This paper is about German participles. More specifically, its focus is the analysis of predicative uses of German participles, the formation of which requires prefixation of the base verb with a dedicated morpheme ge- as in (1-b). In a predicative participle construction, the participle is the main predicate of a sentence and follows the copula sein (BE).

German participles that require prefixation of a base verb with ge- as in (1-b) contrast with participles of already prefixed constructions as in (2-b), which do not show prefixation with ge-.

In the present paper we argue that the split formation of German participles corresponds to a split semantics of their predicative use. In this respect, our analysis differs importantly from previous work on German participles (like Rapp 1997; Kratzer 2000; Maienborn 2009; Gehrke 2015), where the semantics of German participles is defined independently of whether or not the participle requires prefixation with ge- and consequently, the formation of participles, and in particular the distribution of ge-, is assumed to be solely a matter of morphophonology. But, as Rathert (2009) shows, the formation of participles, and in particular the distribution of the prefix ge-, cannot be explained in terms of morphophonology alone (e.g. as proposed in Neef 1996) but is to a large extent semantically determined. Rathert considers only those semantic factors that concern the distribution of ge-, but does not connect the distribution of ge- to the interpretation of the participle constructions in which ge- figures. Against this background, the main goal of the present paper is to spell out in detail a semantics for the prefix ge- that explains its function in the formation of participles and sets ge-prefixed participles semantically apart from participles of prefix-verbs as in (2-b). The semantic distinction we aim to correlate with the split formation of participles in German concerns the type of property that underlies the state described in predicative constructions with ge-prefixed participles as in (1-b) and participles of prefix-verbs as in (2-b).

Following Pross (2019), we assume that the state described with participles of prefix-verbs as in (2-b) derives from an “individual property”. Individual properties are prototypically exemplified by predicative constructions with adjectives as in (3).1

In the present paper, we contrast states derived from individual properties with states derived from “event properties”. We argue that participles that require prefixation with ge- describe a state based on an event property, a type of state that is prototypically exemplified by present perfect constructions as in (4).

The semantic distinction between individual properties and event properties reproduces semantic distinctions that have previously been proposed in the literature, like the distinction between target and resultant states (Kratzer 2000), or Kimian and Davidsonian States (Maienborn 2009). But previous work assumes that the states described by predicative participles are derived independently of their morphological makeup, and in particular independently of whether or not ge- figures in the formation of a participle. In contrast, the analysis of participles we develop in the present paper computes the split semantics of participles and the restrictions on their use from their morphosemantic constituents.

It is important to note right in advance that in the present paper we are concerned with adjectival participles, but not with non-adjectival participles of the type discussed in Wasow (1977). Wasow (1977) is also traditionally credited for having brought up the question whether participles are derived in the lexicon or in the syntax, and participles have played a crucial role in advancing specific conceptions of the division of labor between syntax and the lexicon (see in particular Bruening 2014). We took great care to make our analysis independent of specific assumptions about word formation. In particular, we want to leave open whether the morphosemantic constituents of German participles we define in the present paper are syntactic heads that are selected and combined according to syntactic principles or lexical units that are selected and combined according to lexical principles. We assume that the principles of meaning composition are the same in both cases, and thus our semantic analysis can be mapped to syntactic and lexical approaches to word formation alike.

In section 2 we introduce the background assumptions we make about the event structure of German verbs and the predication of properties with participles of prefix verbs like bemalen in (2-a). In section 3 we argue that German predicative participles fall into two subclasses, one of which patterns with adjectival predicatives. We explain the difference between the two classes by showing that German predicative participles can be used to predicate two different types of properties, which we label “individual” and “event” properties, respectively. We propose the licensing of ung-nominalizations and superlative constructions as tests to distinguish between the two. With a systematic assessment of those verb classes that form their participles with the prefix ge-, we argue for a correlation of the predication of event properties with the presence of the prefix ge-. In section 4, we compare our proposal with previous approaches to predicative participles with respect to the ontology of states. We show that the distinction between target state participles and resultant state participles proposed in Kratzer (2000) can be grounded in the distinction between individual and event properties. Our approach can thus be understood as a restatement of Kratzer’s analysis which, however, avoids the problems that arise when compatibility of a participle with immer noch ‘still’ is used as a test to distinguish target and resultant states. Section 5 concludes.

