In Search of a New Ontological Category in Language: Event Sub-Kinds

Anna Malicka-Kleparska

doi:10.18290/rh.2018.66.11-6

Anna Malicka-Kleparska The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Faculty of Humanities

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18290/rh.2018.66.11-6

Keywords: reflexive impersonal; dispositional middle; event kind; event sub-kind; event token

Abstract

Our analyses of reflexive impersonals with dative logical subjects and of dispositional middles proper in Polish result in the hypothesis that the inventory of event categories represented in linguistic theory should be broadened to include event sub-kinds, alongside event kinds and event tokens. The morpho-syntax and syntax of clauses containing the two types of structures mentioned above seem to suggest that one more ontological category is needed to account for the distribution of manner modifiers vs. spatio-temporal modifiers, logical subjects (or agentive participants) in the non-canonical case forms, as well as to explain the distribution of agent-oriented adverbs in the relevant sentences in Polish. Reflexive impersonal clauses with dative logical subjects and the ones containing dispositional middles proper differ significantly from the clauses addressing event kinds and event tokens. Consequently, they require a different treatment in linguistic theory.

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