Event Structure Analysis of the English Middle Construction
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The English middle construction is an ideal device to express a certain property of a patient in a relatively simple form. This property of the middle’s patient is understood as a state since it does not refer to an actually happening event. The present paper is an attempt to analyze this superficial stativeness of the English middle which appears as a property of a patient. Considering aspectual property of the middle participating verbs, affectedness of the sentential subject, and semantically involved agent, I claim that the English middle is a structure which includes the underlying level of transitivity. Precisely, the English middle retains a transitive event structure which is formed through a process of filtration. To account for the middle’s latent event structure, I propose three types of aspectual and discourse features co-functioning within the event frame-‘complete telicity ([+TEL])’, ‘non-terminativity ([-TER])’, and ‘reboundability ([+REB])'. The feature, [+TEL], qualifies the verbs of accomplishment, of achievement, and of motion as the middle verbs while the feature, [-TER], filters out the verbs that announce terminative completion of an event. Another feature, [+REB], stipulates the relationship between a middle participating verb and its immediate argument. Together with all three features above, the event structure of the English middle is brought to completion and ready to be transferred to a property of a patient.
Abstract
The English middle construction is an ideal device to express a certain property of a patient in a relatively simple form. This property of the middle’s patient is understood as a state since it does not refer to an actually happening event. The present paper is an attempt to analyze this superficial stativeness of the English middle which appears as a property of a patient. Considering aspectual property of the middle participating verbs, affectedness of the sentential subject, and semantically involved agent, I claim that the English middle is a structure which includes the underlying level of transitivity. Precisely, the English middle retains a transitive event structure which is formed through a process of filtration. To account for the middle’s latent event structure, I propose three types of aspectual and discourse features co-functioning within the event frame-‘complete telicity ([+TEL])’, ‘non-terminativity ([-TER])’, and ‘reboundability ([+REB])'. The feature, [+TEL], qualifies the verbs of accomplishment, of achievement, and of motion as the middle verbs while the feature, [-TER], filters out the verbs that announce terminative completion of an event. Another feature, [+REB], stipulates the relationship between a middle participating verb and its immediate argument. Together with all three features above, the event structure of the English middle is brought to completion and ready to be transferred to a property of a patient.
참고문헌 (30)
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