial Grammar analysis which assumes the category (X\X)/X for the conjunction: the conjunction takes an X to the right, an X to the left and the result is an X.

For example, in (10a) we have a case of the coordination of two lexical verbs. The coordination *know and like* behaves like the coordinated simplex verbs: it takes a subject and an object. Similarly, two sentences with a missing object are coordinated in (10b) and the result is a sentence with a missing object.

	- b. Bagels, I like and Ellison hates.

The German examples in (11) show that the case requirement of the involved verbs has to be respected. In (11b,c) the coordinated verbs require accusative and dative respectively and since the case requirements are incompatible with unambiguously case marked nouns both of these examples are out.

	- b. \* Ich kenne und helfe diesen Mann.
		- I know and help this.acc man
	- c. \* Ich I kenne know und and helfe help diesem this.dat Mann. man

Interestingly, it is possible to coordinate basic ditransitive verbs with verbs that have additional arguments licensed by the lexical rule. (12) provides examples in English and German ((12b) is quoted from Müller (2013a: 420)):

	- b. ich I hab have ihr her jetzt now diese this Ladung load Muffins Muffins mit with den the Herzchen little.heart drauf there.on gebacken baked und and gegeben.11 given

'I have now baked and given her this load of muffins with the little heart on top.'

10http://www.thespinroom.com.au/?p=102 2012-07-07

11http://www.musiker-board.de/diverses-ot/35977-die-liebe-637-print.html. 2012-06-08

### 21 Phrasal vs. lexical analyses

These sentences show that both verbs are 3-argument verbs at the *V* 0 level, since they involve *V* 0 coordination:

(13) [V 0 offered and made] [NP me] [NP a wonderful espresso]

This is expected under the lexical rule analysis but not the non-lexical constructional one.12

Summarizing the coordination argument: coordinated verbs generally must have compatible syntactic properties like valence properties. This means that in (12b), for example, *gebacken* 'baked' and *gegeben* 'given' have the same valence properties. On the lexical approach the creation verb *gebacken*, together with a lexical rule, licenses a ditransitive verb. It can therefore be coordinated with *gegeben*. On the phrasal approach however, the verb *gebacken* has two argument roles and is not compatible with the verb *gegeben*, which has three argument roles. In the phrasal model, *gebacken* can only realize three arguments when it enters the ditransitive phrasal construction or argument structure construction. But in sentences like (12) it is not *gebacken* alone that enters the phrasal syntax, but rather the combination of *gebacken* and *gegeben*. On this view, the verbs are incompatible as far as the semantic roles are concerned.

To fix this under the phrasal approach, one could posit a mechanism such that the semantic roles that are required for the coordinate phrase *baked and given* are shared by each of its conjunct verbs and that they are therefore compatible. But this would amount to saying that there are several verb senses for *baked*, something that the anti-lexicalists claim to avoid, as discussed in the next section.

A reviewer of Theoretical Linguistics correctly observes that a version of the (phrasal) ASC approach could work in the exactly same way as our lexical analysis. Our ditransitive lexical rule would simply be rechristened as a "ditransitive ASC". This construction would combine with *baked*, thus adding the third argument, prior to its coordination with *gave*. As long as the ASC approach is a non-distinct notational variant of the lexical rule approach then of course it works in exactly the same way. But the literature on the ASC approach represents it as a radical alternative to lexical rules, in which constructions are combined through inheritance hierarchies, instead of allowing lexical rules to alter the argument structure of a verb prior to its syntactic combination with the other words and phrases.

The reviewer also remarked that examples like (14) show that the benefactive argument has to be introduced on the phrasal level.

(14) I designed and built him a house.

12One might wonder whether these sentences could be instances of Right Node Raising (RNR) out of coordinated VPs (Bresnan 1974; Abbott 1976):

(i) She [ offered \_\_\_ ] and [ made me \_\_\_ ] a wonderful espresso.

But this cannot be correct. Under such an analysis the first verb has been used without a benefactive or recipient object. But *me* is interpreted as the recipient of both the offering and making. Secondly, the second object can be an unstressed pronoun (*She offered and made me it*), which is not possible in RNR. Note that *offered and made* cannot be a pseudo-coordination meaning 'offered to make'. This is possible only with stem forms of certain verbs such as *try*.

21.2 Evidence for lexical approaches

Both *designed* and *built* are bivalent verbs and *him* is the benefactive that extends both *designed* and *built*. However, we assume that sentences like (14) can be analyzed as coordination of two verbal items that are licensed by the lexical rule that introduces the benefactive argument. That is, the benefactive is introduced before the coordination.

The coordination facts illustrate a more general point. The output of a lexical rule such as the one that would apply in the analysis of *gebacken* in (12b) is just a word (an X0 ), so it has the same syntactic distribution as an underived word with the same category and valence feature. This important generalization follows from the lexical account while on the phrasal view, it is mysterious at best. The point can be shown with any of the lexical rules that the anti-lexicalists are so keen to eliminate in favor of phrasal constructions. For example, active and passive verbs can be coordinated, as long as they have the same valence properties, as in this Swedish example:

(15) Golfklubben golf.club.def begärde requested och and beviljade-s granted-pass marklov ground.permit för for banbygget track.build.def efter after en a hel whole del part förhandlingar negotiations och and kompromisser compromises med with Länsstyrelsen county.board.def och and Naturvårdsverket.13

nature.protection.agency.def

'The golf club requested and was granted a ground permit for fairlane construction after a lot of negotiations and compromises with the County Board and the Environmental Protection Agency.'

(English works the same way, as shown by the grammatical translation line.) The passive of the ditransitive verb *bevilja* 'grant' retains one object, so it is effectively transitive and can be coordinated with the active transitive *begära* 'request'.

Moreover, the English passive verb form, being a participle, can feed a second lexical rule deriving adjectives from verbs. All categories of English participles can be converted to adjectives (Bresnan, 1982b, 2001: Chapter 3):

	- b. active past participles (cf. The leaf has fallen): *the fallen leaf*
	- c. passive participles (cf. The toy is being broken (by the child).): *the broken toy*

That the derived forms are adjectives, not verbs, is shown by a host of properties, including negative *un-* prefixation: *unbroken* means 'not broken', just as *unkind* means 'not kind', while the *un-* appearing on verbs indicates, not negation, but action reversal, as in *untie* (Bresnan, 1982b: 21, 2001: Chapter 3). Predicate adjectives preserve the subject of predication of the verb and for prenominal adjectives the rule is simply that the role that would be assigned to the subject goes to the modified noun instead (*The toy remained (un-)broken.*; *the broken toy*). Being an *A* 0 , such a form can be coordinated with another *A* 0 , as in the following:

13http://www.lyckselegolf.se/index.asp?Sida=82

### 21 Phrasal vs. lexical analyses

(17) a. The suspect should be considered [armed and dangerous]. b. any [old, rotting, or broken] toys

In (17b), three adjectives are coordinated, one underived (*old*), one derived from a present participle (*rotting*), and one from a passive participle (*broken*). Such coordination is completely mundane on a lexical theory. Each A0 conjunct has a valence feature (in HPSG it would be the spr feature for predicates or the mod feature for the prenominal modifiers), which is shared with the mother node of the coordinate structure. But the point of the phrasal (or ASC) theory is to deny that words have such valence features.

The claim that lexical derivation of valence structure is distinct from phrasal combination is further supported with evidence from deverbal nominalization (Wechsler 2008a). To derive nouns from verbs, *-ing* suffixation productively applies to all inflectable verbs (*the shooting of the prisoner*), while morphological productivity is severely limited for various other suffixes such as *-(a)tion* (*\* the shootation of the prisoner*). So forms such as *destruction* and *distribution* must be retrieved from memory while *-ing* nouns such as *looting* or *growing* could be (and in the case of rare verbs or neologisms, must be) derived from the verb or the root through the application of a rule (Zucchi 1993). This difference explains why *-ing* nominals always retain the argument structure of the cognate verb, while other forms show some variation. A famous example is the lack of the agent argument for the noun *growth* versus its retention by the noun *growing*: *\* John's growth of tomatoes* versus *John's growing of tomatoes* (Chomsky 1970).14

But what sort of rule derives the *-ing* nouns, a lexical rule or a phrasal one? In Marantz's (1997) phrasal analysis, a phrasal construction (notated as *v*P) is responsible for assigning the agent role of *-ing* nouns such as *growing*. For him, none of the words directly selects an agent via its argument structure. The *-ing* forms are permitted to appear in the *v*P construction, which licenses the possessive agent. Non-*ing* nouns such as *destruction* and *growth* do not appear in *v*P. Whether they allow expression of the agent depends on semantic and pragmatic properties of the word: *destruction* involves external causation so it does allow an agent, while *growth* involves internal causation so it does not allow an agent.

However, a problem for Marantz is that these two types of nouns can coordinate and share dependents (example (18a) is from Wechsler (2008a: Section 7)):

	- b. The [cultivation, growing or distribution] of medical marijuana within the County shall at all times occur within a secure, locked, and fully enclosed structure, including a ceiling, roof or top, and shall meet the following requirements.16

On the phrasal analysis, the nouns *looting* and *growing* occur in one type of syntactic environment (namely *v*P), while forms *destruction*, *cultivation*, and *distribution* occur in

14See Section 21.3.3 for further discussion.

15http://www.amazon.com/review/R3IG4M3Q6YYNFT, 2018-02-20

16http://www.scribd.com/doc/64013640/Tulare-County-medical-cannabis-cultivation-ordinance, 05.03.2016

21.2 Evidence for lexical approaches

a different syntactic environment. This places contradictory demands on the structure of coordinations like those in (18). As far as we know, neither this problem nor the others raised by Wechsler (2008a) have even been addressed by advocates of the phrasal theory of argument structure.

