A comment of yours on another question led me to this interesting question and to an embryonic hypothesis inspired by reading a paper on "Aspect and Assertion in Mandarin Chinese" that discussed how Mandarin and English have different treatment of "2-phase verbs."
My hypothesis is that for Latin to create most 2-stage expressions it must either (1) use a prefix drawn from a limited set and add it to a verb with already inherent 2-stage semantics or (2) use two completely different verbs in some sort of subordinate relationship. To add a manner component would in effect be creating a 3-stage verb, and this Latin--and Spanish--cannot easily do.
In English, a verb rich in substantive "manner" content (a 1-stage verb) can be turned into a 3-phase expression by adding an adverb of result at the end, mimicking in an iconic way an action leading to a result.
Section 4.2 on pages 747-749 of the paper on Chinese has a good discussion of what these phase expressions are. In essence, the claim is that all languages have 0-stage expressions that express a permanent situation (e.g., "The number 3 is an odd number" is always true), 1-stage expressions that express a situation that should hold for only a limited time (e.g., "She is sleeping" implies another period of time when she is not sleeping), and 2-stage expressions that require a change from one state to another (e.g., "John arrived" requires that John was not here and then that John was here). Two-stage expressions can always be created by using two different verbs, but they can also be lexicalized in one verb, such as "arrive."
Chinese has a very productive means of creating 2-stage expressions by adding widely used co-verb suffixes from a limited set that basically translate as "on," "down," "up," "out," "into," etc. These are roughly as common as the similar English phrasal verbs, like "go on," "go down," "go up," etc. This structure, as in English, is also usable for an extremely wide variety of verbs and adjectives. Crucially, since the two stages are lexically separate, the first stage can be rich in manner content and thus add a 3rd stage. You can "wipe something clean" in Chinese (擦干净 ca ganjing) just as you can in English. Chinese makes extensive use of verbs in series for other purposes, so this use of resultative co-verbs is very natural and just as iconic as in English or even more so.
In the case of Latin and Spanish, there is no ready means to add suffixes to create similar 3-stage expressions. You have to use prefixes and add them to what are already 1- or 2- stage verbs to change them to modify their semantics (e.g., ex + eo = exeo in Latin). Since this is a limited set of prefixes that cannot readily be extended to adjectives or verbs, as in Chinese and English, and since the main verb must already have 2-stage semantics, other complex action-result combination have to be expressed by using two verbs. Also, the addition of the prefix does not add an extra stage.
A crucial difference between Chinese and English, according to the paper and my personal feeling, is that Chinese can only add aspect morphemes to the result phase; whereas English can only add them to the action phase of 2- or 3-stage expressions. In English, you can say "he is going into the store," but in Chinese you cannot use such an expression (*ta zai qu shangdianli *他在去商店里 "he is going to the store"), even though it has a progressive expression very similar in feel to English (i.e., ta zai shuo 他在说 "he is speaking").
On the other hand, Chinese can add morphemes to the result phase, since they are technically verbs or adjectives derived from verbs; whereas English cannot, because it uses adverbs or adjectives similar to adverbs.
The result is that both Chinese and English readily create the type of 3-stage expressions represented by "wipe clean," but have a different treatment of them with respect to aspect and tense modification. For Chinese, they are just two verbs used in series, allowing for a rich possibility of collocations. For English, many possibilities are also possible because the first stage is unlimited and the second stage can be any verb or adjective compatible with the result semantics of a predicate. Any manner verb plus a resultative expression gives you a 3-stage expression including manner and result.
Latin and Spanish seem to have the same types of restrictions similar to those of Chinese in not being able to add tense and aspect morphemes to the first stage of 2-stage expression. Even though Spanish has a progressive construction quite like the English and Chinese ones (i.e. él está hablando "he is speaking"), as in Chinese, you cannot say: *"él está yendo" (except in very narrow circumstances to express a habitual event). You cannot use this construction as the normal equivalent of "he is on his way somewhere."
In Latin and Spanish, you can't easily get something wiped and get it clean, so you express the three stages by saying get it clean by wiping. This is the only way to make a 3-stage expression.
That leaves Latin with only bare 2-stage verbs without a manner component. So in Latin, you cannot wipe a seat clean, but you can leave a seat empty (subsellium vacuefacio)(or in Spanish, dejar la silla vacía). To add a manner component, you must add a separate manner expression.
