Analogy between action verbs and psych verbs

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of time and therefore they can be modified by duration phrases.

4.5 Analogy between action verbs and psych verbs

Van Voorst (1992) discussed four types of psychological verbs. One of them contains the psychological uses of action verbs. The example is presented as follows in (78).

(78) a. He struck me on the head.

b. He struck me as rather old.

In (78a), the verb is an action verb. The subject is the Agent and the object is the Patient. In (78b), the verb is like an object-experiencer psych verb, whose subject is the Theme and object is the Experiencer. Van Voorst noted that this kind of use is productive in English. Therefore the phenomenon that action verbs model the syntactic behavior of psych verbs is understandable.

The sentences under examination are presented as follows in (79).

(79) a. ㄧ頓 飯 吃了 他 三 小時 yi2dun4 fan4 chi1le5 ta1 san1 xiao3shi2 One-CL meal eat-ASP he three hour ‘It took him three hours to eat a meal.’

b. ㄧ包 菸 抽了 他 三 天 yi4bao1 yan1 chou1le5 ta1 san1 tian1

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One-CL cigarette smoke-ASP he three day

‘It took him three days to smoke a pack of cigarettes.’

c. ㄧ本 書 寫了 他 三 年 yi4ben3 shu1 xie3le5 ta1 san1 nian2 One-CL book write-ASP he three years ‘It took him three years to write a book.’

As analyzed in Section 4.1, the three verbs 吃 chi1 ‘eat’, 抽 chou1 ‘smoke’, and 寫 xie3 ‘write’ belong to the type of action verb. They are supposed to assign the Agent

as the subject and the Theme as the object. However, the sentences in (79) show that these verbs can also assign Extent, i.e., duration phrase, as one argument because of the semantic feature [+durative] of the verbs. However, if the verbs assign the three arguments, Agent, Theme and Extent, at the same time, there appears to be inversion between subject and object, which means the Theme is in the subject position and the Agent and Extent are both complements of the verb. This thesis proposes that the sentences can be analyzed by analogy with the syntactic behavior of psych verbs, which means that the theta grid of the verbs in (79) is different from that of an action verb. The analogy will be illustrated with the two verbs 寫 xie3 ‘write’ and 困擾 kun4rao3 ‘bother’ as in (80).

(80) a. 這本 書 寫了 他 三 年 zhe4ben3 shu1 xie3le5 ta1 san1 nian2 One-CL book write-ASP he three years

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‘It took him three years to write the book.’

b. 這個 問題 困擾了 他 三 天 zhe4ge5 wen4ti2 kun4rao3le5 ta1 san1 tian1

this-CL question bother-ASP he three day ‘This question has bothered him for three days.’

With observation of the sentence structure, it can be found that the subjects of the two sentences are both inanimate NPs, and post-verbal NPs are an animate pronoun preceding a duration phrase. The syntactic structure of the two sentences is the same. As mentioned in Section 4.4.1, the verb 困擾 kun4rao3 ‘bother’ is an object-experiencer psych verb and also a causative-transitive so the Theme carries the feature [cause] and the Experiencer carries the feature [affected]. The theta grid of 困 擾 kun4rao3 ‘bother’ in (80b) is [Theme, Experiencer, Extent], and the Theme is the

cause which affects the Experiencer’s change of mental state. Therefore, the Theme, 這個問題 zhe4ge5 wen4ti2 ‘this question’ can be considered as Cause and the Experiencer 他 ta1 ‘he’ is the Affectee. The verb 寫 xie3 ‘write’ in (80a) also has the theta grid [Theme, Experiencer, Extent]. If the animate pronoun 他 ta1 ‘he’ is the Experiencer, it is reasonable for it to be in the object position because of assimilation with the object-experiencer psych verb. In addition, the Theme 這本書 zhe4ben3 shu1 ‘this book’ also carries the feature [cause] and the Experiencer 他 ta1 ‘he’

carries the feature [affected], which means 這本書 zhe4ben3 shu1 ‘this book’ is the

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cause of his writing for three years. The verb 寫 xie3 ‘write’ is an action verb, which is not supposed to have a causative meaning. Compare the following two sentences.

(81) a. 他 寫 這本 書 寫了 三 年 ta1 xie3 zhe4ben3 shu1 xie3le5 san1 nian2 he write this-CL book write-ASP three year

‘He has written this book for three years.’

b. 這本 書 寫了 他 三 年 zhe4ben3 shu1 xie3le5 ta1 san1 nian2 One-CL book write-ASP he three years ‘It took him three years to write a book.’

In (81a), the verb 寫 xie3 ‘write’ is an activity verb and there is no causative reading.

The sentence describes that the Agent 他 ta1 ‘he’ initiates the action 寫這本書 xie3 zhe4ben3 shu1 ‘write this book’ and the activity lasts for three years. The Theme 這

本書 zhe4ben3 shu1 ‘this book’ does not carry the feature [cause] and the animate NP 他 ta1 ‘he’ does not has the feature [affected]. However, the sentence (81b) has a

causative reading. As analyzed above, the Theme 這本書 zhe4ben3 shu1 ‘this book’

is the cause of his writing for three years. From the perspective of the causative reading and the inversion of subject and object, it is reasonable to analyze that the action verb 寫 xie3 ‘write’ models the object-experiencer psych verbs, such as 困擾 kun4rao3 ‘bother’.

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Another psych verb 氣 qi4 ‘anger’ also assigns the three thematic roles, Theme, Experiencer and Extent. The following sentence is presented as an example.

(82) 這件 事情 氣了 他 一個 禮拜 zh4jian4 shi4qing2 qi4le5 ta1 yi2ge5 li3bai4 This-CL matter anger-ASP he one-CL week ‘This matter angered him for one week.’

Although not all object-experiencer psych verbs call for a duration NP as argument, some of them require it. Compare the following sentences with different psych verbs.

(83) a. 這部 電影 感動了 他

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This-CL matter anger-ASP he one-CL week ‘This matter angered him for one week.’

The two verbs, 感動 gan3dong4 ‘move’ in (83) and 氣 qi4 ‘anger’ in (84) can both be considered as object-experiencer psych verbs. For the verb 感動 gan3dong4

‘move’, the duration NP is optional since it does not affect the grammaticality of the sentence. However, as to the verb 氣 qi4 ‘anger’, the duration NP is obligatory since its deletion will make the sentence unacceptable as in (84a). Due to the difference shown by the two verbs, it is reasonable to infer that some of the psych verbs, such as stative psych verbs, also have the feature [durative] and that they assign Extent, i.e., duration, as one of their arguments. The theta grid of this kind of psych verb is [Theme Experiencer Extent]. Therefore, it is logical to analyze the action verbs 吃 ch1 ‘eat’, 抽 chou1 ‘smoke’, and 寫 xie3 ‘write’ in (79) by analogy with psych

verbs, such as 氣 qi4 ‘anger’ and 困擾 kun4rao3 ‘bother’.

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