Search results for " Agentivity"
showing 2 items of 2 documents
La Strategia del Ventriloquo. Sul Portavoce
2016
This paper examines the activity of the spokesperson by means of an analogy with the art of ventriloquism. It is composed of three parts: in the first one we introduce some definitions of «spokesperson» in order to explain in what consists his activity. The second part is devoted to the analysis of the linguistic aspects of the spokesperson’s activity with particular reference to some language operations: a) self-effacement; b) attribution of agentivity. Finally, in the last part we discuss some questions that remain open in the debate on spokesperson’s activity.
Unaccusativity
2012
Abstract My research is an attempt at suggesting a cross-linguistically valid definition of verbs characterized by unagentivity and affectedness such as “burn”, “die”, “sink”, “fall”, “slide”, etc., which according to the present analysis constitute the semantic core of unaccusativity. Both synchronic and diachronic approaches are followed. Various definitions have been attributed to these verbs (eventives, anticausatives, transformatives, inchoatives, decausatives). Although Perlmutter & Postal (1984) classify unaccusative verbs on the basis of their syntactic behavior, they also argue that the syntactic expression of arguments is always determinable on the basis of the meaning of the verb…