Selected Papers from the Fourteenth International ... - STIBA Malang

162 Bettelou Los
The non-acceptability of these predicates in copular constructions does not in
itself, however, constitute a counterargument to an analysis along the lines of (8)
for predicates, in which the predicate selects the object. McIntyre (2001) provides
a number of other meanings that are “idiosyncratically restricted to a particular
structural environment”: the malefactive use of on in my cat died on me, my
car broke down on me is not possible as a postnominal modifier (*an accident on
me). Goldberg & Jackendoff (2004: 560–562, and references cited there)) provide
many more examples (e.g., under the table in drink NP under the table), and set
out in detail the idiosyncrasy of other predicates, particularly the choice of PP
or AP: stab/bat/put/batter/frighten/crush/scare/burn NP to death versus *dead, but
he sang himself hoarse versus *to hoarseness or he ate himself sick versus *to sickness;
and he sang himself to exhaustion versus *exhausted. Note that even semantically
transparent, relatively non-idiomaticized predicates like into shape and to
death cannot function as independent predicates: *he is into shape, he is to death.
McIntyre (2004: 546) points out that directional PPs and continuous state-of-change
comparatives (i.e., inherently eventive PPs/APs) are incompatible with copulas
although they uncontroversially predicate over NPs: *I am to the station/colder and
colder versus I walked to the station/I got colder and colder. He concludes that the
copula is untrustworthy as a test for complex predicates (McIntyre 2004: 547), and
we conclude that it does not constitute counterevidence to our claim that there is
a diachronic relationship between predicates and particles.
The reason that (7) is less likely to be the correct analysis for verb-particle constructions
is the fact that particles have undergone grammaticalization and have
started to form a single unit with the verb. The order in (1b), the ‘particle order’,
appears to require a morphological analysis in which particle and verb form a unit,
in its most extreme form along the lines of (10):
(10) VP
Vmax NP
Vmin particle
An analysis as in (10) can account for formations like get-at-able and knockerupper,
but is, in this most extreme form, ultimately untenable without special
stipulations because verbal inflectional endings still attach to V min and not to
V max (= the V + particle compound). Blom (2005: 104) notes that the combination
of the properties compositionality, conventionality, and productivity, all strikingly
present in particle verbs, is in fact very reminiscent of word formation, especially
in derivation. Particles are much like derivational morphemes in that it is possible
to see patterns, but these patterns or rules do not apply with strict regularity