Consider one last example. In an influential phrasal analysis, Hale and Keyser (1993) derived denominal verbs like *to saddle* through noun incorporation out of a structure akin to [PUT a saddle ON x]. Again, verbs with this putative derivation routinely coordinate and share dependents with verbs of other types:

(19) Realizing the dire results of such a capture and that he was the only one to prevent it, he quickly [saddled and mounted] his trusted horse and with a grim determination began a journey that would become legendary.17

As in all of these X0 coordination cases, under the phrasal analysis the two verbs place contradictory demands on a single phrase structure.

A lexical valence structure is an abstraction or generalization over various occurrences of the verb in syntactic contexts. To be sure, one key use of that valence structure is simply to indicate what sort of phrases the verb must (or can) combine with, and the result of semantic composition; if that were the whole story then the phrasal theory would be viable. But it is not. As it turns out, this lexical valence structure, once abstracted, can alternatively be used in other ways: among other possibilities, the verb (crucially including its valence structure) can be coordinated with other verbs that have similar valence structures; or it can serve as the input to lexical rules specifying a new word bearing a systematic relation to the input word. The coordination and lexical derivation facts follow from the lexical view, while the phrasal theory at best leaves these facts as mysterious and at worst leads to irreconcilable contradictions for the phrase structure.

### **21.2.2 Valence and derivational morphology**

Goldberg & Jackendoff (2004), Alsina (1996), and Asudeh, Dalrymple & Toivonen (2008; 2013) suggest analyzing resultative constructions and/or caused-motion constructions as phrasal constructions.18 As was argued in Müller (2006) this is incompatible with the assumption of lexical integrity. Lexical integrity means that word formation happens before syntax and that the morphological structure is inaccessible to syntactic processes (Bresnan & Mchombo 1995).19 Let us consider a concrete example, such as (20):

17http://www.jouetthouse.org/index.php?option=com\_content&view=article&id=56&Itemid=63, 21.07.2012 18Asudeh & Toivonen (2014: Section 2.3) argue that their account is not constructional. If a construction is a form-meaning pair, their account is constructional, since a certain c-structure is paired with a semantic contribution. Asudeh & Toivonen (2014: Section 2.2) compare their approach with approaches in Constructional HPSG (Sag 1997) and Sign-Based Construction Grammar (see Section 10.6.2), which they term constructional. The only difference between these approaches and the approach by Asudeh, Dalrymple & Toivonen is that the constructions in the HPSG-based theories are modeled using types and hence have a name.

19Asudeh et al. (2013: 14) claim that the Swedish Directed Motion Construction does not interact with derivational morphology. However, the parallel German construction does interact with derivational morphology. The absence of this interaction in Swedish can be explained by other factors of Swedish grammar and given this I believe it to be more appropriate to assume an analysis that captures both the German and the Swedish data in the same way.

### 21 Phrasal vs. lexical analyses

	- b. die the in into Stücke pieces / blutig bloody getanzten danced Schuhe shoes
	- c. \* die the getanzten danced Schuhe shoes

The shoes are not a semantic argument of *tanzt*. Nevertheless the referent of the NP that is realized as accusative NP in (20a) is the element the adjectival participle in (20b) predicates over. Adjectival participles like the one in (20b) are derived from a passive participle of a verb that governs an accusative object. If the accusative object is licensed phrasally by configurations like the one in (20a), then it is not possible to explain why the participle *getanzten* can be formed despite the absence of an accusative object in the valence specification of the verb. See Müller (2006: Section 5) for further examples of the interaction of resultatives and morphology. The conclusion drawn by Dowty (1978: 412) and Bresnan (1982b: 21) in the late 70s and early 80s is that phenomena which feed morphology should be treated lexically. The natural analysis in frameworks like HPSG, CG, CxG, and LFG is therefore one that assumes a lexical rule for the licensing of resultative constructions. See Verspoor (1997), Wechsler (1997), Wechsler & Noh (2001), Wunderlich (1992: 45; 1997: 120–126), Kaufmann & Wunderlich (1998), Müller (2002a: Chapter 5), Kay (2005), and Simpson (1983) for lexical proposals in some of these frameworks. The lexical approach assumes that the lexical item for the mono-valent *tanz*- is related to another lexical item for *tanz*- that selects an object and a result predicate in addition to the subject selected by the mono-valent variant. Inflection and adjective derivation apply to this derived stem and the respective results can be used in (20a) or (20b).

This argument for a lexical treatment of resultative constructions is similar to the one that was discussed in connection with the GPSG representation of valence in Section 5.5: morphological processes have to be able to see the valence of the element they apply to. This is not the case if arguments are introduced by phrasal configurations after the level of morphology.

Asudeh, Dalrymple & Toivonen's papers are about the concept of lexical integrity and about constructions. Asudeh & Toivonen (2014) replied to our target article and pointed out (again) that their template approach makes it possible to specify the functional structure of words and phrases alike. In the original paper they discussed the Swedish word *vägen*, which is the definite form of *väg* 'way'. They showed that the f-structure is parallel to the f-structure for the English phrase *the way*. In our reply (2014b), we gave in too early, I believe. Since the point is not about being able to provide the f-structure of words, the point is about morphology, that is – in LFG terms – about deriving the fstructure by a morphological analysis. More generally speaking, one wants to derive all properties of the involved words, that is, their valence, their meaning, and the linking of this meaning to their dependents. What we used in our argument based on the sentences in (20) was parallel to what Bresnan (1982b: 21; 2001: 31) used in her classical argument for a lexical treatment of the passive. So either Bresnan's argument (and ours) is invalid

21.2 Evidence for lexical approaches

or both arguments are valid and there is a problem for Asudeh, Dalrymple & Toivonen's approach and for phrasal approaches in general. I want to give another example that was already discussed in Müller (2006: 869) but was omitted in Müller & Wechsler (2014a) due to space limitations. I will first point out why this example is problematic for phrasal approaches and then explain why it is not sufficient to be able to assign certain f-structures to words: in (21a), we are dealing with a resultative construction. According to the plugging approach, the resultative meaning is contributed by a phrasal construction into which the verb *fischt* is inserted. There is no lexical item that requires a resultative predicate as its argument. If no such lexical item exists, then it is unclear how the relation between (21a) and (21b) can be established:

	- b. wegen because der of.the *Leerfischung* empty.fishing der of.the Nordsee20 North.Sea 'because of the fishing that resulted in the North Sea being empty'

As Figure 21.1 shows, both the arguments selected by the heads and the structures are completely different. In (21b), the element that is the subject of the related construction in (21a) is not realized. As is normally the case in nominalizations, it is possible to realize it in a PP with the preposition *durch* 'by':

(22) wegen because der of.the Leerfischung empty.fishing der of.the Nordsee North.Sea durch by die the Anrainerstaaten neighboring.states 'because of the fishing by the neighboring states that resulted in the North Sea being empty'

Figure 21.1: Resultative construction and nominalization

20taz, 20.06.1996, p. 6.

### 21 Phrasal vs. lexical analyses

If one assumes that the resultative meaning comes from a particular configuration in which a verb is realized, there would be no explanation for (21b) since no verb is involved in the analysis of this example. One could of course assume that a verb stem is inserted into a construction both in (21a) and (21b). The inflectional morpheme -*t* and the derivational morpheme -*ung* as well as an empty nominal inflectional morpheme would then be independent syntactic components of the analysis. However, since Goldberg (2003b: 119) and Asudeh et al. (2013) assume lexical integrity, only entire words can be inserted into syntactic constructions and hence the analysis of the nominalization of resultative constructions sketched here is not an option for them.

One might be tempted to try and account for the similarities between the phrases in (21) using inheritance. One would specify a general resultative construction standing in an inheritance relation to the resultative construction with a verbal head and the nominalization construction. I have discussed this proposal in more detail in Müller (2006: Section 5.3). It does not work as one needs embedding for derivational morphology and this cannot be modeled in inheritance hierarchies (Krieger & Nerbonne (1993), see also Müller (2006) for a detailed discussion).

It would also be possible to assume that both constructions in (23), for which structures such as those in Figure 21.1 would have to be assumed, are connected via metarules.21, 22

### (23) a. [ Sbj Obj Obl V ]

b. [ Det [ [ Adj V -ung ] ] NP[*gen*] ]

The construction in (23b) corresponds to Figure 21.2 on the facing page. 23 The genitive NP is an argument of the adjective. It has to be linked semantically to the subject slot of the adjective. Alternatively, one could assume that the construction only has the form [Adj V -*ung* ], that is, that it does not include the genitive NP. But then one could also assume that the verbal variant of the resultative construction has the form [OBL V] and that Sbj and Obj are only represented in the valence lists. This would almost be a lexical analysis, however.

Turning to lexical integrity again, I want to point out that all that Asudeh & Toivonen can do is assign some f-structure to the N in Figure 21.2. What is needed, however, is a principled account of how this f-structure comes about and how it is related to the resultative construction on the sentence level.

My argument regarding -*ung*-nominalization from Müller (2006: Section 5.1) was also taken up by Bruening (2018). I noted that *Leerfischung* should not be analyzed as a compound of *leer* and *Fischung* with *Fischung* being the result of combining -*ung* with the

21Goldberg (p. c. 2007, 2009) suggests connecting certain constructions using GPSG-like metarules. Deppermann (2006: 51), who has a more Croftian view of CxG, rules this out. He argues for active/passive alternations that the passive construction has other information structural properties. Note also that GPSG metarules relate phrase structure rules, that is, local trees. The structure in Figure 21.2, however, is highly complex.

22The structure in (23b) violates a strict interpretation of lexical integrity as is commonly assumed in LFG. Booij (2005; 2009), working in Construction Grammar, subscribes to a somewhat weaker version, however.

