Lexicalized Meaning and Manner/Result Complementarity

We investigate the English verbs climb and cut, cited as counterexamples to manner/result complementarity: the proposal that verbs lexicalize either manner or result meaning components, but not both. Once their lexicalized meaning is identified and distinguished from contextually determined elements of meaning, cut and climb conform to manner/result complementarity. We show that cut is basically a result verb, with a prototypical manner often inferred. However, as it lexicalizes a result prototypically brought about in a certain manner, some uses simply lexicalize this manner. Crucially, in manner uses, the result component drops out, consistent with manner/result complementarity. In contrast, climb is essentially a manner verb. Once its lexicalized manner is accurately identified and distinguished from meaning contributed by context, the upward direction associated with many uses can be shown to arise from inference. However, climb has some restricted uses which lexicalize a result. Importantly, on these uses, the manner component is lost. With both verbs, then, the manner-only and result-only uses instantiate different, though related, senses of the relevant verb, with each sense conforming to manner/result complementarity. 1 Manner/Result Complementarity: A Constraint on Verb Meaning? What belongs in the meaning of a verb? Certainly, the meaning of a verb determines the range of situations in the world that it can be used to describe; however, when a verb is used in a sentence describing an event, it is only one element in that description, with other elements in the sentence contributing to the description of the event as well. How, then, can we determine what the verb contributes—that is, what is truly the verb’s own meaning? It is not easy to tease the exact contribution of the verb apart from the contribution of other sentential elements such as the verb’s arguments since we typically do not think of a verb outside of sentences which describe prototypical events associated with that verb. We believe, however, that it is indeed possible to distinguish facets of meaning which are strictly contributed by the verb from other facets of meaning which may be derived either by the choice of argument or from particular or prototypical uses of that verb in context. We refer to the former as elements of LEXICALIZED MEANING, taken to comprise a verb’s core meaning. We suggest that the criterion for lexicalized meaning is constancy of entailment across all uses of a verb. Crucially, a verb’s lexicalized meaning is to be distinguished from additional facets of meaning that can be inferred from a particular use of that verb in context and from the choice of noun phrases serving as arguments of the verb.