Some of these classes of verbs have traditional labels as listed in (6). These labels are convenient for talking about classes of verbs rather than individual verbs.
- despair Intransitive Verb [excludes a noun phrase to its right, as in (2a)]
slight Transitive Verb [requires a noun phrase to its right, as in (2b)]
gave Ditransitive Verb [‘twice transitive’] [requires two noun phrases to its right, as in (2c)]
sat Intransitive Locational Verb [excludes a noun phrase to its right but requires a prepositional phrase, as in (4a)]
handed Transitive Directional Verb [requires to its right both a noun phrase and a directional phrase]
seemed Copula (linking verb) [requires to its right an adjective phrase as in (3), or a noun phrase, as in seemed a sensible person, or a prepositional phrase, as in seemed in good spirits, or an infinitive, as in seemed to be unhappy]
To sum up, a given lexical item controls ‘lexical insertion’, the inserting of lexical items into its complements. Another approach that has been advocated more recently is to have no separate set of rules that specify syntactic structure but to have that work carried out by lexical entries. The entry for seem can be thought of as a set of instructions to build a syntactic structure containing a noun phrase, a verb and, for example, an adjective phrase. The entry for hand can be thought of as a set of instruc- tions to build a syntactic structure containing a noun phrase, a verb, a noun phrase and a directional prepositional phrase, and so on for the other types of verb.
As well as controlling the number and general type of complements, lexical verbs control the choice of preposition. For example, blame occurs in the constructions in (7).
- a. Eleanor blamed Willoughby for Marianne’s unhappiness.
b. Eleanor
blamed Marianne’s unhappiness on Willoughby.
Depending on which way the event is presented, blame requires
for or on ;
52 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX
no other prepositions are possible. Similarly, accuse requires the preposi- tion of, as in Eleanor accused Willoughby of unprincipled behaviour.
The constraints that lexical verbs place on number and type of constituents, choice of preposition and choice of case are known as subcategorisation. We are dealing with the class or category of verbs, but the different constructions required by different verbs allow us to set up subclasses or subcategories of verb. Hence the term ‘subcategoris- ation’. This discussion has not exhausted the topic of subcategorisation; in particular, we have not looked at combinations of plural verb and plural noun, singular verb and singular noun; or but we will take up this question in Chapter 9 on syntactic linkage.
- Selectional restrictions
Lexical entries also contain information about the roles assigned to the nouns in a clause. (See Chapter 11 on participant roles.) For instance, build and calculate assign Agent role to their subject noun and Patient role to their direct object noun. In (8), Romans is Agent and aqueduct is Patient, and in (9) computer is Agent and value is Patient.
- The Romans built this aqueduct.
- The computer will calculate the value of the variable.
The fact that aqueduct is inanimate does not change the assignment of Patient role to it, and likewise the inanimacy of computer does not change the assignment of Agent role. Picking up from Chapter 4 the concept of the central, prototypical member of a class, we can say that prototypical Agents are animate, or even human. Inanimate nouns such as computer can be non-prototypical Agents, the role being thrust upon them by particular verbs and particular constructions. For instance, calculate requires an Agent, and in the ACTIVE DECLARATION construction the Agent role is assigned to the noun to the left of the verb.
Lexical verbs impose restrictions on the type of noun that can occur to their left or right. A verb such as blame requires a human noun to its left, while a verb such as kill requires an animate noun to its right. Of course, speakers and writers regularly utter sentences such as (10) and (11).
- The dog blamed us for her stay at the vet’s.
- These objections killed the proposal.
Speakers and writers who produce (10)
know perfectly well
that blame is assigned by moral
beings; they merely
assume that dogs
qualify. In our treatment of (11), we continue to state that kill requires an animate
noun
THE LEXICON 53
to its right. The clash between this requirement and the fact that proposal
is inanimate imposes a metaphorical interpretation.
Constraints affecting the type of lexical noun are known as selec- tional restrictions. Selectional restrictions range from large classes of nouns such as animate and human nouns (shorthand for ‘nouns denoting animate beings’ and ‘nouns denoting human beings’) to smaller classes such as nouns denoting liquids. For example, the verb flow requires a subject noun such as water, river or lava, as in (12).
- (7) The water/river flowed over the embankment
This particular verb raises two interesting points. The first is that, as with
(10) and (11), the verb can be used metaphorically; we talk of ideas flow- ing from someone’s pen. The second is that a given noun on its own may not denote a liquid but may be understood as doing so because of its modifiers. Thus The molten metal flowed into the mould does not require a metaphorical interpretation, but the fact that the metal is liquid is contributed by the adjective molten. This last example is handled in the same way as (11). Even without the adjective molten, it imposes the interpretation that the metal was in a liquid state and forces us to construct a suitable context, for example a foundry.
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