Intensional Transitives and SilentHAVE: Distinguishing between Want and Need

ing away from issues of pronunciation here (i.e., silent FOR, HAVE, and TO), let us consider which empirical facts this proposal can account for. This structure offers a clear explanation for the modificational ambiguities found with want (and need) mentioned above with time adverbials. Since there are two VPs/TPs available for modification, we expect adverbial modifiers to have two potential adjunction sites. Thus, this proposal is clearly superior to one in which no additional embedded clausal architecture is posited, since without it, we would not expect this kind of ambiguity. However, this proposal will not carry through straightforwardly to B-languages that have transitive want, assuming that B-languages lack HAVE. Consider the Russian sentences in (19). (19) a. U Ivana budet novaja ma ina. (Russian) at Ivan-GEN be-FUT SG new car-NOM SG ‘Ivan will have a new car. ’ b. Ivan xo et novuju ma inu. Ivan-NOM wants new car-ACC ‘Ivan wants a new car. ’ The sentence in (19a) exhibits the standard way of expressing possession in Russian, i.e., by means of verbal be. There is no productive verb have used for general cases of possession. However, as (19b) shows, Russian does have a transitive verb xotet’ ‘want’. Here I propose that only a slight modification of Larson et al.’s (1997) structure in (18) is necessary to account for the existence of transitive want in B-languages, namely, allow the silent embedded verb to be something other than HAVE, namely BE. (20) [VP Ivan [V’ xo et [CP [TP PRO [VP tPRO BE ma inu]]]]] (pre-restructuring) Allowing the embedded verb to be something other than HAVE will also account for the fact that certain event-denoting DPs are incompatible with have and instead prefer get (Harley 2004: 261). (21) a. John wants a compliment #John wants to have a compliment. b. John wants a pat on the back. #John wants to have a pat on the back. c. John wants a kiss. #John wants to have a kiss. 4.2. Transitive ‘need’ Recall that in contrast to transitive want, no IE B-language has transitive need. It is therefore intuitive to propose an analysis in which HAVE is a necessary component of need at some level of representation. But the question remains as to where it is. Recall that there must be an embedded event that allows for modification by adverbials (22). A first guess would be to propose that HAVE is the complement to need, à la Larson et al. (1997). 3 Note that Russian does have a verb imet’ ‘to have, to possess, to own. ’ However, it is not used productively to express possession colloquially, but rather occurs primarily with abstract nouns, for example, in the phrases, imet’ zna enie’ ‘to have significance’ and imet' v vidu ‘to have in mind. ’ When it does occur with concrete nouns, the focus is on ownership, as in Ja imeju dom ‘I have/own a house. ’ This verb is inappropriate in broader havecontexts since it cannot be used to say, ‘I have a daughter’ *Ja imeju do '. 4 Note that Endo et al. (1999) make a similar proposal for concealed complement clauses with want and need in Japanese, positing a null verb BE. I thank Yoshi Kitagawa for drawing this paper to my attention. 5 Note that these facts hold for transitive need as well, suggesting that the silent embedded verb that occurs with need is not unambiguously HAVE. (i) John needs a compliment. #John needs to have a compliment. (ii) John needs a kiss. #John needs to have a kiss. 215