The meaning of -ate derivatives

Having clarified this methodological point, let us first turn to the semantics of the derivatives. Sources like Jespersen (1942) and Marchand (1969) contain a lot of information about the history but very little about the meaning of -ate. This may not be coincidental, since the semantics of -ate derivatives appears to be extremely heterogenous, not to say messy. This heterogeneity is not only reflected in the hundreds of forms that have entered the language in the past centuries but is also manifested in 20th century neologisms. Consider for example the following derivatives, which can be taken as instantiations of a number of different semantic categories. We find causatives (e.g. passivate), resultatives (e.g. methanate), inchoatives (e.g. gelate), instrumentals (tambourinate), statives (dissonate 'be dissonant') and a number of rather opaque forms (like, for example, vagulate).