Ramchand (2014)

Ramchand (2014) argues for a Cross-Modular Unification approach to meaning whereby a lexical root contains different types of meaning, which are obtained from different sources and later unified during the derivation. Type-A meaning (68) instantiates structural meaning relevant for syntax, which is used to create an articulated phrase structure, whereas type-B meaning (69) encapsulates lexical conceptual meaning with no effect over syntax but relevant to the mind module as it spreads all over the syntactic structure.

(68) Type-A Meaning (“Skeleton”)

A structured representation of abstract factors that are directly correlated with linguistic generalizations concerning argument structure realization in the syntax.

(It is an open question whether the information in this domain is linguistically universal, or whether individual languages can choose to grammaticize sub portions of a set of more general primitives made available by cognition.)

(69) Type-B Meaning (“Flesh and Blood”)

Encyclopedic and conceptually rich information that provides detailed expression to highly specific named events. It is always unsafe to assume that this type of meaning package is universal although it is drawn from common human cognitive primitives, since it is packaged up in culturally specific and historically contingent ways.

(Ramchand 2014:208)

In the derivation, the resulting bundles of A meaning (categorial features) and type-B meaning (conceptual information) realize each of the nodes of the syntactic tree, as stated by Ramchand in the principles governing the lexical instantiation of the structure, namely, the Exhaustive Lexicalization principle (70) and the Non-terminal Lexicalization principle (71).

(70) Exhaustive Lexicalization¹⁷

Every node in the syntactic representation must be identified by lexical content.

(71) Non-terminal Lexicalization

Lexical items are bundles of conceptual information specified with a set of categorial features which determine points of meaning unification with syn-sem structure (which I assume must correspond to continuous stretches of hierarchical structure in order to feed linearization).

(Ramchand 2014:211-212)

As Ramchand points out in her definition of type-A meaning, any patterns or tendencies in verbal meaning across languages should be associated to this type of meaning, since type-B is world-knowledge, or culturally, based. One of these patterns or tendencies appears in the encoding of scalar change, namely, that associated with path of motion, property change and incremental themes. The notion of verb-framed and satellite-framed languages is notably connected to different patterns of encoding scalar change. Verb-framed languages encode the path of motion in the verb root while

17 See Fábregas (2007) for the original formulation of this principle and further discussion of its application.

satellite-framed languages can encode the path of motion in satellites or particles. As shown, Spanish, along with other Romance and Germanic languages, codifies result/path information in the lexical verb root realizing the result portion of the first-phase syntax; in contrast, English’s equivalent forms make use of satellites to instantiate this subevent.

According to Ramchand, another relevant source of information to corroborate this assumption would be light verbs. As a result of verbal polysemy, a verb may count with a full-fledged lexical version and a light version. Lights verbs should be recognized as different from auxiliary verbs, whose semantic and conceptual content is non-existent and purely functional (see table 3). In Ramchand (2018), these elements, such as the auxiliary or copula be in English, for example, instantiate the Event, Tense, and Aspect nodes of the syntactic structure. Ramchand cites Butt and Lahiri (2013) for the generalization on this type of stable polysemy involving lexical and lights verbs (72).

(72) Butt and Lahiri’s Generalization (Butt and Lahiri 2013)

Unlike auxiliaries which may become grammaticalized over time to have a purely functional use, light verbs always have a diachronically stable corresponding full or “heavy” version in all the languages in which they are found.

(Ramchand 2014:217, (11))

Ramchand sets light verbs clearly apart from their lexical counterparts on the basis of the amount of semantic information that each of them contains. Specifically, light verbs instantiate only type-A meaning, that is, only a subset of the information contained in the heavy version of the verb. As shown in table 3, we can set apart lexical verbs, light verbs, and auxiliaries on the basis of the division of meaning identifiers. That is, lexical verbs instantiate both A and B meanings, light verbs exclusively contain type-A meaning, and auxiliaries are devoid of both type-type-A and type-B meanings. See chapter 3 for further discussion.

