Affected Experiencers

Abstract

Numerous languages permit an NP that is not selected by the verb to be added to a clause, with several different possible interpretations. We divide such nonselected arguments into possessor, benefactive, attitude holder, and affected experiencer categories, on the basis of syntactic and semantic differences between them. We propose a formal analysis of the affected experiencer construction. In our account, a syntactic head Aff(ect) introduces the experiencer argument, and adds a conventional implicature to the effect that any event of the type denoted by its syntactic sister is the source of the experiencer's psychological experience. Hence, our proposal involves two tiers of meaning: the at-issue meaning of the sentence, and some not-atissue meaning (an implicature). A syntactic head can introduce material on both tiers. Additionally, we allow two parameters of variation: (i) the height of the attachment of Aff, and (ii) how much of the semantics is at-issue and how much is an implicature. We show that these two parameters account for the attested variation across our sample of languages, as well as the significant commonalities among them. Our analysis also accounts for significant differences between affected experiencers and the other types of non-selected arguments, and we also note a generalization to the effect that purely not-at-issue non-selected arguments can only be weak or clitic pronouns.

Pronominal datives

“…Note that our point about a special role for pronominal datives bears some resemblance to a recent proposal by Bosse et al (2012) for a cross-linguistic generalization, whereby non-selected arguments that are entirely non-truth-conditional can only be weak pronouns. Bosse et al assume a parametric variation between languages that have purely non-truth-conditional affected experiencers and ones which have (partly) truth-conditional nonselected arguments.…”

“…More ambitiously, we would like to encourage linguists to distinguish between preliminary and advanced phases of grammaticization of NP arguments, and test our hypothesis that early grammaticization phases, where existing argument structures or constructions are extended to accommodate additional arguments, favor pronouns, whereas later grammaticization phases are less restricted, and are subject to a potentially different cPAS assignment of pockets and platforms (including possible platform shift). In fact, something fundamental seems to be missing from the extremely large literature on the English dative alternation (Bresnan et al, 2007, Gries, 2003 inter alia) according to Du Bois (2008). Linguists typically take for granted the existence of two distinct, roughly paraphrastic constructions -the prepositional phrase and double object constructions -and see their goal as accounting for the differences between them in structure and use.…”

“…Most grammaticized 20. Bosse et al (2012) classify Benefactive datives (our Affectee category) as datives contributing truth-conditional meanings (at least for Micmac, an Algonquian language they mention).…”

The role of ‘perspective’ in epistemic marking

“…-gasã does therefore not scope over the speaker asymmetric na-. Other traditional scope tests such as ambiguity in wh-questions and embedding in conditional sentences (see Bosse et al 2012;Faller 2003) are not applicable to CEP-marking because the markers only occur on finite auxiliaries and in declarative constructions; CEP-markers do not permit embedding and are excluded from occurring in interrogative sentences (Bergqvist 2016). This is, however, an interesting fact in itself, since the function of the CEP-markers to produce different speech-acts, such as requests and questions in Example (13); statements in Example (11); and exclamatives in Example (12) while remaining declarative by form, could be used as an argument that CEP-marking scopes over sentence type (i.e.…”

Pronominal Non-Core Datives in Syrian Arabic

“…Pylkkänen 2008, Cuervo 2003, Boneh & Nash 2011, Bosse et al 2012, Haddad 2014. Appl, like v, introduces and licenses an event participant:…”