OF PERCEPTION VERBS

OF PERCEPTION VERBS

DANA NICULESCU

Abstract. This article discusses the Romanian non-finite verbal forms which are complements of direct perception verbs: the gerundial and the past participle structures.

The focus is on one restriction which the gerund displays, i.e. the fact that the passive morpheme fiind ‘being’ is ruled out after a direct perception verb, and the consequences thereof. Since the passive morpheme is absent from the direct perception configuration, the past participle encodes the passive event on its own. A series of diagnostic tests are applied in order to disambiguate between the passive past participle’s verbal (eventive) and its adjectival (resultative) use.

Key words: gerund, past participle, direct perception, passive, eventivity, resultativity.

1. INTRODUCTION

There is a lot of discussion in the literature about the special syntactic and semantic features which non-finite verb forms display when they function as complements of direct perception verbs (DPVs). It has been noticed that this configuration restricts the verbal characteristics of non-finite verbal forms more than other contexts in which they occur³ (Higginbotham 1983, Cinque 1996, Felser 1999). In this article, I shall discuss the non- finite constructions with a direct perception verb in Romanian, focusing on a specific restriction which this configuration displays, i.e. the fact that a DPV does not accept a be- passive gerundial structure as its complement. I argue that it is not the passive voice which is incompatible with a perception verb in Romanian, but the passive morpheme fi ‘be’. I shall provide a common explanation for the ungrammaticality of the gerund fiind in passive, copular and locative / existential structures.

A passive non-finite form can be the complement of a verb of perception in Romanian, in a configuration in which only part of the gerundial passive structure is realized: the (passive) past participle. Next to the analysis of this configuration in Contemporary Romanian (CR), I shall look at the evolution of the language, to see whether Old Romanian (OR) accepted the lexicalization of the passive gerundial morpheme fi, as

1 This paper is supported by the Sectorial Operational Programme Human Resources Development (SOP HRD), financed from the European Social Fund and by the Romanian Government under the contract number SOPHRD/89/1.5/S/59758”

2 University of Amsterdam, [email protected].

3 For example, in adverbial position.

RRL, LVIII, 1, p. 55–71, Bucureşti, 2013

well as of copular and locative / existential fi, after perception verbs. By applying a series of diagnostic tests I shall answer the question whether the passive past participle in the direct perception construction is adjectival or verbal in nature.

Direct perception is defined as perception of an eventuality through one’s senses;

indirect perception is direct perception accompanied by an inference (one perceives elements of an eventuality, but not the eventuality itself, by using one’s senses, and infers that the eventuality is taking place / has taken place / will take place) (Akmajian 1977, Higginbotham 1983, Cinque 1996, Felser 1999; for Romanian, Nicula 2011: 78-83). Only for direct perception there is a condition of temporal simultaneity of the two events, the perception and the percept (Akmajian 1977, Felser 1999: 38).

Semanticists, starting with Dowty (1979), have noticed that in contexts in which the direct perception verb takes a clausal complement, the object of perception is the event or the state itself and not an entity. A sentence such as Îl văd pe Ion conducând maşina ‘I can see Ion driving the car’ can be uttered even if I cannot see Ion at all, but only the event of

‘Ion’s driving a car’.

Romanian employs the same linguistic means for expressing direct and indirect perception. The typical configuration which is employed for direct perception is the gerundial structure (1a). Indirect perception can also be expressed through a gerundial clause (1b) (see Nicula 2011: 91-96, for an extensive discussion on the linguistic encoding of the complement of a perception verb in Romanian).

(1) a. Îl văd pe copil venind.

‘I can see the child coming’

b. se vede ridicându-se deodată în faţa Imperiului Roman un om nou şi un popor nou Russo: 84

‘One can see a new man and a new people suddenly rising before the Roman Empire’

Although the two types of perception are both encoded by a gerund, only the direct perception context has a restriction in the event type to which the participle should belong (compare (2a) with (2b,c)). In (2a), the indirect perception verb vedea ‘see’, meaning

‘imagine’, selects a non-finite structure which can belong to any event type. This includes the so-called K-states, i.e. states which do not have a spatial dimension and, which syntactically, are not associated with an event argument (Maienborn 2005, 2008). The verb fi ‘be’ is an example of a K-state. In (2b,c), the verb vedea ‘see’ expressing direct perception shows a restriction concerning K-stative non-finite complements: they are disallowed in a DPV configuration.

(2) a. Nu mă văd fiind soţia ta.

