Event Structure Relations in English Psych Adjuncts

Chen Feng

College of Foreign Studies,Qilu Normal University,Jinan,China

Email:chenfeng9901@163.com

Feng Yimei

College of Foreign Studies,Qilu Normal University,Jinan,China

664946336@qq.com

[Abstract] This paper sheds new light on the English psych adjuncts from the viewpoint of event structure relations in the framework of neo-Davidsonian.English psych adjuncts show different semantic orientations according to their syntactic distributions:the initial speaker-oriented adjuncts,the middle agent-oriented adjuncts,and the final actionoriented or participant-oriented adjuncts.I argue that all the distinctions in the semantic orientations and morphological representations can be explained by analyzing the event structure relations between these adjunct predicates and the main predicates.

[Keywords] event structure;psych adjunct;semantic orientation;morphological representation

Introduction

The study on the syntax of adjuncts has been one of the hot issues in linguistics in the past two decades(Alex⁃iadou,1997;Costa,1997;Cinque,1999;Geuder,2000;Svenonius,2002;Ernst,2001;Peng,2007;Chen,2015;Xing &Guo,2016;Delfitto &Fiorin,2017;Payne,2018,etc.).Although previous studies of adjuncts cover some types involved in psychological concept,such as surprisingly,happily,excitedly,etc.,they focus more on psych ad⁃juncts in adverb form,rarely delve into adjective form or prepositional phrase form,lack of a semantic analysis on all forms of psych adjuncts.

This paper aims to reveal the special relationship between the morphosyntax and semantics of English psych ad⁃juncts,mainly demonstrating that the different semantic orientation and morphology of psych adjuncts are both relat⁃ed to the event semantic relationship.The semantic relationship of events can fundamentally explain the differences in morphological representations and semantic orientations of English psych adjuncts.

Event Structure Relations of Psych Adjuncts

In natural language,it is not only verbs that can be used as predicates,but adjectives,prepositions,noun phras⁃es and so on,can all be used as predicates in an argument structure.In a broad sense,from the perspective of event structure,not only verbs and adjectives can be used as predicates to assert the state features or attributes of an argu⁃ment,but some adverbs,such as psych adverbs,can also act as predicates.Verbs are the most typical predicate forms,and adjectives can be used as both primary and adjunct predicates,while adverbs are only used as ad⁃junct-predicates (Zubizarreta,1982).Therefore,although psych adjuncts are classified into the category of adjuncts,they also belong to the category of predicates from the perspective of event semantics.The syntactic and semantic representation of psych adjuncts is restricted by the thematic role of subject and the event type of the main predi⁃cate verb,which reflects the event structure relationship between different events.We can extract DO,CAUSE,BE⁃COME and other primary components from each predicate according to the logical semantic relationship between events to express the relationship between predicate and argument (Huang,2017),i.e.,Neo-Davidsonian Analysis,which can also be used to analyze the event structure of different syntactic representations.Neo-Davidson event structure theory,represented by Parsons'subatomic semantics (Parsons,1990) and Rothstein's predicate theory(Rothstein,2001),emphasizes the composite nature of event structure and analyzes the logical and semantic rela⁃tions between events through the decomposition of event structure.Different types of psych adjuncts and their repre⁃sentations reflect the relationship of different event structures.In this section I will analyze and explain the differenc⁃es of semantic orientations and morphological representations of four types psych adjuncts from the perspective of the neo-Davidsonian event structure theory.

The Causative Relationship in Speaker-oriented Adjuncts

The speaker-oriented psych adjunct reflects the causative relationship between the propositional or factual event and the speaker's psychological state,to be exact,the psychological causativization of the former to the latter.Their event semantic relationship is expressed as the following:

(1)∃P∃e[Causer(P)[CAUSE[BECOME(e)]]]

=∃e[e1[e2[CAUSE(e1) ∧Causer(e1)=P ∧BECOME(e2)∧Experiencer(e2)=speaker ∧Cause(e1,e2)]]]

(2)Surprisingly,your grammar doesn't seem too bad even though you have no basis for an intellectual debate of any kind.

