English Aspectual Verbs [Reprint 2017 ed.] 9783110818451, 9789027933928

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JANUA LINGUARUM STUDIA M E M O R I A E N I C O L A I VAN WIJK D E D I C A T A edenda curai C. H. V A N

SCHOONEVELD

Indiana University

Series Practica, 203

ENGLISH ASPECTUAL VERBS

by FREDERICK J. NEWMEYER University of Washington

1975

MOUTON THE HAGUE • PARIS

© Copyright 1975 in The Netherlands. Mouton & Co. N.V., Publishers, The Hague. No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publishers.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 74-77826

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I: II:

Introduction

7

Verbs of Occurrence and Aspectual Adjectives

12

III:

The Begin-Class (I)

25

IV:

The 2tegi«-Class (II)

40

V:

The Begin-Class (III)

59

VI:

The Modal Auxiliary

71

Appendix: Aspectual Verbs and The Level of Deep Structure

89

Bibliography

94

I INTRODUCTION

This work is an explication of part of the linguistic competence of every speaker of English. I feel that the theory of transformational-generative grammar, whose goals were first defined in Chomsky (1957), provides the best means of characterizing this competence and have assumed its fundamental correctness throughout. In addition, I have drawn upon the theoretical advances of Lees (1960), Katz and Postal (1964), and Chomsky (1965).1 Chomsky (1965) proposes that a well-defined grammatical level called "deep structure" exists, which is equivalent to neither surface structure nor semantic representation, but is intermediate between them. In his theory, transformational rules map deep structures onto surface structures and interpretive semantic rules map deep structures onto semantic representations. Furthermore, at the level of deep structure selectional relations between lexical items are defined; in Chomsky's words "strict subcategorial and selectional restrictions of lexical items are defined by transformational rules associated with these items" (139). Since the publication of Chomsky (1965), many papers, a good number of them still unpublished, have called into question some of its fundamental assumptions regarding the nature of grammars. The revisions of this work have taken two basic directions. One, the theory of "generative semantics", has challenged the existence of the level of deep structure. In G. Lakoff and Ross (1967), McCawley (1967), Postal (1970), and in many other papers it is demonstrated that there is a direct mapping from semantic representation onto surface structure. No independent intermediate level is found at which Chomsky's defining criteria for this level (block insertion of lexical items and optimal statement of co-occurrence and selectional restrictions) converge. Generative semantics has as a premise that the meaning of a sentence can be represented by a phrase-marker - in this sense semantic representations do not differ 1

English Aspectual Verbs is a slight revision of a 1969 University of Illinois doctoral dissertation, written while I was a guest of the Research Laboratory of Electronics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Whatever merits it has are attributable to the stimulating environments for linguistic research at those two institutions and to the criticism of my supervisory committee at Illinois. However, I take sole responsibility for whatever errors remain.

8

INTRODUCTION

formally from syntactic representations. Generative semanticists (McCawley 1968a) have also abandoned the notion that selectional restrictions can serve as a defining characteristic of an intermediate grammatical level. The other basic direction has been taken by Chomsky himself (1970, 1971) and his students Jackendoff (1972) and Emonds (1970). Their approach, "interpretive semantics", maintains the level of deep structure and posits interpretive semantic rules which map not only deep structure but also surface structure representations onto semantic representations. A further distinguishing characteristic of interpretive semantics is that it does not allow instances of what, borrowing a term from phonology, might be termed "absolute neutralization" in syntax. That is, it excludes the possibility of a designated token of a lexical category being introduced in the base, only to be deleted obligatorily, regardless of its environment, by the application of a syntactic transformation. This condition excludes pro-verbs representing semantic classes being introduced by the base rules and, of course, leads to deep structures which are very "shallow"; i.e. very close to surface structure. I believe the arguments put forth by the generative semanticists to be fundamentally correct, and will assume their validity throughout this work. However, because of the relative inaccessibility of some of the more recent material, I will call attention to any specific deviations from Chomsky (1965). In the Appendix, I demonstrate how evidence from the aspectual verbs themselves points toward the correctness of the theory of generative semantics. I will use the possibly unfamiliar term "remote structure", introduced by Postal (1970), to refer to a representation of a sentence more abstract than its surface structure yet not necessarily its semantic representation. It should be made perfectly clear that I am not claiming that there is an intermediate LEVEL of remote structure with properties which must be met by all derivations. This work will be devoted to justifying several claims about grammatical entities which I call "aspectual verbs". Aspectual verbs, essentially, are lexical items whose semantic role is to function as one-place predicates of arguments which contain entire propositions. Happen is a typical aspectual verb in this sense. As an example, contrast it with non-aspectual try. Happen and try occur in many sentences to which identical surface structure must be assigned, as in (la) and (lb): (1)

a. John happened to annoy Bill, b. John tried to annoy Bill.

However, speakers of English are aware that the verbs happen and try function very differently in their respective sentences. They understand happen to function as a one-place predicate, try as a two-place predicate. In this case the logical subject of happen is an event - John's annoying Bill. Notice that in (2a) and (2b), where the order of elements is very different from (la), happen is still understood as the predicate of the same proposition:

INTRODUCTION

(2)

9

a. Bill happened to be annoyed by John, b. It happened that John annoyed Bill.

(lb) differs from (la) semantically in a very basic way. Try in (lb) is understood as a two-place rather than a one-place predicate. One argument is the logical subject John, the other argument is the logical object which contains the proposition John annoy Bill. Try is therefore not an aspectual verb. Other sentences which are interpreted in a way similar to (lb) are the following: (3)

a. John wanted to annoy Bill. b. John was aware that he annoyed Bill.

(3a) describes a desire of John's, (3b) a feeling that John had. In both cases the predicates are two-place; they have for arguments John and John annoy Bill. Thus, want and aware are not aspectual verbs. The main verbs of the following sentences are also not aspectual: (4)

a. Dan died at dawn. b. We walked for miles. c. Sam was breathing heavily.

While die, walk, and breathe are one-place predicates semantically, their arguments (Dan, we, and Sam) are simple - they do not themselves contain propositions. Other elements besides happen function logically as one-place predicates of entire propositions. For example, consider the verbs chance, occur, and turn out as used in the following sentences: (5)

a. Tom chanced to find a four-leaf clover. b. The demonstration occurred yesterday. c. It turned out that Bill had lost.

In each of the above sentences, the main verbs take entire propositions as subject arguments. In (5a), what "chanced" was not "Tom", but "Tom's finding a four-leaf clover". In (5b), the surface subject the demonstration is clearly complex semantically. It must be derived from an underlying proposition with an unspecified subject argument and "demonstrate" as a predicate. In (5c), what "turned out" was not "it", but "Bill's losing". The main verbs of (5), therefore, are all aspectual. To act as one-place predicate of a proposition is not necessarily to report on its occurrence or non-occurrence. As the following sentences show, one can modify an entire proposition by supplying opinions or judgments about it. For example: (6)

a. b. c. d.

It is likely that John will go tomorrow. Mary's going off to college is imminent It is false that Agnew is a Communist. Peter is sure to flunk agronomy.

