The interactions between construction meaning and lexical meaning

The interactions between constructionmeaning and lexical meaning^

NING ZHANG

Abstract

This paper examines the relationships among lexical classes, argumentstructures, and syntactic constructions. Eocusing on the ditransitive con-struction in English, Chinese, and Spanish, the author shows that theinterpretation of indirect object of certain classes of verbs, such as transfer-ence verbs cmd state-changing verbs, is goal in English, source in Chinese,and either goal or source in Spanish. In addition, creation verbs, but notconsuming verbs, are permitted in the English ditransitive construction. Incontrast, consuming verbs, but not creation verbs, are permitted in theChinese ditransitive construction. Spanish allows both classes. The authorattributes the contrast to the interactions between lexical meaning andconstruction meaning. In particular, the author argues that the defaultmeaning of the ditransitive construction is transference to the referent ofthe indirect object in English, transference from the referent of the indirectobject in Chinese, and simply transference, without a specification fordirection, in Spanish. Creation verbs, for example, are compatible with thetransference-to meaning and are thus acceptable in the English but notthe Chinese ditransitive construction: consuming verbs are compatible withthe transference-from meaning and are thus allowed in the Chinese but notthe English ditransitive construction.

L Introduction

From the similarities and the differences of the semantic structures ofEnglish and Chinese ditransitive constructions, this research investigatesthe mapping between lexical items and syntactic structures. In recentwork on mapping, researchers focus on questions such as how it ispossible for some verbs in a given language to have one argument in onecase, while having two or three arguments in another. Various theories

Linguistics 36 5 (1998), 957 980 0024-3949/98/0036 0957© Walter de Gruyter

958 N. Zhang

have been put forward to deal with the puzzle; for example, JackendolT's(1990: 448) argument-adding theory, Larson's (1990: 615) argumentaugmentation, Ghomeshi and Massam's (1994) free-mapping hypothesis,Ritter and Rosen s (1996) strong and weak predicate hypothesis, andvan Hout's (1996) event-type checking hypothesis. In contrast to thesestudies, in this research I discuss questions such as why, in a certainsyntactic construction, verbs of a natural class are acceptable in onelanguage while blocked in another; and why in this construction anargument in a fixed syntactic position is interpreted in one way in onelanguage while in the opposite way in another language. Thus, in thisresearch 1 explore the issues of argument structure and mapping from adifl erent viewpoint.

A ditransitive clause contains three arguments. One is the causer ofthe eventuality.^ It is the subject of the clause. The other two argumentsarc internal. The first, the indirect object (10), is either a goal, as him in(la), or a source, as me in ( lb), and the second, the direct object (DO),is always a theme.

(1) a. Her behavior gave him an idea.b. That cost me a dollar.

Stowell (1981) and Kayne (1984), among others, note that in theditransitive construction IO is interpreted as the possessor of DO.Examining the above examples, we can see that the possession relationis set up by the action denoted by the verb gave in (la), while it isdeprived of by the action denoted by the verb cost in ( lb). Thus, asexpected generally, the interpretation of the 10 of a ditransitive verb,either a source or a goal, depends on the lexical semantics of the verb.However, can the lexical meaning of a verb alone decide the acceptabilityof a ditransitive sentence as well as the interpretation of IO?

In this paper, I try to answer why verbs of creation and consumingexhibit difFerent acceptability patterns in the ditransitive construction inChinese and English, shown in (2) and (3), and why unmarked transfer-ence and state-changing verbs in the ditransitive construction assign agoal role to the 10 in English while a source role in Chinese, as shownin (4) and (5).^

(2) a. June baked me a cake.b. *Lao Wang zuo-le wo yi wan suan-la-tang,

Lao Wang make-ASP me one bowl sour-hot-soup(3) a. *Chris drank me three bottles of wine.

b. Lao Wang he-le wo san ping jiu.Lao Wang drink-ASP me three bottle wine'Lao Wang drank three bottles of wine of mine.

Construction meaning and lexical meaning 959

(4) a. He bought me a book.b. ta mai-le wo yi ben shu.

he buy-ASP me one CL book'He botight a book from me.

(5) a. He boiled me an egg.b. ta zhu-le wo yi ge ji-dan

he boil-ASP me one CL chickcn-cgg'He boiled one of my chicken-eggs.'

In this research 1 show that there is a general meaning in the ditransitiveconstruction and this meaning can be further specified in a particularlanguage. Thus this work advocates the hypothesis that not only doessemantic assignment occur at the terminal nodes of syntax, but syntacticstructures are also an independent source of meaning (Ghomeshi andMassam 1994; Borer 1994; Postma 1995; Goldberg 1995).

The interpretation of lO is either a recipient or a provider. The notionof recipient refers to either a recipient of an entity or a recipient of abenefit given by someone else. The notion of provider refers to cither aprovider oi an entity or a provider of a benefit to someone else. In thispaper the contrast between these two interpretations of IO is crucial. Iwill not discuss the distinctions between a recipient and a beneficiary,between a possessor and a source, and so on. In this paper, I will assumethat the general meaning of the ditransitive construction is transference.The term recipient will thus be interchangeable with the goal and the endboundary of a transference, and the term provider will be interchangeablewith source or starting boundary of a transference.

In section 2 I introduce some marked cases with respect to the inter-pretation of a ditransitive sentence. In section 3 1 present the interpreta-tion contrast of an indirect object between English and Chinese. Section 4is a theoretical analysis of the data. Section 5 strengthens my argumentwith the occurrence restrictions of negative-transference verbs in theditransitive construction in English and Chinese. In section 6 I will presentinteractions of aspects with the interpretation of German ditransitivesentences. Finally, section 7 summarizes the paper and lists some remain-ing questions.

2. Marked cases: no contrast between English and Chinese

2.1. Transference verbs containing a specified direction morpheme

English give or send and Chinese gei or song 'give* are specified fordirection of a transference, although not for the manner. Both require10 to be the goal of the transference:

960 A. Zhang

(6) a. John gave Mary a book.b. Lao Zhang gci-lc Lao Li yi ben shu.

Lao Zhang give-ASP Lao Li one CL book'Lao Zhang gave Lao Li a book.

Chinese transference verbs can usually be compounded with -gei 'give'and their 10 always encodes the end boundary of a transference.^

(7) Lao Zhang mai-gei/zu-gei/jie-gei wo yi jian fangzi.Lao Zhang sell-give/rent-give/borrow-give me one CL house'Lao Zhang sold/rcntcd/borrowcd me a house.

