2.1 Comparative approaches

Syntax-based treatments in the literature do not always understand comparison in terms of scalarity. In contrast, the semantics literature on out- often makes explicit use of scales in their analyses. Following the reasoning of Bierwisch (Reference Bierwisch, Bierwisch and Lang1989: 112), scalarity and comparison are inescapably intertwined: ‘there is no degree without comparison and no comparison without degrees’. Therefore, the cover term scalar-comparative will be used in the following for both of these comparative approaches. I will, following standard treatment, consider scales triples of information: (i) a dimension of measurement such as speed, temperature, height etc.; (ii) a set of degrees along said dimension; and (iii) an ordering relation among those degrees (see, among many others, Kennedy & McNally Reference Kennedy and McNally2005; Kennedy Reference Kennedy2007; Solt Reference Solt2015). Following Löbner (Reference Löbner1979: 173), dimensions are taken as sets of ‘mutually exclusive properties of which an individual has exactly one at each point in time’.

Although couched in different frameworks by different authors, the scalar-comparative approach is characterized by the assumption that two events of the same kind are being compared. The construction's core meaning contribution, then, is that the Subject-argument exceeds or surpasses the Object-argument with respect to some dimension encoded in these events (see, e.g, Bresnan Reference Bresnan and Bresnan1982; Irube Reference Irube1984; Williams Reference Williams and Bernstein1992; Talmy Reference Talmy2000; Bauer & Huddleston Reference Bauer, Huddleston, Huddleston and Pullum2002; Tolskaya Reference Tolskaya2014; Baker Reference Baker2019). According to this view, for example, to outrun someone means, depending on context, to run faster, farther, in some way better etc. than someone. The alleged requirement that Subject- and Object-arguments have to fulfill the same thematic role of the same kind of event at some level will be called the sameness condition in the following. Stating such a condition for the events to be compared is taken as necessary to prevent over-generation. As Talmy (Reference Talmy2000: 260) puts it, the events have to be the same, ‘so that there is no *I outplayed the singer in the sense that I played better than the singer sang’. Along the way, such analyses (implicitly) claim to unravel the mystery of unselected Objects common to out-prefixed verbs, i.e. its applicative nature: Objects ‘merely’ provide a standard of comparison. This is apparently unproblematic in many cases, such as the ones in (6) (both from iWeb):

1. (6)

   1. (a) They were both running, but John outran Peter and reached the tomb first.

   2. (b) Took second-place in the triple jump (51-7.25) as he was out-jumped by a 1/2 inch on the final attempt by Iowa's Babatunde Amosu.

Given such seemingly straightforward interpretations, Irube (Reference Irube1984) and Baker (Reference Baker2019) advocate non-scalar comparative approaches in (generative) syntactic frameworks. For example, Irube (Reference Irube1984: 114) is fairly explicit in assuming possible comparative paraphrases for out-prefixation constructions as in (7):

1. (7)

   1. (a) Outfielders must outthrow infielders. [=ex. 17a in Irube Reference Irube1984]

   2. (b) Outfielders must throw farther than infielders. [=ex. 17b in Irube Reference Irube1984]

Such analyses assume out-prefixation to function similarly to regular comparison, which is presumably derived via deletion of material in the lower clause: Outfielders must throw farther than infielders throw (see Schwarzschild Reference Schwarzschild2008: 320ff.; Stassen Reference Stassen1985: ch. 9.4.2 for arguments in favor of such analyses for English comparatives in general). While there may be differences between Irube (Reference Irube1984) and Baker (Reference Baker2019) regarding the status of the respective second occurrences of the lexical verb, the predictions are decidedly clear: the two events being compared have to be of the same kind, as they both are, in fact, (covertly) realized at some point during sentence derivation.

Related approaches make concrete use of the notion of scales. Williams (Reference Williams and Bernstein1992), Talmy (Reference Talmy2000) and Tolskaya (Reference Tolskaya2014) all regard out-prefixation as a metaphorical extension of a figure-ground-path-constellation underlying the literal movement in space in other uses of out. The metaphor's target domains, then, are scales or containers that allow for comparison between two events, with the Subject-argument functioning as figure that moves (literally or figuratively) along and surpasses a point on a scale provided by the Object-argument functioning as ground. For example, Talmy (Reference Talmy2000: ch. 3) includes out-prefixation in his typology of event integration as an instance of conflation.Footnote ³ He assumes that certain constructions consisting of a satellite and a single verb stem give rise to integrated complex events. Talmy discusses out-prefixation as one of his correlating action constructions as in (8), where in-surpassment-of constitutes a framing event encoded in the prefix, which is in turn constituted-by a co-event encoded in the verbal base. Thus, the construction's meaning boils down to comparing two correlated events, where the implicit event the Object-argument participates in ‘is limited to being the same as that of the Agent, not just to being of the same category’ (Talmy Reference Talmy2000: 260):

1. (8) out-V NP ‘surpass/best/beat NP at Ving’ [I acted in-surpassment-of him] constituted-by [I played (the melody)] English: I outplayed him. [=ex. 35 in Talmy Reference Talmy2000]

In the spirit of scale-based approaches to verbal prefixation in Russian (see also Kagan Reference Kagan2015; Zinova Reference Zinova2016), Tolskaya (Reference Tolskaya2014) also subscribes to the path = scale-metaphor, but is more explicit regarding her use of scalar dimensions. On her view, out- introduces a threshold encoded by an underlying event the Object-argument participates in, which is then exceeded with respect to some dimension by the Subject-argument participating in an event of the same kind. She suggests two different functional projections dedicated to two distinct scales that the respective Subjects and Objects map to. Objects are participants of the second scale and are co-indexed with the out-verb's projection, ensuring that both participants fulfill the same roles of the same verbs. Less committed to scalar representations, Ahn (Reference Ahn2016) makes similar use of neo-Davidsonian representations to spell out the semantics of functional argument projections. Unlike Talmy, he does not restrict possible thematic roles to agents, but assumes a more general constraint that ensures that both internal and external argument are assigned the same thematic roles with respect to the same underlying event(s).

