Question 1
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| Please define the 'time-away construction'. What
are the unique syntactic properties of the 'time-away construction'?
What is the semantics of the construction? |
Question 1 Answer
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| The 'time-away construction' contains an intransitive
verb, followed by an apparently unlicensed NP plus the particle
away.
(1) Bill slept the afternoon (entirely) away.
A wide range of verbs is possible in the construction-provided
they have an intransitive subcategorization. No postverbal
NP may be present other than the time phrase, nor may the
verb be one that requires a direct object. It can invert with
the NP, especially if the NP is a little longer. The only
possible particle in this construction, away, can also be
modified, in which case it does not invert as (1). The NP
is a free time expression, permitting a variety of determiners,
and they are apparently VP complements (in direct object position),
as if it usurps this position so that the verb itself cannot
license an NP there.
The 'time-away construction' requires the rest of the sentence
to express an atelic situation or a bounded but repeatable
event. It requires its subject to be acting volitionally and
the verb to denote an activity not a state. A more subtle
aspect of the semantics of the construction is that the subject
is in some sense understood as 'using' the time, or even better,
'using the time up'. A further subtlety is reflected in the
verbs: there is an insinuation that the activity was heedless
pleasure, or that the subject should have been doing something
else, or both. A final point of the description of the semantics
of the construction: in the context of a journey, say a crosscountry
flight, the time expression can be replaced by a distance
expression D which is read as 'the amount of time it took
to travel/traverse D'. |
Question 2
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| How is the construction distinct from the 'resultative
construction' and the 'way-construction'? |
Question 2 Answer
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| The 'time-away construction' is distinct from
the 'way-construction'. First, in the way construction, the
direct object 'one's' way is lexically fixed and the PP is lexically
free, whereas in the 'time'-away construction the direct object
is lexically free and the particle is lexically fixed. And,
the selectional restrictions on the verb are different, as (2)
and (3)
(2) a. *The light flashed the morning away.
b. * Emma elbowed an afternoon away.
(3) a. The light flashed its way into our consciousness.
b. Emma elbowed her way into the room.
Next consider the status of the direct object. In the 'time'-away
construction, it behaves like a fully referential phrase:
it undergoes passive and other movements such as tough movement;
it can be pronominalized and questioned. By contrast, his
way in the way construction cannot undergo passive and tough
movement; it cannot be pronomizalized, ellipted, or questioned.
Finally, the way construction permits the time period to be
identified by an event taking place in it; the 'time'-away
construction does not. In the proper context, the 'time'-away
construction allows the period of time to be identified by
a stretch of space traveled during that period; the way construction
does not.
There are three reasons to distinct the resultative and
the 'time'-away constructions. First, the object in the resultative
is a patient: it is acted upon by the subject and affected
by the action. But a time period cannot be affected by what
someone does during it. Hence the object of the 'time'-away
construction fails the do to test and satisfies only the weaker
do with test. Another reason is the status of away. There
is no resemblance in the semantics of the away in the 'time'-away
construction and the aspectual particle away, which lends
some of its properties and syntactically looks much like the
intransitive resultative: the aspectual particle away describes
the state at the end of the event and is telic, while the
away in the 'time'-away construction describes nothing of
the state and is atelic. Finally, there is nothing about the
resultative that explains the peculiar selectional restrictions
on the verb in the 'time'-away construction and the restriction
to volitional subjects. |
Question 3
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| What are the two possible accounts of the construction?
Which one you think is more convincing? Please give specific reasons. |
Question 3 Answer
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| Two approaches account of the construction:
a lexical rule approach and a constructional approach. In a
lexical rule approach, sleep away, drink away, dive away, doodle
away, and so forth are treated as a complex verb, produced by
a lexical rule. These complex verbs license the time NP in object
position. Such complex verbs are neither syntactic V0s nor lexically
listed. It claims that the verb itself undergoes a meaning shift
in the construction. On the other hand, a constructional approach
supposes that licensing of the object by the verb is only the
default case, and that the grammars of particular languages
may provide other means of licensing it. Such an approach emerges
in Jackedoff and Goldberg, who propose that argument structure
can be determined in part by constructional idioms-syntactic
configurations whose structure contributes semantic content
above and beyond that contained in the constituent lexical items.
Accounting 'time'-away construction, it claims that the direct
object is licensed by the construction, and that the construction's
semantics determines the argument structure of the VP.
The constructional approach is more convincing for me. It
claims that a construction idioms has its own specific meaning,
so when a verb occurring in this construction, we can automatically
get the meaning from the construction not from the verb. We
do not add more semantic meanings to the verb as a lexical
rule approach, which violates the principle of economy. Adding
senses is also a burden of lexicon to memorize more than one
senses of a verb. On contrast, in constructional approach,
each verb has one sense and the added senses could be derived
from the construction. |
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