Other -gci compound verbs, such as di-gei "pass to\ xie-gei "write to',tid-gei 'push to', da-gei "make (phone call) to', ti-gei 'kick io\ jiao-gei^hand io\ reng-gei 'throw to\ also specify the end boundary meaning ofIO. In such cases, the first part of the compound verb specifies the mannerof the transference.

If a Chinese transference verb is compounded with -zou leave', the 10always encodes the source of the transference. Thus IO of V-ger is goaland that o^N-zou is source. Transference verbs like ban 'move\ //na 'take, dai *bring' and/e/7 'divide' can occur with either -gei or -z

(8) a. ta ban-gei-le wo yi ba yizi.he move-give-ASP me one CL chair'He brought a chair to me.

b. ta ban-zou-le wo yi ba yizi.he movc-lcavc-ASP me one CL chair

took a chair from me.

2.2. Transference verbs with selected themes

Payment verbs, such as cost, fine, charge, and bill in English, hua 'cost''dndfa 'fine' in Chinese, require the 10 to be source or intended source.Other payment verbs like pay in English, fu 'pay and pei 'compensate'in Chinese require the IO to be goal or intended goal. However, thedirect object (DO) of these two groups of verbs can only be money (ormoney equivalent), time, or an abstract asset such as fame. They mayintrinsically specify that the IO is either the end boundary or the startingboundary of a transference.^

(9) a. Mary/This activity cost me a lot of money.b. *Mary/This activity cost me a book/a lot of sweat.

Communication verbs such as gaosu 'XdWjiao, ^[t'dch\ fudao ^eoach

Construction mecming and lexical meaning 961

on the other hand select a message DO, which is either a nominal or aclause. Since the external argument of a communication predicate isalways the immediate source of the transference, and each transferencehas only one source, the internal argument of a communication verbcannot be a source. Thus, like their counterparts in English, such verbsin Chinese may also intrinsically specify that the 10 is the end boundaryof a transference.^

(10) a. ta gaosu-Ie wo neige xiaoxi.he tell-ASP me that news'He told me that news,

b. ta gaosu-le wo ruhe mai baoxian.he tell-ASP me how buy insurance'He told me how to buy insurance.

These two groups of transference verbs, the give/send group and thepayment/communication group, do not show any contrast in the inter-pretation of IO between Chinese and English.

3. Contrastive cases

3.1. Other transference verbs

In this subsection I present data of transference verbs that are neithergei 'give' and song 'send' nor specified for the theme. The followingEnglish data show that the transference direction is always toward thereferent of 10. In other words, IO is the end boundary of the transference.

(11) He bought/sold/rented/leased/borrowed/lent me a house.

In contrast, if a Chinese transference verb does not belong to the twogroups discussed in section 2, its IO is always the starting boundary ofthe transference. In the following pairs of sentences, the subjects areconsistently both the agent and the recipient of a transference in boththe ditransitive construction, (b), and the nonditransitive construction,(a). In the ditransitive sentences, the added argument, IO, can consistentlybe interpreted as the source of the transference.

(12) a. Lao Li mai-le yi zhi bi.Lao Li buy-ASP one CL pen'Lao Li bought a pen.

b. Lao Li mai-le Xiao Wu yi zhi bi.^Lao Li buy-ASP Xiao Wu one CL pen'Lao Li bought a pen from Xiao Wu' (cf English: ^He boughtme a pen').

962 N. Zhang

(13) a. Lao Li tou-le yi ben shu.Lao Li steal-ASP one CL book'Lao Li stole a book,

b. Lao Li tou~le wo yi ben shu.Lao Li steal-ASP me one CL book'Lao Li stole a book from me' (cf. English: 'He stole mea book').

(14) a. ta na-le yi ben shu.he lake-ASP one CL book'He took a book,

b. ta na-le wo yi ben shu.he take-ASP me one CL book'He took a book from me' (cf. English: 'He handed me abook').

(15) a. houzi qiang-le yi go taozi.monkey grab-ASP one CL peachThe monkey grabbed a peach,

b. houzi qiang-le tuzi yi ge taozi.monkey grab-ASP rabbit one CL peach'The monkey grabbed a peach from the rabbit."

(16) a. Lao Li jie-le yi ben shu.^Lao Li borrow-ASP one CL book'Laoli borrowed a book,

b. Lao Li jie-le wo yi ben shu.Lao Li borrow-ASP me one CL bookXaoli borrowed a book from me' (cf. English: 'He borrowedme a book^).

(17) a. Lao Li zu-le yi jian fang.Lao Li rent-ASP one CL room'Lao Li rented a room,

b. Lao Li zu-le wo yi jian fang.Lao Li rent-ASP me one CL room'Lao Li rented a room from me' (cf. English: 'He rented mea room').

These data show that when this type of transference verb appears in aditransitive sentence, IO means the end boundary in English, and thestarting boundary in Chinese.

This contrast between English and Chinese may be explained in variousways. One might claim that the lexical meanings of the transference verbsare different in English and Chinese and that nothing else is involved.However, this claim cannot explain the exactly parallel contrast exhibited


with nontransference verbs in the ditransitive construction, shown in thenext three subsections.

3.2. Creation and appointing verbs

In the previous subsection I presented data of transference verbs. In thefollowing I show data of nontransference verbs in the ditransitive con-struction. Such data have a general meaning: X causes to (or intends to)transfer Z in a certain way. I will discuss creation/appointing verbs inthis subsection, and consuming verbs and state-changing verbs in thenext two subsections.

If the eventuahty encoded by a verb has a creation or appointingproperty, it can be used in an English ditransitive sentence; the sentencemeans X causes to (or intends to) transfer Z to Y in a certain manner.

(18) a. Chris baked Mary a cake (creation verb),b. We elected him president (appointing verb).

If creation or appointing verbs are used in the ditransitive constructionin Chinese, the sentences are unacceptable. In the following data, theintended meaning of (a) can only be expressed by a nonditransitivesentence, fb).

(19) a. *Lao Li zhi-le wo yi shuang shoutao.Lao Li knit-ASP me one pair mitten

b. Lao Li gei wo zhi-le yi shuang shoutao.Lao Li for me knit-ASP one pair mitten'Lao Li knitted a pair of mittens for me.

