Larry > Recent Status Updates

I didn’t know there was controversy on whether adjuncts are sisters to X’ or XP: interesting!!

And IF Pinker had gotten his data straight, he could only buy claim 2, but he did not even get his data straight!

Fodor distinguishes 1) the claim that what a word means partially determines the well-formed contexts in which it can occur (perhaps equivalent to: lexical items have features), and 2) the claim that there is a single level at which all and only the semantic features of the item are specified (perhaps equivalent to: lexical items are feature bundles), and denies both

Against Pinker (1989): if there is bootstrapping from semantics to syntax, the semantic concepts doing the work like agent, possession, etc, must be detectable by the child. But those concepts are ill-defined. Consider: “red” expresses a property; is that a semantic fact, or a byproduct of the fact that it’s a modifier of nouns? Contrast Gleitman (1990), who runs the bootstrapping argument the other way around

This is a very alienating experience because I really don’t like his views but I’m incapable of forming a coherent or convincing argument against them

Pinker is ultimately someone who knows that venison in New Zealand is called cervena, but gets his Erich Maria Remarque quotes from Niall Ferguson

Ditransitives like give imply cause to have

The holism effect invites a metaphorical construal of a changing entity as a moving entity (through state space)

Holism effect: when the affected entity sits in subject position, creates the same effect as direct-objecthood: Juice dripped from the apple and The apple was dripping with juice (holism effect), and X removed peel from the apple and X peeled the apple (holism effect)

Verbs only alternate content- and container-locative constructions if they refer both to motion and change of state (e.g., load: to load the truck with hay, to load hay into the truck; contrast fill and pour); whether the motion is caused or let happen also matters (compare: to smear and to drip).