Remarks on causative verbs and object deletion in English

Abstract

Rappaport Hovav and Levin 1998 contend that result verbs disallow object deletion because () of their lexical semantic properties. Their point is that the distinction between result verbs and manner verbs with their different event structure representation constitutes the important factor which dictates the possibility of the variation of argument realization, of which object deletion represents one instance. Responding to their claim, Goldberg 2001 presents the evidence () () which mainly concerns the object deletion of causative verbs which correspond to result verbs in English in order to show that the distinction is not substantial. The purpose of this paper is twofold. One is to present several pieces of evidence for Goldberg's contention based on the behavior of causative verbs with respect to object deletion. It is made evident that causative verbs in fact behave even freer than Goldberg's principle predicts. The other purpose is to examine some aspects of Goldberg's principle and demonstrate that it has wider applicability than originally intended, which eventually indicates that the principle comprises a part of a general set of conditions on the object deletion in English. The conclusion is that object deletion is not so much sensitive to the distinction between causative verbs and non-causative verbs as Rappaport Hovav and Levin claim it to be and therefore, object deletion fails to be a good diagnostic tool for the differentiation of the two verb classes. In other words, causativity is not a good parameter for the possibility of object deletion.

Eesti vaatamisverbide sihilisusest

“…Seetõttu nimetan obligatoorse sihitise või suunamääruse puudumist nulllaiendiks. (Vaiss 2022) Nullobjekti all mõtlen eksplitsiitselt väljendamata sihitist (vt Vaiss 2021), mida rahvusvahelises kirjanduses nimetatakse ka objekti väljajätuks (ingl null object, object deletion, object omission) (vt nt Luraghi 2004, Naess 2007, Onozuka 2007. Asesõna -eeskätt aluse, kuid ka sihitise -ellipsi ilminguid on nimetatud ka asesõna ärajätuks (ingl pro-drop) (Bresnan 2001).…”