Dative Experiencer Psych Verbs in Old French – The Role of the Preposition à
Abstract
This paper investigates the omission of the preposition à with some dative Experiencer psych verbs in Old French. In order to answer the question what the omitted à tells us about the verb and the object, the semantic meaning of the psych verbs is taken as point of departure, since meaning – among other things – determines a lexical entry. The qualitative data analysis clearly shows that the use of à does not only depend on the psych meaning of a psych verb, as there are several cases where it is omitted although the psych interpretation is straightforward. For these cases, I have identified possible reasons for the omission of the preposition. This suggests that à does not indicate dative case in a reliable way.
open access | peer reviewed
Presentato: 14 Marzo 2025 | Accettato: 17 Novembre 2025 | Pubblicato 29 Aprile 2026 | Lingua: en
Keywords Semantics • Argument structure • Old French • Preposition à • Psych verbs
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Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-962-7/007