In this section we provide a short overview of the basic regularities of the formation of German participles; readers who are familiar with the morphology of German participles can safely skip this section.

There are two participle suffixes in German, a suffix -t and a suffix -en. Weak verbs do not involve stem-vowel changes in any tense (comparable to regular verbs in English) and systematically form their participle with -t (5). Strong verbs often involve stem-vowel changes (comparable to irregular verbs in English) and form their participle with -en (6). Mixed verbs as in (7) form their participles with -t, like weak verbs, but involve a stem-vowel change, like strong verbs.

Verbs like those in (5)–(7) require an additional morphological operation, prefixation with a dedicated morpheme ge- to form a participle, whereas verbs that already have a prefix, as in (8) and (9) do not.

(5)/(6) show that ge-prefixation is independent of the weak/strong distinction and that the participle suffixes -t and -en are independent of the ge-prefix. But the requirement for ge-prefixation to form a participle is independent of morphological complexity, or so it seems, insofar as morphologically complex verbs like those in (10)/(11) also require ge-prefixation of the verb stem.

The difference between the verbs in (8) and (9) on the one hand and those in both (5)/(6) and (10)/(11) on the other correlates with the separability of preverbal morphemes. Preverbal morphemes like be- in (8), ver- in (9) and the prefix ge- in (5)–(7) are inseparable from the verb. We call such inseparable preverbal morphemes prefixes, and distinguish “prefix verbs” from “particle verbs” as in (10)/(11), where the morphemes an- and ein- are separated from the remainder of the verb in the verb second configuration of main clauses (e.g. when the complementizer is causal denn ‘(causal) since’), see(12-a) vs. (12-c). Note that there is no separation of either verbal prefixes or particles in subordinate clauses (e.g. when the complementizer is weil ‘since’), see (12-b) vs. (12-d).

Verbal prefixes like be- are in mutually exclusive distribution with the prefix ge-, see (13). In general, no more than one prefix can occur on a German verb.

For a more detailed discussion of the peculiarities of the formation of German participles, we refer the reader to Rathert (2009).

Rappaport Hovav & Levin (2010) distinguish two broad semantic classes of verbs. The first class of “manner verbs” encodes the manner in which some action is carried out and describes internally caused events. The second class of “result verbs” encodes the coming about of some particular result state and describes externally caused events. Result verbs have a bi-eventive lexical-semantic structure in that they describe a relation between two events, e₁ and e₂, where – following Dowty (1979) – e₁ is a CAUSE event that causes a change of state event e₂ (a BECOME event). Bi-eventivity is thus to be understood in contrast to mono-eventivity, which is associated with manner verbs that describe an activity, i.e. a single event e (a DO event). Roßdeutscher & Kamp (2010) correlate bi-eventivity of a verb with the licensing of an ung-nominalization: only transitive result verbs but not manner verbs license ung-nominalizations. E.g., the verb säubern ‘to clean’ in (14-a) is a result verb. It predicates a change from being dirty to being clean of the obligatory direct object. Accordingly, säubern has an ung-nominalization, see (14-b).

Intransitive German verbs generally “do not have ung-nominals; this is the case irrespective of whether the verb is unergative [or] unaccusative” (Roßdeutscher & Kamp 2010: 176), cp. (15).

An important qualification of the claim that only transitive result verbs license ung-nominalizations is that the transitivity requirement is understood in a strong sense that excludes verbs like essen ‘to eat’ in (16) that participate in the unspecified object alternation (16-a)/(16-b).

The example (16-b) may appear like a perfect instance of a transitive description of a change of state in the sense that Peter’s eating causes the apple to undergo a change of state from being not eaten to being eaten. But this resemblance is only superficial. Verbs like essen that participate in the unspecified object alternation, typically so-called “incremental theme verbs”, have been argued to be manner verbs (Rappaport Hovav 2008), with the transitive construction being constructed out of the manner verb (see e.g. Kratzer 2004; Kennedy 2012).

