The case of an enlightening, provoking and admirable Basque derivational suffix with implications for the theory of argument structure

• Main Author: Xabier Artiagoitia
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: UPV/EHU Press 2003-02-01
• Series: Anuario del Seminario de Filología Vasca "Julio de Urquijo"
• Online Access: https://ojs.ehu.eus/index.php/ASJU/article/view/9717

This article analyzes morphological evidence from Basque to support one basic claim: that subjects of the object-experiencer (i.e. frighten-type) psych verbs are internal arguments. The derivational suffix -garri provides the relevant evidence. This suffix is traditionally characterized as forming adjectives from verbs and, disputably, from nouns or adjectives and as having both an active and a passive meaning. I first establish on several grounds that -garri is basically a deverbal suffix which forms adjectives productively. Secondly, I show that the so-called passive value of the suffix is restricted to diadic transitive verbs: the internal argument of the verb becomes the external one of the adjective. The so-called active value of the suffix is restricted to psych verbs with experiencer objects: the surface subject of the verb becomes the external argument of the adjective. Thirdly, a unified characterization of the -garri suffixation is proposed along the lines of Grimshaw (1990): if subjects of the frighten class are internal arguments, there is one single rule of -garri suffixation which adds an R(eferential) argument to bind the first internal argument of a diadic verb; the original external argument, if there is one, is supressed. Verbs whose surface subject bear an instrumental θ-role also admit the suffix -garri (the subject becomes the external argument of the adjective); this fact suggests that instrumental subjects count as internal arguments in Basque. The mere existence of -garri supports the claim that the frighten verb class lacks an external argument; its existence can be also taken as a fair prediction of Belleti and Rizzi's unaccusative analysis of the frighten class, but runs counter to both Pesetsky's analysis (1995) and a purely transitive-causative analysis of object experiencer verbs (cf. Arad 1999a-b).