TY - JOUR AU - Ausensi, Josep PY - 2019/07/20 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - Revisiting the elasticity of verb meaning and the way-construction in English JF - Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung JA - SuB VL - 23 IS - 1 SE - Articles DO - 10.18148/sub/2019.v23i1.504 UR - https://ojs.ub.uni-konstanz.de/sub/index.php/sub/article/view/504 SP - 75-92 AB - <p>Rappaport Hovav and Levin (2010) argue that result verbs (e.g. <em>break</em>) are more restricted than manner verbs (e.g. <em>wipe</em>) with regard to argument realization, since result verbs do not permit object deletion (e.g. <em>*John broke</em>) or nonselected objects (e.g. <em>*John broke his fingers bloody</em>). In the present paper, I argue that result verbs can permit nonselected objects, i.e. I show that they are found in the <em>way</em>-construction when the result state they encode is predicated of a patient that despite not being overtly realized is semantically implicit. In a similar vein, Marantz (1992), Levin (1993) and Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1995) argue that unaccusative verbs are never found in the <em>way</em>-construction, as only unergative verbs are permitted. However, as Kuno and Takami (2004) note, there are some unaccusative verbs (e.g. <em>roll</em>) that can appear in this construction. In this respect, I argue that unaccusative verbs permit the <em>way</em>-construction when they do not encode result states. Consequently, I contend that unaccusativity is not the constraint imposed by the <em>way</em>-construction on the verb classes permitted, contra previously assumed. In short, I argue that both result and unaccusative verbs appear to be more elastic with regard to argument realization than previously claimed.</p> ER -