Cover not available

In:Contrastive Studies in Verbal Valency
Edited by Lars Hellan, Andrej L. Malchukov and Michela Cennamo
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 237] 2017
► pp. 219–250

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
authorization required

Cognate constructions in Italian and beyond

A lexical semantic approach

 | University of Verona
 | University of Bologna
Published online: 30 April 2017
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.237.07mel
Abstract
This paper contains a lexico-semantic analysis of Cognate Constructions (CCs), i.e. argument structure patterns in which the verb and its nominal complement are morphologically or semantically related, mainly based on Italian data. We identify three types of CCs which display morphologically cognate nouns in Italian, namely: i) the Cognate Object Construction (COC), where the verb takes a direct cognate object; ii) a CC where the verb takes a cognate complement introduced by the preposition di ‘of’; iii) a CC where the verb takes a cognate complement introduced by the preposition con ‘with’. The paper mainly focuses on the COC, but the CCs with di ‘of’ and con ‘with’ are also discussed. The analysis is carried out by combining corpus-based methods on the one hand, and lexico-semantic analytic tools on the other. Various semantic classes of verbs are analyzed in detail, including classes hardly discussed in previous literature, and a number of constraints and mechanisms are proposed in order to explain the occurrence and behaviour of CCs in Italian. A look at CCs in other languages reveals an interesting parallelism between this Italian (and Romance) pattern and some “adverbial-like” cognate objects found in typologically different languages such as Russian and Hebrew, proving once more that crosslinguistic comparison can improve our understanding of intralinguistic facts.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Cognates in Italian and other languages: A preliminary overview
    • 2.1Types of cognate constructions
    • 2.2Preliminary remarks on the syntactic status of COs in Italian
    • 2.3Outline of the article
  • 3.Cognate constructions in Italian: A lexical semantic analysis
    • 3.1Methods and data
    • 3.2Verb classes
      • 3.2.1Emission verbs
      • 3.2.2(Re-)Creation verbs
      • 3.2.3Motion verbs
      • 3.2.4Weather verbs
      • 3.2.5Manner of Speaking verbs
    • 3.3Discussion
      • 3.3.1Italian COC: Constraints on the verb
      • 3.3.2Italian COC: Constraints on the cognate noun
    • 3.4Cognate Object Constructions vs. Light Verb Constructions
  • 4.Cognate Constructions with prepositions
    • 4.1COC vs. OF-pattern: semantic and syntactic properties
    • 4.2A crosslinguistic look
    • 4.3The role of the WITH-pattern
  • 5.Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (32)
References
Benincà, Paola. 2001. L’ordine degli elementi della frase e le costruzioni marcate. In Grande grammatica italiana di consultazione, Vol. I, 2nd edn, Lorenzo Renzi, Giampaolo Salvi & Anna Cardinaletti (eds), 129–239. Bologna: il Mulino.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Carlson, Gregory. 1977. Reference to Kinds in English. PhD dissertation, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
De Roberto, Elisa. 2012. L’oggetto interno tra lessico, semantica e sintassi. In Lessico e lessicologia. Atti del Convegno SLI di Viterbo, 27–29 settembre 2010, Silvana Ferreri (ed.), 131–142. Roma: Bulzoni.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013. Dormire il sonno del giusto o dormire del sonno del giusto. Per una storia dell’oggetto interno in italiano. Studi di Grammatica Italiana 29–30: 189–245.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gianollo, Chiara & Lavidas, Nikolaos. 2013. Cognate adverbials and case in the history of Greek. Studies in Greek Linguistics 33: 61–75.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goldberg, Adele E. & Ackerman, Farrell. 2001. The pragmatics of obligatory adjuncts. Language 77(4): 798–814. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gougenheim, Georges. 1964. L'objet interne et les catégories sémantiques des verbes intransitifs. In Mélanges de linguistique Romane et de philologie médiévale offertes à Maurice Delbouille, Jean Renson (ed.), 271–284. Gembloux: J. Duculot.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hale, Ken & Keyser, Samuel J. 2002. Prolegomenon to a Theory of Argument Structure. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Höche, Silke. 2009. Cognate Object Constructions in English: A Cognitive-linguistic Account. Tübingen: Narr.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hong, Zhou. 1999. Cognate objects in Chinese. Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics 17: 263–284.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Horrocks, Geoffrey, & Stavrou, Melita. 2010. Morphological aspect and the distribution of cognate objects across languages. In Lexical Semantics, Syntax, and Event Structure, Malka Rappaport Hovav, Edit Doron & Ivy Sichel (eds), 284–308. Oxford: OUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jespersen, Otto. 1949. A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles, Part 7: Syntax. Copenhagen: Munksgaard.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Landman, Meredith & Morzycki, Marcin. 2003. Event-kinds and the representation of manner. In Proceedings of the Western Conference in Linguistics (WECOL) 2002, Nancy Mae Antrim, Grant Goodall, Martha Schulte-Nafeh & Vida Samiian (eds), 136–147. Fresno CA: California State University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levin, Beth. 1993. English Verb Classes and Alternations: A Preliminary Investigation. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levin, Beth & Rappaport Hovav, Malka. 2005. Argument Realization [Research Surveys in Linguistics Series]. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Massam, Diane. 1990. Cognate objects as thematic objects. Canadian Journal of Linguistics 35: 161–190.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Melloni, Chiara. 2011. Event and Result Nominails: A Morpho-Semantic Approach. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mirto, Ignazio. 2011. Oggetti interni e reaction objects come nomi predicativi di costrutti a verbo supporto. Écho des Études Romanes 7(1): 21–47.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mittwoch, Anita. 1998. Cognate objects as reflections of Davidsonian event arguments. In Events and Grammar, Susan Rothstein (ed.), 309–332. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Moltmann, Friederike. 1989. Nominal and clausal event predicates. In Papers from the 25th Annual Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society (CLS), Caroline Wiltshire, Randolph Graczyk & Bradley Music (eds), 300–314. Chicago IL: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pereltsvaig, Asya. 1997. How to smile a happy smile in different languages: Two types of cognate objects. Ms, Stanford University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1999a. Two classes of cognate objects. In Proceedings of the West Coast Conference in Formal Linguistics 17, Kimary N. Shahin, Susan Blake & Eun-Sook Kimok (eds), 537–551. Stanford CA: CSLI.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1999b. Cognate objects in Russian. Is the notion "cognate" relevant for syntax? Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue Canadienne de Linguistique 44(3): 267–291.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2002. Cognate objects in Modern and Biblical Hebrew. In Themes and Issues in Arabic and Hebrew, Jamal Ouhalla & Ur Shlonsky (eds), 107–136. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pham, Hoa. 1999. Cognate objects in Vietnamese transitive verbs. Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics 17: 227–246.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pustejovsky, James. 1995. The Generative Lexicon. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Real Puigdollers, Cristina. 2008. The nature of cognate objects: A syntactic approach. In Proceedings of ConSOLE XVI, Sylvia Blaho, Camelia Constantinescu & Bert Le Bruyn (eds), 157–178. Leiden: University of Leiden.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Renzi, Lorenzo, Salvi, Giampaolo & Cardinaletti, Anna (eds). 2001. Grande grammatica italiana di consultazione, Vol. I. Bologna: il Mulino.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sailer, Manfred. 2010. The family of English cognate object constructions. In Proceedings of the HPSG10 Conference – Université Paris Diderot, Paris 7, France, Stefan Müller (ed.), 192–211. Stanford CA: CSLI.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Simone, Raffaele & Masini, Francesca. 2014. On light nouns. In Word Classes: Nature, Typology and Representations [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 332], Raffaele Simone & Francesca Masini (eds), 51–73. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Visser, Fredericus Theodorus. 1963. An Historical Syntax of the English Language, Vol. 1: Syntactical Units with One Verb. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zaefferer, Dietmar. 2002. Polisemy, polivalence and linking mismatches: The concept of rain and its codings in English, German, Italian and Spanish. DELTA 18: 27–56. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (4)

Cited by four other publications

Abdulaal, Mohammad Awad Al-Dawoody, Sayed Sadek, Madani Osman Ahmed, Amal Zakaria Mahmoud Hal, Said Elsayed Ahmed Saleh & Mehdi Nasri
2022. The Impact of a Contrastive Lexical Approach in Formulaic Expressions’ Perception on University EFL Learners’ Writing Proficiencies. Education Research International 2022 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Rodríguez Arrizabalaga, Beatriz
2022. On the transitivisation of intransitive verbs. A Spanish-English contrastive corpus-based analysis of the verbs dormir and sleep. Complutense Journal of English Studies 30 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Farkas, Imola-Ágnes
2021. Aspectual cognate objects in Hungarian. Folia Linguistica 55:2 ► pp. 389 ff. DOI logo
Farkas, Imola-Ágnes
2021. Aspectual cognate objects in Hungarian. Folia Linguistica 0:0 DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 22 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue