Partitive Cases and Related Categories 9783110346060, 9783110344042

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Silvia Luraghi and Tuomas Huumo (Eds.) Partitive Cases and Related Categories

Empirical Approaches to Language Typology

Editors Georg Bossong Bernard Comrie Kristine Hildebrandt Yaron Matras

Volume 54

Partitive Cases and Related Categories

Edited by Silvia Luraghi and Tuomas Huumo

ISBN 978-3-11-034404-2 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-034606-0 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-039457-3 ISSN 0933-761X Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. 6 2014 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Typesetting: RoyalStandard, Hong Kong Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck ♾ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com

Table of contents List of abbreviations Introduction

vii

1

I

Typological aspects

1

Silvia Luraghi and Seppo Kittilä Typology and diachrony of partitive case markers

17

2

Matti Miestamo Partitives and negation: a cross-linguistic survey

63

II

Uralic languages

3

Anne Tamm The partitive concept versus linguistic partitives: from abstract concepts to 89 evidentiality in the Uralic languages

4

Tuomas Huumo and Liina Lindström Partitives across constructions: on the range of uses of the Finnish and 153 Estonian “partitive subjects”

5

Helena Metslang Partitive noun phrases in the Estonian core argument system

177

6

M. M. Jocelyne Fernandez-Vest Finnish Partitive and resultativity in translation(s): a discourse-cognitive 257 approach

III

Basque

7

Urtzi Etxeberria The definite article and the partitive particle in Basque: dialectal 291 variation

8

Borja Ariztimuño López The origin of the Basque partitive

323

vi

Table of contents

IV

Slavic languages

9

Michael Daniel The second genitive in Russian

347

Katia Paykin 10 The Russian partitive and verbal aspect

379

11

Elżbieta Tabakowska Double government in Polish: a case study

V

Historical perspectives on Indo-European languages

399

Eystein Dahl 12 Partitive Subjects and Objects in Indo-Iranian and beyond

417

Luz Conti and Silvia Luraghi 13 The Ancient Greek partitive genitive in typological perspective Anne Carlier and Béatrice Lamiroy 14 The grammaticalization of the prepositional partitive in Romance

VI

Oceanic languages

Peter Budd 15 Partitives in Oceanic languages Subject index Author index

563 567

523

443

477

List of abbreviations A ABE ABL ADD ADE ADJ

Adj ADV AFF AG ALL ANA AOR ART AUX BEN BR CAUS CEOC CL CMPL CMPR CNG COM COMM COMN COMP COND CONJ CONN CONST COP

the most actor-like argument of a transitive verb abessive ablative additive adessive adjectivizing suffix adjective adverbial affirmative pronominal clitic or affix referring to the agent of prototypical action verbs; Ancient Greek allative anaphoric aorist article auxiliary benefactive basic root causative Central/Eastern Oceanic clitic completive comparative connegative comitative comment marker common noun complementizer conditional conjunction connector construct copula

viii

List of abbreviations

D DAT DCL DEF DEIC DEM DET DELA DIMIN DIP DIRECT. PASS DOM DSM

e–NP EC ECL ELA EMPH EOC ERG EX EXC EXTR F

Fi FIP FUT FV

dual dative drinkable classifier definite deictic demonstrative determiner delative diminutive suffix discourse particle direct passive differential object marking differential subject marking the sole argument of the existential clause existential clause edible classifier elative emphatic Eastern Oceanic ergative existential exclusive extraction feminine Finnish Finnish partitive future final vowel

GENP

general possessor classifier genitive Russian second genitive general possessor-indexing host

HAB

habitual

IE

Indo-European illative immediate future

GCL GEN GEN 2

ILL IMM

List of abbreviations

IRS

imperative imperfect inclusive indefinite inessive infinitive instrumental imperfective irrealis irresultative

K

kind of

LK

linker limiter locative

IMP IMPF INC INDF INE INF INS IPFV IRR

LMT LOC M MDA MID MODIF M/P N NAR NEG NMLZ NOM NP NPS NS NSP NT O OBJ OBL OPT PAR PASS PERS

masculine modal adverb middle voice modifier medio/passive neuter, noun narrative negation nominalization, nominalizer nominative noun phrase non-past non-singular non-specific neutral modality object; the ‘not most actor–like argument’ of a transitive verb object oblique optative partitive passive personal article

ix

x

PFV PIE PL PMP PNCV PNLOC POC POL POSS PP PPF PPN PREP PRES PREV PRF PRG PROX PRP PRS PRSP PSR PST PTC PTCP Q QLF QUAN R RED REF REFL REL RES S

Sa SAP SBJ

List of abbreviations

perfective Proto-Indo-European plural Proto-Malayo Polynesian Proto North and Central Vanuatu proper name location Proto-Oceanic politeness marker possessive prepositional phrase pluperfect Proto-Polynesian prepositional case presentational preverb perfect progressive proximal/proximate preposition present prospective possessor past particle participle question particle qualifier quantifier realis reduplication referential reflexive relative resultative single argument of canonical intransitive verb Sami speech act participant subject

List of abbreviations

SBJV SG STAT SUP SUPERESS TA TAM TELIC TR TRAN

subjunctive singular stative superlative superessive tense/aspect marker tense/aspect/mood marker marker of telicity transitiviser translative

VP

verb vocative verb phrase

WOC

Western Oceanic

X

verbal complement

1 2 3

first person second person third person

V VOC

xi

Silvia Luraghi and Tuomas Huumo

Introduction This collection of papers is devoted to partitive case markers across languages. In particular, the contributors describe various aspects of partitive cases in the Finnic languages and Basque, of the partitive genitive in some Indo-European languages, the development of the so-called partitive article in Romance languages, and a variety of morphemes usually referred to as partitives in Oceanic languages. As we will discuss further on in this introduction, linguistic items in this heterogeneous set all share the feature of expressing indefiniteness, at least in certain contexts and to a certain extent. In spite of being morphologically case markers (or prepositions), they do not behave as normal cases, in that they are not connected with a specific grammatical relation. Rather, they partly function as determiners or indefinite quantifiers. Diachronically, this peculiar function seems to develop out of a more typical case marking function. The complete change, including recategorization, from case marker to determiner is borne out by the development of the Romance partitive article. Remarkably, partitive markers treated in this volume should not be confused with partitives occurring in so-called partitive constructions (e.g., A piece of that cake). We elaborate on this point below. A dedicated partitive case occurs in Finnic languages and in Basque, and is usually said to indicate partial affectedness of patients (cf. Blake 2001: 151). This characterization obviously concerns the object-marking partitive, but the overall range of uses of these cases is wider and varies from one language to another. Even in Finnic and Basque, this definition does not cover all uses of the partitive case, as it does not reckon with the existence of partitive subjects. The name partitive assigned to this case in grammatical analyses of these languages reflects its core function as indicator of a ‘partial’ meaning. In some other languages a similar a function is attributed to a number of other cases, as in the case of the Hungarian partitive-ablative, and the partitive-genitive of various Indo-European languages (a separate partitive, lexically restricted, also exists in Russian). In grammatical analyses of those languages these cases are not called partitives, though some of their functions resemble those of dedicated partitive cases. Even though studies devoted to language specific partitive cases are comparatively numerous (see below), cross-linguistic research is virtually inexistent. One reason for this is a certain confusion concerning the term ‘partitive’ (this issue is taken up again in Tamm, this volume). Indeed, this term is most often used to refer to partitive constructions, that is, part-whole constructions such as the English a piece of that cake (see Koptjevskaja-Tamm 2006). Partitive cases

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Silvia Luraghi and Tuomas Huumo

can also be found in such constructions, but not necessarily. Partitive constructions indicate a part of a given whole, as in the English example above. Partitive markers described in this book, instead, typically convey, at least in some contexts, the meaning of indefiniteness, which is not characteristic of part-whole relations. Compare the following examples: Dutch (constructed example) (1) Fred at van de aardbeien. ART. PL strawberry:PL Fred eat:PST.3 SG of ‘Fred ate of the (previously identified, belonging to a given set) strawberries.’ Finnish (from Heine & Kuteva 2004: 32–33) (2) Elmeri löys-i mansiko-i-ta. Elmer find-3 SG . PST strawberry-PL-PAR ‘Elmer found some (i.e. and indefinite quantity of not previously identified) strawberries.’ While the prepositional phrase van de aardbeien ‘of the strawberries’ in (1) is a partitive construction and indicates a partition of a previously identified whole, the partitive NP mansikoita ‘strawberries’ in (2) basically indicates indefiniteness, and does not refer to a part of a previously identified whole. Remarkably, Finnish partitive constructions feature the elative case, as in (3): Finnish (from Koptjevskaja-Tamm 2001) (3) pala tä-stä hyvä-stä kaku-sta bit:NOM this- ELA good- ELA cake- ELA ‘A bit of this good cake.’ The partitive case can also occurs in this construction, as shown in (4): Finnish (personal knowledge) (4) pala tä-tä hyvä-ä bit:NOM this-PAR good-PAR ‘A bit of this good cake.’

kakku-a cake-PAR

Note, however, that in this construction it is more typical for the partitive to have the indefinite meaning, and that the part-whole reading in (4) is triggered by the occurrence of the demonstrative ‘this’. Indeed, if no demonstrative occurs, indefiniteness seems to be the basic function of the partitive in this construction, as in (5):

Introduction

3

Finnish (personal knowledge) (5) pala hyvä-ä kakku-a bit:NOM good-PAR cake-PAR ‘A bit of good cake.’ (an indefinite cake, not a quantity of a previously identified whole). In fact, even example (4), in spite of its demonstrative, allows the alternative reading where the partitive phrase tätä hyvää kakkua refers to a particular type of cake (‘this kind of good cake’), not necessarily a certain individual cake, as the elative construction in (3). Thus (4) but not (3) can be used in the context of a café where cut-off pieces of different kinds of cake are for sale on plates. In the literature, partitive cases are often confused with partitive nominal constructions. This confusion is clearly reflected in Heine & Kuteva (2004: 32– 33), who mix up the two categories, and quote the Finnish sentence in (2) along with a German partitive construction in (6): German (from Heine & Kuteva 2004: 33) (6) Gib mir ein bisschen give:IMP.2 SG 1 SG . DAT one bit ‘Give me a bit of the cheese!’

vom from.the

Käse! cheese

Similar to the Dutch example in (1), the prepositional phrase vom Käse in (6) indicates a part of a certain, well identifiable piece of cheese, for example the cheese which the speaker sees on the table. The authors must be aware of some lack of homogeneity, as they remark: “Note, however, that “partitive” does not appear to be a unified notion (Martin Haspelmath, personal communication).” However, they do not attempt to go deeper into this issue. Another distinction must be made between partitive case markers studied here and pseudo-partitives (see Selkirk 1977). According to Koptjevskaja-Tamm (2006: 218), a pseudo-partitive “merely quantifies over the kind of entity . . . indicated by the other nominal”, as the prepositional phrase ‘of coffee’ in a cup of coffee. Indeed, partitive case markers can also occur in pseudo-partitive constructions, as in (7): Finnish (from Koptjevskaja-Tamm 2001: 523) (7) säkki peruno-i-ta sack:NOM potato- PL- PAR ‘A sack of potatoes.’

4

Silvia Luraghi and Tuomas Huumo

Crucially, pseudo-partitives are non-referential. As shown in (7), non-referentiality is a possibility for the Finnish partitive case. Note however that the Finnish partitive case does not always entail non-referentiality. Indeed, the Finnish object-marking partitive that reflects unbounded aspect can be used for highly topical, definite phrases and even pronominal phrases referring to the speech act participants; cf. (8a) and its perfective counterpart (8b): Finnish (personal knowledge) (8a) Houkuttel-i-n sinu-a ulos. you- PAR out lure- PST.1 SG ‘I was luring [trying to lure] you out.’ (8b)

Houkuttel-i-n sinu-t ulos. you-ACC out lure- PST-1 SG ‘I lured you out’ [successfully].

In any case, non-referentiality is often connected with partitive cases, as shown by possible co-occurrence of partitive cases with negation. Accordingly, the use of partitive cases may be more or less restricted, depending on the language. In Basque, for example, the partitive occurs in negative sentences and it can mark either the object of transitive verbs or the subject on intransitive verbs (in other words, it can substitute the absolutive case in negative sentences; see Ariztimuño, this volume, and Etxeberria, this volume). A connection between negation and partitive case marking also occurs in the Finnic and Slavic languages (in the latter case, genitive case marking). The alternation between the partitive and other cases also has connections with aspect: this has been argued for Finnic (e.g., Heinämäki 1984, Kiparsky 1998; Huumo 2010, and the papers by Metslang, Tamm and Fernandez-Vest in this volume; for a generative approach, see e.g., Vainikka & Maling 1996, Nelson 1998; Brattico 2012 and the literature mentioned there), Slavic (see e.g. Fischer 2004; Tabakowska, this volume), and possibly Sanskrit (Dahl 2009; this volume). As noted above, partitive marking is not restricted to NPs indicating patients: in Finnish existentials, for examples, even agentive intransitive verbs such as juosta ‘run’, opiskella ‘study’, etc. (unergative), allow partitive subjects. In some Indo-European languages, besides partitive objects and partitive subjects (mostly with unaccusative verbs, cf. Conti & Luraghi, this volume), partitive adverbials also exist, for example in time expressions (see Conti & Luraghi, this volume, on Ancient Greek). The indefiniteness meaning conveyed by partitive case markers seems to be connected with their existential entailment. This is also a reason why the

Introduction

5

extension of partitive case markers to subjects seems to start with existential clauses (see Carlier & Lamiroy this volume). In Finnish, the quantifying function of the partitive object is directly related with indefiniteness: it may indicate an indefinite quantity of a substance (with mass nouns) or of individuals (in the plural). De Hoop (1998: 204) discusses examples (9) and (10): Finnish (from De Hoop 1998: 204) (9) Tunne-n ruotsalaise-t know- PRS .1 SG Swede- NOM . PL ‘I know the Swedes.’ (10)

Tunne-n ruotsalais-i-a know- PRS .1 SG Swede- PL- PAR ‘I know some Swedes.’

According to De Hoop (1998), (9) has a strong (referential) interpretation, while (10) has a weak (existential) interpretation. Note however that the connection between indefiniteness and non-referentiality is not straightforward: depending on different theoretical approaches, both definites and indefinites are conceived as possibly referential or non-referential (see Lyons 1999: 165–166), with specificity playing a role in the case of indefinites. Following Partee (2008), Seržant (ms.) introduces the notion of ‘decreased referentiality’. Here, we are not going to elaborate on that: rather, we limit our observations to noting that the difference between (9) and (10) is better captured simply in terms of definiteness. While (9) is about a particular group of Swedes or about Swedes in general (the English translation conveys the same alternative meanings), example (10) is indefinite and indicates an indefinite group of Swedes (a detailed Finnish-English contrastive study on the expression of indefiniteness is Chesterman 1991). In one of the few existing cross-linguistic descriptions of partitive cases, Moravcsik (1978: 272) summarizes their typical semantic correlates as follows: a. the definiteness-indefiniteness of the noun phrase; b. the extent to which the object is involved in the event; c. the completedness versus non-completedness of the event; d. whether the sentence is affirmative or negative. To these semantic correlates we can, on the basis of the papers in the current volume, add non-assertive modality, which motivates partitive marking in certain contexts in Finnic and in Basque (see Huumo & Lindström, this volume, and Aritzimuño, this volume).

6

Silvia Luraghi and Tuomas Huumo

Importantly, Moravcsik remarks that the marking difference brought about by the partitive “does not correlate with any difference in semantic case function”. In sum, the use of the partitive case seems to be at odds with the basic function of cases, that is “marking dependent nouns for the type of relationship they bear to their heads” (Blake 2001: 1): rather than to indicate a specific grammatical or semantic relation that a NP bears to the verb, the partitive seems to indicate indeterminacy (in various manners). This has been noted by several authors. For example, Laka (1993: 158) suggests that “what is referred to as ‘partitive case’ in Basque is a polar determiner, much like English any”. In Finnish and Estonian, the functions of the partitive are also related to indeterminacy, unboundedness and polarity (see the papers on Finnic in this volume), and it is noteworthy that the partitive is not the sole marker of any grammatical function but alternates with other cases in all of its main functions: as marker of the object (PAR ~ ACC ), the existential subject (PAR ~ NOM ) and the predicate nominal (PAR ~ NOM ), as well as marker of the complements of adpositions (PAR ~ GEN ). In addition to case affixes, functions reminiscent of the partitive are indicated by the so-called partitive article of some Romance varieties, which derives from the preposition that has substituted the Latin genitive (Latin de). The brief survey above shows that there are striking similarities in partitives across languages, which are not limited to the indication of partial affectedness. However, research on partitives is mostly limited to individual languages. The present volume sets out to fill this gap by introducing a cross-linguistic perspective to the study of partitives. Most of the papers are based on presentations given at the workshop on partitives organized by Silvia Luraghi and Tuomas Huumo at the 2010 Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea in Vilnius. The papers give detailed accounts on central uses of partitive cases and reminiscent expressions in a number of different languages or language groups. The range of languages covered in the volume include Finnic languages, Basque, Romance, Ancient Greek, Indo-Iranian languages, Russian, including regional varieties, Polish, and Oceanic languages. In addition, two papers have a cross-linguistic focus, and discuss the typology and the diachrony of partitive markers, and the use of partitives with negation. As remarked above, what is common to all these case markers is that they partly display features which are not typical of a case: this issue is specifically addressed in the papers by Etxeberia on Basque, and Ancient Greek by Conti and Luraghi. These papers point out that here is some similarity between partitives and quantifiers, that the partitive marks indefiniteness, and that it does not have the function typical of a case, i.e. that of indicating a grammatical relation. This is especially clear for Indo-European languages and Finnic, where the partitive can mark both (existential) subjects and objects. In Indo-European

Introduction

7

this is impossible for the nominative and the accusative, whereas in Finnic the nominative can also mark the object (the third option is the accusative). Clearly this evolution (case marker ! marker of indefiniteness not connected with a specific grammatical relation) is what enabled the Romance former partitive to become an indefinite article (see Carlier & Lamiroy, this volume). The functions of partitive cases and similar elements are manifold, and relate to many different levels and linguistic subsystems. As already noted, in addition to different meanings of ‘partiality’ (which can be considered the core meaning of partitives) and indefiniteness, these elements are often used to indicate non-referentiality (especially under negation), unboundedness of quantity and / or aspect, irrealis uses, incremental themes, low transitivity and low affectedness. Partitives often participate in a semantically motivated alternation with other cases marking the same syntactic argument. A good example is Finnish, where the partitive can be used to mark the object, the existential subject and the predicate nominal (predicative), but where it is not the sole marker for any of these functions, as it alternates with other cases (the accusative and the nominative). Indeed, even low transitivity verbs that are normally said to always take the partitive, such as rakastaa ‘love’, can take the accusative in resultative constructions, as shown in (11): Finnish (personal knowledge) (11) Rakast-i-n hänet hullu-ksi love-PST-1 SG 3 SG . ACC crazy-TRA ‘I loved him/her crazy.’ Similarly, in several Indo-European languages the partitive genitive is in free variation with the accusative, and in some of them, such as Ancient Greek and, to a more limited extent, Indo-Iranian languages, with the nominative. However, Indo-European languages also often feature obligatory partitive/genitive direct objects with low transitivity verbs, as is the case in Ancient Greek (see Conti & Luraghi, this volume). There are also differences between NPs marked with the partitive vs. other cases related to cross-referencing in the verb. In Finnish, for example, partitive subjects do not trigger agreement with the verb, and this is also the case for partitive genitive subjects in some, though not in all, Indo-European languages. The functions of the partitive are thus manifold, intertwined with many linguistic subsystems and functional levels. The present volume consists of fifteen papers, which are divided into subsections based on the languages or language groups they study.

8

Silvia Luraghi and Tuomas Huumo

The first section of the book contains two chapters that discuss typological perspectives on partitives. The first chapter, The typology and diachrony of partitives by Silvia Luraghi and Seppo Kittilä, discusses typological features of partitive markers surveyed in this book, along with a description of attested developments that led to their creation. In the first part of the chapter, the authors analyze the various semantic correlates of partitive markers as indicated in (a)–(d) above, and show how they are reflected in the languages described in the rest of the book. In the second part, the origin of partitive markers is traced back as far as is allowed by attested sources. It turns out that partitive case markers often originate from ablatives or genitives, but that a different origin is perhaps reconstructable for Oceanic languages, that relates partitive markers to the accusative case. The second chapter, by Matti Miestamo, is titled Partitives and negation: a cross-linguistic survey. It starts from the observation that in some European languages – Finnic, Baltic, Slavic and Basque – NPs in the scope of negation are marked, either obligatorily or as a matter of preference, with a case that has a partitive-marking function (partitive or genitive). The phenomenon is referred to as the partitive of negation. Miestamo reports the results of a large-scale typological survey of the partitive of negation and related effects of negation on the marking of grammatical categories in NPs. In a larger context, the effects on NPs are one of the many ways in which negation can affect the structure of clauses, or one of the many ways in which negatives can show structural asymmetry vis-à-vis affirmatives. This larger context becomes relevant when we start looking for explanations for the link between partitives and negation, which has been attributed to semantic and pragmatic factors, such as quantification, referentiality/specificity, and aspect. The second section of the book contains four chapters devoted to Finnic languages. In Chapter 3, Partitive semantics and semantic partitives in the Uralic languages, Anne Tamm addresses some of the confusing issues regarding partitives on the basis of the empirical material on various examples from the Uralic languages. The main point of the chapter is that it proposes a distinction between “Linguistic Partitives” and “Partitive Concepts” in describing the partitive phenomena. In this framework, the Partitive Concept is an abstract concept that serves for comparing the semantics of grammatical forms to the semantics of “part-of-N”. A Linguistic Partitive is a grammatical form that is related to the meaning of the Partitive Concept. In several Uralic languages, partitive cases have developed their specific semantics and pragmatics. The author divides the Linguistic Partitive into functional and structural categories, depending on the semantics of the partitive in the structure of the language at hand, and follows the works that divide the Partitive Concept in two metonymically related subconcepts: the partitive and the pseudopartitive. Chapter 4, by Tuomas Huumo

Introduction

9

and Liina Lindström, has the title The Partitives stretching borders: How well do Finnish and Estonian partitive subjects serve as a criterion for the existential clause? In this chapter, the authors examine the definitions given for the range of uses of the partitive subject in both languages, and compare the range of existentials, their definition and form. They argue that existentials form a radial category, with a prototype and less canonical instances, where the prototype is clearly definable but the actual borderline between existentials and other clause types is fuzzy. Moreover, the authors discuss differences between Finnish and Estonian as regards the range of uses of the partitive, showing that in Estonian the (plural) nominative is often used in expressions where the partitive would be the natural option in Finnish. On the other hand, the use of the partitive in negated and interrogative existentials seems to be more widespread in Estonian than in Finnish, and this use seems to be motivated by the irrealis meaning expressed by these constructions. Chapter 5, Partitive noun phrases in the Estonian core argument system by Helena Metslang, discusses the role of the Estonian partitive case in association with different argument types. The partitive-permitting arguments – the object and the existential (presentational) clause NP – are analyzed in contrast with each other and with the transitive and intransitive clause subjects. The distributions of semantic, pragmatic and coding properties are examined among these nominative, genitive and partitive arguments. The chapter further analyzes how the typologically disputatious referential hierarchy differentiates the arguments and case-uses under scrutiny. The author also compares differential case-marking systems of Estonian objects and existential NPs and the salience of each factor is measured in the empirical data. Chapter 6 by M. M. Jocelyne Fernandez-Vest has the title Finnish Partitive revisited: a discourse-cognitive approach, in comparison with some other Finno-Ugric and Indo-European languages. Fernandez-Vest compares the main criteria that motivate the use of the Finnish partitive: context/cotext, situation, and the inherent aspect of the verb. She uses a corpus of oral and written language where the verbs have been classified into three categories – RES (resultative), IRRS (irresultative) and RES-IRRS (resultative-irresultative), according to their most typical aspectual meaning. This distinction aims to refine the traditional conception of resultativity in Finnish grammars. It shows the great number of RES-IRRS verbs (nearly 50%) and highlights the difference between activity verbs and mental verbs (nearly 70% of the second take a partitive object). The discussion of the respective choice criteria relies on a comparison between translations of Finnish texts into another Uralic language (Northern Sami) that has no partitive case and neighboring Indo-European (Scandinavian) languages, and vice-versa. The third section of the book contains two chapters, which are devoted to Basque. Chapter 7, The definite article and the partitive in Basque: dialectal variation by Urtzi Etxeberria, aims to an as thorough as possible description of both

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Silvia Luraghi and Tuomas Huumo

the Basque so-called definite article and the partitive particle [-rik] across its various dialects. Etxeberria starts from the observation that these two elements are related to each other; the partitive [-rik] is taken to be the morpheme that is used in polarity contexts instead of the existential interpretation of the definite article [-a(k)]. Chapter 8, The origin of the Basque partitive by Borja Ariztimuño López, describes the main contexts in which the Basque partitive suffix -(r)ik can appear, and presents a proposal about the source and the development of its different uses. The origin of the morpheme is then explained, drawing on grammaticalization theory. The fourth section is devoted to Slavic languages, and contains three chapters. Chapter 9, by Michael Daniel, concerns The second genitive in Russian. The chapter contains an overview of the so-called second genitive in Russian, a nominal form available for a minority of Russian nouns but widely used in certain contexts. The second genitive is a secondary case, as it may always be substituted with a regular genitive form, while the opposite is not true. Daniel argues that a major subset of the contexts where the second genitive may be used fits into what is known as a functional category of partitive: for this reason, this form is sometimes called Russian partitive. To a certain extent, indeed, the second genitive is the form with which the regular genitive may be substituted in partitive contexts. However, the analysis of the distribution of the second genitive shows that the partitive meaning is not the only function of this form, which also displays several idiomatic uses and uses in combinations with prepositions. Russian is also the topic of chapter 10, Russian Partitive and Verbal Aspect, by Katia Paykin. The goal of the chapter is to revisit the most recent analyses of this question, providing several critiques and alternative solutions. Paykin starts by clarifying what exactly the term “partitive” means when considered in the context of verbal aspect. Having established that the reality covered by the label in this particular context corresponds to the partitive genitive, she discusses its functioning as opposed to that of the nominative and the accusative, with which it can compete. Her main emphasis is on the relationship between the partitive genitive and the aspect of the verb assigning it. Chapter 11, Double government in Polish: a case study by Elżbieta Tabakowska, sets out to demonstrate that the opposition between the accusative and the genitive marking the direct object with (some) transitive verbs, which in traditional Polish linguistics has been classified as free variation, is motivated by semantic and pragmatic factors. The author substantiates the claim that the opposition between structures with transitive verbs followed by the direct object in either the genitive or the accusative case reveals a significant difference in meaning, which results from an intricate interplay of lexical semantics, aspectual meaning of verbs, the meaning of verbal prefixes, pragmatic factors and discourse structure.

Introduction

11

The fifth section, on Indo-European languages, also contains three chapters. Partitive subjects and objects in Indo-Iranian and Greek consitute the topic of chapter 12, by Eystein Dahl. Dahl starts from the observation that the genitive is quite frequently used as an object marker and somewhat less commonly used as a subject marker with finite verbs in the Indo-Iranian languages as well in Indo-European more generally. In his chapter, he explores the semantic domain of these constructions with particular regard to the lexical semantic properties of the predicates selecting genitive-marked core arguments, claiming that, in general, partitive subjects and objects are restricted to predicates with a relatively low degree of transitivity. Specifically, these constructions appear to be restricted to cases where the argument is represented as being only partially involved in the situation, either having a low degree of control over the outcome of the situation or only being partially affected by the situation. Chapter 13, The Ancient Greek partitive genitive in typological perspective by Luz Conti and Silvia Luraghi, gives a description of the partitive genitive in Ancient Greek. The authors show that the partitive genitive can occur in a wide variety of syntactic constructions, partly parallel to the genitive in other Indo-European languages, or to other partitive markers discussed in this book. Hence, the partitive genitive is not connected with a specific grammatical relation: rather, it indicates partial involvement of a referent in an event, which is usually reflected in a low degree of transitivity. In addition, the partitive genitive may indicate indefiniteness. From the point of view of discourse organization, partitive subjects, which often occur in presentative clauses, convey new information and are never topical. These various semantic and pragmatic features of the partitive genitive are captured by the authors in terms of low participation of a participant in an event. Finally, chapter 14 by Béatrice Lamiroy and Anne Carlier concerns The grammaticalization of the prepositional partitive in Romance. Lamiroy and Carlier discuss the adverbal use of the partitive in Romance. Romance languages developed a partitive marker out of the Latin adposition de (+NP), whose original meaning was ‘away from’. This grammaticalization process is represented in a five-step model, defining the different stages of the shift of morpho-syntactic categorization, from Late Latin onwards: primitively a preposition, de (+NP) turns into an article. It is shown that, although the source expression of the partitive is the same in French, Italian, and Spanish, the outcome of the evolution differs significantly according to the language. The authors argue that the different patterns which characterize the emergence of the partitive in Romance can be linked to global typological properties regarding word order and information structure. The last section contains a single chapter, Partitives in Oceanic languages, by Peter Budd. This chapter presents a survey of partitive items in the Oceanic languages, the large subgroup of the vast Austronesian language family. The

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Oceanic subgroup stretches from Papua New Guinea (PNG) and the Micronesian islands in the west to New Zealand in the south, Hawai’i in the north, and Rapa Nui (Easter Island) in the east. Morphological partitives can be identified in languages throughout the Oceanic subgroup and there is considerable syntactic and semantic diversity: the chapter aims to provide a synthesis of the findings.

Acknowledgements We would like to thank EALT editor Kristine Hildebrandt for accepting our volume for publication in the series. Our gratitude goes to all contributors for providing high quality papers, as well as for their active involvement in the internal review and in the editing process. Thanks are also due to a number of other reviewers, who helped us with their comments, and to our assistants Tommaso Claudi, who helped us prepare the final manuscript and compile the list of abbreviations and the subject index, and Krista Teeri, who helped us read the proofs.

References Blake, Barry. 2001. Case. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brattico, Pauli. 2012. Structural Case Assignment and Phi-Agreement in Finnish. SKY Journal of Linguistics 25. 29–59. Chesterman, Andrew. 1991. On definiteness. A study with special reference to English and Finnish. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Conti, Luz. 2008. Zum Genitiv bei impersonalen Konstruktionen im Altgriechischen. Paper read at the XIII. Fachtagung der Indogermanischen Gesellschaft, Salzburg 22–27 September, 2008. Dahl, Eystein. 2009. Some semantic and pragmatic aspects of object alternation in Early Vedic. In Jóhanna Barðdal & Shobhana Chelliah (eds.), The Role of Semantics and Pragmatics in the Development of Case, 23–55. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Fischer, Susann. 2004. Partitive vs. Genitive in Russian and Polish: an empirical study on case alternation in the object domain. In Susann Fischer, Ruben van de Vijver and Ralf Vogel (eds.), Experimental Studies in Linguistics. I, LiP 21. 123–137. Heinämäki, Orvokki. 1984. Aspect in Finnish. In Casper de Groot & Hannu Tommola (eds.), Aspect Bound: A voyage into the realm of Germanic, Slavonic and Finno-Ugrian aspectology, 153–178. Dordrecht: Foris Publications. Heine, Bernd & Tania Kuteva. 2004. World Lexicon of Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Helasvuo, Marja-Liisa. 2001. Syntax in the Making: The emergence of syntactic units in Finnish conversation. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Hoop, Helen de. 1998. Partitivity. Glot International 3. 3–10.

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Huumo, Tuomas. 2003. Incremental Existence: The World According to the Finnish Existential Sentence. Linguistics 41(3). 461–493. Huumo, Tuomas. 2009. Fictive dynamicity, nominal aspect, and the Finnish copulative construction. Cognitive Linguistics 20(1). 43–70. Huumo, Tuomas. 2010. Nominal aspect, quantity, and time: The case of the Finnish object. Journal of Linguistics 46. 1–43. Kiparsky, Paul. 1998. Partitive Case and Aspect. In Miriam Butt and Wilhelm Geuder (eds.), The Projection of Arguments: Lexical and Compositional Factors, 265–308. Stanford. CSLI Publications. Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria. 2001. “A piece of the cake” and “a cup of tea”: partitive and pseudo-partitive nominal constructions in the Circum-Baltic languages. In Östen Dahl & Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm (eds.), The Circum-Baltic Languages: Typology and Contact, vol. 2, 523–568. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Kopjevskaja-Tamm Maria. 2006. Partitives. In Keith Brown (ed.), Encyclopedia of Languages and Linguistics, vol. 9, 2nd edn., 218–221. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Laka, Itziar. 1993. Unergatives that Assign Ergative, Unaccusatives that Assign Accusative. MITWPL 18. 149–172. Luraghi, Silvia. 2003. On the Meaning of Prepositions and Cases. A Study of the Expression of Semantic Roles in Ancient Greek. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Luraghi, Silvia. 2009. The internal structure of adpositional phrases. In Johannes Helmbrecht, Yoko Nishina, Yong-Min Shin, Stavros Skopeteas, Elisabeth Verhoeven (eds.), Form and Function in Language Research: Papers in honour of Christian Lehmann, 231–254. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Lyons, Christopher. 1999. Definiteness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moravcsik, Edith. 1978. On the case marking of objects. In Joseph Greenberg et al. (eds.), Universals of Human Language, vol. IV. Syntax, 249–290. Stanford, Ca: Stanford University Press. Nelson, Diane. 1998. Grammatical case assignment in Finnish. New York: Garland Pub. Partee, Barbara H. 2008. Negation, intensionality, and aspect: Interaction with NP semantics. In Susan Rothstein (ed.), Theoretical and Crosslinguistic Approaches to the Semantics of Aspect, 291–317. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Sands, Kristina & Lyle Campbell. 2001. Non-canonical subjects and objects in Finnish. In Alexandra Aikenvald, R. M. W. Dixon, and Masayuki Onishi (eds.), Non-canonical Marking of Subjects and Objects, 251–305. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Selkirk, Elisabeth O. 1977. Some remarks on noun phrase structure. In Adrian Akmajian, Peter Culicover & Thomas Wasaw (eds.), MSSB-UC Irvine Conference on the Formal Syntax of Natural Language, 225–245. Vainikka, Anne & Joan Maling. 1996. Is partitive case inherent or structural? In Jacob Hoeksma (ed.), Partitives: Studies on the Syntax and Semantics of Partitive and Related Constructions, 179–208. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

I Typological aspects

Silvia Luraghi and Seppo Kittilä

1 Typology and diachrony of partitive case markers Partitive cases constitute a rather heterogeneous category. They may be defined formally, when the notion is confined primarily to languages with a dedicated partitive case, such as Finnish and Basque. From a functional perspective, in turn, also other languages may have morphemes that express the same function, e.g. other cases (such as the genitive in several Indo-European languages) or other formal means (adpositions, verbal cross-reference etc.). Functionally, partitive case markers can be used to express an array of functions. Typically, they are related to expressing partiality or indefiniteness, but often also to lower transitivity. What is most notable is that there is no link between partitive cases and a specific grammatical relation: partitive cases can code subjects and direct objects; in addition, they may code adverbials and appear with adpositions in some languages. Formal and functional properties of partitive case markers are discussed thoroughly in this paper from a cross-linguistic perspective. The paper also includes a discussion of the diachrony of partitive case markers. Keywords: Partitive case, partitive genitive, indefiniteness, low transitivity, part-whole relation

1 Introduction As noted in the introduction, partitive case markers are understood in this book as markers that are related to the partial meaning, covering also functions such as the expression of indefiniteness and partial affectedness. This definition is also employed in this chapter. As will become clear, the notion is not associated with a specific grammatical relation, e.g. partitive object: it is typical for the cases reviewed in this book to occur both with subjects and with objects, and even with certain adverbials. In this sense, partitives differ from other cases, whose typical function is to signal grammatical relations (see Blake 2001: 1). Partitive case markers display a wide range of variation cross-liguistically, both in form and in functions. In the first place, they can be defined both formally and functionally. Following formal definitions of partitive, we are dealing with languages that have a dedicated partitive case that is used for coding some

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specific meanings, such as partial affectedness, indefiniteness, non-telicity (see below for a more detailed discussion). Examples include languages such as Finnish and Basque that are well-known for their partitive case. Functional definitions apply to languages that use some other case form (frequently the genitive) for expressing meanings which are similar to those expressed by partitive cases in the first type of languages. This kind of partitive is found, for example, in Ancient Greek and many Slavic languages. In the second place, this array of formally and functionally defined cases can express a variety of functions across languages, and display semantic differences. The functions expressed by partitive cases include an obvious quantitative component, partly related to, or deriving from part-whole relationships, indefiniteness, low or non-referentiality. In addition, in many languages partitive cases are somehow related to lower transitivity and/or imperfective aspect. Of these, the expression of quantitativity is among the most frequent functions of partitive cases across languages. Partitive case markers are typically highly polysemous: this makes it not an easy task to define their primary functions across languages. With some of the functions, the partitiveness (i.e. the expression of some sort of ‘partiality’) cannot be straightforwardly identified, although a functional link may be found. As is often the case, diachrony sheds some light on the common features of partitive case markers. When considered diachronically, most partitive case markers appear to share a common origin. Indeed, they most often originate in partitive constructions, and, as we show in section 4, they share a common development, leading them to express meanings that range from partial quantification to indefiniteness. However, the Oceanic languages offer evidence for a different origin and for different developments, as we also argue in section 4. Let us start by considering the Finnish partitive case. Among its other numerous functions, the partitive case can indicate an indefinite number of items (with plural nouns), or an unbounded quantity of a certain referent (with singular nouns or mass noun), as in: Finnish (personal knowledge) (1) a. naise-t tul-i-vat koti-in woman-PL come-PST-3 PL home-ILL ‘The women came home.’ b.

nais-i-a tul-i koti-in woman- PL- PAR come-PST.3 SG home-ILL ‘Some (of the) women came home.’

Typology and diachrony of partitive case markers

(2)

a.

Aino sö-i leivä-n Aino eat-PST.3 SG bread-ACC ‘Aino ate the (whole) bread.’

b.

Aino sö-i leipä-ä Aino eat-PST.3 SG bread- PAR ‘Aino ate (some of the) bread.’

19

In (1b), the Finnish partitive expresses indefiniteness; the group of women in question is not known in the context. In favorable conditions, the construction may also be related to a part-whole relationship. This would be possible, for example, in a context where someone is asking whether all the women (we had been talking about) came, but the answer is that only some of them (i.e., a part) arrived (see further section 3.2.). In (2), as in (1), accusative vs. partitive variation is connected in the first place with definiteness. In addition, it can also indicate whether the whole bread or only a part of it has been eaten, that is, it can indicate a part-whole relation. As expected, the accusative is used when the whole bread has been consumed, while the partitive indicates that only a part of the bread has been affected by the given event. The whole-part-reading becomes prominent if we emphasize the definiteness of the bread by adding a demonstrative like tämän/tätä (this:ACC/this:PAR) to the clause; if this is not the case, the indefinite reading is more prominent. Indeed, as noted in the Introduction, the part-whole relation is unambiguously indicated by the elative case, rather than by the partitive (see the discussion concerning examples (3)–(5) in the Introduction to this volume).1 Of the two meanings that the Finnish partitive has in (1b), only the indefiniteness meaning is common to all languages treated in this book. The part-whole meaning is also present in some other languages, though not in all. In addition, partitives may have a variety of other functions, as will be discussed below. The goal of this chapter is to give a cross-linguistic overview of partitive case markers from a formal, functional and diachronic perspective. The chapter is largely based on the data retrieved from the other chapters in the volume. This has the consequence that some languages are better represented than others. The chapter does therefore not aim at presenting any statistical data on the examined phenomena, but its goal is to give an overview of the partitive markers in the world’s languages based on the languages we have data for. First, a typology of the mechanisms employed for partitive coding will be proposed. This will

1 The examples in (2) may also have other readings, e.g. (2b) ‘Aino was eating the bread (when something happened)’ which are not relevant here.

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be followed by a thorough functional typology of partitive markers based on the functions partitive markers express across languages. In section 4, the diachrony of the partitive markers will be discussed.

2 Formal typology of partitive markers In this section, we discuss the formal means that languages use for coding partitive meanings. Indeed, besides case endings partitive meanings can be coded in several other ways, though marginally. In the first place, languages that have no morphological case can use adpositions in their place. In addition, other languages have partitive clitics or partitive articles, and even partitive verbal affixes, as we illustrate below.

2.1 Case markers Languages in which partitive meanings are expressed by case can be divided into two groups, based on whether they have a dedicated partitive case, or whether another case form is used for expressing partitive meanings. Finnish, Estonian and Basque are well-known for their partitive cases. Examples are found in (3)–(4) (the relevant elements appear in bold face): Finnish (personal knowledge): (3) Aino ju-o mehu-a Aino drink- PST.3 SG juice- PAR ‘Aino is drinking (some) juice.’ Basque (Etxeberria, this volume) (4) Goxoki-rik nahi al duzu? candy- PAR want Q AUX ‘Do you want any candy?’ Partitive markers typically contrast with nominative/accusative/absolutive markers in languages that have a partitive case. Finnish and Basque have a distinct case form labeled as partitive, whose primary function is to express partitive meanings. Typically, partitive cases are not directly connected with the encoding of a specific grammatical relation. This is most clear in Finnish, in which the partitive case can occur with direct objects, as in (2), with subjects of

Typology and diachrony of partitive case markers

21

unaccusative verbs as in (1), and even, occasionally, with subjects of transitive verbs, as in example (5): Finnish (Tuomas Huumo p.c.) (5) Use-i-ta ihmis-i-ä odott-i satee-ssa Many-PAR- PL person-PAR- PL wait-PST.3 SG rain- INE ‘Many people were waiting for the bus in the rain.’

bussi-a. bus- PAR

Notably, in this group of languages, the partitive marker, being a case ending, shares the morphological distribution of case endings. This means that it cannot co-occur with other case endings, even though it is not connected with a specific grammatical relation (in some languages, it can even mark adverbials). In the second type of languages, another case form (typically the genitive) is associated with expressing partitive meanings in addition to its basic function. This is the case in many ancient and modern Indo-European languages, in which the genitive is used as a partitive. Example (6) is from Avestan, and contains a partitive genitive subject; in example (7) from Ancient Greek we find a partitive genitive object: Avestan (in Yašt 7.4; Dahl, this volume) (6) uruuaranąm zairi.gaonanąm yellow.coloured:GEN plants:GEN

zaramaēm spring:ACC again

paiti zəmāδa earth:ABL

uzuxšiieiti grow.forth:PRS .3. SG ‘Yellow-colored plants grow forth again across the earth in the spring.’ Ancient Greek (Arist. HA 612a24) (7) he dè khelōnē hótan ART. NOM PTC turtle when tēn ART. ACC

ékheōs snake: GEN

phágçi eat: SBJV. PRS .3 SG

epesthíei eat: PRS .3 SG

oríganon oregano:ACC

‘In case they eat snake, turtles take oregano (as an antidote).’ Modern Russian takes a position in between the two groups, as it features a second genitive, which is lexically restricted, and mainly functions as a partitive. Note that with nouns that only have one genitive, the latter can also function as a partitive, as is shown in examples (8)–(9):

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Russian (adapted from Daniel, this volume) (8) Ja že xotel vypit’ 1SG PTC want:PST. IMPV. SG drink:INF. PFV ‘I wanted to drink some juice.’

soku juice:GEN 2

Russian (personal knowledge) (9) Ja vypil vody 1 SG drink:PST. PFV. M . SG water:GEN ‘I drank (some) water.’ The noun sok ‘juice’ in (8) has two genitive forms: soka, the normal genitive of masculine nouns, and soku, the second genitive (see Daniel, this volume). The word voda ‘water’ in (9) has only one genitive, vody. The meaning expressed by the two genitives in the examples is the same, that is, they indicate an indefinite quantity: ‘some juice’, ‘some water’. As in the other Indo-European languages, the partitive genitive can occur as an object or as a subject. The extent to which the partitive genitive can function as subject varies from language to language: in Russian, Avestan, Vedic Sanskrit, Ancient Greek and Lithuanian it only occurs with intransitive (possibly unaccusative) verbs. In addition, only in Ancient Greek do partitive subjects trigger number agreement with the verb, while in the other languages they do not. In spite of some restrictions, however, it remains remarkable that the partitive genitive is not connected with a specific grammatical relation (subject or object). Its semantic component, partly involving indefiniteness, overrides grammatical relations. In the languages of the second group, and to a large extent also in Russian, the genitive case can be contextually understood as functioning as a partitive. Thus, it not only shares the distribution of other case markers, but also has a two-fold function: as a true genitive it indicates nominal modification, and semantic roles of nominal modifiers (typically possessor), while as a partitive it indicates various notions connected with partitives cross-linguistically, which we discuss further in section 3.

2.2 Adpositions Closely related to genuine case markers are adpositions. No languages among those treated in this book have adpositions that function in the same way as the Finnish partitive case, and can also indicate indefiniteness. A possible example of a preposition which is in the process of becoming an indefinite marker, and derives from a partitive construction, is Dutch van in so-called ‘faded partitives’. Consider example (10):

Typology and diachrony of partitive case markers

Dutch (De Hoop 1998: 194) (10) Er lagen van there lay:PRS .3 PL of op on

de ART

die DEM . PL

dikke thick: PL

23

boeken book: PL

tafel table

‘Some thick books lay on the table.’ According to Zwart (1987), the effect of van in this construction is to cancel the meaning of the determiner die ‘those’, so that the phrase van die boeken functions as a bare plural. De Hoop (1998) discusses some differences between what she calls ‘faded’ partitives, i.e. partitives whose original meaning is ‘fading away’ toward the meaning of indefiniteness, and bare plurals. As her conclusions are most interesting if set in the framework of the diachronic development of indefiniteness markers from partitive constructions, we will leave the issue for the time being and return to it in section 4. Here, it is important to remark that faded partitives described in the literature always co-occur with demonstrative determiners. Thus, even in this case, one cannot say that the partitive-indefinite meaning is expressed by the preposition alone. The Romance languages feature so-called ‘partitive articles’, a combination of the preposition which also expresses genitive meanings (French de, Italian di) and the definite article. This type of lexical item has undergone complete transcategorization and must be considered an indefinite article synchronically, with little connection left to the partitive meaning. However, the same complex of preposition plus article can still have prepositional usage: for this reason we start by giving some examples in this section, but will discuss them in the next. Let us consider examples (11)–(12): Italian (personal knowledge) (11) La casa dei ART. F. SG home of+ART. M . PL ‘The boys’ home.’ (12)

Mangio dei eat:PRS .1 SG of+ART. M . PL ‘I eat some sandwiches.’

ragazzi boys

panini sandwiches

In (11), the form dei, which consists of the preposition di and the plural masculine form of the definite article il has a genitive function, as it indicates nominal dependency: the noun ragazzi modifies the head la casa. Semantically, dei

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ragazzi indicates a possessor NP. In (12), on the other hand, dei is an indefinite plural article. In spite of formal identity, the distribution of indefinite ‘partitive’ articles is not the same as the distribution of primary prepositions, as we show in the next section.

2.3 Articles According to Budd (this volume) “some Oceanic languages have separate partitive markers for singular and plural reference, for example Central Pacific languages often have rich paradigms of articles and the Samoan forms se, ni, and sina shown above are an example of this.” An example is given in (13): Samoan (from Mosel & Hovdhaugen 1992: 265, quoted in Budd, this volume) (13) ‘aumai sina wai ART. PAR . SG water bring ‘Bring a little water.’ As mentioned in section 2.2, some Romance varieties, notably French and Italian, feature so-called partitive articles, which are formed with the genitive preposition plus the definite article. Diachronically, such articles can be shown to have originated within partitive constructions (see Carlier & Lamiroy, this volume, and below, section 4). For this reason, the name ‘partitive article’ is still used, even though these articles have little left to do with partitivity. In addition, in spite of being analyzable as containing a primary preposition, partitive articles do not share the distribution of primary prepositions. Primary prepositions normally do not co-occur with each other in French and Italian: one cannot combine di, a, da, and con in Italian for example. However, primary prepositions co-occur with the partitive article, as in (14): Italian (personal knowledge) (14) Ho condito have:PRS .1 SG dress:PTCP. PST. SG dell’ of:ART. M . SG

olio oil

di of

l’ ART. F. SG

insalata salad

con with

oliva olive

‘I dressed the salad with olive oil.’ Thus, transcategorization is complete in the case of the complex di (or de in French) plus definite article, even though the same complex still also functions as true preposition as shown in (11).

Typology and diachrony of partitive case markers

25

In Classical Greek, the partitive genitive may or may not co-occur with definite articles. Limited to direct objects of consumption verbs, there seems to be a semantic difference connected with this type of variation: the definite article occurs in partitive constructions, while the indefinite interpretation of the partitive genitive is possible when no definite article occurs, as shown by examples (15)–(16) (see Napoli 2010): Ancient Greek (Hdt. 1.73.6; 2.37.18–19) (15) Kuaxárēs kaì hoi pareóntes daitumónes Cyaxares:NOM and ART. NOM . PL be.present: PTCP. PRS . NOM . PL guest: NOM . PL tôn ART. GEN . PL

kreôn flesh: GEN . PL

toútōn DEM .GEN . PL

epásanto eat: AOR . MID.3 PL

‘Cyaxares and the guests who were with him ate of that flesh.’ (16)

ikhthúōn dè oú sphi fish:GEN . PL PTC NEG 3 PL . DAT ‘They may not eat fish.’

éxesti may:PRS .3 SG

pásasthai eat:INF. AOR

Note however that, in the case of partitive genitive subjects, things apparently work the other way around, as the indefinite reading seems to be connected with the occurrence of the definite article, as shown in (17): Ancient Greek (Arist. HA 513a.9) (17) eisì dè kaì tôn perì phúsin hoi toiaútēn be:3 SG PTC and ART.GEN . PL about nature:ACC ART. NOM . PL such:ACC mèn ouk epragmateúthēsan akribologían perì tâs phlébas PTC NEG labor:AOR .3 PL precision:ACC about ART. ACC . PL vein: ACC . PL ‘There are also scientists who have not investigated the veins with so much accuracy.’

2.4 Verbal morphology In the preceding sections, we have examined languages in which partitive coding is related to nouns. There are also languages in which partitive meanings are associated with the verb. An example is provided in (18) by Paamese, where the verbal affix –tei appears in the verb for expressing a partitive meaning:

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Paamese (from Crowley 1982: 145, quoted in Budd, this volume) (18) Ma-ani-tei raise eat:1SG . IMM . PAR rice ‘I’d like to eat some rice’ The Estonian modus obliquus provides us with another example, where the partitive marker as such is attached to the verb, in this case for expressing hearsay evidentiality: Estonian (Tamm, this volume) (19) a. Mari tule-b. Mary come-3SG ‘Mary will come.’ b.

Mari tule-va-t. Mary come-PRS . PTCP- PAR ‘Allegedly/reportedly, Mary will come.’

c.

Mari armasta-b Mary love:PRS -3 SG ‘Mary loves John.’

Jaanus-t. Janus-PAR

The marker attached to the verb in (19b) is formally identical to the partitive marker that appears on nouns, as shown in (19c). This kind of extension seems to be very rare cross-linguistically (Estonian is the only example we have come across). We return to the possible semantic motivation for this extension below, section 3.5. Finally, partitive subjects can bring about special patterns of indexation. In Balto-Finnic languages, such as Finnish and Estonian, verbal agreement is different with nominative and partitive subjects. The verb agrees in person and number only with nominative subjects, as the examples in (20) show: Finnish (personal knowledge) (20) a. poja-t tule-vat boy-NOM . PL come-3 PL ‘The boys are coming.’ b.

poik-i-a tule-e(*tulevat) boy-PL- PAR come-3 SG ‘(Some) boys are coming.’

Typology and diachrony of partitive case markers

27

In (20a), the verb appears in the third person plural form, because the subject is also plural (in colloquial speech, the verb may also appear in the third person singular form in (20a)). In (20b), in turn, the verb is in the third person singular form, even though the subject is plural. The third person singular form can be seen as the least marked or default form, because the verb appears in this form, for example, also with weather verbs and in existential constructions. It is in order to note that the lack of verbal agreement is not the primary way of expressing partitiveness in Finnish, as it is related to existential subjects in general. In example (21), an existential subject in the nominative plural occurs with a singular verb form: Finnish (personal knowledge) (21) Pöydä-llä on shakkinappula-t table-ADE be:PRS .3 SG chessmen-NOM . PL ‘There are chessmen [a set of them] on the table.’ However, lack of verbal agreement is obligatory with partitive subjects. A connection between lack of agreement and existential subjects is common across languages. Among languages surveyed in this book, for example, evidence is provided by Ancient Greek. As shown in Conti & Luraghi (this volume), in Classical Greek partitive genitive subjects usually trigger agreement with the verb, but existential predicates in the singular may occasionally co-occur with partitive genitive plural subjects. Note, however, that this is not connected with partitiveness, as lack of agreement in similar contexts can also occur with nominative subjects, in much the same way as in Finnish: Ancient Greek (Xen. Hell. 7.5.17, in Conti & Luraghi, this volume) (22) tôn dè polemíōn ên hoùs ART. GEN . PL PTC enemy:GEN . PL be:IMPF.3 SG REL . ACC . PL hupospóndous under.truce:ACC . PL

apédosan return: AOR .3 PL

‘And there were some of the enemies, who they returned under a truce.’ Ancient Greek (Hdt. 7.34.4, in Conti & Luraghi, this volume) (23) ésti dè heptà stádioi ex Abúdou be:PRS .3 SG PTC seven stadia:NOM . PL from Abydos:GEN es to

tḕn ART. ACC

apantíon opposite.shore:ACC

‘There are seven stadia between Abydos and the opposite shore.’

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In (22) the subject tôn polemíōn ‘the enemies’ is in the partitive genitive, whereas the subject of (23) heptà stádioi ‘seven stadia’ appears in the nominative. Both NPs are plural, but in both sentences the verb (existential ‘be’) is in the third person singular, thus showing that the trigger of non-agreement is existentiality, rather than case.

3 Functional typology of partitives In the previous section, formal means used to express partitive meanings were briefly discussed. In this section, we proceed to examining the functions partitive markers code across the languages treated in this volume.

3.1 Indefiniteness and non-referentiality Partitive markers reviewed in this book all express indefiniteness, at least to some extent. When expressing indefiniteness, the partitive marking a direct object typically contrasts with the accusative2 (or the absolutive depending on the basic alignment of the language), which appears if the reference is to a well-defined and definite set of entities, or to a complete entity. A typical example is found in (24): Finnish (personal knowledge) (24) a. opettaja näk-i lapse-t teacher:NOM see-3 SG . PST child- PL . NOM ‘The teacher saw the children.’ b.

opettaja näk-i laps-i-a teacher:NOM see-3 SG . PST child- PL- PAR ‘The teacher saw some children.’

Example (24b) can simply indicate indefiniteness and unspecificity: the teacher saw some not previously identified children. Instead, a possible reading of (24a) is that all of the children in a specific group (that may, for example, have been the topic of conversation previously) have been seen (see also Larjavaara 1991: 377 for a similar remark). This reading can be emphasized by adding the quantifier kaikki (‘all’, i.e. kaikki lapset ‘all the children-PL . NOM ’) to the sentence. Besides the indefinite unspecific reading, example (24b) can refer to a situation 2 Note that the accusative and the nominative do not have separate endings in the plural. For this reason, conventionally, only the label ‘nominative’ is used for the nominative/accusaitive plural form in Finnish linguistics. We conform to this convention here, but it must be kept in mind that the case that we gloss ‘nominative’ in the plural also has the function of the accusative with personal pronouns, and functionally the -t form in (24) is an accusative case.

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29

where a specific group of children is also thought of, but in which only a part of the children in that group have been spotted. Thus, it can be indefinite specific. This reading becomes more evident if we add a sentence like mutta ei kaikkia heistä (‘but not all of them’) to (24b). Let us now consider example (25): Finnish (personal knowledge) (25) äiti hake-e poja-t /poik-i-a mother pick.up-3 SG . PRS boy- NOM . PL /boy- PL- PAR ‘The mother will pick up the boys / some (of the) boys.’ With the accusative, (25) means that the mother will pick up a specific group of boys that has been established earlier and that is activated in the discourse. With the partitive, in turn, the identity of the boys to be picked up is not specified and the reference is thus indefinite. The function of the partitively marked object is therefore more to specify the class of its referent leaving the exact identity out. Indefiniteness is directly related to other partiality meanings reviewed in the next sections. When the whole group of potential entities is not referred to, it is no longer clear which members of the group have been mentioned, and the reference is thus indefinite. As briefly noted above, in (25) the class the object represents is more important than its exact identity. This is even more pronounced in the case of mass nouns, as in (26): Finnish (personal knowledge) (26) Aino juo limsa-a, muttei vissy-ä Aino drink: PRS .3 SG soft.drink- PAR but.not mineral.water- PAR ‘Aino drinks soft drinks, but not mineral water’ In (26), the function of the object is only to specify the class of the beverage Aino drinks, or does not drink, but the reference is not to a definite set of soft drinks or mineral water. The partitively coded object is therefore best seen as non-referential. The use of the accusative would render the expression referential and definite in (26). This is true of mass and abstract nouns: a count noun object can be accusative and indefinite, as in Ostin auton ‘I bought a car.ACC ’. Note however that in this case we have a specific (and thus referential) indefinite, rather than a non-referential expression as in (26). A non-referential reading may be coined for the accusative in a sentence like (26) only with adverbials that make the construction in question generic in nature.3 It is worth noting in this context 3 Remarkably, this may be more true of singular objects than of plural ones, where the NOM can also have a non-specific reading: Sihteeri lajittelee kirjeet ‘The secretary sorts [the] letters’ = any letters arriving at any time, as opposed to Sihteeri lajittelee kirjeitä [PAR] ’the secretary is sorting [the/some] letters’, but the PAR version can also have a reading similar to (26): ‘the secretary’s job is to sort letters’, as plurals behave like mass nouns in many ways.

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that a similar (yet functionally reverse) case is attested in Russian, where the genitive emphasizes quantity, while the accusative denotes a class (see Paykin & Van Peteghem 2002 and below, ex. (28)). Indefinites are often held to be referential if they are specific, and nonreferential if they are non-specific. However, the possible readings of the Finnish partitive support a more complex, three-fold distinction, whereby non-specific indefinites are further divided into two different categories. In the first one, we have indefinites that do not refer to a previously identified set, but to a certain quantity, while in the second we have expressions that indicate a class, and not a quantity. Compare English ‘I drink wine’ (non-ref.) vs. ‘I drank some wine’ (indef., but not necessarily specific, i.e. not necessarily belonging to a previously identified quantity). Similar cases attested in other languages, such as Russian, give further support to the three-fold distinction outlined above. In Russian the partitive genitive typically gives rise to indefinite readings that can either refer to a specific quantity (from a previously identified whole), or to a non-specific quantity, as shown in (27a, b) which does not refer to a previously identified entity/set of entitities, as shown in (27a). Russian (courtesy K. Paykin) (27) a. ja uže poel tvoego 1 SG . NOM already eat:PST POSS .2 SG .GEN ‘I already partook of your soup.’ b.

supa soup:GEN

muz kupil piroga s malinoj husband:NOM buy:PST cake:GEN with raspberry:INS ‘My husband bought some cake with raspberry.’

If Russian needs to stress the class, it uses the accusative case, which also gives an indefinite non-specific reading, but does not stress quantity: Russian (courtesy K. Paykin) (28) ja ljublju pirog 1 SG . NOM like:PRS .1 SG cake:ACC ‘I like raspberry cake”

s with

malinoj raspberry:INS

Thus, the partitive genitive in Russian only covers a part of the meanings covered by the Finnish partitive. Summarizing, we have:

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Typology and diachrony of partitive case markers

Table 1: Case and (in)definiteness in Finnish and Russian4

F INNISH

ACCUSATIVE PARTITIVE

R USSIAN

ACCUSATIVE GENITIVE

INDEFINITE

INDEFINITE

INDEFINITE

SPECIFIC

NON -SPECIFIC

NON -SPECIFIC

( QUANTIT Y

( CLASS


+
+

READING )


+
+

DEFINITE

READING )


+ +


+
+


Indefiniteness is one of the meanings associated with partitives also in existential constructions. Two examples are provided in (29) and (30): Estonian (Tamm, this volume) (29) Taigna sees on pipar-t be: PRS .3 SG pepper- PAR batter.GEN in ‘There is (some) pepper in the batter.’ Basque (Etxeberria, this volume) (30) Bada atzerritar-rik Donostian! yes.is foreigner:PAR Donostia.in ‘There are foreigners in Donostia!’ The functional link between indefiniteness and existential constructions is easily accounted for. The function of existential constructions is to refer to the existence of an entity at a specified location. The entity referred to is either introduced by an existential construction or the class of the entity, its exact identity is less important. For example, in (29), the fact that there is some pepper in the batter is more important than the exact identity of the pepper; it is not relevant whether the pepper has been mentioned previously or not. If the identity of the given entity is known, it is typically the topic of conversation and we then have a locative construction, where the given entity functions as subject or topic. This difference is manifest also in English in constructions such as there is a book on the table (existential construction) vs. the book is on the table (locative construction). Definiteness (or rather the lack of it) is especially true of predicate 4 With the term ‘quantity’ in this table we refer to unbounded quantity. Note further that the position of the accusative as only definite refers to mass nouns and to plurals. In the case of singular count nouns, the accusative can have an indefinite specific reading, or even nonspecific indefinite, as in Liisa haluaa tavata miljonäärin ‘Liisa wants to meet a millionaire-ACC ’ (implaying that any millionaire will do); see Vilkuna 1992.

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adjectives, which in Finnish copular constructions are marked with the partitive if the subject is a mass noun or a plural, as in (31): Finnish (personal knowledge) (31) a. Tee on tea:NOM be:PRS .3 SG ‘The tea is black.’

musta-a. black-PAR

b.

Pöytä on table.NOM be:PRS .3 SG ‘The table is black.’

musta. black.NOM

c.

Pöydä-t o-vat must-i-a. table-PL be-3 PL black-PL- PAR ‘The tables are black.’

In (31a), nominative would be rather infelicitous, if it is possible at all, while in (31b), the partitive would yield a rather ungrammatical construction. In (31c), in turn, both are possible, even though partitive coding of the predicate adjective seems more natural. Note that here the use of the partitive on the predicate noun reflects a property of the subject (denoting a mass noun or an unbounded quantity of countable entities), and obviously not of the predicate noun itself, which, being an adjective, predicates a quality of the subject and is per se nonreferential.

3.2 ‘Part of’-meanings in partitive constructions In some languages, partitive case markers are also used in partitive constructions, or when indicating a part-whole relation. As discussed in the Introduction and in section 1 of this chapter, this is partly the case for the Finnish partitive; in addition, the partitive genitive of several Indo-European languages also occurs in partitive constructions. Indeed, in various languages the usage in partitive constructions seems to be the starting point from which partitive case markers originated. We discuss this issue thoroughly in section 4. However, the connection between partitive markers, partitive constructions, and part-whole relations is not universal. In other languages, such as Basque and Oceanic, partitives occur in such constructions to different extents. In Basque, the partitive case does not occur either in pseudopartitive or in partitive constructions. Consider examples (32)–(34):

Typology and diachrony of partitive case markers

33

Basque (courtesy B. Aritzimuño) (32) Tarta zati bat cake piece one ‘A piece of (a) cake.’ (33)

Tarta horren zati cake that:GEN piece ‘A piece of that cake.’

(34)

Tarta horretatik zati piece cake that:ABL ‘A piece of that cake.’

bat one

bat one

In (32), the interpretation is unspecific, hence non-referential: this is a pseudopartitive construction, similar to part-whole constructions with unspecific meaning; in (33) the reading is specific, and again the construction is similar to partwhole constructions with specific meaning, as in ibai-ertz (river-edge) ‘river bank’ or in ibaiaren ertz (river:DET.GEN edge:DET ) ‘the bank of the river’. The latter NPs are partitive constructions but, while the former features the genitive, the second is formed with the ablative in -tik (archaic -rik), which is etymologically connected with the partitive ending -(r)ik. Thus, the existence of some fossilized expressions and old attestations of a partitive-like use of -(r)ik with some quantifiers, e.g. eskerrik asko [thank(s)-PAR many] ‘thank you (very much), many thanks’, lit. ‘a lot of thanks’, might indicate that this suffix has been used in partitive constructions at an unattested stage of the language (Borja Aritzimuño, p.c.). In Oceanic languages, part-whole relations are expressed through the genitive case. Examples are: Bierebo (courtesy P. Budd) (35) Galgalnaviniada Scale.na.fish ‘Fish scale(s)’ Lewo (from Early 1994: 225) (36) lepas-ne-u na marua side-POSS -1SG . P GEN right ‘My right side.’

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This is quite distinct from the use of the so-called partitive particle ta, which indicates an indefinite quantity of a referent, as in (37): Bierebo (courtesy P. Budd) (37) Ne-saniada ta 1SG . S -eat.fish PAR ‘I’ll eat some fish.’ Apparently, partitive constructions are not easily available in Oceanic. In Araki, for example, the partitive marker is re, from an earlier *te (see section 4 for possible etymologies). According to Alex François (p.c.), “there is no simple way to say ‘give me some of that cake’, at least none using a genitive construction of any sort. One would need a periphrasis such as ‘Cut that cake and give me some.’ The first object would not be marked with re since it is [+def][+spec]; the second object would have re since it is [-spec]. The same would apply to something like ‘Buy these balloons and give me one.’: ‘one’ would be expressed by re, except that this /re/ is under-specified for number, so the sentence would be ambiguous between give me one and give me some. It can be disambiguated with a numeral following re.”

3.3 Numerals and quantifiers Partitives accompany numerals in languages such as Finnish and Estonian. Moreover, in Basque, they occur with certain quantifiers, such as ‘many’, and in Finnish certain postpositions require partitive. Consider (38) and (39): Finnish (personal knowledge) (38) kolme poika-a / sata euro-a / puolitoista three boy- PAR / hundred Euro- PAR / one.and.a.half ‘Three boys/a hundred Euros/one and a half years.’ Basque (Etxeberria, this volume) (39) Zeresan-ik asko / gizon-ik aski / lagun-ik gossip-PAR many / man- PAR enough / friend- PAR ‘many gossiping / enough men / many friends.’

vuot-ta year- PAR

franko many

Similarly, in Russian the genitive occurs in the same contexts, as shown in (40):

Typology and diachrony of partitive case markers

Russian (personal knowledge) (40) Pjat’ / mnogo jablok / sto / mnogo hundred many five many apple:GEN . PL ‘Five/many apples / a hundred/many rubles.’

35

rublej rubl:GEN . PL

The use of the partitive, or of the partitive genitive, with numerals is rather easily accounted for, because numerals favor partitive constructions, as they choose a certain number of entities from a whole. For example, ‘three boys’ means ‘three entities from the whole (universal) group of boys’. Moreover, it seems that the use of the partitive with numerals follows quite naturally the grammaticalization path of partitive from the ablative, i.e. ‘two boys’ (partitive) originates from ‘two of the boys’ (ablative). Quantifiers are functionally close to numerals, and it comes thus as no surprise that certain quantifiers also govern the partitive.

3.4 Negation and interrogatives The use of partitives or partitive genitives with negation is also well-known and also widely studied (see Miestamo, this volume for a more detailed discussion and references). Examples are given in (41)–(43): Estonian (courtesy T. Huumo) (41) Ta ei tap-nud mesilas-t s/he NEG kill- PTCP bee- PAR ‘S/he did not kill the bee.’ Basque (Etxeberria, this volume) (42) Maia-k ez du ardo-rik Maia- ERG NEG AUX wine- PAR ‘Maia has not drunk wine.’

edan. drink

Russian (personal knowledge) (43) Maria ne pila vina Maria:NOM NEG drink:PST wine: GEN ‘Maria didn’t drink (any) wine.’ Examples in (41)–(43) are negated sentences and their object thus appears in the partitive (or genitive) case. The close relation of partitives and negation is rather easily accounted for. The function of negation is, naturally, to state that the

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event/state referred to did not occur. This makes the patient of negated clauses indefinite, because the reference is not to a specific entity, but rather to any entity that corresponds semantically to the direct object referent. In other words, the reference of the object in (41)–(43) is to any bee or any wine, not to a specific bee or portion of wine. The function of the object argument is thus to specify the class of the entity not targeted by the denoted event. Its function is thus very similar to that of the partitively coded object in (26). Note that In Finnish and Estonian, the quantity is under the scope of negation and equals to zero. The Finnic (bare) partitive of negation cannot express indefinite quantities outside the scope of negation such as ‘Some people did not come’, as Vilkuna (1992) points out. Consider example (44): Finnish (personal knowledge) (44) Viera-i-ta ei tul-lut guest-PL- PAR NEG .3 SG come-PTCP ‘No guests came.’ Vilkuna points out that if the partitive vieraita were not under the scope of negation, then the reading would be ‘some guests did not come’, but this is not the case. Thus even clause-initial negated partitive subjects are under the scope of negation and therefore non-referential. Moreover, partitives are attested in interrogatives in certain languages: Basque (Exteberria, this volume) (45) Goxoki-rik nahi al duzu? candy-PAR want Q AUX ‘Do you want any candy?’ Estonian (Huumo & Lindström, this volume) (46) a. Kas su-l telefoni on? Q 2 SG -ADE telephone: PAR be:PRS .3 SG ‘Do you have a telephone?’ b.

Kas

Renate-t on Renate- PAR be:PRS .3 SG ‘Is Renate there?’ Q

seal? there

The semantic connection between interrogatives and indefiniteness is also rather straightforward, which explains the occurrence of cases such as (45) and (46). Indefiniteness is very evident in (45) and (46a), where the reference is to any piece of candy or any telephone. The class of the entity referred to is even

Typology and diachrony of partitive case markers

37

here more important than its exact identity. Example in (46b) is more intriguing, because proper names are inherently definite, but nevertheless partitive appears in (46b) as well. In Finnish, partitive would normally not appear in (46b), but it is not ruled out here either. An additional reading is that we are looking for someone named Renate, and anyone with that name will do. Notably, the use of the partitive in interrogatives is more productive in Estonian than in Finnish (see Huumo & Lindström, this volume for more details). This is, however, not the context in which (46b) is used, which means that indefiniteness is not the triggering factor of partitive use in (46b), even though its contribution to the use of partitive is very important in the other cases.

3.5 Non-assertive modality Closely related to the use of partitive cases with negations or interrogatives is its possible occurrence with moods other than the indicative. Indeed, negative, interrogative and non-declarative sentences share the common feature that they are not asserted. An example of partitive case with non-assertive modality is represented by the usage of the partitive in the protasis of conditional sentences in Basque, as shown in the following example: Basque (Ariztimuño, this volume) (47) Inon zorte txarr-ik izan anywhere luck bad-PAR have zirkuitu-an track-LOC

izan have

baldin COND

ba-du, if-AUX .3 SG .3 SG

Interlagos Interlagos

du AUX .3 SG .3 SG

‘If he has had bad luck anywhere, he has had it in the Interlagos track.’ In Estonian, as mentioned in section 2.4 above, the partitive suffix can be added to verbs to give an evidential meaning. As already noted, in Estonian the partitive case also appears in questions, where the source of information is also less direct than in declaratives, which may explain the use of the partitive for coding hearsay evidentials. In both cases, we are dealing with something less directly observable than with the accusative, for example. Even in Finnish, partitives may have an irrealis flavor in some cases. For example, a partitive sounds a bit more natural in the conditional mood, as in the examples below:

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Finnish (personal knowledge) (48) oli-si-ko sinu-lla tä-tä kirja-a? have- COND - Q 2 SG -ADESS this- PAR book- PAR ‘Would you/do you happen to have this book?’ In (48), the speaker is looking for a very specific book, which means that the use of the partitive is not determined by indefiniteness. The nominative (which is the case of the possessum in Finnish possessive constructions) is also possible in (48), but it seems a bit less probable than the partitive. The use of the partitive adds a nuance of doubt to the question, i.e. the speaker does not have any kind of evidence for the fact that the addressee would actually have the book s/he is asking for. With the nominative, a similar expectation may be present. In the indicative, for its part, the nominative is more felicitous, even though partitive cannot be ruled out. In other words, there is a tendency for the partitive to be favored in the irrealis (conditional) mood, but this is not grammatically required in any way. It is also important to bear in mind that this kind of moodconditioned variation between accusative and partitive is limited to interrogatives, it is not possible in declarative clauses.

3.6 Imperfective aspect One of the most important functions of partitives related directly to verbal meanings is illustrated by aspect, which is associated with partitives in Finnish and Estonian. Also in this case, the partitive case is in variation with the accusative case; the partitive expresses imperfective aspect (and/or unbounded activity), while the accusative is associated with perfective aspect (and/or bounded activities). Consider (49): Finnish (personal knowledge) (49) a. Assistentti kirjoitt-i väitöskirja-n Assistant:NOM write-PST.3 SG dissertation-ACC ‘The assistant wrote a dissertation.’ b.

Assistentti kirjoitt-i väitöskirja-a Assistant:NOM write- PST.3 SG dissertation- PAR ‘The assistant was writing a dissertation.’

Finnish lacks aspect as a verbal category, but with some transitive verbs allowing an accusative object aspect can be expressed by case.5 The accusative case is 5 It is interesting to note that in Russian, the variation in the object coding is not sensitive to aspect, as shown by Paykin (this volume). Aspect is marked primarily on the verb in Russian, and nominal marking has no special relevance.

Typology and diachrony of partitive case markers

39

associated with perfective aspect and completed events; the reading of (49a) is that the dissertation in question was finished. In (49b), for its part, aspect is imperfective, which means that the activity in question was not finished. A somewhat different example of an aspectual variation is illustrated in (50): Estonian (Metslang, this volume) (50) a. Ost-si-me oma tehnika / masina-d Austria-st. buy- PST-1 PL our technology: GEN / machine- NOM . PL Austria- ELA ‘We bought our technology/machines from from Austria.’ b. Osta-me Austria-st tehnika-t / masina-id buy- PRS .1 PL Austria-ELA technology- PAR . SG / machine- PAR . PL ‘We are buying technology/machines from Austria.’ In (50), both aspect and quantity are relevant to object coding. In (50a), aspect and quantity are bounded (according to the terminology Metslang is using), because of which the object appears in the genitive or in the nominative (the latter is possible and also obligatory in the plural). In (50b), in turn, the aspect and quantity are unbounded, and the object thus appears in the partitive. Differently from (49) the event in (50b) is not necessarily uncompleted, but it rather refers to a habitual event (see also (51)). This habitual reading is possible also in Finnish (see Huumo 2010 for a more detailed discussion); with the accusative the sentence would get a ‘continuously all’ (Huumo 2010: 99) reading meaning that we always buy our technology from Austria. An example of the partitive in a habitual construction is found in (51): Finnish (personal knowledge) (51) a. Matti maala-a talo-n Matti paint- PRS .3 SG house-ACC ‘Matti is painting a/the house.’ b.

Matti maala-a talo-ja Matti paint-PRS .3 SG house-PAR . PL ‘Matti paints houses (e.g. as his profession).’

In (51a), Matti has finished painting a specific (definite or indefinite) house that is known in the context, which makes the NP in question referential and motivates the use of the accusative. Example (51b), in the reading given in the translation, does not refer to a concrete event, but to a habitually occurring event that we are not witnessing as we speak. Notably, (51b) is also lower in transitivity, as the direct object is non-referential (see Gerstner-Link 1998 for a more

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detailed discussion of the lower transitivity of habituals). Non-referentiaity is also relevant to the use of the partitive in this case.

3.7 Low transitivity Aspect, discussed in the previous section, is also directly related to transitivity, as has been shown, for example, in Hopper & Thompson (1980: 252). Perfective aspect (and thus successfully completed events) is related to high transitivity and imperfective aspect (on-going events, or events that were not completed successfully) to lower transitivity. Partitive coding is also in many other ways associated with lower degrees of transitivity. Partitives, for example, appear with many low transitivity-predicates in languages such as Finnish and Estonian, in which case there is no aspectual alternation with the accusative, while the partitive genitive occurs with certain low transitivity verbs in Ancient Greek and Indo-Aryan languages. In this section, the use of partitives as markers of lower transitivity is discussed in more detail. The discussed cases include partial/lower affectedness, the already noted use of partitives with many low transitivitypredicates, and lower degrees of agency.

3.7.1 Partial/lower affectedness Partial affectedness means in the present context that only a part of an entity is affected, as opposed to the whole entity. The affected part can be thoroughly affected, but affectedness concerns only this part of the entity in question. Examples are (8) and (9) from Russian, (15), (52b) from Vedic, (53) from Finnish and (54a) from Ancient Greek: Vedic (RV I 104.9, in Dahl, this volume) (52) a. ápaḥ sómam. ástam indra prá yāhi drink: AOR .2 SG soma:ACC home:ACC Indra:VOC go:IMP.2 SG ‘You have drunk the soma. Go home, Indra!’ (RV III 53.6) b.

arvāṅ hither ayáṃ this:NOM

éhi come:IMP.2 SG sutás juice:NOM

sómakamaṃ soma.lover:ACC tásya it:GEN

tvā 2 SG . ACC

pibā drink:IMP.2 SG

āhur say:PRF.3 PL

mádāya inebriation:DAT

‘Come hither! They say you are a lover of soma. This is the juice. Drink of it to inebriation.’

Typology and diachrony of partitive case markers

Finnish (personal knowledge) (53) a. Lapsi sö-i kaku-n / child: NOM eat-PST.3 SG cake-ACC / ‘The child ate the cake/ some cake.’ b.

41

kakku-a cake- PAR

Opettaja maala-si talo-n / talo-a teacher:NOM paint- PST.3 SG house-ACC / house- PAR ‘The teacher painted the house/a part of the house.’

Ancient Greek (Thuc. 1.30.2; 5.31.3, in Conti & Luraghi, this volume) (54) a. pleúsantes es Leukáda tḕn Korinthíōn sail:PTCP. PRS . NOM . PL to Leucas: ACC ART. ACC Corinthian: GEN . PL apoikían tês gês étemon colony: ACC ART.GEN land:GEN ravage:AOR .3 PL ‘Sailing to Leucas, the colony of the Corinthians, they ravaged part of the country.’; Ēleîoi . . . Lepreatōn tḕn gên étemon ART. NOM . PL Elean: NOM . PL Lepreate: GEN . PL ART. ACC land: ACC ravage: AOR .3 PL ‘The Eleans ravaged the land of the Lepreates.’

b. hoi

The examples (52) and in (53a) cointain verbs of consumption. In (53a), the use of the accusative indicates that the whole cake was eaten, while the partitive is used when only a piece was consumed. In (52a), reference is made to a bounded quantitiy of soma, while in (52b) it is said that an unspecified quantity of soma must be drunk up to the achievement of a certain state (a verb of consumption also occurs in (15)). In (53b), the accusative is used when the whole house has been painted, while the partitive appears when only a part of the house has been affected by the painting event. In both cases, the affected part has been thoroughly affected (i.e. the given piece of cake has been fully consumed and the part of the house in question has been fully painted), but the difference to total affectedness follows from the fact that the whole entity has not been targeted and the rest remains unaffected. Similarly, in (54a) it is said that only a part of the country has been ravaged, while the accusative in (54b) indicates that the whole referent has been affected. Partial affectedness is especially connected with direct objects that are incremental themes. An example is provided in (55):

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Finnish (personal knowledge) (55) Vahtimestari lämmitt-i luentosali-n / luentosali-a heat- PST.3 SG lecture.hall-ACC / lecture.hall- PAR Janitor:NOM ‘The janitor heated the lecture room completely/lecture room somewhat.’ Example in (55) illustrates a rather clear instance where an entity as a whole is affected, but the overall degree of affectedness varies according to which of the two cases is used. The accusative occurs if the lecture hall has been completely heated and the temperature has reached the desired level, while the use of the partitive means that the lecture hall has become somewhat warmer than it was, but the temperature aimed at has not yet been reached. In other words, the lecture hall undergoes a more radical change-of-state in the former case. The reading that only a part of the lecture hall has been heated is perhaps possible, but it is far less likely than in the version on (55) that contains the partitive. The partitive may also have the reading that the agent failed to complete the event s/he attempted. Examples from Ancient Greek and from Finnish are given in (56)–(58) (see also Dahl, this volume, for similar cases in Indo-Aryan languages). Ancient Greek (Hom. Il. 23.805; Il. 6.466, in Conti & Luraghi, this volume) (56) hoppóterós ke phthêisin orexámenos khróa kalón INDF. NOM . SG PTC overtake: SBJV. AOR .3 SG reach: PTCP. AOR . NOM flesh: ACC fair: ACC ‘Which of the two will first reach the other’s fair flesh.’ (57) hṑs eipṑn hou paidòs oréxato phaídimos Héktōr so say:AOR .3 SG 3 SG .GEN child:GEN reach: AOR .3 SG glorious: NOM Hector: NOM ‘So saying, glorious Hector tried to reach his boy.’ Finnish (personal knowledge) (58) Mestästäjä ampu-i linnu-n / lintu-a hunter: NOM shoot-3 SG . PST bird-ACC / bird-PAR ‘The hunter shot a bird/at a bird.’ In (56) and (57) the verb orégein ‘reach’ occurs once with the accusative and once with the genitive. While in (56) the accusative indicates that the fighter will try to actually reach each other with their weapons, in (57) the genitive indicates that the father only stretched out his arms to reach his boy, but was not able to actually reach him (the following context says that the boy moved back scared by the father’s weapons). In (58), the accusative codes, expectedly, an event where the hunter successfully shoots (and hits) the bird thus causing its death. With the partitive, the construction has two (likely) readings. The first

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of these is a lower affectedness reading very similar to that in (58); the hunter shot a bird, but only wounded it, i.e. the degree of affectedness is lower than if the bird had been killed. The other possible reading, relevant in this context, is that the hunter tried to shoot the bird, but missed. In this case, the hunter fails to complete the event s/he was aiming at, because the bird has not been hit and killed. The use of the accusative cannot yield this reading. Similarly, in IndoAryan languages, the use of the genitive as an object marker with a partitive meaning is related to underspecification of the change of state feature, and the use of the partitive with subject may yield a conative-like reading meaning that the subject referent is attempting to perform an action (Dahl, this volume).

3.7.2 Use with low transitivity predicates Thus far, cases have been examined in which the partitive has been related (primarily) to a low degree of affectedness. In such cases, the partitive varies with the accusative and its function is thus to underline a decrease in affectedness that would otherwise not be inferable. In this section, we examine cases in which the partitive appears with predicates ranking inherently lower for transitivity. What is important in the present context is that all these verbs are low transitivity predicates, which do not indicate a change of state. In Finnish, for example, typical examples of verbs taking partitive objects include mental verbs or verbs of cognition and experience, as in (59): Finnish (personal knowledge) (59) a. Lapsi rakasta-a äiti-ä-än child: NOM love- PRS .3 SG mother- PAR- POSS .3 SG ‘The child loves his/her mother.’ b.

