Repositori URV

Identifier: imarina:5864291

Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/imarina5864291

Authors:
Royo, Carles

Abstract:
The verb interessar (to interest) has a rich syntactic flexibility that allows it to take part in a wide range of verb alternations. It has a causative verbal meaning that is unusual within the paradigm of the Catalan psychological verbs, because it can take part in three-argument causative constructions of change of state which do not have Pesetsky's Target/Subject Matter (T/SM) Restriction (1995) (La Meritxell va interessar la Mirk pel teatre [lit.: Meritxell interested Nitria in the theatre]), it resists the use of the verb without the experiencer (La Meritxell va interessar pel teatre [lit.: (??)Meritxell interested in the theatre]) and demands the presence of a prepositional phrase (*La Meritxell va interessar la Artiria: [lit.: *Meritxell interested Nitria]). In addition, alternation with a pronominal verbal meaning differs from the causative alternation of other causative psychological verbs with an experiences object. The lexical specificity and syntactic flexibility of the verb interessar are a challenge in the debate on how to approach the lexicon-syntax interface.