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This paper aims to analyze the interaction between prefixes, verbs, and abstract argument structure constructions, using as a testing ground the locative alternation. It has been assumed that in order to participate in the locative alternation, a verb must specify a manner of motion from which a change of state can be obtained (see, for instance, Steven Pinker’s Learnability and cognition, 1989). However, this generalization does not take into account the argument structure effects involved in verbal prefixation in Slavic where some change-of-location verbs can appear in the change-of-state variant, when headed by a resultative prefix. In Olbishevska’s generative-derivational analysis of the locative alternation in Russian, it is claimed that resultative prefixes are derivational morphemes subcategorizing for a location argument. While I agree that it is the resultative prefix that makes the alternation possible, I propose that it is not the case that a new verb with a different argument structure is derived by means of prefixation, but rather that it is the verb that integrates into the prefixed change-of-state variant. I analyze the change-of-state variant in the spirit of Goldberg’s Construction Grammar and Langacker’s Cognitive Grammar approach and show that resultative prefixes are not abstract syntactic features, but rather that each prefixed change-of-state construction is based on a specific configuration between the locatum and the location. I demonstrate that the interaction between resultative prefixes, alternating verbs, and the more abstract change-of-state variant is driven by semantic coherence.
