Johnson 2004 - CDLI - UCLA

1.3 BNBV inal as a low source applicative
Not only does the BNBV diagnostic, when its use is limited to compound verbs in which
the bare noun is an inalienable part of the body (BNBV inal), identify a distinct syntactic
class, but it also identifies a semantic field that includes verbs of perception as well as
verbs that signify privation or loss with respect to an argument that represents the object
of perception or the participant who is adversely affected. The natural counterpart of an
argument that represents the source from which something is taken, an entity that
receives or benefits from the privation of the source, is an experiencer argument. Recent
work (Pylkkänen 2002) has identified a syntactic phenomenon known as a low source
applicative 11 that exhibits the same set of semantic features as the BNBV inal class: this
section offers an overview of low applicativity based on Pylkkänen’s dissertation that
supports a redescription of the *bi-√ prefix in BNBV inal constructions as a low source
applicative morpheme.
In general terms, an applicative morpheme allows a noun phrase that would
otherwise have appeared in an adpositional phrase to appear in a zero/unmarked case and
to participate more directly in the syntactic behavior of a verbal predicate. This
phenomenon exists, for example, in English in so-called double object constructions as
exemplified in the following examples:
11 Pylkkänen’s low source applicative hypothesis represents only the most recent and innovative phase of the
investigation of so-called double object constructions. Previous milestones in the investigation of the double object are
Larson 1988 and Pesetsky 1995, see Harley 2003 for the current state of double object construction analyses in
generative terms, including a review of previous literature.
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