In the sentences of (6), the words likely,imminent, false,undsure function analogously to happen, chance, occur, and turn out in the previous sentences and are, therefore,

10

INTRODUCTION

aspectual verbs. They are predications upon not just the individual lexical items John, Mary, Agnew, and Peter, but upon propositions - "John's going tomorrow", "Mary's going off to college", "Agnew's being a Communist", and "Peter's flunking agronomy". Although they are what are traditionally termed "adjectives", their semantic effect is closer to that of the verb happen than to that of the adjectives careful, smart, and reckless as used in the following sentences : (7)

a. Max was careful to read the instructions. b. It was smart of Ronald to buy the tickets early. c. Harry is a reckless driver.

The adjectives of (7) take as logical subject arguments "Max", "Ronald", and "Harry" rather than entire propositions. In this respect they resemble the verb try of (lb) much more than the adjectives of (6). Thus, careful, smart, and reckless in (7) are not aspectual verbs. In the remainder of this work I will actually be concerned only with a sub-class of what I have termed "aspectual verbs" : namely, those which have the surface form of verbs, adjectives, and modal auxiliaries. It is clear that quantifiers, negative particles, auxiliary elements, and some adverbials have the property of "aspectuality" (i.e. are aspectual verbs). However, I will not be discussing them in any detail. Furthermore, I will not attempt a complete syntactic and semantic analysis of these remaining aspectuals, a task which would require several volumes. The following chapters will be devoted simply to justifying that the surface structure verbal, adjectival, and modal aspectuals manifest the following properties: 2 (I) In remote structure they are all intransitive and subject-embedding. (II) The semantic predicates underlying them all manifest the following co-occurrence restrictions : (A) They may never co-occur independently with adverbials. (B) They may never select tense independently. (C) They may never select aspect independently. (I) means that at some remote stage in their derivation, sentences containing aspectual verbs may be represented schematically as phrase-marker (8). That is, the main verb of the higher sentence (the aspectual) is immediately dominated by S and is intransitive : (8)

^ V

NP

In addition, the subject NP must immediately dominate S.3 2 (IIB) and (IIC) follow automatically from (HA) given McCawley's (1971) hypothesis that tense is a pronominal form of a time adverb. 3 I am assuming the correctness of the proposal by McCawley (1970) that English is verb-initial until after all of the cyclic rules have applied.

INTRODUCTION

11

Demonstrating the correctness of (I) involves demonstrating that putative counterexamples either have a more abstract structure underlying them where (I) holds, or are simply incorrect. Both types of putative counterexamples have been advanced in the literature, as I will show in the following chapters. It should be pointed out that the correctness of (I) gives considerable support to the claims of generative semantics. If we can syntactically motivate the claim that at some remote stage in a derivation propositions correspond structurally to sentences, predicates to verbs, and arguments to noun phrases, the idea that semantic representations are formally similar to syntactic representations becomes highly plausible. The truth of (IIA-C) is also far from obvious. In the following chapters I will show that putative counterexamples to it arise from various transformational operations on semantic representations where these co-occurrence restrictions hold.

II VERBS OF OCCURRENCE AND ASPECTUAL ADJECTIVES

In this chapter, I will attempt to justify (I) and (II) of Chapter I for two important sub-classes of aspectual verbs: verbs of occurrence and aspectual adjectives. Verbs of occurrence are those which predicate the existence or occurrence of their associated propositions. This class includes the verbs or verbal idioms happen, occur, urn out, be, exist, come to pass, and take place. Aspectual adjectives are those which predicate an opinion or evaluation of a proposition or the probability of its occurrence. This class, whose members may be either factive or nonfactive, includes the surface structure adjectives significant, odd, exciting, likely, possible, true, and false, to name but a few. Verbs of occurrence and, to a lesser extent, aspectual adjectives, have syntactic properties which differ markedly among themselves. Yet all can be shown to be aspectual verbs, in the sense which I have defined the term. Rather than to attempt to distinguish the members of the two classes from their class mates in terms of their syntactic properties, I will take happen and likely as "typical" members of their classes and concentrate on them. Other verbs from these two classes will be cited only to further amplify or clarify a point. (I) of Chapter I is generally accepted to be true for the verb happen and other members of its class. It is fairly easy to demonstrate that remote structure (1) provides a suitable base phrase-marker from which sentences (2) and (3) may be derived by independently motivated transformational rules:1 (1)

1

Phrase-marker (1) ignores tense, aspect, and other factors which are extraneous to the argument. Simplifications of this sort will be adopted throughout the book. The terminal symbols happen, annoy, etc. are probably not realized lexically until after the cyclic rules have applied (McCawley, 1968) - in (1) they may be interpreted as the semantic predicates underlying lexical items.

VERBS OF OCCURRENCE AND ASPECTUAL ADJECTIVES

13

(2) John happened to annoy Bill. (3) It happened that John annoyed Bill.2 The derivation of (2) simply involves the well-known rule of SUBJECT RAISING 3 sister-adjoining John to the right of happen and V-NP INVERSION (McCawley 1970) interchanging these two nodes. For the verb happen, SUBJECT RAISING is optional. Its non-application, however, demands that the dummy subject it be inserted before the embedded sentence, blocking ungrammatical (4): (4) * John's annoying Bill happened. After IT INSERTION, V-NP INVERSION produces sentence (3). The obvious fact that John is interpreted as subject, and Bill as object, of annoy in (2) and (3) plus the strong motivation for SUBJECT RAISING puts a heavy burden on anyone wishing to dispute (I) for the verb happen. That likely and other members of its class are also intransitive subject-embedding verbs in remote structure is not difficult to demonstrate. To show that sentences (6), (7), and (8) are derived from remote structure (5) involves arguing that adjectives have verbs underlying them, that the rules producing the derived surface structures are well motivated, and that superficially plausible alternative explanations are incorrect.4 (5)

I

Bill

(6) That John will annoy Bill is likely. (7) John is likely to annoy Bill. (8) It is likely that John will annoy Bill. G. Lakoff (1970a) has argued convincingly that surface structure adjectives belong 2

Sentences (2) and (3) are clearly non-synonymous, as they differ in focus. I believe that this is accounted for by a global rule relating semantic representation and surface (or shallow) structure, and has no direct bearing on whether (1) underlies them. 8 Throughout this book the names of specific transformations will, by convention, be capitalized. The rule which moves an embedded subject to the position of matrix subject for subject-embedding intransitives is one of the most solidly-grounded transformations. Motivation may be found in Rosenbaum (1967), where an earlier version of the rule is called PRONOUN REPLACEMENT, and in G. Lakoff (1966) under the name of IT REPLACEMENT. 4 While I believe it to be the case that the sentence whose main verb is likely is embedded in a sentence whose main verb is be (thus accounting for the be copula of sentences with adjectives), my arguments hold if be is simply inserted by a syntactic rule.