The restriction of the formation of ung-nominalizations to “core transitive” verbs (in the terminology of Kratzer 2005, see also Levin 1999 for discussion) is in particular telling with respect to the event structure of German prefix-verbs. (17) and (18) are one but many examples where the unprefixed base verb has no ung-nominalization but the prefixed verb has an ung-nominalization (see e.g. the corpus study in Roßdeutscher 2010 and further discussion in Pross 2019).

Roßdeutscher & Kamp (2010) argue that the contrasts in (17)/(18) are difficult to explain under the assumption that the prefixed verb bemalen is derived from the verb malen. Instead, they propose that the same “root” √mal can be inserted into the templatic representation of a manner verb (which may be either a syntactic or a lexical-conceptual structure) or into the templatic representation of the event structure of a result verb, deriving either a core-transitive result verb that licenses an ung-nominalization or a non-core transitive manner verb that does not license an ung-nominalization.

Given that we are interested in the predication of properties in predicative constructions, a natural starting point are predicative constructions where the main predicate is a lexical (i.e. underived) adjective like kühl ‘cool’. A widely accepted view is that gradable adjectives predicate a property of an individual by determining a value on a scale with respect to some contextual standard (see e.g. Kennedy & Levin 2008) as in (19).

In the following, we refer to properties that are predicated with lexical adjectives in copula constructions with BE (relative to a standard of comparison) as individual properties. A unique property of German adjectival constructions that denote individual properties is the licensing of superlative constructions that are derived by suffixation of the dedicated morpheme -st- as in (20).

Individual properties can also be predicated with adjectives like hungrig ‘hungry’, where the adjective is derived from the noun Hunger ‘hunger’. Francez & Koontz-Garboden (2017) propose that nouns like Hunger denote what they call a “quality”. They argue that because qualities cannot be predicated of individuals directly (21-a), but portions of qualities are possessed by individuals (21-b), the derivation of an adjective from a quality-denoting noun requires possessive morphology (21-c).

(22) is a simplified denotation for hungrig according to the possessive analysis of Francez & Koontz-Garboden (2017).

According to (22), hungrig predicates of an individual possession of a portion p of the quality denoted by Hunger.

Pross (2019) applies the analysis of Francez & Koontz-Garboden (2017) to be-prefixed predicative constructions as in (23-b).

Unlike Roßdeutscher & Kamp (2010), who follow Wunderlich (1987) and analyze the prefix be- as an instance of preposition incorporation, Pross (2019) argues that be- is an adjectival possessive morpheme (like -ig) which allows to predicate a quality of an individual, similar to the adjectival case (21-c). The prototypical case of quality possession predication with be-prefixed constructions are be-prefixed participles as in (24) which have no corresponding verb, see (24) and the parallel examples (25) (cp. Dewell 2015; Günther 1974). Notably, since the class of be-prefixed participles illustrated with (24)-(26) does not have a corresponding verb, the participle constructions cannot be explained under the traditional assumption that “[o]nly verbs […] can appear in German adjectival passives.” (Gehrke 2015: 908–909, generalizations 1 and 2).

The qualities predicated with be-prefixed participles in (24) and (25) are quite tangible and closely related to the meaning of the underlying noun Gabe ‘gift’ in (24) or Ruhm ‘fame’ in (26). But in general, the qualities predicated with be-prefixed participles are often abstract and shifted remnants of diachronic meaning change. For example, while the synchronic meaning of the noun Mal ‘mark, spot’ is restricted to a mole or memorial, diachronically Mal referred to a sign or picture (Grimm & Grimm 1854: Bd. 12, Sp. 1494) and (Kluge 2002: 592), and it seems to be this no longer existent meaning of Mal that is still inherent in the quality that is predicated in (23-b), and also underlying the meaning of the corresponding verb malen (Grimm & Grimm 1854: Bd. 12, Sp. 1501), (Kluge 2002: 593). Note that it is for this reason that we gloss the quality associated with the root √mal in (23) as ‘mark’.

