The present thesis presents a causal approach to transitivity and proposes a model of transitivity based on the view that a single event is a single ‘causal impact’, which consists of a single causation and a single effect. It defines semantic intransitivity as events where the effect is borne by and expressed through the actor and semantic transitivity as events where the effect is borne by and expressed through the patient. It finds evidence for this definition in the phenomenon of ‘selective specification’ of action or result by verbs with actor and patient. Furthermore, it proposes that the verb eat has dual event structures, intransitive and transitive, and uses a Web data test to test and confirm this hypothesis.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:618487 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Eu, Jinseung |
| Contributors | Fellerer, Jan |
| Publisher | University of Oxford |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:5f3a0921-ef1f-47a4-9971-d6903d983df0 |
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