Synthesis

OPTIONAL COURSE Year III, Sem II

Applied Grammar in Translations

Lect. Univ. Dr. Filip Bacalu

I. General Issues

This course has the aim of presenting the students a review of specialized grammar

(phonetics, morphology, syntax) as well as differences in the discursive style in English and

Romanian, applied/applicable in literary translations. Thus, the students shall become

familiar, both in a theoretical and practical framework, with recognizing the hypothetically

problematic grammatical structures and their translation, with the observance of the stylistic,

discursive, pragmatic, cognitive and mentality differences between the two languages/cultures

under study. Such knowledge shall be very useful in successfully passing the final graduation

exam as well as in better handling, in translation, of the transfer from one system of thought to

the other.

The course is structured in 12 lectures, as follows:

1. The relevance of linguistic layers for translation (1 lecture)

2. The phono-morpho-syntactic level – surface structure (1 lecture)

3. Hierarchy of the grammatical problems (1 lecture)

4. Typical features of the source/target language at the morphological level (1 lecture)

5. Difficulties in translating the noun phrase (2 lectures)

6. Verbal categories of mood, tense and aspect (2 lectures)

7. The predication (2 lectures)

8. Word order difficulties/differences (1 lecture)

9. Contrastive Elements at the Level of the Sentence (1 lecture)

Form of examination Examination.

Bibliography

1. Baciu, I. 2004 – Functional Categories in English, Bucharest University Press.

2. Cornilescu, A.1995 – Concepts of Modern Grammar, Bucharest University Press.

3. Crainiceanu I. 2008 – Elements of English Morphology, Editura Fundaţiei România de

Mâine.

4. Şerban D. 2006 – The Syntax of English Predications, Editura Fundaţiei România de

Mâine.

1. The Structure of the Lexicon The Lexicon is a global store of the lexical items in the language. It provides all the properties

characterising each item/word from a phonological, grammatical (morpho-syntactic) and semantic

point of view. These properties, which are specified in the lexical entry of each item, are projected

from the Lexicon to all the other levels. Hence the name given to this universal principle: the

Projection Principle. It actually secures the link between the Lexicon and the two levels of the

Syntax in the overall organization of grammar: D-Structure and S-Structure, The basic features of all

lexical items are valid and visible at all these level.

We shall demonstrate that this is of particular interest for the major topic of the present study,

which is focused on predication. The information about verbs specifies their argument structure made

up of the thematic roles they assign to their arguments (e.g. Agent, Patient, Instrument, Goal, etc.).

Let us consider as illustration the verb send, which belongs to the class/subcategory of dative

verbs. These verbs are specialized, from a semantic point of view, for expressing the change of

possession of an entity by its transfer to a Goal, as shown by the sentence:

(1)

Mark sent the money to Pete.

Agent Patient Goal

The lexical entry for send specifies three thematic roles forming the “theta grid” / thematic structure of

the Verb send:

(2)

SEND Theta-grid: Agent, Patient, Goal

There are three participants involved in the conceptual structure of events like sending smth. to smb.:

an Agent which occupies the Subject position, a Patient role, realized syntactically by the NP the

money, functioning as Direct Object and the role of Goal, realized syntactically by the Prepositional

Phrase to Pete, functioning as Indirect Object (marked by the directional dative preposition to).

Actually the whole predication expressed by the Verb Phrase (VP) sent the money to Pete requires as

Subject an NP with the role of Agent (at the same time Source) of the transfer.

All this information is projected from the Lexicon to D-Structure and then to S-Structure,

being preserved up to the end of the derivational process, so that the following alternative of the basic

sentence, occurring at S-Structure after reordering of constituents has applied, has the same thematic

structure as the one indicated as basic in the Lexicon:

(3)

Mark sent Pete the money.

The two objects are reordered, but they still represent the same correlations between their theta role

and the function they discharge: the Indirect Object bears the role of Goal, the Direct Object the role of

Patient.

Our example above is based on the hypothesis that the two dative alternatives are related

derivationally by a movement rule which reorders the two objects. The rule is known as Dative

Movement and it applies on the dative configuration with a prepositional Indirect Object, deriving a

quasi-synonymous alternative sentence with a non-prepositional double object pattern. In the literature

there have been suggested other explanatory analyses as well. But irrespective of whether these

theories support the relation between the two constructions or not, one thing is undeniable: the same

thematic roles are projected from the Lexicon onto the two S-Structure alternatives, which also share

the basic semantic interpretation of most dative constructions: the change of possession by means of a

transfer from an Agent to a Goal.

2. The Major Thematic Roles Assigned by Verbs Here is an inventory of the theta roles that verbs can assign to their arguments in any natural

language:

(4)

Agent – the animate initiator, performer and ‘controller’ of an action: work, laugh; eat smth., build

smth. etc.

Patient/ Theme – the affected entity, be it a person or a thing undergoing the effect/impact of some

action: die, fall; the object which is eaten, written etc.

Experiencer — the participant experiencing a psychological state or process (cognitive, affective

etc.).: love, dislike, think, remember etc.

Goal — the location or entity in the direction of which something moves: (go )to London, ( give

smth.) to smb.

Benefactive/ Beneficiary — the entity that benefits from the action or event denoted by the predicate:

(buy a gift) for smb.,

(cook a dish) for smb.

Source — the location or entity from which something moves: (come) from the north

Instrument — the medium by which the action or event is carried out: (mix the sauce) with a spoon

Locative / Location — the specification of the place where the action / event takes place.

Role structures are part of our mental linguistic Lexicon, they represent lexical conceptual structures

(LCS).

