3.1 Preliminaries

Transitive EO verbs are taken to be ambiguous between three readings – stative, eventive, and agentive – as has been illustrated by means of example (3) in Section 1. This ambiguity also holds for Spanish EO verbs, see (5).

While the stative reading is most clearly present with the experiencer marked in the dative and the unmarked word order being OVS (5a), the eventive and agentive readings are typically associated with the experiencer marked in the accusative and the unmarked word order SVO, see (5b) and (5c), respectively (e.g., Cuervo 2010; Marín 2015; Jiménez-Fernández & Rozwadowska 2016; Fábregas et al. 2017; Machicao y Priemer & Fritz-Huechante 2018). In the present study, the eventive (5b) and agentive (5c) readings are of interest. They are also present in Korean, see example (6a) for the eventive reading and (6b) for the agentive reading of the transitive EO structure.

Comparing the Korean examples in (6) with the Spanish examples in (5), it becomes evident that their transitive EO predicates differ in terms of internal structure. Spanish EO predicates are morphologically basic transitive verbs, while in Korean transitive EO structures are formed by a transitivizing operation of causativization on intransitive bases through the embedding under the causative verb hata ‘do.DECL’.

3.2 Agentivity

The ACH “requires the predicate’s external argument to be associated with agenthood properties” in order to allow for zero-result non-culminating construals (Demirdache & Martin 2015: 201). The capacity to control a situation is often regarded as a core ingredient of agenthood. Further notions related to agenthood include volition, intention, sentience, action and the capacity to instigate or cause an event (e.g., Dowty 1991; Van Valin & Wilkins 1996; among many others). These notions emphasize different aspects related to agentive control and may be relevant in diverse grammatical phenomena. With respect to EO verbs, the agentivity of the subject referent is crucial; the question is whether this participant can be understood as volitionally bringing about the psych state in the experiencer. Previous work has demonstrated that the possibility for an EO verb to accommodate an agentive reading is lexically conditioned. If a verb allows for both agentive and non-agentive interpretations (as the verbs shown in (3), (5), and (6)) the choice between these readings is determined by context (Verhoeven 2017).

It has been shown for diverse languages that individual transitive EO verbs display differences in their propensity to accommodate an agentive reading (Verhoeven 2010; Grafmiller 2013; Verhoeven 2017). This also holds for Spanish and Korean EO predicates. Individual native speaker intuitions on the acceptability of an agentive reading of EO verbs show variation between the individual lexical items. According to native speaker intuitions, the Spanish sentence in (7a) with the verb molestar ‘anger’ is much more acceptable in combination with the adverb intencionalmente ‘intentionally’ than the verb deprimir ‘depress’ in (7b).

Similarly, for Korean, the sentence in (8a) containing the psych verb nollata ‘get surprised’ was judged more acceptable than the sentence in (8b) containing the psych verb wenmangsulepta ‘be resentful’. The structure in (8) tests agenthood of the subject referent by embedding the causative structure under a matrix verb of decision, kyelsimhata ‘decide’, which implies that the subject has control over the event given in the subordinate clause.

What lies behind such gradient judgements? Following Verhoeven (2017), we assume that agentivity per se is not a scalar notion. Rather, a verb either allows for an agentive reading or not. The gradient ratings obtained from (7) and (8) are indicative of the possibility to imagine a context in which the verb is used agentively. Furthermore, EO verbs seem to differ as to whether they are more or less directly associated with (specific) actions bringing about the experiential state. In the sentences in (9), the EO verbs seem to invoke certain actions and the subject referent is clearly interpreted as agentive.

Note that this also seems to hold for the agentive EO verbs mentioned in Martin & Schäfer (2017). The German EO verbs ermutigen ‘encourage’, provozieren ‘provoke’, beruhigen ‘reassure’ can be associated with acts of communication (or social interaction, see Martin & Schäfer 2017), where the subject referent is talking to/about the object referent in order to encourage or reassure them or to provoke them.

Coming back to the ACH, if the potential to adopt an agentive reading is decisive for zero-state readings with transitive EO verbs, we expect that differences of the former influence the acceptability of the latter. Hence we predict that gradient agentivity (in the introduced sense) should directly correlate with the propensity to allow zero-state readings.

3.3 Lexical aspectual and event structure

As introduced in Section 1 for both Spanish and Korean, it has been argued that some of their psych verbs denote inchoative states (Marín & McNally 2005; 2011; Fábregas et al. 2012; Choi Jiyoung & Demirdache 2014; Choi Jiyoung 2015b; Fábregas 2015; Fábregas & Marín 2015). This analysis contrasts with the hitherto predominant view that transitive EO verbs in their agentive and eventive readings belong to the class of accomplishment or achievement verbs (Van Voorst 1992; Landau 2010; Alexiadou & Iordăchioaia 2014). In the present section we will discuss our basic assumptions about the aspectual and event structural properties of the transitive EO predicates in Spanish and Korean.

Marín and McNally (2005; 2011) claim that Spanish reflexive psych verbs refer to the onset of the experiential state they are associated with, without making any allusion to the change that produces said state. Building on the notion of ‘boundary’ by Piñón (1997), they distinguish two aspectual subclasses: (a) inchoative states (e.g. divertirse ‘get/be entertained’), which include both some part of the state and its onset (i.e. the left boundary), and (b) punctual eventualities which allude only to the onset of the state (e.g. sorprenderse ‘get/be surprised’).⁵ Following Fábregas (2015) and Fábregas and Marín (2015) this aspectual characterization is also valid for the transitive alternants such as divertir ‘entertain’ or sorprender ‘surprise’ when occurring with an accusative experiencer object (cf. examples (5b/c) and (7), see Appendix, Table 1 for further verbs belonging to the two subclasses of inchoative state causatives and punctual causatives). Based on Pesetsky (1995), Fábregas and Marín (2015) propose that EO predicates are built over the structure of experiencer subject predicates by the addition of a causative layer. This causative layer accommodates the causer responsible of triggering the emotion, and this causation defines the onset of the state which is represented in the lower layer. We follow this analysis in assuming that the Spanish transitive EO predicates are bi-eventive consisting of a causing eventuality and a state component.

For Korean, two types of stative psych verbs⁶ have to be distinguished: (a) verbs denoting pure states (e.g. culkepta ‘pleased’) which are atelic with no boundaries, and (b) verbs denoting inchoative states (e.g. nollata ‘get surprised’), which refer to the inception of a state, with no inherent culmination in its aspectual meaning (Choi Jiyoung & Demirdache 2014; Choi Jiyoung 2015a; 2015b). The two classes are distinguished by their (in)compatibility with the inchoative marker -eci ‘become’. While pure state verbs can be combined with -eci (10a) inchoative state verbs cannot (10b). This is explained by the analysis that the verbs of the latter group lexically incorporate the initial point of the state which blocks the addition of an overt inchoative marker (Choi Jiyoung 2015a; 2015b).

Verbs of both types combine with the causative verb hata ‘do.DECL’ to form a periphrastic causative EO structure (see (6) and (8); see Appendix, Table 2 for further verbs belonging to the two subclasses of pure state causatives and inchoative state causatives). The light verb hata ‘do.DECL’ functions as the syntactic head of the causative construction (Lee Juwon 2015). The experiencer and the stative verb syntactically form a small clause, being subordinated to hata ‘do.DECL’ by means of the adverbializer –key. Both the stative verb and the causative verb each contribute their own syntactic and semantic features to the unified complex predicate (Park Ki-Seong 1993). In the sentences in (6) and (8) (see also (16) below), the complex causative predication refers to an unspecified causing eventuality which makes the experiencer (start to) be in the state encoded by the embedded verb. While the embedded inchoative state verbs lexically encode the left boundary of the state, with embedded pure state verbs, the inception of the state arises as a result of the syntactic structure of causativization.

There are a number of event structure tests which are commonly used to identify bi-eventivity, among them tests which identify different readings with adverbs like again or almost dependent on whether they relate to the causing event or the caused (result) state (see e.g. Martin & Schäfer 2017). In the following, we apply the almost-test⁷ starting with Landau’s (2010) observation that sentences with agentive psych verbs in co-occurrence with the adverb almost display an ambiguity between (a) a reading “in which the causing event almost took place” and (b) a reading in which the event of getting into the psychological state almost took place (Landau 2010: 130). Example (11) shows that the causing event can be targeted by the adverb as well. This reading is explicit under the continuation given in brackets.

Applying this test to the Spanish verb sorprender ‘surprise’ gives rise to interpretations parallel to the English case. Disregarding the continuation in brackets, the sentence (12) is ambiguous between a reading in which casi ‘almost’ relates to the causing event and a reading in which it relates to the caused eventuality. Again, the former reading is explicit under the continuation given in brackets.

Applying the casi-test to other Spanish EO verbs as e.g. divertir ‘entertain’, which are less felicitous with an agentive reading of the subject (cf. Section 3.2), indicates that this test is also sensitive to agentivity, given that the cancellation part presupposes control of the subject referent by using the verb decidir ‘decide’. The sentence in (13a) is less felicitous with a continuation that cancels the causing event than the sentence in (12).⁸ However, once agentivity of the subject is explicitly stated, as in (13b), judgements are again as expected.

Similar to the Spanish example in (12), the Korean example in (14) demonstrates ambiguity in readings when applying the almost-test to the periphrastic causative construction containing an agent. As in Spanish, (14) conveys two interpretations: (a) a reading that the causing event almost takes place, i.e. Mina almost performing an action that would cause Minho to be pleased or get surprised, and (b) a reading where the experiential state is targeted (Kim Nam-Kil 2002), i.e. Minho almost being pleased or getting surprised.⁹

Thus, it can be concluded that the causative EO predicates of both languages under investigation are consistent with causative accomplishment predicates in their property of being bi-eventive.

