Mateu’s (2002, 2012) study of resultative constructions cross-

3.2.1. Mateu’s (2002, 2012) study of resultative constructions cross-linguistically

Mateu (2002, 2012) studies cross-linguistic variation following Talmy’s distinction between satellite-framed languages and verb-framed languages, concentrating on the reason why it is possible for satellite-framed languages to have both complex telic path of motion constructions (38a) and complex resultative constructions (38b), while verb-framed languages lack both these constructions altogether (39).

(38) a. Lisa danced out of the room

b. The gardener watered the tulips flat

such as bere ‘drink’, lavare ‘wash’, mangiare ‘eat’, raschiare ‘scrape’, etc. can be combined with the particles via ‘away’ or fuori ‘out’ to form phrasal verbs (Mateu & Rigau 2010). Folli & Harley suggest that, in this case, the manner component of the verbs has been lost, thus allowing for the directional sense of the particle.

10 Acedo Matellán (2010) proposes that the difference between satellite- and verb-framed languages (Talmy 1985, 2000) can be accounted for in morphophonological terms. His tenet is that in satellite-framed languages v and Path do not form a unit and, in consequence, they need not be realized as a single item phonologically. In contrast, in verb-framed languages v and Path form a single unit by lowering the v head to the Path head and fusing both at PF. Therefore, cross-linguistic variation derives

“from language-specific morphophonological properties of functional heads” (Acedo Matellán 2010:80);

specifically, cross-linguistic variation depends on the ability of languages to apply lowering and fusion to v and Path. While verb-framed languages apply these operations at PF, satellite-framed languages are not equipped with this possibility but, instead, they can conflate a verbal head and a root to express the co-event. This notwithstanding, note that Acedo Matellán (2010) contends that the two-way typology should be transformed into a three-way typology based on the properties of the Path element in these languages. The result of this reevaluation is the distribution of satellite-framed languages into two subtypes: strong satellite-framed languages and weak satellite-framed languages. Strong satellite-framed languages differ from weak satellite-framed languages in that Path and v are independent words or morphemes. In contrast, in weak satellite-framed languages, while v and Path are still independent, they form a single phonological word. Strong satellite-framed languages such as Dutch, German, English, Icelandic, Finish and Hungarian, are able to license PP, particle, and AP resultatives. Meanwhile, weak satellite-framed languages such as Ancient Greek, only allow the formation of resultatives with affixal particles and disallow PP and AP resultatives if inflection is present on the adjective. See Acedo Matellán (2010) for further discussion on this three-way typology.

(39) a. *Lisa bailó fuera de la habitación (directional reading) Lisa danced out of the room

a'. Lisa salió de la habitación bailando Lisa went-out of the room dancing

b. *El jardinero regó los tulipanes planos (resultative reading) The gardener watered the tulips flats

Mateu argues that in verb-framed languages such as Romance languages, the (telic) path is incorporated into the verb expressing motion. This process is lexically fossilized, that is, the verb and the path form an atom in such a way that it is no longer possible to distinguish the morphophonological properties of each element.¹¹ The manner component is pushed into the background as an adjunct to the verb. In contrast, satellite-framed languages such as Germanic languages allow the conflation of the manner component, that is, Talmy’s co-event, into the verb which makes possible that the path can be left stranded as a mere satellite to the verb. As for complex resultative constructions, it is argued that adjectives can encode a path relation just like PPs appearing in motion constructions (Talmy 1991). In this respect, Mateu (2002) holds that adjectives are not primitives of syntactic theory, but rather they can be reduced to the lexical head P, consisting of a relational element plus a non-relational element. In contrast to Germanic languages, Romance languages do not have adjectives comprising a path relation. That being the case, cross-linguistic variation is subsumed into two possible patterns: the path incorporation pattern and the co-event conflation pattern.

Mateu (2012) applies Haugen’s (2009) reinterpretation of the operations of conflation and incorporation in terms of the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1995).

