This paper examines the distribution of Modern Hebrew semantic drifts across four diatheses (voices): transitives, unaccusatives (anticausatives), adjectival (stative) passives, and verbal (eventive) passives. A quantitative survey of dictionaries reveals a discrepancy between these diatheses: Only transitives, unaccusatives, and adjectival passives can give rise to unique semantic drifts, unshared with their related root counterparts, while verbal passives cannot. A corpus-based study shows that frequency is unable to account for this finding; nor can approaches demarcating a syntactic domain for special meanings. I propose that semantic drifts are stored as subentries of the entries from which they evolved, as long as the drift’s frequency remains smaller than or equal to that of the original entry. Once the drift’s frequency greatly surpasses that of the original entry, it is stored as an independent lexical entry. In light of that, I suggest that predicates giving rise to unique semantic drifts have to constitute lexical entries. It thus follows that transitives, unaccusatives, and adjectival passives are formed and listed in the lexicon, while verbal passives are not. Consequently, the lexicon is argued to function as an active (operational) component of the grammar, contra syntacticocentric approaches.
Recent decades have witnessed an increasing interest in special (idiomatic) meanings in the context of grammatical theory (e.g.,
Horvath & Siloni (
If this pattern is not incidental, it should be replicated in other types of special meaning, such as semantic drifts. Both idioms and semantic drifts qualify as
The study focuses on the same diatheses/voices inspected in the above-mentioned idiom surveys: Hebrew transitives, unaccusatives, adjectival passives, and verbal passives. It first provides the results of a preliminary pilot survey based on informal searches, and subsequently reinforces them using a quantitative survey. Both the pilot and the quantitative surveys inspect the distribution of semantic drifts in the same four verbal/adjectival diatheses, and reveal a gap identical to the one found for idioms: The verbal passive proves unable to “drift” independently of its transitive alternant, while its fellow diatheses do give rise to unique semantic drifts.
A corpus-based study comparing the frequency of (uniquely-)drifted and non-drifted predicates from the various diatheses attempts to account for this discrepancy, as previous research has shown frequency to be a determining factor behind processes of semantic change. The latter are often associated with an increased frequency of the item whose meaning expands (e.g.,
The paper is structured as follows. §2 defines
In some cases, a word undergoing semantic drift becomes more frequent in its new meaning, so much so, that the original meaning is no longer productive and remains in use only in frozen expressions. For instance, the Hebrew adjectival passive
(1)
a.
the-nail.
the-this.
hammered.
‘This nail is damaged.’
b.
the-olives.
the-these
beaten.
‘These olives are beaten/damaged.’
When dealing with semantic drifts, we deal with lexical ambiguity, a term which is itself ambiguous. Many researchers distinguish
The drifts included in the current study seem to be categorically interstitial, as they do not fall neatly into any of these categories. Some of the senses/meanings seem to be more related than others. For instance, the relation between the senses/meanings of the adjectival passive
In contrast with items like
Since the current study deals with drifted predicates, different possibilities arise concerning the post-drifting output. Drifts may either keep the same argument structure of the input (compare (2a) to (2b); both involve a single, internal argument), or change the argument structure of the input (compare (2a) to (2c-d); while (2a) involves a single, internal argument, (2c-d) involve two arguments: external and internal). In the latter case, drifts may require a specific preposition (see the internal argument in (2d), which involves the preposition ‘
(2)
a.
the-dog
my
die.3
‘My dog died.’
b.
the-computer.
my
die.3
‘My computer stopped working.’
c.
Dan
die.
to-eat
pizza
‘Dan really/desperately wants to eat pizza.’
d.
Dan
die.
on
Sarah
‘Dan dotes on Sarah.’
A semantic drift can be
(3)
For the root
a.
Dana
get.glued.3
from-Dan
‘Dana got infected by Dan (inadvertently).’
b.
Dan
glue.3
Dana
‘Dan infected Dana.’
c.
the-body.
destroy.
the-cells.
the-glued.
‘The body destroys the infected cells.’
d.
Dana
be.infected.3
by
Dan
‘Dana was infected by Dan.’
(4)
For the root
a.
