Psych Verbs Research Articles

(Anti)Causativization of psych verbs in Spanish and Japanese

There is a notable typological contrast between psych verbs in Japanese and Spanish. Japanese derives Experiencer-Object verbs (e.g. yorokob-ase-ru ‘to please’) from specific Experiencer-Subject verbs (e.g. yorokobu ‘to become pleased’) via a morphological causativization. Spanish, on the other hand, presents so-called reflexive psych verbs (e.g. alegrarse ‘to feel happy’), most of which can be analyzed as outputs of an anticausativization from certain Experiencer-Accusative verbs (e.g. alegrar ‘to make happy’). Simply put, these languages derive psych verbs with procedures that reversely mirror each other. This paper will elucidate the characteristics of the causativization used to produce Japanese Experiencer-Object causatives and the anticausativization associated with Spanish Reflexive Psych Verbs and demonstrate that the typological contrast between Japanese and Spanish psych verbs results in semantic variation, e.g. differences in the entailment relation, absence/presence of ambiguity in negation, aspectual diversity. Semantic differences between psych verbs in these languages are ascribed to specific features of the (anti)causative operations employed to generate the predicates.

A Diachronic Overview of the Prepositional Accusative in Portuguese

One of the several differences between Modern European Portuguese (EP) and Modern Brazilian Portuguese (BP) is the prepositional expression of complements licensed by the preposition a. While in EP the preposition a occurs in several contexts, this element has been substituted by other strategies in BP, as is extensively discussed in the literature. The aim of this paper is to investigate the historical behavior of a-marked prepositional accusatives (PP-ACC) in Portuguese. In order to do so, a search was conducted for PP-ACCs in the Historical Portuguese Corpus Tycho Brahe. The results showed an increase of PP-ACCs in the 17th century, followed by a decrease in the 18th century. Thereafter, unmarked accusatives (NP-ACC) were analyzed in the corpus, which resulted in 7756 sentences, contrasting with 624 PP-ACCs in the same contexts. This result shows that the a-marked accusative is far less common than bare accusatives in Historical Portuguese. Psych verbs, however, behaved differently, showing a constant increase in PP-ACCs. In EP, the preposition a still introduces Experiencer arguments in structures with some psych verbs (O vinho agradou ao João—lit. ‘The wine pleased ‘to’ John’). In BP, the preposition a has disappeared in psych predicates (O vinho agradou Ø o João—‘The wine pleased John’). In both Modern EP and BP, most PP-ACCs have become typical unmarked direct objects. In the context of psych verbs, however, structural accusative assignment has shifted to structural dative Case in Modern EP, so as to ascertain the interpretation of the Experiencer in the internal argument via the preposition a. While in Modern BP, the argument is not overtly marked since it receives inherent accusative case in the derivation.

Shì as a Complementizer

In this article, it is argued that a purely functional and semantically bleached shì in Mandarin could in many contexts be best analyzed as a complementizer. As such, i t is comparable to English that and functions as an (optional) introducer of the clausal arguments. Our survey shows that the morpheme shì as a complementizer occurs after quite a number of clause introducing operators, for instance, epistemic modals, clausal adverbs, clausal conjunctions, and verbs taking clausal objects like psych verbs and speech act verbs. Like in some other languages, e.g., the West African language Twi and Dutch, the complementizer can merge with a preceding element and the two elements are turned into one frozen combination involving reanalysis and constituency rebracketing . We argue that Mandarin shì has gone through similar developments as complementizer in many frozen combinations such as shuōshì . As a piece of additional evidence, we find that in Gangou dialect, a Mandarin variant, shì can also take on a complementizer function. In the end, based on the fact that shì is used as a demonstrative pronoun in Pre Qin times, we argue that Mandarin indeed has complementizers from two different sources out of the five major sources across languages listed by Chappell (2017), i.e., shuō , the complementizer (as argued by many) originally from a verb of saying, and shì , originally a demonstrative.

Psych verbs in Japanese: Inchoativity and boundary types

Psych(ological) verbs pose a problem to theories about argument realization that assume a uniform and universal mapping between semantic relations and syntactic configurations. A number of attempts try to explain variation in argument structure in terms of the aspectual differences, assuming that the argument realization of a predicate is a reflection of the temporal properties of the predicate to some extent. However, it is challenging to classify psych verbs into any of Vendler’s four aspectual classes because of the “inchoativity” of these verbs. In this study, we take the notion of 'boundary' and its different types as relevant semantic components to describe the internal temporal structure of predicates. We demonstrate that Japanese psych verbs are not aspectually homogeneous but include different types of inchoatives. Accordingly, we propose that the argument realizations of psych verbs can be ascribed to the types of the ‘boundary’ (i.e. left boundary, right = left boundary and its explicitness/implicitness) the predicates denote.

Extending Heidinger’s corpus research of French and Spanish change-of-state verbs

Italian verbs participating in the causative/anticausative alternation encode the alternants in two ways. The causative and the anticausative alternant may have a marked or an unmarked variant depending on the verb type. The aim of this research is to extend to Italian Heidinger’s (2015) corpus study, which shows that the encoding of the alternants is related to the causalness of the verbs, i.e. the quantitative relation between the causative and the anticausative use. Heidinger’s research is based on a sample of 20 French and 20 Spanish verbs. The author states that, in both languages, verbs used more often as causatives than as anticausatives have a high degree of causalness, while verbs used more often as anticausatives than as causatives have a low degree of causalness. The present research assesses a sample of 22 Italian psych verbs which participate in the causative/anticausative alternation. I will show that Italian verbs with a high degree of causalness tend to form unmarked causatives and marked anticausatives,, while verbs with a low degree of causalness tend to form marked causatives and unmarked anticausatives.

Extending Heidinger’s corpus research of French and Spanish change-of-state verbs

Italian verbs participating in the causative/anticausative alternation encode the alternants in two ways. The causative and the anticausative alternant may have a marked or an unmarked variant depending on the verb type. The aim of this research is to extend to Italian Heidinger’s (2015) corpus study, which shows that the encoding of the alternants is related to the causalness of the verbs, i.e. the quantitative relation between the causative and the anticausative use. Heidinger’s research is based on a sample of 20 French and 20 Spanish verbs. The author states that, in both languages, verbs used more often as causatives than as anticausatives have a high degree of causalness, while verbs used more often as anticausatives than as causatives have a low degree of causalness. The present research assesses a sample of 22 Italian psych verbs which participate in the causative/anticausative alternation. I will show that Italian verbs with a high degree of causalness tend to form unmarked causatives and marked anticausatives,, while verbs with a low degree of causalness tend to form marked causatives and unmarked anticausatives.

Psych verbs: the behavior of ObjExp verbs in Brazilian Portuguese

Abstract Psychological verbs, especially Object Experiencer verbs, are widely discussed in the linguistic literature because of their peculiar syntactic and semantic properties. Two main issues regarding Object-Experiencer verbs are often raised: their aspectual nature and an alternation process (with the experiencer in subject position). This article analyzes Brazilian Portuguese Object Experiencer verbs, focusing on these issues. Based on a study of 170 verbs, we claim that Object Experiencer verbs constitute a verb class whose members describe a complex stage-level state in which a stimulus state activates (in a causative relation) a mental state in an experiencer. In addition, we argue that Object-Experiencer verbs appear in an inverse form: the experiencer as subject, and the stimulus as oblique. We claim that such an inverse form does not result from the causative alternation. In the inverse structure, different from an inchoative form of a change-of-state verb, both arguments are strongly preferable, and the verbs still denote a stative situation. We also provide a representation for the event structure of those verbs, using predicate decomposition, that is associated with their syntactic properties.

Unlocking the power of emotion in L2 Spanish: a study of verbs of affection instruction

This study explores one of the most important research lines in the field of Applied Linguistics: the teaching and learning of a second language (L2), and more specifically, of L2 Spanish. Spanish is a rapidly growing language, with a user base that has increased to 591 million, 6 million more than in 2020, according to the latest annual El español en el mundo (Instituto Cervantes, 2021). Spanish is thus becoming one of the most in-demand languages and this requires effective teaching. Through the analysis of seven L2 Spanish textbooks, we aim to examine the theoretical approach underlying the explanations of verbs of affection in Spanish (e.g., me fastidia [‘it bothers me’], me encanta [‘I love’]), as this grammatical construction is complex for a non-native speaker. Based on the findings, this investigation endeavors to provide pedagogical illustrations of how cognitive linguistics can be an advantageous method in teaching and learning psych verbs. The results of the study indicate that while all teaching materials are based on the classical communicative paradigm, none of them provide a cognitive perspective for the instruction of psych verbs in the early stages of learning or across the entire spectrum of emotions. This disregard for grammatical meaning and systematic treatment of these linguistic forms results in a reduced focus on their formal aspects, neglecting the changes in meaning that occur based on the focus on the stimulus or experiencer. This approach to teaching emotions grammar is viewed as mechanical and artificial.

The noncausal/causal alternation and the limits of ambitransitivity in a sample of sub-Saharan languages

The first part of the present article concentrates on noncausal/causal pairs whose noncausal member is a monovalent verb referring to a process typically undergone by concrete inanimate entities. The cross-linguistic variation in the coding of such pairs is analyzed in a convenience sample of 30 sub-Saharan languages from various genetic units. 10 of the 30 languages show an extremely high degree of preference for the ambitransitivity strategy in the coding of this particular type of noncausal/causal pairs, whereas none of them shows such a high degree of preference for any of the other possible strategies. The second part of the article concentrates on the 10 languages of the sample making a systematic use of the ambitransitivity strategy for the type of noncausal/causal pairs investigated in the first part of the article. It analyzes the extension of the ambitransitivity strategy to the coding of other semantic types of noncausal/causal pairs and to the coding of the psych alternation. In the questionnaire used to test the extension of the ambitransitivity strategy, a sizeable proportion of ambitransitive pairs is found in only three languages. In the others, the lack of any systematicity is the situation that predominates for the semantic types of noncausal/causal pairs other than that investigated in the first part of the article and for pairs of psych verbs.

On Psych Verbs and Optional Clitic Doubling in Catalan and Other Ibero-Romance Languages

Although undesired under a theoretical viewpoint, natural languages often show cases of “true” optionality. According to a reformulation of the Interface Hypothesis (Sorace 2006), highly complex constructions are more susceptible to optionality and change. Psych verbs that select a subject dative experiencer fall under this definition. Ibero-Romance languages use different strategies to reduce this morphosyntactic inconsistency. Whereas Catalan and Spanish reinforce the deviant construction through additional morphological markers (dative clitic doubling and subsequent grammaticalization of the clitic as subject-verb agreement marker), Portuguese avoids inherent datives at all, using structural case instead. These innovations in argument structure have significant consequences: clitic doubling with full DPs and the grammaticalization of the clitic pronouns are blocked, in contrast to Catalan and Spanish. It becomes evident that a closer look at how argument structure is codified in the lexicon is needed in order to better understand processes of language change.

On the acquisition of Spanish psych predicates

Spanish psych verbs like gustar (‘like’/‘please’) have a non-agreeing dative experiencer that asymmetrically c-commands the agreeing nominative theme (e.g., Cuervo 2003). Intervention accounts (Friedmann et al. 2009) thus predict children will experience difficulties with constructions that involve movement of the nominative-bearing argument past the dative DP. In this study we evaluate this prediction with a corpus study and an experimental study. Results from the corpus study show that children under the age of 7 underuse the DPnom-V-DPdat order (Theme-Verb-Experiencer) with gustar compared to adults, in line with our predictions. In a picture-matching task we tested 4-6-year-olds on d-linked wh-questions with actional and psych verbs. Results reveal that while children display the expected Nom > Dat wh-phrase extraction asymmetry with actional verbs, they show a Dat > Nom asymmetry with psych verbs. Moreover, children perform worse when the two arguments match in number features (i.e., sg-sg) compared to when they mismatch (i.e., sg-pl), but crucially, only in wh-questions that involve intervention. Our results cannot be fully explained under input-based accounts and are most in line with a structural account such as featural Relativized Minimality (Rizzi 2004).

Syntactic licensing in heritage Spanish: Psych verbs and the middle voice

Aims and objectives: This study examines the licensing pattern and resulting syntactic distribution of the middle voice across object experiencer psych verbs in intermediate and advanced heritage Spanish bilinguals and Spanish-dominant sequential bilinguals. Design: Participants completed a judgment task with aural stimuli containing sentences in the middle voice with contrastive types of object experiencer psych verbs ([±change of state]). Data and analysis: Aggregate results from the judgment task were entered into a mixed-effects linear regression model with fixed effects of group and verb type. Individual results (by verb and participant) are also discussed. Conclusion: Heritage Speakers (HSs) at varying levels of proficiency display consistent knowledge of the licensing pattern that results in the syntactic distribution of the middle voice across object experiencer psych verbs. Variability in the data reflects lexical semantic representational differences for specific verbs in individual grammars. Originality: This study applies a recent lexical semantic account of object experiencer verbs in Spanish to a novel syntactic construction and fills a gap in the Spanish heritage literature by examining a previously unstudied phenomenon—the middle voice. This provides an opportunity to inform (1) questions related to the role of lexical semantics in the heritage grammar and (2) theoretical proposals related to the nature of variability in heritage language grammars. Implications: These data provide additional evidence that licensing patterns at the syntax-lexical semantics interface are an area of stability in the heritage grammar and underscore the role of variability in the input in the resulting adult bilingual grammar.

Why bother? What our eyes tell about psych verb (non) causative constructions

We present an eyetracking study that investigates how linking is achieved during real-time comprehension of Spanish sentences with causative psych verbs and alternative case marking. This group of verbs lead to verbs’ argument structures that require direct or inverse syntax-to-semantics linking according to the type of case marking assigned to their object. The study aimed at disentangling whether processing inverse linking was more costly than direct linking, and exploring how incremental argument interpretation takes place when lexemes that accept several case markings are used. Results showed that during incremental comprehension, inverse linking is more difficult than direct linking, irrespective of word order. As for argument interpretation, the current study partially replicated the results of previous studies conducted in this language using different verb types. Findings are discussed under the light of different psycholinguistic models addressing case marking processing and incremental linking.

A Contrastive Analysis of Turkish and Spanish Psych Verbs

This study aims at studying psych verbs in Spanish and Turkish. Psych verbs are analyzed in many languages because they generally behave different than other verbs. The study’s main aim is to compare and contrast psych verb categorizations in Turkish and Spanish and defining the similarities and differences between them. Doing so, it is possible to decide whether or not these structures have the same features that separate them from other verbs in two languages which are not typologically similar. In regard to degree, psych verb categorization is similar when looking at the experiencer roles. However, the number of categories is different based on the theta roles and case marking in two languages. Related to type, Spanish does not have dative and ablative themes in psych verb constructions unlike Turkish. However, the structures of gustar-type verbs, which requires the theme to agree with the verb untraditionally, have similar structures in two languages.

Turkish EFL Learners’ Acquisition of Psych Verbs and Unaccusative Verbs: A Replication Study on Underpassivization and Overpassivization

