Cover not available
Part of
Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 14: Selected papers from the 46th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Stony Brook, NY
Edited by Lori Repetti and Francisco Ordóñez
[Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 14] 2018
► pp. 263–278

Chapter 15
Latin denominal deponents

A syntactic analysis

| Università di Venezia Ca’ Foscari

Latin deponent verbs are usually analyzed as idiosyncratic forms whose Middle morphology does not correspond to the subjacent syntactic/semantic structure (Embick 2000, Xu et al. 2007). This paper shows that, for the deponents produced after the first half of the II cent. BCE (ex. ancillor ‘I serve’, dominor ‘I rule’, aquor ‘I go to get water’), the presence of the Middle morphology is syntactically justified. These deponents are denominals. Their event structure involves two events, a stative one, v-be°, whose complement is the verbalized nominal element, and a dynamic one, v-do°. The unique argument is both the HOLDER of the state and the DOER of the dynamic event. The Middle morphology allows for the identification between these two positions, as in a Middle reflexive derivation (Spathas et al. 2015).

Keywords: argument structure, deponents, latin syntax, middle, denominals
Article outline
  • 1.Latin deponent verbs
  • 2.Deponent verbs as idiosyncratic forms
  • 3.The productive deponents: Denominal verbs
  • 4.Latin middle morphology, a formal analysis
    • 4.1The framework
    • 4.2The middle morphology
  • 5.Denominal deponents and the middle morphology
    • 5.1The identification type
  • 6.Conclusions and open issues
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 13 August 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/rllt.14.15pin
References
Acedo-Matellán, Víctor, and Jaume Mateu
2013 “Satellite Framed Latin vs. Verb Framed Romance: A syntactic approach.” Probus 25: 227–265.Google Scholar
Alexiadou, Artemis
2014 “Roots Don’t Take Complements.” Theoretical Linguistics 40 (3/4): 287–297.Google Scholar
Alexiadou, Artemis, and Edit Doron
2012 “The Syntactic Construction of Two Non-Active Voices: Passive and Middle.” Journal of Linguistics 48: 1–34.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Borer, Hagit
2005 In Name Only. Structuring Sense, vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Burzio, Luigi
1986 Italian Syntax. A Government and Binding Approach. Amsterdam: Springer.Google Scholar
Cinque, Guglielmo
1988 “On si Constructions and the Theory of Arb .” Linguistic Inquiry 19 (4): 521–581.Google Scholar
Crocco-Galèas, Grazia, and Claudio Iacobini
1992 “The Italian parasynthetic verbs, a particular kind of circumfix.” In Natural Morphology. Perspectives for the nineties, ed. by Livia Tonelli, and Wolfgang U. Dressler, 127–142. Padova: Unipress.Google Scholar
Cuervo, María Cristina
2014 “Alternating Unaccusatives and the Distribution of Roots.” Lingua 141: 48–70.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2015 “Causation Without a Cause.” Syntax 18 (4): 388–424.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
D’Alessandro, Roberta
2007 Impersonal si Constructions. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
De Vaan, Michiel
2008 Etymological dictionary of Latin and other Italic languages. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Dobrovie-Sorin, Carmen
1998 “Impersonal se Constructions in Romance and the Passivization of Unergatives.” Linguistic Inquiry 29 (3): 399–437.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Embick, David
2000 “Features Syntax and Categories in the Latin Perfect.” Linguistic Inquiry 31 (2): 185–437.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gianollo, Chiara
2010 “I verbi deponenti latini e l’unità della flessione in -r .” Incontri triestini di filologia classica 8: 23–49.Google Scholar
2014 “Labile Verbs in Late Latin.” Linguistics 52 (4): 945–1002.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Glare, P. G. W.
(ed.) 2012 Oxford Latin Dictionary (2nd edition). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hale, Kenneth, and Samuel J. Keyser
2002 Prolegomenon to a Theory of Argument Structure. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Halle, Morris, and Alec Marantz
