resultativity , language contact , lexical semantics , event structure , syntax-semantics interface , Old English , Middle English , Early Modern English
Abstract:
This paper addresses the question to what extent the large influx of French verbs effected structural changes in the expression of resultativity in earlier English. Early French and English use distinctly different lexicalization patterns to encode motion and change-of-state events. In terms of Talmy’s (2000) typology, early English is a typical satellite-framing language, encoding Result outside the verb in a satellite, while French is a verb-framing language, encoding Result in the verb. A comprehensive corpus study of the lexical semantics of verbs occurring in the Penn Parsed Corpora of Historical English reveals that French verbs establish a novel way of expressing Result: transitive state-incorporating verbs are introduced in Middle English and witness a consistent diachronic increase after that. Complementary distribution effects with satellite-framing constructions suggest that these verbs are copied with their featural properties in the mental lexicon, which we interpret in terms of Ramchand’s (2008) First Phase Syntax.
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