The Middle Voice in Baltic by Holvoet Axel;

Author:Holvoet, Axel; [Holvoet, Axel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Published: 2020-04-16T12:44:25+00:00

5.3Surface-impact verbs

Not surprisingly, authors have paused over which kind of verbs can derive anticausative counterparts and which cannot. This is touched upon in Fillmore (1970), though the term ‘anticausative’ was not yet in use at the time. Fillmore contrasts the grammaticality of (9) with the ungrammaticality of (10):

(9)

The window broke.

(10)

*The window hit.

On the basis of this and other evidence Fillmore distinguishes ‘change-of-state’ and ‘surface-impact’ predicates. Only a change-of-state predicate can underlie a one-place predication; a surface-impact predicate always entails two arguments referring to objects being in a relation of impact or at least contiguity. This explains why, though (9) is ungrammatical, (11) is possible:

(11)

The stone hit against the window.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.