While determining the meaning of a particular be-prefixed construction may turn out to be difficult, the actual value of an analysis of the prefix be- as in Pross (2019) shows up in comparison with adjectives. Like adjectives, be-prefixed participles license superlative constructions (27).

Superlative constructions with adjectives do not make reference to an underlying event, or allow for a temporal interpretation: (27-a) cannot be understood to mean “the most often painted wall”. Thus, Pross (2019) argues, the licensing of superlatives by be-prefixed participles shows that like adjectives these participles do not make reference to an event. We discuss the formation of superlatives as a test for the denotation of an individual property in the absence of an underlying event in more detail in section 3.1. Moreover, like adjectives (and verbs derived from them), be-prefixed constructions license ung-nominalizations (28).

One further piece of evidence Pross cites in favor of an analysis of be-prefixed participles according to which they are formed independently of the corresponding verbal construction is that such an analysis allows a straightforward explanation of the otherwise mysterious asymmetry of copredication with the ung-nominalization (28-b) in (29) and (30).

According to the tests for event and state denotation of German ung-nominalizations proposed in Ehrich & Rapp (2000), the data in (29) shows that the event denotation of Bemalung makes available a state denotation which can serve as the antecedent of the anaphoric pronoun sie ‘it’ in (29). But the state denotation of Bemalung in (30) does not make available an event denotation which can serve as the antecedent of the anaphoric pronoun in (30). Pross argues that copredication asymmetries with be-prefixed ung-nominalizations as in (29)/(30) show that the state denotation of Bemalung is not derived from the lexical entry of the verb bemalen but from the lexical entry of the participle bemalt, which does not make reference to an event. The formation of ung-nominalizations from be-prefixed participles that lack a corresponding verb is attested e.g. by examples as in (31).

The possibility to form ung-nominalizations from participles, and in the absence of a corresponding verb, leads Pross to a redefinition of the constraint on the formation of ung-nominalizations put forward by Roßdeutscher & Kamp (2010). According to Pross (2019), a construction has an ung-nominalization iff it predicates an individual property, and it is with respect to this constraint that we will consider ung-nominalization as a test for the denotation of an individual property in the remainder of the present paper. That is, if a construction does not license an ung-nominalization, then it does not predicate an individual property.

In the analysis of Pross (2019), the quality underlying the participle construction in (23-b) is derived from the noun Mal. Pross associates the derivation of a quality from a noun with the function of the participle suffix -t and proposes that one way to formally approximate the derivation of a quality from an individual-denoting noun is by intensionalization of the denotation of that noun.2 For ease of exposition, we recast the main point of Pross’ DRT-based analysis in a typed λ-calculus. Assuming that the type of individuals is e, the type of events and states is ev, the type of truth values is t and the type of propositions is s, the denotation of the participle suffix -t is a function that derives a propositional function (an intension) of type ⟨e, ⟨s, t ⟩⟩ from a noun denotation of type ⟨e, t⟩ as in (32).

The application of participle -t to a noun denotation constitutes an intermediate stage in the construction of the participle. In particular, regardless of whether the semantics of -t in (32) is linked to a lexical or syntactic operation, it is difficult to assign this operation to a certain category, since there is no word that would correspond to the combination of (32) and a noun denotation. The category-determining head of the participle construction is the possessive prefix be- in (33). It predicates an intension of type ⟨e, ⟨s, t⟩⟩ of an individual of type e via extensionalization of that intension. While Pross correlates this semantic function of be- with that of an adjectival head in the syntax, nothing speaks against associating the semantics of be- in (33) with a lexical adjectivization operation.

The denotation in (34-b) is the property predicated by the adjectival participle bemalt that results from the composition of the denotation of the noun Mal represented as in (34-a) with (32) and subsequent application of (33).

Following Maienborn (2005), Pross assumes a denotation of the copula BE as in (35) to derive the state denotation of the predicative participle (23-b) as in (36). Following Asher (1993), Maienborn employs ‘≈’ to relate the abstract concept associated with the state variable s to the expression that characterizes the state.

