Malka Hovav

Hebrew University of Jerusalem | HUJI · Department of Linguistics

In this paper we explore some facets of Borer's approach to the relation between verbs and the syntactic contexts available to them. We point out certain challenges that this overall research agenda faces and explore their consequences through a preliminary study of the English verb sweep in its varied syntactic frames and their correlated interpre...

This is a reprint of a volume edited by Levin, Rappaport and Zaenen which was originally published by Indiana University Press. The reprint is edited by Miriam Butt and Tracy Holloway King.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/4178511

This paper argues that the set of verbs characterized by Levin & Rappaport Hovav (1995) as internally caused do not form a grammatically coherent class. In particular, the verbs which have been termed internally caused change of state verbs show grammatical properties which distinguish them from all the other internally caused verbs. It is argued t...

1.1 Hebrew and the question of language continuity This volume discusses empirical and theoretical issues having to do with the emergence of Modern Hebrew (MH) and with phenomena in other languages which shed light on the special case of Hebrew. The emergence of MH is an unprecedented phenomenon in that it is the only documented case of a language...

This paper argues that the set of verbs characterized by Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1995) as internally caused do not form a grammatically coherent class. In particular, the verbs which have been termed internally caused change of state verbs show grammatical properties which distinguish them from all the other internally caused verbs. It is argued...

1. Introduction An assumption underlying much work in lexical semantics is that the basic conceptual components of event descriptions are drawn from the same inventory cross-linguistically and that the mapping to morpho-syntactic constituents is subject to constrained cross-linguistic variation. The challenge is to articulate what the basic compone...

The relation between lexical semantics and morphology has not been the subject of much study. This may seem surprising, since a morpheme is often viewed as a minimal Saussurean sign relating form and meaning: it is a concept with a phonologically composed name. On this view, morphology has both a semantic side and a structural side, the latter some...

This monograph presents a comprehensive account of transitivity alternations involving the (non)expression of the external argument. It focuses on the causative alternation and both verbal and adjectival passives, drawing principally on data from English, Greek, and German, with reference to literature on other languages where available. Alexiadou,...

This article discusses a constructional idiom that has developed in recent Modern Hebrew, based on the Classical Hebrew collocation expressing the committing of suicide, with the verb replaced by an open position that can be filled by a wide range of verbs. It is argued that the development of the idiom involved a syntactic re-analysis of the origi...

This paper supports an analysis of the causative alternation in English in which all alternating verbs are lexically associated only with the internal argument(s). Lexical and contextual constraints on the distribution of the variants are distinguished. Semantic constraints on what kinds of causes appear with which verbs in various uses are argued...

We investigate the English verbs climb and cut, cited as counterexamples to manner/result complementarity: the proposal that verbs lexicalize either manner or result meaning components, but not both. Once their lexicalized meaning is identified and distinguished from contextually determined elements of meaning, cut and climb conform to manner/resul...

Nonstative verbs from various lexical fields are often classified as either manner or result verbs—a distinction implicated in language acquisition (Behrend 1990, Gentner 1978, Gropen et al. 1991), as well as in argument realization. Intuitively speaking, manner verbs specify as part of their meaning a manner of carrying out an action, while result...

This book focuses on the linguistic representation of temporality in the verbal domain and its interaction with the syntax and semantics of verbs, arguments, and modifiers. Leading scholars explore the division of labour between syntax, compositional semantics, and lexical semantics in the encoding of event structure, encompassing event participant...

The paper proposes a unified analysis of reflexivization, applicable equally to Semitic languages and to Romance languages. We contrast our account with previous ones that have distinguished between reflexivization of the sort found in Semitic, which is clause-bound, can be the input to nominalization, and is sensitive to the semantics of the verb,...

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 1984. MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND HUMANITIES. Bibliography: leaves 254-257. by Malka Rappaport. Ph.D.

We challenge the predominant view of the English dative alternation, which takes all alternating verbs to have two meanings: a caused possession meaning realized by the double object variant and a caused motion meaning realized by the to variant. Instead, we argue that verbs like give and sell only have a caused possession meaning, while verbs like...

Reinhart and Siloni (2005) develop a theory of valence-changing operations (arity operations in their terms) which includes a "lexicon-syntax" (lex-syn) parameter; through this parameter, Universal Grammar allows valence-changing operations to apply in the lexicon or the syntax, according to the setting of the parameter for each language: 1 (1) a....

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Recent work in argument expression has focused on verbs showing multiple argument projection options, often with concomitant shifts in aspectual classification or assignment of so-called "aspectual roles" (e.g., measure or incremental theme). Theories of argument projection generally adopt one or both of the following hypotheses: (1) argument proje...

any alternations can be so understood. Arguments that are alternately expressed as direct object and oblique, e.g., (1), reflect alternations between telic and atelic uses of verbs, while alternate choices of direct object, e.g., (2), are a reflection of alternate choices of the argument which determines the telicity of the sentence. The pervasiven...

A hallmark of the English resultative construction is the presence of a result XP—an XP denotinga state or location that holds of the referent of an NP in the construction as a result of the action denoted by its verb. Studies of resultatives have often focused on the constraints on the distribution and interpretation of these XPs. These constraint...

This paper investigates the phenomena that come under the label ‘causative alternation’ in English, as illustrated in the transitive and intransitive sentence pair Antonia broke the vase / The vase broke. Central to our analysis is a distinction between verbs which are inherently monadic and verbs which are inherently dyadic. Given this distinction...

This paper presents a case study in lexical semantic analysis aimed at uncovering syntactically relevant components of verb meaning. Our strategy is to investigate the nature of the lexical knowledge that a speaker of English possesses with respect to certain apparently semantically related verbs: a set of verbs that might as a first approximation...