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Psych verbs in English and Mandarin

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Abstract

Psych verb constructions show peculiar properties. They appear to project the same θ-relations into inverse configurations (John fears sharks/Sharks frighten John). Furthermore, Experiencer Object psych verb constructions admit backward binding in apparent violation of familiar c-command conditions (Pictures of himself anger John). We offer a solution to both puzzles drawing crucially on data from English and Mandarin. We argue that apparent θ-role inversion is an illusion, and that Experiencer Subject psych verb constructions like John fears sharks are not in fact simple transitive constructions but instead involve a concealed clause with a silent predicate (John fears [cp sharks PRED]). Regarding backward binding, we argue for an updated version of Belletti and Rizzi’s (1988) analysis of Experiencer Object psych verbs in which the putative Theme is a Source that is underlyingly c-commanded by the Experiencer.

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Notes

  1. The exact identity of the non-experiencer θ-role in (1) and (2) is controversial; we label it here as THEME mainly for convenience. The important point is that the same pair of roles appears to be involved in the two examples; we return to a more careful discussion of this issue below.

  2. In this study we concentrate on what Landau (2010) terms “Class I” psych verbs like fear and “Class II” psych verbs like frighten, largely putting aside discussion of his “Class III” psych verbs like appeal; the latter resemble the Class II type, but exhibit a dative preposition (to) on the experiencer (or, in other languages, dative case marking) as opposed to a simple accusative object (i):

    1. (i)
      figure a

    We confine ourselves to Class I and II for two reasons. First, Class I/II pairs pose the psych verb challenge to UTAH/Universal Alignment in the clearest terms, insofar as they involve a nominative subject and an accusative object, with apparent θ-role inversion being the only difference. Class III forms involve an extra factor (preposition or case). Second, this paper compares English and Mandarin, and Mandarin simply does not appear to possess Class III psych verbs. As Huang et al. (2009) note, although some adjectives may introduce a PP headed by dui ‘toward,’ whose object can be construed as a Theme and the subject can be construed as an Experiencer (iia), crucially these adjectives cannot be analyzed as psych verbs, as evidenced by the fact that they cannot take the NPs introduced by dui as their direct objects (iib).

    1. (ii)
      figure b

    Although we do not discuss Class III psych verbs directly in the text, we do discuss some ramifications of our analysis for them in footnote 40.

  3. The abbreviations used in this paper are glossed as follows: Cl: classifier; EO psych verbs: Experiencer Object psych verbs; ES psych verbs: Experiencer Subject psych verbs; OP: null operator; Perf: perfective aspect; SC: small clause; TV: transitive verb.

  4. It is well-known that the backward binding property of EO psych verbs is shared by counterpart causatives involving make + a psych adjective since Pesetsky’s (1995) work, as illustrated by (ia–c).

    1. (i)
      figure e

    This fact seems to support the “decompositional initution” that EO psych verbs are comprised of a causative element plus an adjectival element. On this view, one expects that only psychological ‘make’-causatives allow backward binding cross-linguistically. While this expectation is borne out in English (cf. (i)–(ii)), it isn’t in Mandarin, as shi ‘make’-causatives always allow backward binding whether they take psych (iii) or non-psych adjectives (iv).

    1. (ii)
      figure f
    1. (iii)
      figure g
    1. (iv)
      figure h

    In view of the different behaviors between make-causatives and shi-causatives with respect to backward binding, we leave open the question as to whether EO psych verbs are derivationally related to psychological ‘make’-causatives for future study.

  5. We are grateful to Jim Huang (p.c.) for pointing out (16a, b) to us.

  6. Li and Thompson (1981) observe that verbs of emotion such as ai ‘love’, xiang ‘miss’, hen ‘hate’, etc. which are typically disallowed in the ba-construction, become acceptable when it forms part of a resultative compound (i) or when followed by a resultative complement (ii).

    1. (i)
      figure x
    1. (ii)
      figure y

    This observation does not appear to us to threaten the generalization in the text that ES psych verbs are not compatible with the ba-construction. ES psych verbs are overwhelmingly stative, non-telic predicates in which the object is unaffected. As we discuss below, the ba-construction appears to require the post-ba NP be understood as “affected” (Wang 1987; Li 2006; Huang et al. 2009) and/or that the VP be understood as bounded in the sense of Liu (1997). Interestingly, addition of a resultative element is well-known to alter the aspectual character of the predicates it combines with, so that a non-bounded predicate with a non-affected object is reconstrued as a bounded predicate with an affected one; cf. (iiia, b).

