Goldberg and Jackendoff (2004): The English Resultative as a Family of Constructions

Goldberg and Jackendoff analyze the English resultative as a family of constructions. A resultative has a verbal subevent supplied by the verb and a constructional subevent supplied by the construction, in which a host comes to have the property the result phrase names or traverses the path it names, caused by the subject in the transitive cases. The constructional subevent controls the aspect of the sentence: the event measures out the result phrase's path, so an end-bounded result phrase makes a resultative telic and one that is not leaves an activity atelic. Under the principle of semantic coherence a verb role unifies with a constructional role only if it can be construed as an instance of it, so the intransitive path resultative admits more verbs than the intransitive property resultative.

Main definitions

• Subconstruction: the four subconstructions of the family.
• resultative: the resultative over a path trace.
• Row.Coheres: the coherence of a row's roles with those of its construction.

Main results

• qua_resultative: an end-bounded result phrase makes the resultative telic.
• cum_resultative: a result phrase that is not end-bounded leaves an activity atelic.
• rows_for_adverbial: the for-adverbial is acceptable exactly on the atelic rows.
• coheres_noncausative_path: the intransitive path resultative is the more liberal.
• rows_coherence: outside the telicity tests, a row is acceptable exactly when its roles cohere.

Implementation notes

The verbal and constructional subevents are identified as one event, the paper's cotemporal means (§4.2). End-boundedness is rendered by quantization and its absence by cumulativity, the reading Krifka gives the event-path homomorphism that the paper takes from Jackendoff. The path of an event is its spatial trace Event.σ, and its preservation of sums a hypothesis. The paper labels result phrases only as AP or PP; a row's subconstruction follows the summary (97), where a PP naming a state (into pieces, to death) is a property result phrase, and the paper presents the examples (49) as transitive spatial resultatives. A row's subjectRole and objectRole are the paper's construals of the verb's arguments, per verb and referent: whether the argument is something that acts, an agent, or something to which something happens, a patient.

TODO

• The temporal relations the subevent relation allows (33): a means does not follow the subevent it effects, and a result does not precede its cause.
• Full argument realization (37), which excludes (41d) and (43b,c).
• The stative extension readings (25), and the follow subconstructions (52), (55) and (56), which are transitive but not causative.

References

• [GJ04]
• [Gol95]
• [Jac96]
• [Kri98]

The family

inductive GoldbergJackendoff2004.RPType : Type

Whether the result phrase names a property the host comes to have or a path it traverses.

• property : RPType
• path : RPType

@[instance_reducible]

instance GoldbergJackendoff2004.instDecidableEqRPType : DecidableEq RPType

Equations

• GoldbergJackendoff2004.instDecidableEqRPType x✝ y✝ = if h : x✝.ctorIdx = y✝.ctorIdx then isTrue ⋯ else isFalse ⋯

@[instance_reducible]

instance GoldbergJackendoff2004.instReprRPType : Repr RPType

Equations

• GoldbergJackendoff2004.instReprRPType = { reprPrec := GoldbergJackendoff2004.instReprRPType.repr }

def GoldbergJackendoff2004.instReprRPType.repr : RPType → ℕ → Std.Format

Equations

• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

structure GoldbergJackendoff2004.Subconstruction : Type

A Subconstruction of the summary (97) records whether the subject causes the host's change, and what the result phrase names. The causative ones are X CAUSE [Y BECOME Z] and X CAUSE [Y GO Path], the noncausative ones X BECOME Y and X GO Path.

• causative : Bool

  Whether the subject causes the change of the host, which is then the object.

• rp : RPType

  What the result phrase names.

@[instance_reducible]

instance GoldbergJackendoff2004.instDecidableEqSubconstruction : DecidableEq Subconstruction

Equations

• GoldbergJackendoff2004.instDecidableEqSubconstruction = GoldbergJackendoff2004.instDecidableEqSubconstruction.decEq

def GoldbergJackendoff2004.instDecidableEqSubconstruction.decEq (x✝ x✝¹ : Subconstruction) : Decidable (x✝ = x✝¹)

Equations

• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

@[instance_reducible]

instance GoldbergJackendoff2004.instReprSubconstruction : Repr Subconstruction

Equations

• GoldbergJackendoff2004.instReprSubconstruction = { reprPrec := GoldbergJackendoff2004.instReprSubconstruction.repr }

def GoldbergJackendoff2004.instReprSubconstruction.repr : Subconstruction → ℕ → Std.Format

Equations

• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

inductive GoldbergJackendoff2004.ObjectSelection : Type

How the object of a transitive resultative is selected (§2). By §5 the fake reflexive is not grammatically special: another object is excluded because it is implausible to make someone else fall asleep by crying.

