CAS LX 502
Semantics
3a. Lexical decomposition
Splitting the word
• What we will explore today is the idea that words
are more complex than they appear.
• Of course, we already know that words can have
lots of internal structure (unzippable), with several
“pieces of meaning.”
• Now, we’re going to consider the possibility that
even some words that appear to be
monomorphemic (e.g., give, get) have component
“atoms” which may in part be diagnosed by their
meaning.
Have and possession
• Paraphrasing Pat has a book, we might reasonably
arrive at something like A book is at Pat—that is,
what possessive have means is be at (located on
Pat, in some sense).
• Tha an peann aig Màiri
(Scots Gaelic)
BE the pen at Mary
‘Mary has the pen.’
• Larkee-kee paas kattaa hai
(Hindi)
boy-obl-G near dog BE.3sg.m.pres
‘The boy has a dog.’
Avoir = êtra-à inversé?
• Le livre est à Jean
(French)
the book is to Jean
• Jean a le livre
Jean has the book
‘Jean has the book’
• Avoir n’est rien autre qu’un être-à inversé
(Benveniste 1966: 197) (‘avoir is nothing
other than an inverted être-à’)
Proposal
• The verb have actually has two component parts,
be and a possessive preposition.
• Have = BE + PHAVE
• Note! Have is not the same thing as PHAVE. PHAVE
has a “pure” meaning of possession. Have, on the other
hand, has a meaning more like ‘be in possession.’
• This is rather like the fact that in French de ‘of’ and le
‘the(masc.)’ when they come together form du. That is,
du = de + le in the same way have = BE + PHAVE.
French again
• Le livre est à Jean
(French)
the book is to Jean
• Jean a le livre
Jean has the book
‘Jean has the book’
• So, avoir is BE+PHAVE as well. Not all
languages have a verb ‘have’, though all
languages can express possession. Since French
has both, there must be a difference—there seem
to be two ways to express possession, one with
PHAVE and one with a locative preposition.
Prepositions
• Prepositions describe relations between two
things.
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(I saw) John on the bench.
(I saw) Mary behind the tree.
(I saw) Pat in the garden.
(I saw) Tracy alongside a highway.
(I saw) Chris aboard the boat.
• The proposal here is that there is a preposition
PHAVE describing the relation of possession
between a possessor and a possessed.
Possession
• Possession can be expressed either as:
• BE+PHAVE (‘have’)
• BE+PLOC (‘be at’)
• In many languages, BE+PHAVE is
pronounced as a single verb, e.g., have.
Give
• Much ink has been spilled over the fact that, in
English, you can say both…
• Pat gave the book to Tracy.
• Pat gave Tracy the book.
• …to mean essentially the same thing. Some have
suggested that the difference a little bit like…
• The book was written by Pat.
• Pat wrote the book.
• …that is, with one being a version of the other.
Restrictions on give
• However, we may not want to think of Pat gave
the book to Tracy and Pat gave Tracy a book as
arising from the same underlying atoms.
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•
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•
Pat gave Tracy a kick.
*Pat gave a kick to Tracy.
The trial gave Greta a story.
*The trial gave a story to Greta.
Pat gave Tracy a child.
Pat gave a child to Tracy.
Give = cause to possess
• If the meaning of give is essentially cause to
possess, and we have two forms of possession,
then perhaps we really have two forms of give.
• Give = CAUSE + PHAVE
• Pat gave Tracy a book.
• Pat CAUSE Tracy PHAVE a book
• Give = CAUSE + PLOC
• Pat gave a book to Tracy.
• Pat CAUSE a book PLOC to Tracy.
Rather abstract
• Thinking deeply about the meaning of have
and give we can convince ourselves that
there are smaller atoms of meaning. What
evidence do we have that these atoms are of
real linguistic significance, that they play a
role in our linguistic knowledge, a causal
role in our linguistic behavior?
Idioms
• Sometimes whole phrases (verb phrases) can have an
idiomatic meaning: kick the bucket, buy the farm, … They
have a meaning that is not derivable from the component
parts. They are in some sense a lexical item in and of
themselves.
• Usually, this is tied to both the verb (tap the bucket, rent
the farm) and the object (kick the pail, buy the house, kick
several buckets, buy a farm) together.
• This kind of verb-object relationship (the same one in
preposition-object relationships—on the table) is important
for the combination to get an idiosyncratic meaning. In a
sense that will be clearer in LX522, they have to be next to
one another.
Idioms and PHAVE
• The idea we will pursue here is that if give, have,
and other verbs (get, take, …) have this abstract
PHAVE preposition as part of their makeup, there
could be idioms of the form PHAVE+Object as
well.
• And if PHAVE is real, then any of the verbs that
have PHAVE as a part should be able to take on
the idiomatic reading for PHAVE+Object.
Giving someone the creeps
• The Count gave Mary the creeps.
• This has an idiomatic meaning. It could be simply
that give + the creeps yields that meaning, except:
• The Count gave the creeps to Mary.
• Mary got the creeps (just looking at the Count).
• So, the idiomatic meaning survives changing the
verb from give to get, but doesn’t survive in the
variant form of give.
Having the creeps
• But if we view give in terms of its atoms:
• The Count gave Mary the creeps.
The Count CAUSE Mary PHAVE the creeps.
• The Count gave the creeps to Mary.
The Count CAUSE the creeps PLOC to Mary.