1993 “Distributed Morphology and the Pieces of Inflection.” In The View from Building 20, Essays in Linguistics in Honour of Sylvain Bromberger, ed. by Kenneth Hale, and Samuel Jay Keyser, 111–176. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Harley, Heidi
2009 “The Morphology of Nominalizations and the Syntax of vP.” In Quantification, Definiteness and Nominalization, ed. by Monika Rathert, and Anastasia Giannadikou. 320–342. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
2014 “On the Identity of Roots.” Theoretical Linguistics 40 (3/4): 225–276.Google Scholar
Haverling, Gerd
2000 On sco-verbs, prefixes and semantic functions. A Study in the Development of Prefixed and Unprefixed Verbs from Early to Late Latin. Göteborg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis.Google Scholar
Kallulli, Dalina
2013 “(Non-)canonical Passives and Reflexives: Deponents and their Like.” In Non-canonical Passives, ed. by Artemis Alexiadou, and Florian Schäfer, 337–358. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Koontz-Garboden, Andrew
2009 “Anticausativization.” Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 27 (1): 77–138.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kratzer, Angelika
1996 “Severing the External Argument from its Verb.” In Phrase Structure and the Lexicon, ed. by Johan Rooryck, and Laurie Zaring, 109–137. Dordrecht: Springer.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lavidas, Nikolaos, and Dimitra Papangeli
2007 “Deponency in the diachrony of Greek.” In Deponency and Morphological Mismatches, ed. by Matthew Baerman, Greville G. Corbett, Dunstan Brown, and Andrew Hippisley, 97–126. Oxford: Oxford University Press.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Levin, Beth, and Malka Rappaport-Hovav
1995 Unaccusativity: At the Syntax-lexical Semantics Interface. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Marantz, Alec
2005 “Objects out of the Lexicon! Argument-Structure in the Syntax.” Ms., MIT.Google Scholar
2013 “Verbal Argument Structure – Events and Participants.” Lingua 130: 152–168.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pescarini, Diego
2015 Le costruzioni con si. Italiano, dialetti, lingue romanze. Roma: Carocci.Google Scholar
Pylkkänen, Liina
2008 Introducing Arguments. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ramchand, Gillian Catriona
2008  Verb Meaning and the Lexicon . A First-Phase Syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Roberts, Ian
2010 Agreement and Head Movement. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schäfer, Florian
2008 The Syntax of (Anti)-Causatives- External Arguments in Change of state contexts, Amsterdam: John Benjamins.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2017 “Romance and Greek Medio-passives and the Typology of Voice.” In The Verbal Domain, ed. by Roberta D’Alessandro, Irene Franco, and Ángel Gallego, 129–152. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Spathas, Giorgos, Artemis Alexiadou, and Florian Schäfer
2015 “Middle Voice and Reflexive Interpretations: Afto-prefixation in Greek.” Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 33: 1293–1350.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wood, Jim
2015 “How Roots Do and Don’t Constrain the Interpretation of Voice.” Presentation at Roots IV, NYU, 29 Jun – 2 Jul 2015.
Wood, Jim, and Alec Marantz
2017 “The Interpretation of External Arguments” in The Verbal Domain, ed. by Roberta D’Alessandro, Irene Franco, and Ángel Gallego, 255–278. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Xu, Zheng, Mark Aronoff, and Frank Anshen
2007 “Deponency in Latin.” In Deponency and Morphological Mismatches, ed. by Matthew Baerman, Greville G. Corbett, Dunstan Brown, and Andrew Hippisley, 127–144. Oxford: Oxford University Press.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zombolou, Katerina, and Artemis Alexiadou
2014 “The Canonical Function of Deponent Verbs in Modern Greek.” In Morphology and Meaning. Selected papers from the 15th International Morphology Meeting, ed. by Franz Rainer, Wolfgang U. Dressler, Francesco Gardani, and Hans Christian Luschützky, 331–344. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Mateu, Jaume
2021. On the argument structure of complex denominal verbs in Latin: a syntactic approach. The Linguistic Review 38:2 ► pp. 267 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 22 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.