• selected : ObjectSelection

  The verb selects the object: The gardener watered the flowers flat, (7a).

• unselected : ObjectSelection

  Only the construction licenses the object: They drank the pub dry, (8a).

• fakeReflexive : ObjectSelection

  An unselected reflexive that alternates with no other object, as in We yelled ourselves hoarse, (9a).

@[instance_reducible]

instance GoldbergJackendoff2004.instDecidableEqObjectSelection : DecidableEq ObjectSelection

Equations

• GoldbergJackendoff2004.instDecidableEqObjectSelection x✝ y✝ = if h : x✝.ctorIdx = y✝.ctorIdx then isTrue ⋯ else isFalse ⋯

def GoldbergJackendoff2004.instReprObjectSelection.repr : ObjectSelection → ℕ → Std.Format

Equations

• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

@[instance_reducible]

instance GoldbergJackendoff2004.instReprObjectSelection : Repr ObjectSelection

Equations

• GoldbergJackendoff2004.instReprObjectSelection = { reprPrec := GoldbergJackendoff2004.instReprObjectSelection.repr }

Semantic coherence

The principle of semantic coherence (44): a verb role, given by the roles it can be construed as, unifies with a constructional role, given by the roles that are instances of it, only if some construal of the verb role is an instance of the constructional role, that is, only if the two sets of roles are not disjoint.

def GoldbergJackendoff2004.Subconstruction.hostRoles : Subconstruction → Finset ArgumentStructure.ThetaRole

The roles the host of the constructional subevent admits (§6.2). The host of BECOME and a caused host are patients, while the host of an uncaused GO is agent or patient, as the subject of an intransitive motion verb is.

Equations

• { causative := false, rp := GoldbergJackendoff2004.RPType.path }.hostRoles = {ArgumentStructure.ThetaRole.agent, ArgumentStructure.ThetaRole.patient}
• x✝.hostRoles = {ArgumentStructure.ThetaRole.patient}

def GoldbergJackendoff2004.Subconstruction.subjectRoles (s : Subconstruction) : Finset ArgumentStructure.ThetaRole

s.subjectRoles is the set of roles the construction admits for its subject, an agent, the causer, in a causative, and otherwise the host.

Equations

• s.subjectRoles = if s.causative = true then {ArgumentStructure.ThetaRole.agent} else s.hostRoles

theorem GoldbergJackendoff2004.coheres_noncausative_path {rV : Finset ArgumentStructure.ThetaRole} (h : ¬Disjoint rV { causative := false, rp := RPType.property }.subjectRoles) : ¬Disjoint rV { causative := false, rp := RPType.path }.subjectRoles

The intransitive path resultative is more liberal than the intransitive property resultative in the verbs it admits (§6.2): a subject role compatible with BECOME is compatible with GO.

Aspect

def GoldbergJackendoff2004.resultative {E : Type u_1} {Loc : Type u_2} [Event.SpatialTrace E Loc] (V : E → Prop) (R : Spatial.Path Loc → Prop) (e : E) : Prop

resultative V R e holds when e is an event of the verb whose path σ e, the path of the constructional subevent, is one the result phrase describes, the two subevents being cotemporal.