14

VERBS OF OCCURRENCE AND ASPECTUAL ADJECTIVES

to the underlying category "\erb", and that the distinction between adjectives and verbs in English is a highly superficial one. His arguments are summarized by Ross (1969a :352): (1) (a) There are transitive verbs such as bring, trust to, depend on, etc., and intransitive verbs such as sleep, billow, elapse, etc.; similarly, there are transitive adjectives such as fond of, wild about, mad at, etc., and intransitive adjectives such as dead, red, absurd, etc. (b) Some verbs such as know, hope, read, etc., require animate subjects {The wrestler hoped for a quick victory, but not *The driveway hoped for a quick victory), while other verbs such as elapse, entail, subtend, etc., exclude animate subjects (Two weeks elapsed, but not *My Latin teacher elapsed). Similarly, some adjectives such as despondent, aware, contrite, etc. require animate subjects (The wrestler was despondent, but not *The driveway was despondent), while others such as valid, moot, gibbous, etc., exclude animate subjects (Your argument is valid, but not * Your nephew is valid). (c) Some verbs such as jump, kick, build, etc., can occur in imperative sentences, while others such as resemble, inherit, doubt, etc, cannot (Jump over it, but not * Resemble Jonathan). Similarly, some adjectives such as polite, honest, reasonable, etc., can occur in imperatives, while others such as swarthy, fat, pregnant etc., cannot (Be polite, but not *Be swarthy). Given the correctness of the underlying verb-adjective equation, we still have a way to go to demonstrate that likely is an underlying subject-embedding intransitive. First, we must show that no ad hoc devices are needed to derive (6), (7), and (8) from (5). This is easy. To derive (6), we apply SUBJECT RAISING on the third cycle (obligatory for predicate be) followed by V-NP INVERSION. (7) involves two successive applications of SUBJECT RAISING (once on the second cycle, once on the third) and V-NP INVERSION. The derivation of (8) is analogous to that of (3). We insert it on the second cycle, raise the it on the third, and follow it by post-cyclic V-NP INVERSION. In other words, no new rules need to be added to the grammar to derive the sentences from an underlying intransitive subject-embedding source. Secondly, we must demonstrate that the most plausible alternative explanation is incorrect - that (9) and (10) cannot underlie (7) and (8) respectively: (9)

(10)

annoy

John

Bill

Both (9) and (10) portray likely as an underlying transitive rather than as intransitive. It should be apparent also that (7) and (8) could be derived from them without difficulty.

VERBS OF OCCURRENCE AND ASPECTUAL ADJECTIVES

15

The grammaticality of (11) as a paraphrase of (7) furnishes evidence against phrasemarker (9): (11) Bill is likely to be annoyed by John. If (9) underlies (7), (11) would have to be underlain by a structure in which Bill is the subject of likely. But if this were the case, then the grammar would not capture the paraphrase relationship between (7) and (11) - in (9) the subject of likely is John. Therefore (9) cannot be a correct underlying structure for (7). The difficulties with (10) arise from considering it to be the UNDERLYING subject of likely. For this it is quite meaningless and contributes nothing to the interpretation of the sentence. Were it an underlying subject, we would predict that the following question should be well-formed and have (8) as a natural response: (12)

*What is likely that John will annoy Bill ?

The ungrammatically of (12) is good evidence for the incorrectness of (10) as an underlying structure. Notice that if (10) underlies (8), whenever it is chosen as a subject, a full sentence would have to be chosen as an object. I know of no other subject-object restrictions such as this: in fact, G. Lakoff (1970a) has given reason to believe that there are no independent subject-object restrictions at all. As I stated in the Introduction, there are three properties which all verbal, adjectival, and modal surface structure aspectuals manifest: none may co-occur independently with any adverbial or select tense or aspect independently. In the remainder of this chapter I will demonstrate the truth of this claim as it pertains to verbs of occurrence and aspectual adjectives. The claim that these aspectuals do not co-occur independently with adverbials receives its main support from the fact that it is impossible to construct a sentence with mutually contradicting adverbials - one associated with the aspectual and one with the embedded verb. The sentences below are all ungrammatical: (13)

a. *John happened at noon to see a mirage at midnight. b. *Mary is likely in Cincinnati to see a friend in New York. c. *It was unexpectedly true that Joe expectedly got an A. d. *Through the night there occurred a storm all day long.

Taking (13a) as an example, we see that there cannot be differing time adverbials associated with happen and see. One cannot happen at one time to see something at some other time. Likewise with the other verbs of occurrence and aspectual adjectives. This means that the semantic restrictions between propositions which have adverbial functions and the semantic structures underlying verbs of occurrence and aspectual adjectives do not need to be stated in the grammar of English (or in universal grammar if these generalizations are universals, as I believe they are).5 They follow 5

Considerable evidence has been provided by G. Lakoff (1970 a and b) that adverbials are themselves higher predicates in semantic representation.

16

VERBS OF OCCURRENCE AND ASPECTUAL ADJECTIVES

from the independent restrictions between the proposition commanded by the aspectual and the adverbial in question. Superficially, it seems that the aspectual verbs under discussion DO co-occur with adverbials in some instances. Consider happen, for example. All of the following sentences are grammatical: (14) a. It happened cruelly. b. It happened at ten o'clock. c. It happened through the night. d. It happened in Cincinnati. e. It happened with a knife. In the sentences of (14) we see the verb happen, the only verb in the sentence in surface structure, occurring with a manner adverbial, a point-time adverbial, a durative adverbial, a place adverbial, and an instrumental adverbial. This seems prima facie evidence that the verb happen does co-occur with adverbials - all types of adverbials. But the facts are more complicated than a quick look at (14) would indicate. Let us assume, temporarily, that the sentences of (14) contain an underlying non-aspectual happen. A reasonable remote structure for (14a) would be (15): (15) cruet

happen

it

If (15) were the remote structure, then happen would clearly have to be subcategorized with respect to the adverbials which occur with it in surface structure. Actually, there is very good evidence for deriving (14a) from a structure in which happen has no independent adverbial co-occurrences. This analysis would demand that that proposition commanded by happen be deleted. Neither the noun nor verb of this sentence would be realized lexically in the derivation of (14a). The embedded S node would be pruned by convention after deletion of its constituents. A remote structure for (14a) under this analysis would be phrase-marker (16): (16) crue t

x represents those verbal predicates which can co-occur with the adverbial cruel and y represents those arguments which can take x as predicate.

VERBS OF OCCURRENCE AND ASPECTUAL ADJECTIVES

17

We must choose (16) over (15) as a remote structure for (14a) for the following reason. (15) is incapable of accounting for the possible readings of (14a) - it does not represent the fact that the semantic function of happen is still to take a proposition for its argument. Consider the sentences of (14) and how they might be interpreted. Suppose that what happened in (14a) was that John hit Bill. Given that, (14a) is a perfectly reasonable description of that event. Suppose alternatively that what happened was that John awoke. Then (14a) is a very bizarre description of what happened, or, properly, how it happened. But this is just a reflection of the fact that (17a) is grammatical and (17b) is ungrammatical: (17)

a. b.

John hit Bill cruelly. *Johji awoke cruelly.

