On the Ground Object Verb-Particle Construction*

On the Ground Object Verb-Particle Construction*

Ryuta Fukui

1. Introduction

In this article, we are concerned with the object of the English verb-particle construction (henceforth, VPC). An object argument of VPCs usually denotes a movable entity, not a reference entity, or a location of a movable entity in most cases.

Following Talmy (1975, 2000, to appear), we call a movable entity Figure, and the reference entity Ground.

This fact is exemplified in (1).

(1) a. She took off the label. (Huddleston and Pullum (2002:281)) b. She took the label off the bottle.

c. *She took off the bottle.

In (1), take off roughly means remove. Sentence (1a) means that she removed the label from somewhere. The label is a Figure object since it is what moves.

Sentence (1b) means that she removed the label from the bottle. The bottle is a Ground object since it is a reference entity of the label. While the word off is not a particle but a preposition in sentence (1b), it is possible that both a figure object and a ground object emerge in one clause. In contrast, the bottle is no longer a Ground in sentence (1c). If sentence (1c) meant that she removed something from the bottle, the bottle would be a Ground. However, sentence (1c) does not have that meaning. It can only be construed the same way as the sentence (1a). That is, the bottle is understood only as a Figure because sentence (1c) can only mean that she removed the bottle from somewhere.

This is not the case for all of the VPC, however. Some examples of the VPC

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admit a Ground object as shown in (2).

(2) a. John wiped the table off.

b. John vacuumed the room out.

Sentence (2a) means that John cleaned the table by wiping, or more wordily John removed something such as dust or dirt from the table by wiping. Sentence (2b) means that John cleaned the room by using a vacuum cleaner, or John removed something such as dust or gas from the room by vacuuming. According to previous research, not a few VPCs can have a Ground as a direct object (cf. Levin and Rappaport (1991), Levin (1993), McIntyre (2004, 2007) among others). Examples in (2) have a Figure object counterpart as shown in (3).

(3) a. John wiped the dust off.

b. John vacuumed the dust out.

Sentence (3a) means that John removed the dust from somewhere by wiping.

Sentence (3b) means that John vacuumed the dust from somewhere by using a vacuum cleaner, or John removed the dust from somewhere by vacuuming.

Henceforth, we call the VPC which has a Ground object the Ground-object VPC

or the GVPC. We call the VPC which has a Figure object the Figure-object VPC or

the FVPC. In the following, we first observe a characteristic of Ground objects

which is called a holistic effect. The holistic effect is seen in objects of the GVPC

and Ground objects of the so-called locative alternation construction. After we point

out inadequacies of the previous research for the GVPC, I state that the two types of

objects of the locative alternation construction do not actually alternate, or are not

derived from either one of two constructions. Following Goldberg’s (1995)

constructional account, I claim that the GVPC is distinct from the other construction

such as the FVPC: In other words, the construction with a Ground object is different

from the construction with a Figure object.

I claim that assuming two independent

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constructions has the following advantage over other theories: The holistic effect is attributed to the meaning of the Construction, and the meanings of removal or putting can be attributed to the meaning of particles.

2. A holistic effect

In this section, we observe one of the characteristics of objects of the GVPC. A Ground object of the GVPC receives a holistic effect.

The holistic effect is firstly found in the locative alternation construction by Anderson (1971). The so-called locative alternation construction which is exemplified in (4) is dealt with widely in the previous research.

(4) a. He sprayed the wall with paint.

b. He sprayed paint onto the wall.

(Goldberg (1995:103)) Roughly, both sentences in (4) mean that he put paint on the wall by spraying. Paint is taken as a figure because it is a moving entity. The wall is taken as a ground because it is a reference entity of paint. As sentences (4) seem to have the same meaning, many have claimed that either one of the two sentences is derived from the other by syntactic operations.

The sentences in (4), however, do not have completely the same meaning.

Anderson (1971) observes that only in (4a) it is entailed that the whole of the wall is

somehow affected by the paint spraying. Goldberg (1995) states the most natural

interpretation of (4a) is that the wall is covered with paint. By applying Anderson’s

(1971) term, we call this “wholly affected” entailment a “holistic effect.” By contrast,

as Goldberg (1995) states, (4b) would be true if it refers to a situation where only a

drop of clear paint is sprayed on the wall and the wall is not affected in any way by the

paint. That is to say, in the sentences like (4), only if the direct object of the verb is a

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Ground, it receives a holistic effect.

The difference in meaning is shown in (5).

(5) a. He completely sprayed the wall with paint.

b. ?He completely sprayed paint onto the wall.

When the adverb completely is added, (4a) is grammatical as shown in (5a), but (4b) is not, as shown in (5b). Sentences (5) show that the wall is completely affected only if it is the direct object of the verb.

