Active and passive syntax of Czech deverbal and deadjectival nouns

Abstract

Both Czech deverbal and deadjectival nouns are often endowed with valency, but they differ significantly in how they reflect active and passive constructions of their motivating predicates: while deverbal nouns derived from transitive verbs may display both active and passive syntax, deadjectival nouns (even those indirectly motivated by a transitive verb) typically only allow either the active or the passive syntax, not both. This notable difference results from the syntactic behavior of the verbs and adjectives from which the nouns are directly derived, and from the way the nouns reflect the syntactic behavior. Unlike verbal constructions, adjectival syntactic structures are predetermined to arrange arguments of the adjectives by adopting either the active or the passive syntax of their base predicates, not both. Typically, this depends on the derivational type the adjectives represent. Valency structures of nouns directly derived from adjectives adhere to morphosyntactic rules that determine the syntactic representation and forms of the adnominal arguments, which results in preserving either the active or the passive syntax of the base adjective. Following the classification of adjectival derivational types, Czech deadjectival nouns are categorized according to the typical syntax (active or passive) used.