Pluractionality in Lithuanian: A tale of two suffixes

Abstract

The paper investigates the use of the two verbal suffixes -inė- and -dav- in Lithuanian. Both suffixes express pluractionality, but -inė- is derivational and tends to express plurality of sub-events within one situation (event-internal pluractionality), whereas -dav- is inflectional and designates plurality of situations (eventexternal pluractionality). The data show that, when the two suffixes are combined within the same verb form, -dav- always scopes over -inė-, thus, the combination of the two suffixes usually describes the repetition of different situations such as processes, progressive situations, punctual events, delimited processes etc. Most of the data used in the article come from the Web corpus of Lithuanian.