Verbs' unaccusativity in existential constructions
The Unaccusative Hypothesis(UH) advocates the dominance of syntactic structure in assigning semantic values to sentence arguments. The same thematic roles should only be assigned by the same syntactic configuration. In recent studies, however, the unaccusative hypothesis was highly contentious and...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Science-res Publishing
2024-08-01
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| Series: | Journal of Child Language Acquisition and Development |
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| Online Access: | https://science-res.com/index.php/jclad/article/view/148 |
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| author | Zhangyan Miao |
| author_facet | Zhangyan Miao |
| author_sort | Zhangyan Miao |
| collection | DOAJ |
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The Unaccusative Hypothesis(UH) advocates the dominance of syntactic structure in assigning semantic values to sentence arguments. The same thematic roles should only be assigned by the same syntactic configuration. In recent studies, however, the unaccusative hypothesis was highly contentious and controversial and faced several problems. Certain verbs classified as unaccusative or unergative based on semantic or syntactic criteria do not conform to expectations due to the prevalence of unaccusative mismatches. Based on the previous cross-linguistic studies, this paper is motivated to focus on the nature of unaccusativity by a thorough syntactic and semantic dissection for verbs in existential constructions. It is argued that unaccusativity is primarily determined by syntactic positions rather than semantic features by providing a distributional pattern of verbs entering into existential constructions.
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| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-eaafcf95a188448ea68cea0785f6cd71 |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 2148-1997 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2024-08-01 |
| publisher | Science-res Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Journal of Child Language Acquisition and Development |
| spelling | doaj-art-eaafcf95a188448ea68cea0785f6cd712025-08-20T02:38:46ZengScience-res PublishingJournal of Child Language Acquisition and Development2148-19972024-08-01Verbs' unaccusativity in existential constructionsZhangyan Miao0Anhui University of Chinese Medicine The Unaccusative Hypothesis(UH) advocates the dominance of syntactic structure in assigning semantic values to sentence arguments. The same thematic roles should only be assigned by the same syntactic configuration. In recent studies, however, the unaccusative hypothesis was highly contentious and controversial and faced several problems. Certain verbs classified as unaccusative or unergative based on semantic or syntactic criteria do not conform to expectations due to the prevalence of unaccusative mismatches. Based on the previous cross-linguistic studies, this paper is motivated to focus on the nature of unaccusativity by a thorough syntactic and semantic dissection for verbs in existential constructions. It is argued that unaccusativity is primarily determined by syntactic positions rather than semantic features by providing a distributional pattern of verbs entering into existential constructions. https://science-res.com/index.php/jclad/article/view/148existential, unaccusative hypothesis, unaccusativity, unergative |
| spellingShingle | Zhangyan Miao Verbs' unaccusativity in existential constructions Journal of Child Language Acquisition and Development existential, unaccusative hypothesis, unaccusativity, unergative |
| title | Verbs' unaccusativity in existential constructions |
| title_full | Verbs' unaccusativity in existential constructions |
| title_fullStr | Verbs' unaccusativity in existential constructions |
| title_full_unstemmed | Verbs' unaccusativity in existential constructions |
| title_short | Verbs' unaccusativity in existential constructions |
| title_sort | verbs unaccusativity in existential constructions |
| topic | existential, unaccusative hypothesis, unaccusativity, unergative |
| url | https://science-res.com/index.php/jclad/article/view/148 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT zhangyanmiao verbsunaccusativityinexistentialconstructions |