A LEXICO-GRAMMAR OF ENGLISH PREDICATES : THE VERB

In the preparation of this book we deeply acknowledge the help and advice of a number of colleagues of our Departamento de Filología Inglesa (Lengua Inglesa), Universidad de Sevilla, Spain. A vote of thanks goes to Tony Dawson, our formerly active member of our research group now retired, who was able to masterly disentangle lexical nuances both in English and in Spanish. We should not forget other colleagues of our research group, especially Joaquín José Fernández Domínguez and Ángel Jiménez Fernández, whose notes and observations were always very useful. Although unaware of the mammoth task we were involved in, Jane Arnold and Anthony Bruton have also earned our gratitude as we exposed them to many tricky questions and whose answers have benefited us in the long term. Mary O’Sullivan in particular deserves our heartfelt thanks for illuminating us with her insightful comments in the numerous intricacies looming high above us in the analytical process of some verbal units. Finally, our indebtedness also to Aránzazu Ascunce, from the University of Hawaii, who spent almost six months in our Department and generously committed herself to read some parts of the draft of this book. Needless to say, all their guidance and expertise do not go hand in hand with the possible mistakes that can be found, which is our responsibility. Joaquín Comesaña Rincón jcomesana@us.es Francisco Garrudo Carabias garrudo@us.es Francisco Javier Tamayo Morillo fjtamayo@us.es Departamento de Filología Inglesa (Lengua Inglesa) Universidad de Sevilla. (Spain)

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xv
ABBREVIATIONS and SYMBOLS xvii
FOREWORD xxi


0. Introduction 1
0.1. Fleshing out the importance of the lexicon 2
0.2. The featuring of the lexico-grammar of English predicative units 5
0.3. The ‘Sentence’ as the home-territory of predicative analysis 9
0.4. The forerunners in lexical information in dictionaries 11
0.5. Further objectives 14

1. The architecture of a predicative lexical entry 15

2. Stratum1 19
2.1. The headword 19
2.2. The brackets 20
2.3. Sentence elements: heading towards patterns of complementation 22
2.3.1. A = Adverbial 23

2.3.2. C = Complement 24
2.3.2.1. CO = Object Complement 24
2.3.2.2. PREP CO = Prepositional Object Complement 26
2.3.2.3. CS = Subject Complement 26
2.3.2.4. PREP CS = Prepositional Subject Complement 28

2.3.3. O = Object 29
2.3.3.1. O1 = First Object 32
2.3.3.2. O2 = Second Object 33
2.3.3.3. O3 = Third Object 34
2.3.3.4. Ö = Reflexive Object 34
2.3.3.5. PREP O = Prepositional Object 35
2.3.3.5.1. PREP O1 = First Prepositional Object 36
2.3.3.5.2. PREP O2 = Second Prepositional Object 37

2.3.4. S = Subject 37

2.4. Patterns of complementation 38
2.4.1. Intransitive verbs 38
2.4.1.1. /S/ = Simple intransitive 38
2.4.1.2. /SÄ/ = Adverbial intransitive 39

2.4.2. Transitive verbs 39
2.4.2.1. Monotransitive 40
2.4.2.1.1. /SO/ = Simple monotransitive 40
2.4.2.1.2. /SPO/ = Prepositional monotranstive 40
2.4.2.1.3. /SÄO/ = Non-permutable
adverbial monotransitive1 41
2.4.2.1.4. /SOÄ/ = Non-permutable
adverbial monotransitive2 41
2.4.2.1.5. /SÄO/ /SOÄ/ = Permutable
adverbial monotransitive 41
2.4.2.1.6. /SÄPO/ = Adverbial prepositional
monotransitive 42

2.4.2.2. Ditransitive 43
2.4.2.2.1. /SOO/ = Simple ditransitive 43
2.4.2.2.2. /SOPO/ = Prepositional ditransitive1 44
2.4.2.2.3. /SPOPO/ = Prepositional ditransitive2 45
2.4.2.2.4. /SÄOPO/ = Non-permutable adverbial
prepositional ditransitive1 46
2.4.2.2.5. /SOÄPO/ = Non-permutable adverbial
prepositional ditransitive2 46
2.4.2.2.6. /SÄOPO/ /SOÄPO/ = Permutable adverbial
prepositional ditransitive 46

