TRUNG TÂM HỌC LIỆU
2. The representational versatility of middle formation”
The deadlock which characterizes the literature on middle formation can only be broken by a detailed analysis of the different verb types that can function in the middle and the participant roles that can be mapped onto the Subject.
First, the construction type of middle formation cannot be reduced to one or other verb type: it is widely acknowledged — even by those who situate middles close to the ergative one-participant paradigm — that erga- tive as well as transitive verbs can function in the middle. Examples (16) and-(17) illustrate. the middle use. of the transitive verbs.remove and.wipe;
the middles in (18) and (19) are based on ergatives, i.e. flatten and disperse:
(16) Broiler rack removes easily. (CB)
(17) In Britain, however, the traditional image of schools drama as being all chalk and blackboards does not wipe easily from people’s minds.
(CB)
(18) Nylon carpets are prone to static ... and the pile flattens easily. (CB) (19) It’s heavier, like an emulsion with the texture of chocolate mousse
and it doesn’t disperse easily. (CB)
Apart from transitive and ergative verbs, however, also intransitive verbs can figure in middle constructions, a possibility which, while recognized in descriptions of the Dutch middle construction, has thus far been almost unanimously denied in the literature about English.” The Dutch middles in
(20), (21) and (22) qualify as intransitive. The example in (20) is based on Haeseryn et al. (1997: 52); that in (21) was extracted from the IDL
corpus”; the middle in (22) is taken from De Vries (1910: 132):
(20) Asfalt fietst prettiger dan grind.
asphalt cycles more pleasantly than gravel
‘it is more pleasant to cycle on asphalt than it is on gravel’
(21) Sommige bomen — zitten nu eenmaal lekkerder....
some trees just sit more comfortably
‘some trees are just more comfortable to sit in’
The representational versatility of middle formation 129 (22) Nieuwe schoenen lopen lastig.
new shoes walk with difficulty
‘new shoes are difficult to walk with’
The entities functioning as Subject are normally felt to be outside the nucleus of the clausal process and the participants that are directly involved in the process: they are oblique participants of the main verb, providing either spatial information (e.g., on asphalt, in trees) or information on the means whereby a process takes place (¢.g., within new shoes).©
Only Van Oosten (1986), Smith (1978) and Rosta (1995) have hinted at the existence of English middle constructions of which the Subject is not patientive. They do not, however, offer a systematic analysis of their properties, let alone integrate them in the analysis of middle formation in general. After mentioning the structure This music dances better than the other one (‘to this music you can dance better than to the other one’, 1986:
84), Van Oosten, for instance, decides that although “the subject in this construction does not, then, need to be a patient but can be an instrument or a locative or hold some other relation to the verb, I will for simplicity continue to call this the patient-subject construction” (Van Oosten 1986:
85).
The fact that intransitive middles are rare in English has doubtless contributed to the absence of a coherent description of their properties:
even large-scale corpora such as COBUILD hardly contain intransitive middles. The following list therefore contains not only middles drawn from the COBUILD corpus, but also middles that were suggested by native speakers of English (labelled p.c.), and middles that were found in the literature on middle formation:
(23) This music dances better than the other one. (Van Oosten 1986: 8) (24) The Strathayr track is racing consistently nowadays. (Barry Blake
p.c.)
(25) The pitch is playing truly/well. (Barry Blake p.c.)
(26) [about a tennis court:] It is slightly coarser, so it plays a bit slower.
(CB)
(27) “They rolled the green just before the match and it ran three seconds faster,” said Curtis.... (CB)
(28) You wouldn’t give my tip a chance of landing Aintree’s Martell Red Rum Chase ... but with the ground riding slower, he should improve dramatically. (CB)
130 The middle construction
The Subjects of these middle constructions designate either the means that is used to carry out the process (music) or they specify its location (examples 24 to 28). They are normally realized as prepositional phrases:
you dance to music, run on a track, bowl on a pitch, play on a court, run on a green and ride on a ground, Yet another type of intransitive middle has an Instrument for Subject (Smith 1978: 103):
(29) The brush paints well.
(30) The knife cuts well.
These middles can be paraphrased as ‘with this brush/knife you can paint/cut well’; they are ambiguous between a middle reading and an ordinary active reading that profiles the agent-like involvement of the Instrument in the process.
