This paper aims at tackling under a new perspective a crucial asymmetry of Latin verb morphology, that is the distinction between stem and root in different kind of word formations. We do not concentrate here on the inflectional domain directly, but we address the issue taking in consideration two different ways of encoding agentivity in nominalizations, namely we will compare the -tor formations with the so called synthetic or root-compounds, in order to identify which rules select either the bare root (ponti-fek-s) or the perfect participle stem (cap-tor, lauda-tor) in different morphological environments. The theoretical framework we adopt is the Nanosyntactic one, which will allow us to account for the morphological operations according to a constrained set of principled rules. In § 2 we present the crucial properties of agentive nominalizations realized with -tor as well as those of root compounds, focusing on the different conditions which trigger the use of the root morpheme or the perfect participle stem; in § 3 we introduce the basic tenets of the Nanosyntactic framework; in § 4 the morphological properties of Latin roots and thematic stems are accounted for under the nanosyntactic principles; finally in § 5 we draw the general conclusions and point to the open issues.

Two kinds of verbal roots in Latin: evidence from thematic vowels and word-formation processes

Bertocci Davide;Pinzin Francesco
2020

Abstract

This paper aims at tackling under a new perspective a crucial asymmetry of Latin verb morphology, that is the distinction between stem and root in different kind of word formations. We do not concentrate here on the inflectional domain directly, but we address the issue taking in consideration two different ways of encoding agentivity in nominalizations, namely we will compare the -tor formations with the so called synthetic or root-compounds, in order to identify which rules select either the bare root (ponti-fek-s) or the perfect participle stem (cap-tor, lauda-tor) in different morphological environments. The theoretical framework we adopt is the Nanosyntactic one, which will allow us to account for the morphological operations according to a constrained set of principled rules. In § 2 we present the crucial properties of agentive nominalizations realized with -tor as well as those of root compounds, focusing on the different conditions which trigger the use of the root morpheme or the perfect participle stem; in § 3 we introduce the basic tenets of the Nanosyntactic framework; in § 4 the morphological properties of Latin roots and thematic stems are accounted for under the nanosyntactic principles; finally in § 5 we draw the general conclusions and point to the open issues.
File in questo prodotto:
File Dimensione Formato  
Bertocci-PinzinLAM2020.pdf

accesso aperto

Tipologia: Published (publisher's version)
Licenza: Creative commons
Dimensione 862.01 kB
Formato Adobe PDF
862.01 kB Adobe PDF Visualizza/Apri
Pubblicazioni consigliate

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11577/3367759
Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? ND
  • Scopus ND
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? 5
  • OpenAlex ND
social impact