nominalizations of french psychological verbs - Fachbereich ...

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246 JUDITH MEINSCHAEFFER derive the syntactic realization of the semantic participants for the derived nominalizations from the representations in (19). 6. Participant-realization rules for psychological nominalizations Section 3 above described which types of prepositional phrases (de-phrase, pour-phrase, par-phrase) occur with which class of psychological nominalizations (derived from ES-verbs and two types of EO-verbs), and to which semantic participants (experiencing entity, target or cause of the experience) these can refer. The present section aims at formulating three participant-realization rules by means of which the descriptive generalizations stated in section 3 can be derived from the semantic representations given in section 5. In particular, we want to derive the differing behavior of EO-verbs of the fasciner-type and of EO-verbs of the décevoir-type with regard to which semantic participant can be realized in a de-phrase. For convenience, the semantic representations of the verbs are repeated in (22). (22) a. ES regretter PSYCH_RELATION (x, y) b. EO fasciner CAUSE (ACT (y), PSYCH_RELATION (x, y)) c. EO décevoir CAUSE (ACT (y), CHANGE (PSYCH_STATE (x))) As to the de-phrase, regret-nominalizations, as well as fascinationnominalizations, can realize both participants; experiencing entity and target of the experience. Déception-nominalizations, in contrast, can realize only the experiencing entity, i.e., the participant over which the resulting psychological state is predicated. According to the semantic representations proposed here, the semantic forms of fasciner-verbs and décevoir-verbs have identical first elements; the structure of the first element should therefore play no role. Furthermore, regretter-verbs and fasciner-verbs (which behave alike) have identical second elements, while fasciner-verbs and décevoir-verbs (which show the contrast) differ with regard to the second element of the predication. Hence, the relevant difference should reside in the second element of the complex predications. More precisely, for fasciner-verbs (as well as for regretter-verbs), the second element contains two arguments, while for décevoir-verbs, the second element contains but a single argument. In other words, for verbs of the fasciner-type, the state which is caused is transitive, i.e., it is a psychological relation, while for verbs of the décevoir-type, it is intransitive, i.e., it is a psychological state. The generalization which can be drawn is then that the semantic participants which can be realized by the de-phrase are those which appear in the second, or
247 NOMINALIZATIONS OF FRENCH PSYCHOLOGICAL VERBS rightmost, element of the complex predication. If this element is transitive, both arguments can be realized in a de-phrase; if it is intransitive, only one argument can be realized in a de-phrase. Hence, if the interpretation of de-phrase complements of deverbal nominalizations is sensitive to which participants appear as arguments of the second, or rightmost, element, the difference between EO-nominalizations of the fascination-type and those of the déception-type receives a straightforward interpretation. We therefore propose that the rule in (23) regulates how semantic participants are realized by de-phrase complements of nominalizations. (23) Rule 1: De-phrases can refer to the semantic participants introduced by the rightmost predicate in the semantic form. Note that this is a ‘positive’ formulation (cf. Markantonatou 1995 for a similar proposal) of a previously made ‘negative’ generalization about nominalizations of the destruction-type, cf. (15) above. This generalization has previously been referred to as ‘suppression’ of the external argument (i.e., of the agent or causer), (Grimshaw 1990; Alexiadou 2001), and it has also been termed ‘causer deletion’ (Iwata 1995). Hence, previous approaches have argued that the agent or causer, i.e., the semantic participant of the leftmost predicate, cannot be realized by ofphrases in English, corresponding to French de-phrases, because it is suppressed or deleted from the argument structure. The present proposal, in contrast, argues that a semantic participant which has the conceptual role of agent or causer can be realized in a de-phrase in French, but only if it has, in addition, a role to play in the rightmost predicate. Thus, the argument ‘suppression’ effect found for destruction-nominalizations and déception-nominalizations, but not for fascination-nominalizations, is claimed to arise from the participant-realization rule in (23). The second generalization drawn in section 2 stated that prepositional phrases headed by par can be interpreted only as referring to semantic participants of events denoted by EO-verbs. In addition, it was said that a parphrase can refer only to what was termed the target or cause of the experience, but not to the experiencing entity. Looking at the semantic representations in (22), we see that EO-verbs, i.e., fasciner-verbs and décevoir-verbs, share their leftmost element, i.e., ACT, the presence or absence of which furthermore distinguishes EO-verbs from ES-verbs. Therefore, we assume that it is the semantic participant introduced by ACT, i.e., the agent, which can be realized in a par-phrase. This generalization is formulated in (24). (24) Rule 2 : Par-phrases can refer to the semantic participant introduced by ACT, i.e., to the agent.
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