Transitive and Intransitive Constructions in Japanese and English: a Psycholinguistic Study
TRANSITIVE AND INTRANSITIVE CONSTRUCTIONS IN JAPANESE AND ENGLISH: A PSYCHOLINGUISTIC STUDY by Zoe Pei-sui Luk BA, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2006 MA, University of Pittsburgh, 2009 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2012 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH THE KENNETH P. DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Zoe Pei-sui Luk It was defended on April 24, 2012 and approved by Alan Juffs, Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics Charles Perfetti, University Professor, Department of Psychology Paul Hopper, Paul Mellon Distinguished Professor of the Humanities, Department of English, Carnegie Mellon University Dissertation Advisor: Yasuhiro Shirai, Professor, Department of Linguistics ii Copyright © by Pei-sui Luk 2012 iii TRANSITIVE AND INTRANSITIVE CONSTRUCTIONS IN JAPANESE AND ENGLISH: A PSYCHOLINGUISTIC STUDY Zoe Pei-sui Luk, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2012 Transitivity has been extensively researched from a semantic point of view (e.g., Hopper & Thompson, 1980). Although little has been said about a prototypical intransitive construction, it has been suggested that verbs that denote actions with an agent and a patient/theme cannot be intransitive (e.g., Guerssel, 1985). However, it has been observed that some languages, including Japanese, have intransitive verbs for actions that clearly involve an animate agent and a patient/theme, such as ‘arresting’ (e.g., Pardeshi, 2008). This dissertation thus attempts to understand how causality is differentially interpreted from transitive and intransitive constructions, including non-prototypical intransitive verbs, by rating and priming experiments conducted in both English and Japanese.
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