‘I cannot see myself being your wife’

b. *L-am văzut pe Ion fiind nervos. Stage-level predication ‘I saw Ion being irritated’

c. *L-am văzut pe Ion având o casă. Individual-level predication ‘I saw Ion owning a house’

Romanian DPV structures are more restricted than English ones. In English, a subclass of K-stative verbs can occur after a DPV, i.e. the subclass with a stage-level reading (3a), while predications with individual-level reading are ruled out (3b) (Carlson 1977: 125, Higginbotham 1983, Felser 1999). This is considered to be a consequence of the fact that the complement of a direct perception verb needs to be actualized, to manifest itself at the moment of perception. As seen above, in Romanian, they are banned irrespective of the episodic or individual character of the predication (2b, c).

(3) a. I saw John being irritated.

b. *I saw John owning a house.

As far as the be-passive gerund in DPV configurations is concerned, Romanian disallows it (4a) (GALR 2005 I: 535). According to GALR, the gerund occurring after a DPV cannot be passivized. This study nuances the GALR analysis: in Romanian, the gerundial passive morpheme fi ‘be’ is not projected after a direct perception verb, but its complement, the passive past participle, can occur in the DPV structure (4b). Therefore, the past participle, which seems to behave like a simple adjectival small clause (Te-am văzut tristă / bătută ‘I saw you (being) sad / beaten’), is, in fact, in many contexts ambiguous between an adjectival and a verbal interpretation.

(4) a. *L-am văzut fiind bătut de cineva în piaţă.

CL.ACC.3SG =(I)have seen being beaten by someone in market b. L-am văzut bătut de cineva în piaţă.

CL.ACC.3SG =(I)have seen beaten by someone in market ‘I saw him being beaten by someone in the market’

Romance languages, such as Italian (5a) and French⁴ (5b), but not Spanish (5c), allow a non-finite be-passive structure after a DPV (Renzi, Salvi, Cardinaletti: 510 for Italian), and so do Germanic languages, such as English (5d) and Dutch (5e). Spanish used to allow the be-passive non-finite form in older stages of the language (NGLE 2009: 2007).

One can see that Romanian groups together with Spanish in ruling out the non-finite passive morpheme be after a verb of direct perception: (4a) above is ungrammatical, while (4b) is fully acceptable.

(5) a. Hanno visto tutta la riva essere inondata dal mare. Renzi, Salvi, Cardinaletti: 510 ‘They saw the whole river being flooded by the sea’

b. Son horreur, le soir, quand elle m’a vue être draguée par deux Polonais très vulgaires. Frantext

‘Her horror, that evening, when she saw me being picked up by two very vulgar Poles’

c. Sin mí se hubiese visto (*ser / *siendo) comido de piojos books.google.com ‘without me he would have seen himself eaten by lice’

d. I saw John being beaten by his father.

e. Ik zag John geslagen worden door zijn vader.

I saw John beaten be(INF) by his father

4 A corpus analysis was made for French, based on Frantext. Grevisse (1993) does not discuss these contexts.

The article is organized in five sections. In section 2, I shall look at the evolution of the direct perception verb + gerundial structure in Romanian, to see whether structures (4a, b), as well as (2b), are attested in older stages of the language. In section 3, I shall discuss the syntactic characteristics of the DPV configuration in Contemporary Romanian (CR). In section 4, I apply a number of diagnostic tests used in the literature to distinguish between the verbal and the adjectival use of the participle. I shall argue that not all past participles which occupy the position of complement of perception verbs are adjectival. Section 5 contains the conclusions.

For the diachronic study, I shall use a large corpus of Old Romanian (OR) 16^th to 18^th century texts, to which a number of eight selected 19^th and 20^th century texts will be added.

2. THE EVOLUTION OF THE DPV + GERUNDIAL CLAUSE CONFIGURATION

2.1. The fi-passive gerund

The fi-passive gerundial clause is used in different structures in OR, such as in adverbial clauses (6). The analysis of a large corpus of Old Romanian texts has yielded no examples in which the fi-passive gerund is lexicalized in the DPV structure. All the identified contexts display a passive past participle without fi after a direct perception verb (7).

(6) Şi atâta ocărâtă fiind, credinţă era aceiia. Coresi, Evanghelia cu învăţătură: 360 and so called-names being faith was that-one.DAT

‘And even being called so many names, she had faith’

(7) mainte de cruce nu se cădea a se grăi nemică cu frâmseaţe dumnezeiască de before of cross not was-proper to ^REFL.3^SG say nothing with beauty Godly of

Hristos, că cei ce ară fi auzit această minune preaslăvită, deci de-aciia vrea vedea Christ because those that would have heard this wonder glorious so for this will see pre el răstignit, ce slavă vrea fi avut de el? Coresi, Evanghelia cu învăţătură: 599

PRE he.^ACC crucified what glory would have had from him

‘Before the crucifixion it was not proper to speak about Christ’s Godly beauty, because what kind of happiness would have drawn from him those who would have heard about this glorious miracle and afterwards would have seen him crucified?’

