Semantics and syntax in complementation (review)

674LANGUAGE, VOLUME 54, NUMBER 3 (1978) Schane, S. 1968. French phonology and morphology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Trubetzkoy, N. 1929. Sur la 'morphonologie'. Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague 1.85-8. [Reprinted in A Prague School reader in linguistics, ed. by J. Vachek, 183-6. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1964.] Vennemann, T. 1968. German phonology. Los Angeles: University of California dissertation. [University Microfilms order number 69-11,920.] -----. 1970. The German velar nasal: a case for abstract phonology. Phonetica 22.65-81. ——·. 1971. Natural generative phonology. Presented at the LSA Winter Meeting, St. Louis. -----. 1972. Phonological uniqueness in natural generative grammar. Glossa 6.105-16. ------. 1974a. Phonological concreteness in natural generative grammar. Toward tomorrow 's linguistics, ed. by R. Shuy & C-J. N. Bailey, 202-19. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. ------. 1974b. Words and syllables in natural generative grammar. Natural Phonology Parasession, 346-74. Chicago: CLS. [Received 2 August 1977.] Semantics and syntax in complementation. By Peter Menzel. (Janua linguarum, series minor, 176). The Hague: Mouton, 1975. Pp. 213. /44.00. Reviewed by Edith A. Moravcsik, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee This book is an attempt to provide evidence for a point that would seem plausible to the layman but that comes as a surprise to many contemporary linguists: that some classes of syntactic constructions in human languages are coterminous with classes of semantic structures. Although I find Menzel's argument often difficult to assess, and the attempt only partly successful, the study presents some results that are both interesting and novel. Menzel's monograph deals in particular with complement clauses as expressed in contemporary standard English (a language restriction whose specification is neglected in the title of the book). Of the various constraints on well-formed complement-clause constructions in English, the ones that he attempts to explain include the following: (1) constraints on the co-occurrence of particular mainclause verbs with particular complement types and particular (lexical or pronominal ) head nouns, e.g. action (of), event (of), or it; (2) constraints on the positional variation of constituents included in the complement construction, e.g. on the raising of the subject, the object, or the negative particle of the complement, and on the questioning or pseudo-clefting of one of its constituents; and (3) constraints on positional variation involving the entire complement construction, e.g. passivizing or extraposing the complement. Menzel's contention is that many, if not all, such constraints are predictable, and that the predictions must draw on a set of assumptions that includes information about some ofthe semantic properties ofthe complement constructions in question. He proposes, in other words, that at least some form classes of complement constructions are coextensive with meaning classes. The particular semantic classification of complement constructions that Menzel proposes as relevant is two-fold. First, one can classify complement constructions from the point of view of 'what they express' (200): clauses are then declarative, performative, interrogative, or imperative (37 fi.) The second relevant classification is from the point of view of 'what (the clauses) REVIEWS675 describe'; in this respect, they can be propositions, events, processes, actions, states, properties, or relationships (40 ff.) In addition, Menzel says it is relevant to know if the clause is a fact (i.e. whether its truth is presupposed)—though it remains unclear if the fact/non-fact classes are subclasses of some class included above, or if they are sister-classes to those mentioned above, or if they are defined within some third classificatory framework. Given the formal labeling of complement clauses in terms of these classifications, on some non-superficial level of syntactic representation, and given some additional independently motivated principles of grammar, then Menzel claims that constraints on the surface form of complement constructions are predictable. Additional principles that figure in his argument include the following: (a) underlying syntactic representations must be free of semantic contradiction (79) ; (b) no constituent can be moved out of a sentence with a head noun (97 ; cf. Ross's Complex NP Constraint) ; and (c) the two main constituents of an o/-phrase cannot be separated unless the possessor has sentential origin and the phrase occurs in an agentless passive sentence (127). Some examples of Menzel's explanations—drawing partly on...