Belletti & Rizzi (1988) proposed that there are three classes of psych verbs, and this classification has been adopted in subsequent research. The first class is that of subject experiencer verbs, where the experiencer appears as the subject of the clause, (3):

The second class is that of accusative object experiencer verbs, where the experiencer appears as the accusative object of the verb, (4):

The third class involves an object experiencer that surfaces with dative case, (5):

There is some consensus among scholars with respect to the status of class I and class III verbs: class I verbs are unambiguously stative, and behave like transitive predicates, and class III verbs are unaccusative across languages. However, Class II has been controversially discussed in the literature, and the reader is referred to Landau (2010) for a comprehensive overview.

With respect to class II verbs, the following issues are important for my discussion. Firstly, Class II OE verbs may have eventive, non-agentive interpretations. Arad (1998) shows that there are three different interpretations associated with class II OE verbs, see (6): an agentive reading which includes both an agent and a change of state in the experiencer; an eventive reading implying that something unintentionally caused a change of mental state in the experiencer; a stative reading where there is no agent nor any change of mental state.

Secondly, more recently, Alexiadou & Iordăchioiaia (2014) argued that several OE verbs in English have subjects which are ambiguous between a causer reading and an object of emotion. Importantly, when their subject is interpreted as object of emotion (corresponding to the subject matter/target of emotion role in Pesetsky 1995), the sentence corresponds to a stative interpretation of the psych verb, while when the subject is interpreted as a causer the sentence has an eventive causative use. For these authors, the term causer excludes agents, and refers to non-agentive causers in change of state eventive sentences. The object of emotion role is taken to be introduced very low in the structure, potentially contained within the psych root suggesting that under this stative reading class II OE verbs are unaccusative, see Pesetsky (1995). Alexiadou & Iordăchioiaia (2014) assumed that causers are introduced similar to agents in the structure, following Alexiadou & al. (2006), a claim that I will revisit and modify in this paper.

Thirdly, Landau (2010) devotes a lot of attention to the question of whether OE verbs can form a passive. As he points out, two main approaches to this issue can be recognized. According to e.g. Belletti & Rizzi (1988); Grimshaw (1990) and others, OE verbs are unaccusative and thus do not form passives. According to e.g. Pesetsky (1995); Iwata (1995); Pylkkänen (2000) and others, OE verbs are transitive verbs, and thus can form a passive similar to other transitive verbs. Landau’s contribution is to demonstrate that there are two types of languages when it comes to passivization of OE verbs. In languages like English only eventive (non-stative) members of class II can have a verbal passive. In languages like Italian, OE verbs have no verbal passive. For Landau, the formation of a verbal passive in English is contingent on eventivity not agentivity. Agentive OE verbs universally form passives, as they are actually change of state verbs (accomplishments), while non-agentive ones are states (depress) or achievements. He agrees thus with Tenny (1998: 595) that “verbal passives are more felicitous the more eventive the verb. A complex of factors influences the degree of eventiveness, including not only agentivity but also volitionality, punctuality, and the affectedness of change of state in the experiencer. A loose gradient can be defined from the purely stative ascription of property to the most eventive verb type […] Individual speakers vary in how strict they are with this scale in making verbal passives.”

Landau’s typology is relevant for my discussion of -able, as it has been suggested by other authors for the non-psych domain that there is a correlation between the availability of passive formation and a particular type of -able affixation, to be detailed in 2.2. Importantly, evidence will be provided for (7):

This directly relates to both Landau’s partition of psych verbs, and the view that -able formation is contingent on passivization.

As is well known, languages employ several ways to express dispositional statements, and -able adjectives in English as well as their cognates across languages figure prominently among these. That -able adjectives bring about modality is generally acknowledged in the literature, see e.g. Lyons (1977); Bauer (1983); Chierchia & McConnell-Ginet (1990); Krifka & al. (1995); Lekakou (2005); Bauer, Lieber & Plag (2015) among many others. The very rich literature on this topic, recently extensively summarized in Oltra-Massuet (2013), has made several important observations: the first one is that depending on the source verb -able applies to, a difference in modal force emerges. For instance, as Pires de Oliveira & Ngoy (2007), and Moreira (2014) note for Brazilian Portuguese, when the counterpart of English -able, namely -vel, applies to a transitive predicate the derived adjective signals possibility. However, when it applies to a stative verb, it expresses obligation or necessity (e.g. audivel ‘able to be heard’ vs. admirável ‘deserving respect and admiration’).

