engleski

The Structure of Complements of Verbs of Perception in Croatian

In the last forty years verbs of perception have attracted great attention of linguists, especially with regard to the structure of their complements. In different languages, verbs of perception may have the following categories as complements: NPs, PPs, various types of finite clauses (CPs), infinitival or participial constructions, as well as NPs in the accusative case followed by finite clauses. From the beginning it is an open issue whether perception verbs are two- or three-place predicates, i.e. whether they subcategorize for two or three categories. The accusativus cum infinitivo (AcI) and participial constructions have been in the center of interest and three different solutions to this problem have been proposed: 1. verbs which allow AcI as complement are three-place predicates which subcategorize for the subject (in the nominative case), the object (in the accusative case) and an infinitive/gerundive construction or a finite clause, 2. perception verbs are always two-place predicates, which means that an infinitive/gerundive construction or a finite clause make a single constituent with the NP in the accusative case, 3. the main verb and the infinitive/participle constitute a verbal complex with a corresponding number of argument places. In this paper we adopt the second approach, since verbs of perception assign only two theta-roles to their complements. This approach also raises the question of the categorial status of complements. Are they CPs, TPs, verbal projections or something else? It seems that perception verbs in Croatian have escaped the attention of linguists, in Croatia and abroad alike, although they can take all of the above-mentioned categories as complements. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to attempt to fill this gap, and describe the clausal complements of perception verbs in Croatian.

verbs of perception, Croatian language, complement

nije evidentirano