The example in(2)indicates the fact that your grammar doesn't seem too bad even though you have no basis for an intellectual debate of any kind causes the speaker to become surprised.Among them,the factual proposition is the Causer,the implicit speaker is the Experiencer,and the adjunct-predicate in the form of V-ing,indicates obvi⁃ous psychological causality,which is generally interpreted as"what makes/causes people...is that....".

In terms of causative feature,English psych adjectives derived from psych verbs can be divided into two catego⁃ries:V-ing adjectives with causality and v-ed adjectives without causality.The former belongs to the object experi⁃encer (OE) psych predicates,such as "surprising,exciting",etc.,while the latter belongs to the subject experiencer(SE)psych predicates,such as"surprised,excited",etc.(Zhang,2002).I claim that the psych adverbs V-ing-ly and V-ed-ly which are derived from their corresponding psych verbs and adjectives also contain [+/- CAUS] semantic value.Thus Psych adverbs in V-ed-ly form implies an animate subject experiencer(SE),and does not contain caus⁃ative feature.Therefore,the psych predicate "surprisedly" in (3) is in conflict with an inanimate proposition as sub⁃ject experiencer,and the predicate-argument relation between psych adjunct and proposition cannot be realized.

(3)*Surprisedly,your grammar doesn't seem too bad even though you have no basis for an intellectual debate of any kind.

From above,we may predicate that the psych adverb without causative feature value cannot be used as the speaker-oriented psych adjunct.

Some psych adverbs,such as "regrettably",derived from a psych adjective with causative meaning in na⁃ture,can also be used as speaker-oriented adjuncts,while some other psych adverbs,such as "regretfully",derived from a psych adjective without causative meaning in nature,can't be used for speaker-oriented adjuncts,for the suf⁃fix"-able"contains a causative meaning while the suffix"-ful"contains no causative meaning,as in(4):

(4)Regrettably/*RegretfullyTom failed the exam again.

However,some evaluative adverbs,such as happily,sadly,curiously,etc.,can also grammatically used as speaker-oriented adjuncts,even though they are not derived from causative psych adjectives.Take"happily"for ex⁃ample:

(5)Happily,the budget cuts will not be passed this year.

(6)*Ecstatically/*Joyfully,the budget cuts will not be passed this year.(Ernst,2001,p.84)

The psych adjunct"happily"in bold in(5)expresses the fact that"the budget cuts will not be passed this year"causes the speaker happy.However,if "happily" in (5) is replaced with synonyms "ecstatically" or "joyfully",the sentence becomes unacceptable,as in(6),for the psych adjuncts contain no causative feature and cannot fulfill the role of inanimate subject as Causer.

The Cause-effect Relationship in Agent-oriented Adjuncts

The adjuncts containing psychological effect are traditionally classified as speaker-oriented evaluative ad⁃juncts(Kong&Wen,2015),but such a psychological effect is also implied in agent-oriented adjuncts,the cause-ef⁃fect relationship between the agent's state and the event.For the subject is in the non-subcategorized position of the verb and does not need the verb itself to assign the thematic role to it(Zubizarreta,1982;Rothstein,2001,etc.).Its re⁃lation with predicate is grammatical saturation rather than theta assignment (Rothstein,2004).Psych adverbs are termed as transparent psychological adverbs (transparent with respect to its adjectival base),indicating the psycho⁃logical motivational state or the psychological resultant state of the agent (Geuder,2000).The implicit cause-effect relationship in agent-oriented adjuncts can be expressed as:

(7)∃e ∃s[Causer(s)[CAUSE[DO(e)]]]

(8)∃e ∃s[Causer(e)[CAUSE[BECOME(s)]]]

In(7),the psychological state acts as the Causer of the following action performed by the agent,while in(8),the action event acts as the Causer of the following psychological state of the agent.These two opposite cause-effect re⁃lationships between the psychological state and the event can be further exemplified by the following examples(9)-(10):

(9)I followed the above steps,andsurprisedlyrestored all data back.

(10)Iangrilywrote back a letter.