    1. (iii)
      figure z

    Furthermore, under many analyses of resultatives, the resultative element and the verb form a complex predicate (Huang 1988, 1992; Li 1990, 1995, 1997, 1999, 2005). We suggest this as the reason for the otherwise unexpected behavior of ji ‘anxious’, ai ‘love’, etc. in (i) and (ii). Specifically, we suggest that what is licensed in the ba-construction in (i) and (ii) is not the verbs ji and ai simplicter, but rather the complex predicates ji-si-le ‘anxious to death’ and ai de yao si ‘love to death’. The latter are licensed because they (unlike their bare verb counterparts) have the necessary affectedness/aspectual properties. The generalization in the text therefore remains intact.

  7. We review the syntactic analyses of long and short passives in Sect. 2.3.2.

  8. The observation that ES psych verbs are intensional goes back to at least Bennett (1974). For more recent discussion, see Nissenbaum (1985) and Forbes (2006, 2013).

  9. Landau (2010) notes that some English EO psych verbs like interest and concern are stative, whereas others like scare, shock, surprise, etc. are ambiguous between a stative reading and an eventive reading. We include both types here and below to show that this aspectual class distinction, although interesting in its own right, appears to be irrelevant to the question of intensionality. We may also note that unlike the case in English, Mandarin EO psych verbs are unambiguously eventive. This is evidenced by their incompatibility with the intensifier hen (i), which stative verbs typically permit (Huang et al. 2009).

    1. (i)
      figure ag

    As in English, aspectual class seems orthogonal to questions of intensionality with Mandarin psych verbs.

  10. Lady Gaga is the stage-name of Ms. Germanotta.

  11. For helpful further discussion of these tests, see standard texts such as Dowty et al. (1981).

  12. An anonymous reviewer asks about the potential intensionality of EO psych verb subjects in view of examples like (i), which, according to his/her judgments, seem to allow for truth despite the non-existence of vampires:

    1. Vampires

      frighten/worry John.

    To evaluate this case we consider the three primary diagnostics for intensionality (drawn from Dowty et al. 1981): (a) potential for truth with non-denoting nominals, (b) preservation of truth-value by substitution of co-referring terms, and (c) possibility of “non-specific” readings with indefinites. (a) is tested by (i). (b) and (c) are tested by (ii) and (iii), respectively:

    1. (ii)

      Jackie Chan/Cheng Long frightens John.

    1. (iii)

      An intruder frightens John.

    Regarding (ii), we judge that truth-value is preserved by substitution of Jackie Chan and Cheng Long. If this is correct, then subject position is not intensional by this diagnostic. Regarding (iii), it seems to us that to the extent that this sentence is acceptable, it cannot convey the thought that John is frightened at the thought of an (unspecified) intruder; it requires a specific intruder as the cause of John’s fright. If correct, this judgment again points toward extensionality in the subject position. This leaves only (i) as evidence for intensionality. Bennett (1974) and Dowty (1979) argue against acceptance of truth with non-referring terms as a decisive test for intensionality in relation to the verb worship, and take possibility of “non-specific” readings with indefinites as the key test. By this criterion EO psych verb subjects would seem to be non-intensional, although this conclusion must be regarded as tentative.

  13. Note that EO psych verbs are also extensional in subject position; compare (32a) in the text with (i):

    1. (i)

      A poor result (on his entrance exams) frightened John.

    If a poor result frightened John, there must have been a poor result that John achieved and that frightened him. In order to get something approximating (32a) with frighten, it is necessary to switch to an example like (ii) where we now appeal to (specific) thoughts.

    1. (ii)

      The thought of a poor result (on his entrance exams) frightened John.

  14. As in the English case, Mandarin EO psych verbs are extensional in subject position. Consider (i):

    1. (i)
      figure aw

    This sentence requires a specific reading of the subject indefinite. That is, there must have been an oppressive government that infuriated the people who live in China.

  15. An anonymous reviewer notes much discussed cases of invalid reasoning like (i) as a potential challenge for the claim that intensionality always has a sentential source. Montague (1974) introduced such paradigms as evidence for “individual concepts” (type <s,e>)—the intensional counterparts of individuals. Crucially, intentionality of this kind does not involve propositionality, or relations to propositions.

    1. (i)

      The temperature is 90 degrees.

      The temperature is rising.

      ∴90 degrees are rising.