2.2. Copular and predicative fi

As far as the use of statives after perception verbs in Old Romanian is concerned, a number of contexts with copulative and locative / existential fiind ‘being’ were found in the corpus. All the contexts with fiind are from translated texts; this can indicate that they were actually used in OR, but they could also be structures copied from the original. Examples (8a,b) contain the copulative fi and examples (8c,d), the predicative fi. No such examples were found after the 17^th century.

(8) a. E să ş-ară vedea frate-său sau soru-sa goli fiind şi lăsaţi de and if (they)would see brother=his or sister=his naked being and left of

a zileei hrană fiind Coresi, Lucrul apostolesc: 149 the day’s nurture being

‘And if he saw his brother or sister ill-clad and lacking the day’s nurture’

b. Iară să văm vedea şi destui oameni răi îmbogăţindu-se şi and if (we)shall see also enough men bad becoming-rich=REFL.3SG and veselindu-se şi sănătoşi fiind Coresi, Evanghelia cu învăţătură: 161 having-a-good-time=REFL.3SG and healthy being

‘And if we also see many evil men becoming rich and having a good time and being healthy’

c. însuţi fiind în ochiul tău bârna nu vezi Coresi, Tetraevanghelul: 128r yourself being in eye.DEF your beam.DEF not (you)see

‘you yourself cannot see that there is a beam in your eye’

d. Iară Simon şi el crezu şi botezîndu-să rămînea cu Filipp şi, and Simon also he believed and getting-baptized (he)remained with Philip and văzând seamnele

seeing signs.^DEF

şi puteri mari fiind, să mira. Noul Testament: 145r and powers great being REFL.3SG (he)wondered

‘And Simon also believed and, getting baptized, he remained with Philip and, seeing the signs and the great miracles, he wondered’

In all the contexts with copular and locative fiind, the gerundial structure denotes a stage-level predication. If we admit that the configuration was really used in the 16^th and 17^th century, this shows that OR followed the more general Romance and Germanic aspectual restriction, disallowing K-state predications with an individual-stage reading after DPVs, while allowing those with a stage-level interpretation. However, in all its occurrences, the verb be denotes a state which cannot be directly perceived. The grammaticality of fiind ‘being’ DPV structures could be due to the possibility to recategorize K-state verbs into perceivable eventualities (D-states or activities) in Old Romanian. It can also be the case that in Contemporary Romanian this recategorization is not allowed any more, therefore the verb fiind is ruled out in all the contexts involving a DPV. Another explanation for the OR contexts is provided by the fact that the DPV and the verb fiind are never adjacent, which could lead to the gerund not being felt as the complement of the perception verb any more.

2.3. The se-passive gerundial structure

If the fi-passive gerund was not identified in OR, the se-passive gerund form is attested. Example (9a) is a 17^th century context which encodes direct perception. Se-passive complements of DPVs are also present in Contemporary Romanian (9b).

(9) a. cînd vădu o vită necuvîntătoare junghindu-se Mărgăritare: 38v when (they)see a beast not-speaking slaughtering=REFL.PASS

‘when they see a beast that cannot speak being slaughtered’

b. Vedem aducându-i-se cafeaua de către un chelner înalt.

(we)see bringing=^CL.3^SG.^DAT=^REFL.^PASS coffee.^DEF by a waiter tall ‘We can see his coffee being brought by a tall waiter’

This leads us to the conclusion that the passive of a non-finite verbal form can occur after a verb of direct perception at all the stages of Romanian. It also reinforces the idea that the ungrammaticality of a structure like (4a) in CR is not due to the passive form being ruled out after a DPV, but to the impossibility of the verb fi to occur in a passive gerundial structure in direct perception constructions.

3. THE PASSIVE GERUND AFTER A DPV IN CONTEMPORARY ROMANIAN

3.1. Configurations with a passive gerund in CR

In Contemporary Romanian, the gerund can occur in the passive form in a number of configurations: in absolute structures (10a), in ‘coordinated’ structures, in which the predication expressed by the gerundial construction can be replaced by an and-finite clause (10b), in adverbial constructions (10c), in configurations in which the gerund phrase is headed by the complementizer ca (10d), and in structures in which vedea ‘see / imagine oneself’ has an indirect perception meaning (10e), but not in those expressing direct perception (10f).