Incorporation is reformulated as involving head-movement, which is instantiated through the syntactic operation of copy in the Minimalist Program. As stated in Mateu (2012), incorporation involves copying the full phonological matrix of the incorporated element into the null phonological matrix of the verb. On the other hand, conflation is redefined in terms of the syntactic operation of merge. This means that the conflated element (a root) is adjoined to a null light verb. Importantly, Mateu relates the operation

11 See Acedo Matellán (2010, 2016) for a proposal on how this could be accounted for under a Distributed Morphology approach.

of conflation to the availability of the co-event conflation pattern in Talmy (1991, 2000), that is, the existence of a side event.

Following Washio’s (1997) work on resultatives in Japanese, Mateu further assumes that there are two main types of resultatives: strong resultatives and weak resultatives. Strong resultatives are “[r]esultatives in which the meaning of the verb and the meaning of the adjective are completely independent of each other… In resultatives of this type, it is impossible to predict from the semantics of the verb what kind of state the patient comes to be in as the result of the action named by the verb” (Washio 1997:7).¹² This is evidenced in the examples in (40), where the verbs run and fly do not imply a result state such as thin.

(40) a. The joggers ran the pavement thin b. The planes flew the ozone layer thin.

(Randall 1982:68 apud Washio 1997:8)

Strong resultatives instantiate Talmy’s co-event conflation pattern. Accordingly, Mateu proposes that they require conflation (merge) of a process root with a light verb. The example in (41) shows the analysis for a strong resultative in a Germanic language.

(41) a. The boy danced his feet sore b.

(Mateu 2012:258)

12 One caveat is in order regarding Washio’s notion of weak and strong resultatives as it does not provide a reliable criterion to classify the different types of resultatives and explain their availability cross-linguistically inasmuch as, while it may be true that to a certain extent the meaning of the verb and that of the adjective may be more or less logically related, whether or not the verb can be used in a resultative construction and imply a specific result cannot depend solely on the lexical semantics of the adjectives.

What is more, this cannot be the only reason determining the availability of different types of resultatives cross-linguistically.

It follows that this construction should be impossible in Romance inasmuch as conflation of a root into a light verb is disallowed in Romance (42).

(42) *El chico bailó sus pies doloridos (Spanish) The boy danced his feet sore

Weak resultatives are defined negatively, that is, resultatives in which the meaning of the verb and the meaning of the adjective are not independent of each other. In the examples in (43), the meanings of roll, polish, and boil can entail result states like thin, shiny, and soft, respectively.

(43) a. John-wa pankizi-o usuku nobasi-ta (Japanese) J.-^TOP dough-^ACC thin roll out-^PST

‘John rolled the dough thin’

b. John-wa kinzoku-o pikapika-ni migai-ta J.-^TOP metal-^ACC shiny polish-^PST

‘John polished the metal shiny’

c. John-wa niku-o yawar akaku ni-ta J.-TOP meat-ACC soft boil-PST ‘John boiled the meat soft’

(Washio 1997:9) Weak resultatives are available in English and Japanese, but disallowed in Spanish, as reported by Washio (1997). Mateu further distinguishes another class of resultatives, denominated simple resultatives (44), which are available in Spanish.

(44) a. Juan puso a María nerviosa (Spanish) Juan put A María nervous

‘Juan got María nervous’

b. Juan cayó enfermo Juan fell sick

c. Juan volvió loca a María Juan turned crazy A María ‘Juan drove María crazy’

(Mateu 2012:259)

Weak resultatives and simple resultatives are required to undergo the operation of incorporation to be formed in the verb-framed pattern. In the case of weak resultatives, found in Japanese (45), the element sitting in Comp,Path is incorporated into a null light verb.

(45) a. Kare-wa teeburu-o kirei-ni hui-ta (Japanese)

he-^TOP table-^ACC clean-^NI wipe-^PST

‘He wiped the table clean’

b.

