The causative verbal meaning of the Catalan verb «interessar» («to interest») with prepositional complement

Abstract

The verb interessar (to interest) has a rich syntactic flexibility that allows it to take part in a wide range of verb alternations. It has a causative verbal meaning that is unusual within the paradigm of the Catalan psychological verbs, because it can take part in three-argument causative constructions of change of state which do not have Pesetsky’s Target/Subject Matter (T/SM) Restriction (1995) (La Meritxell va interessar la Núria pel teatre [lit.: Meritxell interested Núria in the theatre]), it resists the use of the verb without the experiencer (^??La Meritxell va interessar pel teatre [lit.: ^??Meritxell interested in the theatre]) and demands the presence of a prepositional phrase (*La Meritxell va interessar la Núria: [lit.: *Meritxell interested Núria]). In addition, alternation with a pronominal verbal meaning differs from the causative alternation of other causative psychological verbs with an experiencer object. The lexical specificity and syntactic flexibility of the verb interessar are a challenge in the debate on how to approach the lexicon-syntax interface.