Psych verb transitivity: the English-Romance crosscut

MANGIALAVORI RASIA, MARÍA EUGENIA; MARÍN, RAFAEL

Amherst - Massachussets

Congreso; SENSUS 2021; 2021

University of Massachussets

Psych verb transitivity: the English-Romance crosscutTransitivity alternations, and the causative alternation in particular (John broke the window vs. The window broke), sparked great interest over the last forty years. Recently, attention has also been drawn to a thus far disregarded argument frame realization: i.e., intransitive (unergative) variants of causative alternation verb are systematically (almost freely) allowed in Romance (Spanish, Catalan, Italian) (1); and in languages like English, to a certain extent.(1)a. El tabaco mata. b. La lejía desinfecta. c. El calor excesivo deshidrata. d. El arroz estriñe. (Spanish)(2)a. Tobacco kills. b. Bleach disinfects. c. Excessive heat dehydrates. d. Rice constipates. (English) Yet, two main asymmetries pull English (1) and Romance (Spanish) (2) instances apart.The first asymmetry concerns productive regularity. It has been pointed out that intransitive causative (IC) constructions are far more (regularly, systematically) productive in Spanish than in English (Mangialavori & Ausensi, 2020). Yet, an even major crosscut arises with a specific set of further verbs argued to allow causative alternation: so-called object-experiencer psych verbs (OEPV). As (3) shows, Spanish OEPVs are fine in ICs, while English OEPVs are not (4)a. Instead, English recruits an analytic copular construction (be+-ing) to somehow fill in for the productive gap unseen in Romance (4)b. (3)La economía preocupa/alarma/entristece/fascina/intriga/confunde/asusta.(4)a.*Economy worries/alarms/upsets/fascinates/intrigues/confuses/intimidates. (≈N cause √)b. Economy is worrying/alarming/upsetting/fascinating/intriguing/confusing/intimidating.Yet, what is even more interesting is the effect yielded by animated subjects. Different effects arise in Romance (Spanish) and English. Different but concurring observations explain this.(5)a. *John worries/alarms/upsets/fascinates (all day/in the meetings).b. Tarantino bothers (a lot).(cf. intimidate, stimulate, opress, ?seduce) c. #Lack of investment limits and disturbs.Ⓐ SUBJECT CONSTRAINTS. The asymmetry in (theme) role assignment is captured by a well-known crosscut within OEPVs between worry- vs. bother-types psych verbs. Note that, in English, (5) deviant acceptability obtains with the choice of subject (±animated/±volitional). In Spanish, animated subjects do not yield asymmetric acceptability (6); more importantly, the option for two readings is preserved: both animated (volitional, active) and inanimate (subject=theme of emotion) readings are possible. Thus, whereas Spanish intransitives do not constrain the interpretation of the argument and animate subjects can be equally interpreted as active agents or as nonvolitional causes, in English, which only allows the former, a productivity constraint emerges linking verb (lexical) meaning (hence, type) and intransitive frame productivity.(6)a. Juan preocupa/alarma/fascina. (Spanish)(lit.) Juan worries/maddens/fascinates ?Juan is worrying/maddening/alarming/fascinating? b. Juan molesta/asusta/fastidia/oprime. (lit.) Juan bothers/scares/disturbs/opresses ⇒agentive subject reading (DO x)⇒non-agentive subject reading (John=cause of √N) ⒷASPECT CONSTRAINT. Worry-type intransitives (6)a are odd with certain aspectually relevant adverbials, while bother-intransitives (6)b are fine. Crucially, the structures involved in each case have been shown to actually correspond to two distinct kinds of (in)transitive alternation (Mangialavori & Ausensi, 2021). Both are dispositional and generic, yet there is a contrast between intransitive uses (a.k.a. Unexpressed Object Alternation, Levin 1993; Objectless Constructions, Mittwotch 2005) of volitional, eventive predications; and what actually instantiate atransitive alternates of verbs allowing causative alternation. The former are eventive, require episodic instantiation, allow repetition, license iterative interpretations, and allow perception reports and location in space (7); contexts inducing iterative or habitual readings visibly improve acceptability of intransitive forms (8). Conversely, intransitive variants of causative alternation verbs are non-eventive, nonepisodic (deontic), do not require previous instantiations of the same eventuality and fail perception reports and spatial location. The former (9) are agentive and volitional, hence the restriction on subject type (8) (Characteristic Property of Agent Alternation, Levin 1993). The latter takes inanimate subjects interpretable as possible cause (source of emotion) (10).(7)a. Tarantino bothers, bothers and bothers. (English)b. Tarantino bothers (all day/in staff meetings/on purpose)c. Many saw Tarantino bother (at the meeting).(8)a. This animal/#Much noice disturbs (at night). b. My sister ?(always) disturbs (in my study/in class). c. She really disturbs ?(with her tweets).