The possessor raising construction and the interpretation of subject

Abstract

In this paper, an extension of Hasegawa (2001, 2004), I examine the possessor raising construction and the interpretation of the subject. Though it is usually assumed that transitive sentences invariably involve the small v that assigns both an external role and object Case, I claim that non-agentive transitives whose subject is interpreted as an experiencer and serves as the possessor of the object involves the little v that does not have an external role, but assigns Object Case nevertheless. In such transitives, the subject moves from the possessor position of the object, constituting a type of possessor raising construction. Various facts seen in non-agentive causative constructions in Japanese, and the experiencer use of have and get in English, support this claim.

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