Argument structure and morphology: the case of "en"-prefixation revisited

Abstract

In this paper I argue that en-prefixed words in Catalan and English (e.g. amorN 'love' ' [[en+amor]V+ar]V 'to make someone fall in love'; nobleA ' [en+noble]V are not exceptions to the Right-hand Head Rule (RHR; Williams 1981a). I argue that a Ø-suffix, and not the prefix en-, is responsible for the conversion of adjectives and nouns to verbs (Neeleman and Schipper 1992). The q-grid of N/A-to-V prefixations provides the empirical evidence in favour of the conversion-suffix. The Ø-suffix will be responsible for the presence of a [+c] role and the prefix will account for the [-c-m] features sometimes present in denominal verbs. I will also show that an unaccusative approach (Grimshaw 1990, Sportiche 1998) to reflexives (in Romance) can deal with the data more satisfactorily than an unergative one (Reinhart and Siloni 1999). Finally, a syntactic theory of argument structure (cf. Hale and Keyser 1993, 1998, 2002) will prove not to be sufficient to account for the data.