23I do not assume zero affixes for inflection. The respective affix in Figure 21.2 is there to show that there is structure. Alternatively one could assume a unary branching rule/construction as is common in HPSG/Construction Morphology.

### 21.2 Evidence for lexical approaches

Figure 21.2: Resultative construction and nominalization

intransitive verb lexeme *fisch*- but rather that -*ung* should apply to a version of *fisch*that selects for a result predicate and its subject and that this version of *Fischung* is then combined with the result predicate it selects for. Bruening argued against my analysis claiming that all arguments of nouns are optional and that my analysis would predict that there is a noun *Fischung* with a resultative meaning but without the resultative predicate. As I pointed out in Müller (2006: 869), a noun *Fischung* does exist but it refers to parts of a boat, not to an event nominalization. Bruening concludes that a syntactic approach is needed and that -*ung* applies to the combination of *leer* and *fisch*-.

Now, while it is generally true that arguments of nouns can be omitted there are situations in which the argument cannot be ommitted without changing the meaning. Sebastian Nordhoff (p. c. 2017) found the following examples:

(24) a. Bartträger beard.carrier 'bearded man' b. Spaßmacher joke.maker

'jester'

e. Abibauer

secondary.school.leaving.examination.builder

'secondary school leaving examination taker'

### 21 Phrasal vs. lexical analyses

'contriver'

For example, a *Bartträger* is somebody who has a beard. If one omitted the first part of the compound, one would get a *Träger* 'carrier'; a relation to the original sense cannot be established. Similarly a *Spaßmacher* is literally a 'joke.maker'. Without the first part of the compound this would be *Macher*, which translates as *doer* or *action man*. What the examples above have in common is the following: the verbal parts are frequent and in the most frequent uses of the verb the object is concrete. In the compounds above the first part is unusual in that it is abstract. If the first element of the compound is omitted, we get the default reading of the verb, something that is incompatible with the meaning of the verb in the complete compound.

The contrast between *Leerfischung* and #*Fischung* can be explained in a similar way: the default reading of *fisch*- is the one without resultative meaning. Without the realized predicate we get the derivation product *Fischung*, which does not exist (with the relevant meaning).

So, in a lexical analysis of resultatives we have to make sure that the resultative predicate is not optional and this is what my analysis does. It says that *fisch*- needs a resultative predicate. It does not say that it *optionally* takes a result predicate. What is needed is a careful formulation of a theory of what can be dropped that ensures that no arguments are omitted that are crucial for recognizing the sense of a certain construction/collocation. The nominalization rules have to be set up accordingly.24 I do not see any problems for the analyses of resultatives and particle verbs that I suggested in Müller (2002a; 2003c).

Before I turn to approaches with radical underspecification of argument structure in the next section, I want to comment on a more recent paper by Asudeh, Giorgolo & Toivonen (2014). The authors discuss the phrasal introduction of cognate objects and benefactives. (25a) is an example of the latter construction.

	- b. The children were sung a song.

According to the authors, the noun phrase *the children* is not an argument of *sing* but contributed by the c-structure rule that optionally licenses a benefactive.

24Note that this also applies to lexical theories of idioms of the kind suggested by Sag (2007) and Kay, Sag & Flickinger (2015). If one analyses idioms like *kick the habit* and *kick the bucket* with a special lexical item for *kick*, one has to make sure that the object of *kick* is not omitted since the idioms are not recognizable without the object.

21.2 Evidence for lexical approaches

(26) V ′ → V ↑ = ↓ ( @Benefactive ) DP (↑ obj) = ↓ DP (↑ OBJ*θ* ) = ↓

Whenever this rule is called, the template Benefactive can add a benefactive role and the respective semantics, provided this is compatible with the verb that is inserted into the structure. The authors show how the mappings for the passive example in (25b) work, but they do not provide the c-structure rule that licenses such examples. Unless one assumes that arguments in (26) can be optional (see below), one would need a cstructure rule for passive VPs and this rule has to license a benefactive as well.25 So it would be:

(27) V ′ → V[pass] ↑ = ↓ ( @Benefactive ) DP (↑ OBJ*θ* ) = ↓

Note that a benefactive cannot be added to just any verb: Adding a benefactive to an intransitive verb as in (28a) is out and the passive that would correspond to (28a) is ungrammatical as well, as (28b) shows:

	- b. \* The children were laughed.

The benefactive template would account for the ungrammaticality of (28) since it requires an arg2 to be present and the intransitive *laugh* does not have an arg2 , but this account would not extend to other verbs. For example, the template would admit the sentences in (29b–c) since *give* with prepositional object has an arg2 (Kibort 2008: 317).

	- b. \* He gave Peter it to Mary.
	- c. \* Peter was given it to Mary.

*give* could combine with the *to* PP semantically and would then be equivalent to a transitive verb as far as resources are concerned (looking for an arg1 and an arg2 ). The benefactive template would map the arg2 to arg3 and hence (29b) would be licensed. Similar examples can be constructed with other verbs that take prepositional objects, for instance *accuse sb. of something*. Since there are verbs that take a benefactive and a PP object as shown by (30), (29b) cannot be ruled out with reference to non-existing cstructure rules.

(30) I buy him a coat for hundred dollar.

So, if the c-structure is to play a role in argument structure constructions at all, one could not just claim that all c-structure rules optionally introduce a benefactive argument. Therefore there is something special about the two rules in (26) and (27). The

25See for instance Bergen & Chang (2005) and van Trijp (2011) for Construction Grammar analyses that assume active and passive variants of phrasal constructions. See Cappelle (2006) on allostructions in general.

### 21 Phrasal vs. lexical analyses

problem is that there is no relation between these rules. They are independent statements saying that there can be a benefactive in the active and that there can be one in the passive. This is what Chomsky (1957: 43) criticized in 1957 with respect to simple phrase structure grammar and this was the reason for the introduction of transformations. Bresnan-style LFG captured the generalizations by lexical rules (Bresnan 1978; 1982b) and later by lexical rules in combination with Lexical Mapping Theory (Toivonen 2013). But if elements are added outside the lexical representations, the representations where these elements are added have to be related too. One could say that our knowledge about formal tools has changed since 1957. We now can use inheritance hierarchies to capture generalizations. So one can assume a type (or a template) that is the supertype of all those c-structure rules that introduce a benefactive. But since not all rules allow for the introduction of a benefactive element, this basically amounts to saying: c-structure rule A, B, and C allow for the introduction of a benefactive. In comparison lexical rulebased approaches have one statement introducing the benefactive. The lexical rule states what verbs are appropriate for adding a benefactive and syntactic rules are not affected.

Asudeh (p. c. May 2016) and an anonymous reviewer of HeadLex16 pointed out to me that the rules in (26) and (27) can be generalized over if the arguments in (26) are made optional. (31) shows the rule in (26) with the DPs marked as optional by the brackets enclosing them.

$$\begin{array}{ccccc} \text{(31)} & \text{V}' & \rightarrow & \text{V} & \text{(DP)} & \text{(DP)}\\ & & \uparrow = \downarrow & \text{(\uparrow org)} = \downarrow & \text{(\uparrow OBJ)} = \downarrow\\ & & \text{(\oplus BENEFACTIVE)} \end{array}$$

Since both of the DPs are optional (31) is equivalent to a specification of four rules, namely (26) and the three versions of the rule in (32):

$$\begin{array}{ccccc} \text{(32)} & \text{a. } \text{V}' & \rightarrow & \text{V} & \text{DP} \\ & & & \uparrow = \downarrow & \text{(\uparrow OBJ}\_{\theta}) = \downarrow \\ & & & \text{(\text{@BENEFACTIVE})} \\ \text{b. } \text{V}' & \rightarrow & \text{V} & \text{DP} \\ & & & \uparrow = \downarrow & \text{(\uparrow OBJ)} = \downarrow \\ & & & \text{(\downarrow OBENFACTIVE)} \\ \text{c. } \text{V}' & \rightarrow & \text{V} & \text{V} \\ & & & \uparrow = \downarrow & \\ & & & \text{(\downarrow BENEFACTIVE)} \end{array}$$

(32a) is the variant of (31) in which the obj is omitted (needed for (33a)), (32b) is the variant in which the OBJ*θ* is omitted (needed for (33b)) and in (32c) both DPs are omitted (needed for (33c)).

(33) a. She had been prepared divine and elaborate meals.

### 21.2 Evidence for lexical approaches

Hence, (31) can be used for V′ s containing two objects, for V′ s in the passive containing just one object, for V′ with the secondary object extraced and for V′ in the passive with the secondary object extracted. The template-based approach does not overgenerate since the benefactive template is specified such that it requires the verb it applies to to select for an ARG2. Since intransitives like *laugh* do not select for an ARG2 a benefactive cannot be added. So, in fact the actual configuration in the c-structure rule does only play a minor role: the account mainly relies on semantics and resource sensitivity. There is one piece of information that is contributed by the c-structure rule: it constrains the grammatical functions of arg2 and arg3 , which are disjunctively specified in the template definitions for arg2 and arg3 : arg2 can be realized as subj or as obj. In the active case arg1 will be the subj and because of function argument bi-uniqueness (Bresnan et al. 2015: 334) no other element can be the subj and hence arg2 has to be an obj. arg3 can be either an obj or an OBJ*θ* . Since arg2 is an obj in the active, arg3 has to be an OBJ*θ* in the active. In the passive case arg1 is suppressed or realized as OBL*θ* (*by* PP). arg2 will be realized as subj (since English requires a subj to be realized) and arg3 could be realized as either obj or OBJ*θ* . This is not constrained by the template specifications so far. Because of the optionality in (31), either the obj or the OBJ*θ* function could be chosen for arg3 . This means that either Lexical Mapping Theory has to be revised or one has to make sure that the c-structure rule used in the passive of benefactives states the grammatical function of the object correctly. Hence one would need the c-structure rule in (27) and then there would be the missing generalization I pointed out above.

