Abstract
We investigate the English verbs climb and cut, cited as counterexamples to manner/result complementarity: the proposal that verbs lexicalize either manner or result meaning components, but not both. Once their lexicalized meaning is identified and distinguished from contextually determined elements of meaning, cut and climb conform to manner/result complementarity. We show that cut is basically a result verb, with a prototypical manner often inferred. However, as it lexicalizes a result prototypically brought about in a certain manner, some uses simply lexicalize this manner. Crucially, in manner uses, the result component drops out, consistent with manner/result complementarity. In contrast, climb is essentially a manner verb. Once its lexicalized manner is accurately identified and distinguished from meaning contributed by context, the upward direction associated with many uses can be shown to arise from inference. However, climb has some restricted uses which lexicalize a result. Importantly, on these uses, the manner component is lost. With both verbs, then, the manner-only and result-only uses instantiate different, though related, senses of the relevant verb, with each sense conforming to manner/result complementarity.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Studies in the Composition and Decomposition of Event Predicates |
| Editors | Boban Arsenijević , Berit Gehrke , Rafael Marín |
| Publisher | Springer |
| Pages | 49-70 |
| Number of pages | 22 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 978-94-007-5983-1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2013 |
Publication series
| Name | Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy |
|---|---|
| Volume | 93 |
| ISSN (Print) | 0924-4662 |
| ISSN (Electronic) | 2215-034X |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Acknowledgements We thank audiences at Brown University, Humboldt University, the University of Alicante, the Conference on Concept Types and Frames, and the twenty-first Annual Conference of IATL for stimulating questions and discussion. We also are grateful to two reviewers for their comments on an earlier version of the paper. This work was supported by ISF grant 370/07 to Malka Rappaport Hovav.
Funding Information:
We thank audiences at Brown University, Humboldt University, the University of Alicante, the Conference on Concept Types and Frames, and the twenty-first Annual Conference of IATL for stimulating questions and discussion. We also are grateful to two reviewers for their comments on an earlier version of the paper. This work was supported by ISF grant 370/07 to Malka Rappaport Hovav.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2013, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.
Keywords
- Direct Object
- Manner Component
- Reference Object
- Result Verb
- Upward Direction