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We report on the Parallel Grammar (ParGram) project which uses the XLE parser and grammar development platform for six languages: English,

We contrast the historical data with respect to light verbs and auxiliaries in Indo-Aryan and show that light verbs are comparatively stable and unlikely to be subject to reanalysis or restructuring. We propose that there is a very tight connection between a light verb and its corresponding main verb, and that this connection differs markedly from the relationship an auxiliary bears to the main verb it is derived from. In particular, we depart from the received view that the existence of a light verb is due to a historical process of semantic bleaching. We instead propose that synchronically there is a single underlying lexical entry which tightly binds light verbs to their corresponding main verb. This proposal accounts not only for the simultaneous synchronic uses of light and main verbs, but also for the historical data.

Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: General Session and Parasession on Semantic Typology and Semantic Universals (1993)

Case, a system which marks the relationships between words in a sentence, is fundamental to every language. Looking at how different theories of syntax have accounted for the distribution of case across languages, this accessible 2006 textbook introduces the various approaches to case that have been proposed in modern linguistics. Clearly organised into topics, it provides beginning students with a solid understanding of the ideas behind the development of theories of case. For the more advanced reader, it presents theories that have been formulated about the interaction between case morphology, argument structure, grammatical relations and semantics, and offers a detailed cross-theoretical discussion of how these are motivated. Each chapter contains practical exercises, encouraging students to engage with the ideas discussed. Drawing on data from a wide range of languages and pooling together a variety of perspectives, Theories of Case is essential reading for all those studying this important area of linguistics.

This chapter examines two types of complex verbal predication in Hindi/Urdu, and argues that the language internal diagnostics support a constructionalist view of lexical meaning. It first shows empirically that these constructions must be distinguished both from genuine biclausal structures on the one hand, and auxiliary-verb monoclausal structures on the other. It then shows that the semantic contribution and linear order of the components of the complex predicate can be understood under an event structure decomposition, represented syntactically in the ‘first phase’. Specifically, one species of light verb will be argued to be an instantiation of a ν ‘initiational’ head, while another species of light verb instantiates a ‘process’-event head with the main verb providing a ‘result’ predicational head. If the authors' analysis is correct, complex constructions in Hindi/Urdu are a test case that offers striking semantic evidence for an event structure decomposition of the form ‘initiation → < process, result >’, and of its syntactic reality.

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