• So, the idiomatic meaning associated with having
the creeps is actually due to PHAVE+the creeps.
Getting the creeps
• The fact that this idiomatic meaning also appears
with get and have suggests that they share the
atoms that form the idiom.
• Mary gets the creeps (just looking at him).
Mary BECOME+PHAVE the creeps
• Mary has the creeps (from looking at him).
Mary BE+PHAVE the creeps
• get = BECOME+PHAVE, have = BE+PHAVE.
Giving birth
• We also have the reverse situation:
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Laura gave birth to Nolan.
*Laura gave Nolan birth.
The Romans gave way to the Visigoths.
*The Romans gave the Visigoths way.
• For these, the form of give with to is required, the
“double object” form of give will not do.
Giving birth
• Laura gave birth to Nolan.
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Laura CAUSE birth PLOC to Nolan
*Laura gave Nolan birth.
Laura CAUSE Nolan PHAVE birth.
*Nolan got birth.
The Romans gave way to the Visigoths.
The Romans CAUSE way PLOC to the Visigoths
*The Romans gave the Visigoths way.
The Romans CAUSE the Visigoths PHAVE way
*The Visigoths got way.
• So, here the idiom is formed from “CAUSE birth
PLOC” rather than from “PHAVE the creeps”.
Wanting to leave
• Consider this: I want to leave.
• Means: I want this to happen: I leave.
• There is an understood “I” subject for leave—we’ll
discuss this more later. It correlates with the subject of
want, e.g. if John wants to leave, then John’s desires
will be satisfied if this happens: John leaves.
• In general, suppose the meaning of want is that
there is a certain state of affairs, which, if it comes
about, will satisfy the wanter’s desires.
Wanting a beer
• But you can also say: I want a beer.
• This does not mean, for example, that I
want a beer to exist.
• Rather, it means that my desires will be
satisfied if this comes about: I have a beer.
• It’s very much like I want to have a beer.
Wanting and having
• I want another cigarette.
• I want to have another cigarette.
• (I want to smoke another cigarette.)
• I want a car.
• I want to have a car.
• (I want to own a car)
• I want the car.
• I want to have the car.
• (I want to possess the car for a while.)
Very much like…
• In fact, consider this (unexplained)
restriction on have:
• He took his jacket off.
• He took off his jacket.
• He had his jacket off.
• *He had off his jacket.
• The doctor had the splinter out (in no time).
• *The doctor had out the splinter (in no time).
Very much like…
• The same holds true for want NP—it seems
like the case for want NP to have a “hidden
have” is pretty strong.
• The doctor wants those stitches out.
• *The doctor wants out those stitches.
• He wants his jacket off.
• *He wants off his jacket.
…and yet…
• But, then, in some cases it gets less promising:
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Pat wants a compliment.
Pat wants to have a compliment?
Pat has a compliment?
Pat wants a kiss.
Pat wants to have a kiss?
Pat has a kiss?
• Here, it seems more like want NP means ‘want to
get NP’, not ‘want to have NP’.
Want NP = want+PHAVE+NP
• But, suppose that it isn’t a silent have or silent get
that appears as part of want NP, but rather
PHAVE.
• The problem with having a compliment is that it
implies a kind of duration (BE+PHAVE), and
compliments, once given, cease to exist. Getting a
compliment (BECOME+PHAVE) doesn’t imply a
duration, and so it’s fine. Quite possibly the same
problem as in Pat has the boot.
Wanting to PHAVE
• The idea here is that want NP has a single
meaning, but one which is shared between
want to have NP and want to get NP—that
is, want to PHAVE NP.
• For reasons that are not clear, PHAVE idioms
don’t seem to survive in want NP constructions,
though: Mary wanted the creeps, John wanted a
piece of her mind, Pat wanted the boot.
Decomposing other verbs
• There are several other verbs that participate in the
“dative shift” alternation that give does, and we
can understand them in a similar way.
• John sent Mary a letter.
John CAUSE+√send Mary PHAVE a letter.
• John sent a letter to Mary.
John CAUSE+√send a letter PLOC to Mary.
• John taught the students French.
John CAUSE+√teach the students PHAVE French
• John taught French to the students.
John CAUSE+√teach French PLOC to the students
Send and teach
• And only the PHAVE variants have the
implication of possession.
• Pat sent Mary a letter.
• Pat sent a letter to Mary.
• Pat sent a letter to Philadelphia.
• *Pat sent Philadelphia a letter.
• John taught the students French.
• John taught French to the students.
In sum
• Even apparently simple verbs like have and get
have an internal structure that is not so unlike
unrefaxeristically—or French du (de+le).
Individual morphemes that contribute to the
meaning of the whole, even when the
pronunciation of the whole doesn’t transparently
reflect its semantic/structural parts.
• By identifying classes of verbs that share the same
semantic component and the same behavior, we can
make generalizations and come closer to understanding
why it is (and how we know) that Pat can’t give the
creeps to Tracy.
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References
• Benveniste, Emile (1966). Problèmes de linguistique
générale. Paris: Gallimard.
• Harley, Heidi (2002). Possession and the double-object
construction. Linguistic Variation Yearbook 2:29-68.
• Harley, Heidi (2003). Wanting, having, and getting: a note
on Fodor & Lepore 1998. To appear in Linguistic Inquiry
35(2).
• Richards, Norvin (2001). An idiomatic argument for
lexical decomposition. Linguistic Inquiry 32(1):183-192.