Liesbet Heyvaert
A symbolic approach to deverbal -ee derivation
In a number of recent publications on deverbal -ee suffixation (Barker 1998; Booij and Lieber 2004; Portero Muņoz 2003) the position is defended that the extension of the system towards agentive entities (e.g., escapee, returnee, attendee) can only be explained in semantic terms, by attributing some degree of “lack of volition” (Barker 1998) or “undergoerhood” (Portero Muņoz 2003) to the profiled Agents. In this paper I show that the semantics of -ee derivation is remarkably similar to the semantics encoded by a number of past-participial constructions. I suggest that this systematic relationship between the system of -ee derivation (which originated as the anglicized version of the French past participle) and various clausal and adjectival uses of the past participle offers a natural, symbolic explanation for the extension from non-agentive to agentive -ee nouns which is more satisfactory than a purely semantic one.
Cognitive Linguistics, Walter de Gruyter
Print ISSN: 0936-5907
Volume: 17, 10/2006
Pages: 337 - 364
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