Concluding, the purpose of this section was to introduce systematic constraints on the formation of ung-nominalizations and superlatives. Simple adjectives and be-prefixed participles both ascribe individual properties in predicative constructions, and in this respect are semantically similar. In particular, according to the analysis of Pross (2019), neither adjectives nor be-prefixed participles make reference to an event, or are derived from a verb. The properties of be-prefixed participles are thus to be expected to differ importantly from the properties of participles which are derived from verbs. In section 3, we discuss the relevant differences with respect to the formation of ung-nominalizations and superlatives for participles the derivation of which requires prefixation of a verb with the prefix ge-.

One challenge to an analysis that aims to make falsifiable claims about productive morphosemantics are lexical idioms. Like phrasal idioms, lexical idioms are constructed according to the pattern of the compositional construction, but have a fixed and shifted meaning that cannot be decomposed into the meanings of constituents of the construction. One major source of lexical idioms is diachronic change, which often conceals the original semantic composition of morphological complex verbs to an extent where a synchronic semantic decomposition of construction is no longer possible albeit the morphology of the original composition is still present. For example, we followed Pross (2019) in choosing be- as a prefix to be compared with ge-, because be- is a “remarkably simple and regular prefix” (Dewell 2015: 53). But there are also lexical idioms where be- cannot be understood as a prefix, and where Pross’ analysis is thus not applicable. E.g, as a reviewer notes for the verb beginnen ‘to begin’, there is no lexical root √ginn to which be- could attach although diachronically, beginnen has been analyzed as being derived from a root that does not contain the prefix be-, see e.g. Kluge (2002: 102). Similar considerations about lexical idiomacy apply to other constructions mentioned by reviewers and editors involving be- like e.g. the verb bedauern ‘to regret’. The special status of lexical idioms like beginnen or bedauern is also often indicated by the ungrammaticality of such be-prefixed idioms in predicative constructions with BE, see (37-a) and (37-b).

According to our analysis, the ungrammaticality of (37-a) and (37-b) in predicative constructions with BE indicates a meaning shift of the be-prefixed constructions towards a perfective interpretation (where perfective interpretations are discussed in more detail in section 3.2) rather than an individual property. This meaning shift is made plain by the ungrammaticality of the construction with a construction BE but the grammaticality of the present perfect construction in (37-c), where the auxiliary HAVE is selected. Looked at in this light, the ungrammaticality of the copula constructions (37-a) and (37-b) can be understood to indicate that the corresponding verbs are not of the same construction type as those be-prefixed verbs that are grammatical in copula constructions with BE and thus do not fall under the generalization about be-prefixed participles we have put forward.

We begin our discussion with verbs derived from adjectives like kühl ‘cool’ which regularly form their participles with the prefix ge-, and are generally grammatical in predicative constructions with BE (they are “good inputs” to predicative formation according to Gehrke 2015).

The relevant observation with which we motivate our distinction between the meaning of ge-prefixed participles and the meaning of constructions that ascribe individual properties is that unlike individual property predicates (such as be-prefixed participles or adjectives) ge-prefixed event property predicatives like (38-c) cannot be used in superlative constructions,3 see (39-a) and do not license ung-nominalizations, see (39-b).

It is important to note at this point that we use superlative constructions without further modification and in prenominal position as a test to distinguish individual properties from event properties but not comparative constructions. The reason for this is that comparative constructions can also be interpreted relative to a temporal standard of comparison. In the grammatical example (40-a) (ex. (30-d) of Maienborn 2007), the ge-prefixed participle gelesen ‘read’ is compared with respect to the frequency of how often the works of an author have been read, i.e. an event property. In contrast, the unmodified superlative of the same participle in prenominal position is clearly ungrammatical, which we take to indicate that the participle gelesen denotes an event property but not an individual property.

