UN’IPOTESI SULLA CLASSIFICAZIONE DELLE COPPIE PARTICIPIALI DEL SICILIANO

In this study of the Sicilian rhizotonic-arrhizotonic participial pairs, we distinguish four classes of coradical participles in -T-, two verbal ones and two adjectival ones, and we advance a hypothesis on the alternation of the adjectival classes. In the majority of cases the participial pairs participate in causative-resultative alternations (see, for example, cuciutu/cùattu). Whereas the long participial adjective, derived from the verbal passive by conversion or zero derivation, is bivalent, the short one, formed by the addition of a stativizer to a change of state base, is monovalent and stative. Therefore, the two adjectival members of the participial pairs are not synonymous and they do not compete in the system. The participial pairs can also be agentive, although this lexico-semantic type is scarcely attested in Sicilian (see, for example, scrittu/scrivutu). We contend that the adjectival participle of this type is bivalent and has no monovalent stative counterpart. Therefore, the agentive participles only realize three of the participial classes, two verbal ones and one adjectival one. We conclude that the presence of coradical participial pairs is explained by distinguishing the semantic features of causation, agentivity and resultativity: only the last property is shared by the adjectival pairs, whilst causation distinguishes the two members of these pairs.