Dan
explode.3
when-see.3
the-car.
the-new.
of
Ron
‘Dan was extremely jealous when he saw Ron’s new car.’
b.
the-car.
the-new.
of
Ron
blow.up.3
Dan
c.
Dan
blown.up.
from-the-car.
the-new.
of
Ron
d.
Dan
be.blown.up.3
by
the-car.
the-new.
of
Ron
I use Horvath & Siloni’s (
(5) | ||
A special meaning is |
||
a. | A special meaning of a verbal passive/adjectival passive/unaccusative is |
|
b. | A special meaning of a transitive is |
The pairing of the different diatheses is based on derivational relations between them, which have been argued for in the literature. Verbal and adjectival passives have been commonly claimed to be related to their transitive counterparts (see e.g.
Before conducting the quantitative survey, I ran preliminary, informal searches, collecting semantic drifts belonging to four diatheses: transitives, unaccusatives, adjectival passives, and verbal passives. The data consisted of 30 adjectival passives, and 22 triplets of transitive-unaccusative-verbal passive counterparts.
Diathesis classification was based on the pre-drifted meanings of the predicates, namely, the primal meanings. It was the initial diathesis that mattered since the idea was to detect which diatheses can drift, while the drifting process itself could result in a different diathesis than the one serving as its input (as will be elaborated in §4.1.2). Diatheses were classified as unaccusative (rather than unergative) if the following three diagnostics held: (i) They allowed strict verb-subject order, which determined their argument as internal (
Adjectival passives were distinguished from verbal passives based on their morphological form: the
The preliminary survey revealed a discrepancy between transitives, unaccusatives, and adjectival passives on the one hand, and verbal passives on the other hand. As reported in
Hebrew unique semantic drifts across diatheses (pilot survey).
Transitives | Unaccusatives | Adjectival Passives | Verbal Passives |
---|---|---|---|
8/22 |
6/22 |
19/30 |
0/22 |
Examples (6)–(8) demonstrate unique drifts in each of the diatheses enabling them:
(6)
A unique transitive semantic drift for the pair:
a.
in.the-end.
Dana
bring.3
five.
children
‘In the end Dana gave birth to five children.’
b.
in.the-end.
come.3
her.
five.
children
(7)
A unique unaccusative semantic drift for the pair:
a.
a.lot.of
soldiers
fall.3
from-beginning.
the-year.
‘Many soldiers have died in battle since the beginning of the year.’
b.
the-enemy.
drop.3
a.lot.of
soldiers
(8)
A unique adjectival passive semantic drift for the pair:
a.
Dan
be.3
really
confirmed.
from-the-gift.
‘Dan was really happy about the gift.’
b.
the-gift.
really
confirm.3
Dan
All of the diatheses gave rise to semantic drifts they shared with their related root counterparts, as summarized in
Hebrew shared semantic drifts between the different diatheses and their related root counterparts (pilot survey).
Unaccusative- |
Adjectival Passive- |
Verbal Passive- |
---|---|---|
14/22 |
14/30 |
7/22 |
Examples of shared drifts are provided in (9)–(11):
(9)
A shared semantic drift for the pair
a.
the-interview.
of
Dan
take.out.3
him.
an.idiot.
‘Dan’s interview made him look like an idiot.’
b.
Dan
exit.3
an.idiot.
in.the-interview.
‘Dan looked like an idiot in the interview.’
(10)
A shared semantic drift for the pair
a.
Dan
reject.3
the-meeting.
‘Dan postponed the meeting.’
b.
Dan
give.3
me.
a.cheque.
rejected.
‘Dan gave me a post-dated cheque.’
(11)
A shared semantic drift for the pair
a.
important.
to-ventilate
the-matter.
‘It’s important to discuss the matter openly.’
b.
important.
that-the-matter.
be.ventilated.3
‘It’s important that the matter be discussed openly.’