The basic commonalities of the approaches introduced thus far will be crucial for the discussion of the data in section 3: out-prefixation is comparative and imposes a sameness condition on the underlying events, so that both Subject and Object are assigned the same thematic roles. This differs from the predictions made by the resultative approach to which we turn now.

2.2 The resultative approach

The second approach to out-prefixation, advocated by McIntyre (Reference McIntyre, Booij and Marle2003) and Nagano (Reference Nagano2011), is an essentially resultative analysis. Based on structural similarities with constructions commonly analyzed as resultative (see, e.g., Jackendoff Reference Jackendoff1997; Rappaport Hovav & Levin Reference Rappaport Hovav and Levin2001; Goldberg & Jackendorf Reference Goldberg and Jackendoff2004), McIntyre (Reference McIntyre, Booij and Marle2003: 122–4) and Nagano (Reference Nagano2011: 74f.) consider out-prefixed-verbs resultative accomplishments. McIntyre, for example, discusses out- alongside other English and German ‘preverbs’, i.e. both prefixed and particle verbs, and argues that a broad range of these can be considered resultative (see also Stiebels Reference Stiebels1996; McIntyre Reference McIntyre2007; Los Reference Los, Gotti, Dossena and Dury2008). Similarly to Talmy (Reference Talmy2000) above, he analyzes the construction as an instance of event conflation, in which a single VP has the capacity to express two causally related events. The semantic representations provided are then intended to capture the similarities:

1. (9)

   1. (a) Dave ate himself sick. [=ex. 5b in McIntyre Reference McIntyre, Booij and Marle2003]

   2. (b) do(dave,eat) &_cause become(sick(dave))

   3. (c) Fred outdrank Stan. [=ex. 8b in McIntyre Reference McIntyre, Booij and Marle2003]

   4. (d) do(fred,drink) &_cause outdone(stan)

Thus, the analysis claims to capture the occurrence of unselected Objects in a fashion similar to common resultatives: out-prefixation creates complex verbs and Objects are introduced into the structure as participants of sub-events. Although neither McIntyre (Reference McIntyre, Booij and Marle2003) nor Nagano (Reference Nagano2011) are explicit regarding paraphrases that would concretely capture the resultative nature in prose, the implicit claim appears to be that Fred outdrank Stan does not primarily mean ‘Fred drank more than Stan’ (see the comparative approaches above), but something along the lines of ‘Fred drank and thereby Stan was outdone’. Obviously, this analysis disposes of any notion of event comparison: in other words, the interpretation that Stan also drank in the depicted event is not made transparent in the semantic structure in (9d). For this reason, McIntyre (Reference McIntyre, Booij and Marle2003: 123) suggests that the competition-reading is essentially a historical accident or idiosyncratic part of out's meaning.

The general predictions made by the two approaches, scalar-comparative and resultative, respectively, can be summarized as follows: on a comparative approach, the Object-argument serves as a necessary, and therefore syntactically obligatory, threshold to be exceeded by the Subject-argument, while both participants engage in an event of the same kind. On a resultative analyses, unselected Objects receive an explanation via the introduction of a new sub-event that is caused by an event the Subject-argument participates in. At the same time, the comparative nature cannot immediately be read from the assumed semantic structures. The following section aims at providing some empirical flesh to the bones, showing that both analyses fall short of empirical adequacy.

3.1 Comparison is based on scalar dimensions

As acknowledged by some authors (e.g. Tolskaya Reference Tolskaya2014: 8), and as shown in (11), there is some variability regarding the dimension that forms the basis of comparison (all data from iWeb):

1. (11)

   1. (a) The German Me 262 jets could outfly the Mustangs by 100 MPH in level flight.

   2. (b) The point of A-Wing interceptors wasn't technically combat superiority. There are better interceptors […] In terms of maneuverability, there wasn't much that could outfly one.

   3. (c) The Blackjack's 5 control lines makes it easy to turn on toggles […] The glide ratio is superb and I'm usually able to out-fly my mates who fly competing brands.

   4. (d) Good vocal control is essential, a backing singer must not try to ‘outsing’ the lead vocalist […] Whilst most sound engineers and producers will adjust vocal volumes in the mix, it is important for singers who have strong voices to remember to back off the microphone a bit…

   5. (e) LBT is my guilty pleasure, you can't deny their vocal abilities. Have seen them live and nobody out there can outsing them from a technical standpoint.