Moreover, similarly to modals there is a difference in entailments. As Giannakidou & Staraki (2013) point out, in (8) there is no entailment that Ariadne did solve the problem, see also Hacquard (2010).

Moreira (2014) and Oltra-Massuet (2013) argue that this also holds for possibility –able adjectives. Something can be breakable without entailing the state that it has been broken. The obligation reading, however, that emerges in combination with stative verbs is different. As Moreira (2014) notes, if someone is admirable, there is an entailment that he/she inspires admiration, i.e. the state is manifested, see 3.1 for details.

What is more interesting for the purposes of this paper, however, is the discussion on the morpho-syntactic contexts in which these two readings emerge. Specifically, there appears to exist a correlation between the two readings and the derivational history of the adjective involved in these. Importantly, the possibility reading is available only out of verbs that are transitive and can be passivized. As Chapin (1967) notes, verbs that do not form a passive do not yield -able adjectives either, (9), see also Marchand (1969); Aronoff (1976) among others. McGinnis (2010) provides more recent evidence in support of this claim, see also Roeper & van Hout (1999). Oltra-Massuet (2013) shows that this holds in Catalan and Spanish as well and similar observations have been made by Riehemann (1993) for German.

Oltra-Massuet (2013) correlates the two readings with the two distinct derivations for -able adjectives, cf. Volpe (2005) for an alternative proposal. In particular, Oltra-Massuet (2013: 42, 148) argues that there are two heights for -able attachment and these give rise to distinct semantics. This high vs. low attachment of the affix is associated with a number of other properties summarized in Table 1 (see Oltra-Massuet’s work for a complete list, see Alexiadou 2001; Arad 2005; Embick 2010; Marantz 2013 for further discussion on high vs. low attachment of affixes).

From this perspective, the difference in interpretation associated with -able adjectives correlates with their morpho-syntactic make up. High -able adjectives create a generic property, according to which it is possible for some originator to achieve a resultant state. The event interpretation implies an external argument, as in e.g. translatable. This is the reading Oltra-Massuet calls potential. Low -able adjectives, by contrast, have idiosyncratic properties, and express a modality that differs from regular possibility, e.g. admirable, which Oltra-Massuet labels evaluative.

The differences in interpretation often correlate with differences in form, as discussed in Aronoff (1976: 128):

As Oltra-Massuet (213: 111–112) points out, languages such as German have a different affix to express the evaluative judgment, namely wert:

High -able adjectives contain both a resultative component and an agentive component. Oltra-Massuet discusses several tests that can be used to diagnose the presence of an external argument in high -able adjectives. These include:

Applying these tests to English and German, we see, as stated in Oltra-Massuet (2013: 81), that the form that is associated with high -able licenses by-phrases, but the low one does not:

Oltra-Massuet and other literature she cites observed some restrictions on by-phrases with -able adjectives. To the extent that by-phrases occur, they must be non-specific and generic. These restrictions are interesting as they are similar to those found in adjectival passives and verbal passives in some languages, as well as dispositional middles in languages such as Greek, where by-phrases are allowed (see e.g. McIntyre 2013; Gehrke 2015 among others; Lekakou 2005; Alexiadou & al. 2015 for a summary of the literature and references). We can relate this to the proposal made in the literature that by-phrases when applied to states are subject to sortal restrictions, i.e. they are either responsible for continuing the state or crucial for the nature of the state.