(10) a. Maşina mea fiind tractată de un camion, eu am plecat pe jos acasă.

car.^DEF my being towed by a truck I have left on foot home ‘As my car was towed by a truck, I went home on foot’

b. Maşina a rămas la Bacău, fiind adusă de Ion la Iaşi după trei zile.

car.DEF has remained at Bacău being brought by Ion at Iaşi after three days ‘The car was left in Bacău, and was brought to Iaşi by Ion three days later’

c. Fiind observată de George, a fost nevoită să-l salute.

being noticed by George (she)has been obligated to=CL.3SG.ACC greet ‘Being noticed by George, she had to greet him’

d. Socotesc acest capitol ca fiind ştiut de studenţi.

(I)consider this chapter as being known by students ‘I consider this chapter to be known by the students’

e. Nu mă văd [IP fiind numită în funcţia de director].

not CL.1SG.ACC see being appointed in function.DEF of director ‘I do not see myself being appointed director’

f. *L-am văzut [IP fiind bătut de cineva în piaţă].

^CL.3^SG.^ACC =(I)have seen being beaten by someone in market ‘I saw him being beaten by someone in the market’

3.2. The analysis of the passive gerundial structure

In both (10e) and (10f), which repeats (4a), the verb vedea selects a small clause (an Inflectional Phrase), which lacks a Complementizer (Felser 1999: 230-2). Therefore, the difference in acceptability between (10e) and (10f) is not due to the fact that a DPV selects a different type of small clause than the indirect perception verb.

I shall follow the analysis proposed by Dobrovie-Sorin (1994) and Avram and Hill (2007), which denies auxiliary status to the Romanian passive morpheme a fi, on the basis

of a number of characteristics. Among these, the above mentioned authors discuss the possibility of occurrence of the subject between a fi and the passive participle (A fost Maria văzută ieri în centru ‘Was Maria seen yesterday in the center’). An additional argument is the identical paradigm of passive and copular / locative a fi.

I shall propose a unitary analysis of the verb a fi with all its uses: passive morpheme, copula, locative / existential verb. We are dealing with one and the same verb be in all its contexts of occurrence. Both the copula and the locative / existential a fi take a small clause complement (Hoekstra and Mulder 1990, Freeze 1992). This analysis also holds for a fi from the passive structure: it is a copula which selects a passive past participle (an Aspectual Phrase) as its complement.

Analyzing the two types of stative verbs, the D-States, which are associated with an event argument, and the K-states, which do not have this argument, Maienborn (2005) shows that copulative and locative predications with be behave identically to typical K-state verbs (such as semăna ‘resemble’, şti ‘know’, iubi ‘love’ etc.). I shall consider that, in all configurations, fi ‘be’ predications are K-state expressions. The states encoded by these verbs cannot be directly perceived; therefore they will be banned from the context of a verb such as vedea ‘see’ (2b,c). The question remains why they are possible in other languages, such as English (3a). It might be the case that the English verb be can be recategorized from a K-state into a verb denoting a perceivable eventuality, such as an activity, and that this recategorization does not take place in (Contemporary) Romanian.

The difference displayed in (10e and f) by configurations that encode direct and indirect perception lies not in their syntactic structure, but in the aspectual verb type selected by the matrix verb. Romanian direct perception verbs never admit gerundial complements containing a K-state predication.

4. THE PASSIVE PAST PARTICIPLES AS COMPLEMENTS OF DPVs 4.1. Verbal and (resultative) adjectival passive participles

In the generative framework, the distinction between verbal (12a) and adjectival passive participles (12c,d) goes back to Wasow (1977), and subsequent work by Bresnan (1982), more recently, Meltzer-Asscher (2011), and Nicolae & Dragomirescu (2009) for Romanian, a.o. A finer distinction within the domain of adjectival participles was made by Kratzer (1994, 2000) and Embick (2004), who separate purely stative adjectives (12d) from resultative adjectives (12c); the latter refer to the state resulting from a previous event.

Recently, a subtle distinction was also made in the domain of verbal past participles, between a highly eventive verbal participle and a verbal participle with lower eventivity (Sleeman 2011, 2012). The highly eventive verbal participle is illustrated in (12a), with the passive be, while the lower eventive one is exemplified in (12b), where it is the complement of copular be, a typical adjectival context. One of the tests which were applied to past participles with adjectival behavior to prove that in some contexts they preserve their verbal nature (being, actually, mixed categories) is the possibility of combination with the aspectual adverb recently, placed to their right.

