This dissertation investigates transitivity alternations, with particular reference to Amharic. The lexical-semantic and morphosyntactic properties of morphological causatives, experiencer predicates, applicative constructions and complex predicates formed by light verbs are examined in detail. It is claimed that transitivity alternations are an artefact of Event-type alternations and follow from universal principles such as Event Headedness. It is argued that the valency difference between various verb classes reduces to whether the Root of the verb is specified or underspecified for Event Headedness. / Two levels of phrase structure, l-syntax and s-syntax, are recognized in the study. It is argued that productive causatives are generated in s-syntax, whereas morphological causatives which are sensitive to the Event-type of the Root are generated in l-syntax. A unified structural analysis is given for a number of superficially unrelated constructions including Subject Experiencer predicates, perception verbs and possessive predicates. It is argued that the quirky Case and agreement properties of such predicates can be handled by motivating inherent Case assignment. This analysis is further extended to account for the benefactive applicative of unaccusatives. / The role of light verbs in transitivity alternation is explored in detail. It is shown that light verbs are independent verbs that spell-out Event-types. The study argues that the polysemous relationship between predicates is best accounted for by a single argument structure rather than by positing multiple lexical entries.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.41963 |
| Date | January 1996 |
| Creators | Amberber, Mengistu. |
| Contributors | Travis, Lisa (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Linguistics.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001566545, proquestno: NQ29873, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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