Psych Predicates in Romance Languages
open access | peer reviewed
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edited by
- Niklas Wiskandt - Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf - email
- Elga Cremades Cortiella - Universitat de les Illes Balears - email
- Rolf Kailuweit - Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf - email
Abstract
This volume collects a broad selection of research perspectives on psych predicates in Romance languages. The individual chapters present studies on different languages – Spanish, Catalan, Italian, French, and Latin, among others – as well as sub-phenomena – the psych alternation, dative-experiencer verbs, psych nouns, and light verb constructions. Different methodologies and theoretical approaches complement each other and benefit from discussions across framework boundaries. For instance, there are different opinions across the chapters on how to classify the pronominal constructions of object-experiencer verbs: are they anticausatives, autocausatives, antipassives? The volume also highlights the value of an interaction between theoretical and data-driven approaches, as empirical chapters in the volume show that data sometimes contradict the assumptions made on theoretical grounds. Finally, the cross-linguistic studies in some contributions complement findings on individual languages in the other chapters.
Keywords Romance Languages • Semantics • Corpus analysis • Corpus linguistics • Spanish • Psychological verbs • Eventive structure • Psych nouns • Anticausative • Autocausatives • Middle voice • Case marking • Voice syncretism • Grammatical voice • Anticausatives • Voice • Experiencer • Nominalizations • Syntax • Experiencers • Argument structure • Dative Experiencer • Diathesis • Animacy • Alternation • Object-experiencer verbs • Role-and-Reference Grammar • Experimental linguistics • Inverted structure • Detransitivization • Preposition à • Impersonal psychological verbs • Latin • Psych verbs • Romance and Germanic languages • Object-Experiencer verbs • Typology • Psych alternation • Old French • Romance languages • Experiencer object verbs • Catalan • Antipassives • Dative verbs • Elicitation
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-962-7 | e-ISBN 978-88-6969-962-7 | ISBN (PRINT) 979-12-5742-059-8 | Published April 29, 2026 | Language en
The volume is funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), as a part of the project “Psych-Prädikate in den romanischen Sprachen (Schwerpunkt Spanisch und Katalanisch)”, within the funding line “Higher Education Dialogue with Southern Europe”.Copyright © 2026 Niklas Wiskandt, Elga Cremades Cortiella, Rolf Kailuweit. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.