...Middle formation thus turns out to be remarkably versatile as to the verb
classes which it allows for — transitive, ergative and intransitive ~ and the roles which can be mapped onto the Subject. The distinct representational relations in middle constructions form an essential part of the semantics of middle constructions: the relationship between a Patient and a transitive process (This meat cuts easily), for instance, is fundamentally different
from that between a Complement and an intransitive process (This court
plays slower), or that between a Medium and an ergative process (Zhis emulsion doesn’t disperse easily). An account of the representational func- tional strand in the middle thus forms an essential part of the multifunc- tional approach which in general is vital to come to an accurate description of structural patterns (see Chapter 2, Section 4).
It is, moreover, only when considering the full range of representational options which middle formation allows for that it becomes clear that many of the properties which have in the literature been ascribed to middle for- mation are not applicable to all middle constructions. For one thing, the middle cannot be said to systematically alternate with a two-participant structure in which the Subject is turned into Object (a claim made by pro- ponents of the ergative approach), because intransitive middles contain only one participant (e.g., The green ran faster but *You ran the green faster), Neither can it be analyzed as realizing a kind of passive two- participant structure (e.g., The green ran faster but *The green was run faster). Intransitive middle constructions also form evidence against an agentive interpretation of the Subject in middles: like Patients, the Subject of intransitive middles cannot be interpreted as energy source of the proc- ess. In general, it has to be observed that the Subject of middle construc- tions is not necessarily affected (as argued by the proponents of the ‘pas-
The representational versatility of middle formation 131 sive’ view on middle formation) and it does not always undergo a change (as claimed by the adherents of the ergative view on middle formation), witness the following examples:
(31) Girls don’t make it just because they are skinny. It’s about how they photograph and move. (CB)
(32) His earlier short stories don’t read so well. (CB)
The girls in (31) are not affected or changed by being photographed. Like- wise, the short stories in (32) are not affected or changed by being read.
The middle Subject may not be agentive, but is the Agent of the process then obligatorily implied? As pointed out by Langacker, a middle like This ice cream scoops out quite easily cannot but be interpreted as involving an Agent which does the scooping out: we do not picture the ice cream scoop- ing itself out (Langacker 1991: 334), It is, in fact, the semantics of the tran- sitive verb scooping out which invokes the Agent: if for This ice cream scoops out quite easily we do not imagine the ice cream scooping itself out, it is because we follow the semantic instructions given by the active transi- tive verb scoop out, which necessarily implies an Agent. What is presented as most prominent by the middle construction, however, is the relationship between the process and the non-agentive entity construed as its ‘focal par- ticipant? or Subject (Langacker 1991: 335). Intransitive middles can be given an analogous semantic analysis: they most prominently present an intransitive process in its relation to a Location or Means, but they imply an Agent which actually executes that intransitive process. In, for instance, The court plays a bit slower, an Agent is invoked which does the playing.
Likewise, in This music dances better than the other one, an Agent is im- plied which dances to the music.
Van Oosten and Lakoff’s emphasis on the agent-like responsibility of middle Subjects should therefore be toned down: it is widely agreed that the middle attributes the fact that a particular process can be carried out to the inherent properties of the entity construed as Subject (apart from Van Oosten 1977, 1986 and Lakoff 1977, also Fellbaum 1985, 1986; Langacker 1991; Massam 1992; Rosta 1995; Lemmens 1998), but the fact that the Subject has properties that make a certain process possible should not be confused with agentivity. Or, as Rosta (1995: 128) puts it:
In The book sold well ... the properties of the book are a necessary condi- tion for the book to sell well, but need not be (and typically are not) a suffi- cient condition; if it were not for the properties of the book, it would not sell well, but even though the book has the properties it has it will not sell
132 The middle construction
well unless some other participant (an agent) gets involved in getting the book to sell well.
Rather than assign agent-like value to its Subject, the middle, in other words, foregrounds the fact that the Subject-entity has properties which influence the occurrence of a particular process. It has been pointed out that when non-human entities function as middle Subjects, these inherent prop- erties are often part of their design (Levin and Rappaport 1988; Lemmens 1998). As Lemmens (1998: 80) puts it, “the properties emphasized in the middle construction are often also those for which the entity has been de- signed in the first place”. In the case of the /atex paint in (33) and the lip- stick in (34), for instance, it is obvious that cleaning up easily with soap and water and slipping easily into your handbag or pocket is part of what they are designed for:
(33) And it’s latex paint, so it cleans up quickly and easily with soap and water. (CB)
(34) Compact lipstick size design, slips easily into your handbag or pocket.
