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This article presents a comprehensive description of auxiliary selection in Catalan. Specifically, after explaining how the phenomenon worked in Old Catalan, we show what are the factors (such as the event/argument structure or the grammatical person, among others) that determine the use of be and have in those Catalan varieties ​​that, although with some innovations, retain this distinction: (i) Algherese Catalan, (ii) Northern Catalan and some varieties of Central Catalan, (iii) Ribagorçan Catalan, and (iv) Balearic Catalan. Likewise, we show a series of theoretical considerations that we believe relevant for the analysis of the patterns of variation found in Catalan and, by extension, in Romance.

How strongly a verb is associated with a construction plays a crucial role in the learning of argument structure constructions. We examined the effect of verb–construction association strength on second language (L2) constructional generalization by analysing L2 learners’ production and comprehension of two complex constructions (i.e. ditransitive and resultative), comparable in constructional complexity and input frequency but distinctive in verb–construction association. Using a learner corpus study, we found greater verbal usage variability in the production of ditransitive rather than resultative constructions. The results of an acceptability judgment task indicated that L2 learners accepted the ditransitive sentences regardless of whether they contained high-frequency or low-frequency verbs, but learners were more likely to accept the resultative sentences when they read high-frequency rather than low-frequency verbs. These findings suggest that verb–construction association affects the learning of argument structure constructions, supporting its contribution to the constructional generalization.

In this paper, we analyze external possessors in Brazilian Portuguese, showing that those realizing Nominative-Case (Nominative-possessors) are not syntactically uniform, varying derivationally. These variations are related to the vP internal structure. In agentive argument structures, Nominative-possessors are licensed in obligatory control configurations. Non-agentive argument structures give rise to raising configurations. In turn, raising configurations are not syntactically uniform either. Unaccusative vPs, differently from inchoative ones, contain a dative position at the vP edge. This position is used as an intermediate landing site for the raised Nominative-possessor. Importantly, a copy of a possessor in this intermediate position alters information structure at LF, having three interpretative effects: (a) affectedness: the possessor is interpreted as being affected by the denoted event, (b) presupposition of existence: the possessor must be an existent entity, and (b) contextual confinement: the possessor-possessum is interpreted as an integral part-whole at the event time.

Agents and Causers are standardly analyzed as external arguments introduced by v or Voice. According to this approach, the two arguments are independent and unrelated. However, evidence from the distribution patterns of various adjuncts (nonarguments) in change-of-state verbs suggests that the verbal structure provided by the standard analysis is not fine-grained enough and requires revision. To address this issue, I propose decomposing the Agent-introducing head (v or Voice) into Voice and Appl. Specifically, I suggest that Voice introduces Causers, while Appl introduces Affectees. Both arguments are atomic and primitive, meaning that they cannot be further divided and are capable of combining with each other to form other types of arguments. I argue that Agents are derived through movement from Spec, ApplP to Spec, VoiceP, and are therefore composite, consisting of both Causers and Affectees. This decomposition analysis offers a new perspective on the Animacy Restriction observed in aspectual si constructions and ditransitive alternations. Compared to the standard analysis, it accurately predicts that Agents alternate with Causers and Affectees. Additionally, it naturally extends to unergatives.

Lexical reciprocal verbs, defined as those verbs that inherently lexicalize a symmetric situation, e.g., ‘agree’, occur in at least three distinct argument structure constructions, depending on whether their participants are expressed as a single (plural) subject, asymmetrically expressed – one as subject and the other one as oblique – or only one is overtly realized. Drawing from extensive data from a corpus of Latin texts (extracted from the LASLA corpus) and by resorting to quantitative analyses, I investigate the extent to which these three constructions are used with a sample of lexical reciprocal verbs and explore possible motivations for the alternation. Corpus data shows that a multiplicity of factors co-operate in motivating speakers’ choice of one construction over the other, pointing to the need to integrate fine-grained corpus analyses in the study of argument structure constructions and their alternations more generally.

The news framing of assisted death in Portugal and the United Kingdom from 2016 to 2024 was analyzed across two dimensions. The first examined the overall frames through source positions and occupations. The second observed argumentative structures by coding argument characteristics: manifestation, origin, level, and evaluation. A total of 7464 structures were identified from 1731 published stories in Expresso, Público, The Guardian, and The Telegraph. The research utilized a methodological framework based on framing theory, creating direct connections between frame analysis and argumentative structures to improve the validity of valence and thematic framing mechanisms. The findings indicated significant differences between countries. The Portuguese news media showed a marked inclination to present concentrated opposing arguments with a higher argumentative density. In contrast, British newspapers displayed a greater diversity of arguments in favor of assisted death, along with a more cohesive representation among pro-assisted death sources. Three distinct argumentative profiles were identified, each showing different divisions between Portugal and the UK. These results reveal that argumentative structures in assisted death coverage reflect deeper systemic values and news media structures, positioning these quality newspapers as influential actors in representing arguments about moral legitimacy around bioethical issues. The study makes a valuable contribution by offering a comprehensive understanding of how these four newspapers frame arguments about assisted death while proposing an innovative analytical model applicable to comparative studies of other news media.

