Complex predicates: Structure, potential structure and underspecification

LiLT volume 17, issue 3 February 2019 Complex predicates: Structure, potential structure and underspecification Stefan Müller, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Abstract This paper compares a recent TAG-based analysis of complex predi- cates in Hindi/Urdu with its HPSG analog. It points out that TAG combines actual structure while HPSG (and Categorial Grammar and other valence-based frameworks) specify valence of lexical items and hence potential structure. This makes it possible to have light verbs decide which arguments of embedded heads get realized, somthing that is not possible in TAG. TAG has to retreat to disjunctions instead. While this allows straight-forward analyses of active/passive alterna- tions based on the light verb in valence-based frameworks, such an option does not exist for TAG and it has to be assumed that preverbs come with different sets of arguments. 1 Introduction While comparing current syntactic theories (Hagemann and Staffeldt, 2014, Müller, 2010a, 2018, Kertész et al., 2019), one may get the impres- sion that the frameworks are rather similar and easily translatable into each other. One reason for this is that we all deal with the same data and provided that we made similar categorial distinctions in the raw analysis of the data it would be a surprise if the analyses were radically different. However, it is not all the same. It matters which formalism is chosen and some are able to express intuitions rather directly while others are not. This brief discussion note deals with the analysis of complex predi- cates consisting of a preverb and a light verb. Preverbs often have an argument structure of their own. They describe an event and the light 1 2 / LiLT volume 17, issue 3 February 2019 verb can be used to realize either the full number of arguments or a re- duced set of arguments. (1) provides the example from Hindi discussed by Ashwini et al. (2019). (1) a. logon=ne people.m=erg pustak=kii book.f=gen tareef praise.f k-ii do-perf.f ‘People praised the book.’ Lit: ‘People did praise of the book.’ b. pustak=kii book.f.sg=gen tareef praise.f hu-ii be.part-perf.f.sg/be.pres ‘The book got praised.’ Lit: ‘The praise of the book happened.’ Similar examples can of course be found in other languages making heavy use of complex predicates (Müller, 2010b). Ashwini et al. (2019) assume that the structures for the examples in (1) are composed of elementary trees for tareef ‘praise’ and the respec- tive light verbs. This is shown in Figure 1 and Figure 2 respectively. XP0 NP1 ↓ XP1 NP2 ↓ XP2 X tareef XPr XPf VP V k-ii XP0 NP1 logon XP1 XPf NP2 pustak XP2 X tareef VP V k-ii FIGURE 1 Analysis of logon=ne pustak=kii tareef k-ii ‘People praised the book.’ The tree of the light verb is adjoined into the tree of the preverb, into the XP1 position The TAG analysis is only sketched here. The authors use feature-based TAG, which makes it possible to enforce obligatory adjunction: the el- ementary tree for tareef is specified in a way that makes it necessary to take the tree …

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