Positive emotions and predicates: the joy

Yovka Tisheva
Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridskiˮ

Abstract

The main topic of this study is the syntactic realization of predicates denoting positive emotions. The analyses of the argument structure of predicates naming elements of cognitive scenario of joy and semantic roles assign by these predicates are presented. Examples with causative verbs veselya (rejoice; make someone happy), zabavlyavam and medial reflexive veselya se (amuse), zabavlyavam se (have fun), presenting their argument structure and positions in which the arguments are realized (as an external or internal argument) are discussed. Despite the similarity in lexical semantics, the verbs studied have different syntactic realizations, as they belong to different semantic (ontological) classes.

Keywords: emotion verbs, psych verbs, argument realization, thematic roles, experiencer