    We note that Montague’s intensional analysis of invalid inferences like that in (i) is not universally accepted and alternatives have been proposed (see, for example, Jackendoff 1979). Furthermore, even if Montague’s solution is correct, it appears to apply strictly to what Löbner (1981, 2012) terms “functional nouns” like name, size, shape, color, meaning, head, bottom, root, mother, or cholesterol level (see Löbner 2012). In other words, this form of intensionality—if this is indeed even the correct label for the phenomenon in question—appears quite distinct from, and irrelevant to, cases of the sort cited in the text, involving nouns like vampire, levitator or werewolf, which are plainly not functional in Löbner’s terms.

  16. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language lists adjectival constructions like (46) with desirous as still in current usage, giving (i) as an example.

    1. (i)

      Both sides were desirous of finding a quick solution to the problem.

    For most people, however, including the second author, such examples sound quite dated or formal.

  17. More fully, intensional transitives are analyzed by Larson (2002) as restructuring verbs, where the latter are accounted for along the lines of Burzio (1986) and Baker (1988), in which the embedded VP undergoes raising and the hidden verb HAVE undergoes further incorporation to the matrix verb, forming a complex predicate (ia–c) (see also Larson et al. 1997):

    1. (i)
      figure bg

    The impossibility of (48c) vs. (49a) above can then be accommodated by saying, following Wurmbrand (1997), that restructuring try/versuchen, unlike restructuring need, is tense defective. This proposal will also accommodate the observation by Partee (1974) that overt constructions with seek in English do allow a temporal adverb that disagrees with the main clause tense (ii).

    1. (ii)

      John was seeking to find a vampire next week.

    We can say that overt infinitival complements with seek are like overt infinitival complements with need and support an independent tense. By contrast covert infinitival complements with seek are like overt infinitival complements with versuchen and do not support an independent tense. Hence the impossibility of (48c).

    On this account restructuring is also what permits passivization of the complement clause object (iiia). Larson (2002) argues that this derivation is parallel to that of passive impersonal constructions with the counterpart verbs in Italian (iiib) (cf. (iiia)–(iiic)).

    1. (iii)
      figure bh

  18. Although we have shown that intensional verbs such as xuyao ‘need’ support the sententialist hypothesis, we note that Mandarin, unlike English, disallows temporal adverbs to modify silent predicates. Consider Mandarin xuyao. Like English need, xuyao takes both an overt clausal complement and a “bare” object that is intensional (ia, b).

    1. (i)
      figure bj

    Furthermore, like English, an overt complement clause permits a temporal adverb referring to a time distinct from that of the main clause in Mandarin (iia). However, unlike English, Mandarin does not permit a “bare” object and a temporal adverb that would refer to the time of an understood clause (iib, c):

    1. (ii)
      figure bk

    That Mandarin, unlike English, disallows temporal adverbs to modify silent predicates can be seen in the Mandarin counterparts of other English verbs allowing temporal reference to hidden predicates (see Dowty 1979). For instance, (iiia, b) show that English allows both silent and overt predicates to be modified by a temporal adverb. By contrast, while Mandarin allow both silent and overt predicates (iva, b), a temporal adverb must be anchored to an overt predicate (v).

    1. (iii)
      figure bl
    1. (iv)
      figure bm
    1. (v)
      figure bn

    We frankly do not know why Mandarin differs from English in disallowing temporal adverbs to modify silent predicates. Possibly it is due to independent differences in the tense systems in the two languages. Lin (2003, 2006) argues that whereas English temporal adverbs pick up their reference from a time established by V+tense, Mandarin lacks tense altogether so that temporal adverbs actually establish the main temporal reference of a sentence in combination with V. If so it’s possible that V+adverb requires an overt verb in Mandarin, much like V+tense requires an overt verb in English.

  19. As originally observed in Stowell (1981) and Williams (1983), for sentences like (56a), the subject can be construed de re but not de dicto (ia). By contrast, for sentences like (56b), the subject has both de re and de dicto interpretations (ib) (see Johnson 2004 and Lechner 2007).

    1. (i)
      figure bt

    The lack of de dicto interpretation in sentences like (ia) follows from Johnson’s (2004) proposal that reconstruction of the subject into the small clause is proscribed. By contrast, reconstruction of the subject into a clausal complement is permitted and hence both de re and de dicto interpretations can be obtained in sentences like (ib).

  20. See Heim (1979), Romero (2005, 2007), Frana (2006, 2010), Nathan (2006) and Schwager (2008) for alternative analyses of concealed questions.

