PhD Defense: "Alternations of object-experiencer predicates. Studies on detransitivization and light verb constructions in the psych domain"

Niklas Wiskandt’s PhD thesis investigates the syntactic variation of emotion predicates (e.g. German jemanden ärgern ’to make so. angry’ vs. sich über etwas ärgern ’to be angry about sth.’ vs. jemandem Ärger machen ’to cause anger/trouble for so.’) from a cross-linguistic perspective. The focus lies on complex predicates like in Freude versetzen ('to make so. happy‘, lit. ’to transfer so. into happiness’), their semantic and syntactic function, and their relation to lexically corresponding transitive verbs (like, in this case, freuen ’to make so. happy’). Niklas Wiskandt proposes a new theoretical analysis for this relation.

Location: Large meeting room in the Dean's Office (23.21.00.73)

Invited to attend the defense are all professors, research associates, and doctoral candidates from our institute and the Faculty of Philosophy. Afterwards, there will be a toast open to all at the institute.