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Auteur: Chungmin LEE

Psych Predicates and Evidentiality

Abstract/Résumé: Why is (1b) in PRESENT fine, whereas its counterpart in Korean (K) and Japanese (J) (3) is odd? (1) a. I just heard about Mary/I just saw Mary. b. She is dizzy. (2) a. I haven’t heard about or seen Mary. b. ?? She is dizzy. (3) ?*Kunye/?*ne/na-nun ecirew-e (K) or ?*kare/?*anata/watashi-wa sabishi desu (J) she/you/I-TOP dizzy-DEC ‘--- dizzy.’ he/you/I-TOP lonely BE ‘--- lonely.’ You have no way of knowing if others’ internal psych state is such at speech time. How to explain this (Lee 1976)? An evidence acquisition event (eev-acq) is crucially involved in such 1st person subjectivity. It requires the 1st person’s direct perceptual experience of one’s own psych state or of the relevant type of individual object as in predicates of personal taste (PPT). The 1st person is the starting point of all relevant expressions with evidentiality factored in. (2b) even in English is bad if some anti-evidentiality such as (2a) precedes it. A “double access” of the present tense in (1b) after past tense of eev-acq (1a) is possible, meaning, “Mary was dizzy and still is dizzy.” PPT is treated with a judge parameter in a relativist position or with an argument or an operator thereof (Moltman 2010) in contextualism. The dizzy type requires an Experiencer as an argument (Topic) and the PPT type also implicitly requires one with its individual Stimulus prominent on surface. The dizzy type cannot form a generic statement at least in J, K, whereas the tasty type can (Walnuts are tasty, in J, K too). Psych predicates tend to be either stage-level (dizzy/boring) or individual-level (tasty/fun); many are dual. In causation, as in The book bored me -> [Reading] The book was boring, with the purpose quale coerced as an event function, it is stage-level. If conditionally conceived, it tends to be individual-level. PPTs can be extended to implicit Experiencers in general, starting from the 1st person; with walnuts as a kind for a generic. Even in J and K, an Experiencer psych predicate is fine with the 3rd/2nd person subject in PAST. It is because some eev-acq before the speech time is accommodated. Evidentiality accommodation is universal but various. In PRESENT some reportative (J –sooda, K –tay/visual evidential (J -garu, K –e ha) marker is required to make the 3rd/2nd person subject psych predicate felicitous. The Korean direct evidential marker –te cannot license a 3rd/2nd person subject psych. The interaction between psych predicates and the direct evidential and their association with de se are worth exploring.