  21. Concealed complements have been proposed for other languages besides English and (here) Mandarin. See van Riemsdijk (2002) for interesting discussion of hidden GO complements in Dutch and Marušič and Žaucer (2006) for concealed complementation involving FEEL-LIKE in Slovenian.

  22. An anonymous reviewer makes the interesting observation that although ES psych verb pairs like fear and like both take overt clauses (ia, b), it seems much easier to reconstruct specific hidden predicative content (PRED) with the former than with the latter when the two appear with bare DPs (iia, b):

    1. (i)
      figure bx
    1. (ii)
      figure by

    This question points to the broader issue of what principles guide PRED interpretation for individual psych verbs. Since a general answer lies well beyond the scope of this paper, we must content ourselves here with some general points. First, it is clear that PRED cannot be freely fixed from context. For example, although (iia) with fear can, in our judgment, be construed along the lines of (ia), it cannot be construed as in (iiia–c), no matter what the context is:

    1. (iii)
      figure bz

    Fear (like hope, with which it is often paired) seems in its most basic sense to involve what Enç (1986) terms a “shift to the future”, hence non-future interpretations like (iiia) are blocked. Furthermore, however, even with future shift, the interpretation must have some kind of “malefactive” implication for the subject, similar to what is invoked by adversative passives and certain ethical datives. Thus (iia), when understood along the lines of (ia), means something like ‘John fears Mary will commit an act of betrayal on him’, etc. This rules out interpretations counterpart to (iiib) where, despite a future shift, no such malefactive implication for the subject is present. Finally, it seems that fear requires a stage-level/non-stative understanding of its predicate, so that even interpretations like (iiic) are ruled out, despite future orientation and adversative content. Roughly speaking, Mary must be understood as “doing something in the future that negatively impacts the subject”.

    One way of probing hidden content is to consider potential answers to why questions in paradigms like (iv). These appear to make the distinctions we observed above:

    1. (iv)
      figure ca

    Using this probe we can begin to approach the content of PRED with like (v). First, it seems to us that like requires PRED to be understood in terms of i-level predicates true of Mary. That is, the starred answer in (v) would seem acceptable only in so far as it revealed some i-level property of her, e.g., that she is reliable:

    1. (v)
      figure cb

    Furthermore it seems to us that, unlike the case with fear, like requires the presence of a series of properties on Mary’s part; i.e., whereas it is possible to truly fear Mary on the basis of a single future action she might undertake, it is impossible (or at least odd) to speak of liking a person on the basis a single i-level property. Rather it seems that predication of like DP requires the like-relation to hold over a range of propositions of the form [DP PRED], where PRED is i-level, and PRED is evaluated positively by the subject. Like thus would seem to involve some form of implicit, possibly, generic quantification over properties. This might explain why it seems difficult to select a single content for PRED, as the reviewer observes. These remarks are necessarily programmatic. Nevertheless, we hope they are sufficient to show how the general question raised here regarding PRED content might be approached empirically in the framework we are assuming.

  23. An anonymous reviewer observes that sentences like ?John fears sharks tomorrow improve with event nominals (ia, b):

    1. (i)
      figure cc

    This point touches the interesting question of the syntactic contexts in which hidden clauses and their contents can be reconstructed. Compare (iia–c):

    1. (ii)
      figure cd

    Early transformational grammar would have analyzed the subject phrase in (iia) as derived by the so-called “WHIZ-deletion” from a relative clause source (iiia); i.e., (iia) involves a non-clausal subject. It is the modifier that is clausal in this context. By contrast (iib) appears to involve a genuine subject clause with a missing agent (PRO), a missing verb (HAVE) and a missing ablative (from one) (iiib). For us, (iic) appears to be of the latter sort, where what is understood is something like (iiic, d), with the subject phrase a concealed clause and with tomorrow a modifier of the hidden predicate (HAVE/BE).

    1. (iii)
      figure ce

    Hence it seems that hidden clauses of the sort postulated under sententialism are not only found in clausal complement environments. We must leave this much wider issue for discussion elsewhere.

  24. An anonymous reviewer asks whether ES psych verbs such as danxin ‘be worried’ can support independent time reference like English ES psych verbs such as fear. The answer is negative, as evidenced by the fact that (ia) only has the reading where zuotian ‘yesterday’ modifies danxin. Following our proposal that ES psych verbs take concealed complement clauses, (ia) will be schematically represented as (ib). This correctly captures the meaning of (ia); i.e., yesterday, Zhangsan was constantly in a state of worry that Lisi would do or undergo PRED.

