Surrey Cross-linguistic Database on Deponency

How to cite

Baerman, Matthew, Greville G. Corbett, Dunstan Brown & Andrew Hippisley. 2006. Surrey Cross-linguistic Database on Deponency. University of Surrey. http://dx.doi.org/10.15126/SMG.15/2

Access the database

http://www.smg.surrey.ac.uk/deponency/cross-linguistic

Abstract

The term 'deponency' describes a mismatch between morphology and morphosyntax. The prototypical example is the deponent verbs of Latin, which involve a mismatch between passive form and active meaning. That is, a normal Latin verb had active forms such as amō 'I love' and amāvī 'I have loved', which contrasted with the passive forms amor 'I am loved' and amātus sum 'I have been loved' (in this case, with a masculine subject). A deponent verb, on the other hand, looks like the passive but functions like the active, as in mīror 'I admire', mīrātus sum 'I have admired'.

The Surrey Cross-linguistic Database on Deponency encodes information on the presence of morphological mismatches in a controlled sample of genetically and geographically diverse languages (based on the 100-language sample from the World Atlas of Language Structures). Within the database, deponency is construed in an extended fashion, covering any mismatch between the apparent morphosyntactic value of a morphological form and its actual value in a given syntactic context. Every logical combination of parameters is represented by one exemplar (or where none has been found, this is noted too).

Acknowledgements

The database was created for the project 'Extended Deponency: The right morphology in the wrong place', funded by the Economic and Social Research Council under grant number RES000230375. This support is gratefully acknowledged.

Metadata

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15126/SMG.15/2

Creators: Baerman, Matthew; Corbett, Greville G.; Brown; Dunstan; Hippisley, Andrew;

Title: Surrey Cross-linguistic Database on Deponency

Publisher: University of Surrey

Year: 2006