La satisfacción versus la insatisfacción turística

Hopper & Thompson (1980) define transitivity as, “a global property of an entire clause, such that an activity is ‘carried-over’ or ‘transferred from an agent to a patient”. Broadly speaking, transitivity is a property that clauses may have to a higher or lower degree depending on certain semantic features that they exhibit. These features, or ‘components’, the term that Hopper & Thompson 1980 use, relate in general to the transfer of action from an agent to a patient. Hopper & Thompson propose ten components of transitivity:

participants, kinesis, aspect, punctuality, volitionality, affirmation, mode, agency, affectedness of the object, and individuation of the object, as seen in (234).

(234) Hopper & Thompson’s (1980) Components of Transitivity

HIGH LOW

A. Participants 2 or more participants 1 participants

B. Kinesis action non-action

C. Aspect telic atelic

D. Punctuality punctual non-punctual

E. Volitionality volitional non-volitional

F. Affirmation affirmative negative

G. Mode realis irrealis

H. Agency A high in potency A low in potency

I. Affectedness of O O totally affected O not affected J. Individuation of O O highly individuated O non-individuated

A clause that has more components from the high column is considered more transitive than a clause that has fewer components from the high column. The component

participant, for example, refers to whether a verb has two or more participants (higher in

transitivity because transfer can take place between the participants) or only one participant (lower in transitivity because no transfer can take place). The sentence in (235) has only one participant, Juan, and it is analyzed as lower in transitivity when compared to the sentence in (236), where there are two participants, Juan and la pelota ‘the ball’; the sentence in (236) is higher in transitivity.

(235) Juan corre. Juan runs.3SG ‘Juan runs.’

(236) Juan tira la pelota.

Juan throws.3SG the ball ‘Juan throws a ball.’

For studying r-psych verbs, the component participants is irrelevant since this dissertation is only concerned with two-participant verbs, the participants being the stimulus and the experiencer, as seen in (237) and (238).

(237) Le asustan las arañas.

CL.DAT scare.3PL the spiders ‘Spiders scare him.’

Similarly, kinesis, aspect, and punctuality all refer to eventuality. Kinesis refers to whether there is an action transferred between the participants. A clause with this

(238) Las arañas la/lo asustan.

the spiders CL.ACC scare.3PL ‘The spiders scare her/him.’

property must be eventive. States fall under the low transitivity column since they do not entail any transfer of action. Aspect deals with whether the clause is telic or atelic, that is, whether it has an inherent final endpoint. A clause that is telic is high in transitivity.

Punctuality is whether the action has different stages or is complete in an instant. An

action such as building a house is less punctual than hitting the wall and is thus less transitive. These components of kinesis, aspect, and punctuality do not affect case- marking in r-psych verbs; thus, I do not discuss them here.

Affirmation and mode also do not affect case-marking in r-psych verbs. Whether

the sentence is affirmative or negative does not influence case, as shown in (239) and (240), where the dative case can be used irrespective of affirmation or negation.

(239) (No) Le asustan las arañas.

NEG CL.DAT scare.3PL the spiders ‘Spiders (do not) scare him.’

(240) Las arañas (no) la/lo asustan.

the spiders NEG CL.ACC scare.3PL ‘The spiders scare her/him.’

Similarly, mode, which codes realis or irrealis, does not affect case-marking. In (241) and (242) the clause is realis, as indicated by the indicative mood, and in (243) and (244) it is irrealis, indicated by the subjunctive mood. Yet the case-marking is the same in both clauses.

(241) Creo que le asustan las arañas.

(242) Creo que las arañas la/lo asustan.

believe.1SG that the spiders CL.ACC scare.3PL ‘I believe that the spiders scare her/him.’

(243) No creo que le asusten las arañas.

NEG believe.1SG that CL.DAT scare.3PL.SUBJ the spiders ‘I don’t believe that spiders scare him.’

(244) No creo que las arañas la/lo asusten.

NEG believe.1SG that the spiders CL.ACC scare.3PL.SUBJ ‘I don’t believe that the spiders scare her/him.’

Individuation refers to whether the object is proper, human, animate, and concrete

as opposed to common, inanimate, or abstract. It also refers to whether the object is a singular, count, referential, definite noun phrase versus a plural, mass, non-referential noun phrase. Any object that has the first set of properties such as John or the boy is more individuated than rice or love which is less individuated. Given that the objects of r-psych verbs are experiencers, they are generally human or at least always animate, and therefore highly individuated by this definition.46 _{Thus, the component of individuation of the}

object can also be put aside.

The three components left therefore are agentivity, volitionality and affectedness. I subsume volitionality under my definition of agentivity. I postulate that these three components play a key role in case-marking in r-psych verbs. I discuss agentivity and volitionality in Section 4.2 and affectedness in Section 4.3. In both sections I first define the components at issue and provide diagnostics for them so that we can apply these tests to r-psych verb predicates and analyze them.

46 _{The experiencer can be an organization term, for example el gobierno ‘the government’, or a location,}