(20) a. *Lao Li hua-le wo yi zhang hua.Lao Li draw-ASP me one CL picture

b. Lao Li gei wo hua-le yi zhang hua.Lao Li for me draw-ASP one CL picture'Lao Li drew a picture for me.

(21) a. *women xuan-le ta zhuxi.we elect-ASP he president

b. women xuan ta dang zhuxiwe elect him become president'We elected him chair.

(22) a. *wo dangzuo Xiao Wang meimei.1 consider Xiao Wang sister

b. wo ba Xiao Wang dangzuo meimei.I BA Xiao Wang consider sister'I consider Xiao Wang (my) sister.'

964 N.

3.3. Coiisunufii^ verbs

If a verb encodes eventualities of losing, consuming, disappearing, ordamaging, it can be used in a Chinese ditransitive sentence, and thesentence means X causes to (or intends to) transfer Z from Y in a certainmanner. Such verbs arc (/// 'eat\ he 'drink', r/zou (yan) 'smoke (cigarette)',yong \ise' shao 'burn' diu 1ose\ etc. The English counterparts of theseditransitive sentences arc unacceptable.

(23) a. *Bi]l ate me an apple.b. Laoli chi-lc wo yi ge pingguo.

Laoli eat-ASP me one CL apple'Laoli ate an apple of mine' (lit. Xaoli ate me an apple').

(24) a. *John burned me a document.b. ta shao-le wo yi fen wenjian.

ta burn-ASP me one CL document'He burned one of my documents' (lit. 'he burned me adocument').

(25) a. *John wore Bill a shirt.b. Lao Zhang chuan-le Lao Li yi jian chenshan.

Lao Zhang wcar-ASP Lao Li one CL shirt'Lao Zhang wore Lao Li's shirt" (lit. 'Lao Zhang wore Lao Lia shirt').

Ihesc two subsections show that in the English ditransitive construc-tion, creation and appointing verbs, but not consuming verbs, areallowed. However, in Chinese, it is just the other way around.

3.4. State-changing verbs

State-changing verbs can occur in the ditransitive construction in bothEnglish and Chinese. Levin and Rapoport (1988: 287) state that ditransi-tive sentences are possible mainly with verbs of creation and obtaining,and pure state-changing verbs do not enter into this construction, sincebreak me a glass is ungranimalical. In fact, this expression is ill-formedonly pragmatically. It is unusual that transferring of something to some-body is carried out by breaking it or that anybody should benefit frombreaking a glass, if English 10 is expected to be goal or beneficient.However, if the context allows, such cases can occur, as in (26a). Otherstate-changing verbs can also occur in the ditransitive construction, as in(26b). IO is consistently goal.


(26) a. Can you break me up some toothpicks? (for me to build amodel)

b. He baked me a potato.

Chinese ditransitive sentences in (27) contain state-changing verbs.However, IO is source rather than goal.

(27) a. ta da-sui-le wo yi ge boli-bei.he hit-brokcn-ASP me one CL glass-vessel^He broke a glass of mine' (lit. 'He broke me a glass')-

b. ta zheng-le wo yi zhi ji.he steam-ASP me one CL chicken"He steamed one of my chickens."

c. wo yan-le Xiao Wang yi bao luobo.I pickle-ASP Xiao Wang one package radish'I pickled a package of Xiao Wang's radishes."

The above data show that when a state-changing verb occurs in theditransitive construction, a factual or intended transference meaning isimplied in the sentence, and the direction of the transference is towardthe 10 referent in English, but away from the IO referent in Chinese.This patterns with the transference verbs presented in section 3.1.

Overall, we have seen the contrast between the Chinese and Englishditransitive constructions in both the acceptability of certain classes ofverbs and the interpretation of the transference direction.

4. The meaning of the ditransitive construction

Investigating other languages such as Spanish, we found that the ditransi-tive construction in these languages does not pattern with cither Chineseor English. In Spanish, a ditransitive sentence containing a transferenceverb can be ambiguous between transference-to and transference-from.The direction of the transference is pragmatically determined.

(28) Le compre un auto,him bought a car'I bought a car for hinn / froin him.'

In addition, like Chinese and unlike English, Spanish allows a consumingverb to occur in the ditransitive construction:

(29) a. Le perdi cinco dolares.him lost.Is five dollars\ lost five dollars of his.

b. Le comi un pastel,him ate.Is a cake1 ate a cake of his.

966 M Zhang

Furthermore, like English and unlike Chinese, Spanish allows a creationverb to occur in the ditransitive construction:

(30) Le hice un pastel,him baked.Is a cake'I baked a cake for him.

In this section I discuss the theoretical implications of the contrastamong languages of English, Chinese, and Spanish types with respect tothe ditransitive construction. Four questions will be discussed. First, whycan a nontransference verb such as English bake or Chinese he 'drink',whose argument structure contains only two structural arguments (theterm structural argument is borrowed from Wunderlich 1997), occur inthe ditransitive construction? In other words, how is the additional argu-ment licensed with these verbs in the construction? Second, why arecreation verbs allowed in Fnglish but not in the Chinese ditransitiveconstruction and why are consuming verbs allowed in Chinese but notin the English ditransitive construction? Third, why is there such acontrast of the transference direction in both transference and non-transference verbs between English and Chinese ditransitive construc-tions? Finally, how shall we explain the marked cases shown in section 2?I will discuss the first question in section 4.1 and the others in section 4.2.

4.1. Construction meaning

To deal with the first question, why a nontransference verb such asEnglish bake or Chinese he 'drink\ whose argument structure containsonly two structural arguments, can occur in the ditransitive constructionand make the sentence mean transference in a certain manner, Jackendoff(1990: 448) proposes that a new beneficiary argument is optionally addedto the argument structure of an English verb, and Larson (1990: 615)proposes an optional argument-augmentation hypothesis. Neitherhypothesis tells us what kind of verb can undergo the argument additionor augmentation, since not every verb can do so. Ritter and Rosen (1996)point out that there are cases in which the lexical semantics of a verbunderdetermines its aspectual roles, and thus aspectual roles are notprojected from the lexicon. Following Grimshaw (1990) and Tenny(1994), they propose that there is a level of event structure between thelexicon and syntax, and that argument mapping is not a relation betweenthe lexicon and syntax, but rather a relation between event structure andsyntax. Saying this, we can see that the number of arguments of a sentenceis decided by an event rather than a verb, and the event structure can


license a nontransference verb to occur with two internal arguments. Asimilar idea is also implied in van Hout (1996) in that the event-typefeatures must be checked in a certain functional phrase such as AgrOPHowever, there remain some unanswered questions, such as what therelationship between an event structure and numeration is and what itmeans to check event-type features, if they are interpretable, and wherethese event-type features come from. Generally speaking, all of thesestudies suggest that mapping from lexical semantics to syntactic structureis not direct.

