The Category P Features, Projections, Interpretation

85
We have already seen that identifying the internal role of some PP-verbs (e.g.
hitxaret (‘regretted’)) as [-m], rather than as [-c-m], is plausible, as it can (although it
need not) be interpreted as the cause of the emotion denoted by the verb. It is equally
plausible with regard to the verb ma’amin be- (‘believes (in)’) in (87), as its internal
argument can be interpreted as the cause of the ‘belief’, and therefore should not be
specified /+c. It is more difficult to show that the internal argument of ohev (‘loves’)
(86) is indeed a [-c-m] and not a [-m] cluster. After all, it is not implausible that the
argument bearing the internal role of ohev would be the cause of the emotion
expressed by the verb.
In what follows I will show that the relation between the fully specified [-c-m]
internal argument and the corresponding verb (e.g. love) is indeed different from the
relation between a [-m] argument and the corresponding verb (e.g. believe (in)). 53
Let us start with a simple, but surprising contrast. Consider again the sentence in
(86) repeated below:
(88) dan ohev et yosi
Dan loves Acc Yosi
‘love’ is a rather strong positive emotion. 54 Surprisingly, though, the assertion in (88)
does not automatically trigger in the hearer/reader the thoughts that Yosi is wise,
thoughtful, generous, funny, etc.
Compare now (88) with (89) featuring the verb believe:
(89) dan ma’amin be-yosi
Dan believes in-Yosi
Similarly to ‘love’, ‘belief’ is also a positive emotion. However, the assertion in (89)
does seem to trigger in the hearer/reader some thoughts of justification for the
53 The following discussion is very informal and rather intuitive. This is probably due to the
observation that ‘causality’ is not a semantically definable relation (see Reinhart 2000 for discussion).
54 Pesetsky (1995), using a somewhat different terminology for theta roles, follows Nissenbaum (1985)
regarding the classification of Experiencer verbs such as ‘love’ as evaluating verbs. On this view the
internal argument of ‘love’ is the argument evaluated by the Experiencer as part of “the emotional
episode”. Evaluation can be positive (love) or negative (hate).