However, for both languages, a difference in behavior to canonical bi-eventive causative accomplishment predicates can be shown when applying the traditional (a)telicity tests, i.e. the co-occurrence with the durative adverbial for x time and the time-span adverbial in x time (Dowty 1979). In x time measures the smallest interval during which the eventuality denoted by the predicate takes place, and for x time measures event duration and is compatible with eventuality predicates that do not encode an endpoint. Example (15) demonstrates for Spanish that both subtypes of EO verbs naturally combine with the durative adverbial, however triggering different interpretations: EO verbs denoting inchoative states elicit a durative reading due to their stative component (divertir ‘entertain’ in (15a)), whereas punctual EO verbs elicit an iterative reading due to the presence of only the left boundary (without any temporal extension, as sorprender ‘surprise’ in (15b)). In contrast, bi-eventive causative accomplishment predicates are generally judged as infelicitous with the for-adverbial.¹⁰ These latter verbs are most natural in combination with a time-span adverbial (e.g. for repair in (1) he repaired the car in two hours), where the adverbial measures the causing event (i.e. the action performed by the subject referent, the telos of which coincides with the obtention of the result state in the object referent; cf. Martin 2020). On the contrary, Spanish transitive EO verbs are generally not highly acceptable when combined with the time-span adverbial. With both inchoative state verbs and punctual verbs there is a (possibly marginal) reading with the time-span adverbial, which measures the time until the state in the experiencer starts. This reading is sometimes referred to as ingressive, and it can be made explicit by a paraphrase where in is replaced with after (see translations in (15)). This reading is more easily interpretable with an agentive subject (cf. also Landau 2010: 129 for English). The ingressive reading seems to be the result of a repair mechanism which applies because the psych predicates lack the denotation of a process leading to an endpoint (the obtention of the result state), which could be measured by the adverbial. In other words, the EO predicates are not associated with any scalar properties since the causing events do not involve a change component.

The behavior of Korean causative EO structures is similar, though not identical, to the Spanish inchoative state causatives regarding the (a)telicity tests (cf. example (15) for Spanish). In fact, both durative adverbials and time-span adverbials combine felicitously with the members of both experiential subtypes (16). As shown for the Spanish inchoative state causatives in (15a), also in Korean, the durative adverbial (sippwun tongan ‘for ten minutes’) relates to the duration of the embedded experiential state. The combination with the time-span adverbial sippwun maney ‘in ten minutes’ is possible with an ingressive reading concerning the occurrence of the experiential state. In contrast to the corresponding Spanish case illustrated in (15a), Korean speakers judged the combination with the time-span adverbial sippwun maney ‘in ten minutes’ as natural. With an animate subject (Mina in (16)) the sentence is compatible with a situation where Mina performed an action for 10 minutes and Minho started being pleased/getting surprised at the end of this time span.¹¹

Summarizing the previous discussion, we can conclude that in both of our languages transitive EO predicates differ from canonical bi-eventive causative accomplishment predicates in that they lack a clear change of state component as part of the causing event, i.e. they do not refer to a process undergone by the experiencer prior to (the onset of) the state. This was particularly evident when combining the verbs with a time-span adverbial, where only an ingressive (=after) reading related to the experiential state was available. Beyond this difference, the causative EO predicates in Korean and Spanish share structural similarities with the class of causative accomplishment predicates. Most crucially, they are bi-eventive consisting of a causing eventuality and a caused state. Furthermore, causative EO predicates potentially accommodate an agentive subject, which intentionally brings about the state in the object experiencer. Table 1 provides an overview of the differences and similarities of the discussed causative EO predicates compared to causative accomplishment predicates. The properties noted in the table correspond to the prototypical readings and acceptability ratings of the particular tests.

Following a bi-eventive conceptualization of causative accomplishments (cf. Kratzer 2005; Schäfer 2008 among others) causative accomplishment predicates (such as e.g. repair) are understood as denoting a set of causing events conceived of as made of some process leading to a culminating natural endpoint. The subject referent is involved as an agent/causer of the causing eventuality while the object referent undergoes a change of state as determined by the verbal meaning (e.g. repaired/fixed). While the Spanish and Korean EO predicates are also bi-eventive and causative, they differ from regular causative accomplishment predicates in that they denote a set of causing events conceived of as consisting of some process without including a change in which the experiencer is involved. Rather, the causing events bring about the (start of the) state in the experiencer. While the causing part in the representation is assumed to be identical across subclasses for each language, the state part exhibits language-specific differences. Following Marín & McNally (2011), Spanish inchoative state verbs such as divertirse ‘get entained’ differ from punctual psych verbs such as asustarse ‘get/be frightened’ or sorprenderse ‘get/be surprised’ in that they include both some part of the state and its onset (i.e. the left boundary) in their denotation, while the punctual psych verbs include just the onset (i.e. the left boundary). As introduced above, we assume that their transitive causative counterparts are equipped with the same semantic properties in their state part (Fábregas 2015; Fábregas & Marín 2015). Hence, punctual causative EO verbs (cf. sorprender ‘surprise’ in (17a) or asustar ‘frighten’ in (5b,c), (9a)) in their agentive/eventive readings name an event e of a participant x (i.e. the experiencer Laura in (17a)) starting a (lexically specified) experiential state (i.e. surprise in (17a)), which is caused by another (lexically underspecified) eventuality of which a participant y (i.e. Manuel/la película in (17a)) is the effector, thus generalizing over the more specific thematic roles agent and causer (cf. Van Valin & Wilkins 1996).

Spanish inchoative state causative verbs such as divertir ‘entertain’ in their agentive/eventive reading (see (17b); see also molestar ‘bother’ in (7a)) differ from the punctual causatives in the conceptualization of the state part, which includes some part of the state and its onset. Hence inchoative state causative EO verbs in their agentive/eventive readings name an event e of a participant x (i.e. the experiencer Laura in (17b)) starting to be in a (lexically specified) experiential state (i.e. being entertained in (17b)), which consists of some part of the state and its onset. As in (17a), e is caused by a lexically unspecified eventuality, of which participant y (i.e. Manuel/la película in (17b)) is the effector.