Henkilö ajattele-e kesä-ä person: NOM think- PRS .3 SG summer- PAR ‘A person is thinking about the summer.’

Verbs rakastaa (‘love’) and ajatella (‘think’) normally govern the partitive in Finnish, the only exception being resultative constructions (see the discussion of ex. (11) in the Introduction). In this respect, they differ from many of the other verbs examined thus far which allow variation between partitive and accusative. The obligatory partitive coding may be claimed to follow from the inherently low (semantic) transitivity associated with the verbs, for example in the spirit of Hopper & Thompson (1980). Verbs governing the partitive only denote events

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that do not involve a canonical agent or a saliently affected patient, which explains their infelicity with the accusative that can be seen as a marker of high transitivity. Similar examples are attested also in Estonian (see Metslang, this volume) and Indo-Iranian (see Dahl, this volume). Verbs of emotion and perception frequently take the partitive genitive in Ancient Greek as well. The verb ‘love’ érasthai, for example, always takes a genitive stimulus, as shown in (60): Ancient Greek (Hom.Il. 16.182) (60) tês dè kratùs DEM .GEN . SG . F PTC mighty:NOM ‘Mighty Hermes loved her.’

argeïphóntēs slayer.of.Argus:NOM

ērásat(o) love:AOR .3 SG

With some other low transitivity verbs, the genitive can alternate with the accusative in Ancient Greek, with little semantic difference. This is the case with akoúein ‘hear’ in (61) (see further Conti & Luraghi, this volume): Ancient Greek (Hom. Od. 12.265–266) (61) mukēthmoû t’ ēkousa boôn lowing:GEN PTC hear:AOR .1 SG cow:GEN . PL oiôn sheep:GEN . PL

te PTC

aulizomenáōn lodge:PTCP. PRS .GEN . PL

blēkhēn bleating:ACC

‘I heard the lowing of the cattle lying (in the courtyard) and the bleating of the sheep.’

3.7.3 Lower degree of agency In 3.7.1 and 3.7.2, cases were discussed in which the use of partitives is somehow related to a lower degree of affectedness. The mirror image of this is attested in languages in which partitive cases may also mark a decrease in agency. An example is (62b): Finnish (personal knowledge) (62) a. Aino laula-a Aino sing- PRS .3 SG ‘Aino is singing.’ b.

Aino-a laula-tta-a Aino- PAR sing- CAUS - PRS .3 SG ‘Aino feels like singing.’

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Example (62a) is a normal intransitive construction, where the subject referent performs an act of singing willfully and on purpose. In (62b), in turn the only participant available feels an urge to sing, but is not necessarily singing, when (62b) is uttered. The degree of agency associated with the agent participant is thus lower than in (62a). A lower degree of agency is also reflected in what Kempf (2007: 98ff) has labeled “the partitivus of a weakened activity”. Tabakowska (this volume) discusses the alternation between the accusative and the partitive genitive in Polish in cases in which no partitivity seems to be involeved. Compare the following examples: Polish (Tabakowska, this volume) (63) a. Panie, wysłuchaj nasze Lord:VOC hear:IMP.2 SG our:ACC . PL b.

Panie, wysłuchaj naszych Lord:VOC hear:IMP.2 SG our:GEN . PL ‘Lord, hear our prayers.’

modlitwy prayers:ACC . PL modlitw prayers:GEN . PL

The meaning of the two sentences is the same, but the degree of agency differs. As Tabakowska remarks, “while the wysłuchać + Nominal:GEN construction implies an interpretation in terms of low involvement of the agent in an event, the wysłuchać + N: ACC evokes the “holistic” interpretation, involving full engagement in an activity or/and its all-embracing character.” Partitive or genitive NPs can also function as non-canonical subjects of so-called impersonal constructions in some languages. In Finnish, the partitive NP in such constructions indicates the experiencer, as in (64): Finnish (personal knowledge) (64) a. minu-a hävettä-ä 1SG - PAR feel.ashamed- PRS .3 SG ‘I feel ashamed.’ b.

minu-a janotta-a 1SG - PAR be.thirsty- PRS .3 SG ‘I am thirsty.’

Examples in (64) are rather similar to those in (62). However, the relevant difference between (62) and (64) is that examples in (64) lack an agentive counterpart, and their predicates refer to inherently uncontrollable events (or rather

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states). Examples in (64) can thus be seen as instances of impersonal constructions, and their only participant appears obligatorily in the partitive. In Ancient Greek, some impersonal constructions feature dative experiencers and nominative or genitive stimuli. Genitive stimuli share some features of subjects, and can qualify as non-canonical subjects. An example is given in (65): Ancient Greek (Hom.Od. 9.19–20, in Conti & Luraghi, this volume) (65) eím’ Oduseùs Laertiádēs, hòs . . . be:PRS .1 SG Odysseus:NOM . SG son.of.Laertes:NOM . SG REL . NOM . SG ánthrṓpoisi man:DAT. PL

mélō . . . care:PRS .1 SG

‘I am Odysseus, son of Laertes, of great interest to men.’

3.8 Other uses So far, the most typical functions that partitive cases have across languages have been illustrated and discussed. We end the functional typology by discussing some other, sporadic uses that are harder to classify under one heading than the functions examined thus far. The examined functions include the use of partitives with certain postpositions, and the use of partitives in adverbial functions. In Finnish, the partitive and the genitive are the cases typically governed by adpositions. The use of the partitive becomes very understandable especially if we consider the variation between genitive and partitive with so-called bipositions (illustrated in (66b)) that can function both as prepositions and postpositions. Aspect (among other things) is also relevant to this variation. In (66b), the partitive appears in the prepositional construction, whose meaning is ‘all over the city/around the city’. The combination genitive + ympäri, in turn, appears in sentences/constructions coding boundedness, such as ‘he ran around the city’ (he circled the city). In other words, the partitive is also associated with unboundedness here. Finnish (personal knowledge) (66) a. minu-a vastaan / Turku-a 1 SG - PAR against / Turku- PAR ‘Against me/towards Turku.’ b.

kohti towards

ympäri kaupunki-a / kaupungi-n ympäri / city- GEN around around city- PAR ‘Around in the city, all over the city/around the city.’

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In Homeric Greek, the partitive genitive also occurs with prepositions. It indicates a single path, rather than multiple path, as indicated by the accusative. Examples are: Ancient Greek (Hom. Il. 13.202–204; Il. 17.283, in Conti & Luraghi, this volume) (67) kephalēn d’ hapalês apò deirês kópsen head:ACC PTC tender:GEN from neck:GEN cut:AOR .3 SG Oïliádēs . . . son.of.O.:NOM

hêke dé throw:AOR .3 SGPTC

helixámenos roll:PTCP. AOR . MID. NOM

di’ through

min 3 SG . ACC

sphairēdòn like.a.ball

homílou crowd:GEN

‘The son of Oïleus cut the head from the tender neck, and with a swing he sent it rolling through the throng like a ball.’ (68)

helixámenos dià bēssas turn:PTCP. AOR . MID. NOM through glen:ACC . PL ‘(A wild boar) turning around through the glens.’

As noted in Conti & Luraghi (this volume) “in (67) and (68) the same verb form, helixámenos, indicates two different types of motion. The head of the champion in (67), cut off from his neck, rolls on itself along a straight trajectory inside an area defined by the crowd: here, the genitive landmark is a surface which can be divided into parts. Hence, the trajectory can be traced down. The wild boar in (68), instead, runs around in different directions among the glens. The accusative landmark does not allow for precise tracking of the trajector, and movement is performed at random.” Finally, partitive cases have a number of adverbial functions across languages and they are used for coding, for example, causal and spatial meanings. Examples from Finnish are given in (69) (see also Ariztimuño, this volume, for similar cases in Basque and Conti & Luraghi, this volume, for Ancient Greek): Finnish (personal knowledge) (69) a. hän tek-i se-n ilkeyt-tä-än s/he do- PST.3 SG it-ACC nastiness- PAR- POSS .3 SG ‘S/he did it out of nastiness.’ b.

hän on suku-a s/he be: PRS .3 SG family- PAR ‘S/he is of my family.’

minu-lle 1 SG -ALL

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c.

Ville tule-e koto-a Ville come- PRS .3 SG home- PAR ‘Ville comes from home.’

In (69), the partitive case expresses different kinds of adverbial functions, such as causal (a) and spatial meanings (c), and they may also appear in so-called inclusion clauses functionally resembling predicate nominals. All of the examples in (69) manifest the spatial origins (a separative case) of the Finnish partitive rather well. The spatial origin is most evident in (69c), where the partitive is still used in a separative function; kotoa is one of the lexicalized uses of the old partitive meaning still present in the modern language. In (69a), the original semantics is also rather manifest, because the denoted event may be said to originate from nastiness, and the ablative (or a similar case/adposition) could be used to express this function in languages without partitive. Finally, in (69b), the referent of the subject comes from my family, which also underlines the spatial origin of the partitive. In Basque, the adverbial usage of partitives possibly goes back to its origin as an ablative. It is still preserved in a small set of adverbs, listed in (70): Basque (Aritzimuño, this volume) (70) alde-rik alde: ‘from one side to the other, right through’ esku-rik esku: ‘from hand to hand, hand in hand’ herri-rik herri: ‘from town to town’ egun-ik egun: ‘day by day, from day to day’ In Ancient Greek, the partitive genitive occurs in some time adverbials, such as nuktós (night:GEN ) ‘at night’, and, limited to Homer, in space adverbial as well, in which it indicates locative (see further Conti & Luraghi, this volume).

3.9 The partitive case as a radial category In this section, we aim at describing the meaning of partitive morphemes as a radial category (see Lakoff 1987, Nikiforidou 1991), and map more and less central meanings onto semantic space, in order to come up with a representation that shows the relations among the different functions of partitives and their position relative to each other. The likelihood of such representation will be tested with the diachronic data discussed in part (b). A central area in the semantics of partitives is shared by partitive constructions in the sense of Koptjevskja-Tamm (2006; see also Tamm, this volume); the representation provided for the description of the functions of partitives will be shown to account for this polysemy.

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Figure 1: The meanings of partitive cases

4 The origin of partitives and their possible evolution So far, we have discussed partitives across languages from a rather purely synchronic perspective. In this section, we will take a look at origin of partitives and their possible grammaticalization paths. In sections 4.1 and 4.2, we will focus on the formal development of partitives, while in 4.3 the focus will be the functional changes necessary for the emergence of partitives. Formal and functional developments cannot be completely separated from each other, because formal changes (apart from pure sound changes) are typically functionally and/or semantically motivated. However, the two aspects are examined separately in this section for making a more detailed discussion possible.

4.1 From ablative or genitive to partitive Partitives are often seen as originating from ablatives (or separative cases in more general terms) or genitives (see Heine & Kuteva 2004: 32–33). This path is

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rather manifest, for example, for Finnic languages and Basque. The Finnic partitive originates from the Finnic-Mordvinian separative (‘away from’) case, which was used as a rudimentary partial object, but also as a kind of partitive attribute. (The separative case as such may be older, and ultimately go back to Proto-Uralic, but its grammaticalization can be seen in the Finnic-Saami-Mordvin branches.) The separative (and in more general terms, spatial) origins of the partitive are very visible in many of its uses in the modern language, as the examples discussed in this paper have shown. The most evident of these is the ‘part-of’meaning that is a clear case of separation. The other uses of the partitive are also motivated by this function of the partitive (Larjavaara 1991: 401–2). Similar to Finnic, the partitive case ending also originated from a former ablative in Basque. As shown in Aritzimuño (this volume), the partitive is an allomorph of the present ablative: the two case forms became differentiated at a pre-literary stage when, according to Aritzimuño, the features of number and definiteness in spatial cases had not yet emerged. At a later stage, the partitive remained indefinite, while the ablative acquired definiteness and singular number. This development is partly different from Finnic: in Finnic, the older ablative case lost its local function, while in Basque two distinct cases were created. Notably, in neither language we find simply the extension to a new meaning (partitive) that accompanies the old one (ablative): no ablative-partitive polysemy arises either in Finnic or in Basque. In the former case, an ablative case marker loses the local function and becomes a partitive, while in the latter allomorphs are exploited to convey the two different meanings, thus becoming different case markers. Another interesting development, partly similar to Basque, is found in Russian. In this language, a number of second declension nouns feature the so-called second genitive, which is partly used in partitive contexts (see Daniel, this volume). The morpheme involved was in origin the genitive ending of the -u declesion, which later merged with consonant stems (second declension). Some of the former -u stems preserved the older genitve, while also acquiring the new one; in addition, the second genitive ending spread to some other nouns that were not older -u stems. Remarkably, the second genitive can only partly be viewed as a dedicated partitive: as shown in Daniel (this volume), it also appears outside partitive contexts. Moreover, nouns that do not have the second genitive feature the regular genitive in partitive contexts. Comparative data further show that the genitive already functioned as a partitive before the second genitive was created (indeed, this function of the genitive was inherited from Proto-indoEuropean). Thus, as we discuss in more detail below, the development in Russian and other Indo-European languages is different from the developments illustrated above for Finnic and Basque, in that partitive is one of the meanings of the

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genitive case, and genitive cases generally speaking allow synchronic polysemy, contrary to ablative cases, as we have shown above. From the point of view of the morphology, the Russian development can be seen as an instance of exaptation (see Lass 1990). The -u stem genitive, which had lost its function following the disappearance of the inflectional class to which it belonged, was so to speak re-cycled, and acquired a new function, for which there was previously no dedicated morpheme. The extension of genitive cases to partitive meanings is typical of the IndoEuropean languages. In some of them, one might think of a development parallel to Basque and Finnic, and based on an earlier ablative, as ablatives often also constitute the source for genitives. However, this does not seem to be the case: indeed, in Indo-European languages in which the genitive and the ablative have different endings (e.g. Latin and Indo-Aryan), the partitive function is typical of the genitive, rather than of the ablative. Remarkably, there is a fundamental difference between Balto-Finnic and Basque on the one hand, and Indo-European languages (including Romance) on the other in the development of the partitive. Balto-Finnic languages and Basque have an independent partitive, which historically derives from an ablative, but no longer functions as an ablative (apart from some lexicalized uses, such as (49c), and a genitive, which is formally and functionally distinct from the partitive. Indo-European languages, for their part, have a genitive which also functions as a partitive, and moreover some of these languages have an independent ablative distinct from the partitive genitive. This is illustrated below: Type a. Type b. Type c.

Balto-Finnic, Basque: partitive ≠ genitive ≠ ablative Indo-Aryan, Latin, Italian: partitive = genitive ≠ ablative Ancient Greek, French: partitive = genitive = ablative (the original situation was as type b)).

The above list seems to indicate that, even though partitives can historically originate from ablatives, synchronically they tend to be distinct, unless both the ablative and the partitive merge with the genitive. Indeed, the type ablative = partitive ≠ genitive is not attested in any of the languages we have data for. This could also mean that there are two separate sources for partitives, namely ablatives and genitives (see also Moravcsik 1978, Heine & Kuteva 2004). In the first case, the two meanings appear to be incompatible, if they do not also include genitive. In the second case, the two meanings tend to co-exist. In this respect, the development from Latin to Romance is of particular interest. Among the Romance languages, French and Italian feature so-called partitive articles, which originated from Late Latin partitive construction (see

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section 4.3.4). The development shows interesting differences in the two languages. Latin had a genitive case that expressed both partitive and genitive meanings. It also had a separate ablative case, which indicated source especially with prepositions. The most used source preposition with the ablative case in Classical Latin was ab. In Late Latin, de took over as the marker of source with the ablative case. Later still, cases were lost, and de developed into a marker of genitive as well, while retaining the function of marking ablative. In ProtoRomance, a prepositional phrase with de expressed the genitive and the ablative; it also occurred in patitive constructions (see the discussion of examples (73)–(74) below). French has retained the Proto-Romance system, while Italian features two different prepositions: di (from de) is used for the genitive and also occurs in the partitive article, while da (from de ab) is used for the ablative. What seems to have happened when Late Latin started losing its case system and the genitive was replaced by a prepositional phrase is an extension of the ablative preposition de to all functions of the genitive, not only a separate change from ablative to partitive. Then, when the two functions, genitive and ablative, became distinct again in Italian, the partitive meaning remained with the genitive, as it was in origin in Classical Latin (see Carlier & Lamiroy, this volume).

4.2 Oceanic developments The diachronic paths for the creation of partitive morphemes in Oceanic is not as easy to indicate as those described in section 4.1. The most likely reconstruction connects the partitive marker with the ending that marked the undergoer of intransitive verbs in Proto-Malayo-Polynesian. According to Malcom Ross (p.c.), all these languages showed ergative alignment. The S and the O appeared in the absolutive, and the A in the genitive. The O of a regular ergative clause could only be definite. However, antipassive intransitive verbs indicating activity (as in ‘I am eating’) could also take an undergoer argument. The latter was indefinite (non-referential), and was marked as an oblique. In various Oceanic languages, the partitive morpheme apparently descended from the Proto-Oceanic *ta, which comes from the Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *ta, used for marking such indefinite undergoers. This ending has often been labelled accusative. As these languages have a separate genitive ending (the same ending of the ergative case, in those that have preserved ergative alignment), and because the genitive ending occurs in part-whole constructions (see section 3.2),one can have the puzzling impression that the opposition between the genitive and the accusative works contrarywise in Oceanic. However, once the origin of the morpheme *ta is

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taken into account, the picture becomes clearer: this was not the marker of the definite, referential direct object, as the accusative is (at least in one of its possible functions) in the languages we discussed in the previous section. Concerning the more remote origin of *ta, it apparently goes back to some local oblique, but not necessarily an ablative. Indeed, some Polynesian languages provide evidence for the locative preposition i in partitive constructions, as shown in (71)–(72): Tongan (from Clark 1973: 600) (71) Na’e kai ’a e ika PST eat ABS REF fish ‘The boy ate (up) a fish.’ (72)

’e ERG

kai ’a e tamasi’i eat ABS REF boy ‘The boy ate some of a fish.’ Na’e

PST

he ref

’i in

tamasi’i. boy

he REF

ika. fish

Another, completely different grammaticalization path attested in some Polynesian languages is the numeral ‘one’ (Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *esa) that may develop into an indefinite marker and further into a partitive morpheme. The relation between the numeral ‘one’ and indefiniteness is also known from other languages, so this grammaticalization path is also rather understandable. In addition, even motion verbs in serial verb languages can develop into partitive markers: due to the documented connection between partitives and ablatives, this development is not surprising. Indeed, the Basque partitive might ultimately go back to the verb *din (Modern Basque jin), ‘come from’, as arguend in Aritzimuño (this volume). Note that following this reconstruction, the connection between the verb and the partitive case is not direct, as the verb root gave origin to the ablative case marker. Only at a later time, an allomorph of this case ending was reanalyzed as the partitive case ending. A direct connection between a verb and a partitive marker might be attested in Oceanic. According to Budd (this volume) a possible explanation for the presence of post-verbal partitive forms in some Vanuatu languages connects partitive markers with verbs: “Bierebo ja seems likely to be an accreted form of gicha, a variant form which occurs in some more conservative dialects of the language. In turn, gicha can be diachronically analysed as gi-cha, where gi is a serial verb meaning ‘take time’ which is still productive in the contemporary language and cha is perhaps a phonologically-conditioned variant of ta. What seems likely here then, is that a modified serial verb with a literal meaning of ‘take a little time’ has developed into a more general VP partitive meaning ‘do a little’. It remains to be seen whether this analysis would be valid for other Vanuatu languages with VP partitives.”

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4.3 Semantic/functional development 4.3.1 Cases as prototypical categories In section 4.1 we have highlighted the affinity of partitive cases with genitives and ablatives. Diachronically, the development from a genitive or an ablative to a partitive case starts within partitive constructions, as we will show in section 4.4. In this setion, we briefly discuss the semantic motivation that links genitives, ablatives and partitives to one another. As is well known, case markers are best described as polysemous categories, which express meanings that are interconnected in a complex manner. A very suitable way to concieve of case meaning is in terms of protypical categories, in which each meaning is directly connected only with a small set of other meanings. The meaning of the genitive has been described in such a manner by Nikiforidou (1991), who refers to it as an instance of structured polysemy. As basic for the category, Nikiforidou indicates the possessor meaning. The partitive meaning is readily derived from it by the metaphor ‘Wholes are possessors of their parts’, which operates pervasively in languages. Nikiforidou further explains the cross-linguistically comparatively frequent polysemy of genitive and ablative through a metaphor by which ‘Wholes are origins.’ This metaphor connects the source (ablative) meaning directly with the part-whole meaning. Thus, semantic extension precedes as follows: possessor/possession ! whole/parts ! originating element/origin. Note however that this is not the direction of semantic extension in diachrony. In the diachronic survey in 4.1, we found extensive evidence for the extension of ablatives to partitives, without an intervening genitive (i.e. possessive) meaning. The diachronic development actually attested procedes in the contrary direction: ablative (source/origin) ! partitive (whole/part relation). In addition, in the case that a genitive derives from an ablative, the partitive meaning may constitute the bridging link between the two. In section 4.3 we also described a less frequent spatial source for partitives, locatives, found in some Polynesian languages. The semantic motivation for this extension can be conceived as based on a variant of the container metaphor, such as ‘Wholes are containers, and parts are entities contained.’ Based on this metaphor, a locative indicates that only a part of what is in a container is affected by the relevant event. Summarizing, the follwing metaphors can be singled out as responsible for the extension of other case markers to partitive:

Typology and diachrony of partitive case markers

a. b. c.

55

Genitive to partitive ! Wholes are possessors, Parts are entities possessed Ablative to partitive ! Wholes are origins, Parts originate from wholes Locative to partitive ! Wholes are containers, Parts are entities contained

The part-whole relation appears to be relevant to all the above metaphors. In the next section, we describe an attested case of the historical change that led from the expression of a part-whole relation to a partitive case marker and later to an indefinite article. 4.4.2 Late Latin partitive constructions The construction out of which partitives originate occurs in Late Latin, as shown in the following examples:6 Latin (New Testament) (73) et misit ad agricolas in tempore servum ut and send:PRF.3 SG to peasant: ACC . PL in time: ABL servant: ACC for ab agricolis acciperet de fructu vineae from peasant: ABL . PL collect:SBJV. IMPF.3 SG from fruit: ABL vineyard:GEN ‘At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from them some of the fruit of the vineyard.’ (Mark 12,2) de (74) dicit eis Iesus adferte say:PRS .3 SG 3 PL . DAT. Jesus: NOM bring: IMP. PRS .3 PL from piscibus quos prendidistis nunc fish: ABL . PL REL . ACC . PL catch:PRF.2 PL now ‘Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you have just caught!”’ (John 21,10) Spiritu suo (75) et ipse in nobis quoniam de and 3 SG . NOM in 1 PL . ABL because from spirit: ABL POSS .3 SG . ABL dedit nobis give: PRF.3 SG 1 PL . DAT ‘[We know that we live in him] and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.’ (John 4,13) 6 The Greek Bible, which has been the main source for the Latin translation, also contains a few genitive subjects; they are sometimes regarded as due to Hebrew influence, even though Classical Greek did have genitive (partitive) subjects, as we will see below (see also Conti 2010 fn. 3 and Luraghi 2013 for discussion). They are variously translated into Latin with the nominative or with a prepositional phrase with ex. We are leaving aside the issue of translation here.

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(76) probet autem se ipsum homo et sic de examine:SBJV.3 SG indeed REFL . ACC self: ACC man: NOM and so from pane illo edat et de calice bibat bread: ABL DEM . ABL eat:SBJV. PRS .3 SG and from cup: ABL drink: SBJV. PRS .3 SG ‘A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of/from the cup.’ (Corinthians 11.28). The above examples contain a variety of different types of noun that function as source in the partitive construction: a collective noun in (73), a plural count in (74), an abstract noun in (75) and a mass noun in (76). The last example also indicates that the source meaning was clearly expressed by this construction: indeed, the second de phrase, de calice is ambiguous between a partitive (‘of that cup’, with cup metonymically understood as its content), and a source reading (‘from that cup’). The Latin examples all contain partitive constructions, implying that the de phrase indicates a specific referent, a part of which is affected by the state of affairs, and do not have a possible indefinite interpretation, as grammaticalized partitives can have to varying extents. This is shown, among other things, by the fact that they are all accompanied by some type of determiner or modifier that identifies the specific referent. Thus, de piscibus in (74) means ‘some of those specific fish that you have caught’, and could not possibly mean ‘some (indefinite) fish’, as Italian dei pesci or French des poissons normally mean. As the examples show, this construction typically occurs in the place of a direct object: as already remarked, it indicates that a part of a referent undergoes the process, possibly a change of state, indicated by the verb. As often noted, the partitive construction indicates partial affectedness: crucially, however, at this stage partial affectedness does not exactly coincide with a low degree of affectedness. To the contrary, the part of the referent which undergoes the effects of the state of affairs may be affected to any degree, including high, as it can undergo a change of state: typically, partitive expressions occur with verbs of ingestion, which imply that the referent of the direct object is consumed.

4.3.3 From partitive construction to indefiniteness and low transitivity Different inferences may arise from the occurrence of a partitive construction in the place of a direct object, which can be represented as in Figure 2.

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Figure 2: Inferences arising from the partitive construction

In one case, the fact that only a part of a referent is affected gives rise to the implicature that affectedness is partial (i.e. the feature of partiality is profiled): this leads to the use of the partitive in low transitivity contexts. Low transitivity may be understood in various manners, including as implying imperfectivity, as in Finnish, or non-assertivity, as in Basque. The other implicature, represented on the right branch of Figure 1, arises from the same notion, but leads to an indefinite interpretation, according to which “a non-specified quantity is necessarily non-uniquely identifiable to the hearer.” (Carlier 2007: 27). In this latter case, it is the feature of non-specificity which is profiled and eventually gains relevance. A further step in grammaticalization and semantic change is achieved when such pragmatic implicatures become more prominent than the original notion out of which they originated (see Traugott & Dasher 2002 and Traugott 2003: 635). These two clines of grammaticalization coexist to varying extents in the languages with grammaticalized partitives that are treated in this book. It needs to be stressed that affectedness is not a property connected with a certain grammatical relation (e.g. direct object). Rather, it is a semantic property: accordingly, even though partitives seem to originate from partitive constructions that occur in the place of direct objects, they may extend to other syntactic positions, as they in fact do. Indefiniteness is also compatible with the semantics of ‘part of’.7 As noted above, indefiniteness becomes one of the natural readings for a group of entities taken from a (specified) whole. The removed part is less definite than the specified whole, which explains the use of (original) separative cases for expressing 7 The earlier Finnish tradition tried to separate strictly quantity and definiteness, thus creating confusion. The analysis given here is in line with more recent accounts such as Vilkuna (1992).

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indefiniteness. The indefiniteness is especially evident when the whole is a universal set of all possible referents of the noun in question. Next, partial affectedness is also rather directly explainable by separation. Similarly to taking a part of a whole, a part of an affected entity is chosen, whose affectedness is specified. Lower degree of affectedness is a logical next step following from this, because in this case the whole entity has been only partially affected, which is intimately related to imperfective aspect (a ‘part of the verb’ is affected). These uses pave the way for the use of partitives with low transitivity-predicates; not only lower degree of affectedness is relevant, but rather the lower transitivity in general. Finally, the use with negation follows naturally from the low transitivity uses, because in negation, affected entities are completely missing. In brief, partitives undergo a grammaticalization process that leads them to lose their primary case marking function and take over other functions: indicate indefiniteness, degrees of affectedness, imperfective aspect. All of these semantic shifts are, however, understandable in light of their original semantics.

4.3.4 Structural development As shown in section 4.3.3, partitive constructions start developing the meanings connected to partitive cases when they function as direct objects. However, virtually all languages described in this book show the possible usage of partitive cases for subjects too, although to a more limited extent. In general, partitive subjects occur with unaccusative verbs, and they are frequently found in existential clauses. It is a well-known fact that subjects of unaccusative verbs share direct object properties: hence, the extension of partitive cases to such arguments is consistent with other of their chracteristic features. Subjects of existentials also share some typical features of direct objects: they are not topical, as they introduce new participants into the discourse. In Finnish, as we have shown in section 3.1 above, partitive subjects, which express indiefiniteness productively, are largely limited to existential clauses or to unaccusative. In addition, they are used with some transitive verbs that do not indicate change of state, especially if there is an existential implication. Recently, however, an ongoing change has been reported, whereby partitive subjects are being extended to change-of-state verbs, with no existential implication, and tend to convey simple indefiniteness (Vilkuna 1989: 260). Apparently, the Finnish partitive is undergoing a further step in grammaticalization, similar to the Romance partitive when it turned into an article. Such extension is having the effect that partitive subjects are extending to all types of verb, in very much the same way as nominative subjects. Still, the fact that partitive subjects are ‘real’ subjects has been questioned (see Sand & Campbell 2001: 266–269 for

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discussion and references therein; cf. also Helasvuo & Huumo 2010). Notably, partitive subjects, contrary to nominative, do not trigger verb agreement, but are always accompanied by third person singular verbs. However, syntactic tests seem to indicate subjecthood also in the case of partitive arguments, as shown in example (77): Finnish (from Sands & Campbell 2001: 167) (77) Tuli miehiä ja naisia come:PST.3 SG man: PAR . PL and woman: PAR . PL tupasiaan cabin. PAR . PL . POSS 3 PL

kaikille all. ALL . PL

ja and

tekivät make:PST.3 PL

rinteille slope. ALL . PL

‘There came men and women and they made their cabins on all the hillsides.’ Example (77) contains two coordinated sentences; the first one features a partitive subject (miehiä ja naisia ‘men and women’) and a verb in the third person singular (tuli ‘(there) came’); the second has no overt subject: the elliptical subject refers to the partitive NP of the preceding sentence, and the verb is in the third person plural. This indicates that the partitive NP in the first sentence does indeed have some subject properties.8 The fact that agreement with the verb has not (yet?) developed may be taken as a consequence of the behavior-before-coding principle (Haspelmath 2010): in very much the same way as in Romance, the partitive started out marking objects, then extended to subject starting from existential clauses and unaccusative verbs, and is presently gaining further ground in its extension to all types of verb and its function of indicating indefiniteness. Unlike the Romance partitive, the Finnish partitive has acquired behavioral properties of subjects, such as null-anaphora control (although to a limited extent), but not coding properties, among which verb agreement. Similar to the Finnish (and Estonian) partitive, partitive genitive subjects do not trigger verb agreement in most Indo-European languages in which they occur, such as Russian (see Paykin, this volume) and Indo-Iranic (see Dahl, this volume). An exception is Ancient Greek, in which genitive plural partitive subjects trigger agreement with the verb (see Conti & Luraghi, this volume). At leat in Finnic languages and in Early Romance, partitive NPs can also function as predicate nouns. The relative chronology of the extension for direct object to subject and predicate noun is not clear, as argued for Old French in

8 It must be noted that, even though Campbell and Sands have found this example in their corpus, example (77) is marginal for some speakers of Finnish.

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Carlier & Lamiroy (this volume). In any case, the extension to predicate noun may have started in contexts such as Finnish (69b) that we repeat for convenience: (69)

b.

hän on suku-a s/he be: PRS .3 SG family- PAR ‘S/he is of my family.’

minu-lle 1 SG -ALL

In this example, belonging (to a whole) and inclusion are indicated. As remarked, this is presumably the historically oldest usage of the partitive in predicate nominals, where the ‘part of’ meaning is evident. A different formal development of partitive case markers is their extension to verbs, attested in Estonian. As we discussed in sections 2.4 and 3.5, verbs can take the partitive ending in this language, and acquire an evidential meaning. Formally and semantically, the development can be summarized as follows (see also Metslang, this volume): a. b. c. d. e. f.

“part of N” ! “partof V” (N-obj has the morphological partitive marking) ! (N-object is a non-finite, deverbal nominalization and partitive marked) ! “indirect evidence” (V-nonfin (main predicate) has the morphological partitive formative) ! “partof/incomplete evidence” (V-nonfin (main or embedded predicate) has the morphological partitive formative) ! “partof/incomplete evidence for the completion/completability of the event” (partitive object case)

5 Conclusion In this chapter, form, functions and development of partitive case markers have been discussed. Dedicated partitive cases (such as those in Finnic languages and Basque) seem to be rather rare cross-linguistically; even the usage of a different case, such as the genitive, is not especially frequent, as it seems to be confined to Indo-European languages. An important feature of partitive cases, or other cases used in the function of partitives, is their possible occurrence with NPs that bear different grammatical relations. In this sense, partitive cases are at odds with the definition of case in Blake (2001: 1), that is ‘marking dependent nouns for the type of relationship they bear to their heads’ (see further the discussion in Luraghi 2009: 243– 249). The reason for this is that partitive cases indicate other properties of the NPs they occur with, notably indefiniteness, and low or partial affectedness, and that the indication of such properties overrides the expression of grammati-

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cal relations. Often, indefiniteness is accompanied by non-referentiality, as noted in sections 3.1 and 3.6. As we have shown in this chapter, the above features of partitive case markers explain their frequent occurrence in various contexts in which indefiniteness or non-referentiality are relevant, such as under negation, with quantifiers, with non-assertive modality, in existential clauses, and so on. In addition, partial affectedness may have a bearing on the interpretation of verbal aspect, and convey an imperfective meaning, as in the Finnic languages. Diachronically, partitive case markers originate either from separative cases or from genitives; to a more limited extent, they can also apparently originate from locatives, as in some Oceanic languages. Attested developments (mostly from the Indo-European languages) indicate that partitive case markers may originate inside partitive nominal constructions, in the sense of Koptjevsaja-Tamm (2006). Partitive constructions appear as direct objects for example in Late Latin; they refer to a part of a specific, already identified whole. From such constructions, two inferences can originate, one leading to the indefiniteness meaning, and one to the implication of low affectedness. Such acquired meanings of partitive cases make them suitable for the various contexts in which they are found cross-linguistically. Oceanic languages also point to another possible origin of partitive markers, that is, from markers of indefiniteness, thus highlighting the importance between the concept of partitivity and the concept of indefiniteness.

References Besnier, Niko. 2000. Tuvaluan: A Polynesian language of the Central Pacific. London: Routledge. Blake, Barry. 2001. Case. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Carlier, Anne. 2007. From preposition to article: The Grammaticalization of the French partitive. Studies in Language 31. 1–49. Clark, Ross. 1973. Transitivity and case in eastern Oceanic languages: Oceanic Linguistics 12. 559–606. Conti, Luz. 2010. Weiteres zum genitiv als semisubjekt im Altgriechischen: Analyse des Kasus bei impersonalen Konstruktionen. Historische Sprachwissenschaft 122. 182–207. Crowley, Terry. 1982. The Paamese language of Vanuatu. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Hoop, Helen de. 1998. Partitivity. Glot International 3. 3–10. Gerstner-Link, Claudia. 1998. How transitive are habituals? Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung 51(4). 327–354. Haspelmath, Martin. 2010. The behaviour-before-coding principle in syntactic change. In Franck Floricic (ed.), Mélanges Denis Creissels, 541–554. Paris: Presses de L’École Normale Supérieure. Heine, Bernd & Tania Kuteva. 2004. World lexicon of grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Helasvuo, Marja-Liisa & Tuomas Huumo. 2010. Mikä subjekti on? [On the subject of subject in Finnish]. Virittäjä 114(3). 165–194.

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Hoeksema, Jacob (ed.). 1996. Partitives. Studies on the syntax and semantics of partitive and related constructions. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Hopper, Paul J. & Sandra A. Thompson. 1980. Transitivity in grammar and discourse. Language 56. 251–299. Huumo, Tuomas. 2010. Nominal aspect, quantity, and time: The case of the Finnish object. Journal of Linguistics 46. 83–125. Kempf, Zdzisław. 2007. Próba teorii przypadków: Część II. Opole: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Opolskiego. Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria 2001. “A piece of the cake” and “a cup of tea”: partitive and pseudopartitive nominal constructions in the Circum-Baltic languages. In Östen Dahl & Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm (eds.), The Circum-Baltic Languages: Typology and Contact, vol. 2, 523–568. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria. 2006. Partitives. In Keith Brown (ed.), Encyclopedia of Languages and Linguistics, 2nd edn., 218–221. Oxford: Elsevier. Lakoff, George. 1987. Women, fire, and dangerous things. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Larjavaara, Matti. 1991. Aspektuaalisen objektin synty [The emergence of the aspectual object]. Virittäjä 95. 372–408. Lass, Roger. 1990. How to do things with junk: Exaptation in language evolution. Journal of Linguistics 26. 79–102. Luraghi, Silvia. 2009. The internal structure of adpositional phrases. In Johannes Helmbrecht, Yoko Nishina, Yong-Min Shin, Stavros Skopeteas, Elisabeth Verhoeven (eds.), Form and Function in Language Research: Papers in honour of Christian Lehmann, 231–254. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Luraghi, Silvia. 2013. Partitivi nel latino bibblico. Studi Italiani di Linguistica Teorica e Applicata 42(1). 41–60. Moravcsik, Edith. 1978. On the case marking of objects. In Joseph Greenberg et al. (eds.) Universals of Human Language, vol IV. Syntax, 249–290. Stanford University Press. Mosel, Ulrike & Even Hovdhaugen. 1992. Samoan reference grammar. Oslo: Scandinavian University Press. Napoli, Maria. 2010. The case for the partitive case: The contribution of Ancient Greek. Transactions of the Philological Society 108(1). 15–40. Nikiforidou, Kiki. 1991. The meanings of the genitive: A case study in semantic structure and semantic change. Cognitive Linguistics 2(2). 149–206. Paykin, Katia & Marleen Van Peteghem. 2002. Definiteness in a language without articles: A case-study of Russian. Recherches linguistiques de Vincennes 31. 97–112. Sands, Kristina & Lyle Campbell. 2001. Non-canonical subjects and objects in Finnish. In Alexandra Aikhenvald, R.M.W. Dixon & Masayuki Onishi (eds.), Non-canonical marking of subjects and objects, 251–305. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Traugott, Elizabeth C. 2003. Constructions in grammaticalization. In Brian J. Joseph & Richard J. Janda (eds.), Handbook of Historical Linguistics 624–647. Oxford: Blackwell. Traugott, Elizabeth C. & Richard B. Dasher. 2002. Regularity in semantic change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vilkuna, Maria. 1989. Free word order in Finnish: Its syntax and discourse functions. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. Vilkuna, Maria. 1992. Referenssi ja määräisyys suomenkielisten tekstien tulkinnassa [Reference and definiteness in the interpretation of Finnish texts]. Helsinki: SKS. Zwarts, Frans. 1987. Paradigmaloos van. TABU 17. 184–192.

Matti Miestamo

2 Partitives and negation: A cross-linguistic survey The partitive of negation, i.e. partitive marking of NPs under the scope of negation, is known to be found in some European languages, namely Finnic, Baltic, Slavic and Basque. Based on an extensive and representative language sample, this typological study surveys the cross-linguistic distribution of the partitive of negation and other asymmetries between affirmatives and negatives in the marking of noun phrases. Instances of the partitive of negation realized as part of a case marking system are not found outside the European languages mentioned. Nonetheless, negation is found to affect the use of articles and other determiners, e.g., in Polynesian languages and in French, as well as the use of class markers, e.g., in some Bantu languages, in which the class markers in question actually function as determiners. Effects on focus marking and alignment are also observed in some languages. There is a pragmatically motivated tendency for an indefinite noun phrase to have a non-referential reading under the scope of negation. The grammatical effects of negation on the use of articles and determiners, including class markers, result in marking the noun phrases as nonreferential and are thus motivated by the connection between negation and non-referentiality. It is further argued that partitives, too, contribute to marking noun phrases as non-referential, and the partitive of negation can thus be seen as arising from similar motivations. Keywords: negation, partitive, case marking, determiners, referentiality

1 Introduction In some European languages – Finnic, Baltic, Slavic and Basque – noun phrases in the scope of negation are marked, either obligatorily or as a matter of preference, with a case that has a partitive-marking function (partitive or genitive). In this paper, the phenomenon will be referred to as the partitive of negation. Although the link between partitives and negation is relatively well-studied in these European languages, it has not been systematically addressed in typological research. Related phenomena have been reported in some language groups outside Europe, e.g., in some Oceanic languages, but their cross-linguistic distribution is not known. The present paper aims to fill this gap. It will report the

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results of a large-scale typological survey of the partitive of negation and related effects of negation on the marking of grammatical categories in noun phrases. In a larger context, the effects of negation on noun phrases are one of the many ways in which negation can affect the structure of clauses, or in Miestamo’s (2005) terms, one of the many ways in which negatives can show structural asymmetry vis-à-vis affirmatives. This larger context becomes relevant when we start looking for explanations for the link between partitives and negation. In the literature, it has been attributed to semantic and pragmatic factors, such as quantification, referentiality/specificity and aspect (cf., e.g., Krasovitsky et al. 2011). The remainder of this introduction gives a short presentation of the phenomenon as we know it from familiar European languages. Section 2 discusses the methodology followed in the typological survey, while Section 3 presents the results. Section 4 discusses the cross-linguistic findings in a functional perspective and concludes the paper. The following examples (1) give a preliminary illustration of the case alternations in Finnish. (1)

Finnish (constructed examples)1 a. söin banaani-n eat.PST.1 SG banana-GEN ‘I ate {a/the} banana.’ b.

söin banaani-a eat.PST.1 SG banana-PAR ‘I {ate some / was eating {a/the}} banana.’

c.

en

syönyt banaani-a eat.PST. PTCP banana-PAR ‘I {didn’t eat / wasn’t eating} {a/the} banana.’ NEG .1 SG

In the affirmative, a distinction between total and partial objects2 can be made using different case forms – the total object is marked by genitive3 case as in (1a) 1 The abbreviations used in the glosses are listed in the beginning of the collective volume. 2 The terms total and partial object are used here, but as already pointed out above, quantification is only one factor determining their use, others being, e.g., aspectuality and referentiality. 3 Traditionally this form in this function has been called accusative despite the fact that it is formally identical to the genitive; only personal pronouns and the pronoun ‘who’ have separate accusative forms. In this article I will adopt the usage in the most up-to-date and comprehensive grammar of Finnish (Hakulinen et al. 2004: 108) and restrict the term accusative to the separate accusative forms of pronouns.

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and the partial object by partitive case as in (1b). In the negative (1c) only the partitive can be used and the distinction between total and partial objects is lost. In a similar way, in a number of European languages, noun phrases in the scope of negation are marked by a case that has partitive semantics. These languages include Finnish and Estonian (Finnic); Lithuanian, and to some extent also Latvian (Baltic); Russian, Ukrainian, Polish (Slavic); and Basque. In the Baltic and Slavic languages mentioned, the case with partitive functions involved in the alternation is the genitive. With the exception of Basque, these languages belong to the Circum-Baltic languages as defined by Dahl and KoptjevskajaTamm (2001: xviii–xix). According to Koptjevskaja-Tamm & Wälchli (2001: 663), case alternations between total and partial objects (usually involving the partitive of negation) are also found in older stages of Indo-European languages, e.g., Classical Greek, Sanskrit, Gothic, Old High German and Middle Low German, total objects being marked by the accusative and partial objects by the genitive. The partitive of negation has been studied quite extensively in many of the European languages in which it occurs. For Russian, for example, there is a separate bibliography devoted to the partitive (=genitive) of negation (Corbett 1986). Koptjevskaja-Tamm & Wälchli (2001: 729) characterize the case alternations between total and partial objects (usually involving the partitive of negation in one way or another) as typologically “probably unusual but not unique” to Circum-Baltic languages; their observation is not based on a cross-linguistic survey going beyond their Circum-Baltic areal focus. The partitive of negation has also been noted in general typological literature on negation, e.g., in Payne (1985), Forest (1993), Honda (1996), and Miestamo (2005), as well as in Moravcsik’s (1978) article on the typology of object marking. Payne lists it as one of the “secondary modifications” that may be found in negatives in addition to negative marking itself. In Miestamo (2005), I noted that it can be seen as one of the many ways in which negatives show structural asymmetry vis-à-vis affirmatives, but did not include it in the scope of my typological survey. In the literature the examples are taken from the familiar European languages mentioned above, and no typological information is available on the cross-linguistic frequency or areal distribution of the phenomenon. The same lack of typological information is true of other effects of negation on the marking of noun phrases. To fill this lacuna in the typological literature, this chapter presents a typological survey of the partitive of negation and related effects of negation on the marking of grammatical categories in noun phrases. It should perhaps be noted that negative polarity items, although closely related to the issue of the marking of grammatical categories in noun phrases under the scope of negation, are beyond the scope of the present survey. I will now turn to the material and method of the survey.

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2 Material and method This section will explicate the methodological choices adopted in the crosslinguistic survey of the nature and spread of the partitive of negation and related effects on the marking of noun phrases under negation. The partitive of negation is here defined as the obligatory or preferred use of partitive marking, or marking that has partitivity as one of its functions, on noun phrases under the scope of negation, in contrast to the corresponding noun phrases in affirmatives showing less or no partitive marking. Partitive marking is here defined simply as marking that denotes a part of a whole, or more generally, an indefinite quantity (cf. the function of partitive case in the Finnish example in 1b above). In the typological survey, I have paid attention to all realizations of the partitive of negation found in the languages surveyed. The partitive of negation is part of the broader question of how the marking of noun phrases is affected under negation. Other effects of negation on the marking of grammatical categories within noun phrases are also paid attention to in the survey, with a focus on effects that are connected to the domains of quantification, referentiality/ specificity and aspect, i.e. the domains that have been suggested to be relevant in finding functional motivations for the partitive of negation. Referentiality and specificity are used roughly synonymously in this paper; in referential/specific use of noun phrases the identity of the referent is established, i.e. the speaker has in mind a specific entity or entities to which the noun phrase refers. This study is primarily based on a sample of 240 languages.4 The sample languages come from different genera (in the sense of Dryer 1989; see also Haspelmath et al. 2005; Dryer & Haspelmath 2011), i.e. no two languages come from the same genus. The same language sample has been used in my earlier work on negation (see Miestamo 2005: 27–39, 241–254). In that study I focused on structural differences between negatives and affirmatives manifested on the verbal and clausal levels, but did not pay attention to the marking of noun phrases. When examining the sources of the sample languages, I did, however, try to make notes of everything the sources said on negation. The present paper is based on a re-examination of those notes and going back to the original sources in case the notes indicated a given language might show some effects of

4 To the extent possible, all language names in this paper are given in the form in which they appear in The world atlas of language structures (Haspelmath et al. 2005; Dryer & Haspelmath 2011).

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negation on the marking of noun phrases.5 The survey of the sample languages was supplemented by a query on the Lingtyp mailing list, asking for pointers to languages that have the partitive of negation or any other changes in the marking of noun phrases induced by negation.6 In the survey I have taken into account all languages in which I have found some effects of negation on the marking of noun phrases, regardless of whether they belong to the 240-language sample, or whether I have become aware of the data through the Lingtyp query or in other ways. I have then classified the observed effects into types according to their structural and functional properties. When making observations about the cross-linguistic frequency of the different types, it is important to base these observations on an areally and genealogically balanced language sample. The 240-language sample provides such a basis, and in principle it would be possible to balance it even further in arealgenealogical terms following the principles introduced in (Miestamo 2005). However, as the following section shows, the types are all quite rare and areally and genealogically constrained so that quantitative analysis would not make much sense in this study. The cross-linguistic observations and generalizations are presented in Section 3, and their possible functional motivations are discussed in Section 4.

3 Results The broad cross-linguistic survey conducted here confirms Koptjevskaja-Tamm & Wälchli’s (2001: 729) estimation that the partitive of negation is typologically unusual. In fact, clear instances of the partitive of negation realized as part of a case marking system were not found outside the European languages already known to exhibit the phenomenon. In this section, I will start with a closer look at the effects on case marking, and then move on to other types of elements affected by negation, such as articles and other determiners, and

5 In (Miestamo 2005) the sample size was actually 297 languages, but only 240 languages belonged to the core sample in which every language comes from a different genus. For the 57 extra languages notes were not made on negation-related phenomena that were outside the scope of the study, and thus no systematic notes were available on effects of negation on the noun phrase level for these languages. 6 The original query as well as a summary of the replies is available in the archives of the mailing list at (see October 2009, Week 5; November 2009, Week 1).

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class-markers, and finally say a few words on the effects of negation on focus marking and alignment. As mentioned in Section 1, a number of European languages (Finnic, Baltic, Slavic and Basque) use a case with a partitive function on noun phrases in the scope of negation, either obligatorily or as a matter of preference. The main characteristics of these systems will now be discussed (for a more detailed presentation, see Koptjevskaja-Tamm & Wälchli 2001: 650–671). Finnish has a system in which noun phrases in the scope of negation are marked with the partitive case. Both objects of transitive sentences and subjects of existential sentences are affected. Let us first look at the objects of transitives, see the examples in (2). (2)

Finnish (constructed examples) a. söin banaani-n eat.PST.1 SG banana-GEN ‘I ate {a/the} banana.’ b.

söin banaani-t eat.PST.1 SG banana-PL . NOM ‘I ate the bananas.’

c.

söin banaani-a eat.PST.1 SG banana-PAR ‘I {ate some / was eating {a/the}} banana.’

d.

söin banaane-j-a eat.PST.1 SG banana-PL- PAR ‘I {ate (some) / was eating {(some)/the}}bananas.’

e.

en

syönyt banaani-a eat.PST. PTCP banana-PAR ‘I {didn’t eat / wasn’t eating} {a/the} banana.’ NEG .1 SG

f.

en

syönyt banaane-j-a eat.PST. PTCP banana-PL- PAR ‘I {didn’t eat / wasn’t eating} (the) bananas.’ NEG .1 SG

In the affirmative, total and partial objects can be distinguished. I will not go into details about their semantics, but as a general rule, it can be said that total objects are interpreted as totally affected and the sentence gets a perfective aspectual reading whereas partial objects are partially affected and usually give an imperfective reading to the sentence. Total objects are marked with the

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genitive or nominative case, depending on the number of the object and its morphosyntactic environment, e.g., clause type; the examples in (2a–b) are simple affirmative declaratives. Partial objects are marked with the partitive (2c–d). In the negative, only the partitive is possible (2e–f), and the distinction between total and partial objects cannot be made. The requirement of the partitive on objects of negated clauses is highly grammaticalized in Finnish. Only marginally, under specific semantic-pragmatic conditions, is it possible to have non-partitive objects in negatives (see Almqvist 1987).7 Note that there are verbs that require their objects to be in the partitive in the affirmative as well, but I will not go into these lexical issues here. Case marking differs between affirmatives and negatives in a related way in some existential sentences as well, see the examples in (3).8 (3)

Finnish (constructed examples) a. pöydällä on omena table.ADE be.3SG apple.NOM ‘There is an apple on the table.’ b.

pöydällä on omena-a table.ADE be.3SG apple-PAR ‘There is some apple on the table.’

c.

pöydällä ei ole omena-a table.ADE NEG .3 SG be.CNG apple-PAR ‘There is {not an apple / no apple} on the table.’

d.

pöydällä on omeno-i-ta table.ADE be.3SG apple-PL- PAR ‘There are apples on the table.’

e.

pöydällä ei ole omeno-i-ta table.ADE NEG .3 SG be.CNG apple-PL- PAR ‘There are no apples on the table.’

7 Essentially, these are cases in which there is a positive implication despite the overtly negative form of the sentence. An example would be Ei liene järin ylivoimaista toteuttaa tuo pyyntö. (NEG .3 SG be.POT. CNG very insurmountable fullfill.INF that.NOM request.NOM ) ‘It shouldn’t be too hard to fullfill that request’ (Almqvist 1987: 163). In most cases, like here, the total object under negation is the object of an infinitive itself under the scope of a negated finite verb. 8 These are existential predications. Locative predications would have the subject in nominative case and exhibit some other word order than LOCATION + COPULA + SUBJECT, most typically SUBJECT + COPULA + LOCATIVE .

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In affirmatives, singular subjects can be in the nominative or in the partitive with a quantificational difference in semantics (3a,b), and plural subjects are in the partitive (3d) (the nominative could replace the partitive in 3d but it would produce a definite reading and require a special contrastive context in this clause type). In negatives, the subject of the existential is in the partitive in both singular and plural (3c,e). The details of the Finnish case alternations are complicated and have generated a lot of literature (e.g., Almqvist 1987), but in this typological survey I will not delve deeper into those details. Note finally that at an earlier (reconstructed) stage of the language, the function of the partitive case was separative (movement from), see for example (Hakulinen 1961: 93). The system is essentially similar in most other Finnic languages, e.g., Estonian (Erelt 2003: 95–97; Metslang, this volume) and Votic (Ariste 1968: 21). There are some differences, of course, e.g., according to Metslang (2001), the role of case in the marking of aspect is not as important in Estonian as it is in Finnish, since the verbal particle ära is used together with total objects to mark perfectivity. In Liv, as noted by Koptjevskaja-Tamm & Wälchli (2001: 652), a development has been observed whereby the partitive would be spreading as a general object case, making thus the alternation obsolete. As to existential clause subject marking in other Finnic languages, the system is, in the main, similar to Finnish (see Huumo & Lindström, this volume, for more details on the uses of the partitive in Estonian and Finnish existentials). In Lithuanian (Dambriunas 1972: 27, 39, 123, 139–141, 166; Ambrazas et al. 1997: 500–506, 667–668), the direct object is in the genitive in negatives. In non-negatives, most verbs take accusative objects, but the genitive may be used to refer to an indefinite amount or quantity where the nominative or accusative would otherwise be used. Subjects of negative existentials are in the genitive if they are in the scope of negation; in the affirmative, genitive subjects may be used with selected verbs to denote indefinite quantity. In Latvian, subjects of negated existentials are in the genitive, but objects of transitive sentences do not show the partitive of negation, see (Lazdiņa 1966: 24, 28; Holst 2001: 207– 210; Fennel & Gelsen 1980: 22–23, 26). In Polish (Bielec 1998: 69–70, 103, 117–118; Swan 2002: 333–335), the direct object in negatives is in the genitive instead of the accusative used in affirmatives (4a,b). The subjects of negative existentials are also in the genitive instead of the nominative used in affirmatives (4c,d). The genitive has partitive uses in non-negatives (4e). (4)

Polish (Swan 2002: 333; Bielec 1998: 70, 121) a. Oglądam telewizję. b. Nie oglądam telewizji. NEG watch.1SG television.GEN watch.1SG television.ACC ‘I watch televison.’ ‘I don’t watch television.’

Partitives and negation: A cross-linguistic survey

c.

W parku jest fontanna d. in park.LOC is fountain.NOM ‘There is a fountain in the park.’

e.

Kupię mleka i sera. buy.1SG milk.GEN and cheese.GEN ‘I’ll buy some milk and cheese.’

71

W parku nie ma fontanny in park.LOC NEG have fountain.GEN ‘There is no fountain in the park.’

In Russian (Wade 2000: 111–115; Krasovitsky et al. 2011), the use of the genitive is not obligatory in direct objects under negation and depends on various factors, including definiteness and specificity, definite and specific objects being more readily accusative-marked; verbal aspect and the lexical semantics (e.g., abstractness) of the noun also play a role. Subjects of negative existentials are in the genitive instead of the nominative used in affirmative existentials. In Ukrainian the system is largely similar to Russian (Pugh & Press 1999: 97–99). In Czech (Naughton 2005: 196–198), the genitive is used in these functions only occasionally, in contemporary language largely restricted to fixed phrases. In other Slavic languages the partitive of negation is even more restricted or nonexistant. The only language outside Finnic, Baltic and Slavic exhibiting the partitive of negation expressed within a morphological case marking system is Basque.9 In Basque (Hualde & Urbina 2003: 124–126, 549–554), the partitive case marked with -(r)ik regularly occurs on transitive objects and intransitive subjects in negative sentences. It may also occur in other contexts, e.g., polar interrogatives and conditionals. It is interpreted as non-specific. Its diachronic origin is in the ablative suffix (Hualde & Urbina 2003: 551). If negatives have an object with a specific/definite reading, the partitive is not used (cf. Etxeberria, this volume; Koptjevskaja-Tamm & Wälchli 2001: 666).10 I will now leave case marking and turn to the effects of negation on other types of marking in noun phrases. In French, as example (5) shows, the determiner de (glossed here simply as DET ) replaces the indefinite article under the scope of negation both in regular transitives and in existentials.

9 Note that its status as a case is questioned by Hualde & Urbina (2003: 124). In any case, it is a partitive marker and thus relevant in the present context. 10 In Evenki, noun phrases in privative constructions with the negative noun a:chin take the indefinite accusative (partitive) case, but this case does not seem to be used in existential predications with a:chin (see Nedyalkov 1994: 4, 27–29; Pakendorf 2007: 162–164).

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French (constructed examples) a. je vois un chien 1 SG . NOM see.1 SG INDF. M dog ‘I see a dog.’ b.

c.

je ne vois 1 SG . NOM NEG see.1 SG ‘I do not see a dog.’ il y a

un

EX

INDF. M

pas

de

NEG

DET

livre sur la book on DEF. F ‘There is a book on the table.’

chien dog

table table

d.

il n’y a pas de livre sur la EX . NEG DET book on DEF. F ‘There is no book on the table.’

e.

je bois du 1 SG . NOM drink.1SG PAR . M ‘I’m drinking (some) milk.’

f.

je ne bois 1 SG . NOM NEG drink.1 SG ‘I’m not drinking milk.’

g.

je vois des 1 SG . NOM see.1 SG PAR . PL ‘I see (some) dogs.’

h.

je ne vois 1 SG . NOM NEG see.1 SG ‘I do not see dogs.’

table table

lait milk

pas

de

NEG

DET

lait milk

chiens dog

pas

de

NEG

DET

chiens dog.PL

In most contexts, the determiner de occurs in front of the noun phrase in the scope of negation (5b,d) where the corresponding affirmatives have indefinite articles (5a,c). With non-count and plural count nouns, the determiner de replaces the so-called partitive article, formed by the combination of the separative preposition de and the definite article (see 5e–h). It may now be asked, how the alternation between indefinite/partitive articles used in affirmatives vs. the determiner de used in negatives is related to the partitive of negation – after all, the marker appearing under negation is not a partitive marker per se and there seems to be a partitive marker used in affirma-

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tives but not in negatives. First of all, although the partitive article appearing in affirmatives derives historically from a partitive construction expressing a part of a whole, in contemporary French it has lost this function and functions primarily as an indefinite article with non-count and plural count nouns (see Carlier 2007). Thus, we are actually dealing with an alternation between indefinite articles and the determiner de in these cases, too. Secondly, the determiner de can be seen as related to the partitive in the following way. As mentioned above, the partitive article, formed by the combination of the separative preposition de and the definite article, had a truly partitive meaning in older stages of French. In the combination of de and a definite article, it was the separative preposition de that contributed the meaning of extracting a part of the whole and was thus responsible for the partitive meaning of the combination. The determiner de is etymologically the same element as the separative preposition (cf. the diachrony of the Finnish and Basque partitive case markers above). Its connection to partitives is further demonstrated by the fact that it is required to appear before nouns with most quantifiers, e.g., peu de lait ‘little milk’, beaucoup de lait ‘a lot of milk’. The French alternation thus shows clear similarities to the partitive of negation as defined in this paper. Taking a closer look at the function of the alternation in contemporary French, we may note that the so-called partitive article may actually appear under negation, but it then gets a referential reading as in (6a). (6)

French (constructed examples) a. je ne bois pas du lait qu’ il m’ offre 1 SG . NOM NEG drink.1 SG NEG PAR . M milk REL 3 SG . NOM 1SG . DAT offer ‘I’m not drinking (any of) the milk he’s offering me.’

This shows us that the use of the determiner de under negation is in fact connected to the referentiality of the noun phrase. I will not enter into a more detailed discussion of the French facts here, but I will come back to the issue of referentiality at many points later in this paper. Article usage is affected by negation in Albanian as well: according to (Newmark et al. 1982: 152), negative generic expressions (with meaning ‘(there is) not a / no’) take indefinite nouns without indefinite article. Givón (1978: 74, citing Robert Hetzron, p.c.) notes that in Hungarian the indefinite article conveying a referential indefinite reading cannot be used with the object of a negated sentence. Another case of the use of articles affected under negation is found in the Brazilian language Nambikuára (7).

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Matti Miestamo

Nambikuára (Kroeker 2001: 34) a. hu3kx-a2 yũ3n-a1-wa2 bow-DEF own-1 SG - IPFV ‘I have a bow.’ b.

hu3ki3-la2 yũn2-nxa3-wa2 bow-NEG own-1 SG . NEG - IPFV ‘I don’t have a bow.’

In transitive and nonverbal negative sentences, the negative clitic -la3 occurs on the object and replaces the definite or indefinite article suffix, see (Kroeker 2001: 34, 43, 46, 76). The effects on article usage found in Albanian, Hungarian and Nambikuára are not instances of the partitive of negation in the sense defined above, and the same is, in the main, true for the effects of negation on the marking of noun phrases discussed in what follows. However, as will be shown, most of the phenomena to be discussed are relevant for understanding the motivation of the partitive of negation. According to Creissels (2009: 90, 165), Kita Maninka, spoken in Mali, has a marker of definiteness on the noun. In affirmatives, this marker, despite its name, is used in both definite and indefinite contexts (8a–b; note that this marker is purely tonal: yirı̍ vs. yiri), and definiteness may be specified by determiners as in (8c–d). In negatives, the presence of the definiteness marker on the noun is not obligatory and a distinction between indefinite (non-referential) vs. definite may be made by the form of the noun alone (8e–f). (8)

Kita Maninka (Creissels 2009: 90–91) a. n dí yirı̍ tège 1 CMPL . AFF tree.DEF cut ‘I cut a/the tree.’ b. *n 1 c.

d.

dí CMPL . AFF

yiri tree

tège cut

n dí yirì 1 CMPL . AFF tree.DEF ‘I cut a tree.’ n dí yirı̍ 1 CMPL . AFF tree.DEF ‘I cut the tree.’

dò EXTR

’n DEM

tège cut

tège cut

Partitives and negation: A cross-linguistic survey

e.

n mán yiri tège 1 CMPL . NEG tree cut ‘I didn’t cut a/any tree.’

f.

n mán yirı̍ 1 CMPL . NEG tree.DEF ‘I didn’t cut the tree.’

75

tège cut

The definiteness marker could be characterized as a default determiner whose absence is licensed by certain contexts only. Negative is one of these contexts, and this choice is also available in interrogatives. In a number of Bantu languages, negation has an effect on the form of the noun class prefixes, see the Xhosa examples in (9). (9)

Xhosa (Taraldsen 2010: 1526–1527) a. ndi-bon-a a-ba-fundi 1 SG -see-FV DET-CL-student ‘I see the/some students’ b.

c.

a-ndi-bon-i ba-fundi NEG -1 SG -see-FV CL -student ‘I don’t see any students’ a-ndi-ba-bon-i

a-ba-fundi

NEG -1 SG - CL -see-FV

DET- CL-student

‘I don’t see the students’ ‘There are some students I don’t see.’ In the affirmative (9a) the noun class prefix -ba- is preceded by a pre-prefix, a kind of default determiner that can be absent in certain contexts only (very much like the definiteness marker in Kita Maninka above, Denis Creissels, p.c.). Negation is one of the contexts in which the default determiner can be omitted (9b). The determiner can be found in negatives, as well, if the object prefix also appears on the verb (9c), i.e. when the object is definite (or, more rarely, specific indefinite). The same phenomenon is found in closely related languages such as Zulu (see Doke 1961: 300–301), as well as in some more distantly related Bantu languages such as Bemba, Bobangi, Kinyarwanda and Luganda (see Givón 1978: 74–75). Doke’s examples show that interrogatives form another context in which the absence of the pre-prefix is possible in Zulu (cf. Kita Maninka above). In the Australian language Nunggubuyu, according to Heath (1984: 526– 531), negation has a number of effects on the structure of the clause. One of

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these effects is that nominals in the scope of negation obligatorily have a noun class prefix and furthermore non-humans must have the continuous rather than the punctual aspect noun class prefix. In non-negative contexts, the choice of overt prefix and continuous prefix for nonhumans depends on a multitude of factors including case, givenness/definiteness (for the functions of noun class prefixes, see Heath 1984: 163–173). Heath (1984: 169) notes that in the nominative (the case used for subjects and objects) where the opposition is the most significant, the presence of the (continuous) prefix correlates with definiteness and givenness and its absence with focus and foregrounding. Some Oceanic languages, e.g., Araki spoken in Vanuatu, show an interesting interaction between negation and determiners that are often termed partitive markers. Consider the Araki examples in (10) (Alexandre François, p.c.; see also François 2002: 54–68). (10)

Araki (Alexandre François, p.c.) a. nam les-i-a jau lo lep̈ a 1SG . R see-OBJ. REF-3 SG coconut.crab LOC ground ‘I’ve seen a/the coconut crab on the ground.’ b.

nam les-i-a jau mo-hese 1SG . R see-OBJ. REF-3 SG coconut.crab 3.R-one ‘I’ve seen a coconut crab on the ground.’

lo LOC

lep̈ a ground

c.

nam je les re jau lo lep̈ a 1SG . R NEG see PAR coconut.crab LOC ground ‘I haven’t seen a/any coconut crab on the ground.’

d.

nam je les-i-a jau lo lep̈ a 1SG . R NEG see-OBJ. REF-3 SG coconut.crab LOC ground ‘I haven’t seen the coconut crab on the ground.’ [but not *‘I haven’t seen a coconut crab on the ground.’]

In realis affirmatives, as in (10a), objects are bare noun phrases and the verb bears a marker of referential object and person-number cross-reference. The object may be further specified as indefinite by the specific indefinite marker mo-hese (10b). In the negative, there is no cross-reference on the verb and the object is marked by the partitive marker re (10c). Referential marking and cross-reference on the verb is possible in negatives, but then the reading is definite (10d); in this case re does not occur. The specific indefinite marker mo-hese is impossible in negatives (11a) and the partitive re is impossible in realis affirmatives (11b). As can be seen in (11c–d),

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Partitives and negation: A cross-linguistic survey

both specific and non-specific are possible in irrealis affirmatives. In the negative, realis and irrealis behave in the same way. (11)

Araki (Alexandre François, p.c.) a. *nam je les-i-a jau mo-hese 1SG . R NEG see-OBJ. REF-3 SG coconut.crab 3.R-one *‘I haven’t seen a coconut crab on the ground.’

lo LOC

lep̈ a ground

b. *nam les re jau lo lep̈ a 1SG . R see PAR coconut.crab LOC ground *‘I have seen any coconut crab on the ground.’ c.

na pa han re jau 1 SG . IRR FUT eat PAR coconut.crab ‘I will eat a/some coconut crab.’

d.

na pa han-i-a 1 SG . IRR FUT eat-OBJ. REF-3 SG ‘I will eat the coconut crab.’

jau coconut.crab

Alexandre François (p.c.) summarizes the situation as in Table 1. The marker re is also found in negative existentials (see François 2002: 65–66), but there it seems to have grammaticalized as part of the negative existential predicate. Affirmative existentials do not use re. Table 1: Verbal cross-reference and marking of referentiality in noun phrases in Araki (Alexandre François, p.c.)

OBJECT OBJECT OBJECT

[+def] [–def, +ref] [–def, –ref]

AFF REALIS

AFF IRREALIS

NEG REALIS

NEG IRREALIS

V-i-a+N V-i-a+N (mo-hese) *

V-i-a+N * V+re N

V-i-a+N * V+re N

V-i-a+N * V+re N

The marker re is referred to as the partitive-indefinite marker by François (2002: 59), because it has among its prototypical uses the partitive function (‘some [water]’), but on the same page, the author describes it as a marker of nonspecific indefinite reference, and this seems to be the core meaning of the marker. Given that re has a partitive function, too, the Araki case can be seen as an instance of the partitive of negation. A situation closely similar to what was just described for Araki obtains in Mav̈ea, another Oceanic language of Vanuatu (Guérin 2007), a marker of non-referentiality appearing in negative contexts. Samoan is another Oceanic

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language with a similar alternation between markers of specificity and nonspecificity. In this language (see Mosel & Hovdhaugen 1992: 263–264, 480), a distinction between specific and non-specific reference can be made using articles. In the present context, it is worth noting that the non-specific article is obligatory with the absolutive noun phrase of the negative existential verb leai. This is a highly grammaticalized restriction, since it also applies to proper names. The absolutive noun phrase arguments of lē/leʻi maua ‘do not get’ and lē/leʻi lagona ‘do not feel’ behave similarly. Furthermore, whereas in positive generic verbal clauses the arguments are determined by the singular specific article, in negatives the non-specific article is used. In negative (and polar interrogative) equational clauses the predicate noun phrase is obligatorily non-specific if it expresses a quality, but predicates of identification are specific. According to Claire MoyseFaurie (p.c.), a pattern similar to what is found in Samoan is common in Polynesian languages (see also Budd, this volume). Another case of negation affecting the marking of referentiality is reported from the Chadic language Hdi (Frajzyngier & Shay 2002: 333–334; Wolff 2009: 49). In this language, the suffix -ta on the verb marks the referentiality of the event; one characteristic of a referential event is the referentiality of the object. The referential suffix does not occur in negative clauses. This is not an effect of negation on the marking of noun phrases, but it is clearly functionally related to the effects discussed above. Finally, it is worth mentioning in this discussion of the relationship between partitives and negation, that some Oceanic languages show an interaction between negation and partitive markers appearing on the verb. In Paamese (Crowley 1982), yet another language of Vanuatu, as can be seen in the examples in (12), the verb receives a partitive marker when negated. (12)

Paamese (Crowley 1982: 144, 145) a. long-e b. ro-longe-tei NEG -3 SG . R . hear-PAR 3SG . R .hear-3SG .OBJ ‘He heard him.’ ‘He did not hear him.’ c.

d.

longe-nV ree-ku 3 SG . R . hear-COMM .OBJ voice-1 SG ‘He heard my voice.’ ro-longe-tei

ree-ku voice-1 SG ‘He didn’t hear my voice.’ NEG -3 SG . R .hear-PAR

Partitives and negation: A cross-linguistic survey

e.

79

ma-ani-tei raise 1SG . IM -eat-PAR rice ‘I would like to eat some rice.’

The partitive suffix appears on the verb in negated intransitives and transitives with non-generic objects. It can also be used in affirmatives to convey partitive meaning (12e). In intransitive affirmatives, the function of the partitive is to express “that the action or the state depicted by the verb is attained only a little and is not a major performance of the action or a complete achievement of the state”, and in transitive affirmatives “that the referent of the object is an indefinite subset of the total possible class of objects” (Crowley 1982: 144). The function of the partitive is thus similar to the functions of the partitive markers appearing in noun phrases in other languages seen above, but in Paamese the partitive marker is a verbal suffix. What we find in Paamese is closely related to the partitive of negation. It is interesting to note that in the related language Lewo, the partitive marker re modifying the verb has grammaticalized as a negative marker; the partitive marker still exists in the same phonological form but cannot cooccur with the negator re, and the diachronic development, motivated by the functional connection between negation and partitive, has thus led to a situation in which negation and partitive are mutually exclusive (see Early 1994 for details). We have seen that Araki (and some other Polynesian languages) show an explicit connection between negation and the marking of referentiality. It will be argued in Section 4 that the partitive of negation and most of the other effects of negation on the marking of noun phrases taken up so far can also be seen as functionally motivated by the effects of negation on the referentiality of arguments. The above discussion of these cases is therefore interesting in view of placing the partitive of negation in a typological-functional context. Before concluding this section, I will briefly mention some other effects that negation may have on the marking of noun phrases, but that cannot be directly linked with referentiality, and are therefore not central to the aims of this paper. In the Bantu language Aghem (Hyman 2010; Larry Hyman, p.c.), negation is treated as inherently focused, which has the effect that objects are treated as obliques in negatives. A connection between focus and negation is found in many languages of Africa, resulting in different structural asymmetries between affirmation and negation. An incompatibility between negation and focus in Kanuri is noted by Cyffer (2009: 87, 89–90; see also some other papers in that volume for the relationship between negation and focus in African languages). In Lavukaleve (Terrill 2003), too, negation has some effects on the marking of focus (see also Miestamo 2005: 137). The relationship between negation and

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focus has not received a lot of attention in typological studies of negation, and remains a fruitful topic for future work. Finally, it may be noted that in some languages, the alignment system is affected by negation. According to Eduardo Ribeiro (p.c.), in Northern Ge languages (Central Brazil), negation triggers an ergative alignment pattern, and the verb is nominalized (see Silva 2001 for Kayapó, Alves 2004 for Canela, and Oliveira 2005 for Apinayé). In fact, the ergative pattern appears with nominalization in other contexts as well, not only negation, and it is thus the nominalization that is responsible for the ergative pattern, and ergativity is triggered by negation only indirectly. In Yimas, one of the effects of negation is that the alignment pattern of the clause changes with respect to the corresponding affirmative; in Yimas, too, this is connected with nominalization (cf. Foley 1991, see Miestamo 2005: 146–149 for discussion). It is not rare in the world’s languages that negation requires a nominalized or otherwise non-finite verb (see Miestamo 2005: 73–96, 172–174). Table 2 recapitulates the effects of negation observed in this section. Since these phenomena are cross-linguistically rather uncommon, it is not possible to make quantitative analyses of their frequency and distribution. All relevant cases found in the survey are mentioned here. I will now move on to discuss their possible functional motivations. Table 2: Summary of the effects of negation discussed Partitive/genitive case used

Finnic: Finnish, Estonian, Votic, Liv, etc.; Baltic: Lithuanian, Latvian; Slavic: Russian, Ukrainian, Polish; Basque

Non-specific (partitive) determiner used

Araki, Mav̈ea, Samoan and various other Polynesian languages; French

Omission / restrictions on use of article

Albanian; Hungarian; Nambikuára

Absence of default determiner possible

Kita Maninka; Bantu: Xhosa, Zulu, Bemba, Bobangi, Kinyarwanda, Luganda

Class marker obligatory

Nunggubuyu

Absence of referentiality marker on verb

Hdi

Partitive marker on verb

Paamese

Effects on focus marking

Aghem; Kanuri; Lavukaleve

Effects on alignment

Northern Ge: Kayapó, Canela, Apinayé; Yimas

4 Discussion and conclusion In Section 1, it was briefly mentioned that the partitive of negation and the other effects of negation on the marking of noun phrases discussed in Section 3 can be

Partitives and negation: A cross-linguistic survey

81

seen as instances of structural asymmetry between affirmation and negation. In Miestamo (2005), I made a distinction between symmetric and asymmetric negation according to whether there are structural differences between negatives and their affirmative counterparts in addition to the presence of negative markers. Different types of asymmetry between affirmation and negation were discussed, but the focus was on markings appearing on the verbal and clausal levels, not within noun phrases. In this paper I have looked at asymmetry phenomena on the noun phrase level. Functional motivations behind symmetric and asymmetric negatives can be understood in terms of the concepts of language-internal and language-external analogy (cf. Itkonen 2005). Symmetric negation, like any regularity in linguistic structure, is motivated by language-internal analogy: negatives simply copy the structure of the affirmative and are thus language-internally analogous to the structure of the affirmative, ultimately motivated by structural cohesion that helps processing and storage. Asymmetric negatives copy different aspects of the functional (semantic and pragmatic) properties of negation that differ from the functional properties of affirmation, and are thus language-externally analogous to these functional-level asymmetries between affirmation and negation. In Miestamo (2005: 195–235) I discussed the different functional properties of negation motivating the different types of asymmetry between affirmatives and negatives established in that study. In the following, I will address the functional motivations of the noun phrase-level asymmetries observed in Section 3. Givón (1978) discusses the relationship between negation and referentiality. Consider the examples in (13). (13)

English (Givón 1978: 72) a. John met a girl yesterday . . . and Fred met one too . . . and Fred met her too

b.

John didn’t meet a girl yesterday . . . and Fred didn’t meet one either *. . . and Fred didn’t meet her either

The object noun phrase in the affirmative sentence (13a) can get either a nonreferential or a referential reading as shown by the possible ways of continuing the sentence. In the negative (13b), only a non-referential reading of the object noun phrase is felicitous, and the continuation compatible with a referential reading is odd. There is a general tendency for indefinites in the scope of negation to be non-referential. This tendency is motivated by the discourse context of negation. Negative sentences are used in contexts in which the corresponding affirmative is present in one way or another; typically, the speaker assumes that the hearer believes the corresponding affirmative to be the case. Negatives are therefore not used to introduce new referents to the discourse. Referential objects

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are first introduced in affirmatives and appear as definite in negatives. The connection between negation and non-referentiality is also observed, e.g., by Hopper & Thompson (1980). In their transitivity criteria, negation and nonreferentiality of the object (O non-individuated) are among the correlates of low transitivity and affirmation and referentiality of the object (O highly individuated) are among the correlates of high transitivity. Many of the effects of negation observed in Section 3 can be linked to the connection between negation and non-referentiality. In the case of the Oceanic determiners this is clear: determiners with the expression of non-referentiality as their primary function are used with indefinite noun phrases under negation. In French, too, the determiner de appears with non-referential nouns. In Hdi, a marker of referentiality is omitted under negation. The absence of the default determiners in Kita Maninka and the Bantu languages mentioned above are also connected to referentiality; the default determiner is absent when the noun phrase is non-referential, and the determiner is used with referential noun phrases (which are overwhelmingly definite under negation). As to the effects on article usage in Hungarian, it is the indefinite article conveying a referential reading that is not used under negation. Referentiality effects are possibly also behind the asymmetry found in Nunggubuyu, since definiteness and givenness are mentioned as correlates of the obligatory use of class markers. As to the motivations of the partitive of negation in Finnic, Baltic, Slavic and Basque, I want to suggest that the functional connection between negation and non-referentiality (and ultimately the discourse context of negation) plays an important role in motivating these cases as well. Partitives refer to a non-individuated mass, rather than a clearly delimited entity and they thereby provide a useful form for expressing indefinite non-referential meanings. A connection between partitive (genitive) case and non-referentiality has been observed in the literature, e.g., for Russian (see Krasovitsky et al. 2011: Section 2) and Basque (see above); see also Luraghi & Kittilä (this volume). As to Finnish, the distinction between total and partial objects in affirmatives is linked with referentiality, total objects being correlated with referentiality and partial objects with nonreferentiality, and the referentiality of the object is one of the factors that increases the (very low) probability of a total object appearing under negation (see Almqvist 1987: 26, 156). In addition to referentiality, the use of the partitive in negatives is also motivated by its quantificational function. In negative sentences the action is not carried out completely, or not at all, and therefore objects are not affected by the action completely, or not at all. These motivations taken together may lead to the grammaticalization of the partitive of negation in some languages.

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Another factor connected to the partitive is aspectuality. In Finnish, partial objects correlate with imperfective aspect and total objects with perfective aspect. It has sometimes been claimed (e.g., Schmid 1980) that perfective aspect and negation are incompatible in the world’s languages so that imperfective aspect would be more likely to appear under negation. In (Miestamo 2005: 180–181) I showed, however, that this does not hold true in a wider typological perspective, perfective- and imperfective-type aspects being equally likely to be excluded in negatives (see also Miestamo & van der Auwera 2011). No wider connection between aspect and negation thus seems to exist in a broad typological perspective. Consequently, although clear connections between aspect and case marking are found in some languages, e.g., in Finnish, the cross-linguistic facts do not provide support for aspectuality as a motivation behind the partitive of negation. This paper examined the interaction between negation and partitive marking in noun phrases in a typological perspective. The requirement that a case with a partitive function be used on noun phrases under the scope of negation is not found outside the familiar European languages. Other effects of negation on the marking of noun phrases were also observed, with a special focus on cases that have a connection with referentiality. There is a tendency of indefinite noun phrases in the scope of negation to be non-referential. The partitive of negation was also claimed to be motivated by this connection between negation and non-referentiality. This paper focused on partitives and other effects that bear a functional similarity to them. In future research, a more comprehensive view of the effects of negation on the marking of noun phrases is needed.

Acknowledgements I am grateful to the audience at the partitives workshop at SLE in Vilnius, September 2010, especially Denis Creissels, Juha Janhunen, and Brigitte Pakendorf. I wish to thank the following people who replied to my query on the Linguist List (see Section 2): Bernard Comrie, Greville Corbett, Alexandre François, Paul Hopper, Larry Hyman, Larisa Leisiö, Claire Moyse-Faurie, Eduardo Ribeiro, Wolfgang Schultze, John Stewart, Bernhard Wälchli, and Ljuba Veselinova. Special thanks to Ljuba Veselinova, Silvia Luraghi and an anonymous referee for comments on the manuscript. Thanks are also due to the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, my working place at the time of conducting the research behind this paper, and Stockholm University where the paper was revised.

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References Almqvist, Ingrid. 1987. Om objektsmarkering vid negation i finskan [On object marking with negation in Finnish] (Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis, Studia Fennica Stockholmiensia 1). Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International. Alves, Flávia de Castro. 2004. O timbira falado pelos Canela Apaniekrá: uma contribuição aos estudos da morfossintaxe de uma língua Jê [The Timbira spoken by the Apaniekrá Canela: A contribution to the study of the morphosyntax of a Ge language]. Campinas: University of Campinas dissertation. Ambrazas, Vytautas (ed.). 1997. Lithuanian grammar. Vilnius: Baltos Lankos. Ariste, Paul. 1968. A grammar of the Votic language (Indiana University Publications, Uralic and Altaic Series 68). Bloomington: Indiana University / The Hague: Mouton. Bielec, Dana. 1998. Polish: An essential grammar. London: Routledge. Carlier, Anne. 2007. From preposition to article: The grammaticalization of the French partitive. Studies in Language 31(1). 1–49. Corbett, Greville. 1986. The use of the genitive or accusative for the direct object of negated verbs in Russian: A bibliography. In Richard D. Brecht & James S. Levine (eds.), Case in Slavic, 361–372. Columbus: Slavica. Creissels, Denis. 2009. Le malinké de Kita: Un parler mandingue de l’ouest du Mali (Langues et Linguistique Mandé 9). Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe. Crowley, Terry. 1982. The Paamese language of Vanuatu (Pacific Linguistics B 87). Canberra: Australian National University. Cyffer, Norbert. 2009. Negation patterns in Kanuri. In Norbert Cyffer, Erwin Ebermann, and Georg Ziegelmeyer (eds.), Negation patterns in West African languages and beyond, (Typological Studies in Language 87), 71–92. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Dahl, Östen & Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm. 2001. The Circum-Baltic languages: Introduction to the volume. In Östen Dahl & Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm (eds.), Circum-Baltic Languages, volume 2: Grammar and typology (Studies in Language Companion Series 55), xv–xx. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Dambriunas, Leonardas, Antanas Klimas, and William R. Schmalstieg. 1972. Introduction to Modern Lithuanian, 2nd revised edn. New York: Darbininkas. Doke, Clement M. 1961. Textbook of Zulu grammar, 6th edn. Cape Town: Maskew Miller Longman. Dryer, Matthew S. 1989. Large linguistic areas and language sampling. Studies in Language 13. 257–292. Dryer, Matthew S. & Martin Haspelmath (eds.). 2011. The world atlas of language structures online. Munich: Max Planck Digital Library. http://wals.info/ Early, Robert. 1994. Lewo. In Peter Kahrel and René van den Berg (eds.), Typological studies in negation (Typological Studies in Language 29), 65–92. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Erelt, Mati. 2003. Syntax. In Mati Erelt (ed.), Estonian language (Linguistica Uralica Supplementary Series 1), 93–129. Tallinn: Estonian Academy Publishers. Fennel, Trevor G. & Henry Gelsen. 1980. A grammar of Modern Latvian, vol. I–III (Slavistic Printings and Reprintings 304). The Hague: Mouton. Foley, William A. 1991. The Yimas language of New Guinea. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Forest, Robert. 1993. Négations: Essai de syntaxe et de typologie linguistique (Collection Linguistique LXXVII). Paris: Klincksieck.

