A New Argument for the Lexical Underspecification of Causers

• Autores: James Levine, Leonard H. Babby
• Localización: Linguistic inquiry, ISSN 0024-3892, Vol. 50, Nº 4, 2019, págs. 803-824
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This article shows how a systematic impersonalization alternation in Russian provides additional evidence for underspecification in argument structure. In the case of a large class of lexically causative verbs, the causer is realized either as a volitional Agent in the nominative case or as an oblique-marked, nonvolitional causer, depending on how the event is construed. A causative theory of accusative is advanced, according to which the mere presence of external causation is a sufficient condition for accusative licensing, including those cases that lack an external argument altogether. The analysis is extended to explain accusative preservation in the Icelandic “fate accusative” construction.