The Subject of Psych-Verbs and Case Theory

• Published in: ROMANCE LANGUAGES AND MODERN LINGUISTIC THEORY: PAPERS FROM THE 20TH LINGUISTIC SYMPOSIUM ON ROMANCE LANGUAGES (LSRL XX), OTTAWA, 10-14 APRIL 1990, Hirschbuhler, Paul, & Koerner, Konrad [Eds], Amsterdam, The Netherlands: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1992, pp 251-267
• Main Author: Saltarelli, Mario
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: 01.01.1901
• Subjects: Agreement; Deep Structure; Government Binding Theory; Grammatical Relations; Italian; Movement; Principles and Parameters Approach; Subject; Surface Structure; Syntax; Thematic Roles; Verbs
• ISBN: 9789027235916; 9027235910

An analysis of Italian psych-verbs seeks to reconcile their apparently unconstrained syntax with the common assumption that lexical, thematic information & syntactic configurations are systematically related. Two classes of psych-verb are recognized: desiderare 'want, desire' verbs have a nominative experiencer subject & a theme object; piacere 'like, please' verbs have a dative experiencer that can surface in either subject or object position. The reversibility of piacere verbs is held to follow from principles governing the assignment of theta structures to D-structures. This avoids the problem of stipulating D-structure mappings found when reversibility is explained in terms of move-(alpha). The case properties of psych-verbs are shown to follow from the null hypothesis of case theory: nominative case is assigned directly under government by AGR to the object theme of psych-verbs, & the stipulation that psych-verbs do not assign case is avoided. Verbs such as preoccupare 'to worry' with an accusative experiencer are analyzed as underlying causatives with the experiencer as a D-structure subject that receives accusative in a derived object position at S-structure. 27 References. M. Israel