The English Change Network: Forcing Changes into Schemas (review)

This monograph deals with change construction, an umbrella term that includes both the traditionally recognized resultative construction and the at-construction (‘John kicks at the door’). These two broad categories of constructions are grouped together because they share a change phrase, which (a) is a nonverbal phrase, (b)is neither a subject noran object, and (c) refers to a state, position, or circumstance possibly achieved by an entity involved in an event.

To account for these diverse change constructions, Broccias first proposes a force change schema (FCS). The semantic pole of this schema contains two components: the event component (E) and the change component (C). The E component represents a unidirectional force—energy flow—from one entity, which the author calls ‘manipulator’ (M), onto another—‘manipulee’ (m). The C component, by contrast, consists of an entity, called theme (TH), as moving from a location S (source) into a location T. For B, location is metaphorical, referring to both state and position. Therefore, John rocked the baby to sleep would be analyzed thus: John (M) carries out the act of rocking, hence sets in motion the energy flow to the baby (m). The baby, furthermore, is also the TH, which moves from S, the state of not being asleep, to T, the state of being asleep.

Second, B proposes an event change schema (ECS), containing the same C and E components as the FCS. There are two differences, however. First, M in the FCS is replaced with a trajector (tr) in the ECS. Second, TH, instead of standing alone in the FCS, is linked to tr, meaning that it could be coreferential or bearing a part-whole relationship with tr. Based on this schema, The mansion burned down can be analyzed this way: the event of burning, which involves the mansion (tr), causes the change of state (to the state of being destroyed) of the TH, which is also the tr. TH and tr happen to be linked through identity in this particular sentence, but this may not be the case in a different sentence such as The kettle boiled dry (where it is the water that boils, so that the TH and the tr bear a part-whole, or container/ contained, relationship).

How about sentences such as Sally punched out, which do not fit either the FCS or the ECS? B blends the two schemas into an event force change schema. The emergent schema, like its original schemas, contains the E and C components. The former is a simplified version of its counterpart in the FCS: a unidirectional energy flow and a change of state in the m, which is not realized syntactically. The C component is much like its counterparts in the original FCS and the ECS, except that the entity that undergoes the change, TH, is an abstract entity, not expressed in the syntax of the language. Sally punched out, therefore, is quite convincingly analyzed as the energy from Sally (M) flowing to timecard (small caps indicating not being syntactically realized), resulting in the change of Sally—both the tr and the TH—from working to going off work.

In the rest of the book, the author demonstrates how these three schemas can account for a host of constructions that involve a change on the part of an entity. The book carefully considers previous work on similar constructions, the author’s arguments are coherent, and the analysis given is valid and mostly convincing.