The results of the preliminary survey confirmed Horvath & Siloni’s (
The quantitative survey inspected the random sample of 240 predicates (60 predicates per diathesis) used in Horvath & Siloni’s (
In conformity with the
In order to make sure the gaps in the distribution of semantic drifts indeed reflect fundamental characteristics of the relevant diatheses, only semantic drifts whose uniqueness could not be attributed to independent factors were included. Thus, in case a drift involved a change in argument structure, such that the root counterpart could not be derived from the new argument structure, the drift was not considered unique. For example, when a transitive verb “lost” its accusative object following the drift, the unaccusative counterpart could not be derived, as the transitive entry lacked the relevant internal argument. (12a) shows that the pre-drifted verb
(12)
a.
the-pupil.
insert.3
the-eraser.
to.the-pencil-box
‘The pupil put the eraser in the pencil box.’
b.
the-pupil.
sass.3
so
she
insert.3
him.
‘The pupil sassed the teacher, so she reprimanded him.’
c.
the-pupil.
sass.3
so
he
enter.3
d.
the-pupil.
sass.3
so
enter.3
him.
However, not all drifts involving a change in argument structure were excluded. When an unaccusative verb, such as
(13)
a.
the-dog
my
die.3
‘My dog died.’
b.
Dan
die.
on
Sarah
‘Dan dotes on Sarah.’
c.
Dan
kill.3
me.
on
Sarah
Other cases were excluded for semantic reasons. For instance, when an unaccusative such as
(14)
a.
the-book.
fall.3
on
the-floor.
‘The book fell on the floor.’
b.
the-holiday.
fall.3
on
day
Saturday
‘The holiday happened to take place (=fell) on a Saturday.’
c.
calendar.
the-year.
drop.3
the-holiday.
on
day
Saturday
Moreover, when a drift involved a change in lexical category, it was excluded from the drift count. For instance, the adjectival passive
(15)
a.
the-matter.
checked.
‘The matter is confirmed.’
b.
checked.
he
work.
in-a.bank
‘It’s so obvious he works in a bank.’
Hebrew unique semantic drifts across diatheses (quantitative survey).
Transitives | Unaccusatives | Adjectival Passives | Verbal Passives |
---|---|---|---|
13/60 |
15/60 |
15/60 |
0/60 |
The number of unique semantic drifts of verbal passives differed significantly from the number of transitive [
Hebrew shared semantic drifts between the different diatheses and their related root counterparts (quantitative survey).
Unaccusative- |
Adjectival Passive- |
Verbal Passive- |
---|---|---|
19/60 |
8/60 |
12/60 |
The differences between shared unaccusative-transitive, adjectival passive-transitive, and verbal passive-transitive semantic drifts approached statistical significance [
Finally, some of the transitives having a drifted version – spanning both unique and shared-with-unaccusative drifts – shared their drifts with the verbal passive counterparts (17/32 or 53.1%) and some of them did not (17/32 or 53.1%).
The results of the quantitative dictionary survey have shown that the same gap revealed in the distribution of idioms across diatheses in Hebrew (
A possible account for the absence of unique verbal passive drifts might have to do with the locality of special meanings. For example, Marantz (
This contradiction can be resolved if the syntactic head blocking special meanings is assumed to be positioned higher than the Agent head, e.g., if it is the head responsible for verbal passive formation,
(16) | a. | |
‘If you can’t do anything about a problem, you have to learn to live with it.’ | ||
b. |
(17)
a.
instructions.
these
be.written.3
in-blood.
‘People paid a price/were injured/died in order for us to realize we should be careful and abide by these instructions.’
b.
write.3
instructions.
these
in-blood.
The locality account thus falls short as far as the distribution of unique special meanings is concerned, but the limited distribution of Hebrew verbal passives, especially in spoken language (
The results of the quantitative dictionary survey further showed that all diatheses giving rise to unique drifts – transitives, unaccusatives, and adjectival passives – can share drifts with their respective unaccusative and transitive root counterparts. They also revealed that verbal passives
Sharing of new meanings can be attributed to connections holding between root counterparts. Horvath & Siloni (
The number of shared transitive-adjectival passive drifts (8/60 or 13.3%) was significantly lower than the number of shared transitive-unaccusative drifts (19/60 or 31.7%). This was also observed for phrasal idioms in Horvath & Siloni (
The discrepancy between shared adjectival passives and shared unaccusatives, which was found in the idiom and drift studies, might have to do with the specific adjectival passives that were sampled. Since both studies inspected the exact same adjectival passives, and since this finding was not replicated in the preliminary survey, it might be the case that the discrepancy is coincidental and stems from the specific lexical items used in the quantitative surveys.