As shown by the underlined contextual information in (11), to outfly is attested as referring to at least the dimensions of speed in (11a), maneuverability in (11b), and distance in (11c). To outsing, in turn, is attested with at least loudness in (11d) and quality in (11e). The examples in (12a,b) show that the scales in question do not have to be a property scales, such as speed or loudness, but can also refer to cardinalities (see also Tolskaya Reference Tolskaya2014; cf. Solt Reference Solt2015 for the difference between property and cardinality scales):

1. (12)

   1. (a) We currently have a kitten who is quickly becoming a cat who is outeating, both in terms of meal size and meal frequency, all of the other cats in our family.Footnote ⁴

   2. (b) Between 30 and 40 drug bosses have carved up the city and easily outgun the police with their arsenals. (OED)

   3. (c) If he has a rifle and you try to outgun him with a pocket pistol rather than run for cover you are stupid. (iWeb)

In (12a,b), meal frequency and the arsenals indicate abstraction over multiple events or entities, i.e. cardinality or frequency of occurrence. In turn, meal size in (12a) as well as (12c) show that both outeat and outgun are also compatible with property scales. The data presented so far are already an indication that the basis of comparison is not the verb itself. Rather, it is possible scalar dimensions that verbs are compatible with, the frequency with which certain events occur, or how they quantify over entities. Although dimension-based comparison is not what comparative approaches (e.g. Tolskaya Reference Tolskaya2014; Ahn Reference Ahn2016; Baker Reference Baker2019) predict, this is not necessarily problematic for any of the theoretical approaches sketched above. However, as shown in section 2, comparative approaches also assume a sameness condition on eventualities to hold. The following shows that this condition makes wrong predictions.

3.2 The sameness condition

All comparative approaches assume the two events in out-prefixation-contexts to be the same. Considering examples such as (13), this sameness condition is empirically inadequate:

1. (13)

   1. (a) Hippos cannot swim, which is one interesting fact about them. But when they chase you, they will basically run underwater, and they can move around 5 mph. This can be faster than you think. They also don't tire easy, so you better have good cardio to outswim one. (iWeb)

   2. (b) “I wasn't going to run,” Mr. Paxton said later after the game. “I figured I'm not going to outrun an eagle, so we might as well just see what happens.”Footnote ⁵

   3. (c) The flow is a slow drawl to fit with the song and I like that you're not outrapping the beat. (iWeb)

   4. (d) “Its [sic] a good time to retire in 2017 if you feel ready to leave your job and if you have done a thorough financial analysis as to your ability to not outlive your money,” said Jones. (iWeb)

The data in (13) all show that the sameness condition makes wrong predictions, as the arguments in Object position are not necessarily potential (Subject-)arguments of the verbal base. In (13a), the speaker explicitly claims that hippos cannot swim but still allows them to be outswum. Example (13b) at least clearly suggests a possible contest between a running Mr. Paxton and a flying eagle. Both beat and money in (13c,d) do not make good Subjects of to rap and to live, respectively, violating the verbs’ selectional restrictions. Thus, non-scalar comparative analyses (see Irube Reference Irube1984; Baker Reference Baker2019) that rely on deletion of base verbs have to be discarded. Having said that, the generalization appears similar to the one for the data in (11): comparisons are made based on dimensions (see Stiebels Reference Stiebels1996: 69f. for similar observations regarding German über- ‘over’). Thus, in (13a), in the domains distance/speed, in (13b,c) most likely in speed and in (13d) in duration.

At the same time, it seems obvious that comparisons cannot be made regarding any two kinds of event, as long as there is a possible dimension-match to be construed. For example, the (underlying) verbs from (13a,b), to swim, to fly, and to run, are all from the domain of locomotion, and cluster together in verb classifications such as VerbNet (see Levin Reference Levin1993; Kipper et al. Reference Kipper, Korhonen, Ryant and Palmer2008). In contrast, creating an out-prefixation-context that compares a running- and a rapping-event regarding the respective speeds with which they are carried out by their agents appears decidedly odd, as in (14b). This appears to hold, although the respective verbs in question do allow for speed-related manner-modification and, as shown in (13b,c), in principle allow for accessing the speed-dimension in out-prefixation-contexts.

1. (14)

   1. (a) John ran/rapped fast. [Modification with a speed-adverb]

   2. (b) ??John is a fast runner and Kim is a fast rapper, but John outruns her every time. [On the reading that John runs and Kim raps]

The reason for the acceptability of the examples in (13) and the oddness of (14b) is found in the (dis)similarity of the respective events. It appears possible to establish a comparison along the speed-dimension between, say, a running- and a swimming-event, because both of the events denote an entity's movement through space. In turn, mere compatibility with some dimension is not enough to license out-prefixation – and at least the minimal context provided in (14b) does not allow for easily finding a suitable threshold that could serve as comparative basis for a running-event.Footnote ⁶ This is reminiscent of the little-understood restrictions on comparison in general, known as incommensurability in the literature (cf. Kennedy Reference Kennedy1997; Doetjes Reference Doetjes, Aloni, Bastiaanse, Jager and Schulz2010). The generalization, then, is that it is scalar dimensions, and not concrete verbs, along which comparisons are made, while the underlying event properties still have to display a certain degree of similarity.

The sameness condition is therefore wrong if conceived of as either verb-based or analyzed in the form of co-indexation of events (or some form of covert double realization). Still, the examples discussed so far all allow for clearly comparative readings. The picture is, however, further complicated by the data we turn to in the next section, as these partly elude comparison altogether, be it based on concrete verbs or dimensions.

