Affected Objects in Heerlen Dutch and Romance

In this paper we show that the well known definition of affected object — as an object that is somehow altered or modified by the action expressed by the verb — is problematic with respect to middle formation, which has been claimed in the literature to be possible only with affected objects. The following puzzling facts are discussed: (i) in "plain" languages some predicates with unaffected objects may undergo middle formation whereas others may not; (ii) in "reflexive" languages some predicates with unaffected objects may undergo middle formation whereas others may not; (iii) "reflexive" languages may differ among themselves with respect to middle formation with unaffected objects. We argue that the notion of affected object has to be re-defined in terms of the aspectuality of the entire predicate.

Published online: 09 November 1999
https://doi.org/10.1075/lic.1.2.06cor