The C△G and Polish causative/anticausative deadjectival verbs

Abstract

Polish inchoative deadjectival verb forms have been noted in Bobaljik (2012) to exemplify a potentially problematic paradigm for the Comparative-Change-of-State Generalization described within the same work. While Polish causative and anticausative deadjectival verbs formed from adjectives that display suppletion in the comparative form show the expected corresponding suppletion in the verb form as well, the inchoative deadjectival verbs display what appears to be an illicit ABA pattern. We argue that in these cases, Bobaljik’s Generalization can still be upheld, due to the two deadjectival verb types, anticausative and inchoatives, belonging to two different classes of anticausatives (Alexiadou et al. 2015). For the anticausative, belonging to Class A, the root takes the suppletive comparative, leading to the suppletive anticausative form. On the other hand, we argue the inchoative represents a Class B anticausative and the corresponding root does not undergo suppletion. Therefore, the Comparative-Change-of-State Generalization does not apply to the Class B verbs.