In this project (with Woraprat Manowang), we explain why Thai sentences with resultatives like (1) are ambiguous.
(1)
ธนาขี่ม้าเหนื่อย
tʰánaː kʰìː máː nɨàj
Thana ride horse tired
(a) ‘The horse became tired as a result of Thana riding it.’
(b) ‘Thana became tired as a result of riding the horse.’
(adapted from Sudmuk 2005)
The existence of the reading in (1b) poses a challenge to the cross-linguistic generalisation known as the Direct Object Restriction.
What is the Direct Object Restriction?
The Direct Object Restriction states that the result state can only hold of the internal argument of a resultative (Simpson 1983; Levin & Rappaport Hovav 1995).
Consider the following sentences:
(2)
John washed the clothes clean.
(3)
John washed the clothes happy.
You can say (2) to mean that the clothes became clean as a result of John washing them.
But you can’t say (3) to mean that John became happy as a result of washing the clothes, even though there’s nothing odd about this situation. ((3) can mean that John washed the clothes while he was happy.)
In (2), the result state clean holds of the internal argument of the resultative the clothes.
In (3), the result state happy holds of the external argument of the resultative John.
Thus, it appears that the Direct Object Restriction holds in English, since (2) is grammatical but (3) is not.
Do Thai resultatives violate the Direct Object Restriction?
At first glance, it seems that Thai resultatives violate the Direct Object Restriction.
Consider the Thai resultatives in (4) and (5):
(4)
ธนากินข้าวหมด
tʰánaː kin kʰâːw mòt
Thana eat rice empty
‘The rice became empty as a result of Thana eating it.’
(5)
ธนากินข้าวอิ่ม
tʰánaː kin kʰâːw ʔìm
Thana eat rice full
‘Thana became full as a result of eating rice.’
We refer to (4) as an object-oriented resultative and (5) as a subject-oriented resultative.
Unlike in English, the result state can hold of either the subject or the object of a Thai resultative.
Why do Thai resultatives appear to violate the Direct Object Restriction?
We claim that subject-oriented transitive resultatives in Thai (which appear to violate the Direct Object Restriction) should not be analysed on a par with object-oriented resultatives (which do not).
Rather, subject- and object-oriented resultatives in Thai have distinct underlying structures.
We claim that object-oriented resultatives have a right-branching structure whereas subject-oriented resultatives have a left-branching structure.
In addition, we demonstrate that both subject- and object-oriented resultatives are structurally distinct from coordinate structures.
How can I find out more?
You can read more about our work here:
Presentations:
- Woraprat Manowang & Wenkai Tay. Subject- and object-oriented transitive resultatives in Thai. 32nd Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society (SEALS), Chiang Mai University, 16-18 May 2023. [handout]
- Woraprat Manowang & Wenkai Tay. Subject- and object-oriented transitive resultatives in Thai. Manchester Forum in Linguistics (MFiL), University of Manchester, 20-21 Apr 2023. [handout]
- Woraprat Manowang & Wenkai Tay. Subject- and object-oriented transitive resultatives in Thai. Resultatives: new approaches and renewed perspectives, National University of Singapore, 20-22 Mar 2023. [abstract] [handout]
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions, comments or suggestions.