Stativity, eventivity and agentivity of English and Croatian Psychological verbs

master's thesis

• Author: Ivana Sklepić
• Mentor: Irena Zovko Dinković (mentor)
• Committee member: Janja Čulig Suknaić (predsjednik povjerenstva)
• Granter: University of Zagreb; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences; (Department of English language and literature); Zagreb
• Defense date and country: 2024-12-19, Croatia
• Scientific / art field, discipline and subdiscipline: HUMANISTIC SCIENCES; Philology; Anglistics

Abstract

Due to their intricate and unique framework, psychological verbs have been a topic of interest in the linguistic community for the past couple of decades. The stativity, eventivity, and agentivity of this group of verbs often exhibit ambiguity, making them a frequent matter of debate. This thesis utilized the pre-existing classifications of psychological verbs by Belletti and Rizzi (1988) and Landau (2010) and was based on a qualitative approach to English and Croatian corpora, to form a contrastive analysis of psychological predicates across both languages. The aim of this thesis was to explore how psychological predicates behave in both languages, as well as to explore strategies of determining stativity, eventivity and agentivity of these predicates. The analysis has shown that classes I and III of psychological verbs tend to be primarily stative both in English and Croatian, whereas Class II verbs are more ambiguous and nuanced, with more variation in their ability to be interpreted as both stative and eventive. The results of this study have revealed that the Croatian language employs the notions of the perfective and imperfective aspect as one of the key points in distinguishing the stativity and eventivity of psychological verbs. English, lacking the clear-cut aspectual opposition, relies more on the progressive aspect and the nature of these predicates’ passivization to outline their differences. This thesis examines the concept of agentivity as well, which indicates that there is a specific agent controlling a particular action. When it comes to Class II psychological predicates, the general conclusion was that most of these verbs can be interpreted as both stative and eventive, depending on the context in which they are used. Furthermore, most of the eventive psychological verbs can be interpreted as hypothetically agentive, provided that a controlling agent is present.

• Keywords: psychological verbs; stativity; eventivity; agentivity
• Language: english
• URN:NBN: urn:nbn:hr:131:119999
• Study programme: Title: English Language and Literature (double major); specializations in: Linguistics, Literature and Culture, Translation, TEFL; Course: Linguistics; Study programme type: university; Study level: graduate; Academic / professional title: magistar/magistra engleskog jezika i književnosti (magistar/magistra engleskog jezika i književnosti)
• Type of resource: Text
• File origin: Born digital
• Access conditions: Access restricted to students and staff of home institution
• Created on: 2024-12-29 19:31:51