Complex verbal heads in Latin: a syntactic approach

MARÍA MARE

Niza, Francia

Congreso; Going Romance XXIII; 2009

Universidad de Niza

Abstract In this paper we account for the nature of two groups of Latin verbs which are compounded of a verbal head and the prefixed preposition cum ‘with’.  As far as we know, these kinds of verbs have not been analyzed before and they involve two classic linguistic problems: the status of prepositions as prefixes and the distinction between composition and derivation, i.e., word formation. It is our purpose to show that the differences between these groups follow from the status of cum and the aspectual and argumental properties of the verbs. From a theoretical point of view, we prove that the properties of cum complex heads can be derived directly if we adopt a syntactic approach like Distributed Morphology (Halle & Marantz 1993; Embick & Noyer 2001, among others). In effect, a theory like Distributed Morphology enables us to solve the problem of the multiplicity of lexical entries, since we would not need the complex heads to be listed. On the other hand, it gives us the possibility to relate different levels of analysis (syntactic, morphological and semantic). We show that there is a correlation between the syntactic status of cum, the aspectuality and the argument structure of the verbs; besides, this correlation can be reflected in different syntactic structures. Furthermore we consider that our analysis enables us to account for the problem of prefix’s polysemy and for some aspects of Latin word formation which are easily transferable to other languages.