As for the VPC, McIntyre (2004) notes that only the objects of the GVPC are often interpreted “holistically,” as substantially affected. He observes that squeeze an orange out (unlike squeeze juice out of the orange) is usable only if much of the juice leaves the orange. In addition, the following pair of sentences in (6) clearly supports McIntyre’s (2004) statement.

(6) a. John completely wiped the table off.

b. ?John completely wiped dirt off.

In (6a), since the entire table is supposed to be wiped off, the sentence is not contradictory. In contrast, in (6b), since the entire dirt is not necessarily wiped off, the contradictory sentence results. In sum, objects of the GVPC and the Ground object of the locative alternation construction receive a holistic effect.

3. Problems of previous analyses

In this section, I point out problems of the previous analyses. The previous analyses have two problems: First, they cannot explain the existence of the holistic effect properly. Second, they cannot coherently explain the locative alternation construction and the GVPC.

3.1. The Ground promotion

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To explain the GVPC, McIntyre (2007) proposes a syntactic operation called the Ground promotion. The operation is briefly shown in (7).

(7) Ground Promotion

I wiped dust off the table.

 I wiped Φ off the table. (Suppression of Figure)

 I wiped the table off. (Ground promotion to the direct argument position) In the Ground Promotion, first the Figure is suppressed and then the Ground promotes to the direct argument. McIntyre (2007) states that after the Ground promotion the Figure is optionally realized in a PP with with, and it is rarely realized in a PP with of.

Putting aside the data which McIntyre presents from other languages, the account of the Ground promotion in English clearly lacks the explanation for the holistic effect.

Admittedly, McIntyre states that promoted Grounds are often interpreted “holistically,”

as substantially affected. However, his statement does not exactly explain the reason why the promoted Grounds receive a holistic interpretation. As he states, the holistic effect is arguably the diachronic (or even synchronic) source for the interpretation of certain particles commonly viewed as “completive” or “perfective” aspectual operators.

As McIntyre (2004) claims, the holistic effect is arguably enough to derive the semantics of the particle in read it through. However, McIntyre has not given any reasoning for the very Ground promotion.

The Ground promotion is the account that the sentence of GVPC is derived from the sentence of the FVPC. This derivation raises more problems. The wipe type verbs which usually appear in the GVPC take a Ground object, but do not solely take a Figure object as shown in (8).

(8) a. John wiped the table.

b. *John wiped the dust.

The sentence in (8b) becomes grammatical if the particle off is added as shown in (9).

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(9) John wiped the dust off.

As we have seen in (7), the operation of the Ground promotion presupposes the existence of a Figure object. However, a Figure cannot be an object of a verb by itself. Rather, it is undeniable that a Ground, which would promote to the direct argument position after the suppression of a Figure, is an object of a verb in the first place. The fact that a Ground can be an object in the first place leads us to the conclusion that the Ground promotion does not exist.

In sum, I point out that McIntyre has proposed the Ground promotion, but he does not present the reason why the promotion takes place, and why a Ground receives the holistic effect. I also point out that the existence of the Ground promotion is highly doubtful because the wipe verbs cannot take a Figure but a Ground object.

3.2. An optional oblique argument

The account that the sentence of the GVPC is derived from the sentence of the FVPC raises further problem. The GVPC may optionally have a Figure oblique argument as shown in (10).

(10) John wiped the table off (of dust).

The FVPC may also optionally have a Ground oblique argument as shown in (11).

(11) John wiped dust off ((of) the table).

If the sentence of the GVPC was derived from the sentence of the FVPC, we would

have to presume a lot of syntactic operations such as movement, deletion, and

insertion. Moreover, if we assumed syntactic derivations, we would have to decide

which sentence is more basic, underlying or base-generated structure. However, we

do not have any critical evidence to decide that (cf. Goldberg (1995)).

Rather, it is

clearly simple to assume two distinct constructions.

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4. Analysis

In this section, we explain the nature of the GVPC in a coherent way. The account of the Constructional Grammar (cf. Goldberg (1995)) properly explicates the GVPC and the locative alternation construction with a Ground object.

Following Goldberg and Jackendoff’s (2004) notation of constructions, I posit the following construction.

(12) The Ground Object Verb-Particle Construction Syn: NP

V NP

Prt

[

NP

]

Sem: Agent

CAUSE [Ground

HOLISTICALLY BECOME State

]

[Figure

MOVE BY MEANS OF VERBAL SUBEVENT]

The syntax of the GVPC is “NP

V NP

Prt

[

NP

].” The last part “[

NP

]” is optional because the NP

denotes a Figure and can be inferred from the NP

which denotes a Ground. The subscript numbers in the syntax correspond to the numbers in the semantics. The semantics of the GVPC consists of two parts: “Agent

CAUSE [Ground

HOLISTICALLY BECOME Prt

],” and “Figure

MOVE BY MEANS OF VERBAL SUBEVENT.” We assume that the NP

receives the holistic effect from the construction itself.