See (12a, c, d), built on Kratzer’s (2000) examples, and (12b), based on Sleeman (2011).

(12) a. Vena a fost obturată dinadins de chirurg.

‘The vein was obstructed by the surgeon on purpose’

b. Vena este obturată recent.

‘The vein is recently-obstructed’.

c. Vena este obturată, pentru că mai demult un cheag de sânge a obturat-o.

‘The vein is obstructed, because some time ago a blood clot obstructed it’

d. Vena este obturată. Este un defect genetic.

‘The vein is obstructed. It is a genetic flaw’

In the DPV structure (13a), the verbal passive participle encodes the eventuality which is being perceived. Specifically for this configuration, the verbal participle is restricted to the imperfective aspectual value, because the predication needs to obey the temporal simultaneity condition (the event of beating takes place simultaneously with its perception). The adjectival passive participle in (13b) denotes a state. In the DPV structure, it always has a resultative reading, expressing the state which holds after the event encoded by its verbal base has taken place. This means that the adjectival participle is restricted to the perfective aspectual value, marked in (13b) by the modifier deja ‘already’ (vopsită

‘painted’ is the state resulting after the event of painting, and this state is the object of perception). However, in (13c), the passive participle vopsită is also resultative, i.e. the object of perception is the result of the eventuality, but this participle can combine with the aspectual adverb recent ‘recently’, placed at the right of the participle, as well as with locatives which refer to the event encoded by the verbal base. Locative adverbials can only occur in (13c) if the speaker has previous knowledge about the place where the event occurred, as he only perceives its result. The behavior of the passive participle in (13c) suggests that it is still verbal in nature; it is the verbal participle which is placed lower on the eventivity scale, distinguished by Sleeman (2011, 2012, p.c.). The analysis of (13c) will be the object of future research; in this paper I shall be concerned with the distinction between (13a) and (13b). In the next sections, I shall call contexts such as (13a) ‘eventive (verbal) participles’, but they could also be labeled ‘fully eventive verbal participles’, in order to distinguish them from contexts such as (13c), containing a less eventive verbal participle.

(13) a. Am văzut maşina [vopsită de muncitori în faţa mea]. Eventive (verbal) ‘I saw the window being painted by the workers in front of me’

b. Am văzut maşina [deja vopsită].

c. Maşina am văzut-o [vopsită recent în atelierul auto]. Resultative (verbal) ‘As for the car, I saw it painted recently in the workshop’

The fact that past participles can occur after a perception verb in the absence of the auxiliary be(ing) was noticed for English (Carlson 1977:124-26, Akmajian 1977, Felser 1999: 26). The verbal and the adjectival use of the participle are illustrated in (14a and b).

(14) a. I felt my foot kicked. Felser 1999: 26, ex. (44)

b. She saw him beaten up and bruised, lying on the floor.

4.2. Common features of verbal and adjectival passive past participles

Passive past participles have a number of features which both their verbal and adjectival uses share: adjectival inflection, voice features, prefixal negation, and lexicalization of prepositional objects.

4.2.1. Adjectival inflection

The passive participle has adjectival inflection and agrees in gender and number with the subject of the non-finite clause, like a simple adjective.

(15) a. Am văzut-o pe fata aceea purtată în braţe de un medic. Verbal (I)have seen=her.ACC PE girl-F.SG that carried-F.SG in arms by a doctor ‘I saw that girl (being) carried by a doctor in his arms’

b. Am văzut uşa închisă. Adjectival (I)have seen door.THE closed- F.SG

‘I saw the door closed’

4.2.2. Voice features

Romanian grammars mention that the past participle contains passive or active voice features. Most participles which have a transitive verbal base contain passive voice features (văzut ‘seen’, cunoscut ‘known’), but a number of them have active voice features, when their base has an absolute use (băut ‘(who has) drunk’, mâncat ‘(who has) eaten’). Some participles have passive voice features for their causative counterpart, and active, for their unaccusative counterpart (prăjitură coaptă ‘baked cake’ [+Passive] / piersică coaptă ‘ripen peach’ [+Active]). The [+Active] feature is general for the participle of unaccusative verbs (plecat ‘(who has) left’, venit ‘(who has) come’) (Dindelegan 2003: 125, GALR I: 507). In this section, only passive past participles are analyzed.

4.2.3. Negation

Both the verbal and the adjectival passive participle are negated by means of the prefix ne-, the prefix which Romanian employs for non-finite verbal forms (with the exception of the infinitive) (16a), as well as for adjectives (16b) (Giurgea & Soare 2007).