The important semantic difference between adjectives as in (38-a) (kühl ‘cool’) and the participles of the verbs related to them as in (38-c) (gekühlt ‘cooled’) pertains to the way in which the property of being cool is linguistically predicated of the beer with (38-a) and (38-c), respectively. The truth of (38-a) depends just on whether or not the beer is cool (relative to a standard of comparison for coolness). In contrast, the truth of (38-c) depends on whether or not the beer is now cooler than it was. That is, (38-a) can be true if the temperature of the beer never changed and was always the same, and consequently there was no event of cooling the beer. But (38-c) is false if the temperature of the beer has never undergone a change of degree. Following the analysis of Kennedy & Levin (2008), we assume a denotation for the verb kühlen as in (41), according to which the event described by the verb kühlen measures out the degree of change Δ in terms of the difference between the degree of coolness at t and the degree of coolness at t₀ < t, where t₀ is the initial and t the final time point of the event e described by the verb.4

To further establish the pattern indicative for the semantic difference between an adjective and the ge-prefixed participles of the verb derived from that adjective, consider the adjective trocken ‘dry’ in (42) and the corresponding participle in (43).

As for (38-a) and (38-c), the truth-conditions for (42-a) and (43-a) differ in that the truth of (43-a) requires that the laundry was damp and is dry now, but (42-a) can be true if the laundry has always been dry. The truth of adjectival predicatives like (38) and (42-a) depend on individual properties (and accordingly, (42-a) has an ung-nominalization as in (42-c)). In contrast, the truth of participles like (38-c) and (43-a) depends on properties of the relevant event, a type of property which we call “event properties” in the following. The truth-conditions of the predication of an event property are independent of the truth-conditions of individual properties. Consequently, the difference between individual properties and event properties is a categorical difference rather than a matter of complexity or underspecification as is assumed e.g. in the analysis of (Maienborn 2009: 45), who proposes that “adjectival passives only differ from adjectival base predicates in that they express an internally more complex and semantically underspecified property.”

We illustrated the truth-conditional contrast between individual property predicatives and event property predicatives with the example of adjectives and ge-prefixed participles of the corresponding deadjectival verb. But as we argued in section 2, be-prefixed participles pattern with adjectives with respect to the predication of an individual property and thus the same contrast also arises between be-prefixed participles and ge-prefixed participles. To make this contrast formally explicit, we propose to distinguish event properties and individual properties in an analysis of ge-prefixed participle predicatives like (38-c) that parallels the analysis of be-prefixed participle predicatives like that in Pross (2019) – but with one important difference. Whereas the underlying qualities in be-predicatives are derived from nouns, the underlying event properties in ge-predicatives are derived from verbs. It is this difference, we argue in the following, that separates ge-prefixed participles from be-prefixed participles and adjectives (neither of which makes reference to an event).

For the denotation of the participle suffix -t, we have to take into account that the lexical entry in (41) involves two variables, one for the internal argument and one for the event described, i.e. the type of (41) is ⟨e, ⟨ev, t⟩⟩. We thus modify the derivation of a propositional function with -t in (32) as in (44), where Z is of type ⟨e, ⟨ev, t⟩⟩.

Recall that Pross (2019) analyzes the prefix be- as an adjectival head (or a lexical adjectivizer) that predicates a quality of an individual via the concept of possession. In a parallel manner, we propose to analyze the prefix ge- as an adjectival head (or a lexical adjectivizer) the function of which is to predicate an event property. More precisely, ge- allows to predicate an event property of an individual via a “result” relation, which we represent as a relation RES(U)(x) between an event property U and an individual x. We use the “result”-relation RES between an individual x and an event property U to reflect the unique truth-conditions of the ascription of event properties. Whether or not the internal argument x has an event property U is to be judged on the basis of whether or not the property U comes about as a result, consequence, or effect of the event described by the underlying verb in which the internal argument x participated. The consequent denotation of the prefix ge- we propose is given in (45), where U (the denotation of (44) applied to a one-place predicate of events like (41)) is of type ⟨e, ⟨ev, ⟨s, t⟩⟩⟩.

On these premises, we can now compute the denotation of the predicative participle (38-c) as follows. First, we derive an event property by functional application of the denotation of the participle suffix -t in (44) to the denotation of the verb kühlen (41). Several instances of λ-conversion yield the denotation in (46-c).

Next, we apply the denotation of ge- (45) to the event property denotation in (46-c) and after several instances of λ-conversion arrive at the individual property denotation in (47-c).

