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Kind‐Level Predicates of Events Inside Another Predication☆

Kind level predicates of events such as three times, the third time, and occasionally can occur as a predicate of an independent predication, or appear as an adverbial, with an event kind-denoting expression as their argument. The reduced forms of such predicates can surface inside a nominal of another predication, e.g., Four thousand ships passed through the lock last year; Susi bought a second guitar, and An occasional sailor strolled by. This paper argues that these predicates are displaced from their base-positions so that an event kind-denoting expression in the verbal category can be merged as the subject in the event-kind predication. The proposed overt movement displaces the categorial features of an expression, leaving its semantic features in situ, an operation symmetrical to a covert movement, which displaces the semantic features without categorial features. 1. The research issue The main empirical goal of this paper is to propose a possible syntactic generation of the constructions exemplified by (1), under the event readings of the underlined parts. (1) a. Four thousand ships passed through the lock last year. Intended: ‘Ships passed through the lock 4000 times last year.’ (Krifka 1990) b. Susi bought a second guitar. Intended: ‘For the second time, Susi bought a guitar.’ (cf. Tsai 2009) c. An occasional sailor strolled by. Intended: ‘Occasionally, a sailor strolled by.’ (Bolinger 1967: 5) We will claim that the underlined parts in (1), i.e., the numeral, ordinal, and frequency adjective, are kind-level predicates of events, and they are displaced from a position external to the nominal. Theoretically, we explore a new type of movement, which moves categorial features of an expression, leaving their semantic features in situ. Our research is based on the following new observations: (2) a. Like the predication of object kinds, the predication of event kinds is also identifiable.  I am grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments, to James Myers, Edith Aldridge, and Susan Fischer for data help, and to Daniel Hole and Hsuan-Hsiang Wang, as well as James Myers, for discussing various relevant research issues with me. All remaining errors are mine, This research has been supported by the grant MOST108-2410-H-194-019-MY3 from the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan. 1 The nominal an occasional sailor may also mean a person who sails occasionally. In this reading, occasional modifies the root sail. We do not discuss this reading in this paper.