***Due to technical issues, the audio for the first 9 minutes of this talk was not recorded.***
Author: Karine Megerdoomian
Title: Recursion and Scaling in Complex Predicates: Light Verbs as Underspecified Regular Verbs
Date: Thursday, April 18, 2019 (Workshop on Complex Predicates
Location: Tucson, AZ, USA
Abstract: The study of Persian Complex Predicates (CPs) has focused in large part on determining the syntactic and semantic contributions of the light verb and the nonverbal element to the full predicate. There has been less emphasis, however, on identifying how the interpretation and behavior of the light verb connects to the lexical meaning of the corresponding full verb. Butt and Geuder (2013) suggest that the semantic features present in CPs can be understood as gradual extensions from the prototypical concrete meaning of the lexical verb, giving rise to a semantic continuum. To address the lexical polysemy and semi-lexical properties of the light verb, Samvelian (2012) also argues that the light verb status should be seen as a continuum of semantic specificity and she proposes a set of semantic classes for light verbs derived from the corresponding full verb classes. In this talk, I argue that there is no need to treat light verbs as predefined semantic classes. I propose that the light verb is an underspecified full verb, and the relationships the light verb forms with its complements in the CP parallel those between the full verb and its complements. The lexical polysemy arises from the combination of (i) the amount of underspecification in the structure of the light verb and (ii) the properties of the nonverbal element with which it builds a CP. The main difference between the light verb and the full verb constructions is due to the fact that the light verb predicate structure is a smaller scale representation of the verb phrase construction. As a result of this proposal, there is no longer a need for the light verb category since it is the level of structural specification that determines where the verb’s meaning and properties fall in the continuum. This also suggests that there is no mechanism for CP formation distinct from regular syntactic relations between the regular verb and its complements (cf. Bruening 2016).