This creates ambiguities between ne- used as a clausal negation in the case of the verbal and resultative participle and as a constituent negation in the case of simple adjectives. In contexts involving a perception verb, negation has scope over the whole participial phrase, no matter if we are dealing with a verbal or an adjectival participle (16c-e). However, in these contexts, the prefixal negator usually signals the adjectivation of the participle (16c, d) and, therefore, it generally disambiguates those contexts in which both the eventive (verbal) and the resultative (adjectival) readings are available.

In DPV structures, passive participles can preserve their verbal category when they are negated (16e) (Higginbotham 1983, Kratzer 1994, 2000, Anagnostopoulou 2003). The result of applying the negative operator in (16e) is not the negation of the event occurring (since a non-event is impossible to perceive), but the assertion that the contrary event is taking place. Example (16e) reads as ‘I saw that the boy was not carried in his mother’s arms, but was instead walking / lying in his stroller etc.’

(16) a. Nefiind purtat în braţe de mamă, copilul a obosit repede.

not-being carried in arms by mother child.^THE has become.tired quickly ‘Not being carried in her arms by his mother, the child became quickly tired’

b. voce neclară voice unclear ‘unclear voice’

c. Pachetul l-am văzut nedesfăcut de mama (*cu mine de faţă) ‘I saw the package unopened by mother (in my presence)’

d. Am văzut florile neudate de mama (*cu mine de faţă) ‘I saw the flowers unwatered by mother (in my presence)’

e. L-am văzut pe băieţel nepurtat în braţe de mama lui.

him=(I)have seen ^PE boy.^DIM not-carried in arms by mother.^THE his ‘I saw the little boy not being carried by his mother in her arms’

4.2.4. Lexicalization of the participle’s prepositional object

Both verbal and adjectival participles can lexicalize their prepositional objects (17a, b) (Pană Dindelegan 2003: 124).

(17) a. Am văzut schiurile sprijinite de perete de copii când intrau în casă. Verbal ‘I saw the skis being put against the wall by the children, as they entered the house’

b. Am văzut schiurile sprijinite de perete. Copiii le puseseră acolo. Adjectival ‘I saw the skis put against the wall. The children had put them there’

4.3. Diagnostic tests for the verbal / adjectival use of the passive participle in DPV configurations

On the basis of a number of diagnostic tests, the verbal (eventive) use of the passive past participles will be distinguished from the adjectival (resultative) use, in configurations with direct perception verbs.

4.3.1. Diagnostic tests for the adjectival use of the passive participle in DPV configurations

4.3.1.1. Combination with [+perfective] aspectual adverbs placed in anteposition In most contexts, aside from the direct perception structure, the past participle’s aspectual value is [+Perfective]. As shown in section 4.1, the perfective aspectual value of the participle occurring after a direct perception verb yields a resultative interpretation, i.e.

it is not the event which is perceived, but its result. Aspectual modifiers such as deja

‘already’ and proaspăt ‘freshly, recently’, combine with participles which project a [+perfective] Aspect head (Wasow 1977, Embick 2004). When placed in front of the participle, they signal its adjectivation (but not in postposition, see Sleeman 2011).

(18) a. Camera o văd [deja / proaspăt zugrăvită].

‘I can see the room already / freshly painted’

4.3.1.2. Coordination with a simple adjective

The possibility of coordinating the participle with a simple adjective is an indicator of its resultative adjectival reading. We can see that imperfective aspectual modifiers are ruled out in this structure.

(19) Camera o văd curată şi (proaspăt) zugrăvită (*în acest moment).

‘I can see the room being clean and (freshly) painted (*at this moment)’

4.3.1.3. Degree markers

The past participle in the DPV construction can take adjectival degree modifiers such as foarte ‘very’, which disambiguate its adjectival use. However, Kratzer (2000) notices that only resultative participles which denote ‘target states’, i.e. reversible states (20a), and not the ones denoting ‘resultant states’, i.e. irreversible states (20b), can take degree markers. In context (20a) the combination of the participle with a by-phrase and with an adverbial such as în prezenţa mea ‘in my presence’, modifying the event encoded by the gerund, is not possible.

(20) a. O văd foarte jignită (*de Ion în prezenţa mea).

‘I can see her very offended (*by Ion in my presence)’

b. Văd hârtia (*foarte) aruncată pe jos.

