The Prosody of Ø-Suffixed Deverbal Nouns in Ukrainian

Abstract

Ukrainian Ø-suffixed deverbal nouns such as perépyt ‘repeated inquiry’ are derived from perfective and/or imperfective verbs (< perepytáty_PFV ‘to ask again, re-interrogate’, perepýtuvaty_IPFV ‘to ask repeatedly’). In some nouns, a complete match in segments and prosody between a base and the derivative is found in the infinitival stem of either or both aspects, as in nadríz ‘cut, incision’, nadrízaty_PFV, nadrízuvaty_IPFV ‘to make a slight cut’. For other nouns, a segmental match is found in the infinitival stem, but another verb form would be needed to provide the prosodic match, as in rozrýv ‘rupture, break’, rozryváty_IPFV, rozirváty_PFV ‘to tear, rend, break apart’, with a stress match only in rozrývanyj_PPP. But for many nouns with stress on the prefix, as in perépyt, there simply is no derivational base available for a prosodic match. The proposal is that stress on the prefix in deverbal nouns is a morphosemantic innovation in
Ukrainian motivated by hypostasis, i.e., the process of a noun becoming more concrete, designating a result or product of the action rather than nominalizing the action itself (Townsend 1980). The derivation of deverbal nouns can be seen as a stem-level process subject to a grammar with some version of Base-Derivative faithfulness (STRESS FAITH >> STRESS PREFIX). But in hypostatic masculine deverbal nouns, the prosodic adjustment takes place on words and here stress is (re)assigned to the prefix by STRESS PREFIX >> STRESS FAITH. Ukrainian thus presents a notable case of prosodically marked semantic change.