A  Corpus-­‐based  Approach  to  the  English  Middle  Construc7on   Fuminori  NAKAMURA  (Keio  University)   fumi3648[at]gmail.com

Introduc7on  and  Aims  

1.  To  introduce  new  kinds  of  middle  sentences     2.  To  consider  the  mechanism  of  linguis7c  change   3.  To  explain  future  survey  

The  middle  construc7on  

Note:   •  This  is  for  a  full  descrip7on  of  the  middle   construc7on  by  using  linguis7c  theory.       •  Thus,  it  does  not  mainly  aim  to  explore  some   linguis7c  ability  by  examining  the  construc7on.  

Seman7c  frames:    NP  V  (Adv).   Seman7cs:  An  en7ty  (NP)  has  a  certain  property  (Adv)  concerning  an  ac7on  (V).   a.  The  book  sells  well.   b.  The  car  drives  easily.   c.  This  water  drinks  like  water.   d.  The  knife  cuts  easily  (pseudo-­‐middle)  

Backgrounds:  language  change  and  acceptability  

•  The  seman7cs  and  acceptability  of  the  middle  construc7on  may  change  li`le  by  li`le.   •  Thus,  analyses  should  be  updated  with  newly  collected  data.   •  Originally  acceptability  of  middle  instances  varies  among  speakers.  (from  Honda  2005)a.  This   movie  watches  easily  (Goldberg  1995:  187)   b.  *That  film  watches  well.  (Dixon  1991:  330)  

previous  studies  

•  The  contemporary  linguis7cs  have  made  a`empt  to  explain  the  phenomenon  mainly  in  terms  of   (i)  affectedness  or  (ii)  ac7vity.   •  (i)  implies  that  effec7ve  nouns  cannot  be  the  subject  of  the  construc7on  (verbs  of  crea7on).  (ii)   implies  that  non-­‐ac7ve  verbs  cannot  appear  in  the  middle  construc7on.   From  <>

Collected  examples  

•  Though  the  number  is  quite  small,  the  middle  construc7on  with  verbs  of  crea7on  can  be  found.  

A.  A  dense-­‐crumb  carrot  cake  bakes  easily  in  a  springform  pan.     B.  Odes  to  herself  write  easily  when  she's  narcissis7c  mood.            (Rosta  1995:  127)    

•  Not  ac7vity  verbs  also  appears  in  some  instances  as  well.  

From  

Nominal 1

3 4 5 6 7 8

Alterna7ve  approaches:  mul7variant  analogy-­‐based  explana7on.  

•  This  approach  is  not  a  different  approach  from  previous  ones,  rather  a  synthe7c  approaches   in  that  hypotheses  such  as  ac7vity  and  affectedness  are  factors  in  this  approach.     The  network  itself  form  the  middle  construc7on   Most  abstract  framework   Tag/Regular  Expression    

  different  from  other  intransi7ve  construc7on (similar   to  entrenchment,  Seman7c  path,  inheritance)

  ____  ____easily

[NP  V  (Adv)] Corpus  research   Adv   High  coverage     Ddv   Low  Precision  

____  reads  ____

The  book  ____  ____ n  n  n 

Most  instan7ated  cases   Instances

Two  aspects  of  this  approach.   1.  Rela7on  between  words   (for  Acceptability)   • 

_____  reads  easily

The  book  ____  easily

The  book  reads  easily

•  The  book  reads  ____

Able  to  search  each  block  independently.   Unable  to  search  this  network  at  once   Each  Block  does  not  characterize  the  middle   construc7on  

Corpus  research   Adv   High  Precision     Ddv   Low  coverage

  Example   •  “The  cake  bakes  easily  with  the  pan”  case    According  to  1,  the  rela7onship  between  “cake”     and  “bake”  is  a  key  factor  to  determine  its   acceptability.  

• 

When  schema7za7on  (increasing  slots)  in  general,   colloca7onal  informa7on  between  nouns  and  verbs,   verbs  and  adverbials,  and  nouns  and  adverbials  in  this   case  accumulate.   This  is  a  linguis7c  representa7on  of  affordances  to  a   large  extent.  (the  rela7onship  between  “book”  and   “read”).   This  is  used  for  the  acceptability  judgment.  

2.  Rela7on  between  slots  and  words.   (for  crea7vity)   •  •  • 

The  middle  construc7on  forms  a  network.   When   a   new   instances   appears,   exis7ng   acceptable   instances  will  be  accessed  to  judge  accessibility.   The  slot  in  [                            ]  reads  easily  chooses  nouns   similar  to  book  ontologically.   The  slot  in  the  book  [                      ]  reads  easily  chooses   verbs  similar  to  read.   The  slot  in  the  the  book  reads  [              ]  adverbials  similar   to  easily.  

•  •   • 

119

8.35

9 10

scone

4

7.71

gratin

2

7.55

loaf

7

7.47

cookie

2

6.93

pastry

4

6.78

snap

2

6.59

batch

5

6.48

bun

3

6.44

17

6.39

tart

2

6.18

chart

5

5.09

tin (4)

7

4.96

tray

3

4.88

clay

2

4.52

shore

2

4.31

brick

2

3.91

earth

2

2.61

potato (10) bean 7

11 12 13

dish 3 14 15 16 17 18

The  object  list  of  verb  bake,  adapted  from  Word  Sketch

Selected  References  

Goldberg,  Adele.  1995.  Construc6ons:  a  construc6onal   •  grammar  approach  to  argument  structure.   Chicago:  University  of  Chicago  Press.   •  Honda,  Akira.  2005.  Afodansu-­‐no  ninchi-­‐imiron  [An   affordance-­‐theore6c  approach  to  Cogni6ve   seman6cs].  Tokyo:  University  of  Tokyo  Press.   Rosta,  Andrew.  1995.  ‘How  does  this  sentence   The  English  middle  construc7on  has  been  changing  li`le  by  li`le  and  they  have  marginal  members  of   interpret?’  The  seman7cs  of  English   mediopassives.  In  Aarts,  Bas  and  Charles  F.  Meyer   the  category  that  show  different  acceptability  among  speakers.   (eds.),   T he   v erb   i n   c ontemporary   E nglish:   t heory   To  explain  mul7-­‐factor  framework  is  necessary  to  capture  subtle  differences.   and  descrip6on.  Cambridge:  Cambridge   The  future  research  aims  to  a  par7ally-­‐ordered  set  (list)  from  most  prototypical  verbal  clusters  to   University  Press.  123-­‐144.   most  unlikely  clusters  like  below,    according  to  acceptability.         One  goal  of  this  research  as  a  linguis7c  enterprise  is  to  

Summary     • 

cake (62)

LogDICE   (Relevance)

biscuit 2 bread 49 pie 6 2

A.  French  acquires  more  rapidly  than  Esperanto  when  children  are  under   six.  (Rosta  1995:  127)   B.  Tomorrow  never  knows.  (such  as  in  Beatles  1966)  

Raw.  Freq.

explore  the  rela7onship  between  individual  acceptability  and   changes  of  a  language.  

A Corpus-‐based Approach to the English Middle ...

movie watches easily (Goldberg 1995: 187) b. *That film ... The network itself form the middle construcUon different from ... Unable to search this network at once.

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