The verb hit can co-occur with manner adverbials while the verb awake cannot. Consider (14b). One of the things which we can infer that might have happened at ten o'clock is that Billy ate a popsicle but not that Billy was a human being. (Note that we CAN say "Billy happened to be a human being.") But this follows from the fact that (17c) is grammatical and (17d) is ungrammatical: c. d.

Billy ate a popsicle at ten o'clock. *Billy was a human being at ten o'clock.

The sentences below prove the analogous point with respect to durative, place, and instrumental adverbials. The sentences (14c-e) have sense only if the possible verbal reading can be associated with the adverbial in question. The (e) sentences are starred to demonstrate that the sentences of (14) are nonsensical with the verbal reading of the ungrammatical (b) sentences (in brackets) imposed upon them. (18)

a. b. c. d. e.

John made noise through the night. *John arrived through the night. It happened that John arrived. It happened [that John made noise] through the night. *It happened [that John arrived] through the night.

(19)

a. b. c. d. e.

Peter watched the Reds play in Cincinnati. *Peter contained a billion D. N. A. molecules in Cincinnati. It happened that Peter contained a billion D. N. A. molecules. It happened [that Peter watched the Reds play] in Cincinnati. *It happened [that Peter contained a billion D. N. A. molecules] in Cincinnati.

(20)

a. Sally carved the turkey with a knife. b. *Sally understood her mission with a knife. c. It happened that Sally understood her mission. d. It happened [that Sally carved the turkey] with a knife. e. *It happened [that Sally understood her mission] with a knife.

18

VERBS OF OCCURRENCE AND ASPECTUAL ADJECTIVES

The grammar must account for the fact that speakers can understand the sentences of (14) with the bracketed interpretation of (d), but not with that of (e). If we exclude the ungrammatical (b) sentences at the level of semantic representation via semantic selectional constraints, we would be missing a generalization by not prohibiting the nonsensical readings of the (e) sentences as well. Since their senselessness is not due to any property of happen, but to an incompatible verb-adverbial reading, we can account for this by the verb-verb selections which (16) readily provides. Only verbs which can co-occur with cruelly will be interpreted as the verbal reading of the lowest verb. Thus we can account for the possible readings of (14a) at the same time we account for the grammatically of (17a) and the ungrammatically of (17b). Phrase-marker (16), then, does not contradict the claim that these aspectual verbs have no independent co-occurrence relations with adverbials. Likewise, it allows us to maintain the generalization that they are always intransitive and subject-embedding at some remote level of structure. An interesting problem faced by this analysis is that the set of adverbials which can appear with the aspectuals after deletion of the lowest sentence is just a subset of the set of adverbials which can occur with that particular verbal reading. If the opposite were true - if adverbials could occur which were not permitted with the understood verb - my argument would be refuted. Although this is not the case, it is still difficult to explain why many speakers find (21b) to be of a lower acceptability than (21a): (21)

a. It is likely at ten. b. *It is likely in the kitchen.

Note also: (22)

a. b.

When is it likely? *Where is it likely ?

The sentence It is likely that John will make some coffee can occur with both at ten and in the kitchen. Yet, in my dialect, only at ten can occur with is likely alone. For this fact I offer no explanation. It is less obvious that the aspectuals treated in this chapter do not co-occur with tense and aspect semantically than that they do not co-occur with adverbials. On the surface it seems blatantly false. For example, side-by-side with (23a) we have (23b): (23)

a. It happens that John went yesterday. b. It happened that John went yesterday.

(a) and (b) seem to be selecting tense independently of their complements. Furthermore it seems that the verb happen can occur with a wide variety of tense and aspect morphemes:

VERBS OF OCCURRENCE AND ASPECTUAL ADJECTIVES

(24)

19

a. What is happening ? b. Has that happened before ? c. It happens time and time again.

A lot of confusion can be avoided if we recognize that the semantic sense of tense and aspect need not be correlated one-to-one with any particular syntactic realization. Thus past tense (semantically) may appear as an ed on the verb, (25)

She left town yesterday.

in certain complements by a perfect marker, (26)

She must have left town yesterday,

and in certain narrative style by the present ending: (27)

As soon as the credit agency shows up yesterday she leaves town.

What this shows is that a particular "tense" marker in surface structure does not necessarily correspond to the identically named semantic tense primitive. Underlying tense distinctions may be neutralized by the application of the transformational rules. By the same token, a verb which does not co-occur with tense semantically may be specified syntactically with a "tense" morpheme. This, as I will demonstrate, is the case with verbs of occurrence and aspectual adjectives. Let us consider the verb happen as used in sentences (23a) and (b). The difference between the two sentences is not that in (a) happen is present semantically and that in (b) happen is past semantically. The difference comes from the orientation of the speaker - from his or her "involvement" in the event of John's going, so to speak. R. Lakoff makes this point with respect to the two analogous sentences (28a) and (b) (my numbering), where (28a) corresponds to (23b) and (28b) to (23a): The two sets of circumstances are the same with respect to the time at which it was true that Washington was honest, relative to the time of utterance and to the tenses of other verbs involved. But the speaker is involved in the second, not the first. (1970:844) (28)

a. b.

George Washington happened to be an honest man. George Washington happens to have been an honest man.

How do we account for this and still preserve the claim that these aspectuals have no independent tense co-occurrence ? It is rather easy, if we accept the claims of Ross (1970) that each declarative sentence is embedded in remote structure below a higher performative verb of "declaring" which is semantically in the present tense. If this is the case, then both (23a) and (b) would be underlain by (29) (highly schematically, of course):

20

VERBS OF OCCURRENCE AND ASPECTUAL ADJECTIVES

s

(29) v

NP

(PEES)

S V

'NP

NP S

ip

V (PAST)

S V

NP John

Now we can explain the tense endings on happen in (23a) and (b). If happen is speakerrelevant, the tense of the performative (always present) is copied above happen. If happen is action-relevant, the tense of the verb of the sentence embedded below happen is copied. In neither case is it necessary for happen to INDEPENDENTLY co-occur with tense.6 The claim that the tense of happen in (23a) comes from the performative is supported by the fact that only the simple present may appear with happen with this reading: (30)

a. b.

*It is happening that John went yesterday, *It has happened that John went yesterday.

Note also that a surface reflex of the performative, I tell you, may be moved below happen in (23a) but not (23b): (31)

a. It happens - 1 tell you - that John went yesterday. b. ?It happened - 1 tell you - that John went yesterday.

Semantically, speaker-relevant happen functions very much like a sentence adverbial. (23a) can be interpreted somewhat like (32a) and (b): (32)

a. b.

Coincidentally, John went yesterday, By the way, John went yesterday.

This gives added support to the claim that happen has no independent tense semantically. It makes no sense to speak of sentence adverbials as being tensed, yet they can function very much like happen. Other verbs of occurrence may take surface tense from either the embedded verb or the performative. Turn out is an example: 6

Since (23a) and (b) differ in meaning in the manner I have just outlined, (29) cannot be a complete semantic representation for both of them. This would be brought out by the focus and presupposition aspects of the meaning not depicted in (29).

