A new look at the unproductivity of resultative constructions in Brazilian Portuguese

Um novo olhar sobre a improdutividade de construções resultativas no PB

ABSTRACT

Typical resultative constructions in English are unavailable in Brazilian Portuguese (BP) and in Romance. This fact has been attributed by previous studies to different event-framings, following the Talmian view. English would illustrate the satellite-framing pattern, whereas Romance would illustrate the verb-framing pattern. Literature in BP has mainly focused on describing properties of different sentences similar to resultatives of the English type. A large part of the debate has been devoted to answering whether these can be classified as true resultatives. Much less attention has been dedicated to a proper description of the framing patterns in BP. This paper fills in this gap and, by doing so, argues that BP admits both framing patterns. The v-framing pattern is highly productive, exemplified by numerous complex parasynthetic verbs that entail a result. The s-framing pattern is marginal, illustrated by a small sample of modified resultatives and verb-particle constructions. This paper supports the framing analysis, but recasts its merits in light of new connections established among (apparent) resultatives in BP.

Keywords:
resultative constructions; morphology; event framing; Brazilian Portuguese

RESUMO

Construções resultativas típicas como as do inglês não são possíveis no português brasileiro (PB) e nas línguas românicas. Esse fato tem sido analisado como consequência de diferentes emoldurações do evento, seguindo a visão de Talmy. O inglês seria emoldurado por satélites, enquanto as línguas românicas seriam emolduradas pelo verbo. A literatura no PB tem se dedicado a descrever propriedades de diferentes sentenças similares às resultativas típicas. E grande parte do debate é voltado a responder se elas podem ser assim classificadas. Menos atenção é dada a uma descrição acurada dos padrões de emolduração nessa língua. Este artigo preenche essa lacuna e, ao fazê-lo, mostra que o PB admite ambos os padrões. O de emolduração pelo verbo é altamente produtivo, exemplificado por inúmeros verbos complexos parassintéticos que acarretam um resultado. O de emolduração por satélite é marginal, ilustrado por uma amostra reduzida de resultativas modificadas e de construções do tipo verbo-partícula. Este artigo dá suporte a uma análise Talmiana, mas a reformula à luz de novas conexões entre as (aparentes) resultativas do PB.

Palavras-chave:
construções resultativas; morfologia; emolduração de eventos; português brasileiro

1. Introduction

Typical resultative constructions in English are unavailable in Brazilian Portuguese (BP), as exemplified below.²

(1) a. John hammered the metal flat (Washio, 1997, p. 5)

b. They ran her their sneakers ragged. (Carrier; Randall, 1992, p. 183)

(2) a. João martelou o metal chato/ plano.

John hammered the metal flat

‘John hammered the flat metal’

b. *Eles correram seus tênis gastos.

‘They ran their sneakers ragged’

The acceptability of (2a) shows that a sentence identical to (1a) is indeed possible in BP. But, in this example, the AP ‘flat’ is interpreted as an attributive adjective, not as a resultative secondary predicate. The unacceptability of (2b), in turn, is evidence that only a subset of English resultatives can have well-formed counterparts in BP, namely those in which the AP is predicated of the direct object. Importantly, these are also amenable to intensification strategies that license a resultative interpretation of the AP. This was first discussed by Napoli (1992) in Italian and subsequently confirmed in BP (Marcelino, 2000; Lobato, 2004; Knöpfle, 2014, 2017b; Moreira, 2021), as in (3).³

(3) João varreu o chão bem limpinho. (Knöpfle, 2017b, p. 333)

John wiped the floor very clean.dim

‘John wiped the floor (very) clean’

Since Foltran’s (1999) influential work on secondary predication in BP, various studies have focused on describing syntactic and semantic properties of different sentences that resemble resultatives of the English type, as in (4).

(4) a. Ela cortou o cabelo curto. (Foltran, 1999, p. 190)

she cut the hair short

‘She cut her hair short’

b. Ela andou até gastar os sapatos. (Marcelino, 2000, p. 2)

he walked until torn/rag.inf the shoes

‘He walked so much that his shoes became ragged’

c. João martelou a lata até achatar. (Bertucci, 2014, p. 625)

John hammered the can until flat.inf

‘John hammered the can until it was flat’

I intentionally use the word “resemble” to emphasize that these are not typical AP resultatives. The status of (4a) is debatable, and some authors claim that the AP curto ‘short’ is a pseudo-resultative in the sense of Levinson (2010) (see Barbosa, 2018).⁴ In turn, (4b-c) are examples of so-called infinitival resultatives. What we have in (4) is a taxonomy of examples that carry the semantic entailments of typical resultatives like (1a-b), but are syntactically different from them.

A common explanation for the absence of resultative constructions in Romance invokes Talmy’s (1985, 1991) event typology (Mateu, 2000; Marcelino, 2000, 2007, 2014; Barbosa 2008, 2012, 2018; Acedo-Matellán, 2016). Mateu (2000), for instance, argues that resultatives are based on a syntactic operation of lexical subordination that “is shown to be possible in English because of its ‘satellite-framed’ nature (Talmy, 1991). By contrast, the ‘verb-framed’ nature of Romance languages prevents them from carrying out such an operation” (Mateu, 2000, p. 71).⁵ Talmy’s (1991, p. 487) analysis is schematized in (5).

(5) a. The bottle floated out. S-FRAMING PATTERN

MANNER PATH

b. La botella salió flotando.V-FRAMING PATTERN

the bottle exited floating

PATH MANNER

This proposal is extended to the domain of resultatives in the following way (Barbosa, 2018, p. 565-566).

(6) a. John hammered the metal flat.

[CAUSE + MANNER] RESULTANT STATE

b. João painted the house very yellow.

[CAUSE + RESULTANT STATE] MANNER

In this paper, I support previous work in BP invoking the Talmian view (Marcelino, 2000, 2007, 2014; Barbosa 2008, 2012, 2018). I claim that these analyses are on the right track, but have overlooked two important facts. First, that BP, like Greek (Giannakidou & Merchant, 1999), has numerous examples of semantic equivalents to English resultatives built from complex (parasynthetic) verbs that carry a result entailment, and further block the resultative AP, such as achatar ‘flatten’, arrombar ‘break-open’, escancarar ‘open-wide’, esgarçar ‘wear-out’.⁶ I claim that these morphologically complex verbs best exemplify the v-framing pattern, but are missing from the discussion in BP altogether. Second, the fact that BP indeed has (rare) syntactic and semantic equivalents to resultative constructions, licensed through intensification strategies, exemplary of the s-framing pattern. It also has a few verb-particle constructions, a fact that lends support for the view that the s-framing pattern is not totally banned in this language, but severely restricted.

Both patterns are exemplified below, where (7a) is repeated from (3).

(7) a. João varreu o chão bem limpinho. S-FRAMING PATTERN

John wiped the floor very clean.dim

‘John wiped the floor (very) clean’

[CAUSE + MANNER] RESULTANT STATE

b. O ladrão arrombou o cofre a marteladas. V-FRAMING PATTERN

the thief broke.open the safe by hammer.nom

‘The thief brooke the safe open by hammering it’

[CAUSE + RESULTANT STATE] MANNER

The picture that emerges from this is that BP allows both patterns claimed by previous studies to be crucial for resultative formation-the v-framing pattern and the s-framing pattern. However, the former is much more productive in BP, which explains why resultative formation in this language is so constrained. This paper, therefore, offers additional evidence for a framing analysis along the lines of Marcelino (2000, 2007, 2014) and Barbosa (2008, 2018) by shedding light on empirical data that these analyses have overlooked.

The rest of the paper is organized as follows, in addition to this introductory section. Section 2 presents the background on resultative constructions, mainly focusing on data from English and BP. Section 3 discusses the role of morphology in blocking resultative secondary predication in Greek and English. Section 4 further explores the framing analysis for BP, showing in two subsections the v-framing pattern and the s-framing pattern in BP. Section 5 concludes the study.

2. Background on resultative constructions

Since Halliday’s (1967) work, resultative constructions have been investigated in many languages, such as English (Simpson, 1983; Hoekstra, 1988; Carrier & Randall, 1992; Levin & Rappaport Hovav, 1996; Bowers, 1997; Levinson, 2010; Beavers, 2012; Wechsler, 2001, 2015), German (Kratzer, 2005), Greek (Giannakidou & Merchant, 1999), Japanese (Washio, 1997), and BP (Foltran, 1999; Lobato, 2004; Marcelino, 2000, 2007, 2014; Rech, 2007; Barbosa, 2008, 20212, 2018; Bertucci, 2014; Knöpfle 2011, 2014, 2017a, 2017b). Classical examples of resultative constructions in English are illustrated in (8) below.

(8) a. The gardener watered the tulips flat. (Kratzer, 2005, p. 180)

b. John hammered the metal flat. (Beavers, 2012, p. 908)

c. They wiped the table clean. (Hoekstra, 1988, p. 117)

d. The burglars broke the safe open. (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

e. They drank the teapot dry. (Levin; Rappaport Hovav, 1996, p. 1)

f. He cut his hair short.⁷ (The New Yorker, 2004)

g. They painted the door green. (Hoekstra, 1988, p. 117)

h. John ran his shoes ragged. (Ramchand, 2008, p. 121)

i. Bill coughed himself hoarse (Ramchand, 2008, p. 122)

Semantically, the result state denoted by the adjective is interpreted as the outcome of the action expressed by the main verb. These constructions describe a culminated event, and the entity undergoing the event ends up as the holder of a final state.⁸ For example, in (8c), ‘the table’ ends up in a ‘clean’ state as the result of a ‘wiping’ event.

The examples in (8), however, do not form a homogenous group. This has been captured by different classifications in the literature, such as transitive and intransitive resultatives (Carrier & Randall, 1992), or weak vs. strong resultatives (Washio, 1997). The difference comes down to whether the entity undergoing the event is an argument of the verb or not (see also Kratzer, 2005 for a discussion). In this paper, I assume resultatives can basically belong to one these two broader types.

As mentioned before, a generally accepted analysis of resultatives in BP (Marcelino, 2000, 2007, 2014; Barbosa 2008, 2012, 2018) is that this language lacks typical resultatives constructions because of its framing possibilities, as exemplified in (9) repeated from (6).

(9) a. John hammered the metal flat S-FRAMED LANGUAGE

[CAUSE + MANNER] RESULTANT STATE

b. João pintou a casa bem amarelinha. V-FRAMED LANGUAGE

John painted the house very yellow

‘John painted the house (very) yellow’

[CAUSE + RESULTANT STATE] MANNER

In (9a), an example of an s-framed language, the verb ‘hammer’ conflates cause and manner, and the AP ‘flat’ describes the result. In (9b), an example of a v-framed language, the verb pintar ‘paint’ conflates cause and result, and the AP is taken to describe manner.

Before moving on, note that this analysis is problematic for Barbosa’s (2018, p. 567, example (77)) claim that bem amarelinha ‘very yellow’ is a pseudo-resultative. Crucially, pseudo-resultatives are not adverbial, following Levinson (2010); therefore, they do not express manner or modify the verb. The framing analysis as stated in (9b) conflicts with the view that this is a pseudo-resultative predicate, and the same goes for (4a) above.

Note also that previous work has mainly focused on presenting examples in which “the ideas expressed” by typical resultatives could be expressed “by other syntactic structures” (Marcelino, 2000, p. 2), as illustrated below in (10), where (10c-d) are repeated from (4).⁹ Crucially, though, these do not exemplify the v-framing pattern, as the verb does not conflate cause + resultant state.

(10) a. Ele bebeu [até esvaziar a xícara]. (Marcelino, 2000, p. 2)

he drank until empty.INF the cup

‘He drank the cup dry’

b. Ela cantou [até sua filha ficar com sono].

she sang until her daughter beacame with sleepiness

‘She sang her dauther sleepy”

c. Ela andou [até gastar os sapatos].

she walked until torn. INF the shoes

‘She walked her shoes ragged’

d. João martelou a lata até achatar. (Bertucci, 2014, p. 625)

John hammered the can until flat.INF

‘John hammered the can until it was flat’

What these examples show is that semantic correlates of typical resultatives are different in BP, but note that they try to mirror the English framing pattern. If we take Talmy’s typology seriously, however, our main task is to show how BP, by being a v-framed language, blocks resultative formation. In that sense, the most interesting phenomena are shown below.

(11) a. Ele secou a garrafa.

he drank-dry the bottle

‘He drank the bottle dry’

b. Ele ninou a filha.¹⁰

he lull.INF the daughter

‘He lulled his daughter asleep’

c. Ela esgarçou os sapatos.

she torned/ragged he shoes

‘She torned/ragged her shoes’

d. João achatou a lata.

João flattened the can

‘João flattened the can’

Data in (11) exemplify the v-framing pattern, where the verb conflates cause and a resultant state. This indeed is the relevant pattern, consistent with languages that ban resultatives.¹¹

3. The role of morphology

It is well-known that resultative constructions are productive in English. Nevertheless, certain verbs do not derive resultative constructions in this language. Consider the data in (12) below from Giannakidou and Merchant (1999, p. 125).

(12) a. Max simplified the assignment (*easy/*too easy).

b. The lake solidified (*thick).

c. Ben sharpens his knives (*dangerous).

d. The sunset reddened the clouds (*scarlet).

e. Anti-aircraft fire blackened the sky (*cloudy/*opaque).

f. Smoking will shorten your life (*brief).

g. You should empty the fishbowl (*dry/*clean/*spacious).

h. Age has yellowed the wood frames (*weak/*dry).

To explain this data, the authors argue that English deadjectival verbs with suffixes -ify, -en, and - have a complex structure that encodes a result, rendering them semantically incompatible with a resultative secondary predicate. I return to this explanation later in this section.

Molina, Herranz, and Jiménez (1999, p. 108) also suggest that complex deadjectival verbs in Spanish share similarities with resultative constructions, as illustrated in (13).

(13) a. en + adjective + ar en-gord-ar (‘fatten’)

b. a +adjective + ar a-floj-ar (‘loosen’)

c. null affix + adjective + ar espes-ar (‘thicken’) ampli-ar (‘enlarge’)

Harley (2007) and Marcelino (2007) independently make a similar point by showing that complex Latinate verbs in English do not derive resultative constructions in this language and verb-particle constructions. This is exemplified below in (14), with data from Harley (2007, p. 23), and in (15), with data from Marcelino (2007, p. 111, with minor adaptations to simplify the exposition).

(14) a. cut it apart *divide it apart

b. fill it full *inflate it full

c. walk yourself tired *perambulate yourself tired

d. work yourself ragged *decide yourself ragged

e. squeeze it empty *compress it empty

f. stab it dead *impale it dead

g. train yourself fit *condition yourself fit

h. freeze solid *congeal solid

i. dance yourself pink *exert yourself pink

j. eat yourself sick *devour yourself sick

k. drink yourself unconscious *imbibe yourself unconscious

l. scrape it raw *abrade it raw

m. break it short *divide it short

n. grow big *expand big

o. burn black *combust black

(15) a. run into *encounter into

b. talk something out *externalize something out

c. talk someone out *converse someone out

d. buckle down *concentrate down

As Harley (2007, p. 25) points out, (14) is not to be understood as an etymological constraint. Indeed all the verbs listed above (except divide and combust) are morphologically complex, formed with prefixes originated from Latin locative prefixes (in- ‘in’, ‘into’; per- ‘all over’; de- ‘off’, ‘down’; con- ‘together’; ex- ‘out’; ab- ‘away’). Note moreover that they all seem to carry a result entailment. For example, divide entails that something was cut or separated into parts or portions. This entailment does not hold for the verb cut. Likewise freeze and congeal display a similar behavior, as shown below in (16).

(16) a. Freeze the water until it is slushy, but not solid.

b. The beer froze, but it is still liquid.

c. #Congeal the water until it is slushy, but not solid.

d. #The beer congealed, but it is still liquid.

From these examples, it is clear that freeze does not entail a solid state, unlike congeal.¹²

Morphological complexity is also a factor at play in Greek. Giannakidou and Merchant (1999, p. 123) show that the pattern seen in (12), representative of a relatively small portion of English vocabulary, is widespread in Greek. According to them, denominal and deadjectival verbs formed with the highly productive Greek suffixes -izo, -ono, -eno, -evo, -pio are incompatible with a resultative secondary predicate, as shown in (17a).

(17) a. O Giannis skupise to piato tu (*katharo).

the Giannis wiped the plate his clean

‘Giannis wiped his plate clean’

b. ∃e[DO(e, g, the-plate) & ∃s[clean(s, the-plate) & CAUS(e,s)]]

This incompatibility is captured semantically and linked to Tenny’s generalization, according to which only one result may be predicated in an event. “If a lexical predicate P encodes an end-state (a result), then no additional resultative secondary predication will be possible with P” (Giannakidou & Merchant, 1999, p. 127). This is what we see in (17b), which describes the event of Giannis doing something to the plate and causing a state (clean) as the result. Under this analysis, the unproductivity of resultative constructions is driven by morphological processes, that is, when a language lexically encodes a result, it blocks resultative secondary predication. Importantly, this is what we see in Greek and in English, particularly with Latinate verbs. In the next section I turn to data from BP.

4. The framing analysis

As stated in the introduction, Talmy’s (1985, 1991) typology has been successfully employed to explain the (un)productivity of resultative constructions crosslinguistically (Mateu, 2000; Marcelino, 2000, 2007, 2014; Barbosa 2008, 2018; Acedo-Matellán, 2016). The gist of this analysis is that s-framed languages, like English, allow resultatives, whereas v-framed languages, like BP, disallow resultatives. In the following subsections, I show how BP illustrates both patterns, but the v-framing one is much more productive in this language.

The v-framing pattern in Brazilian Portuguese

A common thread among previous studies of resultative secondary predication in BP is the attempt to find syntactic equivalents to typical resultatives. And a large part of the debate has been devoted to answering whether these can be classified as typical resultatives. Less attention has been paid to close semantic equivalents to English resultative constructions formed with complex verbs that carry the entailment of a result, as exemplified in (18).

(18) a. O jardineiro encharcou as tulipas (com uma mangueira).¹³ the gardener overwatered the tulips with a hose

‘The gardener overwatered the tulips with a hose’

b. João achatou o metal (a marteladas).

John made-flat the metal by hammer.NOM

‘John flattened the metal flat by hammering it’

c. Os ladrões arrombaram o cofre (a marretadas/ com explosivos).

the burglars broke-open the safe by hammer/ with explosives

‘The burglars broke the safe open with a hammer/ explosives’

d. Os convidados secaram a garrafa/ o bar.

the guests dried the bottle/ the bar

‘The guests dried the bottle/ the bar’

e. Julia esgarçou os sapatos (de tanto correr).

Julia wore-out the shoes by so much run

‘Julia wore out her shoes’

f. Gui enrouqueceu (de tanto tossir).

Bill became-hoarse of so much cough

‘Bill coughed himself hoarse’

In the same spirit, additional examples are given below in (19), based on Harley’s (2007) sample, previously presented in section 3 (see also Marcelino, 2007).

(19) a. walk yourself tired / work yourself ragged: esgotar-(se), acabar-se de trabalhar

b. squeeze it empty: esvaziar

c. dance yourself pink: esbaldar-se, acabar-se de dançar

d. eat yourself sick: empanturrar-se, acabar-se de comer

e. drink yourself unconscious: embebedar-se

f. scrape it raw: esfolar

g. break it short: encurtar

Most verbs in (18) and (19) are parasynthetic verbs formed with prefixes a-, en-, es-, plus an adjectival or nominal base, and the verbalizing suffix -(a)r. These prefixes are historically related to Latin prefixes with a locative meaning: ad- denoting ‘motion or direction to’, in- expressing ‘in, into, toward, within’, and es- denoting ‘out of’. The data is schematized below in Table 1.

Table 1
BP parasynthetic verbs and their corresponding bases

a-	en-	es-
achatar	embebedar(-se)	esbaldar(-se) *
chato _A ‘flat’	bêbedo _A ‘drunk’	balde _N ‘bucket’
arrombar	encharcar	esfolar(-se)
rombo _N ‘hole, crack’	charco _N ‘puddle’	fole _N ‘leather, skin’
	encurtar	esgotar
	curto_A ‘short’	gota_N ‘drop (of sweat)’
	empanturrar	esvaziar
	panturra_N ‘paunch’	vazio_N/V ‘empty’
	enrouquecer
	rouco_A ‘hoarse’

• *The dictionary registers the following semantic explanation, attributed to Nascentes: “feeling tired, sweating buckets” (Houaiss Dictionary, 2020).

