Deverbal Adjectives at the Interface: A Crosslinguistic Investigation Into the Morphology, Syntax and Semantics of -ble

Maria Isabel Oltra Massuet

Language: English

Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton

Published: Nov 15, 2013

Description:

This volume explores the syntax, semantics, and morphology of -ble adjectives within Distributed Morphology. It presents a decompositional analysis of -ble that captures intralinguistic variation and accounts for morphologically more complex languages. It contributes novel empirical data.

First, the grammaticality of -ble formations derived from unergatives and unaccusatives in Spanish is argued to be a function of their exoskeletal properties in interaction with language-specific facts and features of the grammar of cognation, degrees, quantification and Aktionsart. A previously unnoticed correlation between the Spanish data and a cognate configuration with unaccusatives in English reinforces the proposal.

Second, the grammaticality of denominal -ble adjectives in Romance and their absence in English relates aspects of the internal structure of -ble to issues pertaining to the eventive properties and syntactico-semantic status of the base nouns.

This crosslinguistic proposal implicates central issues in the syntax-semantics-morphology interface, e.g. cross category derivations, locus of variation, or status of impossible words.