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Frajzyngier, Zygmunt, with Erin Shay. 2002. A grammar of Hdi (Mouton Grammar Library 21). Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. François, Alexandre. 2002. Araki. A disappearing language of Vanuatu (Pacific Linguistics 522). Canberra: Australian National University. Givón, Talmy. 1978. Negation in language: Pragmatics, function, ontology. In Peter Cole (ed.), Syntax and semantics, vol. 9, Pragmatics, 69–112. New York: Academic Press. Guérin, Valérie. 2007. Definiteness and specificity in Mav̈ea. Oceanic Linguistics 46(2). 538– 553. Hakulinen, Auli, Maria Vilkuna, Riitta Korhonen, Vesa Koivisto, Tarja Riitta Heinonen & Irja Alho. 2004. Iso suomen kielioppi [The big grammar of Finnish]. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. Hakulinen, Lauri. 1961. Suomen kielen rakenne ja kehitys [The structure and development of Finnish], 2nd, revised edn. Helsinki: Otava. Haspelmath, Martin, Matthew S. Dryer, David Gil & Bernard Comrie (eds.). 2005. The world atlas of language structures. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Heath, Jeffrey. 1984. Functional grammar of Nunggubuyu. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. Holst, Jan Henrik. 2001. Lettische Grammatik. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag. Honda, Isao. 1996. Negation: A cross-linguistic study. Buffalo: State University of New York at Buffalo dissertation. Hopper, Paul J. & Sandra A. Thompson. 1980. Transitivity in grammar and discourse. Language 56. 251–299. Hualde, José Ignacio & Jon Ortiz de Urbina. 2003. A grammar of Basque (Mouton Grammar Library 26). Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Hyman, Larry M. 2010. Focus marking in Aghem: Syntax or semantics? In Ines Fiedler and Anne Schwarz (eds.), The expression of information structure: A documentation of its diversity across Africa (Typological Studies in Language 91), 95–116. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Itkonen, Esa. 2005. Analogy as structure and process: Approaches in linguistics, cognitive psychology and philosophy of science (Human Cognitive Processing 14). Amsterdam: Benjamins. Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria & Bernhard Wälchli. 2001. The Circum-Baltic languages: An arealtypological approach. In Östen Dahl & Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm (eds.), Circum-Baltic languages, volume 2: Grammar and typology (Studies in Language Companion Series 55), 615–750. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Krasovitsky, Alexander, Matthew Baerman, Dunstan Brown & Greville G. Corbett. 2011. Changing semantic factors in case selection: Russian evidence from the last two centuries. Morphology 21(3). 573–592. Kroeker, Menno. 2001. A descriptive grammar of Nambikuara. International Journal of American Linguistics 67. 1–87. Lazdiņa, Terẽza B. 1966. Latvian (Teach Yourself Books). London: The English Universities Press. Metslang, Helle. 2001. On the developments of the Estonian aspect: The verbal particle ära. In Östen Dahl & Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm (eds.), Circum-Baltic languages, volume 2, Grammar and typology (Studies in Language Companion Series 55), 443–479. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

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Miestamo, Matti. 2005. Standard negation: The negation of declarative verbal main clauses in a typological perspective (Empirical Approaches to Language Typology 31). Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Miestamo, Matti & Johan van der Auwera. 2011. Negation and perfective vs. imperfective aspect. In Jesse Mortelmans, Tanja Mortelmans & Walter De Mulder (eds.), From now to eternity (Cahiers Chronos 22), 65–84. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi. Moravcsik, Edith A. 1978. Case marking of objects. In Joseph Greenberg (ed.), Universals of human language, volume 4: Syntax, 250–289. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Mosel, Ulrike & Even Hovdhaugen. 1992. Samoan reference grammar. Oslo: Scandinavian University Press. Naughton, James. 2005. Czech: An essential grammar. London: Routledge. Nedyalkov, Igor. 1994. Evenki. In Peter Kahrel & René van den Berg (eds.), Typological studies in negation (Typological Studies in Language), 1–34. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Newmark, Leonard, Philip Hubbard & Peter Prifti. 1982. Standard Albanian: A reference grammar for students. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Oliveira, Christiane Cunha de. 2005. The language of the Apinajé people of Central Brazil. Portland: University of Oregon dissertation. Pakendorf, Brigitte. 2007. Contact in the prehistory of the Sakha (Yakuts): Linguistic and genetic perspectives (LOT Dissertation Series 170). Utrecht: LOT. Payne, John. R. 1985. Negation. In Timothy Shopen (ed.), Language typology and syntactic description, vol. I: Clause structure, 197–242. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pugh, Stefan M. & Ian Press. 1999. Ukrainian: A comprehensive grammar. London: Routledge. Schmid, Maureen Alicia. 1980. Co-occurrence restrictions in negative, interrogative, and conditional clauses: A cross-linguistic study. Buffalo: State University of New York at Buffalo dissertation. Silva, Maria Amélia Reis. 2001. Pronomes, ordem e ergatividade em Mebengokrê (Kayapó). Campinas: University of Campinas MA Thesis. Swan, Oscar E. 2002. A grammar of contemporary Polish. Bloomington: Slavica. Taraldsen, Knut Tarald. 2010. The nanosyntax of Nguni noun class prefixes and concords. Lingua 120. 1522–1548. Terrill, Angela. 2003. A grammar of Lavukaleve (Mouton Grammar Library 30). Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Wade, Terence. 2000. A comprehensive Russian grammar, 2nd revised and expanded edn. (Blackwell Reference Grammars). Oxford: Blackwell. Wolff, H. Ekkehard. 2009. The impact of clause types and focus control, aspect, modality, and referentiality on negation in Lamang and Hdi (Central Chadic). In Norbert Cyffer, Erwin Ebermann & Georg Ziegelmeyer (eds.), Negation patterns in West African languages and beyond (Typological Studies in Language 87), 21–56. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

II Uralic languages

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3 The Partitive Concept versus Linguistic Partitives: From Abstract Concepts to Evidentiality in the Uralic Languages1 Finnic and Sámi (Uralic, Finno-Ugric) languages have a morphological case that is referred to as the partitive. The meaning of the dedicated partitive case, however, diverges from the generally assumed partitive concept of part-whole relationships. Instead, the meaning of the partitives is either bleached, or it has developed to express other categories, such as aspect. Since the partitive also combines with non-finites, further developments have resulted in grammatical markers that are based on the partitive but belong to epistemic modality and evidentiality. As for the part-whole concepts, the Uralic languages tend to express them rather by juxtaposed bare nouns, elatives, or ablatives than by morphological partitives. The article places this mismatch between form and meaning in a wider context of using abstract concepts for comparing grammatical categories across languages. Examining the grammaticalization of TAM categories in Estonian (Finnic) and the partitives among the rich system of Uralic separatives, the analysis employs two terms: the Partitive Concept – a heuristic tool and a basic concept used for comparison – and Linguistic Partitives, dedicated morphological partitive cases and their language-specific further developments. Linguistic Partitives are described via two (or more) concepts. Firstly, they are described via the concepts that they express, such as aspect or evidentiality. Secondly, they are also described in terms of the Partitive Concept. This multiple linking to concepts, the Partitive Concept and for instance TAM concepts, is intended to guarantee that the description of language-specific categories, such as Estonian aspect or evidentiality, reflects the aspectual and evidential nature of these categories as well as the overarching system of partitivity in the Finnic grammatical system. In addition, the Partitive Concept is constructed to serve as a suitable basis for further psycholinguistic testing with the goal of finding out if the abstract concept corresponds to a cognitively motivated linguistic category.

1 Many thanks to Tuomas Huumo and Silvia Luraghi for creating a lively forum for discussing partitives across languages and theories. I am indebted to an anonymous reviewer and Silvia Luraghi for insightful discussions and to Leyla Caglar and Tommaso Claudi for their work with the manuscript.

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Keywords: source, separative, concepts, grammatical categories, cross-linguistic comparison, Uralic.

1 Introduction Partitive is among the most theory-dependent terms for a case in modern linguistics. This paper targets some of the confusing issues concerning the partitives from the Uralic languages. The main aim is to reduce the uninformed crosstalk between linguists of different traditions and help them see where their coverage of the term “partitive” converges or diverges. What is the uniform conceptual toolkit to tackle the examples discussed under the term “partitive” in (1)? (1)

a.

Russian čaška čaj-u cup[ F. NOM ] tea- GEN 2 ‘a cup of tea’

b.

Hungarian gyerek-e-i-m-ből a child- LK- PL- POSS .1 SG - ELA DEF ‘the youngest of my children’

leg-fiatal-a-bb SUP-young- LK-CMPR

c.

Finnish ilman rahaa without money.PAR ‘without money’

d.

Mari sõ-i õuna. M[NOM ] eat-PST 3 S apple.PAR ‘Mary was eating an apple.’

e.

Mari tule-va-t koju. M[NOM ] come-PERS . PRS . PTCP- PAR home.ILL ‘Allegedly/reportedly, Mary will come home.’

Scholars referring to the category expressed by the Russian -u on čaj-u in čaška čaj-u ‘a cup of tea’ in (1a) may understand why the category expressed by the Hungarian elative -ből in the example gyerekeim-ből a legfiatalabb ‘the youngest of my children’ (1b) should be referred to as “partitive”, but they will

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find it problematic to extend the category to the Finnish partitive -a in the complement of ilman rahaa ‘without money’ (1c). Scholars concentrating on the Finnic partitive forms, for instance, the partitives occurring as part of the object (1d) and predicate (1e) in the Estonian, ‘Mary was eating an apple’ and ‘Allegedly/ reportedly, Mary will come home’ find it unintuitive to refer to genitives and elatives as “the partitive”. The main puzzle is thus how to compare these and many other partitives in relation to each other. The main solutions proposed in this paper follow in (i). (i) A distinction between “Linguistic Partitives” and “Partitive Concepts” in describing the partitive phenomena in Uralic is useful for better understanding of the partitive phenomena. Distinguishing the two helps to compare the mismatches between the partitive form and the part-whole meaning across the individual languages. – The Partitive Concept is an abstract concept that serves for comparing the semantics of grammatical forms to the “part-of-N” (1b) and “amountof-N” (1a) concepts. – The Partitive Concept comprises two metonymically related subconcepts: the partitive (N-of-the N, 1b) and the pseudopartitive (N-of-N, 1a). – A Linguistic Partitive is a grammatical form that is conceptually related to the meaning of the Partitive Concept. The partitive cases have developed their specific semantics and pragmatics in each Uralic language where the case appears. – The Linguistic Partitive is divided into functional (e.g., aspectual, 1d, evidential, 1e) and structural categories (e.g., complement case, default case 1c), depending on the semantics of the partitive in the structure of the language at hand. The term “partitive” is most frequently applied to a type of Indo-European genitive (Koptjevskaja-Tamm 2001: 525). The term typically covers phenomena that are not morphological partitives, but still similar to (1a), the Russian -u on čaj-u in čaška čaj-u ‘a cup of tea’ or to the Hungarian elative -ből in gyerekeimből a legfiatalabb ‘the youngest of my children’. Other aspects of the forms referred to as the partitive have enjoyed considerable attention in theoretical linguistic literature due to the special thematic relationship that the partitive encodes between the predicate and the object as in (1d) (Krifka 1992). Hoeksema (1996) contains several formal and generative papers on the partitive. De Hoop (1996) gives an influential account in terms of quantifiers, and de Hoop (1998) offers an extensive overview of the theoretical approaches to the phenomenon and a thorough bibliography. At the interface between cognition and language,

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Jackendoff (1991) relates cognition and theoretical linguistics with the concept of partitivity and parts, and interpretational peculiarities of some partitive phenomena via discourse and pragmatics. In psycholinguistics, Reed (1991) discusses several constraints of the partitive constructions, arguing that these constraints stem from discourse requirements. Some of these influential typological, theoretical and cognitive accounts mention a lesser known, but nevertheless theoretically and typologically intriguing phenomenon: a dedicated partitive case. The Uralic languages, more specifically, the Finnic and Sámi languages are a whole group of related languages where there is a morphological partitive. This case marks objects, subjects, predicatives, other complements, and even measure adjuncts. It combines with various non-finites (nominalizations) that vary in their degree of finiteness. The combinations of nonfinites and the partitive case formant are either transparent or opaque, and are combined productively or have completely grammaticalized as intersubjective markers. Especially several recently analyzed Estonian partitive case phenomena are an interesting object of study between form, meaning, cognition, and communication in general. Modern Estonian has a wide range of furher developments of the partitive, covering distinct functional categories such as aspect or evidentiality. The partitive evidential is an intersubjective marker the understanding of which requires a Theory of Mind. The partitive has also developed a wide variety of desemanticized uses and is a structural case because it behaves as a formal, semantically opaque complement case. There are many questions this contribution wishes to address. What is the relationship between the idea we have about partitivity and the various occurrences of a dedicated partitive form? How are these occurrences related? How does the partitive distinguish itself from other similar cases, such as the accusative, or the source cases? Is there a uniform partitive concept that can be taken as a reference point for comparisons? How should we map the partitive meanings to the partitive forms across languages? What is the function of the partitive in communication? A wider perspective on partitive and partitive-like concepts in the Uralic languages provides valuable material for further studies into the relationship between language, communication, and the cognition of concepts. Up until now, the description has been fragmented for the specific purposes of particular studies. This article wishes to give a representative overview of the properties of the morphological partitives and related cases in the Uralic languages. The partitive is by now a well-studied grammatical phenomenon in Uralic linguistics. It has been discussed in grammar books of Finnic languages and general collections on Uralic languages such as Abondolo (1998), or particular descriptive or diachronic studies on the partitive case in Finnic, such as Tveite

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(2004) on Livonian, Ritter (1989) on Veps, or Denison (1957) on Finnish. There are informative works on the semantic or syntactic conditions of the partitive case in Finnic languages, such as aspect, indefiniteness, or grammatical relations (e.g., Heinämäki 1984, Rajandi and Metslang 1979, Metslang 2001, 1994, Hiietam 2003). In-depth studies on the partitive across the Finnic languages include parallel text-based quantified comparisons (Lees 2005) and diachronic investigations (Larsson 1983). Some questionnaire-based targeted typological research on Uralic languages includes the topic of the partitive, as the edited volume on negation (Miestamo et al. forthc.). More theory-oriented and less data oriented approaches are almost exclusively on Finnish: cognitive (e.g. Huumo 2009), formal (Kiparsky 1998), generative (Brattico 2011, Vainikka and Maling 1996), or Optimality Theoretic (Kiparsky 2001, Anttila and Fong 2000). Several phenomena where the Estonian partitive is central are discussed from typological, cognitive and comparative generative and lexical viewpoint in the research of Tamm (e.g., Tamm 1999, 2012c). Master’s theses or articles and monographs based on doctoral dissertations discuss the partitive in Estonian (e.g., Tauli 1968, 1980, Nemvalts 2000, Vaiss 2004, Metslang 2007). This volume also contains analyses of the Estonian partitive phenomenon, mainly, the subjects, in a typological framework (Metslang, this volume, Huumo and Lindström, this volume). The current understanding in typology, most recently argued for in Haspelmath (2010) is that one cannot do comparative and language-specific analyses simultaneously by using cross-linguistic categories. Instead, comparative linguists should try to reach an agreement on concepts that can serve as comparison. As opposed to previous approaches, my article wishes to improve the current understanding of this issue by comparing the partitive concepts and various uses of separative (source) cases with a dedicated partitive form. The expression of the partitive concept in Uralic separatives or source cases will be compared to the concepts and functions expressed by the Finnic partitives. Most of the examples are taken from a language that has the highest type and token frequency of morphologically encoded partitive phenomena in spoken as well as written registers – Estonian. Any theoretical bias is deliberately avoided in order to be “legible” for linguists across frameworks. A classical generative and typological mapping or linking problem is central in this paper. Methods from several frameworks are applied in order to reach a better understanding of the partitive. Hopefully, this wall-to-wall linguistic approach contributes more to the interdisciplinary study of the phenomenon than a strictly specialized analysis, carried out within the confines of a single theory and methodology. More specifically, this paper first applies the method that is typical for typologists, establishing the correpondences from a concept to forms. Then it addresses

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the data with descriptive linguists’ methods, linking forms to meaning and use and, finally, makes use of pragmatics and cognitive semantics to explain the current polyfunctionality, cross-linguistic variation, and diachronic aspects of the partitive phenomena. Section 2 introduces the conceptual coverage of the Partitive Concept and points at data that are not covered by the Partitive Concept. Section 3 classifies the partitive forms that do not always match the Partitive Concept under Linguistic Partitives and introduces the term Linguistic Partitive in more detail. Section 4 shows that the Uralic languages are a suitable test-bed for studying various kinds of the partitive, with the Finnic, Skolt and Inari Sámi languages, which all have a dedicated partitive case, and that have both functional and structural instances of the partitive. The section also describes the empirical data and discusses some of the cases that express the Partitive Concept in the Uralic languages. Section 5 concentrates on the structure and the conceptual content of one instance of the linguistic partitive: the Estonian partitive evidential. The conclusion can be found in Section 6.

2 The conceptual coverage of the Partitive Concept The discussion of this section is about a general conceptual notion of the partitive. It also makes reference to language-specific conceptualizations and the desemanticized instances of the partitive to emphasize the distinction.

2.1 Comparative concepts and psychologically real concepts The labeling of the categories and the problem of language-specific versus more universal heuristic concepts has been subject of debates and research in typology, recently taken up in a number of articles by Haspelmath (2007, 2010) and works cited in these two sources. The discussion of the Uralic partitives will relate to the current debate on comparative concepts versus descriptive categories, as there is a discrepancy between the forms and meanings across the various Uralic languages. This paper envisages the Partitive Concept as a sort of comparative concept, distinguished from other comparative concepts in that a cognitive basis is also intended to be part of the concept (following Jackendoff 1991). The Linguistic Partitives of languages and language groups are diachronic descriptive categories, in the sense that they form a diachronically motivated partitive

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category in each of the languages. Synchronically, the Linguistic Partitives express a number of other concepts such as complementhood, subjecthood, objecthood, aspect, epistemic modality, indefiniteness, or evidentiality. I aim at constructing a cognitively plausible concept for comparison, whereas typologists face the problem of the comparability of languages via artificial or language-specific concepts. Haspelmath (2010) argues that descriptive categories and comparative concepts should be distinguished. More specifically, descriptive categories are the categories of particular languages, and comparative concepts are constructed for cross-linguistic comparison. The latter are created for the purpose of comparison, since the criteria for category-assignment are different from language to language, and so descriptive categories cannot be equated across languages. Linguists compare languages and need a toolkit for describing the correspondences, which is why they identify some cross-linguistic categories. The status of the latter is also a matter of debate. Many typologists do not support the idea of cross-linguistic formal categories. Newmeyer (2007: 133) criticizes typology, pointing out the contradiction between rejecting the idea of crosslinguistic formal grammatical categories, and the policy of utilizing crosslinguistic formal categories, which is opted for in many entries of World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS, Haspelmath et al. 2005), despite the position of two of the editors that such categories do not exist (Newmeyer 2007: 138). Haspelmath (2007, 2010) argues that the categories used in the WALS are rather comparative concepts, not cross-linguistic formal concepts. Haspelmath suggests that since semantic analysis provides a method for determining meaning, it can be used for making categories of languages comparable, even on a large scale. What are comparative concepts in typology according to Haspelmath? Comparative concepts are concepts created by comparative linguists, for the specific purpose of cross-linguistic comparison. Comparative concepts are designed to be universally applicable, and they are defined on the basis of other universally applicable concepts: universal meanings and universal formal notions, or on the basis of other comparative concepts. Comparative concepts are more or less suited for the task of permitting cross-linguistic comparison; each comparative linguist can make their own comparative concepts. Comparative concepts are heuristics that help to identify comparable phenomena across languages and to formulate cross-linguistic generalizations. Comparative concepts have to be universally applicable in typology. Language typology is made possible because of comparative concepts that serve as tertia comparationis, as argued for by Haspelmath (2010). The Partitive Concept is also a concept created for comparison, and it is linked to several language-specific categories. The different levels of semantics

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are seen as follows: the Partitive Concept is a comparative concept, an abstraction and a standard of comparison, and thus a heuristic tool. Language-specific categories expressed by morphological partitives are called Linguistic Partitives. Linguistic Partitives are described along two (or more) comparative concepts. Firstly, Linguistic Partitives are described via other concepts, such as subject, object, complement, evidentiality, aspect, genericity, or definiteness. Secondly, Linguistic Partitives are also described in terms of the Partitive Concept. This multiple linking to concepts, the Partitive Concept and other concepts, is intended to guarantee that the description of the particularly Finnic categories such as Finnish objects, Votic aspect, or Estonian evidentiality is linked to objecthood, aspect, and evidentiality across languages and also to the overarching system of partitivity in the Finnic grammatical system. The semantic features of the Finnic objects, aspect, and evidentiality are related to the comparative concept either directly or indirectly, by multiple metonymical or metaphorical extensions. In addition, there are instances where the conceptual content has disappeared altogether (it has bleached), and the partitive encodes a syntactic function of a complement or functions as a default. However, it should be emphasized that there is a difference between the Partitive Concept and a comparative concept. The partitive concept that I construct for comparative purposes is constructed in a way that it could serve as a hypothesis for cognitive testing. Comparative concepts are like measuring units – arbitrary, but indispensable units for comparing objects of study. As opposed to comparative concepts that are created by comparative linguists for the purpose of formulating readily testable cross-linguistic generalizations, the Partitive Concept is created in order to be able to test at a later stage whether the concept is also psychologically existent. While comparative conceps are like liters, meters or kilograms, the Partitive Concept could be understood more like items in the analog magnitude system (Carey 2009). This means that independently of language, there is a partitive relation that is perceived differently from other relations, for instance, a possessive relation. Linguists can construct nonlinguistic stimuli (pictures, videos, artificial social situations) and observe speakers’ reaction in a systematic way. The present paper has the aim of creating a suitable concept for further investigations into the cognitive properties of quantificational and spatial-separative linguistic concepts such as the partitive. One of the most intriguing questions in modern cognitive science concerns how the human prelinguistic perceptual concepts are related to linguistic and language-specific, more refined concepts (Carey 2009). A basic concept that has multiple uses with highly varying domains of application in natural language – from spatial to intersubjective – is a promising area for discovery in cognitive science as well.

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2.1 The labeling problem of some instances of the partitive in synchronic linguistics It would be perfectly justified to refer to the case that is referred to as “the partitive” in the Estonian grammar rather as “the accusative”. After all, it is the case that marks most of the objects in Estonian transitive clauses, as in (2). (2)

Estonian Mari armasta-b M[NOM ] love-3SG ‘Mary loves John.’

Jaanus-t. J-PAR

Only because of the awareness of the historical origin of this case morpheme, which typically but not always ends in -t, one of the object cases, “the accusatives”, is referred to as “the partitive” and not as “the accusative number 1”. The Estonian partitive is thus a kind of accusative in its function of being the predominant object case. The peculiarity of the Estonian object case system is that there are two object cases, the total and the partitive. The object case alternation has been linked to various semantic and pragmatic distinctions, predominantly to the aspectual ones in the linguistic literature since the link between the Finnish partitive and the Russian imperfective was established (Dahl and Karlsson 1975). The total and the partitive are semantic as well as structural-grammatical cases (cf. Kipasky 1998). Since historical records are available, the more frequent object case is not referred to as the accusative but as the partitive. Linguists can agree or disagree about labeling one of the many structural or semantic relationships in language structure as “the partitive”. The term Partitive Concept is no less a matter of convention. The example in (2) has little to do with anything related to parts. The object John is marked with the partitive case, but the sentence does not express that Mary loves only some concrete or abstract part of John, e.g. his eyes or his good manners, as opposed to someone else, whom she would love in total, regardless of his parts. In order to keep apart the diachronic motivation behind the changes that have led to the current polyfunctionality in the synchronic situation, it is useful to make a distinction between the assumed original semantics of the formative that is now referred to as the partitive and its later developments. The example in (2) is thus not an instance of the core meaning, the Partitive Concept, but an instance of a typical Linguistic Partitive in the Finnic languages. (ii) A typical Linguistic Partitive (the morphological partitive case) in the Finnic languages covers a wider spectrum of meanings and functions than the Partitive Concept.

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What is the core partitive meaning, then, and is it possible to establish it on the basis of the variety that is covered by the morpheme called “the partitive”? Do we need one more grammatical term, a new label; why cannot we just have the labels Accusative 1 and Accusative 2 for Finnic object cases, as in some freshly described languages with no written historical records and grammaticographic traditions? The rationale behind finding a suitable label for a phenomenon is the existence of a grammatically encoded distinction or an expression in a language, preferably in many languages. Ideally, the distinction – the concept or relationship – would make an impression of being basic, real, and clear-cut. The Partitive Concept can be understood as the term that stands for the most primitive or elementary concept of the partitive. The core meaning is relational. More specifically, it belongs to spatial relationships and identity conditions. (iii) In terms of spatial relationships, the Partitive Concept instantiates a separative relationship of an individual or matter to another individual or matter. (iv) In terms of identity, the partitive instantiates the same kind identity (not difference or similarity). The Partitive Concept stands for separation from identical matter. The following passages will go through some instances that are typical or possible with the European genitive-based partitives, but not typical or possible with the Uralic ones. There is an illustrative example from Estonian culture that suits the explanation of the partitive concept. The figure indicated on a website under example (3) is the most famous and highly ambiguous political cartoon in the Estonian art history. It nicely illustrates the essence of the partitive relationship. It has a cognitive linguistic pointe based on the visual image and the partitive concept in the nominal phrase Sitta kah. One reading of Sitta kah ‘Some manure, too’ (3a) corresponds to a literal Partitive Concept, and the other reading is idiomatic, a colloquial pragmatic phrase ‘I don’t give a shit/damn. / Who cares’ (3b).2

2 There are several other political interpretations that I do not discusss here, related to the protest movement referred to as the Phosphorite War in spring 1987. Also, the cartoon marks a tipping point in history, see the details in Lõhmus (2004). The more prevailing English title of the cartoon deviates from the translation in order to convey the spirit of the anti-Soviet sentiments in Estonia more adequately to the outside world: “Just shit”. Estonians wanted the outsiders to know that they were treated by the Soviets as “just shit”.

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Sitta kah. . . manure. PAR too a. ‘(Let us take/throw some) manure (to the field), too.’ b. ‘I don’t give a shit/damn. / Who cares.’ c. ‘Just shit.’ (The English title for outsiders, which can be googled.)

The Partitive Concept, as in: ‘throw (some of the) manure from the cart onto the field’ (Pärn 1987: 16) can be viewed on the Wikipedia page at: http://en. wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Priit_P%C3%A4rn_Sitta_kah.jpg (9 November 2012). I provide now some background knowledge to explain why this typical instance of Soviet “writing between the lines” has found its way to a book on the partitives. This cartoon plays with the perception of the viewer in categorizing the parts of a whole as identical or different, and the interpretational ambiguity in the partitive noun phrase. First of all, please look at the lumps that are taken from the heap of manure on the cart and thrown onto the field. If you see one bigger lump of manure and two smaller lumps, then you get the explicit message exactly as any innocent Soviet citizen at the end of the eighties would have. The political cartoon was published in May 1987 in the time of deep stagnation and much before the Berlin wall came down in 1989, and even before Reagan’s speech in Berlin (“Mr Gorbachov, tear down this wall”) took place in June 1987. So it was crucial to create an image that, after falling on the retina of the viewer, patterned differently for the two opposite ideological camps because of the related visual associations. For those whose memory was imprinted with images of art depicting humans and animals at work, the image could have been interpreted as applauding a weary but heroic collective farm worker of the Peasant Class, in his efforts to fertilize the field in the face of adversity. Thus, it is an impeccable picture for the Party leadership and its censorship (if you write sitta kah in Google Translate, it would give you an innocent ‘of shit, too’). This is what the censor or a random Soviet citizen would get: the picture of an unintellectual peasant working hard, suitable to boost the waning morale of the starving people. However what is written and drawn between the lines? On the basis of the nominal partitive case marking of the text (“some of the manure, too”), the separated mass is of the same kind with the rest of the manure mass on the cart.3 The shape of the manure that is thrown out corresponds to the contours of Estonia. The message between the lines is readable only by those who recognize 3 For some, the horse lacks one eye and, therefore, pulls the rickety carriage of the party to a wrong direction, and for others, the peasant looks obviously dumb, uninspired and unelegant to assume responsibility for any progress.

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the difference in the identity between the mass on the cart and the separated object that is thrown on the field. The separated object is clearly Estonia. In the eyes of the more informed beholder there is the violation of the identity condition of the partitive, which causes the exclusion of the reading (3a) ‘(Let us take) some manure (to the field), too.’ For the separation of objects belonging to different kinds, a native speaker of Estonian would use the elative instead of the partitive. Instead of “take some of the manure” – something of the same kind, partitive case – the action is interpreted as “take something from the manure” – something of a different kind. Therefore, the literal meaning is not the default one for those who recognize the shape. Only the idiomatic reading of the colloquial Sitta kah “I don’t give a shit / Who cares” and not “some manure, too” is activated for those who see the contours of Estonia instead of the three blots of manure. In the context of several countries seeking independence of the Soviet Union, the disgraceful heap of manure transforms into the Soviet Union. The half-blind horse pulling a half-wheeled cart turns into the senseless state machinery, and the unelegant and uninspired peasant becomes the mindless party leadership. The field is the free world. The message between the lines is the wishful thinking of those who would soon be tearing down the wall in Berlin, coaxing the mindless leaders: “just throw some of this manure out, anyway, this cart is too heavy, take this lump from the manure for instance, who cares (sitta kah), throw it well, far onto the field, please!” The moral of the story is that the elative separative is less specific about the identity of the object or matter that is separated, since the identity of it can be different; the partitive separative requires identity between the parts and wholes. Note that the picture emphasizes motion or dynamicity. An entity that is perceived as having a clear identity (manure) of its own is divided in two in the course of movement. It is the question what is the kind of the two newly created objects is, that is, how the two parts are categorized: manure + manure or manure + something of a different kind. The two separated parts are transformed into new objects. The two entities differ in shape and size from each other and from the original entity.4 In many other respects, however, the two new entities belong to the same kind. The parts share all other properties, such as color, texture, smell, and most plausibly, function related to human use (something to drink, something to eat, something to feed animals with, something to make clothes of, something to fertilize the fields with) and so forth. In static relationships, parts of matter with identical properties cannot be perceived easily; in order to be perceivable, the part should be somewhat different from the whole. In order to be perceived as a part, the entity must be focused 4 In some cases, they may differ in number (as in an instance of strawberries in strawberrypicking).

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on or highly salient in its essential and perceivable properties. Focusing is controversial, because the focused part would be categorized away as something of a different kind located inside or on top, or in the close vicinity. Therefore, if the identity of the parts and the whole is the same, then the salience of the parts has to be created in one or another way, since the image of the part as such has to be perceived as a part belonging to the same kind. Note again how the picture emphasizes the dynamicity of the separation of the part. It is problematic to envisage proper partitive relationships without motion. In the course of actions of removing, some of the matter of the same kind becomes a part without other salient features interfering with the categorization of the part. Possibly, separation of some matter from matter of the same kind is a concept that humans (and possibly, animals) can form a category of. Moreover, it is likely that it can be expressed by all human languages. These plausible hypotheses remain to be tested. The core semantics of the Partitive Concept is “part of N that can be referred to as N”. As a matter of regular polysemy – metonymy – the referent of a part can become analyzed as a whole, and the partitive semantics corresponds to “amount-of-N”, referring to a part or quantity out of a group or amount of substance. (v)

a. b.

“separable part of N that belongs to the same kind with N” (4a) ! ! “amount of N” (metonymic extension of v-a) (4c)

Whereas the core partitive meaning, as in (v-a), “part-of-N” is relational, the basic extension of this meaning, (v-b), “amount-of-N” is not. In the Hungarian sentence (4-a), the youngest of my children is in a relation to other individuals referred to as my children, while in the Hungarian sentence (4b) (“a glass of wine”), the wine does not necessarily belong to any larger amount of wine, it is just an amount. I set the partitive forms of the forms carrying the partitive meaning boldface in this paper. Sentence (4a) illustrates (v-a), part-of-N, and sentence (4c) illustrates the meaning (v-b).5 5 The reading in (v-a) corresponds to real partitives and the reading (v-b) to pseudopartitives in the typological literature, as in Koptjevskaja-Tamm (2001). Pseudopartitives are generally taken to refer to an amount or quantity of some (indefinite) substance (e.g., a cup of tea, a package of butter, a box of chocolates). Real partitives refer to a part/subset of a (definite) superset (e.g., a hot cup of this green tea, a large package of this Danish butter, a small box of these chocolates). Languages differ in terms of how they encode real partitives and pseudopartitives. Koptjevskaja Tamm (2001) establishes that there is considerable variation between languages in the grammatical marking of the substance-denoting expression in partitive and pseudopartitive constructions, ranging from case inflections to prepositions to zero marking, denoting typically conventionalized measures (a litre of x), fractions (a slice of x), quanta (a lump of x), collections (a group of x), or forms (a pile of x).

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Hungarian a. gyerek-e-i-m-ből a child- LK- PL- POSS .1 SG - ELA DEF ‘the youngest of my children’ b.

c.

az

belől-ük

DEF

egyik one[ NOM ] ‘one of them’

ELA-3 PL

egy

pohár glass[ NOM ] ‘a glass of wine’

INDF

leg-fiatal-a-bb SUP-young- LK- CMPR

bor wine[NOM ]

Examples (4a) and (4b) illustrate the core meaning of the Hungarian Partitive Concept: the youngest of my children, one of them. The construction with the elative represents the core meaning, because it refers to an individual, “one child of mine”, namely, the youngest, or “one of them”, that has the same identity with other members of the set where it belongs to (the set “my children”). It is not an “amount-of partitive”: I cannot refer to my child as the youngest of my children or as one of my children if I do not have more children than one or two.6 All of my children form a whole, and the youngest one is separated from them in conversation as part of this whole. The relationships between parts and wholes are different with the wine in the glass and wine. The wine in the glass can exist without any more wine in a bottle, a cask or a barrel. The wine as expressed in the bare nominal construction is not necessarily a proper part of another amount of wine, that is, anything else of the same identity. It is an “amount-of partitive”, because the wine in the glass can exist without being in relation to any other amount of wine, that is, without the existence of anything else of the same kind. The partitive noun rather refers to a kind.

3 The conceptual coverage of a Linguistic Partitive If the Partitive Concept is a heuristic tool to get a grip on the ways a specific meaning content can be expressed in a wide variety of languages, then what is the term Linguistic Partitive good for? In the Estonian example (3), Sitta kah 6 Perhaps the infelicity is evoked by a scalar implicature. If you have one child, it is the youngest and the oldest child, but it is not felicitous to evoke a comparison when there is none, and the superlative is infelicitous if there are no more than two children.

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‘some manure, too,’ there is a straightforward link between the morphological partitive and the Partitive Concept. The morphological partitive matches the definition in (v-a), encoding the concept of “separable part of N that belongs to the same kind with N”. The morphological partitive in (1d), Mari sõ-i õuna M [NOM ] eat-PST 3SG apple.PAR ‘Mary was eating an apple’ matches the definition in (v-b), encoding the concept “amount of N”, which is a metonymic extension of (v-a). These examples are not sufficient to argue for the necessity of extra items in the conceptual toolkit of describing and comparing partitives. Theoretically, a new term is justified only if (a) there are instances that clearly show a mismatch between partitive forms and the Partitive Concept or (b) that demonstrate the synchronically arbitrary relationship between morphological partitives and the Partitive Concept. A working definition about the Linguistic Partitive is worded in (vi) to proceed with clear examples as well as borderline cases. (vi) A Linguistic Partitive is a form that is derived from a special subtype of separative (source argument) form. On the basis of numeral and adpositional complement systems I will argue that there are instances where the link between the partitive form and concept is not consistently realized in the grammatical system, and that there are instances that clearly display a mismatch between partitive forms and the concept. The link between the partitive form and concept is not consistently realized in the grammatical system of Inari Sámi. The Inari Sámi example of the partitive on ‘river’ in ‘eight rivers’ appears with numerals higher than 7, as in (5). (5)

Inari Sámi Mun uáinám käävci 1SG . NOM see.1 SG eight (Toivonen 2003: 66)

juuhâd. river.PAR

In example (5), it is not clear if the link to the Conceptual Partitive is direct or the partitive is lexical-constructional. Synchronically, the system case-marking in numeral complements is opaque. The Partitive Concepts in the numeral phrases represent the amount partitive concept: numerals and their complements are partitive concepts in any language. However, only in numbers higher than seven, the Partitive Concept is expressed by a Linguistic Partitive in this language, which indicates the lack of consistent cognitive link between the amount-partitive concept and number complement marking. More specifically, lower numbers do not require the morphological partitive, and the non-partitive cases do not instantiate a link between Conceptual and Linguistic Partitives. The partitive in higher numbers displays a match between Conceptual and Linguistic Partitives, eight

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of the rivers (the core meaning), or an amount of rivers, eight of the kind ‘river’. However, the partitive in this construction is not a matter of regular meaning extension; the distinction between the lower and higher numbers is not cognitively motivated. Instead, it is a matter of convention.7 In ‘six rivers’ there is no partitive on ‘river’, although there is no known perceptionally, conceptually, or psycholinguistically significant distinction between more or less than seven rivers that would motivate the difference in case encoding. A difference in encoding would be plausibly motivated if it occurred between one and more, two or more, or three or more. In sum, although all complements of the Inari Sámi numerals are instances of Partitive Concepts, because they match the amount partitive concept, only the 7+ ones are also Linguistic Partitives, because they are instantiated by a formative that corresponds to the historically motivated Partitive Concept. The fact that the divergence in the system of numeral complements is cognitively not motivated shows that the partitive assignment is arbitrary, that is, lexically and not cognitively determined. The correspondence may be conceptually motivated, meaning that the use can be conceptually linked to the Partitive Concept, but the relationship with the Partitive Concept can be opaque as well. The morphological partitive semantics is opaque in (5), since the Partitive Concept does not unambiguously determine the morphological partitive case encoding in the construction. The partitive marking in (5) is restricted more by convention than by semantics, even if the semantics of the Partitive Concept is present. Therefore, the term Linguistic Partitive is useful to distinguish between Partitive Concepts that are only partly realized by morphological partitives. Are there any Linguistic Partitives that do not match Partitive Concepts at all? The example above is both Partitive Concept and Linguistic Partitive. Now I turn to instances that clearly display a mismatch between partitive forms and the concept and therefore justify the inclusion of a separate Linguistic Partitive heuristic in the conceptual toolkit of talking about partitives. Many Finnic partitives that mark structural relationships such as complementhood are an instance of Linguistic Partitives that are not Partitive Concepts and, synchronically, they can be considered instances of the structural or default partitive. The noun jõgi ‘river’ is marked with the same morphological partitive (the partitive form is jõge) if it is the complement of the numeral ‘two’ and the verb ‘look at’ in examples (6a) and (6b), as well as if it is the complement of a preposition or a postposition in examples (6c) and (6d). 7 See also Nelson (2003) for a comparison between the partitive use of Inari Sámi and Finnish. This convention of numbers does not have a conceptual but rather arbitrary basis, perhaps best to be compared to the arbitrary relation between the number concept of forty and the Russian word for 40 (sorok). This simplex lexeme for the number originates from fur trade – forty furs were a unit necessary for sewing a coat (Shanskiy and Bobrova 1994).

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Estonian a. kaks jõge two[ NOM ] river.PAR ‘two rivers’ b.

vaata-n jõge look-1SG river.PAR ‘I am looking at the river.’

c.

mööda jõge along river.PAR ‘along the river (prepositional phrase)’

d.

jõge mööda river.PAR along ‘along the river (postpositional phrase)’

The complement of the numeral ‘two’ is marked with the partitive in example (6a) and it is a Conceptual and a Linguistic Partitive. In the complement of the verb ‘look at’ in example (6b), the link with the Partitive Concept is semantically motivated via the amount-of partitive but not as obviously as in the case of the complement of the numeral quantifier. The amount pertains to the unbounded looking-at event and not to parts of the river, as on a map. As the complement of a preposition or a postposition in examples (6c) and (6d), the partitive noun is not an instance of a Partitive Concept, but an instance of a Linguistic Partitive that has evolved into a general grammatical complement marker.8

8 Previous formal linguistics literature contains many good examples of morphological partitives without clear semantic content or function. Vainikka and Maling (1995) analyze the partitive as a structural relationship, the default complement case of complements in Finnish. Kratzer (2004) also ‘de-semanticizes’ the Finnish partitive in the sense of regarding it as a default. The use of the partitive in these examples bears striking resemblance to the bare nominal use of Hungarian nouns; namely, bare uninflected nouns are used in Hungarian in the same environment. Hungarian has otherwise cases such as the accusative and the dative that could hypothetically be “recruited” as default complement cases. The dependents of the numeral heads and postpositions are bare uninflected nouns in Hungarian. In addition, the predicative use of Hungarian bare and plural nouns and the predicative use of the Estonian partitive (Tamm 2008a), as well and the pseudo-semantically incorporated Hungarian bare nouns and a subset of Estonian abstract or deadjectival partitive objects and subjects (Tamm 2014) are also an interesting parallel to explore in the light of an indefiniteness account, such as Luraghi and Kittilä (this volume).

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(vii) Linguistic Partitives are forms that have evolved in the course of language change from a morpheme or a construction in a language that stands for a Partitive Concept (as defined in (v)). They may but do not have to correspond to the Partitive Concept in one of their synchronic uses. Their relation to the Conceptual Partitive can be transparent, partly or wholly opaque in the grammatical system of a language. The Linguistic Partitives may have bleached meaning; they have diverse semantics and syntax but are “kept together” as a category by their morphological form. An illustration of a highly diverse semantics couched under an identical formative is exemplified by an instance of a partitive expressing part-whole quantity, definiteness, boundedness, aspectual, epistemic modal, irrealis, and evidential meanings. In the following, I illustrate briefly two paths of grammaticalization of the Estonian Linguistic Partitive as a functional and structural category in (vii) and (viii), respectively. (vii)

The emergence of functional partitives, the TAM categories a. “part of N” ! b. ! “part of V” (N-obj has the morphological partitive marking) c. ! (N-object is a non-finite, deverbal nominalization and partitive marked) d. ! “indirect evidence” (V-nonfin (main predicate) has the morphological partitive formative) e. ! “part of/incomplete evidence” (V-nonfin (main or embedded predicate) has the morphological partitive formative) f. ! “part of/incomplete evidence for the completion/completability of the event” (partitive object case)

(viii)

The emergence of default (structural) partitives, complement marking a. “part of N” (the morphological partitive marking has disappeared) ! b. ! “amount of N” (has the morphological partitive marking) c. ! “amount of V” (N has the morphological partitive marking) d. ! “N-obj” (N has the morphological partitive marking) e. ! Adpostion “N-obj” (N has the morphological partitive marking)

The path in (vii) sketches the emergence of epistemic modals, evidentiality, and epistemic modal object case alternation. More discussion of the examples will follow in Sections 4 and 5.

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(vii)0

The emergence of functional partitives, the TAM categories

(vii)

a.0

107

“part of N, incomplete N” !

The original part-of-N meaning (vii-a) is expressed by the elative in Estonian (7), and it can be a marginal meaning of the partitive in consumption verbs. I signal this fact by means of a question mark in front of the partitive form, and a separative without any indication of ill-formedness in grammaticality judgments. This basic meaning gives rise to part-of-V meaning in (vii-b), which is the main interpretation of the partitive in example (7). (7)

(vii)

Estonian Mari sõ-i ?õuna / õuna-st. M[NOM ] eat-PST. 3SG apple.PAR apple-ELA ‘Mary ate some quantity of the apple.’ (bounded event, (non)quantized apple) b.0

! “part of V, incomplete V” (N-obj has the morphological partitive marking).

The original part-of-N meaning (vii-a) gives rise to part-of-V meaning in (vii-b) via metonymy. More specifically, a nominal quantization meaning, as in Mary ate a part of apple becomes an event quantization meaning, as in Mary is halfway eating the apple. This is the extension of the nominal meaning to the aspectual meaning of the partitive (7), (8a), and (8b).9 The partitive of negation falls under this development, since the incompleteness of the event coincides conceptually with the negated event (8c). Incompleteness or insufficiency compared to a predicate-related norm is a possible explanation for the theme-subject partitives as well, in positive or negative, as in (8d). These examples overlap with the partitive types in (viii-b), (viii-c), and (viii-d) and are presented here without repeating them under (viii). (8)

Estonian a. Mari sõ-i õuna. M[NOM ] eat-PST. 3SG apple.PAR ‘Mary was eating an apple.’ (unbounded event, quantized or nonquantized apple)

9 Historical overview can be found in two sources concentrating on Finnic, Larjavaara (1991) on the development of an aspectual object and Campbell (1991) and Ikola (1953) on the development of the partitive evidential.

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b.

Mari kuul-is lindu. M[NOM ] hear-PST.3 SG bird.PAR ‘Mary heard a bird.’ (unbounded event, quantized bird)

c.

Mari ei söö-nud õuna ära. M[NOM ] NEG eat-CNG . PST apple.PAR TELIC ‘Mary was not eating an apple.’ ‘Mary did not eat an apple (up).’ (unbounded, telic or atelic, quantized or nonquantized apple)

d.

Mari-l on / ei ole õunu. M[NOM ] be.3SG NEG eat-CNG apple.PAR . PL ‘Mary has/ does not have apples.’

In instances that underly the diachronic development to evidential and epistemic modal partitives, the aspectual partitive object of verbs of perception and mental verbs has a deverbal modifier (as in I heard a sing+ing bird), which agrees in case with the head noun of the object (9). Thus it has a partitive encoding. (9)

(vii)

Mari kuul-is lindu M[NOM ] hear-PST.3 SG bird.PAR ‘Mary heard a singing bird.’ c.0

laul-va-t. sing-PERS . PRS . PTCP- PAR

! N-object is a non-finite, deverbal nominalization and partitive marked

When a deverbal modifier of the object was reanalyzed as a predicate on its own, the partitive did not disappear but started to be interpreted as a modal marker, a kind of subjunctive or conjunctive in instances like (10). (10)

Mari kuul-is, et lind M[NOM ] hear-PST.3 SG that bird[NOM ] ‘Mary heard that the bird was singing.’

(vii)

d.0

laul-va-t. sing-PERS . PRS . PTCP- PAR

! “indirect evidence” (V-nonfin (main predicate) has the morphological partitive formative)

As the complement of saying verbs, the meaning of the subjunctive-conjunctive marking is associated with the matrix saying verb, as in (11).

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Mari ütle-s, et lind M[NOM ] say-PST.3 SG that bird[NOM ] ‘Mary said that the bird was singing.’

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laul-va-t. sing-PERS . PRS . PTCP- PAR

As the complement of saying verbs, the matrix saying verb was dropped in the construction, giving rise to the indirect evidential, which still preserved the formative of the partitive, as in (12). (12)

(Mari ütle-s, et) lind laul-va-t. M[NOM ] say-PST.3 SG that bird[NOM ] sing-PERS . PRS . PTCP- PAR ‘(Mary said that) the bird was singing.’

(vii)

e.0

! “part of/incomplete evidence” (V-nonfin (main or embedded predicate) has the morphological partitive formative)

However, in communication the hearer infers that indirect evidence is incomplete evidence, because it is not taken for granted by the speaker. Therefore, the partitive evidential has a double function: to encode the multiple speaker-hearer relationships and epistemic modality, indirect and incomplete evidence in (13). (13)

Lind laul-va-t. bird[NOM ] sing-PERS . PRS . PTCP- PAR ‘Allegedly, the bird is singing.’

(vii)

f.0

! “part of/incomplete evidence for the completion/completability of the event” (partitive object case)

The epistemic modal meaning of the partitive objects is also reinforced. The strengthened meaning is understood as incomplete evidence about the completion or completability of an event instead of incomplete event in a number of achievement verbs, as in (14). (14)

Silvi üllata-s Toomas-t. S[NOM ] surprise-PST.3 SG T-PAR ‘Silvia surprised Thomas.’

The examples illustrating the sketch can be found in the following subsections in the context of other examples, phenomena, and languages. The path in (viii) sketches the emergence of the “default partitive” with completely bleached semantic content. (viii)0

The emergence of default (structural) partitives, complement marking

(viii)

a.0

“part of N” (the morphological partitive marking has disappeared) !

First of all, it should be pointed out that the semantic part-of meaning has lost the link with morphological partitive marking; it is not known when it dis-

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appeared in contexts such as (15). More discussion of this example can be found in (vii-a), concerning example (7). Example (15b) is an instance of a typical partitive construction, which is realized by the elative. Erzya (Mordvinian) is discussed as an example of thwarted development of an aspectual partitive. The ablative complement of verbs of consumption, as in (15c) is referred to as an object (Collinder 1960: 124). Therefore, Erzya seems to have an object case alternation comparable to instances of the aspectual object case alternation in Finnic. However, although the ablative is used in more abstract contexts, as in kortams mezedejak ‘speak about something’ (Niina Aasmäe, p.c.), the case allows an interpretation where the identity of the separated matter is different. The example can be understood as part-of and amount-of partitive. (15)

Estonian a. Mari sõ-i ?õuna / õuna-st. M[NOM ] eat-PST. 3SG apple.PAR apple-ELA ‘Mary ate some quantity of the apple.’ (bounded event, (non)quantized apple) b.

noorim mu laste-st young.SUP 1 SG .GEN child.PL- ELA ‘the youngest of my children’

Mordvin c. kšede jarcy, vinado simi wine.ABL drinks bread.ABL eats ‘he eats bread, drinks wine’ (Collinder 1965: 125) (viii)

b.0

! “amount of N” (has the morphological partitive marking)

Only the “amount of N” has the morphological partitive marking (viii-b). Here the partitive nouns have kind reference. See the examples and discussion in (vii-b) as well. (16)

(viii)

Estonian a. klaas veini glass[ NOM ] wine.PAR ‘a glass of wine’ b.

kaks jõge two[ NOM ] river.PAR ‘two rivers’

c.

viis kraadi five[ NOM ] degree. PAR ‘plus 5 degrees’

c.0

sooja warm. PAR

! “amount of V” (N has the morphological partitive marking)

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This meaning is metonymically carried over to the predicate level, as in (17), to mean “amount of an event”, but it is not the verb that is marked but the object noun that retains the partitive marking. See the examples and discussion in (vii-b) as well. (17)

(viii)

Estonian Mari sõ-i õuna. M[NOM ] eat-PST.3 S apple.PAR ‘Mary was eating an apple.’ (unbounded event, quantized or nonquantized apple) d.0

! “N-obj” (N has the morphological partitive marking)

In the next step, the partitive nouns become the general object markers without any partial meaning element related to the object noun (18). The partitive is used for conveying aspectual unboundedness.10 Since the non-finite temporally unlinked telic verbs without any finite environment display partitive objects, the partitive is a default and not determined by lexical aspect (telicity, 18d) or indefiniteness (see 18a, 19d). See the examples and discussion in (vii-b) as well. (18)

(viii)

Estonian a. Mari armasta-b M[NOM ] love-3SG ‘Mary loves John.’

Jaanus-t. J-PAR

b.

Mari vaata-b jõge. M[NOM ] look-1SG river.PAR ‘Mary is looking at the river.’

c.

Mari kuul-is M[NOM ] hear-PST.3 SG ‘Mary heard a bird.’

d.

seda jõge ära reosta-ma this.PAR river.PAR TELIC pollute- M _ ILL ‘to completely pollute this river’

e.

lindu. bird.PAR

! Adpostion “N-obj” (N has the morphological partitive marking)

10 Only a few constructions have retained the accusative-total as a default object option (more analysis can be found in Tamm 2008a, 2008b).

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The object is a complement of a verb, but the partitive is generalized into a more general complement case in a language, perhaps also on the analogy of the partitives found in numeral and other measure phrases (19). Partitive tends towards becoming a general complement case in Estonian. (19)

Estonian a. mööda jõge along river.PAR ‘along the river (prepositional phrase)’ b.

jõge mööda river.PAR along ‘along the river (postpositional phrase)’

I put aside constructions where the partitive has little or no semantic content. Generally, semantic content is missing in combinations with adpositions. Therefore, the partitive could be viewed as developing into a general complement case occurring with certain prepositions, postpositions, numeral phrases, and verbs in the Finnic languages.

4 The Partitive Concept in the Uralic languages This section takes a look at the empirical data and discusses some of the cases that express the Partitive Concept in the Uralic languages. Before the discussion I emphasize that the case appears only in argument or predicative functions and should be understood as such. I illustrate the meaning extension of the partitive concept, the pseudopartitive, without embedding the form into a sentence.

4.1 The empirical data What is special about the Uralic partitives? Embeddedness in rich case systems: the multitude of source (separative) cases and a mismatch between the Partitive Concept and the semantics of the various linguistic partitives. Thus, firstly, the Uralic languages have many cases that express Partitive Concepts as well as morphological Linguistic Partitives. The Linguistic Partitives either express the Partitive Concept or related concepts, some of which have developed far from the original concept. There is a wide spectrum of “what the partitive is used for” in languages with the morphological Linguistic Partitive – the partitive

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interacts with various aspects of the TAM system. The interaction between TAM and the partitive is exceptionally clear in these languages, which display the aspectual DOM, DSM, and DAM, definiteness effects, telicity, and partitive arguments. These languages have a range of other cases than the morphological Linguistic Partitive, covering the Partitive Concept. Uralic languages are special about their cross-categorial case – case on non-finites and verb stems. In several Uralic languages, the Linguistic Partitives and cases that express the Partitive Concept are an integral part of these unusually rich cross-categorial case systems and constitute, therefore, a unique area of partitive studies. Uralic languages are typically characterized by rich case systems with approximately ten members, and many have case systems of approximately fifteen or twenty cases. In the selection of languages in the WALS, on the map by Iggesen (2008), there are 24 languages recorded with black dots, which stand for systems with more than 10 cases.11 Five of those listed are Uralic (Erzya Mordvin, Estonian, Finnish, Hungarian, and Udmurt). The North-Eastern European and North-Western Asian area would be studded with black dots on the WALS map if all FinnoUgric languages were represented. Table 1 summarizes the number of cases in some Uralic languages.12

11 The following languages have “black dots” in WALS: Awa Pit, Basque, Brahui, Chukchi, Epena Pedee, Estonian, Evenki, Finnish, Gooniyandi, Hamtai, Hungarian, Hunzib, Ingush, Kayardild, Ket, Lak, Lezgian, Martuthunira, Mordvin (Erzya), Nez Perce, Nunggubuyu, Pitjantjatjara, Toda, Udmurt. 12 Erzya Mordvin has twelve cases: nominative, genitive/accusative, dative/allative, interior illative, inessive, elative, exterior ablative, lative, prolative triplets, translative, abessive, comparative, and Moksha Mordvin thirteen cases (Zaicz 1998: 192–194), with the additional causative. Eastern Mari has eight productive and three nonproductive cases (Kangasmaa-Minn 1998: 226). Udmurt sixteen cases (Riese 1998: 268), nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, approximative, genitive/ablative, inessive, elative, ablative, terminative, instrumental, egressive, caritive, adverbial, prolative 1 and 2. Komi has eighteen cases (Riese 1998: 268), nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, approximative, genitive/ablative, inessive, elative, ablative, terminative, instrumental, egressive, caritive, adverbial, prolative 1 and 2, consecutive, comitative. Komi Permyak has seventeen cases (Lytkin et al. 1962: 184). Tundra Nenets seven (Salminen 1998: 537), nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, locative, ablative, prosecutive (this is the suggested Proto-Samoyedic inventory, Janhunen 1998: 469). Kamas has seven cases (Szimoncsics 1998: 585–586), nominative, accusative, genitive, lative, locative, ablative, instrumental. Selkup has thirteen (Helimski 1998b: 560–561), nominative, accusative, genitive, instrumental, co-ordinative, caritive, translative, dative/allative, illative, locative, elative, prolative, vocative, Nganasan eight to eleven (Helimski 1998a: 496), nominative (=absolute form), accusative, genitive, lative (=dative, or dative-lative), locative (=locative/instructive), elative (=ablative), prolative (=prosecutive). The Sámi languages are described having systems with six to nine cases. Inari, Pite, Skolt Sámi nine or eight, Southern Sámi eight or seven, Lule

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Table 1: The number of cases in some Uralic languages Language

Number of cases

Erzya Mordvin Moksha Mordvin Eastern Mari Udmurt Komi Komi Permyak Votic Võro Northern Sámi Lule Sámi Southern Sámi Inari, Pite, Skolt Sámi Khanty Mansi Nganasan Selkup Kamas Tundra Nenets Estonian Finnish Meänkieli Ingrian Karelian Veps

12 13 8+3 16 18 17 14 13 (+3 less productive cases) 7 or 6 7 8 or 7 9 or 8 3–11 6–7 8–11 13 7 7 14 15 13 10 12–16 22–23

In sum, the Uralic languages are a suitable testbed for studying several kinds of partitive. On the one hand, there are several cases that denote separation and source. There is a whole sub-branch of languages, the Finnic ones, that all have a dedicated partitive case.

Sámi seven, Northern Sámi seven or six (Wikipedia). Khanty (three to eleven, including the fact that the alignment system has variants, e.g. the Khanty Vakh dialect may have an ergativeaccusative alignment), Mansi (six to seven) (Honti 1998: 343). Hungarian eighteen cases (but there are heavy debates whether what has been referred to as case is in fact case, or nominal marking of different nature). Veps has 22–23 cases (Viitso 1998), Karelian twelve to sixteen (Markianova 2002), Ingrian more than ten (Viitso 1998). Meänkieli (Finnish in Sweden) has two cases less than Standard Finnish, which has fifteen cases. Võro is described as having thirteen productive and three nonproductive cases (Iva 2007: 41). The Votic dialect reported by Tsvetkov (2008: 27) has an inventory identical to that of Estonian, consisting of fourteen cases. The additional unproductive excessive and instructive, and the accusative object case are recorded in the dialect studied by Ariste (Ariste 1968: 17).

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Table 2: Languages with a linguistic partitive and languages with a morphological separative case Languages with a linguistic partitive

Languages with a morphological separative case

Finnic, some Sámi languages

The rest of the Uralic languages, with the exception of some dialects

Source cases in poor paradigms. The Samoyedic, Sámi, and the Siberian ObUgric languages have somewhat poorer case systems where the inventory of source cases is also poorer than in the rest of the Uralic languages. This tendency seems to be more a matter of a South-North opposition. Source cases in the poorer paradigms express the part-of partitive relationships, and the amount-of partitive is typically expresed by juxtaposition.13

4.2 Partitive cases that denote separation from source In most of the Uralic languages, there are several cases that denote separation from source. The specialization of source cases is typical but not unique for Finnic languages. What makes the Finnic system special is the specialization of source cases so that one of them denotes the separation or division into two entities of the same kind. Source cases in the Uralic languages are the ablative, elative, delative, egressive, genitive-ablative and exessive. The ablative (Erzya, Estonian, Finnish, Hungarian, Mansi, Vepsian, Votic, etc) denotes movement away from something (e.g., away from the house). The elative (Erzya, Estonian, Finnish, Hungarian, Lule Sámi, Pite Sámi, Votic, etc) denotes “out of something” (e.g., out of the house). The delative (Hungarian) indicates movement from the surface, e.g., from (the top of) the house. The egressive (Veps, Udmurt) marks the beginning of a movement or time (e.g., beginning from the house). The excessive (Karelian, 13 The following lists present the case systems of poorer Uralic languages. and the source cases that can express the conceptual partitive are set in the boldface. The Tundra Nenets system of seven cases (Salminen 1998: 537, the nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, locative, prosecutive) has the ablative. The Kamas system of seven cases (Szimoncsics 1998: 585–586) comprises nominative, accusative, genitive, lative, locative, ablative, instrumental. The Selkup system of thirteen cases (Helimski 1998: 560–561), comprises the nominative, accusative, genitive, instrumental, co-ordinative, caritive, translative, dative/allative, illative, locative, prolative, vocative has the elative. The Nganasan system of eight to eleven cases (Helimski 1998: 496) contains the nominative (=absolute form), accusative, genitive, lative (=dative, or dative-lative), locative (=locative/instructive), prolative (=prosecutive) and it has an elative (=ablative). The poorest system can be encountered in some dialects of Khanty.

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Ingrian, Livonian, Votic, Estonian, etc) denotes a transition away from something (from a house). The genitive-ablative of Komi stands for a source of information, or for a resource; this case is interesting in combining the genitive and separative meaning in a discourse setting. In the Uralic languages, the Partitive Concept seems to be generally expressed by the elative case. If there is no dedicated elative case, then the Partitive Concept is expressed by a case called the ablative and understood as the most general separative case. The genitive case is not present in all Uralic languages. Most notably, the largest Uralic language in terms of number of speakers, Hungarian, lacks it altogether. It seems that the Uralic partitives are not marginal extensions of genitives, but they are specific, dedicated same-kind separatives. At this point of research, a hypothesis can be worded as in (ix). (ix) Hypothesis: the Uralic partitives are specialized separatives. More specifically, the Uralic partitives are same-kind separatives expressed by a case. It is worth investigating how the Partitive Concepts are expressed in languages that do have a genitive alongside with an elaborate system of separative cases. The Indo-European languages do not have any elaborate system of source cases that would be comparable to the Finnic ones, but they have genitives, and their partitives are frequently based on the genitive semantics. In the Finnic languages, the typical partitive functions of the Indo-European genitives, such as in Russian in the example in (1a) (čaška čaj-u ‘a cup of tea’), are never covered by genitives but by partitives. If there are no partitives, then these functions are expressed by elatives or other general separatives, or by no case marking. It is a good question if some Partitive Concept meanings are covered by genitives in languages combining a rich separative system with a genitive in the case paradigm. The following sections present the types of Uralic languages according to the place of the partitive within the overall system of separatives. Type 1 is illustrated by the Partitive as one of the source cases. Type 2 has no linguistic partitive but several source cases. Type 3 exemplifies a system with a linguistic partitive but no grammatically encoded source cases. Type 4 illustrates a system with no morphological partitive or separative cases. All of these languages have also postpositions that can expresse source, but the present article confines itself to one illustrative example. The system of parallel ways of expressions in a more elaborate system of postpositions is from Estonian separative postpositions. Relationships that are similar to case relationships are instantiated by a rich system of postpositions. In Estonian, a separated position or movement away from an entity can be expressed by postpositions that stand (in terms of language history) in the elative or the ablative

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case, as in (20). They typically end in -st or -lt, thus the elative or ablative endings. The examples containing postpositions that are semantically roughly interchangeable with source cases are set bold in the example. (20)

Estonian a. paadi see-st boat.GEN inside-ELA ‘from inside a boat’ b.

paadi juure-st boat.GEN close-ELA ‘from the vicinity of a boat’

c.

paadi ääre-st boat.GEN near-ELA ‘from the (outer, longish) side of a boat’

d.

paadi külje-st boat.GEN side-ELA ‘from the (inner) side of a boat, from being attached to a boat’

e.

paadi otsa-st boat.GEN top-ELA ‘from the topmost, outmost, close-fitting, or sharp top or end of a boat’

f.

paati-de sea-st boat-GEN . PL among-ELA ‘from among the boats’

g.

paati-de hulga-st boat-GEN . PL amount-ELA ‘from among the boats’

h.

paadi pea-lt boat.GEN top-ABL ‘from top of a boat’

i.

paadi koha-lt boat.GEN over-ABL ‘from above a boat’

j.

paadi kõrva-lt boat.GEN side-ABL ‘from the outer side of a boat’

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k.

paadi ümbert boat.GEN around.ABL ‘from around a boat’

l.

paadi alt boat.GEN under.ABL ‘from under a boat’

The composite forms that are based on postpositions that have a recognizable elative component are the following: ‘from inside a boat’ (20a), ‘from the vicinity of a boat’ (20b), ‘from the (outer, longish) side of a boat’ (20c), ‘from the (inner) side of a boat, from being attached to a boat’ (20d), ‘from the topmost, outmost, close-fitting, or sharp top or end of a boat’ (20e), ‘from among the boats’ (20f) and (20g). Other composite forms are based on postpositions that have a recognizable ablative component: ‘from top of a boat’ (20h), ‘from above a boat’ (20i), ‘from the (outer) side of a boat’ (20j). Some forms have just a recognizable -t in the postposition, which we see in the elative and ablative formants as well: ‘from around a boat’ (20k) and ‘from under a boat’ (20l). The present study is carried out proceeding from the assumption about the relevance of the difference between cases and adpositions in carving up the conceptual space, as in (x). (x) The distinction between cases and adpositions is grammatically relevant in languages that have cases as well as adpositions expressing many separative concepts. More particularly, if the semantic field of separative motion is diverse, then the linguistic partitive meanings are specialized so that they express separation of matter of the same kind. The digression into the postpositions was necessary to illustrate the position of partitives and separatives encoded by cases in a larger system of numerous and complex conventionalized means of expressing separation. In several instances, it can be observed that the multitude of forms are composite in the sense that the elative or ablative cases can be reconstructed as parts of the composite forms. There are also forms that are formally similar, containing an ending with a -t, but not reconstructable with the elative or ablative cases (e.g. ümbert ‘from around’). This paper will only be addressing cases. Note that the works explicitly contrasting partitive meanings are missing in languages that grammaticalize partitives as case and as adposition simultaneously. This is a curious fact, since there are several studies that demonstrate a contrast between a spatial case with a spatial adposition, or that contrast adpositional and non-adpositional forms of genitives. This brief digression into

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separatives has hopefully demonstrated that there are still vast gaps in the research on the topic.

4.3 Source (separative) cases and the partitive This subsection examines which languages have source cases and the partitive, and what their patters are.

4.3.1 The partitive as one of the source cases The system incorporating a partitive and several source cases is illustrated by Estonian in Table 3. The source cases are set boldface. Table 3: The Estonian case system case

translation N

example N

Nominative Genitive Partitive Illative Inessive Elative Allative Adessive Ablative Translative Terminative Essive Abessive Comitative

book of a book (of ) a book into the book in a book from (inside) a book onto a book on a book from the book in(to), as a book until a book as a book without a book with a book

raamat raamatu raamatu-t raamatu-sse raamatu-s raamatu-st raamatu-le raamatu-l raamatu-lt raamatu-ks raamatu-ni raamatu-na raamatu-ta raamatu-ga

The development from source to origin or cause is a possible but rather rare meaning extension of the partitive in a system that is rich in source cases and has a partitive. The following example illustrates the cause partitive on the so-called “infinitives”, that is, non-finites in Karelian (21). (21)

Karelian Suurdu keittä-miä pada musten-i. big.PAR cook-M . NMLZ . PAR pot[NOM ] blacken-PST.3 SG ‘Intensive cooking made the pot turn black.’

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Since the partitive marked adjective suurdu ‘big, intensive’ as in (21) can modify the partitive form in question, the latter cannot be an infinitive, but another type of nominalization with more nominal properties than infinitives would have. The meaning of a cause event emerges with the Karelian event predicates and partitive marking. This rare instance of linguistic partitive gives evidence of the meaning element of causation and event structural properties of the predicates involved.

4.3.2 No partitive, several source cases A system without the partitive but with several source cases can be found in Udmurt, illustrated by Table 4. The source cases – ablative, elative, and egressive – are set boldface. Table 4: Cases in the Udmurt noun paradigms Case

noun + case

Nominative Genitive Accusative Ablative Dative Adessive Instrumental Abessive Inessive Illative Elative Terminative Egressive Prolative Approximative

s’ik s’ik-len s’ik/s’ik-ez s’ik-les’ s’ik-ly s’ik-len s’ik-en s’ik-tek s’ik-yn s’ik-e s’ik-ys’(t) s’ik-oz’ s’ik-ys’en s’ik-eti s’ik-lan’

Hungarian lacks a morphological partitive, but its inventory of three separative cases allows interpreting these cases, especially the elative, as parts of constructions expressing Partitive Concepts. The elative, illustrated in (22a), denotes separation from a container, the ablative denotes separation from the vicinity of something (22b), and the delative denotes the separation from the object by movement from a surface (22c).

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Hungarian a. ház-ból house- ELA ‘from (inside) a house’ b.

ház-tól house-ABL ‘from (the vicinity of) a house’

c.

ház-ról house- DELA ‘from (the top of) a house’

Also, several other Uralic languages have separative cases that are not referred to as partitive, but their semantics is that of a prototypical partitive. As in Hungarian, the typical Partitive Concepts are realized by the elative (or the ablative, if there is no elative). Example (23) illustrates the Estonian Partitive Concept realized by the elative (the youngest of my children). (23)

Estonian noorim mu laste-st young.SUP SG 1.GEN child.PL- ELA ‘the youngest of my children’

4.3.3 Partitive and no source case: Sámi Inari Sámi, which I use for illustration, has nominative, genitive, accusative, illative, locative, comitative, abessive, essive and the partitive – the last two cases only exist in their singular form, as described in Toivonen (2003: 36) in Table 5. The partitive is set bold. Table 5: The Inari Sámi case paradigm for kietâ ‘hand’ (Toivonen 2003: 36)

nominative genitive accusative illative locative comitative abessive essive partitive

singular

plural

kietâ kieδâ kieδâ kietân kieδâst kieδáin kie'δâttáá kiettân kiettâd

kieδah kieδâi kieδâid kieδáid kieδâin kie'δâigui'm kie'δâittáá

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Sámi comparative constructions are a possible extension of the partitive in a system with no source or separative cases but a partitive that appears in singular only, as in (24a). In Inari and Skolt Sámi, the partitive case cannot be regarded as a general complement case like the partitives of the Finnic languages, since its use is restricted to specific constructions only (e.g. restricted postpositional, number phrases, etc.). At this point it is worthwhile to make a digression into an interesting variation that regularly involves the partitive or a source case in Uralic languages. There are several comparative constuction types in the Uralic languages. Among them, there is one where the standard of comparison is marked with a source case, which is frequently the elative or the partitive. In Inari Sámi, the standard of comparison is marked with the partitive, as in (24a). Marking the meaning of ‘N has the property Adj more than someone/something’ is not rendered (only) by ‘N is Adj-er than someone/something’, but (also) by ‘N is of/from someone/ something Y(-er)’. In source case systems with source cases and the partitive, the marking of the standard of comparison varies. In Estonian, the standard of comparison is marked with the elative (24d), but Finnish has variation between the partitive (24b) and the elative (24c). (24)

a.

Inari Sámi Muorâ lii táállud ucceeb. tree[NOM ] be.3 SG house.PAR smaller ‘The tree is smaller than the house.’ (Toivonen 2003: 65)

b.

Finnish Miehe-ni on 3 kk minu-a man[NOM ]-POSS .1 SG be.3SG 3 months 1 SG - PAR ‘My husband is three months older than I.’

c.

d.

Finnish . . .nainen ol-i minu-sta woman[NOM ] be-3 SG . PST 1 SG - ELA ‘The woman was older than I.’ Estonian Toomas on Peetri-st be.3 SG P-ELA T[NOM ] ‘Tom is older than Peter.’

van-em. old- CMPR

14 http://keskustelu.suomi24.fi/node/10906453

vanh-empi14 old-CMPR

vanh-empi. old-CMPR

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The example sentences in (24) are instances of Linguistic Partitive where the link to the Conceptual Partitive is considerably weaker than, for instance, example (23).

4.3.4 No partitive or separative Almost all Uralic languages have a source case that is used for marking the source argument. The poorest case system can be encountered in some dialects of Khanty, where there is a distinction between four cases only. In the Kazim dialect, the separative cases are missing altogether, in others, there is still an ablative. Table 6: Tha case system of some Khanty dialects (on the basis of Ruttkay 2003: 20) case

Kazym dialect

Vakh dialect

Vasyugan dialect

nominative

Ø

Ø

Ø

accusative

-t

-t

-t

lative-dative approximative translative

-a

-a -pa/-pä -γǝ/-γǝ̆ , -γ

-a -γǝ/-γǝ̆ , -γ

locative instrumental-final instrumental-comitative distributive

-ǝn

-nǝ/-nǝ̆ -tǝ/-tǝ̆ , -ǝ/-ǝ̆ -nat/-nät -tǝ̆ lta/-tǝltä

-nǝ/-nǝ̆ -tǝ/-tǝ̆ , -ǝ/-ǝ̆ -nat/-nät -tǝ̆ l/-tǝl

ablative

missing

-oγ/-öγ

-ow/-öw, -oγ/-öγ

abessive

–

-lǝ̆ γ/-lǝγ

-lǝ̆ γ/-lǝγ

comparative

–

-ni ̮ηi̮ ̮t

-niηǝ̮

4.4 Pseudo-partitives This subsection deals with the reading (xi-b), the amount-partitive or the pseudopartitive. (xi)

a. b.

“separable part of N that belongs to the same kind with N” ! ! “amount of N” (metonymic extension of xi-a)

In this subsection, I collect the evidence for the following hypotheses.

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(xii)

The Linguistic Partitive is more characteristic of pseudopartitive constructions in the Uralic languages that have a Linguistic Partitive.

(xiii)

Pseudopartitive constructions are expressed predominantly via juxtaposition in Uralic languages that do not have a Linguistic Partitive.

First of all, it is not completely clear at this stage if all Uralic languages have any partitive constructions with the structure N-measure + N-substance (e.g., a glass of wine). Many Uralic languages express pseudo-partitives with juxtaposition, as in N and W Sámi, Hungarian, Mari, Mordvinian, Komi, and Udmurt, according to Koptjevskaja-Tamm (2001: 555). Juxtaposition (pseudo-partitive) is illustrated by a Hungarian example in (25). (25)

Hungarian egy pohár INDF glass[NOM ] ‘a glass of wine’

bor wine[NOM ]

Estonian has a morphological partitive. Note that the proper partitive relationship is realized by the elative, but the pseudo-partitive (a glass of wine) is realized with the partitive case-marking, as in (26). (26)

Estonian klaas veini glass[ NOM ] wine.PAR ‘a glass of wine’

There are languages where the morphosyntactic encoding of the two types of partitive semantics clearly differs as shown by Koptjevskaja-Tamm (2001). This seems to be the case in Estonian as well. Koptjevskaja-Tamm (2001) contains a detailed typological study on Finnish and Estonian pseudopartitives. The illustration contrasting the two concepts is taken from Finnish. Example (27a) is a partitive nominal construction (PC) and (27b) is a pseudo-partitive nominal construction (PPC) in Koptjevskaja-Tamm (2001). See also the discussion in Luraghi and Kittilä (this volume). (27)

Finnish a. pala tä-stä hyvä-stä bit[NOM ] this-ELA good-ELA ‘a bit of this good cake’

kaku-sta cake-ELA

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säkki peruno-ita sack[NOM ] potato-PAR . PL ‘a sack of potatoes’

Not all Uralic languages use case in these expressions, and it is not clear if the pseudopartitves are clearly different from the real partitives. Anttila and Fong (2000) discuss Finnish examples where the distinction does not emerge clearly, and Tamm (2011b) demonstrates examples where even Anttila’s improved account would not work either for the data set of abstract nouns in Estonian. The state of the art in the data research of conventionalized measure structures in temperature in rarer Uralic languages is as follows. Khanty (28), Udmurt (29), and KomiPermyak (30) have a juxtaposition of nominative nouns in these constructions. (28)

Khanty, Eszter Ruttkay p.c. email, July 1st, 2010 a. kamәn ńăljaŋ grad iśki outside 40 degree[NOM ] cold[NOM ] ‘The outside temperature is 40 below zero.’ b.

(29)

tăjl be.3 SG

Udmurt, Svetlana Edygarova, email, June 28th, 2010 a. temperatura Celsi-ja 40 gradus 40 degree[NOM ] temperature[NOM ] c-ADV ‘40 degrees Celsius’ b.

(30)

ńăljaŋ grad ťemperatura 40 degree[NOM ] temperature[NOM ] ‘He has a fever of 40 degrees.’

n'yl-don gradus kez'yt/ 40 degree[NOM ] cold[NOM ]/ ‘40 degrees below/above zero’

shunyt warm[NOM ]

Komi-Permyak, Larisa Ponomareva, email, July 2nd, 2010 a. t'emperatura 40 gradus celsija temperature[NOM ] 40 degree[NOM ] c-ADV ‘40 degrees Celsius’ b.

n'ol'das gradus ködzyt/ 40 degree[NOM ] cold[NOM ]/ ‘40 degrees below/above zero’

shonyt warm[NOM ]

Hungarian does not allow partitive-like constructions at all, as seen in (31), and Estonian realizes a linguistic partitive, as in (32). The linguistic partitive is possible if the semantics of the noun that is measured is linguistically scalar, since it

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is possible with derivations of warm and cold, but not with the underived noun temperature in Estonian. (31)

Hungarian a. kint negyven fokos meleg/ hideg outside 40 degree-ADJ warm[NOM ] cold[NOM ] ‘The outside temperature is 40 above/below zero.’ b.

(32)

negyven fok-o-s láza 40 degree-LK-ADJ fever[NOM ].POSS .3 SG ‘He has a fever of 40 degrees.’

Estonian a. viis kraadi five[ NOM ] degree. PAR ‘plus 5 degrees’

van be.3 SG

van be.3 S

sooja warm. PAR

b.

viis kraadi five[ NOM ] degree. PAR ‘minus 5 degrees’

külma cold. PAR

c.

#viis kraadi five[ NOM ] degree. PAR ‘5 degrees’

temperatuuri temperature. PAR

Note that the Hungarian lacks the construction and there is an adjectival construction expressing the content in measure phrases, whereas complements of the complements are marked partitive in the Estonian measure phrases in (32).

4.5 The partitive concept and aspect The Hungarian elative is a form in the case inventory of Hungarian that corresponds closely to the Partitive Concept, as illustrated in (xi-a). Bare nouns compare to other Uralic zero marked bare nouns. The following examples illustrate Udmurt (33) and Komi (34) part-of-partitives, the (xi-a) type, in their embedded environment. Aspect and definiteness related to explicit accusative marking seem to coincide in these languages. (33)

Udmurt: accusative, Partitive Concept, unmarked/accusative opposition a. n'an' s'i-i (odig judes) bread[ACC ] eat-INF (one[ACC ] piece[ACC ]) ‘to eat (a piece of) bread.’

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(34)

b.

n'an'-ez judes s'i-i bread-ACC piece[ACC ] eat-INF ‘to eat a piece of this bread.’

c.

n'an'-ez s'i-i bread-ACC eat-INF ‘to eat (a piece of) this bread up.’ (Svetlana Edygarova, p.c.)

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Komi, elative, Partitive Concept, unmarked/accusative alternation a. kurčč-i n'an'-s'ys tor. bite-PST.1 SG bread-ELA piece[ACC ] ‘I have bitten some bread.’ b.

n'an' söj-i. bread[ACC ] eat-PST.1 SG ‘I was eating bread, I ate some bread.’

c.

söj-i n'an'-sö. eat-PST.1 SG bread-ACC . DEF ‘I ate the bread (some of the bread).’ (Nikolay Kuznetsov, p.c.)

Interaction with the aspectual properties of the clause vary with different partitive uses involving the verbs that trigger partitive meanings. Example (35) illustrates Hungarian (see the discussion on the partitive function of the elative and examples in Moravcsik 1978: 261). The partitive-elative argument and the telic particle do not constitute a well-formed sentence (35c). (35)

Hungarian a. Evett a pizzá-ból. eat.PST 3 S DEF pizza-ELA ‘She ate some of the pizza.’ b.

Meg-ette

a

TELIC -eat.PST 3 S

DEF

pizzá-t. pizza-ACC

‘She ate up the pizza.’ c. *Meg-ette a pizzá-ból. TELIC -eat.PST 3 S DEF pizza-ELA (‘She ate up of the pizza.’) d.

Pizzá-t evett. pizza-ACC eat.PST 3 S ‘She was eating pizza.’ (unbounded)

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The partitive yields an unbounded reading for Estonian, as in (36). (36)

Estonian a. Mari sõ-i (neid) pitsa-sid. M[NOM ] eat-PST.3 SG this.PAR . PL pizza-PAR . PL ‘Mary was eating (these) pizzas.’ (unbounded, nonquantized) b.

Mari sõ-i pitsa-d / %pitsa-sid M[NOM ] eat-PST.3 SG pizza-NOM . PL pizza-PAR . PL ‘Mary ate the pizzas (up).’ (bounded, quantized)

ära. up

Table 7 summarizes the situation with affectedness and the object cases in the studied languages. Table 7: Affectedness of the incremental theme and the object case Incremental theme argument totally affected

Incremental theme argument partially affected

Accusative

ELATIVE (Hu) PARTITIVE (Est) Unmarked (Hu,Kh,U)

The question however is, whether the data in (36) is an instance of the Partitive Concept or the Linguistic Partitive? It is both. The object has partitive marking, so it is a Linguistic Partitive. It is a Partitive Concept, since the meaning extension has come into being by means of metonymy: the disappearance of the pizzas is temporally related to the event where the pizzas are disappearing. Therefore, the pizzas in the event and the temporal evolving of the event itself are related by spatiotemporal contiguity. The boundedness of the event is not determined by the boundedness of the object matter any more in the partitive languages such as Modern Estonian. The loss of the relationship is demonstrated by the combination of the quantized “these pizzas”, which is bounded, and the partitive case on the noun denoting pizzas. In presentational or existential sentences and certain transitive sentences with achievement verbs, the mass or count properties of the argument, as in (37a), are observed to influence the possibility of partitive case encoding.15 On the basis of typical examples illustrating this regularity, one could argue that in presentational or existential sentences, partitive is possible with mass (abstract, unbounded, or bare plural) nouns. The examples that those scholars would 15 See also Erelt et al. 1997, available at http://www.eki.ee/books/ekk09/index.php?p=5&p1= 2&id=387 (accessed on 17 November 2012).