Based on the aspectual analysis of the inchoative state verbs presented above (see (10); Choi Jiyoung & Demirdache 2014; Choi Jiyoung 2015a; 2015b) we assume that the Korean inchoative state causatives such as nollakey hata ‘make get surprised’ in their agentive/eventive reading (see (18a)) are parallel to the Spanish inchoative state causatives. Agentive/eventive nollakey hata ‘make get surprised’ names an event e of a participant x (i.e. the experiencer Minho in (18a)) starting to be in the state of surprise which is caused by another eventuality of which participant y (i.e. Mina/ku yenghwa in (18a)) is the effector.

Finally, for the Korean pure state causatives such as culkepkey hata ‘make pleased’ (cf. (18b)), see also mwusepkey hata ‘make scared’ in (6), we assume a simple state part, in accordance with the denotation of pure state predicates (see argumentation above and Choi Jiyoung 2015b). Hence, culkepkey hata ‘make pleased’ in its agentive/eventive reading denotes an event e of a participant x (i.e. the experiencer Minho in (18b)) being in the state of being pleased which is caused by another eventuality of which participant y (i.e. Mina/ku yenghwa in (18b)) is the effector.

The characterizations of the causative EO predicates illustrated in (17) and (18) are silent about the nature of the causing eventuality. In Section 3.2, it was argued that the individual EO predicates per language differ in their propensity to accommodate an agent in the effector role and at the same time being associated with more specific actions. For instance, the latter seems to hold for Spanish EO verbs such as molestar ‘bother’ or asustar ‘frighten’ in contrast to deprimir ‘depress’ (cf. (7), (9a)). The same contrast is present in the Korean causative EO predicates, as was shown for nollakey hata ‘make get surprised’ vs. wenmangsulepkey hata ‘make resentful’ (see (8)). Given that the agentive involvement of the subject referent is a prerequisite for non-culminating readings, we assume that those causative EO predicates that are more clearly associated with specific agentive activities are more easily interpreted with zero-state readings. Recall from Section 3.2, that similarly the German EO verbs provozieren ‘provoke’, beruhigen ‘reassure’, ermutigen ‘encourage’ identified in Martin & Schäfer (2017) as defeasible causatives are similarly associated with communicative activities.¹² Insofar as the causative EO predicates can be interpreted as including an action performed by an agent (with the intention of triggering a certain experiential state in the experiencer) in their denotation, they may be compatible with zero-state readings.

Despite the syntactic difference in building transitive EO structures – Spanish uses transitive verbs¹³ while Korean uses a periphrastic structure with a causative light verb – the EO predicates of both languages share the properties which have been identified as crucial for non-culminating readings (see Section 2). Based on these prerequisites, we will experimentally investigate their potential for zero-state construals, depending on the potentially gradient agentive involvement of the subject referent. Before presenting the empirical study in Section 4, the impact of punctuality on non-culminating readings needs to be addressed.

3.4 Punctuality and non-culmination

The above (a)telicity tests (see examples (15) and (16)) have demonstrated that the two more specific verb subclasses per language differ with respect to including some part of the state in their denotation (both Korean subclasses, i.e. pure and inchoative state causatives, and Spanish inchoative state causatives) versus including the left boundary of the experiential state (without any temporal extension), as the Spanish punctual causative psych verbs do. The latter was visible through the iterative interpretation yielded by these verbs in combination with the durative adverbial (15b). Following the analysis of Marín and McNally (2011), punctual psych verbs such as asustarse ‘be frightened’ or sorprenderse ‘be surprised’ are perceived as achievements in terms of Piñón (1997), i.e. they make reference to a point in time lacking any meaningful duration. Several researchers have pointed out for different languages that achievements disallow non-culminating construals (cf. Bar-el 2005 on Salish languages; Tatevosov & Ivanov 2009 on Russian; Beavers 2013 on English; Altshuler 2014 on Hindi and Russian). Altshuler (2014) attributes this behavior to the fact that achievement verbs denote atomic (indivisible) stages. Obligatory culmination with achievements is generally discussed and illustrated with examples from intransitive or transitive non-agentive/non-causative verbs such as arrive, reach, find, win, etc. Agentive verbs denoting causation of an instantaneous change in the object referent such as kill or break may allow for non-culminating readings in some languages (Demirdache & Martin 2015; Demirdache et al. 2017 on Mandarin shā ‘kill’; see also Tatevosov & Ivanov 2009 on sın-dır- ‘break-CAUS-’ in Karachay-Balkar (Turkic)). However, it seems that across languages non-culminating readings with such causative achievement predicates are more difficult to interpret. For instance, for Mandarin it is reported that an interpretation of non-culmination with verbs such as shā ‘kill’ or suì ‘break’ is significantly facilitated when an iterative adverb meaning ‘several times’ is added (Demirdache et al. 2017). As for languages as German and French, the list of defeasible causatives presented in Martin & Schäfer (2017) does not contain any clearly punctual verbs. Based on this initial evidence we argue for Spanish that causative achievement verbs such as reventar ‘burst’, which include a causative event and a punctual change in their denotation, are perceived as punctual under everyday granularity (cf. Gyarmathy 2015) and hence cannot be easily interpreted as non-culminating. This may be due to the fact that the causing event is perceived as instantaneously provoking the result state. Observe the perfective sentence in (19), where the complex eventuality denoted by the verb reventar ‘burst’ is conceived of as an indivisible unit occurring in a very short moment under everyday granularity. The point in time where the balloon bursts is seen as inseparable from the point in time where Manuel’s action causes the balloon to burst. In other words, as soon as the subject referent performs the causing action of bursting the balloon, the object changes state.