    1. (i)
      figure cf

    We believe that the lack of independent time reference with ES psych verbs is due to the impossibility for temporal adverbs to modify silent predicates in Mandarin, unlike English (see footnote 18).

  25. As footnote 23 indicates, however, there is much more to be said.

  26. For recent, thorough reviews of the ba construction, see Li (2006) and Huang et al. (2009).

  27. Sybesma’s account is, in effect, a straightforward extension of Hoekstra’s (1988) analysis of resultatives. Ba constructions thus are for Sybesma fundamentally resultative constructions.

  28. More specifically, as an anonymous reviewer points out, ES psych verbs in Mandarin pattern as stative verbs, as evidenced by their cooccurrence with the intensifier hen, a diagnostic for statives of all sorts (ia, b) (see footnote 9). We note that other stative verbs (both psych and non-psych) are also blocked in the ba construction (ic):

    1. (i)
      figure cj

    Furthermore, we note that uncontroversial propositional attitude verbs in Mandarin like xiwang ‘hope’ and xiangxin ‘believe’ also accept the intensifier hen and can take a clausal complement (iia). Like other stative verbs, they cannot appear in the ba construction (iib).

    1. (ii)
      figure ck

    These points are again consistent with our analysis of ES psych verbs as clause-taking, propositional attitude constructions. Note that English ES psych verbs like fear and uncontroversial propositional attitude verbs like hope and believe also accept intensifiers (iiia–c):

    1. (iii)
      figure cl

    Furthermore, these verbs pattern as statives by the usual tests for aspectual class. For example, Dowty (1979) notes that only non-statives can occur in English pseudo-clefts. Propositional attitude verbs and ES psych verbs are forbidden in this context (iva–c) (see also Landau 2010).

    1. (iv)
      figure cm

    The Mandarin ba construction and the English pseudo-cleft seem to us to select for very much the same verb classes.

  29. We are grateful to an anonymous reviewer for (70a, b).

  30. This conclusion also seems to apply to more recent accounts involving multiple elements of the ba construction. For example, Liu (1997) takes Chinese ba to express a relation (BA) between a bounded event predicate XP and a DP whose semantics is specific in a sense she defines formally (i). BA holds of its two arguments just in case the denotations of DP and XP are homomorphic images of each other. This semantic proposal seems compatible with a syntax like (ii), where BA selects XP and DP and subsequently raises. As in aspect theories, this account seems to require DP and XP to be in the same thematic domain, and hence appears compatible with our account of ES psych verbs.

    1. (i)

      BA(DP,XP)

    1. (ii)

    The same conclusion appears to hold of recent proposals by Li (2006) and Huang et al. (2009), who propose structures like (iii), where ba is the light verb head of a higher phrase (baP) and the post-ba nominal raises out of VP.

    1. (iii)

    According to Li and Huang et al., the post-ba NP must be affected. Furthermore, the post-ba NP and the VP must be in the same thematic domain. Hence their accounts seem compatible with our own.

  31. One may wonder whether the subject of long and short bei passives need to be “affected” like the post-ba NP in the ba construction. As Huang et al. (2009) note, while the ba construction requires the post-ba NP to be directly affected by an action, bei passives may simply express an indirect effect of an action and the subject of bei passives need not be affected (see also Zhang 2001), as evidenced by the contrast between (ia, iia) and (ib, iib) (adapted from Huang et al. 2009:159).

    1. (i)
      figure db
    1. (ii)
      figure dc

    Since what is known (ib) or seen (iib) cannot be construed as disposed or transferred, the well-formedness of (ib, iib) suggests that the subject of bei passives need not be disposed or transferred, unlike the post-ba NP in the ba construction.

  32. Huang et al. (2009) offer (ia) as a potential example of passivization from the subject position of a clausal complement. They note that the subject position of the embedded clause can be optionally filled by a pronoun (ta), which they analyze as a resumptive pronoun. A reviewer suggests (ib) as an additional example of the same thing:

    1. (i)
      figure dl

    We do not find (ia, b) convincing as counterexamples to the generalization in the text. Note that in both cases the matrix verbs allow passivization even without the complement clause (iia, b). This contrasts sharply with the behavior of rang ‘let’ and xiangxin ‘believe’, which disallow passivization both with and without a complement clause (iiia, b).