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employ would be as presented in the Estonian intransitive sentences in (37a) and as in the transitive sentences in (37b). I have added the semantically unacceptable options with a hash mark. (37)

a.

Taigna sees on pipar-t /#sõrmus-t. be-3SG pepper- PAR /ring- PAR batter.GEN in ‘There is (some) pepper in the batter.’ Not possible: ‘There is (some/a) ring in the batter.’

b.

Mari sokuta-s taigna sisse pipar-t M[ NOM ] manage- PST.3 SG batter.GEN into pepper- PAR ‘Mary managed to add (secretly) pepper to the batter.’ Not possible: ‘Mary managed to add a ring to the batter.’

/#sõrmus-t. /ring- PAR

Further research has shown that there should be a another subdivision among mass nouns, and that concrete mass nouns belong to just one of these types. Abstract nouns that are also mass nouns can be divided according to their appearance with the partitive marking in the same environment with other, concrete mass nouns, or not. Some abstract mass nouns cannot be marked with the partitive if all other conditions hold equally. The contrast is demonstrated by the nouns valgus ‘light’ versus pimedus ‘darkness’. In its case-marking behavior, the mass noun valgus ‘light’ patterns with other mass nouns, such as pipar ‘pepper’, but the mass noun pimedus ‘darkness’ does not, pattening with the count noun sõrmus ‘ring’ instead. The contrast is illustrated in transitive and intransitive sentences (38). (38)

Estonian a. Saali tekki-s valgus-t /#pimedus-t. hall. ILL appear- PST.3 SG light- PAR darkness- PAR ‘Light/darkness emerged in the hall.’ b.

Mari tekita-s saali-s valgus-t M[ NOM ] create- PST.3 SG hall- INE light- PAR ‘Mary created light/darkness in the hall.’

/#pimedus-t. /darkness- PAR

The possibility of the partitive is determined by factors that are similar to example (32). In example (32), the linguistic partitive emerges if the noun measured is semantically scalar. The contrast is observable in the difference between the derivations of soe ‘warm’ and külm ‘cold’, which can be partitive, and the nonderived noun temperatuur ‘temperature’, which cannot. In example (38), the difference between the nouns ‘light’ and ‘darkness’ consists in the scalar properties of the base adjective, and also the existence of pragmatic standards or norms

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(see the details in Tamm 2014). As opposed to the Finnish Partitive Concepts that are expressed by a linguistic partitive, there are examples from Uralic where partitive-like phenomena are actually neither Partitive Concepts nor linguistic partitives. Consider the so-called Nenets partitive objects as in jī-kʔ tādaʔ ‘give [me some] water’ (Hajdú 1968/1982: 69). Is the Tundra Nenets dative plural a partitive (-kʔ above, the more general dative plural suffix form is xVʔ Hajdú 1982: 38)? A Linguistic Partitive is ruled out, since the dative plural has no links to nominal morphology denoting source. Hajdú (1982: 69) interprets the dative plural NPs as “partial objects”. As the result of grammaticalization processes that significantly diverge from those leading to the Finnic case alternation, the Nenets NP that stands for the event participant with the semantic role of a Theme can be marked with either the accusative or dative plural ( jī-kʔ waterdat.pl). Tereščenko (1973), however, refrains from classifying the nominal marker as case, and the NP as an object, and since the dative plural NP does not trigger objective conjugation in Nenets, there are reasons to prefer Tereščenko’s analysis. Do the specialized uses of the Tundra Nenets dative plural correspond to the Partitive Concept? No part of a quantized whole is implied. Some examples in Tereščenko (1973) are close to the Partitive Concept, namely, close to the extension of the amount-of partitive in that the nouns in the examples seem to refer to a kind rather than concrete – moreover, plural – referents. These uses seem to coincide with the “Mordvinian Partitive”, namely, the Erzya ablative in example (15c), but Tereščenko (1973: 185–187) provides a range of many other uses. The noun ‘meat’ does not refer to a whole in the accusative example either. Tereščenko finds parallels with the Finnic linguistic partitive-accusative object case alternation only in the semantic totality and partiality and indefiniteness, which later in the explanation boils down to a broader notion of nominal divisivity (Tereščenko 1973: 187). This suggests that there is no evidence of any partwhole opposition in the Nenets grammar system. In sum, the dative pluralaccusative alternation has led researches acquainted with the Finnic grammaticographic tradition to consider the parallel with the Finnic Linguistic Partitive as part of total-partial opposition. We have rather the case where the languagespecific categories of Finnic grammaticography have influenced the description of the categories in another Uralic language.

4.6 Cross-categorial cases and separative relationships in source cases 4.6.1 Partitives among the source cases as cross-categorial case This subsection takes a closer look on how separative cases and partitives appear as cross-categorial cases, because having extensive cross-categorial case

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systems in various levels of development is a particular feature of the Uralic languages. Cross-categorial case refers to the appearance of nominal markers, in particular, case formants, as markers that pertain semantically to verbal categories, sometimes forming case paradigms in the verbal marking system, such as the TAM categories or negation. The goal of this subsection is to present several points. – Firstly, Uralic languages are particularly rich in cross-categorial source cases and the partitive. There are several strategies, two of which are disussed in connection with the source cases in the cross-categorial case systems. – Secondly, the partitive developments in the Finnic languages must be seen as an exceptional development among the source cases. The source cases diverge from each other in languages with several source cases in terms of cross-categorial case. Source spatial cases are also different from non-source spatial cases. Especially in the Hungarian aspectual preverb system, the contrast between source and non-source cases is observable. – Last but not least, the discussion of the non-finites of this subsection is necessary to understand the role of the partitive case in the TAM categories. More specifically, it is a necessary introduction in order to move on to the topics of how the TAM categories have developed their current spectrum of meanings in the instance of the Estonian linguistic partitive. The Estonian partitive evidential, discussed in Section 5, is an instance of cross-categorial case. Unusual TAM marking by nominal case is attested in many languages (Nordlinger and Sadler 2004). Recent research has drawn attention to “verbal” or “versatile” case that appears in the verbal paradigm (Aikhenvald 2008, Butt 2006, Spencer 2009). Blake (2001) and Butt (2006) belong to the classic literature addressing case that contains instances of cross-categorial case, and Aikhenvald (2008) has published a journal article dedicated to case that appears on nouns as well as verbs in language typology. Spencer (2009) discusses instances of the phenomenon as “case marking on verbs” (39). (39)

Quechua Rima-y-ta xalayu-ru-n. speak- INF-ACC begin-PRF-3 SG ‘He began to speak.’ (Adelaar and Muysken [2004: 226] in Spencer [2009: 189])

According to the author’s description, the non-finite verb form is marked with the accusative and it functions as the object of the verb ‘begin’ in Quechua.

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This example adds another dimension of cross-categorial case ridden with puzzles – non-finites combining with cases. The semantic regularities of cases appearing cross-categorially have been discussed in a more detailed account by Aikhenvald (2008) in recent literature. Her term for the phenomenon is versatile case (Aikhenvald 2008: 565). It can express temporal, causal and other relationships between clauses, or aspectual and modal meanings within a clause. Versatile case comprises case on various verb forms and falls in three types on the basis of its distributional characteristics: appearing on verb roots, on fully or partially inflected verbs, or on nonfinite verbs. Aikhenvald describes versatile case as “chameleon morphemes”; these morphemes can mark different categories and have related but also different meanings. As one instance from her rich typological sample, Aikhenvald provides examples of case on nouns and verbs in Manambu, where the objectivelocative case marks a core or oblique argument, as demonstrated in (40). The locative case appears on the verb as well, as on wukemar ‘forget’, adding completivity to the event structure; locative case on a verb triggers the aspectual completive interpretation of ‘completely forget’. (40)

Manambu Wun [de-ke-m] wukemar-e-m I he- LK- OBJ / LOC forget-LK- OBJ / LOC ‘I completely forgot him.’ (Aikhenvald 2008: 587)

The Manambu case expresses TAM categories; in the Quechua example it is not clear if the accusative marks aspectual inchoativity on the verb or simply the object. Aikhenvald generalizes that core cases tend to express aspectual and modal meanings, while oblique cases tend to be used as clause-linkers. In addition to attaching to nouns (and in languages with adjective-noun agreement, to adjectives), case in Uralic also attaches to verbs (verb stems) and to verbs with a nominalizing suffix, forming infinitives and in-between forms. These are the forms that are also referred to as cross-categorical cases. Some examples of the types of cross-categorial case are listed in (xiv) in order to introduce in a nutshell the basic types of examples discussed below in more detail. (xiv) Cross-categorical case types 1. Cross categorical case-like form attaches to verb stems – Hungarian case form in preverbs+verb (be-megy ‘in-go, enter’), or – Udmurt V+abessive, or – to verb stems forming a non-finite, such as the Selkup infinitive marker: V+translative.

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2. Cross-categorical case attaches to nominalizations (Udmurt cases V+m +case, V+n+case), 3. Cross-categorical case appears as a part of non-finites (Finnic, the case formants are part of a morpheme of a non-finite verb) 4. Cross-categorical case attaches to an argument or adjunct but carries TAM meanings (Finnish aspectual accusative-partitive case alternation, accusative case on temporal adverbials that bound the situation). In a cross-categorical case paradigm, not all nominal cases are necessarily cross-categorial; in addition, cases are cross-categorial in various ways as specified in (xiv). However, the Uralic languages rarely combine all types of crosscategorical case and have their particular language-specific strategies in using case formatives for expressing the TAM meanings. It is also typical that there is more than one strategy within one language, but across the Uralic languages, the pattern of the strategies does not overlap. In order to understand the extended semantics of linguistic partitives, the difference between simple nouns and nominalizations should be considered. A simple noun has relatively concrete properties, and a case relates it to a verb in a rather unambiguous way. The result of relating verbs with nominalizations is more complicated. A nominalization has its own predicate-argument structure and a case relates events or abstract entities. In this linguistic environment, which is semantically and pragmatically similar to the combinations of adpositions and nominalizations, several TAM meanings may develop; Bybee et al. (1994) discuss for instance how the progressive develops from locative expressions (Tamm 2011a or Ross et al. 2010 can be consulted for the details of the development of the progressive semantics and pragmatics in the Finnic languages).

4.6.2 Rich source case system with asymmetries in combining with the nominalization paradigm, and case on bare verb: Udmurt The goal of this subsection is to illustrate a stage in the development of semantics that goes beyond encoding only argument relationships in a predicate. The example is from Udmurt, where cases that mark nouns can mark bare verb stems and two types of non-finites or nominalizations. The data presented in Table 8 illustrates the case system in Udmurt.16 It highlights the source cases and

16 The Udmurt data are provided by Svetlana Edygarova, p.c, to whom I am grateful for her help.

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the abessive as they are found on non-derived nouns, and in the forms between verbs and nouns containing -n- or -m- as bound nominalizing morphemes. Table 8: Cases in the Udmurt noun (house) and non-finite case paradigms (the verb go) Case

noun + case

verb + n + case

verb + m + case

Nominative Genitive Accusative Ablative Dative Adessive Instrumental Abessive Inessive Illative Elative Terminative Egressive Prolative Approximative

s’ik s’ik-len s’ik/s’ik-ez s’ik-les’ s’ik-ly s’ik-len s’ik-en s’ik-tek s’ik-yn s’ik-e s’ik-ys’(t) s’ik-oz’ s’ik-ys’en s’ik-eti s’ik-lan’

myn-on myn-on-len myn-on-ez myn-on-les’ myn-on-ly

myn-em myn-em-len myn-em-ez myn-em-les’ myn-em-ly

myn-on-en missing myn-on-yn myn-on-e missing myn-on-oz’ missing

myn-em-en missing myn-em-yn myn-em-e myn-em-ys’ myn-em-oz’ missing

verb + case

myny-tek

The source case-marking of nominalizations is relatively uninteresting from the point of view of syntax. Once a verb is nominalized, it can be case-marked as any other argument in the source role. Therefore, one would predict an even distribution of forms all over the nominalizations and non-finites. However, we do not see an even distribution. In Table 8 illustrating the case system in Udmurt, also the abessive on bare stems is included for illustration of the nature of the phenomenon, in addition to the case system on n-nominalizations and on m-nominalizations. Although the system is regular, not all cases appear on the two nominalizations, and only one morpheme is cross-categorial in the sense of combining with a verb stem (the abessive, see Tamm forthc., 2011c). This demonstrates a system with transparent cross-categorial case, that developes some additional meanings to the argument relationships. Table 1 on Estonian records a more restricted and opaque cross-categorial case system, with more TAM meanings. In sum, Udmurt presents a rich source case system with asymmetries in combining with verbs and the nominalization paradigm. The relationships are transparent, but the paradigms are deficient. The elative source case does not occur with the n-nominalizations, but it is there with the m-nominalizations. The ablative source case occurs with the n-nominalizations as well as with the m-nominalizations. The abessive, which combines directly with the bare stem,

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does not combine with the two non-finites. It is also clear that the elative and the illative appear asymmetrically, the elative is missing where the illative is present, showing the constraints on combining with more abstract meanings. The source-goal asymmetry is the topic of the following subsection as well.

4.6.3 Source-goal asymmetry in cross-categorial case One of the best examples of cross-categorial case in the aspectual domain is the Hungarian verbal particles (preverbs). I illustrate the Hungarian aspectual telicizing particles that have the same origin with the pronominal forms of goal cases INTO (-ba/-be), ONTO (-ra/-re), and TO (-hez/-hoz/-höz) in (41).17 (41)

Hungarian a. Feri be-ment az épület-be. F[NOM ] into-go. PST.3 SG DEF building-INTO ‘Ferenc entered the building.’ (into-went into the building) b.

Gábor rá-lépett a sajt-ra. G[NOM ] onto-step. PST.3 SG DEF cheese-ONTO ‘Gábor stepped on cheese.’ (on-stepped on the cheese)

c.

Gregor Bernadett hozzá-ment egy sámán-hoz.18 GB[NOM ] to.him-go. PST.3 SG INDF shaman-TO ‘Gregor Bernadett married a shaman.’ (to-went to a shaman)

The Hungarian stative particles have the form of the adverb or pronominal case forms denoting the location IN, ON, or IN THE VICINITY OF with the verb marad ‘stay’. The point is that it is not only interesting what there is in the grammatical inventory of a language, but what there isn’t. In the triad of stative location preverbs, IN and ON appear with an obligatory argument in the case that corresponds to the preverb, as in (42a), (42b). The form nála ‘near’ that stands for IN THE VICINITY location may appear with the verb marad ‘stay’ (42c), but there is no obligatory argument marked with -nál/-nél.

17 Surányi (2009) treats several of these examples as incorporated locative adverbials in Hungarian. See É. Kiss (2006) and Kiefer (2006) for the event structural properties of preverbs in Hungarian. 18 http://velvet.hu/celeb/gregor0610/ 05/10/2011 16:12

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(42) Hungarian a. Nikolas megsirat-t-a, hogy benn-marad-t a verseny-ben.19 N[NOM ] lament-PST.3 SG - DEF that in-remain-PST.3 SG DEF competition-INE ‘Nikolas was sad that he remained in the competition.’ (Literally: in-stayed in the competition) b. Rajt-a marad-t Thaci-n a szervkereskedelem on-3 SG remain-PST.3 SG T-SUPERESS DEF organ.trafficking[NOM ] vád-ja20 accusation[NOM ]-POSS .3 SG ‘The accusations of organ trafficking remained on Thaci.’ (Literally: on-stayed on Thaci.) c. *nála marad-t a barát-jái-nál near remain-PST.3 SG DEF friend-POSS .3 PL-ADE ‘He remained at his friends’ place.’ (Literally: at-stayed at his friends’ place) In (43), the separative direction is not realized in the aspectual preverb system. Separative preverbs are something that is paradoxically and unexpectedly missing in the highly developed Hungarian aspectual preverb system. (43)

Hungarian a. *ról-jött a tető-ről from.top.of-come.PST.3 SG DEF roof-DELA The following content cannot be expressed with these grammatical means: ‘He came down from top of the roof.’ b. *ből-jött a ház-ból from.inside-come.PST.3 SG DEF from-ELA The following content cannot be expressed with these grammatical means: ‘He came out of the house.’ c. *től-jött től-e from.the.vicinity-come.PST.3 SG ABL-him/her The following content cannot be expressed with these grammatical means: ‘He came from his place.’

19 www.borsonline.hu/news.php?hid=36212 02/10/2011 13:45:28 20 http://www.mr1-kossuth.hu/hirek/kulhon/rajta-maradt-thacin-a-szervkereskedelem-vadja. html 02/10/2011 13:45:28

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4.6.4 Source-goal cross-categorial case and the special status of the Linguistic Partitive Partitives and source cases appear on non-finites in Estonian. Non-finite forms in Estonian frequently originate from case-marked non-finite verb forms, which originally were complements but developed into base predicates of larger predicate complexes. This process resembles the Udmurt paradigm, which is more regular but less grammaticalized. These cross-categorial case complexes have developed case-related semantics and TAM meanings in Estonian. Table 9 The Estonian case system and case in the non-finite system case

translation N

example N

Nominative Genitive Partitive Illative Inessive Elative Allative Adessive Ablative Translative Terminative Essive Abessive Comitative

book of a book (of) a book into the book in a book from (inside) a book onto a book on a book from the book in(to), as a book until a book as a book without a book with a book

raamat raamatu raamatu-t raamatu-sse raamatu-s raamatu-st raamatu-le raamatu-l raamatu-lt raamatu-ks raamatu-ni raamatu-na raamatu-ta raamatu-ga

example V

translation V

tule-va-t tule-ma tule-ma-s, tulle-s tule-ma-st

allegedly, coming to come coming from coming

tule-ma-ks

in order to come

tule-ma-ta

not having come

The embeddeness of case in the system of non-finites helps understand the role of source cases in the TAM categories and, more specifically, how the TAM categories have developed their current spectrum of meanings. The partitive developments in the Finnic languages must be seen as an exceptional development among the source cases, because of the asymmetry between the source and goal cases in the cross-categorical case systems. The exceptionally developed source case cannot be explained with frequency, because source cases are less frequent as parts of non-finites. This is shown in well-known case studies on the development of non-finites (infinitives), which are usually based on goal and not source cases. For instance, Haspelmath (1989) discusses the development of infinitives on the basis of allatives (e.g. I go to eat and not I come from eat). He also discusses the Hungarian infinitive as a form that has developed from a nominalizer and a lative case form in the Hungarian language history. Moreover, Pajusalu and Orav (2008) have shown that in Estonian the elative

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source case is statistically far more rare as part of the non-finite with the mformative compared to the other m-formative spatial cases in non-finites. The Estonian partitive evidential is therefore fairly special, and this is discussed in Section 5.

4.7 Summary After the discussion of this section, the quantificational relationships between the nominal parts of partitives can be presented in a table. The relationships between the two nouns in the two Partitive Concepts are represented in Table 10. Table 10: Partitive Concepts and the quantification of the nouns in the constructions Part-of-N

Amount-of-N

N quantified

Yes/no

no

Construction quantified

Quantified nonspecifically

Either specific quantity (if amount is specified) or nonspecific quantity (if amount is not specified or non-quantized)

Combined with verbs

Quantizes quantifyable activity

De-quantizes a quantifiable activity

The different morphological and syntactic realizations with extended or core meanings in the Linguistic Partitives and Partitive Concepts are in Table 11. The equation mark stands for identical kinds of matter, whereas the hash mark stands for different kinds of matter. N1 stands for measure unit and N2 for the substance. Table 11: Linguistic Partitives and Partitive Concepts and the relationship between the two nouns Morphological partitive N1-of-N2

Separatives in languages with morphological partitives

Separatives in languages without a dedicated partitive

Identity of the relationship between the partitives

N1 = N2

The relationship is underspecified, but typically, N1# N2

The relationship is underspecified, but typically, N1# N2

The form

Case

Elative, ablative, delative, several source/separative adpositions

Another case, one function of which is the partitive, or an adposition, juxtaposition

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5 The semantics and pragmatics of the Estonian partitive evidential 5.1 An instance of a Linguistic Partitive This section presents some instances of the partitive that have already less relation with the Partitive Concept (Section 5.1) because they have entered the epistemic modal and evidential domain. Then the section concentrates on the conceptual content of the Estonian partitive evidential in the light of crosscategorial cases and partitive relationships (Section 5.2). In most Uralic languages that have a partitive case, the latter is semantically motivated, especially in Finnic. Instead of the “part-of-N” semantics, the semantics of the Finnic partitives is related to other semantic notions, typically, event structural properties or aspect, as in (44) (Ackerman and Moore 2001, Kont 1963, Tveite 2004). Indefiniteness and irrealis have also been mentioned in some sources. Sentences with the partitive object are referred to as non-bounded, irresultative, imperfective, and atelic. Sentences with an accusative (total) object are referred to as bounded, resultative, perfective, and telic. Presently, the Estonian partitive object case appears in sentences that have the semantics of incomplete event realization, unboundedness, atelicity, or imperfective aspect (Kiparsky 1998, Erelt et al. 1993, Metslang 1994, Metslang 2001, Larsson 1983, Lees 2005, Sulkala 1996), irrespective of part-whole relationships or partial affectedness (Tamm 2012c, 2007, 2004). The partitive marking of incremental themes denoting the part-of the object relationship with the verb, (44a) versus (44b), have given rise to a general aspectual marker of aspectual unboundedness, unrelated to affectedness. Hearing does not affect, let alone, piecewise, or in any possible way, the one who is being heard in the event, as in (44c). The noun phrase ‘Thomas’ is not an affected object, since it refers to a quantized and specific referent. Therefore, the case marking on the basis of affectedness of the incremental theme has given rise to the meanings of atelicity/telicity and aspect in general. (44)

a.

Silvi sõ-i pitsa-sid. S[NOM ] eat-PST.3 SG pizza-PAR . PL ‘Silvia was eating the pizzas.’

b.

Silvi sõ-i pitsa-d S[NOM ] eat-PST.3 SG pizza-NOM . PL ‘Silvia ate the pizzas up.’

c.

Silvi kuul-is Toomas-t. S[NOM ] hear-PST.3 SG T-PAR ‘Silvia heard Thomas.’

ära. up/TELIC

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Another analysis of these examples can be given in terms of epistemic modality and is connected in an intricate way to evidentiality. This analysis integrates the discourse and perceptional properties of the partitive objects (Tamm 2012b). The multiple previous attempts at defining the Finnic partitive can be replaced by an overarching epistemic modal approach. Instead of viewing the Finnic partitive as a matter of encoding definiteness, boundedness, quantization, perfectivity, or telicity oppositions, it is possible to view it as encoding an opposition in terms of having sufficient evidence for definiteness, boundedness, quantization, perfectivity, or telicity. This approach explains many unexplained facts about verb classes as well. The epistemic modal feature completely overrules the aspectual feature – previously thought to determine object case encoding – in a whole class of psychological predicates (üllatama ‘surprise’, ehmatama ‘frighten’, solvama ‘offend’). (45)

a.

Silvi üllata-s Toomas-t. S[NOM ] surprise-PST.3 SG T-PAR ‘Silvia surprised Thomas.’

b.

Silvi ehmata-s Toomas-t. S[NOM ] frighten-PST.3 SG T-PAR ‘Silvia frightened Thomas.’

c.

Silvi solva-s Toomas-t. S[NOM ] offend-PST.3 SG T-PAR ‘Silvia offended Thomas.’

The psych-verbs denote events with clear temporal endpoints and are, thus, aspectually telic in (45). Therefore, they are predicted to have total (nonpartitive, accusative, nominative) objects according to the hypothesis of linking partitive to aspect. However, these verbs have partitive objects. An utterance that originally encodes the speaker’s aspectual meaning and conveys the endpoint also encodes a lower degree of evidence, thus, epistemic modality. The crucial link between the aspect and evidential categories is instantiated when the hearer overgeneralizes some examples where there is clearly no cognitively reliable immediate evidence of the endpoint (psych-verbs) to more fuzzy cases. The deviant behavior of the psych-verbs can be explained in terms of epistemic modality: it is difficult to have evidence about the endpoint of offending, for instance. In an event of surprising or frightening as well, it is not easy to have evidence when an event reaches its inherent endpoint and how effectively the endpoint is reached. Therefore, the evidence for events that are encoded by

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psych-verbs is incomplete. The incompleteness of the evidence and not just aspect determines the partitive encoding of the object’s case with these verbs. This analysis is based on the speaker’s cognition and inferences combined with the hearer’s inferences. The pragmatic and semantic account concentrates on the property of partitive to encode a speaker’s evaluation of evidence and certainty. It is not surprising to find that the partitive evidential expresses a speaker’s evaluation about the evidence for the truth of a proposition and certainty about the proposition. However, unexpectedly, this pragmatics can be found in the Estonian core case marking system. More specifically, the data show that the inference about the total objects is that they express total evidence and certainty and that the partitive objects express incomplete evidence and uncertainty. This explanation can capture some previously unexplained Finnish data as well. Finnish mental epistemic verbs with translative secondary predicates display an object case alternation that cannot be fit into an explanation based on the telicity-atelicity opposition either. The two sentences illustrated below, with tietää ‘know’ in (46a) and luulla ‘think, believe’ in (46b), are atelic and should, therefore, have partitive object case marking if the telicity hypothesis is correct. However, the use of tietää ‘know’ versus luulla ‘think, believe’ expresses the beliefs of the speaker about Mary’s knowledge about the smartness of George. The degree of the speaker’s evidence for George being smart is lower if luulla ‘think, believe’ is used, and the degree of evidence is complete if tietää ‘know’ is used. The difference in evidence is reflected in the speaker’s choice of the accusative case with tietää ‘know’ and confirmed by the choice of the matrix verb. (46)

Finnish a. Mari tietä-ä Jyri-n viisaa-ksi. M[ NOM ] know- PST.3 S J-ACC smart-TRAN ‘Mary knows that George is smart.’ (Tuomas Huumo, p.c.) b.

Mari luule-e Jyri-ä viisaa-ksi. M[ NOM ] believe-PST.3 S J-PAR smart-TRAN ‘Mary believes that George is smart.’ (Tuomas Huumo, p.c.)

Mary (the subject) may believe that George is smart in (46a) and (46b), but the belief of the subject does not matter for the object case encoding. What matters are the speaker and her beliefs. The speaker believes that Mary is right in (46a) and George is smart, but that she (the speaker) has insufficient evidence in (46b). In (46b), the evidence may be insufficient, for instance, because (a) the

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speaker does not trust Mary when Mary says George is smart, or I know that George is smart or, (b) the speaker trusts Mary, but Mary utters I think that George is smart (but I do not know for sure). The Finnish examples with the mental epistemic verbs (tietää ‘know’ versus luulla ‘think, believe’) seem to have lexicalized the epistemic modal distinction in the verbal features. The epistemic modal feature completely overrules the aspectual feature in Finnish object marking in this minimal pair. Several Finnish perception verbs and mental epistemic verbs have accusative objects in Finnish as in (47a), unlike Estonian, which has partitive objects with this group of verbs (47b) (tuntea/tundma ‘feel’ and nähdä/nägema ‘see’). It is difficult to say if epistemic modality or the categorization of events is involved in this difference. The same Finnish verb may also appear with a partitive object because of aspectual reasons, which means perception as a lexicalized change of state from not feeling to feeling (corresponding to accusative marking, 47a) versus a continuous state of feeling (corresponding to partitive marking, as in 47c). (47)

a.

b.

c.

Finnish Tun-si-n sen melkoisen feel- PST-1 SG this.ACC pretty ‘I could feel it pretty clearly.’ Estonian Tund-si-n seda üsna feel- PST-1 SG this.PAR pretty ‘I could feel it pretty clearly.’ Finnish Osa part[ NOM ] mitä that.PAR

minu-sta 1 SG - ELA Jacob J[NOM ]

selvästi.21 clearly

selgesti. clearly

tun-si feel- PST.3 S

sitä this.PAR

tuska-a, anguish-PAR

tun-si.22 feel- PST.3 S

‘Part of me felt the kind of pain that Jacob felt.’ In any case the lexicalization pattern involves a whole distinct cognitive area of perception and reasoning in a language, and this fact is too conspicuous to ignore. Table 12 summarizes the correspondence between the speaker’s evidence about the endpoint and the object case marking in Estonian.

21 http://keskustelu.suomi24.fi/node/9776187 (accessed 18 September 2011). 22 http://www.vampirelove.net/fanfiction/onnieiseuraa.php (accessed 18 September 2011).

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Table 12: The speaker’s evidence about the endpoint and the object case The speaker’s evidence, certainty

Complete

Incomplete

Object case

total (accusative)

partitive

5.2 Cross-categorial cases and partitive relationships Another peculiarity of the Uralic languages-case on non-finite verb forms (cf. Aikhenvald 2008) – has lead to the situation where the partitive semantics has spread to the domain of epistemic modality and evidentiality (the vat-form, as in Erelt et al. 2006, Kehayov 2008). As the result of the diachronic development of the partitive case, the Estonian evidential, epistemic modal, aspectual and NP categories share similarities. The overlap between the epistemic modal and evidential categories (Van der Auwera & Plungian 1998) is due to these developments. Aspects of the diachronic development have been dealt with in Larjavaara (1991), Campbell (1991), or Aikhenvald (2004), but a coherent motivated link between the sematics of the various Uralic partitives will be given in this presentation is a new research question that is addressed in this article only. Partitive has the following stages of development in Estonian: 1. an NP-stage (Krifka 1992), that is, the stage where the meaning of the partitive pertains to parts of a whole 2. an aspectual stage (Larjavaara 1991, Laanest 1975), 3. epistemic modal and evidential phase (Campbell 1991). The aspectual partitive marks objects in sentences describing incomplete events, and the partitive evidential appears in sentences that encode incomplete evidence compared to the expectation of complete evidence (Tamm 2009). The partitive case provides the example of cross-categorial case, which in present-day Estonian preserves the diachronic evolution path from a spatial case to an aspectual case and further, to a marker of epistemic modality and evidentiality. The categories of aspect and evidentiality preserve the basic semantics of the spatial partitive; the example provides an illustration of the shared structure of these categories. Once the participle was used with an object, the partitive case marking was applied to participles as well if they modified the object of an atelic verb. As a consequence, epistemic modal meanings emerged in the embedded clauses (Wälchli 2000, Tamm 2008b, 2009). In modern Estonian, there is still considerable variation, but clear tendencies can be noticed as well. With auditory evidence, the partitive form is used (47a), since evidence from hearing is not as reliable as evidence from seeing. Visual evidence is not partial; another nonfinite tends to be used with visual evidence (47b). In independent clauses, the

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partitive-marked participle began to be used as an indirect evidential (47c). If evidence is not in question, no partitive evidential is used (47d). (47)

a.

Mari kuul-is teda koju M[NOM ] hear-PST.3 S s/he.PAR home. ILL ‘Mary heard him/her come home.’

tule-va-t. come-PERS . PRS . PTCP- PAR

b.

Mari näg-i Jüri-t koju M[NOM ] see-PST.3 SG J-PAR home. ILL ‘Mary saw George coming home.’

c.

Mari tule-va-t. M[NOM ] come-PERS . PRS . PTCP- PAR ‘Allegedly/reportedly, supposedly Mary will come.’

d.

Mari tule-b. M[NOM ] come-3SG ‘Mary will come.’

tule-mas. come-M _ INE

Table 13 summarizes the correspondences between the completeness of the speaker’s evidence or certainty and the presence or absence of the partitive evidential. Complete evidence and certainty is not specifically marked, but incomplete evidence or certainty of the speaker is marked by the partitive evidential. Table 13: The completeness of the speaker’s evidence or certainty and the partitive evidential speaker’s evidence, certainty

complete

incomplete

mood/modality

no partitive evidential

partitive evidential

6 Discussion and conclusions The partitive has stood in the center of descriptive studies for long decades in the Finnic linguistic tradition, and in the last two decades the phenomena of partitivity have thrilled formal linguists as well. A recent debate on the comparability of grammatical concepts across languages has involved cognitive, generative, and typological linguistic frameworks. The present paper has united the agendas of these pursuits with the some older and some more recent studies and analyses of the partitives and partitive like concepts across the Uralic languages, with the aim of creating a suitable basis for further investigations into the cognitive properties of linguistic concepts such as the partitive. One of the

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intriguing questions concerns how the human prelinguistic perceptual concepts are related to linguistic and language-specific, more refined concepts. The diverse patterns of the Uralic separative and partitive phenomena have been studied in more detail in the present article in order to establish the correspondence between variations of a central concept. In the hope that further empirical, experimental or language historical methods will confirm the existence of the partitive as a naturally occurring – that is, a perceived and communicated – category, this article has proposed a hypothesis about the cognitive content of the Partitive Concept. It has provided examples from the Uralic languages, and it has discussed some case studies of particular instances of the Linguistic Partitives. Several Uralic languages have cases that are referred to as the partitive; however, the semantics of these cases diverge from the generally assumed notion of partitive. All Uralic languages can, however, express the concept of part-whole relationships by means of a restricted set of constructions that typically contain juxtaposed bare nouns, elatives, or ablatives. Therefore, on the basis of examples of one language family, this paper made a distinction between Partitive Concepts that can be expressed by all Uralic languages and the morphological, linguistic partitives. A characteristic of the Uralic languages is that there are many source (separative) cases, and this article concentrated on the place of the partitive within the system of source cases. The interaction between TAM, definiteness, and the partitive can be observed in many areas: the aspectual DOM, definiteness effects, telicity, and case on non-finites. The Uralic languages are particularly rich in cross-categorial case, that is, the use of case formants as markers of verbal categories such as TAM categories. There are several processes that lead to case formants developing into TAM categories, two of which have been discussed in connection with the source cases in the cross-categorial case systems. The source cases are different from each other in languages with many source cases in terms of cross-categorial case, and also different from non-source spatial cases. Especially, in the Hungarian aspectual preverb system, the contrast between source and non-source cases has been made visible. Therefore, the partitive developments in the Finnic languages must be seen as an exceptional development among the source cases. This article has illustrated the current spectrum of TAM meanings in the instance of the Estonian linguistic partitive, in particular, the Estonian partitive evidential. The Estonian partitive case provides an example of cross-categorial case, which in present-day Estonian preserves the diachronic evolutionary path in present-day uses. The present diversity in the meanings and functions allows us to assume a development of a concept from a spatial relation, to an aspectual

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relation and further, to epistemic modal and evidential interpretations. The categories of aspect and evidentiality preserve the basic semantics of the spatial partitive; the example provides an illustration of the shared structure of these categories. The Partitive Concept is a heuristic, a comparative concept to enable us to compare variations of it across languages. Additionally the Partitive Concept can be hypothesized to correspond to a prelinguistic perceptual concept. In the descriptions given in the present article, it has fixed “standard” semantic properties, and the Linguistic Partitive cases have developed their specific semantics and pragmatics, or have bleached meanings in each Uralic language where the partitive case appears. The message for linguistic typology is that typology needs cross-linguistic cognitive conceptual categories, which can be established in pre-linguistic humans by experimental testing.

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Sulkala, Helena. 1996. Expression of aspectual meanings in Finnish and Estonian. In Mati Erelt (ed.), Estonian: Typological studies 1, 165–217. Tartu: Publications of the department of Estonian of the university of Tartu. Surányi, Balázs. 2009. Incorporated locative adverbials in Hungarian. In Katalin É. Kiss (ed.), Adverbs and adverbial adjuncts at the interfaces, 37–72. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Szimoncsics, Péter. 1998. Kamassian. In Daniel Abondolo (ed.), The Uralic languages (Routledge Language Family Descriptions Series), 580–601. London & New York: Routledge. Talmy, Leonard. 1996. Fictive Motion in Language and “Ception”. In Paul Bloom, Mary Pederson, Lynn Nadel & Merrill F. Garrett (eds.), Language and Space, 211–276. Cambridge, MA & London: MIT Press. Tamm, Anne. 1999. Specificity, aspect and the two partitives of Estonian. DOXIMP 3. Graduate Students’ Third Linguistics Symposium. June 24th, 1999, Selected Papers (221–235). Research Institute for Linguistics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Tamm, Anne. 2004. Relations between Estonian aspect, verbs, and case. PhD dissertation, ELTE, Budapest. ,

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Tuomas Huumo and Liina Lindström

4 Partitives across constructions: on the range of uses of the Finnish and Estonian “partitive subjects” In classical accounts of Finnish and Estonian grammar, the possibility of using the so-called partitive subject has been one definitional criterion for the category of existential clauses. However, in both languages there are other syntactic clause types (or constructions) with an NP that resembles the partitive subject to a lesser or a greater extent. The partitive subject is also used in many instances of so-called pragmatic clause types such as negated and interrogative clauses, whose affirmative counterparts would not count as existentials. In this paper we examine the definitions given for the range of use of the partitive subject in both languages, and compare the range of existentials, their definition and form. We argue that existentials form a radial category, with a prototype and less canonical instances, where the prototype is clearly definable but the actual borderline between existentials and other clause types is fuzzy. We also discuss differences between Finnish and Estonian as regards the range of uses of the partitive, showing that in Estonian the (plural) nominative is often used in expressions where the partitive would be the natural option in Finnish. On the other hand, the use of the partitive in negated and interrogative existentials seems to be more widespread in Estonian than in Finnish, and this use seems to be motivated by the irrealis meaning expressed by these constructions. Keywords: Finnish, Estonian, constructions, existential clause, subject

1 Introduction: The existential partitive subject Estonian and Finnish are two closely related Baltic Finnic (Uralic) languages, with many similar constructions that in grammars are described by proposing similar rules and restrictions. One construction that has received significant attention in both traditions is the existential construction, the typical structure of which is NPLOC + V3 S G + NPNOM/PAR . The existential construction has the overall function of introducing a discourse-new referent into a location indicated by the clause-initial locative. It can also be argued that the function of the construction is to characterize the location by giving a predication of its content.

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The construction thus appears to have a double function: on the one hand, it introduces new (indefinite) referents into the discourse, and on the other hand, it characterizes the location indicated by the typically clause-initial locative expression by predicating what the location contains, starts to contain or ceases to contain (cf. 1 and 2). (1)

Lasi-ssa on mehu-a. (Finnish, FI) glass-INE be.PRS .3 SG juice-PAR ‘There is juice in the glass.’

(2)

Klaasi-s on mahla. (Estonian, ES) glass-INE be.PRS .3 SG juice.PAR ‘There is juice in the glass.’

The (typically) clause-final NP that introduces a new referent has classically been analyzed as the subject of the construction, though it has been pointed out in many studies that this element differs from canonical subjects in many ways. This NP is often though not always marked with the partitive case – hence the widely-used term partitive subject. However, as many scholars especially in Finland have pointed out (a recent overview is Huumo and Helasvuo, forthcoming), the subject status of this NP is questionable for a number of reasons that are related to its grammatical, semantic, and discourse features: for instance, it fails to trigger agreement in the verb, it does not occupy a topical position in the clause (i.e. it is not a clausal topic), its referent is typically not an agentive animate participant but a substance or multiplicity that occupies a location, and it is not tracked in the discourse (see also Helasvuo 2001). The case marking of this so-called existential subject varies between the nominative and the partitive, depending on whether it is headed by a count noun (typically nominative) or a mass noun (typically partitive), with plurals often though not always behaving as mass nouns and marked with the partitive. Under negation, all existential subjects, including those headed by a count noun, take the partitive case. Huumo and Helasvuo (forthcoming) propose that the NP called the existential subject does not meet most of the classical criteria for subjects, and should therefore be called, in lack of a better term, the E(xistential)NP. In Estonian, however, the existential subject sometimes triggers agreement in the verb, which is a feature that makes it more like a canonical subject than its Finnish counterpart – therefore there seem to be reasons to treat the Estonian existential subject as one (though not prototypical) kind of subject. For unity, we use the terms existential subject and e-subject (when we refer to the function of the element in the overall construction) and partitive subject (when we refer to the case marking) throughout this paper.

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Especially in the Finnish tradition it has been typical to base the definition of the existential construction on the possibility of using the partitive subject: existentials are defined as clauses that either have a partitive subject or have a nominative (count noun) subject that corresponds to the partitive subject, i.e., turns into the partitive under negation or if pluralized. Estonian grammars are more cautious: they argue that the partitive subject can only occur in existential clauses, but also admit that its range of use does not extend to all (affirmative) existentials. Other grammatical criteria for the clause type include the inverse word order (XVS in both languages), and (especially as far as Finnish is concerned), lack of agreement between the verb and the subject – however, as pointed out above, this criterion does not work for Estonian, which has some existential constructions where agreement occurs. Canonical existentials of the two languages are illustrated by examples (1) and (2) above. These examples correspond to the prototype of existentials, and meet all criteria typically presented for the clause type: there is a topical, clause-initial locative, the pale existential verb meaning ‘be’ and a postverbal, discourse-new subject that refers to an indefinite quantity of a substance. In both languages, there are expression types that fail to meet some of the criteria of existentials but that have nevertheless been classified as instances of the existential clause. For instance in Estonian, a number of clauses traditionally classified as existentials show subject–verb agreement (3). Note that since the canonical form of the verb in both Finnish and Estonian existentials is a crystallized 3rd person singular form (irrespective of the number and person of the existential subject), this agreement can only be observed in instances where the existential subject is not a 3rd person singular form. For instance, example (3) has a nominative plural e-subject, and the verb shows agreement with it. Unlike the nominative subject, the partitive never triggers person or number agreement in the verb, as illustrated by the Finnish example (4) with a plural partitive subject and a singular 3rd person verb form; the situation is the same in Estonian. Under negation, however, even singular count noun subjects take the partitive both in Finnish (5) and Estonian (6). (3)

Saali taga.osa-s istu-vad kooli.lapse-d. (ES) room.GEN back.part-INE sit-PRS .3 PL school.child-PL . NOM ‘In the back of the room sit [some] schoolchildren; There are schoolchildren sitting in the back of the room.’

(4)

Sali-n taka.osa-ssa istu-u koululais-i-a. (FI) room-GEN back.part-INE sit-PRS .3 SG schoolchild-PL- PAR ‘In the back of the room sit [some] schoolchildren; There are schoolchildren sitting in the back of the room.’

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(5)

Koulu-ssa ei ole rehtori-a. (FI) school-INE NEG .3 SG be.CNG headmaster-PAR ‘There is no headmaster in the school / The school has no headmaster.’

(6)

Kooli-s ei ole rektori-t. (ES) school-INE NEG be.CNG headmaster-PAR ‘There is no headmaster in the school / The school has no headmaster.’

A comparison of the definitions given for existentials in Finnish and Estonian grammars reveals that the definitions given to the Finnish existential clause have been more directly based on formal features than those given to Estonian existentials, which rely more on semantic and discourse (e.g. given vs. new information) criteria. It has also been pointed out that in both languages there are borderline cases which are difficult to classify as existential or non-existential clause types. In his seminal paper on Finnish existentials (which he contrasts with non-existential normal clauses), Hakanen (1972) gives three form-based criteria that define existentials: 1) The possibility of using the partitive subject under the condition that the subject is a mass noun or a plural form (not a singular count noun), and when the clause is negated, in which case all existential subjects take the partitive; 2) the inverse (VS) word order, and 3) lack of subject–verb agreement. In normal clauses, which comprise frequent schematic clause types such as transitive, intransitive and copular clauses, the subject is always in the nominative, triggers person and number agreement in the verb, and typically precedes the verb (in standard written Finnish). Hakanen also points out that the three criteria for existentials differ in strength: in particular, word order is a weaker criterion than the partitive case and the lack of subject– verb agreement, since the existential subject quite often precedes the verb in actual usage. In such instances, it is the partitive marking of the subject that marks the expression as an existential; consider example (7) where the partitive subject precedes the verb (note that the information structure is not neutral but emphatic). (7)

Mehu-a on lasi-ssa. (FI) juice-PAR be.PRS .3 SG glass-INE ‘There is juice in the glass / As for juice, there’s some in the glass.’

Example (7) shows that the partitive case keeps the indefinite interpretation of the subject in spite of its clause-initial position. Since Finnish lacks articles, it is usually the case that the clausal position of NPs determines, or at least suggests, whether they are to be interpreted as definite or indefinite (see Chesterman 1991

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for a detailed discussion on definiteness and the Finnish partitive). In example (7), however, the partitive indicates indefiniteness and quantitative unboundedness (‘some’) of the referent and therefore corroborates the existential interpretation of the example. The same word order with a nominative subject results in a reading where the subject is definite; cf. (8). (8)

Mehu on lasi-ssa. (FI) juice.NOM be.PRS .3 SG glass-INE ‘The juice is in the glass.’ 1

Because the subject in (8) is in the nominative singular, the verb is now understood as agreeing with it. This shows that there is a discrepancy between existentials with a partitive subject and those with a nominative subject: in the latter group, it is only the XVS word order that marks existentiality; cf. the contrast between examples (9) and (10) below. In contrast, the partitive subject can also be positioned before the verb without losing the existential reading. (9)

(10)

Lattia-lla on sukka. (FI) floor-ADE be.PRS .3 SG sock.NOM ‘There is a sock on the floor.’ Sukka on lattia-lla. (FI) sock.NOM be.PRS .3 SG floor-ADE ‘The sock is on the floor.’

Thus the differences observed between (7) and (8) only distinguish existentials with a mass noun or a plural subject from corresponding non-existential intransitive clauses (normal clauses in the terminology of Hakanen 1972), but fail to do so if the subject is a singular count noun, because such subjects are in the nominative even in existentials. As already pointed out, in the Estonian tradition existentials are defined more vaguely than in the Finnish one, and the definition is based more on meaning than on form, mainly because of the lack of strict formal criteria that all existentials would meet. The main function of the existential clause in Estonian has been argued to be that of asserting the existence of the subject referent in 1 In principle, a nominative mass noun can also follow the verb, as in Lasi-ssa on mehu [glassINE is juice.NOM], but such a construction fails to fulfil the function of introducing a discoursenew referent. The reading can be contrastive (‘It is the juice that is in the glass’), and presupposes the existence of the subject referent, as the traditional terminology goes (‘There is the juice (or: a portion of juice) in the glass’).

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general or with respect to a certain time or place. This is also how the existential clause is generally defined (Rannut 1964; Mihkla et al. 1974: 63; EKG II: 42). Nemvalts (1978; 2000) has defined the existential clause in Estonian only by its semantic structure [LOC] – [EX] – [REF] where [LOC] is a locative or temporal component, and [EX] is an existential component marking the existence of the referent [REF] (Nemvalts 2000: 44–47). The Estonian existential clause is sometimes also called a presentative clause as its main function is to introduce new referents into a certain time or place (EKG II: 15). Some authors have argued that the possibility of using the partitive (e.g. in negation) is the main formal criterion to distinguish existentials in Estonian (Erelt 1978), while others have emphasized factors related to information structure (the occurence of the subject in a rhematic position, resulting in XVS word order; Sang 1983, Nemvalts 1978; 2000). Hence, according to the last-mentioned view, there are no strict formal criteria that would distinguish Estonian existentials from the other clause types but only the semantic criterion of introducing or asserting the existence of the subject referent. Other typical features of the Estonian existential clause cannot be handled as criteria for their definition, since they do not extend to all existential clauses. Like in Finnish, these criteria include the XVS word order, the possibility of using a partitive subject, and (regarding expressions with the partitive subject) lack of agreement between the subject and the verb. In contrast to Finnish, however, existentials with a nominative subject show subject–verb agreement (cf. example 3 above). It is noteworthy that Finnish also allows constructions such as (3), with a postverbal plural nominative subject triggering verb agreement, though in Finnish such expressions do not count as existentials but rather as discourse-pragmatically motivated, non-neutral variants of normal (=nonexistential) clauses: (11)

Sali-n taka-osa-ssa istu-vat lapse-t. (FI) room-GEN back-part-INE sit-PRS .3 PL child-PL . NOM ‘It is [the] children who sit at the back of the room / At the back of the room sit the children.’

Thus (11) is formally similar to the Estonian existential construction (3), but their discourse function is different: (11) is not a presentational construction but causes a contrastive reading on the verb-final NP, which is also understood as definite. (For Finnish word order in general, see Vilkuna 1989.) There has been a lot of discussion concerning the circumstances under which the partitive subject can be used in Estonian, but generally it has been concluded that the partitive subject can only be used in existentials, with a few exceptions (Rannut 1964, Mihkla et al. 1974: 63). The Estonian academic

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grammar EKG II distinguishes three basic clause types: existential clauses, possessor-experiencer clauses and normal clauses (a term that has its origin in Hakanen’s 1972; 1978; 1980 works on Finnish). Normal clauses always have a nominative subject that triggers agreement in the verb, and typically the canonical SVX word order, while the other (exitential and possessor-experiencer) clause types show XVS word order. Among these three clause types, the partitive subject may occur in existential and possessor-experiencer clauses, which are reminiscent of existentials in many respects.

2 From existentials to neighboring constructions Estonian In more recent literature, the classification of Estonian basic clause types has been modified in such a way that the possibility of using a partitive subject has been analyzed as a feature typical of so-called marked basic clauses which are defined mainly by their inverted (XVS) basic word order – these include existentials, possessive clauses (12 and 13), source-marking resultative clauses (14, below) and experiential clauses (15, below) (Erelt & Metslang 2006). As examples (12) and (13) show, Estonian possessives are based on a locative-existential metaphor where the possessor is indicated by a clause-initial NP in the adessive case and the possessee by a rhematic NP that resembles the existential subject. (12)

Mu-l on hea-d 1 SG -ADE be.PRS .3 SG good-PAR ‘I have some good wine.’

(13)

Mu-l on 1 SG -ADE be.PRS .3 SG ‘I have a red car.’

punane red.NOM

veini. (ES) wine.PAR

auto. (ES) car.NOM

Source-marking resultatives (14) indicate a change of state where the undergoer of the change is indicated by a clause-initial elative-case (the basic spatial meaning of which is ‘from’) NP and the acquired state or role by a rhematic NP that resembles the existential subject. (14)

Tema-st ei saa-nud hea-d õpetaja-t. (ES) 3 SG - ELA NEG become-PTCP good-PAR teacher-PAR ‘He/she did not become a good teacher.’

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Experiential clauses (15) resemble possessives in that they have an initial adessivemarked animate participant to which they attribute an internal (typically psychophysiological) state by a rhematic NP that again resembles the existential subject, except that it does not turn into the partitive under negation and it is not referential, as it can also be an adjective as in (15). (15)

Urma-l on name-ADE be.PRS .3 SG ‘Urmas is bored.’

igav. (ES) boring.NOM

Thus all these constructions are reminiscent of the existential clause at a more schematic level. However, the use of the partitive subject is not equal in all marked basic clauses. In existential clauses it is far from obligatory, whereas in possessive clauses it is obligatory in the case of a non-count (i.e. mass or plural) subject (Erelt & Metslang 2006). In other types of marked basic clauses, the partitive subject occurs less frequently and mainly in negative clauses, cf. (14) for source-marking resultatives. The use of the partitive subject as a central criterion for clause types is most problematic in the category of experiential clauses (as classically defined), as there are more than one construction type to express an experience. Nevertheless, for semantic reasons, grammars classify these as instances of the same category. The partitive subject can only be found in those experiential clauses which formally resemble existential or possessive clauses, i.e. ones that start with a typically animate possessor-experiencer in the adessive case and where the stimulus is indicated by a rhematic subject, e.g. (16), (17). Example (16) is an exceptional instance compared with more typical possessive or existential clauses, as it has a definite partitive subject sind ‘you’ (indicating the stimulus of the experience). An alternative, and in our view more natural, analysis of (16) is one where the verb ‘be’ and the adverb vaja together behave as a transitive predicate and thus the phrase sind ‘you’ is an object. In examples like (17), the subject can be in the partitive in negative clauses, but partitive case-marking is not obligatory. (16)

Mu-l on 1 SG -ADE be.PRS .3 SG ‘I need you.’

sin-d you-PAR

vaja. (ES) necessary

(17)

Mu-l ei ole täna halba enesetunne-t. (ES) 1 SG -ADE NEG be.CNG today bad.PAR self.feeling-PAR ‘I don’t have this ill-being feeling today.’

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In spite of certain differences between these construction types, one can say that at a more schematic level they all (except for the other construction types classified under the category of the experiential clauses) roughly correspond to the semantic definition of existentials and could be analyzed as subtypes of these. This is most obvious for possessive and experiential clauses like the one in (17), as both of these constructions assert the existence of the subject referent. In the academic grammar of Estonian (EKG II), these and also the source-marking result clause are classified as subtypes of existentials. In this paper, we use the term existentials later mainly for “pure” existentials, for possessive clauses and experiential clauses resembling possessives as these types meet the criteria of existentials in the most systematic way (they are used mainly to present discourse-new referents in the clause-final position). This brings Estonian data closer to the Finnish tradition where possessives are typically classified as a sub-category of existentials (e.g. Hakulinen & Karlsson 1979). Finnish In Finnish, there are similar crystallized clause types that are not canonical existentials but display some features typical of these (see also Huumo & Helasvuo, forthcoming). In some classifications, e.g. the comprehensive grammar by Hakulinen et al. (2004), such expression types are analyzed as independent constructions, but it is also pointed out that at a more schematic level they can be analyzed as a subtype of existentials. As examples of such constructions, we next discuss shortly what are called state clauses and result clauses by Hakulinen et al. (2004). The category of result clauses corresponds to its Estonian counterpart just discussed above (example 14). The term state clause (SC), as it is used by Hakulinen et al. (2004), is actually a cover term for a heterogeneous group of constructions that resemble each other semantically and grammatically to a lesser or a greater extent. Some subtypes of the SC resemble existential constructions and include an NP that resembles the e-subject (example 18 below). Another subtype consists of a mere verb (19), and yet another of a verb accompanied by a locative (20). (18)

Helsingi-ssä on Helsinki-INE be.PRS .3 SG ‘It is warm in Helsinki.’

(19)

Sata-a. (FI) rain-PRS .3 SG ‘It is raining.’

lämmin-tä. (FI) warm-PAR

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Mere-llä myrskyä-ä. (FI) sea-ADE storm-PRS .3 SG ‘It is storming at sea.’

What unites such different subtypes of SCs is thus meaning rather than form, which is quite variable. Thus an approach that emphasizes formal unity of putative constructions might actually find the category of the SC too incoherent to be useful. From the point of view of existentials and partitive subjects it makes sense to concentrate on those SCs that resemble the existential construction and have a possible subject candidate. In addition to expressions of weather and other natural circumstances, there are SCs that express physical or psychological states. This subtype of state clauses thus closely resembles the Estonian category of experiencer clauses discussed above (examples 16 and 17). In these Finnish expressions, like the Estonian ones, the clause-initial locative introduces an animate (typically human) experiencer, whereas the psychological or physiological state of this experiencer is indicated by a clause-final NP. This final NP resembles the existential subject and is usually in the nominative (example 21), sometimes in the partitive (22), while the initial NP that indicates the experiencer takes the adessive case. The Finnish adessive (basic spatial meaning ‘at/on’) is a productive means for the indication of many kinds of relationships with an animate reference-point (for the term, see Langacker 1993); like in Estonian, it also indicates the possessor in canonical possessive constructions (23). (21)

Opettaja-lla on teacher-ADE be.PRS .3 SG ‘The teacher is cold.’

kylmä. (FI) cold.NOM

(22)

Opettaja-lla on teacher-ADE be.PRS .3 SG ‘The teacher is bored.’

tylsä-ä. (FI) boring-PAR

(23)

(Canonical possessive) Opettaja-lla on kirja ~ kirjo-j-a. (FI) teacher-ADE be.PRS .3 SG book.NOM ~ book-PL- PAR ‘The teacher has a book ~ [some] books.’

Finnish grammars (e.g., Hakulinen & Karlsson 1979) have often classified possessive constructions as a subtype of existentials. Indeed, they conform to the constructional scheme of existentials, the main difference being that the clauseinitial locative indicates a possessor. In contrast, state clauses and possessive–

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existential costructions are kept apart as distinct clause types by the comprehensive grammar of Hakulinen et al. (2004), in spite of SCs that formally resemble possessives and existentials. It seems that this solution is at least partially motivated by the properties of the clause-final NPs of state clauses, which are even less subject-like than existential subjects in general. They are often adjectival phrases (as in 22) and in most cases non-referential. They also differ from typical existential subjects in that they do not turn into the partitive under negation; consider (24): (24)

Opettaja-lla ei ole teacher-ADE NEG .3 PERS be.CNG ‘The teacher is not cold.’

kylmä. (FI) cold.NOM

Another construction type close to existentials in Finnish is that of result clauses (cf. the Estonian example 14 above). Result clauses resemble existential clauses but differ from their prototypical instances both semantically and morphosyntactically. In the same way as its Estonian counterpart, the Finnish result clause predicates a quality acquired by an entity that undergoes a change. Its general schematic meaning is ‘X becomes Y’. The undergoer of the change is indicated by the clause-initial locative NP that carries the elative ‘out of’ case, which also reflects the dynamic conceptualization of the change – the elative can be understood as indicating the initial stage of the undergoer of the change as a metaphoric source. The quality or role acquired by the undergoer is indicated by the clause-final element (an AP or an NP) that grammatically resembles the E-NP. Examples are provided below. (25)

Liisa-sta tul-i name-ELA become-PST.3 SG ‘Liisa became a teacher.’

opettaja. (FI) teacher.NOM

(26)

Kahvi-sta tul-i coffee-ELA become-PST.3 SG ‘The coffee became strong.’

vahva-a. (FI) strong-PAR

Both examples predicate an incipient quality of the undergoer introduced by the elative NP. The construction is idiomatic and strongly associated with the verb tulla ‘become’ (also meaning ‘come’), though it also allows other verbs of change as in (27) and (28):

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(27)

Pennu-sta kasvo-i iso puppy-ELA grow-PST.3 SG big.NOM ‘The puppy grew into a big dog.’

(28)

Touka-sta kehitty-y perhonen. (FI) caterpillar-ELA develop-PRS .3 SG butterfly.NOM ‘The caterpillar develops into a butterfly.’

koira. (FI) dog.NOM

The final NP of a result clause resembles the E-NP in that its case marking varies between the nominative and the partitive. A difference from experiencer clauses is that negation turns the final element of result clauses into the partitive, which is a feature shared by the e-subject (cf. 29): (29)

Pennu-sta ei kasva-nut iso-a puppy-ELA NEG .3 SG grow-PTC big-PAR ‘The puppy did not grow into a big dog.’

koira-a. (FI) dog-PAR

On the basis of the construction types one can observe that there are differences related to the range of uses of the partitive subject between Finnish and Estonian. In Finnish existentials, not only mass nouns but most plural subjects are in the partitive – the indefiniteness of the existential subject in terms of its discoursenew status as well as the unboundedness of the quantity of its referent motivate this. In Finnish there are only few instances with plural existential subjects in the nominative case.2 In contrast, Estonian uses the nominative plural subject that triggers verb agreement quite extensively even in its existentials, without losing the existential (presentative) meaning of the construction. Though similar constructions are grammatical in Finnish (cf. example 11 above), these are not conceived as existentials but rather as non-existential sentences with a marked XVS word order. The use of the partitive subject is not limited only to existentials but it is distributed over many slightly different clause (construction) types in both languages. Common features of these clause types are inverted (XVS) word order and the rhematic position of the subject. While comparing Estonian and Finnish, 2 Such e-subjects resemble pluralia tanta expressions and indicate entities consisting of two pair-like components (scissors, trousers, pairs of boots, eyeglasses), or closed sets (chesspieces, a brood of animals, etc) and behave like singular count-noun e-subjects: Pöydä-llä on shakkinappula-t [table-ADE is chess-piece-PL.NOM] ‘Tere is [a set of] chess-pieces on the table’vs. Pöydä-llä ei ole shakkinappulo-i-ta [table-ADE is NEG chess-piece-PL-PAR] ‘There are no chess pieces on the table’; note that the negated form can as well be the counterpart of an affirmative partitive, in which case the sense of a set is missing.

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one can see that the Finnish partitive subject is more widely used than its Estonian counterpart. In Estonian, it is used more often in “pure” existentials and in possessive clauses (but not as systematically as in Finnish), but its use is restricted mainly to negatives in experiential clauses, result clauses and cannot be used in state clauses.

3 Semantic and pragmatic implications of the partitive subject: negated and interrogative clauses In this section we take a closer look at the uses of the partitive in negated and interrogative clauses in the two languages. Both negated and interrogative clauses serve a clearly distinguishable pragmatic function. In earlier literature it has been argued that existential subjects under negation are non-specific. However, there are instances where the partitive of negation is used to mark subjects that are clearly specific, in particular in Estonian. What makes these expressions remarkable is that their affirmative counterparts would not count as existential clauses – thus there seem to be pairs of affirmative vs. negative clauses that cut across the borderlines of classical clause types. The same accounts for interrogatives as well. A connection between negated and interrogative clauses is their non-fact modality. Givón (2001) distinguishes four types of epistemic modality: presupposition, realis assertion, irrealis assertion and negative assertion. Among these, irrealis and negative assertion have various similarities and semantic-pragmatic connections and thus can be grouped into a supermodality of non-fact (Givón 2001: 301–303). Yes-no interrogatives represent irrealis modality due to their low epistemic certainty (Givón 2001: 312), in connection to the existentials and related constructions they express the possible non-existence or non-presence of the subject’s referent. Negative clauses represent negative modality and in existentials, they express the non-existence of the subject’s referent. Thus, the common feature of both clause types is the doubt in the presence or existence of the subject’s referent. Before we turn to negative and interrogative existentials, we will discuss briefly the basic principles governing the alternation of nominative and partitive E-NPs in Estonian. As Estonian existentials allow both nominative and partitive E-NPs, the interplay between the nominative and partitive has been of interest for many researchers, and the main focus of the research has been the semantic conditions

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Figure 1: Distribution of the usages of nominative and partitive subjects in Estonian existentials (Rannut 1964)

which determine the use of the nominative and the partitive in marking the e-subject (cf. Rannut 1964, Mihkla et al. 1974, EKG II, Nemvalts 2000, Metslang 2012, Metslang, this volume, etc). A more comprehensive overview on different usages of the partitive subject in Estonian is given by Nemvalts (2000), and more recently Metslang (2012), here we introduce briefly only some basic usages. The classical schema in Figure 1 (taken from Rannut 1964) summarizes the distribution of the (subject-marking) partitive and nominative in Estonian. The partitive subject is prototypically used in negative existentials (30) or existentials expressing doubt (31), and in affirmative existentials where the referent of the subject is distributable and quantitatively unbounded (32). (30)

Ta-l ei ole kodu-s raamatu-i-d. (ES) 3 SG -ADE neg be.CNG home-INE book-PL- PAR ‘S/he does not have books at home.’

(31)

Väheusutav, et ta-l kodu-s raamatu-i-d unlikely.NOM that 3 SG -ADE home-INE book-PL- PAR ‘[It is] unlikely that s/he has any books at home.’

on. (ES) be.PRS .3 SG

Partitives across constructions

(32)

167

Laua peal on leiba. (ES) be.PRS .3 SG bread.PAR table.GEN on ‘There is [some] bread on the table.’

The partitive also often indicates that only a part of a larger potential group is involved, and rather often this part is relatively small. If we compare (33) and (34), we can observe that the main difference in meaning is in the way of representing the quantity of the schoolchildren: in (33), the quantity (number) of the schoolchildren is not specified and it is not clear whether there are other people involved in the situation as well, in (34) it appears that there are only some schoolchildren among other people. (33)

Saali taga.osa-s istu-vad kooli.lapse-d. (ES) room.GEN back.part-INE sit-PRS .3 PL school.child-PL . NOM ‘In the back of the room sit schoolchildren; There are schoolchildren sitting at the back of the room.’

(34)

Saali taga.osa-s istu-b kooli.lapsi. (ES) room.GEN back.part-INE sit- PRS .3 SG school.child-PL . PAR ‘In the back of the room sit some schoolchildren; There are some schoolchildren sitting at the back of the room.’

Note that in Finnish only the counterpart of (34) could be interpreted as an existential clause, whereas the structure represented by (33), with a verb showing agreement, would be interpreted as a non-existential sentence with a postverbal subject. In Finnish, such an expression would be natural in a slightly marked discourse context where the emphasis is on the different kinds of people who occupy different parts of the room; for instance: the children sit in the back whereas their teachers or parents sit in the front (see Vilkuna 1989 for a detailed analysis on postverbal subjects in Finnish). The function of this structure is thus very different in the two languages compared.

3.1 The partitive in negated clauses Both in Finnish and in Estonian, the core arguments under the scope of negation typically take partitive case-marking. This concerns both e-subjects and objects. In both languages, the existential subject under the scope of negation is marked with the partitive, and the sentence expresses the absence of the subject’s denotant in a given context. The classical Finnish definition of existentials

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as clauses that allow the so-called partitive subject is intended to cover even expressions where the subject either is or could be in the partitive case, given that the conditions were the right ones. This is meant to justify the classification of even expressions with a nominative e-subject (i.e. phrases headed by singular count nouns) in the category, on the argument that the replacement of the subject with a mass noun or a plural form, and especially in the negation of the sentence, would result in the partitive case. Somewhat simplified, then, the rule that distinguishes existential subjects from their non-existential counterparts is such that a nominative subject that under negation turns into the partitive indicates that the clause is to be classified as an existential, whereas a nominative subject that maintains its case marking even under negation indicates that the clause is not existential, even in cases where the subject follows the verb. However, there are problematic uses of the partitive of negation in subject marking, where the affirmative counterpart is a singular 3rd person nominative subject preceding the verb, which means that the affirmative counterpart sentence is not existential, according to the prevailing classification. In fact, it is possible to negate examples such as (35) in two ways: by maintaining the nominative marking of the subject (36), as expected, or by replacing it with the partitive of negation (37), which results in a situation where a non-existential intransitive affirmative clause has a negated counterpart that according to the classical definition would be an existential clause: (35)

Laukku on pöydä-llä. (FI) bag be.PRS .3 SG table-ADE ‘The bag is on the table.’

(36)

Laukku ei ole pöydä-llä. (FI) bag NEG .3 SG be.CNG table-ADE ‘The bag is not on the table.’

(37)

Laukku-a ei ole pöydä-llä. (FI) bag-PAR NEG .3 SG be.CNG table-ADE ‘The bag is not on the table / There is no bag on the table.’

As the alternative English translations of (37) show, ‘the bag’ can be understood either as specific (‘the bag’), which is the case in (36) as well, or as non-specific (‘no bag’), as is typical in particular when the e-subject follows the verb. The difference between (36) and (37) is that (36) selects ‘the bag’ as its topic, or the starting point of the predication (in the sense of Langacker 1991 or Chafe 1994),

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and predicates something about its locative relationship with the world, maintaining (in classical terminology) the existential presupposition – i.e. that we are talking about a specific, existing bag that is situated somewhere outside the location of the table, where its presence is denied by this example. Example (37), with its partitive e-subject, sets its viewpoint on the location (for more detailed arguments supporting this feature of Finnish existentials, see Huumo 2003), and predicates that the location is empty with respect to a particular bag (the specific reading) or any bag (the non-specific reading) – as the focus is limited to the indicated location, there is no presupposition about the existence of the bag elsewhere. In Estonian, it has been argued that a crucial difference appears in regards to the position of the partitive subject in a negative clause. A partitive subject that occurs in the (clause-initial) topic position (38) implicates that the subject referent exists (it has a specific referent); what is under the scope of negation here is only the location of the subject referent. In (39), it is the (postverbal) subject itself that is under the scope of negation, making it understood as nonspecific (Sang 1983: 95–96). (38)

Orava-t ei ole puuri-s. (ES) Squirrel-PAR NEG be.CNG cage-INE ‘The squirrel is not in the cage.’

(39)

Puuri-s ei ole orava-t. (ES) cage-INE not be.CNG squirrel-PAR ‘In the cage there is no squirrel.’

Thus like the Finnish example (37), the Estonian (38) functions as the negated counterpart of a clause that is not existential, and maintains the specific reading for its subject. This shows that not all partitive subjects under negation are referentially nonspecific; there are instances in both languages where a specific subject receives the partitive marking as a result of negation. In Estonian, the use of the partitive of negation has reached striking extents. It is quite natural and common to use the partitive when negating the presence of highly topical participants (such as discourse participants, even the speaker) in locations by using the partitive instead of the nominative. In such instances, the partitive is specific and its referent is definite. The function of such a clause is to deny the presence of the participant in a certain location or in certain circumstances; cf. (40) where the speaker’s future presence at work is denied. Example (41) also deviates from typical existentials, since the focus of negation is on the clause-final locatives, whereas the referent of the initial partitive is

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highly topical and discourse-old. Thus, as far as information structure is concerned, clauses like (40) and (41) resemble typical normal clauses rather than existentials. (40)

Min-d ei ole homme töö-l. (ES) 1 SG - PAR NEG be.CNG tomorrow work-ADE ‘Tomorrow I’ll not be at work’ [lit. ‘There will be no me at work tomorrow’].

(41)

Te-da 3 SG - PAR

ei NEG

ol-nud be-PTC

ei NEG

kodu-s home-INE

ega nor

töö work.GEN

juures. (ES) POSTP

‘S/he was neither home nor at work’ [lit. ‘There was no him/her at home nor at work’]. As is the case in Finnish, Estonian examples like (40) and (41) have counterparts where the subject maintains its nominative case in spite of negation; examples (42) and (43) are canonical negated normal clauses. (42)

Ma ei ole homme 1 SG . NOM NEG be.CNG tomorrow ‘Tomorrow I’ll not be at work’

töö-l. (ES) work-ADE

(43)

Ta ei ol-nud ei kodu-s ega 3 SG NEG be-PTC NEG home-INE nor ‘S/he was neither at home nor at work’

töö work.GEN

juures. (ES) POSTP

The affirmative counterparts of both (40) vs. (42) and (41) vs. (43) are typical normal clauses with a clause-initial nominative subject triggering verb agreement (44 and 45). (44)

Ma ole-n homme 1 SG . NOM be-PRES .1 SG tomorrow ‘Tomorrow I’ll be at work.’

töö-l. (ES) work-ADE

(45)

Ta ol-i kas kodu-s 3 SG . NOM be-PST.3 SG either home-INE ‘S/he was either at home or at work.’

või or

töö work.GEN

juures. (ES) POSTP

The question to be asked is, what motivates the nominative vs. partitive alternation in negated counterparts of affirmative clauses such as (44) and (45), where

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only the nominative is possible, and whether there are meaning differences brought up by the case marking of the subject. When we compare pairs like (40) vs. (42) or (41) vs. (43), we can observe slight meaning differences between the versions with the partitive and the nominative. The partitive subject, as elsewhere, represents its referent as less agentive and less volitional than the nominative subject. This has the result that the versions with the partitive imply that the absence of the subject referent from the location or situation is not volitional but perhaps due to circumstances not in the subject referent’s control. In contrast, the referent of the nominative subject may be conceived as more volitional decision-maker as regards it presence or absence in the location. As the partitive subject in clauses such as (40) and (41) are highly topical and express specific and discourse-old referents, such clauses do not belong to typical existentials (see also Sang 1983: 94–97). In this respect, the use of the partitive in examples such as these seems to exceed the boundaries of existentials. Compared with Finnish, which sometimes allows the use of the partitive subject as a negative counterpart of a non-existential nominative in examples like (37), it can be pointed out that such uses are more common and widespread in Estonian, especially in instances where the subject is a speech act participant referred to by a personal pronoun. Interestlingly, similar usages have been observed also in Northern Russian, Lithuanian and Latvian, which use the partitive genitive instead of the nominative in clauses similar to (40) and (41) (see Seržant, forthcoming a; forthcoming b). Seržant explains these usages with the expanding of the non-referentiality reading (which is one of the determiners of using genitive-partitive in these languages) from the NP to the whole situation. Thus, our Estonian data is in this respect closer to Russian and Latvian, the closest contact languages of Estonian, than to Finnish, a close cognate.

3.2 Interrogatives Another context where the partitive subject seems to exceed the boundaries of existentials, especially in Estonian and to a more moderate extent in Finnish, are interrogative clauses that ask for the presence or existence of the subject referent. In yes-no interrogatives, typically both the nominative and the partitive are possible, even in cases where the subject is a singular count noun. For instance, in (46), the referent of the subject is not distributable, but the subject is an indefinite count noun (‘phone’). Indefiniteness may thus be one factor contributing to the use of the partitive, but since in general indefiniteness alone is not sufficient to trigger the partitive in singular count noun subjects, there might be other factors at work as well – more precisely, factors related to (poten-

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tial) negation. By this we mean that example (46) leaves open the possibility that the subject referent is non-existent, if the addressee does not have a telephone, and that this possible non-existence then motivates the partitive. Similar uses can be observed in Finnish (47). (46)

Kas

su-l telefoni Q 2 SG -ADE telephone.PAR ‘Do you have a telephone?’

on? (ES) be.PRES .3 SG ?

(47)

Katso, tule-e-ko sie-ltä look.IMP come-PRS .3 SG - Q there-ABL ‘Check if there is a car coming!’

auto-a. (FI) car-PAR

As the general rule goes, in declarative existentials the partitive is not used with singular count nouns – thus, in addition to negated clauses, interrogatives are another category where the partitive seems to be gaining a wider terrain of usage. The declarative counterparts of (46) and (47) would be with nominative case marking, and the partitive would make them ungrammatical; cf. (48) and (49) respectively: (48)

Mu-l on 1 SG -ADE be.PRES .3SG ‘I have a telephone.’

telefon (~ *telefoni). (ES) telephone.NOM (*PAR )

(49)

Sie-ltä tule-e there-ABL come-PRS .3 SG ‘There comes a car.’

auto (~ *auto-a). (FI) car.NOM (*PAR )

In Estonian, in the same way as in negated clauses, interrogatives also allow the use of the partitive in subjects with definite and topical referents such as proper names (50) and pronouns (51). As an alternative, the nominative is also possible in these examples (52). (50)

Kas

Renate-t on name-PAR be.PRES .3 SG ‘Is Renate there?’

Q

(51)

Kas

seal? (ES) there

sin-d homme on 2 SG - PAR tomorrow be.PRES .3 SG ‘Will you be around tomorrow?’ Q

liikve-l? (ES) moving-ADE

Partitives across constructions

(52)

Kas

sa homme ole-d 2 SG . NOM tomorrow be-PRS .2 SG ‘Will you be around tomorrow?’ Q

173

liikve-l? (ES) moving-ADE

Again, the declarative counterparts of (50) and (51) would only be grammatical with a nominative subject. Thus the use of the partitive seems to be exceeding the boundaries of existentials not only in negated but also in interrogative expressions, and in Estonian more productively than in Finnish, where at least the counterpart of (51) would be ungrammatical; on the other hand, the counterpart of (50) is marginally possible (e.g., in a telephone conversation). Similarly to the negated instances discussed above, the interrogative examples with the partitive subject seem to reduce the conceived volitionality and agentivity of the subject. A question arises why the use of the partitive has expanded in negative and interrogative clauses which do not fulfil the criteria of existentials, while the use of the partitive has reduced in other contexts in Estonian. As it was already pointed out above, a connection between negated and interrogative clauses is their non-fact modality (Givón 2001) which covers both irrealis and negation. The non-fact modality seems to be the common denominator between the uses of partitive subjects in Estonian negative and interrogative clauses: in both cases, the existence or presence (in a location) of the referent of the subject is not taken for granted. Irrealis modality is a typical context for non-canonically marked subjects in many languages, as well as existential constructions (Onishi 2001). Thus it is not surprising that in irrealis contexts the use of partitive subjects has prevailed and even widened so that also highly topical referents can be marked with the partitive. Motivating the extensive use of the partitive subject in Estonian with non-fact modality would also explain why it can be used for highly topical entities. In such contexts, the partitive marking reflects the reduced agentivity of its referent, as it expresses a lower degree of volitionality than the nominative.

4 Conclusions In sum, our study shows that both in Finnish and in Estonian the so-called partitive subject is typical in existential clauses, though its use as a definitive criterion for the clause type is not without problems: in both languages there are uses where the partitive subject apparently steps outside the category of existentials. In particular, the partitive triggered by negation seems to be in use even in instances where the corresponding affirmative clause would not count as an existential clause. In affirmative existentials, the partitive reflects indefiniteness and unboundedness of the quantity the existential subject refers to,

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and this function bears a clear resemblance with the use of the partitive as an object marker, where it marks these same factors, and, in addition, unboundedness of aspect. When comparing the two languages under scrutiny with each other, it is easy to see that the range of uses of the partitive is not equal in them. First, existential subjects in the plural are more frequently marked with the nominative in Estonian than in Finnish, which favors the partitive. In Estonian, these plural postverbal subjects also trigger verb agreement, while the (structurally corresponding) clauses in Finnish would not count as existentials. On the other hand, the use of the partitive in negated and interrogative clauses seems to be more widespread in Estonian than it is in Finnish. It is remarkable that in Estonian even definite, topical clause-initial subjects may receive partitive marking in negated and interogative clauses, and extreme instance being the use of partitive subjects indicating speech act participants. In Finnish such uses seem to be far less productive. This can be explained by the non-fact modality: in negative and interrogative clauses, the partitive marking indicates that the subject referent’s existence or presence is not taken for granted, although it is referential and definite. It also reduces the agentivity of the subject’s referent making it less volitional. In general, in Estonian the use of the partitive case as the marker of the subject in existential clauses seems to be reducing, at least if one assumes Finnish to be more conservative in this respect – another possibility is of course that the Estonian partitive has never been in such a systematic use in plural existential subjects as in Finnish. Instead, the Estonian partitive subject has developed towards a marker of subjects in contexts of non-fact modality, while its Finnish counterpart shows only weak traces of such a development.

References Chafe, Wallace L. 1994. Discourse, consciousness, and time. The flow and displacement of conscious experience in speaking and writing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Chesterman, Andrew. 1991. On Definiteness: A Study with Special Reference to English and Finnish. Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 56. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Givón, Talmy. 2001. Syntax: An Introduction. Volume I. Amsterdam: Benjamins. EKG II = Erelt, Mati, Reet Kasik, Helle Metslang, Henno Rajandi, Kristiina Ross, Henn Saari, Kaja Tael & Silvi Vare. 1993. Eesti keele grammatika II. Süntaks. Lisa: kiri. Tallinn: Eesti Teaduste Akadeemia Keele ja Kirjanduse Instituut. Erelt, Mati. 1978. Märkmeid partsiaalsubjekti kohta eesti keeles. Eesti keele grammatika küsimusi. Keel ja Struktuur X. Tartu: Tartu Riiklik Ülikool. 3–9. Erelt, Mati & Helle Metslang. 2006. Estonian Clause Patterns – from Finno-Ugric to Standard Average European. Linguistica Uralica XLII (4). 254–266. Hakanen, Aimo. 1972. Normaalilause ja eksistentiaalilause. Sananjalka 14. 36–76.

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Hakanen, Aimo. 1978. Kontrastiivista lauseanalyysia: Eksistentiaalilauseet. Turun yliopiston suomalaisen ja yleisen kielitieteen laitoksen julkaisuja 8. Turku: Turun yliopisto. Hakanen, Aimo. 1980. Existential clauses. Introduction. In Osmo Ikola (ed.), Congressus Quintus Internationalis Fenno-Ugristarum. Pars III. Turku: University of Turku. Hakulinen, Auli & Fred Karlsson. 1979. Nykysuomen lauseoppia. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. Hakulinen, Auli, Maria Vilkuna, Riitta Korhonen, Vesa Koivisto, Tarja Riitta Heinonen & Irja Alho. 2004. Iso suomen kielioppi. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. Helasvuo, Marja-Liisa. 2001. Syntax in the making: The emergence of syntactic units in Finnish conversation. Studies in discourse and grammar 9. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Huumo, Tuomas. 2003. Incremental Existence: The World According to the Finnish Existential Sentence. Linguistics 41(3). 461–493. Huumo, Tuomas & Marja-Liisa Helasvuo (forthcoming). On the subject of subject in Finnish. In Marja-Liisa Helasvuo & Tuomas Huumo (eds.), Canonical and non-canonical subjects in constructions. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Langacker, Ronald W. 1991. Concept, image, and symbol: The cognitive basis of grammar. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Langacker, Ronald W. 1993. Reference-point constructions. Cognitive Linguistics 4(1). 1–38. Metslang, Helena. 2012. On the Case-Marking of Existential Subjects in Estonian. SKY Journal of Linguistics, 25. 151–204. Mihkla et al. 1974 = Karl Mihkla, Lehte Rannut, Elli Riikoja & Aino Admann. 1974. Eesti keele lauseõpetuse põhijooned 1. Lihtlause. Tallinn: Valgus. Nemvalts, Peep. 1978. Eksistentsiaallauseist. Eesti keele grammatika küsimusi. Keel ja Struktuur X. Tartu: Tartu Riiklik Ülikool. 10–41. Nemvalts, Peep. 2000. Aluse sisu ja vorm. Alusfraasi käändevaheldus tänapäeva eesti kirjakeeles. Tallinn: Eesti Keele Sihtasutus. Onishi, Masayuki. 2001. Non-canonically marked subjects and objects: Parameters and properties. In Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, R.M.W. Dixon & Masayuki Onishi (eds.), Non-canonical marking of subjects and objects. Typological Studies in Language 46, 1–51. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Rannut, Lehte. 1964. Täis- ja osaalus tänapäeva eesti kirjakeeles. Keel ja Kirjandus 1. 32–39. Sang, Joel. 1983. Eitus eesti keeles. Eesti NSV Teaduste Akadeemia Keele ja Kirjanduse Instituut. Tallinn: Valgus. Seržant, Ilja A., forthcoming a. Independent (bare) partitive genitive in Russian and North Russian. To be published in Seržant, I. A. and B. Wiemer (eds.), Contemporary Approaches to Dialectology: The area of North, Northwest Russian and Belarusian vernaculars. Slavica Bergensia 13. Bergen: Department of Foreign Languages, University of Bergen. Seržant, Ilja A., forthcoming b. Denotational properties of the independent partitive genitive in Lithuanian. To be published in Holvoet, Axel and Nicole Nau (eds.), Grammatical Functions and their Non-canonical Coding in Baltic. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Vilkuna, Maria. 1989. Free word order in Finnish: Its syntax and discourse functions. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura.

Acknowledgments This study was supported by Estonian Science Foundation (project PUT90).