3.3 Unavailability of comparison, coercion and ad hoc result states

The data in (15) are difficult to straightforwardly reconcile with a comparative approach based on scalar dimensions:

1. (15)

   1. (a) Whatever you do to stay active this summer, make sure to stay hydrated and to properly fuel with healthy meals pre and post-burn. And remember, you can never outrun a crappy diet! (iWeb)

   2. (b) Yesterday's primitive market had built-in instability […] Today, however, we finally have enough digital horsepower to out-compute all the market's vagaries. (COCA)

   3. (c) [The jacket] disperses moisture for enhanced breathability. And, if you do outsweat the jacket, it has large pit zips to dump heat and aid in getting your internal ecosystem under control. (iWeb)

   4. (d) Michael beat em. Michael rose to the top. He out-sang his cynics. He out-danced his doubters. He out-performed the pessimists. (iWeb)

   5. (e) So far, my encounters have relied on me out-witting and out-sneaking the fierce-looking rat guards, or occasionally lobbing a bottle at their heads to knock them out while I get away. (iWeb)

Natural interpretations of the examples do, in fact, suggest a high degree on some scale for running-, such as frequency or amount in (15a), or computing-events, for example strength or quality in (15b). The problem that arises with comparison-based analyses for the examples in (15) lies in the nature of the Object-argument's contribution: clearly, crappy diets and the market's vagaries cannot run (or move) and compute, respectively (similarly, jackets do not sweat or can easily be construed as themes of substance emission-verbs). In turn, it is not a matter of selectional restrictions but of contextual information that suggests that the cynics in (15d) do not sing themselves, while the guards in (15e) do not sneak.

On the assumption that the constructional meaning of out-prefixation is always comparative in nature, we would expect the Object-arguments to be coerced (cf. Asher Reference Asher2011; Maienborn Reference Maienborn, Fujinawa and Inaba2019) into suitable thresholds for some dimension that is compatible with the base of out-. A coercion-analysis seems feasible for (15c,d): the jacket (or its lining, rather) can relatively easily be construed as a container for liquids with a maximum holding capacity, which can then be exceeded. Similarly, the cynics from (15d) can possibly be reinterpreted as having or voicing certain expectations regarding Michael's qualities as a singer, which, again, can then be exceeded. Such analyses are less suitable for the other examples above: for example, arguing that the rat guards in (15e) are coerced into a particular degree of attention level, which is then ‘exceeded’ by sneaking particularly well/silently, does not appear very convincing. Similarly, a crappy diet in (15a) would have to be reinterpreted as its own consequence, some poor state of health, which can only be improved via a certain amount of running.

Such cases of out-prefixation appear to primarily contribute causative-resultative semantics (cf. McIntyre Reference McIntyre, Booij and Marle2003; Nagano Reference Nagano2011): the Object-argument is outdone or beaten as an effect of the Subject-argument's involvement in the event denoted by the verbal predicate. The respective result states of the Object-arguments are then context-dependent and, to some degree, ad hoc properties (cf. Barsalou Reference Barsalou1983; Maienborn Reference Maienborn2007). For example, in (15a,b), the crappy diet and the market's vagaries are defeated or their effects nullified, in (15c) the jacket is overfull, while in (15d,e) the cynics are hushed and the guards tricked. Context-dependence is important insofar as neither the base verb nor some other element in the construction concretely spells out the nature of a possible result state: for example, except for the prefix out- itself, there is no lexical material in (15a) that suggests the effects of a crappy diet to be nullified. In turn, the notion of an ad hoc property or state appears equally crucial here: resultative constructions, as well as verbs believed to entail result states, are often assumed to display concrete changes-of-state or location (cf. Rappaport Hovav & Levin Reference Rappaport Hovav and Levin2001; Goldberg & Jackendorf Reference Goldberg and Jackendoff2004), as in The lake froze solid or John hammered the metal flat. Therefore, the respective arguments are usually regarded as patients (cf. Jackendoff Reference Jackendoff1997) or force-recipients (cf. Rappaport Hovav & Levin Reference Rappaport Hovav and Levin2001). With the exception of (15c), outsweat the jacket, none of the examples in (15) suggest concrete physical changes-of-state, but the rather weakly resultative notion of ‘being on the losing end’.

This does not imply that the correlating-pattern argued for by Talmy (Reference Talmy2000) for out- is inappropriate (see section 2). All of the examples in (15), as well as all other attestations discussed, suggest the respective Object-arguments to be participants of eventualities other than the caused change-of-state. Just as He out-sang his cynics in (15d) includes a be cynical-event the cynics are the agents of, the jacket in (15c) is the theme (or the possessor) of a holding capacity-state. Besides evidence against the sameness condition on (agentive) events, Subject and Object can thus also be participants of eventualities that are aspectually and conceptually fairly distinct.

Importantly, most of the clearly comparative cases described above by no means preclude causative-resultative analyses of this weaker kind. For instance, examples such as the ones repeated here as (16) quite naturally receive resultative interpretations in addition to comparisons based on scalar dimensions:

1. (16)

   1. (a) The glide ratio is superb and I'm usually able to out-fly my mates who fly competing brands.

   2. (b) Good vocal control is essential, a backing singer must not try to ‘outsing’ the lead vocalist […]

In case this is the correct generalization, it also entails that, conceptually, we are dealing with three sub-events in out-constructions: a cause, of which the Subject is the sole participant, the effect, i.e. a change-of-state, and a correlating eventuality-sub-event. The latter two sub-events, change-of-state and correlating eventuality, take the Object as participant.

3.4 Summary: an interpretational cline

The previous subsections have argued for a co-occurrence of comparative and resultative interpretations in the majority of examples. Importantly, clear-cut resultative readings appear stronger the more clearly Subject- and Object-argument compete or the more the Object-argument is affected by the Subject's action. In turn, the sense of resultativity is weaker the more abstract the event participants are or the less clear a competition between them appears (see also Talmy Reference Talmy2000: 260 for a similar observation). Rather than arriving at one hard-and-fast rule regarding the interpretation of out-prefixed verbs, generalizations will have to accommodate a sort of interpretational cline: the range of possible interpretations is context- and participant-bound rather than primarily driven by the base.

