The semantics of verb-forming suffixes in Modern Greek

Abstract

Based on a list of 2390 verbs extracted from Anastassiadis-Symeonidis (2002) Reverse Dictionary of Modern Greek, this paper examines the semantics of verb forming processes in Modern Greek (MG) comparing the meanings of verbs formed by the suffixes –ízo, –(i)ázo, –óno, –évo, –éno, –áro and the confix (semi-suffix) –pió. We claim that MG verb-forming suffixes and the confix –pió do not express the same range of related concepts but seem to share a common causative/resultative meaning. Additionally, we propose a unified analysis of the meanings of all verb forming suffixes (and –pió) and their derivatives in MG and show that not all semantic categories are equally possible and/or probable for all verb forming processes.