Instruments: A Case Study of the Interface Between Syntax and Lexical Semantics

Abstract

Instruments generally fall into two classes: those which can appear as the subject of sentence and those which cannot. The difference stems from the semantic dependency between causation and instrumentality involved in the meaning of verbs. This article presents a lexical semantic analysis of instruments in relation to the mapping of semantic structure onto syntactic structure. It argues that the underlying structure of the instrumental construction is a direct structural reflection of semantic relations represented in verbs' lexical conceptual structures. Cross-linguistic evidence in support of this claim is partly drawn from the applicative construction and the serial verb construction. This account offers a challenge to a widespread assumption that the mapping between semantic and syntactic structures is mediated by argument structure.* * This article is partly based on a paper read at the 15th Annual Meeting of the Kansai Linguistic Society held at Kyoto University of Foreign Studies in November 1991. Thanks to two anonymous EL reviewers for their comments and criticisms on an earlier draft. I am, of course, solely responsible for its contents.

57 | 2023

“…(Koenig, Mauner, Bienvenue 2003;Koenig et al 2008;Barbu 2020 for English; Barbu 2020 for Turkish, Romanian, and Spanish; Suozzi, Cardinaletti, Lebani, forthcoming for Italian). This is confirmed by psycholinguistic evidence (Schütze 1995; Barbu 2020) and by various syntactic diagnostics for argumenthood, according to which they behave as arguments or quasi-arguments/secondary complements (Ono 1992;Schütze 1995;Barbu 2020; Russo 2021 for English; Russo 2021 for Turkish; Suozzi, Cardinaletti, Lebani, forthcoming for Italian).…”

Oraciones factitivas sintéticas y tipos de instrumentos en español

“…En primer lugar, su condición de verbos causativos; es decir de formas verbales que concurren en oraciones de cuya representación conceptual formaría parte 3 Debemos esta observación a uno de los evaluadores de nuestro trabajo. una predicación de causa y otra de efecto, según han señalado, entre otros, Comrie (1989) o Payne (1997). En segundo lugar, que las oraciones en que tales verbos participan contienen un sujeto instigador, que operaría en el componente conceptual de causa de la construcción, y otra entidad ejecutora de la acción, que lo haría en el de efecto: Desde nuestro punto de vista, estas propuestas, que son de una incuestionable utilidad en un plano descriptivo, no permiten, sin embargo, caracterizar adecuadamente las propiedades esenciales de los verbos y oraciones factitivas.…”

Ingredients of Instrumental Meaning

“…Schlesinger (1995) proposes that there are multiple Instrumental subroles, including intermediary, enabling and ancillary, which correspond to (2a-c). In several analyses, the existence of different types of instruments follows from differences in the meaning of the lexical verb (Marantz 1984;Ono 1992;Schutze 1995;Koenig et al 2008). In Koenig et al (2008), causally intermediate instruments are linked to specific classes of verbs.…”

“…Crucially, these relations are associated with particular verbs or classes of verbs. The so-called instrument-subject alternation (Fillmore 1968) has been cited as evidence that this dependence of the instrument on the verb is reflected syntactically (Marantz 1984;Ono 1992;Schutze 1995;Koenig et al 2008). An instrument from examples like (7-8) appearing in subject position in comparable sentences is possible for the intermediary instruments but not the indirect instruments:…”

“…Instrumental participants have been studied extensively (Lakoff 1968;Nilsen 1973;Talmy 1976;Marantz 1984;Rappaport & Levin 1988;Schlesinger 1989;Jackendoff 1990;Croft 1991;Brunson 1992;Ono 1992;Parsons 1995;Schlesinger 1995;Schutze 1995;Goldberg 2002;Koenig et al 2003Koenig et al , 2008Koenig & Davis 2006;Rissman et al 2015). Nonetheless, there is little consensus as to which properties a hypothetical 'Instrument' role might encode (if it exists) and therefore little consensus as to how the behavior of instruments such as in (1) speaks to theoretical debates about the nature of thematic roles and their relevance to cognition and grammar.…”