3. The Types of Information in the Lexical Entry of Verbs Before embarking on the description of the major predication types in English, realized by

various verb subcategories we would like to supply a systematic presentation of the type of

information an ideal Lexicon should include in the lexical entry.

The lexical entry is as informative as possible with regard to the properties of lexical items at

each level of analysis and representation. Thus the entry for each item in the Lexicon includes:

a) The representation of the phonological form/matrix;

b) The categorial appertenance of the item, consisting in the specification of the feature indicating

the lexical or syntactic category it belongs to. Predicates are mainly realized by lexical Vs or by the

joint contribution of ‘light’ Vs and Adjectives or Nouns. For each item participating in the predication

the lexical entry will have to specify its categorial appurtenance, such as, for instance: [ + V ], [+ A ],

[+ N].

c) Inherent/ basic semantic features which are relevant from a grammatical point of view; thus Verbs

can be [+/- state], [+ / -controlled activity], [+ change-of-state/inchoative], [+ causative] etc.

d) The thematic roles assigned by the V item are indicated by its argument structure. This is specified

as the theta-grid of the respective verb, which lists the theta-roles assigned to the external argument -

the Agent (Ag), as well as the thematic roles assigned to the internal arguments, such as Patient (Pat)

or Theme, Experiencer (Exp), Instrument (Ins), Source (S), Goal (G), Benefactive (Ben) etc.

e) The subcategory/subclass the V item belongs to, viewed from a syntactic perspective, i.e. from the

point of view of the syntactic context each V occurs in. Thus the syntactic behaviour of each verb is

described by means of the subcategorization frame, specifying the complements selected by the item,

its ‘sisters’ or obligatory terms/neighbours to the right. Thus Verbs subcategorize according to their

possible co-occurrence with a NP functioning as Direct Object, as indicated by the frame: [+ _ NP].

The V items sharing this feature are considered to be transitive, the ones that do not enter the

respective frame are all intransitive verbs.

All the information supplied in the lexical entry is projected to D-Structure and to S-Structure, which

is interpreted by the PF and LF Components.

II. Morphology

1. Collective Nouns. Distributive and Collective Plurals

Collective nouns such as class, audience, government can be defined as nouns designating a whole

class of individuals. They consist of individualizable elements but their morphological form is

singular.

The list of collective nouns below reflects the most significant socio-cultural groupings of

society as found in the area of politics, trade and industry, religion, sports, etc (cf. Ştefãnescu

1988, Baciu 2004):

(a) Politics: assembly, air-force, cabinet, House of Commons, senate, government, party,

opposition, Foreign Office, minority, majority, ministry, mass, council, congress,

press, jury, committee, public, people, police, proletariat, army, troop, fleet, society,

squadron, etc.

(b) Trade / Industry: firm, staff, board, sales division, department, management, union,

club, team, etc

(c) Religion: congregation, clergy, parish, choir, ministry, etc.

(d) Education / Sports: class, crew, group, school, audience, etc

(e) Others: family, proportion, crowd, mob, company, aristocracy, gang, data, nobility,

media, household, flock, herd, poultry, mess, swarm, pack, flight, livestock, money, etc.

To this list we can add the names of many organizations which also display the behavior of

inherently collective nouns: the NATO, the BBC, the EU, etc. though these nouns are usually

interpreted as singular terms, since they refer to one unique body.

2. Morphologically Defective Nouns

Other classes of nouns are plural in meaning but are morphologically defective. They do not

evince the singular – plural contrast.

Nouns like deer, sheep and swine have their plural form identical with their singular form.

Verb agreement is either in the singular or in the plural. In fact, they are countable nouns and

their morphological irregular behavior is explained in terms of their historic, diachronic

evolution.

They take all the articles and quantifiers (plus cardinals) that characterize bona-fide countable

nouns:

(5) a. There are several deer/sheep grazing peacefully in the distance

b. His reindeer are from Lapland

c. The domestic swine fairly dotes on snakes

Nouns that designate wild animals, wild fowl and fish have the unmarked (singular) form used

for both singular and plural contexts. They are countable nouns and have count properties,

except for the lack of plural marker on the noun, which is again explained in terms of the

diachronic evolution of English. They co-occur with cardinals and plural anaphoric pronouns.

In terms of verbal agreement, the verb is always in the plural:

(6) a. Fresh-water fish are more valuable for the sport they provide than for the market

b. Are these duck or mergansers?

c. Did you get many salmon after I left?

d. Between four and five moose are annually eaten at the forts

These nouns are also called ‘collective singular’ nouns. Some of these nouns such as fish,

trout, carp take the plural marker –s when reference is made to varieties of fish.

The use of the singular form of the noun is the general tendency but there are also exceptions

to the rule:

(7) a. You may kill a few antelope

b. The true antelopes you saw are remarkable for the graceful symmetry of their bodies

The collective use of the singular form of these nouns is found particularly with the shooting

jargon. Compare:

(8) to shoot duck vs, to raise ducks

to shoot waterfowl vs, to keep fowls

Other countable nouns form their plural by Ablaut (or vowel change): foot – feet; goose –

geese; tooth – teeth; louse – lice; mouse – mice; man – men; woman – women. Again, Ablaut

preservation in plural formation is explained on historical grounds.

Compounds of ‘man’ change to ‘men’ as in fireman – firemen, postman – postmen. Similarly,

compounds of ‘woman’ form the plural by using ‘women’ as in house-woman – house-

women, charwoman – charwomen. Anglicized foreign derivatives of –man such as German,

Norman or Roman form the plural according to the general rule by adding the suffix –s:

Germans, Romans.