Note that enrouquecer ‘to become hoarse’ is additionally formed with the suffix -ec-, linked to a change of state (see Bassani, 2013, p. 225),¹⁴ and that esgarçar ‘to fray, to rip something out’ does not carry an identifiable base in BP and is historically related to the Latin form exquartiāre ‘to dismember’.¹⁵

It is beyond the scope of this paper to provide a full account of parasynthesis in BP, but I assume a structure for these verbs along the following lines.¹⁶

(20) a. [ DIR__prefix [ BASE [ V ] ] ]

b. [ a [ chat [ ar ] ] ]

In (20), the adjectival base chato ‘flat’ is prefixed with a-, analyzed as a directional (DIR) element, and suffixed with the categorizing verbal head -(a)r. This directional element indicates a path to a change of state. In (20b), for instance, a change from an initial stage to a ‘flat’ state.¹⁷

I claim that all of these verbs carry a result entailment and behave like the Greek and English verbs from section 3 in blocking the presence of a resultative secondary predicate. ¹⁸ This entailment can be illustrated by the contradictory statements below.

(21) a. # A cantora enrouqueceu, mas não ficou rouca.

the singer became.hoarse but NEG became hoarse

‘The singer became hoarse, but did not become hoarse’

b. # Os amigos secaram a garrafa, mas ela não ficou seca/vazia.

the friends drank.dry the bottle but she NEG became dry/empty

‘The friends drank the bottle, but the bottle did not become dry’

c. # Os alunos esvaziaram a sala, mas a sala não ficou vazia.

the students emptied the room but the room NEG become empty

‘The students emptied the room, but the room did not become empty’

These examples show that it sounds odd to deny that a state has been obtained (‘hoarse’, ‘dry’, or ‘empty’) when these deadjectival verbs are used in BP.¹⁹

Note that an exception to the pattern illustrated in Table 1 is the deadjectival verb secar ‘to dry’. Despite not being complex in the sense under discussion, it gives rise to a similar type of entailment, cf. (21b). I suggest that this is the case because of the underlying properties of the adjective. For instance, ‘dry’ is an absolute gradable adjective (Kennedy & McNally, 2005). Absolute adjectives are context-independent and do not need a comparison class to be interpreted. Relative adjectives, in turn, rely on a standard of comparison supplied by the context to be interpreted.²⁰ Moreover, ‘dry’ is also a maximal standard adjective, that is, its default interpretation is one in which its subject has a maximal value in a scale of ‘dryness’.²¹ Indeed the interpretation of secar ‘to dry’ in (18d) and in (21b) appears to be even stronger than initially suggested and involves a culmination reading. BP has other verbs that behave in a similar fashion, like raspar ‘to scrape/scrub’ and rapelar ‘to clean out’, as shown in (22).²²

(22) a. Tom raspou o prato (*limpo).

Tom scrubbed the plate (*clean)

‘Tom scrubbed his plate clean’

b. O ex presidente rapelou a conta do povo (*vazia).

the former president cleaned-out the bank account of.the people

‘The former president cleaned out people’s bank account’

Note that these verbs are used in somewhat fixed expressions roughly meaning ‘to empty’, e.g. secar a garrafa/o bar ‘dry the bottle/the bar’, raspar o prato ‘scrub the plate clean’, and rapelar a conta ‘clean out a bank account’. I leave a detailed investigation of such examples to future work.

The central issue I address in this section is that BP indeed has semantic equivalents to resultative constructions, as proposed by Marcelino (2014), pace Barbosa (2018). Notably, these equivalents are consistent with the v-framing pattern-in fact, they better illustrate this pattern, repeated below.

(23) v-framing: [CAUSE + RESULTANT STATE] MANNER

Given this configuration, I return to the examples presented at the beginning of this section, repeated from (18) with simplified glosses.

(24) a. O jardineiro encharcou as tulipas (com uma mangueira).

the gardener overwatered the tulips with a hose

[cause + resultant state] (manner)

b. João achatou o metal (a marteladas).

John flattened the metal by hammer.NOM

[cause + resultant state] (manner)

c. Os ladrões arrombaram o cofre (a marretadas/com explosivos).

the burglars caused-open the safe by hammer/ with explosives

[CAUSE + RESULTANT STATE] (MANNER)

d. Os convidados secaram a garrafa/ o bar.

the guests drank.dry the bottle/ the bar

[cause + resultant state]

e. Julia esgarçou os sapatos (de tanto correr).

Julia wore-out the shoes by so much run

[cause + resultant state] (manner)

f. Gui enrouqueceu (de tanto tossir).

Bill became-hoarse of so much cough

[cause + resultant state] (manner)

Additional examples are given below, following the same schema.

