Argument structure across theoretical, experimental and applied domains: Unergativity at large and related interface phenomena.
Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, PID2022-136610NB-I00, 2023-2026.
PI: Isabel Oltra-Massuet
Associated ROLLING Researchers: Josep Ausensi, Ester Fonts, Alícia Gual, Elizaveta Kardovskaia, Elisabeth Gibert-Sotelo, Jordi Ginebra, Carles Royo, Anna Roigé, Bernat Vellvè
Argument structure and neurolinguistic processing at the lexicon-syntax interface: Unergative verbs with cognate object or obligatory prepositional object
Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. FFI2016-80142-P. 31/12/2016-29/06/2021. 54.450€.
PI: Isabel Oltra-Massuet
Associated ROLLING Researchers: Georgina Alvarez-Morera, Celia Fullana, Jordi Ginebra, Elisabeth Gibert-Sotelo, Anna Montserrat, Carles Royo.
This project is framed within the study of the lexicon-syntax-morphology interface. It seeks to improve our knowledge about the nature of unergativity at large and related interface phenomena across patterns of argument structure and event structure, mainly in Romance and Germanic, but also across other languages. Our program places a special focus on the combinatorial properties and (sub)eventive aspectual structure of unergative events, in relation to (a)transitive and unaccusative structures, the morphosyntactic properties of (un)selected objects, which includes cognate objects and prepositional verbs, the syntax of external arguments and their relation to agentivity and animacy, the compositionality of light verb structures and how they relate to parallel synthetic constructions, controversial case studies like psychological verbs, or the role of lexical-conceptual information and morphological composition in the licensing and delimitation of argument and event structure. The research program reinforces its lasting social impact by adding a significant research line on the direct applicability of research outcomes to the domain of language teaching and transfer to applied online tools, to bridge the gap between scientific progress and its effective societal implementation.
This project must essentially be framed within the study of the lexicon-syntax interface and it seeks to improve our knowledge about the nature and sources of variation across patterns of argument structure and event structure in four different phenomena, namely unergativity and its relationship to light verb structures, cognate object structures and constructions with obligatory prepositional complements, in Romance languages (Spanish and Catalan) as well as in Germanic languages (English and German). In addition to a thorough description and detailed analysis of these phenomena within the (neo)constructionist frameworks, this research on argument structure and event structure of unergative verbs incorporates the neurolinguistic analysis of morphosyntactic patterns as a novelty. Specifically, we apply behavioral methods of neurolinguistic processing, as well as magnetoencephalographic (MEG) brain monitoring techniques that measure and monitor electrical brain activity in response to certain linguistic stimuli, in order to test the validity of linguistic hypotheses on unergativity and cognate object constructions. This is done on the basis of the predictive power of each linguistic hypothesis with respect to the relationship between linguistic representations, their linguistic processing and their neural correlates. This project also includes the creation of two data bases, one for constructions with obligatory prepositional complement in the languages under study, and a second one for cognate object constructions in the languages of the world; both should serve to establish and analyze syntactic patterns that should help formulate theories of morphosyntactic variation in these areas. Hence, this project pursues a double goal, theoretical and empirical: (i) to test the validity of theoretical hypotheses and, (ii) to describe and analyzing empirical evidence.