‘I can see the paper thrown on the ground’

4.3.1.4. Manner adverbials in anteposition

While manner adverbials which are postposed to the passive participle do not constitute a diagnostic test for the verbal or adjectival character of the participle (see 4.3.2.5), I consider that manner adverbials placed in front of the participle at least favor, if they do not always disambiguate, its adjectival reading. When a manner adverbial functions as an intensifier, which is the case of preposed bine ‘well’ in (21a), the adjectival interpretation of the participle is the only one available; we can see that an imperfective marker cannot be lexicalized any more. In context (21b), the aspectual/temporal adverbial în acest moment ‘at this moment’ is not fully acceptable, although some speakers allow it.

(21) a. L-am văzut [pe copil bine hrănit (*în acest moment)].

(I)have seen PE child well-fed in this moment

b. L-am văzut [pe copil frumos pieptănat (?în acest moment) / urât îmbrăcat (?în (I)have seen PE child nicely combed in this moment ugly dressed in acest moment)].

this moment

‘I saw the child’s hair nicely combed / I saw the child ugly dressed (right now)’

4.3.1.5. Complement of the copula

The possibility of occurrence as the complement of the copula fi ‘be’, părea ‘look’

tests the adjectival use of the passive participle (Magazinul este / pare închis ‘The shop is / looks closed’) (Emonds 2000, Embick 2004 a.o.; see Ocheşeanu & Vasiliu 1954, GALR I:

501 etc., for Romanian). However, this test cannot be applied to Romanian participial complements of direct perception verbs, since copulas are not allowed after these verbs (see (2b) and (22)).

(22) Am văzut-o pe Maria (*fiind / *părând) bătută.

(I)have seen=CL.3SG.F.ACCPE Maria being looking beaten.F

‘I saw Maria beaten / looking beaten’

4.3.2. Diagnostic tests for the (fully) eventive verbal use of the passive participle 4.3.2.1 Imperfective aspectual operators

The presence of imperfective aspectual operators in the participial structure, such as the adverbials acum ‘now’, or (chiar) în acest moment ‘at this (very) moment’, indicates that the participle projects a [+imperfective] Aspect Phrase (Felser 1999: 216). This means that the event denoted by the participle is simultaneous with its perception, a necessary condition for the (fully) eventive reading of the participle.

(23) Îl văd [bătut acum / chiar în acest moment].

‘I can see him beaten now / at this very moment’

4.3.2.2. ‘În prezenţa mea’

A series of adverbial phrases, such as în prezenţa mea / în faţa mea / cu mine de faţă

‘in my presence’, act as markers of the passive participle’s eventive reading because they reinforce the direct perception meaning of the verb – they indicate that the event is actualized and witnessed by the perceiver.

(24) L-am văzut pe copil bătut cu mine de faţă.

‘I saw the child beaten in my presence’

4.3.2.3. By-phrases

According to Kratzer (1994), verbs project a Voice Phrase, where the agent DP attaches. The lexicalization of the agent in the form of a by-phrase tests the participle’s eventive use in languages such as German, in which resultative adjectival passive participles do not project a Voice Phrase (Kratzer 2000). In other languages, such as Greek, not only verbal, but also resultative adjectival participles project a VoiceP, therefore, a by- phrase can occur with both types of participles (Anagnostopoulou 2003). Romanian is a language which groups typologically with Greek in this respect: both verbal and adjectival participles project a VoiceP (Nicolae & Dragomirescu 2009). This is why context (25a) is ambiguous between a verbal and an adjectival reading of the participle: ‘I saw his mother dressing him’, or ‘I saw him already dressed’. If the subsequent sentence contains the adverbial phrase în prezenţa mea ‘in my presence’, as in (25b), the passive verbal reading of (25a) is actualized. If the subsequent sentence emphasizes the anteriority of the event denoted by the participle, as in (25c), the resultative adjectival reading is actualized.

(25) a. L-am văzut îmbrăcat frumos de mama lui.

‘I saw him nicely dressed by his mother’

b. L-am văzut îmbrăcat frumos de mama lui. Asta s-a petrecut în prezenţa mea.

‘I saw him being dressed nicely by his mother. This happened in my presence’

c. L-am văzut îmbrăcat frumos de mama lui. Mama lui îl îmbrăcase cu un costum.

‘I saw him dressed nicely by his mother. His mother had dressed him in a costume’

I conclude that the lexicalization of a by-phrase is not a diagnostic test for the verbal nature of the passive participles in DPV structures, although it usually favors this reading.