Type-A meaning Type-B meaning

Lexical verbs ✓ ✓

Light verbs ✓ ✗

Auxiliaries ✗ ✗

TABLE 3:VERBAL POLYSEMY AND TYPE-A AND TYPE-B MEANINGS

Light verb uses can be identified on the basis of the compatibility of the bare nominal appearing with them with tests such as “passivization, Wh-movement, relativization, reference by means of a pronominal, modification by adjectives, and use of a definite article” (Ramchand 2014:219). As an example, consider Ramchand’s analysis of the heavy and light uses of the verb give in English. The heavy use refers to a possession transfer (73), while the light use denotes a volitional action or experience (74).

(73) a. John gave Mary a book b. John gave Mary a kiss

(Ramchand 2014:220, (15))

(74) John/the train gave a shudder/sigh/whistle

(Ramchand 2014:222, (19))

In spite of the difference in meaning complexity, Ramchand concludes that both uses codify the same type-A information, that is, they both contain init, proc, and res phrases;

however, other types of information such as physical transfer are lost (cf. (73) and (74)).

Through the examination of the heavy and light uses of English, Bengali, and Persian verbs, Ramchand provisionally concludes how meaning identifiers should be divided up between meaning types (see table 4). The syntactically represented event-structure would include information regarding: causation, as represented by initP; event structure properties such as dynamicity, resulting from the combination of initP and procP; and abstract path information, that is, types of scalar change. If scalar change is the source of cross-linguistic variation among languages, and this variation has its locus in the language’s capability to realize the result portion of the event by means of a morphophonological element independent of the verb, that is, in these languages,

resultative structures may consist of two independent lexemes, while in verb-framed languages the resultative structure can only be created by a single verb root, then we might assume that what is at stake is the ability to introduce a bivariate transition by means of a morphophonological element independent of the verbal root or a multivariate transition by means of a PathP, and the possibility of combining these elements with a non-scalar verbal head, that is a procP. In turn, lexical items, verbs or morphemes, would contain one or an array of lexical encyclopedic identifiers such as manner of causation, change, properties, locations, etc.

Domains of conflation I¹⁸

Syn-Sem (Type-A meaning) Lexical Encyclopedic Identifiers (Type-B meaning)

Cause - Manner of causation (instruments, degree of

volitionality)

Non-change vs. change - Specific properties and state descriptions - Manners of change

Non-scalar vs. scalar change - Types of dynamicity generally (qualities of motion, speed, attitude, shape and orientation of figure, etc.) Multivariate vs. bivariate transition - Types of scalar changes (properties, ordered

location)

Source of scale - Specific properties, locations for start and end of scalar path

Result of change

TABLE 4:DOMAINS OF CONFLATION I(RAMCHAND 2014)

Ramchand notices that the verbs participating in this specific type of polysemy are

“verbs of generalized movement and transfer in space (attached to different path properties)” (2014:240); accordingly, she lays out the idea that there might be a group of cognitive defaults including transfer, motion, and location which may be added to verbs that lack sufficient lexical encyclopedic identifiers. Thus, per definition, light verbs could become heavy by the application of cognitive defaults if no other element provided the missing event structure parts (see table 5).

18 The term conflation as used by Ramchand should not be equaled to the use of this term in Hale &

Keyser (2002), Mateu (2002, 2012), Mateu & Acedo Matellán (2012), Acedo Matellán & Mateu (2014), and Acedo Matellán (2010).

Domains of conflation II

Syn-Sem (Type-A meaning) Cognitive Defaults Lexicon (Type-B meaning)

Cause Caused positional transfer

Everything else Non-change vs. change Locations

-Manners of motion Non-scalar vs. scalar change Change of location Multivariate vs. bivariate

transition Source of scale Result of change

TABLE 5:DOMAINS OF CONFLATION II(RAMCHAND 2014)

Ramchand’s hypothesis about the existence of these cognitive defaults might be supported by studies in human cognition, tracking eye-movement and attention allocation patterns in subjects whose first language is a verb-framed or satellite-framed language. The next section reviews these studies to pinpoint Ramchand’s hypothesis.

Afterwards, section 4.3 returns to the question of how Talmy’s co-event fits in the Ramchandian framework.

4.2. Ramchand’s core cognitive defaults: the existence of