In(9),the psych adjunct"surprisedly"implies the psychological effect caused by the event"...I restored all da⁃ta back",and the subject"I"acts both the role of agent of the event and the role of experiencer of the state".In con⁃trast,the psych adjunct"angrily"in(10) implies the psychological motivation or cause which stimulates the event"I wrote back a letter",but the subject acts the same roles to the subject in(9).

The agent-oriented psych adjuncts,are mainly in the form of V-ed-ly or in the form of bare psych adjectives with"-ly",such as"surprisedly""gladly",etc.,but the psych adjunct in the form of V-ing-ly is ungrammatical for its causative feature,as in(11):

(11)Idisappointedly(*disappointingly)began thinking that The Manual of Ideas may not be what I had antici⁃pated.

In(11),it is the event(I began thinking...)that causes me feel"disappointed",not"disappointing",for the for⁃mer is a SE psych predicate while the latter is an OE psych predicate,and only SE psych adjunct can agree with the animate subject("I").

The Simultaneous Relationship in Participant-oriented Psych Adjuncts

State-oriented adjuncts are usually participant-oriented adjuncts in the form of adjectives,which are termed as depictives (Rapoport,1990;Pylkkanen,2008;Rothstein,2017;Bruening,2018,etc.) They are used to depict the psychological state of the participants in the process of the event,but the state is not caused by the event.The se⁃mantic interpretation of mental state depends on the participant of the event rather than the event,but the state and the event co-exist simultaneously.The simultaneous relationship between the psychological state and the event can be expressed in(12)and further exemplified by the following example in(13):

(12)∃e ∃s[DO(e,x)&BECOME(s,x)&τ(e)=τ(s)

(13)a.But this time Sara went away angry.

b.∃e∃e1∃e2[e=S(e1∪e2)&Going away(e1,Sara)&Agent(e1)=Sara&angry(e2,Sara)&τ(e1)=τ(e2)

The sentence in (13a)consists of two sub-events,i.e.,"Sara going away"and"Sara being angry".These two events combine into a singular event where the sub-events keep a simultaneous relationship,i.e.,τ(e1)= τ(e2),and share the same participant,"Sara".

Psych adjuncts are not freely and arbitrarily used when describing the psychological state of the participant.They have special requirements for the semantic event type of the predicates and the participants.

In terms of types of participants,they must meet the need of sentient beings for psychological predicates(includ⁃ing psychological verbs,psychological adjectives and adverbs),although some animals do also have internal mental activities presented by external body movements,they are lack of special and rich linguistic (such as morphological or grammatical)representations of our human beings.In an exact sense,the animal's body movements can't be identi⁃fied as true external language of internally psychological level.Therefore,when we use psychological predicates or psychological adjuncts to express the internal psychological state of the subject,we must presuppose a sentient sub⁃ject,as in(14):

(14) ??The rocks rolled downangry.

In terms of types of predicates,one important restriction that we have found consists in the requirement that the main verbs and the adjective predicate-adjunct generally must fall into the stage-level predicates rather than indi⁃vidual-level predicates,for only stage-level predicates have e-place(Rapoport,1993).Psych adjuncts generally be⁃long to stage-level predicates,which represent people's mental state in a given period of time or on a specific occa⁃sion,and have the temporality feature.Thus,it can be concluded that in a sentence with a psych adjunct depicting the participant's mental state,only a stage-level main predicate can fulfill the semantic requirement of eventuality and remain compatible with the depictive state to guarantee the grammaticality of the sentence,as in(15)-(16):

(15)*I own my new househappy.

(16)John bought the new househappy.

While the psych adjunct "happy" in (15)-(16) either holds an e-place,it is compatible with the main predi⁃cate "bought" in (16) but not with"own" in (15),for the latter is an individual-level predicate being lack of an eplace.

Based on corpus,it is found that English depictive psych adjuncts tend to collocate with inchoative or displace⁃ment verb classes .Taking "went away" as an example,among the top 100 adjectives that can be used with "went away",there are 32 psych adjectives,and the co-occurrence frequency of these 32 psych adjectives accounts for 63.04%of the total frequency of all adjectives that can be used with"went away"in the top 100 entries.Other verb types that are often used with psych adjectives as depictives include some verbs of exchange,creation,transforma⁃tion,such as"buy,sell,die,make,cook,"etc.,as in(17):

(17)The writer diedupset.