(25) a. A menina se acabou de dançar.

the girl REFL finished of dance

‘She danced herself pink’

[CAUSE + RESULTANT STATE] MANNER

b. O menino se acabou de comer.

the boy REFL finished of eat

‘The boy ate himself sick’

[CAUSE + RESULTANT STATE] MANNER

c. Eles se acabaram de trabalhar.

they REFL finished of work

‘They worked themselves ragged’

[CAUSE + RESULTANT STATE] MANNER

The facts in BP are similar to the facts in Greek and in English discussed in section 3. The takeaway here is that, when the result state (or culmination) of the event is encoded in the verb, no resultative secondary predication is allowed.²³ This is clearly observable in BP with a number of complex parasynthetic verbs (such as achatar ‘make-flat’, arrombar ‘break-open’ or escancarar ‘open-wide’), the main focus of this section, but also with simplex verbs (as secar ‘to dry’ or raspar ‘scrub-clean’) that carry a culmination entailment, a topic I leave for future work. Taken together, they illustrate the v-framing proposal (see Marcelino 2007, 2014, 2017; Barbosa 2018). ²⁴

Before concluding this section, I would like to cite the following set of examples offered by an anonymous reviewer, who asks how I would classify them.

(26) a. A Maria picou o papel miudinho

The Maria cut the paper small.DIM

‘Maria cut the paper into small pieces’

b. Ela costurou a saia justinha

She sew the skir tight.DIM

‘She sew the skirt very tight’

c. Eu sempre corto a couve fininha

I always chop the kale thin.DIM

‘I always cut the kale very thin’

I assume these examples look more like Levinson’s pseudo-resultatives.

The s-framing pattern in BP

As previously mentioned in the introduction, so-called path resultatives can be improved in BP and in Romance. This was first discussed by Napoli (1992) for Italian (see also Folli & Ramchand, 2005) and further corroborated in BP by different authors. In sum, modification with bem ‘very’, diminutivization and reduplication of the adjective render a sentence acceptable under the intended resultative meaning (see Marcelino 2000, Lobato 2004, Knöpfle 2014, 2017, Moreira, 2021).

This idea is implemented below (see also Moreira, 2021), based on Knöpfle’s (2017b, p. 333) example ‘John wiped the floor (very) clean’. For the representation in (27), I adopt Ramchand’s (2008, p. 39) theory of event decomposition.

(27) João varreu o chão bem limpinho.

All of the aforementioned strategies involve degree morphology (Kennedy & McNally, 2005), which is responsible for creating a path to introduce the resultant state. The details of this implementation are not crucial here, as the point I am trying to make is that (28) illustrates the s-framing pattern, irrespective of how this interpretation is achieved. ²⁵ Consider the following examples in (28) of what I dub modified resultatives.

(28) a. João martelou o metal bem chatinho / chato chato.

John hammered the metal very flat.DIM / flat flat

‘John hammered the metal (really) flat’

b. João varreu o chão bem limpinho.

John wiped the floor very clean.DIM

‘John wiped the floor clean’

Given the claim that sentences in (28) exemplify of the s-framing pattern and behave like typical resultatives, it is important to test them. In other words, for this claim to be valid, it is imperative that I show that the modified APs-bem chatinho ‘very clean’, bem limpinho ‘very clean’-indeed denote the result of an event.

First, consider the how-test based on Marcelino (2007, p. 50).

(29) a. A. How did John hammer the metal? RESULTATIVE

B. *Flat / Slowly.

b. A. How did John cut the meat? PSEUDO-RESULTATIVE ✓

B. Thick / Thickly.

c. A. How did John hammer the metal? MODIFIED RESULTATIVE ✓

B. Bem chatinho/ (Very) flat.

d. A. How did John wipe the floor?

B. Bem limpinho/ (Very) clean.

Typical resultatives fail the test, unlike pseudo-resultatives and modified resultatives. Based solely on this test, one might be led to think that the modified APs in (29c-d) do not denote the result of an event. Levinson (2010, p. 138) points out that “Resultatives modify the state of the object at the end of the event, so that [Mary hammered the metal flat] entails that the metal is flat at the end of the event, as a result of that event.” ²⁶ This reasoning is exemplified below with an entailment-test, that, again, splits the class of resultatives and pseudo-resultatives, revealing that, for this second type, the AP is not the modifier of the direct object. Interestingly, modified resultatives pass this test and pattern with typical resultatives, as shown in (30).

(30) a. Mary hammered the metal flat → The metal is/became flat

RESULTATIVE✓

b. Mary sliced the bread thin ↛ The bread is/became thin

PSEUDO-RESULTATIVE

c. João varreu o chão bem limpinho → The floor is/became very clean

‘John wiped the floor very clean’ MODIFIED RESULTATIVE✓

d. João martelou o metal bem chatinho → The metal is/became very flat

‘John hammered the metal very flat

This test is particularly relevant because it explicitly shows the result state attained by the entity undergoing the event. For this reason, it provides reliable evidence that modified resultatives are indeed resultatives and, therefore, examples of the s-framing pattern. Additionally, with the paraphrase-testing (Marcelino, 2007, p. 50), we obtain similar results.

(31) a. John hammered the metal flat = RESULTATIVE✓

“John caused the metal to become flat by hammering (on) it.”

b. Mary sliced the bread thin = PSEUDO-RESULTATIVE

“Mary cause the bread to become thin by slicing it.”

c. João martelou o metal bem chatinho = MODIFIED RESULTATIVE✓

‘John hammered the metal very flat’

João causou que o metal ficasse bem chatinho ao martelá-lo

“John caused the metal to become (really) flat by hammering (on) it.”

Once again modified resultatives in BP pair with typical resultatives and diverge from pseudo-resultatives. This is supporting evidence that modified resultatives in BP involve a proper resultative interpretation and illustrates the s-framing pattern.