Helena Metslang

5 Partitive noun phrases in the Estonian core argument system Case is an inflectional category that is typically used for marking a noun’s relation to other parts of the sentence. It is used for identifying grammatical relations such as subjects and objects but also for signalling a variety of meanings (Butt 2008: 27). This study discusses the role of Estonian partitive case use in various kinds of argument marking. The partitive-permitting arguments – the object and the argument of the existential construction (e-NP) – will be analyzed and contrasted against each other and they will also be compared with the transitive and intransitive clause subjects. The distributions of semantic, pragmatic and coding properties among partitive arguments will be compared with the properties of arguments with different coding. The paper also analyzes how the typologically controversial Referential hierarchy distinguishes the arguments and case-uses. A new comparison is made of the Estonian object’s and e-NP’s differential casemarking systems. The salience of each factor is measured on the empirical data. The study discusses the subjecthood status of the e-NP and the information structurally based fluid intransitivity manifested in its marking.1 Keywords: grammatical relations, differential object marking, partitive, referential properties, message packaging

1 Introduction Case as one of the formal coding means is an integral part of a language’s argument realization system. It is used for identifying grammatical relations and also for signalling a variety of meanings: referential and tense/aspect differences, topicality, focus and modalities (Butt 2008: 27). However, several of these functions can also be expressed by other means of coding as well as by pragmatic ‘message packaging’ (for example by agreement and the referent’s activeness in the discourse respectively). Chafe (1976: 28) uses the term ‘message packaging’ 1 This study was funded by Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, Alfred Kordelin’s Foundation’s and European Social Fund’s DoRa scholarships and the research grant SF0180084s08 Morphosyntactic structure and development of Estonian. I thank Merilin Miljan for comments and feedback. Naturally, the responsibility for any shortcomings is entirely my own.

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to refer to a speaker’s use of a particular syntactic form to serve a particular pragmatic function. Roughly speaking, the speaker uses ‘packaging’ to present the hearer instructions on how to manipulate the message and to integrate it to his current knowledge. Case is always tied to some linguistic element. This article discusses case in connection with argument types. The aim of this article is to determine the distribution and functions of the partitive arguments in the Estonian core arguments’ system and to compare them with differently coded arguments: arguments denoted by zero-anaphora, NPs in other cases, non-finite arguments and other clausal arguments. Estonian partitive case is a heterogeneous category that is used to express a range of meanings relating to indefinite quantity and lower transitivity, fulfilling most of the functions attested cross-linguistically (see the semantic map of the partitive in Luraghi and Kittilä, this volume, Figure 2). I will study the semantic nature of partitive arguments and analyze which referential properties Estonian opens its subject, object and e-NP positions to. Following the Finnish example (Helasvuo 2001) I use the term ‘e-NP’ to denote the nominative or partitive marked NPs in existential constructions (ECs for short).2 As discussed for example in Nemvalts (2000), ECs are clause level constructions that introduce new referents in the discourse. They prototypically include a topical locative phrase, a predicate verb and a post-verbal non-topical subject-like argument. The predicate verbs of ECs are intransitive verbs with an existential meaning or verbs used in the way that the existential meaning component is foregrounded (see examples (9) and (10) in Section 3). There are no verbs that are exclusively only used in ECs − the same verbs can occur in an ordinary intransitive clause environment (Metslang 2012: 154−155; Nemvalts 2000: 20, 44; see Huumo 1999: 41 for closely related Finnish). Thus far, Estonian core arguments have been widely studied from the viewpoint of specific features: for example, the complex case-marking rules (one of the more popular topics of debate in Finnic linguistics), semantics, word order, etc. In this study, a more general view is employed, and a larger number of interrelated phenomena are approached together and checked against corpus data: – The partitive-permitting arguments’ role (semantics and message packaging) among the core arguments will be analyzed. – The role of partitive marking will be juxtaposed with the roles of other coding possibilities. 2 In this paper, I use the abbreviation HM to indicate the author’s examples. Note that S – the sole argument of an intransitive verb must be understood, in the citations of Tael (1988) and Huumo (1993), as transitive or intransitive subject or an e-NP. INF – infinitive refers to da-infinitive and ma-infinitive with its case-forms.

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–

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The motivations of the Estonian equivalents of differential object marking (DOM) and differential subject marking (DSM) systems will be compared and, on the basis of empirical data, the relative importance of each casemarking factor will be demonstrated (what is called ‘Estonian equivalent of DSM’ in this article is e-NP’s case alternation). The e-NP’s subjecthood, as well as the related question of the fluid intransitivity alignment type will be briefly discussed (the latter is attested for example in French impersonal constructions largely similar to ECs; Creissels 2008).

In addition to analyzing how partitive-marked arguments are distinct from the ones that are realized differently I also give brief descriptions of particular coding and meaning-related properties in their own right (for example, I will look at how the number category combines with different referential properties and caseassignment motivations) in order to provide broader background information. In Section 2 I will define the main notions of this study. Section 3 outlines the Estonian clause types and argument types under consideration. In Section 4 I will give an overview of the Estonian DOM and e-NP case rules, relying on the findings on dependent-marking factors in Estonian linguistics and typology. Section 5 tests these case-marking systems against empirical data and discusses the subjecthood status of e-NP on the basis of this analysis. An interim summary of the coverage of all O and e-NP case-assignment factors in the corpus is made in Section 5.5. The meaning-related properties of each argument type will be studied in Section 6. In Section 7 I will analyze the arguments’ message packaging. In Section 8 I will compare all argument types and parameters with each other and discuss the reasons for O’s and e-NP’s closeness and the potential fluid intransitivity system in Estonian. Section 9 summarizes the main outcomes of the study. The analysis is based on seven 2000 word narrative extracts from the fiction sub-corpus of the Corpus of Estonian Literary Language.3 I looked at 130 intransitive clauses, 130 transitive clauses and 130 ECs. These fictional texts reflected upon various events and states of affairs in people’s lives.4 The example sentences of this paper are from this corpus, unless otherwise marked. The sentences have been shortened when necessary. I chose a relatively small dataset and a limited number of texts in order to be able to include textual information for pragmatic

3 Corpus of Estonian Literary Language, http://www.cl.ut.ee/korpused/baaskorpus/. (30 July 2013.) 4 In the used corpus texts, the narratives were told from the point of view of the first or third person.

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analysis in the study. The benefit of this method is the possibility of also getting a preliminary picture of the partitive argument’s pragmatic role in discourse; its drawback is the potential for the small dataset to over-represent less frequent or text type-dependent phenomena. In order to establish more general properties of Estonian partitive arguments, a study on a larger dataset and on a variety of text types and communicative situations is necessary.

2 Background In order to discuss the grammatical realization, pragmatic role and meaning of the partitive arguments, we need to define the notions construction and argument role in a way that guarantees reliable comparisons. In the discussion of argument realization, the closely related notion of grammatical relation is also needed. In the following, I will provide the definitions in line with Construction Grammar. Constructions are form-meaning correspondences that are symbolic units of the speakers’ linguistic knowledge. In Construction Grammar no strict division is assumed between the lexicon and syntax (Goldberg 1995: 7; Croft 2001: 58; see also Langacker 1987: 54). Therefore the notion construction is used in a broad sense here. The inventory of constructions in a language contains for example case and agreement constructions, lexical items, idioms, control constructions, non-finite constructions, argument structure constructions, word order and sentence type constructions (cf. Bickel 2010; Croft 2001; Goldberg 1995). In the framework of Radical Construction Grammar (Croft 2001: 25−28), constructions form a taxonomic network. The nodes of the network are constructions which are partial structures with different levels of schematicity. Croft states that any construction with idiosyncratic morphological, lexical, syntactic, etc. properties must be represented as an independent node in the network. The taxonomy is hierarchical and any construction can have multiple parents. Croft (ibid.) illustrates the taxonomy model with the following constructions from English: – [SUBJECT VERB OBJECT] − the transitive construction (a wholly schematic construction) – [SUBJECT kick OBJECT] – a verb-specific construction – [SUBJECT kick the bucket] − a specific idiom construction – [SUBJECT AUXILIARY-n’t VERB] – a negation construction (the use of a direct object is not specified)

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Of particular interest for determining argument types are Goldberg’s argument structure constructions (basic clause types) depicting scenes basic to human experience, e.g. moving or doing something to someone (Goldberg 1995: 5; see also Section 3 for the main views on clause types in Estonian linguistics). In discussing argument roles, several authors find that they are not primitives, but are instead derived from richer semantic structures. Constructions as well as verbs specify which roles are profiled (Goldberg 1995: 49). Hence, arguments are semantic elements that are defined by their relation to the predicate or construction (e.g. the agent role) (Bickel 2010; Goldberg 1995: 49). Goldberg defines argument roles as semantically constrained relational slots in the dynamic scene associated with the construction or the verb. In addition, arguments can be defined by their referential type (e.g. animate; Bickel 2010). This is a completely semantic view on argumenthood that is regarded as a more stable and reliable basis for comparison of the morphosyntactic argument properties than the syntactic perspective on argumenthood that relies on for example case and passivization properties (see e.g. Witzlack-Makarevich 2011: 43−45 for discussion). I assigned one of the following roles to every core argument in the dataset: the sole argument of an intransitive verb (occurring in a non-existential construction, abbreviated as S), the most actor-like argument of a transitive verb (A) and the ‘not most actor-like argument’ of a transitive verb (O; otherwise also abbreviated as P by several authors) (cf. Bickel 2010). In addition, I look separately at e-NP, the sole argument of the intransitive verb in an EC. Similarly to expressions denoting entities, expressions denoting propositions may also serve as arguments of a predicate (Lambrecht 1994: 74). Drawing upon this view, I also included non-finite and other clausal arguments in the S, A, O and e-NP roles in the study. I found that the most suitable method in identifying such arguments is pronominalization.5 I only picked examples that were clearly deductable to a verbal or constructional argument and discarded unclear cases. For example: (1) Üksnes Renke ütle-s „Tunne-n kaasa“ / se-da. only Renke.NOM say-PST.3SG sympathize-1SG with / this-PAR ‘Only Renke said, “I am sorry”’/ ‘Only Renke said this.’ (clausal O, replaceable by a pronoun

5 Pronominalization has also been used in identifying Estonian subjects and direct objects in Erelt et al. (1993: 39, 46), see also Croft (2001: 187–188) on pronominalization and other argument defining criteria and on the potential drawbacks of their usage.

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(2) Esialgu Ø vaja vaada-ta, et mingi peavarju first be.3 necessary look-INF that some.GEN shelter.GEN püsti saa-ks / se-da. up get-COND / this-PAR ‘First (we) have to see that (we) get some shelter up.’ / ‘First we need this.’ Lit. ‘First (it is) necessary to see that would get some shelter up / this.’ (clausal e-NP, replaceable by a pronoun) Although the argument of the EC can (in rare cases) occur as a clause, I will still use the term e-NP (existential noun phrase) for the sake of convenience. Once single arguments have been identified semantically, it is possible to build grammatical relations of arguments on the basis of their morphosyntactic properties (Witzlack-Makarevich 2011: 61). A number of linguists hold the view that grammatical relations are language-specific and construction-specific (e.g. Dryer 1997; Croft 2001; Witzlack-Makarevich 2011). According to the constructionspecific view to grammatical relations, they are relations between arguments and their specific constructions. According to Bickel (2010) grammatical relations are equivalence sets: arguments are “treated the same way by some construction in a language, for example, being assigned the same case in a language, or triggering the same kind of agreement”. Also syntactic behaviour constructions can distinguish between representatives of what might in general be considered the same global, i.e. cross-constructional grammatical relation. For example, although the Estonian active clause subject can occur as the antecedent of a reflexive pronoun (i.e. participate in the reflexivization construction), the passive subject in general cannot: (3) Ma ju usu-n enda-sse. 1 SG .NOM MDA believe-1SG self-ILL ‘But I do believe in myself’ (active intransitive subject as an antecedent of a reflexive pronoun) (4) Politsei töö kergendamise-ks ol-i-d (ta-li) police.GEN work.GEN simplifying-TRAN be-PST-3PL 3 SG -ADE endai/*j kõrvale jäe-tud juhiloa-dj . self.GEN beside leave-PASS.PST.PTCP driving.licence-NOM.PL ‘For making police’s work easier (his) driving licence was left next to him (by himself). Lit. ‘(To himi,) the driving licencej was left beside selfi/*j to simplify the police’s work.’ (passive subject, the general impossibility of anteceding reflexive pronouns)

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Therefore the Estonian reflexive construction defines active and passive subject as separate grammatical relations. The nominative case construction defines the A and O arguments as one grammatical relation because they bear the same case. However, the partitive and genitive-marked O are different grammatical relations from the point of view of these case constructions (cf. Van Valin 2005: 89ff.). With respect to the agreement construction, A and S occur as one grammatical relation (the verb agrees with both of them). Estonian O (marked by any object case, the partitive, genitive or nominative) bears a different grammatical relation to the agreement construction, as the verb does not agree with it. As mentioned above, among the most relevant constructions for determining grammatical relations in this paper are argument structure constructions. When I use the cover term ‘subject’ in this paper, I am referring to two different grammatical relations: (i) the grammatical relation that an A argument bears to a transitive argument structure construction and (ii) the grammatical relation an S argument bears to an intransitive (non-existential) argument structure construction. I use the term ‘object’ for denoting the grammatical relation occurring between the O argument and a transitive argument structure construction. For example: (5) Ma istu-si-n. 1 SG .NOM sit-PST-1SG ‘I was sitting.’ (HM, intransitive clause) (6) Naabri-d ehita-si-d suvila-t. neighbour-NOM.PL build-PST-3PL summer.cottage-PAR ‘The neighbours were building a summer cottage.’ (HM, transitive clause) Throughout the article, in general, I do not include e-NP in the subject category, unless explicitly described otherwise (above all it proves useful in the discussion of fluid intransitivity and the Estonian version of DSM). Grammatical relations that are determined via verbs or argument structure constructions are global, cross-constructional arguments (as for instance different objects can vary in the use of case, zero-anaphora and word order). It is also necessary to stipulate what is meant by argument realization in this article. Argument realization concerns the ways how arguments can be expressed (selection in the subject or object role, case, position, syntactic behaviour, etc.; Levin & Rappaport Hovav 2005; see also Witzlack-Makarevich 2011: 114–118). Although some influential approaches have a narrow view on this term (Levin and Rappaport Hovav (2005) only include these ways of argument expression in the definition that are triggered by a verb’s argument structure), a broader

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view is adopted here. I use argument realization as an umbrella term for all means of expressing arguments. I do not delimit the term to merely lexically conditioned phenomena but include all possible factors that determine the formal properties of an argument. As one of the purposes of this study is to compare the realization of different argument types and establish the argument types’ overall proximity or distance with respect to each other, we must choose the factors for the analysis and determine how they delimit or favor certain equivalence sets, i.e. alignment types (cf. Bickel & Nichols 2008: 305−306) of the four arguments under scrutiny. Several authors (e.g. Croft 2001: 41) find that there is no justified a priori way of choosing one criterion over the other for this purpose – a principled analysis rather takes all relevant criteria into account. Therefore, in the process of characterizing Estonian partitive arguments, a large set of properties is considered in this paper. Sections 4 and 5 compare the O and e-NP case-marking systems. Two additional notions that are relevant for this discussion are inclusiveness and aspect. I will use Lyons’ (1999: 2−13) definition of inclusiveness that relates to the broader notion of definiteness. Definiteness is comprised of qualitative and quantitative definiteness (inclusiveness). In Estonian, the arguments’ case-marking can depend on the latter. If an NP is definite due to inclusiveness, the reference is to the totality of the objects or mass in the context which satisfies the description. For example, in the sentence Beware of the dogs, ‘the dogs’ is definite because it refers to all the dogs, i.e. inclusive amount relevant in this context (for example in a particular house). Quantitative definiteness also involves uniqueness (the Sun) but Lyons subsumes it under inclusiveness. Aspect is a universal semantic category that has a multitude of grammatical and lexical means of expression in the world’s languages. In the analysis I rely on Comrie’s (1976: 16−24) delineation of aspectual categories. According to him the perfective is used when the speaker wishes to denote a complete situation, with a beginning, middle, and end. A situation depicted by the perfective aspect can have parts and internal complexity but it should still be looked at as a single event with clearly circumscribed limits. The use of the imperfective pays special attention to the internal structure of the situation. In this case the situation is viewed from within. For example: (7) Saat-si-n üh-t nais-t koju. escort-PST-1SG one-PAR woman-PAR home.ILL ‘I was escorting a woman home.’ (imperfective aspect, the action is ongoing at the moment the speaker is referring to)

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(8) Saat-si-n ühe naise koju. escort-PST-1SG one.GEN woman.GEN home.ILL ‘I escorted a woman home.’ (HM) (perfective aspect, the single event is complete in the speaker’s depiction)

3 Estonian argument types and clause types Thorough research has been done earlier on Estonian core arguments. The monographs and articles that have been published more recently cover their role, referential properties, coding, information structure and word order (e.g. Erelt et. al 1993; Nemvalts 1996 and 2000; Lindström et al. 2008; Hiietam 2003; Huumo 1993 and 2002; Lindström 2005), their function of expressing aspectual alternation (Erelt et. al 1993; Tamm 2007, 2009 and 2012; Vaiss 2004) and voice distinctions (Erelt et. al 1993; Torn-Leesik 2009). In Estonian linguistics, argument realization has been largely discussed in connection with simple sentence clause types (clause types for short; Erelt & Metslang 2006; see also Erelt et al. 1993; Huumo 1993; Erelt 2005; Nemvalts 2000). Clause types can be analyzed as Construction Grammar’s argument structure construction types (cf. Goldberg 1995; Croft 2001). See Metslang (2013) for a discussion on the semantic and morphosyntactic grounds of the Estonian clause type notion. Two main simple clause types have been proposed in Estonian: marked and unmarked clauses (Erelt et al. 1993, Erelt & Metslang 2006; see also Huumo 1993). Unmarked (multifunctional) clauses are highly schematic constructions and are used with a wide range of verbs and argument structures (see examples (5) and (6) above). An example of the marked (monofunctional) clause types is the EC that includes the possessive clause as a subtype (see examples (9) and (10)). Erelt and Metslang define the unmarked and marked clauses by a set of properties that includes topicality, event type, argument roles and argument coding. In unmarked clauses the topic is predominantly the clause-initial subject, while in marked clauses it is the clause-initial oblique NP (Erelt & Metslang 2006). (9) Prantsusmaa-l on hea kliima. France-ADE be.3 good.NOM climate.NOM ‘There is a good climate in France.’ (HM, EC) (10) Ta-l on suvila. 3 SG -ADE be.3 summer.cottage.NOM ‘S/he has a summer cottage.’ (HM, possessive clause)

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This article only focuses on unmarked clauses and one type of marked clauses, the EC. To characterize the coding of these clause types, the final part of this section briefly outlines the case and agreement properties of A, S, O and e-NP. To indicate the salience of the different coding options I will illustrate this with some preliminary data on corpus frequencies. The arguments of Estonian unmarked clauses and ECs occur in three grammatical cases: the nominative, genitive and partitive. Table 1 presents the frequencies of all case-uses in the studied data (zero-anaphora and clausal arguments bare the value ’irrelevant’) (cf. the methodology overview in Section 1). Table 1: Distribution of cases among the arguments in the corpus (%) Case/Argument

A

S

O

e-NP

nominative genitive partitive irrelevant

32 0 0 40

34 0 0 37

3 100 58 20

31 0 42 3

130

130

130

130

Total (abs. No)

In Estonian, the verb agrees with the subject in number and person (see again examples (5) and (6) in Section 2). Unlike in Finnish, in Estonian agreement is explicit in the case of both speech act participants (SAP) and third person subjects. In negation and the conditional and quotative moods, the verb conjugation paradigm lacks subject-verb agreement. For example: (11) Ma / te ei istu. 1 SG . NOM / 2 SG .NOM NEG sit ‘I am not sitting. / You (PL) are not sitting.’ (negation in indicative mood) As mentioned above, the verb does not agree with the direct object. It agrees with the e-NP in the affirmative clause: (12) Siis järgne-s hommikune udu. then follow-PST.3SG morning.NOM fog.NOM ‘Then morning fog followed. (The next activity that followed our boat trip was walking in the morning fog.)’ (13) Pilti-de-l ol-i-d kodulooma-d. picture-PL-ADE be-PST-3PL domestic.animal-NOM.PL ‘There were domestic animals in the pictures.’

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Plural partitive e-NPs are an exception to this rule: they trigger neither number nor person agreement: (14) Pilti-de-l ol-i koduloom-i. picture-PL-ADE be-PST.3SG domestic.animal-PAR.PL ‘There were domestic animals in the pictures.’ (nominative as an unmarked case of EC) The agreement frequencies in the corpus are summarized in Table 2 (the clausal arguments and ECs with omitted predicates are marked with the value ‘irrelevant’). Table 2: Agreement with the predicate in person and number (absolute numbers) Feature value

A

S

O

e-NP

agrees with the verb no agreement irrelevant

129 0 1

128 0 2

0 104 26

114 9 7

Total

130

130

130

130

We can see that the coding of e-NPs has considerable similarities to the overt coding of unmarked clause subjects: 57% of e-NPs are in the subject case, while 88% formally agree with the verb. It can be argued though that in the ECs, the third person singular is the verb’s unmarked form. Therefore it is not clear whether the verb predominantly agrees with the e-NP. Only 14% of the e-NPs are clear instances of verbal agreement. In other cases the predicate verb is in the unmarked form or its forms have been neutralized in the paradigm (negative verb forms or conditional mood, the present tense paradigm of the verb olema ‘to be’) (see example (12) for the default verb form and (9) for the use of the verb olema).

4 Introduction to case-alternation rules of O and e-NP Both the Estonian object and e-NP have differential case-marking systems that are multifactor phenomena expressing a variety of fine-grained distinctions. This is characteristic of languages with relatively rich case systems (de Hoop & de Swart 2009: 5). In this section I will outline the earlier findings on the factors influencing the Estonian object’s and e-NP’s case. The data studied in this paper

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suggests that it is possible to consider e-NP as a non-canonical intransitive subject (see Sections 5.2 and 8). Therefore it is interesting to compare the casealternation system of e-NP with the theoretical views on DSM. I will start with some definitions that reflect that DSM and DOM are conditioned by similar factors. In their introduction to the optimality theoretic collection on DSM, de Hoop and de Swart summarize the possible factors that can influence subject-marking. They find that these factors can belong to any level of grammar: DSM is a cross-modular phenomenon that is not triggered or constrained by semantic or pragmatic features in the input alone. Rather, it is the optimal outcome of a conflict between certain rules, which can be syntactic, semantic, pragmatic, morphological or phonological in nature. (de Hoop & de Swart 2009: 5.)

Remarkably, Estonian e-NP case-assignment factors include almost all of these levels and therefore I will treat e-NP’s case alternation as the Estonian equivalent of DSM. In addition, also lexical factors that cannot always be reduced to semantic features play a dominant role in differential marking of the e-NP according to the treatment used in this study (which is based on Metslang 2012). As Bickel (2010) describes, DOM often involves the situation when, “O arguments are mapped into different GR [grammatical relations] (. . .) for some construction, depending, mostly in a statistical rather than categorical way, on such referential properties as animacy, humanness, definiteness, specificity or more general notions of saliency.” Hence even just the O argument’s referent can influence DOM in a multifaceted way. In addition to the referential properties, Dixon (1994) also discusses other factor groups that determine alignment of O or any other argument into the same or different grammatical relations (lexical predicates and clausal factors). He presents a comprehensive system of alignment split factors consisting of referential, verb-related and clausal factors. In Dixon’s (1994: 70−110) treatment: 1. the main referential factors that influence argument coding are animacy and humanness, definiteness, specificity, lexical class, person and number; 2. the second type of factors that determine a language’s argument coding involves lexical predicates and generalized predicate classes; 3. clausal conditions include tense, aspect and mood, morphological form of the predicate, main vs. subordinate clause, polarity and other arguments in the clause. (See also Witzlack-Makarevich 2011: 73−157.) To summarize, there are similar and extremely varied sets of possible argument realization factors that apply to any argument type: almost anything can potentially influence an argument’s coding. As the following subsections show, Estonian provides ample evidence of this.

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In the following sections I will outline how, in Estonian, two ways of O’s and e-NP’s case assignment are especially important. They regard all three levels in Dixon’s system. Estonian arguments’ case can be determined lexically – by particular verbs (especially in the case of Os; strategy (2) above) or nouns (especially in the case of e-NPs; strategy (1)). Alternatively, it can follow the situationally triggered fluid strategy that is independent of lexical constraints (cf. (7) and (8) in Section 2). In this case the case-marking reflects the semantics of each particular instance of use (strategy (3); see also Dixon 1994: 78 and Section 8 in this paper).

4.1 Direct object Estonian direct objects’ case-marking depends on all the above-mentioned factor types. As mentioned above, particular lexical predicates are especially influential in Estonian DOM. There are also two kinds of factors that are related to the objectNP’s referential properties (personal pronouns and nominal inclusiveness) and two kinds of clause level factors (aspect and the morphological form of the predicate). Concurrence of inclusiveness and aspect The object’s case depends on the totality-partiality system that, among other functions, indexes distinctions in the NP’s inclusiveness (quantity) and the situation’s aspect. In the case of the direct object, the total cases are the genitive and nominative. These two cases are used when the quantity of the object referent is inclusive and the aspect of the clause is perfective. The default total case is the genitive. A common use of the nominative is marking plural NPs (see example (15)). The partitive is frequency-wise the unmarked case of the direct object and it is used when the aspect is imperfective or the nominal quantity is noninclusive (Erelt 2009: 9) (see examples (16)−(18)). (15) Ost-si-me oma tehnika / masina-d Austria-st. buy-PST-1PL our.GEN technology.GEN / machine-NOM.PL Austria-ELA ‘We bought our technology / machines from Austria.’ (HM) (perfective aspect and inclusive quantity) (16) Osta-me oma tehnika-t / masina-i-d Austria-st. buy-1PL our.GEN technology-PAR / machine-PL-PAR Austria-ELA ‘We are buying our technology / machines from Austria.’ (HM) (imperfective aspect and non-inclusive quantity)

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(17) Ta jõ-i vett ja hakka-s siis söö-ma. 3 SG .NOM drink-PST.3SG water.PAR and start-PST.3SG then eat-INF ‘He drank some water and then started to eat.’ (Erelt 2009: 9) (perfective aspect, non-inclusive quantity) I will repeat examples (7) and (8) from Section 2 for the sake of convenience. Object case-alternation signifies the aspectual distinction here as the referent is inclusive in both clauses. (18) Saat-si-n üh-t nais-t koju. escort-PST-1SG one-PAR woman-PAR home.ILL ‘I was escorting a woman home.’ (imperfective aspect, inclusive quantity) (19) Saat-si-n ühe naise koju. escort-PST-1SG one.GEN woman.GEN home.ILL ‘I escorted a woman home.’ (HM) (perfective aspect, inclusive quantity) Lexical predicates Object case is often governed by particular aspect-related verb classes. Vaiss (2004) analyzed 495 simple verbs and divided them into four groups as follows: – perfective verbs (9% of all simple verbs, e.g. tapma ‘to kill’, leidma ‘to find’) can mostly be used with the total case object and denote perfective aspect, (20); – aspectual verbs (16%, e.g. parandama ‘to repair’) can be used with both the total cases or the partitive. They denote, depending on the case, perfective or imperfective aspect, see (21) and (22); – verbs only taking a partitive object (46%; often mental and cognition verbs) denote depending on the verbal meaning, tense and sentential context either imperfective or perfective aspect (23); – verbs with several aspectual meanings constitute 29% of simple verbs (e.g. verbs with a general meaning like ajama ‘to drive’, andma ‘to give’). (20) Leid-si-n väljapääsu. find-PST-1SG exit.GEN ‘I found an exit.’ (21) Isa paranda-b jalgratas-t. father.NOM repair-3SG bike-PAR ‘Father is repairing the bike.’ (Vaiss 2004: 44; imperfective aspect)

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(22) Isa paranda-b jalgratta ära. father.NOM repair-3SG bike.GEN up ‘Father will repair the bike.’ (Vaiss 2004: 44; perfective aspect) (23) Kohta-si-n ainult üh-t inimes-t. meet-PST-1SG only one-PAR person-PAR ‘I only met one person.’ Vaiss also shows that out of 253 phrasal verbs, about 80% are perfective verbs (2004: 65, 83). Speech act participant pronouns As in many other languages, the Estonian personal pronoun system has exceptional coding. Semantically, personal pronouns are singular count nouns (ma ‘I’, sa ‘you.SG’) or are often used to denote inclusive quantity groups (me ‘we’ and te ‘you.PL’). Therefore, in combination with the perfective aspect they should take a total case in the object position. However, in the object position the personal pronouns denoting SAPs tend to take the partitive even when the aspect of the situation is perfective and the quantity is inclusive (Erelt et al. 1993: 53),6 compare (24) and (25). (24) Komandant kirjuta-s Peetri sisse. housemaster.NOM register-PST.3SG Peeter.GEN in ‘The housemaster registered Peeter.’ (HM; perfective aspect, inclusive quantity referent) (25) Komandant kirjuta-s min-d sisse. housemaster.NOM register-PST.3SG I-PAR in ‘The housemaster registered me.’ (perfective aspect, inclusive quantity referent) Hence a certain case is preferred for distinguishing referentially high Os from As. This relates to the two argument coding strategies that are used in languages: discrimination and indexing. Comrie (1978) outlines the discriminatory view on argument marking by showing that in transitive sentences, as there are two core arguments, A and O, there is a need to differentiate which element is which. In accusative languages it is common to distinguish A from O by overtly

6 This is also the case with the reflexive pronoun enese/enda ‘oneself.GEN/PAR’.

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marking O. O marking is in the majority of accusative languages more complex than the nominative (i.e. the case of A) (ibid.).7 A different view on argument marking strategies suggests indexing or direct marking. In the case of direct marking, each instance of use of a verb is dealt with separately depending on the semantic functions of the argument NPs (cf. Dixon 1994: 24). The exceptional preference for increased overt marking of Estonian SAP Os (by the use of the partitive) can be analyzed as a discriminatory argument marking tendency that tends to override the other case-assignment rules (see below for discrimination and indexing). Morphological form of the predicate The morphological form of the predicate can be classified under the clausal factors of argument realization in Dixon’s (1994) approach. In the Estonian negative clause only the partitive object can be used: (26) Me ei osta oma tehnika-t / masina-i-d Austria-st. 1 PL .NOM NEG buy our.GEN technology-PAR / machine-PL-PAR Austria-ELA ‘We do not buy our technology / machines from Austria.’ (HM) Secondly, as already indicated above, in general total O occurs in the genitive in Estonian, see example (27). This case use (instead of the unmarked nominative) may be necessary for serving the discriminatory function – for distinguishing O from A in the transitive clause. The second object case rule of this section concerns these transitive clauses where the subject is not overtly used. Namely, the predicate’s form influences the total object’s case in imperative, impersonal and some infinitival constructions (Erelt et al. 1993: 49). In these (predominantly) subjectless constructions only nominative total O is used – the genitive is ungrammatical here, see (29) and (30). For distinguishing O from A, the genitive total object is unnecessary, hence the discriminatory function does not stipulate O’s case use. In Estonian subjectless clauses, the object case seems to have the function of indexation of inclusiveness and aspect instead (see also Helasvuo 2001: 43−44 on the same phenomenon in Finnish).8 In the case of Finnish imperatives, Bickel (2010) describes this phenomenon as scenario (argument coding depends on how two or three arguments interact with each other, i.e. define a scenario).

7 Comrie uses the abbreviation P instead of O. 8 In the clauses with an overt A argument, total Os are still in the nominative if they are in the plural. As A arguments are predominantly singular (see Section 6) then, in the cases when O is in the plural A and O are distinguished rather by the number than case category. See also Tamm (2004) on the role of total cases in Estonian.

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(27)

Mari sõ-i koogi Mari.NOM eat-PST.3SG cake.GEN ‘Mari ate up the cake.’ (HM)

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(28) *Mari sõ-i kook ära. Mari.NOM eat-PST.3SG cake.NOM up Intended meaning: ‘Mari ate up the cake.’ (HM) (29)

Söö kook ära! eat.IMP.2SG cake.NOM up ‘Eat up the cake!’ (Erelt et al. 1993: 53)

(30) *Söö koogi ära! eat.IMP2SG cake.GEN up Intended meaning: ‘Eat up the cake!’ (HM)

4.2 Existential noun phrase Similarly to objects, e-NP’s case-alternation shows a totality-partiality system: it alternates between the partitive and the nominative (to make the e-NP data comparable with O, I call the nominative marking on e-NP the ‘total case’). The e-NP’s case-marking predominantly depends on lexical and clausal properties (see the introduction of Section 4). It can be seen that the e-NP lacks the main object case-marking properties, as: – the e-NP cannot be in the genitive; – singular count nouns and other inclusive quantity NPs cannot occur in the partitive in affirmative ECs; – with e-NP, aspect is never the sole trigger of e-NP’s case-marking – it is only an optional reading, a side-effect of inclusiveness (Metslang 2012, see also Nemvalts 1996). Section 5 compares the e-NP’s and O’s case-marking systems in detail. The following overview and the successive analysis in Section 5 of the e-NP are based on the set of rules from Metslang (2012) and on the findings of Nemvalts (1996). Inclusiveness (lexical and situational) The nominative is frequency-wise the unmarked case of the e-NP. In affirmative clauses, the e-NP usually occurs in this form (31). The partitive is commonly used

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when the speaker chooses to emphasize the referent’s non-inclusive quantity in a particular situation under consideration (when both the e-NP’s head noun and the predicate verb allow the use of both the nominative and partitive; compare example (32) with (31)) or the noun lexeme is an ‘existential partitive’ – a noun obligatorily marked by the partitive in (sometimes frozen) ECs (see (33)). Existential partitives usually denote referents with a non-inclusive quantity. In some cases this semantic feature is not evident and the partitive use is lexicalized (for the latter reason this case choice factor is uniformly treated as a lexical phenomenon here and not as a semantic feature; cf. Metslang 2012). (31) Selle-l kase-l on juba lehe-d. this-ADE birch-ADE be.3 already leaf-NOM.PL ‘This birch has leaves already.’ (adapted from Vilkuna 1992: 61) (32) Selle-l kase-l on juba leht-i. this-ADE birch-ADE be.3 already leaf-PAR.PL ‘This birch has some leaves already.’ Lit. ‘On this birch is already leaves.’ (adapted from Vilkuna 1992: 61; partitive denoting non-inclusive quantity of an e-NP) (33) Enda=l=gi Ø ruumi vaevalt ringi pööramise-ks. self=ADE=CL (be.3) space.PAR merely around turning-TRAN ‘We ourselves (have) only just (enough) space for turning around.’ (existential partitive noun) The nominative is often used on divisible e-NPs (mass nouns and plural count nouns). Similarly to the object’s total case, it can mark inclusive quantity if there is a contextual boundary to the referent. For example, in (31) the contextual boundary is the leafage of the whole tree. In this example, the nominative is used because the speaker is referring to the whole leafage of the tree. When there is no contextual boundary to the referent, i.e. the referent is not part of a bounded whole (see also Koptjevskaja-Tamm & Wälchli 2001: 665 on this semantic feature) and the inclusiveness of the referent is irrelevant (34) then the use of the nominative is semantically unmarked. The role of the EC is merely stating the existence of the subject referent in the given location and not its inclusive quantity. (34) Pilti-de-l ol-i-d kodulooma-d. picture-PL-ADE be-PST-3PL domestic.animal-NOM.PL ‘There were domestic animals in the pictures.’ (nominative as the unmarked case of the e-NP)

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Hence, EC’s nominative-partitive alternation can express the distinction of just identifying the class of the entity vs. referring to the entity’s quantity (cf. Nemvalts 2000: 150). In this volume Paykin describes a similar alternation in Russian unaccusative and transitive constructions (partitive genitive – nominative alternation and partitive genitive – accusative alternation respectively). As mentioned above, the nominative is often caused by the lexical properties of the Estonian e-NP’s phrasal head. The ‘existential nominatives’ category includes nouns that are inherently unmarked for inclusiveness (35) or have inherently inclusive quantity (this mainly includes singular count nouns, example (36)). (35) Siis järgne-s hommikune udu. then follow-PST.3SG morning.NOM fog.NOM ‘Then the morning fog followed. (The next activity that followed our boat trip was walking in the morning fog)’ (36) Ja korraga torka-s mu-lle pähe veider mõte. and suddenly strike-PST.3SG I-ALL head.ILL strange.NOM thought.NOM ‘And suddenly I got this strange idea.’ Lit. ‘And suddenly stroke into my head a strange idea.’ Hence, the nominative marking of e-NPs denotes either inclusive or unmarked quantity both in the case of situationally and lexically determined case-assignment. Morphological form of the predicate In neutral, non-contrasted negative clauses, e-NPs take the partitive: (37) Peenra-l ei kasva lill-i. flowerbed-ADE NEG grow flower-PAR.PL ‘There are no flowers growing in the flowerbed.’ Predicate verbs and constructions The case choice of the e-NP peripherally depends on predicate verbs and clausal constructions (cf. Rätsep 1978; Nemvalts 2000; Metslang 2012). Although the impact of verbs and constructions on e-NP’s case is rare, it is necessary to discuss it here for the purpose of giving a full picture of the case system. Rätsep (1978) describes the impact of clausal constructions on argument marking via verb-governed sentence patterns. Rätsep’s sentence pattern is a generalized abstraction that links a set of verbs with a set of grammatically similar simple sentences

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that share the number, coding and order of the verb’s arguments and obliques.9 In Metslang (2012) I specify the distinction between constructions and lexical predicates as e-NP case-factors. There are verbs that determine their e-NP’s case. However, a vast majority of the EC verbs and constructions permit the use of both cases. Examples (38) and (39) present ECs whose e-NP’s case is determined by the whole construction or by a specific verb. (38) Meistri-t jätku-s iga-le poole. master-PAR suffice-PST.3SG any-ALL towards ‘The master could help out everywhere.’ Lit. ‘Master sufficed/was everywhere.’ (Rätsep 1978: 154; ‘partitive e-NP only’ construction: exceptional use of singular count nouns in the partitive) (39) Lähene-si-d valimise-d. approach-PST-3PL election-NOM.PL ‘The elections were approaching’ (HM) (‘nominative e-NP only’ verb) The verb lähenema only occurs in constructions taking a nominative argument. The verb jätkuma also takes nominative subjects in other constructions.

5 Corpus study: Comparison of the O’s and e-NP’s case-marking In this section I will examine corpus data on Dixon’s and Witzlack-Makarevich’s argument realization determinants (cf. the beginning of Section 4). I will analyse how referential, predicate-related and clausal case-assignment factors affect O’s and e-NP’s case and show how they interact with each other. On the basis of the analysis of 104 transitive clauses and 125 ECs (that contain case-marked Os and e-NPs), I will weigh the importance of all factors and compare their usage frequency in O’s and e-NP’s case assignment. Sections 5.1 and 5.2 deal with the referential factors influencing the O’s and e-NPs’ case. Section 5.1 compares the formation of O’s and e-NP’s case from the viewpoint of more clear-cut referentiality rules and suggests a new integrated account of quantification-related hierarchies. In Section 5.2 I will compare how the Referential hierarchy affects these arguments’ case. I will show that there are some statistical tendencies that can be overridden by the rules described in Section 5.1. I also discuss in 9 The elements’ order in the clause is determined on the basis of context free sentences, therefore the word order criterion has been ignored in this corpus-based study.

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this section what the Referential hierarchy tells us about the subjecthood of the e-NP. Sections 5.3 and 5.4 study how the predicates and clausal context affect O’s and e-NP’s case, sometimes intertwining with the referentiality rules. Section 5.5 summarizes the arguments’ case-formulation principles on the basis of the corpus frequencies and discusses the general subjecthood status of the e-NP.

5.1 Referential restrictions on argument case In this subsection I will integrate the accounts of O’s and e-NP’s referential caseassignment rules outlined in Sections 4.1 and 4.2. It will be discussed to what extent O and e-NP share referential case choice factors in the corpus and to what extent they are different. Both lexically determined as well as situationally determined (fluid) nominal properties will be discussed. More specifically, two quantification-related hierarchies of semantic case-assignment factors will be proposed. Their impact is measured on the corpus data along with the impact of two lexical factors. Table 3 summarizes the corpus findings that show how frequent the application of each referential rule is in the data. Table 3: Referential rules affecting case-marked Os’ and e-NPs’ case in the data (%, n = 229) The factor’s level in Referential caseDixon’s (1994) system assignment factor Situational

Quantification-related hierarchies

Lexical

Personal pronouns (SAPs) Inclusiveness semantics of noun lexemes

Proportion of all Os whose case is triggered by this factor

Proportion of all e-NPs whose case is triggered by this factor

54

30

4

0

0

47

As can be seen, on the referential level, an important factor that influences both O’s and e-NP’s case is the situational (fluid) quantification. Lexicalized case choices also play a dominant role in e-NPs’ marking. Lexically inherent properties represent two distinct phenomena in the case of the direct object and e-NP. The pronominal direct objects referring to SAPs tend to take the partitive case even in environments where otherwise total case object is used (see Section 4.1) and form a small minority of O arguments in the corpus. The lexical properties affecting the e-NP’s case marking are similar to the semantics of quantification-related hierarchies (see below). The largest group of e-NPs have their case triggered by this factor in the corpus (see Figure 2 in Section 5.5).

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In the corpus of 229 sentences the largest proportion of Os and e-NPs have their case assigned on the basis of situationally triggered quantification (inclusiveness) parameters. I suggest that this prominent part of O’s and e-NP’s case-marking systems relies on identical principles. I see a need for a unified approach to account for the overlaps in both arguments’ case-marking systems. In the following I will propose two quantification-related hierarchies for it. These are the Quantitative markedness hierarchy and the Inclusiveness hierarchy and they concern the plural and mass noun Os and e-NPs. The establishment of the hypothesis of these hierarchies allows for fine-grained empirical comparisons between the marking of O and e-NP. The application of these hierarchies depends above all on whether the referent’s inclusiveness is relevant or irrelevant for the speaker. I will first introduce the Quantitative markedness hierarchy. (40) Quantitative markedness hierarchy UNMARKED QUANTITY > MARKED QUANTITY

Quantitative markedness depends on whether the speaker refers to the referent’s inclusiveness or not. The argument takes the total case if it has a semantically unmarked quantity (it is not specified whether the quantity of the referent in question is inclusive or non-inclusive, or whether it participates in the situation totally or only part of it does) (see example (34) in Section 4.2). The e-NPs’ quantity can be either marked or unmarked. The Os’ quantity is always marked in the studied corpus, however it is possible to find examples of Os with a referent with unmarked inclusiveness: (41) Linnaosavalitus-te-s moodusta-takse lasteringi-d. borough-PL-INE form-IMPS children’s.group-NOM.PL ‘Children’s groups will be formed in boroughs.’ (adapted from Erelt et al. 1993: 51) (42) Nii kurb lugu, et aja-b pisara-d silma. so sad.NOM story.NOM that drive-3SG tear-NOM.PL eye.ILL ‘It is such a sad story that it makes me cry.’ Lit. ‘So sad story that drives tears in eye.’ (Vaiss 2004: 103) Hence most of the Os and some of the e-NPs need their case to be assigned elsewhere.

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If an argument’s quantity is relevant to the speaker (i.e. it is overtly determined whether the referent has inclusive or non-inclusive quantity) then the Quantitative markedness hierarchy is not sufficient for accounting for the argument’s case. In this case another (nested) hierarchy determines its case-marking. I call it the Inclusiveness hierarchy (I use two separate hierarchies because they concern different level phenomena). (43) Inclusiveness hierarchy INCLUSIVE QUANTITY > NON - INCLUSIVE QUANTITY

If the argument has a non-inclusive quantity, it takes the partitive and if it has inclusive quantity it has the opportunity of taking the total case. As mentioned in Section 4.1, in the case of object, also the situational aspect is involved in the final case designation of inclusive/non-inclusive O arguments. No further factors influence such e-NPs’ case. The distinction can be seen in examples (44) and (45) for e-NP and (15) and (16) for O, repeated here as (46) and (47): (44) . . . kui maja-l on sarika-d peal. when house-ADE be.3 rafter-NOM.PL on ‘. . . once when the house has rafters (built) on top.’ (e-NP, inclusive quantity) (45) (Raputa-si-n põõsas-t, nii et) shake-PST-1SG bush-PAR so that must-i marj-u ema-le pähe sada-s. black-PAR.PL berry-PAR.PL mother-ALL head.ILL fall-PST.3SG ‘(I shook the bush so that) black berries kept falling on my mother’s head.’ (e-NP, non-inclusive quantity) (46) Ost-si-me oma tehnika / masina-d Austria-st. buy-PST-1PL our.GEN technology.GEN / machine-NOM.PL Austria-ELA ‘We bought our technology / machines from Austria.’ (HM) (O, inclusive quantity) (47) Osta-me oma tehnika-t / masina-i-d Austria-st. buy-1PL our.GEN technology-PAR / machine-PL-PAR Austria-ELA ‘We are buying our technology / machines from Austria.’ (HM) (O, non-inclusive quantity)

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The semantic difference between unmarked quantity and non-inclusive quantity reference is that the former makes no reference to quantity at all (it just identifies the referent) whereas the latter states that the quantity is not determined, unbounded. The hierarchies treat e-NP and O similarly in the sense of both influence on the case and statistical tendencies. This is a sign of the proximity of these two arguments. The features on the left hand side of each hierarchy contribute to the total case marking of e-NP and O. The corpus data suggest that e-NP’s preferences are not very strongly biased towards any of the options of the two hierarchies (see Figure 2 and Table 6 in Section 5.5 and Metslang 2012: 196). As regards the Inclusiveness hierarchy, the frequency distinctions of the inclusive and noninclusive O are also relatively small. The only strong distinction is O’s clear preference for marked quantity over unmarked quantity in the Quantitative markedness hierarchy and this makes it different from the e-NP. Larger quantitative studies are needed to confirm e-NP’s and O’s dispositions in these hierarchies in order to state which semantic options and respective case-uses are more frequent among each argument type.

5.2 Referential hierarchy and Estonian argument realization It has been typologically observed that arguments’ realization (including the selection of arguments into grammatical relations like subject or object) often depends on their referential type. They can for example be defined by their ‘social importance’, organized by referential hierarchies (cf. Bickel 2010). For instance, subjects tend to be highly referential. This section studies whether the typologically described referential hierarchies have any impact on Estonian O and e-NP realization. Bickel (2010: 410) summarizes this phenomenon as follows: the grammatical relations of many languages rather favor animates than inanimates, known than unknown referents, etc. These properties can determine for example inclusion/ exclusion from the subject, object or some other category (e.g. only the semantically higher, more agent-like entity can occur in the subject position), caseassignment (e.g. animate O receives dative marking and inanimate O receives nominative marking), agreement rules, etc. (see also Givón 2001: 200, 220−221). These preferences are described by various referential hierarchies: (48)

A . SPEECH ACT PARTICIPANT > KIN / NAME > HUMAN > ANIMATE > INANIMATE > MASS B . SPECIFIC > NONSPECIFIC REFERENTIAL > GENERIC / NONREFERENTIAL C . KNOWN / TOPICAL / THEMATIC / DEFINITE > NEW/ FOCAL / RHEMATIC / INDEFINITE D. SINGULAR > PLURAL

(Bickel 2010: 410)

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It has been suggested that in many languages, O arguments that are higher on hierarchies of prominence, animacy, definiteness and the like receive different case marking from the O arguments lower on the hierarchy (Comrie 1989).10 It is often predicted that higher O arguments should carry overt (‘accusative’) case marking in contrast to lower O arguments, which should carry no overt case marking (i.e. be in the unmarked ‘nominative’) (cf. Witzlack-Makarevich 2011: 76). Overt marking of A is expected if it occurs on the right hand side of the hierarchy, whereas As with zero-marking are more likely to occur on the left. In split intransitive systems, distinctive S marking is used in different ends of the hierarchy (cf. Dixon 1994: 85ff.). In the world’s languages there are studies that both support and counter the claims about universal hierarchy effects (de Hoop & de Swart 2009: 2−5; Bickel, Witzlack-Makarevich & Zakharko, to appear). Thematic importance reflected by these hierarchies is an aspect of topicality that also statistically determines whether the referent remains topical in the subsequent discourse or will not be mentioned again (Givón 2001: 198−199, 455−456). I have adopted a rather detailed version of the hierarchies in order to better describe the lower, less agent-like referents that are common among Os and e-NPs in the corpus, see (49). (49) The version of the Referential hierarchy used in this analysis SPEECH ACT PARTICIPANT > HUMAN > CONCRETE > ABSTRACT > EVENT > NON - REFERENTIAL

Hence, in the following I will only look at these topicality-related semantic properties that are typologically commonly used in referential scales, and will not try to integrate this approach with the quantity-related case factors described in Section 5.1. The quantification-related hierarchies belong to a different domain of grammar because they probably do not represent topicality oppositions. Furthermore, at least the Inclusiveness hierarchy does not demonstrate a strong ability to distinguish between the argument types in the corpus. Non-referential elements are the ones that do not have nominal reference. The set of non-referential subjects, objects and e-NPs involves propositions like example (1) in Section 2, events where the potential nominal reference is not foregrounded (50) and nominal parts of more or less opaque multi-word verbs (51). (50) Seal pol-nud kombe-ks ilma põhjuse-ta naer-da. there NEG.be-PST.PTCP custom-TRAN without reason-ABE laugh-INF ‘It was not the custom there to laugh without a reason.’ (e-NP depicting a non-referential event) 10 Again, Comrie uses the abbreviation P instead of O.

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Figure 1: Mapping of the referential categories to argument positions (%)

(51) Ehk tule-b me-i-l isa-ga se-l teema-l juttu. perhaps come-3SG 1PL-ADE father-COM this-ADE topic-ADE talk.PAR ‘Perhaps this topic will come to discussion between my father and me.’ (e-NP as a part of a multi-word verb juttu tulema ‘to come to discussion’) I also distinguish a separate ‘event’ category that has become referential via nominalization (see (68) and (69) in Section 6.3). Also situations and states have been classified as events here. The 520 corpus examples show some clear distinctions in how different elements of the hierarchy are mapped to A, S, O and e-NP in Estonian (see Figure 1). There is no categorical distribution of the semantic hierarchy properties among different arguments. All these properties are distributed statistically. In general, almost all the arguments can take referents with several meanings (SAP, abstract, etc.). In the data, the Referential hierarchy gets divided between humans and inanimate entities. The referents to the left of the hierarchy tend to occur in the S and A positions, and to the right as O and e-NP. A and S align together: reference to SAPs and people naturally takes place in the A and S positions (85% of the A and S arguments depict SAPs or other people), and hardly ever in the O and e-NP positions. This supports the grammatical relations based Referential hierarchy hypothesis discussed in (Givón 2001 and Bickel 2008). The hypothesis suggests that the rank of an argument in the Referential hierarchy correlates positively with access to grammatical relations as higher arguments

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are more likely to be topical. Most of the remaining S and A arguments denote processes happening with abstract or inanimate entities or occur in equative, attributive or locative clauses. For example: (52) Üllatusefekt meeskonna-s ol-i suur. surprise.effect.NOM team-INE be-PST.3SG big.NOM ‘The element of surprise in the team was big.’ (S denoting an event) With respect to the Referential hierarchy, S is a more heterogeneous category than A. O is the most heterogeneous category of the four and it mainly expresses lower entities. The O and e-NP positions show considerable similarities as regards the hierarchy: abstract entities and concrete inanimate objects primarily occur in these positions (78% of the abstract and 79% of concrete referents of the corpus). The prevalence of mapping non-human referents in object and e-NP relations is also linked to the referent’s activeness status in the discourse, the phrase’s heaviness and word order (see Helasvuo (2001: 56) on this in Finnish). NPs referring to humans (subjects) are preferably preverbal in Estonian (Lindström 2002: 102; see also Section 7.2 of this article). The expression of nonreferential content among the core arguments is largely restricted to the object relation in Estonian. A total of 79% of the non-referential elements occur at the object position (mainly infinitival constructions and clausal constructions, including direct and reported speech, as in example (1) in Section 2). This is deeply linked to the fact that the objects are often the foci of the sentence and the focus does not have to be referential (cf. Lambrecht 1994: 336). Due to the special role of the EC, 96% of e-NPs are referential although they are usually foci too (cf Section 1; this is also characteristic of Finnish e-NPs; Helasvuo 2001: 100). One may ask whether the adopted version of the Referential hierarchy explains the statistical distribution of O’s and e-NP’s case. However, in the corpus the arguments’ case ultimately depends on the rules outlined in Section 4. For example, despite the fact that concrete e-NPs preferentially take the nominative, concrete referents in negative clauses are still marked with the partitive, see (37) in Section 4.2. Yet, in the corpus there is some partial evidence for hierarchy effects being suitable for explaining DOM in Estonian. The fact that SAPs – the semantically high Os – tend to be expressed by the overtly case-marked partitive and much less by the total case (i.e. the cases without an overt marker) supports the Referential hierarchy explanation (see Table 4 and example (25) repeated here as (53)). However, the fact that also lower entities – abstract notions and events – are more frequently denoted by the partitive rather than total cases, example (54), contradicts it.

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(53) Komandant kirjuta-s min-d sisse. housemaster.NOM register-PST.3SG 1 SG -PAR in ‘The housemaster registered me.’ (referentially high O with overt marking) (54) Ihka-si-n uus-i aeg-u. yearn-PST-1SG new-PAR.PL time-PAR.PL ‘I desired that the times would change.’ Lit ‘I desired new times.’ (referentially low O with overt marking) Table 4: Distribution of the Referential hierarchy properties among differently coded elements (% of all Os and all e-NPs in the corpus)11 Argument (abs. No)

Case

SAP

human

concrete

abstract

event

non-ref

Total %

O (130)

Total

0

2

10

11

2

0

25

Partitive

6

5

8

26

10

0

55

Irrelevant

0

0

0

0

0

20

20

Nom

0

5

17

31

3

0

56

Partitive

1

2

5

29

3

0

40

Irrelevant

0

0

0

0

0

4

4

e-NP (127)

As indicated above, the Referential hierarchy approach suggests that if there are splits in the coding of the intransitive subject then semantically low subjects are preferably overtly marked, whereas semantically high subjects are not. When evaluating the Referential hierarchy effect on the e-NP, it is in principle possible to analyze two alternative viewpoints. We can regard both nominative and partitive e-NPs as low S-arguments or we can only regard partitive e-NPs as low S-arguments and consider nominative e-NPs high S-arguments. The latter approach, i.e. looking at the e-NP internal case-alternation is the general focus of analysis in the rest of Section 5 and it would be consistent to follow this approach also here. The problem with it is that even nominative e-NPs are clause-final and non-topical and therefore not so different from the partitive e-NPs. As topicality is a notion very closely tied to subjecthood, it is difficult to consider even nominative e-NPs high intransitive subjects for the purposes of this analysis. The current dataset is also too small for comparing the distribution of high and low referents among total case and partitive e-NPs. In the present corpus it is hard to find any prefer-

11 Due to their low frequency, the arguments with non-human animate referents have not been included in the table.

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ences supporting the hierarchy (e.g. for higher e-NP referents to be marked by the nominative and lower e-NP referents by the partitive), rather the contrary. Only all the non-referential case-marked e-NPs in the corpus (9) have the partitive case. In the following I will proceed with the first option. I checked in the corpus whether the Referential hierarchy effects can explain the case-marking distinction between A-like S marking (subject of the intransitive unmarked clause that is always in the nominative) and O-like S marking (e-NP with object-like case-alternation). In general the Referential hierarchy applies: SAPs and humans are expressed by canonical intransitive subjects (unmarked case: the nominative) and inanimate and abstract referents by e-NPs (marked case: the nominative-partitive alternation). To summarize, A and e-NP are the referentially more homogenous categories whereas S and O are used for expressing a variety of meanings. The distribution of split object marking only partly corresponds to the Referential hierarchy. The statistical distribution of differential subject-marking (if we consider all e-NPs non-canonical, O-like subjects) supports the prediction of the Referential hierarchy. The intransitive subjects of unmarked clauses have high referents and receive Alike marking, while e-NPs have low referents and receive O-like marking (often baring overtly marked case and lacking verbal agreement and prototypically having post-verbal position). The fact that the coding distinction between the unmarked clause S and existential construction’s e-NP corresponds to the predictions of the Referential hierarchy is another argument for analyzing the whole e-NP as a (non-canonical) representative of the intransitive subject category (see also Section 8).

5.3 Lexical predicate as a case-assignment factor As is typical in the languages of the world, lexical predicates and predicate classes have a significant affect on Estonian DOM. A total of 32% of the casebaring Os in the corpus have their case assigned by the predicate (see examples in Section 4.1). In the data the predicate only triggers the partitive and not the total case – this supports Vaiss’ (2004) finding that ‘partitive verbs’ are the dominant verb class in Estonian. In the rest of the data the predicate permits both object cases and at the same time, the object case depends on other factors. Among case-marked e-NPs, 2% get their (nominative) case from the predicate verb, for example:

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(55) Ristmiku poole lähene-s suur kollane kõuts. junction.GEN towards approach-PST.3SG big.NOM yellow.NOM tomcat.NOM ‘A big yellow tomcat was approaching the junction.’

5.4 Clausal properties influencing the argument case Clausal properties influencing O’s and e-NP’s case involve the predicate’s morphological form, clausal construction and aspect. This subsection discusses the corpus occurrences of all these factors. In the treatment of aspect, the combinations of how clausal and an argument’s referential properties intertwine in object case assignment will also be discussed. Aspect is a prominent influence on the object case, but not on the e-NP’s case. The interplay of the Inclusiveness hierarchy and aspect in the determination of the object case is illustrated in examples (15)–(19) in Section 4.1. In the corpus there are 54% of objects whose case is determined by the co-influence of these two factors. Out of these, two thirds of clauses have perfective aspect and only one third have imperfective aspect. The following table details how aspect and nominal inclusiveness co-determine the direct object case in the corpus. As it can be seen, the most frequent result of all these combinations is the total case object. The use of the partitive object is often determined by other factors in the data. Table 5: Aspect and quantity combinations determining the object case in the corpus (absolute numbers) Aspect and quantity

Perfective aspect Inclusive quantity

Perfective aspect Non-inclusive quantity

Imperfective aspect Inclusive quantity

Imperfective aspect Noninclusive quantity

Examples

33 (total case)

4 (partitive)

11 (partitive)

8 (partitive)

Negation is a case-assignment factor that causes partitive use in the case of both objects and e-NPs, (see example (26) in Section 4.1 and (37) in Section 4.2). In the corpus, negative clauses only constitute 10% of the sentences containing case-marked Os and 20% of the sentences containing case-marked e-NPs. The corpus does not contain other examples where the predicate verb’s form determines the argument’s case. It was not possible to study the effect of the impersonal (that requires total Os to be nominative) on the object case – the impersonal was not included in the study because it is often difficult to differentiate between the impersonal object and passive subject.

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Rätsep (1978) developed a set of verb-governed sentence patterns that, among others, contains clausal constructions that affect the case of e-NPs. The list of constructions determining e-NP’s case was examined by Nemvalts (1996) and reviewed by Metslang (2012). The influence of this factor on particular e-NPs’ marking is very rare, and one has to be cautious when distinguishing it from the influence of lexical predicates. There was only one e-NP in the data whose case was determined by a clausal construction: (56) Lauda-s looma jaoks ruumi jätku-b. stable-INE animal.GEN for space.PAR be.enough-3SG ‘There is enough space for the animal (cow) in the stable.’ (partitive object determined by the construction) Although also the use of an ‘existential partitive’ noun affects the e-NP case here (see Section 4.2), I regard the construction type the primary factor, as it would also determine the e-NP’s case if it was not an existential partitive noun (cf. example (57) and Metslang 2012). (57) Lauda-s looma jaoks heina jätku-b. stable-INE animal.GEN for hay.PAR be.enough-3SG ‘There is enough hay for the animal (cow) in the stable.’ (partitive object determined by the construction)

5.5 Interim conclusion: O’s and e-NP’s case-determining factors To conclude this section, I will present the comparison of O’s and e-NP’s casemarking motivation on the basis of the studied corpus material. Figure 2 shows the frequencies of the primary case-motivations of O and e-NP in the corpus (only case-marked arguments are considered). In the figure, the factors ‘inclusiveness unmarked’ and ‘Inclusiveness hierarchy’ both refer to the quantification-related hierarchies suggested in Section 5.1. The plural or mass noun argument’s case depends on whether the NP referent’s quantity is inclusive or non-inclusive (then the argument’s total or partitive marking depends on the Inclusiveness hierarchy) or is irrelevant (then the argument receives the total case from the Quantitative markedness hierarchy). Employing these hierarchies is useful because it allows us to compare and generalize over the case-assignment motivations of O and e-NP. These hierarchies

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Figure 2: Frequencies of O’s and e-NP’s case-assignment motivations in the corpus (absolute numbers, n = 229)

differ from the typologically widely used Referential hierarchy in that they are not (indirectly) based on the topical – non-topical opposition. Among the case-marking criteria discussed in Section 5, the most frequent case-choice factor of e-NP is the NP’s lexical properties. O’s most common case factor is the Inclusiveness hierarchy. As the more frequent case of O is the partitive, it is noteworthy that it is not the Inclusiveness hierarchy that most commonly determines O’s partitive marking in the data but the lexical predicates. In addition, in the case of O, marked quantity is always somehow combined with aspect. In the figure, the Inclusiveness hierarchy works together with aspect in the case of O. The factor ‘NP’s lexical properties’ involves the noun types ‘Existential nominatives’ and ‘Existential partitives’ in the case of e-NP and personal pronouns in the case of O. Among Os the partitive has a much more varied set of functions than the total cases, but among e-NPs both the nominative and the partitive bare several functions. Table 6 compares the significance of each case-determining factor for O and e-NP. It does not specify whether the factor determines the total or partitive case (this was already discussed above). In the case of both O and e-NP, there is usually an overlap of various case-marking motivations. The table only measures the factors that dominate over others, i.e. trigger case-marking. Only situational aspect and nominal quantity are treated as having equal influence on the object’s case and are presented as two parallel overlapping factors. When looking at this table, it must be kept in mind that the crucial precondition for the e-NP case-alternation possibility is the semantico-pragmatic EC clause type itself. I have not added ‘clause type’ in the table because it does not exactly specify which case-form the NP takes (the factor ‘constructions’ in the table is a narrower, a more specific category, cf. Sections 4.2 and 5.4).

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The table shows that there are some case motivations in the corpus that O and e-NP share and some features that they differ in. It is possible to draw the following conclusions on the basis of Table 6: – The prominent factors influencing the case of O are lexical predicates and the combination of aspect and the Inclusiveness hierarchy. The main casefactors of e-NP are lexically inherent inclusiveness of nouns and also negation. – The main case-assignment factors that are shared by the e-NP and O are negation and the Inclusiveness hierarchy. However, the former is more frequent in determining e-NP’s case, and the latter in determining O’s case. – There are factors that can determine only one argument’s case but (at least in most cases) not the other’s: the influence of lexical predicates and unmarked inclusiveness (the Quantitative markedness hierarchy). Table 6: Comparison of the dominating factors influencing object’s and e-NP’s case in the data (n = 229) Level Referential properties

No Decisive case factor 1.

inclusiveness unmarked (Quantitative markedness hierarchy)

2.

Inclusiveness hierarchy

O %

prominence

0 absent 54 prominent

3.

inclusiveness of noun lexemes

0 absent

4.

personal pronouns (SAPs)

4 insignificant

Verb’s properties

5.

lexical predicates

32 prominent

Clausal properties

6.

aspect

54 prominent

7.

negation

10 significant

8.

constructions (e.g. Rätsep 1978)

0 insignificant

e-NP % prominence 16

significant

14 significant 47 prominent 0

absent

2 insignificant 0

absent

20 prominent 1

insignificant

To put it simply, an important overall property influencing both the object’s and e-NP’s case is referential – the general quantitative inclusiveness – but it is tied to different grammatical levels and feature combinations (inherent in the lexical semantics of the noun or the verb or the situation’s/construction’s meaning; see factors 1−3, 5 and 8 in Table 6). O’s total case is caused by NP referent’s inclusive quantity that is situationally motivated (the same noun can occur expressing inclusive or non-inclusive quantity in different situations, even when complementing the same verb). Situationally motivated quantification is also a significant case-determining factor of e-NPs but lexically motivated inclusiveness is more prominent.

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To summarize, the object and e-NP largely depend on the same case-marking system that includes all the main argument realization factor levels (Dixon 1994; Witzlack-Makarevich 2011): referential and clausal factors as well as lexical predicates. However, their application has some significant differences between these arguments. In Section 5.2 I discussed the possibility of regarding e-NP as a referentially low intransitive subject (a non-canonical S argument). This idea is supported by the predictions of the Referential hierarchy hypothesis that has been suggested in typology. Section 5 has shown that e-NP’s (that could be regarded as a non-canonical intransitive subject, low S) case-marking greatly resembles that of O. This is confirmed by both the set of rules in Figure 2 and Table 6 and it also goes well with the Referential hierarchy’s predictions (I will get back to this issue in Section 8). The case-marking of O can be explained by the Referential hierarchy partly. As the hierarchy correctly predicts, there is a preference for referentially high Os (i.e. pronouns denoting SAPs) to get overt marking (the partitive) in the contexts where lower O arguments get the total case that lacks an overt morphological marker (Erelt et al. 1993: 53). However, in the case of DOM, the hierarchy predicts that the low Os are more likely to have zero-marking, but this is not true in the case of Estonian.

6 Semantics and content-related properties of partitive arguments In this section I will discuss the meaning properties of different argument types. The properties under scrutiny are discourse importance, person, number and the situation type the arguments occur in. The semantic and content-related properties’ influence on the O’s and e-NP’s case-marking will also be described. None of these features is strictly attached to specific arguments or case uses – they only characterize them statistically.

6.1 Discourse importance Language speakers express entities’ referential importance in the discourse via grammatical means (Chafe 1994: 89−91). Discourse importance concerns the number of times an entity is referred to in the text. In the following I analyze entities as discourse prominent if the text is about them and they reoccur in a protagonist role throughout the text. I regard a referent as salient, if it is referred to at least four times (often there is at least one passage about them in the texts

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studied here). They tend to be less important human participants and more central inanimate objects. Trivial participants are people, objects and abstract phenomena mentioned in the text only once or twice. Referential importance is linked to activeness: discourse inactive entities tend to have trivial importance (Chafe 1994: 89−91). Prominent participants are tracked throughout the discourse, therefore they tend to have active status (see Section 7.3). However, first they need to be introduced in the text as new entities. Sometimes trivial entities are packaged as active when they are referred to more than once. Also events can sometimes be evaluated on the scale of discourse importance (for example, in the corpus text about family relationships, getting married is a salient event). In the present corpus, the majority of discourse prominent referents occur in the unmarked clause subject (S/A) role. Salient referents are less common in the texts. Trivial discourse referents occur predominantly as Os and e-NPs (almost 69% of Os and e-NPs are trivial). In the latter Estonian is similar to Finnish where the EC’s role is also to introduce new entities in the discourse – entities that are later rarely mentioned again in the text (Helasvuo 2001: 99). Table 7 presents the distribution of discourse importance among the arguments in the corpus (the category is usually evaluated as ‘irrelevant’ in the case of clausal arguments and when the semantics of the noun is bleaching – the NP and verb are in the process of forming one semantic unit). Table 7: Distribution of discourse importance in the corpus (%) Feature value Prominent Salient Trivial Irrelevant Total (abs. No)

A

S

O

e-NP

Total (abs. No)

75 3 22 0

52 13 35 0

13 8 65 14

7 14 73 6

190 50 253 27

130

130

130

130

520

Among the objects and e-NPs, case-marking does not have a considerable correlation with discourse importance (Figure 3). Discourse prominent Os are often SAP pronouns or nouns denoting protagonists and are marked with the partitive (see (53) in Section 5.2). The unmarked way of introducing new participants in the discourse is using a nominative e-NP. Although the participants introduced by an e-NP are usually of trivial importance, a significant proportion of e-NPs are also used to mention more salient participants. An example of a discourse prominent partitive e-NP is the following (cf. Huumo and Lindström, this volume, on the comparison of such constructions in Estonian and Finnish):

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(58) Kui min-d kodu-s ei ol-nud . . . when 1 SG -PAR home-INE NEG be-PST.PTCP ‘When I was not at home. . .’ (e-NP)

Figure 3: Distribution of discourse salience with respect to case (%, n = 260)

An example of a nominative e-NP denoting a salient referent (that will be talked about in the whole paragraph) is (55), repeated here as (59): (59) Ristmiku poole lähene-s suur kollane kõuts. Junction.GEN towards approach-PST.3SG big.NOM yellow.NOM tomcat.NOM ‘A big yellow tomcat was approaching the junction.’

6.2 Person In the data, SAPs are naturally expressed by the subjects of unmarked clauses, especially by A-arguments (Figure 4). Again, O shows a slightly greater variation in the use of person category than the e-NP: among Os there also occurs reference to SAPs and Os also have a higher proportion of unspecified person reference due to the high frequency of clausal objects. Person reference does not have a clear influence on the arguments’ casemarking (Table 8).

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Figure 4: Distribution of the person category in the corpus (% n = 520)

Table 8: Distribution of the person category among case uses of O and e-NP (%) Argument

Case

O

total case partitive irrelevant total case partitive irrelevant

e-NP

1st

Total (abs. No)

2nd

3rd

Unspecified

Total (abs. No)

0 9 0 0 0 0

0 1 0 0 0 0

100 90 0 100 100 0

0 0 100 0 0 100

33 71 26 74 51 5

112

12

362

34

520

6.3 Number A and S are more uniform than the partitive-permitting arguments in their preference for singular NPs (Table 9). It is possible that O and e-NP fit better with the non-singular semantics because they are often used for referring to various trivial, inanimate entities or non-referential entities that are not singular actors of highly transitive actions like A and S arguments tend to be. Table 9: Distribution of the number category among the arguments (%) Feature value

A

S

O

e-NP

Total (abs. No)

singular plural unspecified

92 6 2

83 15 2

62 16 22

68 28 4

398 84 38

130

130

130

130

520

Total (abs. No)

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Figure 5: Distribution of number and referent types among A, S, O and e-NP (%, n = 464)

Figure 6: Number-marking of total case and partitive Os and e-NPs (%, n = 229)

When looking at A, S, O and e-NP together, the singular constitutes about 77% and plural about 16% of all arguments. The plural is most commonly used with inanimate concrete entities (see Figure 5). The more frequent case among both singular and plural Os is the partitive. Among singular and plural e-NPs it is the nominative (Figure 6). Hence number marking follows the frequency-wise unmarked case of both arguments. Table 10 presents how the number category combines with the referential properties among Os and e-NPs in the data.

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Table 10: Distribution of referential properties among singular and plural arguments (n = 258; % of all Os and % of all e-NPs)12 Argument

Coding

O

e-NP

SAP

person

con-crete

abstract

event

nonreferential

Total (abs. No)

singular plural irrelevant

6

7 1

13 4

24 10 2

8 1 1

4

81 20 29

singular plural irrelevant

1

42 9

5 1

2 5

9 12

19 7 4

87 36 5

The table gives the percentage of all referent types among Os and e-NPs. For example, 6% of Os are singular SAPs. The cells with the value 0% have been left empty. In the data, reference to concrete and abstract entities is common in the singular and plural of both arguments. The following examples show the use of concrete Os and e-NPs in the singular and plural (I repeat examples (20) from Section 4.1 and (31) from Section 4.2 as (60) and (63) here). (60) Leid-si-n väljapääsu. find-PST-1SG exit.GEN ‘I found an exit.’ (concrete singular O) (61) Kraaving võtt-is prillid ja kissita-s Kraaving.NOM take-PST.3SG glasses.NOM.PL and squint-PST.3SG min-d lühinägelikult. I-PAR short-sightedly ‘Kraaving took his glasses (off) and squinted at me short-sightedly.’ (concrete plural O) (62) Silla taha kogune-s rämpsu. bridge.GEN behind gather-PST.3SG litter.PAR ‘Litter was gathering behind the bridge.’ (concrete singular e-NP) (63) Selle-l kase-l on juba lehe-d. This-ADE birch-ADE be.3 already leaf-NOM.PL ‘This birch has leaves already.’ (adapted from Vilkuna 1992: 61.) (concrete plural e-NP)

12 The category ‘non-human animates’ has been left out due to a very small number of examples.

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The following set exemplifies how abstract Os and e-NPs are used in the singular and plural (I repeat examples (54) from Section 5.2 and (36) from Section 4.2 as (65) and (66) here). (64) Silvia sa-i kuul-da meie aja tavaloo. Silvia.NOM get-PST.3SG hear-INF our.GEN time.GEN typical.story.GEN ‘Silvia was told a typical story of our time.’ Lit. ‘Silvia got to hear a typical story of our time.’ (abstract singular O) (65) Ihka-si-n uus-i aeg-u. yearn-PST-1SG new-PAR.PL time-PAR.PL ‘I desired that the times would change.’ Lit ‘I desired new times.’ (abstract plural O) (66) Ja korraga torka-s mu-lle pähe veider mõte. and suddenly strike-PST.3SG 1 SG -ALL head.ILL strange.NOM thought.NOM ‘And suddenly I got this strange idea.’ Lit. ‘And suddenly stroke into my head a strange idea.’ (abstract singular e-NP) (67) Korrapealt hakka-vad vaimukuse-d ta suu-st lenda-ma. immediately start-3PL retort-NOM.PL 3 SG .GEN mouth-ELA fly-INF ‘Immediately, retorts start flying from his mouth.’ (abstract plural e-NP) Event reference occurs more with singular Os and e-NPs: (68) Näg-i-n selle-s märguanne-t. see-PST-1SG this-INE message-PAR ‘I saw a message in it.’ (singular O denoting an event) (69) Tagatoa-st kost-is köhimis-t. back.room-ELA sound-PST.3SG coughing-PAR ‘One could hear coughing in the back room.’ Lit. ‘There sounded coughing in the back room.’ (singular e-NP denoting an event) Non-SAP person reference tends to occur as singular O and as plural e-NP, see example (7) in Section 2 and (120) in Section 7.4 respectively. To conclude, the selection of referent types is extremely heterogeneous among both argument types. The variation is larger in the singular than plural. No case-specific conclusions can be made on the use of the singular and plural among referent types because the number of representatives in each group is too small.

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Figure 7: The relationship between the number category and O’s case motivations (%, n = 104)

Figure 8: The relationship between the number category and e-NP’s case motivations (%, n = 125)

Case use motivations of the partitive-permitting argument types (O and e-NP) as outlined in Sections 4 and 5, are also more varied among singular Os and e-NPs than among the plural ones (see Figures 7 and 8). This is possibly due to the higher frequency of singular arguments in the corpus. However, there are also notable differences in the proportions of how different case motivations between the singular and plural Os and e-NPs are distributed. Plural Os’ casemarking is determined by the Inclusiveness hierarchy and lexical predicates. The case of singular Os also depends in addition to these factors on negation and noun lexemes. Singular e-NPs’ case mainly depends on the inclusiveness of noun lexemes and negation. The main factors determining the case-marking of plural e-NPs are the Quantitative markedness hierarchy (i.e. the NPs are unmarked for inclusiveness and therefore in the nominative) and the Inclusiveness hierarchy.

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6.4 Situation type To find out whether partitive-permitting arguments and partitive NPs have any preferences for situation types, I evaluated every sentence in the data against the Vendlerian verb classes (based on Vendler 1967). The four basic verb classes are determined as follows. States depict static situations which are inherently temporally unbounded (atelic), and both achievements and accomplishments express changes of state, which are inherently temporally bounded (telic): achievements are instantaneous, while accomplishments are not. Activities are dynamic, inherently temporally unbounded (atelic), states of affairs (Van Valin 2005: 32).

On the basis of Van Valin (2005), I have also included two additional event types in the analysis: semelfactives that are punctual events which have no result state and active accomplishments that are the telic (aspectually bounded, perfective) use of activity verbs. The difference between accomplishments and active accomplishments is that active accomplishments can be modified by adverbs like violently, vigorously, actively, strongly and energetically but accomplishments cannot (Van Valin 2005: 33). Instead of only analyzing the lexical meaning of the verb, I have looked at the whole situation depicted in the clause. The aspectual interpretation of the clause is the composition of verb semantics on the one hand and contextual material on the other (cf. discussion on this topic in Dowty 1979: 61ff. and in Huumo 2010). This is particularly the case in Estonian – a language that lacks overt aspect marking on the verb and where object case and various perfectivizing or durative adverbials and particles are used for marking the aspect of the situation (Erelt et al. 1993: 25; Vaiss 2004: 12–14). In the following I will measure the arguments’ occurrence in the situation types across the corpus. The examples are meant to clarify how the sentences have been categorized. Figure 9 shows the distribution of the situation types among the unmarked intransitive and transitive clauses and the ECs in the corpus. When looking at the figure and the rest of the data of this subsection, caution must be applied as these results are characteristic of the particular corpus texts studied. Other texts, genres and modes of communication are likely to give different results. In the corpus, intransitive clauses and ECs depict all situation types and also transitive clauses occur with all situation types but accomplishments. Most transitive and intransitive clauses express achievements, activities and states in the corpus, ECs tend to denote states and activities where the existential meaning component is foregrounded (see Table 11 and examples at the end of this subsection).

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Figure 9: Distribution of situation types among clause types (% of all transitive and intransitive clauses and ECs, n = 390)

Table 11: Distribution of situation types in the corpus (%, n = 390) Situation type

Transitive Intransitive

EC

Example Only Renke said “I am sorry”. (1)

semelfactive

73

23

4

achievement

48

37

15

active accomplishment

48

43

9

activity

40

35

25

I was thinking my own thoughts. (84)

state

15

28

57

These have interested me before. (71)

0

53

47

(My) fitness stabilized. (70)

accomplishment

I pulled myself together. (85) The housemaster registered Peeter. (24)

(70) Mänguvorm stabiliseeru-s. fitness.NOM stabilize-PST.3SG ‘(My) fitness stabilized.’ (intransitive clause expressing an accomplishment) Total case Os primarily occur in achievement situations (55% of all total case Os) and partitive case Os in activities (46% of all partitive Os). Nominative and partitive e-NPs mostly appear in states (50% and 76% respectively). Nominative e-NPs – the larger and more versatile e-NP group – often also occur in activities (30%), achievements (12%) and accomplishments (8%). One possible explanation for this distribution among both Os and e-NPs is in Hopper and Thompson’s (1980) transitivity parameters. In their set of transi-

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Figure 10: Combinations of the most common referent and situation types (%, n = 517)13

tivity parameters, among other properties, the following parameters are correlated: aspect (one of the semantic bases of situation types), kinesis (action vs. non-action) and affectedness (marked by the total case – partitive alternation in Estonian). Also in the current corpus, in the case of O total affectedness (marked with a total case) correlates with perfective aspect (achievement situations). These situations can be regarded as highly transitive. In the context of lower transitivity, partial affectedness (non-inclusive quantity, marked with the partitive case) correlates with imperfective aspect (activities). It is also possible to draw some parallels with ECs, although ECs differ in many respects from the transitive clause and from the A and O arguments discussed by Hopper and Thompson. e-NPs that are only partially affected by or involved in the situation (non-inclusive quantity, marked by the partitive) occur more often in states (the non-action situation type). In ECs the situation type is also correlated with the polarity parameter touched upon by Hopper and Thompson. Affirmative clauses are higher on the transitivity scale than negative clauses (ibid.). In the data, 84% of negative clause e-NPs and only 48% of affirmative clause e-NPs occur in states. The most common referent types (SAPs and other humans, concrete and abstract entities) occur most frequently in the most common event types – states, activities and achievements (see Figure 10). States as low transitivity situations are strongly dominated by abstract referents. Possibly due to the content of the corpus texts (frequent discussions about emotional, mental and cognitive states), reference to SAPs occurs in states more often than reference to non-SAP humans. In the rest of this section I will concen13 To keep the figure simpler, the 3 occurrences of non-human animates have not been indicated.

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221

trate on states, activities and achievements that either contain O or e-NP and compare the use of these arguments with the unmarked clause subjects. About 74% of the core argument referents in these situation types are SAPs, humans and abstract entities. Other referent types are distributed more diversely throughout the corpus. States. The most common referent types in states are abstract entities (49% of 165 examples) and SAPs (16%). More typical uses of the partitive SAPs involve cognitive and emotional states where the experiencer is mapped to the object relation (71). SAPs also occur in negative existential constructions, see (58) in Section 6.1, repeated here as (72). (71) Nee-d ol-i-d min-d varem=gi huvita-nud. these-NOM.PL be-PST-3PL 1 SG -PAR earlier=CL interest-PST.PTCP ‘These had interested me before.’ (O, experiential construction) (72) Kui min-d kodu-s ei ol-nud . . . when 1 SG -PAR home-INE NEG be-PST.PTCP ‘When I was not at home. . .’ (e-NP) Abstract O, e-NP and A are commonly present as stimuli of mental, cognitive states. O and e-NP can occur both in the total and the partitive case, see example (65) in Section 6.3 and (73)−(74). (73) Su-l on õigus. 2SG-ADE be.3 right.NOM ‘You are right.’ (e-NP) (74) See teg-i ta-lle mure-t. this.NOM do-PST.3SG 3 SG -ALL worry-PAR ‘This worried him.’ (A) Abstract entities typically appear in equative and attributional constructions (in O and S relations). See example (75) and also example (52) in Section 5.2, repeated here as (76). (75) Nähtavasti kujuta-n enda-st teis-t äärmus-t. seemingly represent-1SG self-ELA other-PAR extreme-PAR ‘Seemingly I represent another extreme. Lit. ‘Seemingly I represent from myself another extreme.’ (O)

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(76) Üllatusefekt meeskonna-s ol-i suur. surprise.effect.NOM team-INE be-PST.3SG big.NOM ‘The surprise effect in the team was big.’ (S) Abstract e-NP referents are often found in both locative and possessive constructions ((77) and (78) respectively), S and e-NP are also frequent in various other abstract relations (see (79) for an S). (77) . . . ilma et ta näo-s kübe-t=ki kadedus-t ole-ks. without that 3 SG .GEN face-INE particle-PAR=CL envy-PAR be-COND ‘. . .without him having a hint of envy in his face.’ (e-NP) (78) Aga see viga on mu-l juba taadi-lt. but this.NOM flaw.NOM be.3 1 SG -ADE already old.man-ABL ‘But I already have this flaw from my old man.’ (e-NP)14 (79) See ei tähenda. this.NOM NEG matter ‘This does not matter.’ (S) e-NPs can also appear in states conceptualized as (pseudo) events: (80) Ärevus-t pid-i kusagilt mujalt kiirga-ma. anxiety-PAR must-PST.3SG from.somewhere from.elsewhere radiate-INF ‘Anxiety had to be coming (radiating) from elsewhere.’ (e-NP, metaphoric use of a predicate with emanation semantics)

14 I consider this sentence as a marginal EC because the referent of the e-NP is one of the two referents introduced in the narrative by this sentence. Although the actions/situations that reflect this character trait that the NP viga (flaw) denotes were discussed in the preceding context, they are referred to as events (an activity and a state: a row and not knowing something) there and not as to properties. The speaker’s judgment that these activities reflect this particular character trait, is new in the discourse. Cf. the extract from a novel depicting 19th century Estonian village life and the relations between wealthy estate-owner overlords and village people: The guest told them the story about his family – the old man and his sisters. The family rented one house after another in different manor estates but did not stay anywhere for long. He said, every time ended with a row between them and the estate owner. − “Probably you just didn’t know how to live your life then, “Leena said. − “Probably not. We probably didn’t know how to bow down deep enough before the lords although this was expected of us. But I already have this flaw from my old man and probably it cannot be cured anymore.” (Translation − HM)

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(81) Tema pilgu-st voola-s armastus-t. 3 SG .GEN gaze-ELA flow-PST.3SG love-PAR ‘There was love flowing from his gaze.’ (e-NP) Activities. The most frequent NP referents in activities are non-SAP humans (28% of 145 activity clauses in the corpus, see for instance A in (82) and O in example (7) in Section 2) and SAPs (27%, see e.g. A in example (7) in Section 2 and S in (83)). 20% of activities involve abstract referents, see example (82). (82) Relli teosta-s oma poliitika-t vankumatult. Relli.NOM implement-PST.3SG own.GEN policy.PAR steadily ‘Relli implemented his policy steadily.’ (activity with a non-SAP human A and an abstract O) (83) Sina treeni-d, kui mõni teine ei treeni. 2 SG .NOM practice-2SG when some.NOM other.NOM NEG practice ‘You practice when some others do not.’ (activity with a SAP S) Abstract referents often occur in cognitive and emotional activities – in O and e-NP positions: (84) Mõtle-si-n om-i mõtte-i-d. think-PST-1SG own-PAR.PL thought-PL-PAR ‘I was thinking my own thoughts.’ (O) Achievements. Referents high in the Referential hierarchy – SAPs and other humans – often occur in events high in transitivity: they constitute 31% and 23% of all achievements respectively. (85) Võt-si-n ennas-t kokku. take-PST-1SG oneself-PAR together ‘I pulled myself together.’ (SAP in the O position) (86) Treener kisku-s valu-st kõvera-sse. coach.NOM double.up-PST.3SG pain-ELA doubled.up.position-ILL ‘The coach doubled up in pain.’ (a human referent in the S position) Abstract entities constitute 24% of achievements. The abstract entities that are mapped in S, O and e-NP positions in achievements tend to occur in cognitive and emotional processes.