In contrast, if this discrepancy is representative, it is possible that sharing is less frequent when a change in category is involved (i.e., adjective/verb). Indeed, English speakers’ judgments concerning the likelihood of unaccusatives and adjectival passives to share idioms with their transitive counterparts undergirds this proposal, with unaccusative-transitive shared idioms being judged as likelier than adjectival passive-transitive shared idioms (
Another possible explanation concerns frequency. If adjectival passives are less frequent than unaccusatives, it might be the case that their lower frequency hinders drift sharing. The corpus-based study reported in the following section will test the validity of such an account. This study will also attempt to explain why not all drifted transitives share their drifts with their verbal passive counterparts (18), while all verbal passive drifts are shared with their transitive alternants.
(18)
a.
Dan
take.out.3
seventy
in.the-test.
‘Dan got 70 on the test.’
b.
be.taken.out.3
seventy
in.the-test.
by
Dan
In order to test the validity of the frequency-based account vis-à-vis the distribution of both unique and shared semantic drifts, a corpus-based study checked the approximate lemma frequencies of all predicates under examination in Linzen’s (
Mean frequencies (per million words) and standard deviations of predicates having a unique and/or shared drifted version and of non-drifted predicates, across diatheses.
Transitives | Unaccusatives | Adjectival Passives | Verbal Passives | Sum/Average |
||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Quantity |
25/50 |
24/50 |
20/51 |
11/57 |
80/208 |
|
Mean Frequency |
66.5 |
267.5 |
23.1 |
9.2 |
108.1 |
|
Quantity |
13/50 |
15/50 |
15/51 |
0/57 |
43/208 |
|
Mean Frequency |
102.2 |
434.7 |
29.4 |
N/A | 187 |
|
Quantity |
19/50 |
18/50 |
8/51 |
11/57 |
56/208 |
|
Mean Frequency |
44.3 |
216.4 |
8.4 |
9.2 |
87.6 |
|
Quantity |
25/50 |
26/50 |
31/51 |
46/57 |
128/208 |
|
Mean Frequency |
36.3 |
78.3 |
13.2 |
4.7 |
27.9 |
|
A two-way ANOVA involving 2 between-item factors:
The
An additional two-way ANOVA involving 2 between-item factors:
The interaction between
Mean frequencies (per million words) and standard deviations of verbal passives sharing and not sharing their transitive counterparts’ drifts.
Shared | Unshared | |
---|---|---|
Quantity |
14/32 |
10/32 |
Mean Frequency |
4.4 |
2.5 |
An independent-samples
The corpus-based study attempted to attribute the lack of verbal passive unique semantic drifts to the low frequency of verbal passives. Nevertheless, the findings seem to undermine this attempt. First, while the overall frequency of verbal passives (whether drifted or not) was lower than that of all other diatheses, the difference was statistically significant only when compared to the unaccusative diathesis, which was significantly more frequent than the other two diatheses as well.
Second, frequency failed to predict unique drifting. In two of the three diatheses giving rise to unique drifts – transitives and adjectival passives – uniquely-drifted predicates differed neither from non-drifted predicates nor from predicates giving rise to shared drifts. As for the unaccusative diathesis, uniquely-drifted predicates differed only from non-drifted predicates, but not from predicates giving rise to shared drifts.
Moreover, the frequency of non-drifted verbal passives sometimes exceeded that of uniquely-drifted predicates from other diatheses. Thus, the non-drifted verbal passive
Furthermore, the same discrepancy found in Hebrew between verbal passives on the one hand, and transitives, unaccusatives, and adjectival passives on the other hand, was found with regard to phrasal idioms in English, where the verbal passive is used extensively (
The corpus-based study further attempted to use frequency to account for the discrepancies found concerning drift sharing: (i) adjectival passives shared significantly less drifts with their root counterparts than unaccusatives, and (ii) not all transitives having drifted versions shared their new meaning(s) with their verbal passive counterparts (while all drifted verbal passives shared their drifts with their transitive counterparts). However, these attempts did not bear fruit either.
