From Nouns and Adjectives to Verbs: Base Effects on the Grammatical Behaviour of Denominal Verbs in Ancient Greek 1

Abstract

This paper investigates the role of semantic features of noun and adjective bases in determining the grammatical behaviour of Ancient Greek denominal and deadjectival verbs in *‐ ye/o ‐. The paper adopts a lexicalist framework (Rappaport Hovav & Levin 1998) and examines how the event schema, actionality, telicity and voice of derived verbs are influenced by the mass/count, concrete/abstract, animacy and agentivity properties of the base. After providing a semantic classification of ancient Greek denominal and deadjectival verbs (Clark & Clark 1979), the paper shows that the mass/count feature interacts with verbal telicity, though not as proposed by Harley (1999, 2005). A ±  mass/count noun derives atelic/telic verbs depending on the event schema into which it is embedded, rather than directly on the mass/count distinction. The abstractness of the base restricts the range of compatible event schemas, with consequences on the actionality and the voice of derived verbs. Animate bases can be inserted only into agent / quality event schemas, characterised by ambiguity between a stative and an eventive reading and variability in the voice marking. Overall, the study demonstrates that the semantic features of the base play a central role in shaping the grammatical behaviour of ancient Greek denominal and deadjectival verbs.