This is illustrated in (17), which shows that the same input-verb to vote can give rise to the different kinds of reading introduced in this section. In (17a), construals of a competition and, consequently, a result state the Object enters are weak, with a numerical sense of comparison dominating. This latter reading is also present for (17b), but the sense of the US losing out in the vote in question is readily available. Yet again different is the natural interpretation of (17c), where the resolution does not vote itself (if anything, it is the theme of the voting-event). Thus, a less controversial result-state, being rejected, dominates (all from COCA):

1. (17)

   1. (a) In the 1988 presidential election, Hispanic women outvoted Hispanic men 52 percent to 48 percent, according to a survey…

   2. (b) The United States, for the first time, in history, has no veto power. We have no weighted voting. We can be outvoted by two small countries.

   3. (c) In 1998, a group of Dominican nuns […] showed up at the annual GE shareholders meeting to demand the company educate the public about the risks of its discharge of industrial waste into local rivers. The resolution was outvoted…

Unsurprisingly, then, environments that are claimed to test for resultativity or Object-affectedness yield different results. For example, applied to the examples in (17), the What-happened-to-Y- and What-X-did-to-Y-tests (see, e.g., Jackendoff Reference Jackendoff1997; Rappaport Hovav & Levin Reference Rappaport Hovav and Levin2001) yield diverging results.Footnote ⁷ These results mirror the different interpretations regarding the clearness of a conventional result state:

1. (18)

   1. (a) ??What happened to Hispanic men was Hispanic women outvoted them. / ??What Hispanic women did to Hispanic men was outvote them. [compare (17a)]

   2. (b) What happened to the US was two small countries outvoted them. / What two small countries did to the US was outvote them. [compare (17b)]

   3. (c) What happened to the resolution was the shareholders meeting outvoted it. / What the shareholders meeting did to the resolution was outvote it. [compare (17c)]

Similarly, the distinction between in- and for-adverbials is claimed to allow for testing for telicity, or the distinction between processes and accomplishments (cf. Dowty Reference Dowty1979), with accomplishment structure taken as a hallmark of resultative constructions. As shown in (19), an out-derivative such as outclass is attested with both of these adverbials: in in (19a) gives rise to the interpretation that the tennis players in question lost a match, while for in (19b) leads to an interpretation that Boetsch had merely been dominated for a certain amount of time (both from iWeb):

1. (19)

   1. (a) The first all-Australian women's pairing to make the title match in Paris in 46 years, Dellacqua and Barty were outclassed in 66 minutes.

   2. (b) After being thoroughly outclassed for ten straight minutes by an opponent no one expected him to defeat, a battered and bruised Tim Boetsch trudged back to his corner […]

Whatever the general merit of these aktionsart- or resultativity-tests may be, their mixed results for out-prefixed forms with the same input-verbs speak in favor of assuming an underspecified semantics for the construction. In light of the attested corpus examples discussed in this section, we are overall faced with a far less homogeneous picture than any of the approaches introduced in section 2 appear to suggest. There are at least five observations a more comprehensive analysis of out-prefixation will have to capture:

• • While many examples suggest comparative interpretations, comparison does not arise on the basis of events or verbs, but on the basis of scalar dimensions evoked by the base in combination with what is given in the surrounding context.

• • This can explain why comparative readings are possible in cases for which the Object-argument clearly does not participate in the same kind of event as the Subject-argument. In some cases, Objects can arguably be coerced into thresholds.

• • The possibilities of such comparative readings are not unrestricted, though, and rely on similarity restrictions.

• • There are also cases for which no comparative interpretations are easily available. In these cases, resultative readings are the only ones suggesting themselves.

• • While such resultative interpretations are compatible with most of the examples that also allow for comparisons along scalar dimensions, resultative readings become more elusive the less concretely a competition between Subject- and Object-arguments can be construed.

To summarize, this section has shown that out-prefixed verbs admit far more flexibility regarding their possible interpretations than commonly assumed. We will now turn to selectional restrictions proposed in the literature. Upon closer inspection, this is another area in which postulated constraints prove far too restrictive.

4.1 Verbal bases

Regarding verbal bases, out-prefixation is at times said to be sensitive to aktionsart (cf. Filip Reference Filip, Heusinger, Maienborn and Portner2011 for an overview) and to verb complexity (cf. Rappaport Hovav & Levin Reference Rappaport Hovav, Levin, Butt and Geuder1998). For example, it is claimed that it only admits activity-verbs (see, e.g., Bresnan Reference Bresnan and Bresnan1982: 168f.; Roberts Reference Roberts1985: 413f.) or activities/processes and semelfactives (cf., e.g., Levin Reference Levin, Billings, Boyle and Griffith1999; Baker Reference Baker2019).Footnote ⁸ Activities or process-verbs indeed appear to make up the better part of the data, as in (20a), and semelfactives also occur regularly, as in (20b) (all examples attested in iWeb):

1. (20)

   1. (a) outplay, outrun, outsing, outdance, outwalk, outsleep, outlaugh etc.

   2. (b) outblink, outsneeze, outhit, out-tug, out-burp, outfart, outrebound etc.

