Psychophysical and Physical Causative Emotion Verbs in Finnish: The Temporal Structure of Causative Emotion Verb + Infinitive 1 -Constructions within Conceptual Semantics

The purpose of this article is to illustrate the differences between psychophysical (e.g. heikottaa, ‘feel weak’) and physical (e.g. janottaa, ‘be thirsty’) causative emotion verbs in Finnish by studying the factors that determine the temporal structure of the causative emotion verb + infinitive 1 -construction. The focus, in other words, is whether the situation expressed by the infinitive 1 verb lasts as long as the situation expressed by the matrix verb, or whether the situation expressed by the infinitive 1 verb precedes or follows the situation expressed by the matrix verb. Moreover, the article shows why clauses such as Minua janottaa kävellä kotiin (‘It makes me thirsty to walk home’) do not sound natural in Finnish. It is shown that the temporal structure of a well-formed causative emotion verb + infinitive 1 -construction is determined by the properties of both the infinitive 1 (the aspect of the verb) and the matrix verb (the semantics of the verb). Formal rules of grammar for the temporal structure of causative emotion verb + adjunct -constructions are constructed based on the framework conceptual semantics.