Why English needs to be bothering while Romance just bothers?

MANGIALAVORI RASIA, MARÍA EUGENIA; AUSENSI, JOSEP

Tucson, Arizona

Conferencia; WCCFL (West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics); 2021

University of Arizona

Why English needs to be bothering while Romance just bothers?M Eugenia Mangialavori Rasia Josep AusensiCONICET Universitat Pompeu FabraWe focus on Intransitive Causatives (ICs), an underexplored argument structure realization in verbs entering causative alternation, with key implications for argument structure and verb formation/derivation. We focus on the asymmetry between English (1) and Romance (2). In ICs an (inanimate) subject is licensed as sole argument, naturally interpreted as possible cause. The undergoer is semantically and syntactically unrealized.(1) a. Smoking kills. b. Bleach disinfects. c. Alcohol dehydrates. d. Rice constipates.e. Shaving creams irritate. f. Sunlight oxidizes and discolors. g. Normal dryers wrinkle.(2) a. Fumar mata. b. La lejía desinfecta. c. El alcohol deshidrata. d. El arroz estriñe. e. Las cremas de afeitar irritan. f. La luz solar oxida y destiñe. g. Las secadoras arrugan.ICs challenge major claims on argument structure and causative alternations; namely: (i) the internal argument defined a constant constituent in the causative alternation (Haley & Keyser 2002); (ii)the prediction that a unique argument in causative alternating verbs will be interpreted as undergoer by default (Levin&Rappaport 2005). Conversely, ICs show defective cause(r) reading.Properties.(a)ICs cannot appear in perception reports, be located in space (3) or license habitual readings (4). They are odd in contexts forcing eventive readings (5). Modals generate epistemic (not deontic) readings (6). This pattern is the one expected for states (Maienborn 2005, Rothmayr 2007).(3) a. #John saw smoking kill. (cf. I saw John kill Tom)b. #Shaving creams irritate in the bathroom.(4) a. Alcohol (#regularly) dehydrates. (cf. John regularly kills animals)b. Smoking (#regularly) kills.(5) a. #What the dryer did was wrinkle. (cf. What John did was kill animals)b. #What happened was that rice constipated.(6) a. Smoking must kill (OK It probably has property x | #It is under obligation to kill)b. John must kill Tom (# He probably has property x | OK He is under obligation to kill)(b) ICs are similar to middles in that they are restricted to generic tenses (*Smoking killed/#This vase broke easily). Both constructions pattern statively, and like dispositional generics; notably, they do not entail a deontic reading, but report a property of the subject (Lekakou 2015). Like IL-predicates, ICs are true in virtue of properties inherent to the subject. In this way, ICs contrast with dispositional habituals that ?assert the existence of a pattern of regularly recurring events? (Krifka et al. 1995) (true insofar as there were actual helping events in the past, e.g., John helps homeless people). ICs crucially differ from middles in that the sole DP is not internal but external: hence, the property is not attributed to an undergoer (theme), but to a cause.(c) ICs reflect the definition of dispositional causation (Copley 2018) relating a disposer y (holder of a property), a dispositional state e, a manifestation e′, and a (nonepisodic) eventuality description p. This captures ICs restrictions: i.e., the cause(r) must have the relevant property to produce the COS of the verb (Fara 2001).(7) Dispositional causation: (a) y is the holder of e, (b) e is a state that directly causes e′ ceteris paribus, (c) e′ instantiates p (d) y is disposed toward p. (Copley 2018: 13) (d)Genericity is a common property shared with another dyadic/monadic argument structure alternation (Unexpressed/Null Object alternations [UNOA], Levin 1993) (8). Yet, ICs are distinct in: (i)verb type (activity/manner verbs in (8) vs. COS/result verbs in ICs); (ii)interpretive and selectional restrictions on the subject (animate/volitional actor in (10) vs. inanimate causer in ICs). Several facts indicate they constitute a radically different type of intransitive alternation. Basically, in opposition to classically-analyzed, but ultimately fake, intransitive alternates in (8) (Levin 1993). (8) a. This dog bites (#but hasn?t bitten anybody yet). PROPERTY-OF-AGENT ALTERNATION b. Stand back! This horse kicks (#but hasn?t kicked anybody yet). Unlike the latter , ICs are not Null-Object constructions, and pattern quite in an opposite manner: ICs do not allow Null-Object-oriented depictives (9) (OK with null/arbitrary implicit arguments: Il dottore visita [] nudi, ?The doctor visits [] naked?, Rizzi 1996) and null object quantification (10)(e.g., bare molti, Italian). Ne-cliticization and inchoative/passive morphology (Romance) are alsodisallowed (11). Last, ICs fail to bind reflexive pronouns (vs. the anticausative (se-cl) form) (12).