The present research takes an alternative approach to the variation inthe mapping between lexical and syntactic structures. I advocate a con-struction meaning, which is proposed by Goldberg (1995), among others.Based on her studies of a few English constructions, Goldberg (1995: iv)concludes that ''basic sentences of English are instances of construc-tions - form meaning correspondences that exist independently of par-ticular verbs.'' Although there is no question that a large amount ofinformation is contributed by individual lexical items, in her work,

it is argued that an entirely lexically-based, or bottom-up, approach fails toaccount for the full range of English data. Particular semantic structures togetherwith their associated formal expression must be recognized as constructionsindependent of the lexical items which instantiate them (1995; iv).

In this paper, I do not intend to integrate Goldberg's work on Englishwith my work or review her analyses of English. However, I will use herassumption that sentence meaning comes from constructions as well asfrom lexical items to explain my data. An application of her assumptionto the present work can test the adequacy of the assumption against awider range of data.

The syntactic properties of the ditransitive have been studied exten-sively. For example, we all know that the verb in the construction takestwo nominal complements. The construction has been analyzed asmultiple VP layers (Larson 1990), and as a special kind of small clause(Kayne 1984), among other analyses. Thus the identification of theditransitive construction as a formal entity distinct from other construc-tions has long been recognized in the linguistic history. On the otherhand, the semantic properties of the construction have also been studied.For example, 10 must be animate. However, the semantic identity of theditransitive construction has rarely been proposed.

Following the basic idea of Goldberg (1995), I propose that the mean-ing of the ditransitive construction is transference generally. Speci(ically,it is transference toward the referent of 10 (transfcrencc-to, hence) inEnglish, transference from the referent of 10 (transfercnce-from, hence)

968 A . Zhang

in Chinese, and simply tnuisfercncc in the Spanish type of language. Inother words, the transference meaning of a ditransitive sentence can comefrom either a transference verb, or the construction itself. In the lattercase, the construction meaning differs from the lexical meaning of a verb.Verbs like cv//, bake, and break do not have a transference meaning inthe lexicon. They do not have goal or source in their lexical representa-tions, and they do nol require an indirect object. When they occur in theditransitive eonstruction, the eonstruetion meaning makes the senteneeto mean transference, whieh has two boundaries, source and goal. Theexternal argument of the verbs in the construction is interpreted as thecauser of the transference. A new argument, IO, is added to make oneof the two transference boundaries explicit. The lexical meanings of theverbs are accordingly interpreted as the manner of the transference. Thetheme of the verbs is DO and is interpreted as the entity to be transferred.

The aeeeptability of creation verbs in the English ditransitive eonstrue-tion, consuming verbs in the Chinese ditransitive eonstruction, and state-ehanging verbs in both of the languages ean be accounted for if eonstrue-tion meaning is recognized. Any verb whose meaning does not conflictwith the meaning of a construelion ean occur in the eonstruetion. Weean eall this assumption 'l>ee mapping selected by eonstruetion mean-ing.'' This assumption eliminates the arbitrariness eneountered in theargument adding or augmentation theories. It also restricts a randomfree mapping. In English, creation verbs are allowed in the ditransitiveeonstructions because one ean transfer something to someone in the wayof creating the thing. The lexical meaning of a creation verb matches theconstruction meaning of trcmsference-to in English. In Chinese, consum-ing verbs are allowed in the ditransitive constructions because one cantransfer something from someone in the way of consuming the thing.The lexical meaning of a consuming verb matches the construction mean-ing of transference from in Chinese. The reason for creation and consum-ing verbs to be allowed in the ditransitive construction in English andChinese respectively, and state-changing verbs to be allowed in both ofthe languages, is that their lexical meanings do not conflict with themeaning of the construction in the respective language, rather than thatan additional argument can be arbitrarily added to the argument strue-tures of these verbs. In such cases, the occurrence of IO is licensed bythe meaning of the ditransitive construction, rather than by the propertiesof the verb itself. Of course IO of transferenee verbs such as give andsend, which have three arguments in their lexical semantics, is requiredby the verbs themselves.

With respect to the meaning of ditransitive construction, although itslanguage-specific part, that is, the direction of transference, can uiteract

Conslruclion meaning and lexical meaning 969

with lexical meanings (see section 4.2), the general meaning of transfer-ence remains stable in the ditransitive construction: every ditransitivesentence entails some act of transference. This transference meaning isabstract and independent of whether the transference has become reality.Sentences like the following indicate that a transference event may ormay not become reality. Thus the transference can be either intendedor factual.

(31) a. She baked me a cake, but I did not get it,b. He charged me five dollars, but I did not pay.c. She is baking me a cake, but I don't think 1 can get it.d. He will charge me five dollars, but I will not pay.e. She should bake me a cake.

The contrast between a realized transference and an unrealized transfer-ence comes from factors other than the ditransitive construction.

I have shown in this subsection that a construction can have itsmeaning, the ditransitive construction has a transference meaning gen-erally, IO of nontransference verbs in the ditransitive construction islicensed by the construction meaning, and this is why these verbs canoccur with an extra argument in the construction.

4.2. The interactions between construction meanings and lexical meanings

Unlike the first question, which asks why verb x can behave like verb y,the second question asks why verb z cannot behave like verb y.Specifically, the question is why creation verbs are allowed in the Englishbut not m the Chinese ditransitive construction and why consuming verbsare allowed in the Chinese but not in the English ditransitive construction.This issue was first posed in Zhang (1994). Although there has, lo thebest of my knowledge, not been any further contrastive research in thearea of the ditransitive construction, there are some theories that havebeen trying to explain why verb z cannot behave like verb y. One suchtheory is Ritter and Rosen's (1996) strong and weak predicate hypothesis,which can be traced back to Cowper's (1989) thematic underspecifieationassumption. In the strong and weak predicate hypothesis, strong verbsare those with specified semantic selection, specified action/state denoted,specified aspeetual classification, specified number of arguments theyselect, and specified syntactic frames. Weak verbs, on the contrary, arevariable in all of these respects. For example, the verb walk is strongcompared to run, thus walk occurs in fewer contexts than run does.

