On the distribution and interpretation of voice in Greek anticausatives.

ABSTRACT: 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 realize

SUBMITTER: Tsiakmakis E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9997674 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature