Feature-based argument mapping and animacy optimization in impersonal passives
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Raúl Aranovich
Abstract
Analysis of the alternation between impersonal reflexives and reflexive passives in Spanish shows that higher animacy makes an argument less marked as an object. This generalization supports Hopper and Thompson's (Transitivity in grammar and discourse, 1981) “transitivity hypothesis”, since it is entailed by their claim that objects tend to be highly individuated. The article proposes an optimality-theoretic implementation of the analysis, using a feature-based approach to argument realization modeled on Bresnan and Kanerva's (Linguistic Inquiry 20: 1–50, 1989) lexical mapping theory. The proposal highlights a contradiction between the transitivity hypothesis and the approaches to animacy that follow Silverstein's (Hierarchy of features and ergativity, Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, 1976) analysis of split ergative languages, for which alternatives are suggested.
© 2009 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin
Articles in the same Issue
- The distribution of French intransitive predicates
- Null subjects: a reanalysis of the data
- Resultative constructions with “implied-result” and “entailed-result” verbs in Thai and English: a contrastive study
- Feature-based argument mapping and animacy optimization in impersonal passives
- Clausal coordination and coordinative ellipsis in a model of the speaker
- Instruments as verb classifiers in Kam (Dong)
- Young children's understanding of ongoing vs. completion in imperfective and perfective participles
- The syntactic position of the perceived participant as indicator of the internal structure of the Spanish and French infinitival complement
- Italian clitics: An empirical study by Cinzia Russi
Articles in the same Issue
- The distribution of French intransitive predicates
- Null subjects: a reanalysis of the data
- Resultative constructions with “implied-result” and “entailed-result” verbs in Thai and English: a contrastive study
- Feature-based argument mapping and animacy optimization in impersonal passives
- Clausal coordination and coordinative ellipsis in a model of the speaker
- Instruments as verb classifiers in Kam (Dong)
- Young children's understanding of ongoing vs. completion in imperfective and perfective participles
- The syntactic position of the perceived participant as indicator of the internal structure of the Spanish and French infinitival complement
- Italian clitics: An empirical study by Cinzia Russi
