Re: Question for English Speakers about Secondary Predicates (also posted on ZBB)

On Thu, 28 Dec 2006 16:31:55 +0000, Christopher Bates
<chris.maths_student@...> wrote:

>> In all your examples, what you call the secondary predicate seems to
>> function as an adverb, the manner of the action. Even the odd sentence
>> "The man chased the fox brown" seems to say that the man chased the
>> fox so that it turned brown. Is it common amongst English grammarians
>> to call adverbs specifying the manner of the action "secondary
>> predicates"?
>>
>I don't know about ALL English grammarians, but certainly many linguists
>recognise the difference between adverbs and secondary predicates. In
>"Secondary Predicates and Adverbial Modification" a typology is
>proposed: a Secondary Predicate Construction is one that is primarily
>orientated towards one participant in a situation (he ate the meat raw
>-> meat was raw), whereas an Adverbial Construction is one that is
>orientated more towards the event itself. Not all languages have two
>distinct constructions for these (German for example does not mark the
>difference)... in the book I mentioned, a typology is proposed of most
>typical notions expressed by Secondary Predicate Constructions (if a
>language has one) vs notions most typically adverbial in nature, and the
>authors express the view that these constructions may be in competition
>for expressing some meanings. For example, expressions of manner can be
>considered either event orientated or actor orientated, and languages
>may encode them with either a construction that is primarily a Secondary
>Predicate Construction or with an Adverbial Construction. Many
>Australian languages are good examples of languages where manner is
>generally expressed by Secondary Predicates which agree in case and
>other features with their agentive controller. I have a  paper in .doc
>format I found some time ago which is by the same people and makes many
>of the same points as the book, but I'm unable to find it online now...
>if you want me to I will email it to you so you can read it.
Thanks for this -- I'm working on this part of the NYSEC grammar now. Do you
happen to know how other European languages handle secondary predicates? I
think you already said German uses the same construction for both.

Jeff

>
>> Makes me curious.
>>
>> LEF
>>