Other survivals from Old English are a few nouns that form the plural in –en: child – children,

ox – oxen, brother – brethren. The plural forms brethren (confraţi, from the singular brother)

is nowadays used in religious contexts:

(9) The persons least surprised at the Reverend’s deficiencies were his clerical brethren

Nouns such as cattle, livestock, poultry, people, folk, vermin are morphologically not marked

for plural (but are understood as designating sets of individuals) and agree with the verb only

in the plural. These nouns lack the singular – plural contrast:

(10) a. These cattle belong to John

b. *This cattle belongs to John

Another peculiarity of these nouns is that they cannot occur with low numerals but only with

high numerals (as in (8a,b)). Moreover, distinct lexical items must be used when individuation

takes place (as in (8a)):

(11) a. *four cattle vs. four cows

b. two hundred cattle, poultry

Instead, the nouns folk and people can be used with low numerals:

(12) These seven people/city folk

When the noun people means popor it displays regular singular – plural forms:

(13) a. The people of Romania

b. The peoples of Europe

3. Number Recategorization of Mass Nouns into Countable Nouns

We turn now to the description of the classes of uncountable / mass nouns that undergo

number recategorization, usually with a change in meaning. In this case pluralization and the

use of the indefinite article a trigger number recategorization of mass nouns into countable

nouns.

Some mass nouns can be recategorized as count/general terms when they occur in the plural

but they mean ‘kinds of x’: wine – wines, tea – teas, gas – gases, steel –steels, fruit – fruits,

coffee – coffees, fashion – fashions, etc. Consider the following examples:

(14) a. Four wines were served at dinner. They were dry wines

b. Many different wines were served at dinner

c. In the Customs list, all fruit is divided into three parts: dried fruits, green fruits and nuts

d. There was some gas left in the bag. Air is a mixture of gases

The newly formed terms in (14) are count terms since they have plural form, the verb

agreement is in the plural, the quantifier is a count quantifier (14b) and the anaphoric pronoun

is plural in form (14a).

Proper names like Murfatlar, Bordeaux, Malaga, etc., represent lexicalizations of ‘kinds’ of

wine. Syntactically and semantically these ‘names’ function as mass terms:

(15) He drank too much Bordeaux; it went straight to his head

Another class of mass terms that can be recategorized into count terms contains mass terms,

which through pluralization denote an act / an instance / an occasion of the mass term. The act

/ instance / occasion count terms have the quality of the mass term. Here are some examples:

attention - attentions, confidence - confidences, regard - regards, curiosity -curiosities,

novelty - novelties, tin - tins, paper - papers, rubber - rubbers, silk - silks, implication -

implications, mentality - mentalities, respect - respects:

(16) a. He shouted in order to attract attention. They showed the old lady numerous

attentions

b. She showed much confidence in life. The two girls were exchanging many confidences

b. He has lost all feeling in his leg. Are your feelings the same for me?

As shown by the examples in (16) the recategorized plural nouns evince count properties as

they take count quantifiers and the agreement with the verb is done in the plural.

There is another class of mass nouns that have a corresponding plural form but this time the

newly formed noun is also a mass term.

What is peculiar of these newly formed mass nouns is that the sense of the singular mass term

includes the sense of the mass plural term. Here are some examples: water - waters, snow -

snows, sand - sands, wit - wits, salt - salts.

These plural mass terms differ from their corresponding singular term in that they trigger

plural agreement with the verb (due to the plural form of the noun), plural anaphoric pronouns

but mass quantifiers:

(17) a. Water is a liquid. The waters of the Nile are essential for the country’s agriculture.

They make life possible. Much of them make life possible

b. There is plenty of snow in the Alps. The snows round the Aiguilles are the least

trodden

4. General Remarks on the Category of Gender

Gender is another functional category of the lexical category noun alongside number,

determination and case.

Indo-European languages distinguish three genders of nouns: masculine, feminine and neuter.

This division reflects the concepts of animacy, inanimacy and sex manifested in language.

Indo-European languages evince roughly two types of gender: semantic gender (where the

natural sex of an entity matches grammar) and grammatical gender (where the natural sex of

an entity is not necessarily the criterion according to which a noun belongs to a certain

gender).

Modern English has basically semantic gender. Gender information is incorporated in the

lexical information of certain words (e.g., man/he - masculine, woman/she - feminine, stick/it

– neuter). Moreover, the systems of anaphoric pronominal reference by personal pronouns

(he, she, and it), possessives (his/her book), reflexive pronouns (himself/herself) also encode

gender information.

Other languages such as Romanian, French or German have grammatical gender (given in the

dictionaries). Grammatical gender distributes gender according to other criteria: there are

morpho-syntactic markers of gender such as the quality of the stem of the word (consonant or

vowel) and the system of determiners (e.g., le/la in French, un/o in Romanian). Languages

that have grammatical gender do not observe gender classification of nouns in terms of the

sex distinction animate (male-female) versus inanimate (neuter). For instance, in Romanian

covrig is grammatically masculine, corn is grammatically neuter while sentinelã is

grammatically feminine. In German das Fräulein and das Mädchen are grammatically neuter.

Jespersen (1931) offers the following divisions of gender in Indo-European languages:

(18) Nature Grammar

(sex) (gender)

male beings masculine words

female feminine

sexless things neuter

In what follows, the discussion of gender in English mainly concerns listing nouns that evince

semantic gender. (The description draws on Ştefãnescu 1988).

In English, the distinctions between animate / inanimate and human / non-human cut across

the classification of nouns according to gender.

The Gender of Animate Entities

Nouns that denote human beings and animate entities may or may not contain gender

information.

The Gender of Male/Female Beings

Nouns that designate human beings that are marked for gender are organized in pairs: one

member of the pair designates the male being and the other the female being. Several of these

nouns have a third member that designates either member of the pair but is unmarked for

gender. Consider the list below:

(19) man woman person/human

husband wife spouse

father mother parent

boy girl child

son daughter child

lad lass youth

king queen sovereign/monarch

bridegroom bride

bachelor spinster/old maid

brother sister sibling

uncle aunt

nephew niece

lord lady

master mistress

monk/friar nun

wizard witch

Other nouns that denote human beings bearing gender information form the feminine member

by adding specific suffixes: #ess, # (t)rix, #ina, #ette. Consider the list below:

(20) prophet – prophetess count – countess

peer – peeress shepherd – shepherdess

poet – poetess heir – heiress

host – hostess prior – prioress

baron – baroness god – goddess

lion – lioness prince – princess

executor – executrix hero – heroine

czar – czarina suffragette / usherette

Nouns that denote animals are also organized in pairs: one member of the pair designates the

male animal and the other the female animal. Several of these nouns have a third member that

designates either member of the pair but is unmarked for gender (illustrated in the (21a) list

below). Other nouns denoting animals use the male animal to designate either sex (illustrated

in the (21b) list below). Other nouns use the female animal to designate either sex (as in the

(21c) list below) while still other nouns make use of compound nouns with the pronouns

she/he, the adjectives male/female or proper names to indicate sex (as in the (21d) list below):

(21a) stallion mare horse

bull cow

ram ewe sheep

boar sow pig/swine

stag hind deer

cock hen fowl

(21b) dog bitch dog

ruff reeve ruff

(21c) gander goose goose

drake duck duck

(21d) otter dog-otter bitch-otter

fox dog-fox bitch-fox/vixen

cat tom-cat tabby-cat

ass jack-ass jenny-ass

goat billy-goat nanny-goat

hare buck-hare/jack-hare doe-hare

rabbit buck-rabbit doe-rabbit

pheasant cock-pheasant hen-pheasant

pigeon cock-pigeon hen-pigeon

bear he-bear she-bear

5. Means of Expressing Future Time

The auxiliary verbs shall and will used to convey future tense in Modern English were, in

older stages of English, full verbs. Shall meant ‘I must, I am under the obligation’ and will

meant ‘I want’. ‘Obligation’ and ‘want’ are oriented to a future time sphere. In the course of

time these verbs developed into auxiliary verbs that signaled both modality (i.e., possibility /

probability) and futurity. In Modern English they retain both a temporal and a modal value

but many other linguistic means are being used to render future time more explicitly. There

are also some differences and nuances of usage that distinguish among these means.

The ATR of the future tense is [ST < RT, ET = RT] irrespective of the linguistic means that

render it.

Leech (1971) lists the following linguistic means that express futurity in Modern English;

these means belong either to the modal system or to the aspectual paradigm.

a. The present tense + future time adverbs: e.g., Exams start tomorrow

b. The present progressive: e.g., The parcel is arriving tomorrow

c. Will/shall + infinitive: e.g., The parcel will arrive tomorrow

d. Will/shall + progressive infinitive: e.g., The parcel will be arriving tomorrow

e. Be going to + infinitive: e.g., The parcel is going to arrive tomorrow

The Simple Present Tense with Future Time Adverbs Consider the following examples:

(22)a. Tomorrow is Thursday

b. I leave early tomorrow morning

c. I am off tonight

The future time meaning of the simple present tense refers to a future occasion: at the moment

of speech the speaker anticipates an event or a state that is to take place at a RT = ET that is

after/posterior to ST. The present tense with future time adverbs is used in situations when the

event is scheduled by external factors, i.e., there is a decision taken or plan fixed according to

some external authority.

The Present Progressive with Future Time Adverbs

Consider the following example:

(23) I’m starting work tomorrow

The present tense progressive plus future time adverbs is used when an element of human

volition is involved and it has the flavor of a planned, arranged action that takes place in the

future. The sentence in (24b) below is ill formed because no conscious, human agency is

involved:

(24) a. John is rising at 5 tomorrow

b. *The sun is rising at 5 tomorrow

Present progressive sentences with future time adverbs also convey a sense of imminence that

is absent from the use of the simple present tense with future time adverbs:

(25) a. The Smiths are leaving tomorrow

b. My aunt is coming to stay with us this Christmas

Palmer (1978) contrasts the use of the simple present tense form with the present progressive

form with future time adverbs in the following terms. Consider first the sentences:

(26) a. I’m starting work tomorrow

b. I start work tomorrow

“The first sentence suggests that the speaker now expects or intends to start work – he may

perhaps, have been ill. The second indicates that tomorrow is the time fixed for him to start,

e.g., by his firm or by the doctor”.

Will and Shall plus the Infinitive

Traditional grammars have interpreted modal auxiliaries will and shall as means of expressing

future tense. In fact, the contribution of these modal verbs in sentences as in (27) below

(without temporal adverbs) is modal, i.e., that of making predictions:

(27) a. Allan will be in Bucharest

b. Tomorrow’s weather will be cold and windy

c. You will feel better after you take this medicine

It is evident that will/shall also refer to future predictions due to their modal nuance. As said

above, the mixture of modal and temporal values of these modal verbs is due to the diachronic

development of English: at the beginning will/shall had only modal values and in time they

also developed a future reading when they occur with future time adverbs. Leech (1971)

makes the following comments with respect to their usage: “frequently a sentence with

will/shall is incomplete without an adverbial of definite time: *It will rain / *The room will be

cleaned. These sentences are relatively unacceptable on their own, presumably because of

their factual emptiness: we all feel certain that ‘it will rain’ at some time in the future, so there

is no point in saying ‘it will rain’ unless an actual time can be forecast”.