Mateu (2012:260, 262)

As for simple resultatives (46), the pattern characteristically found in Romance languages, the P(ath) element is incorporated into a light verb (cf. Hoekstra & Mulder 1990, Den Dikken 2010). Notice that, as set forth in Mateu (2002), incorporation of an element into a light verb prevents the verb from allowing a subsequent operation of conflation.

(46) a. Juan puso a María nerviosa (Spanish)

Juan put A María nervous

‘Juan got María nervous’

b.

The case of English is interesting because it makes use of both path incorporation and the co-event conflation pattern, as independent strategies, to express motion events.

The pair of sentences in (47) contains the verb dance in two different constructions:

unaccusative and unergative. The former expresses a co-event, which is non-existing in the latter. In the sequence of (47a), the co-event appears as an adjunct to a light verb, via conflation, in an unaccusative construction with an explicit directional element.

Without this element in (47b), the construction can only have a locative sense in which case the construction is unergative and there is no possible conflation operating since there is no co-event. On the other hand, the sentence in (48) is ambiguous between a directional and a locative reading. The disambiguation requires assigning different structures to each reading. In the former, the verb run is used as a light verb (cf. Hoekstra

& Mulder 1990, den Dikken 2010) in an unaccusative construction where a Path/directional element has been conflated. The latter reading is obtained from an unergative structure. In both cases, Mateu argues that there is no co-event.

(47) a. The boy danced into the room (directional) b. They boy danced in the kitchen (locative)

(48) The boy ran in the kitchen (locative/directional)

Mateu claims that the incorporating constructions in English are equivalent to the incorporating constructions in Italian; allegedly, incorporation is the only operation available in verb-framed languages. The sequence in (49) shows that the verb correre behaves similarly to its equivalent in English, since it allows incorporation of a directional element into the verb. The structure under discussion is unaccusative, as signaled by the use of essere ‘be’ as auxiliary of the perfect. A pure manner verb such as

danzare ‘dance’ cannot have a directional reading in the presence of a locational element such as a la cucina. The unaccusative reading is impossible as signaled by the use of essere

‘be’ as auxiliary of the perfect. As mentioned above, conflation is not available in verb-framed languages to express motion events, then there is no possible way in which the sequence with danzare ‘dance’ could be interpreted as a main event co-occurring with a co-event.

(49) a. Il bambino è corso a la cucina (Italian)

They boy is run prep the ditchen

‘The boy ran in the kitchen’

b. *Il bambino è danzato a la cucina The boy is danced prep the kitchen

‘The boy danced to the kitchen’

Mateu’s conclusion is that the cross-linguistic distribution of the incorporation and conflation patterns is unequal: the path incorporation pattern is pervasively present in languages, whereas the co-event conflation pattern seems to be only available in certain languages. This determines the availability of resultative structures in the languages discussed. The information has been gathered together in table 1.¹³

13 This section does not discuss other types of resultative constructions found in Romance languages consisting of two adjectives as in Italian (ia), an adverb and an adjective as in Spanish (ib), and pseudo-resultatives as in Spanish (ic).

(i) a. Maria ha martellato il metallo piatto *(piatto) (Italian) Maria has hammered the metal flat flat

(Acedo Matellán & Mateu (2015):113, (23))

b. Juan limpió la mesa bien limpia (Spanish)

Juan wiped the table very clean

(Jaume Mateu, p.c.) c. Juan pintó la pared blanca / de blanco (Spanish) Juan painted the wall.F white.F / of white

(Jaume Mateu, p.c.) The analysis of these constructions goes beyond the limits of this dissertation. For further discussion, see Bosque (1990), Armstrong (2012), Espinal & Mateu (2018), Levinson (2010), among others.

Simple resultatives Weak resultatives Strong resultatives

Spanish ✓ ✗ ✗

Japanese ✓ ✓ ✗

English ✓ ✓ ✓

TABLE 1:AVAILABILITY OF RESULTATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS