Acquaviva, Paolo

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Acquaviva, Paolo
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Acquaviva, Paolo

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  • Publication
    The categories of Modern Irish verbal inflection
    (Cambridge University Press, 2014-11)
    Acquaviva, Paolo 
    This paper sets out to identify the categories underlying Irish verbal inflection and to explain why they have their observed morphological and semantic properties. Assuming that the semantic range of a tense is a function of the whole clause, it derives the tenses of Irish from three syntactic features. Their basic value and position in the clause, along with that of other independently justified formatives, determines the attested range of interpretations for each tense, while the way they are spelled out determines the observed morphological patterns. Since the analysis of verbal categories is based on their syntactic realization, the same explanation accounts for the paradigmatic structure of Irish conjugation and for various syntagmatic phenomena of contextual allomorphy. A language-specific investigation thus claims a broader theoretical significance as an exploration of the interconnected workings of syntax, morphology, and semantics.
      1248Scopus© Citations 5
  • Publication
    Roots, categories, and nominal concepts
    (Il Mulino, 2009-01)
    Acquaviva, Paolo 
    This paper investigates what is specifically nominal in lexical semantics and how it relates to nouns as morphosyntactic objects. Nouns are argued to refer primarily to kind-level sorts, which define categories of entities in the speakers' conceptualization. This notion is characterized in semantic, ontological, and cognitive terms. Not all nominalized properties are concepts; in particular, not transparent deverbal nominalizations. Concepts thus provide a substantive notion of nominality not coextensive with the morphosyntactic one. Evidence is presented for the explanatory value of nominal concepts, as the semantic contribution of noun stems in word formation and in non-standard modification patterns like "plastic flower". Concepts also express semantic restrictions on affixation ("ornamental", but "employmental"). Finally, concepts are the value of nouns as whole complexes, not of their roots. This accords with the view that lexical categories have content, but roots are category-free.
      949Scopus© Citations 3
  • Publication
    Goidelic inherent plurals and the morphosemantics of number
    (Elsevier, 2006-11)
    Acquaviva, Paolo 
    After numbers above 2, nouns are singular or plural depending on the language. But in Irish and Scottish some nouns must be singular and others plural, in a variety of dialectal patterns. Once the semantic basis underlying all these patterns is clarified, the ‘‘irregular’’ distribution of number in Goidelic fits neatly into the typological pattern of classifier constructions. Number seems arbitrary in some constructions, because that is where nouns are interpreted as transnumerals: apparent singulars are just numberless, and plurals are inherently plural stems. This provides a unified explanation for a host of constructions beside numeratives, and affords a deeper understanding of the way aspects of lexical semantics are encoded by number morphology.
      818Scopus© Citations 13