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Article published In:
Lingvisticæ Investigationes
Vol. 44:2 (2021) ► pp.153–203

Locatum and location verbs in Italian

A Lexicon-grammar analysis

| Università di Salerno

In this paper I claim that Italian location and locatum verbs constitute two syntactically distinct classes of verbs. Location verbs are derived from a noun corresponding to a location, and behave similarly to standard verbs of caused motion. Locatum verbs are derived from a noun corresponding to the located entity, and behave similarly to croisés verbs. Despite these similarities, the derivational structure of locatum and location verbs has an impact on their syntactic structure. For this reason locatum and location verbs cannot be included in the classes of croisés and standard verbs, respectively. They deserve a separate classification.

Keywords: denominal verbs, locatum verbs, location verbs, standard verbs, croisés verbs
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • 1.Main hypotheses on locative denominal verbs
  • 2.Locatum verbs
    • 2.1Locatum subject alternation
    • 2.2Causative alternation and reflexivization
    • 2.3Locatum verbs: Results
    • 2.4Anomalous locatum verbs
      • Sellare ‘saddle’
      • Denocciolare ‘pit’
  • 3.Location verbs
    • 3.1Location subject alternation
    • 3.2Causative alternation and reflexive constructions
    • 3.3Location verbs: Results
    • 3.4Anomalous location verbs
      • Depositare ‘store, deposit’
      • Basare ‘base, place’
      • Imbracciare ‘hold’
  • Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 21 March 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/li.00061.vie
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