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

Particles as grammaticalized complex predicates 165
c. Noncausative path resultative (e.g., The ball rolled down the hill)
Syntax: NP 1 GO Path 2
Semantics: X 1 GO Path 2
MEANS: [verbal subevent]
d. Causative path resultative (e.g., Bill rolled the ball down the hill)
Syntax: NP 1 V NP 2 PP 3
Semantics: X 1 CAUSE [Y 2 GO Path 3 ]
MEANS: [verbal subevent, here: Bill rolled the ball]
Although only the two causative types of (16b) and (16d) would traditionally be
termed complex predicates, they are clearly related to their noncausative counterparts
(16a) and (16c). 4 The types that grammaticalize, however, are the paths
(c–d), expressed by prepositions, rather than the properties (solid, flat) expressed
by adjectives.
Goldberg & Jackendoff (2004) demonstrate that the aspect and/or aktionsart
of the complex predicate is determined by that of the causative subevent, which in
turn hinges on whether the predicate sets up an endpoint to the event or not. As
there are predicates that do not set up an endpoint, resultatives are not necessarily
always telic; cf. John went along the river, where along the river expresses a path
without a specific endpoint (2004: 543). This means that there are also stative and
atelic resultatives, and, after grammaticalization, stative and atelic particle-verb
combinations (e.g., look on, float by etc.). The fact that there are particles that are
not resultative does not argue against a predicate origin: complex predicates do
not need to be resultative either. Prototypical predicates and particles, however,
are resultative.
Farrell (2005: 118) notes that “[t]he resultative V-DP-Adj construction
appears to have the same basic structure as the V-DP-P construction. The key difference
is that only the latter typically has a compound-verb paraphrase (i.e., turn
on the lights as well as turn the lights on)”, – i.e., the difference between the ‘particle
order’ as in (1a) above, and the predicate order as in (1b). That difference is, however,
crucial. If some aspects of particle verbs can be said to have been inherited
from their predicate origins, their grammaticalization has led to them being different
in other respects, most importantly in the ‘particle order’, bleached meanings
and the fact that they make reference to a very abstract ‘Path’, the precise semantics
of which are filled in pragmatically. We will discuss this in the next section.
4. See also Lipka’s semantic types of phrasal verbs where the CAUSE types are usually matched
by a BECOME type. To take an example, the BECOME counterpart of (11) consists of verbs like
(sun/news, truth/daughter in photograph) come out, (news) filter out, (anger) flame out, (news)
leak out, (moon/ancient belief) peep out (Lipka 1972: 197–198).