A lexical-constructional approach to syntactic alternation

Vol.70,No.2(2022)

Károly Bibok

https://doi.org/10.5817/LB2022-2-1

Stable URL (handle):
http://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/digilib.76872

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Abstract
Syntactic alternation cannot be treated as a lexical or as a constructional phenomenon (as is in lexical and constructional approaches, respectively). Realizing the significance of both factors, in the present paper I offer a lexical-constructional account of syntactic alternation which seems to prevail against previous ones by eliminating their shortcomings but exploiting their advantages. I demonstrate the explanatory power of my conception by thorough analysis of three Russian verb classes. They include the alternation of manner-of-motion and directional motion verbs as well as the locative alternation and instrument–subject alternation. The fundamental feature of my proposal is the underspecified character of lexical-semantic representations. Although underspecification may have several forms, the general idea consists in postulating optional components in lexical representations. It can be stated that verbs alternate syntactically if they own an underspecified but encyclopedically and pragmatically enriched representation, so being compatible with all meanings appearing in alternations. If a verb does not have a lexical-semantic representation that can result in different interpretations, it cannot participate in an alternation. Because of the possible lexical specification of either variant, an underspecified type of representation is inevitably required for alternating verbs. The lexical-constructional approach to syntactic alternation naturally extends to lexical pragmatics. This extension means that the hypotheses about the characteristics of word meaning representations can also be applied to cases where words reach their full meanings in corresponding contexts without the change of syntactic structure.

Keywords:
manner of motion; directional motion; locative alternation; instrument–subject alternation; underspecified lexical-semantic representation; lexical pragmatics

Pages:
7–20
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