John Benjamins Publishing Company
The semantic motivation of non-canonical predicative relations
Abstract
The paper discusses the semantic motivation behind the non-standard transitive usage of verbs in contemporary French. An example would be the following: On m’a démissionné hier (‘they fired me yesterday’). In the normative language variety, démissionner is used only in the intransitive construction as in J’ai démissionné (‘I gave in my notice’). The non-canonicity of the predicative relations discussed is of a lexical nature: the verbs in question do not normally appear in the transitive construction. Nevertheless the transitive construction itself belongs to the constructions in frequent use in French, and the novel usage of the verbs can be easily understood. Speakers use the verbs transitively despite the lack of canonicity of this usage, and the paper proposes a semantic explanation for this: the syntactic choice is semantically motivated. The transitive construction carries in itself – despite its frequency – a semantics that the speaker wants to make use of. The study takes advantage of the Construction Grammar approach. The paper starts by presenting definitions of semantic transitivity in a functional, typological perspective (G. Lazard 1994; S. Kittilä 2002; Å. Næss 2007). Then it goes through different cases where a pair of a transitive construction and a non-transitive (oblique) construction can be attested (penser (à), toucher (à), effected objects and others). Many of the examples are from the web where non-normative usage flourishes. The two constructions are compared and it is claimed that more transitive semantic features can be found in the transitive constructions. Other factors possibly relevant here are also briefly discussed: iconic motivation, semantic generalization in a particular technolect. The paper shows that the French transitive construction indeed has a semantics and that these novel usages can thus be semantically motivated.
Abstract
The paper discusses the semantic motivation behind the non-standard transitive usage of verbs in contemporary French. An example would be the following: On m’a démissionné hier (‘they fired me yesterday’). In the normative language variety, démissionner is used only in the intransitive construction as in J’ai démissionné (‘I gave in my notice’). The non-canonicity of the predicative relations discussed is of a lexical nature: the verbs in question do not normally appear in the transitive construction. Nevertheless the transitive construction itself belongs to the constructions in frequent use in French, and the novel usage of the verbs can be easily understood. Speakers use the verbs transitively despite the lack of canonicity of this usage, and the paper proposes a semantic explanation for this: the syntactic choice is semantically motivated. The transitive construction carries in itself – despite its frequency – a semantics that the speaker wants to make use of. The study takes advantage of the Construction Grammar approach. The paper starts by presenting definitions of semantic transitivity in a functional, typological perspective (G. Lazard 1994; S. Kittilä 2002; Å. Næss 2007). Then it goes through different cases where a pair of a transitive construction and a non-transitive (oblique) construction can be attested (penser (à), toucher (à), effected objects and others). Many of the examples are from the web where non-normative usage flourishes. The two constructions are compared and it is claimed that more transitive semantic features can be found in the transitive constructions. Other factors possibly relevant here are also briefly discussed: iconic motivation, semantic generalization in a particular technolect. The paper shows that the French transitive construction indeed has a semantics and that these novel usages can thus be semantically motivated.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction vii
-
Part 1. Atypical realization of the main arguments of the verb
- Verbs of pain and accusative subjects in Romanian 3
- Non-canonical ‘existential-like‘ constructions in colloquial Modern Hebrew 27
- IO realizations in Spanish reverse psych verb sentences 61
- Non-human agents as subjects in English and Dutch 87
-
Part 2. Valency-changing devices and non-finite verb forms
- The argument-structure configuration of English middle and related structures 115
- Non-categorical categories 131
-
Part 3. Variations in transitivity
- The semantic motivation of non-canonical predicative relations 163
- Atypical argument structures in French 181
- Split intransitivity in Lamaholot (East Flores, Indonesia) 203
-
Part 4. Norm variation in predicate-arguments relations
- Geographic variation in a non-canonical infinitive structure with the modal verb brauchen 243
- Verbal constructions in spoken language deviating from the norm 265
- Index of authors 283
- Index of subjects 287
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction vii
-
Part 1. Atypical realization of the main arguments of the verb
- Verbs of pain and accusative subjects in Romanian 3
- Non-canonical ‘existential-like‘ constructions in colloquial Modern Hebrew 27
- IO realizations in Spanish reverse psych verb sentences 61
- Non-human agents as subjects in English and Dutch 87
-
Part 2. Valency-changing devices and non-finite verb forms
- The argument-structure configuration of English middle and related structures 115
- Non-categorical categories 131
-
Part 3. Variations in transitivity
- The semantic motivation of non-canonical predicative relations 163
- Atypical argument structures in French 181
- Split intransitivity in Lamaholot (East Flores, Indonesia) 203
-
Part 4. Norm variation in predicate-arguments relations
- Geographic variation in a non-canonical infinitive structure with the modal verb brauchen 243
- Verbal constructions in spoken language deviating from the norm 265
- Index of authors 283
- Index of subjects 287