Finally, Moreira (2014) and Oltra-Massuet (2013) note that there are aspectual restrictions that apply to high -able. According to Moreira, high -able combines with eventive predicates, and cannot combine with stative predicates. Oltra-Massuet claims that high -able combines with verbs that involve some originator who achieves a resultant state, but there is no implication that the event has taken place. This is expressed in (15):

The corresponding structures for high and low -able are given in (16a) and (16b). While both formations are adjectival, a crucial difference between the two is that high -able includes the layer that introduces the external argument. Specifically, high and low -able differ in that high -able involves a modal that takes as an input structure the layer that introduces the implicit external argument, namely VoiceP (Kratzer 1996; Alexiadou & al. 2015). Low -able involves a modal component that simply embeds a non-verbal structure. According to Oltra-Massuet (2013: 153), in the case of low -able in (16a), first the root merges with AspP, which is a stativizer. ModP modalizes the formation, and when it merges with a stative root, the readings that are obtained may be non-potential. By contrast, in the case of high -able in (16b), the pieces involved in the formation yield a reading according to which it is possible for some arbitrary individual to perform the action denoted by the eventive predicate:

Both -able formations contain a ModP component, relating to ideas concerning the treatment of modal auxiliaries in e.g. Kratzer (1991) and Hacquard (2010): there is one modal element, which can attach high and low. Note here that nothing excludes an intermediate structure excluding Voice but including vP, as has been proposed in the literature on nominalization (Alexiadou 2001), and adjectival passives (see Alexiadou et al. 2015 for discussion and references). This structure will be very similar to that of resultative participles referring to a resultant state but lacking an external argument. As will see in section in sections 3.1 and 4 this might be the correct analysis for the “semantic easiness” reading associated with -able.

In view of all this discussion, it becomes clear why -able formation is relevant for the psych domain. (15) and the structures in (16) illustrating the two heights of attachment for -able make certain predictions: assuming Landau (2010) is right that certain OE verbs do not form verbal passives, we expect high -able formation to be out with exactly these predicates. In addition, if high -able does not combine with stative predicates, we expect to find such a restriction in the psych domain as well. In other words, to the extent that -able adjectives can be formed out of psych verbs, we expect correlations between eventivity/stativity, transitivity, (un)availability of passivization and -able formation.

Let me consider these issues in detail in the next section by focusing on English and Greek. See Oltra-Massuet (2013) for some discussion of German, Bisetto (2013) for Italian, Wood & Sigurðsson (2014) for Icelandic, and Bloch-Trojnar (2017) for Polish.

Formation of -able adjectives with Class I verbs is generally possible, see (17):2

Recall that this class is considered to contain stative verbs which have a transitive syntax. In Kratzer (1996), it is proposed that the subject of such verbs is the holder of the state and is also introduced in VoiceP. As briefly mentioned in the previous section, Moreira (2014) argues that the two interpretations of -able, potential vs. evaluative, correlate with stativity and eventivity. With stative verbs, the state is manifested, while with eventive ones the state is not manifested. The potential reading of -able is possible with eventive verbs, while the evaluative reading of -able is possible only with stative verbs. Consider the contrast in (18a–b), her examples (11–12). Moreira does not compare an eventive psych verb with a stative one, but her stative verbs all belong to class I psych verbs:

As Moreira observes, in (18a), the adjective does not entail the state. (18b) is different in that a loving state is entailed. Importantly, however, the state holds for the state holder, which corresponds to the experiencer argument. The target of emotion, following Pesetsky (1995), is evaluated by the experiencer. As Moreira (2014: 192) states, “a possibility modal reading is available for adjectives derived from eventive verbs (such as quebrável ‘breakable’, lavável ‘washable’, congelável ‘freezable’). These adjectives involve objective properties and the final state may hold for the object of the verb (quebrado ‘broken’, lavado ‘washed’, congelado ‘frozen’). This state is not manifested. The possibility modal reading is unavailable for adjectives derived from stative verbs (amável ‘lovable’, adorável ‘adorable’, notável ‘notable’). These adjectives involve subjective properties and the state holds for the subject of the verb (an experiencer). This state is manifested.”