If one finds a way to set up the mappings to grammatical functions without reference to c-structures in lexical templates, this means that it is not the case that an argument is added by a certain configuration the verb enters in. Since any verb may enter (33) and since the only important thing is the interaction between the lexical specification of the verb and the benefactive template, the same structures would be licensed if the benefactive template were added to the lexical items of verbs directly. The actual configuration would not constrain anything. All (alleged) arguments from language acquisition and psycholinguistics (see Sections 21.6 and 21.7) for phrasal analyses would not apply to such a phrasal account.

If the actual c-structure configuration does not contribute any restrictions as to what arguments may be realized and what grammatical functions they get, the difference between the lexical use of the benefactive template and the phrasal introduction as executed in (31) is really minimal. However, there is one area in grammar where there is a difference: coordination. As Müller & Wechsler (2014a: Section 6.1) pointed out, it is possible to coordinate ditransitive verbs with verbs that appear together with a benefactive. (34) is one of their examples:

(34) She then offered and made me a wonderful espresso — nice.26

If the benefactive information is introduced at the lexical level the coordinated verbs basically have the same selectional requirements. If the benefactive information is introduced at the phrasal level *baked* and *gave* are coordinated and then the benefactive

26http://www.thespinroom.com.au/?p=102 2012-07-07

### 21 Phrasal vs. lexical analyses

constraints are imposed on the result of the coordination by the c-structure rule. While it is clear that the lexical items that would be assumed in a lexical approach can be coordinated in a symmetric coordination, problems seem to arise for the phrasal approach. It is unclear how the asymmetric coordination of the mono- and ditransitive verbs can be accounted for and how the constraints of the benefactive template are distributed over the two conjuncts. The fact that the benefactive template is optional does not help here since the optionality means that the template is either called or it is not. The situation is depicted in Figure 21.3. The optionality of the template call in the top figure basically

Figure 21.3: The optionality of a call of a template corresponds to a disjunction.

corresponds to the disjunction of the two trees in the lower part of the figure. The optionality does not allow for a distribution to one of the daughters in a coordination.

Mary Dalrymple (p. c. 2016) pointed out that the coordination rule that coordinates two verbs can be annotated with two optional calls of the benefactive template.

$$\begin{array}{rcl} \text{(35)} \quad \text{V} & \rightarrow & \text{V} & \text{Conj} & \text{V} \\ & & \text{(\uquotedblleft BENDECTIVE)} & & \text{(\uquotedblright)} \\ \end{array}$$

In an analysis of the examples in (34), the template in rule (26) would not be called but the respective templates in (35) would be called instead. While this does work technically, similar coordination rules would be needed for all other constructions that introduce arguments in c-structures. Furthermore, the benefactive would have to be introduced in several unrelated places in the grammar and finally the benefactive is introduced at nodes consisting of a single verb without any additional arguments being licensed, which means that one could have gone for the lexical approach right away.

Timm Lichte (p. c. 2016) pointed out an important consequence of a treatment of coordination via (35): since the result of the coordination behaves like a normal ditransitive

21.2 Evidence for lexical approaches

verb it would enter the normal ditransitive construction. Toivonen's original motivation for a phrasal analysis was the observation that extraction out of and passivization of benefactive constructions is restricted for some speakers (Toivonen 2013: 416):

	- b. \* Which teacher did the kids draw a picture?
	- b. My sister was given a soap statue of Bugs Bunny (by a famous sculptor).

The ungrammaticality of the passive in (37a) in comparison to the grammaticality of the passive with a normal ditransitive construction in (37b) would be accounted for by assuming a fixed phrasal configuration that is the only possibility to license benefactives in a grammar. But by having c-structure rules like (35) in the grammar there would be a way to circumvent the c-structure rule for benefactives. If sentences with coordinations can be analyzed by coordinating lexical verbs and then using the c-structure rule for ditransitives, it would be predicted that none of the constraints on passive and extraction that are formulated at the phrasal level would hold. This is contrary to the facts: by coordinating items with strong restrictions (imposed by the benefactive templates) with items with weaker restrictions, one gets a coordination structure that is at least as restrictive as the items that are coordinated. One does not get less restrictive by coordinating items. See Müller (2018c) for further discussion of ditransitives and benefactives and extraction and passivization.

In Müller & Wechsler (2014a) we argued that the approach to Swedish Caused-Motion Constructions in Asudeh et al. (2008; 2013) would not carry over to German since the German construction interacts with derivational morphology. Asudeh & Toivonen (2014) argued that Swedish is different from German and hence there would not be a problem. However, the situation is different with the benefactive constructions. Although English and German do differ in many respects, both languages have similar dative constructions:

	- b. Er he buk baked ihr her.dat einen a.acc Kuchen. cake

Now, the analysis of the free constituent order in German was explained by assuming binary branching structures in which a VP node is combined with one of its arguments or adjuncts (see Section 7.4). The c-structure rule is repeated in (39):

$$\begin{array}{rcl} \text{(39)} & \text{VP} & \rightarrow & \text{NP} & \text{VP} \\ & & \text{(\uparrow SUBJ \mid OBJ \mid OBJ\_{\theta}) = \downarrow} & \uparrow = \downarrow \end{array}$$

The dependent elements contribute to the f-structure of the verb and coherence/completeness ensure that all arguments of the verb are present. One could add the introduction of the benefactive argument to the VP node of the right-hand side of the rule. However, since the verb-final variant of (38b) would have the structure in (40), one would get spurious ambiguities, since the benefactive could be introduced at every node:

### 21 Phrasal vs. lexical analyses

(40) weil because [VP er he [VP ihr her [VP einen a Kuchen cake [VP [V buk]]]]] baked

So the only option seems to be to introduce the benefactive at the rule that got the recursion going, namely the rule that projected the lexical verb to the VP level. The rule (39) from page 235 is repeated as (41) for convenience.

$$\begin{array}{rcl} \text{(41)} & \text{VP} & \rightarrow & \text{(V)}\\ & & \uparrow = \downarrow \end{array}$$

Note also that benefactive datives appear in adjectival environments as in (42):

	- b. der the einen a.acc Kuchen cake seiner his.dat Frau wife backende baking Mann man 'the man who is baking a cake for her'

In order to account for these datives one would have to assume that the adjective-to-AP rule that would be parallel to (41) introduces the dative. The semantics of the benefactive template would have to somehow make sure that the benefactive argument is not added to intransitive verbs like *lachen* 'to laugh' or participles like *lachende* 'laughing'. While this may be possible, I find the overall approach unattractive. First it does not have anything to do with the original constructional proposal but just states that the benefactive may be introduced at several places in syntax, second the unary branching syntactic rule is applying to a lexical item and hence is very similar to a lexical rule and third the analysis does not capture cross-linguistic commonalities of the construction. In a lexical rule-based approach as the one that was suggested by Briscoe & Copestake (1999: Section 5), a benefactive argument is added to certain verbs and the lexical rule is parallel in all languages that have this phenomenon (Müller 2018c). The respective languages differ simply in the way the arguments are realized with respect to their heads. In languages that have adjectival participles, these are derived from the respective verbal stems. The morphological rule is the same independent of benefactive arguments and the syntactic rules for adjectival phrases do not have to mention benefactive arguments. I discuss the template-based approach in more detail in Müller (2018c). This book also contains a fully worked out analysis of the benefactive and the resultative constructions and their interactions in German and English in the framework of HPSG.

### **21.3 Radical underspecification: the end of argument structure?**

### **21.3.1 Neo-Davidsonianism**

In the last section we examined proposals that assume that verbs come with certain argument roles and are inserted into prespecified structures that may contribute additional

### 21.3 Radical underspecification: the end of argument structure?

arguments. While we showed that this is not without problems, there are even more radical proposals that the construction adds all agent arguments, or even all arguments. The notion that the agent argument should be severed from its verbs is put forth by Marantz (1984; 1997), Kratzer (1996), Embick (2004) and others. Others suggest that no arguments are selected by the verb. Borer (2003) calls such proposals *exoskeletal* since the structure of the clause is not determined by the predicate, that is, the verb does not project an inner "skeleton" of the clause. Counter to such proposals are *endoskeletal* approaches, in which the structure of the clause is determined by the predicate, that is, lexical proposals. The radical exoskeletal approaches are mainly proposed in Mainstream Generative Grammar (Borer 1994; 2003; 2005; Schein 1993; Hale & Keyser 1997; Lohndal 2012) but can also be found in HPSG (Haugereid 2009). We will not discuss these proposals in detail here, but we review the main issues insofar as they relate to the question of lexical argument structure.27 We conclude that the available empirical evidence favors the lexical argument structure approach over such alternatives.

Exoskeletal approaches usually assume some version of Neo-Davidsonianism. Davidson (1967) argued for an event variable in the logical form of action sentences (43a). Dowty (1989) coined the term *neo-Davidsonian* for the variant in (43b), in which the verb translates to a property of events, and the subject and complement dependents are translated as arguments of secondary predicates such as *agent* and *theme*. 28 Kratzer (1996) further noted the possibility of mixed accounts such as (43c), in which the agent (subject) argument is severed from the *kill*′ relation, but the theme (object) remains an argument of the *kill*′ relation.29

Kratzer (1996) observed that a distinction between Davidsonian, neo-Davidsonian and mixed can be made either "in the syntax" or "in the conceptual structure" (Kratzer 1996: 110–111). For example, on a lexical approach of the sort we advocate here, any of the three alternatives in (43) could be posited as the semantic content of the verb *kill*. A lexical entry for *kill* in the mixed model is given in (44).