VERBS OF OCCURRENCE AND ASPECTUAL ADJECTIVES

(33)

21

a. It turns out that the Dodgers won the pennant in 1941. b. It turned out that the Dodgers won the pennant in 1941.

The semantic parallels between (23) and (33) should be clear. It turns out in (33a), like it happens in (23a), has the semantic status of a sentence adverbial. Aspectual adjectives, unlike verbs of occurrence, rarely admit action-relevant tense; the tense is normally taken from the performative:

i

is I

is I likely that the Dodgers won the pennant in 1941. t ie 'was I t m e ' Dodgers won the pennant in 1941.

9 is ") ss P o forced ' k ' e that the Dodgers the pennant in 1941. The past tense of bewas( can be in some cases suchwon as (35): (35) The Dodgers weren't likely to win the pennant in 1941, as far as we were concerned.

In (35) I believe that another sentence with main verb feel and subject we is present semantically and deleted syntactically. There are a few aspectual adjectives which seem to contradict the proposal that they have no independent co-occurrence with tense AND adverbials. Foremost among them are certain non-factive intransitive adjectives such as possible and probable. Note that we can say: (36)

It was probable yesterday but is not probable today that Dooley will enter the race.

(36) appears to violate both the tense and the adverbial stipulation. Whereas the main verb enter is in the present tense (with future interpretation supplied by the modal will), probable has the past tense marker was and the adverbial yesterday, which only occurs with past tense. However, there is a good reason to believe that probable in (36) is actually derived from seem probable, after the deletion of a transitive seem. For one thing, the meaning is more adequately represented if seem is present semantically. Note that (37) is a paraphrase of (36): (37)

It seemed probable yesterday but it does not seem probable today that Dooley will enter the race.

I am proposing, then, (38) as a remote structure for the first conjunct in both (36) and (37):

22

VERBS OF OCCURRENCE AND ASPECTUAL ADJECTIVES

(38)

Dooley

will

enter

the

race

If (38) is correct, then the tense and adverbial will be associated with seem and not withprobable'mexmoXzstructure. Evidence for (38)is provided by the fact that adverbial co-occurence restrictions which seem has are exactly the same as those of probable, when used in the sense of "seem probable". As we saw, both can co-occur with time adverbials: (39)

a. It seemed at half-time that we would lose. b. It was probable at half-time that we would lose.

However neither can co-occur with place adverbials: (40)

a. b.

*It seemed in the stadium that we would lose. *It was probable in the stadium that we would lose.

Note that (a) below is a well-formed question, while (b) is ill-formed. (41)

a. b.

When did it seem that we would lose ? *Where did it seem that we would lose ?

Also, both can be modified by adverbials such as hardly and surely although neither can co-occur with simple manner constructions: (42) (43)

a. It hardly seems that you bested George in the argument. b. It is hardly probable that you bested George in the argument. a. *It seems in a clever way that you bested George in the argument. b. *It is probable in a clever way that you bested George in the argument.

Many speakers find the past tense on be with aspectual adjectives acceptable under ordinary circumstances. For example, Costa (1972) cites the following as grammatical:

(44)

/likely Jpossible It was >that the new president of Chorea was really a Chai j unfortunate ( 'true CIA agent.

VERBS OF OCCURRENCE AND ASPECTUAL ADJECTIVES

23

For speakers who accept (44), aspectual adjectives are still not selecting independent tense. This is demonstrated by the ungrammaticality of (45) as paraphrases of (44) and the ungrammaticality of (46) with the adverbial phrase at that time inserted (except where a reading with seem or feel can be forced: likely Dossiblc

! _ > that the new president of Chorea was unfortunate! trueagent. really a Chai CIA likely

!

possible , at tjme [ agent. true was reallyunfortunate a Chai CIA

the new president of Chorea

Costa points out that sequence of tense rules operate when the aspectual adjective is morphologically past, so that the complement verb shows up as a past in surface structure even if it is semantically present: likely

!

\

possible f that the new president of Chorea |^ a S ! really a unfortunatei (*is true J

Chai CIA agent. We still have not sufficiently accounted for all of the tense and aspect possibilities for the aspectuals under discussion. Notice that while these aspect uals may take on the tense of their complement verbs, they rarely take on their aspect: (48) a. It happened that Paul left. b. It happened that Paul was leaving. c. It happened that Paul had left. d. It happened that Paul had been leaving. (49) a. It happened that Paul left. b. *It was happening that Paul was leaving. c. *It had happened that Paul had left. d. *It had been happening that Paul had been leaving. Speakers who get past tense with aspectual adjectives never get perfect or progressive aspect in the same situation: (50)

a. b.

*John had been likely to have gone. *It was being probable that Sue was running.

24

VERBS OF OCCURRENCE AND ASPECTUAL ADJECTIVES

The fact that in some circumstances (the sentences of (51)) aspect morphemes may appear with verbs of occurrence indicates that these verbs are supplied with the aspect of their complement in underlying representation. This aspect is then deleted unless prior deletion of the complement sentences has taken place. (51)

a. This has happened before. b. Too many things are occurring right now.

In the next few chapters I will examine classes of aspectual verbs which grammarians have not consistently analyzed as intransitive and subject-embedding in remote structure. I will produce independent syntactic motivation for this configuration and, in addition, demonstrate that they manifest the same co-occurrence restrictions which I discussed in this chapter with respect to verbs of occurrence and aspectual adjectives.

Ill THE BEGIN-CLASS (I)

In this chapter and in the following two, I will discuss a class of aspectual verbs whose underlying structure has recently been debated in the literature. They are the verbs of initiation, duration, and cessation. Semantically, they assert occurrence or nonoccurrence of their associated propositions with respect to one or more points in time. For example, begin, start, and commence assert occurrence after an implied non-occurrence. Stop, finish, and end assert non-occurrence after a presupposed occurrence. Keep and continue assert occurrence after the temporal reference point, where occurrence before that point is normally presupposed. Resume asserts occurrence after presupposed non-occurrence, which was itself preceded by a presupposed occurrence. For the sake of simplicity, I will refer to these verbs collectively as the "begin-class". I will show that these verbs manifest the same semantic co-occurrence restrictions with respect to tense, aspect, and adverbials as the verbs of the happen-class and give additional syntactic evidence for deriving them from intransitive and subject-embedding remote structures. Note first of all that begin cannot co-occur independently with adverbials, a fact which is indicated by the ungrammaticality of sentences with begin, a complement verb, and two adverbials of the same type : (1)

a. b. c. d.

*John began at 10 o'clock to work at midnight. *John began nastily to work merrily. *With a knife John began to butcher Otto with a cleaver. *John began in Boston to work in Cambridge.

(lb) is grammatical only if we interpret it to mean in part "it was nasty of John to work in a merry way", where nasty is in a co-occurrence relationship with the subject. The reading of the senseless "John began in a nasty way to work in a merry way" is not possible. Wholeheartedly is an adverbial that does not co-occur with subjects. Therefore (2), (2) *John began wholeheartedly to work merrily, is ungrammatical under any interpretation.

26

THE BEGIN-CLASS (i)

Note also that the durative aspectual keep may not co-occur with a different time adverbial from its complement: (3)

T h r o u g h the night John kept working all day long.

