The internal structure of perfective adjectives: states and blocking

Abstract

The goal of this article is to discuss the nature of so-called perfective adjectives in Spanish (desnudo ‘naked,’ suelto ‘loose’). We do so through a discussion of the problem that participles are blocked by perfective adjectives in some contexts (Dejó la habitación {limpia / ∗limpiada} ‘He left the room {clean / ∗cleaned}). We will argue that perfective adjectives contain in their internal structure a StateP that can contextually be interpreted as a result state; this head has morphological, syntactic and semantic effects, and makes the structure spelled out by the perfective adjective identical to the one associated with a small participle, with the result that a principle of lexical economy blocks the participial morphology in situations where only the small participle is allowed.