      However, we also find stative examples, although clearly less frequently:

2. (21)

   1. (a) And speaking of pain, she out-knows me. (COCA)

   2. (b) At about 6-foot-3, he outweighs me by an easy 80 pounds… (COCA)

   3. (c) I expect my Scamp to outlast several tow vehicles. (iWeb)

   4. (d) …in a league where the plan is to out-run and to out-want your opponents, that what you are able to bring from the substitutes bench is all. (iWeb)

   5. (e) Besides the generally known quality of a sniper it is especially important to be able to outsit the enemy. (iWeb)

   6. (f) …Jean Le Breton, France's Secretary of State under King Francis I, decided to build a new magnificent castle that would outstand other medieval fortresses. (iWeb)

As argued by Baker (Reference Baker2019: 580), state-verbs may allow for reconceptualization as processes, and therefore serve as bases for out-. This is difficult to see in the examples in (21a-c), which are clearly stative uses of the respective verbs, in that they lack a dynamic component. Although far from self-evident, the use of out-want in (21d) arguably allows for some form of dynamic reading, as it denotes behavior and is thus characterized by change. As in (21e,f), spatial configuration verbs also feature as input to out-, although their inclusion in the stative category is controversial (cf. e.g. Dowty Reference Dowty1979: ch. 3.8.3; Levin & Hovav Reference Levin and Hovav1995: 130f.). We find several more stative readings of out-verbs as complex words if nominal and adjectival bases are included, as in (22a,b), where the natural interpretations are ‘have more men/women’ and ‘be brighter’, respectively (see below for non-deverbal examples in general).

1. (22)

   1. (a) The prosecution, on the other hand, has these 43 lawyers, hundreds of investigators. We are out-manned, out-womaned, out-moneyed at every turn in this case. (COCA)

   2. (b) The flowers are brighter though (you can't out-bright hot pink). (iWeb)

Verbs commonly classified as achievements in the Vendler-Dowty-classification appear to be in fact very rare, although not entirely excluded, as in (23) (see Tolskaya Reference Tolskaya2014 for claims to the contrary).

1. (23)

   1. (a) It wouldn't be a surprise that years or maybe months from now, video marketing/video selling may just outwin all other strategies in play right now. (iWeb)

   2. (b) Not only was I able to quickly and easily undo the backlash in my friend's line, but I was also able to outspot him when it came to seeing fish at a distance.Footnote ⁹

   3. (c) This wouldn't help all cases but would at least eliminate those instances when all you need to do is destroy an arty and it outspots you and kills you. (iWeb)

Note that it is not necessarily the case that punctual achievements only allow for cardinality construals, i.e. repetitive or habitual readings: outspot in (23b), for example, is compatible with interpretations in which the Subject-argument spots fish at a distance more frequently (repetitive) than the Object-argument, as well as with interpretations in which the Subject-argument spots fish quicker/earlier. The ‘earlier/quicker’-reading appears to be the only one possible in (23c). In turn, this time-related comparison is not based on speed as a property of events, but rather on their occurrence in time in general. Regarding possible comparisons in both these cases, it is the events as such that are either located in time or quantified over, rather than some property dimension.

Constraints similar to the ones on achievements are postulated with respect to verb complexity (cf. Levin Reference Levin, Billings, Boyle and Griffith1999, Reference Levin2009; Beavers & Koontz-Garboden Reference Beavers and Koontz-Garboden2012). Accordingly, verb roots with lexicalized scalar changes or results do not feature as input to out-prefixation, which the authors take as a diagnostic for manner-result-complementarity. Roughly, the assumption is that out- functions as an Object-deletion and retransitivization context for verbs that can be used both transitively and intransitively, such as drink or eat. In turn, verbs with presumably lexicalized results are predicted to disallow such Object-deletion and, in consequence, also out-prefixation (see also Tolskaya Reference Tolskaya2014 for a less wholesale dismissal of scalar-result-verbs). For example, the following (made-up) data are judged bad by some of the above authors:

1. (24)

   1. (a) ??Kim outshattered the other bottle-shatterer. (=ex. 19 in Beavers & Koontz-Garboden Reference Beavers and Koontz-Garboden2012)

   2. (b) Robot Bender will ?out-flatten / ?out-straighten all the robots at the robot Olympics. (=ex. 39 in Tolskaya Reference Tolskaya2014)Footnote ¹⁰

While, again, not particularly frequent, there are attested cases of result-verbs as in (25):

1. (25)

   1. (a) Coke's biggest failure, the so-called “New Coke” of 1985, was an attempt to “out-sweeten” Pepsi which had ten more calories of sugar, by upping the sugar in Coke to 156 calories. (iWeb)

   2. (b) The next two sets both went Souza's way, the Brazilian twice outbreaking the Argentine to make it 76(4) 76(5) 57 57…Footnote ¹¹

   3. (c) Your Theorie offers premiere products that create better hair. Since the beginning, they have been developing superior technology to design tools and products that could out-straighten, out-curl, out-style, out-dry, and [sic] all others. (iWeb)

   4. (d) An aluminum radiator will out-cool a copper brass radiator of similar size and construction by at least 40%. (iWeb)

   5. (e) Even that word fermentable is loaded, because some of what is fermentable to Belle Saison is not fermentable to Lalvin D-47, and Brett C should be able to outferment both of them if pitched post-primary fermentation.Footnote ¹²

   6. (f) “Bojemoi, that woman has toes that could outcrush a boa constrictor!” he gasped.Footnote ¹³

The base verbs in (26) are certainly not all alike. For example, to sweeten, to dry, and to cool are what have been termed degree achievements (cf., e.g., Kennedy & Levin Reference Kennedy, Levin, McNally and Kennedy2008). The adjectival bases map to either open (cool, sweet) or closed scales (straight, dry) (cf., e.g., Kennedy & McNally Reference Kennedy and McNally2005; Kennedy Reference Kennedy2007), while to crush or to break are often considered proper change-of-state verbs (cf., e.g., Rappaport Hovav & Levin Reference Rappaport Hovav, Levin, Larson and Paster2002). Although differences between these classes as possible input for out-prefixation have been suggested (cf. Tolskaya Reference Tolskaya2014), the important point here is that all of the classes are attested in their causative variants that would conventionally take an Object that undergoes change ((25a) is arguably ambiguous in this regard). Thus, in (25b), it is Souza who breaks someone in tennis,Footnote ¹⁴ in (25c) it is tools/products that straighten hair, and in (25f) it is the toes that could crush something.