Formation of -able adjectives from OE verbs shows a non-uniform behavior. For instance, the verbs in (19) do not seem to be able to form -able adjectives:3

Other predicates, however, such as irritate or terrify seem to be able to form -able adjectives, see (20). There is evidence to support the claim that in most cases low -able is involved. First, the form that occurs in the -able adjective must be truncated:

Second, -able affixation sometimes leads to stress shifts:

Thirdly, they do not seem to tolerate by-phrases, and they can be modified by very:

Thus, on the basis of Oltra-Massuet’s criteria, at least for these OE verbs that can form -able adjectives, low -able seems to be involved.

We note a correlation between the aspectual and structural properties of OE verbs, and their ability to form -able adjectives. As Alexiadou & Iordăchioaia (2014) pointed out, building on e.g. Landau (2010); Grafmiller (2013) and references therein, there is a sub-group of these verbs that is stative only: e.g. fascinate and depress. This sub-group does not really give good -able formations. As we have just seen, low -able is available with class I stative verbs, but why can low -able not attach to stative OE verbs? The reason for this is that there is an important difference between the class I and class II stative verbs: class II stative verbs are not transitive, as shown extensively in Landau (2010), i.e. both the experiencer and the object of emotion are internal arguments. Thus, there is no state holder for which the state could hold.4

Nevertheless, forms such as irritable are possible, which, as we have seen, morpho-syntactically qualify as involving low -able. However, and unlike -able adjectives formed from class I verbs, irritable does not have the interpretation in (23b). Importantly, the state is not manifested and there seems to be no contradiction in (23c):

Hamada (2013) points out that in this reading -able contributes adverbial information and is paraphrasable with the PP with ease.6 If adverbs generally modify events, this would point to the presence of an eventive layer in this structure. As discussed in Oltra-Massuet (2013: 106), this reading is close to that of X is easy to irritate, i.e. a tough-movement construction (TMC),7 see also Val Álvaro (1981) for Spanish. This kind of interpretation led several researchers to propose that -able adjectives are derived from dispositional middles. The reason for this is the similarity between TMCs and dispositional middles. Specifically, Massam (1992: 124–126) observed that both TMCs and middles involve stative predicates, require a modal element referring to the easiness, possibility of the event referred to, and they both ascribe a property to the subject, i.e. a certain property of the subject makes it easy to wash in (24):

These properties are also recognized in Oltra-Massuet as characteristics of -able. However, Oltra-Massuet (2013: 142) notes that there are several -able adjectives derived from verbs that do not form dispositional middles, (25a). And in turn there are several verbs that form both -able adjectives and TMCs, but do not form dispositional middles, (25b):

In what follows, I will compare these three structures in the domain of psychological verbs. In particular, I will examine to which extent a particular OE verb can form both a dispositional middle and a TMC, and whether there is a correlation between the aspectual class the OE verb belongs to and its behavior in middles, -able formations and TMCs, as not all aspectual verb classes yield well-formed dispositional middles. Importantly, statives do not yield well-formed dispositional middles. Note that only transitive verbs enter both TMC and dispositional middle formation, so the behavior of OE verbs in this domain can be taken as a further argument for their (in)transitivity.

There is a sharp contrast between fascinate and irritate, (26a) is bad while (26b) is fine. A similar contrast is observed for (26c) vs. (26d):

I noted above that fascinate is a stative verb. There is a further group of OE verbs in English, which could also be classified as states in the presence of an object of emotion argument, as discussed in Alexiadou & Iordăchioaia (2014). Evidence for this comes from the incompatibility of several of these verbs with in-adverbials, indicating that they lack a change of state reading. If we employ the easy to V paraphrase, we see that these verbs cannot be included in these paraphrases, (29):

These verbs do not yield good dispositional middles either, (30a), and -able affixation is out, (30b):

If these verbs are stative, our remarks above concerning fascinate also hold.

Finally, in English there is a class of predicates that are ambiguous between a change of state and a stative reading. Alexiadou & Iordăchioaia (2014: 73–74) show that this is supported by for-adverbials, which may modify the result state (RS) of the change of state reading documented in (25), or the single eventuality (SEv) like with pure states.

