In Search of a Model for the Derivation of Dispositional and Passive Potential Adjectives Based on Participles in Irish

This paper tests the explanatory potential of two competing separationist models, a lexicalist LMBM model and a constructionist DM model, in the analysis of overtly marked dispositional and passive potential adjectives based on participles in Irish. In LMBM, which upholds a strict division between lexical and morphosyntactic phenomena, Irish adjectives must be derived directly from the verbal root or a special allomorphic variant of the verbal root which is used in the context of adjectivising morphology. The first solution involves the multiplication of formal markers, the latter misses the formal and semantic relationship between the supposedly “special” verbal stem and the participle. DM fares better since there is no theoretical ban on the use of participles as bases for adjectives and the presence of participles in the structure of Irish adjectives is corroborated by distributional facts. The proposed structures form a continuum from verbal participles via adjectivised participles to deverbal adjectives.