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Genericity in Middle Constructions
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- Authors
- Issue Date
- 2002
- Publisher
- 서울대학교 언어교육원
- Citation
- 어학연구, Vol.38 No.4, pp. 1151-1184
- Keywords
- middle ; generic ; existential disclosure ; implicit argument
- Abstract
- In middle constructions the external argument is syntactically inactive, but is understood to be people in general. But controversially it is optionally realized as a for-phrase which can denote a specific individual. I propose that a for-phrase is indirectly associated with the implied agent. However, this does not explain the observation that middle constructions tend to be generic. A middle verb itself is aspectually non-generic, but a middle construction is generic as a whole. This requires the presence of the generic operator. One thing missing is how a middle construction is guaranteed to be generic. I propose that the event argument is given the feature [ANY], which must be associated with the generic operator. My proposal could cause some problems in semantic interpretation, and I show that they can be avoided by existential disclosure.
- ISSN
- 0254-4474
- Language
- English
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