Data_Sheet_1_On the distribution and interpretation of voice in Greek anticausatives.pdf

This paper provides experimental evidence in support of the view that Greek does not have three productive morphological classes of anticausative verbs, but only two: the class of verbs that bear non-active voice morphology and the class of verbs that are morphologically active. Across two experiments, native Greek speakers are found to prefer for each anticausative verb either non-active or active voice morphological marking, in the presence or absence of explicit contextual information. It is also shown experimentally that native speakers prefer an interpretation that involves a specific cause for all anticausatives, especially when the existence of such a cause is favored by the contextual setting. Our empirical findings are consistent with the view that the Voice Phrase that is realized as non-active voice morphology in Greek anticausatives is expletive. From a theoretical perspective, we analyze the expletiveness of this Voice projection as the result of semantic redundancy: the Voice head of Greek anticausatives combines with a v head that encodes a redundant cause meaning component and is, therefore, interpreted merely as introducing an identity function.

本研究提供实验证据，支持希腊语并不存在三类能产性反使役动词（anticausative verbs）形态类，而仅存在两类的观点：一类是带有非主动语态（non-active voice）形态的动词类，另一类是形态上为主动形式的动词类。在两项实验中，研究发现希腊语母语使用者在有无明确语境信息的情况下，对每一个反使役动词均更倾向于选择非主动语态或主动语态的形态标记。实验还证实，希腊语母语使用者更倾向于为所有反使役动词赋予带有特定诱因的语义解读，尤其当语境设定更偏向于存在此类诱因时。我们的实证发现与下述观点一致：在希腊语反使役动词中实现为非主动语态形态的语态短语（Voice Phrase）实为虚义成分（expletive）。从理论视角出发，我们将该语态投射的虚义性分析为语义冗余的结果：希腊语反使役动词的语态中心语（Voice head）与一个编码了冗余诱因语义成分的轻动词中心语（v head）结合，因此仅被解读为引入恒等函数（identity function）。