The English Resultative

The purpose of this thesis is to augment our empirical knowledge of the English resultative and to provide a theoretical treatment of the syntax and semantics of the resultative using current linguistic tools. This involves using both theoretical and experimental methods to ensure that the model reflects human usage of natural language and follows the principles required for formal language modelling.The main questions addressed are 1) Is the result phrase an argument, an adjunct, or something else (an added/derived argument, sometimes called an argument-adjunct)? 2) How do we best capture the properties of the resultative in a formal model? In order to address these questions, it must be determined what falls into the overall category of the resultative and how the resultative can be sub-classified into further sub-categories to best reflect the potentially distinctive properties of related resultative constructions. These divisions are then tested for fit with the theoretical categories of argument, adjunct and added/derived argument. Lastly, an analysis is provided using Lexical-Functional Grammar and Glue Semantics.