Will and Shall plus the Progressive Infinitive

Consider the following examples:

(28) a. This time next week I shall be sailing across the Atlantic

b. Don’t call me at 9 – I’ll be eating my supper

In the first sentence in (84a) the verb is in the progressive form and the modal shall

contributes its (modal) predictive sense. Therefore, the sentence predicts that this time next

week the activity of sailing across the Atlantic will be in progress. The prediction is made with

such a great degree of certainty that the event is presented as unfolding at a specified future

reference time. The same explanation can be considered for the second sentence. Thus, the

future interpretation of the sentences does not result from will/shall plus progressive

infinitive, but from the adverbial specification in the sentences.

Be Going To

Consider the following example:

(29) I’m going to call him

Be going to is a frozen form that cannot be analyzed into two separate verb forms: it is listed

as such in the lexicon. Jespersen (1931) remarks that the structure is going to derives from the

progressive form of the verb to go: “going loses its meaning as a verb of movement and

becomes an empty grammatical word”. The same process occurred in French with the form je

vais faire. In contemporary English, be going to is mainly used in colloquial speech.

The basic meaning of be going to is that of “future fulfillment of the present” (Leech, 1971).

Leech (1971) identifies two extensions of this general meaning of to be going to:

---the first one is ‘the future fulfillment of the present intention’ that is found with human

subjects who consciously exercise their will:

(30) What are you going to do today? I am going to stay at home and watch television

On this reading the sentence I am going to watch television is felt as stronger than I intend to

watch television.

---the second extension of the general sense of be going to can be stated as ‘future fulfillment

of present cause’. This sense is common with both agentive and non-agentive verbs:

(31) a. She is going to have another baby (i.e., she is already pregnant)

b. I think I’m going to faint (i.e., I already feel ill)

c. There’s going to be a storm in a minute (i.e., I can see the black clouds gathering)

Notice that be going to can also be used when speaking about periods remote from ST:

(32) a. I’m going to be a policeman when I grow up

b. If Winterbottom’s calculations are correct, this planet is going to burn itself out

200,000,000 years from now

The Future of Past Situations

In case the sentence has a past time sphere, all the future time expressions are modified to

indicate a future plus past situation (i.e., future in the past):

(33) a. He was leaving town the day after we arrived

b. He was going to be a policeman later in his life

Palmer (1979:130) remarks that “for future in the past, be going to is regularly used”, while in

literary style would is likely to occur (Leech, 1971):

(34) a. I was going to say that it looked a bit like a pheasant in flight

b. Twenty years later, Dick Whittington would be the richest man in London

To the above-mentioned expressions of futurity in English we can also add the following: to

be about to (used to express imminent future situations; it is less colloquial than to be going

to), to be ready to, to be near to, to be on the point of/on the verge of/on the brink of:

(35) a. He was about to retrace his steps when he was suddenly transfixed to the spot by a

sudden appearance

b. His finger was upon the trigger and he was on the point of fire

c. He has been on the brink of marrying her

d. He was just on the point of proposing to her

e. I was very nearly offering a large reward

III. Syntax

1. Simple intransitive predications

1. Syntactically Simple versus Syntactically Complex Intransitives

Transitivity and intransitivity are properties determined by the presence or absence of a Direct

Object in the frame of the verb. The Noun Phrase discharging this function is the obligatory ‘sister’

of the transitive verb, being placed in Complement position. With intransitives there is no such

‘sister’. The V - NP government relation is altogether ruled out. Nevertheless, intransitive

predications evince various degrees of semantic and/or syntactic complexity. Thus if the verb only

requires the Subject to form a grammatical sentence it is considered to be syntactically simple.

These verbs take a single argument which is assigned one role, Agent (36)-a or Patient (36)-b:

(36)

a. All the spectators are laughing.

b. Accidents will happen.

The theta-role assigned by each of the verbs that predicate the sentences above are, therefore: a)

Agent (Ag) for the Subject of laugh and b) Patient (Pat)/ Theme (T) for the Subject of happen.

These are cases of what traditional grammarians used to consider as Verbs of complete predication,

intuiting correctly that the respective verbal predicators are self-sufficient. Although these verbs do

not take Direct Objects they may be modified by Adjuncts, i.e. optional Adverbial Modifiers

realized by Adverb Phrases or Prepositional Phrases, as shown by the following sentences

predicated by syntactically simple intransitives, be they activity verbs or verbs denoting state or

change of state, e.g.:

(37)

a. The baby was crying bitterly. (Manner Adverbial)

b. Lilacs blossom in spring. (Time Adverbial)

c. The old king died in his bed. (Place Adverbial)

The Adjunct may also be a free (optional) Prepositional Object or a Predicative Adjunct reduced

from a Small Clause, e.g.;

(38)

a. He was walking with a stick. (Ag Subject, activity verb,Instrumental PO)

b. She died young. (Pat Subject, resulting state verb, Predicative Adjunct/Complement to the

Subject)

2. Syntactic Properties of Unergatives

We should also point out that the unergative behaviour of some of the above-mentioned

verbal items actually represents their basic and minimal patterning regime. Some of them may also

occur in more extended frames which include fixed/compulsory prepositions that govern NPs. If the

prepositional feature of the respective verbs is the dative to, as is the case of verbs of linguistic

activities (speak to smb., talk to smb. etc.) or verbs indicating human gestures/ motions (bow to

smb., kneel to smb. etc.) the Prepositional Phrase thus formed functions as Indirect Object (IO), as

in the following contexts:

(39)

a. Jack was talking to the Dean. (linguistic activity, IO)

b. The young actress bowed to the audience. (gesture, IO)

If the Preposition is other than the dative to, the function of the Prepositional Phrase is

Prepositional Object, as in:

(40)

a. Brian has quarrelled with his next-door neighbour. (reciprocal act, PO)

b. The members of the committee have agreed on the issue. (reciprocal act, PO)

