Towards a Lexical-Constructional Account of the Locative Alternation

Following Fillmore’s (1968) discussion of verbs exhibiting different argument realization patterns, a number of syntactic studies have analyzed the spray-load alternation (e.g., Pinker 1989, Levin 1993, Dowty 2000) in different ways. One account that differs from primarily syntactically oriented analyses is Goldberg’s (1995) Construction Grammar approach. It proposes that multiple argument realization patterns are best accounted for in terms of independently existing argument structure constructions that specify how a verb’s arguments may be expressed. On this view, the locative variants in (1a) and (2a) and the withvariants in (1b) and (2b) are licensed by different types of argument structure constructions in combination with lexical entries representing the meanings of load and spray. This paper offers a critical review of Goldberg’s constructional account of the locative alternation in order to see whether it is capable of accounting for the full range of argument realization patterns of verbs participating in the spray-load alternation. The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. Section two gives an overview of Goldberg’s analysis of sentences such as in (1) and (2). Section three discusses data that are problematic for Goldberg’s constructional analysis of the locative alternation. Section four outlines an alternative approach towards the locative alternation. It suggests a less prominent role for independently existing constructions in determining a verb’s ability to participate in the locative alternation.