(9)CHARACTERISTIC PROPERTY OF AGENT INTRANSITIVE(SUBJECT DO √)a. Tarantino molesta/fastidia (todo el día/en las reuniones/una y otra vez/aposta).b. He visto a Tarantino molestar.(10)(NONVOLITIONAL) INTRANSITIVE CAUSATIVE (SUBJECT CAUSE √N)a. #Tarantino/El árbol molesta/fastidia (todo el día/en las reuniones/una y otra vez/aposta).?Tarantino/The tree bothers all day/at the meetings/over and over/on purpose)b. #He visto a Tarantino/el árbol molestar.?I?ve seen Tarantino/the tree bother?ⓒ PRESENT TENSE IMPLICATIONS. Facts above point to a semantic-aspectual difference between Romance (Spanish) and English. In English, eventive (or episodic) expressions in the present tense normally have either habitual or generic interpretations and cannot refer to an actual eventuality ongoing at present (Binnick 2005 i.a.). In Romance, instead, the present tense of eventive verbs is ambiguous between a generic, habitual reading and an episodic (ongoing-event) reading. Thus, in English, the episodic reading generally requires a morphologically evident progressive, ?ongoing activity? marking. Ⓓ If the verb is not inherently eventive (#Tarantino is knowing the truth), and psych verbs are known for their stative behavior, the eventive, ongoing reading will not be available. From here, the pattern in (5) falls out. Intransitive forms of OEPVs are only allowed iff an eventive interpretation of the verb is available. Thus, John bothers is fine insofar as it yields a generic habitual (repetitive) reading?in fact, to most native speakers, repetition/habitual-inducing adverbs improve dramatically its acceptability, as in (7). The eventive ongoing reading unavailable, the composite (be+ing) construction becomes an option for the generic, non-episodic, ILP predication with the sole argument as probable cause (John is bothering [cause √N]). Nonetheless, the ongoing progressive is licensed, only that under a completely different structuring; i.e., an anticausative (progressive)?i.e., an eventive?reading (Juan is upsetting>J causes upset/J is getting upset). By the same rule, the present tense (Juan worries > Juan gets worried) applies. In Spanish, things are different: ICs being available, the be+ing (analog) phrase to express subject=cause √N is generally unproductive (*Juan es molestante/fastidiante) in noneventive causative readings, and simple present tense is naturally available to express either noneventive, nonvolitional causation or agentive, volitional habitual (property-of-agent-like) eventualities. The worry type instead allows be+ing simply since an agentive/volitional (habitual intransitive) reading is not available given the (lexical)semantic underpinnings of the verb (okTarantino/#La economía es preocupante). RECAP: Ⓐ suggests English intransitive alternates are limited to animated/agentive subject readings, whereas Romance crucially preserves the option for both (animate/inanimate) readings ⒷDifferentiates intransitive constructions: animate/volitional agentive, with habitual generic (eventive) implications; vs. eventless, nonhabitual, nonepisodic (dispositional generic) intransitive forms of causative alternation verbs.ⒸPresent tense underpinnings are relevant: English: habitual, generic, generally entailing repetition; hence, consistent with agentive habitual intransitives. Spanish: present does not necessarily entail habituality, but mere genericity (hence compatible also with inanimate causative intransitives). Productive regularity of both alternations just falls out. A caveat nonetheless holds. The noted difference building on stative status of the verb explains the major crosscut in IC productivity for stative (OEPV) verbs ((4)-(5)). This does not fully account for (2), yet it certainly offers a clue for the severely restricted productivity in English, which does not reach either full or regular productivity, as it does in Romance. Final remarks: It is clear that these alternations are not specific to English and that every language has its own alternation system. The question triggered here is what restricts availability of different argument frame (transitivity) alternations in distinct languages and which semantic components, imposed by each (intransitive) construction, filter out verbs and tenses for coherent semantic verb classes. Based on the asymmetry in subject type observed, readily correlated with event type, we lay the grounds for a parsimonious, principled constructional account of recently discussed terms like nonculminating eventsReferencesBinnick, Robert. 2005. The Markers of Habitual Aspect in English. Journal of English Linguistics, Vol. 33 / No. 4, December 2005, 339-369.Levin, Beth. 1993. English verb classes and alternations: a preliminary investigation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Mangialavori Rasia, M. Eugenia & Ausensi, J. 2020 Intransitive Causatives in English: Productivity Regularities and Asymmetries. Proceedings of Sinn un Bedeutung. vol.2 n°24. p38 - 55. issn 2629-6055. Kontanz Universität: Open Journal SystemsMangialavori Rasia, M. Eugenia & Ausensi, J. 2021. Manner/Result and (in)Transitivity Alternations. Proceedings of WCCFL39, Tucson: University of Arizona.