2.4.2.3. Complex transitive 47
2.4.2.3.1. /SOC/ = Simple complex transitive 47
2.4.2.3.2. /SOPC/ = Prepositional complex transitive 50
2.4.2.3.3. /SOÄPC/ = Non-permutable adverbial
prepositional complex transitive 51
2.4.2.3.4. /SÄOPC/ /SOÄPC/ = Permutable adverbial
prepositional complex transitive 51

2.4.2.4. Adjunctive transitive 52
2.4.2.4.1. /SOA/ = Simple adjunctive transitive 52
2.4.2.4.2. /SÄOA/ = Non-permutable adverbial
adjunctive transitive1 54
2.4.2.4.3. /SOÄA/ = Non-permutable adverbial
adjunctive transitive2 54
2.4.2.4.4. /SÄOA/ /SOÄA/ = Permutable adverbial
adjunctive transitive 54

2.4.3. Copulative verbs 55
2.4.3.1. /SC/ = Simple copulative 55
2.4.3.2. /SÄC/ = Adverbial copulative 56
2.4.3.3. /SPC/ = Prepositional copulative 57
2.4.3.4. /SÄPC/ = Adverbial prepositional copulative 57
2.4.4. Adjunctive verbs 58
2.4.4.1. /SA/ = Simple adjunctive 58
2.4.4.2. /SÄA/ = Adverbial adjunctive 60

2.5. Semantic models of predication 61
2.5.1. ACTOR 63
2.5.1.1. Agent [Ag] 63
2.5.1.2. Instigator [Instg] 63
2.5.1.3. Force [Frc] 64
2.5.1.4. Instrument 65
2.5.1.4.1. Controlled Instrument [CntrlInstr] 65
2.5.1.4.2. Applied Instrument [ApplInstr] 66
2.5.1.5. Cause [Caus] 66

2.5.2. THEME 67
2.5.2.1. Affected [Aff] 67
2.5.2.2. Effected [Eff] 67
2.5.2.3. Eventive [Evnt] 68
2.5.2.4. Located [Lctd] 69
2.5.2.5. Stimulus [Stm] 71
2.5.2.6. Topic [Tpc] 72
2.5.2.7. Ambient IT [AmbIT] 73

2.5.3. PERCEIVER 74
2.5.3.1. Experiencer [Exp] 74
2.5.3.2. Beneficiary [Ben] 77
2.5.3.3. Recipient [Rcpt] 79

2.5.4. CIRCUMSTANCE 79
2.5.4.1. Locative 79
2.5.4.1.1. Position Locative [PstnLoc] 80
2.5.4.1.2. Origin Locative [OrigLoc] 80
2.5.4.1.3. Destination Locative [DestLoc] 81
2.5.4.1.4. Transit Locative [TransLoc] 81
2.5.4.2. Time 82
2.5.4.2.1. Position Time [PstnTime] 82
2.5.4.2.2. Origin Time [OrigTime] 82
2.5.4.2.3. Destination Time [DestTime] 83
2.5.4.2.4. Transit Time [TransTime] 83
2.5.4.3. Manner [Mnnr] 83
2.5.4.4. Measure [Measr] 84
2.5.4.5. Aim [Aim] 84
2.5.4.6. Reason [Rsn] 85

2.5.5. ATTRIBUTE 87
2.5.5.1. Current [Curr] 88
2.5.5.2. Resulting [Rslt] 89

2.6. Remaining features of the first Stratum 91

3. Stratum2 101

4. Stratum3 107
4.1. Causativity 109
4.2. Decausativisation 113
4.3. Deletion 116
4.3.1. Meaning specialisation 116
4.3.2. Low communicative value 118
4.3.3. Obligatory deletion of preposition 122
4.3.4. Prepositional adverb: P ? Ä 123
4.3.5. Synthetic vs analytic structures 125
4.4. Insertion 134
4.5. Promotion of Instrument to Subject 136
4.6. Reversibility 139
4.7. Symmetry 142

5. Stratum4 145

6. Stratum5 151

7. Stratum6 157

8. Stratum7 159

9. Stratum8 165

10. Stratum9 167

11. Concluding remarks 171

APPENDIXES 173

REFERENCES 271

Author index 281

Conceptual index 283

Lexical index 291

List of Tables

Table 1.: The architecture of a predicative lexical entry in LGEP 18
Table 2.: Types of predication 61
Table 3.: Patterns of verbal complementation 146