Further evidence for this pattern in BP comes from verb-particle constructions. For Talmy (1985, p. 102), “a verb root together with its satellites forms a constituent in its own right, the ‘verb complex’”, as shown below.

(32) satellite verb complex example sentence:

over start over The record started over

Recall that Latinate verbs in English not only fail to appear in resultative constructions, but also in verb-particle constructions (Harley 2007, Marcelino 2007). Some of Harley’s (2007, p. 23) examples are given below.

(33) a. write it up *compose it up

b. eat it up *devour it up

c. finish it up *complete it up

Interestingly, BP does have a few verb-particle constructions with complex counterparts that block the presence of the particle, as shown in (34), though these are rare.

(34) a. mandar a Joana embora / expulsar Joana (*embora)

send the Joana away / expel Joana

b. jogar o papel fora / descartar o papel (*fora)

throw the paper away / discard the paper

c. cortar o dedo fora / extirpar o dedo (*fora)

cut the finger out / extirpate the finger

d. arrancar o dente fora / extrair o dente (*fora)

pull/rip the tooth out / extract the tooth

e. botar a língua pra fora / mostrar a língua (*pra fora)

put the tongue to outside / show the tongue (i.e., “stick the tongue out”)

These facts lend support to the claim put forth in this paper that BP marginally admits the s-framing pattern-as can been deduced from the very small samples above.

5. Conclusion

In this paper I showed that BP, commonly analyzed as a v-framed language, allows both types of event framing patterns associated with the presence or absence of resultative constructions (Mateu 2000; Marcelino, 2000, 2007, 2014; Barbosa, 2008, 2018; Acedo-Matellán, 2016): the verb-framing pattern and the satellite-framing pattern. However, the former is highly productive in BP, unlike the latter, which explains why resultative formation in this language is so constrained. This paper explored the domain of morphologically complex parasynthetic verbs in BP to illustrate the v-framing pattern, building on previous work on Greek (Giannakidou & Merchant, 1999).

It also reanalyzed modified resultatives in BP, showing that they exemplify the s-framing pattern and pair with typical resultatives. Further evidence for this pattern comes from rare verb-particle constructions in this language.

(35) a. V-FRAMING PATTERN (HIGHLY PRODUCTIVE)

A menina escancarou a porta com um chute.

the girl open.wide the door with one kick

‘The girl opened the door wide with a kick’

[cause + resultant state] manner

b. S-FRAMING PATTERN (MARGINAL)

João varreu o chão bem limpinho.

John wiped the floor very clean.DIM

‘John wiped the floor (very) clean’

[CAUSE + MANNER] RESULTANT STATE

To conclude, this paper offers additional evidence for a framing analysis along the lines of Marcelino (2000, 2007, 2014) and Barbosa (2008, 2018) by shedding light on empirical data that these analyses have overlooked. Its main contribution is a clearer picture of the framing options allowed in this language.

Acknowledgements

I thank the editors and designers of DELTA for all their effort and support, and the anonymous reviewers for their suggestions. I also thank Andrew Nevins, Marcus Lunguinho, Helena Guerra Vicente, and Elisabete Morais for discussing this topic with me, for sharing references, and for always being supportive. Finally, I would also like to thank my son, who was just a baby and kept me company as I first drafted this paper during the pandemic. Any mistakes are mine.