Interestingly, in aspectual diagnostics tests causative achievement verbs such as reventar ‘burst’ behave as regular non-causative achievement verbs do. Due to their non-duration, achievement verbs formed in the progressive generate a preliminary circumstance reading¹⁴ (cf. Piñón 1997; Kearns 2003; Marín & McNally 2011). This also holds for the sentence in (20a), which has the interpretation that Manuel has not yet caused the balloon to burst but the balloon is in the stage prior to being burst (i.e. it is still whole). Hence the sentence in (20a) can be paraphrased with the sentence in (20b) implying that no stage of the predicate is going on yet (cf. Rothstein 2004: 52).¹⁵

Similar to causative achievement verbs such as reventar ‘burst’, Spanish punctual causative psych predicates such as asustar ‘frighten’ or sorprender ‘surprise’ denote complex eventualities consisting of a causative event and the left boundary of the caused experiential state. These are equally perceived as instantaneous at everyday granularity. In the agentive use of the verb sorprender ‘surprise’ in (21), the predicate describes a complex eventuality where Manuel’s causing activity is understood as inseparable from the caused state in the experiencer.

As with causative achievement verbs, when punctual psych verbs are formed in the progressive, they yield a preliminary circumstance reading with respect to the point where the state is caused to start. For sentence (22a), native speakers’ judgements consistently yield the interpretation that Manuel has not yet caused the experiencer Laura to enter the state of surprise, and Laura is at the stage prior to entering the state. Importantly, native speakers did not interpret (22a) as referring to an ongoing activity of the subject referent. The progressive structure in (22a) can be paraphrased with the about to structure in (22b).

Summarizing the previous discussion, we have argued that Spanish causative achievement verbs, which include verbs such as reventar ‘burst’ and the punctual causative psych verbs such as sorprender ‘surprise’, are perceived as punctual in an everyday granularity. Aspectual diagnostics have shown that under this coarse granularity, they show the same behavior as culmination achievement verbs. Based on this evidence, we expect that the Spanish punctual causative psych verbs behave like regular achievement verbs and disallow, or at least disfavor, non-culminating construals. Hence, for the experimental study, we expect that Spanish punctual EO verbs are not or only weakly acceptable in a non-culminating zero-state interpretation, regardless of the type of subject, i.e. regardless of whether it is an agent or an inanimate causer.

4.1 Study design

We designed two separate acceptability studies, one for each language. Following the discussion in Section 3, two factors seem to play a role for the possibility of a zero-state non-culminating reading: the agentivity of the subject and the verbal aspect type. The factor agentivity was implemented indirectly via the animacy of the subject referent: only animates can be interpreted as agentive while inanimate referents are necessarily interpreted as non-agentive. Furthermore, verbal aspect in EO verbs differs between the two languages: as outlined in Section 3.3, Korean EO structures denote either pure or inchoative state causatives whereas Spanish EO verbs are inchoative state causatives or punctual causatives. Both experiments have the same design, examining the impact of the fixed factors ANIMACY (SUBJECT) and VERBAL ASPECT on the acceptability of a zero-state in the object experiencer, as outlined in (23).

Following the considerations presented in Section 3, agentivity (implemented through animacy) of the subject is expected to have an impact on the acceptability of a sentence that cancels the experiential state in the object referent in both Spanish and Korean to the effect that with animate subjects, such sentences are significantly more acceptable than with inanimate subjects. Note that this expectation is based on the similarity of causative EO predicates to the bi-eventive causative accomplishment predicates investigated in Martin & Schäfer (2017), based on the shared causative component. Furthermore, for Spanish we expect an interaction of the factor ANIMACY (SUBJECT) with the factor VERBAL ASPECT. Cancelling the state in the object experiencer is expected to be more acceptable with inchoative state causatives (e.g. divertir ‘entertain’) than with punctual causatives (e.g. sorprender ‘surprise’), as explained in Section 3.3. and 3.4. Table 2 gives an overview of the expected effects for the Spanish experiment.

For Korean, expectations concerning the impact of the factor VERBAL ASPECT are different: in this language EO psych structures encode either inchoative state causatives or pure state causatives which are expected to behave in parallel to the Spanish inchoative EO verbs. Hence, for the Korean experiment we only expect a main effect of ANIMACY (SUBJECT) across the two aspect classes (see Table 3). Note that the two classes examined in the Korean experiment cover the existing range of EO verb classes in this language. Hence these two classes exhaust the range of possible EO verb classes for which the possibility of a zero-state interpretation can be tested.