(CB)
Animals, then again, are often bred for a particular process: a chicken that broils well has probably been bred to be broiled (Levin and Rappaport 1988: 1078).
3. Towards a semantic typology of middle constructions
Importantly, middle constructions do not only vary according to the process type which they are centred on and the non-agentive entity which they pro- file: middles also differ depending on which facet of the interaction be- tween the non-agentive Subject and the process they highlight (note that this makes them particularly suitable for being used in advertising, which, as pointed out by Yoshimura (forthcoming), frequently resorts to middle constructions). In the literature on middle formation, one has tended to focus on facility-oriented middies, or middles that specify how easy or difficult it is to carry out a particular process on the Subject-entity. Facility- oriented middles are typically construed with the adverb easily. However, as pointed out in Heyvaert (1997), corpus data reveal the existence of mid- dle constructions that do not so much specify how the process can be car- ried out, as indicate that it can be carried out (ic. its feasibility) or com- ment on the result of carrying it out. Still other middle structures highlight
Towards a semantic typology of middle constructions 133 the destiny of the Subject-entity by pointing out where it can be placed.
Interestingly, as with the facility-oriented type of middle, the semantic properties of the result- and destiny-oriented types of middle formation can be systematically related to the adverbials or the oblique participants which they are used with. Feasibility-oriented middles are characterized by the absence of a specific type of adverb.
The facility-oriented reading highlights the fact that the properties of the Subject entity are such that the process can be carried out either easily or with difficulty:
(35) The window opened only with great difficulty. (Langacker 1991: 334) (36) [about conditioning milk:] ... rinses easily away and really works!
(CB)
Facility-oriented middies thus zoom in on the carrying out of the process and specify whether that is hindered or facilitated by the properties of the Subject. Structurally speaking, facility-oriented middles stand out in that they typically take the adverb easily. Other adverbials, such as with great difficulty in (35), are also found, though much less frequently.
A type of middle which is closely related to facility-oriented middles in that it also focuses on the process being carried out is that of middles which provide a more general indication of the way in which it can be carried out.
This type includes middles which incorporate an adverbial expressing a quality judgement as in (37) and (38), and middles which contain a com- parison of quality as in 39) and (40) Kemmer 1993: 147):
(37) That is easily done because the car handles superbly. (CB)
(38) If they wanted to do Eliot, why didn’t they do The Magi? It’s narrati- ve, it reads well.... (CB)
(39) The new Holden Berlina handles like a junior sports sedan.... (CB) (40) Her life story reads like the Hollywood movies she’s starred in. (CB) Still other middle constructions comment on the properties of a particular entity by pointing out how much time it takes to carry out a certain process on it:
(41) “They rolled the green just before the match and it ran three seconds faster,” said Curtis .... (CB)
(42) [about a cosy car seat protector:] Quickly attaches/removes with ela- stic straps and velcro tabs. (CB)
(43) This title usually ships within 2-3 days. (www.amazon.com)
134 The middle construction
The middle constructions discussed so far all zero in on the effect of the properties of the Subject-entity on how the process can be carried out.
However, the nucleus of non-agentive Subject and active verb phrase in the middle can also focus on various other stages. I distinguish between three other possible foci of middle constructions: middles can simply highlight the feasibility of the process (i.e. whether or not the process can be carried out); they can zero in on what the process is destined for; or they can focus on what the result is like when the process is carried out.
First, middles of the feasibility type (Davidse 1991: 44) merely focus on whether the properties of the entity construed as Subject make a process possible. They do not specify how this can be done or whether or not it can be done easily. Examples are:
(44) [about a cook book holder:] Folds up and packs away for convenient
...Slorage.(CB)...
(45) This umbrella folds up. (Fellbaum 1986: 9)
(46) I thought we were out of gas, but the car DRIVES! (Fellbaum 1986:
(47) This dress buttons. (Fagan 1992: 57) 9)
Examples like these illustrate that the most prototypical cases of middle formation may be those with an adverb (such as easily, well), but that the presence of an adverb is not an absolute prerequisite: middles which focus on whether it is feasible to carry out a certain process on a particular entity do not seem to be characteristically accompanied by specific adverbs.
