Types of psychological verbs

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4.4 Psychological verbs

4.4.1 Types of psychological verbs

Verbs describing psychological states are known as psychological verbs (psych verbs). It is assumed that psych verbs in normal cases have a uniform theta grid involving Experiencer and Theme. The Experiencer is the individual who experiences the psychological state or the transition of mental state. The Theme is the content or object of the mental state (Belletti and Rizzi 1988). Psych verbs are often classified according to the assignment of thematic roles (Kelling 2003). There are two types of psych verbs claimed to exist in English. The difference between them is whether the Experiencer is the subject and the Theme is the object or the opposite (Dowty 1991, Grimshaw 1990). Kelling (2003) used the words ‘like’ and ‘please’ to illustrate the two types of psych verbs, as presented in (65).

(65) a. The girl likes the book Experiencer Theme Subject object

b. The book pleases the girl.

Theme Experiencer Subject object

In (65a), the verb ‘like’ has the Experiencer as the subject and the Theme as the object.

Psych verbs which behave in such a way are called subject-experiencer verbs. The

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verb ‘please’ in (65b) on the contrary has the Theme as the subject and the Experiencer as the object. Psych verbs like ‘please’ are called object-experiencer verbs. The verb 困擾 kun4rao3 ‘bother’ in (64) is an object-experiencer psych verb.

The sentence will be repeated as (66) to illustrate.

(66) 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.’

In this sentence, the verb 困擾 kun4rao3 ‘bother’ is a psychological verb because it describes a mental state. The Experiencer 他 ta1 ‘he’ is the object and the Theme 問 題 wen4ti2 ‘question’ is the subject so 困擾 kun4rao3 ‘bother’ is considered as an

object-experiencer psych verb.

In Wu’s (1993) thesis, Chinese psychological predicates are further categorized into three groups according to their syntactic behaviors. The first kind is psychological causative-transitives. The verbs assign two arguments: Experiencer and Theme. The Experiencer is realized as the object and the Theme as the subject. The subject of this kind of predicate causes a transition of the psychological state onto the object. This kind of verb bears a causative meaning. This categorization includes verbs like 振奮 zhen4fen4 ‘excite’, 感動 gan3dong4 ‘move’, 震驚 zhen4jing1

‘shock’, 激怒 ji1nu4 ‘irritate’, 吸引 xi1yin3 ‘attract’, and so on. The following

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sentence is presented as an example (Wu 1993).

(67) 這個 消息 振奮了 他 zhe4ge5 xiao1xi2 zhen4fen4le5 ta1 This-CL news excite-ASP him ‘This news excited him.’

In this sentence, the Theme 這個消息 zhe4ge5 xiao1xi2 ‘this news’ is a cause to create a psychological transition in the Experiencer 他 ta1 ‘him’. In addition, the verb zhen4fen4 ‘excite’ is an object-experiencer psych verb since the Experiencer is in the object position.

The second kind of psychological predicate is psychological stative-transitive.

This kind of psych verb indicates the psychological state of the subject. Contrary to the previous kind of verb, this kind is a subject-experiencer verb, whose Experiencer is the subject and the Theme is the object. This kind of verb includes 擔心 dan1xin1

‘worry about’, 害 怕 hai4pa4 ‘fear’, 煩 惱 fan2nao3 ‘be uneasy about’, 喜 歡 xi3huan1 ‘like’, and so on. The following sentence is presented as an example.

(68) 他 很 擔心 你 的 健康 Ta1 hen3 dan1xin1 ni3 de5 jian4kang1 He very worry-about you Gen health ‘He worries about your health very much.’

This kind of verb, such as 擔心 dan1xin1 ‘worry about’ describes the Experiencer’s

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mental state and the Theme 你的健康 ni3 de5 jian4kang1 ‘your health’ is the content of his worry. Unlike the first kind, psychological causative-transitives, stative-transitives have no causative meaning. The third type of psychological predicate is called psychological stative-intransitive, which has only one argument, Experiencer, as the subject. This kind of psych verb also describes the mental state of the Experiencer, including 興 奮 xing1fen4 ‘be excited’, 驚 訝 jing1ya4 ‘be surprised’, 高興 gao1xing4 ‘be pleased’, and so on. An example is presented as (69).

(69) 他 很 興奮 ta1 hen3 xing1fen4 He very excited ‘He is very excited.’

In the sentence, the verb 興奮 xing1fen4 ‘be excited’ only has one argument, which is the Experiencer and it is realized as the subject 他 ta1 ‘he’.

Among the three types of psych verbs: psychological causative-transitives, psychological stative-transitives, and psychological stative-intransitives, only the first one is object-experiencer verb and has causative meaning.

The example of the verb 困擾 kun4rao3 ‘bother’ is presented again as (70).

(70) 這個 問題 困擾了 他 三 天 zhe4ge5 wen4ti2 kun4rao3le5 ta1 san1 tian1

this-CL question bother-ASP he three day

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‘This question has bothered him for three days.’

According to the above classification, 困 擾 kun4rao3 ‘bother’ is an object-experiencer psych verb. In addition, it is also a psychological causative-transitive verb since the Theme causes a change of psychological state in the Experiencer, from not being bothered to being bothered. In other words, the Theme is the cause and the Experiencer is the affectee.