Equations

• GoldbergJackendoff2004.resultative V R e = (V e ∧ R (Event.σ e))

theorem GoldbergJackendoff2004.qua_resultative {E : Type u_1} {Loc : Type u_2} [SemilatticeSup E] [SemilatticeSup (Spatial.Path Loc)] [Event.SpatialTrace E Loc] {V : E → Prop} {R : Spatial.Path Loc → Prop} (hσ : ∀ (e e' : E), Event.σ (e ⊔ e') = Event.σ e ⊔ Event.σ e') (hinj : Function.Injective Event.σ) (hR : Mereology.QUA R) : Mereology.QUA (resultative V R)

By the generalization (27), an end-bounded result phrase makes the resultative telic whatever the verb, when the path of a sum of events is the sum of their paths and distinct events have distinct paths.

theorem GoldbergJackendoff2004.cum_resultative {E : Type u_1} {Loc : Type u_2} [SemilatticeSup E] [SemilatticeSup (Spatial.Path Loc)] [Event.SpatialTrace E Loc] {V : E → Prop} {R : Spatial.Path Loc → Prop} (hσ : ∀ (e e' : E), Event.σ (e ⊔ e') = Event.σ e ⊔ Event.σ e') (hV : Mereology.CUM V) (hR : Mereology.CUM R) : Mereology.CUM (resultative V R)

By the generalization (27), a result phrase that is not end-bounded leaves the resultative of an activity atelic, when the path of a sum of events is the sum of their paths.

The examples

structure GoldbergJackendoff2004.Row : Type

A Row records an example's verb, subconstruction, the relation of its subevents, the object selection of a transitive, whether the result phrase is end-bounded where the paper tests telicity, the paper's construals of the verb's subject and object where it discusses them, and the judgment.

• verb : English.Verbs.Verb
• subconstruction : Subconstruction
• relation : ArgumentStructure.SubeventRelation
• selection : Option ObjectSelection
• endBounded : Option Bool
• subjectRole : Option (Finset ArgumentStructure.ThetaRole)
• objectRole : Option (Finset ArgumentStructure.ThetaRole)
• judgment : Judgment

def GoldbergJackendoff2004.verbs : List (String × English.Verbs.Verb)

verbs lists the paper's verbs by citation form.

Equations

• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

def GoldbergJackendoff2004.construals : List (String × Finset ArgumentStructure.ThetaRole)

The construals of a verb role the rows record.

Equations

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def GoldbergJackendoff2004.Row.ofDatum (ex : Datum) : Option Row

The row an example encodes, when its features parse.

Equations

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def GoldbergJackendoff2004.rows : List Row

rows lists the paper's examples (5)–(9), (23)–(24), (45)–(49), (97c), and wipe the table clean.

Equations

• GoldbergJackendoff2004.rows = List.filterMap GoldbergJackendoff2004.Row.ofDatum GoldbergJackendoff2004.Examples.all

theorem GoldbergJackendoff2004.rows_for_adverbial (r : Row) : r ∈ rows → ∀ b ∈ r.endBounded, r.judgment = Judgment.acceptable ↔ b = false

By §4.1, on a nonrepetitive reading the for-adverbial is acceptable exactly when the result phrase is not end-bounded, that is, when the resultative is atelic.

def GoldbergJackendoff2004.Row.Coheres (r : Row) : Prop

A row coheres when the paper's construal of the verb's subject is compatible with the construction's subject, and that of a selected object with the host.

Equations

• r.Coheres = ((∀ ρ ∈ r.subjectRole, ¬Disjoint ρ r.subconstruction.subjectRoles) ∧ ∀ ρ ∈ r.objectRole, ¬Disjoint ρ r.subconstruction.hostRoles)

@[instance_reducible]

instance GoldbergJackendoff2004.instDecidableCoheres (r : Row) : Decidable r.Coheres

Equations

• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

theorem GoldbergJackendoff2004.rows_coherence (r : Row) : r ∈ rows → r.endBounded = none → (r.judgment = Judgment.acceptable ↔ r.Coheres)

By §6.2, outside the telicity tests an example is acceptable exactly when its roles cohere.

theorem GoldbergJackendoff2004.rows_thetaLabel (r : Row) : r ∈ rows → ∀ ρs ∈ r.objectRole, ∀ s ∈ r.verb.coreSlots[1]?, ∀ ρ ∈ r.verb.thetaLabel s, ρ ∈ ρs

Where the fragment derives a role label for the object from the verb's basic frame, the label is among the paper's construals: the object of wipe is a patient. The subject's label is not comparable, since a noncausative may use the verb's anticausative frame, whose subject is the basic frame's object: the melting chocolate of (48b), not the causer the fragment labels.