The syntax and interpretation of resultative constructions

This study investigates the syntax and interpretation of Resultative Constructions under the framework of the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1995). In the first part, the syntactic representation of Resultative Constructions is dealt with in terms of the three l-syntactic projections proposed by Folli (2002) and the syntactic conflation process proposed by Mateu and Regau (2000). First, verbs are classified in terms of the lexical specification of three features: [±v], [±V] and [±Rv]. Secondly, this study assumes null unaccusative verbs which allow lexical verbs to conflate with them. It is argued that verbs which lack [+Rv] form Resultative Constructions by way of the syntactic conflation process. The second part of this dissertation deals with the interpretation of Resultative Constructions. This study proposes a mechanism to derive aspectual interpretations of Resultative Constructions, based on a theory of case and telicity checking. First, it is claimed that two aspectual notions, telicity and boundedness, should be differentiated. A telic reading, which refers to the achievement of the result state, is obtained due to the presence of the [+Rv] feature. A bounded reading, on the other hand, is obtained when the delimiting direct object is present. It is argued that the syntactic and semantic differences of the three types of resultatives investigated in this study are due to the presence or absence of syntactic conflation and that of AspP projected over VP. Last of all, this study discusses the cross-linguistic differences in forming the Resultative Constructions, and attempts to work out an explanation for why certain languages allow resultatives, while others do not. The current analysis may lend further support for the claim made by Mateu and Rigau that there is no conflation, more specifically no null verb in Romance and Japanese. However, I claim that although no conflation process is observed in those languages, we cannot attribute the lack of the resultatives solely to the absence of the conflation process.