4.3.2.4. Agent-oriented adverbial modifiers

Even in contexts in which the agent remains unlexicalized, its existence is signaled by manner adverbials such as în mod voit / intenţionat ‘on purpose, with intent’, cu bună- ştiinţă ‘consciously’, cu grijă, cu atenţie ‘carefully’, which refer to the agent and are attached to the participle’s Voice projection. I have shown in 4.3.2.3 that a Voice Phrase is projected by both types of participles. However, agent-oriented adverbials do not behave in a completely similar way. The adverbials în mod voit / intenţionat ‘on purpose, with intent’

and cu bună-ştiinţă ‘consciously’ strongly favor the eventive reading of the passive past participles (26a). In order for a resultative reading to occur with such adverbials, the perceiver of the state must have previous knowledge of the agent’s intentions. The adverbials cu grijă, cu atenţie ‘carefully’ can easily combine with both types of participles;

the perceiver can see the action as being carefully carried out or the result of someone’s having acted carefully (26b,c). Combination with agent-oriented adverbials will not represent a diagnostic test of “verbalness”, but will favor the participle’s verbal reading.

(26) a. L-am văzut lăsat acolo intenţionat / cu bună-ştiinţă de fraţii lui. (Fusese lăsat acolo înainte să vin eu.)

‘I saw him (being) intentionally / consciously left there by his brothers. (He had been left there before I arrived)’

b. L-am văzut pieptănat cu atenţie (cu mine de faţă / pentru că mama lui îl pieptănase cu atenţie).

‘I saw his hair carefully combed (in my presence / because his mother had combed his hair with care)’

c. L-am văzut îmbrăcat cu grijă.

‘I saw him carefully dressed’

4.3.2.5. Locative, instrumental, purpose adverbials

Maienborn (2005) distinguishes between two types of locative adverbials which are related to the event argument contained by the base verb: internal and external locatives. In (26a), the adverbial la cap ‘on the head’ is the internal locative, while în parc ‘in the park’

is the external one. One can see in example (27a) that an internal locative modifier does not always disambiguate the participle towards an eventive reading. External locative modifiers seem to always point to the eventive interpretation of the participial structure (27a; see also 13c, for the resultative verbal participle). Purpose adverbials (27b) also disambiguate the passive participle towards a verbal reading. Instrumentals (27c) and manner adverbials (27d) are not diagnostics for the verbal reading. In (27c,d), the percept can be either the event of stabbing Ion / painting the fence green or the result of having stabbed Ion /having painted the fence green (for Romanian, see Ocheşeanu & Vasiliu 1954).

(27) a. L-am văzut [[lovit la cap] în parc].

‘I saw him being hit on the head in the park’

b. L-am văzut pe Ion [lovit peste picioare pentru a fi intimidat].

‘I saw Ion being hit in the legs in order to intimidate him’

c. L-am văzut pe Ion [înjunghiat cu un cuţit de bucătărie].

‘I can see Ion (being) stabbed with a kitchen knife’

d. Am văzut gardul [vopsit în verde].

‘I saw the fence painted green’

The series of tests which were applied in this section show that the passive past participle occurring after a DPV can be not only adjectival, but also verbal. Generally, the past participle is ambiguous between the adjectival and the verbal use, but a number of diagnostic tests establish which of them is actualized in the context. Certain diagnostic tests are general, others, such as the lexicalization of the by-phrase, are not relevant for the group of languages which includes Romanian.

5. CONCLUSIONS

The analysis of Romanian gerunds which occupy the position of complement of direct perception verbs has shown that Romanian diverges from (certain) Romance and Germanic languages insofar as it rules out the gerundial passive morpheme fiind ‘being’

from this configuration. Unlike French and Italian among the Romance languages, and unlike English and Dutch among the Germanic ones, Romanian allows only the passive past participle to be present in the structure. Romanian is also set apart from languages such as English by the fact that the gerunds of stative verbs, such as be (belonging to the category K-states), cannot be complements of direct perception verbs, no matter if they have a stage- or individual-level reading. These two facts were given a unitary analysis: the verb fi ‘be’ is a lexical K-stative verb in all its occurrences, therefore, the ban on the passive, copular and locative / existential be is the consequence of the fact that Romanian rules out a lexical aspectual sub-class (the K-states) after verbs of direct perception. Old Romanian, on the other hand, allowed gerundial clauses with copular and locative fi as complements of DPVs, when they had a stage-level reading, similarly to English.

The passive past participle after a DPV is ambiguous between a verbal and an adjectival reading. Disambiguation between the verbal and the adjectival past participle is possible by applying a series of diagnostic tests for each of the two readings. Some of the tests reveal the fact that Romanian groups typologically with languages such as Greek, in which resultative adjectives project a Voice Phrase.

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