Res Humanitariae

The article presents the analysis of onomasiological system of one group of infixed and sta-stem verbs attested in the old Lithuanian scripts, denominative verbs in particular, derived from adjectives and nouns. The analysed verbs belong to the type of fientive word formation: their derivational meaning is ‘to become or to acquire/experience something which is denoted by the primary word’. The primary words are specific and abstract adjectives and nouns which by the means of affixal nomination – paradigmation – are used to form fientives or, more rarely, stative verbs. What is more, in the process of verbalization, additional means of derivation, namely, the infix and affix sta, play a significant role in attributing the verb to the derivational model of fientives. The centre of fientive derivational type is comprised of deadjectives, while desubstantives stand in the periphery of this type. The semantics of the denominatives analyzed is determined explicitly (in rarer cases, implicitly) by semantics of primary adjectives and nouns. According to properties/objects denoted by the lexical motivator, seven motivational models of denominative verbs have been established: colourative, morphological, physiomorphological, psychomorphological, the model of possession and social relationship, gustatory, and thermal one.