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• 2
  This paper is only concerned with cases in which the resultative secondary predicate is an AP, as in (1). This is relevant, as Simpson (1983, p. 143) shows that this predicate can also be a prepositional phrase, a nominal, or a preposition.
• 3
  In the glosses: DIM = diminutive, INF = infinitival, NEG = negation, NOM = nominalization, REFL = reflexive.
• 4
  According to Levinson (2010) pseudo-resultatives are not modifiers of the direct object of the verb, nor are they adverbial. They are modifiers of an implicit “created individual”. In (4a), ‘a haircut’.
• 5
  This pattern has also been given a parametric analysis, based on Snyder’s (1995) Compounding Parameter (Snyder 1995, 2001; Beck & Snyder 2001; Marcelino, 2007, 2014; Barbosa, 2008). The literature in BP disagrees on whether Talmy’s framing analysis is compatible with the parametric view from Snyder. I will not compare this literature here but see the references above. See also Acedo-Matellán (2016, p. 251-258) for a discussion on whether the locus of cross-linguistic variation should be captured by a Talmian or Snyderian perspective.
• 6
  I will primarily focus on these complex verbs but note that BP also has simplex verbs like raspar ‘scrub’, secar ‘dry’, that also carry the entailment of a result and block the presence of a resultative secondary predicate.
• 7
  Online access at: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/08/09/standup-for-the-lord.
• 8
  Some authors argue that the secondary predicate is responsible for telicity as it provides an endpoint to an event that otherwise lacks a delimitation (Foltran, 1999; Barbosa, 2008, 2018; Knöpfle 2017a, inter alia). Others, like Baker (2004), propose that resultative constructions are not limited to atelic verbs, based on data like “John broke the coconut open”, in which the primary predicate expresses a result (‘broken’), and the AP further describes this state.
• 9
  Original quote: “Entretanto, as idéias expressas [em (1)c, d, e, f,] poderiam ser expressas em (3) através de outras estruturas sintáticas”.
• 10
  The verb ninar, defined as “calm or send someone to sleep, generally by singing songs or lullabies; to lull” (Houaiss, 2020), is an example of [cause + resultant state] conflation with the proviso that it be interpreted as carrying a result entailment (e.g., “send someone to sleep”). I will go back to this issue later.
• 11
  Given this claim, a question arises as to how examples like “John flattened the metal with a hammer” should be treated. I note, following Acedo-Matellán (2016, p. 77), that “s-framed languages admit the v-framed strategy, but v-framed languages do not admit the s-framed strategy”, though this paper calls into question the final part of this observation.
• 12
  The following definition illustrates this point: “The congealing point of a liquid or of a melted solid is the highest temperature at which it solidifies.” The International Pharmacopoeia. 4^th edition volume 2. World Health Organization: Geneva, 2006. p. 1147.
• 13
  I have consulted native speakers about this example and while two of them were unsure about what “water flat” meant, two others have reported that the intended meaning is “the pressure of excess water flattened the flowers to the ground”. Based on this intuition, I have considered its closest possible equivalent in BP to be encharcar ‘overwater’. I thank Ezekiel Panitz and Julia Hartjes for their help.
• 14
  The most comprehensive study of BP parasynthesis is Bassani’s (2013) work, though her focus is on a subgroup of verbs formed with prefixes a-, en-, es-, and suffixes -ec-, -iz-, -e- and -ej-.
• 15
  A similar verb is escancarar ‘open-wide’, a complex verb from an obscure origin (that is, with no identifiable base available) that carries a culmination entailment. Tom escancarou a porta (*aberta). Tom open-wide the door (*open) 'Tom opened the door wide’
  (i) Tom escancarou a porta (*aberta).
  Tom open-wide the door (*open)
  ‘Tom opened the door wide’
• 16
  An important issue this paper will not discuss is why a language like German, in which path prefixation is also productive with denominal and deadjectival verbs, have resultative constructions of the English type (see Knöpfle, 2014).
• 17
  This is close to the archaic use of ‘flat’ in English as “make flat; flatten”, e.g., “flat the loaves down” (Apple Inc. Dictionary).
• 18
  In what follows I show that some verbs in BP also seem to carry an additional culmination reading.
• 19
  I am ignoring imprecise uses of ‘empty’ in these examples, for the sake of simplicity.
• 20
  Consider predicates like ‘tall’ or ‘expensive’. What counts as ‘tall’ for a basketball player is distinct from what count as ‘tall’ for the average adult male. Likewise, ‘expensive’ is also a relativized to different standards when one is talking about coffee or a space mission (cf. Kennedy & McNally, 2005, p. 349).
• 21
  Following Kennedy and McNally (2005, p. 345), I assume that scalar properties are shared by words belonging to different lexical categories that nevertheless are derivationally related, as secar ‘to dry’ and seco ‘dry’.
• 22
  The culmination reading can be exemplified by the following pairs.
  (ii) a. NON-CULMINATING
  João achatou o metal, mas não completamente.
  John flattened themetal but NEG completely
  ‘John flattened the metal, but not completely’
  b. CULMINATING
  # O ladrão rapelou a conta da vítima, mas não completamente. the thief cleaned-out the bank-account of-the victim but NEG completely
  ‘The thief cleaned out the victim’s bank account, but not completely’
• 23
  A potential problem for this analysis is discussed below.
  (iii) Alessandro achatou o metal bem fininho.
  Alessandro flattened the metal very thin.DIM
  ‘Alessandro flattened the metal (really) thin/flat’
  That is, a case in which we have a complex verb encoding a result plus an intensified AP. I leave this example for now, since it is the only good example of this type that I could come up with. We could assume that a resultative AP can be added in some cases if it is not introducing a result, but simply co-describing the result expressed by the verb, as in “John broke the coconut open”, which is also a challenging example. I leave this issue for future work.
• 24
  A different descriptive account of similar facts is given by Kopecka (2006). According to her proposal, French prefixed verbs exemplify the s-framing pattern. From this perspective, the BP data discussed in this section would also be considered as an instantiation of the s-framing pattern, with the directional prefix being analyzed as the satellite element. I assume, however, that BP prefixed verbs exemplify the v-framing pattern in that they conflate cause + resultant state, thus conforming with schema in (5b).
• 25
  Marcelino (2000, p. 50), for instance, claims that bem ‘very’ and the diminutive form -inho are “manifestations of resultative aspect”, and, therefore, constitute “morphological evidence for the presence of AspP”. Note that this is a description of the facts but does not explain the behavior of these modifiers. Particularly with respect to secondary predication, modification can be shown to force a resultative reading as well as a depictive reading in the right context (see Moreira, 2021). Modifiers like bem ‘very’ and diminutive -inho are instances of degree morphology (Kennedy& McNally, 2005) that, in certain contexts (e.g., with predicates that are “good candidates” to form resultative constructions), can serve as the right kind of telic bound (Wechsler, 2001) to the main predicate (Moreira, 2021), thus giving rise to a resultative interpretation.
• 26
  I have added the example in brackets. In the original paper, it read: “(6a.i)”

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  04 Dec 2023
• Date of issue
  2023

History

• Received
  10 Feb 2022
• Accepted
  16 June 2023