Following the construction posited in (12), sentence (13) can be stated as below.

(13) John wiped the table off (of dust).

In the syntax, NP

is John, V is wiped, NP

is the table, Prt

is off and [

NP

] is of

dust, respectively. In the semantics, John functions as Agent

and John causes the

table, which is a Ground

, to become the state which is denoted by Prt

. NP

is dust,

which is a Figure

. It is possible that [

NP

] does not emerge because it can be

inferred from NP

. This is because NP

and NP

are in the Figure-Ground

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relationship. Figure

moves by means of the verbal subevent wiping.

By assuming the construction in (10), the following examples in (14-15) can be coherently explained.

(14) a. John sprayed the engine off of dirt.

b. John dusted the room off of dust.

Sentences (14) are an example of the GVPC. The sentences have the meaning of removal. That is, John removed dirt or dust from the engine or the room.

On the other hand, sentences (15) are an example of the locative alternation construction with a Ground object.

(15) a. John sprayed the wall with paint.

b. John dusted the cake with sugar.

Contrary to sentences (14), sentences (15) have the meaning of putting despite the fact that the same verbs spray and dust appear. Sentences (15) mean that John put paint onto the wall or put sugar onto the cake, respectively. What should be noted is that there is no particle in (15). No particle can appear in (15) as shown in (16).

(16) a. *John sprayed the wall on/up with paint.

b. *John dusted the cake on/up with sugar.

I assume that this is because the position for a particle is occupied by an invisible particle, and that particle has the putting a Figure onto a Ground. By positing an invisible particle, we do not have to make multiple indexes for spray or dust in the lexicon. I conclude that if the particle appears, the construction has the “removal”

meaning, and if no particle appears, the construction has the “putting” meaning.

5. Conclusion

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In this article, we have observed a holistic effect of objects in the GVPC and the locative alternation construction with a Ground object. I have shown that the two types of objects of the locative alternation construction do not actually alternate, or are derived from either one of two constructions. Following Goldberg’s (1995) constructional account, I claim that the GVPC is distinct from the other construction such as the FVPC: That is, the construction with a Ground object is different from the construction with a Figure object. I claim that assuming two independent constructions has the following advantage over other theories: The holistic effect for a Ground object is attributed to the meaning of the Construction, and the meanings of removal or putting can be attributed to the meaning of particles.

NOTES

∗ This article grows out of my poster presentation (Fukui (2010)). This work was supported by KAKENHI (22720191).

† Doctoral Program in Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Tsukuba and Common Education Center, Mie University. Email: [email protected]

1. In this research, I use the terms Figure and Ground, following Talmy (1975, 2000, to appear). I do not use the terms such as theme or location. In Carnie (2002), theme is defined as “the element undergoing the action or change of state,” and location as “the place an action or state occurs.” Croft and Cruise (2004) states that all spatial relations in language (both location and motion) are expressed by specifying the position of one object, the Figure, relative to another object, the Ground. That is, the terms Figure and Ground are different from the terms theme or location in that a Figure as a foreground evokes a Ground as a background and vice versa, but the latter terms do not. Now, suppose that we wipe the table off. We figure out that usually the event is cleaning.

The reason for this is that because the table is a Ground we infer something as a Figure to be removed from the table.

2. This fact is intriguing because a sentence comes to be grammatical if both a figure argument and a ground argument emerge in the sentence as shown in sentence (17).

(17) She took the label off the bottle.

I assume that this sentence exemplifies the Figure object verb particle construction

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(FVPC). The FVPC is defined as follows.

(18) The Figure Object Verb-Particle Construction

Syn: NP

V NP

Prt/PP

Sem: Agent

CAUSE [Figure

GO Path

]

[Figure

MOVE BY MEANS OF VERBAL SUBEVENT]

I investigate the details of FVPC in the future research.

3. The object the table or the room in (2) might be considered to be a Figure. But I assume that they are actually a Ground because they are considered to be a reference entity.

This is because only objects like the table can appear in the conative construction as shown in (19).

(19) John wiped at the table.

4. Tenny (1994) states that the holistic effect is observed in the Figure direct object, but I note that the acceptability varies among informants. The holistic effect may be varied due to the definiteness of nouns.

5. The judgment for the sentence like the table is off of dust varies among informants. I attribute the difference of acceptability of the sentence to the idiomaticity of the particle off. Bolinger (1971) states the meaning of the sentences in (20) is the same.

(20) a. Wipe the table clean.

b. Wipe the table off.

6. Pinker (1989) classifies the examples of locative alternation into four classes.

7. Contrary to other theories, the Constructional account does not have derivation.

Goldberg (1995) states general problems of transformational grammar in detail.

8. Boas (2003) posits two types of constructions for the locative alternation, but his theory does not take particles into account.

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