Verbs Derived From Adjectives: Telicity and Event Structure

This article discusses the derivation of verbs from adjectives in two areally related languages, Hill Mari and Tatar (Mishar dialect). Such verbs in both languages are formed using the suffix -l, which, presumably, was borrowed into Hill Mari from the Turkic languages. In both cases, the suffix derives verbs of several structural types (inchoatives, causatives and unergatives), but the semantic relations between the original stem and the derived verb are not always predicted by the existing theories of the phenomenon. In particular, it is commonly assumed that the adjectives of the so-called open scales derive telic verbs by default, and the adjectives of closed scales derive atelic verbs. We show that this prediction is not always confirmed in the languages in question and present an overview of existing derivational models that differ from each other in terms of semantic relationships between the adjectival stem and the derived verb. Although most deadjectival verbs in Hill Mari and Tatar are expected to form telic verbs with an inchoative component (‘become A’), there are exceptions to this principle in both languages. In Hill Mari, telicity is associated exclusively with the closed scale of an adjective, while in Tatar it also correlates with non-zero change-of-state readings available with some verbs. In addition, in both languages, the unergative model is widely represented by atelic behavior-related verbs (‘behave in a manner associated with A’). We propose that in the latter case, adjectival stems undergo covert substantivization and can be integrated into an unergative structure, which does not violate any principles of known theories and does not require any additional assumptions. This proposal is consistent both with the fact that adjectives forming behavior-related verbs are also widely used as nouns in the languages under consideration, and the scale of an adjective correctly predicts telic properties of a verb.

Hill Mari, Tatar, derivational morphology, deadjectival verbs, adjectives, aktionsart, event structure