Cover not available
Part of
Structuring the Argument: Multidisciplinary research on verb argument structure
Edited by Asaf Bachrach, Isabelle Roy and Linnaea Stockall
[Language Faculty and Beyond 10] 2014
► pp. 119–137

Causative nominalizations

Implications for the structure of psych verbs

We investigate so-called causative psych nominalizations (CPNs), i.e., nominalizations of object experiencer (OE) verbs that realize non-agentive causers as external arguments. While they are ruled out in English (Grimshaw 1990; Iwata 1995; Pesetsky 1995) and have been suggested to be cross-linguistically banned (Landau 2010), we show that Romanian and Greek derive CPNs from the subject experiencer (SE) form of alternating OE verbs. We analyze them as nominalizations of the anticausative SE form of these verbs. Our results suggest a structural difference between Romanian/Greek and English psych nominalizations: the former can nominalize either the SE anticausative or (the passive of) the OE transitive structure (Anagnostopoulou 1999), while the latter only nominalize the OE transitive form, as the verbs lack the anticausative structure.
Published online: 24 July 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lfab.10.06ale
References
Alexiadou, A.
2001  Functional structure in nominals: nominalization, and ergativity . Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Alexiadou, A. & E. Anagnostopoulou
2004 Voice morphology in the causative-inchoative Alternation: evidence for a non unified structural analysis of unaccusatives. In A. Alexiadou, E. Anagnostopoulou, and M. Everaert (Eds.), The Unaccusativity puzzle . Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Alexiadou, A., E. Anagnostopoulou & F. Schäfer
2006 The properties of anticausatives cross-linguistically. In M. Frascarelli (Ed.), Phases of Interpretation , 187–212. Berlin: Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2009 PP licensing in nominalizations. Proceedings of NELS 38.
Alexiadou, A. & G. Iordăchioaia
to appear. The psych causative alternation. Lingua.
Alexiadou, A., G. Iordăchioaia, F. Martin, F. Schäfer & M. Cano
2013a. ‘Direct participation’ and ‘agent exclusivity’ effects in derived nominals and beyond. In Iordăchioaia, G., Roy, I., Takamine, K (Eds.) Categorization and category change 153 180 Newcastle upon Tyne Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Alexiadou, A., G. Iordăchioaia, M. Cano, F. Martin & F. Schäfer
2013b The realization of external arguments in nominalizations. Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 16(2): 73–95.Google Scholar
Alexiadou, A. & E. Doron
2012 The syntactic construction of two non-active Voices: passive and middle. Journal of Linguistics 48. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Alexiadou, A. & J. Grimshaw
2008 Verbs, nouns and affixation. In Schäfer, F. (Ed.), SinSpeC (1): Working Papers of the SFB 732 , University of Stuttgart, 1–16.Google Scholar
Anagnostopoulou, E.
1999 On experiencers. In A. Alexiadou, G. Horrocks & M. Stavrou (Eds), Studies in Greek syntax , 67–93. Dordrecht: Kluwer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Arad, M.
1998 Psych-notes. UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 10: 203–223.Google Scholar
2002 Universal features and language particular morphemes. In A. Alexiadou (Ed.) Theoretical approaches to universals . Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Belletti, A. & L. Rizzi
1988 Psych-Verbs and Theta-Theory. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 6: 291–352 DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Borer, H.
2003 Exo-Skeletal vs. Endo-Skeletal Explanations: Syntactic Projections and the Lexicon. The Nature of Explanation in Linguistic Theory .J. Moore and M. Polinsky (Eds.). CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Chierchia, G.
2004 A semantics for unaccusatives and its syntactic consequences. In The unaccusativity puzzle: explorations of the syntax-lexicon interface, A. Alexiadou, E. Anagnostopoulou, and M. Everaert (Eds.), 22–59. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Doron, E.
2003 Agency and voice: the semantics of the semitic templates. NLS 11: 1–67.Google Scholar
2011 Agents and causers. Paper presented at the Roots III Workshop. Jerusalem, June 2011.
Embick, D.
1998 Voice Systems and the Syntax/Morphology Interface. In The Proceedings of the Penn/MIT Workshop on Aspect, Argument Structure, and Events , H. Harley (Ed.), MITWPLGoogle Scholar
2004 ‘On the structure of resultative participles in English’, Linguistic Inquiry 35.3, 355–392. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Grimshaw, J.
1990  Argument Structure . Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Harley, H. & Noyer, R.
2000 “Licensing in the non-lexicalist lexicon”. In B. Peeters, (Ed.), The Lexicon/Encyclopaedia Interface , 349–374. Amsterdam: Elsevier Press.Google Scholar
Iordăchioaia, G.
2008 External argument PPs in Romanian nominalizations. In F. Schäfer (Ed.), Working Papers of the SFB 732 (1), 71–84.
Iordăchioaia, G., A. Alexiadou & E. Soare
to appear. The structural source of stative nominalizations from psych verbs. In Cahiers Chronos 27.Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Rodopi.
Iwata, S.
1995 The Distinctive Character of Psych-Verbs as Causatives. Linguistic Analysis 1–2, 95–120.Google Scholar
Koontz-Garboden, A.
2009 Anticausativization. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 27: 77–138. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kratzer, A.
1996  Severing the External Argument from its Verb. Phrase Structure and the Lexicon . J. Rooryck and L. Zaring. Dordrecht: Kluwer. 109–137. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, G.
1970  Irregularity in Syntax . New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston.Google Scholar
Landau, I.
2010  The Locative Syntax of Experiencers . Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Levin, B. & M. Rappaport Hovav
2005  Argument realization . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Marantz, A.
1997 No escape from syntax: Don’t try morphological analysis in the privacy of your own lexicon. In University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics , Vol. 4.2, A. Dimitriadis, L. Siegel, C. Surek-Clark, and A. Williams (Eds.), 201–225. Philadelphia.Google Scholar
2005 Objects out of the lexicon: objects as event. Handout presented at the University of Vienna.
Marín, R. & McNally, L.
2011 Inchoativity, change of state, and telicity. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 29: 467–502. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Martin, F.
2006  Prédicats statifs, causatifs et résultatifs en discours. Sémantique des adjectifs évaluatifs et des prédicats psychologiques [Stative, causative and resultative predicates in discourse. Semantics of evaluative adjectives and psychological verbs], PhD, Université libre de Bruxelles.Google Scholar
Myers, S.
1984 Zero-derivation and inflection. In MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 7: Papers from the January 1984 MIT Workshop in Morphology 7: 53–69.
Pesetsky, D.
1995  Zero Syntax: Experiencers and Cascades . Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Pylkkänen, L.
2000 On Stativity and Causation. In Tenny, C.L., and J. Pustejovsky (Eds.), Events as Grammatical Objects: The Converging Perspective of Lexical Semantics and Syntax . CSLI Publications, Stanford CA, 417–444.Google Scholar
Ramchand, G.
2008  Verb Meaning and the Lexicon . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schäfer, F.
2008 The Syntax of (Anti-)Causatives. External arguments in change-of-state contexts . Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2012. Two types of external argument licensing: the case of causers. Studia Linguistica 66(2): 128–180. DOI logo
Sichel, I.
2010 Event Structure Constraints in Nominalization. In A. Alexiadou & M. Rathert (Eds), The Syntax of Nominalizations across Languages and Frameworks , 151–190. Berlin: Mouton.Google Scholar
2011 Nominalization, causativization, and category-free syntax. Paper presented at the Roots III Workshop. Jerusalem, June 2011.