The processability account anticipates that learners will make more underpassivization errors than overpassivization errors since passivization entails more processing. Although one study on psych-verbs and a few on unaccusatives examined Turkish L2 learners’ acquisition, no research compared a single set of learners’ acquisitions of these verbs together from a processing point of view. In this regard, the current study aims to investigate whether the processing complexity of passivization influences acquisition of psych and unaccusative verbs. It also questions whether general accuracy levels in Grammaticality Judgement Task (GJT) and degree of familiarity with target verbs are related to their level of accuracy with individual psych and unaccusative verbs. 33 undergraduate-level university students performed on the GJT and a Word Familiarity Rating Task (WFRT). The GJT included 38 items with 12 sentences for psych-verbs, 12 sentences for unaccusative-verbs, 12 sentences for distracters and 2 sentences for examples. The WFRT was a survey questioning familiarity with 6 psych and 6 unaccusative verbs. To analyse the data, a set of nonparametric tests and descriptive statistics were used. The results revealed that learners performed mor
 The processability account anticipates that learners will make more underpassivization errors than overpassivization errors since passivization entails more processing. Although one study on psych-verbs and a few on unaccusatives examined Turkish L2 learners’ acquisition, no research compared a single set of learners’ acquisitions of these verbs together from a processing point of view. In this regard, the current study aims to investigate whether the processing complexity of passivization influences acquisition of psych and unaccusative verbs. It also questions whether general accuracy levels in Grammaticality Judgement Task (GJT) and degree of familiarity with target verbs are related to their level of accuracy with individual psych and unaccusative verbs. 33 undergraduate-level university students performed on the GJT and a Word Familiarity Rating Task (WFRT). The GJT included 38 items with 12 sentences for psych-verbs, 12 sentences for unaccusative-verbs, 12 sentences for distracters and 2 sentences for examples. The WFRT was a survey questioning familiarity with 6 psych and 6 unaccusative verbs. To analyse the data, a set of nonparametric tests and descriptive statistics were used. The results revealed that learners performed more accurately on unaccusatives than on psych-verbs. They did more underpassivization errors by accepting ungrammatical active constructions of psych verbs. Their performances on psych and unaccusative verbs went parallel with their general accuracy levels in GJT while their degree of familiarity with and accuracy level for two verbs do not correlate with each other.The results suggest that such factors as processability and L1 transfer seem to impact the acquisition.
 Keywords:Second language acquisition; psych verbs; unaccusative verbs; underpassivization; overpassivization.
 e accurately on unaccusatives than on psych-verbs. They did more underpassivization errors by accepting ungrammatical active constructions of psych verbs. Their performances on psych and unaccusative verbs went parallel with their general accuracy levels in GJT while their degree of familiarity with and accuracy level for two verbs do not correlate with each other.The results suggest that such factors as processability and L1 transfer seem to impact the acquisition.
 Keywords:Second language acquisition; psych verbs; unaccusative verbs; underpassivization; overpassivization.

A lexical semantic approach to the L2 acquisition of Spanish psych verbs

This study builds on prior research on second language (L2) Spanish psych verbs, which has centered on morphosyntactic properties, by examining their syntactic distribution, which relies on lexical semantic knowledge. The fact that certain forms are licensed for some verbs, but not others, is the result of an underlying lexical semantic difference across verb classes, represented here as a difference in formal feature strength. To fully acquire the relevant grammatical distribution, L2 learners must successfully acquire (i) licensing restrictions on argument structure and (ii) underlying lexical semantic representations of individual verbs. Three groups of L2 learners ( n = 66) and a group of native Spanish speakers ( n = 19) completed two judgment tasks (one with aural stimuli and one with written stimuli) which presented object experiencer psych verbs in multiple argument structures. Results show that advanced L2 learners are largely sensitive to the distribution tested here; however, while they have acquired relevant licensing restrictions, they may associate fixed feature settings with verbs that allow variable feature settings. These results are consistent with predictions made by the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis and highlight the role of lexical semantic features in second language acquisition.

Семантика и прагматика высказываний с эмотивными предикатами

The paper considers Russian causative (transitive) psych verbs with semantics of state and action, such as udivlyat’ - udivit’ (to surprise), ogorchat’ - ogorchit’ (to upset). Also, the authors discuss how the speech of Internet communication and traditional dialogue influences the addressee by means of the statements comprising the verbs concerned. An analysis was made of such statements as: (1) advertising slogans (imperative mood); (2) active Internet links-headlines (past perfect tense with the 3rd person causer); (3) prospective rhetorical strategy (the simple future form with the 1st person causer and 2nd person causer); (4) a retrospective speech strategy (the present tense with 2nd person causer and the 1st person causer). Being used in special illocutionary acts, the statements in question feature different aspects of action and state depending on communicative conditions. The study has revealed a distinct perfect meaning in the actual present tense of causative psych verbs. Expressing non-descriptive (non-ascertaining) meaning, the statements are similar to speech acts. Emotive component of the psych verbs under study combined with inherent agentive one of speech acts has a manipulative potential on addressee that is realized in: (1) the urge to buy through the promise of a pleasant emotion; (2) the urge to click links through the implicit promise of emotion; (3) the speaker’s mental control of the addressee’s emotions; (4) the declarative-emotional influence on the addressee to induce him/her to change his/her behavior. Causative psych verbs function as a powerful argument allowing the speaker to appeal to the emotional sphere of addressee.

