Examining agentivity in Spanish reverse-psych verbs

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>In Spanish reverse-psychological verbs, the experiencer argument can have accusative or dative case marking. Transitivity-based approaches identify different factors that influence this accusative-dative alternation(Miglio, Viola G., Stefan T Gries, Michael J Harris, Eva M Wheeler &amp; Santana-Paixão Raquel. A strong predictor for accusative case marking in Spanish r-psych verbs is the animacy of the stimulus. However, there are also instances where the stimulus is inanimate and the experiencer is case marked accusative. In this paper, I provide an analysis of such instances, drawing on corpus data and native speaker judgments. I argue that agentivity, measured on a scale, is a factor that better accounts for the accusative-dative alternation exhibited by Spanish reverse-psychological verbs. I first propose a definition of agentivity and diagnostics for it; then I present evidence that there is a correlation between higher degrees of agentivity and accusative case marking and lower degrees of agentivity and dative case marking. The agentivity scale presented is not unconditional as there are several factors that contribute to case marking. Nevertheless, the agentivity scale accounts for accusative case marking with inanimates and also serves to highlight some parallels between causative verbs and reverse-psychological verbs.</jats:p>

The Transitivity Index: Using Transitivity as a continuous measure to account for clitic case alternation in Spanish causative constructions

“…Accusative and dejar are the reference levels). Hypothesis 3 follows from previous work both on causatives and reverse-psychological predicates where accusative was found to occur in higher transitivity contexts [3,6,25]. If accusative is associated with higher transitivity, then we expect that as transitivity increases, the probability of the accusative clitic will increase and that of the dative clitic will decrease.…”

“…If this is a general characteristic of the construction, then we predict that the Bayes factor for the variable Causative will show positive evidence in favour of this hypothesis and the posterior mean estimate will be positive (because Accusative and dejar are the reference levels). Hypothesis 3 follows from previous work both on causatives and reverse-psychological predicates where accusative was found to occur in higher transitivity contexts [ 3 , 6 , 25 ]. If accusative is associated with higher transitivity, then we expect that as transitivity increases, the probability of the accusative clitic will increase and that of the dative clitic will decrease.…”

“…In Spanish, Transitivity has been useful in accounting for differential object marking [16], non-anaphoric uses of the clitic se [17], inalienable possessive constructions [18] and reversepsychological predicates [3,6], among others.…”

“…Several analyses have attempted to characterize and account for the case alternation exhibited in (2). Some have argued that it depends on the eventuality denoted by the sentence [ 2 ] and others that Transitivity factors are key in determining the case of the clitic [ 3 – 6 ]. The findings suggest that accusative marking is more likely with high Transitivity contexts such as agentive subjects, telic predicates and affected objects.…”

“…(Mexico: 1536) In (5) the infinitive verb resolver 'to solve' is transitive so the dative clitic le is expected but instead we find the accusative lo. In (6) the infinitive verb is dormir 'to sleep', a prototypical intransitive verb, and yet the clitic appears in the dative form instead of the expected accusative case. To account for this type of data, researchers have resorted to the semantic notion of (in) direct causation.…”