4.2 Material

The factor VERBAL ASPECT was implemented by 10 verbs per aspect class in each language (see Appendix, Table 1 lists the Spanish verbs, Table 2 lists the Korean verbs). The items chosen were part of a larger inventory elicited by a questionnaire targeting alternating psych verbs featuring basic emotion domains in terms of typical emotion triggering situations (i.e. happiness, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust), resulting in an inventory of 118 alternating verbs for Spanish and an inventory of 59 alternating verbs for Korean (see Rott & Verhoeven 2019; Rott et al. 2020). For each language inventory, we screened the verbs with respect to frequency (and for Spanish, frequency considering both macro-varieties of the language, Peninsular Spanish and Latin American Spanish), morphosyntactically more simple items (in Korean, items including body parts were excluded, e.g. maum-i mwukep-ta ‘have a heavy heart’), and most prototypical items by emotion domain. To identify the verbs’ semantic subclasses, the event structure properties of the items such as stativity, inchoativity/punctuality, telicity, and dynamicity (Dowty 1979; for Spanish: Marín & McNally 2011; Fábregas & Marín 2015; for Korean: Choi Jiyoung & Demirdache 2014; Choi Jiyoung 2015b; Beavers & Lee Juwon 2020) were tested with several native speakers of the languages via the compatibility of a verb structure with state vs. event modifiers.

As for the factor ANIMACY (SUBJECT), animate subjects were rendered by proper names in both languages equally distributed over feminine and masculine gender. As inanimate subjects, we considered definite common nouns representing individuals (e.g. The picture upset Peter) or natural forces (e.g. The thunder scared Mary), avoiding subjects which can be easily reinterpreted as instruments of an implicit agent (e.g. The speech of the dean flattered John, Martin & Schäfer 2017; Martin 2019). The experiencer objects were all proper names.

In order to test the acceptability of a zero-state reading we used sentences of the type introduced in (24) for Spanish and in (25) for Korean. (24a–d) and (25a–d) illustrate the four conditions for Spanish and Korean, respectively. (24e) and (25e) present the invariable continuation which targets to test the possibility of cancelling the state in the experiencer by stating their unawareness of the experiential state. Awareness of the experiential situation on the part of the experiencer is generally claimed to be a prerequisite for the existence of a mental state in the experiencer (e.g., Dowty 1991; Landau 2010; see Temme 2018 for an elaboration of the awareness condition). In both languages, the sentences are presented in the past perfective.

The verbs were inserted in the sentential frames in (24) and (25) respectively, adhering to the criteria of subject and object choice introduced above; no fillers were included. Note that in the Spanish sentences in (24) the objects are ambiguous for case (accusative vs. dative), which can only be made unambiguously visible by a respective clitic (cf. Section 3.1, example (5)). Since the presented word order is the default word order for an accusative structure (SVO vs. OVS for a dative structure), we assume that the participants interpreted the sentences correspondingly.

In order to evaluate possible effects of the lexicalization – and especially of the absence of clitics in the Spanish sentences – we carried out a separate acceptability study of the test sentences in (24a–d) for Spanish and (25a–d) for Korean, i.e., without the continuation in (24e) and (25e). The sentences were judged on a 1 (=very bad) to 7 (=very good) scale and were presented without fillers; the acceptability task was implemented in OnExp 1.2 (http://onexp.textstrukturen.uni-goettingen.de) and performed online. 15 native speakers of Spanish (9 females, 6 males, age range: 17–64, M = 34,57; origin: Chile, Peru, Argentina, Colombia, Spain) judged the Spanish sentences (grand mean: 6.9). 15 native speakers of Korean (11 females, 4 males, age range: 16–54, M = 31,73; origin: South Korea) judged the Korean sentences (grand mean: 5.1). The acceptability of the individual verbs will be included in the models of interest in the following sections, in order to see whether the differences between the factors of interest hold true beyond the variation that is due to the lexicalization (i.e., the acceptability of individual verbs).

4.3 Procedure

Thirty-two native speakers participated in the Spanish experiment ranging in age from 21 to 76 (8 females, 24 males, age M = 34,57). Participants were monolinguals living mainly in Chile and some other Latin American countries (Peru and Panama) as well as in Spain. In the Korean experiment, thirty-two native speakers were part of the study with an age range from 27 to 54 (15 females, 17 males, age M = 36,32). Participants were monolinguals living in South Korea. All subjects voluntarily and anonymously took part of the study.

Participants were presented the target sentences and were instructed to estimate their well-formedness on a 1–7 Likert scale (1 = very bad, 7 = very good). The target sentences were mixed randomly. Five practice trials were presented prior to the beginning of the experiment to familiarize each participant with the task. The experiments were conducted as web-based studies implemented in OnExp 1.2. Each session took approximately 20 minutes and was unpaid.

4.4 Results

4.4.1 Spanish

Table 4 presents the mean acceptability ratings on the 1-to-7 scale for the zero-state reading broken down by verbal aspect and animacy of the subject (see Table 1 in Appendix for the mean acceptability values per verb). There were no missing values, i.e. 320 observations for each condition were collected.

Table 4

Mean acceptability of zero-state readings with Spanish psych verbs.

VERBAL ASPECT	ANIMACY (SUBJECT)
	animate		inanimate
	mean	confidence*	mean	confidence
inchoative state causative	3.53	.23	2.62	.19
punctual causative	2.81	.22	2.50	.19

• * confidence = 95% confidence interval.

Figure 1 provides a visualization of Table 4. Inspection of the results points to an interaction of the two independent variables to the effect that the acceptability of those target sentences with a zero-state reading is higher in the condition with inchoative state causatives constructed with an animate subject (mean 3.53) than in the other three conditions, i.e. with inchoative state causatives construed with an inanimate subject (mean 2.62) and with punctual causative psych verbs independently of the animacy of the subject referent (mean in the animate subject condition: 2.81; mean in the inanimate subject condition: 2.5).

