Reconciling Serial Verbs with Labeling and Theta Theory*

The English Linguistic Society of Japan
17th International Spring Forum 2024

Jason Ginsburg1 Sandiway Fong2 Hiroshi Terada3 Masumi Matsumoto3
1Kyoto University 2University of Arizona 3Osaka Kyoiku University

Kyoto University
May 26, 2024

*This work is supported by a Japan Society for the Promotion ofScience Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research: ( # 24K03964)

http://ginsburg-lab.h.kyoto-u.ac.jp/WebPresentations/ELSJSpring2024.pdf

1. Introduction
Facts• Serial Verb Constructions (SVCs) occur in many languages, e.g. SOV Japanese (andKorean), and even English, e.g. come/go see, go fly a kite, pray tell (Zwicky 1990).
• According to Aikhenvald (2018:249), SVCs are found in more than two-thirds (most!) ofthe world’s languages.
• Japanese SVCs are productive, compositional and non-compositional (idiomatic)
meanings are possible across both transitive and intransitive verb types.
• Cf. the Compound Verb Lexicon, Nishiyama 2008 and references therein.
• SVC verbs share argument structure.
• SVCs with an aspectual V2, e.g. tabe-oeru ‘eat-finish’, don’t share argument structure.
Research Questions• Are SVCs part of core language? (Ideally, yes.)• If so, how are they formed and how are they labeled? (Ideally, use existingmechanisms only.)• What happens if we simply stack verb theta structures together?

2. Proposal• Chomsky (1975, 2021) indicates that there is a verbcomplement relation between 1Billθ and the verbal complex
persuade-to-leave.
• Evidence for verbal complexes is related to “heavy selectionalrestrictions” (Chomsky 1975:505). Persuade, combined with its
complement, determines verb-object selectional restrictions.
(5) *I persuaded him to bleed/hear/be happy.
• The position of 1Billθ is also motivated by binding facts. Bindingof the object (IA) is possible.
(6) I persuaded myself to leave.
• Passivization of Bill is possible.
(7) Bill was persuaded to leave.
Modify Labeling Theory as follows:(8) {XP, YP} has label Z if YP is a verbal complex Z.
• In Fig. 5, persuade-to-leave is a verbal complex that can label
and takes 1Billθ as a complement.
• Similarly, in Fig. 6, the verbal complex os-i-taosu ‘push-topple’labels and takes TaroIA2 as a complement.
• {1Billθ, persuade-to-leave} and {TaroIA2, os-i-taos} aresuccessfully labeled as {XP, Y} structures.

Basic Assumptions
FormCopy (FC): establish a copy relation between two (ccommanding) identical inscriptions via Minimal Search(adapted from Chomsky 2021).

Labeling Theory (Chomsky 2013, 2015):
a. {X, YP}à Label = X
b. {XPF, YPF} à Label = shared F
c. {XP, YP} à Unlabeled (without shared features)d. {XP, {Z, {1XP, YP}}}à Label of {1 is the label of YPProposal• Suppose SVCs are formed by (Theta) Merge only.
• An alternative proposal, use FormSet (Chomsky, In press).
• Merge: Combine X and Y to form object {X, Y}, X & Y from Workspace, or Y a term of X (Chomsky 2001, etc.).
• Theta Merge builds theta configurations (External Merge, Duality of Semantics) (Chomsky 2007, 2021).
• Argument sharing between theta configurations made possible by FormCopy.

Figure 1: Transitive v*P• Two transitive verbs combine• The verbs are stacked• FormCopy applies:• (MariEA2, MariEA1)• (TaroIA2, TaroIA1)=

Labeling Failure

Figure 2: Transitive v*P(2) John persuaded Bill to leave. (Chomsky 2021:24)• Persuade takes two complements (Chomsky 1975, 2021)• Bill
• Bill to leave• There are two separate NPs Bill, which each get a separate
theta-role.
(3) John persuaded Bill1 that he1 should leave.
• Idioms(4) a. John thought the cat got Bill's tongue. [idiomatic]
b. !John persuaded the cat to get Bill's tongue. [non-idiomatic](see Radford 2009 for similar examples)

This FormCopy analysis also applies straighforwardly for:• transitive-intransitive SVCs: tuki-sasaru ‘poke-get stuck’• intransitive-transitive SVCs like yoi-tubusu (get.drunk-crush) ‘get wasted’

3. Conclusions• We overcome problems inherent in standard analyses which relyon ad hoc lexical or syntactic processes that alter the thematic
structures of verbs.
• Kageyama (1993) proposes that SVCs such as osi-taosu‘push-topple’ are formed in the lexicon, which requires
special, i.e. construction-particular, versions of V1 and V2 θconfigurations, complicating the theory.
• Both Nishiyama (1998) and Saito (2016) propose syntactic
analyses in which a transitive SVC has a single EA θ-position• Nishiyama proposes a separate IA θ-position with PRO asthe lower IA.
• {EA, {{IAi, {{PROi, V1}, V2}}, Tr(active)}}• Saito proposes a V1-V2 verb complex that jointly selects foran IA.
Figure 5: verbal complex persuade-to-leave• {IA, {V1, V2}}
• We propose that verbs retain their original argument structure inSVCs. This accords with the optimal conditions of the Minimalist
Program, the Strong Minimalist Thesis (Chomsky 2000, 2001).
• The Strong Minimalist Thesis (SMT) (Chomsky 2000, 2001,and subsequent work) states that language makes optimaluse of the new functionality enabled by some minor rewiring ofthe brain.
• We provide evidence that our analysis is on the right track
because the same syntax processes seem to apply in the English
complex-predicate case as in the Japanese SVC.
• Remaining questions:• Is this the simplest possible theory to account for SVCs?
(Perhaps.)• Why don’t all languages have SVCs?
Figure 6: SVC osi-taosLabeling Success(1) Mari-ga Taro-o osi-taosi-ta
M.-Nom T.-Acc push-topple-Pst‘Mari toppled Taro by pushing him.’(Adapted from Nishiyama 1998:185)+We note some further parallels between persuade-to-leave and osi-tao:• Passivization is possible with SVCs.
(9) Taro-ga Mari-ni osi-taos-are-ta
T-Nom M-by push-topple-Pass-Pst‘Taro was pushed down by Mary.’• Binding of object (IA) is also possible.
(10) Ken-ga zibun-zisin-o arai-kiyome-ta.
K-Nom myself-Acc wash-clean-Pst‘Ken purified himself.’

Figure 3: SVC structure

FormCopy applies:• (1Billθ, 2Bill)• (2Bill, 3Billθ)Figure 4: Persuade Double-complement structure

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