The same restrictions on independent tense and aspect which apply to intransitive subject-embedding verbs like happen also apply to verbs of the begin-c\ass. In fact, it is even clearer that this is so for begin since we do not find sentences in which begin takes on the tense of the performative. That is, "speaker-oriented" sentences like (4) are impermissible with the begin-class. (4)

*John begins to have worked yesterday.

The following paradigms illustrate the inability of begin to co-occur with tense and aspect independently of its complement: (5)

a. b. c. d.

John is beginning to work right now. 1 *John was beginning to work right now. *John has begun to work right now. *John had begun to work right now.

(6)

a. b. c. d.

*John is beginning to work at noon yesterday. John was beginning to work at noon yesterday. *John has begun to work at noon yesterday. *John had begun to work at noon yesterday.

(7)

a. b. c. d.

*John is beginning to work up until now. *John was beginning to work up until now. John has begun to work (four times) up until now. *John had begun to work up until now.

(8)

a. b. c. d.

*John is beginning to work by noon yesterday. *John was beginning to work by noon yesterday. *John has begun to work by noon yesterday. John had begun to work by noon yesterday.

Let us now begin to consider the syntactic remote structure which we can motivate for begin and the other members of its class. Perlmutter (1970), working in the framework put forth in Chomsky (1965) and further elaborated in Rosenbaum (1967), gave several arguments that begin should occur in two deep structure configurations. He argued that at the level of deep structure begin would have to be both intransitive and subject-embedding, as in (9), and transitive and object-embedding, as in (10).2 Sentences such as (11) would occur in both of these deep structure configurations: 1 Notice that morphologically the complement in (5a) does not show perfect aspect. Nevertheless, consideration of the meaning of the sentence will indicate that it is present semantically. 2 Perlmutter's phrase-markers ignore irrelevant details. I have further modified them by eliminating the complement-introducing it and proposing verb-initial structures.

THE BEGIN-CLASS (i)

27

(9)

(10)

(11)

Zeke began to work.

Perlmutter's arguments for the intransitive underlying structure are impeccable. First, he points out that we have sentences such as (12)

The doling out of the emergency rations began.

It is clear that begin in (12) is taking a nominalized sentence as subject. Second, begin is found in surface structure with subject there: (13)

There began to be a commotion.

There, for a host of reasons, has to be inserted transformationally. 3 Therefore, it cannot be the deep (i.e. remote) structure of begin in (13). Be a commotion must have originated in subject position. Third, sentences like (14)

It began to rain.

must be derived from intransitive begin since it rain rather than it is clearly the underlying subject. Fourth, the synonymy of sentences (15)

a. b.

The noise began to annoy Joe. Joe began to be annoyed by the noise.

can be accounted for only if the noise annoy Joe is the underlying subject of begin (i.e. if begin is intransitive). Otherwise, begin would have subject the noise in (15a) and Joe in (15b). Fifth, sentences such as (16) exist, in which fixed object nouns occur as the surface subject of begin: (16)

a. b.

Recourse began to be had to illegal methods, Advantage began to be taken of their naivete.

Since have recourse and take advantage are fixed idioms, recourse and advantage must be underlying objects in (16). But this can be accounted for only by (9). If 3

The best argument for the transformational insertion of there is found in Perlmutter (1970:116-17)'

28

THE BEGIN-CLASS (I)

begin occurred in (10) alone, we would be forced to say that recourse and advantage were underlying subjects. Perlmutter then gives five arguments for the transitive structure (10) as a deep structure forthe begin-class verbs. First, he notes the existence of the agentive nominalization beginner in (17)

Peter is a beginner.

and argues that verbs which take only abstract sentences for subjects (such as happen) have no such nominalizations. Second, he argues that since begin can be the surface complement of try in (18)

I tried to begin to work.

begin must have I as subject in deep structure. This follows from his claim (Perlmutter 1968) that try is a like-subject verb whose subject and whose complement subject must be identical in deep structure. The verb force, on the other hand, requires that its OBJECT be identical to the complement subject. Therefore, by this reasoning, in (19) (19)

I forced Tom to begin to work.

begin must have deep subject Tom. Third, the condition that imperatives have secondperson subjects in deep structure demands that sentences such as (20)

Begin to work.

be transitive. Fourth, Perlmutter argues that begin must take objects in deep structure to account for (21a), which has (21b) as a paraphrase: (21)

a. b.

Sam began the job. The job was begun by Sam.

Fifth, begin appears to have undergone the rule of OBJECT DELETION 4 in (22); indication that it had an underlying object: (22)

Mark began enthusiastically, but he got tired by noon.

In this and in the following two chapters, I will demonstrate that each of Perlmutter's arguments in justification of (10) are deficient. In all cases, the data involved actually lead to the positing of underlying structures "deeper" than (10); underlying structures where the begin-class verb is intransitive and subject-embedding. There is one further argument which might be raised in support of (10) which is worth considering. Superficially, it seems that the begin-class verbs can take agents. By agent-taking I mean being associated with a noun phrase which is understood to exert conscious control over the particular verb. Normally, the agent is reflected in remote structure as the subject of the verb. If begin takes an independent agent and 4

See Katz and Postal (1964:79-84) and Chomsky (1965:87).

THE BEG1N-CLASS (i)

29

agents are reflected as underlying subjects, then it cannot occur in underlying structure (9) alone, since there is no possible noun phrase subject to act as agent. In sentence (11), one could imagine that Zeke began either intentionally (in an agentive sense) or unintentionally (in a nonagentive sense) to work. We might attempt to reflect this by positing the agentive begin in (10) and the nonagentive begin in (9). There is good evidence, however, that the ambiguity of (11) cannot be reflected by a transitive and an intransitive begin. Without the aspectual present, sentence (23) below is subject to the same double interpretation: (23)

Zeke worked.

Again, we can picture Zeke as being an agent or as not being an agent. Yet no one would wish to argue that in (23) the ambiguity is structural, represented by a transitive and an intransitive work. Thus the agentive vs. nonagentive distinction is not represented by a transitive vs. intransitive distinction and (10) is therefore unmotivated for this purpose. Note also that there are sentences with begin where this double interpretation is not possible. (24) is an example: (24)

John began to grow faster in his early teens.

Semantically, one cannot picture John as an "agent" of "growing faster in his early teens" if by agent we mean conscious controller. But notice that in (25) there is also only one - non-agentive - interpretation: (25)

John grew faster in his early teens.