Figure 1

Acceptability of zero-state readings in Spanish (means and 95% c.i.).

The data was fitted with a linear mixed effects model, based on a maximal random-effects model (see Barr et al. 2013). The dependent variable corresponded to the acceptability judgments, the fixed factors were VERBAL ASPECT, ANIMACY (SUBJECT), LEXICALIZATON (i.e., acceptability of the test sentence; see Section 4.2) and their interaction. The random-effects structure contained intercepts for ITEMS (different verbs) and PARTICIPANTS as well as random slopes of PARTICIPANTS with ASPECT/ANIMACY and ITEMS with ANIMACY.¹⁶ The random effects capture the variation between individuals; there is no evidence for multimodality in our sample.¹⁷

A backwards selection procedure was applied to the fixed effects, choosing model by AIC value in a stepwise algorithm (function “step” in the R Stats, 3.6.0, package; R Core Team 2013), starting from the maximal model. Both fixed effects as well as the interaction effect are kept in the model of the best fit, the parameters of which are listed in Table 5.¹⁸ Removing the interaction between ASPECT and ANIMACY leads to a significant loss of information (in terms of the χ² value of the difference between deviances). The maximal fit is reached by a model including the interaction of ASPECT and ANIMACY (with interaction: AIC = 4415.4, df = 18, vs. without interaction: AIC = 4418.2, df = 17; Log-likelihood Test: χ²(1) = 4.85, p < .05). The factor LEXICALIZATION could be removed from the model, since it did not reach a significant p-value in the model comparison.

Table 5

Model parameters for the Spanish zero-state test.

effect	estimate	st. error	t-test		model comparison (LogLikelihood Test)
			t-value	p	χ2	p
INTERCEPT	3.53	.31	11.48	<.001
ASPECT (punctual)	–.71	.27	–2.60	<.05
ANIMACY (inanimate)	–.91	.25	–3.57	<.01
ASPECT^ANIMACY	.59	.26	2.25	<.05	4.85	<.05

4.4.2 Korean

Table 6 presents the mean acceptability ratings for the Korean part of the study measuring the acceptability of a reading of a zero-state in the object experiencer on a 1-to-7 scale. Table 2 in the Appendix lists the mean acceptability values per verb. There were no missing values, i.e. 320 observations for each condition were collected.

Table 6

Mean acceptability of zero-state readings with Korean psych verbs.

VERBAL ASPECT	ANIMACY (SUBJECT)
	animate		inanimate
	mean	confidence*	mean	confidence
inchoative state causative	3.75	.21	2.97	.20
pure state causative	3.81	.22	2.92	.19

• * confidence = 95% confidence interval.

Figure 2 provides a visualization of Table 6. The results for Korean differ from the Spanish results pointing to a main effect of ANIMACY (SUBJECT) while the aspectual distinction does not seem to play a role for the acceptability of the target sentences. Mean acceptability values with inchoative state causatives (3.75) and pure state causatives (3.81) are similar in the conditions with animate subjects and higher in comparison to the conditions with inanimate subjects, which are again similar to each other (mean with inchoatives: 2.97; mean with states: 2.92).

Figure 2

Acceptability of zero-state readings in Korean (means and 95% c.i.).

For the statistical analysis, the same procedure and random-effects structure as for the Spanish part was applied (see Section 4.4.1). There is no evidence for multimodality in our sample.¹⁹ The backwards selection procedure revealed that the best fit is reached by a model only including the main effect of ANIMACY (SUBJECT) and the main effect of LEXICALIZATION (AIC = 4389.2, df = 17), while the interaction between ASPECT and ANIMACY (LogLikelihood Test: χ²(1) = .6) and the effect of ASPECT (LogLikelihood Test: χ²(1) = .01) can be removed without significant loss of information. The fixed effects of the model with the best fit are given in Table 7.²⁰

Table 7

Model parameters for the Korean zero-state test.

effect	estimate	st. error	t-test		model comparison (LogLikelihood Test)
			t-value	p	χ2	p
INTERCEPT	2.54	.43	5.87	<.001
ANIMACY (inanimate)	–.82	.23	–3.56	<.01	10.73	<.01
LEXICALIZATION	.24	.06	3.49	<.01	8.7	<.01

The experimental results in both Spanish and Korean are compatible with the predictions of the ACH as explained in Section 2, under the assumption that animate subjects of transitive EO verbs can be interpreted as agents. For those EO verbs that encode inchoative or pure experiential state causatives as part of their meaning, zero-state readings are significantly more acceptable with animate subjects than with inanimate subjects. This result can be explained by the different involvement of agents vs. causers. In addition, the Spanish results revealed an interaction between ASPECT and ANIMACY, indicating that EO punctual causatives are significantly less acceptable when the state in the object experiencer is defeated. Since this result holds across animacy conditions, we conclude that agentivity is overridden by the punctuality of these verbs when it comes to defeating the state in the experiencer. This result will be discussed in more detail in Section 6. In the following section we test our prediction from gradient agentivity, as introduced in Section 3.2.

