Dynamicity and Indirect Causation in the Domain of Psych Eventualities: A Note on the Aspectual Properties of Non-Agentive Imperfective Object Experiencer Verbs in Polish

Maria Bloch-Trojnar

doi:10.18290/rh257306.1

Published : 2025-08-05

Vol. 73 No. 6 (2025)

Dynamicity and Indirect Causation in the Domain of Psych Eventualities: A Note on the Aspectual Properties of Non-Agentive Imperfective Object Experiencer Verbs in Polish

Maria Bloch-Trojnar

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2340-2128

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18290/rh257306.1

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that imperfective Object Experiencer verbs with non-agentive subjects need not be viewed as stative, as traditionally assumed. Dynamicity is attributed to the presence of an external Causer and the incremental character of the eventuality. The presence of the external argument is borne out by the availability of the eventive passive. Crucially, this external Causer argument is associated with eventive construal and requires a resultative component. There is no temporal co-extensiveness between the Causer and the Experiencer, because the Causer implies an event that precedes and leads up to the onset of a state in the Experiencer participant. The absence of control and volitionality in the Causer participant facilitates the Experiencer’s entering a psych state. The presence of the dynamic subevent preceding the onset of the state is corroborated by the availability of adverbs of time/change and incremental modifiers. The presence of the resultative component in the event structure is detected with the begin-statements, which require the change-of-state to start, and the availability of the habitual interpretation in the present tense, which implies the attainment of the result state.

Keywords:

psych verbs, Causer, causation, dynamicity, aspectuality, Polish

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