On the assumption that psych-verbs are a special case of result- or change-of-state-verbs (see, e.g., Plag et al. Reference Plag, Andreou, Kawaletz, Bonami, Boyé, Dal, Giraudo and Namer2018), many more such examples can be found, as in (26) (all from COCA):

1. (26)

   1. (a) This screwball premise lives or dies by the chemistry between Pine and Hardy, who are too busy trying to out-appeal one another to make the buddy dynamic click.

   2. (b) As Priest returned the Black Panther to his roots as a political figure as much as a superhero, he became a hugely capable character able to out-think Iron Man, out-fight Captain America and out-threaten Wolverine.

   3. (c) Occupiers can thus be successful without need of any specialized counterinsurgency methods or tactics if they are willing to out-terrorize the insurgents…

   4. (d) But if the 41-year-old Johnson has outentertained the 61-year-old Riley, he has certainly not outcoached him.

A final alleged restriction on verbal bases concerns the agentive nature of the construction: accordingly, both the input verb and the interpretation of the complex out-form have to select agents as Subject (see Talmy Reference Talmy2000: 260f.). Given that stativity and agentivity are usually regarded as mutually exclusive, this constraint has already been shown to make wrong predictions above. However, we also find non-agentive examples of process-verbs as in (27) (which possibly explains the fact that, for example, Tolskaya (Reference Tolskaya2014) and Baker (Reference Baker2019) avoid the term activity):

1. (27)

   1. (a) …the Jeep Renegade should outscoot every competitor with the exception of the Nissan Juke… (iWeb)

   2. (b) …Dr. Chalongphob adds, “it's now clear that our economic growth out-paced our political maturity. (COCA)

   3. (c) I'd think the LCD panel itself will greatly outlive the backlight… (iWeb)

To summarize, the discussed restrictions on aktionsart and event complexity of the respective verbal bases of out- cannot hold in their strong versions. All aspectual verb classes are attested as input and neither bases nor the complex forms have to be agentive. Although there are possible preferences that, roughly, map to said restrictions, these cannot be hard grammatical constraints. While this section has looked at selectional restrictions of verbal subclasses, the following sections deal with more general word class constraints.

4.2 Word class restrictions

Regarding nominal and adjectival bases, Bauer et al. (Reference Bauer, Lieber and Plag2013: 343) provide several corpus examples for which they claim that out- in the reading discussed here is indeed category-changing, for example deadjectival out-absurd, outcute or outsmart and denominal out-Birth, out-Bubba or outdollar. Similarly, Bauer & Huddleston (Reference Bauer, Huddleston, Huddleston and Pullum2002: 1679) acknowledge the regular occurrence of denominal formations. The abovementioned unease in the literature with category-changing prefixes rests on the assumption that such cases would violate the Righthand Head Rule (see Williams Reference Williams1981; Hammond Reference Hammond1993), taken as a typological feature of Germanic languages in general (see, e.g., Kastovsky Reference Kastovsky, Denison and Hogg2006). For example, Nagano (Reference Nagano2011) argues at length that there are both synchronic and diachronic arguments in favor of assuming noun-to-verb or adjective-to-verb conversion prior to out-prefixation.Footnote ¹⁵ McIntyre (Reference McIntyre, Müller, Ohnheiser, Olsen and Rainer2015) claims that denominal out-formations occur rarely, while Levin (Reference Levin, Billings, Boyle and Griffith1999: fn.11) and Irube (Reference Irube1984: fn.5) state that deadjectival out- is so rare as to be negligible.

Consider, however, the denominal examples in (28):

1. (28)

   1. (a) Global big data competitors can out-technology you, but they can't out-human you. (iWeb)

   2. (b) […] he outboxed, outpointed and outshowmanshipped a long-reigning middleweight champion despite serious disadvantages in height […] (COCA)

   3. (c) There was an old boy with ‘a lifetime of badges’ on his hat. Excuse me, but we have those too. (Step forward Lil Kemp who could outbadge him any day.)Footnote ¹⁶

   4. (d) I went downtown to check out the crime scene, but that douche from the FBI out-badged me!Footnote ¹⁷

   5. (e) The Trail Blazers can outscore (they're No. 3 in the league in points and the only team with six players averaging in double figures), outrebound (they're No. 4 in rebound margin), outdefend (they're No. 3 in the West in points allowed) and outbench opponents (their reserves have outscored 11 of 18 opponents). (COCA)

The data in (28) are problematic for a conversion pre-prefixation approach. For example, technology in (28a) and showmanship in (28b) are not listed as verbs in the OED, nor do they occur tagged as verbs in COCA in any potential word form. To badge exists according to the OED (roughly, ‘mark with/attach/present a badge’), which is possibly the intended use in (28d), but the interpretation in (28c) is clearly different: here, outbadge indicates a cardinality reading, i.e., ‘have more badges’. Similar considerations hold for bench in (28e), with outbench apparently intended as roughly meaning ‘having had more successful players coming off the bench’. My current database of denominal out-formations includes 264 items, largely from the OED, COCA, and iWeb, out of which 138 (~52%) do not feature verbal base forms in the OED or forms with clearly different readings only. There is also quite a variety of semantic classes to be found in the data: for example, the bases in (28a,b) are abstract nouns (technology, showmanship), while those in (28c,e) are concrete object nouns (badge, bench). As in (29)-(31), three kinds of nominal base appear particularly frequently, namely proper names, attitudinal nouns, and role nouns (all examples from COCA):

1. (29) proper names

   1. (a) […] they're surely going to try to figure out a way to out-Ikea Ikea.

