The Locative Syntax of Experiencers

by Landau, Idan

• ISBN13: 9780262013307
• ISBN10: 0262013304
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-11-30
• Publisher: Mit Pr

Summary

Experiencers-grammatical participants that undergo a certain psychological change or are in such a state-are grammatically special. As objects (John scared Mary;loud music annoys me),experiencers display two peculiar clusters of nonobject properties across different languages: their syntax is often typical of oblique arguments and their semantic scope is typical of subjects. In The Locative Syntax of Experiencers,Idan Landau investigates this puzzling correlation and argues that experiencers are syntactically coded as (mental) locations. Drawing on results from a range of languages and theoretical frameworks, Landau examines the far-reaching repercussions of this simple claim. Landau shows that all experiencer objects are grammaticalized as locative phrases, introduced by a dative/locative preposition. "Bare" experiencer objects are in fact oblique, too, the preposition being null. This preposition accounts for the oblique psych(ological) properties, attested in case alternations, cliticization, resumption, restrictions on passive formation, and so on. As locatives, object experiencers may undergo locative inversion, giving rise to the common phenomenon of quirky experiencers. When covert, this inversion endows object experiencers with wide scope, attested in control, binding, and wh-quantifier interactions. Landau's synthesis thus provides a novel solution to some of the oldest puzzles in the generative study of psychological verbs. The Locative Syntax of Experiencersoffers the most comprehensive description of the syntax of psychological verbs to date, documenting their special properties in more than twenty languages. Its basic theoretical claim is readily translatable into alternative frameworks. Existing accounts of psychological verbs either consider very few languages or fail to incorporate other theoretical frameworks; this study takes a broader perspective, informed by findings of four decades of research. Linguistic Inquiry Monograph 53

Table of Contents

Series Foreword	p. vii
Acknowledgments	p. ix
The Obliqueness of Experiencers
Introduction	p. 3
A Preposition for Experiencers	p. 9
Experiencers as Mental Locations	p. 9
Inherent Case on the Experiencer	p. 19
Some Assumptions about Inherent Case	p. 21
Core Psych Properties	p. 23
Italian	p. 23
Russian	p. 25
Greek	p. 26
English	p. 29
Hebrew	p. 31
Romance Reflexives	p. 32
Romance Causatives	p. 37
Passive	p. 47
Type A Languages: No Stative Psych Passives	p. 49
Deriving the Unaccusativity of Stative Class II/III Verbs	p. 54
Type B Languages: No Verbal Psych Passives	p. 56
Peripheral Psych Properties	p. 65
The T/SM Restriction	p. 66
Causative Nominalizations	p. 69
Backward Binding	p. 71
Interim Conclusion	p. 75
The Scope of Experiencers
Experiencers as Quirky Subjects	p. 81
Quirky Experiencers: Direct Evidence	p. 81
Experiencers and LF Quirkiness	p. 85
Arguments for LF Quirkiness	p. 91
Adjunct Control	p. 91
Super-Equi	p. 101
Functional Readings	p. 105
Forward Binding	p. 108
LF Quirkiness Is LF Locative Inversion	p. 117
Locative Inversion and Experiencers	p. 117
Why Does Experiencer Raising Not Look Like Locative Inversion?	p. 119
Solving the Agentivity Puzzle	p. 127
Conclusion	p. 133
Notes	p. 137
References	p. 151
Index	p. 161
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