First, frequency failed to predict drifting in general – whether unique, shared, or both – in three of the four diatheses under inspection: transitives, adjectival passives, and verbal passives. Although drifted predicates were generally more frequent than non-drifted ones, the difference in frequency was significant only concerning the unaccusative diathesis. As for the latter, predicates giving rise to shared drifts did not differ in frequency from non-drifted predicates, and this held for all other diatheses under inspection.
Second, while the lower frequency of adjectival passives, compared to that of unaccusatives, might be argued to hinder drift/idiom sharing with related lexical items, the fact that this low frequency does not hinder unique drifts/idioms is unexpected. Moreover, on a par with adjectival passives, verbal passives are less frequent than unaccusatives as well, but sharing does not differ between verbal passives and unaccusatives. This solution is thus rendered ad-hoc, as frequency seems to affect special meanings only when they are shared, and even then, only when specific diatheses are involved.
Further, frequency failed to predict which verbal passives would share their transitive counterparts’ drifted meanings. First, the non-significant difference between the frequencies of verbal passives sharing and not sharing their transitives’ drifts provides no evidence that frequency can tease apart the shared and unshared passives. Second, the fact that the same verbal passive could share a certain meaning of a given predicate, but not the other, indicates that frequency does not regulate drift sharing. A frequency-based account would predict a given frequency to either enable or disallow all new meanings of a transitive counterpart (
Finally, the mere detection of 28 drifted verbal passives out of 91 verbal passives (30.8%) seems highly improbable under a frequency-based account.
Since both attempts to account for the lack of verbal passive unique drifts – locality and frequency – fall short, I opt for an account based on the requirement that semantic drifts be lexically listed. Behind this requirement lies the assumption that, in order for an item to acquire a special meaning, it has to be a lexical entry, as otherwise this meaning cannot be straightforwardly listed in the lexicon and retrieved when needed (in line with
I propose a combination of the two, arguing that drifts are initially listed as subentries of the original meaning (i.e., the input to the drifting process). This is supported by the fact that novel drifted meanings are often perceived as metaphoric extensions of the original meaning before becoming conventionalized (e.g.,
Indeed, the data reported in Forster & Bednall (
Forster & Bednall report two findings relevant to our discussion. First, unambiguous words take longer to categorize as such than ambiguous ones. Second, frequency and prominence differences between an ambiguous word’s meanings do not affect the time it takes to categorize this word as ambiguous. They note that these findings are incompatible. The first finding supports independent storage, since the longer classification of unambiguous words suggests an
These seemingly contradictory findings nevertheless dovetail neatly with each other under my proposal. Recall that I opt for subentry storage as long as the drift is less frequent than – or equally frequent to – the original entry, and speakers automatically relate the two. Such ambiguities are thus expected to generate a terminating search in an ambiguity decision task. If, however, the drift “overshadows” the original entry, with the latter becoming substantially less frequent and even obsolete, the drift cuts loose from the original entry and is stored independently.
I argue that the ambiguous items used in Forster & Bednall (
Initial and final states of drift storage in the lexicon.
Note.
I can now explain the results of the quantitative survey along lines proposed by Horvath & Siloni (
Indeed, transitives have been argued to constitute lexical entries on independent grounds (
In contrast, it is widely accepted in the literature that the verbal passive is derived post-lexically (e.g.,
The findings presented in this paper thus cast doubt on approaches arguing that the syntactic component is the only generative (operative) component (
While frequency was able to account for the finding that adjectival passives shared significantly less drifts than unaccusatives, such an account seemed ad-hoc and was not adopted. Moreover, frequency failed to account for the finding that not all transitives having drifted versions shared their new meaning(s) with the verbal passive. Concerning the former, the accounts proposed above (§4.3.2) still hold under the lexical storage-based account: The discrepancy between shared adjectival passives and shared unaccusatives might have to do with the specific adjectival passives sampled, or it might be attributed to the lower likelihood of drift sharing across lexical categories. Neither of these accounts impinges upon the proposal that in order for a drift to be shared, it has to be listed as a subentry of the relevant lexically-stored alternant, or as a subentry of the lexical entry from which the alternant is derived in the case of post-lexical derivation. As for verbal passives, the assumption that transitives are lexically listed while verbal passives are derived from them post-lexically (see §6.1) predicts all drifts headed by transitives to be available to their passive counterparts, unless blocked by independent factors. Indeed, I argue that all cases where transitive-verbal passive drift sharing was blocked are due to independent factors.
