Stativity of Polish Object Experiencer predicates.
Adam Bialy

Psychological predicates with experiencer objects (Object Experiencer predicates) have been analysed in two different ways in the literature. The two competing approaches are: the unaccusative analysis postulated by Belletti and Rizzi (1988) and the causative approach favoured by Grimshaw (1990), Pesetsky (1995), and Reinhart (1996). I will only focus on the latter, since in line with the arguments presented in Bialy (2000), Polish data reject the unaccusative treatment of Object Experiencer (ObjExp) predicates. 
According to the causative hypothesis, ObjExp predicates are an instance of 'psychological' change of state, taking a causative structure, with Cause as an external argument and an experiencer as an internal argument. The immediate consequence following from this assumption is that ObjExp predicates, sharing the argument structure with causatives, should behave in a similar manner to those verbs, e.g. allow detransitivization amongst others. 
	However, as the examples below indicate (2b), not all Polish ObjExp verbs allow the 
reduced variant (all Polish diacritics have been marked with a preceding apostrophe).
1) a.   Wyniki wybor'ow martwi'a Piotra.
          'The election results worry Peter.'
    b.   Piotr martwi si'e (wynikami wybor'ow).
          'Peter worries (about the election results – Instr).' 
2) a.   My'sli o przysz'lo'sci przera'zaj'a/dra'zni'a Mari'e.
          'Thoughts about the future frighten/annoy Mary.'
    b.   *Maria przera'za/dra'zni si'e (przysz'lo'sci'a).
            'Mary frightens/annoys (of the future – Instr).'
The matters being so, this phenomenon would constitute a serious flaw of the causative 
analysis, unless it can be explained on independent grounds. I will argue, following Arad (1998) 
and Pylkkanen (1997), that positing a finer grained semantics ObjExp verbs do not form a uniform 
class. The semantic/aspectual features distinguishing them influence their syntax, at the level of syntax-lexicon interface, and are directly responsible for their variant behaviour. I will also show that the behaviour of ObjExp verbs, in this respect, is shared by causative verbs, which thus defends the causative analysis of this group of verbs in Polish.

Selected references:

Arad, M. 1998. "Psych-notes." UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 10. University College London.

Belletti, A., and L. Rizzi. 1988. "Psych-verbs and theta theory." Natural Language and Linguistic
Theory 6: 291-352.

Bialy, A. 2000. "Some remarks on linking of psychological predicates in Polish." Anglica Wratislaviensia. Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wroclawskiego. Wroclaw.

Grimshaw, J. 1990. Argument Structure. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Pesetsky, D. 1995. Zero Syntax: Experiencers and Cascades. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Pylkkanen, L. 1997. "Finnish psych verbs." Paper presented in the workshop of events in grammar, LSA Summer Institute, Cornel University.

Reinhart, T. 1996. "Syntactic Effects of Lexical Operations: Reflexives and Unaccusatives." UIL OTS Working Paper.