Experimentador acusatiu i experimentador datiu: un contrast entre oracions alternants

Abstract

Certain Catalan psychological verbs that are traditionally used in sentences with an accusative experiencer (Els nens molesten la Maria "The kids annoy Maria") have an innovative use in the dative case (A la Maria li molesten els nens " lit. To Maria kids are annoying"). These two sentences have different syntactic and semantic characteristics, and by applying various different tests this article looks more closely at the causativeness of the accusative sentence and the stative nature of the dative sentence. However, Catalan also presents stative sentences by using psychological verbs with an experiencer object without an apparent change in case marking (A la Maria l'atabalen els nens " lit. To Maria kids are overwhelming"). The lexical nature of the verb influences the characterization of the experiencer in stative sentences; encantar "delight" or molestar "annoy" are constructed with an experiencer represented by a dative clitic when there is a change in the lexical meaning of the verbal root; other verbs like atabalar "overwhelm" or commoure "move, touch" appear to resist the change of lexical meaning and maintain the accusative morphology in the clitic.