First, the majority of the transitive drifts unshared with their verbal passive counterparts (both unique and shared-with-unaccusative; 15/17 or 88.2%) would be considered as (vulgar) slang, and would only be used in highly informal contexts (see e.g. (19a)). As such, the likelihood of finding their colloquial meaning in the verbal passive, which is usually characteristic of written, formal registers, decreases significantly. Indeed, all of the colloquial transitive drifts proved unable to appear in the verbal passive (see (19b), along with the drifts marked in bold in
(19)
a.
the-person.
simply
lower.3
me.
a.slap.
‘This guy just slapped me (in the face).’
b.
suddenly
be.lowered.3
me.
a.slap.
c.
be.consolidated.3
a.draft.
initial.
for.the-agreement.
‘An initial draft of the agreement was finalized.’
As for the remaining non-colloquial transitive drifts unshared with the verbal passive (
(20)
a.
the-bush.
take.out.
flowers.
‘This bush doesn’t grow (sprout) flowers.’
b.
the-shrub.
take.out.
the-flower.
c.
flowers.
be.taken.out.3
from-the-shrub.
An additional factor blocking active-passive drift sharing concerns non-agentive Object-Experiencer verbs, which are argued by Landau (
(21)
a.
light.2
me.
on
the-morning.
‘Don’t piss me off first thing in the morning!’
b.
she
be.lit.3
by
Dan
on
the-morning.
Similarly, a small subset of the unshared-with-passive drifts (2/17 or 11.8%) includes verbs whose drifted concepts are not used in the passive even though their passive forms are prosodically possible (compare the drift in (22a-b) with its drifted concept in (22c-d); see also
(22)
a.
the-sniper.
lower.3
three.
terrorists.
in.the-operation.
‘The sniper shot down three terrorists during the operation.’
b.
three.
terrorists.
be.lowered.3
in.the-operation.
by
the-sniper.
c.
the-forces.
snipe.3
on
the-soldiers.
our
‘The forces shot at our soldiers.’
d.
the-soldiers.
our
be.sniped.3
by
the-forces.
Another subset of the unshared-with-passive drifts includes measure verbs (2/17 or 11.8%; cf. (18), above, repeated below as (23), and
(23)
a.
Dan
take.out.3
seventy
in.the-test.
‘Dan got 70 on the test.’
b.
be.taken.out.3
seventy
in.the-test.
by
Dan
Lastly, a small subset of the colloquial transitive drifts unshared with the verbal passive (3/17 or 17.6%) are relatively new developments, as attested by the small number of search results returned by Google (see (24), along with
(24)
a.
what
an.idea.
bring.2
here
‘You came up with quite an idea there!’
b.
what
an.idea.
be.brought.3
here
To recap, the absolute majority of transitive drifts unshared with their verbal passive counterparts belongs to a low, informal – at times vulgar – register, which appears to clash with the more formal nature of the verbal passive. Moreover, I have enumerated additional properties of the drifted transitives that are expected to block passivization. It thus still holds that transitive drifts should, in principle, be available to their verbal passive counterparts, unless passivization is blocked for independent reasons.
I now turn to discuss cases argued to constitute unique verbal passive semantic drifts, thus serving as possible counterexamples to the results reported above. Postal (
(25) | a. | |
b. |
It indeed appears as if the passive
First,
(26) | a. | |
b. | |
(27) | a. | |
b. | |
|
c. |
Incidentally, the same drift exists in Hebrew for
(28)
a.
Dan
requested.
by
the-police.
‘Dan is wanted by the police.’
b.
within
a.year.
Dan
be.3
requested.
by
the-police.
‘Dan will be wanted by the police within a year.’
c.
the-police.
request.
Dan
The second example provided by Postal (
(29) | a. | |
b. | ||
c. | |
Horvath & Siloni (
Relative frequency of ‘It/it is said that’ vs. ‘They/they say that’ in Google Books, between the years 1800–2019, generated by Google’s Ngram Viewer.