5.1 Study design and material

There are different tests available to inspect the agentivity of the subject in a verbal construction, for instance, by evaluating its volitional or intentional involvement in the event. We used a frame with a subject control verb of decision under which the target verbs were embedded (see Grafmiller 2013: Chapter 5.2; Verhoeven 2017). The matrix verb of decision implies that the subject has control over the event given in the subordinate clause. The sentences in (26) and (27) exemplify this test for Spanish and Korean, respectively, where EO verbs that allow for an agentive reading are expected to be compatible with this frame. (26a) seems to be more acceptable than (26b), and (27a) seems to be more acceptable than (27b) (repeated from (8)).

Each verb used in the zero-state test was inserted in the sentential frame illustrated in (26) for Spanish and in (27) for Korean. Proper names or definite common nouns were used as subjects and objects with each verb. All test sentences contained DPs denoting animate individuals. We assume that the choice of a particular individual and the proper/common noun distinction do not have an impact on the compatibility of the verb with an agentive environment, hence we varied lexicalizations in order to present the participants with a more diversified set of sentences.

5.2 Procedure

Twenty-nine native speakers of Spanish (from Chile, Peru, Panama, Venezuela and Spain; 13 females, 16 males; age range: 13–62, M: 34,34) participated in the study. For Korean, twenty-nine native speakers of Korean (from different cities; 11 females, 18 males; age range: 15–65, M: 35,55) took part in the study. Again, both studies were implemented in OnExp 1.2 (http://onexp.textstrukturen.uni-goettingen.de) and performed online. The participants were presented with the target sentences randomly and were instructed to estimate their well-formedness on a 1–7 Likert scale (1 = very bad, 7 = very good). Per language, the study resulted in (29 speakers × 20 verbs =) 580 estimations on the 1–7 scale. Table 3 in the Appendix indicates the mean values and the standard errors per verb for the Spanish part: the means per verb form a scale ranging from 3.62 (deprimir ‘depress’) to 5.72 (impresionar ‘impress’). The Korean results are presented in Table 4 in the Appendix: the means per verb form a scale ranging from 2.41 (anthakkapkey hata ‘make pitiful for’) to 5.41 (kippukey hata ‘make happy’).

If the ACH explains the acceptability of a zero-state reading with EO verbs in Spanish and Korean, the mean acceptability values obtained in the agentivity tests should predict the results in the zero-state test. In particular, we expect that the gradient agentivity found with the inchoative and pure state causatives in Korean and Spanish significantly correlates with the mean results obtained in the zero-state test in the condition with animate subjects. As for the Spanish punctual EO psych verbs, no such correlation should be found since we expect punctuality to override agentivity.

5.3 Results

Figure 3 shows for the Spanish verb classes that both predictions seem to hold: the average agentivity values per verb correlate stronger with the corresponding average zero-state values (in the animate condition of the zero-state study) obtained with inchoative state causatives (see Figure 3b) than with the punctual causatives (see Figure 3a), as shown by a larger dispersion of the latter verbs from the regression line.

Figure 3

Agentivity as explanatory variable for a zero-state reading with Spanish punctual causatives and inchoative state causatives (animate subjects).

Figure 4 presents the results for Korean: similar to the Spanish inchoative state causatives, there is a clear correspondence of the average agentivity values per verb to the average zero-state values (see Figure 4b). For the pure state causatives visual inspection of Figure 4a indicates a greater dispersion of the verbs from the regression line compared to the inchoative state causatives, which is however smaller than for the punctual causatives of Spanish (see Figure 3a).

Figure 4

Agentivity as explanatory variable for a zero-state reading with Korean pure state causatives and inchoative state causatives (animate subjects).

As in the previous analyses (see Section 4.4), we examined a maximal random-effects model, containing intercepts for PARTICIPANTS as well as slopes with the fixed effect (see Barr et al. 2013). The data for each verb group (Spanish punctual causatives, Spanish inchoative state causatives, Korean pure state causatives, Korean inchoative state causatives) was fitted with a linear mixed effects model, with the JUDGMENTS of a zero-state reading (in the animate condition) as a dependent variable, the mean values of the agentivity test per verb (AGENTIVITY) and the average acceptability of the LEXICALIZATION as fixed factors, and SUBJECTS as random factor (random effects can only be categorical variables; hence AGENTIVITY cannot be inserted in the random-effects structure).

In order to probe whether the effect of AGENTIVITY is modulated by verb class, we test the effect of AGENTIVITY for each level of the predictor ASPECT separately.²¹ The results of this analysis are informative for the differences that we observe in Figure 3 and Figure 4 (however, they should be treated with the caveat that in the absence of a significant interaction effect our observations cannot be empirically established). A backwards selection procedure by the AIC value revealed that AGENTIVITY is part of the model of the best fit²² for Spanish inchoative state causatives and both classes of Korean verbs. Removing the fixed effect of AGENTIVITY leads to a significant loss of informativity of the model, which is reflected in significant chi-square values in the Log-Likelihood test (see Table 8). The model of the best fit for Spanish punctual verbs is a model only containing an INTERCEPT.²³ The model with a fixed effect (AIC = 1142.9, df = 4) is not better than a model without fixed effect (AIC = 1142.2, df = 3); the chi-square value of the Log-Likelihood test does not correspond to a significant p-value (χ² = 1.3, p = .24). The factor LEXICALIZATION did not have an impact neither in the Spanish nor in the Korean data and was removed through model comparison in all analyses.