Anna Kibort: Intermediary agents and unexpressed pronouns

The aim of this paper is to show the full range of possible participant-function mappings available for the classes of verbs in Polish which denote predicates entailing an ‘intermediary agent’. An intermediary agent is a semantic participant that can be conceptualised as an instrument or means with which the event is accomplished, or alternatively as the causer or instigator of this event. The particular verb classes involved include verbs of emission of smell, sound, or light, verbs expressing expansion of an aggregate or a mass/abstract entity (corresponding roughly to the English SWARM verbs), and verbs expressing physical or psychological states due to a stimulus which can be interpreted as an intermediary agent. I discuss how to model the identified alternations with LMT and offer argument structure models of all the variants. I argue that a certain type of clause which is often regarded as impersonal (due to the lack of a lexically expressed nominative subject, as well as the defocusing of the instigator) can be analysed as having a ‘pro-drop’ subject (an unexpressed/incorporated pronoun or pronominal inflection) which may co-refer with an overtly expressed instrument or other oblique argument. 1 The set of constructions under consideration I begin with a discussion of the class of verbs in Polish which includes verbs of emission of smell, sound, or light – examples of which are given in (1)-(3), respectively; and verbs expressing expansion of an aggregate or a mass/abstract entity – examples of which are given in (4). 1 Some of the verbs are reflexiva tantum, and others are reflexive variants of non-reflexive verbs which are reflexive when used inchoatively: (1) a. pachnie! ‘emit fragrance’ (4) a. roi! si" ‘swarm, teem’ b. #mierdzie! ‘smell’ b. kipie! ‘seethe, effervesce’ c. cuchn$! ‘stink’ c. p"cznie! ‘swell, bulge’ (2) a. grzmie! ‘rumble, roar’ d. mrowi! si" ‘teem, swarm’ b. szumie! ‘hum, throb, rustle’ e. wrze! ‘seethe, throb’ c. hucze! ‘rumble, reverberate’ f. przelewa! si" ‘overflow’ (3) a. mieni! si" ‘glisten, be iridescent’ b. bieli! si" ‘appear to be white and shiny, glisten’ c. migota! ‘glitter, shimmer’ These predicates can be thought of as denoting events that typically involve two entities as participants. One is the entity which emits the smell, sound, or light, or the entity which is the expanding aggregate or mass/abstract concept. The other entity is the location in which the event takes place, where the event is present and/or propagated. It appears that in Polish the events in question can be conceptualised in three different ways, resulting in three different syntactic constructions forming a set of so-called ‘alternations’. Argument alternations have been extensively discussed in syntactic literature since the beginning of generativism, and the work of Rappaport and Levin (1988), Pinker (1989), and Jackendoff (1990), has been particularly influential in formalising the differences between the semantic contents of the alternants. Dowty’s (1991) theory of proto-roles attributes the different argument configurations to the different entailments produced by the related predicates, and Dowty (2000) offers an extensive discussion of the differences in the meanings between the English alternants involving swarm and spray/load verbs. The work presented in this paper follows from this tradition and assumes that the different syntactic frames correlate with different meanings, not only of the verbs themselves (resulting, for example, in the holistic vs partitive effect of the alternation), but also of the participants in the events denoted by the verbs. Hence, while the entities referred to by the arguments may be the same between the alternants, the semantic roles a particular entity fulfils in the different alternants may be different. This last distinction corresponds to Jackendoff’s 1 I gratefully acknowledge a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship, which has enabled me to continue this research. 379 functional representation of arguments at ‘action tier’ and the representation of their conceptual roles at ‘thematic tier’ (1990:126ff). Since it would be difficult to talk about ‘agentivity’ of any participants in the events discussed here, while referring to the semantic roles entailed by the predicates I follow Siewierska (2008:121) in using the term ‘instigator’ for the causal participant of an event the most broadly. Apart from sharing some semantics, the verbs listed above can be identified as belonging to one class due to their participation in a particular set of syntactic alternations, which results in their use in the following three constructions. 