Deadjectival verbalizations in Catalan: derivation and parasynthesis

Abstract In this paper I study two groups of verbalizations that can be formed out of the same adjectival base in Catalan (e.g. fosc ‘dark’): derivative verbs, like fosquejar (‘to be darkish, to go darker’), and parasynthetic verbs, like enfosquir (‘to darken’). By providing a comprehensive analysis of these two groups of verbs according to which the former express either states or events of scalar change and the latter only express events of scalar change, I argue that parasynthesis does not hold in the first group because those verbs involve an impoverished morphosyntactic configuration in which there is no structural room for the prefix. This reduced configuration explains why these verbs, unlike their parasynthetic counterparts, have a particular semantics by which there is a degree that is slightly smaller than the adjectival standard of comparison, if they express a state, or by which there is an event of scalar change in which the increasing degree does not reach the adjectival standard of comparison, if they express an activity.