upper case and the freely chosen elements in lower case (a fuller formalization is as in (14)).
(17) [VPV np PP]: take NP to task, put NPi;inproi'splace,...The familiar verb-particleidioms such aslook NP up, screw NP up, andput NP off area variantof (17) in whichthePP is
replaced bya particle(Prt).Thereare also manyidioms inwhichtheNPand Pare specified and theobject ofthePP is
left open:
(18) [VPVNP[ppP np] ]: take unfair advantage of NP, make much of NP, take umbrage at NP,...A much less remarked case (Jackendoff 1997b) is a class of expressions exemplified bysing one's head off and argue one's
heart out. In these,NP's head offandNP's heart outarefixed, and NP must be a pronoun coreferential with the subject.
But theverbis totallyfree, withinpragmaticconstraints. One cantalk one's head off; drink one's head off; cook, knit, swim,or
evenprogram one's head off. The most striking constraint is that the verb must have no syntactic argument of its own
aside fro mthe subject: although onecanread one's head off, onecannotbe said to *read mysteries one's head off. Rather,head
appears to occupy the direct object position, though it is hardly the object of the verb. Andoffis evidently in the
particle position, just as inlook NP up. Another member of this class is Vup a storm, with the particle in its other
possible position.
The meaning of all three of these expressions is roughly‘do to excess.’^84 One would not want to say that all their
possible combinations with verbs are listed in the lexicon: that would in effect say that every time one learns a new
verb V, one also must add to one's lexicon Vproe's head off, Vproe's heart out, and Vup a storm. This situation should
sound familiar from the discussion of regular morphology in section 6.2.1; we are again dealing with the free
combination of stored elements. One element is the verb. Because of the idiomatic meaning, the other element has to
be proe's head off. In order to account for the fact that this element occupies positions that would normally be
complements of the verb, we have to schematize it as (19).
(19) [VPv NP PRT]: V proe's head/butt off, V proe's heart out
[VPPRT NP]: V up a storm
‘V excessively’LEXICAL STORAGE VS. ONLINE CONSTRUCTION 173
(^84) One mightbe tempted to thinkthisconstructionis a“metaphorical”versionof theresultativeconstruction,parallelto, say,pull the bottle's top off. But evenif it were,thefact
that it is afixed idiomatic unit means that it has to be listed in the lexiconas such; it cannot be derived onlinelike many other resultatives. So the issue is preciselyhow it is
listed in the lexicon.