Mingjiang Chen’s article “A decomposition analysis of Agents” has just appeared in Volume 9 of Glossa. The paper can be accessed online here. Congratulations Mingjiang!

Abstract: 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.

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