TY - JOUR
T1 - Instruments
T2 - A case study of the interface between syntax and lexical semantics
AU - Ono, Naoyuki
N1 - Copyright:
Copyright 2017 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 1992
Y1 - 1992
N2 - Instruments generally fall into two classes: those which can appear as the subject of sentence and those which cannot. The difference stems from the semantic dependency between causation and instrumentality involved in the meaning of verbs. This article presents a lexical semantic analysis of instruments in relation to the mapping of semantic structure onto syntactic structure. It argues that the underlying structure of the instrumental construction is a direct structural reflection of semantic relations represented in verbs’ lexical conceptual structures. Cross-linguistic evidence in support of this claim is partly drawn from the applicative construction and the serial verb construction. This account offers a challenge to a widespread assumption that the mapping between semantic and syntactic structures is mediated by argument structure.
AB - Instruments generally fall into two classes: those which can appear as the subject of sentence and those which cannot. The difference stems from the semantic dependency between causation and instrumentality involved in the meaning of verbs. This article presents a lexical semantic analysis of instruments in relation to the mapping of semantic structure onto syntactic structure. It argues that the underlying structure of the instrumental construction is a direct structural reflection of semantic relations represented in verbs’ lexical conceptual structures. Cross-linguistic evidence in support of this claim is partly drawn from the applicative construction and the serial verb construction. This account offers a challenge to a widespread assumption that the mapping between semantic and syntactic structures is mediated by argument structure.
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U2 - 10.9793/elsj1984.9.196
DO - 10.9793/elsj1984.9.196
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85011154591
VL - 9
SP - 196
EP - 222
JO - English Linguistics / Journal of the English Linguistic Society of Japan
JF - English Linguistics / Journal of the English Linguistic Society of Japan
SN - 0918-3701
ER -