Sinhala Involitive Verbs from a Cross-linguistic perspective: Distinguishing Involuntary Agents from Involuntary Causers

Authors

  • Tharanga Weerasooriya University of Sri Jayewardenepura
  • María Luisa Rivero University of Ottawa
  • Ana Arregui University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Abstract

This paper distinguishes between two types of constructions with involitive verbs in Sinhala: involitive sentences with dative marked subjects dubbed ‘Dative Involitives’ and involitive sentences with postpositional subjects dubbed ‘PP involitives’. Dative involitives involve activity verbs while PP involitives involve causative verbs. The flavors variously dubbed 'involuntary', 'accidental', 'out-of-control’, 'could-not- help', or 'inevitable' associated with these involitive constructions derive from the presence of a modal element in them. The paper defends a compositional analysis of the two types of involitives according to which the modal in each construction displays a different argument structure. Dative involitives exhibit a universal circumstantial modal in a monadic structure with VoiceP as argument. This results in a subject- centered modality with Dative in an applicative counting as a 'quirky subject' interpreted as an 'involuntary agent/actor/doer'. By contrast PP-involitives are shown to mirror causative interpretations. They contain a universal circumstantial modal relating a causal sub-event to a result sub-event in a bi-eventive causative structure. Here PP as 'quirky subject' in an Applicative is interpreted as an 'involuntary causer/effector'. The paper sheds light on the considerable cross-linguistic variation regarding the presence/absence of 'involuntary agents/actors/doers' and 'involuntary causers/effectors' across several unrelated languages including Polish and Spanish.

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Published

2022-01-13