An Event-Based Account of the Unique Path Constraint Effect

Abstract

It has often been argued that a change of state expression and a change of location expression cannot co-occur in a single clause. Goldberg (1991) calls this co-occurrence restriction the Unique Path Constraint. This constraint prohibits multiple expressions referring to distinct changes from co-occurring, when these changes occur at the same time. In this paper, I present some empirical problems with Goldberg’s account, and propose as an alternative the Single Change per Event Constraint, which prohibits multiple expressions denoting distinct changes from referring to the same event. This constraint comes from the interplay of event structure and the Further Specification Constraint (Tortora 1998), which confirms the validity of the event-based account of human language.