   2. (b) out-Columbine, out-Jesus, out-Portland, out-Spock, out-Trump, out-Wal-Mart etc.

2. (30) attitudinal nouns

   1. (a) Your basic hairy-chested guy who wrangles rattlers may find himself out-machoed by a half-pound of cute, wiggly-nosed fluff.

   2. (b) out-wunderkind, out-thug, out-wonk, out-nimbyed, out-snob, outjunk etc. (31)

3. (31) role nouns

   1. (a) “Out-priesting the priests” isn't the same as embracing the vocation to lead through service, as Jesus did.

   2. (b) out-bourgeois, out-lawyer, outjockey, out-pander, outdaughter, out-troll etc.

Unlike object nouns, such as badge above, that (can) give rise to cardinality interpretations, these cases usually refer to often underspecified stereotype readings. Thus, the examples in (29) roughly mean ‘exceed in some property typical for X’, those in (30) are interpreted as ‘behave more like an X typically behaves’ and in (31) ‘act more stereotypically X-like’. Moreover, many such formations include contextual licensing, such as establishment of a competition context via other out-verbs, as in the e-example in (28), or the base occurring in Direct Object position of the construction as in (29) and (31) (see Marchand Reference Marchand1969: 97 for the use of proper names as both out's base and the construction's Direct Object). Occasionally, we also find phrasal bases as in out-big-man, out-good-old-boy (both from iWeb) or out-cheap-shot (COCA) with characteristics similar to attitudinal or role nouns.

Turning to adjectival bases, consider the data in (32) (all from iWeb):

1. (32)

   1. (a) In my group therapy sessions, each attendee tries to out-sad the last, and one-downers are much worse than one-uppers.

   2. (b) It's not everyday Brown gets a competition for nicest, friendliest, most clappiest man in the room. But how do you out-nice a Mormon?

   3. (c) They were also exhausting, turning any and all social situations into comedic skits, each of them trying to out-funny me and everyone else in the room.

   4. (d) It appears the thunder and the gypsy punk CD playing in the tent are attempting to out-obnoxious one another.

The bases in the deadjectival use illustrated in (32) form the most common pattern found in the data: notionally, sad, nice, funny and obnoxious are all evaluative or human propensity adjectives (see, e.g., the classification in Dixon Reference Dixon1982). Making use of test environments such as occurrence with a progressivized copula (She is being nice/funny/??tall) or command imperatives (Be nice/funny/??tall), these classes are often claimed to have an inherent dynamic potential. Thus, they are more verb-like than typical stative adjectives such as, for example, color- or dimension-adjectives (cf. Lakoff Reference Lakoff1966; Quirk Reference Quirk1985; Ferris Reference Ferris1993). Other adjective classes are less frequently attested as bases, for example, physical property, dimension, or taste adjectives as in (33).

1. (33)

   1. (a) A bunch of noise going at the same time. You out-louded the next person, and then a member might get mad… (COCA)

   2. (b) Why don't you play him at the 3? Because 3′s might outquick him and confuse him. (COCA)

   3. (c) Craft brewers outbitter one another with double, triple, imperial IPAs and fight pun for pun with their names…Footnote ¹⁸

Practically all of the 80 examples in my data are clearly gradable according to established tests. Following, for example, Kennedy & McNally (Reference Kennedy and McNally2005) and Kennedy (Reference Kennedy2007), gradable adjectives lexicalize scales and it is the respective dimensions of these scales that suggest themselves for establishing comparisons. In consequence, interpreting deadjectival forms unsurprisingly appears more straightforward than for many of the denominal cases above (as well as for many verbal forms; see section 3). Thus, in (33) above, out-louded is naturally interpreted as ‘outdo by being louder/in loudness’, outquick as ‘outdo by being quicker/in speed’, and outbitter as ‘outdo by being more bitter/in bitterness’.

4.3 Summary

Overall, this section has shown out-prefixation to be highly promiscuous. Several of the selectional restrictions brought forth in the literature, such as bans on non-agentive or result-verbs, cannot easily be upheld upon consulting larger corpora such as COCA or iWeb. Non-deverbal out-formations are clearly much more common than claimed by several authors and many examples exist for which converted bases are not independently attested. Analyses that assume conversion prior to prefixation, such as the one in Nagano (Reference Nagano2011), thus appear to primarily serve the purpose of safeguarding a theoretical desideratum via an empirically dubious mechanism. This section has also shown that the general interpretation of non-deverbal out-verbs is fairly similar to deverbal formations, although stative readings appear more common with, in particular, denominal forms. At the same time, this situation makes formulating or establishing clear-cut restrictions particularly difficult. It thus appears to call for a treatment that analyzes morphological processes not primarily input-oriented but rather conceptually and semantically output-oriented (as advocated by, for example, Plag Reference Plag2004).

The following section will summarize and generalize over the findings of sections 3 and 4. Doing so, it will spell out some of the challenges and requirements a formalization of out-prefixation that is more adequate than the ones critiqued in this article will have to meet.