    1. (ii)
      figure dm
    1. (iii)
      figure dn

    The possibility of (iia, b) suggests that (ia, b) may have alternative derivations involving extraction from matrix object position and not from complement clause subject position after all. Potential support for this view comes from corresponding English passives (iva–c), where it is quite clear that no extraction from clausal complement position has taken place:

    1. (iv)
      figure do

    Given the strong empirical support for the generalization in the text, we regard the burden of proof to fall on its challengers to show that (ia, b) are truly what they purport to be, especially given the facts in (ii).

  33. Our account essentially precludes a genuinely transitive ES psych verbs with the properties observed. Given that the “objects” of ES psych verbs are intensional, sententialism requires them to be contained within a clausal complement. In certain cases, however, it seems possible to imagine what the genuinely transitive counterpart of an ES psych verb might look like. Peter Ludlow (p.c.) suggests that a hypothetical English verb “phobe”, meaning ‘have a phobia about’ might come close to a genuinely transitive version of fear insofar as it would involve a similar emotion and would seem to be extensional in the object position. The latter point is not entirely clear to us, however. We are not certain whether it is possible to have phobias about non-existent objects like, for example, vampires and werewolves. We leave this as an open question.

  34. Derivational binding in the sense of Belletti and Rizzi (1988) is pursued by Abe (1993), Kitahara (1997), Epstein et al. (1998), Lasnik (1999), Grewendorf and Sabel (1999), Kayne (2002), Zwart (2002), Epstein and Seely (2002, 2006), Saito (2003, 2005), and Bailyn (2007), among others. Representational binding is developed by Pica (1991), Lebeaux (1983), Cole and Sung (1994), Hestvik (1992), Baltin (2003), Fox and Nissenbaum (2004), among others.

  35. The claim that backward binding is a structural phenomenon falling under Principle A is disputed by (a.o.) Zribi-Hertz (1989), Bouchard (1992), Pollard and Sag (1992), Reinhart and Reuland (1993), Iwata (1995), Arad (1998), Cançado and Franchi (1999). Typical counter-examples include (ia–d) (adapted from Landau 2010:72–73) and (ii) (from Robert Fiengo, p.c.), which show binding of a subject-contained reflexive and do not involve psych verbs.

    1. (i)
      figure du
    1. (ii)

      [Pictures of himself] festooned/decorated John’s room.

    A notable feature of these examples, in our view, is that they all arguably involve a derived subject. For example, (ia, b) show expletive variants with clausal subjects (iiia–b), counterpart to those observed with EO psych verbs:

    1. (iii)
      figure dv

    Examples (ic–d) and (ii) present a more interesting case. Note first that all have ditransitive variants (iva–d) in which the subject occurs within an instrumental PP, projected lower than the object (see (ivd) for evidence from NPIs). Arguably, then, (ic–d) and (ii) all involve instrumental subjects.

    1. (iv)
      figure dw

    Instrumental subjects of surface transitives like (va) have been argued to derive from an underlying low position (vb) by raising (vc):

    1. (v)
      figure dx

    (ia–d) and (ii) might thus be assigned a parallel raising derivation, in which the subject originates from a position below the surface object (vi):

    1. (vi)

    Note that this view, even if correct, does not entirely resolve the binding issues raised by (i)–(ii). In (vi), for example, John fails to c-command the reflexive himself even before raising. Although we cannot defend the proposal here, we believe that the reflexive in a “picture noun phrase” like (vi) is not in fact bound directly by the understood antecedent John. Rather himself is bound by a DP-internal empty operator (OP) that moves to the edge of a representational nominal (viia). This operator takes as its antecedent a subsequently introduced, but not necessarily c-commanding, higher “topic” (viib). The full analysis for (vi) is thus as in (viic), where, crucially, OP establishes its antecedence relation with John prior to raising.

    1. (vii)
      figure dy

    This proposal agrees with Belletti and Rizzi (1988) that a “picture noun phrase reflexive” is bound in accordance with Principle A, but disagrees insofar as the binder is not the understood surface antecedent but rather OP, which relates to the understood antecedent as a topic introduced higher in the derivation.

  36. The [ag] feature in (109) is assumed by Larson (2014) to be valued by a similar v head added above in the vP. See Larson (2014) for detailed discussion.

  37. In the double object construction (108b), the Agent Mary is Case-checked by a higher T, the Goal Bill is Case-checked by the higher v, and the Theme Fido is Case-checked by the lower, applicative v. We assume that in (110), the Experiencer Mary is Case-checked by the source applicative v, in parallel to the Theme in (108b) and (109). Landau (2010) notes that in many languages, the Experiencer argument of an EO psych verb is marked with an oblique preposition. In our account we may attribute this to whether the source applicative head v assigns an oblique Case itself, or requires the equivalent of a differential object marker (equivalent to Spanish a) in this construction. See Larson (2014) for further discussion.

