L’argomento esterno degli aggettivi con suffisso -abile/ ibile

Abstract

Based on data from a 380 million word corpus, this paper is concerned with the compatibility of Italian adjectives ending in -bile with PPs headed by one of the prepositions taken to be canonical for the external argument of passive constructions, i.e. da and da parte di. Overall, the probability that a given adjective of the kind in question should license an external argument PP is shown to vary inversely with its frequency. The prefix in- has an inhibiting effect on the use of such PPs at all levels of frequency. As the frequency of an adjective in -bile can be correlated with its degree of semantic complexity (determined by independent tests), the paper concludes that the use of PPs headed by da or da parte di varies in accordance with the relative importance of the adjective’s core meaning (modal passive).