In other words, the lexical approach is neutral on the question of the "conceptual structure" of eventualities, as noted already in a different connection in Section 21.1.4. For this reason, certain semantic arguments for the neo-Davidsonian approach, such as those put

27See Müller (2010a: Section 11.11.3) for a detailed discussion of Haugereid's approach.

28Dowty (1989) called the system in (43a) an *ordered argument system*.

29The event variable is shown as existentially bound, as in Davidson's original account. As discussed below, in Kratzer's version it must be bound by a lambda operator instead.

### 21 Phrasal vs. lexical analyses

forth by Schein (1993: Chapter 4) and Lohndal (2012), do not directly bear upon the issue of lexicalism, as far as we can tell.

But Kratzer (1996), among others, has gone further and argued for an account that is neo-Davidsonian (or rather, mixed) "in the syntax". Kratzer's claim is that the verb specifies only the internal argument(s), as in (45a) or (45b), while the agent (external argument) role is assigned by the phrasal structure. On the "neo-Davidsonian in the syntax" view, the lexical representation of the verb has no arguments at all, except the event variable, as shown in (45c).

On such accounts, the remaining dependents of the verb receive their semantic roles from silent secondary predicates, which are usually assumed to occupy the positions of functional heads in the phrase structure. An Event Identification rule identifies the event variables of the verb and the silent light verb (Kratzer 1996: 22); this is why the existential quantifiers in (43) have been replaced with lambda operators in (45). A standard term for the agent-assigning silent predicate is "little *v*" (see Section 4.1.4 on little *v*). These extra-lexical dependents are the analogs of the ones contributed by the constructions in Construction Grammar.

In the following subsections we address arguments that have been put forth in favor of the little *v* hypothesis, from idiom asymmetries (Section 21.3.2) and deverbal nominals (Section 21.3.3). We argue that the evidence actually favors the lexical view. Then we turn to problems for exoskeletal approaches, from idiosyncratic syntactic selection (Section 21.3.4) and expletives (Section 21.3.5). We conclude with a look at the treatment of idiosyncratic syntactic selection under Borer's exoskeletal theory (Section 21.3.7), and a summary (Section 21.3.8).

### **21.3.2 Little** *v* **and idiom asymmetries**

Marantz (1984) and Kratzer (1996) argued for severing the agent from the argument structure as in (45a), on the basis of putative idiom asymmetries. Marantz (1984) observed that while English has many idioms and specialized meanings for verbs in which the internal argument is the fixed part of the idiom and the external argument is free, the reverse situation is considerably rarer. To put it differently, the nature of the role played by the subject argument often depends on the filler of the object position, but not vice versa. To take Kratzer's examples (Kratzer 1996: 114):

(46) a. kill a cockroach

### 21.3 Radical underspecification: the end of argument structure?

On the other hand, one does not often find special meanings of a verb associated with the choice of subject, leaving the object position open (examples from Marantz (1984: 26)):

	- b. Everyone is always killing NP.
	- c.
	- d. Silence certainly can kill NP.

Kratzer observes that a mixed representation of *kill* as in (48a) allows us to specify varying meanings that depend upon its sole NP argument.

	- b. If *a* is a time interval, then *kill*(*e*, *a*) = *truth* if *e* is an event of wasting *a* If *a* is animate, then *kill*(*e*, *a*) = *truth* if *e* is an event in which *a* dies … etc.

On the polyadic (Davidsonian) theory, the meaning could similarly be made to depend upon the filler of the agent role. On the polyadic view, "there is no technical obstacle" (Kratzer 1996: 116) to conditions like those in (48b), except reversed, so that it is the filler of the agent role instead of the theme role that affects the meaning. But, she writes, this could not be done if the agent is not an argument of the verb. According to Kratzer, the agent-severed representation (such as (48a)) disallows similar constraints on the meaning that depend upon the agent, thereby capturing the idiom asymmetry.

But as noted by Wechsler (2005), "there is no technical obstacle" to specifying agentdependent meanings even if the Agent has been severed from the verb as Kratzer proposes. It is true that there is no variable for the agent in (48a). But there is an event variable *e*, and the language user must be able to identify the agent of *e* in order to interpret the sentence. So one could replace the variable *a* with "the agent of *e*" in the expressions in (48b), and thereby create verbs that violate the idiom asymmetry.

While this may seem to be a narrow technical or even pedantic point, it is nonetheless crucial. Suppose we try to repair Kratzer's argument with an additional assumption: that modulations in the meaning of a polysemous verb can only depend upon arguments of the *relation* denoted by that verb, and not on other participants in the event. Under that additional assumption, it makes no difference whether the agent is severed from the lexical entry or not. For example, consider the following (mixed) neo-Davidsonian representation of the semantic content in the lexical entry of *kill*:

### (49) *kill*: *λyλxλe*[*kill*(*e*,*y*) ∧ *aдent*(*e*, *x*)]

Assuming that sense modulations can only be affected by arguments of the *kill(e,y)* relation, we derive the idiom asymmetry, even if (49) is the lexical entry for *kill*. So suppose that we try to fix Kratzer's argument with a different assumption: that modulations in the meaning of a polysemous verb can only depend upon an argument of the lexically denoted function. Kratzer's "neo-Davidsonian in the syntax" lexical entry in (45a) lacks the agent argument, while the lexical entry in (49) clearly has one. But Kratzer's entry

### 21 Phrasal vs. lexical analyses

still fails to predict the asymmetry because, as noted above, it has the *e* argument and so the sense modulation can be conditioned on the "agent of *e*". As noted above, that event argument cannot be eliminated (for example through existential quantification) because it is needed in order to undergo event identification with the event argument of the silent light verb that introduces the agent (Kratzer 1996: 22).

Moreover, recasting Kratzer's account in lexicalist terms allows for verbs to vary. This is an important advantage, because the putative asymmetry is only a tendency. The following are examples in which the subject is a fixed part of the idiom and there are open slots for non-subjects:30

(50) a. A little bird told X that S.

'X heard the rumor that S.'

b. The cat's got X's tongue.

'X cannot speak.'

c. What's eating X?

'Why is X so galled?'

Further data and discussion of subject idioms in English and German can be found in Müller (2007a: Section 3.2.1).

The tendency towards a subject-object asymmetry plausibly has an independent explanation. Nunberg, Sag & Wasow (1994) argue that the subject-object asymmetry is a side-effect of an animacy asymmetry. The open positions of idioms tend to be animate while the fixed positions tend to be inanimate. Nunberg et al. (1994) derive these animacy generalizations from the figurative and proverbial nature of the metaphorical transfers that give rise to idioms. If there is an independent explanation for this tendency, then a lexicalist grammar successfully encodes those patterns, perhaps with a mixed neo-Davidsonian lexical decomposition, as explained above (see Wechsler (2005) for such a lexical account of the verbs *buy* and *sell*). But the little *v* hypothesis rigidly predicts this asymmetry for all agentive verbs, and that prediction is not borne out.

### **21.3.3 Deverbal nominals**

An influential argument against lexical argument structure involves English deverbal nominals and the causative alternation. It originates from a mention in Chomsky (1970), and is developed in detail by Marantz (1997); see also Pesetsky (1996) and Harley & Noyer (2000). The argument is often repeated, but it turns out that the empirical basis of the argument is incorrect, and the actual facts point in the opposite direction, in favor of lexical argument structure (Wechsler 2008b,a).

Certain English causative alternation verbs allow optional omission of the agent argument (51), while the cognate nominal disallows expression of the agent (52):

30(50a) is from Nunberg, Sag & Wasow (1994: 526), (50b) from Bresnan (1982a: 349–350), and (50c) from Bresnan (1982a: 349–350).

21.3 Radical underspecification: the end of argument structure?

	- b. that tomatoes grow
	- b. the tomatoes' growth, the growth of the tomatoes

In contrast, nominals derived from obligatorily transitive verbs such as *destroy* allow expression of the agent, as shown in (54a):

	- b. \* that the city destroyed
	- b. the city's destruction

Following a suggestion by Chomsky (1970), Marantz (1997) argued on the basis of these data that the agent role is lacking from lexical entries. In verbal projections like (51) and (53) the agent role is assigned in the syntax by little *v*. Nominal projections like (52) and (54) lack little *v*. Instead, pragmatics takes over to determine which agents can be expressed by the possessive phrase: the possessive can express "the sort of agent implied by an event with an external rather than an internal cause" because only the former can "easily be reconstructed" (quoted from Marantz (1997: 218)). The destruction of a city has a cause external to the city, while the growth of tomatoes is internally caused by the tomatoes themselves (Smith 1970). Marantz points out that this explanation is unavailable if the noun is derived from a verb with an argument structure specifying its agent, since the deverbal nominal would inherit the agent of a causative alternation verb.

The empirical basis for this argument is the putative mismatch between the allowability of agent arguments, across some verb-noun cognate pairs: e.g., *grow* allows the agent but *growth* does not. But it turns out that the *grow*/*growth* pattern is rare. Most deverbal nominals precisely parallel the cognate verb: if the verb has an agent, so does the noun. Moreover, there is a ready explanation for the exceptional cases that exhibit the *grow*/*growth* pattern (Wechsler 2008a). First consider non-alternating theme-only intransitives (unaccusatives), as in (55) and non-alternating transitives as in (56). The pattern is clear: if the verb is agentless, then so is the noun:

### (55) *arriv(al), disappear(ance), fall* etc.:

### (56) *destroy/destruction, construct(ion), creat(ion), assign(ment)* etc.:

### 21 Phrasal vs. lexical analyses

This favors the view that the noun inherits the lexical argument structure of the verb. For the anti-lexicalist, the badness of (55c) and (55d), respectively, would have to receive independent explanations. For example, on Harley and Noyer's 2000 proposal, (55c) is disallowed because a feature of the root ARRIVE prevents it from appearing in the context of *v*, but (55d) is instead ruled out because the cause of an event of arrival cannot be easily reconstructed from world knowledge. This exact duplication in two separate components of the linguistic system would have to be replicated across all non-alternating intransitive and transitive verbs, a situation that is highly implausible.