970 A . Zhang

(32) a. Martha ran to the store: 'dash'b. Tears ran down the child's face: 'fiow'c. Martha ran Fred to the station: 'take'd. Martha ran a successful campaign: 'manage'e. Fred knows how to run the fax machine: 'operate'.

(33) a. Martha walked to the store: go on foot'.b. *Tears walked down the child's facec. Martha walked Fred to the station: 'accompany

on foot'.d. ^Martha walked a successful campaign:e. *Fred knows how to walk the fax machine.

The relative strength of a verb is a purely lexical matter: some verbshave more semantic content in the lexicon than others. As pointed outby Ritter and Rosen (1996: 45), because languages differ most in theirlexicons, we expect that a given verb may differ in its relative strengthacross languages. For example, in French, courir 'run' is stronger thanmarcher ^walk'. Thus, in French, one uses marcher in many of the contextswhere one uses run in English.

Similarly, one might suggest that creation verbs are weaker than con-suming verbs in English, while vice versa in Chinese, and that is whythere are restrictions on distribution in the ditransitive construction.However, if this rationale were true, we would not be able to explain thegenerality across a natural class. If this occurrence restriction were apurely lexical matter, how could we account for the neat boundarybetween creation and consummg verbs, considering their opposite mean-ings? Thus my answer to the second question is that the distinctionbetween Chinese and English with respect to the occurrence of a naturalclass of verbs in the ditransitive construction is not a distinction betweenlexically strong and weak items.

One can claim that in the ditransitive construction, creation verbs suchas bake introduce a new resultative state or ending boundary to aneventuality. For example, a person s receipt of a cake can be a new resultstate of baking. It has been mentioned to me that since Chinese usuallydoes not introduce a resultative state as English sentences Hke he drankthe bottle empty do, thus Chinese cannot use creation verbs to introducea new state in complex constructions such as the ditransitive construction.However, Chinese does use complex constructions such as the BA con-struction, which does not have a counterpart in English, to introduce anew resultative state (Lli et al. 1980, among others).

(34) a. ta ba fangjian dasao gangjing le.he BA room cleany elean^dj ASP'He made the room clean by clearing it.


b. ta ba shuzi tongji cuo le.he BA figure calculate wrong ASP'He made the figures wrong by (mis)calculating them.'

c. ta ba wanfan zhunbei hao le.he BA supper prepare ready ASP'He made the supper ready by preparing it.

Thus here we face the questions why Chinese can introduce a newresultative state in other constructions but not in the ditransitive construc-tion, and why in the ditransitive construction Chinese cannot introducea new resultative state while English can. Therefore, we come back tothe ditransitive construction itself. In addition, the above claim cannotprovide a unified explanation of the ban of both creation verbs in Chineseand consuming verbs in English in the ditransitive construction. Nowhereelse can we find an initiative boundary of the eventuality to be added tothe argument structure of a Chinese verb, except in IO of the ditransitiveconstruction. Therefore again we come back to the ditransitiveconstruction.

The acceptability patterns of nontransference verbs occurring in theditransitive construction in these languages can be accounted for in termsof the interactions between lexical meanings and construction meaning,provided that the latter does exist. 1 have assumed that the defaultmeaning of the ditransitive construction is transference-to in English andtransference-from in Chinese. There is an interaction of constructionmeaning and lexical meaning: they are either matched or mismatched.For English, it is natural to transfer something to somebody by creatingthe thing, or transfer a title or a position by appointing the person tothe title or position, so no conflict between lexical meaning and construc-tion meaning exists, and thus the English ditransitive sentences withcreating or appointing verbs are acceptable. As for Chinese, since it isimplausible that creating something would have the effect of taking thatthing away from someone, and since appointing someone always resultsin the person acquiring, not losing, a position, the lexical meaning ofthese verbs conflicts with the constructional meaning of the ditransitiveconstruction. Thus such verbs cannot be used in the Chinese ditransitiveconstruction.

The acceptability patterns of consuming verbs occurring in the ditransi-tive construction in these two languages can also be accounted for interms of the interactions between lexical meanings and constructionmeanings. One cannot transfer something to another person in a wayof consuming the thing. Thus, the conflict between the lexical meaningof a consuming verb and the default transference-to meaning of the

972 N. Zhang

English ditransitive construction causes the unacceptability of Englishditransitive sentences with consuming verbs. In contrast, one can transfersomething from another person in a way of consuming the thing. Thus,the harmony between the lexical meaning of a consuming verb and thedefault transfcrcfucfrom meaning of the Chinese ditransitive constructionensures the acceptability of Chinese ditransitive sentences with consumingverbs. The mismatch in English does not occur in Chinese.

No creation or appointing verb is allowed to occur in the Chineseditransiiive construction because the meaning of creation/appointmentconflicts with the construction meaning transference-from; while no con-suming verb is allowed to occur in the English ditransitive constructionbecause the meaning of consuming conflicts with the construction mean-ing iransferencc-to. In other words, the occurrence restriction of a verbin the ditransitive construction can be predicted if one considers theinteractions between the lexical meaning and the construction meaning.As for Spanish, since the construction meaning of the ditransitive con-struction is unspecified for the transference direction, both consumingand creation verbs can occur in the construction. In this case, the transfer-ence meaning of the sentence comes from the construction itself, and theinterpretation of the transference direction is decided by the transferencemanner, which is encoded by the verb. Specifically, creation verbs matchthe transfcrence-to direction, and thus the direction of transfcrence-tooccurs when creation verbs are used; in contrast, consuming verbs matchthe transfcrence-from direction, and thus the direction of transference-from occurs when consuming verbs are used, as shown in (29) and (30).