Some of the unergatives may take two such Objects, as is the case of the complex structures in

which the first one is an IO or reciprocal PO and the second one is a PO expressing the topic/issue

the activity is focused on:

(41)

a. I have talked to the boss about my latest complaint. (linguistic activity, IO and ‘topic’PO)

b. He applied to the board for the secretarial job. (human activity, IO followed by PO indicating a

Goal)

c. John has agreed with his wife on the summer plans. (reciprocal act, reciprocal PO, ‘topic’ PO)

The most complex structures are the ones including two POs, the second of which is

‘heavy’, i.e. it is modified by other phrases, possibly a Preposional one, as i:

(42)

a. I have agreed with Mother (PO1) on blue for the kitchen (PO2).

b. The student talked to his colleagues (IO) about the summer exams in physics and chemistry

(‘heavy’PO).

All the verbs that can take such prepositional completions should be kept distinct from verbs such as

abound (in), consist (of), wonder (about) which never occur by themselves. They are considered to

be phrasal verbs which take meaningless obligatory prepositions (governors of Ps) as proved by:

(43)

a. * The treatise consisted. vs. The treatise consisted of 5 sections.

b. * I wondered. vs. I wondered about that alternative.

3. Syntactic Subcategorization of Unaccusatives

Unaccusatives can be basic / prototypical or derived. Basic unaccusatives include existential

and eventive verbs, as well as verbs indicating appearance and disappearance. They can all enter

‘there’ constructions like:

(44)

a. There lived an old man in the attic.

b. There gushed a fresh spring from the rock..

It has been noticed that the meaning of basic unaccusative subclasses is related: they denote

existence either explicitly or implicitly. This also explains why unaccusatives select two internal

arguments: minimally a single internal argument - Patient/Theme (which comes to occupy the

surface Subject position), and maximally two internal arguments – Patient and Location (as shown

by our examples above). Basic unaccusatives never shift to the transitive regime. The only case of

recategorization is the rare formation of a Cognate Object, which is a lexical copy of the verb:

(45)

a. He lived a miserable life. She lived a life of plenty.

b. The soldier died a heroic death.

Unergatives, however, take such Cognate Objects more easily:

(46)

a. They slept the sleep of the dead.

b. I dreamt a strange dream.

c. Sheila smiled an ironical smile.

d. The boy ran a long-distance race.

e. They have fought a cruel battle.

f. We waged an absurd war.

Basic unaccusatives can enter constructions in which the Location is topicalized by being

placed in initial sentence position. This word order peculiarity triggers the inversion between the

verb and the subject. The latter comes to occupy the final, post-verbal position in the sentence:

(47)

a. On either side of the street were tall, slim poplar trees.

b. Beyond the horizon appeared the red shape of the rising sun.

c. Straight ahead was a new bank glass-and-metal building.

d. In the attic lived an old couple.

Neither unergatives, nor transitives enter this inverted structure:

(48)

a.. * In the mine toiled twelve youngsters. (unergative)

b. * In the library were reading periodicals the students.(transitive)

Derived unaccusatives are the intransitive members of verbs with a two-fold regime, which is often

called ergative. Basically, ergatives are transitive verbs with a causative meaning which have also

developed an intransitive (derived) counterpart expressing a resulting state:

(49)

a. The wind/ The janitor opened the door. (Cause or Agent as external argument, Patient as

internal argument)

b. The door opened. (Patient as Subject)

The transitive configuration in (49)-a expresses an event in which causation is implied. The

intransitive pattern in (49)-b renders a resulting state. The latter predicate is considered to belong to

the subcategory of derived unaccusative. Because of the inter-relation between the meaning of

causation and the meaning of resulting state, derived unaccusatives can co-occur with resultative

phrases expressed by Adjectival Phrases or Prepositional Phrases:

(50)

a. The door banged shut.( AP functioning as Predicative Adjunct to the Subject)

b. The radio broke to pieces. ( PP with the same function)

Another ‘test’ easily passed by unaccusatives is their possible occurrence in the past participle form

with the function of Noun Modifiers. The test is also ‘passed’ by transitive verbs:

(51)

a. I bought a newly appeared novel. (unaccusative)

b. I bought a newly published novel (transitive)

c.* The miners were hard worked fellows. (unergative)

The past participle used as a Noun Modifier acquires an adjectival value; it can be modified, like

any other adjective by an Adverb, as shown by the examples above. Other illustrations include:

(52)

vanished customs, fallen trees, rotten apples, sunken ship etc.

4. Recategorization of Transitives as Intransitives.

As we already pointed out, transitivity evinces a "floating" phenomenon, which goes both

ways, from transitives to intransitives and vice versa. We shall focus below on the possible

recategorization of transitive Vs as intransitives, in other words .e. on the means by which the

bigger transitive class "feeds" the intransitive one. The process may be labeled as

intransitivization.

In order to derive an intransitive configuration, a V which is basically transitive has to "lose"

its Direct Object. The verb may become objectless by two important processes. The simpler

of the two is Deletion of the DO. A number of transitives allow this deletion if their Object

NP is [+generic] and they are easily understood in a given context:

(53)

a. She smokes too much. (cigarettes ).

b. Jack drinks daily (alcoholic beverages).

c. My husband writes for a living (fiction).

The Reflexive Direct Object can also become phonologically null with some transitive Vs,

among which dress, shave or wash:

(54)

a. He is the habit of shaving (himself ) daily.

b. Have you finished dressing (yourself )

c. You must wash (yourself) before going to bed.

This ‘omission’ of the Object is considered to be, in Relational Grammar terms, a case of

demotion. By this we mean that the respective NP ceases to bear a grammatical relation with

the V and no longer takes part in syntactic processes. Notice as well that the activity verbs in

our examples have shifted to the class of unergatives, as a result of the absence of their Direct

Object from S-structure.

Transitives can also shift to intransitives by the promotion of their Direct Objects. This

metaphorical linguistic term refers to the movement of a Grammatical Function in a higher

position in the relational hierarchy, mainly in the Subject position. This occurs in "activo-

passives"/ “middles” and in all passive constructions. The deep Object comes to acquire some

of the Subject properties (position, case-marking, agreement).

The two examples below illustrate NP movement to Subject position:

(55)

a. This play acts successfully. (DO → Su, V is still active)

b. This play has been acted successfully. (Passivization)

The verb in the first example preserves its active form, no passive morphology being

integrated. It enters the so-called middles, which are agentless verbs, requiring the movement

of the Patient/Theme to Subject. The second sentence is a complete Passive. We shall not

comment here on the differences of meaning between these quasi-similar configurations.

The reverse process will be dealt with at the end of the chapter devoted to transitive

predications.

5. Simple Transitive Predications

Simple Transitives. Government and Accusative Case Assignment. Transitive verbs are governors of their sister NPs, to which they assign Accusative

case. These NPs function as Direct Objects, being marked by the lack of preposition markers.

This contrasts with the Romanian ‘personal’ Direct Object which is marked by the preposition

pe. Compare:

(56)

a. The teacher has praised the boy.

b. Profesorul l-a lăudat pe băiat.

Minimally, transitives are two-argument verbs The correponding thematic roles are

almost uniformly an external Agent and an internal Patient/Theme. These properties are

illustrated below:

(57)

VP SCH

Spec V’

NP V NP

Kids eat chips

(Agent) (Patient)

External Internal

Argument Argument

The ‘fusion’ between the governing verb and its governee is proved by the ban on

adverbial insertion in between the two constituents. Consider:

(58)

a. Kids eat chips daily/ everyday.

b.*Kids eat daily/everyday chips.

The Frequency Adverbial cannot be placed between the transitive verb and its Direct Object.

The greatest majority of transitive verbs in English express human activities, events in which

humans play an agentive part, being initiators and controllers of actions or processes which

affect or effect (i.e. create) concrete entities ( physical objects, substances etc.).

6. Typology of Causative Verbs

Causative Verbs are transitive verbs inherently marked by [+causative] or intransitive

ones recategorized as transitives (occurring contextually as causatives). They can express

mere causation of an event:

(59)

a. Tsunami caused/ determined/ brought about a big disaster.

b. His total failure made him give up the old plans.

c. Jim had the technician upgrade his computer./ had his computer upgraded (by the

technician).

d. The candidate got the clerk to type his CV./ got his CV typed (by the clerk).

The verbs above (cause, determine, have, make, get) are prototypical causatives. There

are as well verbs denoting an event in which causation is implied:

(60)

a. The cat killed all the mice. (= caused them to die)

b. Susan taught the children French (= caused them to learn)

c. The hot temperature melted the ice. (=caused it to melt)

Causative meaning presupposes two roles: a) a Cause which can coincide with the

Agent or with the Instrument, or may simply be an external Causer; b) a Patient which

undergoes a change-of-state caused by the Cause, sometimes acquiring a resultative tinge.

This binary nature of events based on causation correlates with their syntactic regime: they

are all transitive, the Cause functioning as Subject and the Patient as Direct Object:

(61)

a. The bird flue ^ caused ^ some people’s deaths.

NP1 - Cause [+causative] NP2 -Patient

b. The bird flue ^ caused ^ some people to die

NP1 - Cause [+causative] NP2 -Patient (+resulting

state)

By Passivization the Patient moves to Subject and the Cause becomes Prepositonal

Object:

(62)

Some people’s deaths were caused by the bird flue.

Notice that verbs of the type "cause" may take a non-clausal or a clausal complement

as Direct Object, e.g.:

(63)

a. The bird flue caused people’s deaths.

b. The bird flue caused [people to die]

The logical structure of causatives in terms of logical predicates and argument

structure may be illustrated by the representation of the lexical causative kill:

(64)

KILL: [ CAUSE (x, [BECOME (y, [DEAD])])]

This structure contains three predicates; CAUSE, BECOME and DEAD, and the

elements x and y which represent the arguments of these predicates. We can identify two sub-

events: a) causation; b) becoming / inchoative. Besides there is a third predication indicating

the resulting state (that of being DEAD). The lexical conceptual structure of causative,

therefore, mainly contains a causative sub-event, hence a causative meaning and an inchoative

one.

While it is true that only transitive verb constructions may render causative meanings

it is also true that not all causative verbs are inherently transitive. In what follows we shall

tackle first the inherently transitive causatives, and afterwards the intransitive verbs that

behave contextually like transitive causatives.

7. Recategorization of Intransitives as Transitives

Intransitive verbs may float to transitive ones in various ways. In order to become

transitive they have to ‘acquire’ an Object. We shall supply below the main modalities by

which this ‘Object acquisition’ is achieved in English.

7.1. Intransitive Verbs Recategorized as Transitive by Resultative Object Formation Intransitive verbs may recategorize as transitives by taking an affected object; marked by a

hybrid Patient role with a resultative meaning:

(65)

to cry (tears),

flash (fire),

scintillate (glints, sparkles),

shine (a light),

weep (tears),

sweat (blood and water).

The NP functioning as Direct Object often contains a Noun Modifier expressed by an

Adjective, which indicates the mode or cause of the action / gesture, e.g.:

(66)

a. She put her arms down and cried quiet tears (cried quietly).

b. The young man's eyes were flashing fire.

c. His eyes scintillated an extraordinary light.

d. The old servant had blood and water to please his master.

e. He wept hot tears upon his mother's grave.

