Double object constructions and 'bill' verbs in English

This thesis empirically tests the two predominant views concerning which object in a DOC is the ‘true’ one by applying Hudson’s (1992) eleven objecthood diagnostics to verbs that pattern like ‘bill’ in a corpus search and a grammatical acceptability survey. Only two tests showed statistically signif...

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Main Authors: Thomas, V, Victoria Thomas
Other Authors: Dalrymple, M
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: 2012
Subjects:
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author Thomas, V
Victoria Thomas
author2 Dalrymple, M
author_facet Dalrymple, M
Thomas, V
Victoria Thomas
author_sort Thomas, V
collection OXFORD
description This thesis empirically tests the two predominant views concerning which object in a DOC is the ‘true’ one by applying Hudson’s (1992) eleven objecthood diagnostics to verbs that pattern like ‘bill’ in a corpus search and a grammatical acceptability survey. Only two tests showed statistically significant results: passivization and extraction. Passivization indicated that the first positional object (O1) behaves most like the monotransitive object (O0). Extraction indicated that, by a small margin, the second positional object (O2) behaves more like O0. For most of Hudson’s objecthood tests, however, there was no clear patterning of O0 with either the first or second object for ‘bill’ verbs. This calls into question whether it is possible to determine which of the objects in a DOC is the ‘true’ object by employing such diagnostics, and has significant implications for notions of objecthood, especially within Lexical Functional Grammar. The study indicates that a substantial rethink is needed with regards to traditional views about objecthood.
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spelling oxford-uuid:3a7fcff7-f8ba-4847-9002-71b3c228b9552022-03-26T14:01:59ZDouble object constructions and 'bill' verbs in EnglishThesishttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_bdccuuid:3a7fcff7-f8ba-4847-9002-71b3c228b955English & Old English languageLinguisticsGermanic languagesEnglish Language and LiteratureEnglishOxford University Research Archive - Valet2012Thomas, VVictoria ThomasDalrymple, MThis thesis empirically tests the two predominant views concerning which object in a DOC is the ‘true’ one by applying Hudson’s (1992) eleven objecthood diagnostics to verbs that pattern like ‘bill’ in a corpus search and a grammatical acceptability survey. Only two tests showed statistically significant results: passivization and extraction. Passivization indicated that the first positional object (O1) behaves most like the monotransitive object (O0). Extraction indicated that, by a small margin, the second positional object (O2) behaves more like O0. For most of Hudson’s objecthood tests, however, there was no clear patterning of O0 with either the first or second object for ‘bill’ verbs. This calls into question whether it is possible to determine which of the objects in a DOC is the ‘true’ object by employing such diagnostics, and has significant implications for notions of objecthood, especially within Lexical Functional Grammar. The study indicates that a substantial rethink is needed with regards to traditional views about objecthood.
spellingShingle English & Old English language
Linguistics
Germanic languages
English Language and Literature
Thomas, V
Victoria Thomas
Double object constructions and 'bill' verbs in English
title Double object constructions and 'bill' verbs in English
title_full Double object constructions and 'bill' verbs in English
title_fullStr Double object constructions and 'bill' verbs in English
title_full_unstemmed Double object constructions and 'bill' verbs in English
title_short Double object constructions and 'bill' verbs in English
title_sort double object constructions and bill verbs in english
topic English & Old English language
Linguistics
Germanic languages
English Language and Literature
work_keys_str_mv AT thomasv doubleobjectconstructionsandbillverbsinenglish
AT victoriathomas doubleobjectconstructionsandbillverbsinenglish