Spanish and Catalan Psych Verbs: A Pilot Study on the Acceptability of Active Voice and Pronominal Voice Constructions
Abstract
This article examines Catalan and Spanish experiencer-object (EO) verbs in active and pronominal voice constructions with animate and inanimate stimuli. Acceptability judgements by native speakers in the Balearic Islands indicate a high degree of optionality concerning stimulus animacy in EO verb constructions in Spanish and Catalan. Catalan verbs that exclusively accept accusative case-marking yielded more varied ratings across participants, supporting claims of an interaction of agentivity and case-marking. No clear pattern for voice-animacy level preferences could be discerned from the data.
open access | peer reviewed
Presentato: 25 Novembre 2024 | Accettato: 04 Settembre 2025 | Pubblicato 29 Aprile 2026 | Lingua: en
Keywords Psych verbs • Animacy • Experiencer object verbs • Psych alternation
Copyright © 2026 Sarah M. Grätz, Armin Sawicki, Anna S. Stein. 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.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-962-7/002