Lastly, Bruening (
(30) | a. | |
b. | ||
c. | |
Again, the same facts hold for the Hebrew equivalent. In the current study, the Hebrew
(31)
a.
be.born.3
a.child.
and-Joseph
‘A child was born to Mary and Joseph.’
b.
be.born.3
a.child.
by
Mary
and-Joseph
Being an unaccusative, the lack of drift sharing between
The quantitative survey reported above has provided evidence that diatheses differ in their drifting capabilities. Transitives, unaccusatives, and adjectival passives all pattern alike concerning their ability to head their own unique semantic drifts, while the verbal passive is the odd one out: It must share new meanings with its transitive counterpart, while no such limitation restricts the drifting of the other diatheses under inspection. The latter can, but need not, share their drifts with their related counterparts, and sharing might be more prone to occur across the same lexical category than across different ones.
A corpus-based study has shown that frequency cannot be the factor determining unique drifting, nor can it predict drift sharing. Moreover, when combined with idiom data, an account demarcating the domain of special meaning also fails to explain the findings (in line with
This study has thus provided us with a novel type of evidence concerning the lexical listing of some diatheses, alongside the lack of such listing of others, and, by extension, concerning the type of processes deriving these diatheses. If transitives, unaccusatives, and adjectival passives are stored in the lexicon, they are also formed there, indicating that the lexicon is an active component of the grammar, which involves word-formation processes applying only upon the formation of new lexical items that are consequently stored. In contrast, if verbal passives are not lexical entries, they are not formed in the lexical component, and are instead derived in the syntax via operations applying anew in each derivation. Empirical evidence thus indicates that valence-changing operations can apply repeatedly or they can apply once, following which the new lexical items are stored in the lexicon. Moreover, it shows that the syntactic component is not alone: Valence-changing operations are not limited to syntax and can occur in the lexicon as well.
In line with
It has been argued that the special meaning of words is no different from that of idioms (e.g.,
Most of the drifts reported in this study are characteristic of a more casual, informal register, while their original entries are not.
This is undergirded by the additional semantic drift of
(i) Dan sick. burnt. crazy. stolen. Sarah ‘Dan dotes on Sarah.’
The past and present third-person singular forms of
One might argue that the transitive version of ‘was jealous’, meaning ‘caused to be jealous’, is unavailable as a semantic drift for
(i) make.jealous.3 in-strange. in-abominations make.angry.3 ‘They
(ii) and-make.angry.3 in- stages-their and-in-idols- their make.jealous.3 ‘For they provoked Him with their high places, and
Moreover, the Modern Hebrew idiom in (iii), which means ‘to be jealous’, has a transitive version ‘to cause to be jealous’ (iv). Namely, the transitive concept itself is synchronically available in the language.
(iii) go.outside.3 him. the-eyes ‘He was jealous.’ (lit. His eyes popped out.)
(iv) take.out.3 him. the-eyes ‘caused him to be jealous’ (lit. took his eyes out)
Lastly, the transitive version exists in other languages, e.g., Amharic:
More adjectival passives were collected since their searches were less limited, requiring only a transitive root counterpart, whereas for the verbal diatheses I searched for 3 related, morphologically-distinct root counterparts.
Namely, these predicates allowed subject-verb inversion when no sentence-initial trigger was involved, as triggered inversion is possible with external arguments as well (
Only drifts whose uniqueness could not be attributed to independent factors were included (see §4.1.2).
For lack of space, the examples provided in this section are taken from the main study, but ample examples can be found in the pilot study as well.
3 of the transitive predicates giving rise to unique drifts shared (at least one of) their new meaning(s) with the verbal passive, and 7 of the transitives sharing drifts with their unaccusative root counterparts also shared (at least one of) their new meaning(s) with their verbal passive root counterparts (see
The C
In some cases, predicates gave rise to more than one unique semantic drift (cf. the unaccusative
Online sources included mainly the Milog Hebrew-Hebrew online dictionary (
Note the post-drifting position of
Some of the predicates giving rise to unique drifts also shared drifts with the relevant root counterparts: 9/15 (60%) of the uniquely-drifted unaccusatives, 7/13 (53.9%) of the uniquely-drifted transitives, and 3/15 (20%) of the uniquely-drifted adjectival passives. See
Predicates giving rise to both shared and unique drifts are included as well since the ability to share drifts is inspected.
