Diachrony of parasynthetic psycological verbs: Argument and event structure

Abstract

The aim of this research is to examine the historical changes in the evolution of parasynthetic psychological verbs in Spanish. A diachronic perspective allows us to notice the change of productivity that takes place in the formation of these verbs: from deadjectival verbalisations created with the prefix en– and the suffix –ecer to denominal verbalisations formed with the prefix a–. It also shows the evolution of these verbs, both in their argumental and eventive structure since they have not always presented the same syntactic or aspectual behaviour. Consequently, different situations are proposed to represent the changes that have occurred. Of all of them, the situation in which pronominal structures and, subsequently, non-agentive transitive structures are documented predominates. Some verbs, moreover, attest agentive transitive structures. In the same way, it can happen that the evolution originates in the opposite direction. In cases where all structures are identified, a cyclical evolutive change is confirmed, whereas if only two of them are differentiated, a bidirectional change originates. It is argued that only those verbs that show stativity can be considered as psychological verbs.