Psychological predicates express a mental state. LIS distinguishes between stative psychological predicates, like hate, be_angry, like, and fear and causative psychological predicates, like the English verb ‘scare’, indicating that an agent induces the psychological state of the experiencer. In the following example, we illustrate a stative psychological predicate represented by a transitive plain verb selecting a subject with the thematic role of experiencer, ix1, and an object with the thematic role of theme, war.
ix1 war fear
‘I fear wars.'
Psychological stative predicates can also be transitive agreement verbs selecting a subject with the thematic role of experiencer and a direct object with the thematic role of theme, as in the following example where the verb hate is produced in the neutral space with two points of articulation.
l-u-c-a p-a-o-l-o hate
‘Luca hates Paolo.’
As for causative psychological predicates, LIS employs a causative auxiliary, give_aux and a sign expressing the psychological state, like fear.
earthquake give1_aux fear
‘Earthquakes scare me.’