Theoretical implications of the prefixation of Polish change of state verbs

Abstract

The text is devoted to a rarely described and analysed problem of a gap in the distribution of aspectual prefixes in Polish. Lexical prefixes do not appear as parts of word-internal morphology of synthetic change of state (COS) verbs suffixed with verbalizing morphemes -e-/-ej-, -ną-, and -owa-. The analysis presented below treats such COS verbs as homonymous pairs of lexical items. The telic homonym is equipped with the result phrase (RP) headed by the zero morpheme, whose appearance blocks the insertion of any other telicizing morpheme in the form of a lexical prefix. The zero morpheme is selected by the verbalizers peculiar to COS verbs of synthetic type. The atelic homonym does not have the RP in its structure and, in consequence, does not include a structural position for telicizing heads in the form of lexical prefixes to be ever inserted. The model strongly supports the distinction between the concepts of telicity and perfectivity in Polish, and by extrapolation – in other Slavic languages.