Where evaluation meets manner: the case of Italian deverbal evaluative verbs

This paper investigates the interaction between evaluation and manner in Italian deverbal evaluative verbs. Adopting a semantic-pragmatic perspective that views evaluation as a deviation from a prototypical standard, the study explores whether and under which conditions evaluative suffixation contributes a manner-related meaning. The analysis is based on a dataset of 114 deverbal verbs formed with the most productive and compositionally transparent Italian evaluative suffixes (-"Vcchiare",-"ellare",-"er"-"ellare",-"ottare"), extracted from the ItWac corpus and classified according to the WordNet ontology. Results show that evaluative derivation predominantly targets dynamic, durative, and atelic predicates, largely preserving their actional properties. Agentivity emerges as the key factor guiding interpretation: highly agentive bases yield manner readings, typically associated with reduced commitment or non-uniform performance, whereas non-agentive bases give rise to attenuative readings. Both interpretations instantiate forms of approximation, thus shedding light on how evaluative morphology interacts with manner in the Italian verbal domain.