Verbs of Sound Emission

In Section 4.6.3 I suggested that the semantics of the verbs of sound emission in the syntactic form resalt46 is as stated in resalt45.

  NP V ResP   NP is in Result Location and NP V-ed (emitted the sound V) as a part of its motion there.

The truck rumbled across the intersection.
The truck is across the interesection and rumbled as a part of moving there. John wheezed across the road.
John is across the road and he wheezed as a part of moving there.

Motion, however, is not a standard component of the semantics of these verbs and so the question of how this interpretation is achieved must be addressed.

I propose that there exists a lexical rule which transforms an intransitive verb of sound emission to a verb which subcategorises for a path PP and means, roughly, that an entity moves along the path and the sound expressed by the verb is emitted as a result of that motion. The evidence for the existence of an independent sense of these verbs on this use, in contrast to the manner of motion verbs for which the directed motion use is merely a precisification of the basic meaning of the verb, is as follows:

• The primary entailment of the sentences in which the verb of sound emission appears with a path PP is of motion rather than sound emission, with the sound emission secondary. This is in contrast to the intransitive use of these verbs for which sound emission is primary, and also to the manner of motion verbs for which the motion is primary for both their uses.
• There is a specific constraint on the verbs of sound emission in this construction: there must be some `essential connection' between the motion and the sound emission. As Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1995, p. 191) suggest, ``the sound must be emitted as a necessary concomitant of motion''. Sentences such as those in resalt48 are less felicitous than those in resalt45 above because the sound emission does not result from the motion of the entity. These sentences could express that the sound accompanies the motion, but in isolation of a specific context do not establish that the sound is emitted through the motion (rather than independently) and thus do not satisfy the semantic constraint.

•  

• ?The car honked across the intersection.
• ?John whistled across the road.

  This constraint stems from a particular semantic relation between the input and output forms of the verb, as specified in the lexical rule.

• This is a productive process which also applies to verbs of light emission, as in resalt47, with parallel semantics and semantic constraint (constrast resalt47b with resalt47c).

•  

• The meteor flared across the sky.
• The firefly flickered across the field.
• ?The flashlight flickered across the field.

• There is no causative relation between the sound emission and the motion (the sound emission does not cause the motion) and so these sentences cannot be instances of the resultative construction.

So the syntax and semantics of these verbs on a directed motion use derives from an additional lexical entry for the verbs, specifying an obligatory PP complement and the appropriate semantics generated by a lexical rule. No additional mechanisms are necessary.