An interesting recategorization, which may acquire a metaphorical use, occurs in the

case of "impersonal" weather verbs:

(67)

a. It rained a November drizzle.

b. It rained fire and brimstone.

c. It rained blood/frogs/invitations.

Incorporation of a causative meaning results in a personal use of these verbs (they

take a [+human] Subject). The meaning is always figurative, as in:

(68)

He rained gifts upon his relatives.

The verbs look, gaze, stare, glare, peep, peer, as well as other verbs expressing human

features or attitudes: to smile, nod, laugh, breathe, sob, roar, all of which are basically

intransitive appear as recategorized when they mean "express by V-ing". The attitude

expressed appears as resultative direct object:

(69)

a. He said nothing but glanced a question.

b. Mother nodded approval.

c. The gentleman bowed his thanks.

d. She was starting her surprise/discontent.

e. He smiled appreciation/approval of the hostess' behaviour.

The Resultative Object thus obtained is constrained stylistically.

The use of Vi ∩ NPs thus functioning is almost set or frozen. The stylistic advantage

is great concision of the surface configuration, in which two underlying predicates are

reduced to one. (cf. Romanian: El mulţumi înclinându-se). Focusing is on the attitude

expressed by a human gesture or other.

Syntactically, this object is not a term, in the sense that it does not take part in further

syntactic processes, mainly in Passivization. The object is totally dependent upon the verbal

context, it cannot be fronted:

(70)

*Daggers were looked by his foe.

In Romanian, besides two-verb constructions, speakers most frequently resort to V

Manner Adverbial (expressed by an adverb proper or by a PP) - a răsufla uşurat, a ofta cu

căinţă etc.

7.2 Recategorization by Cognate Object Formation

It is a special type of Resultative Object, which is a perfect lexical copy of the verb or

a merely semantic one. The first type is traditionally labelled as object "uniform with the

verb" (Poutsma) and includes basically intransitive verbs which recategorize as transitive by

means of the copy-object. The peculiarity of the Object NP lies in its consisting of a head-N -

the nominal (ization) corresponding to the Verb and a Modifier expressed by an adjective

which indicates the manner in which the action/process takes place:

(71)

to dream a wonderful dream,

to live a miserable life,

to laugh a merry laugh,

to dance a slow dance,

to frown an angry frown,

to snow a heavy snow,

to sing a melancholy song,

to sleep a quiet sleep,

to smile an adorable smile etc.

The simpler synonymous construction, predicated by the respective intransitive verb is

of the form: Vi ∩ Manner Adverbial:

(72)

to live miserable,

to laugh a merrily,

to snow heavily,

to sing sadly,

to smile adorably,

to sleep quietly, a.s.o.Janet smiled a bright smile. Janet smiled brightly.

Vt Adj N V1 Adv Manner

NP VP

The second subtype of Cognate Object is realized by two distinct lexical items (the

object is not uniform with the verb: V ≠ N). The phonological difference between the verb and

the noun may by negligible, the noun being inter-related derivationally with the verb lexeme,

as in:

(73)

to die a death,

to tell a tale,

to speak a speech.

The second possibility concerns combinations such as:

(74)

to run a race,

to fight a battle,

to dance a waltz a.s.o.

Some of the Vs that may take a Cognate Object are, nevertheless transitive, e.g. to

draw a drawing, to sing a song etc. Because of the fact that these DOs are regarded by

speakers as redundant, DO Deletion often applies, yielding an intransitive surface string.

7.3.Recategorization by Annihilation of the Preposition

Applieble on some prepositional Vs may also result in surface V ∩ NP sequences, thus

causing the recategorization of the respective intransitives. In the following VPs the deletable

Prep is indicated between brackets:

(75)

to jump (over) a fence,

to pass (by) a building,

to skip (over) some pages,

to swim (across) a river,

to talk (about) business,

to turn (round) the corner.

The Prep taken by these basically intransitive Vs is meaningful, it indicating, in most

cases, the direction of the motion rendered by the V (except combinations such as talk about

smth.).

7.4. Dummy IT Direct Objects Dummy IT Direct Objects attached to basically intransitive V-s also bring about their

recategorization. Idiomatic phrases such as the locatives:

(76)

to pub it, to inn it,

the instrumentals:

(77)

to foot it, to bus it, to taxi it

or the behavioural:

(78)

to lady it ,to lord it

contain a V converted from the corresponding N and a pronominal NP which only evinces the

position property of the DO. Hence, such IT Objects cannot be considered as genuine terms;

they do not participate in syntactic processes like passivization, relativization etc. The

combinations being frozen, they cannot, on the other hand, be left out by deletion. This type

of IT Object, which also occurs in some idiomatic transitive Vconstructions (e.g. to get it

hot/in the neck, to make it, to catch it a.s.o.) may be said to have a vague situational meaning.

7.5. Causative Transitives Derived from Intransitives They are derived from basically intransitive V-s also represent important recategorization

instances. Constructions such as:

(79)

to fly smb.,

to float smth.,

to march smb.

to stand smb.

to walk smb. etc.,

take as DOs animate or inanimate NPs that commonly occurs as the argument expressed by

the Subject of the corresponding Vs. The Subject of the newly formed pattern expressing

causation is a Causer of the action or process rendered by the recategorized Vi:

(80)

a. He walked the horse up and down!

b. They used to graze the sheep on the neighbouring meadow.

c. He worked his men ruthlessly.

d. You may sit down ten people with ease.

Although the verbs walk, graze, work, sit are inherently intransitive they may be

paraphrased by "cause smth. / smb. to Vi".