Romance Paths as Cognate Complements: A Lexical-Syntactic Account
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Jaume Mateu
Abstract
In this paper, we analyze some Path constructions that apparently go against Talmy’s (1991, 2000) typological predictions concerning Romance languages. Drawing on Hale & Keyser’s (2000) analysis of so-called ‘P-cognation’, we argue that the formation of Italian phrasal verbs (e.g., mettere giù ‘put down’ orbuttare via ‘throw away’) involves a lexical-syntactic pattern where the directional particle specifies the Path element that has already been conflated in the verb: that is, the verb itself encodes or involves a directional meaning which is further specified through a P(ath) particle. We argue that Romance languages like Italian or Catalan have verb particle constructions involving ‘P-cognation’ but lack those ones involving a lexical-syntactic subordination process whereby an independent root is merged with a null verb (e.g., John worked the night away). As predicted by Talmy’s typology, the latter are found in ‘satelliteframed languages’ like English but not in ‘verb-framed languages’ like Italian or Catalan.
Abstract
In this paper, we analyze some Path constructions that apparently go against Talmy’s (1991, 2000) typological predictions concerning Romance languages. Drawing on Hale & Keyser’s (2000) analysis of so-called ‘P-cognation’, we argue that the formation of Italian phrasal verbs (e.g., mettere giù ‘put down’ orbuttare via ‘throw away’) involves a lexical-syntactic pattern where the directional particle specifies the Path element that has already been conflated in the verb: that is, the verb itself encodes or involves a directional meaning which is further specified through a P(ath) particle. We argue that Romance languages like Italian or Catalan have verb particle constructions involving ‘P-cognation’ but lack those ones involving a lexical-syntactic subordination process whereby an independent root is merged with a null verb (e.g., John worked the night away). As predicted by Talmy’s typology, the latter are found in ‘satelliteframed languages’ like English but not in ‘verb-framed languages’ like Italian or Catalan.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword vii
- Null Expletives and Case: The View from Romance 1
- On the Existence of Null Complementizers in Old French 19
- On the Lack of Transparency Effects in French 37
- On the Syllabification of Prevocalic /w/ in Judeo-Spanish 51
- Word Order and Minimalism 69
- The Status of Old French Clitics in the 12th Century 89
- Towards a Unified Account of Positive and Negative Polarity: Evidence from Romanian 105
- Correlativization and Degree Quantification in Spanish 121
- Imperfect Variation and Class Marking in the Old Spanish Third Conjugation 143
- Licensing Negative Fragments and the Interpretation of Comparison 157
- Developing I-Language in L1 and L2 173
- Crypto-Variation in Italian Velar Palatalisation 193
- Antisymmetry and the Typology of Relative Clauses: Morphological Evidence from Romance 209
- Romance Paths as Cognate Complements: A Lexical-Syntactic Account 227
- Discriminating Pitch Accent Alignment in Spanish 243
- Proscriptions…Gaps…and Something in Between: An Experimental Examination of Spanish Phonotactics 261
- Romanian Palatalization: The Role of Place of Articulation in Perception 277
- Putting in Order the Spanish DP 291
- The Domain of Palatalization in Romanian 307
- Rhotic Metathesis Asymmetries in Romance: Formalizing the Effects of Articulation and Perception on Sound Change 321
- The Left Edge in the Spanish Clausal Structure 339
- Index 359
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword vii
- Null Expletives and Case: The View from Romance 1
- On the Existence of Null Complementizers in Old French 19
- On the Lack of Transparency Effects in French 37
- On the Syllabification of Prevocalic /w/ in Judeo-Spanish 51
- Word Order and Minimalism 69
- The Status of Old French Clitics in the 12th Century 89
- Towards a Unified Account of Positive and Negative Polarity: Evidence from Romanian 105
- Correlativization and Degree Quantification in Spanish 121
- Imperfect Variation and Class Marking in the Old Spanish Third Conjugation 143
- Licensing Negative Fragments and the Interpretation of Comparison 157
- Developing I-Language in L1 and L2 173
- Crypto-Variation in Italian Velar Palatalisation 193
- Antisymmetry and the Typology of Relative Clauses: Morphological Evidence from Romance 209
- Romance Paths as Cognate Complements: A Lexical-Syntactic Account 227
- Discriminating Pitch Accent Alignment in Spanish 243
- Proscriptions…Gaps…and Something in Between: An Experimental Examination of Spanish Phonotactics 261
- Romanian Palatalization: The Role of Place of Articulation in Perception 277
- Putting in Order the Spanish DP 291
- The Domain of Palatalization in Romanian 307
- Rhotic Metathesis Asymmetries in Romance: Formalizing the Effects of Articulation and Perception on Sound Change 321
- The Left Edge in the Spanish Clausal Structure 339
- Index 359