Sentence formulation is easier when thematic and syntactic prominence align: evidence from psych verbs

ABSTRACT We use the visual world eye-tracking paradigm to investigate how the mapping from thematic event structures to grammatical structures, known as sentence formulation, unfolds during real time sentence production. Experiment 1 contrasted production of SubjExp (“LeslieEXP loves AnnSTIM”) versus ObjExp (“LeslieSTIM scares AnnEXP”) sentences. Experiment 2 investigated passivized SubjExp (“LeslieSTIM was loved by AnnEXP”) and passivized ObjExp sentences (“LeslieEXP was scared by AnnSTIM.”). In both studies, we found that speakers were faster to begin speaking and to preferentially fixate the subject when they were able to assign the thematically prominent Experiencer role to the subject of the sentence. We conclude that sentence formulation is easier when speakers can make use of a tight, systematic correspondence between event structures and linguistic structures. We discuss the implications of our work for the relationship between language and thought and for the formal accounts of SubjExp and ObjExp verbs.

On converse lability and its decline from Vedic to Epic Sanskrit: The verb juṣ- ‘to enjoy’ and ‘to please’

In the Early Vedic language, we encounter two different systems of active vs. middle voice and valency oppositions. The emergence of many thematic Vedic transitive active forms (e.g. īráya-ti ‘to raise sth. or so.’) is obviously innovative and secondary when compared to labile, and formally more archaic athematic active forms (e.g. íyar-ti ~ iyár-ti ‘to rise, to raise sth. or so.’). On this basis, it has been claimed that the original voice distinction was mainly driven by agency (i.e., volition, control, responsibility and animacy), whereas the secondary voice opposition was driven by transitivity distinctions and direct and indirect reflexive middle semantics (Pooth 2012, 2014). In this article, another verb in question, namely the psych verb juṣ- ‘to enjoy, to please’, will be examined as a parallel case to further discuss the general developments in the Vedic verb system, which are part of the general decline of lability and the increase of verb forms specified for transitive vs. intransitive behavior within Vedic (Kulikov 2014, 2012, 2006). This article will show that the Sanskrit psych verb juṣ- ‘to enjoy’ and ‘to please’ exhibits converse lability in Early Vedic Sanskrit, whereas it does not behave like this in Epic Sanskrit. The syntactic and semantic behavior of forms of juṣ- in both periods of Sanskrit will thus be compared.

Les oracions triargumentals causatives dels verbs psicològics catalans d'interès

Summary: This paper analyses simple tri-argumental causative sentences with Catalan psych verbs of interest (aficionar ‘to take up’, apassionar ‘to be passionate about’, entusiasmar ‘to be thrilled’, il∙lusionar ‘to get excited by’, interessar ‘to be interested in’) that do not fulfil Pesetsky’s Target/Subject Matter (T/SM) Restriction (1995): L’Arnau va interessar la Meritxell {en/per} la literatura (‘Arnau interested Meritxell in literature’). They are considered to have a complex bi-clausal argumental structure identical to that of sentences with the causative periphrasis fer ‘make’ + infinitive, but with the verb fer being silent. Both contain a dominant event nucleus vDOP and a defective functional domain (CP, TP and VoiceP) in the infinitive clause. This structure is compared with that of causatives with a subordinate clause introduced with the conjunction que ‘that’, which have a dominant event nucleus vGOP, and a complete functional domain (CP and TP). Lastly, this structure can be given more lexical content to form a periphrasis with a modal verb or equivalent, the structure of which is also analysed, together with that of constructions with other periphrases that have a pronominal psych verb in the subordinate clause. Keywords: Catalan, argumental structure, causative sentence, tri-argumental sentence, psych verb of interest, Target/Subject Matter Restriction