In sum,depictive psych adjuncts describe the participants'state when they are juxtaposed with displacement verbs or change-of-state verbs.These verbs generally have the characteristics of being bounded in time and space,belong to the stage-level predicates,and can be compatible with the psych adjuncts,which carry the characteristics of state changes.In a word,the two predicates usually present a high degree of consistency in the aspectual features of eventuality.

The Presentation Relationship in Action-oriented Psych Adjuncts

The action-oriented psych adjuncts are used to describe and present the manner of specific actions.They are taken as predicates of action events in the framework of neo-Davidsonian.The relationship between the manner ad⁃junct and the action verb is expressed as in(18):

(18)∃e[DO(e,x)&Manner(e)

The logical semantic expression in(18)conveys"x DO in a manner of y",as in(19):

(19)a.He shook his fistsangrily.

b.∃e Shaking(e,He)&Agent(e)=He&Angry(e)

The psych adjunct"angrily"in(19)describes the manner of the action"shaking fists"instead of the state of the participant,though we may infer from the sentence the state behind the action.

On the one hand,"...modification is a relation that subordinates the lexical meaning of the modifier under the meaning of the verb"(Geuder,2000,p.207).On the other hand,the modifier,such as manner adjunct,also has cer⁃tain requirements on the choice of verb types.Based on the corpus,it is found that the occurrence of psych adjuncts used as manner of action is very limited.Psych adjuncts are related to the psychological activities of animate partici⁃pants,and the verbs modified by psych adjuncts are usually represented by the type of mental expression verbs,in⁃cluding verbal communication verbs,such as"say,talk,chat,ask,respond,"etc.,non-verbal expression verbs,such as "laugh,sigh,smile,react," etc.,and body movement verbs,such as "throw,look,stare,sigh,march,"etc.,as in(20):

(20)I smiledsadlywhen I saw your husband sit opposite of you rather than at your side.

Psychological activities are usually expressed through body movements,speeches or facial expressions,and the psych adjuncts of such activity verbs can be used to describe the specific movements and qualified as the external presentations of psychological activities.

When a motion verb is used in conjunction with a psych adjunct,if the psych adjunct has a manner reading,the motion verb must be followed by a prepositional phrase indicating a specific direction,goal,or source,such as"walk off/out (of)/through/down/to/away/from," etc.,or otherwise,the manner reading is invalid,for the motion verb needs a direction,goal,or source to represent a specific action event,as in the following examples(21)-(22):

(21)The actress walkedsadlyoff the stage.

(22)The actress walkedsadly.

Compared with (21),the example (22) is less acceptable for the motion verb lacks a concrete goal or source,which means a generic reading instead of a resultant reading.A generic reading usually indicates a habitual action or behavior.However,the generic reading of "walk" in (22) is in a clash with the stage-level predicate "sadly",which causes the sentence(22)to become less acceptable.

In a word,the interpretation of action-oriented psych adjunct depends on the semantic type of the verb it modi⁃fies,and the modified verb must meet at least two requirements:conveying a concrete action;presenting a certain psychological emotion.

Conclusion

To sum up,English psych adjuncts show different semantic orientations and morphological representations due to their event semantic relations with the main event.

Both their orientation and representations can be explained by event structure relations.The speaker-oriented type presents a causative relationship between the propositional event and the speaker.The agent-oriented type im⁃plies a causal relationship between an event and a state.The participant-oriented type has no causal relationship with the event,but reflects a simultaneous relationship between the psychological state and the event.The action-ori⁃ented type only describes the modified action or behavior.This study applies the neo-Davidsonian approach to the analysis of English psych adjuncts in their semantic orientations and morphological representations,which can help readers to accurately understand the mechanism behind their nuances,and it may also bring some implications to the study of Chinese psych adjuncts in my coming further research.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my tutor,Dr.Zhang Jingyu,who gives me a lot of beneficial advice for this paper.

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