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(87) Tema jutu-st läk-s mu-l enamik kaotsi. 3 SG .GEN talk-ELA go-PST.3SG 1 SG -ADE majority.NOM missing ‘The majority of his talk was lost on me.’ (S) (88) Siis tekki-s ähmane lootuskiir. then occur-PST.3SG hazy.NOM ray.of.hope.NOM ‘Then a hazy ray of hope appeared.’ (e-NP) (89) See ol-i avalda-nud ta-lle mulje-t. this.NOM be-PST.3SG make-PST.PTCP 3 SG -ALL impression-PAR ‘This had impressed him.’ (O) There are no examples of the use of partitive abstract e-NPs in achievements. In sentences with infinitival constructions it is often the lighter finite verb that gives the situation the achievement meaning, see examples (64) and (67) in Section 6.3.

7 Message packaging of core arguments The message packaging phenomena include the following methods of formulating the meaning: the given-new opposition, focus of contrast, definite-indefinite opposition, subject and topic. These categories are used for representing the individual whose point of view the speaker is taking while speaking or with whom the speaker empathizes (Chafe 1976: 28), see also Section 1. I have selected for discussion the distribution of four pragmatics-related properties: phrase weight and word order (as means of expression that strongly correlate with topicality; cf. Lindström 2005 on Estonian), discourse activeness (a notion preferred to givenness, also called discourse activation) and definiteness. I will also compare the message packaging features of the partitive arguments to the arguments in the total case.

7.1 Phrase weight Syntactic weight means the complexity of clausal elements and it shows in their length; it is one of the factors co-influencing Estonian word order (Lindström 2005: 23−24). This subsection points out general tendencies how phrase weight is distributed among different arguments, cases and referent types in the corpus. In the analysis, the arguments are ordered as follows: (90)

ZERO -ANAPHORA > PRONOUN > BARE NOUN > FULL NP > HEAVY PHRASE

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Figure 11: Distribution of phrase weight among argument types (% of all A, S, O and e-NP arguments, n = 520)

Zero anaphora is the wide-spread tendency across languages to leave out topical arguments (Bickel 2010: 420). In the following, zero-anaphora is regarded as the lightest possible way of coding an argument whereas heavy phrase is the heaviest and most complex option. Phrases consisting of more than two words are regarded as heavy here. They include NPs, VPs and clauses (mainly direct speech, reported speech or relative clauses). Medium weight elements of the clause – phrases consisting of one or two words where usually the (head) noun is preceded by an adjective, determiner or a quantifier – are analyzed as full NPs. Most often the arguments in the corpus have medium weight coding (bare nouns and full NPs, 46% of 520 arguments), 33% of the arguments have pronominal coding (zero anaphora, pronoun) and 21% heavy coding. Among A and S arguments 84% and 80% are respectively marked by zero anaphora, pronouns or bare nouns. It is less common among O (45%) and e-NPs arguments (40%), see Figure 11. The typical phrase weights of O and e-NP – bare nouns and full NPs – are expectedly more prone to partitive use in the corpus than NPs of other weight (Table 12). Table 12: Case-marking of different weight A, S, O and e-NP (%) Phrase weight

Total case

Partitive

Irrelevant

pronoun bare noun full NP heavy phrase

75 65 65 53

25 35 35 18

0 0 0 29

Total

64

29

7

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Figure 12: Distribution of phrase weight between differently marked arguments (%, n = 260)

Among both Os and e-NPs heavier arguments occur more often as non-nominal arguments or in the argument’s frequency-wise unmarked case (Figure 12). Only A and S are coded by zero anaphora in the corpus, see example (103) below. I did not find any clear examples of zero marking among objects and e-NPs in the data. Pronouns always occur in the nominative in the unmarked clause subject position (91) and if in the object position, they are mostly in the partitive (17 out of 19 occurrences, see (92) and (85) in Section 6.4). Hence the personal pronouns demonstrate clear-cut accusative alignment in the corpus (see Helasvuo 2001: 40−64 on Finnish). Among e-NPs the there was only one pronominal use in the corpus, see example (72) in Section 6.4. (91) Mina aga imesta-si-n, mis. . . 1 SG .NOM but wonder-PST-1SG what ‘But I was wondering, what. . .’ (pronoun as S) (92) Komandant kirjuta-s min-d sisse. commandant.NOM write-PST.3SG 1 SG -PAR in ‘The commandant registered me.’ (pronoun as O) Bare nouns are especially common among e-NPs and also among Ss and Os. They occur slightly more often in the partitive than in the total case both as an O and an e-NP (61% of all bare noun Os and 56% of all bare noun e-NPs). See (93) for a total case bare noun O, (89) in Section 6.4 for a partitive bare noun O

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and (73) and (80) from Section 6.4 for a for a nominative and partitive bare noun e-NP, repeated here as (94) and (95). (93) Ta murd-is jalaluu. 3 SG .NOM break-PST.3SG leg.bone.GEN ‘S/he broke his leg bone.’ (bare noun O in the total case) (94) Su-l on õigus. 2SG-ADE be.3 right.NOM ‘You are right.’ (bare noun e-NP in the total case) (95) Ärevus-t pid-i kusagilt mujalt kiirga-ma. anxiety-PAR must-PST.3SG from.somewhere from.elsewhere radiate-INF ‘Anxiety had to be coming (radiating) from somewhere else.’ (bare noun e-NP in the partitive) Why the case distribution of bare noun e-NPs does not reflect e-NP’s general preference for the nominative has possibly to do with word order and polarity issues. The number of clause-final nominative and partitive bare noun e-NPs is similar in the corpus (20 and 19 occurrences respectively). However, the preverbal position (i.e. the non-neutral position for e-NP), as in example (95), is favored by the partitive bare nouns (10 partitive vs. 2 nominative occurrences). The higher frequency of partitive bare noun e-NPs is mainly caused by the focusing strategy of the predicate verb in negative ECs: (96) Antti-t pol-nud näh-a. Antti-PAR NEG.be-PST.PTCP see-INF ‘(I) couldn’t see Antti.’ Lit. ‘Antti was not visible.’ (preverbal bare noun e-NP in a negative clause) There is also a small number of different frequent EC-like constructions with frozen bare-noun e-NPs: (97) Tegemis-t on huvitava isiksuse-ga. dealing-PAR be.3 interesting.GEN personality-COM ‘Here we are dealing with an interesting personality (He is an interesting personality).’ Full NPs are less common among A and S and more common among O and e-NP. Above all, full NPs occur as total case Os; the distribution of full NPs

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among the nominative and partitive e-NPs is equal in the corpus, see the following examples. (98) Vastu kevade-t otsi-s Kraaving mu-lle before spring-PAR search-PST.3SG Kraaving.NOM 1 SG -ALL omaette toa. private room.GEN ‘Before spring, Kraaving found me a private room.’ (full NP, total case O) (99) Vaene papa keera-b haua-s teis-t külge. poor.NOM grandfather.NOM turn-3SG grave-INE other-PAR side.PAR ‘Poor grandfather is turning (the other side) in his grave.’ (full NP, partitive O) (100) Mingi-d võime-d ta-l igatahes ol-i-d. some-NOM.PL skill-NOM.PL 3 SG -ADE anyway be-PST-3PL ‘He definitely did have some (supernatural) skills.’ (full NP, total case e-NP) (101) . . .ilma et ta näo-s kübe-t=ki kadedus-t ole-ks. without that 3 SG .GEN face-INE particle-PAR=CL envy-PAR be-COND ‘. . . without him having a hint of envy in his face.’ (full NP, partitive e-NP) Heavy phrases have a strong tendency to occur as O and e-NP (see (106) in Section 7.2 and (103) for a total case and a partitive O and (104) for a total case e-NP and (105) for a partitive e-NP). Heavy phrases are more commonly nominative e-NPs and non-nominal Os that have no case-marking. (102) Silvia sa-i kuul-da meie aja tavaloo. Silvia.NOM get-PST.3SG hear-INF 1 PL .GEN time.GEN typical.story.GEN ‘Silvia was told a typical story of our time.’ Lit. ‘Silvia got to hear a typical story of our time.’ (total case heavy O) (103) Tund-si-n vaid üha kasva-va-t pinge-t, feel-PST-1SG just progressively grow-PTCP-PAR tension-PAR ärevus-t, hirmu=gi. anxiety-PAR fear.PAR=CL ‘I felt progressively growing tension, anxiety and even fear.’ (partitive heavy O)

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(104) Ristmiku poole lähene-s suur kollane junction.GEN towards approach-PST.3SG big.NOM yellow.NOM kõuts. tomcat.NOM ‘A big yellow tomcat was approaching the junction.’ (total case heavy e-NP) (105) Mu-l pol-nud erilis-t usku, et 1 SG -ADE NEG.be-PST.PTCP particular-PAR belief.PAR that see ilmu-b. it.NOM come.out-3SG ‘I did not have particular belief in it coming out (getting published).’ (partitive heavy e-NP) Unlike in the case of other phrase weights, the proportion of nominative heavy phrases among e-NPs (as opposed to partitive heavy phrase e-NPs) is higher than the general proportion of nominative uses among e-NPs. This might be due to the partitive’s general function of marking non-inclusive quantity. If an EC is used for presenting a complex referent in the discourse (in the form a long multiword phrase), adding more complexity to the clause by the use of grammatical quantity reference (non-inclusive quantity) may be undesirable. Also, most of the nouns belonging to the group ‘existential partitives’ (see Section 4.2) occur as bare nouns in the data. The lower the referent is in the Referential hierarchy the more likely it is to be marked by a heavy phrase in the corpus (Table 13; to keep the table simpler, the few non-human animate examples have been left out). Table 13: Distribution of Referential hierarchy properties between phrases of different weight (%, n = 517) Weight/Semantics

SAP

person

concrete

abstract

event

non-referential

zero-anaphora

70

10

0

0

0

0

pronoun

29

23

0

6

22

0

bare noun

0

38

62

35

25

29

full NP

1

15

25

32

28

0

heavy phrase

0

14

13

27

25

71

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7.2 Word order The most frequent word orders in written Estonian are SVX and XVS (25% and 24% of clauses respectively; Tael 1988: 6).15 One of the most important factors influencing Estonian word order is information structure, i.e. givenness of clause constituents and also the degree of focus (Lindström 2005: 185). This is especially the case in the second half of the clause whereas in the beginning of the clause syntactic factors also play an important role (Tael 1990: 37). Namely, Estonian word order is strongly influenced by the V2-rule (i.e. the verb comes second rule; Huumo 2002: 502; Tael 1988: 40) which determines the subject position and overrides the tendencies based on the inherent properties of the subject that may suggest some other position in the clause; it thus sets a frame and inside it pragmatic tendencies can work (Huumo 2002: 502). Omission of the subject-verb inversion causes ungrammatical or strongly emphatic word order (Huumo 1993: 152). Huumo also summarizes the two textual bases of subjectverb inversion (XVS word order) caused by the V2-rule: – inversion is caused by the subject’s properties: untypical, heavy subjects are postponed; – some verbal complement or adjunct is topicalized in the beginning of the clause, the verb remains in the second position and the subject’s position is post-verbal (inversion caused by topicalization). The topicalized entity could be an adverbial, object or predicate nominal. The neutral word order in ECs is XVS. Direct order (SV) is usually non-neutral in ECs, being caused by emphatic or contrastive stress or by text linking. In rare cases, direct order is the neutral order of ECs, see example (96) in Section 7.1. This subsection compares the arguments under discussion according to their word order preferences. It will: – look at the distribution of word order types among A, S, O and e-NP; – look at the distribution of word order types among total case and partitive Os and e-NPs; – discuss the possible correlations that word order might show with other argument properties. On the basis of Huumo (1993) the following categories were formulated for analyzing the arguments’ position. – Neutral direct order – SV order dominating in the unmarked clause type (see Section 3). The clause is neutral and no topicalization or focusing is taking place, see examples (93) in Section 7.1 for an unmarked clause and (96) for an EC. 15 In Tael’s treatment, S (subject) involves A, S and e-NP.

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– –

–

–

–

Neutral inversion – VS order occurring in typical ECs. The clause is neutral and no topicalization or focusing is taking place, see (88) in Section 6.4. Inversion (topicalization) – VS order occurring in the unmarked clause type in the corpus (see examples below). The subject is located after the verb due to the transition of an adverbial, object or predicative from its neutral position to the sentence-initial position. The clause can be neutral or emphatic. Inversion (subject postponing) – VS order occurring in the unmarked clause type. The subject occurs after the verb because it is heavy or unprototypical. The clause can be neutral or emphatic. Direct order (topicalization) – SV order occurring in ECs and unmarked clauses. The subject is before the verb due to the transition of an e-NP or unmarked clause subject from its neutral position to the sentence-initial position. The clause can be neutral or emphatic. Direct order (focusing) – SV order occurring in ECs. The verb (phrase) or other element has been given prominence by moving it to the clause-final position. The clause can be neutral or emphatic.

In the corpus, in about 80% of the cases the sentences follow the neutral word order where the clause has no topicalization or focusing. Information structural alternations in the subject-predicate order are relatively rare. Table 14 presents the comparison of word order choices in the three clause types in the corpus. Table 14: Distribution of subject-verb order in intransitive, transitive and existential clauses (%)16 Feature value neutral direct order inversion (topicalization) inversion (subject postponing) neutral inversion direct order (topicalization) direct order (focusing) Total (abs. No)

Intransitive

Transitive

Existential

Total (abs. No)

84 15 1 0 0 0

80 18 1 0 1 0

5 0 0 83 8 4

219 41 4 108 12 6

130

130

130

About 80% of Os and e-NPs occur in sentences with different word order configurations. In the case of O this is direct and in the case of e-NP, inverse order. The neutral word order of the clause type dominates with both total and partitive case O and e-NP. The size of the corpus does not allow for more detailed

16 The clauses with zero-anaphora are marked as having neutral word order.

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analysis of the other word order types. In the following, I will present examples of the topicalization and focusing in the data. When time adverbials are topicalized, V2-rule causes inversion in transitive and intransitive clauses, see example (98) in Section 7.1. Heavy A and S arguments cause inversion due to subject postponing. (106) Sõna-d luge-s Ø peale keskealine word-NOM.PL read-PST.3SG (we.ALL) on middle-aged.NOM tüse naisterahvas. voluptuous.NOM woman.NOM ‘A middle-aged voluptuous woman did the reading (in the wedding ceremony). Lit. ‘A middle-aged voluptuous woman read the words on (us).’ (transitive clause, subject postponing) When an e-NP is topicalized, non-neutral direct order is common. In the corpus, the topicalized e-NPs usually have abstract referents, see example (100) in Section 7.1. Also in negative ECs the word order is often direct: e-NP – verb – locative phrase. These sentences support Vilkuna’s (1989: 164) claims (on Finnish but also applicable to Estonian) that although the predicates of ECs usually do not bare new information of the clause they sometimes do bare polarity-new information. I analyze these examples as direct word order with focusing, see example (72) in Section 6.4. In the data, almost all referent and situation types and even phrase weight types occur with the most frequent word order types. The less frequent word order types are too rare in the current corpus to show their possible correlations with phrase weight or other properties.

7.3 Discourse activeness One of the features chosen for the pragmatic analysis of the argument types under scrutiny is discourse activeness which relates to the notions of ‘given/ old’ and ‘new’ information. According to Lambrecht (1994), activeness and identifiability are pragmatic categories that can be applied to (nominal) referents, unlike for example topic that is a relation of aboutness between a proposition and a discourse entity. Topicality is often not uniformly retraceable to single lexical items and therefore harder to take into account in this study. In Lambrecht’s treatment (1994: 76–115) activeness concerns discourse referents that the speaker assumes being identifiable (stored in the addressee’s mind). The speaker assesses these referents being in one of the three activation

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states at the time of the speech act: active, inactive or accessible (semi-active). Active referents are the ones that are in a person’s focus of consciousness at a given moment in time. He finds that the clearest evidence for assumed activeness is pronominal coding (pronouns, inflectional or zero coding). Inactive referents are usually coded by phonologically accented lexical phrases. Accessibility means potential for easy activation due to text-internal or text-external factors (situational or inferential factors). When referents are presented as accessible, the sentence’s presupposition structure conveys a request to the addressee to draw certain inferences, which are necessary to arrive at the correct interpretation of the referent. Phrases with accessible referents do not have direct phonological or morphological coding devices but they may be indirectly expressed by syntactic means (ibid.). Cross-linguistically, some coding devices, for example zero anaphora, signal maximal referential continuity ((topical) rementions in the discourse). Others, like stressed pronouns, full lexical nouns, signal referential discontinuity (Givón 2001: 463). Some grammatical relations are better suited than others for expressing certain activation states, for example for introducing new referents into discourse (e.g. Helasvuo 2001: 90−93). Evaluating the corpus from the viewpoint of discourse activeness is a difficult and inevitably somewhat subjective task as sets of contextual word (and phrase) meanings are far from uniform. Some of the principles that I used for making decisions are the following. The analysis of activeness only focuses on referential arguments. The activation status of propositions, events and nominal parts of some more or less opaque multi-word verbs has not been analyzed (the value ‘irrelevant’, see also Section 5.2). For example: (107) Mõni nädal hiljem sa-i komandant a.few.NOM week.NOM later get-PST.3SG commandant.NOM haisu ninna. odor.GEN nose.ILL ‘A few weeks later the commandant found out about it.’ Lit. ‘A few weeks later the commandant got the odor (of the secret) in his nose.’ (the activeness status of O is irrelevant) How long an entity stays activated in the discourse depends on several factors, for example on how many sentences there have been in the text after the last mention of the entity (Chafe 1994: 33). I consider entities that were last mentioned no more than five sentences earlier ‘active’.17 I analyze a referent (inferentially) accessible when it is part of the ‘schema’ prompted by an active referent 17 See also (Huumo 2002) on this kind of analysis on Finnish and Estonian written language.

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(c.f. e.g. Lambrecht 1994: 99). For example in a text where a steam engine has been mentioned, the referent steam is accessible. In a text where a participant (person) has been mentioned, his clothes and body parts are accessible, see example (99) in Section 7.1. I do not regard mental states as accessible – although they can also be seen as a part of a human being, they are too numerous to be readily accessible when a human referent is activated in the discourse), see (76) in Section 6.4. I treat a subgroup of referents, the generics, together with other unspecific entities under ‘reference to a category’ classification (see the next subsection). Generics can be both new and old information (Erteschik-Shir 2007: 9), see examples (108) and (109) for inactive generic or other ‘category reference’. (108) Alati on süüdi naine. always be.3 guilty woman.NOM ‘The woman is always guilty.’ (generic S, inactive in the discourse, category reference) (109) Jutu vahele mäng-is neli rauka viiuli-t. talking.GEN between play-PST.3SG four.NOM elderly.person.PAR violin-PAR ‘Between the speeches four elderly people played violin.’ (unspecific O, inactive in the discourse, category reference) In the data, the subject position is rather used for referring to active entities in the discourse (see Table 15). O is used for referring to a variety of referents; however, most Os have referents that are inactive in the discourse. The primary function of the EC is presenting new referents in the discourse and therefore other activeness states are quite rare in this position. Referring to accessible referents is the least common strategy and this kind of entities can occur in several roles. Table 15: Referents’ state of activeness (%, n = 520). Feature value

A

S

O

e-NP

active accessible inactive irrelevant

80 6 12 2

67 10 21 2

16 14 45 25

4 8 77 11

130

130

130

130

Total (abs. No)

For example, active arguments were used in the S and O positions in the data as follows (I repeat example (83) of Section 6.4 as (110) here).

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(110) Sina treeni-d, kui mõni teine ei treeni. 2 SG .NOM practice-2SG when some.NOM other.NOM NEG practice ‘You practice when some others do not.’ (active S) (111) “Ma saan kõigest aru,” ütles treener pika vaikimise järel. (. . .) Kraaving teg-i uuesti mõtlemispausi. Kraaving.NOM make-PST.3SG again thinking.pause.GEN ‘“I fully understand,” the coach said after a long silence. (. . .) Kraaving paused again for thinking.’ Lit. ‘. . . Kraaving made again a thinking pause.’ (active O) In the earlier context of (111) (four sentences earlier), the character was already said to have made a pause in the discussion. The transitive clause under scrutiny refers to him making a thinking pause again. The type reference to a pause as such is still active although the particular referent (the second pause) is new. Active e-NPs occurred in negation or doubt contexts in the corpus (I will repeat example (96) of Section 7.1 here). (112) Antti-t pol-nud näh-a. Antti-PAR NEG.be-PST.PTCP see-INF ‘(I) couldn’t see Antti.’ Lit. ‘Antti was not visible.’ (active e-NP) Most of the accessible entities are in the S and O role and they are inanimate. Sometimes A and e-NP are also packaged this way, see examples (113)−(114), as well as (99) from Section 7.1 and (87) from Section 6.4, repeated as (115) and (116) here. (113) Tema hääl väljenda-s siiras-t imestus-t. 3 SG .GEN voice.NOM express-PST.3SG genuine-PAR surprise-PAR ‘His voice was expressing genuine surprise.’ (inferentially accessible A) (114) Seintest ja põrandast imbusid minuni avaldused teistest eludest. Viienda-lt korruse-lt kost-is kumeda-i-d helikatke-i-d. fifth-ELA floor-ELA sound-PST.3SG dull-PL-PAR sound.fragment-PL-PAR ‘There were expressions of other lives filtering to me through the walls and the floor. From the fifth floor there could be heard some dull sound fragments.’ (textually accessible e-NP)

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Figure 13: Discourse activeness status of different referential properties (%, n = 464)

(115) Vaene papa keera-b haua-s teis-t külge. poor.NOM grandfather.NOM turn-3SG grave-INE other-PAR side.PAR ‘Poor grandfather is turning (the other side) in his grave.’ (inferentially accessible O) (116) Tema jutu-st läk-s mu-l enamik kaotsi. 3 SG .GEN talk-ELA go-PST.3SG 1 SG -ADE majority.NOM missing ‘The majority of his talk was lost on me.’ (inferentially accessible S) From the point of view of reference to inactive entities in the discourse, O and e-NP radically differ from A and S, as it is their most common activeness status. See examples (67) from Section 6.3 and (98) from Section 7.1 for an inactive e-NP and O. Among all the arguments in the corpus, the higher the referent is in the Referential hierarchy the more likely it is discourse active. Most of human referents in the corpus are active. Concrete and abstract entities are usually inactive. There is also a higher proportion of inactive than active events (Figure 13; compare with Figure 1 in Section 5.2 for the allocation of reference types among argument roles). The differences between the use of the total and the partitive case especially concern the activeness status of events and non-SAP humans. Event reference tends to get inactive status far more often in the discourse when the NP is in the partitive: with event reference 71% of partitive and 39% of total case NPs are inactive. Person reference gets active status in the discourse more commonly

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Figure 14: Distribution of activeness statuses throughout differently case-marked arguments (%, n = 260)

when the NP is in a total case (with person reference, 71% of total case and only 50% of partitive NPs are active). With both O and e-NP, the case distribution of the most frequent activeness state (inactive) largely reflects the frequency-wise unmarked case of the argument (Figure 14). However, partitive e-NPs seem to show a slightly greater versatility in their discourse status. One of the most common functions of the partitive case – signalling noninclusive quantity – is rather suited with indefiniteness and new discourse referents. Only 9% of all case-marked Os and e-NPs in the corpus are in the partitive and at the same time active. Predictably, among them there is no argument whose partitive marking is caused by non-inclusive quantity; their case is rather determined by negation, imperfective aspect, influence of a predicate verb or the occurrence of a SAP pronoun as an O. In the data, the heavier the argument is, the more likely it is discourse inactive (Figure 15). It has been suggested by Lambrecht (1994: 96) that languages differ widely with respect to the tolerance for non-pronominal coding of active referents. In the present corpus such coding is quite common: 28% of active referents are not marked by pronouns or zero-anaphora but by heavier phrases.

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Figure 15: Distribution of phrase weight among arguments with a different activeness status (%, n = 520)

7.4 Definiteness Estonian does not have grammatical means exclusively devoted for marking definiteness. Therefore I treat definiteness as a purely meaning-based parameter here that links pragmatics and semantics. Definiteness is a category that is closely related to topicality (e.g. Givón 2001: 472−473) and includes the interplay of the following factors: familiarity or identifiability on the one hand (notions relating to the qualitative definiteness of entities) and uniqueness or inclusiveness on the other (notions relating to the quantity of entities) (Lyons 1999: 2–13). In this study I only analyze an entity as ‘definite’ if it is both quality and quantity-wise definite: an entity or a group of entities that is uniquely identifiable for the listener and has an inclusive quantity. Definiteness of an expression can come from situational or associative use (association of an entity with a particular situation or the preceding discourse), the interlocutors’ general knowledge, anaphora or the referent’s uniqueness in the active context (ibid.). ‘Indefinite’ means that the entity is not referred to as ‘definite’. I have adopted from Vilkuna (1992: 106–125) an additional definitenessrelated property ‘category reference’, a phenomenon close to genericity. When the reference is to a category, the focus is on the description – which is more important for the communicative purpose than referring to a specific individual. For example: Now you are asking the wrong person! The sentence would lose its

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communicative function if the NP was replaced with a specific one: Now you are asking me! Also other unspecific referents have been assigned the ‘category reference’ like viiulit mängima ‘to play violin.’ In many cases the definiteness distinction is semantically not relevant (this has been suggested about Finnish by Vilkuna 1992: 177). Definiteness is a category closely linked with discourse activeness. However, it is necessary to treat these notions separately in this study because various combinations of activeness status and definiteness values of referents are possible. For instance unique referents can be definite but inactive arguments: ‘I discovered the notion ‘humanness’ for myself’ and ‘I lost the spectators’ sympathy’. Reference to a category is possible with both active and inactive referents. As topics must be in the possession of the hearer (Erteschik-Shir 2007: 15), the typical topics – A and S – usually have definite referents in the corpus (see Table 16). Table 16: Distribution of definiteness among the arguments (%, n = 520) Argument A S O e-NP

Definite

Indefinite

Category

Irrelevant

Total (abs. No)

94 87 34 11

1 2 27 60

2 3 4 5

3 8 35 24

130 130 130 130

Again, S is also definiteness-wise more varied than A in the corpus and seems to be a bit more of a suitable category for phrases whose definiteness is not specified. Cross-linguistically objects are not prototypical topics and therefore their definiteness value is unpredictable (Givón 2001: 472−473). In the data, O and e-NP demonstrate more variation in the definiteness parameter than A and S and also more than O and e-NP do with regard to the discourse activeness parameter. Table 16 gives support to the view that definiteness and discourse activeness should indeed be studied separately when comparing the message packaging properties of argument types. The distinctions between O and e-NP particularly come to light when looking the definiteness feature value distributions (especially as O’s referent is often definite), to a lesser degree in the case of discourse activeness (similarly to e-NP, O is seldom active in discourse). Further, the proportion of Os and e-NPs in the corpus, for which the property definiteness is irrelevant is higher that of those for which the property discourse activeness is irrelevant. Regarding the case-marking of Os and e-NPs in the corpus, the frequencywise unmarked case of the argument dominates among definite and indefinite

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Figure 16: Distribution of definiteness among the case uses of arguments (absolute numbers, n = 260)

arguments. Only when an e-NP’s referent is neither definite nor indefinite does it rather tend to be in the partitive than nominative (see Figure 16). As mentioned in Sections 4 and 5, definite O and e-NP (i.e. arguments that are at the same time identifiable and with inclusive quantity) can be marked with both total and partitive case. The case-marking rules determine O’s and e-NP’s case as follows: – definite e-NPs in affirmative clauses are in the nominative; – definite e-NPs in negative clauses are in the partitive; – definite Os in perfective affirmative clauses are in a total case (with the exception of SAP pronouns); – definite Os in imperfective affirmative clauses are in the partitive; – definite Os in negative clauses are in the partitive.18 See example (117) for a partitive definite O and (118) for a total case definite O. Although e-NPs are mainly used for referring to indefinite inactive referents, e-NP can also denote other kinds of referents. See example (119) for a nominative definite e-NP and (112) in 7.3 for a partitive definite e-NP in a negative clause.

18 Table 5 in Section 5.4 outlines how inclusiveness and aspect work together in the process of object case-assignment.

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(117) Võt-si-n ennas-t kokku. take-PST-1SG oneself-PAR together ‘I pulled myself together.’ (partitive definite O) (118) Meeskond võtt-is teate noore abiellumise-st team.NOM take-PST.3SG message.GEN youth.GEN getting.married-ELA vastu soliidselt. for respectfully ‘The team received the message of the youth getting married respectfully.’ (total case definite O) (119) Köögi-s surista-s aeg-ajalt külmkapp. kitchen-INE buzz-PST.3SG from.time.to.time fridge.NOM ‘In the kitchen, the fridge was buzzing from time to time.’ (total case definite e-NP) In example (118), I regard the abstract entity ‘definite’ because it is referential and the sentence uniquely specifies its identity. See (18) and (19) in Section 4.1 for examples of indefinite O. In both sentences the O referent is quantitatively definite (a singular count noun) but qualitatively indefinite (unfamiliar). Therefore the overall definiteness of the phrase is indefinite. The examples (100) in Section 7.1 and (120) have nominative and partitive indefinite e-NPs. (120) Õue-s mängi-b laps-i. outside-INE play-3SG child-PAR.PL ‘There are some children playing outside.’ (translated from Vilkuna: 1992: 47; indefinite partitive e-NP) Category reference is rare in the corpus, see examples (109) in Section 7.3 and (121) for O and e-NP. (121) On ju elukutse-i-d nagu tuletõrjuja ja autojuht, be.3 MDA profession-PL-PAR like fire-fighter.NOM and driver.NOM mille-ga laps on varase-st ea-st tuttav. that-COM child.NOM be.3 early-ELA age-ELA familiar.NOM ‘Obviously, there are professions like fire-fighter and driver that children are familiar with from an early age.’ (e-NP, reference to a category)

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In many cases, nominal or clausal expressions (including propositions like direct speech and also mental processes and thoughts) cannot be analyzed from the point of view of definiteness as they are not referential. I regard the definiteness category ‘irrelevant’ for them (see (107) in Section 7.3 for an example of O). The activeness status is distributed among the arguments on the definiteness scale as follows: – Active referents tend to be definite As and Ss in the corpus (48% and 40% respectively of all active entities in the corpus) and, to some extent, definite Os (10%). – Accessible referents are definite Os, Ss and As (27%, 24% and 12% respectively of all accessible entities) and indefinite e-NPs (12%). – Inactive referents are frequently indefinite e-NPs (36%) and Os (15%). In the following I will compare the overall definiteness, activeness status and the Referential hierarchy properties data in the corpus. The kind of reference that dominates in the studied 390 clauses from fiction texts is active reference to people and inactive reference to abstract entities. Also non-referential phrases are common. The most frequent reference types in the corpus are the following: (a) definite discourse active SAPs (24%, see example (122)); (b) definite discourse active other humans (13%, see (86), repeated as (123) here); (c) indefinite inactive abstract entities (11%, see example (124)); (d) inactive abstract entities in whose case definiteness is not relevant (7%, see (70) repeated here as (125)); (e) non-referential elements in whose case both categories, activeness and definiteness are irrelevant (7%, see (1) in Section 2). (122) Sina treeni-d, kui mõni teine ei treeni. 2 SG .NOM practice-2SG when some.NOM other.NOM NEG practice ‘You practice when some others do not.’ (S) (123) Treener kisku-s valu-st kõvera-sse. coach.NOM double.up-PST.3SG pain-ELA doubled.up.position-ILL ‘The coach doubled up in pain.’ (S) (124) Silvia sa-i kuul-da meie aja tavaloo. Silvia.NOM get-PST.3SG hear-INF our.GEN time.GEN typical.story.GEN ‘Silvia was told a typical story of our time.’ Lit. ‘Silvia got to hear a typical story of our time.’ (O)

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(125) Mänguvorm stabiliseeru-s. fitness.NOM stabilize-PST.3SG ‘(My) fitness stabilized.’ (S) The types (a), (c), (d) and (e) also prevail among the most common reference types of partitive NPs. Partitive NPs often also refer to indefinite events that are inactive in discourse. I repeat example (69) from Section 6.3 here: (126) Tagatoa-st kost-is köhimis-t. back.room-ELA sound-PST.3SG coughing-PAR ‘One could hear coughing in the back room.’ Lit. ‘There sounded coughing in the back room.’ (singular e-NP denoting an event) There is a considerable group of NPs that have abstract referents of trivial discourse importance in whose case definiteness rather seems to be an irrelevant category. Their activeness can still be evaluated as they are referential. They are mostly inactive e-NPs, Os and Ss: (127) Enda-l=gi Ø ruumi vaevalt ringi pööramise-ks. self-ADE=CL (be.3) space.PAR merely around turning-TRAN ‘We ourselves (have) only just (enough) space for turning around.’ (e-NP belonging to the ‘existential partitives’ group) (128) Tema pilgu-st voola-s armastus-t. 3 SG .GEN gaze-ELA flow-PST.3SG love-PAR ‘There was love flowing from his gaze.’ (e-NP) (129) Üllatusefekt meeskonna-s ol-i suur. surprise.effect.NOM team-INE be-PST.3SG big.NOM ‘The surprise effect was big in the team.’ (S)

8 Discussion In this paper, 130 examples of each of four Estonian core arguments (A, S, O and e-NP) were compared from the point of view of 11 properties: – coding (case and agreement); – semantics (number, person, the Referential hierarchy, discourse importance and the situation type the argument is participating in); – message packaging (phrase weight, word order, discourse activeness and definiteness).

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This section draws generalizations across all these properties. To assess the proximity of the arguments to each other I compared, in the case of each argument, the values of all the 11 properties to the values of a hypothetical ideal A-argument (a discourse salient SAP who is volitionally in control of a highly transitive action). To evaluate the arguments with respect to each property I chose the value each argument demonstrated most frequently in these 130 examples. For instance, when picking which group of Os is most representative of the O argument in the comparison of the ‘activeness’ feature, it is relevant that out of 130 Os the largest group (45%) is discourse inactive. Therefore, when evaluating the property ‘activeness’ I assigned the O argument the value ‘inactive’. After comparison to the ideal A (that is in most cases active in discourse), O’s value ‘inactive’ only gets the numeric value 0.33 out of 1.0 (see Tables 17 and 18 below). When ordering and rating the feature values numerically (Table 17) I considered the scales presented in this article, transitivity properties (following Hopper & Thompson 1980: 252) and also the frequency data of the A argument in the corpus. As the values of the largest argument groups differed from each other significantly (e.g. the discourse activeness value of the largest group of As and of the largest group of Os are in different ends of the activeness continuum: ‘active’ and ‘inactive’ respectively) this method proved robust enough for determining the arguments’ positioning with respect to each other. Most of the 11 criteria studied in this paper were suitable for showing distinctions between Estonian core arguments (Figure 17). The only feature that does not distinguish the arguments is number and it is therefore regarded less relevant for this task. The remaining 10 criteria clearly define the A and S categories and outline the borders of the direct object. The analysis also makes it evident that e-NP is a separate category that has similarities especially with the object and to a lesser degree with the subject (see also Helasvuo 2001 on a similar result in Finnish). The greatest division in the Estonian core argumentsystem according to this study is between subjects and partitive-permitting arguments. A and S map together in 8 criteria out of 10 that include semantic, coding and packaging properties. The features that A and S do not share in the data, can be classified as semantic: person preference and the situation type where the argument occurs in (intransitive clause has a more varied set of uses than transitive clause, e.g. the static equative, attributional and locative clauses). In 6 criteria out of 10 the largest groups of the direct object and e-NP are similar. O and e-NP have in common both semantic (person, the Referential hierarchy and discourse importance) and message packaging features (activeness, phrase weight and word order). The largest groups of Os differ from the largest

Agreement

Person

Case

1.00

1.00

0.00

1.00

Argument

A

S

O

e-NP

0.50

0.00

1.00

1.00

Agreement

0.50

0.50

0.50

1.00

Person

Table 18: Ratings of most frequent argument groups.

Discourse imp. Situation type

Phrase weight

Word order

Definiteness

Activeness

0.30

0.30

1.00

1.00

Ref. hierarchy

0.33

0.33

1.00

1.00

Discourse imp.

0.00

0.40

0.00

0.40

0.50

0.50

1.00

1.00

Phrase weight

0.6 bare noun 0.5 0.4 full NP 0.25 0.2 heavy phrase 0 0

Situation type

0.7 trivial 0.33 semel-factive 0.5 irrelevant 0 activity 0.3 accomplishment 0.2 state 0

0.00

0.00

1.00

1.00

Word order

0.67

0.33

1.00

1.00

Definiteness

0.33

0.33

1.00

1.00

Activeness

irrelevant 0.33 inactive 0.33 category 0 irrelevant 0

1 prominent 1 achievement 1 zero-anaphora 1 preverbal 1 definite 1 active 1 0.8 salient 0.67 active accompl. 0.8 pronoun 0.75 postverbal 0 indefinite 0.67 accessible 0.67

Ref. hierarchy

total case 1 agr with verb 1 SAP 1 SAP partitive 0 unmarked 0.5 third 0.5 human verb form lack of agr 0 unspecified 0 animate concrete abstract event irrelevant

Case

Table 17: Relative ordering of feature values (a higher ranking means ‘more like an ideal A’ or ‘with a higher degree of transitivity’)

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Figure 17: Argument ratings according to their largest feature value groups

groups of e-NPs in definiteness, the situation type they occur in, coding and also in that O is a category that has a high degree of variation.19 As pointed out above, O and e-NP also have in general a lot in common in terms of both differential case-marking systems and agreement. The similarity between O and e-NP can be explained by focality and the semantic bonding between these arguments and the predicate verb (see below). The most clear-cut difference between subjects and partitive-permitting arguments is in message packaging: they cluster differently in all four criteria. Also two interrelated semantic criteria distinguish partitive-permitting arguments from subjects: the Referential hierarchy and discourse importance. Subjects are 19 In the case of four properties (person, situation type, phrase weight and definiteness) some arguments’ largest and second largest groups are very close in size. Hypothetically, if the second largest group was the largest in the case of these properties in the corpus, the results in Figure 17 would be different. In the discussion of the status of the e-NP (whether it is closer to A/S or O) none of the four properties would make a difference in the number of features e-NP shares with O and A/S.

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usually high in the Referential hierarchy and discourse prominent. Partitivepermitting arguments on the other hand, are low and of trivial importance. The intransitive subject and partitive-permitting arguments share the preference for third person in the corpus. e-NP and the subject (S or both S and A) are similar in only 3−4 criteria out of 10 in the corpus. They share their preferred case use and agreement (although the agreement between e-NP and the unmarked form of the verb is not a strong indicator of e-NP − subject similarity; see Section 3). The properties the largest group of e-NPs share with the intransitive subjects are third person reference and the preference for occurrence in states. However, if we also look at the general distribution of all situation types of the S argument, it rather resembles transitive clauses (see Figure 9 in Section 6.4). When comparing different case uses of O and e-NP only statistically smaller biases appear in the corpus: – The main result of case comparisons is the finding that the category ‘situation type’ distinguishes between total case and partitive Os whose referents either tend to occur in achievements or activities respectively. – When an e-NP’s referent is neither definite nor indefinite (it is indifferent towards this meaning distinction) then it rather tends to be in the partitive. – Partitive e-NPs have a slightly larger proportion of discourse active referents than the nominative ones. Also the e-NPs that cannot be analyzed with respect to this feature (denoting propositions, events and parts of opaque multi-word verbs) are more often in the partitive. – Bare noun e-NPs occur slightly more in the partitive than in the nominative. Similarity of O and e-NP – a result of semantic bonding with the verb? The main factor causing O and e-NP similarity seems to be their common topicality status. The influence of topicality on argument realization (selection to grammatical relations, coding and message packaging) and its relation with arguments’ semantic properties has been confirmed by all the aspects of this study. In addition to topicality, also another feature has been pointed out that unites O and e-NP – the argument’s semantic bonding with the verb.20 The dependence of the object referent and its particular characteristics (e.g. affectedness) on the predicate verb is well-known. Vilkuna (1989: 163, 175, 181) describes the e-NP’s and verb’s semantic bonding as follows. The predicate verb of the EC expresses existence and also the manner of being located in a place. Usually there is a particular manner of location that suits with particular 20 I thank Marja-Liisa Helasvuo for some illuminating ideas on the roles of both of these factors.

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referents that often depends on the referent’s high or low individuation.21 This causes the e-NP’s referential dependence on the verb. She brings the following examples from Finnish: (130) Katosta riippui hämähäkinseittejä. ceiling-EL was-hanging cobwebs-PAR ‘Cobwebs were hanging from the ceiling.’ (Vilkuna 1989: 163; e-NP low in individuation) (131) Toimistossa työskentelee naisia. office-INE works women-PAR ‘Women work in the office.’ (Vilkuna 1989: 163; e-NP high in individuation) These sentences have the same structure in Estonian: (132) Lae-st rippu-s ämblikuvõrk-e. ceiling-ELA hang-PST.3SG cobweb-PAR.PL ‘Cobwebs were hanging from the ceiling.’ According to Vilkuna the EC’s predicate verb’s function of expressing the manner of location is the basis for the stronger semantic bonding between the verb and the e-NP. In the case of many idiomatic expressions, the frame contains a fixed predicate verb compound with a post-verbal object or e-NP and the topic position can be filled freely: (133) (Ta-l) on vesi ahju-s. 3 SG -ADE be.3 water.NOM oven-INE ‘(He) is in trouble.’ Lit. ‘He has water in the oven.’ (compound of the verb and e-NP) This makes these collocational units similar to the ones illustrated in (130)– (132). Is the e-NP’s case-alternation a manifestation of fluid intransitivity? Alignment holds between sets (usually pairs) of argument roles that have the same formal treatment (e.g. case) in some context. Alignment patterns define languagespecific and construction-specific grammatical relations (Bickel & Nichols 2008:

21 The term individuation is used in the sense of Hopper & Thompson (1980).

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305). In accusative alignment the coding and/or behaviour constructions treat the S and A argument in one way and the O argument in another way. In ergative alignment, S and O are treated in the same way and A differently. The languages where accusative case alignment dominates have pragmatically-oriented case-marking that is designed for coding the grammatical subject and direct object, regardless of semantic roles or transitivity (Givón 2001: 203). In such languages the subject and topic role are greatly merged, the subject role is preferentially filled by higher positions of the Referential hierarchy that are inherently more likely to be topical (cf. Bickel: 2010; Givón 2001). The Estonian A, S and O arguments largely comply with this description. When analyzing the potential alignment split in Estonian subject marking we must first discuss the subjecthood-status of e-NP. Onishi (2001) shows that typologically non-canonical arguments often differ quite considerably from the canonical ones (from the point of view of case, agreement, behaviour and the clause’s degree of transitivity). Due to the shared properties with S/A (incl. the largest group of e-NPs having nominative marking and verbal agreement; see above in this section) it is possible to treat it as a ‘non-canonical subject’ or ‘subject-like argument’ (the term used by Barðdal (2006)). This is supported by the fact that the category that results from the combination of the intransitive subject (as the referentially high S) and e-NP (as the referentially low S) supports the Referential hierarchy’s predictions on subject case alternation (see Section 5.2). In the following I will look at e-NP’s alignment with the coding properties of the core arguments (A/S vs. O). As the partitive is a case that clearly cannot mark prototypical subjects, I take its occurrence as a valid argument for alignment judgements. The other e-NP’s case option, the nominative, can be regarded as a sign of subject-like marking. Unfortunately it is a weaker proof of e-NP bearing a subject case as also O occurs frequently in total cases, including the nominative. It is also possible to regard e-NP’s case alternation as a whole as an object-like property as differential case-marking is in general impossible with unmarked clause S and A. In Estonian, the differential marking (split system) depends on information structure: the alternative object-like marking of S takes place in non-topical existential arguments (Erelt 2008: 71−76). As pointed out above and in Section 5.2, one can choose between two alternative analyses: considering both nominative and partitive e-NPs ‘SO’ (instransitive subject marked like O) or only regarding partitive e-NPs as ‘SO’. In Section 5.2 we saw that the first alternative neatly distinguishes e-NPs as semantically low subjects whose overt marking is in line with the Referential hierarchy’s predictions. The first option is also more viable due to the fact that the nominative and partitive e-NP have similar results with

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respect to the semantic and message packaging properties studied in this paper – the nominative e-NP is not closer to the intransitive subject than the partitive e-NP. Topicality is a stronger basis for describing the split in S marking than just case. If we regard both nominative and partitive e-NPs as ‘SO’ then SA occurs in unmarked constructions and SO in ECs. It is relevant that SO’s object-like coding is then characterized by object-like case alternation between the total and partitive cases, often also by object-like lack of agreement (if we include unmarked third person inflection), as well as the post-verbal position.22 Under this analysis, SO marking is suitable with a majority of intransitive verb lexemes that have existential meaning or an existential meaning component. This conforms to the typologically attested fluid intransitivity system – that is when each intransitive verb has the possibility of two kinds of marking for its core NPs – SA and SO. Fluid argument coding usually reflects conceptual and constructional properties (argument’s marking depends on control, volitionality, etc.; Dixon 1994: 78−83; Witzlack-Makarevich 2011: 131−136). A similar phenomenon of O-like non-topical S has been described in French (Creissels 2008). The argument occurs in presentational impersonal constructions that denote existence or coming into existence at a location: (134) Il est entré trois garçons. AG3SGM AUX.PRS.3SG enter.PTCP.SGM three boy.PL ‘Three boys entered.’ (Creissels 2008) In these constructions the verb does not inflect for person, S is clause-final and aligns in most ways with O. Creissels explains this non-canonical construction by the need to mark discourse new S as non-topical. He finds that the occurrence of fluid intransitivity is motivated by pragmatics: A is typically more topical than P, and new referents are typically introduced in P position; consequently, in a language in which accusative alignment predominates, it is natural to de-topicalize S by means of a construction in which S is aligned with P.23 (ibid.)

Hence the fluid intransitive system in Estonian resembles in most respects the one proposed for French.

22 Splits based on word order have been considered typologically rare but still existent in several languages (Donohue 2008: 27−28). 23 When using the abbreviaton P the author refers to the same argument as the one denoted by O in the present paper.

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9 Conclusion This paper discusses how close the Estonian partitive-permitting arguments – object and e-NP (existential clause noun phrase) – are to each other and to the transitive and intransitive subject. I analyze 390 sentences and look at 11 parameters: coding (case and agreement); semantics (number, person, the Referential hierarchy, discourse importance and the situation type the argument participates in); message packaging (phrase weight, word order, discourse activeness and definiteness). When comparing the statistically largest group of each parameter in the case of each argument type, 10 criteria distinguish the four argument types whereas number marking (singular/plural) gets the same results for all of them. From the point of view of these criteria, the greatest division in the Estonian core argument system is between unmarked clause subjects and partitivepermitting arguments (O and e-NP). Topicality-related message packaging features show a strong correlation with semantic properties (especially with the Referential hierarchy and discourse importance): from the point of view of these features S clusters together with A and O patterns with e-NP. Coding also correlates with these content properties. Hence the results of this paper illustrate the major impact that topicality has on Estonian argument realization and usage. Only two semantic properties, situation type and person reference do not support the formulation of these two, otherwise similar, argument groups. The largest groups of the direct object and e-NP are similar in six criteria out of 10. O and e-NP share both semantic and message packaging features. They also have overlaps in case and agreement. O and e-NP have largely the same differential case-marking system which depends on referential and clausal case-assignment factors as well as lexical predicates. However, as shown in the corpus analysis, the application of the case-marking rules has some significant differences between these arguments. In Estonian, case can be assigned to O and e-NP in two ways. It can be determined lexically – by the verb (especially in the case of Os) or by the noun (especially in the case of e-NPs). Sometimes case-marking follows the fluid strategy where case depends on use/situational semantics (in the case of both arguments, especially Os). The main factor influencing both object’s and e-NP’s case is referential – inclusiveness – but it occurs in different connections and combinations with O and e-NP. In the paper, two hierarchies were suggested to integrate O’s and e-NP’s case-assignment: the Quantitative markedness hierarchy and the Inclusiveness hierarchy. The former determines the case on the basis of whether the argument is semantically marked for quantification (inclusiveness) at all or whether inclusiveness is unmarked.

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The latter determines the argument’s case on the basis of whether the referent’s quantity is inclusive or non-inclusive. Out of 10 properties, e-NP and subject (S or both S and A) are similar in 3−4 semantic and coding criteria. The paper suggests that it is possible to treat e-NP as a non-canonical S and then the coding distinctions between S and e-NP can be regarded as a manifestation of fluid intransitivity. The study also analyzes whether there are any statistical preferences for the object’s and e-NP’s case across different semantic, coding and message-packaging properties. However only minor biases are identified, the main one being that O’s case reflects (aspect-based) Vendlerian situation type distinctions.

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Huumo, Tuomas. 2010. Nominal aspect, quantity, and time: The case of the Finnish object. Journal of Linguistics 46(1). 83−125. Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria & Bernhard Wälchli. 2001. The Circum-Baltic languages. An arealtypological approach. In Östen Dahl & Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm (eds.), Circum-Baltic Languages, volume 2: Grammar and Typology (Studies in Language Companion Series 55), 615−750. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Lambrecht, Knud. 1994. Information Structure and Sentence Form. Topic, Focus, and the Mental Representations of Discourse Referents. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Langacker, Ronald W. 1987. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar, volume 1 (Theoretical Prerequisites). Stanford: Stanford University Press. Levin, Beth & Malka Rappaport Hovav. 2005. Argument realization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lindström, Liina. 2002. Veel kord subjekti ja predikaadi vastastikusest asendist laiendi järel [Once more about subject’s and predicate’s reciprocal position after the adjunct]. Emakeele Seltsi aastaraamat 47. 87−106. Tallinn: Teaduste Akadeemia Kirjastus. Lindström, Liina. 2005. Finiitverbi asend lauses. Sõnajärg ja seda mõjutavad tegurid suulises eesti keeles [The position of the finite verb in the clause: word order and the factors affecting it in spoken Estonian]. University of Tartu doctoral thesis. Tartu: Tartu University Press. Lindström, Liina, Mervi Kalmus, Anneliis Klaus, Liisi Bakhoff & Karl Pajusalu. 2008. Ainsuse 1. isikule viitamine Eesti murretes [Reference to first person singular in Estonian dialects]. Emakeele Seltsi aastaraamat 54. 159−185. Tallinn: Teaduste Akadeemia Kirjastus. Lyons, Christopher. 1999. Definiteness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Metslang, Helena. 2012. On the case-marking of existential subjects in Estonian. SKY Journal of Linguistics 25. 151−204. Metslang, Helena. 2013. Coding and behaviour of Estonian subjects. Journal of Estonian and Finno-Ugric Linguistics 4(2). 217−293. Nemvalts, Peep. 1996. Case marking of subject phrases in modern standard Estonian. Studia Uralica Uppsalaensia 25. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Uppsala: Uppsala University doctoral thesis. Nemvalts, Peep. 2000. Aluse sisu ja vorm: alusfraasi käändevaheldus tänapäeva eesti kirjakeeles [The subject’s meaning and form: Subject case alternation in contemporary written Estonian]. Tallinn: Estonian Language Foundation. Onishi, Masayuki 2001. Introduction: Non-canonically marked subjects and objects: Parameters and properties. In R. M. W. Dixon, Alexandra Aikhenvald & Masayuki Onishi (eds.), Noncanonical Marking of Subjects and Objects, 1–51. Amsterdam/Philadephia: John Bejamins Publishing Company. Rätsep, Huno. 1978. Eesti keele lihtlause tüübid [Estonian Simple Clause Types]. ENSV TA Emakeele Seltsi toimetised 12. Tallinn: Valgus. Tael, Kaja. 1988. Sõnajärjemallid eesti keeles (võrrelduna soome keelega) [Word Order Patterns in Estonian (in Comparison with Finnish)] (Preprint KKI-56). Tallinn: Academy of Sciences of the Estonian SSR. Section of Social Sciences. Tael, Kaja. 1990. An Approach to word order problems in Estonian (Preprint KKI-66). Tallinn: Estonian Academy of Sciences. Division of Humanities and Social Sciences. Tamm, Anne. 2004. Relations between Estonian Verbs, Aspect, and Case. Doctoral Dissertation. Budapest: ELTE BTK.

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Tamm, Anne. 2007. Estonian transitive verbs and object case. In Miriam Butt & Tracy Holloway King (eds.), Proceedings of the LFG06 Conference, Universität Konstanz, 485−504. Stanford: CSLI Publications. Tamm, Anne. 2009. The Estonian partitive evidential: Some notes on the semantic parallels between the aspect and evidential categories. In Lotte Hogeweg, Helen de Hoop & Andrej Malchukov (eds.), Cross-linguistic Semantics of Tense, Aspect, and Modality, 365−401. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Tamm, Anne. 2012. Scalar verb classes. scalarity, thematic roles, and arguments in the Estonian aspectual lexicon. Firenze: Firenze University Press. Torn-Leesik, Reeli. 2009. The voice system of Estonian. Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung 62(1−2). 72−90. Vaiss, Natalia. 2004. Eesti keele aspekti väljendusvõimalusi vene keele taustal [Expressing aspect in Estonian (on the background of Russian)]. Tallinn: Tallinn University MA thesis. Van Valin, Robert D. 2005. Exploring the Syntax-Semantics Interface. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vendler, Zeno. 1967. Verbs and times. In Zeno Vendler (ed.), Linguistics in Philosophy, 97–121. Vilkuna, Maria. 1989. Free word order in Finnish: Its syntax and discourse functions. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. Vilkuna, Maria. 1992. Referenssi ja määräisyys suomenkielisten tekstien tulkinnassa [Reference and definiteness in the interpretation of Finnish texts]. Suomi. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. Witzlack-Makarevich, Alena. 2011. Typological variation in grammatical relations. Leipzig: Universität Leipzig doctoral thesis.

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6 Finnish Partitive and resultativity in translation(s): a discourse-cognitive approach As the result of a study of the Finnish partitive (FIP) in a discourse-cognitive perspective, centered on partitive (PAR) as a mark of the O(bject), and excluding its automatic use in a negative/dubitive sentence (Fernandez-Vest 2010a), I compare the main criteria for choosing the FIP: context/cotext, situation, or simply the inherent aspect of the verb? The verbs of the corpus (oral/written, narratives and dialogues of fiction) have been classified into 3 categories – RES (resultative), IRS (irresultative) and RES-IRS (resultative-irresultative), according to their most typical aspectual meaning. This repartition, attempting to refine the traditional conception of resultativity in Finnish grammars (i.e. that the V leads to a result, ISK 1431) is based on /+ and –values/ (FIP O = verb [–decisive change] and situation [–end point], to be combined with the aspect of the verb (RES/ IRS/RES-IRS) and its internal variation (derivation suffixes)), shows the great number of RES-IRS verbs (nearly 50%) and the ground difference betwen activity verbs and mental verbs (nearly 70% of the second take a FIP O – Askonen 2001). The discussion of the respective choice criteria is nourished by a comparison between translations of Finnish texts into another Finno-Ugric language (Northern Sami, which has no partitive case) – and neighboring Indo-European (Scandinavian) languages, and vice-versa. The role of this special case for the information structuring of the sentence and discourse is apprehended through the variations of translation: how the translator 1. transfers a selection of the combined features of FIP into a partitive lacking language, 2. conversely, makes explicit with FIP a polarity which was only latent. The 1st section settles the theoretical background, the 2nd section presents the corpus and analyzes some selected excerpts, the 3rd section is reserved to a brief evaluating synthesis and some conclusions. Notions borrowed from the Role and Reference Grammar and Cognitive Linguistics are referred to. Keywords: Finnish aspect, object case alternation, translation, interpretation cues, discourse foregrounding

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1 The theoretical background 1.1 From grammatical aspect to the representation of events An internationally known linguist, the founder and main theoretician of the Role and Reference Grammar (RRG), wrote recently: A fundamental issue dividing theories of the syntax-semantics interface is whether the semantic representation of clauses is projected from the lexical representation of the verb which determines to a large extent the syntactic structure of the clause or whether it is constructed or composed based on the NPs and PPs co-occurring with the verb in a clause; in the latter view, the verb has a very general or underspecified meaning. The empirical problem underlying this dispute concerns the ability of a single verb to occur in a variety of morphosyntactic contexts, as illustrated with the English verb shatter (The window shattered / The burglar shattered the window / The burglar shattered the window with a crowbar / The crowbar shattered the window / *The window shattered with a crowbar.) (Van Valin 2011)

The two theories in question are the projectionist vs. constructivist views of meaning. The projectionist view, launched by Foley & Van Valin (1984, following Dowty 1979), and developed in Van Valin (1993, 2005), Van Valin & LaPolla (1997), was initially inspired by studies of the Russian and Georgian languages; it stipulates that the interpretation of the object NP depends on properties of the verb. The constructivist or constructionalist view, originally based on English and championed by Goldberg (1995) and the following versions of construction grammars, stipulates that the interpretation of a verb is related to properties of the object NP or the choice of PP. The study presented here has definitely to do with the syntax-semantics interface, and could be tempted to adopt a constructionist view, a choice counterbalanced by the knowledge I have of the primary importance of the verbs in the debate about partitive object in Finnish. Fortunately, the author of the first quotation has also recognized elsewhere that, from a processing perspective, both views are valid and necessary: 1. Based on the Levelt (1989) model of a speaker, the speaker formulates a semantic representation of the message that is to be conveyed, and this semantic representation determines the morphosyntactic coding of the utterance; in terms of logical structures, the choice of an activity or active accomplishment logical structure would determine the form of the object or the nature of the PP. 2. The hearer, on the other hand, is necessarily constructivist, since the morphosyntactic coding of the utterance contains the cues to its interpretation; the only way a hearer can tell whether a verb is being used as an activity or

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active accomplishment in a language like English is with reference to the coding of the object or the choice of PP. (Van Valin 2010) This second quotation is doubly relevant for my purpose: not only because it exempts me from choosing between the two theories, but also because it sets the right frame for my personal choice of investigating the relation between partitive and resultativity via translations. The translator is namely both a “speaker” (/writer) and a “hearer” (/reader): in order to select the appropriate morphosyntactic coding for the target utterance, he must first catch the interpretation cues contained in the original author’s utterance. The following analysis of excerpts from my corpus should therefore in principle make it possible to verify whether the “cues” have been rightly caught and interpreted, then transferred to the other language. Given the specificities of the partitive (PAR) case, already analyzed and theorized by several generations of Finnists/Finno-Ugrists/general linguists, this verification cannot be so easy when translating from Finnish to other languages: no criterion (apart from the negativity of the sentence, Fernandez-Vest 2010a) has been shown to be absolutely constraining for the use of the partitive associated to most verbs. Conversely, the choice of the PAR is not automatically induced by an original Sami or Norwegian text, since in most cases the FIP does not correspond any obvious morphosyntactic feature (except for indefinite articles for the object NP in Norwegian – at least in certain settings). In other words, Finnish is evidently more suitable a language than English for evaluating the respective constructionist / projectionist approaches . . . provided one does not restrict the scope of observation to the VPs and the NPs, as the intrusion of translated texts in the debate will emphasize. What should be scrutinized? This will be the topic of sections 2 and 3.

1.2 Finnic Aspect and resultativity In the Finnish research on aspect, resultativity has been a central notion, studied in particular in relation with the rules for choosing the case of the object. One has discussed in this respect the category of “resultative verbs” (e.g. löytää ‘find’, tappaa ‘kill’, unohtaa ‘forget’, and the corresponding resultative sentences) has been discussed. The opposed category of irresultative verbs is composed of verbs which do not normally express the pursuit of a result, e.g. verbs of feeling (rakastaa ‘love’) or verbs describing an alternative movement (e.g. heiluttaa ‘to wave’). One can also distinguish a category of “quasi-resultative” verbs, i.e. verbs which feature an ongoing state and can occur in a sentence expressing duration

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in the same way as irresultative but take nevertheless a total object like resultative verbs. This category includes cognitive verbs like tietää ‘know’, muistaa ‘remember’ as well as verbs denoting relations like sisältää ‘content’, omistaa ‘possess’: Tiedän asia/n know:PRS .1 SG thing:ACC . SG ‘I am aware of the thing.’ Kuori sisältää vain envelope:NOM . SG contain:PRS .3 SG only ‘The envelope contains only a bill.’ (T. Itkonen 1976, Leino 1991).

lasku/n bill:ACC . SG

The notion of Aktionsart is also used in several different meanings. It refers often to the aspectual characteristic of verbal lexems. In Finnic research, the types of action have been often related to the verbal suffixes (e.g. Penttilä 1963: 533–534). This classification relies mainly on the four aspectual classes defined by several theoreticians, e.g. Vendler (1967): state (have, possess, want, like, love. . .), activity (inherently unbounded – run, swim, push. . .), achievement (punctual change of state or onset of an activity – recognize, find, cross the border), accomplishment (non punctual change of state, inherently bounded process – paint a picture, write a novel, build a house. . .). Such a categorization relying on the internal actual characteristics of the verbs can be considered fundamental for the analysis of aspect in Finnish (Heinämäki 1984). The most usual pairs telic /atelic, resultative /non resultative, dynamic /static are generally applied to verbs, sentences and situations, although one can choose to reserve “telic/atelic” to situations, and “bounded/unbounded” to verbal features (ISK: 1430–1432) – see also Depraetere (1995). In parallel with the numerous studies on FIP, other in-depth investigations have been conducted regarding the other main Finnic language, Estonian, both in a grammatical internal and a general linguistic perspective (see Rajandi & Metslang 1979, Metslang 1994, Tamm 2004a). Starting from the observation that although grammatical aspect in Estonian has not developed into a consistent grammatical category – as typologists do not consider Estonian as a language with fully grammaticalized aspect (Metslang & Tommola 1995: 300–301) – aspect emerges in the object case alternation, Anne Tamm has thus recently dedicated several ground studies to the understanding and representation of the object case alternation for some classes of transitive verbs. An “outer aspect” and an “inner aspect” are distinguished as the basis

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for testing different hypotheses: the perfective-imperfective hypothesis, the resultativity one and the boundedness one for the outer aspect, the telicity hypothesis for the inner aspect. None of the tests gives exclusive definitive results, which shows that the aspectual interpretation of sentences and lexical aspects are both involved, and leads to a proposal of analysis in terms of potential telicity and boundability. We can retain from this demonstration, partly obscured by the heavy formalism of the Lexical Functional Grammar Framework, the possibility to distinguish maximally bounded sentences (they describe an event with clear boundaries and that cannot be continued) from minimally bounded (encoded by a partitive object) but also that “a boundable transitive verb does not occur without aspect and aspectual case marking on its object” (Tamm 2006). A previous study of the same author, starting from the idea of the compositionality of aspect (Verkuyl 1989, 1993; Kiparsky 1998, 2001), had also shown that object alternation in Estonian – even though Estonian atelic verbs (stative and activity verbs) cannot more clearly that Finnish ones be divided into “hard partitive verbs” and “soft partitive verbs” (Klaas 1999) – cannot be regarded as being dependent on verbal classification only (Tamm 2003). The ambition of most investigations conducted by Finno-Ugrists in this particular chapter of syntax-semantics interface – the complex relation of aspect and the object case alternation – was, at least until the introduction of cognitive studies (Huumo 2006, 2009), to find criteria for the classification of verbs. The theoretical basis for this lexical categorization of aspect was clearly settled in the 1970s in Hakulinen and Karlsson’s reference handbook (Hakulinen & Karlsson 1979): as opposed to the time of the action expressed by the tempus of the verb, which belongs to the domain of deixis, aspect has no relation with the moment or the duration of the action but with its resultativity. Generally considered a syntactic-semantic category, aspect is mainly related with the nature of the action expressed by the verb (German Aktionsart), which is a lexical feature (see Comrie 1976, Dahl 1985) – Hakulinen & Karlsson (1979: 183–185). Later, fennists have dedicated several studies to the puzzling problem of the verbs which seem to challenge the norms of perfectiveness vs. imperfectiveness in correlation with the inherent meaning of the verbs and the aktionsart carried by the sentence (Kangasmaa-Minn 1984). A classical example is the difference between Pidän porttia (FIP) lukittuna and Pidän portin (acc.) lukittuna ‘I hold the gate locked’ is not simply a question of aspect: the first one has a connotation of, that habitualness. Another debated example is Kannoin koria (FIP) ‘I carried / was carrying the basket’, that normally – different from Kannoin korin (acc.) ‘I carried the basket (back, home etc.)’ – descriptive or reserved to a continuous/simultaneous action

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(see the French imparfait), but can in a precise context express a perfective even though durative action, e.g. Kannoin koria loppuun asti ‘I carried the basket untill the end (helping somebody else)’ – see Kangasmaa-Minn (1993). Let me add two further angles on the question, which have proved to be essential for my concerns, related to enunciation theories on the one hand, to text linguistics on the other. The first one was launched by L. G. Larsson, an outstanding Scandinavian Finno-Ugrist who has steadfastly investigated the aspectual role of FIP. His novel ideas, after comparing the case of the O in the Finnic and Baltic languages, and in Mordvin, was that one should clearly separate the lexical from the contextual level, and reserve ‘aspect’ to the contextual level (Larsson 1983: 28ff.). Studying the role of the Baltic influence on the aspectual system of Finnish (Larsson 1984), he compares the role played by verb-prefixes in Lithuanian and some particles in Finnish (which has no prefixes) and specially in Estonian, where terminativity is expressed by ära ‘away’ (see also Metslang 2001, Tamm 2004b): (1)

ära söödud Pool oli ju half was:3SG already away eat:PST.PTCP ‘Man hatte schon zur Hälfte abgespeist.’ (from Wiedemann 1973; entry sööma ‘essen’ [to eat])

An equivalent particle is used in Finnish to emphasize the lexical terminativity of some V – pois ‘away’: (2)

Suuryritykset big-company:NOM.PL pois away

pyrkivät endeavor:PRS.3PL

syömään eat:INF3

pienyrittäjät small contractors:ACC.PL

‘The big companies endeavor to swallow the small entrepreneurs.’ Opposing two types of verbs called “irresultative”, Larsson argues that this term hides an essential difference between the two partitive objects: with a V like matkia ‘imitate’, the O is unlikely to occur in any case other than the PAR, whereas with a V like kantaa ‘carry’ the PAR denotes that the circumstances of the process of carrying are commented upon, and does not make explicit the end or the result of the act: Kannan taakka/a ‘I am carrying the burden’, different from Kannan taaka/n (acc.) ‘I carry the burden’ that merely states the act of carrying. The term “aspect”, restricted to the contextual level, should in the description be included in a fixed hierarchy (//lexical government of the V / expression of indefinite number of the O / Aspect//).

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In this approach, the FIP is seen as enlightening the subjective perspective of the speaker/writer, who “describes”, “comments upon” through simply choosing this morphological case. Another point of view, related to the components of narration, is developed by M. Leinonen. She refers to the Slavonic origin of the studies of aspect, initially considered as characteristic of languages where all the verbs can be divided into two classes – perfective vs. imperfective. Related to the universal semantic components of the action (dynamic/static, telic/atelic. . .), the Russian aspect can thus be defined as a binary privative opposition (Maslov 1973, 1980): the perfective aspect signals that the action is taken as an indivisible whole, or as an action that has reached its limits, whereas the imperfective aspect signals the absence of these properties (Leinonen 1982). In comparison, the Finnish system has a much greater flexibility, as even basically durative activities can be made totally closed by adding a directional adverbial which indicates the end state (see also Dahl & Karlsson 1975). “There is hardly any limit to the possible modification from durative action to telic total events, if one can imagine a new state of the participant produced by the action” (Leinonen 1984: 248). In this perspective, the non-natural distinctions produced by aspectual means deal with the narrative sequence vs. non sequence, or foreground vs. background. The definition of perfectivity as “a view of events as a whole, whose completion is a necessary prerequisite to a subsequent event” and its opposition, the use of non total forms “which leads to a two way action meaning” (Leinonen 1984: 250) gives a new insight in the narrative function of FIP (see also Hopper 1979).

1.3 The Finnish Partitive (FIP) The Finnish Partitive (FIP) has long been considered a core subject of analysis and debate within Finno-Ugric studies (Sadeniemi 1929, Denison 1957, Itkonen 1975, Moravcsik 1978, Leino 1991 among others), also in interlanguages (FernandezVest 1982). Accurately so, as it appears as the pivot of the whole grammatical structure of the language: although clearly identified as a separate case ending, it resists attempts to be assigned a syntactic or semantic case function. According to the modern Comprehensive grammar of Finnish, the main characteristic of FIP is its meaning of unboundedness, a notion which covers different elements: an indefinite quantity, number or matter, or the fact that the situation is presented as lacking an end point. Its use as the case of the object is subject to three alternative conditions:

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the sentence is morphosyntactically negative, or negative by inter-pretation (restrictive, dubitative) the sentence is aspectually unbounded the referent of the object is indivisible and is quantitatively indefinite.

Some further remarks, in connection with these three conditions: – the negativity of the sentence is the strongest criterion, since both aspect and definiteness are neutralized in it, which in its turn implies that the PAR is possible with all the verbs, since they can all be denied; – there are no verbs getting only a total object, but there are many verbs that get only a PAR object; – it is impossible to inventory all verbs with a PAR object, since their unbounded aspect can be modified in certain circumstances: if the sentence is positive, the PAR can be motivated by the unbounded aspect of sentence, or by the quantitative indefiniteness of the NP. Besides, the aspect and the quantitative indefiniteness cannot in most cases be separated: they are entangled in many ways. (see ISK: 887–891, 1538–1540) In sum, the partitive object of my present corpus will be analyzed primarily from the point of views of text linguistics (cotext and context) and (speaker’s and hearer’s) subjectivity of the utterance. I do not intend to propose a new classification of the Finnish verbs, but I still need the verbs as a primary element of inventory and selection, and will therefore use the classification available which best meets my requirements of enunciative criteria beyond the morphosyntactic features.

2 The aspectual choice of partitive object in translated texts: Finnish – Sami – Norwegian 2.1 The methodology The most appropriate consistent work on the choice of the object in Finnish turned out, among the many studies available, to be a PhD conducted at the University of Oulu ten years ago. It was adequate by its main goal: [after placing each verb of the corpus with a nominal object into one of the three aspectual verb categories /resultative, irresultative or resultative-irresultative/] “to find out whether the sentence context, the aspect of the sentence and the situation being described affect the choice of the objet’s case or whether this choice is governed by the inherent aspect of the verb” (Askonen 2001: 482)

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which I will, for my own purposes, reformulate as following: – To find out whether the choice of the object’s case is governed by the inherent aspect of the verb, or whether this choice is equally – or primarily – affected by the context, the aspect of the sentence and/or the situation.

I will leave out some other goals of this PhD, for instance to count the verbs and objects in the different categories: my own study is not quantitative, which would require statistics on a larger corpus than the one collected. But this work was also adequate thanks to its method of classification of the verbs, which was preferred for three main reasons: 1. the Oulu corpus consisted of written and spoken texts produced in real language use situations, which guaranteed that many different styles were represented (informal spoken language, reporting, radio-commentaries. . . ; written language of fiction and non-fiction). This corpus was large enough to also guarantee some validity to the classification criteria and the consistency of the quantitative results: the material included 28,076 nominal objects and 1447 verbs. 2. the analysis was primarily syntactic-semantic, but also involved (morphological and) pragmatic aspects. The comparison of a given verb and its object in different situations showed that aspect in Finnish is a situational feature that conforms to situational variability, and that aspect is ultimately a pragmatic concept implicit in the verb, determined by the semantic factors underlying each situation, which leaded the author to consider that “the speaker’s or writer’s personal intention is an underlying factor of this kind” (Askonen 2001: 484). 3. Consequently the classification was based on + and – values: a. According to the basic rule for the choice of a partitive object, the object is in a partitive form when the verb is [–decisive change] and the situation is [–end point]. An inherently irresultative verb causes the object to be in the partitive case, but an inherently irresultative verb may also have a partitive object whenever the verb expresses an ongoing activity or is part of an irresultative infinitive phrase. (This rule also applies to the choice of the object’s case in a negative sentence.) b. According to the second rule for the choice of a partitive object, the object is in the partitive whenever the resultative verb is [+decisive change] and the situation is [–end point]. The object’s referent in this case is countable. This is an instance of the quantifying role of resultative verbs. c. According to the third rule for the choice of a partitive object, the object of a momentary verb is in the partitive whenever the verb is [–decisive change] and the situation is [+end point]. (Askonen 2001: 484).

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2.2 A corpus between oral and written language 2.2.1 Criteria for the selection of the corpus 2.2.1.1 Comparison of translated and edited oral discourses? Translated oral discourses were excluded from the first stage: it is practically impossible to find reliable translations of oral conversations, apart from situations of (professional or semi-professional) interpretation either simultaneous or consecutive, where the comparison comes up against many obstacles (Miller & Fernandez-Vest 2006). Another possible comparison which was shortly considered was one of internal contrastivity, i.e. between an oral and written version of Finnish. But after testing a random sampling of excerpts from an exceptional corpus – recorded interviews first published in a book by the Finnish Literature Society, then retranscribed by myself from the original record – which I have used for other purposes (Fernandez-Vest 1995), this track was abandoned. That comparison namely turned out to be unsuccessful: the oral vs. written functionality of partitive objects could not be investigated, as partitives were nearly nonexistent in the oral version. In general terms, the oral register is characterized in Finnish, besides specific constructions like initial and final Detachments (FernandezVest 2004, 2014 in press; Amon 2009), by the use of numerous local cases instead of the grammatical ones. Investigating the spatial dynamics of discourse, one can oppose the real, present or memorized movement “towards” or “away from” the deictic hic et nunc of the utterance, the “fictive embodied” movement which refers to the imaginative capacity of cognition, for which the model of “general fictivity pattern” (GFP, Talmy 1995) was initially elaborated. Finnish is particularly favorable for expressing movements //towards / or / from// the human body as a deictic center: the language plays on the inchoative (movement towards) and terminative (separation or departure) rections, e.g. (3)

[What had you liked to do / if you had been in good health?] [ORAL] ehkä tota noin . . . mulla olis ollu . . . tullu aivoihini (ILL.PL) ajatus mennä teatterikouluun (ILL.SG) ‘Perhaps you know . . . I should have had . . . would have come to my brain (ILL) the thought to go to a theater school’. [WRITTEN] olisin ehkä ajatellut kaydä teatterikoulua (PAR) ‘I should perhaps have thought to attend a theater school (PAR).’ (Fernandez-Vest 1995)

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The speaker evokes the arrival of an idea into her brain (to come + illative) in a thetical order (V–SBJ) motivated by the event-character of the process. The edited version reverses the movement of the thought (with the speaker as the source – syntactically the subject – of the verb ‘to think’). From this results that the number of partitive objects is much smaller in impromptu speech than in written texts; most of them occur in negative sentences. This observation of an oral corpus thus supports the proposal that a localist interpretation does justice to the Finnic (and Samic) case systems in oral Finnish (not to speak of the “automatic” local rections, like kysyä + ablative ‘ask somebody’, pitaä + elative ‘like something/somebody’) and suggests another type of hierarchy than the official one: local cases, cognitively more salient, are neither more pheripheric nor less “structural” than grammatical ones (Cienki 1995, Blake 2001, Fernandez-Vest 2010b). But the mere fact that partitives were very rare in the oral version disqualified the corpus for this present study. In the authentic oral conversation, partitive objects occurred namely over 90 % in negative utterances, which fall outside the scope of this study. The following tests concerned external contrastivity.

2.2.1.2 A preliminary study: translations Finnish-Sami and Sami-Finnish The verbs of the examples chosen have been placed in one of the three aspectual categories: RES (Resultative) IRS (Irresultative) RES-IRS (Resultative-Irresultative). Their description is based on the semantic classes defined by Askonen 2001: Activity V, sub-categories Action V, Moving or Motion V; Mental V, sub-categories Perception V, Reaction V (Physical and psychic emotion, the subject’s attitude), V of thought, Communication V. As usual in text linguistics, I gloss only the parts of the examples relevant for my demonstration. The corpus of translations was first intended to be equally bilateral, starting from a novel originally written in Finnish. From Finnish to Sami Corpus: Mukka 1974, 2008. A. The translator simply drops the nuances brought about by the FIP, ex.

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(4) Fi. Hän istui aivan liikkumatta, mutta kun olin usean minuutin ajan tuijottanut häntä ikkunasta, hän käänsi päätään ja katsoi suoraan minuun. ‘She sat completely motionless, but when I had several minutes stared at her (PAR.SG) from the window, she turned her head (PAR.SG) and looked directly at me.’ Sa. Son čohkkái áibbas lihkaskeahttá, muhto go ledjen máŋggaid minuhtaid gaiván su lássaráigge, de son jorggihii ja geahčastii munnje. • Finnish: The first transitive V is IRS, Mental V (Perception), PAR O. The 2nd transitive V is a RES Activity V (Action), a classical example studied by Fennists: ACC O would be normal (usual), but PAR introduces an impression of carelessness or improvisation – not a decisive movement (see Kangasmaa-Minn 1978). • Sami: ‘she turned’, intransitive (= no O, no mention of ‘‘head’’ or ‘‘back’’). B. The aspectual values are rendered by a different construction, for instance the duration by a progressive form, ex. (5)

Fi. Join drink:PST.1SG

monta many:PAR.SG

kahvia coffee:PAR.SG

ja and

vain only

yhden one:ACC.SG

pannullista pot:PAR.SG

sulatin melt:PST.1SG

laihaa thin:PAR.SG

suussa/ni mouth:INE.SG.POSS

sokeri/palan sugar/lump:ACC.SG

kuppia cup:PAR.SG

kohti. for

‘I drank many pots of thin coffee and melted in my mouth only one sugarlump per cup.’ Kirjoitin write:PST.1SG

romaani/ni novel:GEN.SG.POSS

viimeistä last:PAR.SG

lukua, chapter:PAR.SG

kohtaa passage:PAR.SG

jossa which:INE.SG

käsitellään deal:PRS.PASS

Verneri Verner:NOM.SG

Krookin Krook:GEN.SG

murhaan murder:ILL.SG asioita thing:PAR.PL

liittyviä be.connected:PRS.PTCP.PAR.PL ja and

Heikki Heikki:NOM.SG

Väkkäräistä Vähkäräinen:ELA.SG

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joka who:NOM.SG

tuon that:DEM.ACC.SG

teon action:ACC.SG

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teki. do:PST.3SG

‘I was writing the last chapter of my novel, the passage where one deals with things related to the murder of Verner Krook and with Heikki Väkkäräinen who did that action.’ • Finnish: juoda ‘to drink’, RES-IRS, here IRS as the O is partly bounded (pannullinen, the content of a pot is not a count name), sulattaa ‘to melt’ here RES with a restricted / delimited result: only one sugar lump. 2nd sentence, kirjoittaa ‘to write’ RES-IRS here IRS: the chapter is a work in progress, relative clause V käsitellä ‘to treat, deal with’, IRS. Final V tehdä ‘to do’, here RES. • Sami: identical construction in the 1st sentence, but personal form in the 2nd ‘I dealt with’. 2nd sentence, progressive form (Gerund II) where there was a PAR in Finnish. The main clause of the second sentence can be compared with another one in a following chapter: (50 )

Fi. Kirjoitin write:PST.1SG ja and

puolen half:GEN.SG

sain get:PST.1SG

tunnin hour:GEN.SG

valmiiksi ready:TRAN.SG

ajan time:ACC.SG

liuskan one:ACC.SG

yhden sheet:ACC.SG

‘I wrote half an hour and I got ready one sheet’ Sa. Čállen su birra diibmobeale, oktiibuot ovtta árkka • Finnish: the first V, kirjoittaa ‘to write’ RES-IRS is here RES: there was a result, expressed by the second V (RES, Activity V, Moving) + predicative adjective in the translative, ACC O. • Sami: shorter, more synthetic formulation: ‘(I wrote about her for half an hour), together one sheet’. From Sami to Finnish The choice was still more restricted: I selected the prose texts of a bilingual anthology (Skabmatolak, 1973), completed by a novel written three decades later (Vest 2005, 2006). • Two regular types of transfer devices were detected: 1.

A specific morphological form of the Sami V is rendered by the FIP:

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Sa. Máhte-Máhtte jugistii káffegohpa ja ráhkkanišgođii Pentte maŋimuš hášiid rádjat. () Dalle heastaáigge Máhtte lávii rádjat maŋimuš hášiid borgemánu gaskkamuttos, dál áiggui geargat vel suoidnemánu bealde. (Vest 2005) Fi. Matti hörppäsi kahvikupin tyhjäksi ja lähti korjaamaan Pentan viimeisiä haasioita. () Silloin hevosaikaan Matilla oli tapana korjata viimeiset haasiat elokuun puolivälissä. (Vest 2006b) ‘Matti tossed off the cup of coffee (ACC.SG) empty (TRAN.SG.) and went out to gather Pentti’s last hayricks (PAR.PL). () At the time of horses Matti used to gather the last (ACC.PL) hayricks (ACC.PL) in mid-August’.

