Verbal compounding in Latin: the case of -MAKE verbs

Abstract

This paper aims at describing Latin compound verbs (CVs) whose second member is a verbal constituent connected with facio ‘to make’. Though there is a large literature on CVs in other languages, little has been said on Latin (Flobert 1978; Fruyt 2001 inter al.). CVs are extremely interesting in several respects. First, compared to Latin nominal compounds, whose core consists of exocentric formations, -MAKE CVs are endocentric constructions (Brucale 2012). Second, they represent an island of productivity in the generally unproductive area of verbal compounding in Latin. Third, they can be compared to analogous constructions in other Indo-European languages, viz. Persian and Hindi, which exhibit the same pattern. Two subclasses of -MAKE CVs can be found: 1) -fico verbs, whose first constituent can be either a noun, e.g. aedifico ‘to erect a building’, or an adjective, e.g. beatifico ‘to make happy’. In the former case, the noun is syntactically the direct internal argument of the verb. In the latter, the adjective has a predicative function and the compound conveys the causative meaning ‘make Q’ (or ‘factitive’, Lehmann fc.), where Q is a quality/state/condition (Kulikov 2001). 2) -facio verbs, which includes many types of compounds, the most productive of which is the so-called Causative subtype (Hahn 1947). This subtype is further divisible into three classes: a) CVs quite regularly connected to intransitive verbs in -eo (e.g. caleo ‘to be hot’) denoting states/conditions. This type is particularly productive and is used in causative CVs (e.g. calefacio ‘to make hot’), sharing with the -fico compounds above the meaning ‘make Q’. b) CVs in which the presence of facio does not yield any causative meaning nor introduces any semantic change in the first member, which already possesses a causative meaning, e.g. perterrefacio ‘to terrify’. c) compounds not related to any existent verb in -eo: - CVs connected with inchoative -sco verbs (e.g. assuesco ‘to become accustomed’/assuefacio ‘to accustom’). These are often ‘labile verbs’ which can be employed both as causatives and corresponding non-causatives with no overt formal change in the verb. The meaning of the corresponding -facio CV, therefore, will equal the meaning at work in the causative use of the verb in the first member. - CVs involving verbs of 1st (e.g. maturo ‘to ripen’/maturefacio ‘to ripen’) and 3rd conjugation (e.g. expergo ‘to arouse’/expergefacio ‘to arouse’). In this group are listed many causative verbs whose meaning is not altered by the compounding operation with –facio. In this work, we intend to provide an accurate description of the range of Latin -MAKE CVs, in order to find a rationale allowing for a perspicuous classification of these data. In particular, we attempt to clarify the morpho-syntactic status of causative CVs, and to further investigate which kind of causativization strategies they instantiate (Lehmann fc). References Brucale, Luisa 2012. Latin Compounds. Probus 24/1 : 93-117. Flobert, Pierre 1978. La composition verbale en latin. In: Etrennes de septantaine: travaux de linguistique et de grammaire comparee offerts a Michel Lejeune par un groupe de ses eleves, 85–94. Paris. Fruyt, Michèle 2001, Réflexions sur la notion de mot en latin: les verbes du type calefacio. In: Claude Moussy (ed.), De lingua Latina novae quaestiones. Actes du Xe Colloque International de Linguistique Latine, 81-94. Louvain. Hahn, Adelaide 1947. The Type calefacio. Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 78: 301–335. Kulikov, Leonid 2001. Causatives. In: Martin Haspelmath, Ekkehard Konig, Wulf Oesterreicher, Wolfgang Raible (eds), Language Typology and Language Universals. Vol. 2, 886–898. Berlin-New York. Lehmann, Christian (fc). Latin causativization in typological perspective. In: Muriel Lenoble & Dominiqu