Verb Particle Constructions

Bibliographic Data

ID23749607
AuthorsMartin Haiden (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, corresponding author)
Year2017
Pages1-27
Publication date2017-11-24
Open AccessYes
TypeOTHER
VenueThe Wiley Blackwell Companion to Syntax, Second Edition (JOURNAL)
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/9781118358733.wbsyncom012
OpenAlexW4239196074
ISBN9781118358733
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited40

Verb particle constructions are collocations of a verb and another element like call+up in “He called his friend up.” Verb particle constructions pose a series of problems for grammatical description and explanation related to their status with respect to two partly orthogonal oppositions: the syntactic distinction between heads and phrases, and the lexical‐semantic distinction between idiomatic, listed lexical items and compositional, complex objects. The grammar of verb particle constructions thus highlights some often implicit background assumptions on the lexicon and its interaction with the syntax. This chapter summarizes the most salient descriptive properties of verb particle constructions in the Modern Germanic languages, including English (with the odd reference to Hungarian), sketching how the syntactic literature has dealt with the following set of questions: Do the terms lexically listed and idiomatic imply atomic in any syntactically meaningful sense? Do the particle and the verb enter the syntactic derivation as a single object (which may later be separated by the rules of the grammar), or do they enter the syntax as two independent items to be reanalyzed as a complex predicate by the rules of the grammar? If particle+verb enter the syntactic derivation as a lexical unit, then what are the conditions under which the syntax can access and manipulate sublexical units? If particle and verb are initially independent elements reanalyzed as a complex predicate in syntax, then why is the semantics of verb particle constructions so often idiomatic? Can psycho‐linguistic evidence decide between the two options? Is the NP object of a verb+particle combination a complement of the verb, of the particle, or of the particle‐verb? What is the syntactic status of further predicative constituents, as in “John turned out intelligent”?

Emergent grammar · Grammar · Lexical grammar · Linguistics · Modal verb · Natural language processing · Predicate (mathematical logic) · Programming language · Reflexive verb · Relational grammar · Syntax · Verb · Word grammar · Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science · Historical Linguistics and Language Studies · Natural Language Processing Techniques · Philosophy · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation

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