The argument/satellite distinction and absolute verbal use in Latin stative verbs
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C. Cabrillana
Abstract
This paper addresses the problematic issue of the distinction between constituents obligatorily demanded by the predicate for the grammaticality of the construction and elements which are not necessary for this. The issue arises not only from a general perspective, but also in specific cases, such as that of three Latin predicates that share a semantic notion of “permanence”: maneo, permaneo, and remaneo. At the same time, and given that these verbs are also linked by the mechanism of preverbation, it is essential to examine also whether the presence of different preverbs modifies the syntactic characteristics of structures forming the verbs, as well as the potential semantic differences between them. For this reason, the current investigation consists of two different but closely interrelated blocks.
In the first section I will begin with a study of material drawn from use-based lexicons and corpus analysis of the verbs in question, with the aim of facilitating a first approach to the differentiation (i) of the semantic content that they can have, and (ii) of their possible general valency frames. The study of lexical features of the various constituents with which the verb combines, the comparison with the behaviour of other (quasi-)synonymous predicates, and the importance of pragmatic information, will be mechanisms to help identify the syntactic-semantic nature of each case, without the existence of ambiguous cases being possible to rule out entirely.
The examination of syntactic-semantic differences between the simple verb and its corresponding compounds will be addressed in the second section. For this purpose, various procedures of analysis will serve to confirm the possible differences proposed thus far; these procedures will be, essentially, the study (a) of the expression of the duration of permanence, and (b) of the contexts of co-occurrence of simple verbs and verbs with a preverb. Differences will not always be clear, which suggests a possible neutralization of the expected distinctions in some cases, in such a way that the language is seen to be compelled occasionally to draw on additional lexical and grammatical means for explicitly specifying these presumed distinctions.
Funding statement: Funding: This study falls within the wider framework of the Research Project FFI2013-47357-C4-4-P (“Problemas de rección en griego y en latin: verbos de estado y existencia” [‘Problems of government in Greek and Latin: stative and existential verbs’]) funded by the Ministery of Economics and Competitivity of the Spanish Government. It constitutes a revised version of the text presented in a plenary session at the 18th International Colloquium on Latin Linguistics, held in Toulouse (June 2015).
Acknowledgements
I hereby thank the participants in the discussion for providing me with useful remarks (B. García-Hernández, M. Kienpointner, H. Pinkster, H. Rosén).
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©2015 by De Gruyter Mouton
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Latin free-choice pronouns in relation to one another (and to other indefinites)
- The argument/satellite distinction and absolute verbal use in Latin stative verbs
- Two letters by Brutus and Cassius to Mark Antony: different people, different times, different styles
- Some observations on ille and ipse in the Mulomedicina Chironis
- Appositive construction or noun phrase? On the status of postnominal adjectives in Latin and Ancient Greek
- Book Review
- Adams, J. N.: Social Variation and the Latin Language
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Latin free-choice pronouns in relation to one another (and to other indefinites)
- The argument/satellite distinction and absolute verbal use in Latin stative verbs
- Two letters by Brutus and Cassius to Mark Antony: different people, different times, different styles
- Some observations on ille and ipse in the Mulomedicina Chironis
- Appositive construction or noun phrase? On the status of postnominal adjectives in Latin and Ancient Greek
- Book Review
- Adams, J. N.: Social Variation and the Latin Language