It seems to be the case that begin (and the other verbs of its class) can take agents only when their complement verbs can do so. Furthermore, there are no sentences in which the begin-class verbs can be understood to have an agent when their complement verbs are not understood to have one as well. However the property of "agentiveness" is to be captured in the grammar, it makes no sense to allow the begin-class verb to manifest this property independently. Just as tense and aspect can be assigned to the begin-class aspectuals by rule, so can the property of agentiveness. It should be apparent, then, that there are no semantic differences between the putatively transitive aspectuals and the putatively intransitive ones. The semantic P-markers underlying each would have to be identical. However, there is no a priori reason why a non-ambiguous sentence could not have two different structural configurations at some intermediate stage in the derivation. If the transformational rules mapping the semantic representation onto two intermediate configurations are motivated ones, well and good. If they are not - if, for example, the rules which woulc be needed to map one semantic representation onto both (9) and (10) are ad hod ones - we would be justified in doubting the well-formedness of remote structure (10). Looking first at remote structure (9), we have every reason to assume that the transformational rules needed to map onto this structure from semantic representa-

THE BEGIN-CLASS (I)

30

tion are well-motivated ones. We have already seen that many verbs with the semantic property of aspectuality have intransitive subject-embedding remote structures. Whatever rules are employed to interpret happen, likely, etc. as aspectual will automatically interpret the begin-class verbs in that way as well. Turning to transitive begin, the transformational justification of (10) does not seem so obvious. But rather than appeal to intuitive feelings about the correctness of (10), I will present evidence that if (10) actually does underlie (11) at anything but the most superficial stage in the derivation, considerable complications in the grammar will result. One of the strongest of Perlmutter's arguments for transitive structure (10) depends on the like-subject constraint. He argues that since try, refuse, condescend, etc. require that the verb of the next lower sentence take the same subject, the begin-class verbs must therefore HAVE subjects - i.e. they must be transitive. Let us now examine these arguments. It is evident that the Z>eg/w-class verbs, if transitive, must be like-subject verbs themselves, with the same next-lower verb restriction as try, condescend, refuse, etc. For example, the following sentences, where the subject of the embedded sentence is not the same as the subject of the sentence with the begin-class verb, are ungrammatical : 5 (26)

a. b. c.

*John began for Bill to go. *Tom started for Mary to see Sam. *Henry kept John working.

Since these verbs are putatively transitive like-subject verbs, we would expect that any generalizations which we can make about the class of like-subject verbs as a whole would also apply to the begin-class. For example, one fact about like-subject verbs is that they form a natural class in that the tense of their complements can be understood to differ from their own tense.6 For this reason, it is always possible to use a future time adv erb with the complements of these verbs, even when the verb itself is in the past tense. Thus: (27)

Alice refused to go next week.

(28)

Mrs. Green condescended to read a story tomorrow.

But the begin-class verbs do not share this characteristic. They may not be in the past tense when a future adverb is present: (29)

5

a. b.

*Alice began to go next week. *Mrs. Green kept reading a story tomorrow.

Where the sentences of (26) are interpreted non-causatively. I will demonstrate in Chapter V that sentences such as (26c) with a causative interpretation ("Henry caused John to keep working") are derived via a higher causative verb and the rule of CAUSATIVE SUBSTITUTION. 6 For some speakers manage is an exception. In my dialect, however, I finally managed to go next week is well-formed.

THE

BEGIN- CLASS

(I)

31

However, I have just shown that the begin-class verbs do not co-occur semantically with tense and adverbials AT ALL. This is even true when the like-subject constraint would demand that they be transitive remotely: (30)

a. b. c. d.

*John intended to begin at ten o'clock to work at noon. *John refused to begin nastily to work merrily. *John tried to begin with a knife to butcher Otto with a cleaver. * John condescended to begin in Boston to work in Cambridge.

The ungrammaticality of (30a-d) shows that even when putatively transitive (as would be demanded by the like-subject constraint), the verbs of the begin-class obey the same constraints as would follow from their INTRANSITIVE use. But for the "transitive" begin-verbs, these constraints are totally unpredicted. Try, refuse, manage, and the other like-subject verbs are not prohibited from independently co-occurring with tense, aspect, and adverbials in semantic representation. In fact, transitive object-embedding verbs in general are not so restricted. The ungrammatical sentences of (30), therefore, cast doubt on the correctness of transitive remote structure (10). A second respect in which begin-class verbs differ from like-subject verbs is that they are not required to take animate subjects: (31)

a. b.

*The doorknob tried to fall off. The doorknob began to fall off.

(32)

a. b.

*The faucet condescended to leak, The faucet stopped leaking.

For this reason then, also, it is dubious that they belong to the transitive like-subject class.7 One final respect in which begin-class and like-subject verbs differ is in the freedom with which they take nominalized objects. The like-subject verbs do not allow nominalizations to follow them which reflect the superficial grammatical relations, while begin-class verbs do : 8 (33) (34)

7

a. b. a. b.

John tried to open the lock. *John tried the opening of the lock. The pilot refused to destroy the city. *The pilot refused the destruction of the city.

Perlmutter (1970:114) claims that the ungrammaticality of *oil began to gush from the well and water did so too (where do so = begin to gush...) beside grammatical Warren tried to begin to work and Jerry tried to do so too (where do so = begin to work) demonstrates (via the do so test) that transitive begin exists and requires animate subjects. But notice that The oil stopped gushing from the well and the water did so too (where do so = stop gushing...) is grammatical. Perlmutter's argument is therefore inconclusive. 8 Notice that in Humphrey refused the offer of an appointment to the U.N. superficial subject-verbobject grammatical relations are not reflected. This sentence is not related to Humphrey refused to offer an appointment to the U.N.

32 (35) (36) (37) (38) (39)

THE BEGIN- CLASS Cl)

a. The dean condescended to meet with the protestors. b. *The dean condescended the meeting with the protestors. a. The guard began to torture the prisoners. b. The guard began the torture of the prisoners. a. The cheerleaders kept shouting loudly. b. The cheerleaders kept up the loud shouting. a. Sam began cooking dinner. b. Sam began the cooking of dinner. a. Mantle began hitting the ball powerfully in 1950. b. Mantle began his powerful hitting of the ball in 1950.

Despite the above arguments, the like-subject constraint, if it does apply in English, seems to give one no alternative but to postulate transitive begin. In the remainder of this chapter, I will explore a treatment of begin within the scope of the like-subject constraint which does not require transitivity. Finally, I will demonstrate that there are no valid arguments for a like-subject constraint in English, and the postulation of begin-class verbs in transitive deep structures is therefore doubly unnecessary. We might first attempt to alter, not the like-subject constraint itself, but the way in which certain classes of verbs behave with respect to it. In particular, let us consider the possibility that the begin-c\ass verbs are intransitive in remote structure, but the like-subject constraint "skips over" them. Alternatively, we might say that these aspectual verbs are TRANSPARENT to the like-subject constraint. This hypothesis would posit (41) as a remote structure of (40): (40)

John tried to begin to work.

(41) try

work

John

If (41), combined with a theory of transparency, is justified, we have eliminated the difficulties of positing a transitive begin. But is it justified ? The strongest type of evidence bearing on the existence of transparency would be the demonstration that linguistic phenomena exist which can be explained ONLY by recourse to it. In principle, such a situation is easy to conceive of. Imagine two verbs, which I will call X and Y and a begin-class verb A. Suppose that X / / A is grammatical and that A / / Y is grammatical. 9 Also suppose that X / / Y is ungrammatical. The transparency of A is 9

I will be using the parallel symbol (J /) to mean "next verb (or sentence) down from". Thus X / / A means that X is the verb of a sentence whose complement sentence has main verb A.

THE -REG/IV-CLASS ( i )

33

easily demonstrated i f X / / A / / Y i s ungrammatical. In fact, it is difficult to see how any mechanism BUT transparency could account for this situation. Paradigms of this type are not difficult to find. In the following paradigm, let X = remember, Y = forget, and A = keep: (42)

a. b. c. d.

X A X X

11 A //Y //Y //A//

I remembered to keep working. I kept forgetting what my mother told me. *I remembered to forget what my mother told me. Y *I remembered to keep forgetting what my mother told me.

In other words, keep must be transparent to the constraint between remember and forget. Transparency is therefore motivated and transitivity is not demanded by the like-subject constraint. More indirect support for the transparency of the begin-class verbs comes from the fact that it can be shown to be a necessary device to explain the behavior of other aspectuals. Syntactic investigations of the late 1960's have led grammarians to postulate highly abstract underlying structures in which syntactic elements, introduced by phrase structure rules in previous analyses, appear as predicates of higher sentences. For example, underlying sententiality has been demonstrated for quantifiers (G. Lakoff 1970a, Carden 1968); auxiliaries (Ross 1972); manner adverbials (G. Lakoff 1970a, Kuroda 1968); and instrumental adverbials (G. Lakoff 1968). These analyses demand these higher predicates be transparent to deep structure constraints, assuming such constraints exist. Consider quantifiers as one example. The Carden analysis would postulate (45) as a remote structure for (43) and (44): (43) (44)

Thirteen cats lick my shoes. Thirteen cats are fluffy.

(45)

cats

flick my dftfttfs] are f l u f f y f

Lick my shoes is an active predicate and be f l u f f y is a stative predicate. Therefore, the verb force will take the former for its complement, but not the latter: (46)

a. I forced the cat to lick my shoes, b. *I forced the cat to be fluffy.

However, when the quantifier thirteen is present, the situation is the same. The constraint skips over the quantifier:

34

(47)

THE BEGIN-CLASS (i)

a. b.

I forced thirteen cats to lick my shoes, *I forced thirteen cats to be fluffy.

Therefore, if quantifiers are higher verbs, they must be transparent with respect to deep structure constraints. The arguments of Ross (1969 and 1972) demonstrate that the verb be, even as an auxiliary, must be the main verb of an independent sentence. If so, as the following sentences indicate, the verb be is transparent to deep structure constraints: (48) (49) (50) (51)

a. b. a. b. a. b. a. b.

What John did was be obnoxious. *What John did was be tall. I persuaded Bill to be less obnoxious. *I persuaded Bill to be less tall. I persuaded Bill to be kissing Mary when I enter the room. *I persuaded Bill to be expecting Mary when I enter the room. The general encouraged every soldier to be a hero. T h e general encouraged every soldier to be a human being.

In other words, given that these constraints exist, it seems that aspectual verbs in general must be transparent with respect to them. The transparency of the begin-class aspectuals was first proposed, I believe, in a paper by Anderson (1968). Anderson puts forth a revision of semantic theory with the notion "paraphrase" given considerable prominence. A great deal of the force of his argument comes from the fact that begin and other verbs of its class are transparent with respect to deep structure constraints. Anderson is not interested in underlying syntactic structure and thus has nothing to say about whether these verbs are transitive or intransitive. He does say, however: "Begin, and all of the other transparent verbs as well can be defined entirely in terms of the surrounding verbs in those situations where transparency exists ... A verb will be transparent to verbal restrictions just in case its meaning can be fully paraphrased in terms of surrounding verbs " (396). Presumably, what Anderson means by "defined entirely in terms of" is that their definitions contain no "lexical-perceptual vocabulary" (403), since in his system they clearly contain aspectual vocabulary. Anderson's view of transparency, however, can be shown to be less adequate than the version proposed earlier in this chapter. That proposal predicts X / / A / / Y in terms of X / / Y, X / / A, and A / / Y. Anderson apparently allows ONLY X / / Y to predict the grammaticality o f X / / A / / Y ; there is no way to express X / / A or A/ / Y in his system. For example, begin is defined as follows (402): begin

N P i not - VP

NP x V x NPi NPi VP The second term can be interpreted to mean "something happens to NPi", or "there

THE BEGIN-CLASS (i)

35

is a change and NPi is affected" - the aspectual component of the meaning. Begin, in John began to run, would be interpreted: John did not run. Something changed (affecting John). John ran. The atomization of the meaning of begin in this way would seem to preclude any independent semantic constraints between begin and the following verb, unless one of the three terms of the paraphrase is ill-formed. But such constraints must exist. Consider the ungrammatical sentence (52): (52)

*John began to arrive.

In Anderson's system, this sentence, after being generated by the syntactic component, would have its aspectual verb interpreted in this way: John did not arrive. Something changed (affecting John). John arrived. All three terms are perfectly grammatical and semantically well-formed as well. Anderson therefore has no semantic mechanism for blocking (52).10 Transparency, then, gets us out of postulating a transitive begin, even if the likesubject constraint exists. However, the bulk of the evidence suggests that the constraint itself is unmotivated. Reviewing the constraint, we see that the situation is much more complicated than one might expect. For example, there are a great number of apparent exceptions to it. To cite only a few: (53)

a. I tried to be arrested. b. I condescended to be arrested. c. I intend for you to go.

In (a) and (b) the apparent deep subject oí arrest is a pronominal noun phrase, not/. In (c) the subject below intend seems to be you, not I. Perlmutter recognized these examples in his dissertation and attempted to account for them by positing an intervening sentence between the like-subject verb and the complement. This sentence would have the same subject as the like-subject verb, and would have a main verb in proverbial form with the semantic properties of let or get. This accounts for the fact that (53) is interpreted something like (54): (54) 10

a.

I tried to get arrested.

It is not widely recognized that there are constraints between aspectual verbs and their complement verbs. For example, Garcia (1967) states that "begin and its aspectual partners are characterized by a total lack of selectional restrictions" (860). Sentence (52) should be sufficient to dispel any such notion.

36

THE BEG1N-CLASS

b. c.

(i)

I condescended to get arrested. I intend to let you go.

He gave considerable syntactic evidence, as well, for an intervening verb, most of it based on the fact that the possible complements of the like-subject verbs in these seemingly exceptional cases are restricted to the possible complements of let or get (or causative verbs in general). The apparent counter-examples to the imperative constraint such as (55), (55)

Be arrested!

are to be explained in the same way - there is a higher pro-verb with causative properties and a you subject. This proposal of Perlmutter's is intriguing because it suggests a possible solution to the "transitive begin" problem which does not rest on the notion "transparency". If arguments analogous to the type Perlmutter used to defend an intervening sentence where the like-subject constraint was apparently contradicted could also be used to motivate an intervening sentence between the like-subject verb and the begin-class verb, then there would be no reason to postulate transitive begin-class verbs. This is true because let, get, and verbs of similar semantic properties are not themselves like-subject verbs. As a matter of fact, it can be shown that positing an intervening causative pro-verb between every instance of a like-subject verb and a ¿