  38. Our assessment of thematic relations seems broadly compatible with the analysis of Pesetsky (1995), who also projects the surface subject (DP2) into a low position associated with causes (i); DP2 subsequently raises:

    1. (i)

    As we have noted, all such theories face Minimality problems under modern probe-goal analyses of movement; we are unclear about the solution to this problem under Pesetsky’s account. By contrast, our assessment of thematic relations appears incompatible with the analysis of Landau (2010), who assumes a high unraised Causer DP1 with role assigned by the light v head (ii):

    1. (ii)
      figure eg

    On Landau’s analysis the surface subject of an EO psych verb (DP1) is its deep subject as well. This proposal requires an approach to backward binding fundamentally different than Belletti and Rizzi (1988) and some account of subject expletives with these constructions.

  39. An anonymous reviewer notes examples like (ia), which realize the notional “causer” with a low source phrase, and their relation to apparent causatives like (ib, c). In view of this relation, examples like (ia) have sometimes been referred to as “anti-causatives” (see DeLancey 1984; Piñón 2001; Alexiadou et al. 2006; Levin 2009 among others):

    1. (i)
      figure eh

    This point raises the much broader question of the relation of EO psych verbs to psychological ‘make’ causatives in general, both in English and in Mandarin (see footnote 4). This relation can be seen in pairs like (iia, b) and (iiia, b):

    1. (ii)
      figure ei
    1. (iii)
      figure ej

    In fact psychological make-causatives show many of the properties of EO psych verbs (and vice versa) including backward binding and the presence of subject expletives in the case where the source is clausal (iva, b).

    1. (iv)
      figure ek

    We believe that the inversion analysis of EO psych verbs proposed here can in fact be generalized to the class of make-causatives like (iva, b), with a corresponding explanation of their binding and thematic properties, but since this would lead us to many additional considerations not directly relevant to psych verbs (see footnote 4), we put aside this extension and the general question of relations to overt causatives for separate exposition elsewhere.

  40. We noted earlier in footnote 2, following Landau (2010), the existence of a third class of psych verbs exemplified by the verb appeal. These resemble EO psych verbs not only in thematic structure (ia, b), but in other important respects as well. Thus Class III psych verbs exhibit backward binding (iia) and allow clausal subjects that alternate with expletives (iib, c), respectively:

    1. (i)
      figure en
    1. (ii)
      figure eo

    At the same time Class III psych verbs differ from EO psych verbs in two key respects. First, EO psych verbs require a simple accusative Experiencer object (iiia) and disallow a dative preposition (to) (iva); Class III psych verbs show the opposite pattern (iiib, ivb):

    1. (iii)
      figure ep
    1. (iv)
      figure eq

    Second, EO psych verbs always permit an agentive variant, as evidenced by co-occurrence with agentive adverbs, whereas Class III psych verbs never do (va, b) (Landau 2010). (Note that the relevant sense of appeal in (vb) must be kept constant; i.e., ‘attract’, not as ‘implore’ or ‘entreaty’.)

    1. (v)
      figure er

    Although we do not have space to develop our views here, we believe the analysis offered in Sect. 3.1 for EO psych verbs can be extended directly to Class III psych verbs. Specifically we propose: (i) that appeal type psych verbs are not valued for the experiencer θ-feature. This requires insertion of to for this purpose (or, in other languages, inherent dative case-marking tied to this θ-feature), and (ii) that the little v associated with Class III psych verbs cannot host an accusative case feature; this entails, under the usual correlation with θ-role (Burzio’s Generalization), that v cannot host an agentive θ-feature either. Class III psych verbs will thus have no agentive variants, but will exclusively require raising structures together with the presence of the preposition to. We hope to develop these points elsewhere.

  41. An anonymous reviewer suggests an interesting possibility that the lack of overt expletives in Mandarin could be related to the general lack of overt expletives in null subject languages. Since this issue is beyond the scope of this study, we leave this possibility for future study.

  42. Our account of EO psych verbs appears compatible with Li’s (2006) and Huang et al.’s (2009) analysis of ba construction (see footnote 30). Consider, for example, the raising variant of Mali jinu-le Lisi ‘Mary infuriated Lisi’ in our account (i):

    1. (i)

    Under Li (2006) and Huang et al. (2009), the subject of ba will be derived by movement of the Source DP Mali to Spec-baP and the post-ba NP will be derived by movement of the Experiencer object Lisi from Spec-VP to the higher Spec-vP, as in (ii).