The third question is on the interpretation of an argument: why isthere a contrast of the transference direction in both transference andnontransference verbs, such as state-changing verbs, between English andChinese ditransitive constructions? Neither Jackendoff's (1990: 448)argument-adding theory nor Larsons (1990: 615) argument-augmenta-tion assumption answers why it is beneficiary or goal, not source, that isadded in English. If we follow Ghomeshi and Massam s (1994) freemapping hypothesis and assume that a syntactic position assigns aspec-tual roles to the argument, and aspectual roles are part of universalgrammar,*^ we have two possibilities. First, a syntactic position assignsan aspectual role of transference boundary consistently to its indirectobject. Ignoring the distinction between starting and end boundary ofthe transference. Then, in a particular language, this aspectual role iseither specified or still unspecified. If it is specified, in a default case, itis either the starting boundary, as in Chinese, or the end boundary, asin English. Strong verbs, whieh have their special selectional restrictions,can change the default interpretation of this argument. If the aspectual


role of an 10 is unspecified in a language, as in Spanish, the direction ofthe transference is pragmatically determined, and the IO is assigned theuniversal aspectual role of transference boundary. However, it is notclear what mechanism is responsible for specifying IO to be a startingboundary in Chinese and an end boundary in English. The second possi-bility is that the syntactic position of an IO assigns a starting-boundaryaspectual role in Chinese and an end-boundary aspectual role in English.As for Spanish, this position assigns a neutral-boundary aspectual role.

Since I am not sure how this hypothesis answers the third question,I will simply take a position that assumes that there is a general con-struction meaning for the dilransitive construction, that is, transference,as in Spanish-type languages. Tn English this general meaning is furtherspecified as transference-to. while in Chinese it is transference from.Construction meaning interacts with the lexical meaning of a verb. Sincean unmarked transference verb and a state-changing verb are compatiblewith either direction of a transference, the default meaning of the con-struction plays a role in the interpretation of the sentence. That is whywhen such a verb is used in the ditransitive construction, English sentencesmean transference to, while Chinese sentences mean transference from.As for Spanish, since the construction meaning of the ditransitive con-struction is unspecified for the transference direction, both directions ofa transference are possible when an unmarked transference verb or astate-changing verb is used. Therefore such a Spanish sentence isambiguous.

In the above discussion, I have shown that the construction meaningcan restrict the occurrence of certain classes of verbs and control theinterpretation of lOs. However, as pointed out by one of the reviewers,interactions the other way around are also possible: the constructionmeaning is overridden by the lexical meaning. The choice between thesetwo ways of interaction should not be random. In fact, we do find thedivision line between these two kinds of interaction. Only lexical mean-ings of transference verbs can suppress the construction meaning of theditransitive construction. Here I assume both give/send verbs andcommunication/payment verbs to be transference verbs. In the lattercase, messages and valuable assets are transferred in the relevant eventual-ities. These two types of verb, the give/send type and the communicationtype, assign the theta role of source to their external arguments. Theexternal argument of these verbs is semantically both agent and sourceat the same time. Since each transference allows at most one source andone goal, the IO of these verbs can only be goal, as shown in section 2.Thus the sentence meaning is transference-lo consistently, regardless ofthe construction meaning of the language. Chinese compound transfer-

974 N. Zhang

encc verbs containing the -gci morpheme (cf. section 2.1) behave likegive/send type verbs in that their external argument is source and 10 isgoal, while compound transference verbs containing the -zou morphemebehave in the opposite way: their external argument is goal and 10 issource. Payment verbs are not as homogeneous as other types of transfer-ence verbs. The extcrna] argument of each payment verb is specified foreither goal, like that of cost, fine, charge, and bill in English, hua 'cost'and fa fine* in Chinese, or source, like that of pay in English, fu ^pay'and pei 'compensate' in Chinese. Again since each transference allows atmost one source and one goal, the 10 of the former group is source andthat of the latter group is goal. The overriding of construction meaningby lexical meaning explains the marked cases presented in section 2.

5. Negative-transference verbs

There is another piece of evidence for the contrast of the default ditransi-tive construction meaning in Chmese and English. If a transference verbmeans not-give-to, that is, with the specified direction to the referent of10 rather than away from the referent of 10, the verb can be used in theEnglish ditransitive construction, and the sentence means not-transfer-ence-to (notice that this is not equal to transference-from). The secondinternal argument of such a verb is limited, usually an abstract or unspeci-fied plural or mass entity. Such verbs are refuse, deny, forbid, etc.

(35) a. He denied me admission.b. He refused me food/water.c. How could you refuse that kid a couple jelly beans?d. *He denied me a book.

However, such verbs cannot be used in a Chinese ditransitiveconstruction:

(36) a. ta jujue-le Lao Li de shipin (transitive sentence).he rcfuse-ASP Lao Li MOD food'He refused Lao Li's food/

b. *ta jujue-le Lao Li shipin (ditransitive sentence),he refuse-ASP Lao Li food

If the default meaning of the Chinese ditransitive construction is nottransference-to, it is natural that the negative meaning, that is, fiot-transfercnce-to, is also unavailable.

In contrast, if a verb means not-take-from, that is, with the specifieddirection away from the referent of 10 rather than to the referent of 10,


the verb can be used in a Chinese ditransitive construction, and thesentence means not-tramfer-from. The English counterpart isunacceptable.

(37) a. ta mian-le wo wufan-qian.he exempt-ASP me lunch-fee'He exempted me from the lunch fee.

b. He exempted me *(from) taxes.

This can be accounted for in the similar way as above. If the defaultmeaning of the English ditransitive construction is not transference-from,it is natural that the negative meaning, not~transference-from, is notavailable either.

6. The interactions between telicity and the interpretation of theditransitive construction

In this subsection, 1 show the interaction between the interpretation ofthe ditransitive construction and the telicity of an eventuality. LikeSpanish, German can have both benefit-recipient and benefit-providerreadings of IO for transference verbs. In addition, like English, Germanallows only creation verbs but not consuming verbs to occur in theditransitive construction.

(38) a. Ich stahl ihm ein Buch.I stole him a book1 stole a book from/for him.

b. Ich backte ihm einen Kuchen.I baked him a cake'I made him a cake.'

c. *lch aB ihm ein Kuchen.I ate him a cake

However, IO of German transference verbs do not always have bothreadings. If only one reading is allowed, it must be the benefit-recipientreading, as in (39). This is expected, since German looks more likeEnglish than Chinese and Spanish in terms of gramniatieality patternsof creation and consuming verbs in the ditransitive construction, and thebenefit-recipient reading is the default reading of IO in English.

(39) a. Sie schob ihm den Wagen.she pushed him the car'She pushed the car for him.

b. Sie fuhr ihm den Wagen.she drove him the car'She drove the car for him.