Turning to causative alternation verbs, Marantz's argument is based on the implicit generalization that noun cognates of causative alternation verbs (typically) lack the agent argument. But apart from the one example of *grow/growth*, there do not seem to be any clear cases of this pattern. Besides *grow(th)*, Chomsky (1970: examples (7c) and (8c)) cited two experiencer predicates, *amuse* and *interest*: *John amused (interested) the children with his stories* versus *\* John's amusement (interest) of the children with his stories*. But this was later shown by Rappaport (1983) and Dowty (1989) to have an independent aspectual explanation. Deverbal experiencer nouns like *amusement* and *interest* typically denote a mental state, where the corresponding verb denotes an event in which such a mental state comes about or is caused. These result nominals lack not only the agent but all the eventive arguments of the verb, because they do not refer to events. Exactly to the extent that such nouns can be construed as representing events, expression of the agent becomes acceptable.

In a response to Chomsky (1970), Carlota Smith (1972) surveyed Webster's dictionary and found no support for Chomsky's claim that deverbal nominals do not inherit agent arguments from causative alternation verbs. She listed many counterexamples, including "*explode*, *divide*, *accelerate*, *expand*, *repeat*, *neutralize*, *conclude*, *unify*, and so on at length." (Smith 1972: 137). Harley and Noyer (2000) also noted many so-called "exceptions": *explode, accumulate, separate, unify, disperse, transform, dissolve/dissolution, detach(ment), disengage-(ment)*, and so on. The simple fact is that these are not exceptions because there is no generalization to which they can be exceptions. These long lists of verbs represent the norm, especially for suffix-derived nominals (in -*tion*, -*ment*, etc.). Many zero-derived nominals from alternating verbs also allow the agent, such as*change, release*, and *use*: *my constant change of mentors from 1992–1997*; *the frequent release of the prisoners by the governor*; *the frequent use of sharp tools by underage children* (examples from Borer (2003: fn. 13)).31

Like the experiencer nouns mentioned above, many zero-derived nominals lack event readings. Some reject all the arguments of the corresponding eventive verb, not just the agent: *\* the freeze of the water*, *\* the break of the window*, and so on. According to Stephen Wechsler, *his drop of the ball* is slightly odd, but *the drop of the ball* has exactly the same degree of oddness. The locution *a drop in temperature* matches the verbal one *The temperature dropped*, and both verbal and nominal forms disallow the agent: *\* The storm*

31Pesetsky (1996: 79, ex. (231)) assigns a star to *the thief's return of the money*, but it is acceptable to many speakers. The *Oxford English Dictionary* lists a transitive sense for the noun *return* (definition 11a), and corpus examples like *her return of the spoils* are not hard to find.

21.3 Radical underspecification: the end of argument structure?

*dropped the temperature. \* the storm's drop of the temperature*. In short, the facts seem to point in exactly the opposite direction from what has been assumed in this oft-repeated argument against lexical valence. Apart from the one isolated case of *grow/growth*, eventdenoting deverbal nominals match their cognate verbs in their argument patterns.

Turning to *grow/growth* itself, we find a simple explanation for its unusual behavior (Wechsler 2008a). When the noun *growth* entered the English language, causative (transitive) *grow* did not exist. The OED provides these dates of the earliest attestations of *grow* and *growth*:

Thus *growth* entered the language at a time when transitive *grow* did not exist. The argument structure and meaning were inherited by the noun from its source verb, and then preserved into present-day English. This makes perfect sense if, as we claim, words have predicate argument structures. Nominalization by *-th* suffixation is not productive in English, so *growth* is listed in the lexicon. To explain why *growth* lacks the agent we need only assume that a lexical entry's predicate argument structure dictates whether it takes an agent argument or not. So even this one word provides evidence for lexical argument structure.

### **21.3.4 Idiosyncratic syntactic selections**

The notion of lexical valence structure immediately explains why the argument realization patterns are strongly correlated with the particular lexical heads selecting those arguments. It is not sufficient to have general lexical items without valence information and let the syntax and world knowledge decide about argument realizations, because not all realizational patterns are determined by the meaning. The form of the preposition of a prepositional object is sometimes loosely semantically motivated but in other cases arbitrary. For example, the valence structure of the English verb *depend* captures the fact that it selects an *on*-PP to express one of its semantic arguments:

(58) a. John depends on Mary. (*counts, relies,* etc.)

$$\begin{array}{ll} \text{b. John trucks (\*on) Mary.}\\ \text{c. } \begin{bmatrix} \text{PHON} & \left< \begin{array}{c} \text{depend} \,\right> \end{bmatrix} \\ \text{c. } \begin{cases} \text{ARG-ST} & \left< \text{NP}\_{\text{x}} \,\text{, PP}[on]\_{y} \right> \\ \text{convENr} & \text{depend(\mathbf{x}, \mathbf{y}) \end{cases} \end{array}$$

Such idiosyncratic lexical selection is utterly pervasive in human language. The verb or other predicator often determines the choice between direct and oblique morphology, and for obliques, it determines the choice of adposition or oblique case. In some languages such as Icelandic even the subject case can be selected by the verb (Zaenen, Maling & Thráinsson 1985).

### 21 Phrasal vs. lexical analyses

Selection is language-specific. English *wait* selects *for* (German *für*) while German *warten* selects *auf* 'on' with an accusative object:

(59) a. I am waiting for my man.

A learner has to acquire that *warten* has to be used with *auf* + accusative and not with other prepositions or other case. Similarly we have the verb *ergert* in Dutch that takes an *aan* PP while the German counterpart takes an *über* PP:

	- b. Kim Kim ärgert annoys sich refl über above Sandy. Sandy 'Kim is/gets annoyed at Sandy.'

There are language-internal niches with the same type of prepositional objects. For instance, *freuen* 'to rejoice over/about' and *lachen* 'laugh at/about' take *über* as well. But there is no general way to predict on semantic grounds which preposition has to be taken.

It is often impossible to find semantic motivation for case. In German there is a tendency to replace genitive (61a) with dative (61b) with no apparent semantic motivation:

	- b. daß that auch also hier here den the Opfern victims.dat des of.the Faschismus fascism gedacht remembered werde is […]32 'that the victims of fascism would be remembered here too'

The synonyms *treffen* and *begegnen* 'to meet' govern different cases (example from Pollard & Sag (1987: 126)).

	- b. Er he.nom begegnete met dem the.dat Mann. man

One has to specify the case that the respective verbs require in the lexical items of the verbs.33

32Frankfurter Rundschau, 07.11.1997, p. 6.

33Or at least mark the fact that *treffen* takes an object with the default case for objects and *begegnen* takes a dative object in German. See Haider (1985a), Heinz & Matiasek (1994), and Müller (2001) on structural and lexical case.

### 21.3 Radical underspecification: the end of argument structure?

A radical variant of the plugging approach is suggested by Haugereid (2009). 34 Haugereid (pages 12–13) assumes that the syntax combines a verb with an arbitrary combination of a subset of five different argument roles. Which arguments can be combined with a verb is not restricted by the lexical item of the verb.35 A problem for such views is that the meaning of an ambiguous verb sometimes depends on which of its arguments are expressed. The German verb *borgen* has the two translations 'borrow' and 'lend', which basically are two different perspectives on the same event (see Kunze (1991; 1993) for an extensive discussion of verbs of exchange of possession). Interestingly, the dative object is obligatory only with the 'lend' reading (Müller 2010a: 403):

	- I lend him the squirrel

'I lend the squirrel to him.'

	- I borrow me the squirrel
	- 'I borrow the squirrel.'

If we omit it, we get only the 'borrow' reading. So the grammar must specify for specific verbs that certain arguments are necessary for a certain verb meaning or a certain perspective on an event.

Synonyms with differing valence specifications include the minimal triplet mentioned earlier: *dine* is obligatorily intransitive (or takes an *on-*PP), *devour* is transitive, and *eat* can be used either intransitively or transitively (Dowty 1989: 89–90). Many other examples are given in Levin (1993) and Levin & Rappaport Hovav (2005).

In a phrasal constructionist approach one would have to assume phrasal patterns with the preposition or case, into which the verb is inserted. For (59b), the pattern includes a prepositional object with *auf* and an accusative NP, plus an entry for *warten* specifying that it can be inserted into such a structure (see Kroch & Joshi (1985: Section 5.2) for such a proposal in the framework of TAG). Since there are generalizations regarding verbs with such valence representations, one would be forced to have two inheritance hierarchies: one for lexical entries with their valence properties and another one for specific phrasal patterns that are needed for the specific constructions in which these lexical items can be used.

More often, proponents of neo-constructionist approaches either make proposals that are difficult to distinguish from lexical valence structures (see Section 21.3.7 below) or simply decline to address the problem. For instance, Lohndal (2012) writes:

An unanswered question on this story is how we ensure that the functional heads occur together with the relevant lexical items or roots. This is a general problem for the view that Case is assigned by functional heads, and I do not have anything to say about this issue here. (Lohndal 2012)

34Technical aspects of Haugereid's approach are discussed in Section 21.3.6.

35Haugereid has the possibility to impose valence restrictions on verbs, but he claims that he uses this possibility just in order to get a more efficient processing of his computer implementation (p. 13).

21 Phrasal vs. lexical analyses

We think that getting case assignment right in simple sentences, without vast overgeneration of ill-formed word sequences, is a minimal requirement for a linguistic theory.

