Abstract
AbstractThis paper discusses whether capacity to license an internal argument and eventivity are default properties of so-called change-of-state verbs.I draw attention to the claim that, in certain languages, the causative-inchoative alternation extends to a third, external-argument-only variant with stative behavior. Productivity and systematicity raise a host of problems for current generalizations on the Causative Alternation and change-of-state verbs for various reasons, starting from the long-held claim that unique arguments of change-of-state verbs are by default internal. Insofar as the causative component is independently realized in a noneventive, nonepisodic frame, this variant challenges (a) a widely agreed rule of event composition, wherebycause, if present, causally implicatesprocess; (b) the claim that cause(r) interpretation of the external argument is a byproduct of transitivization. The present discussion: (a) brings out a crosslanguage contrast bearing on default (cause/undergoer) interpretation of unique arguments in equipollent alternations; (b) provides new empirical data supporting the stativity of the (causative) outer v head; (c) substantiates important predictions in the literature (e.g. that verbs of causation should have stative readings; that external-argument-only variants of Object-Experiencer verbs should be found); (d) captures further verb classes allowing the alternation; and (e) shows crucial contrasts with other transitive-(in/a)transitive alternations involving null/arb objects. Aspect and determination of different (a)atransitivity alternations are central throughout.
Highlights
I draw attention to the claim that, in certain languages, the causative-inchoative alternation extends to a third, external-argument-only variant with stative behavior
Productivity and systematicity raise a host of problems for current generalizations on the Causative Alternation and change-of-state verbs for various reasons, starting from the long-held claim that unique arguments of change-of-state verbs are by default internal
Other authors argue that verbs allowing the alternation are listed with a fully specified argument structure (Grimshaw 1982, Chierchia 1989, Levin & Rappaport 1995 i.a.) – i.e., essentially, a complex argument structure
Summary
Nonovert arguments (as a cover term for implicit arguments, pro, A/A’-traces) are relevant to various syntactic phenomena in Romance languages (Rizzi 1986, Authier 1987, Bouchard 1987, Raposo 1986, Williams 1986 i.a.). The distribution of adverbials in minimal pairs created by passive (middle) morphology (se) in cases like, say, (30)b, shows that the middle construction contains a null/arbitrary/implied object anaphorically linked to the DP (Di Sciullo 1990, Massam 1989, Bhatt & Pancheva 2006; cf Rizzi 2003) – realized as external argument (Massam 1992 i.a.) –, and the event argument that is crucially required to license or anchor the adverbial (see Rothmayr 2009) It follows that while SCs share several properties with middles –most notably, the stativization of the predicate (see Roberts, 1987, Massam 1992), the occurrence in generic tenses, and the attribution of a property reading to the subject (see Lakoff, 1977, Hale & Keyser 1988) –, the presence of either accusative (e.g. te) or inchoative/passive/impersonal (se) morphology is nontrivial to the licensing of the adverbial. While both (Spanish-synthetic and English-analytic) constructions are multi-parsable (i.e., they can be interpreted either as unaccusative or as SCs), the English version nicely highlights the attributive stative nature underlying Spanish SCs ((30)a vs. the English Individual-Level predication with the -ing form serving as subject-oriented predicate)
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