Riflessioni sulla distinzione tra aggettivo deverbale e participio. Uno studio di caso

The difference between verbal adjectives and participles is a relevant topic in Indo-European studies, as well as in the theory of grammar. They are two nonprototypical categories, placed alongside the noun-verb continuum. They differentiate according to some parameters, such as relationality and time-stability, which involve argument and event structure. Moreover, they are differently oriented towards the head noun: verbal adjectives are semantically oriented, while participles are syntactically oriented. This means that verbal adjectives are oriented towards the patient, the theme or in any case an affected constituent. On the other hand, participles are oriented towards a constituent having the same reference of the subject of verbal finite forms. The diathesis exactly consists in syntactic orientation. Therefore participles codify diathesis, whereas verbal adjectives do not. The same suffix can function as a ‘nominalizer’ in verbal adjective derivation, and as an inflectional morpheme, codifying diathesis, in participle formation. The shift from derivation to inflection is due to a grammaticalization process. The suffix is added to a root in derivation, whereas to a tense-aspect stem in inflection. Therefore, different IE deverbal suffixes such as *-nt-,*-to- and *- meno- might have the same function as nominalizers deriving semantically oriented verbal adjectives from predicative roots. On the other hand, they specialize in codifying different diatheses when they enter into the same opposition system of personal endings.