Verbs psicològics transitius amb subjecte experimentador

Abstract

The article describes the behaviour of emotional psychological verbs in Catalan such as lamentar ‘to regret’ or odiar ‘to hate’, which participate in transitive sentences with an experiencer subject (SubjExp verbs). Like other sentences with emotional verbs, they have two characteristics: constraint of postverbal bare noun phrases and construction with a subordinate clause in subjunctive. These are features that differentiate them from other non-emotive psychological predicates and that determine which meanings of the verb behave as SubjExp. Within the verbal group, there are specific behaviours of predicates that admit an accusative object of personal reference (SubjExp(+pers) verbs such as odiar ‘to hate’) and those that do not admit them (SubjExp(–pers) verbs such as lamentar ‘to regret’). Some verbs, such as admirar ‘to admire’ or menysprear ‘to despise’, may have another lexical meaning that allows them to express a change of state in the experiencer, such as a patient, and to be part of a group of emotional psychological verbs other than SubjExp.