### **21.3.5 Expletives**

A final example for the irreducibility of valence to semantics are verbs that select for expletives and reflexive arguments of inherently reflexive verbs in German:

(64) a. weil because es it regnet rains

'because I am relaxing now'

The lexical heads in (64) need to contain information about the expletive subjects/objects and/or reflexive pronouns that do not fill semantic roles. Note that German allows for subjectless predicates and hence the presence of expletive subjects cannot be claimed to follow from general principles. (64c) is an example with an expletive object. Explanations referring to the obligatory presence of a subject would fail on such examples in any case. Furthermore it has to be ensured that *erholen* is not realized in the [Sbj IntrVerb] construction for intransitive verbs or respective functional categories in a Minimalist setting although the relation *erholen*′ (*relax*′ ) is a one-place predicate and hence *erholen* is semantically compatible with the construction.

### **21.3.6 An exoskeletal approach**

In what follows I discuss Haugereid's proposal (2007) in more detail. His analysis has all the high-level problems that were mentioned in the previous subsections, but since it is worked out in detail it is interesting to see its predictions.

Haugereid (2007), working in the framework of HPSG, suggests an analysis along the lines of Borer (2005) where the meaning of an expression is defined as depending on the arguments that are present. He assumes that there are five argument slots that are assigned to semantic roles as follows:

Here, antecedent is a more general role that stands for instrument, comitative, manner and source. The roles Arg1–Arg3 correspond to subject and objects. Arg4 is a resultative predicate of the end of a path. Arg4 can be realized by a PP, an AP or an NP. (65) gives examples for the realization of Arg4:

	- b. John hammered the metal *flat*.
	- c. He painted the car *a brilliant red*.

Whereas Arg4 follows the other participants in the causal chain of events, the antecedent precedes the patient in the order of events. It is realized as a PP. (66) is an example of the realization of Arg5:

(66) John punctured the balloon *with a needle*.

Haugereid now assumes that argument frames consist of these roles. He provides the examples in (67):

Haugereid points out that multiple verbs can occur in multiple argument frames. He provides the variants in (68) for the verb *drip*:

### 21 Phrasal vs. lexical analyses

He proposes the inheritance hierarchy in Figure 21.4 in order to represent all possible argument combinations. The Arg5 role is omitted due to space considerations.

Figure 21.4: Hierarchy of argument frames following Haugereid (2007)

Haugereid assumes binary-branching structures where arguments can be combined with a head in any order. There is a dominance schema for each argument role. The schema realizing the argument role 3 provides a link value *arg3*+. If the argument role 2 is provided by another schema, we arrive at the frame *arg23*. For unergative intransitive verbs, it is possible to determine that it has an argument frame of *arg1*. This frame is only compatible with the types *arg1*+, *arg2*−, *arg3*− and *arg4*−. Verbs that have an optional object are assigned to *arg1-12* according to Haugereid. This type allows for the following combinations: *arg1*+, *arg2*−, *arg3*− and *arg4*− such as *arg1*+, *arg2*+, *arg3*− and *arg4*−.

This approach comes very close to an idea by Goldberg: verbs are underspecified with regard to the sentence structures in which they occur and it is only the actual realization of arguments in the sentence that decides which combinations of arguments are realized. One should bear in mind that the hierarchy in Figure 21.4 corresponds to a considerable disjunction: it lists all possible realizations of arguments. If we say that *essen* 'to eat' has the type *arg1-12*, then this corresponds to the disjunction *arg1* ∨ *arg12*. In addition to the information in the hierarchy above, one also requires information about the syntactic properties of the arguments (case, the form of prepositions, verb forms in verbal complements). Since this information is in part specific to each verb (see Section 21.1), it cannot

21.3 Radical underspecification: the end of argument structure?

be present in the dominance schemata and must instead be listed in each individual lexical entry. For the lexical entry for *warten auf* 'wait for', there must be information about the fact that the subject has to be an NP and that the prepositional object is an *auf* -PP with accusative. The use of a type hierarchy then allows one to elegantly encode the fact that the prepositional object is optional. The difference to a disjunctively specified subcat list with the form of (69) is just a matter of formalization.

(69) subcat ⟨ NP[*str*] ⟩ ∨ ⟨ NP[*str*], PP[*auf* , *acc*] ⟩

Since Haugereid's structures are binary-branching, it is possible to derive all permutations of arguments (70a–b), and adjuncts can be attached to every branching node (70c–d).

	- b. dass that [arg2 Pizza pizza [arg1 keiner nobody isst]] eats
	- c. dass that [arg1 keiner nobody [gerne gladly [arg2 Pizza pizza isst]]] eats 'that nobody eats pizza gladly'
	- d. dass that [[hier here [arg1 keiner nobody [arg2 Pizza pizza isst]]] eats
		- 'that nobody eats pizza here'

Haugereid has therefore found solutions for some of the problems in Goldberg's analysis that were pointed out in Müller (2006). Nevertheless, there are a number of other problems, which I will discuss in what follows. In Haugereid's approach, nothing is said about the composition of meaning. He follows the so-called Neo-Davidsonian approach. In this kind of semantic representation, arguments of the verb are not directly represented on the verb. Instead, the verb normally has an event argument and the argument roles belonging to the event in question are determined in a separate predication. (71) shows two alternative representations, where *e* stands for the event variable.

(71) a. Der the Mann man isst eats eine a Pizza. pizza 'The man is eating a pizza' b. *eat*′ (e, x, y) ∧ *man*′ (x) ∧ *pizza*′ (y) c. *eat*′ (e) ∧ *agent*(e,x) ∧ *theme*(e,y) ∧ *man*′ (x) ∧ *pizza*′

Haugereid adopts Minimal Recursion Semantics (MRS) as his semantic formalism (see also Section 9.1.6 and 19.3). The fact that arguments belong to a particular predicate is represented by the fact that the relevant predicates have the same handle. The representation in (71c) corresponds to (72):

(y)

(72) h1:*essen*′ (e), h1:*arg1*(x), h1:*arg2*(y), h2:*mann*′ (x), h3:*pizza*′ (y)

### 21 Phrasal vs. lexical analyses

This analysis captures Goldberg's main idea: meaning arises from particular constituents being realized together with a head.

For the sentence in (73a), Haugereid (2007, p. c.) assumes the semantic representation in (73b):36

	- b. h1:*mann*′ (x), h2:*teich*′ (y), h3:*leer*′ (e), h4:*fischen*′ (e2), h4:*arg1*(x), h4:*arg2*(y), h4:*arg4*(h3)

In (73b), the *arg1*, *arg2* and *arg4* relations have the same handle as *fischen*′ . Following Haugereid's definitions, this means that *arg2* is the patient of the event. In the case of (73a), this makes incorrect predictions since the accusative element is not a semantic argument of the main verb. It is a semantic argument of the secondary predicate *leer* 'empty' and has been raised to the object of the resultative construction. Depending on the exact analysis assumed, the accusative object is either a syntactic argument of the verb or of the adjective, however, it is never a semantic argument of the verb. In addition to this problem, the representation in (73b) does not capture the fact that *leer* 'empty' predicates over the object. Haugereid (2007, p.c.) suggests that this is implicit in the representation and follows from the fact that all *arg4*s predicate over all *arg2*s. Unlike Haugereid's analysis, analyses using lexical rules that relate a lexical item of a verb to another verbal item with a resultative meaning allow for a precise specification of the semantic representation that then captures the semantic relation between the predicates involved. In addition, the lexical rule-based analysis makes it possible to license lexical items that do not establish a semantic relation between the accusative object and the verb (Wechsler 1997; Wechsler & Noh 2001; Müller 2002a: Chapter 5).

Haugereid sketches an analysis of the syntax of the German clause and tackles active/passive alternations. However, certain aspects of the grammar are not elaborated on. In particular, it remains unclear how complex clauses containing AcI verbs such as *sehen* 'to see' and *lassen* 'to let' should be analyzed. Arguments of embedded and embedding verbs can be permuted in these constructions. Haugereid (2007, p. c.) assumes special rules that allow to saturate arguments of more deeply embedded verbs, for example, a special rule that combines an *arg2* argument of an argument with a verb. In order to combine *das Nilpferd* and *nicht füttern helfen lässt* in sentences such as (74), he is forced to assume a special grammatical rule that combines an argument of a doubly embedded verb with another verb:

(74) weil because Hans Hans Cecilia Cecilia John John das the Nilpferd hippo nicht not füttern feed helfen help lässt let 'because Hans is not letting Cecilia help John feed the hippo.'

(i) Jon Jon maler paints veggen wall.def rød. red 'Jon paints the wall red.'

36See Haugereid (2009: 165) for an analysis of the Norwegian examples in (i).

### 21.3 Radical underspecification: the end of argument structure?

In Müller (2004d: 220), I have argued that embedding under complex-forming predicates is only constrained by performance factors (see also Section 12.6.3). In German, verbal complexes with more than four verbs are barely acceptable. Evers (1975: 58–59) has pointed out, however, that the situation in Dutch is different since Dutch verbal complexes have a different branching: in Dutch, verbal complexes with up to five verbs are possible. Evers attributes this difference to a greater processing load for German verbal complexes (see also Gibson 1998: Section 3.7). Haugereid would have to assume that there are more rules for Dutch than for German. In this way, he would give up the distinction between competence and performance and incorporate performance restrictions directly into the grammar. If he wanted to maintain a distinction between the two, then Haugereid would be forced to assume an infinite number of schemata or a schema with functional uncertainty since depth of embedding is only constrained by performance factors. Existing HPSG approaches to the analysis of verbal complexes do without functional uncertainty (Hinrichs & Nakazawa 1994). Since such raising analyses are required for object raising anyway (as discussed above), they should be given preference.

Summing up, it must be said that Haugereid's exoskeletal approach does account for different orderings of arguments, but it neither derives the correct semantic representations nor does it offer a solution for the problem of idiosyncratic selection of arguments and the selection of expletives.