976 N. Zhang

The condition for a German IO to have a benefit-provider meaning,as pointed out by one reviewer of this paper, is the telic aspect of asentence. A German IO can be interpreted as either benefit provider orbenefit recipient in a telic eventuality. For instance, the verb stehlen 'steal'is a telic verb in German, thus (38a) above is ambiguous. In contrast,the verbs schieben 'push' and fahren 'drive' are atelic verbs, and thustheir IO cannot be interpreted as benefit provider, as shown in (39). Inthese two sentences, the IO ihm 'him' is a benefit recipient rather than abenefit provider. It seems that a benefit-provider reading of 10 can onlybe triggered by a telic aspect.

In Chinese, however, no such triggering is possible. In both a telicsentence, such as (40b), which has a definite object and a resullativecompound verb tou-zhao-le 'steal-succeed-ASP'. and an atelic sentence,such as (41b), IO is a benefit provider rather than a benefit recipient. Incontrast to (39b) above, the interpretation of (41b) can be that thereferent of the subject once took advantage of the referent of TO's earfor his or her own benefit. This interpretation is impossible for (39b).

(40) a. wo tou-zhao-lc nei ben shuI steal-succeed-ASP that CL book'I have succeeded in stealing that book.

b. wo tou-zhao-le ta nei ben shu.I stcal-succecd-ASP he that CL book'I have succeeded in stealing that book for him (T^C).

c. wo gei ta tou-zhao-Ie nei ben shu.I for he steal-succeed-ASP that CL book4 have succeeded in stealing that book for him.

(41) a. wo kai-guo yi Hang qiche.I drive-ASP one CL car'I drove a car.'

b. wo kai-guo ta yi liang qiche.I drive-ASP he one CL car'1 drove a car of his' (T^C).

c. wo gei ta kai-guo yi liang qiche.I for he drive-ASP one CL car'1 drove a car for him.

The interpretation of IO in Chinese does not vary with changes intelicity. The impossibility of a benefit-recipient reading of Chinese 10 inboth atelic and telic contexts further shows the lack of transference-tomeaning in the Chinese ditransitive construction. In contrast, the possi-bility of a benefit-provider reading of German IO in telic contexts tells


us that aspect may interact with the interpretation of a syntactic construc-tion in German.

7. Summary and remaining questions

Based on the occurrence of nontransference verbs in the ditransitiveconstruction, I have argued that there is a general transference meaningin the ditransitive construction; and this meaning hcenses the extra argu-ment for the verbs. In addition, the different acceptability patterns ofcreation and consuming verbs in different languages show the interactionsbetween lexical meanings and the language-specific meaning of the ditran-sitive construction. In EngHsh, the construction meaning is transferencetoward the referent of IO. This meaning is compatible with the lexicalmeaning of creation/appointing verbs, but not consuming verbs. InChinese the meaning of the ditransitive construction is transference fromthe referent of IO. This meaning is compatible with the lexical meaningof consuming verbs, but not creation/appointing verbs. In the Spanishtype of language, the construction meaning is not specified for the trans-ference direction. Thus there is no occurrence restriction on creation andconsuming verbs in the ditransitive construction. The interpretationdifferences in ditransitive sentences containing state-changing verbs andunmarked transference verbs reveal the default meaning of the construc-tion in English, Chinese, and Spanish-type languages. Furthermore, trans-ference verbs with a specified transference-direction meaning can overridethe direction meaning of the construction, which is language-specific.Finally, the interpretation of the ditransitive construction can also interactwith aspects. The implication of this research is that the mappingsbetween lexical semantics and syntactic structures are not direct, and thatthe meaning of a construction not only can license the occurrence ofcertain types of verbs in the construction but can also control the inter-pretation of arguments.

The remaining questions include whether the cross-linguistic variationsin the ditransitive construction can be accounted for by some language-specific properties or other parameters and whether there are paralleldifferences in other constructions. These questions may lead others tolook for further explanations of the

Received 14 November 1997 Zentrum fiir AllgemeincRevised version received Sprachwissenschaft18 May 1998

978 K Zhang

Notes

* I would like to thank Angelika Kratzer, Daniel Hole, the audience of the Sinn undBedeutung conference in Berlin (December, 1997), and in particular, the two anony-mous reviewers, for their insightful comments on the paper. My discussion with DieterWunderlich also helped me to clarify my argumentation. An earlier version of thispaper benefited from the comments made by Diane Massam, Elizabeth Cowper,Michael Kliffer, the syntax project members of the University of Toronto, and theaudience of the annual conference of the Canadian Linguistics Association (Universityof Calgary, 1994). I also want to thank Daniel Hole and Kerstin Swabe for checkingthe German data and San Duanmu for discussing the Chinese data with me. DanielHole helped me by collecting Mexico-City Spanish data from Enrique Ruiz-Trejo. Mythanks go to both of them. All remaining errors are my own. Correspondence address:Zentrum ftir Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Jagerstr. 10/11, D-10117 Berlin,Germany. E-mail: [email protected].

1. A causer is not necessarily the agent of the eventuality, as shown in (1). Only volitionalcausers are agents (Jackendoff 1990).

2. According to Atkins et al. (1988), among others, the verb bake in (i) has a "creation"meaning, while in (ii) it has a "change of state" reading. In the former case, the cake iscreated by the process of baking, while in the latter case, the baking has brought abouta change of state of the potato.

(i) John baked a cake,(ii) John baked a potato.

3. There are two homophonous forms of gei in Chinese. One is a verb, the equivalent ofEnglish give. We have seen it in (6b). Another is a preposition, meaning 'for' or 'to':

(i) wo gei ta ca-ie yi ge chuanghu.I for him clean-ASP one CL window'I cleaned a window for him.'

(ii) wo gei ta xie-le yi feng xin.I to him write-ASP one CL letter'I wrote a letter lo him.'

Regardless of the categorial status of the postverbal gei, the compound form \'gei, asin (7), specifies that the meaning of the IO is end boundary.

4. The compounding of gei with nontransference verbs is restricted:

(i) *ta zhi-gei-le wo yi shuang shoutao,he knit-give-ASP I one pair mitten

(ii) ta xie-gei-le wo yi feng xin.he write-give-ASP I one CL letter'He wrote me a letter.'

Unlike gei, zou can neither occur independently nor compound with a nontransfer-ence verb in the ditransitive construction.

