5. Adjectival past-participle formation as an unaccusativity diagnostic in English and in Polish

Cetnarowska, Bożena

doi:10.1075/cilt.218.06cet

Cited by 3 publications

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“…The first unaccusativity test is based on -no/-to impersonals, which cannot be formed of unaccusatives in perfective aspect, in contradistinction to unergatives 4 . However, -no/-to impersonals can be formed of unaccusatives in imperfective aspect, and then they have a habitual/iterative interpretation (Cetnarowska, 2002) 5 . The verb wystarczać [to suffice], which is imperfective, can appear in -no/-to impersonals, as in ( 5), and so can its perfective variant wystarczyć [to suffice], as exemplified in ( 6):…”

Section: Wystarczaćimp/wystarczyćpfv [To Suffice] As An Unaccusative ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Polysemy of the Verb "wystarczyć"/"wystarczać" [to suffice] in Polish

Bondaruk

2023

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This paper examines the syntax and semantics of the unaccusative verb wystarczać/wystarczyć ‘to suffice’ in Polish. We argue that this verb is polysemous. Besides its idiosyncratic meaning ‘to suffice’, it may also mean ‘to be enough’ or ‘to have enough’. The three above-mentioned meanings of the verb wystarczać/wystarczyć are associated with three different syntactic structures. The idiosyncratic meaning of this verb is found with the nominative argument. The second meaning of the verb surfaces in existential clauses with the genitive DP and an optional locative PP. The third - possessive meaning - arises when the verb appears with the dative possessor and the genitive theme.

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Section: Wystarczaćimp/wystarczyćpfv [To Suffice] As An Unaccusative ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Polysemy of the Verb "wystarczyć"/"wystarczać" [to suffice] in Polish

Bondaruk

2023

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“…Given that a large body of work (again, see van Hout 2004 and the references cited therein) associates unaccusaitvity to telicity and the same was suggested for Slovenian (and BCS) by Boban Arsenijević & Stefan Milosavljević (p.c. ) and Cetnarowska (2000) for Polish, we will assume a relation between unaccusatvivity and telicity, 9 but we leave further exploration of the issue to further research. 9 A reviewer suggests verbs with the delimitative prefix po-as a potential differentiator between perfectivity and telicity, as verbs with delimitative po-are perfective but also atelic.…”

Section: Issues With the Diagnosticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lowest theme vowels or highest roots? An ‘unaccusative’ theme-vowel class in Slovenian

Simonović

Mišmaš

2022

Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics

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This paper focuses on the e/i theme vowel class of verbs in Slovenian to bring together two seemingly unrelated debates; (i) the debate on the status of derivational affixes as roots within the framework of Distributed Morphology and (ii) the debate on the correlation between theme vowel classes with certain argument structures in Slavic. Focusing on Slovenian, our core data will come from active l-participles that are used adjectivally as an unaccusativity diagnostic. We take these l-participles to create a list of 109 unaccusative verbs. We show that (i) no unaccusative verbs belong to the two largest theme vowel classes in Slovenian (a/a and i/i), whereas (ii) the two big theme vowel classes tend to get accusative arguments quite frequently. Most importantly, (iii) the e/i-class stands out since more than one half of the unaccusative sample falls into. The e/i-class is furthermore the only theme vowel class whose theme vowel surfaces in adjectival l-participles, the theme vowel class to which inchoatives belong and behaves uniformly with respect to stress. Based on the uniform behavior of the e/i-class which sets it apart from other theme vowel-classes, we will argue that the vowel of this class is better analyzed as a root.

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“…The presence or (overt) absence of NU in an inflected stem does not change its argument structure property. 35 Adjectival passives constitute a reliable test for unaccusative vs. unergative distinction in Czech and Polish: unaccusatives form adjectival L-participles, while unergatives and transitives do not (they may only form N/T-participles) (see Cetnarowska 2002a, 2002b. Examples of well-formed L-participles will include:…”

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confidence: 99%

Semelfactives are bigger than degree achievements

Medová

Wiland

2018

Nat Lang Linguist Theory

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This paper argues that semelfactive and degree achievement verbs are morphosyntactically distinct, despite the fact that the morphemes they are made of are often syncretic even in languages with synthetic verb morphology like Czech or Polish. We use the mechanisms of Nanosyntax, a theory of the architecture of grammar in which the lexicon stores entire syntactic subtrees, to show that there is a structural containment between semelfactives and degree achievements such that semelfactives include more syntactic structure than degree achievements. In this respect, the relative structure of these two verb classes contributes to Bobaljik's (2012) general claim that syncretism anchors structural containment as well as to the ongoing discussion about the form of spell out in syntax. The resulting picture supports the view whereby the semantics of lexical items is determined by their fine-grained internal syntax.

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5. Adjectival past-participle formation as an unaccusativity diagnostic in English and in Polish

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

The Polysemy of the Verb "wystarczyć"/"wystarczać" [to suffice] in Polish

The Polysemy of the Verb "wystarczyć"/"wystarczać" [to suffice] in Polish

Lowest theme vowels or highest roots? An ‘unaccusative’ theme-vowel class in Slovenian

Semelfactives are bigger than degree achievements

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