    1. (ii)

    Li (2006) and Huang et al. (2009) take the post-ba NP to be an “affected” object. As discussed above, this follows from our analysis of EO psych verbs, in which the post-ba NP is an Experiencer.

  43. Feng-hsi Liu (p.c.) points out to us that whether and when Chinese EO psych predicates occur with or without -le (or some other delimiter) is complex. Thus in an embedded complement jinu can occur without -le (ia). Furthermore, EO psych verbs like xia ∼ yi tiao ‘to startle someone’ (lit. ‘frighten a jump’) do not require -le, apparently in virtue of coming with an intrinsic delimiter (yi tiao) (ib):

    1. (i)
      figure fe

    We cannot pursue this issue further here.

  44. Larson (2014) makes the general proposal that passivization involves devaluing of a θ-feature borne by V, with the value supplied by a little v head. Passives of standard transitives involve devaluing a [theme] feature, with raising to a little v head valued for [th]. Passives of EO psych verbs involve devaluing an [exp] feature, with raising to a little v head valued for [exp]. We assume a similar picture for Mandarin bei passives.

  45. Landau (2010) proposes the following crosslinguistic typology for EO psych passives:

    1. (i)

    As mentioned in footnote 9, Mandarin EO psych verbs are unambiguously eventive. Furthermore, they are ambiguous between two variants, viz., agentive and causative, as discussed in Sect. 3.2. Laudau’s typology of psych passives correctly predicts that Mandarin allows agentive EO psych verbs to appear in verbal passives (i.e., long and short bei passives) (see (136a–c)). However, Mandarin also allows causative EO psych verbs to appear in long and short bei passives (see (137)–(139)) even though EO psych verbs taking a clausal Source argument is disallowed in long passives (see (140)). Given these facts, Mandarin is neither type A nor type B language; rather, it seems to represent a third type of languages that allows eventive (agentive and non-agentive) EO psych verbs to appear in verbal passives.

  46. Since the underlying subjects of ES psych verbs are cognitive agents—holders of propositional attitudes, and since clauses do not denote agents, it follows that clauses (overt or covert) cannot be underlying subjects of ES psych verbs. This means that we do not expect underived subjects of ES psych verbs to be intensional.

    Derived subjects of ES psych verbs—for example, those raised by passive (i), are predicted to be intensional on the assumption that raising can extract the subject of the postulated small clause (ii). This prediction appears correct on our view. Note that plural agreement on be in (i) shows that it is only the subject vampires of the covert clauses that has raised, not the whole clause itself; compare (iii).

    1. (i)

      Vampires are feared by John.

    1. (ii)

      Vampires are feared [ ___ PRED] by John.

    1. (iii)

      [That vampires might bite him] is feared ___ by John.

  47. From this perspective it is non-accidental, and unsurprising that Experiencers in EO psych verb constructions are often marked with dative case, or co-occur with a dative preposition.

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Acknowledgements

We benefited greatly from the discussions with Lisa Cheng, Marcel den Dikken, Robert Fiengo, Jim Huang, Audrey Li, Feng-hsi Liu, Peter Ludlow, and Andrew Simpson. We are greatly indebted to the five anonymous NLLT reviewers for their extensive comments and valuable suggestions on earlier versions of this paper. We are grateful to the NLLT editors for their kind assistance. We thank the audiences at the 2006 Chicago Workshop on Chinese, the 2007 joint 15th International Conference on Chinese Linguistics and 19th North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics, and the 2008 annual meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, where part of the material in this paper was presented. Special thanks go to Jackie Lai, Jess Hoi-Ki Law, Haoze Li, Zheng Wei, and Jiahui Yang for consolidating the Mandarin data. We also thank Jess Hoi-Ki Law and Zheng Wei for editorial assistance. The research leading to this paper was partially supported by CUHK Direct Grant for Research (#4051007) and Research Fund for Comparative Syntax (#6903134). All remaining errors are our own responsibility.

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  1. Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong

    Candice Chi-Hang Cheung

  2. Department of Linguistics, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, 11794-4376, USA

    Richard K. Larson

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  1. Candice Chi-Hang Cheung
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Correspondence to Candice Chi-Hang Cheung.

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Cheung, C.CH., Larson, R.K. Psych verbs in English and Mandarin. Nat Lang Linguist Theory 33, 127–189 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-014-9259-3

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