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

Isabel Oltra-Massuet

Nov 2013 · Interface Explorations [IE] Book 28 · Walter de Gruyter

About this ebook

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.

About the author

Isabel Oltra-Massuet, Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales — Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CCHS-CSIC), Madrid, Spain.