Psychological verbs in al-Baha Arabic

This thesis studies psychological verbs in al-bāḥah Arabic (henceforth BA; a dialect used in western Saudi Arabia). Psychological verbs are characterized by having one argument that carries the thematic role of Experiencer and have been the topic of a vast array of research for decades. These verbs have long been considered exceptional because they defy generalizations about structure types and argument linking in grammatical theory. The present work contributes to the ongoing debate on the phenomena of psych verbs with unique data from BA. This thesis will show that psych verbs do indeed form a special class of verbs in BA but not due to any unique ‘psych’ property. Rather, it is claimed that BA psych verbs form a complex aspectual group with various components interacting in systematic and predictable patterns resulting in a group of verbs that are not homogenous. Through a battery of tests we show that the diverse behaviour of psych verbs in BA can be explained if we accept a category of inceptive event type, which is punctual and atelic. Moreover, BA psych verbs present robust evidence for exclusive stative interpretations supporting the proposals that argue for a stative causative construction. The conclusions drawn in this study are supported by a large-scale acceptability judgment task with native speakers of BA.