The Category P Features, Projections, Interpretation

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(59) [–c] PP-verbs
Physical contact verbs: xavat be-’ (‘hit’), ba’at be- (‘kicked’), naga be- (‘touched’),
halam/hika be- (‘beat’/’hit’).
Abstract contact verbs: tamax be- (‘supported’), nazaf be- (‘scolded’), hifcir be-
(‘pleaded with’), tipel be- (‘dealt with’), xibel be- (‘sabotaged’, ‘tempered with’), alav
be- (‘hurt’), paga be- (‘hit’, ‘hurt’, ‘damaged’), bagad be- (‘betrayed’), šita be-
([made] ‘fool of’), hišpi’a al (‘influenced’), iyem al (‘threatened’), pakad al
(‘ordered’), asar al (‘forbid’).
Verbs of looking: hibit/histakel be- (‘looked/glanced at’), 40 hivxin be- (‘noticed’),
hitbonen be- (‘inspected’, ‘observed’), cafa be- (‘watched’), baha be- (‘glared at’).
As stated in (57), a [-c] (Goal) role differs from the [-m] role in that it is
associated with an argument that cannot be interpreted as the cause of the eventuality.
Thus, for any verb from the group in (59), it is clear that the relation its internal
argument bears to the event expressed by the verb is anything but cause. This,
however, is not enough to establish that the role of this argument is necessarily [-c],
rather than the fully specified [-c-m] (Theme) or [-c+m] (Experiencer) roles.
I will start with the distinction between [-c] (Goal) and [-c+m] (Experiencer)
theta-roles, focusing on PP-verbs for which the Experiencer interpretation of the
internal argument is available.
3.4.3.1 [-c] vs. [-c+m]: Consider the following pair of verbs which have similar
meanings: hifxid (‘frightened’), a regular transitive verb (taking an Accusative DP
argument) (60), and iyem (‘threatened’), classified here as a [-c] PP-verb (61). 41 The
question is what is the difference between the internal theta-roles assigned by each of
the verbs.
40 The verbs hibit and histakel (‘looked’) as well as the verb yara (‘shot’) differ in some respects from
the majority of PP-verbs. They are discussed in Appendix A.
41 That the Experiencer argument of hifxid (‘frightened’) is an Accusative DP in many languages is not
controversial. However, as shown in Landau (2002) for a wide range of languages, this argument
behaves very differently from an Accusative argument of a non-psych verb. Landau (2002) suggests
that despite its Accusative Case, this argument is introduced by a (phonetically null) P. I leave the
consequences of Landau’s proposal unexplored here.