Was Old Frech -able borrowable? A diachronic study of word-formation processes due to language contact

Abstract

An in-depth corpus study will show that the ability of -able formations to highlight other arguments of the verbal base is present from the start in Old French texts, similarly to findings for Modern French (2003). Old French formations like (par)durable, decevable or changable show that unergatives and unaccusatives can just as well serve as input to -able formations, and that the traditional distinction between transitive and intransitive types cannot account for the variety of derivatives we are already faced with in the Old French period. We also argue against the assumptions that in Old French the active meaning was clearly dominant and that in ME the free morpheme able explains the rise of the suffix -able. The semantic analysis has shown that an adequate word-formation rule should account for the event structure of the base verb rather than rely on the syntactic or semantic frame alone.

Contact-Induced Changes in the Argument Structure of Middle English Verbs on the Model of Old French

“…They also show significant differences between 'French-based' and 'other' texts. This finding is in line with findings from studies on the copying of the suffix -able (Trips and Stein, 2008), on left dislocation [Trips and Stein(2016)], and of cleft sentences (Trips and Stein, 2018) in the me period.…”

The Greek suffix -ozos

“…θυμ-όζος (< rabbi-oso 'ireful' < rabbia = θυμός 'anger') 'ireful' b. λιβαδ-ίσιος (< prat-ensis 'of the meadow' < partum = λιβάδι 'meadow') 'of the meadow' Nevertheless, the presence of these three suffixes has not led to the loss of any other competitive suffixes, as happened, for instance, in the case of the Middle English suffix -able, borrowed from Old French -able. Here, in the view of Trips & Stein (2008), the influence of Old French limited or wiped out the native English suffixes -lice and -bǽre (see also Trips 2014: 404-406;cf. Scherer 2015cf.…”

Diachronic aspects of borrowing aspect: the role of Old French in the development of the be going to + INF construction

“…In Trips & Stein (2008) it was shown that syntactic structures bound to the suffix -able had an influence on English word formation: The ME suffix had the "normal" passive sense 'capable to be Ved', but also the active sense 'capable of Ving' which occurred in Latin and OF.…”