Semantic valency

(1)

laugh = { Beatrice, Chris, Eva, Gary, Lukas, Tina, ... }

Laugh can combine with a single argument, which denotes an entity. Intuitively, we can think of arguments as the central participants in a situation. Combining laugh with an argument (say, Lukas) has a syntactic effect and a corresponding semantic effect. The syntactic effect is to yield the sentence in (2a). The corresonponding semantic effect is to select the entity denoted by the argument and to yield the proposition that the selected entity belongs to the set of laughing entities, as expressed in (2b). (For simplicity, we disregard the past tense morpheme -ed, which has the further effect of anchoring the proposition in the past.)

(2)	a.		Lukas laughed.
	b.		The entity 'Lukas' is-a-member-of the set 'laugh'.

In addition to denoting sets, verbs can also denote relations between sets. Let's say, for instance, that (3a) is a set of hosts and (3b) is a set of guests.

(3)	a.		host = { Andy, Bill, Chris }
	b.		guest = { Dave, Elmer, Fred, Gideon, Harrison }

Then the verb invite denotes the relation between these two sets, which can be represented as the set of ordered pairs in (4).

(7)	a.	*	Lukas laughed the train.	(one-place predicate; superfluous argument)
	b.	*	Andy invited.	(two-place predicate; missing theme argument)

The actual situation, however, is more complex. For instance, eat denotes a relation between eaters and food. It is therefore a two-place predicate, like invite. However, unlike invite, eat has both a transitive and an intransitive use, as illustrated in (8).

(8)	a.	Transitive:		The children have eaten their supper.
	b.	Intransitive:		The children have eaten.

Notice that the semantic properties of eat remain constant in (8). In other words, (8a) and (8b) are both interpreted as involving the ingestion of food, even though there is no explicit mention of food in (8b).

Events are associated with more or less central participants and properties. The central participants are the semantic arguments just discussed. Properties of a situation typically taken to be less central, such as manner, time (point in time, duration, frequency), place (location, origin, destination), reason (cause, purpose), and so on, can be expressed by modifiers.

Arguments and modifiers both introduce restrictions on the denotation of a predicate, and the relationships of argumenthood and modification do not differ semantically in this respect. For instance, the situations denoted by invite Dave are a subset of those denoted by invite, just as the situations denoted by laugh uproariously are a subset of those denoted by laugh.

Expletive it

In (18a), the italicized that clause functions as the sole syntactic argument of the adjective evident, on a par with the noun phrase in (18b). (For simplicity, we disregard the copula as semantically vacuous.)

(18)	a.		That they are corrupt is evident.
	b.		Their corruption is evident.

An indication of the semantic equivalence of the two phrases is the fact that they can both be elicited by the same question.

(19)	a.		What is evident?
	b.		That they are corrupt. Their corruption.

In addition to (18a), a synonymous variant, (20), is available in which the that clause appears at the end of the entire sentence and the original position of the that clause is occupied by the expletive pronoun it.

(20)

It is evident that they are corrupt.

Remember not to confuse 'subject' with 'simple subject.'

For clarity, we can use the term 'Aristotelian predicate' for this sense, since the observation that all sentences consist of a subject and a predicate goes back to Aristotle (384-322 BCE). Predication is the relation between a subject and an Aristotelian predicate. So (24a) and (24b) are two alternative ways of stating the subject requirement.

(24)	a.		Every clause has a subject.
	b.		Every clause is an instance of predication.

The sense of 'predicate' that we used earlier, in which the term refers to a single vocabulary item, is much more recent and can be attributed to one of the founders of modern logic, the mathematician and philosopher Gottlob Frege (1848-1925). Accordingly, we can use the term 'Fregean predicate' for this sense. What Frege made explicit is that Aristotle's division of a clause into subject and predicate is simply the first of a potential series of such bifurcations. Just as it is possible to peel off, as it were, the subject of a clause, leaving the Aristotelian predicate, it is possible to further peel off any arguments (and modifiers) contained within the Aristotelian predicate, yielding in the final instance a single vocabulary item, the Fregean predicate.

Fruitful as Frege's analytic insight is, we should not let it obscure the key difference between subjects and other constituents of a clause: namely, that constituents contained within an Aristotelian predicate must be licensed by semantic considerations (in other words, these constituents are present because of semantic considerations), whereas the subject, which is external to the Aristotelian predicate and combines with it, is required independently of semantic considerations.

In the following examples, the Aristotelian predicate of the largest clause is in italics, and the Fregean predicate is underlined. As the increasingly complex sentences show, Aristotelian predicates are recursive categories. Fregean predicates, on the other hand, not being phrases, are not.