These verbs give well-formed middles, as well as TMCs, (32). Verbs that belong to this group should be able to combine with high -able, if they are change of state, and in principle their -able adjectives should be ambiguous between a passive reading and an easy to V reading:

In support of this, change of state OE verbs have the potential reading, i.e. the state is not manifested and as a result the statements in (33) do not involve a contradiction:

We can summarize the results of the comparison as follows. -able formation from English OE verbs is possible, if these are not stative. Two readings are available: the easiness reading, which seems to involve morpho-syntactically low -able, but excluding the manifestation of the state, suggestive of an event component. This class of verbs is also the one that can participate in a TMC. This is suggestive of the transitivity of the OE verb. A passive reading is also possible for those verbs, which, according to Landau (2010), can form a verbal passive. This latter behavior obeys the generalization in (15).

As already mentioned, several researchers have pointed out the similarity between this reading of -able adjectives, dispositional middles, and TMCs. While states and achievements typically do not undergo middle formation, this restriction does not hold for TMCs. Nanni (1980) observed that the complement of a tough predicate must be volitional or intentional with respect to its subject, e.g. note the contrast in (34):

Nanni also shows that stativity is not the relevant factor, and while most ungrammatical examples involve stative predicates, there are several cases where a stative predicate is acceptable in the complement of tough:

The so-called “semantic easiness” reading is available in all these three domains. But how does it arise? It has been observed by Berman (1973) that the implicit argument of the tough adjective is construed coreference with the implicit argument of the embedded verb. Keine & Poole (2016) propose that with tough-predicates this implicit argument corresponds to the judge of the proposition. In other words, a proposition is tough according to some judge, which is co-referential with the implicit argument of the embedded verb. This judge can be overtly expressed via an experiencer PP, which specifies the judge, (36a), or be left implicit, interpreted generically, (36b):

Building on these observations, we could argue that the “semantic easiness” associated with -able plays a role similar to that of adverbs such as easily in middles and tough type adjectives in TMCs in Lekakou’s (2005) account. Lekakou (2005: 161) proposes that in English middles “event modifiers are required in order for the middle-Agent to be recoverable via identification with the experiencer argument contributed by the adverb.” ‘Semantic easiness’ performs the same job, it licenses the agent of the verb that undergoes -able formation. The modifier itself need not be overtly expressed, although it is often the preferred option. Most of the -able examples illustrated here contain such an adverb. The adverbial paraphrase of this reading when it is covert is claimed in Hamada (2013) to be with ease, which requires an agentive eventive verb (as noted in Klecha 2014). In the TMC, the implicit judge corresponds to the experiencer argument of the tough-adjective. As irritate can in principle have an agentive subject and a transitive construal, its implicit subject is coreferential with this judge. In the case of fascinate this is not possible, as no agent is available. Thus, the former can be embedded in a TMC, while the latter cannot. Similar considerations hold for -able formation: “semantic easiness” is available only for agentive and eventive OE verbs, and thus irritable is acceptable but *fascinateable not.9

Does this mean that irritable is analyzable in terms of (16b)? The morpho-syntactic criteria suggest that this is not the case. In fact, Oltra-Massuet (2013) explicitly argues that all non-potential readings of -able signal low -able. Thus, irritable has the structure in (16a) and as a result can also have the idiomatic reading in a bad mood. Alternatively, and to the extent that its meaning is becoming angry with ease, there is an event causing irritation, which can be modified via a PP. This reading must involve a structure between (16a) and (16b), namely one lacking Voice but including a v layer introducing the event. Importantly, however, the agent is not projected in the syntax, but is conceptually available, licensed by the easiness interpretation, as has been argued to be the case with dispositional middles, see Schäfer (2008) for details.10

In conclusion, high -able does not combine with stative OE verbs. The combination of high -able with OE verbs is contingent on the availability of passivization. There seems to exist an intermediate -able available for agentive OE verbs that applies to those verbs that can also be embedded under a tough predicate. With this in place, let me now turn to Greek.