Acceso usuarios
Chao Li
By using data from nearly thirty languages of various families and regions, this paper examines the argumentrealization of three types of psychological verbs (i.e. causative bivalent, non-causative bivalent, and monovalent). It findsthat, when compared with the argument realization of core transitive verbs like BREAK, causative bivalent psychverbs show crosslinguistic uniformity in that they pattern with core transitive verbs in argument realization. The samecomparative approach finds that the argument realization of non-causative bivalent psych verbs shows a lot of crosslinguisticvariation. As for monovalent psych verbs, the paper finds that they almost always pattern with the argument realization ofunaccusative 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 prominenceof the causative relationship expressed and the directionality of the causality from the Causer to the Causee. The variation inargument realization with respect to non-causative bivalent psych verbs can be attributed to the fact that such verbs expressneither causation nor transmission of physical force. As for the near uniformity in argument realization with respect tomonovalent 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 theneed of recognizing Causer and Causee as two core and highly-ranked thematic roles in a global thematic hierarchy.