Finally, we stativize the derived individual property predicate by applying the denotation of BE (35) to (47-c), which yields the state denotation of (1-b) in (48-c).

The truth-conditions of sentences in which a ge-participle of a deadjectival verb serves as complement to a copula, as in (38-c) or (43-a), thus have to be evaluated in terms of the difference over time between the degrees to which the underlying adjective applies to a given individual (given in sentences like (38-c)/(43-a) as the grammatical subject). Consequently, when the event property predicated by the participle of a deadjectival verb is defined in terms of (degrees of differences of) individual properties, and if the function of the copula BE is to predicate individual properties, this explains why participles of deadjectival verbs can occur as copula complement.5

Summarizing, we argued that participles prefixed with be- predicate individual properties and pattern morphologically and semantically with lexical adjectives whereas ge-prefixed participles of deadjectival verbs predicate event properties and do not pattern morphologically or semantically with lexical adjectives.

So far, we considered be-prefixed participles and ge-prefixed participles of otherwise unprefixed deadjectival verbs like kühlen and trocknen. Both these kinds of participles are grammatical, acceptable and productive when used in copula constructions with BE. In this respect, ge-prefixed participles of unprefixed deadjectival verbs differ importantly from the other classes of ge-prefixed constructions with morphologically simple verbs which are “bad inputs” to predicative formation according to Gehrke (2015). In the remainder of this section of the present paper, we systematically go over these “bad” classes of ge-prefixed participles of otherwise unprefixed verbs.

A summary of the correlation of the form, use and meaning of German participles which we argued for in this section is given in Table 1.

We examined two kinds of predicative constructions, using the licensing of ung-nominalizations and superlatives as tests to tease the two classes apart. On the one hand, predicative constructions with adjectives and be-prefixed participles ascribe individual properties. On the other, predicative constructions with ge-prefixed participles ascribe event properties. We correlated the (un)grammaticality of predicative constructions with the predication of individual and event properties. Adjectives and be-prefixed participles predicate individual properties and are fully grammatical whereas ge-prefixed constructions with alternating transitives do not predicate individual properties at any stage of their derivation and thus in predicative constructions are bad out of the blue. Participles of deadjectival verbs are between the two ends of acceptable and unacceptable predicatives. They are formed with ge- and thus ascribe an event property, but the copula construction is generally acceptable because the predicated event property is by itself derived from an individual property.

A challenge to the analysis proposed in this paper are systematic exceptions to the typology of predicative participles developed so far. For example, a reviewer asks about whether and how our analysis can account of psychological verbs in (64), as some (but not all) psychological verbs license predicative constructions, ge-prefixed superlatives and ung-nominalizations.

If, as the reviewer suggests, (64-a) (and similar constructions with psychological verbs like fürchten ‘to fear’ or lieben) are grammatical in predicative constructions, we believe that systematic patterns as exemplified by (64) show that our typology of ge-prefixed participles is not yet fine-grained enough. According to our tests (ung-nominalization and superlatives), constructions as in (64) suggest that there are ge-prefixed participles that denote individual properties. Consequently, our analysis of the prefix ge- has to be further refined in that ge- can not only be used to predicate an event property (as discussed in section 3) but can also be used to predicate possession of a quality.

In turn, such a possessive analysis of ge-prefixed psychological predicatives would be very much in the spirit of the analysis of psychological qualities like wisdom in Francez & Koontz-Garboden (2017). Given the limitations and scope of the present paper, we leave a further exploration of this parallel to future research. According to our analysis, quality possession predication with ge- is also involved in participles that are puzzling under the assumption that participles are always derived from verbs as in (65).

According to our analysis, the licensing of ung-nominalizations and superlatives indicates that participles as in (65) predicate individual properties rather than event properties. Since individual property predicatives do not make reference to an event, the lack of a corresponding verb is accounted for. Finally, our proposal also suggests a quality possession analysis of predicative participles as in (66), when the possessive prefix can be morphologically silent.78

In summary, we suggest that our proposal for a morphosemantically grounded typology of predicative participles be understood as a starting point for future research into deviant classes of participles, and consequent refinement of the basic distinctions we have established, rather than a final definition.910