Some middle constructions contain a locative oblique participant (Fagan 1992: 80). Interestingly, the occurrence of such Locatives appears to ac- count for the destiny-oriented focus which characterizes these middles (Davidse p.c.):
(48) [about a children’s coat:] Outer flap wraps around little hands and secures with Velcro.... (CB)
(49) The purpose of the device is to alert deer of your approach, not the other way around. It is a little whistle that attaches to your car with self-adhesive tape. (CB)
(50) The ultimate travel pillow. Resteaz fixes to the headrest providing comfortable head and neck support. (CB)
(51) Playset folds up into a storage case with handle for easy carrying.
(CB)
Towards a semantic typology of middle constructions 135 Destiny-oriented or ‘telic’ (Dirven p.c.) middle constructions either focus on where an entity has to be placed to make it function or they merely spec- ify where it can be stored when it is not being used. In either case, the “de- liberately designed properties” (Lemmens 1998: 80) that characterize the Subject of many middle constructions are prominently present. Examples of destiny-oriented middles which specify where an entity has to be placed in order to function are those in (48), (49) and (50): the middle in (48) tells the parent who buys the children’s coat to wrap the outer flap around the child’s hands, in (49), it is pointed out to the person who buys the whistle that, in order to use it, it has to be attached to the car. Likewise, in (50), it is specified that the travel pillow has to be fixed to the headrest. The middle in (51), then, does not tell you to use the playset by folding it up into a storage case; instead, it indicates that the playset has been designed in such a way that when you do not use it, you can fold it up into a storage case.
Notice that destiny-oriented middle constructions often indicate not only where an entity can or should be placed (Location), but also mention how this can be realized (Means), as in (48) and (49) (with Velcro and with self- adhesive tape).
Finally, there exist middle constructions which comment on the result of carrying out a certain process on the entity construed as Subject. In accor- dance with Heyvaert (1997) I will call them result-oriented middies. An example of a result-oriented middle is (52), in which the woman function- ing as Subject is characterized as not photographing well. This does not mean that it is difficult to photograph her (facility-oriented meaning), but that, if you photograph her, the pictures resulting from it are hardly ever beautiful. As also pointed out by Fellbaum (1986: 10), the middle in (53) emphasizes that the result of washing the item of clothing was good: there was little shrinkage and no puckering.
(52) She does not photograph well.... (CB)
(53) [about a piece of clothing:] It washed well with little shrinkage and no puckering. (CB)
Notice the difference in meaning between the adverb well as it is used in (52) and (53) and the well of middle constructions such as the following (Felibaum 1986: 10):
(54) This book sells well.
(55) This car drives well.
136 The middle construction
These middles do not mean that the result of selling the book or driving the car is good. Rather, the meaning of well in (54) comes close to fast or in large quantities, whereas in (55), well can be paraphrased as easily, smoothly. The adverb well, in other words, has various different contextual entailments, which in the middle either trigger off a facility- or quality- oriented reading (as in 54 and 55) or a result-oriented one (as in 52 and 53).
Other result-oriented middles are:
(56) [about a bag:] It measures 37 x 60 cm ... and folds up neatly. (CB) (57) She does not photograph well, and the portraits of her pinched fea-
tures snatched outside the High Court only added to the picture of a shrew. (CB)
The middle in (56) emphasizes that the result of folding up the bag is likely
to be neat, As in middle constructions with an inanimate Subject in general,
it is implied that the Subject-entity has been designed in such a way that
this result is possible. The middle in (57) emphasizes that photographing the Subject-entity will probably not lead to nice pictures.
The facility-, quality-, feasibility-, destiny- and result-oriented middle structures which I have thus far discussed all ‘target’ (Langacker p.c.) one particular facet of the complex event that is profiled by the middle con- struction: feasibility-oriented middles highlight the beginning of the event, facility- and quality-oriented ones its middle stage, while destiny- and re- sult-oriented ones zoom in on the end stage of the event. Corpus data reveal that middle constructions often combine two or more of these foci, and this by integrating adverbs and oblique participants which are characteristic of different semantic types. Consider the following middle constructions:
(58) Cards and shapes store neatly in the desk. (CB)
(59) Wood valance attaches in seconds, magnetically, to a standard cur- tain rod. (CB)
(60) A full hood, which neatly stows behind the after sets, would make the cockpit a part of the accommodation and keep off the rain or sun.
(CB)
(61) [about a kitchen timer clock:] Magnetically attaches to any metal surface .... (CB)
(62) [about an emergency ladder:] Compact so that it can be stored under the bed or in a wardrobe, the ladder fixes quickly and easily under the window ledge. (CB)
(63) Compact lipstick size design, slips easily into your handbag or pocket.
(CB)