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Tolokonnikova Tetyana
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English Double Verb
Constructions
Dictionaries and descriptive
grammars suggest that the go+and+verb construction serves
to express that the action described by the second verb is thoughtless,
unfortunate, or silly , foolish, unreasonable, or unlucky , or that it
indicates surprise or shock, often showing disapproval on the part of the
speaker. In addition, Tamara Al-Kasey suggested [8] that it conveys a sense of
"deliberateness." To confuse matters further, a cursory glance at the
Cobuild Bank of English [7] reveals that it is often used in making both
friendly and unfriendly suggestions. Finally, English coordinated verb constructions
in general are sometimes claimed to "belong to informal style" and in
many cases to "have a derogatory connotation". In generative approaches,
double verb constructions have been argued to be mere short versions derived
from constructions like while more functionally oriented researchers have
argued that the two patterns behave differently with respect to their
semantics, which rules out the possibility of the shorter pattern merely being
a surface structure variant of the longer version. According to one of the
central tenets of construction grammar constructional synonymy is ruled out by
the Principle of No Synonymy [cf.3]. Descriptive grammar books, display a variety of
syntactic and semantic idiosyncrasies such as restrictions on the verb forms
licensed to be inserted into the V2-slot, their association with informal style
and their often negative or derogatory connotation [cf.4], the relationship
between go-and-V and go-V is rarely
addressed directly. Eastwood [2, 340-367] notes that go-V is the
American English variant for British English go-and-V. Guy Carden and David Pesetzky [1, 82-92] argue that V1-V2
constructions like go-V are derivates of the
corresponding V1-and-V2 constructions, “presumably by a syntactic rule of Fake-and
Deletion”. Firstly, they claim that generally, both V1-and-V2
pattern as well as its corresponding V1-V2 pattern share syntactic constraints
such as the bare stem condition, which restricts the set of verb forms
to be inserted into the patterns’ verbal slots to non-inflected forms. However,
Carden and Pesetzky note that while this constraint holds
for go-V, it does not hold for go-and-V; consider their examples
in (1) and (2) respectively.
(1) a. *John went
visit Harry yesterday.
b. He went and hit me.
Similarly, with respect
to their second argument, saying that the semantics of V1-V2 patterns and V1-and-V2 patterns
are identical, Carden and Pesetzky have to point out that while go-and-V
has a possible “unexpected event reading” (consider [2a] and [2b], taken from
Carden and Pesetzky), go-V cannot encode such a meaning.
(2) a.
As we had arranged, the President went and addressed the graduating class.
b. To our amazement, instead of
addressing the graduating class, the
President went and harangued the janitors.
Finally, Carden and Pesetzky
point out that the set of verbs licensed in the V1position of V1-V2 patterns
constitute a subset of those of the V1-and-V2 patterns. Shopen [5, 254-263] adopts a
more functionally-oriented approach to V1-V2 constructions and argues against
the view that V1-V2constructions (to which he refers as quasi-modals)
are to be considered merely “truncated surface variants of some other
expression type”. He points towards two semantic differences between V1-and-V2
constructions and their corresponding V1-V2constructions to support his claim.
First, the linkage between the two inserted verbs is much tighter in V1-V2
constructions than in V1-and-V2 constructions. Providing the examples in
(3a) and (3b), Shopen
argues that (3a) is unacceptable because the semantics of the two
verbs go and leave are
incompatible, while (3b) is acceptable due to the weaker linkage between the
two verbs.
(3) a. *They deliberately go leave their wives behind.
b. They deliberately go and leave their
wives behind.
Another difference
between V1-V2 patterns and V1-and-V2 patterns Shopen identifies is that
while go ordinarily allows both
agential as well as non-agential interpretations (as in go-and-V), in the go-V pattern, the interpretation
must be agential, which also speaks against the view that go-V is only a
short form of
go-and-V. He illustrates his claim
with the following examples.
(4) a.
The trucks come and pick up the garbage every Monday.
b. The trucks come
pick up the garbage every Monday.
(5) a. Pieces of
drift wood come and wash up the shore.
b. *Pieces of drift wood come wash up
the shore.
(6) a.
The smoke fumes go and inebriate the people upstairs.
b. *The
smokes go inebriate the people upstairs.
While the (4b) is
acceptable because the trucks can be
associated with an agent, (5b)/(6b) are unacceptable
because the subjects pieces of drift wood and the smoke fumes do
not license such an agential interpretation.
Acoording to Anatol Stefanowitsch’ research [6,
123-134] of the patterns, the semantics of the
construction can be explained by the following examples.
Consider examples (7) through (10), which show some
typical examples from English:1
(7) a. Look what you’ve gone and done!
b. He’s
gone and lost his job.
c. It was
going to be a surprise, but he went and told her.
(8) Nobody thought he could climb Everest, but he went
and did it!
(9) We asked him not to call the police, but he went
(ahead) and did it
anyway.
(10) a. I think we should all
go and see Valerie on Sunday.
b. I’ll
go and get the rest of your stuff.
These examples show that the go-and-Verb construction
occurs in a variety of uses: in examples (7a-c) it seems to express ‘annoyance
on the part of the speaker,’ an implication that the action described by the
main verb is ‘stupid’ or ‘undesirable;’ in example (8) it expresses a certain
degree of ‘surprise;’ in example (9) it conveys something like ‘proceeding
without hesitation’ or ‘without regard to others;’ in examples (10a-c) it
expresses ‘actual motion.’
Go and
other basic motion verbs are used in many verb serializing languages in order
to impose a motion profile onto an otherwise stative verb, or to give other
motion verbs a deictic orientation, with go typically expressing motion
through space in general or away from the speaker in particular, In such
constructions, then, the motion verb adds an aspect of motion or deixis to the
overall meaning of the expression. Note that this is exactly the function of go
in examples 10a-b above: neither see nor get have an inherent
motion component to their meaning. In both examples, go imparts a motion
reading onto an otherwise stative verb (or at least one not associated with
motion through space). Both situations can alternatively be described with
verbs that do have such an inherent motion component: go and see means
roughly the same as visit, and go and get means roughly the same
as fetch.Go and related verbs often serve as a source for tense
and aspect morphology in grammaticization processes.
Literature:
1.
Carden G., Pesetsky D. Double-verb constructions, markedness, and a fake coordination //
Chicago Linguistic Society. – 1977. – No. 13. – P.
82-92. 2. Eastwood
J. Oxford Guide to English Grammar: