Diathesis Alternation

Valency lexicons typically describe only unmarked usages of verbs (the active form); however, verbs prototypically enter different surface structures. In this paper, we focus on the so-called diatheses, i.e., the relations between different surface syntactic manifestations of verbs that are brought about by changes in the morphological category of voice, e.g., the passive diathesis. The change in voice of a verb is prototypically associated with shifts of some of its valency complementations in the surface structure. These shifts are implied by changes in morphemic forms of the involved valency complementations and are regular enough to be captured by syntactic rules. However, as diatheses are lexically conditioned, their applicability to an individual lexical unit of a verb is not predictable from its valency frame alone. In this work, we propose a representation of this linguistic phenomenon in a valency lexicon of Czech verbs, VALLEX, with the aim to enhance this lexicon with the information on individual types of Czech diatheses. In order to reduce the amount of necessary manual annotation, a semi-automatic method is developed. This method draws evidence from a large morphologically annotated corpus, relying on grammatical constraints on the applicability of individual types of diatheses.

Nun número considerábel de linguas, existen operacións morfosintácticas que alteran a codificación do segundo argumento transitivo, de modo que pasa a marcarse mediante unha preposición ou caso oblicuo. Esta modificación da transitividade ten consecuencias semánticas, nomeadamente en relación ao grao de efectividade do evento expresado polo verbo. Aínda que os detalles con que cada lingua materializa esta operación varían, hai pautas a nivel interlingüístico claramente identificábeis. A principal delas é a degradación sintáctica e semántica do segundo argumento, que se asocia á perda de prominencia discursiva deste participante. O propósito desta contribución é explorar liñas de converxencia entre as construcións das diferentes linguas, co obxectivo de poderen ser tratadas de maneira conxunta. Para isto, é preciso abstraerse dos pormenores das realizacións particulares. Deste modo, cada construción concreta revélase como a manifestación dunha operación máis xeral, moi estendida entre as linguas, de democión do segundo participante. No desenvolvemento deste artigo, trataranse as alternancias antipasiva e conativa e a construción con preposición en do galego, atendendo á súa sintaxe e semántica e examinando a relación destes esquemas gramaticais coa transitividade.

In a significant number of languages there exist morphosyntactic operations modifying the codification of the transitive second argument so that it is no longer marked as object and is marked instead by a preposition or oblique case. This modification of transitivity has semantic implications, especially concerning the degree of effectiveness of the event expressed by the verb. Although the details of this operation vary in each language, there are clearly identifiable cross-linguistic patterns, of which the principal one is the syntactic and semantic demotion of the second argument. This paper explores the possible alignment of constructions of different languages with the objective of treating them together. For this purpose, it is necessary to filter out the details of particular realization patterns. In this way, each particular construction is shown to be a manifestation of a widespread, more general operation demoting the second participant. This article looks at antipassive and conative alternations and the Galician construction with preposition en, taking into consideration their syntax and semantics and examining their relation to transitivity.

La Interlengua de brasileños aprendices de Español se caracteriza por la presencia de estructuras atributivas que desentonan de la lengua meta. Este trabajo se concentra en dos contextos donde aparecen, el de las construcciones de cambio de estado y las pasivas. Se mostrará que estos contenidos pueden expresarse por lo menos de dos formas distintas y que la forma elegida por los aprendices brasileños es justamente aquélla que en Español no es la más corriente. Esta diferencia está en la raíz de muchas de las discrepancias que se observan entre la producción de aprendices brasileños y el Español y refleja diferencias en el modo de organización sintáctica del portugués brasileño y del Español.

In Present-day Englishblameis known to be the only verb which participates in what Levin (1993) calls the ‘blamealternation’ (e.g.Mira blamed the accident on TerryvsMira blamed Terry for the accident). This article investigates how the modern usage has developed since the verb was borrowed from Old French at the beginning of Middle English, an area which has received little attention so far. With a comprehensive survey of the quotations database of theOEDOnline, the main focus is on the diachronic relationship between different syntactic patterns and the animacy of the target of blame. It will be demonstrated that, contrary to the common accounts in grammars and previous studies, the target is often not an animate being, and the two constructions forming theblamealternation have a very different origin and development, with a gap of five centuries between their first attestations. The status of the participant role expressing the cause of blame, which is considered to be omissible i...

En gallego, un amplio conjunto de verbos transitivos muestra una alternancia diatética, de tal modo que su objeto directo puede ser realizado como un complemento oblicuo introducido por la preposición en. En esta contribución, analizo la sintaxis y la semántica del fenómeno. Por una parte, defiendo que se trata de una alternancia entre funciones sintácticas distintas y no entre variantes de una misma función. Por otra parte, examino el fenómeno desde el punto de vista del aspecto léxico, para concluir que el alternante oblicuo expresa un evento agentivo del tipo actividad. Los modelos basados en la afección y en la descomposición de predicados no son capaces de explicar el fenómeno en su conjunto. Para dar cuenta de la totalidad de los datos, propongo un análisis basado en la agentividad. Por último, tras examinar otras alternancias transitivo/oblicuo, concluyo que los hechos del gallego son manifestación de una operación, muy extendida entre las lenguas, de degradación del segundo argumento.

In Galician, a large set of transitive verbs displays a diathesis alternation, in such a way that its direct object can be realized as an oblique complement introduced by the preposition 'en'. In this contribution, I analyze the syntax and semantics of the phenomenon. On the one hand, I argue that this is an alternation between different syntactic functions, and not between variants of the same function. On the other hand, I analyze the phenomenon from the point of view of lexical aspect, concluding that the oblique alternant expresses an agentive, activity event.
Models based on affectedness and predicate decomposition are unable to explain the phenomenon as a whole. In order to account for all the data, I propose my own analysis based on agentivity.
Finally, after examining other transitive/oblique alternations, I conclude that the Galician facts are a manifestation of a widespread phenomenon among languages: the demotion of the second argument.