English derived nouns in -ee

What is it about?

The main aim of this paper is to provide an explanation accounting for the production of English derived nouns in -ee. It is argued that analyses based on the syntactic argument structure of the verbal base are unsatisfactory, and that the conditions for this derivational process must be searched for within semantics. The relevant semantic factors for the different sets of verbal bases are explored using a theory of lexical representation like RRG.

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