This study focuses on a group of so-called extent verbs (Gawron 2009) in Spanish (cf. rodear 'surround', cubrir 'cover', or bordear 'border') that show an alternation between an eventive and a stative reading, related to an argument structure alternation: they are eventive with Initiator subjects (i.e., Agents or Causers), but stative with non-Initiator subjects. As we demonstrate, the eventive version has a composite denotation, including a change of state and a subsequent (target) state (Kratzer 2000). The stative version, in turn, describes a state that corresponds to the target state included in the denotation of the eventive version. We offer a non-derivational account of this alternation following Ramchand's (2018) neo-constructionist approach to argument/event structure. Based on a series of diagnostics, we claim that extent verbs can be associated with two different structural configurations that are clearly connected: one which lacks the subeventive projections that introduce causativity (Init) and eventivity (Proc), expressing a non-causative state (State) that extends along a delimited path (Path + Place); and one which, in addition to this stative component, also conveys causation and eventivity (Init + Proc), giving rise to a telic change of state. In both cases, the external argument is licensed by a dedicated projection (Evt), but it is configurationally interpreted, in the former case, as the entity that ensures that the state holds and, in the latter, as an Initiator. The proposal has theoretical implications regarding (non-)agentivity, causativity, the locus of the external argument, and the availability of verbal and adjectival passives.

This paper analyzes intransitive alternations in relation to manner/result transitivity patterns. We focus on productivity and distribution in Romance, Greek, and English, where a major asymmetry is created by the (un)availability of monadic alternates featuring a stative cause as the single participant (e.g. Caffeine dehydrates; Covid kills). These constructions are contrasted with intransitive alternatives generally considered in the literature, like the Characteristic Property of Agent Alternation (e.g. This dog bites). Criteria like eventivity, episodicity, agentivity, and intentionality/volitionality are examined. We find that the types contrasted correspond to two structurally distinct kinds of predication. Major differences emerge between originally transitive structures where the object, even if unexpressed/unspecified, is assigned a place in the configuration (the type traditionally explored) vs. original atransitive variants consisting only of the external-argument-licensing head, with consequently different semantic and syntactic properties. This distinction also explains the apparently striking distribution of intransitivity alternations in psych verbs. We note that certain verbs, even if eligible for psych predication like bother or intimidate, can have other uses related to manner-of-behavior predications. We identify central conditions (eventivity, animacy/agenthood, defeasibility) regulating argument/event realization: in languages like English, whereas structurally monadic variants with a cause subject are generally unavailable (*Madrid bewitches/fascinates), manner-type alternatives are fully productive for verbs with non-psych uses, offering less-constrained conditions for object drop/ non-specification. In Romance and Greek, both structures are systematically available, offering distinct syntactic and semantic computations for intransitive variants across different verb classes.

This paper focuses on the Experiencer Object (EO)/Experiencer Subject (ES) alternation in Polish. This alternation is viewed here as distinct from the causative/anticausative alternation, because eventive EO verbs do not pattern like change of state (COS) verbs, and their reflexive ES alternants are unergative, not unaccusative. Eventive EO verbs share a common base with their ES counterparts, which corresponds to an unergative vP, with the experiencer merged in a low external argument position, viz. Spec, vP (Tollan 2018), not in Spec, VoiceP. The difference between causative EO verbs and their ES cognates lies in the Voice layer; in the former, the causer argument occupies the specifier of thematic VoiceP, while in the latter the Voice is expletive, filled with the reflexivemarker się. Despite sharing the common base, eventive EO verbs and their reflexive ES variantsare not derivationally related by a syntactic rule, as neither of the two structures can be treated as the basic one. The same reflexive marker with the same function and structural position is foundin Polish anticausatives, which also share a common base with their causative counterparts. The common base, this time, however, corresponds to an unaccusative, not unergative, vP.

Many varieties of Arabic display a causative construction that adds a causer to the argument structure of the underlying verb. When this verb is transitive, the causative derivative is ditransitive. In the Arabic varieties, these ditransitive causative verbs display a double object alternation fully parallel to the alternation that change of possession verbs like give display. I claim that two current analyses of the double object alternation do not extend naturally to Arabic causative constructions. Rather, the parallels between causative and change of possession ditransitives in Arabic implicate an analysis of change of possession verbs in which the recipient argument (parallel to the external argument of the underlying verb in causative ditransitives) is base generated syntactically superordinate to the theme (parallel to the internal argument of the underlying verb in causative ditransitives). The unifying analysis I propose draws on certain elements of the ‘VP-shell’ analysis of Larson (1988) as well as the ‘neo-constructionist’ approach of Ramchand (2008; 2018) regarding the syntactic instantiation of argument structure. The Arabic variety I take as an exemplar of the Arabic causative construction is Syrian.