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Verbs of pain and accusative subjects in Romanian

Abstract

Verbs of pain in Romanian such as durea ‘ache’, ustura ‘burn’, and furnica ‘itch’ assign the accusative to their experiencer arguments, unlike other Romance languages, where the experiencer is dative-marked. The use of the accusative raises interesting problems in that it gives rise to a mismatch between the hypothesis on the syntax of inalienability in Romance in Generative Grammar (Guéron 1985) on the one hand and Burzio’s (1986) Generalization on the other hand. This article shows that the inversed nominative NP denoting the body part does not show subject properties, and that the accusative experiencer in sentence initial position does not show object properties, but instead displays subject properties, just like the dative in similar constructions. However, the difference between accusative and dative subjects in this construction is that the accusative is assigned to verb arguments and is a lexical case, whereas the dative is assigned to external possessors and is an inherent case. Surprisingly, the argument status of the accusative experiencer makes it even more subject-like than the dative experiencer, which is an adjunct and is dependent on the presence of an internal argument triggering verb agreement, whereas the accusative subject can also occur without an internal argument or with a locative PP.

Abstract

Verbs of pain in Romanian such as durea ‘ache’, ustura ‘burn’, and furnica ‘itch’ assign the accusative to their experiencer arguments, unlike other Romance languages, where the experiencer is dative-marked. The use of the accusative raises interesting problems in that it gives rise to a mismatch between the hypothesis on the syntax of inalienability in Romance in Generative Grammar (Guéron 1985) on the one hand and Burzio’s (1986) Generalization on the other hand. This article shows that the inversed nominative NP denoting the body part does not show subject properties, and that the accusative experiencer in sentence initial position does not show object properties, but instead displays subject properties, just like the dative in similar constructions. However, the difference between accusative and dative subjects in this construction is that the accusative is assigned to verb arguments and is a lexical case, whereas the dative is assigned to external possessors and is an inherent case. Surprisingly, the argument status of the accusative experiencer makes it even more subject-like than the dative experiencer, which is an adjunct and is dependent on the presence of an internal argument triggering verb agreement, whereas the accusative subject can also occur without an internal argument or with a locative PP.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Introduction vii
  4. Part 1. Atypical realization of the main arguments of the verb
  5. Verbs of pain and accusative subjects in Romanian 3
  6. Non-canonical ‘existential-like‘ constructions in colloquial Modern Hebrew 27
  7. IO realizations in Spanish reverse psych verb sentences 61
  8. Non-human agents as subjects in English and Dutch 87
  9. Part 2. Valency-changing devices and non-finite verb forms
  10. The argument-structure configuration of English middle and related structures 115
  11. Non-categorical categories 131
  12. Part 3. Variations in transitivity
  13. The semantic motivation of non-canonical predicative relations 163
  14. Atypical argument structures in French 181
  15. Split intransitivity in Lamaholot (East Flores, Indonesia) 203
  16. Part 4. Norm variation in predicate-arguments relations
  17. Geographic variation in a non-canonical infinitive structure with the modal verb brauchen 243
  18. Verbal constructions in spoken language deviating from the norm 265
  19. Index of authors 283
  20. Index of subjects 287
Atypical predicate-argument relations
This chapter is in the book Atypical predicate-argument relations
https://doi.org/10.1075/lis.33.01van

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Introduction vii
  4. Part 1. Atypical realization of the main arguments of the verb
  5. Verbs of pain and accusative subjects in Romanian 3
  6. Non-canonical ‘existential-like‘ constructions in colloquial Modern Hebrew 27
  7. IO realizations in Spanish reverse psych verb sentences 61
  8. Non-human agents as subjects in English and Dutch 87
  9. Part 2. Valency-changing devices and non-finite verb forms
  10. The argument-structure configuration of English middle and related structures 115
  11. Non-categorical categories 131
  12. Part 3. Variations in transitivity
  13. The semantic motivation of non-canonical predicative relations 163
  14. Atypical argument structures in French 181
  15. Split intransitivity in Lamaholot (East Flores, Indonesia) 203
  16. Part 4. Norm variation in predicate-arguments relations
  17. Geographic variation in a non-canonical infinitive structure with the modal verb brauchen 243
  18. Verbal constructions in spoken language deviating from the norm 265
  19. Index of authors 283
  20. Index of subjects 287
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