Theme vowels, iterativity and verb classes: A DM analysis

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the relation between theme vowels, mainly -a, iterativity and verb
class properties of Czech predicates. It investigates three phenomena – participial adjectives,
motion verbs and impersonal constructions – and there, two puzzles: unaccusative participial
adjectives with the “transitive” -n/-t suffix and unaccusative impersonal constructions. The
three phenomena share the following properties. They have the iterative (or more generally,
plural) interpretation; display specific changes in the argument structure behavior and crucially,
they contain the verbal theme -a. The article addresses the question of what role the theme -a
has in derivations of these phenomena. It is argued that the theme -a is a marker with several
functions; among other things, it realizes the iterative head. As to the puzzling argument
structure behavior, it is based on the fact that the theme -a can also spell out the agentive and
expletive Voice. Further, it is argued that the suffix -n/-t present in participial adjectives is not
a marker of semantic transitivity; it is only sensitive to morphosyntactic transitivity.