(26)	a.		Several vexing questions remain.
	b.		There remain several vexing questions.

Expletive there differs from ordinary there in much the same way as expletive it differs from referential it. Ordinary there substitutes for phrases with a locative or directional meaning. Accordingly, the phrases right here and over there render (27a) and (27b) contradictory and redundant, respectively.

(27)	a.	#	There comes the train right here.
	b.		There comes the train over there.

Expletive there, on the other hand, has no such locative meaning, and so both sentences in (28) are completely acceptable and unexceptional.

(28)	a.		There is a clean shirt right here.
	b.		There is a clean shirt over there.

A related difference is that expletive there, unlike ordinary there, is incompatible with stress.

Just as expletive it occupies the position that would otherwise be occupied by a clausal subject, expletive there occupies the position that would otherwise be occupied by a noun phrase subject. And just as in the case of expletive it, omitting expletive there results in ungrammaticality.

(29)

*

Remain several vexing questions.

It should be pointed out that not every English sentence has an expletive there counterpart. Rather, expletive there is subject to a licensing condition (a necessary condition for its occurrence) that can be stated roughly as in (30).

(30)

Expletive there must be the subject of a verb of existence or coming into existence.

In the following examples, the licensing (Fregean) predicate is highlighted in green.

(31)	a.		After their military defeat, there arose among the Plains tribes a powerful spiritual movement.
	b.		There is a problem.
	c.		There began a reign of terror.
	d.		In the end, there emerged a new caudillo.
	e.		There ensued a period of unrest and lawlessness.
	f.		There exists an antidote.
	g.		There follows a section on the care of gerbils.
	h.		There has occurred an unfortunate incident.
	i.		There remains a single course of action.

Predicates that aren't verbs of (coming into) existence don't license expletive there. This is the reason that the following examples are ungrammatical; the non-licensing (Fregean) predicates are highlighted in red.

Nonfinite clauses. The instances of predication provided so far have all been finite clauses like those in (33).

(33)	a.		He laughed uproariously.
	b.		It will seem that they won the game.
	c.		There is a problem.

Nonfinite clauses like those in (34) are also instances of predication; the clauses at issue are set off by brackets.

Notes

Exercises

Exercise 3.1

(1)

Chris invited Dave.

B. As the thought experiment in (A) shows, it is not logically necessary for transitive predicates to combine first with the theme and then with the agent, as they do in English. What is the evidence that the combinatorial order in English is in fact first theme, then agent? In other words, how do we know that we speak English and not Hsilgne? (It shouldn't take you longer than three or four sentences to answer this question.)

Exercise 3.2

B. In traditional grammar, the term 'modifier', which refers to any expression that adds information about some other expression, is often used interchangeably with the term 'adjective'. However, in linguistics, it is customary to make a distinction between the two terms and to define adjectives not with reference to their function, but on the basis of certain morphosyntactic criteria. For instance, many adjectives can appear in a comparative (better, more acceptable) or superlative (best, most acceptable) form. Moreover, in many languages (though not in English), adjectives are inflected for case, number, and gender to agree with nouns that they modify or that they are predicated of. Assuming the linguistic rather than the traditional definition of 'adjective', give an example of an adjective (or adjective phrase) that is not a modifier, and give an example of a modifier that is not an adjective.

Exercise 3.3

(1)	a.		Point in time:	They discussed the proposal in the afternoon.
	b.		Duration:	She kept their books for five years.
	c.		Frequency:	I read the Times quite often.
	d.		Location:	We met the students in my office.
	e.		Origin:	We set out from Bangalore.
	f.		Destination:	We arrived in Benares.
	g.		Cause:	He threw it away out of spite.
	h.		Purpose:	I sent the message to warn everyone.
(2)			Illustration for manner:	They solved the problem another way.

Exercise 3.4

(1)	a.	ok	Feynman suspected [ there to be a problem with the O-ring ] .
	b.	*	Feynman suspected [ there a problem with the O-ring ] .
	c.	ok	There was suspected [ to be a problem with the O-ring ] .
	d.	*	There was suspected [ a problem with the O-ring ] .

B. Is the following argument valid?

The contrast in (2) shows that expletive there cannot be an object; hence, it cannot be an object in (3), but must rather be the subject of the to infinitive clause.

(2)	a.	ok	There is a fly in the soup.
	b.	*	I dislike there in the soup.
(3)		ok	I don't want there to be a fly in the soup.

Exercise 3.5