Such verbs contain two or more prefixes and the imperfective suffix. In a given context they behave as either unambiguous perfective or unambiguous imperfective verbs, so their grammatical status is fully resolved. Now, this behavior fails to be revealed by the standard diagnostic tests used to determine the perfective or imperfective status of Russian verbs (see Section 3): under those tests, ...

Dan Velleman, University of Texas at Austin This paper presents a study of projective meaning — a category which subsumes presuppositions and conventional implicatures [1, 2, 4] — in the Mayan language K’ichee’. The study is based on a set of diagnostics developed by Tonhauser et al. [5], which are meant to be applicable in fieldwork situations in any language. We find the Tonhauser et al. prot...

Much has been discussed about the challenges posed by Multiword Expressions (MWEs) given their idiosyncratic, flexible and heterogeneous nature. Nonetheless, children successfully learn to use them and eventually acquire a number of Multiword Expressions comparable to that of simplex words. In this paper we report a wide-coverage investigation of a particular type of MWE: verb-particle construc...

In this paper I want to discuss Goldberg’s claim that phrasal Constructions can be regarded as underspecified statements about dominance and that therefore my claim that she would have to assume 218 Constructions to account for resultative secondary predication in German is wrong. I will discuss earlier HPSG approaches to particle verbs, which are similar to resultatives in many respects. In ad...

The processability account anticipates that learners will make more underpassivization errors than overpassivization since passivization entails processing. Although one study on psych-verbs and a few unaccusatives examined Turkish L2 learners’ acquisition, no research compared single set of acquisitions these verbs together from processing point view. In this regard, the current aims to invest...

This paper addresses Spanish adjectival passives with estar showing a progressive reading. In the previous literature, it has been acknowledged that participles of verbs encoding non-dynamic events, such as vigilar ‘guard’, give rise to reading when embedded in passives. Yet, we have identified another group verbs, those type perseguir ‘chase’, which denote dynamic atelic events (i.e., activiti...

This study examines the neural correlates of processing verbal entries with multiple argument structures using fMRI. We compared brain activation in response to 'alternating transitivity' verbs, corresponding to two different verbal alternates - one transitive and one intransitive - and simple verbs, with only one, intransitive, thematic grid. Fourteen young healthy participants performed a lex...

English-learning children have been shown to reliably use cues from argument structure in learning verbs. However, languages pair overtly expressed arguments with verbs to varying extents, raising the question of whether children learning all languages expect the same, universal mapping between arguments and relational roles. Three experiments examined this question by asking how strongly early...

In our recent paper, ‘Semantic generality, input frequency and the acquisition of syntax’ (Journal of Child Language 31, 61–99), we presented data from two-year-old children to examine the question of whether the semantic generality of verbs contributed to their ease and stage of acquisition over and above the effects of their typically high frequency in the language to which children are expos...