Genitives , relational nouns , and argument-modifier ambiguity 1

The argument-modifier distinction is less clear in NPs than in VPs since nouns do not typically take arguments. The clearest cases of arguments in NPs are found in certain kinds of nominalizations which retain some “verbal” properties (Grimshaw 1990). The status of apparent arguments of non-deverbal relational nouns like sister is more controversial. Genitive constructions like John’s teacher, team of John’s offer a challenging testing ground for the argument-modifier distinction in NPs, both in English and cross-linguistically. In the analyses of Partee (1983/1997) and Barker (1995), the DP in a genitive phrase (i.e. John in John’s) is always an argument of some relation, but the relation does not always come from the head noun. In those split approaches, some genitives are arguments and some are modifiers. By contrast, recent proposals by Jensen and Vikner and by Borschev and Partee analyze all genitives as arguments, a conclusion we no longer support. In this paper, we explore a range of possible approaches: argument-only, modifier-only, and split approaches, and we consider the kinds of semantic evidence that imply that different approaches are correct for different genitive or possessive constructions in different languages. For English, we argue that a split approach is correct and we offer some diagnostics for distinguishing arguments from modifiers. 1. The argument-modifier distinction in NPs The argument-modifier distinction is less clear in NPs than in VPs since nouns do not typically take arguments. The clearest cases of arguments in NPs are found in some nominalizations (Grimshaw 1990). Non-deverbal relational nouns like sister, mayor, enemy, picture, edge, height in some sense also seem to take arguments. C. L. Baker (1978) proposed a test using English one anaphora whereby one substitutes for N-bar, which obligatorily includes all of a noun’s arguments. By that test, to Oslo in (1a) is a modifier, while of Boston in (1b) is an argument. But neither this, nor any other known test, has seemed conclusive and the question of whether and in what sense “true nouns” take arguments remains controversial. 68 Barbara H. Partee and Vladimir Borschev (1) a. The train to Oslo takes longer than the one to Stockholm. b. *The mayor of Boston has more power than the one of Baltimore. Genitive constructions like those in (2a, b) offer an interesting test-bed for the argument-modifier distinction in NPs, in English and Russian and, indeed, cross-linguistically. (2) a. Engl.: John’s teacher, John’s chair, friend of John’s b. Russ.: Mašin učitel, Mašin stul, drug Maši Maša-POSS-M.SG. teacher, Maša-POSS-M.SG chair, friend Maša-GEN ‘Maša’s teacher’, ‘Maša’s chair’, ‘Maša’s friend’ Many, perhaps all, genitives seem to have some properties of arguments and some of modifiers, yet some seem more like arguments and some more like modifiers. Recent proposals by Jensen and Vikner (1994), Vikner and Jensen (2002), Partee and Borschev (1998), Borschev and Partee (1999a, b) analyze all genitives as arguments, a conclusion we are no longer sure of for English (see Partee and Borschev 2001). While we now doubt that such an analysis is correct for all kinds of genitives in all languages, we do believe that it is correct for some kinds of genitives in some languages. It is not easy to settle the question of whether there is a substantive difference between these two roles of genitives and it may well be the case that all or many genitives play both roles at once. In both English and Russian there are several constructions which may in some (possibly metaphorical) sense express possession; and in each language there seem to be several different kinds of meanings for constructions which may be considered genitive (genitive morphology in Russian, the morpheme ’-s in English). The correlation between constructions and meanings is not transparent. Major questions about genitive constructions, then, are the following: Are all, some, or no genitives arguments of nouns, and if so, which ones (and how can we tell?), and of what kind, and at what level of analysis? Are some genitives able to get argumental interpretations without actually being arguments in the structural sense of being syntactic complements of the noun and/or of having function-argument structure reflected typetheoretically? In this paper, we examine semantic aspects relating to the question of whether all genitives can and should be given a uniform approach, or whether we can find a satisfying way of accommodating a split approach, while remaining as neutral as possible throughout on the syntactic aspects of the question. Genitives, relational nouns, and argument-modifier ambiguity 69 2. Genitives and related constructions: The challenge The terminology surrounding “possessives” and “genitives” is confusing, since the correspondences among morphological forms, syntactic positions, grammatical relations, and semantic interpretations are complex and subject to debate. Further, there is much variation cross-linguistically. For clarification, let us distinguish at least the following: (3) a. Possessive pronouns: E. my, his; R. moj ‘my’, ego ‘his’; E. predicative forms mine, his; postnominal forms of mine, of his. b. English “Saxon genitives”: John’s; the postnominal Saxon genitive of John’s. c. English PP with of + NPAcc. d. Russian postnominal genitive NP: Mendeleeva ‘of Mendeleev’, tigra ‘of a/the tiger’. e. Russian prenominal possessive: Mašin dom ‘Masha’s house’. Some problems of the semantics of genitives affect all of the constructions listed in (3), while some problems require more fine-grained distinctions to be made. Very similar problems arise in corresponding constructions in many other languages, and related problems arise with the English verb have and its lexical and constructional counterparts in other languages (Bach 1967; Freeze 1992; Landman and Partee 1984; Szabolcsi 1994; Jensen and Vikner 1996; Partee 1999b). The present work concerns the possible need for a distinction between genitives as modifiers and genitives as arguments, and the role that predicate possessives may play in resolving that issue. We leave out of discussion the clear modifier genitives that occur in compounds like a boys’ club, although Munn (1995) has shown that the line between those and other genitives is not as sharp as had been thought. Our starting point is the following data from Partee (1983/1997: 464): (4) a. John’s team b. a team of John’s c. That team is John’s. (5) a. John’s brother b. a brother of John’s c. (#) That brother is John’s. (6) a. John’s favorite movie b. a favorite movie of John’s c. (#) That favorite movie is John’s. 70 Barbara H. Partee and Vladimir Borschev Informally, a unified interpretation of the genitive phrase “John’s”, applicable to all cases in (4)–(6), is that the genitive phrase always expresses one argument of a relation, for which we will use the descriptive term “genitive relation”, following Jensen and Vikner (1994). However, the relation can come from any of three sources: (i) the context, as in (4) (“plays for”, “owns”, “is a fan of”, etc.); this happens when the noun is a plain one-place predicate; (ii) an inherently relational noun like brother; (iii) an inherently relational adjective like favorite. Following Partee (1983/1997), we initially refer to case (i) as the “free R” reading, and to cases (ii) and (iii) as “inherent R” readings. (In later parts of the paper, the classification will be revised.) The puzzles include these: – Can (and should) examples (4a) and (5a) be given a uniform approach ? If so, how? – Or does the genitive construction combine differently with plain and relational nouns ? And if so, are these differences predictable from some general principles? – Should the first case be split into two distinct cases, one being a default preference of the genitive construction itself for a genitive relation in the family of “owns”, “possesses”, “controls”, possibly with a distinct syntactic source from the context-dependent “free R” readings? – Does the analysis of genitives require that phrasal as well as lexical categories be able to take complements? The examples in (6) show that argument genitives cannot always simply be analyzed as complements of a lexical noun, since it is the whole N-bar favorite movie that provides the relation of which John is an argument. The Russian genitive constructions exemplified in (7) present similar challenges, showing a similar range of genitive relations, with a similar range of relational and plain nouns, although there are also differences between English and Russian to account for. (7) a. ljubitel’ košek lover-NOM.SG cat-GEN.PL ‘lover of cats, cat-lover’ b. rost čeloveka height-NOM.SG man-GEN.SG ‘height of the/a man’ c. nožka stola leg-NOM.SG table-GEN.SG ‘leg of the table, table leg’ Genitives, relational nouns, and argument-modifier ambiguity 71