1.1 The oblique place + oblique emitter construction First, they are commonly used in a syntactic frame where the entity which emits the smell, sound, or light, or the entity which is the expanding aggregate or mass/abstract concept is expressed through an instrumental nominal or other oblique (a prepositional phrase). There is no overt lexical element realising a nominative subject, and the verb bears the 3SG.N inflection. This type of clause commonly includes an optional locative which is often topicalised. However, in this syntactic frame the instrumental or prepositional phrase expressing the emitter is also optional. I refer to this syntactic frame as the ‘oblique place + oblique emitter construction’, even though I reserve judgement on the question of whether they are both arguments of the predicate, or whether the location might be an adjunct: 2 (5) a. W domu pachnie kaw$. in house emit-fragrance.3SG.(N) coffee(F).INS ‘There is a smell of coffee in the house.’ b. %mierdzia&o moczem w ca&ym korytarzu. smelt.3SG.N urine(M).INS in whole corridor ‘There was a smell of urine in the whole corridor.’ (6) a. Na forach grzmia&o od g&osów niezadowolenia. on forums roared.3SG.N from voices(NONVIR) 3 .GEN discontent(N).GEN ‘[Internet] forums were roaring with voices of discontent.’ b. W g&owie szumia&o od muzyki. in head throbbed.3SG.N from music(F).GEN ‘The [my/his/her] head was throbbing with music.’ (7) a. Na ulicach mieni&o si" od #wi$tecznych dekoracji. on streets glistened.3SG.N REFL from festive.PL.GEN decorations(NONVIR).GEN ‘The streets glittered with festive decorations.’ b. W ogrodzie bieli si" od szronu. in garden appear-white.3SG.(N) REFL from hoarfrost(M).GEN ‘The garden is glistening with hoarfrost.’ (8) a. W ogrodzie roi&o si" od pszczó&. in garden swarmed.3SG.N REFL from bees(NONVIR).GEN ‘The garden was swarming with bees.’ b. W g&owach kipia&o nam od pomys&ów. in heads seethed.3SG.N us.DAT from ideas(NONVIR).GEN ‘Our heads were seething with ideas.’ c. W sercu p"cznia&o od gniewu. in heart swelled.3SG.N from anger(M).GEN ‘The [my/his/her] heart was swelling with anger.’ 2 I also do not know at this stage whether they follow a particular ordering within the argument structure or not. This, however, should not have a bearing on the argumentation offered in this paper. 3 I assume the following gender values for Polish: M (masculine), F (feminine), or N (neuter) in the singular, and VIR[ILE] (masculine human) or NONVIR[ILE] (all other, i.e. non-masculine human and all non-human) in the plural. This represents a simplified view of Polish gender in its interaction with number, but it is sufficient to describe the phenomena discussed in this paper. 380 This is a common construction in Polish and the naturally occurring clauses may display different word orders from the ones illustrated above, different collocations, and include additional lexical material. However, the reason why I selected the particular examples above for illustration is that they allow me to demonstrate the alternations available to these predicates with the minimum number of lexical elements and minimal pragmatic adjustments to improve their felicitousness. 1.2 The subject place + oblique emitter construction The second syntactic frame in which these predicates can be found involves the location expressed via a nominative subject. The predicate agrees with the subject, while the entity which emits the smell, sound, or light, or the entity which is the expanding aggregate or mass/abstract concept is expressed through an instrumental nominal or other oblique (a prepositional phrase) as in (5)-(8). I will refer to this syntactic frame as the ‘subject place + oblique emitter construction’: 4 (9) a. Dom pachnie kaw$. house(M).NOM emit-fragrance.3SG.(M) coffee(F).INS ‘The house smells of coffee.’ b. Ca&y korytarz #mierdzia& moczem. whole.M.NOM corridor(M).NOM smelt.3SG.M urine(M).INS ‘The whole corridor smelt of urine.’ (10) a. Fora grzmia&y od g&osów niezadowolenia. forums(NONVIR).NOM roared.3PL.NONVIR from voices(NONVIR).GEN discontent(N).GEN ‘[Internet] forums were roaring with voices of discontent.’ b. G&owa szumia&a od muzyki. head(F).NOM throbbed.3SG.F from music(F).GEN ‘The [my/his/her] head was throbbing with music.’ (11) a. Ulice mieni&y si" od #wi$tecznych dekoracji. streets(NONVIR).NOM glistened.3PL.NONVIR REFL from festive.PL.GEN decorations(NONVIR).GEN ‘The streets glittered with festive decorations.’ b. Ogród bieli si" od szronu. garden(M).NOM appear-white.3SG.(M) REFL from hoarfrost(M).GEN ‘The garden is glistening with hoarfrost.’ (12) a. Ogród roi& si" od pszczó&. garden(M).NOM swarmed.3SG.M REFL from bees(NONVIR).GEN ‘The garden was swarming with bees.’ b. G&owy kipia&y nam od pomys&ów. heads(NONVIR).NOM seethed.3SG.NONVIR us.DAT from ideas(NONVIR).GEN ‘Our heads were seething with ideas.’ c. Serce p"cznia&o od gniewu. heart(N).NOM swelled.3SG.N from anger(M).GEN ‘The [my/his/her] heart was swelling with anger.’ 1.3 The subject emitter + oblique place construction Finally, one more alternation available to these predicates, resulting in a third type of syntactic frame, has the entity which emits the smell, sound, or light, or the entity which is the expanding aggregate or mass/abstract concept expressed through a nominative subject. The predicate agrees with the subject, and – if felicitous – the location can be expressed as an optional locative: 5 4 Dowty (2000) refers to the English variant of this construction as the ‘Location-Subject Form’, and notes that he adopts this term without implying a commitment to the term ‘location’ as a thematic role. 5 Likewise, Dowty (2000) refers to the English variant of this construction as the ‘Agent-Subject Form’, also without implying a commitment to the term ‘agent’ as a thematic role. 381 (13) a. Ta kawa pi"knie pachnie w ca&ym domu. this coffee(F).NOM beautifully emit-fragrance.3SG.(F) in whole house ‘This coffee smells beautifully in the whole house.’ b. Mocz #mierdzia& w ca&ym korytarzu. urine(M).NOM smelt.3SG.M in whole corridor ‘The urine smelt in the whole corridor.’ (14) a. Na forach grzmia&y g&osy niezadowolenia. on forums roared.3PL.NONVIR voices(NONVIR).NOM discontent(N).GEN ‘On [internet] forums were roaring voices of discontent.’ b. Muzyka szumia&a w g&owie. music(F).NOM throbbed.3SG.F in head ‘The music was throbbing in the [my/his/her] head.’ (15) a. Na ulicach mieni&y si" #wi$teczne dekoracje. on streets glistened.3PL.NONVIR REFL festive.NONVIR.NOM decorations(NONVIR).NOM ‘On the streets glittered festive decorations.’ b. Szron bieli si" w ogrodzie. hoarfrost(M).NOM appear-white.3SG.(M) REFL in garden ‘Hoarfrost is glistening in the garden.’ (16) a. W ogrodzie roi&y si" pszczo&y. in garden swarmed.3PL.NONVIR REFL bees(NONVIR).NOM ‘In the garden were swarming bees.’ b. W g&owach kipia&y nam pomys&y. in heads seethed.3PL.NONVIR us.DAT ideas(NONVIR).NOM ‘In our heads were seething [new] ideas.’ c. Gniew p"cznia& w sercu. anger(M).NOM swelled.3SG.M in heart ‘Anger was swelling in the [my/his/her] heart.’ 2 Modelling alternations at argument structure I assume that the three constructions are related, that is, that they share the base verbal lexeme, and that the relations between the three variants of the lexeme are best captured at the level of argument structure. In the remainder of the paper, I provide argument structure models for all three of them. A follow-up question pertinent to the first construction, the oblique place + oblique emitter one, is whether it is indeed impersonal as is often assumed. It evidently lacks a lexically expressed nominative subject, by which it fulfils a structural criterion of impersonality; and it defocuses the instigator, by which it fulfils the key functional criterion of impersonality (Siewierska 2008:116, 121-122). However, Polish is a pro-drop language, and applying these criteria to pro-drop languages can be tricky, as we would obviously not want to analyse all basic pro-drop clauses with omitted lexical (pronominal) subjects as impersonal. In section 3 below I argue for a pro-drop analysis of the oblique place + oblique emitter construction. However, the sections immediately below prepare the ground by discussing the mechanism of variable participant-function mappings and by applying it to the class of verbs in question. In the process, I account first for the remaining two constructions: the subject place + oblique emitter one, and the subject emitter + oblique place one. 2.1 Participants competing for the same argument status The subject place + oblique emitter construction (illustrated in 1.2) and the subject emitter + oblique place construction (illustrated in 1.3) as a pair bear close resemblance to many well documented pairs of clauses that exhibit alternative mappings of semantic participants to grammatical functions. Many different types of such alternations have been identified where, holding constant both the (base of the) predicate and the participants selected for expression, there are two (and sometimes