• Finnish: hörpätä ‘to empty quickly’, korjata ‘to gather, pick up, take away’, V of Action-movement, RES-IRS, used here with the two different constructions: 1. Matti went out in order to gather + PAR (an objective, but no guaranted result); 2. [remembering the past] Matti used to gather + ACC (global, accomplished perspective) • Sami: 1. jugistit ‘to drink quickly’, derivative V of juhkat ‘to drink’, the descriptive aspect is transferred in Finnish on an additional noun (adjective) in the TRANslative; 2. no difference of construction of the V rádjat ‘to gather’ in the two sentences, apart from what precedes the 1st ‘gathering’ – an inchoative V (ráhkkanišgoahtit ‘to begin to prepare’), ‘he began to prepare/equip himself in order to gather’, rendered in Finnish by a simpler ‘he went out and gathered’ + PAR O. The inchoative aspect is thus transferred on the PAR in Finnish. 2.

A specific syntactic form attached to the Sami verb, i.e. the durative value of the Sami progressive form (Gerund II), is rendered by a PAR:

(7)

Sa. Piera goavrái návetuvssa ovddas. Čoarverieban lei buviheamen su. (. . .) Dávvet čuoččui dobbelaččas ja fuoikkui. Son lei čuovvumin, mo biro borai su kránnjá. (Paltto 1971, Skabmatolak 1973) Fi. Piera makasi navetan oven edessä. Sarvikettu oli kuristamassa häntä. (. . .) Taavetti seisoi vähän kauempana ja voihki. Hän seurasi kun paholainen söi hänen naapuriaan. ‘Piera lay in front of the cowshed door. The horned fox was eating (INF3. INE) him (PAR.SG). () T. stood a little further away and groaned. He followed when the devil was eating his neighbor (PAR.SG)”

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• Finnish: kuristaa ‘to strangle” V of Action, RES; syödä “to eat” V of prehension, RES-IRS • Sami: in the two sentences (1) and (4) there is a progressive form (Gerund 2). 3.

A third device consisted in applying strictly the peripheral rules attached to negation in Finnish, partly depending on the interpretation, e.g. the difficulty of a task conveyed by an adjective, before an infinitive clause:

(8) [In Heaika’s eyes, Ivvár was a bit strange] Sa. Das lei viehka váttis fáhtet gitta. Sáhtii leat dasto áigebotta jaska, dušše geahčai apmasit sutnje ja ain moddjii () de čilgii vuđolaččat uhcimušge ášši. (Vest 2005) Fi. Hänestä oli vaikea saada otetta. () Saattoi sitten olla minuuttikaupalla vaiti, katseli vain omituisesti vierastaan ja hymyili (), niin selitti perusteellisesti pienimmän+kin asian. (Vest 2006b) ‘On him was difficult to get a grip (PAR.SG). He could then be for minutes silent, watched only strangely his guest (PAR.SG) and smiled (), he explained thoroughly the smallest (ACC.SG) thing even (ACC.SG.+DIP).’ • Fi. saada ‘to get’ RES but here uncompleted action, negative adjective – PAR; katsella ‘to watch’, diminutive-frequentative, PAR; selittää ‘to explain’, RES-IRS, resultative in this cotext, ACC. • Sa. all Os are normally in the ACC-GEN, apart from the O of geahčai ‘looked at’ which is in the directive (‘looked towards him’). The first Sami sentence relativates the difficulty – viehka váttis ‘rather difficult’ –, and this could have motivated the choice of an ACC O. In sum, the comparison Finnish-Sami gave a relatively poor result: either the nuances introduced by the FIP were simply dropped (4), or the aspectual values were nearly automatically rendered by a construction of equivalent value, e.g. the duration by a progressive form (5). In the first case, the PAR was neglected, in the lack of a direct equivalent, in the second one it was replaced by a structure of equivalent aspectual value. The comparison Sami-Finnish produced a wider range of results: the FIP was used as the equivalent of specific Sami morphological (6) or syntactic (7) forms, but it also reflected the subjective interpretation of the translator, who could choose to apply the secondary rules attached to Finnish negation (8). The selection of the main corpus was rationalized according to these observations: it was considered more productive to concentrate exclusively on the translation from Sami to Finnish, as this was hypothesized to give the translator

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larger possibilities of choice regarding the PAR. Besides, the conditions of the translation process were more strictly taken into account. Translation by two individual translators, native speakers of Finnish and Norwegian and experienced translators were preferred to a collective translation, and an entire novel was preferred to anthology excerpts. The analysis will be divided into two parts: – a comparison in different contexts of two types of verbs which have a special relevance for the functionality of PAR. Two verbs are RES and allow to see whether any leeway is left to the translator, two verbs are RES-IRS, and allow therefore to analyze whether or not the translator uses his room for manœuvre, and in what conditions; – an evaluation of the narrative function of PAR vs. ACC in two excerpts of texts.

2.2.2 The main corpus: translation into Finnish (and Norwegian) from Sami (Vest 1988, 1989, 1990) 2.2.2.1 Two prototypically resultative verbs in various contexts and cotexts • MUISTAA ‘to remember’, Mental V, V of thought, RES (9)

– Alat/han sinä/kin oppia kun muistat isän neuvot. Begin (PRS.2SG/DIP) you (NOM.SG)/too (DIP) learn (INF I) when remember (PRS.2SG) father (GEN.SG) advice (ACC.PL) ‘Why, you begin you too learning when you remember your father’s advice!’ (16.77)

The verb has here its full function of resultativity: the remembered advice referred to are precisely the ones which the father gave his son before sending him on a second selling trip (of home-made Sami shoes to Norwegian shopkeepers): ‘You should always haggle, bargain!’. But the rendering of the O as total/definite is not automatic: there are no special cues in the Sami sentence inducing this interpretation of definiteness. Only the knowledge the reader/translator has of the previous context – the father’s anger after the first (failed) selling expedition and the authoritative instructions he gave before the second – can lead him to choose an ACC: Sa. go muittát áhči rávvagiid ‘when you remember your father’s advice’ could, without this longer context (the whole chapter), be interpreted vaguely as ‘some of your father’s advice’. The Norwegian translation expresses also clearly this restrictive object through putting the verb ‘to listen to’

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in place of the verb ‘to remember’: bare du høre på far sine råd ‘only you listen to your father’s advice’. (10) Muistan myös niitä aikoja, jolloin maailman kovuus alkoi rikkoa lapsuuden kauniita kuvia. (1.8) ‘I remember also those (PAR.PL) times (PAR.PL) when the world’s hardness began breaking my childhood’s beautiful (PAR.PL) pictures (PAR.PL).’ The Sami sentence in itself gives no special cues: Muittán maiddái daid áiggiid, goas could mean (I remember (just) those times when. . .), pointing precisely at a distinct period. But the co-text is decisive in Sami and Finnish: this sentence is integrated in a series (list), which begins with ‘to the mind rose the happy times of my earliest childhood’ (first sentence of the paragraph). The Norwegian translator has even chosen to emphasize this series by repeating the thetic construction in this second sentence: Fram steig også tida da livets hardhet (forward stepped also times (indefinite) when the hardness of life () ). This choice is ultimately validated by the immediately following cotext: no mention of any precise event which would justify understanding that definite times or periods were in question. • SAADA ‘to get, obtain, receive’, Activity V, Moving or Motion V, RES (11) Neljäs poika sai nimekseen Toivo Veijo Tapio. (4.17) ‘The fourth son got for-his-name (TRAN) Toivo Veijo Tapio (NOM)’ Basic construction of this RES V: the O is in its bare form (NOM), as is the rule with a proper name in Finnish. Sami has an identical construction: oaččui namman (essive, the equivalent of the Finnish translative). The Norw. SUBJ is the agent of an other RES V: han kallte sin søn for TVT ‘he called his son (as) TVT’. (12) Olemme yrittäneet ongella saada kalaa (14.68) ‘We have tried with a hook and line to get some fish (PAR)’ The Finnish lexical structure and word order reflect faithfully the Sami sentence: in both languages, the instrument is emphasized by its projection in front of the V. Norwegian moves the instrument to the end of the sentence, as the main rheme, and changes the indefinite O into definite: ta fisken på sluk (take the fish with (/on) a hook and line).

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(13) Ompeleminen todella sai nyt uutta vauhtia. (16.73) ‘The sewing really got now a new (PAR) speed (PAR)’ The PAR O expresses an abstract element, uncountable. The translation from Sami is literal. The Norwegian VP has an indefinite O without an article, in fact a lexis ( fikk fart (got speed)). (14) Yhä vieläkin minua on vaikea saada Tenolle. (2.9) ‘Still even today me (PAR) is difficult to get onto the Teno’. The PAR O is due to a semantically negative predicative (adjective ‘difficult’); identical Sami construction: mu lea váttis oažžut Deanu ala. Norwegian, more explicit as to the exact meaning of the sentence, replaces the place-name by a noun: vanskelig å få meg med på elva ‘difficult to get me [with] onto the river’. The context was about a son whose father’s authoritative demands of round-the-clock (salmon) fishing eventually put him righ off fishing.

2.2.2.2 Two resultative-irresultative verbs: what triggers off the choice? • TEHDÄ ‘to do, make’, Activity V, Action V, RES-IRS Due to its broad scope, this V occurs in many sentences. The two following examples are intended to illustrate its two main aspectual values. (15) Kaiken mitä hän teki, hän teki parhaan kykynsä mukaan. ‘All (ACC) what (PAR) he did, he did the best way he could.’ (2.9) Finnish has an ACC O expressing the accomplishment of the verb. Sami and Norwegian have an identical construction. (16) – Eivät ihmiset koskaan kysy kauanko teit sitä, mutta sitä ne kyllä ruukaavat kysyä miksi tuo on noin ja tämä näin. (21.105) ‘People never ask for how long you did it (PAR), but this they indeed use to ask why that is like that and this is like this.’ The Sami original selects another verb, bargat ‘to work’ – guhkágo barget dieinna ‘(for how long) you worked with this (comitative)’. The Norwegian translation transfers the meaning of this V to the subject NP of a depersonalized sentence: kor lang tid et arbeid tar ‘how long a work takes’ – and elevates thus the (indirect) interrogative clause to the level of a general judgement. The use of

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the FIP for expressing the duration of the ‘deed’ has the advantage to maintain the original V, and thereby preserve the enunciative tonality of the original Sami sentence: even though general in its scope, this remark does have an addressee in the second person, and is part of the father and son’s (labored) dialogue. • TÄYTTÄÄ ‘to fill’, Activity V, Action V, RES-IRS Although more specialized than the preceding V, the action of “filling” can also be considered with two different aspects. (17) Seudun ihmiset tapasivat tulla täyttämään papereitaan isälle. Isä oli viitseliäs täyttämään ihmisten hakemuksia. (22.109) ‘The people of the neighborhood used to come to fill (inf.3. ILL) their papers (PAR.PL) to father. Father was assiduous to fill people’s applications (PAR.PL)’. The V is different in the two sentences from the point of view of Actance, semantically factitive/causative in the first, simply active in the second, but it has exactly the same form in both, and it takes identically a PAR O, which reflects the progressive unaccomplished process. The Sami original has a different form: morphologically (suffixed) factitive in the first – deavddi/hit ‘to get filled’ —, basic in the second: deaddit ‘to fill’. Norwegian distinguishes also two voices: passive in the first (papirer de skulle ha utfyllt ‘papers they should get filled’), active in the second (å fylle dem ut ‘to fill them’). (18) Tunsin miten viha alkoi vähitellen täyttää minut. (14.65) ‘I felt how hatred began gradually to fill me (ACC) The Sami sentence has a derived inchoative V and a different word order in the rhematic part: Dovden mo vašši deavdi/gođii mu gulul gulul ‘I felt how hatred began to fill me little by little’. This final adverbial, intensive intensified by repetition as well as by its placement (the main rheme), gives the sentence, in spite of its progressive meaning, a connotation of accomplishment: the filling of the speaker/main figure by hatred towards a father who constantly comments upon his hard work with negative and despising remarks will take some time, but it is doomed to come to an end point. This is rendered in Finnish by the ACC O, unexpected for a double reason: the presence of an auxiliary ‘begin’ and of an adverb of progression. The Norwegian translator has perceived this announced accomplishment in the Sami word order, and rendered it with a set expression: (I felt) hvordan jeg sakte men sikkert fyltes av hat ‘how I slowly but surely get filled of hatred’.

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2.2.2.3 The narrative function of FIP This function can be observed in two types of texts, which differ by their respective degree of description vs. narration. • Description of mental activity (19) Mitä lienee mies ajatellut, sitä on paha mennä sanomaan. Ehkä hän mietiskeli tulevia toimia. Ehkä häntä oli jo alkanut painaa suvun raskas luonne. Hetket jolloin oli joutunut kierimään pohjamudissa, ajatus pyyhkäisi muistojen joukosta pois. (26.140–141) ‘What (PAR.SG) may the man have thought, that (PAR.SG) is difficult to tell. Maybe he meditated future (PAR.PL) actions (PAR.PL). Maybe him (PAR.SG) had already begun-to press of the family (GEN.SG) the heavy (NOM.SG) nature (NOM.SG). The moments (ACC.PL) when he had to roll in the bottom-mud, the thought (NOM.SG) wiped-out from the rest of the memories.’ The verbs of the first three sentences are all IRS: it is consequently normal that each of them has a PAR O, even if it could be explained also by their morphology – ajate/lla ‘to think’ and mietiske/llä ‘to meditate’ have both a diminutive-frequentative suffix – or by their semantic value: both are mental Vs, and it has been shown on the basis of the huge Oulu corpus that “mental activity rarely reaches an end point” (Askonen 2001: 488). The IRS nature of the V of the third sentence is also strengthened by the inchoative auxiliary alkaa, ‘to begin’: the aspectual case of the O of an infinitive V is primarily determined by independent criteria, but is has also some connection with the general aspect of the sentence – why infinitives subordinated to a verb expressing the beginning of the action or an endeavor, e.g. yrittää ‘to try’, usually have a PAR O, as the action is unbounded (see ISK: 890). Interesting is however that the sequence of sentences with a PAR O is suddenly interrupted by a longer sentence with an ACC O, also marked by a strongly thematized word order: the fact that the O NP, determined by a long subordinated clause, is fronted, emphasizes the action expressed by the V of the main clause. In principle, pyyhkäistä ‘to wipe’ belongs minimally to the RES-IRS class like the basic V pyyhkiä ‘to wipe, strike’, and maximally to the IRS class like other derived momentaneous Vs (e.g. kysäistä ( perä/än(sä) ‘after, following’), actually a postposition formed of a still productive lexeme (and a possessive suffix), which makes it a stronger spatial marker than a usual adposition (see Hagège 2009, 2010).

2.2.2.4 PAR Os vs. ACC Os as a discourse strategy In other words, the occurrences and functions of the PAR Os in this text are not more unusual than the ones we saw in previous examples. The main interest of these PAR Os is their structuring power, beyond the sentences, in the globality of the text. Two main episodes of the hunting adventure (on skis!) are marked by an initial action of the man (1. He discovers the tracks of the animal), and by the wolverine’s fatal error (9–10. He makes a mistake, and leaves the safety of the mountain). In both cases, the verbs have a total O: 1. löytää ‘to find’, RES Motion V, 10. tehdä ‘to do’, RES-IRS Action V. Between these two episodes, the verbs are IRreSultative and have PAR Os. The suspense of the story is thus supported and conveyed ahead by the longer, somewhat hesitating descriptive sentences, which have in common their aspectual IRreSultativity signaled by a PAR O. On the whole, PAR Os are consequently more numerous than ACC Os, which indicate a decisive turn in the core events related – admittedly assisted in this task by a few intransitive verbs (see Note 13). And to conclude the story, the PAR has the last word: it marks in 14. an exclamation, which is also one of the functions of the PAR, especially in connection with greetings as Os of an implied verb of wish.

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What cues in the Sami original? There are very few cues apt to motivate the choice of a PAR O vs. ACC O. The structuring and sequencing of the narrative episodes are mainly indicated by Discourse Particles – still numerous although declining as other spatial cognitive markers in the typological evolution from oral to written Sami (FernandezVest 2005a, 2009a, 2010c), and some adverbs: 2. (When we saw the man) de dat dieđusge buoridii ‘then (DIP)+ he of course (adv.) improved’. In fact, the most obvious contrastive devices for distinguishing different rythms and tempos are syntactic (short sentences of happening vs. longer descriptions), and above all lexical: the sudden and fatal break in the otherwise repetitive wolverine’s run is expressed by a short intransitive verb: 9. Geatki riehpu feile ‘The poor wolverine failed’ – V feilet, less usual than feailla váldit ‘mistake-to-take’. Actually, the Sami’s lexical preference is still more visible in sentences where Finnish has an ACC O, justified (/imposed upon) by a bounding adverbial: 13. ja viggá fidnet ‘and endeavours / makes an effort to get him’, where Sami could have used the weaker geahččalit ‘to try’ (as in 5.). The same lexical tendency is noticed in Norwegian: 13. strever med å løfte jerven ‘endeavors (with) lifting the wolverine’. This tendency is probably strengthened by the need to compensate the stiffness of adpositions in place of (Finno-Ugric) local cases: 5. prøve å ta resten ‘try to take the rest (of the story)’, instead of ‘to tell until the end (Fi. ILL)’. This necessary “lexicalization” affects indeed more directly the sentences whose equivalents require an ACC O in Finnish, but the global result is that the devices used by non-PAR languages – both a Finno-Ugric (Sami) and an IndoEuropean (Norwegian) – for structuring the text are more punctual, less inbuilt in the information structuring and therefore stylistically less subtle than the various possibilities offered in Finnish by the Object case alternation.

3 Finnish Partitive Object in the light of translations The starting point of this study was not strictly grammatical, but rather an updated discussion about the new insights that a semantic-cognitive approach brings to the conception of aspect. Furthermore, the main work which was referred to for borrowing an aspectual classification of Finnish verbs had clearly demonstrated that although primarily syntactic-semantic, the aspectual choice of Object case alternation also involves pragmatic features. In addition to that, I insisted on

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considering the role of Object partitives within the structuring of texts/discourses. And on top of all, the different approaches should be evaluated through translations. No need to say that, taking into account all these ingredients did not guarantee to obtain a hand-to-mouth recipe. In other words, I am not sure that this study adds any decisive evidence to Askonen’s optimistic conclusion: “When the activity expressed by the verb causes or has caused a change in the referent or location of the object and the situation described by the sentence has reached an end point from which it cannot continue unchanged, the object is in the accusative case, while otherwise it is in the partitive” (Askonen 2001: 485). But one can definitely consider that aspect is in Finnish a pragmatic concept implicit in the verb, which is determined specifically by the semantic factors underlying each situation – and by the morphosyntactic options intentionally exploited by the speaker. I claim thus that this study brings some new light on which cognitive, situational and textual criteria limit the flexibility of Finnish regarding its Object case alternation. The speaker/writer’s subjectivity put forward by some researchers (see Larsson above) could be obscured by the fact that a second subjectivity is superimposed on it: the translator’s. But the translator’s perception and interpretation of the speaker’s intentions are essential underlying factors. Besides, the translator’s choice helps to bring out the potentialities offered by the FIP. In this sense, translations (sometimes excluded from comparative/contrastive linguistics as “subjective” – but who could pretend that language use in general is totally “objective”?), enriches the knowledge we had of FIP and its multiple dimensions. Another controversial bias traditionally conveyed by syntacticians (and some typologists) which this study challenges is the following: “what is important in a language is what the speaker cannot be without saying / is obliged to say”. Partitive O is, on the contrary, interesting when it is not obligatory – even in positive sentences – i.e. specially with RESIRS verbs that allow for case variation, which implies an active choice from the speaker, taking into account the context and co-text. Both verbs with a broad and a narrow scope are concerned, and can behave differently according to the context and/or co-text (ex. (15)–(18)). Another significant angle is the text/ discourse strategy, independent of the case most often taken by the verbs: can one go so far as hypothesizing that the choice of verbs most frequently allowing a privileged PAR vs. ACC complements could have been primary in the elaboration of a text strategy in (18) and (19), prior to the unitary lexical meaning of the verbs? At least, FIP has indeed proved a useful means for structuring the text, superior to many other less flexible devices.

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Last but not least, the relevance of the notion of “resultativity” traditionally attached to FIP can also be questioned: other notions put forward by Cognitive linguistics could be referred to in this context, for instance the progression via “phase meanings” (Tommola 1984), Talmy’s notions of synoptic perspectival mode (with global scope of attention), as opposed to a sequential perspectival mode (with local scope of attention) – see Huumo (2009) – or the relation between language and thought, as reflected by the morphosyntactic vs. lexical expression of semantic categories in neighboring languages (Fernandez-Vest 2009b). This opens another perspective, based on information structuring, which I have only tackled here (hinting at the change of word order – thematized or rhematized objects or adverbials – in several examples), and which will be the next stage of study of Finnish Partitives in translated texts (see Fernandez-Vest 2012).

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Fernandez-Vest, M.M. Jocelyne. 2014 in press. Detachments for cohesion. Toward an information grammar of oral language. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Foley, Wiliam & Robert D. Van Valin Jr. 1984. Functional syntax and universal grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Goldberg, Adele. 1995. Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure. University of Chicago Press. Groot, Casper de & Hannu Tommola (eds.). 1984. Aspect bound. A voyage into the realm of Germanic, Slavonic and Finno-Ugrian aspectology. 2. Verb, sentence and aspect. Dordrecht: Foris Publication. Hagège, Claude. 2009. Verbs vs adpositions as markers of spatial meaning, Paper presented at the Association for Linguistic Typology 8th Biennal Meeting (ALT8), 23–26 July, 2009. University of California, Berkeley. Hagège, Claude. 2010. Adpositions. Function-marking in human languages (Oxford studies in typology and linguistic theory). Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press. Hakulinen Auli & Fred Karlsson. 1979. Nykysuomen lauseoppia (SKST 350) Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. Heinämäki, Orvokki. 1984. Aspect in Finnish. In Casper de Groot & Hannu Tommola (eds.), Aspect bound. A voyage into the realm of Germanic, Slavonic and Finno-Ugrian aspectology. 2. Verb, sentence and aspec, 153–178. Dordrecht: Foris Publication. Hopper, Paul J. 1979. Aspect and foregrounding in discourse. In Tom Givón (ed.), Syntax and semantics. Discourse and syntax, 213–242. New York: Academic Press. Huumo, Tuomas. 2009. Fictive dynamicity, nominal aspect, and the Finnish copulative construction. Cognitive Linguistics 20(1). 43–70. ISK = Iso suomen kielioppi [The comprehensive grammar of Finnish]. 2004. Auli Hakulinen, Maria Vilkuna, Riitta Korhonen, Vesa Koivisto, Tarja-Riitta Heinonen & Irja Alho. Helsinki: SKS. Itkonen, Terho. 1975. Erään sijamuodon ongelmia. Opuscula Instituti linguae fennicae, 53. 173– 217. Helsinki: Helsingin ylipisto. Kangasmaa-Minn, Eeva. 1978. On aspect variations of Finnish underived verbs. Turku: Suomen kielitieteellisen yhdistyksen julkaisuja 2. Kangasmaa-Minn, Eeva. 1984. Tense, aspect and Aktionsart in Finno-Ugrian. In Casper de Groot & Hannu Tommola (eds.), Aspect Bound, 77–93. Dordrecht: Foris Publication. Kangasmaa-Minn, Eeva. 1993. Aspektista ja sen sukulaisilmiöistä suomalais-ugrilaisissa kielissä. In Valma Yli-Vakkuri (ed.), Studia comparativa linguarum orbis Maris Baltici 1. 13–23. Kiparsky, Paul. 1998. Partitive case and aspect. In Miriam Butt & Willem Geuder (eds.), The projection of arguments, 265–307. Stanford: CSLI Publications. Kiparsky, Paul. 2001. Structural case in Finnish. Lingua 111. 315–376. Klaas. Birute. 1999. Dependence of the object case on the semantics of the verb in Estonian, Finnish, and Lithuanian. In Mati Erelt (ed.), Estonian. Typological studies. III (Publications of the Department of Estonian of the University of Tartu 11), 47–83. Tartu: University of Tartu. Larsson, Lars-Gunnar. 1983. Studien zum Partitivgebrauch in den ostseefinnischen Sprachen. Uppsala: Finsk-ugriska Institutionen.

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Larsson, Lars-Gunnar. 1984. The role of Baltic influence in the aspectual system of Finnish. In Casper de Groot & Hannu Tommola (eds.), Aspect bound. A voyage into the realm of Germanic, Slavonic and Finno-Ugrian aspectology. 2. Verb, sentence and aspect, 97–109. Dordrecht: Foris Publication. Leino, Pentti. 1991. Lauseet ja tilanteet: Suomen objektin ongelmia [The sentences and situations: Problems of the Finnish object], (Suomi 160), Helsinki: SKS. Leinonen, Marja. 1982. Russian Aspect, “temporal’naja lokalizacija’ and Definitness / Indefinitness. Helsinki: Neuvostoliitto-instituutin vuosikirja 27. Leinonen, Marja. 1984. Narrative implications of aspect in Russian and in Finnish. In Casper de Groot & Hannu Tommola (eds.), Aspect bound. A voyage into the realm of Germanic, Slavonic and Finno-Ugrian aspectology. 2. Verb, sentence and aspect, 239–255. Aspect bound. Levelt, Willem Johannes Maria. 1989. Speaking. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Maslov, Jurij S. 1973. Universal’nye semantičeskie komponenty v soderžánii grammatičeskoj kategorii soveršennogo nesoveršennogo vida. Sovetskoe slavjanovedenie 4. 72–83. Maslov, Jurij S. 1980. Struktura povestvovatel’nogo teksta i tipologija slavjanskix vidovremennyx system. Svantevit Årgång VI (1). 43–70. Maslov, Jurij S. 1988 [1983]. Chapter 2. Resultative, perfect and aspect. In Vladimir P. Nedjalkov (ed.), Typology of resultative constructions. Translated from the original Russian edition, Leningrad, Nayka, 1983. English translation edited by Bernard Comrie, 63–84. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Metslang, Helle. 1994. Temporal relations in the predicate and the grammatical system of Estonian and Finnish (Oulun yliopiston Suomen ja saamen kielen laitoksen tutkimusrapportteja 39). Oulu: Oulun yliopisto. Metslang, Helle. 2001. On the developments of the Estonian aspect: the verbal particle ära. In Östen Dahl & Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm (eds.), The Circum-Baltic languages. Their typology and contacts: Vol. 2. Grammar and typology (Studies in Language Companion Series (SLCS) 55), 443–479. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Metslang, Helle & Hannu Tommola. 1995. Zum tempusystem des Etnischen [On the tense system of Estonian]. In Rolf Thieroff (ed.), Tense systems in European languages. II. (Linguistische Arbeiten 338), 299–326. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Miller, Jim & M.M. Jocelyne Fernandez-Vest. 2006. Spoken and written language. In Giuliano Bernini & Marcia L. Schwartz (eds.), Pragmatic organization of discourse, (Empirical approaches to language typology, Eurotyp 20–8), 9–64. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Nedjalkov, Vladimir P. (ed.). 1988 [1983]. Typology of resultative constructions. Translated from the original Russian edition, Leningrad, Nayka, 1983. English translation edited by Bernard Comrie. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Penttilä, Aarni. 1963. Suomen kielioppi [Finnish grammar]. 2. Tarkistettu pianos. Porvoo: WSOY. Rajandi, Henno & Helle Metslang. 1979. Määrämata ja määratud object [Indefinite and definite object]. Tallinn: Eesti NSV Teaduste Akadeemia, Keele ja Kirjanduse Instituut. Sadeniemi, Matti. 1929. Objektin totaalisuudesta ja partiaalisuudesta. Virittäjä 33. Talmy, Leonard. 1995. Fictive motion in language and “ception”. In Toward a Cognitive Semantics, Vol. 1, MIT Press, 99–175. Tamm, Anne. 2003. Estonian transitive verb classes, aspect case, and the progressive. In Anne Dahl & Peter Svenonius (eds.), Proceedings of SCL Working papers of Language and Linguistics, Nordlyd 31(4).

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Tamm, Anne. 2004a. Relations between Estonian Aspect, verbs and object case. Budapest: ELTE dissertation. Tamm, Anne. 2004b. On the grammaticalization of the Estonian perfective particles. Acta Linguistica Hungarica 51(1–2). 143–169. Tamm, Anne. 2006. Estonian transitive verbs and object case. In Miriam Butt & Tracy Holloway King (eds.), Proceedings of the LFG06 Conference Universität Konstanz. Stanford, CA: CSLI, http://ccsli-publications-stanford.edu/LFG/11/lfg06.pdf Tommola, Hannu. 1984. On the significance of ‘phase meanings’’, in Casper de Groot & Hannu Tommola (eds.), Aspect bound. . . , 111–132. Van Valin Robert D., Jr. 1993. A synopsis of Role and Reference Grammar. In Robert Van Valin (ed.), Advances in Role and Reference Grammar, 1–164. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Van Valin Robert D., Jr. 2005. Exploring the syntax-semantics interface. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Van Valin Robert D., Jr. 2010. Achievements and accomplishments. Paper presented at the International Conference Representation of events, Paris III-Sorbonne Nouvelle, 28–30 October, 2010. Van Valin Robert D., Jr. 2011. Lexical representation, co-composition, and linking syntax and semantics. In James Pustejovsky et al. (eds.), New developments in the Generative Lexicon, Dordrecht, Kluwer. http://linguistics.buffalo.edu/ research/rrg.html Van Valin Robert D., Jr. & Randy LaPolla. 1997. Syntax: structure, meaning and function, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vendler Zeno. 1957 [1967]. Verbs and times, The Philosophical review, 6. 143–60. Reprinted in Z. Vendler, 1967, Linguistics in philosophy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Verkuyl Henk. 1989. Aspectual classes and aspectual composition. Linguistics and philosophy 12(1). 39–94. Verkuyl Henk. 1993. A theory of aspectuality. The interaction between temporal and atemporal structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wiedemann Ferdinand J. 1973. Estnisch-deutsches Worterbuch, 4:ter. Tallinn: Druck.

Corpus of translations Mukka Timo K. 1974. Laulu Sipirjan lapsista. Jyväskylä: Gummerus. Mukka Timo K. 2008. Sipirjá. Sami translation by Jovnna-Ánde Vest. Kárášjohka: Davvi Girji. Skabmatolak. Sabmelaš kirjjalašvuođa antologiija – Tulia kaamoksessa. Saamelaisen kirjallisuuden antologia [Fires in the polar night. An anthology of Sami literature], 1973, Samuli Aikio, Erkki Itkonen & Pekka Sammallahti (toaim.), (Aikio Sulo, 1974 [1968], Čierastallam [Mäenlaskua], 295–300; Paltto Kirsti, 1971, Soagŋu, Bijadat [Painajainen], 320–333). Helsinki: Otava. Vest Jovnna-Ánde. 1988 [2nd 1989]. Čáhcegáddái nohká boazobálggis. Kárášjohka: Davvi Girji. Vest Jovnna-Ánde. 1989. Reintråket ender ved bredden. Norwegian translation by Laila Stien. Oslo: Aschehoug. Vest Jovnna-Ánde. 1990. Poropolku sammaloituu. Finnish translation by Eino Kuokkanen. Oulu: Pohjoinen.

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Vest Jovnna-Ánde. 1996. The cloudberry trip. In Harald Gaski (ed.). In the shadow of the Midnight sun. Contempory Sami prose and poetry, 167–178. Kárášjohka: Davvi Girji. Vest Jovnna-Ánde. 2005. Árbbolaččat. III. Kárášjohka: Davvi Girji. Vest Jovnna-Ánde. 2006a. Arvingarna. III. Swedish translation by Riitta Taipale. Kárášjohka: Davvi Girji. Vest Jovnna-Ánde. 2006b. Perilliset. III. Finnish translation by Jovnna-Ánde Vest. Kárášjohka: Davvi Girji.

III Basque

Urtzi Etxeberria

7 The definite article and the partitive particle in Basque: dialectal variation* The aim of this paper is to make an as thorough as possible a description of both the Basque so-called definite article and the partitive particle [-rik] across its various dialects. The reason why I concentrate on these two elements is because they are clearly related to each other; the partitive particle [-rik] is taken to be the morpheme that is used in polarity contexts instead of the existential interpretation of the definite article [-a(k)]. The paper does not aim at giving neither a syntactic nor a semantic analysis of these two morphemes, and it should only be taken as an initial approximation to the topic. Keywords: definite article, partitive, bare nouns, existential interpretation, dialectal variation.

1 Introduction The main aim of this paper is quite modest: as the title itself claims, the paper aims at investigating the relationship between the so-called Basque definite article (both in its singular and plural form) and the Basque partitive particle. In other words, this paper will try to provide a description of the behaviour of these two elements. These elements show dialectal variation: the most significant variation is found between the western-central Basque and the eastern Basque, and it is

* The research conducing to this paper has benefited from the Basque Government project GIC07/144-IT-210-07 and Hm-2008-1-10, from the project FR2559 from Fèderation Typologie et Universaux Linguistiques, from the MCE projects FFI2008-00240, FFI2011-29218, FFI201126906, FFI2011-23356, from the UPV/EHU project UFI11/14, from the Aquitaine-Euskadi project HM-2012, as well as from the ANR projects TSABL (ANR-07-CORP-033), ISQI (ANR 2011-JSH2004-1), and from the Franco-German ANR/DFG project Vers une typologie des pronoms impersonnels humains (TypoImp). Many thanks to Beñat Oihartzabal, Aurelia Arcocha, Xarles Bidegain, Battittu Coyos, Maia Duguine, Isabelle Duguine, Oihana Larrandaburu, Marylin Recalt, and Maider Bedaxagar for help with the eastern Basque data. Thanks also to Beñat Oihartzabal, Jasone Salaberri and Irantzu Epelde for sharing with me data they collected for the project Norantz (http://www.norantz.org/web/en/sarrera). Thanks also to the two anonymous reviewers for this volume. I am very grateful to Silvia Luraghi and Tuomas Huumo for inviting me to write this paper, as well as for their patience. Usual disclaimers apply.

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Figure 1: Map of Basque Dialects (Zuazo 2008)

exactly here where this paper wants to put its attention. The final aim of this paper is not to provide a specific syntactic analysis of these elements, however, I do expect that this initial step will make it possible to do so in the near future (cf. Etxeberria in prep). Thus, let us take this paper (together with Txillardegi 1977, Irigoien 1985, Artiagoitia 2002, 2006, Etxeberria 2005, 2010, to appear, Manterola 2008, Santazilia 2009, Etxeberria & Etxepare 2009, Etxeberria in prep, among many others) as a starting point of a thorough analysis of the functional structure of the Basque nominal phrase across its various dialects. Before we move on to the next section, I would like to make it clear that when I say western-central or eastern Basque I’m talking in a vague way, since I don’t know where exactly the linguistic borders are situated. Now, this paper makes a two-side division: when we talk about the definite article [-a(k)], on the one hand, we will have the Bizkaian, the Gipuzkoan, and the Lapurdian dialects, and on the other, we will have the Souletin (from Zuberoa, the most eastern dialect of Basque); cf. Figure 1. I assume that Bizkaian and Gipuzkoan behave alike since, apart from the possibility of having a demonstrative and the definite article in the same noun phrase in Bizkaian: a gizon-a ‘that man-the’, there are no differences between them. I will not consider the dialect from Low Navarrese in this paper and I will assume that this dialect behaves just

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like Souletin when it comes to the behaviour of the definite article.1 Note also that the dialect from Navarre is not mentioned in the paper; the reason why this is so is due to the fact that I have not been able to collect data from this dialect. However, I do believe that the behaviour of this dialect concerning the use of the definite article basically parallels Gipuzkoan. While considering the partitive [-rik], the division is the following: (i) Bizkaian and Gipuzkoan (and Navarrese), (ii) Lapurdian, and Souletin. The paper is divided into two sections: the first section makes an as thorough as possible description of the various uses of the definite article across dialects. The second section concentrates on the partitive particle [-rik] and its dialectal variation.

2 The definite article [-a(k)] As it will be shown below, the Basque definite article is used with more semantic meanings than that of languages surrounding it (cf. among other Artiagoitia 2002, 2004, 2012, Eguren 2006, 2012, Etxeberria 2005, 2008, 2010, 2012a, to appear). A quote by Trask (2003: 119) is in order here: “The label ‘definite article’ is misleading, since this article is of a much broader use than the English definite article.” In this quote, Trask compares the use of the Basque definite article [-a] with the use of the English definite article. We could easily make the same claim if we compared the Basque definite article to the definite article of languages like French or Spanish. And I agree with Trask’s claim, as long as we only consider western-central dialects (or Standard Basque) where the definite article appears in positions where other languages use bare nouns (BNs). In fact, we could be led to think that the Basque definite article is not really definite. However, this paper assumes (in line with Etxeberria 2005, 2010, to appear) that, despite its various semantic uses (see below), the Basque morpheme [-a] is always the definite article and as such it always base-generates at the same syntactic position. In fact, what this paper assumes is that the definite article and the number markers ([-Ø] for singulars and [-k] for plurals) are base-generated in different syntactic positions: [-a] in the head of Determiner Phrase (DP), number markers in the head of Number Phrase (NumP). However, it is not the aim of this paper to 1 There exists a difference between these two dialects: while Souletin makes use of the definite article on predicative use (cf. Manterola 2008; Santazilia 2009; cf. also Etxeberria to appear, in prep), this is not the case in Low-Navarrese. Be that as it may, this paper will not consider the predicative use of the definite article. (cf. among others Zabala 1993, 2003, Artiagoitia 1997, Eguren 2005, 2006, 2012, Matushansky 2005 for possible analyses)

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provide arguments in favour of this proposal and I assume it as correct. The reader is referred to Etxeberria (2005, 2010, to appear); cf. Manterola (2006, 2009, 2012), Etxeberria (to appear) for a diachronic analysis of the Basque definite article. In what follows, the paper concentrates on making a general description of the behaviour of the morpheme [-a], i.e. the definite article. Thus, the Basque definite article is a bound morpheme that takes the phonetic forms [-a] (when singular) and [-ak] (when plural).2 (1)

a.

gizon-a man-DET. SG ‘the man’

b.

gizon-ak man-DET. PL ‘the men’

In western-central varieties there is also a proximate plural definite article [-ok].3 (2)

gizon-ok man-DET. PROX . PL

The article appears in the final position of the nominal phrase, attached to the noun as in the example in (1) or attached to an adjective: (3)

a.

liburu urdin-a book blue-DET. SG ‘the blue book’

b.

liburu urdin txiki-a book blue small-DET. SG ‘the small blue book’

2 Some authors argue that the plural form of the Basque definite article [-ak] is a single element (cf. Goenaga 1978, 1991, Euskaltzaindia 1993, Ticio 1996, Artiagoitia 1997, 2002, 2004, 2012, Rodriguez 2003, Trask 2003). Based on Etxeberria (2005), I defend that singular and plural markers and the definite article [-a] are base-generated in different syntactic positions; see also Eguren 2006, 2012; see §2.1. However, for ease of exposition, I will refer to [-a] and [-ak] as the singular and the plural determiner respectively. 3 Although there is no singular proximate singular in modern Basque, -ori, -or, -au or o are attested in early texts; it is still possible to find -o in actual Bizkaian in hemen berton ‘right here’, along with hemen bertan ‘right here’.

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295

liburu urdin txiki polit-a book blue small nice-DET. SG ‘the nice small blue book’

In general terms, the properties of the definite article [-a] are those presented in the previous paragraphs.4 Let us move now to see the behaviour and use of this element in different dialects.

2.1 Bizkaian, Gipuzkoan, and Lapurdian (western-central) It’s been assumed (cf. among others, Laka 1993, Artiagoitia 1997, 1998, 2002, 2004, 2012, Etxeberria 2005, 2010, 2012a) that BNs cannot be used in argument position in Basque and that the use of the definite article is necessary if sentences are going to be grammatical.5,6 This is actually one of the most characteristic 4 There is another very interesting use of the definite article that takes place in all varieties: the presence of the morpheme [-a(k)] is obligatory with so-called strong quantifiers, cf. (i) below, where the definite article has been argued to be the overt contextual domain restrictor of the quantifier (cf. Etxeberria 2005, 2007, 2009, 2012b, Etxeberria & Giannakidou 2009, et seq.). (i) Ikasle guzti*(-ak) berandu etorri ziren. come AUX : PL student all-DET. PL late 5 The presence of an indefinite determiner (ia) or a weak quantifier (ib) (cf. Etxeberria, 2005, 2008, 2012a, in prep) also makes the sentence grammatical. (i) a. Mutil bat berandu iritsi zen. boy one late arrive AUX . PAST ‘A boy arrived late.’ b. Mutil asko berandu iritsi ziren. boy many late arrive AUX . PAST ‘Many boys arrived late.’ Note that the morpheme [-a] cannot be combined with the indefinite determiner or with the weak quantifiers in the examples in (i); this is also a property that applies to all varieties of Basque (cf. Etxeberria 2008, 2012a, in prep for a more general presentation of this data and for a possible analysis). 6 As already mentioned in the introduction, this paper will only concentrate on the argumental use of the definite article (and the partitive [-rik]). However, this is not the only possible usage of this element since it can also have predicative uses: Jon irakaslea da ‘Jon is a teacher’ vs. Jon irakasle dago ‘Jon is working as a teacher’. In predicative uses, the article plays the role of the participle or of individual-level predicates (cf. among others Zabala 1993, 2003, Artiagoitia 1997, Eguren 2005, 2006, 2012, Matushansky 2005 for possible analyses). There is also variation (western-eastern) in these uses of the definite article (cf. Manterola 2008, 2012, Santazilia 2009).

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properties of the Basque definite article [-a] in these varieties (also in Standard Basque).7 Subject position: (4) a. Irakasle*(-a) berandu teacher-DET. SG late ‘The teacher came late.’ b.

etorri come

zen. AUX : SG

Irakasle*(-ak) berandu etorri come teacher-DET. PL late ‘The teachers came late.’

AUX : PL

Object position: (5) a. Kepa-k baloi*(-a) Kepa-ERG ball-DET. SG ‘Kepa took the ball.’ b.

ziren.

hartu take

zuen. AUX : SG

Kepa-k baloi*(-ak) hartu Kepa-ERG ball-DET. PL take ‘Kepa took (the) balls.’

zituen. AUX : PL

Indirect Object position: (6) a. Kepa-k gizon*(-a-)ri baloi-a Kepa-ERG man-DET. SG . DAT ball-DET. SG . ABS ‘Kepa gave the ball to the man.’ b.

Kepa-k gizon*(-e-)i baloi-a Kepa-ERG man-DET. PL . DAT ball-DET. SG . ABS ‘Kepa gave the ball to the men.’

eman give

zion. AUX : SG

eman give

zien. AUX : PL

If BNs cannot appear in argument position in these dialects of Basque, the question that could come to our mind is how these varieties of Basque express what other languages express by means of BNs.8 For example, English

7 In fact, everything that we will say about the behaviour of the definite article in these varieties also applies to the behaviour of the definite article in Standard Basque. 8 In this paper, apart from Basque, the languages that appear the most are English, Spanish, and French. There are also languages without articles: Russian, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Dene Suline, among others. These languages make use of different means to express (in)definiteness: by word order, by context, by case etc. These languages will not be treated in this paper.

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and other Germanic languages can use bare plurals and mass terms without D to express both the kind reading (7) as well as the existential reading (8).9 (7)

a. b.

Fishes appeared 390 million years ago. Silver has the atomic number 47.

(8)

a. b.

Garazi has eaten olives. Moles are ruining my parents’ vegetable garden.

As soon as we approach the phenomenon we notice that the Basque definite article in these varieties is of a much broader use than the definite article of languages like English or Romance languages: in addition to the usual referential interpretation that we get both in (2) and (3) the definite article also appears in contexts where other languages typically present BNs, e.g. Spanish or English – not French, where BNs are not accepted but in coordination contexts; cf. Roodenberg (2004). To begin with, when the Basque [NP+DET] sequence combines with kind level predicates (e.g. evolve, become extinct, be common, etc.; cf. Carlson 1977; cf. also Krifka et al. 1995), the usual referential interpretation (i.e. the definite extensional interpretation) disappears and it adopts a kind reading where the DP makes reference to the species as a whole (creating an intensional interpretation, which makes reference to the biggest plurality of the set denoted by the NP in all possible worlds and situations). This comes as no surprise as many other European languages also make use of the definite determiner to express the kind interpretation, e.g. Romance languages, or Greek (cf. Kleiber 1990, Krifka et al 1995, Chierchia 1998, Zamparelli 1998, Fara 2001, Dayal 2004, etc.). (9)

a.

b.

Dinosauru-ak aspaldi desagertu dinosaur-DET. PL long time ago disappear ‘Dinosaurs disappeared a long time ago.’

ziren. AUX

Nitrogeno-a ugaria da gure unibertsoa-n. nitrogen-DET. SG abundant is our universe-INE ‘Nitrogen is abundant in our universe.’

In the examples in (9), the DPs dinosauruak ‘dinosaur-DET. PL ’ and nitrogenoa ‘nitrogen-DET. SG ’ do not make reference to a specific set of dinosaurs or to a

9 I assume (in line with Chierchia 1998, 2009) that mass terms are atomic (cf. (26)), although their atomic nature is vague.

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specific quantity of nitrogen, but to the species dinosaurs and to the species nitrogen. Now, when Basque definite DPs fill the direct object slot, the definite DP can but need not obtain the referential interpretation and can get the so-called existential interpretation (cf. Carlson 1977, among others), (plurals and masses; singular definite DPs can only be interpreted existentially in some very specific contexts, see examples (11–12)). In other words, in the examples in (10) we need not be talking about a specific set of candies or a specific quantity of wine.10 (10)

a.

Kepa-k goxoki-ak Kepa-ERG candy-DET. PL . ABS ‘Kepa ate (the) candies.’

b.

Bartolo-k garagardo-a Bartolo-ERG beer-DET. SG . ABS ‘Bartolo drank (the) beer.’

jan eat

zituen. AUX : PL

edan drink

zuen. AUX : SG

Note that in the examples in (10) the object DPs cannot make reference to the whole species denoted by the NP. However, a referential interpretation is possible for both the object DPs in (10); that is, if we were to offer English translations (10a) and (10b) would be ambiguous: (10a) ‘Kepa ate the candies’ or ‘Kepa ate candies’; (10b) ‘Bartolo drank the beer’ or ‘Bartolo drank beer’.11,12

10 Romance languages make use of different strategies to obtain this existential interpretation. Both Spanish and Italian are able to use BNs (just like English or other Germanic languages). On the other hand, French makes use of the so-called partitive determiner des/du and no BNs are allowed (Italian also has a partitive determiner). See Chierchia (1998), Zamparelli (2000, 2002a, 2002b), Kleiber (1990), Bosveld-de Smet (1997), Heyd (2003), Bosque (1996), Laca (1996). Sp.: Juan ha bebido [café]. Juan has drunk [coffee] ‘Juan has drunk coffee.’ Fr.: Pierre a mange [des sucreries]. Pierre has eaten [of-the sweets] ‘Pierre has eaten sweets.’ 11 There are different analysis that have tried to account for the existential reading of Basque definite DPs. Due to lack of space, I will not get into explaining these approaches. The reader is referred to Artiagoitia (2002, 2004, 2012), Eguren (2006), Etxeberria (2005, 2010, to appear). 12 The existential reading could also be called indefinite; however, there are some important differences between the existential reading that the Basque definite article (or BNs in English or Spanish) can obtain and the existential interpretation that real indefinites (e.g. a) get. When

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Apart from these cases, some singular definite DPs can also get the so-called existential-like reading as shown by the example in (11). This paper will not try to provide an account for this use; cf. Rodriguez (2003), Etxeberria (2005, in prep) or Eguren (2006) for a possible analysis; cf. Manterola (2009, 2012) for a diachronic analysis. (11)

Joseba-k auto-a Joseba.ERG car-DET. SG . ABS ‘Jon bought (the/a) car.’

erosi buy

zuen. AUX

This sentence is also ambiguous: in one of the readings Jon has bought a specific car, e.g. the one that he mentioned he was going to buy, a Citroën 2CV; in the other reading the sentence in (11) is taken to be more or less parallel to something like ‘Jon has bought a car’ where we don’t know which car we are talking about, hence parallel to the non-specific reading of a car. However, the sequence [count N + singular DET] in (11) can only be interpreted existentially in very specific contexts: so-called stereotypical contexts (such as buying a car, having a wife/husband, having a baby, wearing a hat, etc.). Furthermore, all the examples in (12) have a clear sense of possession, that is, once you buy a car/house, you become the possessor, having something is also closely related to possession, as it is wearing something (e.g. hat). It is obvious then that singular definite DPs in Basque do not get the existential interpretation as easily as plurals or mass terms do.

existentially interpreted, the Basque definites DPs do not behave like usual indefinites and must always take narrow scope (pace the Ambiguity approach), just like BNs in English. (i) a. #Nere aita-k bi sator hil ditu ordubetez. my father-ERG two mole kill AUX hour-FOR ‘My father has killed two moles for an hour.’ b. Nere aita-k satorr-ak hil ditu ordubetez. my father-ERG mole-DET. PL kill AUX hour-FOR ‘My father has killed moles for an hour.’ The sentence in (ia) can only be interpreted with the indefinite bi sator ‘two moles’ having wide scope over the atelic adverbial [bi sator > adv.] and asserts that the same two moles have been killed again and again; a rather strange state of affairs. The sentence in (ib) on the other hand is completely grammatical. The reading we get is one where my father has killed different moles and the definite DP must necessarily take narrow scope below the adverbial [adv. > satorrak].

300 (12)

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a.

auto-a/etxe-a car-DET. SG /house-DET. SG

erosi buy

b.

senarr-a/emazte-a husband-DET. SG /wife.DET. SG

c.

txapel-a hat-DET. SG

eduki have

eraman bring

Romance languages (e.g. Spanish, French and Romanian), in order to express what the examples in (12) express, make use of singular BNs (cf. Bosque 1996 for an extensive presentation of Spanish data; cf. Dobrovie-Sorin, Bleam & Espinal 2005, Espinal & McNally 2007, Espinal 2010 for possible analyses). (13)

comprar buy

coche/casa, car/house

tener have

marido/mujer, husband/wife

llevar bring

sombrero, hat

etc.

Note that normally Basque [count N + singular DET] sequences that appear in object position of object-level predicates can only get referential interpretations, in contrast with what we previously saw in the examples in (12). In other words, in the examples in (14), we are necessarily talking about a specific book, a specific boy, and a specific magazine, respectively; and there is no way we can get an existential-like reading. (14)

a.

liburu-a erosi book-DET. SG buy ‘buy the book’

b.

mutil-a ikusi boy-DET. SG see ‘see the boy’

c.

aldizkari-a irakurri magazine-DET. SG read ‘read the magazine’

There is a difference between the Basque spoken in Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa and the one spoken in Lapurdi. In existential sentences (with neutral intonation), the nominal expression can appear combined with the definite article (when mass or plural) in the three varieties, no matter the construction we use to create existential sentences, (15a) or (15b) (cf. Etxeberria 2012a for extensive

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discussion on Basque existential sentences).13 However, when we use them as an exclamation, it is possible to use BNs with no article in existential sentences in the Lapurdian dialect, as can be seen in (16a); in the varieties of Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa, on the other hand, BNs are not allowed, (16b). (15)

a.

Bada ardo-a hotzgailua-n. yes-is wine-DET. SG fridge-INE ‘There is wine in the fridge.’

b.

Hotzgailua-n ardo-a dago. wine-DET. SG be-egon.SG 14 fridge-INE ‘There is wine in the fridge.’

13 We could discuss whether the sentences in (15) are existential sentences or locative sentences. In English, for example, existential contexts do not admit definite articles whereas locative contexts do admit them (so-called definiteness effect or definiteness restriction, Milsark 1977; cf. Freeze 1992, Bresnan 1994; cf. Etxeberria to appear for Basque). (i) a. There is a book on the table. [existential] b. The book is on the table. [locative] Note that instead of using the mass term that we use in the examples (15) and (16), we would use a count noun, the resulting sentence would be completely ungrammatical. An indefinite article would rescue the sentence (iic–iid). (ii) a. *Bada gizona gela-n. yes.is man-DET. SG room.- NE b. *Badira gizonak gela-n. yes.are man-DET. PL room-INE c. Bada ikasle bat gela-n. yes.is student one room-INE ‘There is a student in the room.’ d. Badira ikasle batzuk gela-n. yes.are student some room-INE ‘There are some students in the room.’ The sentence in (15b) would not be ungrammatical with a count term like gizon ‘man’, but the interpretation would be completely locative. In other words, the English translation of the sentence in (iii) would be the man is in the room, not there is a man in the room. (iii) Gelan gizona dago. room-INE man-DET. SG be-egon.SG 14 Basque, like Spanish (Lujan 1981, Schmitt 1992, Fernández Leborans 1999), distinguishes between a locative copula and a characterizing one (Etxepare, 2003). Intuitively, the locative

302 (16)

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a.

Bada yes-is

jende people

hemen!! here

b.

Bada jendea hemen!! yes-is people-DET. SG here ‘There is people in here!’

The sentence in (16a), despite using the BN jende ‘people’, is interpreted as making reference to a big quantity of people; i.e., the sentence in (16a) is equal to something like bada jende asko/pila bat hemen ‘there is a lot of people here’. This interpretation is impossible for the sentences in (15).

2.2 Souletin or when the article is less used In Souletin, the behavior of the definite determiner is that of a ‘well-behaved’ definite determiner; i.e. it forces a referential interpretation in episodic contexts no matter what syntactic position it appears in. However, as a general rule, Souletin makes less use of the morpheme [-a], and in this dialect it is possible to use BNs in some specific syntactic positions (something impossible in the western-central varieties, as we saw above) – cf. Txillardegi (1977), Coyos (1999), Casenave-Harigile (2006), Etxebarne (2006) for a description of the use of BNs in Souletin; cf. also Etxeberria (to appear) for a possible analysis of the data.15 In Souletin, it is possible to use BNs in direct object position as the following examples show: (17)

a.

Bortü-a-n ikusi dut behi, ardi eta aux cow sheep and mountain-DET. SG - INE see ‘I have seen cows, sheep, and mules in the mountain.’ (Coyos 1999)

mando. mule

copula egon ascribes a temporary property to the subject of predication (ib), whereas the characterizing copula izan introduces an inherent property of the subject (ia). (i) a. Jon oso barregarri-a da is Jon very funny-DET ‘Jon is a very funny guy.’ b. Jon oso barregarri dago (mozorro horrekin) Jon very funny is-LOC costume that-with ‘Jon is very funny (in that costume).’ 15 Thanks to Battittu Coyos, Oihana Larrandaburu, Marylin Recalt, and especially Maider Bedaxagar, for help with the Souletin data.

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b.

Dembora da (. . .) içan deçada-n time is be have-COMP ‘It is time for me to have money.’ (Bourciez 1895)

diru. money

c.

Manexe-k hur edan dizü. Peio-k ogi Peio-ERG bread Manex-ERG water drink AUX ‘Manex has drunk water. Peio has eaten bread.’ (Norantz)

jan eat

dizü. AUX

These BNs are interpreted existentially, just as the DPs in object position of the sentences in (10). To be interpreted existentially means that in the examples in (17) we are not talking about a specific set of cows, sheep, or mules, or a specific quantity of money, water, or bread. Now, if we would add the definite article to these BNs, they would necessarily get a specific (referential) interpretation. BNs in Souletin can also appear in existential contexts. (18)

a.

Badüzü etüdiant arrua-n. yes-you.have student street-INE ‘There are students in the street.’

b.

Badüzü hur godaleti-n. yes-you.have water glass-INE ‘There is water in the glass.’

Note that BNs are allowed neither in subject position (with ergative or absolutive case) nor in indirect object position as the following examples clearly show. Subject (19) a.

Ergative:

(i) (ii)

b.

Absolutive:

(i) (ii)

*Ikasle-k hori egin dü. student-ERG that.ABS do AUX Ikasle-ek hori egin student-DET. PL . ERG that.ABS do ‘The students did that.’ *Ikasle jin da. student-ABS come AUX Ikasle-ak jin student-DET. PL . ABS come ‘The students came.’

dira. AUX

düe. AUX

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Indirect object: (20) a. *Ikasle-ri student-DAT b.

librü book-ABS

eman give

Ikasle-ei librü student-DET. PL . DAT book-ABS ‘I gave the student books.’

deiot. AUX

eman give

deiet. AUX

One other property of BNs is that they can not be combined with kind-level predicates (see (9)), where the BN would be making reference to the species as a whole, and the presence of the definite article is necessary for the sentence to be grammatical. (21)

a.

Lehu*(-ak) desagertze-ra lion-DET. PL . ABS disappear-ALL ‘Lions are about to disappear.’

dira. aux

b.

Nitrojeno*(-a) paketa da gure nitrogen-DET. SG . ABS abundant is our ‘Nitrogen is abundant in our country.’

lürraldea-n. country-INE

They cannot either appear in generic sentences (cf. Carlson & Pelletier 1995). In these cases too, the presence of the definite article is obligatory. (22)

a.

Gatü*(-a) intelijent da. cat-DET. SG intelligent is ‘The cat is intelligent.’

b.

Ni-k errespeta-tzen I-ERG respect-PROG ‘I respect teachers.’

dütüt AUX

erakasle*(-ak). teacher-DET. PL

Let us now go back to the contexts where BNs are accepted in Souletin, i.e. to the examples in (17). One could think that the existential reading of BNs is related to plurality. In other words, one could be led to think that whenever we make use of a BN in Souletin, we necessarily make reference to a set with more than one member. And this does make sense considering that: (i) Spanish or English BNs (which can be interpreted existentially) always appear with the plural number marker [-s] (except for the mass terms); (ii) in western-central Basque, in order to obtain the existential reading we make use of the plural definite article [-ak], cf. example (10) (with mass terms we would use [-a]; note

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that I assume – in line with Etxeberria 2005, 2010 – that mass terms are number neutral and that they do not have any kind of number morphology; cf. also Delfitto & Schroten 1991, Doetjes 1997, Dayal 2004, Krifka 2004). However, this way of thinking is not correct. What is important in the existential interpretation of the BNs in (17) is not whether they make reference to a singularity or plurality, but rather, to make non-specific reference to what the noun denotes in the real world. Evidence in favour of this idea comes from the following examples: in Souletin, the translation of the sentence in (23) would be realised by means of a BN, as in (24). (23)

Do you have children.

(24)

Badüzü yes-you.have

haur?16 child

The answer that a Souletin speaker would give to a question like (24) would be positive in a situation where the answerer has a single child. If the BN denoted a plurality, the response to the question in (24) should be negative (in this very same context), but it is not. We get an equal effect in examples such as (25). Consider the following scenario: the Souletin speaker of the previous example goes to the National Health Service office and sees a sign with the sentence in (25) in it. No doubt, despite having a single child, the Souletin speaker would wait in the left queue. Again, this should not be what the Souletin speaker would do in case the BN denoted a plurality. (25)

Haur badüzü, jar zite eskerre-ko herroka-n. queue-INE child yes-you.have put AUX left-GEN ‘If you have children, wait in the left queue.’

What these examples come to show is that BNs in Souletin denote the whole lattice, and that it does not matter whether they make reference to a single element, i.e. an atom, or to a plurality. In other words, BNs in Souletin are number neutral; that is, they contain no number specifications at all and they can make reference to any number of objects. (cf. Jespersen 1924, Chierchia 1998, Corbett 2000, Dayal 2004, Rullman & You 2006, Wilhelm 2008, etc.)

16 It is possible to use the partitive [-rik] in this context, i.e. badüzü haurrik?. However, there is a preference for the BN. Cf. 3.2.

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(26)

Further evidence for this idea comes from the possibility of having a BN in predicative position which can be used to predicate of a singularity or of a plurality. As shown in (27a) and (27b) respectively.17 (27)

a.

Jon erakasle da. Jon teacher is ‘Jon is a teacher.’

b.

Jon eta Miren erakasle dira. Jon and Miren teacher are ‘Jon and Miren are teachers.’

The behaviour and distribution of BNs in Souletin reminds us of the behaviour and distribution of BNs in (at least some) Romance languages. In Spanish, for example, BNs are possible in direct object position as shown in (28a,b) – or in postverbal subject position, (28c), cf. Bosque 1996. (28)

a.

Juan ha comido patatas. potatoes Juan AUX eaten ‘Juan has eaten potatoes.’

b.

Mikel ha bebido café. Mikel AUX drunk coffee ‘Mikel has drunk coffee.’

c.

Llegaron estudiantes. arrived students ‘Students arrived.’

The BNs in the examples above can only obtain the so-called existential interpretation, as is the case with Souletin BNs. Now, in subject position (except for examples such as those in (28c)), the presence of the definite article is necessary if the sentence is going to be grammatical. See Bosque (1996: p. 173). 17 For more discussion on this and for a possible analysis, cf. Etxeberria (to appear, in prep).

The definite article and the partitive particle in Basque: dialectal variation

(29)

a. *(Los) médicos trataron de salvar DET. PL doctors treat of save ‘The doctors tried to save the child.’ b. *(Los) estudiantes comieron DET. PL students eat ‘The students ate potatoes.’ c. *(Los) dinosaurios están DET. PL dinosaurs are ‘Dinosaurs are extinct.’

al to-DET. SG

307

niño. child

patatas. potatoes

extintos. extinct

Despite similarities, there is a significant difference between Souletin BNs and those of Romance languages, and this difference concerns number marking. Spanish plural BNs need to appear with the plural marker [-s] – not mass terms – as can be seen in (30a), whereas Souletin BNs are real BNs and appear without any kind of number marking, (30b).18,19 (30)

a.

b.

Spanish BNs: patata-s, leone-s, potato-pl lion-pl

estudiante-s, student-pl

Souletin BNs: behi, ardi, mando, cow sheep mule

(vino). . . wine

(arno). . . wine

Summarizing, this section has first provided a general description of the use of the Basque definite article to then present its behaviour in various dialects. From what we have seen, the more we move to the eastern provinces of the Basque County, the less we use the definite article. Whereas western-central dialects (cf. §2.1) need the presence of the definite article in all argumental positions, this is not so in Souletin where BNs are allowed in direct object position (cf. §2.2). The following section concentrates on the use of the partitive [-rik] in different Basque dialects. But before we do that, we will make a general (non-exhaustive) description of this particle. 18 Cf. Etxeberria & Etxepare (2009) for a possible analysis of this property. 19 The behaviour of Souletin BNs appears to be similar to the BNs of languages such as Korean, Japanese, Dene Suline, i.e. to articleless languages. There is a significant different among these languages and Souletin: Souletin does have a definite [-a(k)] as well as an indefinite article bat ‘one’. For more on this, cf. Etxeberria (to appear, in prep).

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3 The partitive particle [-rik] Many authors have treated the partitive particle [-rik] as an article (cf. Larramendi 1927; Azkue 1905, 1923 among others; cf. (see de Rijk) 1972 for historical references; cf. also de Rijk 2008). If this is really the case (and it is true that syntactically it behaves as an article in polarity contexts; however, interesting as this discussion may be, I won’t get into it) the partitive must be a special kind of an article since it does not accept case markers (in opposition to what happens with any other Basque article, e.g. the definite article). In this paper, we will use the term ‘partitive’ to refer to the particle [-rik] (in line with other traditional grammars; cf. Lafitte 1962).20 The partitive only attaches to transitive direct objects (31) and to intransitive subject (32) and it behaves as a “polarity element” in that it only appears in polarity contexts. (31)

a.

Kepa-k ez du baloi-rik ekarri. Kepa-ERG no AUX ball-PAR bring ‘Kepa has not brought (any) ball.’

b.

Maia-k ez du ardo-rik Maia-ERG no AUX wine-PAR ‘Maia has not drunk wine.’

c. *Katu-rik cat-PAR (32)

ez no

du AUX

jan eat

edan. drink

sagu-rik. mouse-PAR

a.

Mendia-n ez da hildako animalia-rik animal-PAR mountain-INE no AUX dead ‘No dead animal appeared in the mountain.’

b.

Bilera-ra ez da irakasle-rik etorri. meeting-ALL no AUX teacher-PAR come ‘No teacher has come to the meeting.’

azaldu. appear

20 The origin of the partitive is related to the ablative (see de Rijk 1996; although see Ariztimuño this volume for arguments in favour of the idea that the partitives’ origin is related to the dative case). In eastern dialects the form [-rik] is sometimes used instead of the ablative [-tik]. Furthermore, [-rik] is used with an ablative sense in all Basque dialects: mendi-rik mendi ‘lit.: mountain-from mountain’, aho-rik aho ‘mouth-from mouth’, ate-rik ate ‘door-from door’, etc; cf. also de Rijk (2008).

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Concerning the meaning of the partitive, it makes completely unspecific reference to what the nominal expression denotes (cf. also de Rijk 1996, Etxepare 2003). In other words, what the speaker knows is that there are no members (or quantity) in the set denoted by the noun. Thus, it would seem that the partitive NP makes reference to the whole lattice since it does not matter whether they make reference to a single element, i.e. an atom, or to a plurality (cf. example (26)), as was the case with the BNs in Souletin (cf. §2.2). Some of the syntactic environments allowing the partitive are the following (cf. de Rijk 1972, 1996; Trask 2003; Etxepare 2003 for a complete description): (i) negative sentences (31–32); (ii) existential sentences (33a); (iii) yes/no questions (33b); (iv) protasis of conditional (33c); (v) before clauses (33d); (vi) without clauses (33e); (vii) superlative (33f); (viii) with some quantifiers (33g). (33)

a.

Bada atzerritar-rik Donostia-n!21 yes-is foreigner-PAR Donostia-INE ‘There are foreigners in Donostia!’

b.

Goxoki-rik nahi al duzu? candy-PAR want Q AUX ‘Do you want any candy?’

c.

Taxi-rik taxi-par ilara queue

lortu get

nahi want

honetatik this-from

ez no

baduzu, yes-you.have

hobe better

duzu aux

mugitu. move

‘If you want to get a taxi, you better not move from this line.’ d.

e.

Tontakeria-rik egin baino lehen, joan than before go silly thing-PAR do ‘Go home before you do silly things.’ Diru-rik gabe atera money-PAR without leave ‘I left home without money.’

naiz AUX

zaitez AUX

etxe-ra. home-ALL

etxe-tik. home-from

21 Constructions such as those in (33a) are only possible as an exclamation; see de Rijk (1972). The interpretation that these kinds of sentences get is parallel to bada atzerritar asko ‘there are many foreigners’; cf. example (16). If we add an adjective to the noun, the sentence need not be an exclamation: ardo onik badute taberna honetan ‘they have good wine in this bar’, gizon onik bada Euskal Herrian ‘there are good men in the Basque Country’ (cf. de Rijk 1972: 178; cf. also 30th law of the Academy of the Basque Language, Euskaltzaindia – http://www.euskaltzaindia.net/dok/arauak/Araua_0030.pdf).

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Urtzi Etxeberria

f.

g.

Jostailu-rik polit-ena ni-k ekarri nice-SUP I-ERG bring toy-PAR ‘I brought the nicest toy today.’ Zeresan-ik gossip-PAR

asko / gizon-ik many man-PAR

lagun-ik friend-PAR

franko many

dut AUX

gaur. today

aski enough

/ Esker-rik thank-PAR

asko!22 many

‘many gossiping / enough men / many friends / many thanks’ This paper will only concentrate on the first three uses of those we just mentioned. Note also that the paper will not consider either the use of the partitive with participles – what de Rijk (1972) calls stative [-rik] – (Jon gaixorik dago ‘Jon is sick’) or the use of the partitive with the complementizer [-en] (ez dut uste azalduko direnik ‘I don’t think they will come’ Cf. Laka 1990, Uribe-Etxebarria 1994). The partitive particle can be argued to be the negative form of the existential interpretation (in absolutive case) of the Basque definite article [-a(k)] (cf. Irigoien 1985, de Rijk 1972). Before I proceed, let me make a clarification note on de Rijk (1972: 140): de Rijk argues that the English translation of the Basque sentence in (34a) is (34b) – but see the glosses. He proposes (34c) as the correct negative form of the sentence (34a); (34d) on the other, would not be the correct negative form of (34a) since the article [-a] would only get a definite interpretation.23 (34)

a.

Ijito-a ikusi degu. aux gipsy-DET. SG see ‘We have seen the gipsy.’

(de Rijk 1972: (6a))

b.

We have seen a gipsy.

(de Rijk 1972: (6a))

c.

Ez degu ijito-rik ikusi. gipsy-PAR see no AUX ‘We have not seen any gipsy.’

(de Rijk 1972: (7a))

d.

Ez degu ijito-a ikusi. gipsy-DET. SG see no AUX ‘We have not seen the gipsy.’

(de Rijk 1972: (8a))

22 This use can be said to be nowadays lost, except for the fossilized eskerrik asko ‘many thanks’. 23 de Rijk (2008: 292) uses an example with a mass term instead of a count term as in (34a), which is parallel to the sentence in (36) below.

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As shown in section 2.1, the singular definite article [-a] can only be interpreted existentially in very specific contexts (so-called stereotypical contexts, which are clearly related to possession) – examples (11–12) – and the example in (34a) is not such a context. As a consequence, if we would translate the sentence in (34a) to a language that contains a definite determiner, we would be forced to use the definite determiner due to the fact that the only possible interpretation of ijitoa ‘gipsy-DET. SG ’ in (34a) is definite and referential. Thus, the correct English translation is the one we have in the glosses, i.e. we have seen the gipsy (and not the one in (34b), for which Basque has a perfect translation: ijito bat ikusi dugu ‘lit.: gipsy one see aux’). And the negative form of (34a) would be (34d); in both cases we are making reference to a specific gipsy. Then, it is clear from the examples above that it is not possible to use the partitive [-rik] as the negative form of elements that force a definite and specific reading (as is the case with the article [-a] when combined with count terms). In fact, we get exactly the same effect with the plural version of the definite article [-ak] in (35a): if the sequence [noun+plural article] is interpreted as definite, its negative form will also make use of the definite article [-ak] (35b). On the other hand, if the sequence [noun+plural article] is interpreted existentially (remember that this interpretation is only allowed in direct object position, cf. section 2, cf. also Artiagoitia 2002, 2004; Etxeberria 2005, 2010, to appear), its negative form will make use of the partitive [-rik], as shown in (35c) – note also that we use the singular form of the auxiliary. (35) a. Kepa-k ikasle-ak ikusi ditu. Kepa-ERG student-DET. PL see AUX : PL ‘Kepa has seen (the) students.’

[definite / existential]

b. Kepa-k ez ditu ikasle-ak ikusi. [definite / *existential] Kepa-ERG no AUX : PL student-DET. PL see ‘Kepa has not seen the students.’ c. Kepa-k ez du ikasle-rik ikusi. Kepa-ERG no AUX : SG student-PAR see ‘Kepa has not seen (any) students.’

[*definite / existential]

We would observe exactly the same behaviour if we used the definite article [-a] with mass terms (cf. example (10b)).24 Thus, the sentence in (36a) is ambiguous 24 Cf. section 2.2, where we briefly argue that mass terms are number neutral. It is due to this number neutrality that the definite article [-a] that combines with mass terms in westerncentral Basque cannot be considered a singular number marker (Etxeberria 2005, 2010 argues, pace Artiagoitia 2004). Cf. Etxeberria (2005, 2010) for discussion on this and for arguments in favour of the idea that [-a] is a definite determiner in every context, but very flexible in its ability to type-shift, a property that allows us to account for the various interpretations that it forces.

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between a definite and an existential interpretation of the direct object: in the definite interpretation, we would be talking about a specific cognac, e.g. one that has been mentioned before in the conversation; in the existential interpretation on the other hand, we would not be talking neither about a specific cognac nor about a specific quantity of cognac. The negative form of the definite interpretation is the one in (36b), whereas the negative form of the existential interpretation will make use of the partitive particle [-rik] as in (36c). (36)

a.

Kepa-k cognac-a edan Kepa-ERG cognac-DET. SG drink ‘Kepa has drunk (the) cognac.’

du.

[definite / existential]

AUX

b.

Kepa-k ez du cognac-a Kepa-ERG no AUX cognac-DET. SG ‘Kepa has not drunk the cognac.’

edan. drink

c.

Kepa-k ez du cognac-ik edan. Kepa-ERG no AUX cognac-PAR drink ‘Kepa has not drunk any cognac.’

[definite / *existential]

[*definite / existential]

Summarizing, the properties of the Basque partitive particle [-rik] in general are the following: (i) the partitive is used as the negative form of the existential interpretation of the definite article (in some contexts, which vary depending on the variety, as we will see below); (ii) the partitive makes reference to a nonspecific quantity of what the nominal expression denotes. In what follows, we will observe the behaviour and use of the partitive [-rik] in different dialects; recall that we will only concentrate on three of the uses that we mentioned in (33): negative sentences, yes/no questions, protasis of conditionals.

3.1 [-rik] in Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa It is possible to argue that the use of the partitive in these varieties is parallel to the use we described in the previous section. Thus, the partitive [-rik] would be used as the substitute of the existential interpretation of the definite article (plurals and masses) in polarity contexts. (37)

a.

Ez dugu baloi-rik/ardo-rik erosi. ball-PAR /wine-PAR buy no AUX ‘We haven’t bought any ball(s)/any wine.’

The definite article and the partitive particle in Basque: dialectal variation

b.

Erosi al duzue baloi-rik/ardo-rik? Q AUX ball-PAR /wine-PAR buy ‘Did you buy any ball(s)/any wine?’

c.

Goxoki-rik/ardo-rik nahi baduzu, ez mugitu candy-PAR /wine-PAR want if-you.have no move ‘If you want candies/wine, don’t move from here.’

313

hemendik. here-from

As it’s been said before, the meaning of the partitive makes reference to a non-specific quantity of what the nominal expression denotes. In other words, what the speaker aims at expressing is that there are no elements from the set denoted by the noun that have been bought (in the examples above); and it is not important whether the set denoted by the noun is formed by one, ten or a thousand members. This way, the partitive makes reference to the whole lattice (just like BNs in Souletin – cf. section 2.2). It is possibly due to this property that some authors have taken the partitive as the negative form of singular definite forms (ijitoa ‘gipsy-DET. SG ’ in (34a)); a wrong conclusion, as it’s been shown. (38)

If in these varieties of Basque the partitive makes reference to the whole lattice, a question that one may ask is: is there any other means by which these varieties can make reference to the whole lattice, e.g. as is the case with BNs in Souletin? Will the plural version of the definite article [-ak] in its existential interpretation be able to refer to the whole lattice? Initially, it seems that the answer to these questions should be negative. That is, if we were to say the sentences in (24) and (25) in these varieties, the first sentences that would come to our minds would be the ones in (39) and (40), where we use the partitive. (39)

Baduzu haur-rik? yes-you.have child-PAR ‘Do you have (any) children?’

(40)

Haur-rik baduzu, jar zaitez ezkerre-ko child-PAR yes-you.have put AUX left-GEN ‘If you have children, wait in the left queue.’

ilara-n. queue-INE

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Even if we were parents of a single child, we would answer to the question in (39) with a ‘yes’ or we would wait in the left queue. Thus, we could maintain that the partitive makes reference to the whole lattice, as we just mentioned. Considering that the partitive is used as the negative form of the existential interpretation of the definite article [-a(k)], one could think that in positive sentences the existential interpretation of the definite article makes reference to the whole lattice, and this appears to be correct. To begin with, some speakers of these varieties do allow the definite article [-ak] instead of the partitive [-rik] in the examples (39)–(40).25 (390 )

Badituzu haurr-ak? yes-you.have child-DET. PL ‘Do you have children?’

(400 )

Haur-rak badituzu, jar zaitez ezkerre-ko left.GEN child-DET. PL yes-you.have put AUX ‘If you have children, wait in the left queue.’

ilara-n. queue-INE

Further evidence in favour of this idea comes from the following examples, where the plural definite DPs kruasanak ‘croissant-D.pl’ and ahateak ‘duck-D.pl’ do not necessarily make reference to a plurality of croissants and ducks, respectively. Example (41a) from Artiagoitia (2002: (13)) (41)

a.

Pako-k kruasan-ak jaten Pako-ERG croissant-DET. PL eat.PROG ‘Pako eats croissants for breakfast.’

b.

Goazen ahateak go duck-DET. PL ‘Let’s go see ducks.’

ditu aux

gosaltze-ko. breakfast-FOR

ikustera. see-ALL

Thus, these sentences would show that the existential interpretation of the definite article makes reference to the whole lattice. The next section concentrates on the behaviour of the partitive particle in the varieties of Lapurdi and Zuberoa (and Low Navarre).

25 The combination of the definite article [-a] with mass terms, e.g. ogia ‘bread-D.sg’ or ardoa ‘wine-D.sg’, also makes reference to the whole lattice. Recall that mass terms have been argued to be number neutral (and atomic, although in a vague way). See fn.24.

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3.2 [-rik] in Lapurdi and Zuberoa The use that Lapurdian gives to the partitive [-rik] is more restricted than the use described in the previous section. In Lapurdi, the partitive can only be used in negative contexts (42a); in yes/no questions (42b) and in conditionals (42c) they use the plural definite article instead. (42)

a.

Ez dugu baloi-rik erosi. ball-PAR buy no AUX ‘We have not bought any ball.’

b.

Erosi al dituzue baloi-ak? Q AUX ball-DET. PL buy ‘Did you buy balls?’

c.

Goxoki-ak nahi badituzu, ez mugitu candy-DET. PL want yes-you.have no move ‘If you want candies, don’t you move from here.’

hemen-dik. here-from

As expected, the partitive makes reference to the whole lattice and it makes non-specific reference to what the noun denotes. The plural definite article shows a similar behaviour as the noun can make reference to a singularity or a plurality and it denotes the whole lattice. This is more clearly seen in the following examples. (43)

a.

Haurr-ak badituzu? child-DET. PL yes-you.have ‘Do you have children?’

b.

Haurr-ak badituzu, jar zaitez ezkerre-ko child-DET. PL yes-you.have put AUX left-GEN ‘If you have children, wait in the left queue.’

ilara-n.26 queue-INE

Note that the DP haurr-ak ‘child-D.pl’ in the examples above can only get an existential interpretation. The use of the partitive in Lapurdian is obviously affected by French. In French, the partitive ‘de négatif’ can only appear in negative contexts (and

26 Most of the speakers that I have interviewed would use the sentences in (43) to translate the sentences in (23). However, there are some speakers that could use the partitive in these contexts. It is also worth noting that there are some speakers that could use the partitive or the

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Urtzi Etxeberria

in direct object position); cf. Abeille et al. (2004), Bartning (1996), Carlier (2004), Englebert (1996), Heyd (2003), Kupferman (1996), Zribi-Hertz (2003).27 (44)

Je n’ai pas d’enfants. ‘I don’t have (any) children.’

The use of the ‘de négatif’ is not correct neither in yes/no questions nor in conditional sentences, where French would make use of the so-called partitive determiners des/du as shown in the following examples. (45)

a. b. c.

Est-ce que vous avez des enfants? ‘Do you have children?’ Est-ce que vous avez du vin? ‘Do you have wine?’ Si vous avez des enfants, mettez-vous sur la file de gauche. ‘If you have children, wait in the left queue.’

Note that the existential reading of d’enfants in (44) and des enfants in (45) (which is the only reading they can get, in opposition to what happens with the Basque definite article; cf. section 2) makes reference to the whole lattice. The partitive [-rik] and the plural form of the definite article [-a(k)] force these same readings in Lapurdian. With this in mind, we could be led to think that the use of the partitive in Lapurdian was more extended than what it is now (cf. Lafitte 1944, where it is argued that the partitive was used in yes/no questions and in conditional sentences). Another noteworthy point is the following: the existentially interpreted Basque definite article and the French des/du show a quite similar behaviour since they are both (i) rejected as objects of generic sentences; definite article in yes/no questions; these speakers find an interesting difference between the sentences in (i) and (ii). (i) Baduzue ogi-a? yes-you.have bread-DET. SG ‘Do you have bread?’ (ii) Baduzue ogi-rik? yes-you.have bread-PAR ‘Do you have (any) bread?’ They would use the partitive in (ii) while asking for bread in a bakery, where it is expected that they will have some bread. However, the sentence in (i) would be more naturally used in e.g. a petrol station, where it is not obvious that they will have bread for sale. In a neutral situation, these speakers would use the sentence in (i). More research is needed to clarify this point. 27 The partitive de is also used with some weak quantifiers in French: beaucoup d’étudiant ‘lit.: many of student’, beaucoup de livre ‘lit.: many of book’, peu de femme ‘lit.: few of girl’, etc. Cf. Doetjes (1997, 2002). Cf. example (33g) and footnote 23; cf. also Etxeberria in prep.

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317

(ii) perfectly acceptable as objects of stage-level predicates; (iii) grammatical also when combined with atelic adverbials (cf. Etxeberria 2005, 2010 for more on this). The behaviour of the partitive [-rik] in Souletin is similar to the behaviour of the partitive we just described for Lapurdian. The partitive can only be used in negative contexts; in yes/no questions and in conditional sentences we would use BNs as shown in (46b–c) (cf. also examples (24–25)). (46)

a.

Ez dügü balu-rik erosi ball-PAR buy no AUX ‘We have not bought any ball.’

b.

Balu erosi düzüeia? ball buy AUX ‘Did you buy balls?’

c.

Huntto nahi badüzü, ez zitila hebentik candy want if-you.have no AUX here-from ‘If you want candies, don’t you move from here.’

igi move

As it’s been mentioned before (cf. section 1.2), in the examples in (46), the partitive balurik ‘ball-part’, and the BNs balu ‘ball’ and huntto ‘candy’ make reference to the whole lattice. Thus, the aim of using these nominal expressions is to make non-specific reference to what the noun denotes in the real world. However, it seems that not all Souletin speakers would agree with what I said above: the grammars by Casenave-Harigile (2006) or Etxebarne (2006) argue that the behaviour of the partitive in Souletin is similar to the behaviour of the partitive in western-central dialects, and that it can be used in negative contexts, in yes/no questions, and in conditional sentences (as well as in other contexts, cf. (33)). At this point, due to lack of data (and this is exclusively my fault), I’m unable to argue in favour of one system (where the partitive [-rik] is used in negative contexts only) or the other (where the partitive [-rik] is used in more contexts).28 One possible scenario (specially in eastern dialects; although this could also be assumed for western-central dialects, cf. section 3.1) is one where both systems would coexist. If this scenario is plausible at all, one could think that one of the systems will prevail over the other, and it seems that the system 28 I do not want anyone to doubt about the correctness of the data presented by CasenaveHarigile (2006) and Etxebarne (2006). However, observing that the data I collected and the data that they offer do not coincide (completely), I would like to make a deeper study of the topic (cf. Etxeberria in prep).

