The article is devoted to the role of stative verbs in the
Czech middle construction, a typical Slavic construction with
the reflexive morpheme se. The perspective adopted in the paper
highlights the role played by composition in the definition of
both actional as well as syntactic properties of verbs. Within this
perspective, the paper aims at singling out the features that enable
verbs of different actional classes to enter the construction.
The data collected with the help of Skecth Engine bring out an
interesting distribution among stative verbs, some of them are
compatible with Czech middle construction, while others are
excluded. The distribution is explained by referring to the recent
classification proposed by C. Maienborn between davidsonian
and kimian states.