(iii) *ta zou-le wo yi ben shu.he leave-ASP I one CL book

(iv) *ta he-zou-le wo yi ping jiu.he drink-Ieave-ASP I one bottle wine

5. The DO in sentences such as 'That addiction cost them an arm and a leg" is interpreted


metaphorically because of the semantic features of CYAV/. In a situation where brutalityis the norm, one can say''His defiance cost him two fingers, " meaning two of his fingerswere literally cut otT. However, in such a case, the fingers are taken to be assets.

6. No passive is allowed for these communication verbs in Chinese.7. It has been mentioned to me that a possessive marker de between the two postverbal

nominals might be deleted at PF in sentences like (12b), and thus these sentences mighthave only one object. Notice that de can encode various relations. If it expressesalienable possession, it usually cannot be deleted:

(i) ta kanjian-le Lao Wang *(de) zidian.he see-ASP Lao Wang DH dictionary

has seen Lao Wang's dictionary.'

In preverbal positions, the presence and the absence of de between nominals arein contrast:

(ii) Lao Wang zidian shi le.Lao Wang dictionary wet ASP'As for Lao Wang, his dictionary is wet.'

(iii) Lao Wang de zidian shi le.Lao Wang DE dictionary wet ASP'Lao Wang's dictionary is wet.'

8. The interpretation of IO with the verbs .//e "borrow, lend' and zu Tent, lease' can beambiguous between goal and source, as pointed out by one reviewer. For example,(i) can have two meanings. (1 avoid using the first and the second person pronouns,because pragmatically although a speaker can ask a hearer to lend or lease somethingto the speaker, it is not usual for a speaker to ask a hearer to borrow or rent somethingfrom the speaker.)

(i) Lao Wang neng jie Xiao Li yi ben shu ma?Lao Wang can borrow Xiao Li a CL book Q'Could Lao Wang lend a book to Xiao Li?''Could Lao Wang borrow a book from Xiao Li?'

However, if IO can be interpreted as goal for certain verbs such 'dsjie and zu, it canalso be interpreted as source, but not vice versa. Thus there is an implication hierarchyin these Chinese ditransitive sentences: source is the default interpretation of IO.

Notice thai these two verbs are lexically ambiguous in the direction of a transference.If the lexical meaning of a transference verb is not ambiguous, as in the case of Chinesemai (3rd tone) 'buy' and mai (4th tone) ^sell', and English buy and sell, refit and lease,and borrow and lend, no ambiguity of IO occurs. I will leave this issue for furtherresearch.

9. Ritter and Rosen (1996: 29), among others, argue that theta roles are not part ofuniversal grammar.

10. One reviewer suggests that the relevant parameter might be aspectual rather thanconstructional. Generally speaking, perfect aspect is marked in those languages thatfocus on what is true in the beginning of an event, but unmarked in those that focus onwhat is true in the end of an event. Thus one can assume that English and ChinesedifFer in their aspectual reading. According to the reviewer, if verbs are usually atclic inChinese (Sybesma 1997), the addition of IO can only specify an argument that doesnot alter the aspectual state. The interpretation of Chinese 10 does not change Iheatelic aspect of Chinese verbs. If 10 in Chinese had the same reading as that in English,

980 N.

il would conllict with the atelic aspect of Chinese verbs. I'urther research is required tofmd out whether ihc interpretation of IO patterns with aspects consisiently and how toexplain those data thai do not pattern with aspects. I thank the reviewer for thisinsightful suggestion.

References

Atkins, Beryl T.; Kegl, Judy; and Levin, Beth (1988). Anatomy of a verb entry: fromlinguistic theory to lexicographic practice. International Journal of Lexicography 1,84 126.

Borer, llagit (1994). The projection of arguments. In Functional Projections: University ofMassachusetts Occasional Papers 17^ E. Benedicto and J. Runner (eds.). Amherst; GLSA,University of Massachusetts.

Cowper, Elizabeth (1989). Thematic underspecification: the case ol" have. Toronto WorkingPapers in Linguistics 11 (2), 1-8.

Ghomeshi, Jila; and Massam, Diane {1994). Lexical/syntactic relations without projection.Linguistic Analysis 24, 175 217.

Goldberg, Adelc Eva (1995). Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach to ArgumentStructure. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

Grimshaw, Jane (1990). Argument Structure. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.JackendolT, Ray (1990). On Larson's analysis of the double object construction. Linguistic

///^/mn 21,427-456.Kayne, Richard (1984). Connectedness and Binary Branching. Dordrecht: Fods.Larson, Richard (1990). Double object revisited: reply to JackendofT. Linguistic Inquiry

21,589 632.Levin, Beth (1993). English Verb Classes and Alternations. A Preliminary Investigation.

Chicago: University of Chicago Press.; and Rapoport, Tova (1988). Lexical subordination. In Papers from the 24th RegionalMeeting oJ the Chicago Linguistics Society, CLS 24, Part 1, Lynn Macleod, Gary Larson,and Diane Brentari (cds.), 275 289. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.

Lu. Shuxiang; et al. (1980). Xiandai Hanyu Babai Ci [800 Words in Modem Chinese],Beijing: Shangwu Yinshuguan.

Postma, Gerijan (1995). Zero Semantics. A Study of the Syntactic Conception ofQuantificational Meaning. The Hague: Holland Academic Graphics.

Ritter, Elizabeth; and Rosen, Sara Thomas (1996). Strong and weak predicates: reducingthe lexical burden. Linguistic Analysis 26, 29-62.

Stowell, Tim (I98I). Origins of phrase structure. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, MIT.Sybesma, Rint (1997). Why Chinese verb -le is a resultative predicate. Journal of East Asian

Linguistics 6, 215-261.Tenny, Carol (1994). Aspectual Roles in the Syntax-Semantics Interface- Dordrecht: Kluwer.van Hout, Angeliek (1996). Event semantics of verb frame alternations. A case study of

Dutch and its acquisition. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Tilburg University.Wunderlicli, Dieter (1997). Cause and structure of verbs. Linguistic Inquiry 28, 27-69.Zhang, Ning (1994). Ditransitive constructions in English and Chinese. In The Proceedings

of the 1994 Annual Conference of the Canadian LinguLstic Association, 661 678. TorontoWorking Papers in Linguistics. Toronto: CLA.

The interactions between construction meaning and lexical meaning

Documents