Studies in Lexical Relations
J. Gruber, 1965
In order to formalize certain relationships between lexical items within generative grammar, the necessity is found for the existence of a grammatical level generatively prior to the manifestation of phonological forms. The prelexical level represents the full set of possible sentence patterns for a subgrammar of English. Particular sentences are considered translations from the prelexical level via the mapping of lexical items onto the prelexical string. The grammatical process of incorporation is introduced to explain certain cases of transitivity of verbs, and certain relations among them.
The prelexical level is shown to represent a level at which certain syntactic and semantic properties of sentences merge. This merging is reflected by the manner in which the lexical entries are specified for their environments in the prelexical string.
Sentence patterns on the prelexical level are discussed and formalized with emphasis on the role of prepositional phrases on this level. Verbs whose subjects are Agents are discussed. The Agentive verb is seen to be representable by formatives on the prelexical level.
Thesis Supervisor: Edward S. Klima
Title: Assistant Professor of Modern Languages
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Table of Contents
1 Introduction
1 Relevance to linguistic theory, intention and scope 1
2 Means of discovering the prelexical structure 7
2 The Grammatical Process of Incorporation
1 Manifestations and formalization of incorporation 11
2 Incorporation and deletion compared 24
3 Further examples of incorporation of prepositions 32
4 Incorporation of nouns and adjectives 43
3 Some simple sentence patterns and their inter-relationships
1 The theme as subject of motional verbs 47
2 The theme as other than subject in motional verbs 50
3 The possibility of a transformational relationship between buy and
sell, etc. 54
4 The theme in nonmotional verbs 59
4 Prepositions
1 Negativity of from 68
2 Obligatory presence of away before from in nonmotional
expressions 71
3 Prepositional expressions of possession 72
4 Extension of the notion of possession and formalization 75
5 The relationship between motional and durational verbs 80
6 The expression of goal 85
7 The expression of location 89
8 The expression of accompanyment 93
9 The expression of direction, an elaboration of the expression of
goal 97
5 Source-Goal Patterns
1 Homogeneity of source-goal patterns 101
2 Simplification of a secondary expression of goal 112
3 The nature of away and other particles 115
6 Formalization and Some Consequences of the Prelexical Structure
1 Constituent structure on the prelexical level 121
2 The mapping of lexical forms onto the prelexical string 128
3 Environmental possibilities of incorporating verbs 135
4 Consequences of the simplification of secondary expressions of
goal for incorporating verbs 154
7 Further Sentence Types
1 Positional and possessional transitions, the absence of to 166
2 Transitions involving information nominals as the theme 172
3 Reduplication of subject prepositional phrases 176
4 The prevention of reduplication by post-verbal incorporation 186
5 Get with an abstract theme 187
6 The identificational parameter 193
7 Adjectives and the identificational parameter 204
8 The positional parameter and the progressive 206
9 Analysis of remain 210
8 Agentive Verbs
1 Manifestation of agentive verbs 215
2 Syntactic and semantic properties of agentive verbs 219
3 Manifestation of the permissive agentive 225
4 The subject as causative agentive only 229
5 The subject as permissive agentive only 235
6 The causative agentive for durational verbs 240
7 The causative agentive in the identificational parameter 258
8 Semantic relationship between the causative and permissive
agentive 262
9 Table of verbs 264
9 Formalization of Agentive Verbs
1 The optional interpretability of verbs as agentive 266
2 The nature of the agent node 289
3 Formalization of mapping of prelexical strings into syntactic form
for the agentive 297
4 Formalization of optional agentive verbs 302