The numbers do not add up to 32 (or to 100%) since some of the transitive predicates included meanings that were shared with the verbal passive, alongside meanings that were not shared with it. 5 of the uniquely-drifted transitives and 12 of the transitives sharing drifts with unaccusatives shared at least one new meaning with the verbal passive root counterpart (see
As for the transitive drifts unshared with the verbal passive, 11 of the uniquely-drifted transitives and 10 of the transitives sharing drifts with unaccusatives did not share (at least one of) their new meanings with the verbal passive counterpart (see
The locality account is further undermined by evidence recently provided by
The fact that the verbal passive can head unique clausal idioms impinges neither upon the current results, nor upon Horvath & Siloni’s (
Predicates demonstrating morphological syncretism with one of their root counterparts were excluded as their frequency would stand for the frequencies of more than one lexical item. These constituted 32 of the 240 predicates: 10 transitives, 10 unaccusatives, 9 adjectival passives, and 3 verbal passives. Thus, the corpus-based study involved a total of 208 predicates: 50 transitives, 50 unaccusatives, 51 adjectival passives, and 57 verbal passives.
Predicates giving rise to both unique and shared drifts were included in both the unique-drift and shared-drift counts.
This column provides the sums of predicate quantities and the average scores of mean frequencies and standard deviations.
8 verbal passives sharing their orthographic form with other diatheses were excluded from the count: 3 shared their transitive counterparts’ drifts and 5 did not.
Note that the fact that uniquely-drifted predicates did not differ in frequency from predicates sharing their drifts, in any of the uniquely-drifted diatheses, undermines an argument proposed by an anonymous reviewer concerning verbal passives simply being below a necessary frequency threshold for unique drifting. If verbal passives do give rise to shared drifts, and frequency cannot tease apart shared drifts from unique ones, then frequency cannot explain why verbal passives can give rise to shared drifts, but not unique ones.
An anonymous reviewer argues that a frequency-based account could also rely on the relative frequency of the different meanings of the transitive counterpart when determining which verbal passive would share its transitive counterpart’s drift. However, some of the examples involved in the current study provide evidence against such an account. E.g., the verb
12 of the 60 verbal passives sampled proved capable of drifting, and 17 additional verbal passives shared drifts with 17 of the 32 drifted transitives. One of the verbal passive predicates appeared in both lists, thus totaling 28 predicates.
Some argue that higher-frequency words are less susceptible to semantic change (e.g.,
The literature dealing with behavioral studies inspecting the retrieval of ambiguous words is vast and varied. I discuss one specific study here, but see the studies mentioned above and references within for a more comprehensive view.
Ambiguous items were chosen based on students’ rated frequencies for each of the meanings of ambiguous words on a 10-point scale, as well as on (other) students’ intuitions concerning the more prominent meaning of these words. Unambiguous words of known frequency were also rated in order to verify the rating accuracy concerning ambiguous words.
They further report no difference between retrieval of verbs and nouns in another experiment, a finding replicated in
An anonymous reviewer notes that the transition from subentry to independent storage could be contingent upon the transparency of the relation between the original entry and the drifted one. However,
Note that if the lexicon consisted of roots alone, drifts would be listed as subentries of the root, and would therefore be expected to be available to the various diatheses that the root gives rise to, unless ruled out by some independent factor. This is clearly not the case.
All predicates and semantic drifts collected in terms of the pilot and quantitative surveys are provided in Appendix 1 and Appendix 2, respectively. Both appendices are available on the Open Science Framework (OSF) at the following URL:
I heartily thank Tal Siloni for her helpful comments on the research described and on earlier versions of this paper, as well as Aya Meltzer-Asscher for her helpful ideas concerning the analysis involved in the corpus-based study. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their suggestions and comments. Finally, I extend my gratitude to Debi Bert-Magen and Lindsay Bert for their judgments on the English data.
The author has no competing interests to declare.