### **21.3.7 Is there an alternative to lexical valence structure?**

The question for theories denying the existence of valence structure is what replaces it to explain idiosyncratic lexical selection. In her exoskeletal approach, Borer (2005) explicitly rejects lexical valence structures. But she posits post-syntactic interpretive rules that are difficult to distinguish from them. To explain the correlation of *depend* with an *on*-PP, she posits the following interpretive rule (Borer 2005: Vol. II, p. 29):

$$\text{(75)} \quad \text{MEANING} \Leftrightarrow \pi\_9 + \left[ \left< e^{on} \right> \right]$$

Borer refers to all such cases of idiosyncratic selection as idioms. In a rule such as (75), "MEANING is whatever the relevant idiom means" (Borer 2005: Vol. II, p. 27). In (75), *π*9 is the "phonological index" of the verb *depend* and *e on* "corresponds to an open value that must be assigned range by the f-morph *on*" (Borer 2005: Vol. II, p. 29), where fmorphs are function words or morphemes. Hence this rule brings together much the same information as the lexical valence structure in (58c). Discussing such "idiom" rules, Borer writes

Although by assumption a listeme cannot be associated with any grammatical properties, one device used in this work has allowed us to get around the formidable restrictions placed on the grammar by such a constraint – the formation of idioms. […] Such idiomatic specification could be utilized, potentially, not just for *arrive* and *depend on*, but also for obligatorily transitive verbs […], for verbs such as *put*, with their obligatory locative, and for verbs which require a sentential complement.

### 21 Phrasal vs. lexical analyses

The reader may object that subcategorization, of sorts, is introduced here through the back door, with the introduction, in lieu of lexical syntactic annotation, of an articulated listed structure, called an *idiom*, which accomplishes, de facto, the same task. The objection of course has some validity, and at the present state of the art, the introduction of idioms may represent somewhat of a concession. (Borer 2005: Vol. II, p. 354–355)

Borer goes on to pose various questions for future research, related to constraining the class of possible idioms. With regard to that research program it should be noted that a major focus of lexicalist research has been narrowing the class of subcategorization and extricating derivable properties from idiosyncratic subcategorization. Those are the functions of HPSG lexical hierarchies, for example.

### **21.3.8 Summary**

In Sections 21.3.2–21.3.5 we showed that the question of which arguments must be realized in a sentence cannot be reduced to semantics and world knowledge or to general facts about subjects. The consequence is that valence information has to be connected to lexical items. One therefore must either assume a connection between a lexical item and a certain phrasal configuration as in Croft's approach (2003) and in LTAG or assume our lexical variant. In a Minimalist setting the right set of features must be specified lexically to ensure the presence of the right case assigning functional heads. This is basically similar to the lexical valence structures we are proposing here, except that it needlessly introduces various problems discussed above, such as the problem of coordination raised in Section 21.2.1.

### **21.4 Relations between constructions**

On the lexical rules approach, word forms are related by lexical rules: a verb stem can be related to a verb with finite inflection and to a passive verb form; verbs can be converted to adjectives or nouns; and so on. The lexical argument structure accompanies the word and can be manipulated by the lexical rule. In this section we consider what can replace such rules within a phrasal or ASC approach.

### **21.4.1 Inheritance hierarchies for constructions**

For each valence structure that the lexicalist associates with a root lexeme (transitive, ditransitive, etc.), the phrasal approach requires multiple phrasal constructions, one to replace each lexical rule or combination of lexical rules that can apply to the word. Taking ditransitives, for example, the phrasal approach requires an active-ditransitive construction, a passive-ditransitive construction, and so on, to replace the output of every lexical rule or combination of lexical rules applied to a ditransitive verb. (Thus Bergen & Chang (2005: 169–170) assume an active-ditransitive and a passive-ditransitive construction and Kallmeyer & Osswald (2012: 171–172) assume active and passive variants of the transitive construction.) On that view some of the active voice constructions for German would be:

21.4 Relations between constructions

	- b. Nom Acc V
	- c. Nom Dat V
	- d. Nom Dat Acc V

The passive voice constructions corresponding to (76) would be:

(77) a. V V-Aux

Merely listing all these constructions is not only uneconomical but fails to capture the obvious systematic relation between active and passive constructions. Since phrasalists reject both lexical rules and transformations, they need an alternative way to relate phrasal configurations and thereby explain the regular relation between active and passive. The only proposals to date involve the use of inheritance hierarchies, so let us examine them.

Researchers working in various frameworks, both with lexical and phrasal orientation, have tried to develop inheritance-based analyses that could capture the relation between valence patterns such as those in (76) and (77) (see for instance Kay & Fillmore 1999: 12; Michaelis & Ruppenhofer 2001: Chapter 4; Candito 1996; Clément & Kinyon 2003: 188; Kallmeyer & Osswald 2012: 171–172; Koenig 1999: Chapter 3; Davis & Koenig 2000; Kordoni 2001 for proposals in CxG, TAG, and HPSG). The idea is that a single representation (lexical or phrasal, depending on the theory) can inherit properties from multiple constructions. In a phrasal approach the description of the pattern in (76b) inherits from the transitive and the active construction and the description of (77b) inherits from both the transitive and the passive constructions. Figure 21.5 illustrates the inheritance-based lexical approach: a lexical entry for a verb such as *read* or *eat* is combined with either an active or passive representation. The respective representations for the active and passive are responsible for the expression of the arguments.

Figure 21.5: Inheritance Hierarchy for active and passive

As was already discussed in Section 10.2, inheritance-based analyses cannot account for multiple changes in valence as for instance the combination of passive and impersonal construction that can be observed in languages like Lithuanian (Timberlake 1982:

### 21 Phrasal vs. lexical analyses

Section 5), Irish (Noonan 1994), and Turkish (Özkaragöz 1986). Özkaragöz's Turkish examples are repeated here with the original glossing as (78) for convenience:

(78) a. Bu this şato-da château-loc boğ-ul-un-ur. strangle-pass-pass-aor 'One is strangled (by one) in this château.' (Turkish)

'One is shot (by one) in war.'

Another example from Section 10.2 that cannot be handled with inheritance is multiple causativization in Turkish.  Krieger & Nerbonne (1993) make the same point with respect to derivational morphology in cases like *preprepreversion*: inheriting information about the prefix *pre*- twice or more often, does not add anything.

So assuming phrasal models, the only way to capture the generalization with regard to (76) and (77) seems to be to assume GPSG-like metarules that relate the constructions in (76) to the ones in (77). If the constructions are lexically linked as in LTAG, the respective mapping rules would be lexical rules. For approaches that combine LTAG with the Goldbergian plugging idea such as the one by Kallmeyer & Osswald (2012) one would have to have extended families of trees that reflect the possibility of having additional arguments and would have to make sure that the right morphological form is inserted into the respective trees. The morphological rules would be independent of the syntactic structures in which the derived verbal lexemes could be used. One would have to assume two independent types of rules: GPSG-like metarules that operate on trees and morphological rules that operate on stems and words. We believe that this is an unnecessary complication and apart from being complicated the morphological rules would not be acceptable as form-meaning pairs in the CxG sense since one aspect of the form namely that additional arguments are required is not captured in these morphological rules. If such morphological rules were accepted as proper constructions then there would not be any reason left to require that the arguments have to be present in a construction in order for it to be recognizable, and hence, the lexical approach would be accepted.37

Inheritance hierarchies are the main explanatory device in Croft's Radical Construction Grammar (Croft 2001). He also assumes phrasal constructions and suggests representing these in a taxonomic network (an inheritance hierarchy). He assumes that every idiosyncrasy of a linguistic expression is represented on its own node in this kind of network. Figure 21.6 shows part of the hierarchy he assumes for sentences. There are

37Compare the discussion of *Totschießen* 'shoot dead' in example (94) below.

Figure 21.6: Classification of phrasal patterns in Croft (2001: 26)

sentences with intransitive verbs and sentences with transitive verbs. Sentences with the form [Sbj kiss Obj] are special instances of the construction [Sbj TrVerb Obj]. The [Sbj kick Obj] construction also has further sub-constructions, namely the constructions [Sbj kick the bucket] and [Subj kick the habit]. Since constructions are always pairs of form and meaning, this gives rise to a problem: in a normal sentence with *kick*, there is a kicking relation between the subject and the object of *kick*. This is not the case for the idiomatic use of *kick* in (80):

### (80) He kicked the bucket.

This means that there cannot be a normal inheritance relation between the [Sbj kick Obj] and the [Sbj kick the bucket] construction. Instead, only parts of the information may be inherited from the [Sbj kick Obj] construction. The other parts are redefined by the sub-construction. This kind of inheritance is referred to as *default inheritance*.

*kick the bucket* is a rather fixed expression, that is, it is not possible to passivize it or front parts of it without losing the idiomatic reading (Nunberg, Sag & Wasow 1994: 508). However, this is not true for all idioms. As Nunberg, Sag & Wasow (1994: 510) have shown, there are idioms that can be passivized (81a) as well as realizations of idioms where parts of idioms occur outside of the clause (81b).

	- b. The strings [that Pat pulled] got Chris the job.

The problem is now that one would have to assume two nodes in the inheritance hierarchy for idioms that can undergo passivization since the realization of the constituents is different in active and passive variants but the meaning is nevertheless idiosyncratic. The relation between the active and passive form would not be captured. Kay (2002) has proposed an algorithm for computing objects (Construction-like objects = CLOs) from hierarchies that then license active and passive variants. As I have shown in Müller (2006: Section 3), this algorithm does not deliver the desired results and it is far from straightforward to improve it to the point that it actually works. Even if one were to

### 21 Phrasal vs. lexical analyses

adopt the changes I proposed, there are still phenomena that cannot be described using inheritance hierarchies (see Section 10.2 in this book).