Verb-preposition constructions and small clauses in English

Aarts, Bas

doi:10.1017/s0022226700014109

Cited by 25 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…This difference in paraphrase possibilities suggests that literal phrasal verbs as in She walked in or I pulled off the tablecloth (‗I yanked it from the table') and idiomatic ones as in He gave up or They pulled off a stunning victory (‗They succeeded in accomplishing one') -are not instances of the same phenomenon‖ (Fraser, 1976, p. 3), the former being loose, syntactically assembled sequences of a verb and a free adverb functioning as a so-called ‗secondary predicate', the latter being tight, lexical verb-particle units which are inserted into syntax as complex verbs, i.e. as ‗wholes' (Aarts, 1989;Dehé, 2002;Fraser, 1976;Ishikawa, 2000;Williams, 1997;Wurmbrand, 2000). 3 Despite Chomsky's (1965) assumption that semantically transparent and idiomatic phrasal verbs are structurally identical (cf.…”

Section: Linguistic Controversies About the Status Of Phrasal Verbsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heating up or cooling up the brain? MEG evidence that phrasal verbs are lexical units

Cappelle¹,

Shtyrov²,

Pulvermüller³

2010

Brain and Language

102

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There is a considerable linguistic debate on whether phrasal verbs (e.g., turn up, break down) are processed as two separate words connected by a syntactic rule or whether they form a single lexical unit. Moreover, views differ on whether meaning (transparency vs. opacity) plays a role in determining their syntactically-connected or lexical status. As linguistic arguments could not settle these issues, we used neurophysiological brain imaging to address them. Applying a multi-feature Mismatch Negativity (MMN) design with subjects instructed to ignore speech stimuli, we recorded magnetic brain responses to particles (up, down) auditorily presented as infrequent -deviant‖ stimuli in the context of frequently occurring verb -standard‖ stimuli. Already at latencies below 200 ms, magnetic brain responses were larger to particles appearing in existing phrasal verbs as context (e.g. rise up) than when they occurred in non-existing combinations (e.g. *fall up), regardless of whether particles carried a literal or metaphorical sense (e.g. rise up, heat up). Previous research found an enhanced MMN response to morphemes in existing (as opposed to non-existing) words but a reduced MMN to words in grammatically acceptable (as opposed to unacceptable) combinations. The increased brain activation to particles in real phrasal verbs reported here is consistent with the lexical enhancement but inconsistent with the syntactic reduction of the MMN, thus providing neurophysiological support that a congruous verb-particle sequence is not assembled syntactically but rather accessed as a single lexical chunk.

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Section: Linguistic Controversies About the Status Of Phrasal Verbsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heating up or cooling up the brain? MEG evidence that phrasal verbs are lexical units

Cappelle¹,

Shtyrov²,

Pulvermüller³

2010

Brain and Language

102

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“…Even a brief overview of literature suggests that phrasal verbs (hereinafter referred to as PVs), more often referred to as verb-particle constructions, have been viewed from a variety of perspectives. Thus PVs have been classified according to the meaning conveyed by the particle (Levin, 1993); prosodical features (Makkai, 1972;Sroka, 1972;Bolinger, 1971); the number of elements constituting a combination (Makkai, 1972), the entire meaning of the group (compositional vs non-compositional) (Pedersen & Nimb, 2000;Fellbaum, 1998); and the nature of the nominal group following the verb (Aarts, 1989). We have felt, however, that it is necessary to come up with a more general classification that would incorporate at least some of the above ideas and would be applicable to processing from the lexicographical viewpoint.…”

Section: Classification Of Pvs In Osmentioning

confidence: 99%

Addressing Template Composition and Parametric Features of Aspect and Modality in Ontological Semantic Acquisition of Phrasal Verbs

Korostenskaja

2012

StALan

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The article uses the theory of ontological semantics to propose methodological and practical solutions for the acquisition process of selected phrasal verbs. The Knowledge Base Acquisition Editor (KBAE) is adopted as a software for project implementation. Since in ontological semantics, each lexical unit is to be described in terms of its syntactic and semantic structure, the article provides an analysis of both components of representation. At the syntactic level, the pre-established seed templates are adjusted so as to avoid misleading interpretations and to account for causative constructions. At the semantic level, focus is placed on the application of the ontological parametric features of aspect and modality in the meaning representation of phrasal verbs. It is argued that the categories of aspect and modality help grasp the difference between the PV in question and its one-word counterpart. It is believed that the findings of the present study may have further research implications: first, an assessment of the frequency of causative constructions could help finalise the issue of Template 1, which has been found to be misleading. Second, a study of PVs conveying metaphorically extended meanings, which oftentimes turn out to be deducible, could foreground the feature of universality in languages. It could therefore be desirable to establish core PVs, the non-compositional meanings of which would pertain to the domain of cross-linguistically interpretable metaphoricity .

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“…Kruisinga and Erades, 1953:78 and subsequent accounts) (c) Length/Complexity of the direct object (e.g. Kennedy, 1920:30;Kayne, 1985;Chen, 1986;Aarts, 1989Aarts, , 1992 Hawkins, 1994) (d) Presence of a directional adverbial after the construction (e.g. Fraser, 1974) (e) Scope of the particle (over the noun or the verb) (e.g.…”

Section: Previous Analysesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Aarts, 1992) (i) Coordination (e.g. Aarts, 1989Aarts, :282f, 1992Den Dikken, 1995:43, 126;Dehé, 2002:20f) (j) Modification of predication-position of the adverb (see e.g. Farrell, 2005) (k) Perfectivity (process vs. achievement; e.g.…”

Section: Previous Analysesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Verb–preposition constructions in FDG

Keizer¹

2009

Lingua

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Verb-preposition constructions and small clauses in English

Cited by 25 publications

References 9 publications

Heating up or cooling up the brain? MEG evidence that phrasal verbs are lexical units

Heating up or cooling up the brain? MEG evidence that phrasal verbs are lexical units

Addressing Template Composition and Parametric Features of Aspect and Modality in Ontological Semantic Acquisition of Phrasal Verbs

Verb–preposition constructions in FDG

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