On the intransitivity of Polish Object Experiencer verbs
Adam Biały
Wrocław University
The aim of this paper is to focus on the idea existing in the literature that psych verbs denote intransitive events (Rozwadowska 1997) and are stative predicates (Slabakova 1996). I take intransitivity and stativity to be coextensive at the level of event structure representation, in that a stative-causative predicate can qualify as an intransitve event (Rappaport Hovav 1998, Bennis 2002), i.e. an event without any internal aspecutal analysis. It will be shown that not all Polish psych verbs behave as predicted by the analyses which treat them as intransitive events. I will start with the generally held belief that SubjExp verbs are stative, while ObjExp verbs are causative. The primary aim will be to show that the class of ObjExp verbs is not homogeneous and only a subgroup of these verbs denotes intransitive events. This observation requires a slight revision of the widely held view that stativity and causativity are incompatible. I argue that a causative predicate can be captured by means of simple or intransitive event structure when it realizes what Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1995) call internal causation.
In the course of the paper I will present some diagnostics of event intransitivity and stativity to show that the claim that all psych verbs are intransitive events or statives is an overgeneralization. The relevant distribution of arguments of psych verbs emerging from the paper is as follows:
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i) a. Tomek kocha Marysię. (Subject Experiencer – Experiencer, Patient) |
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'Tom loves Mary.' |
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b. Zosia denerwuje Tomka. (non-stative Object Experiencer – Cause, Experiencer) |
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'Zosia angers Tom.' |
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c. Historia starożytna interesuje Tomka. (stative Object Experiencer – T/SM, Experiencer) |
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'Ancient history interests Tom.' |
I adopt Pylkkänen's (1997) and Arad's (1998) ideas that ObjExp verbs can be divided into stative, and non-stative. This division is closely connected with (or is even an outcome of) the event structure of the two types of ObjExp verbs. Although both take two arguments at the surface level, only non-stative ObjExp verbs prove to be transitive at the level of event structure, i.e. entailing complex event structure representation. The argument appearing in the subject position of stative ObjExp verbs is a derived subject. In view of those facts it appears that event structure representation is a crucial determinant of argument realization. That is, only complex events can be associated with two structural positions, i.e. causer and causee.
Selected references:
Arad, M. 1998. "Psych-notes." UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 10. University College London.
Bennis, H. 2002. "Unergative adjectives and psych verbs". To appear in Alexiadou, A., E. Anagnostopoulou & M. Everaert (eds.), Unaccusativity. Oxford University Press.
Levin, B. and M. Rappaport Hovav. 1995. Unaccusativity: At the Syntax-Lexical Semantics Interface. Linguistic Inquiry Monograph 26. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Pylkkänen, L. 1997. "Stage and Individual-Level Psych Verbs in Finnish". Paper presented in the Workshop on Events as Grammatical Objects, Cornell University, Ithaca.
Rappaport Hovav, M. and B. Levin. 1998. "Building verb meanings". In Butt, M. and W. Geuder (eds.), The Projection of arguments: Lexical and compositional factors.Stanford: CSLI Publications. 97-134.
Rozwadowska, B. 1997. Towards a Unified Theory of Nominalizations: External and Internal Eventualities. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego.
Slabakova, R. 1996. "Bulgarian Psych Verbs". In Toman, J. (ed.), Proceedings of the Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics Conference , University of Maryland at College Park.