(9) a. *Smoking kills dead/depressed. b. John cooks healthy. c. John buys cheap.(10) a. *Smoking kills a lot. b. John eats a lot. c. John bought some.(11) a. Fumar (*en/*es) mata. b. El Joan en cuina/compra (cada dia). (Catalan)(12) a. Bad news sadden (*myself). b. Take a crepe. Cover one half with the jam.Fold [] over onto itself. (Massam & Roberge 1989)Differences between Romance and English lie in IC productivity (13): whereas Romance freely allowsICs from classes standardly related to the causative alternation like psych verbs, English uses astative-attributive ing-predicates instead (14). This suggests nontrivial contrasts between canonicCOS and other verbs entering the alternation deserving explanation (crosslanguage IC availability).(13) a. La playa cansa. (lit. *The beach tires) b. Tarantino aburre. (lit. *Tarantino bores)?The beach is tiresome/makes you tired.? ?Tarantino is boring/makes you bored.?(14) a. Sad movies are depressing. (OK Causational reading = #IC: #Sad movies sadden)b. Normal dryers are wrinkling. (#Causational reading = OK IC: Normal dryers wrinkle)We hypothesize that in English be-ing appears as default mechanism to denote that a cause(r) haspotential to trigger COS. By contrast, ICs are allowed only when be-ing does not yield IC, butrather a sole-theme-argument reading in an ongoing change (15).(15) La leche engorda (Spanish)(lit.) Milk fattens (Milk is getting fat) (ENGLISH DEFAULT READING)?Milk is fattening? (ROMANCE DEFAULT READING)Moreover, across languages, ICs appear in verbs denoting COS-caused state, rather than (mannerof) action (Rappaport&Levin 2010). If the verb encodes manner of action, and there is no possiblestate-like interpretation triggered by the subject, ICs are disallowed, yielding Property of AgentAlternation in monadic frames instead. Namely, verbs like kill which only allow a result/stateinterpretation, freely allow both constructions depending on subject type (16). Conversely, verbslike murder (17) cannot allow ICs as the verb makes references to both a manner and a result(Ausensi 2019) and only yield Property of Agent Alternation readings in monadic frames inconsequence, as they restrict the subject to a specific type, an Agent in this case (cf. (10)).(16) a. John kills (impulsively). (Property of Agent alt.) b. Smoking kills. (IC)(17) a. CIA spies murder silently. (Property of Agent alt.) b. #This poison murders. (IC)Proposal. We contend ICs are true monadic (atransitive) realizations where the external-argumentintroducinghead responsible for the causative component is merely complemented, not by a theme,but by rhematic information (RhemeP, Ramchand 2008, 2013) specifying the COS potentiallytriggered by the subject (vP [DP CAUSE/TRIGGER [vINITº, RHEME √]). Concerning the direct mappingbetween semantic (event) composition and argument structure realizations (Syn/sem interface), ICsshow that nonrealization of internal arguments correlates with lack of COS (sub)event instantiation(attributed to the internal-argument licensing head, Levin&Rappaport 1995; Hale&Keyser 2002).The noneventive denotation, along with pure stative behavior, simply follow. ICs crucially showthat if there is no theme, there is no COS-event-encoding component in the semantic/syntacticmakeup of the VP. This allow us to avoid a derived analysis of stativity, with direct empiricalevidence and more parsimony (assuming economy is a result desirable in GG). Syntactically, itreveals that Property of Agent Alternations is not a true argument structure alternation, but analternate expressions of the same set of arguments (underlyingly transitive structures), while ICsbehave instead as original monadic configurations. Unlike middles, which are systematic in bothEnglish and Romance, ICs show that a sole argument in a change-of-state verb can be, and is,naturally interpreted not as theme but as subject (cause). ICs thus challenge the long-held constraint(Rappaport&Levin 2010) that COS verbs disallow unrealized theme (*John breaks) showingatransitive constructions with consequent structural (semantic and syntactic) properties.Conclusion. ICs: ●establish interesting crosslanguage regularities; ●reveal important structural (syn/sem) consistencies; ●raise questions on lexical coding of relevant features; ●uncover a necessary contrast within intransitive alternations (UNOA vs. true atransitive (IC)).