Following Mourounas & Williamson (2019), we propose that there is a single lex-ical entry associated with both subjunctive and nominal complements of aspec-tual verbs. Adopting the analysis proposed in Alexiadou et al. (2015), we assign the structures in (18) to anticausative and causative variants of aspectual verbs in Greek. Greek sentences like (2a) have an anticausative analysis, (18a). The
6An anonymous reviewer points out that the behavior ofarhizothat we describe here is remi-niscent of other embedding verbs that have been argued to alternate between a causative and a non-causative meaning, depending on whether the embedded verb is controlled or not, e.g.
prospatho‘try’. An attempt to relate the behavior ofprospathoto our alternation here would bring us too far afield.
9 Greek aspectual verbs and the causative alternation subject DP originates in the ResultP, which can be seen as a small clause consist-ing of the subject and a DP which has a coerced event interpretation (‘English’
understood as ‘learn English’). The subject of the small clause undergoes ‘rais-ing’ entering Agree with T. On the other hand, (18b) is the causative counterpart which projects a Voice above the v+Root combination introducing an external argument. The subject DP in (18b) enters Agree with T and ‘Mary’ receives ei-ther dependent genitive or dependent accusative depending on the nature of the lower DP (NP or DP or PP).
(18) a. anticausative begin: GreekMary started English(comparable to ‘Mary started the journey’, ‘Mary started smoking’ in English)
vP v’
v-Root Result Mary English
b. causative begin: GreekI started Mary English(comparable to ‘I started John smoking’ in English)
VoiceP
DP vP
v-Root Result Mary English
Building on Mourounas & Williamson (2019), we correlate the anticausative structure of aspectual verbs with the raising interpretation, while the causative structure with the control interpretation, as in (19):
(19) a. anticausative begin,TP compl. raising
[T𝜑𝑘[vP[RootPstart/ stop [MoodPna [TPT𝜑𝑘 DP𝜑𝑘]]]]]
b. causative begin,TP compl, control
[T [VoicePDP [vP[RootPstart/ stop [MoodPna [TP[VoicePPRO ]]]]]]]
In (19a), the raising structure, no Voice is projected above matrix VP (the Root + v combination) and the embedded subject undergoes Raising or enters Long Dis-tance Agreement with the matrix T. On the other hand, Voice is present above the matrix DP introducing a matrix subject which enters an obligatory control re-lation with a null PRO embedded subject. Mourounas & Williamson (2019), build-ing on Wurmbrand (2001, 2002, 2014), assume that in languages with infinitives like English, complements of aspectual verbs are vPs which lack a TP component.
This is not the case in Greek which provides evidence for the presence of a se-mantically empty T head and a Mood head occupied by the subjunctive particle na, see Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou (2021).
In the above sketched system, the control analysis of aspectuals is captured by the presence of VoiceP in the matrix clause. By contrast, the raising analysis is captured by the fact that these verbs undergo the causative alternation and their intransitive variants lack Voice. This naturally provides an explanation for the causative interpretation associated with aspectual verbs observed in (2b) and for the alternation between (2a) and (2b) which originates in the presence of an external argument in the causative construction (2b) and its absence in the (anti-)causative (2a).
Before closing this squib, we briefly address two questions. First, why is it that aspectuals in Greek may license ECM with small clauses of the type illustrated in (2b) but not with full clausal complements (20b), and why is it that (20a) is grammatical but (20b) is not?
(20) a. I
‘Mary started to learn English.’
b. * Arhisa
Second, what explains the fact that constructions like (2a) and (2b) are possible in Greek but not in English?
With respect to the first question, we will follow Grano (2016) and Mourounas
& Williamson (2019), who propose that the semantics of subject-introducing in-finitives are interpretably incompatible with the lexical semantics of aspectual verbs. ECM infinitives (whether they are CPs introduced by ‘for’ or TPs) neces-sarily encode modality (Kratzer 2006, Moulton 2009, Grano 2016), and they are uninterpretable when combined with non-modal eventualities such as those in-troduced by aspectual verbs. As a result of this, only non-modal properties of
9 Greek aspectual verbs and the causative alternation eventualities may serve as interpretable restrictors of the event variable intro-duced by aspectual verbs. We will adopt this analysis and will assume that it also applies to ECM subjunctives. In the Greek small clause constructions under dis-cussion of the type seen in (2b) as well as in examples like ‘I started John smoking’
in English, there is no modal operator blocking embedding under aspectuals, and the relevant constructions are licit. Simiarly, raising infinitives as in (20a) do not encode modality.
With respect to the second question, we note that even in English it is possible to construct (2), however in the transitive variant the DP argument is introduced byon, see Levin (1993):7
(21) a. Mary started English in the third grade.
b. John started Mary on English.
We tentatively propose thatonis required to license an aspectual interpreta-tion signaling continuainterpreta-tion and that this should be linked to the conative alter-nation in English which, according to Levin (1993: 42) “expresses an “attempted”
action without specifying this action was actually carried out”. Usually the PP employed in the intransitive conative variant is headed byat but, interestingly, sometimesonsurfaces with certain verbs of ingesting, as pointed out by Levin (1993):
(22) a. The mouse nibbled the cheese.
b. The mouse nibbled at/on the cheese.
We would like to speculate that theonseen in (21b) is a trace of the conative construction. Greek does not have a systematic conative alternation and, there-fore, it does not require a PP in constructions comparable to (21b). The issue awaits further research.
Acknowledgments
We are indebted to two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments.
Many thanks to Susi for friendship and inspiration through the years. AL 554/8-1 (Alexiadou) and a Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award 2013 and HFRI-F17-44 (Anagnostopoulou) are hereby acknowledged.
7We are grateful to an anonymous reviewer for bringing these examples to our attention.
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