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Studies in Language
Vol. 42:4 (2018) ► pp.755–797

Argument realization of psychological verbs

| College of Staten Island, CUNY

By using data from nearly thirty languages of various families and regions, this paper examines the argument realization of three types of psychological verbs (i.e. causative bivalent, non-causative bivalent, and monovalent). It finds that, when compared with the argument realization of core transitive verbs like BREAK, causative bivalent psych verbs show crosslinguistic uniformity in that they pattern with core transitive verbs in argument realization. The same comparative approach finds that the argument realization of non-causative bivalent psych verbs shows a lot of crosslinguistic variation. As for monovalent psych verbs, the paper finds that they almost always pattern with the argument realization of unaccusative verbs. The findings of the paper are accounted for by using the Force-Control-Causality (FCC) model of verb meaning. Under this model, the uniformity in argument realization with respect to causative bivalent psych verbs is due to the prominence of the causative relationship expressed and the directionality of the causality from the Causer to the Causee. The variation in argument realization with respect to non-causative bivalent psych verbs can be attributed to the fact that such verbs express neither causation nor transmission of physical force. As for the near uniformity in argument realization with respect to monovalent psych verbs, it is due to the fact that they involve only one argument (thus no competition for the subject position) and this single argument shares the [−control] feature with the single argument of unaccusative verbs. This study points to the need of recognizing Causer and Causee as two core and highly-ranked thematic roles in a global thematic hierarchy.

Keywords: psychological verb, psych verb, argument realization, causative, Causer, Causee
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Argument realization of the three types of psych verbs
    • 2.1Argument realization of causative bivalent psych verbs
    • 2.2Argument realization of non-causative bivalent psych verbs
    • 2.3Argument realization of monovalent psych verbs
  • 3.A Force-Control-Causality (FCC) account
  • 4.Conclusion and implication
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 4 February 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.17016.li
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