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that would prevail will be the more restricted one, i.e. the system where the partitive can only be used in negative contexts (and which will parallel French). Thus, the prediction is that the existentially interpreted plural definite DP (in Lapurdian) and the BNs (in Souletin) will gradually take the place of the partitive [-rik]. The projects Towards a Syntactic Atlas of the Basque Language (http:// www.iker.cnrs.fr/-tsabl-towards-a-syntactic-atlas-of-.html) and Syntactic microvariation in Basque: a theoretical and typological approach (http://basdisyn.net/), which investigate the syntax of different Basque dialects, will hopefully shed some more light on this.

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Carlson, Greg & Jefrey Pelletier. 1995. The generic book. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Casenave-Harigile, Junes. 2006. Xiberotar gramatika llaburra. Maule: Sü Azia. Chierchia, Gennaro. 1998. Plurality of mass nouns and the notion of ‘semantic parameter’. In Susan Rothstein (ed.), Events and Grammar, 53–103. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Chierchia, Gennaro. 2009. Mass nouns, vagueness and semantic variation. Synthese 174. 99– 149. Corbett, Greville G. 2000. Number. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Coyos, Battittu. 1999. Le parler basque souletin des Arbailles: Une approche de l’ergativité. Paris: L’Harmattan. Dayal, Veneeta. 2004. Number marking and (in)definiteness in kind terms. Linguistics & Philosophy 27. 393–450. Delfitto, Denis & Jan Schroten 1991. Bare Plurals and the Number Affix in DP. Probus 3.2: 155– 186. Dobrovie-Sorin, Carmen, Tonia Bleam & Maria Teresa Espinal. 2006. Bare nouns, number and types of incorporation. In Svetlana Vogeleer & Liliana Tasmowski (eds.), Non-definiteness and plurality, 51–79. Amsterdam: Benjamins & Linguistics Today. Doetjes, Jenny. 1997. Quantifiers and Selection. On the distribution of quantifying expressions in French, Dutch and English. University of Leiden dissertation. Doetjes, Jenny. 2002. Beaucoup est Ailleurs. Expressions de degré et sous-spécification catégorielle. In R. Bok-Bennema, B. de Jonge, B. Kampers-Manhe and A. Molendijk (eds.), Adverbial Modification, 125–138. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Eguren, Luis. 2005. Marcas de predicación en vasco. In Beatriz Fernández & Itziar Laka (eds.), Andolin gogoan: Essays in Honour of Professor Eguzkitza, 233–250. Bilbo: UPV/EHU. Eguren, Luis. 2006. Non-canonical uses of the article in Basque. In Michael J. Hauser et al. (eds.), Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society. Berkeley. Eguren, Luis. 2012. Predication markers in Basque. In Urtzi Etxeberria et al. (eds.), Noun Phrases and Nominalization in Basque: Syntax and Semantics, 243–267. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Englebert, Annick. 1996. L’article partitif: l’evolution des conditions d’emploi. Langue française 109. 9–28. Espinal, Maria Teresa. 2010. Bare nominals in Catalan and Spanish: Their structure and meaning. Lingua 120. 984–1009. Espinal, Maria Teresa & Louise McNally. 2007. Bare singular nominals and incorporating verbs. In Georg Kaiser & Manuel Leonetti (eds.), Proceedings of the Workshop. Definiteness, specificity and animacy in Ibero-Romance Languages. Arbeitspapier 122. 45–62. Konstanz: Universität Konstanz. Etxebarne, Jüje. 2006. Xiberotar gramatika. Maule: Sü Azia. Etxeberria, Urtzi. 2005. Quantification and domain restriction in Basque. UPV/EHU & HiTT dissertation. Etxeberria, Urtzi. 2007. On quantification in Basque and on how some languages restrict their quantificational domain overtly. In Matthewson, L. (ed.), Quantification: A crosslinguistic perspective, 225–276. London: Emerald. Etxeberria, Urtzi. 2008. On quantification in Basque and on how some languages restrict their quantificational domain overtly. In Lisa Matthewson (ed.), Quantification: A crosslinguistic perspective, 225–276. London: Emerald. Etxeberria, Urtzi. 2009. Contextually restricted quantification in Basque. In Anastasia Giannakidou & Monica Rathert (eds.), QP Structure, Nominalizations, and the Role of DP, 76–107. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Oxford Studies in Theoretical Linguistics Series.

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Etxeberria, Urtzi. 2010. Making a definite be interpreted as an indefinite. In Roberta Pires & Carmen Dobrovie-Sorin (eds.), Thematic Volume on Bare Nominals – Journal of Portuguese Linguistics. Etxeberria, Urtzi. 2012a. Quantification in Basque. In Ed Keenan & Denis Paperno (eds.), Handbook of Quantifiers in Natural Language, 83–164. Berlin: Springer, Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy. Etxeberria, Urtzi. 2012b. The way the definite article affects quantifiers in Basque – and beyond. In Etxeberria, Urtzi, Ricardo Etxepare & Myriam Uribe-Etxebarria (eds.), Noun Phrases and Nominalizations in Basque, 79–109. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Etxeberria, Urtzi. To appear. Basque nominals: From a system with bare nouns to a system without. In Ana Aguilar-Guevara, Bert Le Bruyn and Joost Zwarts (eds.), Weak Referentiality. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Linguistics Today series. Etxeberria, Urtzi. In preparation. Nominal expressions in Basque. IKER & CNRS thesis. Etxeberria, Urtzi & Ricardo Etxepare. 2009. Zenbatzaileak komunztatzen ez direnean: Hiru sistema. Lapurdum 13, UMR 5478 : CNRS (Université Michel de Montaigne Bordeaux III – UPPA) Département interuniversitaire d’études basques de Bayonne. Etxeberria, Urtzi & Anastasia Giannakidou. 2010. Contextual Restriction and the Definite Determiner. In François Recanati et al. (eds.), Context-Dependence, Perspective and Relativity, 93–126. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Mouton Series in Pragmatics 6. Etxeberria, Urtzi, Ricardo Etxepare & Myriam Uribe-Etxebarria (eds.), Noun Phrases and Nominalization in Basque: Syntax and Semantics. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Etxepare, Ricardo. 2003. Negation. In Jose Ignacio Hualde & Jon Ortiz de Urbina (eds.), A Grammar of Basque, 387–421. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Euskaltzaindia. 1993. Euskal Gramatika Laburra: Perpaus Bakuna, Bilbo: Euskaltzaindia. Fara, Delia Graff. 2001. Descriptions as predicates. Philosophical Studies 102 (1): 1–42. Fernandez-Leborans, María Jesús. 1999. La predicación: las oraciones copulativas. Gramática Descriptiva de la Lengua Española. Madrid: RAE. Cap. 37. Freeze, Ray. 1992. Existentials and Other Locatives. Language 68.3. 553–595. Goenaga, Patxi. 1980. Gramatika Bideetan. Donostia: Erein. Goenaga, Patxi. 1991. Izen Sintagmaren Egituraz. In Joseba Lakarra (ed.), Memoriae L. Mitxelena Magistri Sacrum, 847–865. Donostia: UPV/EHU. Heyd, Sophie. 2003. L’interprétation des Syntagmes Nominaux en “des” et “de” en Position Sujet et Objet. Généricité, Habitualité et Incorporation Sémantique. Université Strasbourg II – Marc Bloch dissertation. Irigoien, Alfonso. 1985. Euskarako izen sintagma mugatzailerik gabekoez. Euskera XXX: 129– 139. Jespersen, Otto. 1924. The philosophy of grammar. London: Allen & Unwin. Kleiber, Georges. 1990. L’article LE générique. La généricité sur le mode massif. Genève-Paris: Droz. Krifka, Manfred. 2004. Bare NPs: Kind-referring, indefinites, both, or neither? In O. Bonami & P. Cabredo-Hofherr, (eds.), Empirical Issues in Formal Syntax and Semantics 5; Selected Papers from CSSP 2003. 111–132. Krifka, Manfred, Francis Jeffry Pelletier, Gregory N. Carlson, Alice ter Meulen, Gennaro Chierchia & Godehard Link. 1995. Genericity: An introduction. In Greg Carlson & Francis Jeffry Pelletier (eds.), The Generic Book, 1–124. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kupferman, Lucien. 1996. Un bien grand mot: de. De la préposition au mode de quantification. Présentation. Langue française 109. 3–8.

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Txillardegi. 1977. L’emploi de l’indéfini en souletin. Fontes Linguae Vasconum 25. 29–54. Uribe-Etxebarria, Myriam. 1994. Interface Licensing Conditions on Negative Polarity Items: A Theory of Polarity and Tense Interactions, University of Connecticut dissertation. Wilhelm, Andrea. 2008. Bare nouns and number in Dene Suline. Natural Language Semantics 16. 39–68. Zabala, Igone. 1993. Predikazioaren Teoriak Gramatika Sortzailean. UPV/EHU dissertation. Zabala, Igone. 2003. Nominal Predication: Copulative Sentences and Secondary Predication. In Jose Ignacio Hualde & Jon Ortiz de Urbina (eds.), A Grammar of Basque, 324–339. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Zamparelli, Roberto. 1998. A Theory of Kinds, Partitives and OF/Z Possessives. In Alexiadou, A. & C. Wilder (eds.), Possessives, Predicates and Movement in the Determiner Phrase, 259– 304. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, Linguistic Today 22. Zamparelli, Roberto. 2000. Layers in the Determiner Phrase. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester dissertation. Zamparelli, Roberto. 2002a. Definite and bare kind-denoting noun phrases. In Claire Beyssade et al. (eds.), Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2000, 305–342. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Zamparelli, Roberto. 2002b. Dei ex machina: A note on plural/mass indefinite determiners. Ms., Università di Bergamo. Zribi-Hertz, Anne. 2003. Pour une analyse unitaire de ‘de’ partitif. In Francis Corblin et al. (eds.), Indéfini et Prédication, 141–167. Paris: PUPS. Zuazo, Koldo. 2008. Euskalkiak. Euskararen dialektoak. Donostia: Elkar.

Borja Ariztimuño López

8 The origin of the Basque partitive* The aim of this paper is to offer a diachronic explanation of the Basque partitive suffix -(r)ik (which is undoubtedly related to the old ablative -(r)ik; Mitxelena [1961] 1977: 236). It also attempts to find out the etymological source of this morpheme (for which the Proto-Basque verb *din ‘to come’ may be claimed), and poses some evolutionary paths for the different uses that it has in Modern Basque. All of that taking into account the cross-linguistic data, and drawing on the grammaticalization theory. Keywords: Basque partitive, grammaticalization, ablative, diachrony

1 Introduction It is well-known that the partitive case of Basque (-rik after vowel, -ik after consonant) is considered as such because of its expression of indefinite quantity, and especially because it is (also) employed in negations and questions, as for example the French de-négatif and partitive determiners des / du. However, as it also expresses indefiniteness (it can never be used to refer to a definite object, unlike, for example, the Finnish partitive), it is considered to be an indefinite or polar determiner (at least in some of its uses), as opposed to the common definite determiner or article – singular -a, plural -ak – of Basque (de Rijk 1972;

* This research is funded by a Predoctoral Grant of the Basque Government [BFI 2009-236], and has been carried out within the Training and Research Unit UFI-11/14 of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), the Consolidated Research Group “Historia de la lengua vasca y lingüística histórico-comparada” (GIC10/83-IT-486-10) of the Basque Government, and the research project “Monumenta Linguae Vasconum IV: Textos Arcaicos Vascos y euskera antiguo” [FFI2012-37696] (MINECO). I appreciate the chance that the SLE gave me to attend the workshop on partitives within its 43rd Annual Meeting, held in Vilnius in September 2010, and I am grateful to the editors Silvia Luraghi and Tuomas Huumo for publishing my paper in this volume, which surely will serve to clarify a little bit more the differences and similarities between the partitives among the languages of the world. I would also like to thank professors Joseba A. Lakarra, Ricardo Gómez and Denis Creissels, for their remarks on a previous version of this paper, as well as Silvia Luraghi, Tommaso Claudi and Julia Roses for their help in improving the readability of the text.

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Laka 1996: §4.2; Trask 2003: 124–126). Thus, the impossibility of combining the partitive with a determiner (unlike all the other cases) is interpreted as a result of its very determiner nature (cf. Tab. 1); nevertheless, synchronic descriptions need to make some sort of comparison between the partitive and the absolutive case, in order to establish the correct use of the partitive. Notably, however, a similar reasoning could be used conversely to defend the casual nature of the partitive, since, like the other cases, and contrary to the determiners, it does not allow any other case to be attached to it. Moreover, it can be said that the partitive can only be attached to the indefinite form of a word (cf. Tab. 2). In any way, a distinction must be made between the so-called grammatical cases (to which the partitive is usually ascribed, mostly under the category of the absolutive, cf. Hualde 2003: 185) and the peripheral cases (especially spatial ones), for they do not reflect the number / determinateness differentiation in the same way (cf. Tab. 1–2); this irregularity will help us to clarify the origin of the partitive (see also Tab. 3 and Fig. 4 in section 6). Table 1: The Basque partitive as a determiner

ABS ERG DAT ALL ABL LOC

INDF

DET. SG

DET. PL

PAR

-Ø-Ø -Ø-k -Ø-(r)i

-a-Ø -a-k -a-ri

-ak-Ø -e-k -e-i

-(r)ik-Ø ― ―

-ta-ra -ta-tik -ta-n

-Ø-ra -Ø-tik -Ø-an

-eta-ra -eta-tik -eta-n

― ― ―

Table 2: The Basque partitive as a case suffix INDF

DET. SG

DET. PL

DAT

-Ø-Ø -Ø-k -Ø-(r)i

-a-Ø -a-k -a-ri

-ak-Ø -e-k -e-i

PAR

-Ø-(r)ik

―

―

ALL

-ta-ra -ta-tik -ta-n

-Ø-ra -Ø-tik -Ø-an

-eta-ra -eta-tik -eta-n

ABS ERG

ABL LOC

However, I have attempted to give only a diachronic explanation here, because the borderline between the determiner and the casual nature of the partitive suffix in Modern Basque is sometimes quite thin, and it might be seen

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as syntacticians’ or semanticians’ matter (for a discussion about the complementariness of the partitive and the definite article see Etxeberria 2010). In short, this suffix can be used where it would be possible to use the absolutive, that is, with objects of transitive verbs and with subjects of intransitive ones, but unlike that case it doesn’t make any number or definiteness distinction, as if it was a determiner itself.1 The paper is organized as follows. I start by showing briefly the main uses and meanings of the partitive marker in the Basque language, beginning with the current situation (section 2) and explaining later on some differences between the modern language and the old written data (section 3). Then, in section 4, I explain separately a particular usage of the partitive in superlative constructions, followed by an approach to the “adverbial partitive” (section 5); in both cases I present tentative reconstructions of their syntactic and semantic development. To conclude, on the basis of the historical relationship – both formal and semantic – between the partitive and the ablative in Basque, in section 6 I try to state the etymology and a possible process of grammaticalization of the morpheme itself. I leave aside another topic, that is, how the Basque language expresses Partitive and Pseudo-Partitive Constructions (as described by Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm 2001) which, despite the name, are not always made by means of the partitive suffix, but through the modern ablative case (remember their genetic relationship), the genitive, or the mere juxtaposition.

2 The modern Basque partitive In addition to the general constraint in the argument types that can be expressed through a partitive-marked constituent, there are some syntactic environments that license the use of this suffix. A description of the main ones is provided in the following subsections (for the superlative-partitive see section 4).2

1 For a good semantic approach to the modern Basque partitive see Etxeberria (this volume). 2 For an account of all the partitive-licensing contexts see Ricardo Etxepare (2003: 549–554). These contexts are basically some uses related to the main ones exposed in this paper or variants of them.

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2.1 Negation One of the main conditions in Basque for a partitive-marked argument to appear is that it falls under the scope of the negation particle ez (1–2). Below are provided some such examples:3 Object of a transitive verb4 (1) a. Hemen ez dugu NEG we.have here bat-en one-GEN

gazte-rik young-PAR

euskara Basque.language

aberats rich

jabe owner

‘We don’t have any young person owning a rich Basque language here.’ (Berria, 11-01-2004) b.

Mila thousand

milioi million

pertsona-k person-ERG

dute they.have

edateko drinkable

baino than

gehiago-k more-ERG

ez NEG

ur-ik water-PAR

‘More than a thousand millions of people don’t have (any) drinkable water.’ (Berria, 27-08-2004) Subject of an intransitive verb (2) a. Gorroto-rik ez da futbol-ean NEG be football-LOC hate-PAR ‘There is not (any) hate in football.’ (Berria, 24-11-2004) b.

Eser zaitez, hemen ez dabil AUX .IMP here NEG it.moves sit ‘Sit down, the wind doesn’t blow here.’ (Anjel Lertxundi, Azkenaz beste, 2005)

haize-rik wind-PAR

3 Examples of Modern Basque have been obtained mostly from the Ereduzko Prosa Gaur [Modern Exemplary Prose] corpus. Most historical or Old Basque data come from the corpus of Klasikoen Gordailua [Depository of Classic Works] and the Basque General Dictionary of Mitxelena & Sarasola (1987–2005). Citations of Lazarraga’s manuscript are, however, from Bilbao et al. (2012). 4 I have aimed to state explicitly the two possible arguments with which the partitive can be used, namely transitive objects and intransitive subjects, only in this subsection, because I consider it to be too repetitive for the purpose.

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The negation feature may also be due to the presence of other elements like the postposition gabe ‘without’ (3) or the adverbial nekez ‘hardly’ (4). (3)

Bigarren itzuli-an partida-rik joka-tu gabe dago second return-LOC match-PAR play-PTCP without he.remains ‘He keeps without playing any match in the second leg.’ (Berria, 23-02-2006)

(4)

Txantxa-k joke-ERG

nekez hardly

edirenen find:FUT

zuen aux.pst

haren that:GEN

mihi-an tongue-LOC

mintzabide-rik way.of.talking-PAR ‘The joke would hardly find place in his speech.’ (Joan Mari Irigoien, Lur bat haratago, 2000) The negation is one of the licensing environments of the partitive also in Finnish, with the difference that in this language the determined partitive (6) and the affirmative partitive (7) exist as well. Remarkably, the French so-called de-négatif (5a) has a similar function of the Basque partitive, as both are used (mainly)5 in negative contexts and cannot take any determiner.6

(5)

French: a. Elle n’a pas mangé de she has not eaten of ‘She didn’t eat any carrots.’ (Hoeksema 1996: 16)

carottes. carrots

b. *Elle a mangé de carottes. ‘She has eaten of carrots.’ (Hoeksema 1996: 16)

5 Mainly, because the same preposition alone replaces the indefinite article in some affirmative contexts (e.g. J’ai de belles fleurs ‘I have got beautiful flowers’). 6 Actually, in diachronical terms, the French partitive article is formed by the same preposition de plus a definite article. It may be said that the de-négatif and the preposition of sentences like that of the previous footnote is a partitive marker, or a preposition that functions as such. For an extensive account of the evolution of the Latin ablatival preposition de into modern Romance languages (such as French) see Carlier & Lamiroy (this volume), and for a cross-linguistic overview of the relation between negation and partitive see Miestamo (this volume).

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(6)

(7)

Borja Ariztimuño López

Finnish: En syönyt omen-a NEG .1 SG eat:PTCP apple-PAR ‘I did not eat / was not eating an / the apple.’ (Koptjevskaja-Tamm & Wälchli 2001: 652) Matti osti olu-tta Matti buy:IMPF.3 SG beer-PAR ‘Matti bought (some) beer.’ (Koptjevskaja-Tamm & Wälchli 2001: 652)

Thus, sentences like (5b) and (7) are nowadays totally ungrammatical in Basque, as would be (6) if the determinate interpretation was chosen (‘the apple’). Hence, the partitive with the negation implies the “total” or, in other words, “indefinite” negation. That is, it refers to the subject / object as a kind, not as a specific one. This aspect is clearly seen in the more abstract (and less relevant to speakers) semantic contrast between absolutive and partitive, where what is being denied is something apparently specific and unique (as in the case of proper names):7 (8)

a.

b.

(9)

a.

Ez

duzu

NEG

AUX

hor Peru-rik topatuko there Peter-PAR find:FUT ‘You will not find Peter there.’ (emphatic) ‘You will not find any[body like] Peter there.’ (metaphoric) Ez

duzu

NEG

AUX

hor Peru topatuko there Peter find:FUT ‘You will not find Peter there.’ ETA-rik ez ba-lego. . . ETA-PAR NEG if-be:IRR .3 SG ‘If there were not ETA. . .’ (emphatic) ‘If there were neither ETA nor any such armed organization. . .’ (metaphoric) (Joxe Azurmendi, Euskal Herria krisian, 1999)

7 Another possible though not exclusive interpretation of negative sentences with the partitive is the following: ‘You will not find any[body called] Peter there’ (impersonal), as in the question Perurik bada hor? ‘Is any[body called] Peter there?’ [lit. ‘Is there any Peter?’] vs. Peru hor da? ‘Is Peter there?’ (cf. Laka 1996: §2.2).

The origin of the Basque partitive

b.

329

ETA ez ba-lego. . . ETA NEG if-be:IRR .3 SG ‘If there were not ETA. . .’

Similarly, in non-finite phrases like “no war” or “no more violence against women” the partitive is also needed: (10)

Gerra-rik ez war-PAR NEG ‘No war!’

(11)

Emakume-en aurkako indarkeria women-PL .GEN against violence ‘No more violence against women!’

gehiago-rik more-PAR

ez NEG

On the other hand, although in some cases the Basque partitive may seem to be the equivalent of ‘any’, it is not always so, because the partitive appears to be compulsory. Moreover, an equivalent in Basque of “there is not any water left” would need an additional element to emphasize the negation and give a more accurate translation of the English sentence, as shown in (10b):8 (10)

a.

Ez

dago ur-ik it.remains water-PAR ‘There is no water left.’ NEG

b.

Ez

dago batere ur-ik NEG it.remains any water-PAR ‘There is not any water left.’

8 I mean to say that, although the English translation of (10b) and (11b) would be grammatical and acceptable for (10a) and (11a) too, the semantic nuance of the English any-sentences, can only be expressed by the addition of an emphasizing element, and not by removing the partitive suffix from the neutral-meaning sentences (10a)–(11a). However, it is not the case that it has always been like that. As Oihenart (1638: 58) said: “The case of negation or doubt [i.e. the partitive] is which occurs along with verbs and particles of negation, doubt, or question, and it always bears explicitly or implicitly the specific noun any. Albeit it [the partitive] has the function of the nominative, it is different (. . .) Being implicit in all of them [the examples], as I said, the specific noun batere, that is, ‘any’ [Casus negandi seu dubitandi est qui cum verbis & particulis negandi, dubitandi seu interrogandi concurrit, habétque semper aut expressum aut subintellectum nomen particulare aliquis. Hic quamquam sustineat munus nominatiui, est tamen ab eo diuersus (. . .) Subintellecto, ut dixi, in his omnibus nomine particulari batere id est aliquis].

330 (11)

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a.

Ez

dute jostailu-rik they.have toy-PAR ‘They haven’t got toys.’ NEG

b.

Ez

dute jostailu-rik NEG they.have toy-PAR ‘They haven’t got any toy.’

batere any

2.2 Conditional mood Partitive-marked arguments can also appear in Basque in the protasis of conditional sentences, as shown in (12–14). (12) Inon zorte txarr-ik izan baldin ba-du, Interlagos zirkuitu-an anywhere luck bad-PAR have COND if-AUX Interlagos track-LOC izan du have AUX ‘If he has been unlucky somewhere, it has been in the Interlagos track.’ (Berria, 24-10-2004) (13) Osasun arazo-rik ba-lute health problem-PAR if-have:IRR .3 PL>3 SG ‘If they had any health problem. . .’ (Berria, 25-01-2005) (14)

Horrelako-rik behar izan-ez gero need have-INS after such-PAR ‘If [you] need such a thing. . .’ (Jon Alonso, Euskal karma, 2001)

2.3 Questions Interrogative sentences also allow for the partitive suffix to be used, both in partial (mostly rhetorical) (15) and in yes-no questions (16): (15)

Nor-k behar du benetan who-erg need (s)he.have really ‘Who really needs the truth?’ (L. R. Aurrekoetxea’s blog, 28-01-2010)

egia-rik? truth-PAR

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(16)

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Horrek axola-rik ba al du? that:ERG care-PAR AFF Q it.has ‘Does it matter at all?’ (lit. ‘Does it have any importance?’) (Denis Guedj / Jon Muñoz, Loroaren teorema, 2006)

In fact, the partitive is so characteristic of this type of questions that in colloquial speech, to ask someone for something, the partitive suffix alone is attached to what is asked, usually with the addition of bai ‘yes’ at the end of the question (17a), or nahi ‘want, desire’ in order to offer something (17b): (17)

a.

Su-rik (bai)? fire- PAR (yes) ‘Got a light?’

b.

Garagardo-rik (nahi)? (want) beer-PAR ‘Want a beer?’

2.4 Some quantifiers In addition to what I have already said, Basque also displays a quite archaic construction with indefinite quantifiers modifying a noun phrase in the partitive case, which retains its original sense of partition: asko / anitz / franko ‘many, a lot’, gutxi ‘few’, aski ‘enough’ (now the only common use is eskerr-ik asko / anitz ‘a lot of thanks’, being the others much rarer, at least in the extra-literary use). Moreover, since the first Basque writings, affirmative statements with expressive or emphatic meaning are often combined with an adjectival element marked for partitive, supposedly with the elision of asko ‘a lot’: (18)

Hetan among.them letratu erudite

izan be[PTCP ]

baita AUX

eta and

baita be.3SG

zientzia science

guzi-etan all-LOC . PL

handi-rik great-PAR

‘Since there have been and there are among them [a lot of] great erudites in all sciences. . .’ (Etxepare, 1545) (19)

Ba=da pasadizo polit-ik ere AFF =it.is happening nice-PAR also ‘There are also [a lot of] nice happenings.’ (Berria, 27-03-2004)

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However, it is becoming more and more frequent to find sentences in which the partitive adds no special nuance, or indeed it carries a strictly partitival meaning, i.e., one of partiality, more or less equivalent to the meaning of the English some: (20) UGT- k eta CCOO-ek egin dituzte proposamen-ak. proposals-ABS . PL UGT- ERG and CCOO-ERG make[PTCP ] AUX ‘(The unions) UGT and CCOO have made the proposals. Dena den ELA-k ere egin du proposamen-ik anyway ELA-ERG too make[PTCP ] AUX proposal-PAR Anyway, ELA has made some proposals too.’ (Euskaltzaindia 1995: 167) In fact, example (19) could also be interpreted as ‘there are some nice happenings too’.

2.5 Fixed spatio-temporal uses (or the ablative-partitive) Finally, I also wish to account for another fossilized use in expressions of the [NOUN - PAR NOUN ] type. In (21) such a construction can be said to have an ablatival sense, of spatial or temporal separation, or to denote some kind of union, either serial or reciprocal (de Rijk 1996: 146–147): (21)

alde-rik alde esku-rik esku herri-rik herri egun-ik egun

‘from one side to the other, right through’ ‘from hand to hand, hand in hand’ ‘from town to town’ ‘day by day, from day to day’

And, to a more restricted extent, in temporal expressions like ordu-rik ‘since then’, betidan-ik ‘since always’, or har-ik eta. . . arte ‘until. . .’, lit. [that-PAR and. . . until] ‘since then and until. . .’.

3 Other archaic uses from the historical data Up to this point, I have analyzed for the most part the modern meanings of the partitive in Basque. However, when turning to older texts a more widespread use of the partitive appears. On the one hand, we can see that the use of the partitive

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with some indefinite quantifiers (cf. subsection 2.4. above) and expressions like atzo-rik ‘since yesterday’ (cf. subsection 2.5.) are far more frequent in such texts. On the other hand, modern restrictions for partitive-marked constituents do not seem to apply in Old Basque: for example, in Lazarraga’s manuscript (ca. 1602) we find partitives also in affirmative sentences, even without an implicit quantifier. This happens mostly with subjunctive or completive verb forms, and with cardinal numerals:9 (22) Artalasto-a agin egizu ni-k ahal dagidan gauza-rik corn.silk-ABS . SG order AUX I- ERG can do:SBJV thing-PAR ‘Order corn silk [to prepare the bed] so I can do something [sexually].’ (23) Dama-rik dakusen-ean. . . (corrected from dama bat ‘a lady’, with bat ‘one, a’) lady-PAR see:COMP- LOC ‘When he sees a lady. . .’ (24) Gure ortu-an madari, gurazau-rik hamabi our orchard-LOC pear[ABS ] peach-PAR twelve ‘[There are] pears in our orchard, [and] twelve peaches.’ Nowadays, in the first two examples we would say gauza-ren bat [thing-GEN one] or the plural gauzak (22), and dama(-ren) bat [lady(-GEN ) one] (23).10 The third one (24) is quite special, since it is a poem fragment, but it would be gurazau-etarik [peach-ABL . PL] or simply gurazau-ak [peach-ABS . PL], depending on the meaning we want to give it.

4 The superlative-partitive This is the last case I will comment in this paper, since the next section explains a “morpho-syntactically unmotivated” usage of the partitive (that is, not triggered by any other element in the clause). 9 For a more accurate glossing and better understanding, I have modernized the spelling and put the sentences more or less according to the modern model of standard Basque. 10 Ricardo Gómez informed me about an old text (nearly contemporary with the Lazarraga’s manuscript) which shows that the construction ‘-GEN one’ (as it is synchronically analyzed) is actually formed with the other old ablative -rean (see fn. 14), thus equivalent to partitive: oraziorean bazuk ‘some prayers’, puntu batreanbat ‘some point or other’, tempora señaladurean baten ‘in a special date’ (Urquizu 2009). For a more detailed account of this and other issues of the noun-morphology of Basque, see Santazilia (2013).

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(25)

Txori-rik eder-en-a bird-PAR beautiful-SUP-ABS . SG ‘The most beautiful bird.’

(26)

Txori-etan/-etarik eder-en-a bird- LOC . PL /-ABL . PL beautiful- SUP-ABS . SG ‘The most beautiful among / of birds.’

In my opinion, the meaning of (25) is clearly related to the ablatival origin of the partitive, although obscured in Modern Basque by the emergence of an elliptical construction (similar to that of [26], and quite common cross-linguistically) which is presumably due to high frequency of usage (cf. [18–19]). Therefore, while it is true that today it has only the interpretation of (25) (‘the most ADJ x’), it is reasonable to think that originally the adjective did not refer to the head of the overt noun phrase, but to an elided one, as if in: the most ADJ (x) of X. For example, the literal translation of (25) would be originally “the most beautiful of birds”, from which the current one is inferred through reanalysis of the old ablative -rik (due to the changes outlined in Fig. 4 (section 6). The modern equivalent of that construction is in (26), where the locative plural (-etan) or the ablative plural (-etarik) are used instead.11 Thus, this elliptical construction (cf. -rik asko in subsection 2.4.) leads not to a semantic extension of the suffix -rik but rather to a reinterpretation of its function, through the elision of the elements that motivated its presence. Nowadays, the partitive is licensed by the morphosyntax of the superlative phrase.12 We can draw the change as follows: 11 In such occurrences partitive-marked nouns do not make up a very close constituent with the adjective, and can be separated from the superlative, unlike partitive-marked ones (txorietan/txorietarik/**txoririk hau da ederrena ‘among birds, this is the most beautiful one’). For a more detailed discussion about this issue, see Hualde & Ortiz de Urbina (2003: 835–837). It has been noted by an anonymous reviewer that this alternation only occurs in the superlative construction, as the following sentences show: (i) Hemen ez da txoririk there NEG is bird-PAR ‘There are not birds in here’ (ii) **Hemen ez da txorietarik/txorietan Yet, despite the core meaning of (25) and (26) is the same, I think that they have an obvious semantic nuance regarding the manner in which the same idea is expressed, and that they should be accounted for individually, especially in a diachronic explanation. 12 As an anonymous reviewer reminds me, it is also possible to use a bare noun, that is, in the absolutive case (txori-ø ederrena); in fact, I think that there is a diachronic correlation between different constructions (-ø vs. -rik > -ø/-rik vs. -etarik), and that it would be interesting to explore the use percentages of each one in a historical database. However, I will leave this question for future research.

The origin of the Basque partitive

the most

ADJ

x from X I the most ADJ x of X > the most

ADJ

335

x[-PAR ]

Figure 1: Grammaticalization of the modern Basque superlative-partitive

Therefore, continuing with the same example (25), the complete semantic evolution of the superlative-partitive would be as follows: ‘the most beautiful bird from (all / these) birds’ → ‘the most beautiful of birds’ → ‘the most beautiful bird[-PAR ]’.

5 The adverbial partitive To finish with my account of the different uses of the partitive in Basque, I should mention the adverbial value it acquires with perfective participles13 and adjectives.14 On the one hand, from the standpoint of the agent or at least the logical agent of the verb to which the partitive binds, constructions with the participle can have a temporal / aspectual meaning, as a near past or a sort of Ablative Absolute in Latin: (27)

a.

Zeru-etako mandatu-a izan-ik heaven-LOC . PL mandate-ABS . SG COP [ PTCP ]- PAR ‘Having been the mandate of God.’ (The dirge of Milia Lasturko, 15th–16th)

b.

zein-ak who-ERG . SG kantaetan singing

hartu-rik take:PTCP- PAR manera manner

biguela viola

bat one

hasi begin:PTCP

zan AUX . PST

honetan this:LOC

‘Who holding (i.e., having taken) a vihuela began to sing as follows.’ (Lazarraga’s manuscript, ca. 1602) 13 For an extensive account of the use of this partitive-marked participles in resultative constructions (such as nekaturik nago ‘I am tired’) and its diachronic evolution, see Krajewska (2012, 2013). 14 Rudolf P. G. de Rijk (1972: 161 and fn. 12) suggested distinguishing between the partitive case / determiner and what he called “stative -rik” (see also de Rijk 2008: §13.1 and §25.5.2), here referred to as adverbial partitive (cf. Hualde & Ortiz de Urbina 2003: 204). I think that the syntactic and semantic divergence between them is just the result of diverse grammaticalizations of the same morpheme, not an instance of two “entirely different morpheme[s]” (de Rijk 1996: 145).

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Moreover, if you refer to an object (28a) or an intransitive subject (28b), the partitive can be used to indicate the manner in which the action occurs or is performed, or the state in which the object / subject has resulted. (28)

a.

Juanikote-gaz lagundu-rik Juanikote-COM accompain:PTCP- PAR ‘Accompained by Juanikote.’ (The Song of the Burning of Arrasate, 15th–16th)

b.

Hemen natza ehortzi-rik (. . .) ustel eta rotten and here I.lie bury:PTCP- PAR ‘Here I lie buried (. . .) rotten and smelly.’ (The dirge of Amendux, 1564)

kirastu-rik reek:PTCP- PAR

When the partitive relates to adjectives other than deverbal, the resulting meaning is the same, although they might be frequently considered as predicative adjectives, rather than adverbials (Hualde & Ortiz de Urbina 2003: 194): bakar ‘single, only one’ > bakarrik ‘alone’, triste ‘sad’ > tristerik ‘sad(ly)’, eder ‘beautiful’ > ederrik ‘beautiful(ly)’, hotz ‘cold’ > hotzik ‘cold(ly), dispassionately’, poz ‘happiness’ > pozik ‘happ(il)y’ etc. (29)

a.

Ezin geldi-rik egon cannot still( ADJ )- PAR stand ‘Can’t stand still.’ (Bilingual song of the 15th–16th c.)

b.

Gaur bixi-rik noa-n today live( ADJ )- PAR I.go-SBJV ‘In order to (me) get out alive today.’ (The dirge of Errodrigo Zarateko, 15th c.)

Assuming that the temporal / aspectual construction is the original, at least two possible scenarios of grammaticalization can be proposed. Step 1. ikus-i-rik [see-P TCP -ABL] → *‘from / since seen it’ > *‘after seeing it, have just seen it’ > having seen it Figure 2a: Grammaticalization of the Basque adverbial partitive (1st scenario, step 1)

According to the first scenario, the ablatival meaning of (temporal) separation may have developed into a sort of (near) past, and then into an adverbialshaded expression like the Ablative Absolute construction in Latin, the latter

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meaning being the only possibility in Modern Basque. At the same time, as can be seen in (30), the first step (‘ablative’ > ‘near past’) is attested in many languages and appears to be quite common in the grammaticalization of a ‘come (from)’ verb (see section 6). Thus, one understands in (27b) that the musician has already picked up the viola when he begins to sing, so that the action of taking it is over, although the expression could be translated into English by means of the -ing form of the verb, rather than a perfect form.

(30)

Pitta-Pitta: a. Tatyi-ka-inya nganyanta I eat-NOM -ABL ‘I’ve just eaten.’ (Heine & Kuteva 2002: 34) Haitian: b. l-fèk sòt rive kéyi gnou kòk vin bâ mwê nut come give 1:SG 3:SG -TAM come.from arrive gather a ‘He has just gathered a nut for me.’ (Heine & Kuteva 2002: 34) Jiddu: c. y-aam-ooku 3: M -eat-come ‘He has just eaten.’ (Heine & Kuteva 2002: 72) Klao: d. ɔ dɛ dɛ di he come thing eat ‘He just ate.’ (Heine & Kuteva 2002: 72)

The second part of this path of grammaticalization starts from the circumstantial reading of this construction. Then, a (re)interpretation of such partitivemarked participles as denoting a current state would arise, bringing on an overtly marked adjectival use of those non-finite verb forms. The thin line between adjectives and adverbs does the rest (compare it with English still, quiet, angry, and Spanish tranquilo, enfadado, etc.). Step 2. haserre-tu-rik [get.angry-P TCP -rik] → ‘having got angry’ > ‘angry’ (adj. > adv.) > ‘angrily’ Figure 2b: Grammaticalization of the Basque adverbial partitive (1st scenario, step 2)

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Hence, from adjective-like participles, this suffix was spread to non-deverbal adjectives and settled as “adverbial partitive”. Nevertheless, there may be an alternative explanation, based on the partitive meaning of the suffix -rik, rather than on the older ablative sense, and taking into account the fact that Old Basque does not distinguish clearly between the categories of noun, adjective, adverb and even verb (e.g. argi ‘light’, ‘clear/ bright’, ‘clearly’ and ‘to shine’; poz ‘happiness’, ‘happy’, ‘happily’ and ‘to get happy’). Thus, the following pattern of grammaticalization can be set forth. 1. izutu-rik da [frightened- PAR COP ] → ‘(s)he is [one] of the frightened’ > ‘(s)he is one of the frightened’ → izutu-rik ‘frightened’, lotsatu-rik ‘shamefaced(ly)’, etc. 2. poz-ik da [happy-PAR COP ] → ‘(s)he is [one] of the happy’ > ‘(s)he is one of the happy’ → poz-ik ‘happy(ly)’, zabal-ik ‘open(-ed/-ly)’, etc. Figure 3: Grammaticalization of the Basque adverbial partitive (2nd scenario)

Arguably, the strong tendency for elliptic constructions to occur in Basque, and the increasing preference for an overt marking of the different lexical categories, have also contributed to the reinterpretation of the partitive as an adverbial suffix in such cases.

6 On the origin of the Basque ablative-partitive suffix The relationship between the ablative and the partitive in many languages is well known (as in Finnish, French, German, Bulgarian, etc.; see Heine & Kuteva 2002: 32–33). Many years ago, scholars realized that the partitive suffix of Basque was just an old allomorph of the ablative case (Humboldt 1811–1814 [apud Gómez 1996: 616], Mitxelena 1977: 236). Table 3 shows the history of the two cases in Basque over the last 500 years:15 15 This table offers a somewhat simplified account of the facts. Actually, in the western dialect there were two ablative suffixes in complementary distribution in the 16th century: -(r)ik (for animate nouns, place names and temporal expressions), and -rean (for the rest). However, this distinction was gradually dropped out, and together with the pleonastic -reanik, the suffix -(r)ik gained ground, and in turn mixed with the originally prosecutive -ti, both in form and in meaning (Lakarra 1996: 158–161). On the other hand, in the east we find the variant -(r)ik also in singular with animates (-gan-ik, modern west. -gan-dik), and in some fixed spatio-temporal expressions and place names.

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Table 3: Diachronic and diatopic variation of the ablative-partitive suffix(es) Ablative16 Partitive 16th c. Modern

west. east. west. east.

Singular

Plural

Indefinite

-(r)ik -tik -tik -tik

-eta-rik -eta-rik -eta-tik -eta-rik

-ta-rik -ta-rik -ta-tik -ta-rik

-(r)ik

Thus, the ablative was reanalyzed as a partitive presumably just before the emergence and development of the features of number and definiteness in spatial cases; hence, the bare mark -(r)ik, originally being an indefinite or number-unmarked suffix from which developed the partitive acquired the definite singular meaning as ablative.

Figure 4: Prehistoric evolution of the ablative-partitive and its number distinction

Joseba Lakarra (2008: 482) has proposed to relate this suffix (specifically its vowel -i-) with the proto-Basque verb-root *nin ‘give’, which he reconstructs in order to explain (among other things) the origin and grammaticalization of the Basque dative -(r)i. However, I find it difficult to establish a genetic relationship between the dative and the ablative, as they are indubitably opposed, both in meaning and in the path of grammaticalization that they tend to follow. Indeed, especially in languages which have Serial Verb Constructions (SVC)17 the notion of source or a “hither direction” is usually expressed by (or

16 The part -ti- of the modern ablative (-tik) was originally the so-called prosecutive, that is, the case that expresses the notion of moving ‘through’, or ‘along’ the referent of the noun that is marked with, as in this old Basque proverb: ze eikek maurtu-ti oanean, eder eztanik kalean ‘when going through the desert, don’t do anything which isn’t fine in the street’ (RS: 36, translation from Hualde & Ortiz de Urbina 2003: 282); such meaning has converged with the ablatival one (once -rik) on a unique suffix in Modern Basque, cf. zelai-tik dator ‘(s)he comes from the meadow’ / kale-tik dabil ‘(s)he is walking through/down the street’. 17 For further information on such constructions, see Aikhenvald & Dixon (2006).

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grammaticalized from) verbs roughly meaning ‘come (from)’ (31). In this sense, I assume here that Proto-Basque should have made use of such constructions (see Lakarra 2008 passim). (31)

Dumo: Opi a. beh [wa 3sgfpro 3sgfSU.go PSN ‘She came from Dali.’ (Ingram 2006: 210)

luh] 3sgfSU. come

Haitian: sòt(i) ‘(out) from’ < French sortir ‘come out’ b. yo pòté bagay sa yo sòt nâ-mòn they bring thing DEM PL from LOC -hill ‘They bring these things from the hills.’ (Heine & Kuteva 2002: 71–72) Olutec: -mi:nʔ ‘come’ > directional ‘hither’ c. tzüm-mi:nʔ carry.on.the.back/shoulders-come ‘Carry something towards ego’ (Zavala 2006: 291) Tetun Dili: mai ‘come’ > ‘from’ / ‘hither’ d. tuda bola mai throw ball come ‘Throw the ball over here.’ (Hayek 2006: 243, 251) Ewe, Swahili, Lingala: e. tsó ‘come from’ > preposition ‘from’ kutoka ‘to come from’ > ‘from’ -úta ‘come from’ > útá, út’ó ‘since’, ‘from’ (Heine & Kuteva 2002: 71) Thus, bearing in mind that Lakarra (2006: 585–586) has reconstructed a proto-Basque verb-root ‘come’ as *din (which through *e-din developed into the modern jin ‘come’), and making use of the cross-linguistic comparison and the internal reconstruction, it appears safe to conclude that *din is the perfect candidate for a possible source of the Old Basque ablative -rik and, therefore, for the partitive (and its other uses).

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*din ‘come (from)’ I ‘from’ (in SVCs) I *#lin18 I *-lin I *-Vri(n)19 + -ka I -rika I -(r)ik Figure 5: Grammaticalization of the Old Basque ablative

18 The change of #d- into #l- was a regular phonological change in Proto-Basque. It has been somewhat productive, at least in some dialects, up to recent times (Mitxelena 1977: 242, 257– 258). Cf., for example, loanwords like Lat. theca ‘a cover, sheath’ > *deka > leka ‘pod’, ‘sheath’, Fr. dangereux ‘dangerous’ > lanjeros ‘id.’, etc., as well as the native betagin > *detagin > letagin ‘eyetooth’ (from < *beg(i)-hagin, lit. ‘eye-tooth’). 19 This change (VlV > VrV ) is also well attested, or at least proven and accepted (Mitxelena 1977: 311–314, 327); cf. Lat. cōlum ‘colander’ > goru ‘distaff’, Lat. cēlum ‘sky’ > Rom. *tselu > zeru ‘id.’, or the ancient toponym Ilumberri > modern Irunberri, etc. I know, however, that there is a matter that I should explain, that is: why the -r- of the suffix drops after a consonant (gizon-ik) instead of provoking epenthesis (**gizon-e-rik, cf. all. -ra: behe-ra ‘to the bottom’ vs. gain-e-ra ‘to the top’), and why it behaves as if that consonant was not its own but a kind of synchronic excrescence between vowels (cf. gen. -(r)en: hainbat gizon-en ‘of many men’ vs. hainbat emakume-r-en ‘of many women’, from a reanalysis of the final *-r of the definite article: *seme-(h)ar > seme-a ‘the son’ but *seme-(h)ar-en → seme-a-ren ‘of the son’). A fact that goes against an interpretation like that of the genitive is that, as far as we know, neither the partitive nor the ablative have been ever used along with the definite article (see Tab. 1–2), so the -r- of -rik could not have been originated in it (but cf. the “archaic” allative -a, employed with consonant-ending place names as Zarautz-a ‘to Zarautz’, and with animates as seme-a-gan-a ‘to the son’). On the other hand, the change -l- > -r- took place only between vowels, hence there would have been an alternation as etorri-rik : *jin-lik. Such groups of consonants like *-nl-, *-rl- and *-ll- could have been reduced in favour of the stem’s one (e.g. > jinik), but those with sibilants might have been developed in a different way: -S + l- > -Sl- or -S-e-l- (e.g. bihotz ‘heart’ → *bihozlik, or *bihotzelik > *bihotzerik (cf. actual bihotzik). Thus, we can only assume that certain analogical forces regularized the variation on the ablative according to the pattern of the genitive, rather than of the allative (cf. the proximity of the ablative and the genitive, not only in Old Western Basque -re-an [GEN - LOC ] = [ABL ], but also cross-linguistically, as it shows the fact that the genitive is used also in many languages to render the partitive meaning. However, there may be another explanation: Trask (1995: 231, 1997: 221) suggested that the variation on the onset of some suffixes resulted by generalization of a previously conditioned allomorphic variability. Thus, the pluralizers of the verb agreement of the 3rd person (-de, -te, -e) would come from a unique *-de, whose consonant was devoiced after a sibilant, and it was lost after a vowel. The same would have happened to the dative flag of verbs *-gi, which developed to the forms -gi, -ki, -i in same contexts. In that way, Professor Lakarra has found (p. c.) some other plausible instances of such alternation: -tegi, -degi, -egi (lexicalized as hegi); and -toki, -doki, -oki (lex. toki, hoki). Similarly (and I must thank him again for his remarks), I think now that it is possible to derive the suffix of the old ablative (>partitive) -(r)i-k, not from the *lin (+ -ka) above, but directly from *din (+ -ka), as a ø- onset variant. Its counterparts would be the -ti suffix of the old prosecutive (>ablative), which seems to be related to the adjective-maker -ti (Lafon 1948), and the older variant -di of unknown meaning (cf. ardi ‘sheep’, zaldi ‘horse’, ahardi ‘sow’, idi ‘ox’). The latter seems to have been used also as an adjective-maker (lodi ‘fat’, hordi ‘drunk’ < hor ‘dog’ + -di?). Indeed, the adjective-making use could be understood through the secondary but well-attested meaning ‘become’ of the proto-verb-root *din ‘come’.

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The morpheme -ka20 might seem to be a dark point in the explanation, but it is clear (Mitxelena himself was convinced of that already in 1977: 236–237) that it is the same iterative suffix of adverbial expressions like harri-ka [stone-ka ‘throwing stones’] garrasi-ka [scream-ka ‘screaming’], albo-ka [side-ka ‘(go) through sideways, (walk) staggering’], and also of spatial cases, as shown by the modern ablative suffix (from the old prosecutive -ti + -ka) and the contemporary nonstandard -raka ‘toward’, formed on the allative -ra ‘to’.

7 Conclusions In this paper I tried to provide a more detailed explanation of the ablative-topartitive grammaticalization in Basque, which, being almost a commonplace, had yet to be studied in depth. I have also explained the origin of some of the uses of the partitive, such as the adverbial and the superlative, as being the result of various processes of reanalysis and semantic change. I have come to the conclusion that they may have not developed directly from the partitive in all cases (and even, perhaps, in none of them), but rather from the original ablative meaning, in accordance with cross-linguistic data about the possible grammaticalization patterns of the ablatives or ‘come (from)’ verbs. Along with this, I have brought the analysis to a greater diachronic depth, locating the origin of the Old Basque ablative morpheme in the grammaticalization of the Proto-Basque ‘come’ verb (*din), thus modifying a previous proposal. This finding may constitute a further example to be added both to the typology of grammaticalization in general, and to the set of probable SVC-sourced Basque affixes in particular.

References Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. & R. M. W. Dixon (eds.). 2006. Serial Verb Constructions: A Crosslinguistic Typology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bilbao, Gidor, Ricardo Gómez, Joseba Andoni Lakarra, Julen Manterola, Céline Mounole & Blanca Urgell. 2012. Lazarraga eskuizkribua: Edizioa eta azterketa [Lazarraga’s manuscript: Edition and study]. UPV/EHU. http://www.ehu.es/monumenta/lazarraga/ (30 August, 2010).

20 Cf. B. Etxepare’s (1545) yxilica ‘silent(ly)’, cerutica ‘from the heaven’ (>modern isil-ik, zeru-tik) and Lazarraga’s (ca. 1602) Gaztelatica ‘from Castilla’ (>mod. Gaztelatik), in both geographic extremes of the Basque language. The change -a# → -ø# affected several morphemes and words both historically and pre-historically (bart < barda ‘last night’, -t [1SG ] < -da, naiz ‘I am’ < *naiza, etc., Mitxelena 1977: 235–236).

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Etxeberria, Urtzi. 2010. -a, -ak eta -(r)ik euskal hizkeretan zehar [-a, -ak, and -(r)ik across Basque speeches]. In Beatriz Fernández, Pablo Albizu & Ricardo Etxepare (eds), Euskara eta euskarak: Aldakortasun sintaktikoa aztergai [The Basque language and the Basque speeches: Syntactic variability under investigation] (Appendix of Anuario del Seminario de filología vasca Julio Urquijo 52), 65–84. Donostia & Bilbao: University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). Etxepare, Ricardo. 2003. Negation. In José Ignacio Hualde & Jon Ortiz de Urbina (eds.), A Grammar of Basque, 516–564. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Euskaltzaindia. 1995. Partitiboa baiezko perpausetan noiz eta nola [When and how to use the partitive in affirmative sentences]. http://www.euskaltzaindia.net/dok/arauak/Araua_ 0030.pdf (29 July, 2013). Gómez, Ricardo. 1996. La aportación de W. von Humboldt a la gramática vasca. Revista Internacional de Estudios Vascos 41(2). 607–622. Hayek, John. 2006. Serial Verbs in Tetun Dili. In Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald & R. M. W. Dixon (eds.), Serial Verb Constructions: A Cross-linguistic Typology, 239–253. New York: Oxford University Press. Heine, Bernd & Tania Kuteva. 2002. World Lexicon of Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hoeksema, Jacob. 1996. Introduction. In Jacob Hoeksema (ed.), Partitives: Studies on the Syntax and Semantics of Partitive and Related Constructions, 1–24. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Hualde, José Ignacio. 2003. Case and number inflection of noun phrases. In José Ignacio Hualde & Jon Ortiz de Urbina (eds.), A Grammar of Basque, 171–186. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Hualde, José Ignacio & Jon Ortiz de Urbina (eds.). 2003. A Grammar of Basque. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Ingram, Andrew. 2006. Serial Verb Constructions in Dumo. In Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald & R. M. W. Dixon (eds.), Serial Verb Constructions: A Cross-linguistic Typology, 202–222. New York: Oxford University Press. Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria. 2001. “A piece of the cake” and “a cup of tea”: Partitive and pseudo-partitive nominal constructions in the Circum-Baltic languages. In Östen Dahl & Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm (eds.), Circum-Baltic Languages: Grammar and Typology, 523– 568. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria & Bernhard Wälchli. 2001. The Circum-Baltic languages: An arealtypological approach. In Östen Dahl & Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm (eds), Circum-Baltic Languages: Grammar and Typology, 615–750. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Krajewska, Dorota. 2012. The diachrony of resultative constructions in Basque. Vitoria-Gasteiz: University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) MA thesis. Krajewska, Dorota. 2013. Resultatives in Basque: A Diachronic Study. Lingua Posnaniensis 54 (2). 55–67. Laka, Itziar. 1996. A brief grammar of euskara, the Basque language. Bilbao: University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). http://www.ei.ehu.es/p289-content/eu/contenidos/ informacion/grammar_euskara/en_doc/index.html (6 May, 2011). Lakarra, Joseba A. 1996. Refranes y Sentencias: ikerketak eta edizioa (= RS) [Refranes y Sentencias: research and edition]. Bilbao: Euskaltzaindia & Bizkaiko Foru Aldundia. Lakarra, Joseba A. 2006. Jaun eta jabe, jaio eta herio, jin eta joan . . . : etimologiaz eta aditz morfologia zaharraz (Hitz hasierez II) [Jaun ‘lord’ and jabe ‘owner’, jaio ‘to be born’ and herio ‘death’, jin ‘to come’ and joan ‘to go’. . . : about etymology and old verbal morphology (Word-initials II)]. In Beatriz Fernández & Itziar Laka (eds.), Andolin gogoan. Essays in

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honour of Professor Eguzkitza, 576–611. Bilbao: University of the Basque Country (UPV/ EHU). Lakarra, Joseba A. 2008. Aitzineuskararen gramatikarantz (malkar eta osinetan zehar) [Towards a grammar of Proto-Basque (across slopes and pools)]. In Xabier Artiagoitia & Joseba A. Lakarra, Gramatika jaietan: Patxi Goenagaren omenez [Grammar holidays: In honour of Professor Patxi Goenaga] (Appendix of Anuario del Seminario de filología vasca Julio Urquijo 51), 451–490. Bilbao: Gipuzkoako Foru Aldundia & University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). Lafon, René. 1999 [1948]. Sur les suffixes casuels -ti et -tik. In Vasconiana (IKER 11), 199–207. Bilbao: Euskaltzaindia. Mitxelena, Koldo. 1977 [1961]. Fonética Histórica Vasca, 2nd edn. Donostia: Gipuzkoako Foru Aldundia. Mitxelena, Koldo & Ibon Sarasola. 1987–2005. Diccionario General Vasco: Orotariko Euskal Hiztegia. Bilbao: Euskaltzaindia, Desclée de Brouwer, Mensajero. http://www.euskaltzaindia. net/oeh (26 August, 2010). Oihenart, Arnaud. 1638. Notitia utriusque Vasconiae, tum Ibericae, tum Aquitanicae. Paris: S. Cramoisy. http://books.google.es/books?id=38hUlGr28x0C&printsec=frontcover&hl=ca#v= onepage&q&f=false (29 July, 2013). Rijk, Rudolf P. G. de. 1972. Partitive assignment in Basque. Anuario del Seminario de filología vasca Julio Urquijo 6(1). 130–173. Rijk, Rudolf P. G. de. 1996. On the origin of the partitive determiner. Anuario del Seminario de filología vasca Julio Urquijo 30. 145–158. Rijk, Rudolf P. G. de. 2008. Standard Basque. A Progressive Grammar. Volume 1. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Santazilia, Ekaitz. 2013. Noun Morphology. In M. Martínez-Areta (ed.), Basque and Proto-Basque. Language-Internal and Typological Approaches to Linguistic Reconstruction (Mikroglottika 5), 223–281. Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Wien: Peter Lang. Trask, Robert Lawrence 1995. On the History of the Non-Finite Verb Forms in Basque. In José Ignacio Hualde, Joseba A. Lakarra & R. L. Trask (eds.), Towards a History of the Basque Language, 207–234. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Trask, Robert Lawrence 1997. The History of Basque. London: Routledge. Trask, Robert Lawrence 2003. The Noun Phrase: nouns, determiners and modifiers; pronouns and names. José Ignacio Hualde & Jon Ortiz de Urbina (eds.), A Grammar of Basque, 113– 170. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Urquizu, Patricio. 2009. Un texto olvidado del siglo XVII: SUMARIO BREBEA. . . (Azkoitia, 1614). Revista de lenguas y literaturas catalana, gallega y vasca (RLLCGV) XIV. 207–217. Zavala, Roberto. 2006. Serial Verbs in Olutec (Mixean). In Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald & R. M. W. Dixon (eds.), Serial Verb Constructions: A Cross-linguistic Typology, 273–300. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Corpora: Ereduzko Prosa Gaur [Modern Exemplary Prose]. http://www.ehu.es/euskara-orria/euskara/ ereduzkoa (26 August, 2010). Klasikoen Gordailua [Depository of Classic Works]. http://klasikoak.armiarma.com (27 August, 2010).

IV Slavic languages

Michael Daniel

9 The second genitive in Russian This paper is an overview of the so-called second genitive in Russian, a nominal form available for a minority of Russian nouns but widely used with these nouns in certain contexts. In many ways, the second genitive is a secondary case. Thus, it may always be substituted with a regular genitive form, while the opposite is not true. A major subset of the contexts where the second genitive may be used fits into what is known as a functional category of partitive, so this form is sometimes called Russian partitive. To a certain extent, indeed, the second genitive is the form with which the regular genitive may be substituted in partitive contexts. The analysis of the distribution of the second genitive shows, however, that the partitive meaning is not the only function of this form. Not less if not more widespread are uses in combinations with prepositions. These and other types of contexts should be taken into account to build a comprehensive picture of the category’s distribution and functional load.1 Keywords: Russian, partitive, genitive, secondary cases, paradigm structure

1 Introduction Russian has a nominal inflection system typical of those Indo-European languages that are rich in cases, including e.g. Latin or Ancient Greek. The core case inventory includes Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative, Instrumental and Prepositional (the former locative case presently used only in combination with prepositions – hence the term, traditional in Russian linguistics). Typically for Indo-European languages with nominal declension, the expression of number (singular vs. plural) and case is cumulative and there are several (three in Russian) major declension classes. Ascription of an individual lexical item to a 1 Support from the Basic Research Program of the National Research University Higher School of Economics and from the Russian Academy of Sciences research program ‘Corpus Linguistics’ (project Rusgram, http://rusgram.ru) is gratefully acknowledged. I would also like to thank Alexandre Arkhipov, Greville Corbett, Sergei Kniazev, Filipp Minlos, Anna Polivanova, Anna Ptentsova, Leonid Stunzhas and Ilya Yakubovich as well as all members of the Rusgram research group for helping me to achieve a better understanding of the range of problems related to the Russian second genitive, and to Tommaso Claudi for his help with preparation of the final draft of this paper.

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specific declensional class is on the whole formally and semantically unpredictable, though the declension correlates with gender. Most nouns in the first declension (determined as having ‑a as the nominative singular inflection) and in the third declension (zero nominative singular and the dative singular -i) are feminine, while the second declension (the dative singular -u) includes nouns that are either masculine (zero nominative singular) or neuter (nominative singular in -o). In addition to these well-established case forms, however, there are several nominal forms that are paradigmatically peripheral in one or other way. As discussed in e.g. (Spencer & Otoguro 2005 and Corbett 2008), these peripheral, less ‘casey’ forms include the new vocative (zero or, under a different interpretation, a truncated nominative form, e.g. mam ‘mom (Voc)’), the second prepositional alias locative (e.g. v snegu ‘in the snow’), and the second genitive alias partitive. Jakobson (1936), on the other hand, without going into discussion claims that Russian has eight cases, considering both the second genitive and the second prepositional together with the other, core case categories. Zalizniak (1967) does the same after a thorough analysis of the data, but seems much more wary about this claim. The present paper focuses on the second genitive. It is often used in contexts that contain some sort of quantification and/or negation. These uses ideally fit into the domain of the partitive category, and the form is often called the partitive genitive case (RG80) or a quantitative-separative case (količestvenno-otdelitel’nyj padež; Zaliznjak 1967). Defining the exact lexical and functional scope of the second genitive in modern language is complicated by the fact that many actual examples found in the texts sound archaic or are imitations of dialectal speech, where the form has a wider use, at least in terms of lexical distribution (Bromley & Bulatova 1972). The form also seems to be more frequent in spoken language (cf. RG80) or in its imitations in written texts than in formal style. Below, we suggest a paradigmatic and distributional analysis of the second genitive. All examples come from the Russian National Corpus (www.ruscorpora.ru). Section 2 discusses the paradigmatic status of the second genitive and explains in what sense it is not a member of the core case inventory. Section 3 gives a very brief overview of the external (i.e. not observable by means of RNC) history of the form. Section 4 explains corpus preferences of the second genitive formation, showing which lexical items allow or disallow, and whether (and to what extent) they tend to prefer it to the main genitive form. The analysis of the functional distribution in section 5 shows that the functional scope may only be described as a combination of interacting factors and certainly can not be limited to the partitive function. Section 6 is a summary of the discussion.

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2 Paradigmatic status The Russian second genitive (henceforth Gen2) is a special nominal form available for some inanimate masculine nouns of the second declension. It is formally identical to the dative singular of such nouns. Yet it cannot be considered to be a special function of the dative case, or to belong to the dative functional domain in any way. Gen2 clearly alternates with the genitive, with which it is almost always freely interchangeable in terms of grammatical acceptability (1). Nouns that lack Gen2 normally display the genitive in contexts where Gen2 is used (2). (1)

Николай Василич и виду (+вида) не подал, что он Николай Василич. Nikolaj Nikolaj.NOM . SG nе not

poda-l, give-PST. M

Vasilič Vasilič.NOM . SG čto that

i and

on 3 SG . M . NOM

vid-u view-GEN 2

Nikolaj Nikolaj.NOM . SG

(+vid-a) (+view-GEN . SG ) Vasilič. Vasilič.NOM . SG

‘Nikolai Vasilič didn’t let on (lit. did not give sign, did not show) that he was, in fact, Nikolai Vasilič.’ (Jurij Koval’. Rusačok-travnik (2000)) (2) В вагоне почти не было народу (cf. людей), все на танцах, на гулянье. V vagon-е počti nе by-l-o narod-u (cf. ljud-ej), in car-PREP. SG almost not be-PST- N . SG people-GEN 2 (cf. person-GEN . PL) vs-е na tanc-ach, na guljan’-е. all-NOM . PL on dance-PL . PREP on walk-PREP. SG ‘There was almost no one in the coach; everyone was away, dancing or out for a walk.’ (Viktor Astaf’ev. Proletnyj gus’ (2000)) Moreover, Gen2 is completely absent from the declension of adjectives and possessive pronouns. Paul Garde’s claim (Garde 1998: 168) that Gen2 is impossible for a noun with an adjectival attribute is certainly not true; on the other hand, it is true that, in a complex NP, a Gen2-marked head governs regular genitive agreement on all agreeing dependents (3). Thus, this optional marking on the head appears to be ‘invisible’ to agreement: whether the head noun is inflected for genitive or Gen2, the dependents invariably inflect for regular genitive.

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(3) Захвати, Володя, моего любимого ликеру. Zachvat-i, Volod-ja, mo-еgo ljubim-ogo likеr-u. bring-IMP Volodya-NOM . SG POSS .. SG - GEN . M . SG favorite-GEN . M . SG liquor-GEN 2 ‘And, Volodya, bring my favorite liquor.’ (Aleksej Novikov-Priboj. Kapitan pervogo ranga (1936–1944)) All this seems to corroborate the analysis of Gen2 as an allomorph of the regular singular genitive ending -a, similar to variants of e.g. Instrumental plural ending for some nouns of the third declension (dver’-mi ~ dver-jami, lošad-’mi ~ lošadjami, dočer’mi ~ dočer-jami). However, the regular genitive may only be substituted in certain contexts (cf. section 5), and lexical groups for which Gen2 is available are at least partly semantically motivated (cf. section 4), which contradicts the idea of free or formally motivated distribution of the two markers. In the case of the Instrumental plural allomorphs (-mi ~ -jami), on the other hand, there seem to be no (known) semantic constraints on contexts or lexical items. Above I have insisted that, in all contexts, Gen2 can alternate with regular genitives without affecting grammaticality. Zaliznjak (1967) discusses certain examples that, to his eyes, rule out such substitution, as the form čajku (Gen2 of the diminutive noun čajok derived from čaj ‘tea’): (4)

В столовой большой стол, за которым каждый вечер усаживались гости попить чайку. V in

stolov-oj dining.room-PREP. SG

bol’š-oj big-NOM . SG . M

stol, table.NOM . SG

kotor-ym which-INS . M . SG

každ-yj every-ACC . SG

vеčеr evening.ACC . SG

gost-i tea-DIMIN - GEN 2

popi-t’ guest-NOM . PL

čaj-k-u. drink.some-INF

za behind

usaživa-l-i-s’ seat-PST- PL- M / P

‘There was a large table in the dining room where the guests sat down every evening to have tea.’ (Daniil Granin. Zubr (1987)) At first glance, this suggests that Gen2 ending is not a variant of the regular genitive. But in fact all contexts where the form čajku may be used are those that allow Gen2. It can not be used in contexts that disallow it: ?vkus čajka and ?vkus čajku are both problematic (see Section 5 on contextual preferences and constraints). It seems that čajok has a gap in the paradigm (absence of the regular genitive); what we see here is not a case of contextual impossibility to alternate with the regular genitive but the absence of the latter. In contexts such as (4), Gen2 is simply the only option available. In addition, a look at the actual usage

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indicates that, even in this case, the competition between Gen2 and regular genitive is a matter of a very strong tendency rather than grammaticality, as at least one example of čajka (regular genitive of the diminutive of čaj ‘tea’) is found in the modern section of the Russian National Corpus (5), and more are found in the Internet (6): (5)

Это все равно, что где-то пригласили тебя к костру чайка попить, побеседовать, а ты потом хочешь за чай деньги заплатить. Èt-o this-NOM . N . SG

vs-е all-NOM . N . SG

priglasi-l-i invite-PST- PL

tеbja 2 SG . ACC

pobеsеdova-t’, chat-INF dеn’g-i money-ACC . PL

a and

k to

ravn-o, equal-NOM . N . SG kostr-u fire-DAT. SG

ty 2 SG . NOM

potom then

čto that

gdе-to where-INDF

čaj-k-a tea-DIMIN - GEN . SG chočе-š’ want-PRS .2 SG

popi-t’, drink.some-INF

za behind

čaj tea.ACC . SG

zaplati-t’. pay-INF

‘It is as if you were invited to chat and have some tea by a camping fire, and then you want to pay for the tea.’ (Tat’jana Gordeeva. Sportivnyj avtostop (2003)) (6)

Решили попить чайка, да и закончить дело . . . Rеši-l-i decide-PST- PL da then

i and

popi-t’ drink.some-INF zakonči-t’ finish-INF

čaj-k-a, tea-DIMIN - GEN . SG

dеl-o . . . business-ACC . SG

‘We’ve decided to have some tea and then to finish it off.’ (http://www.syntone.ru/library/stories/content/5820.html) However, examples such as (5) and (6) certainly sound less (or even much less) natural than (4), both in terms of textual frequency and speakers’ evaluation. There is a strong preference for the second genitive form for certain lexical items, including -Vk- diminutives and designations of potable liquids (both preferences work for čaëk ‘tea (diminutive)’) in certain contexts, including e.g. partially affected direct objects (as in 4, 5 and 6). However, these are matters of stronger or weaker preferences and do not provide unambiguous solution for the issue of the paradigmatic status of Gen2. I support the gradual approach to case-hood as described in (Spencer & Otoguro 2005) and (Corbett 2008) which, in a way, continues hesitations in (Zalizniak 1967). A convenient solution that reflects the intermediate nature of Gen2 was suggested by Paul Garde who,

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without lengthy theoretical discussion and reasoning, labels Gen2 and the second prepositional case secondary cases (cas seconds; Garde 1998: 165).

3 The early and external history of Gen2 The paper focuses on the modern history of the Gen2 forms in standard Russian as represented in the texts of the Russian National Corpus. This section is a very brief account of where the forms are thought to come from and of their expansion in Russian dialects. The second genitive of modern Russian continues the genitive of the Proto-Slavic declension in -u. Shakhmatov (1957: 82ff.) suggested that, at the time of the first written sources, this declension was already represented as remnants in some lexical items, so that its original lexical scope may only be tentatively reconstructed. He cites the following words as members of the -u-declension for the Old Church Slavonic: domъ ‘house, home’, vrьchъ (vьrchъ) ‘top (n)’, synъ ‘son’, polъ ‘half, side’, nizъ ‘down (n)’, volъ ‘ox’, dolъ ‘dale’, vъnъ ‘outside (n)’, kratъ ‘time, occurrence’, medъ ‘honey’, mirъ ‘peace’, olъ ‘beer’. The data from birch bark manuscripts, unavailable to Shakhmatov and cited in (Zaliznjak 1995: 95) further include bebrъ or bobrъ ‘beaver’, borъ ‘forest’, darъ ‘gift’, dъlgъ ‘debt’, rędъ ‘row’, solodъ ‘malt’, stanъ ‘site, camp’ and tъrgъ ‘trade’. Zaliznjak also notes that some of these nouns in fact alternate between -u- and -о- (the future second) declensions. Many of these have Gen2 in modern language; cf. iz domu ‘out of the house, away from home’, do (samogo) verchu / nizu ‘up to the very top / down to the very bottom’, bočka medu ‘a barrel of honey’. Other Gen2 forms sound obsolete but are attested, in adverbs and idioms (as srjadu ‘in a sequence, lit. from the row’, iz rjadu von vychodjaščij ‘extraordinary, lit. going out of the row’, bez torgu ‘without bargaining’, s boru po sosenke ‘unsystematically, lit. from (each) forest one pine tree’), being probably more typical of older texts (7, 8) or proverbs (9): (7)

К северу обставлена она хребтом Далеху, на который взбирается с долу дорожка до Кале-и-Зенджир K to

sеvеr-u north-DAT. SG

Dalеchu, Dalekhu.NOM . SG dol-u valley-GEN 2

obstavl-еn-a surround-PTCP. PASS - F na on

kotor-yj which-ACC . SG . M

dorožk-a track-NOM . SG

do towards

ona 3. SG . F. NOM

chrеbt-om range-SG . INS

vzbira-еt-sja climb-PRS .3 SG - M / P

s from

Kalе-i-Zеndžir. Kale-i-Zendzhir

‘To its north stands the Dalekhu range, onto which climbs (lit. from the bottom, from the valley) the track leading to (the fortress of) Kale-I-Zendzhir.’ (E. Čirikov. Putevoj žurnal (1849–1852))

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(8) Саженях в семидесяти от монастырской стены, подле берёзовой рощицы, среди зелёного луга, стоит пустая хижина, без дверей, без окончин, без полу; кровля давно сгнила и обвалилась. Sažеn-jach v sеmidеsjat-i ot monastyr-sk-oj stеn-y, sazhen-PREP. PL in seventy-PREP from cloister-ADJV- GEN . F. SG wall(F )- GEN . SG podlе bеrёz-ov-oj roščic-y, srеdi zеlёn-ogo near birch-ADJV- GEN . F. SG grove-SG .GEN amidst green-GEN . M . SG lug-a, sto-it pust-aja chižin-a, bеz meadow-GEN . SG stand-PRS .3 SG empty-NOM . F. SG cabin-SG . NOM without dvеr-еj, bеz okončin, bеz pol-u; door-GEN . PL without window.frame-PL .GEN without floor-GEN 2 krovl-ja davno sgni-l-a i obvali-l-a-s’. roof-NOM . SG long.ago rot-PST- F and drop-PST- F- M / P ‘About five hundred feet away from the monastery wall, near the birch grove, amidst a green meadow stands an empty hut, no door, no window frames, no floor; the roof has long since decayed and fallen in.’ (Nikolaj Karamzin. Bednaja Liza (1792)) (9)

А что ж я, по-вашему – за сто верст киселю хлебать приехал? A and

čto what

verst versta.GEN . PL

ž PTC

ja, 1 SG . NOM

po-vashemu in.your.opinion

kisel-ju jelly.drink-GEN 2

chleba-t’ drink-INF

―

za behind

sto hundred

priecha-l arrive-PST. M

‘And what do you think I came for – travelled a hundred verstas to drink some kissel.’ (Sergej Cvetkov. Ivan Poddubnyj (2007); obtained through Google.Books search) (to travel a seven / hundred verstas to drink some kissel – a proverbial expression meaning to travel a long distance for little gain; versta – an old unit of length, approx. one km; kissel – a traditional dessert, a thickened berry juice) (10)

У семи нянек дитя без глазу. U sеm-i njan-еk dit-ja bеz glaz-u. at seven-GEN nanny-GEN . PL child-NOM . SG without eye-GEN 2 ‘Seven nannies leave the child unwatched.’ (a proverb, lit. no eye after). (The proverb means that the more people are responsible for something, the less safe it is)

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Нашего полку прибыло. polk-u priby-l-o. regiment-GEN 2 come.more-PST- N ‘There is more of us now.’ (An idiomatic expression, lit.: ‘Our regiment grew larger.’) Naš-еgo

POSS .1 PL - GEN . M . SG

Some words listed by Shakhmatov as -u-stems are either absent from Modern Russian (as olъ ‘beer’) or ceased to decline (as vъnъ ‘outside’, only used as an adverb von and preposition vne, or kratъ ‘occurrence’, only used in compound adverbs and adjectives as dvukratnyj ‘double, one that occurred two times’). The three animate nouns on the list, syn ‘son’, vol ‘ox’ and bober ‘beaver’, exist in modern language but are not attested in Gen2 in the Russian National Corpus. This probably means that, while there was a functional expansion of Gen2 to various lexical classes, animate nouns were first to lose it. As was discussed above, in Modern Standard Russian, only inanimate nouns may have Gen2. To sum up, for all ex‑u-nouns, the -a genitive marker has become a default, but the -u marker (Gen2) was preserved by some as a variant (sometimes a preferred variant); it has also spread to some other nouns of the second declension. As we will see further, this process is at least partly functionally motivated: Gen2 has become typical for certain contexts (including, among other, partitive contexts), spreading primarily to those nouns that typically occur in such contexts. In Russian dialects, Gen2 may have a wider distribution than in the standard language (Bromley & Bulatova 1972: 66ff.). As in Standard Russian, it is only available for inanimate nouns of the second declension. Unlike standard Russian, however, it is well attested for neuter nouns (rather than only in the masculine): bez mjasu ‘without meat’, iz stadu ‘from the herd’. I am aware of no data that would allow a careful comparison of the lexical and functional distribution of Gen2 in standard language vs. dialects. However, it seems feasible to suggest that the domain of Gen2 is a matter of negotiating the borderline between Standard Russian, its dialects and substandard2 language, which is constantly fed by dialectal and regional variation (cf. RG80: 497; Garde 1998: 169). To a certain extent, this complicates working with the RNC data. To a standard ear, many examples 2 By substandard language I mean specifically the so-called prostorečie literally ‘simple talk’, a language variant used by people of lower educational level and with a stronger dialectal background. Today, the sociolinguistic definition of prostorečie, inherited from traditional Russian studies of the 1950s through 1970s, certainly needs to be revisited. Although the term ‘substandard’ should be understood in a much broader sense, for the sake of brevity I will below refer to prostorečie simply as substandard Russian. After the paper was submitted to the publisher, my attention was brought to (Seržant, to appear), whose aim is exactly to analyse the evidence of the use of the second genitive in Russian dialects.

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of Gen2 in literary texts of the Russian National Corpus sound archaic or proverbial (see 8-11 above) or dialectal.

4 Lexical distribution According to RG80, Gen2 formation has several absolute lexical constraints. It is only formed from some uncountable or abstract inanimate masculine nouns of the second declension (p. 492). I will start by considering these constraints, and then will proceed to subtler semantic preferences. The reasons why RG80 mentions uncountability are clear (cf. section 5); but, if understood straightforwardly, uncountability/abstractness is hardly a valid constraint. Some Gen2‑forming nouns, such as dom ‘house’, šag ‘step’, glaz ‘eye’, čas ‘hour’, god ‘year’, voz ‘cart’, rjad ‘rank’, designate quantifiable non-abstract entities. Incidentally, however, some of the respective Gen2 forms are used in contexts that are incompatible with the idea of quantification and individuation. Thus, in the proverb in (10) above, glaz is not used in its main sense ‘eye’ but in the (obsolete) sense of ‘control, process of looking after someone’, both abstract and unquantifiable. In (12), too, the noun does not refer to a specific building but to a domicile of the person spoken about (cf. English home) which is unique and thus unquantifiable – and more abstract than the meaning ‘building’. (12) В первое время он, как огонь, печёт, терзает, и за кишки, и за душу рвёт, ― человек и бежит из дому. on, kak ogon’, pеč-ёt, V pеrv-oе vrеm-ja in first-ACC . N . SG time-ACC . SG 3 SG . M . NOM as fire.NOM . SG burn-PRS .3 SG tеrza-еt, i za kišk-i, i za duš-u rv-ёt, torment-PRS .3 SG and from gut-ACC . PL and from soul-ACC . SG tear-PRS .3 SG ― čelovek i bež-it iz dom-u. person.NOM . SG and run-PRS .3 SG from home-GEN 2 ‘At first it (the hunger) burns, and torments like fire, and tears your guts and your soul – and people run away, away from home.’ (Vasilij Grossman. Vse tečet (1955–1963)) Further, non-animacy should be understood here as a grammatical rather than semantic category. In Russian, the animacy is grammaticalized as difference in declension. Animate masculine nouns of the second declension (as well

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all animate nouns in the plural) have the accusative identical to the genitive. Inanimate nouns have the accusative identical to the nominative: Table 1: Animate and Inanimate inflection

animate

8 comment hierarchies, see among others Dik (1997: 357–358).

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3.2 Negation Handbooks of AG and other ancient IE languages highlight the frequent occurrence of the partitive genitive in negative sentences. In fact, in Lithuanian and Slavic, second arguments of verbs in negative sentences are, with few exceptions, encoded through the partitive genitive (cf. Miklosich 1883: 498–499, 1966: 392–419 and Timberlake 2004). Furthermore, in Slavic languages genitive subjects mostly occur in sentences with negative polarity (cf. Miklosich 1883: 357–358 and Večerca 1993: 75). As shown in Miestamo (this volume), the occurrence of partitive cases with negation is not limited to IE languages. However, it seems to be a phenomenon best detectable in (some) languages of Europe, as “[t]he requirement that a case with a partitive function be used on NPs under the scope of negation is not found outside the familiar European languages.” (See Etxeberria this volume, and Aritmuño, this volume on Basque, and Miestamo this volume for examples from Balto-Finnic languages.) In AG occurence of the genitive under the scope of negation is sporadic, and is apparently limited to genitive subjects.16 Example (32) and the passage cited below in (37) provide examples of genitive subjects in negative sentences: (37) pánta péphraktai kouk éstin opês all:NOM . PL . N fence.in: PRF. M / P.3 SG and+not be: PRS .3 SG hole: GEN oud’ ei séphrōi diadûnai not if mosquito: DAT creep: INF. AOR ‘Everything is squeezed together and there is no room even for a mosquito to go through.’ (Ar. Vesp. 352). The tendency observed in languages of different genetic affiliation to employ the partitive genitive, or the partitive case if available, as the subject of intransitive verbs, and more specifically, unaccusative verbs (cf. Miestamo this volume) under the scope of negation is explained in Conti (2010a) as follows. Unlike canonical subjects, partitive subjects are especially characterized by a low degree of agentivity. In intransitive clauses, sentence negation is a factor that diminishes the subject’s agentivity. Indeed, sentence negation indicates that the state of affairs described in the sentence cannot be brought about, and, consequently, that the agent/subject cannot perform or carry out its potential agentivity. Remarkably, the semantic effect achieved by the occurrence of the partitive 16 We did not find evidence of a similar tendency for the use of the genitive as second argument. However, as far as we know an exhaustive analysis of all available data is needed to enable definite conclusions to be made on this point.

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genitive under the scope of negation is specular to the effect achieved by the occurrence of partitive genitive objects in affirmative clauses. In the latter, the partitive genitive indicates low affectedness of the Patient, whereas in the former it indicates low agentivity. Thus, it is hardly surprising that negation and the partitive genitive or the partitive case can occur in intransitive sentences featuring a predicate that takes a non-agentive subject, and in transitive sentences in which the verb does not indicate a change of state.

3.3 Impersonal constructions The partitive genitive is also used in a small set of impersonal constructions. In such occurrences, genitive NPs co-occur with NPs in the dative or the accusative, which denote animate, generally human beings. Genitive NPs in their turn may indicate either animate or inanimate entities (see Conti 2010b, c). Typically, dative or accusative NPs are Experiencers, while genitive NPs are Stimuli. In recent studies on non-canonical, or non-nominative subjects, the construction described above has been extensively studied in numerous IE and non IE languages (see for example the papers in Bashkararao & Subbarao 2004 and, on IE languages, Barðdal & Eythórsson 2009 among others). Cross-linguistically, it occurs with verbs of emotion, perception, mental activity, and physical sensation, that is, experiential predicates.17 The Experiencer NP is normally understood as the non-canonical subject of these verbs, based on the fact that it tends to show behavioral properties of subjects, though not being coded in the canonical subject case (i.e. the nominative). However, genitive Stimuli also exhibit some subject properties, as we will show below. In AG, constructions of this type are restricted to verbs of feeling and verbs of lacking or needing: mélei tiní (dat) tinos (gen) ‘there is care for something to somebody’, ‘somebody cares for something’, metamélei tiní (dat) tinos (gen) ‘somebody repents for something’, deî tiní (dat) / tiná (acc) tinos (gen), ellépei tiní (dat) tinos (gen) and khrḗ tiná (acc) tinos (gen) ‘there is need of something for somebody’: (38) Zēnì tôn sôn mélei pónōn Zeus:DAT ART:GEN . PL POSS .2 SG .GEN . PL care:PRS .3 SG sorrow:GEN . PL ‘Your sorrows interest Zeus.’ (Eur. Heracl. 717);

17 See further Moreno (1990a) and (1990b), Bossong (1998), Bauer (2000) Haspelmath (2001), Cuzzolin & Napoli (2008), and Barðdal & Eythórsson (2009). On Germanic languages, see Barðdal (2006).

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(39) autòn gár se deî promēthéōs DEM . ACC . SG PTC 2 SG . ACC need:PRS .3 SG provident:GEN ‘You yourself need someone who thinks ahead.’ (A. Pr. 86). Contrary to some other IE languages, notably Latin (Cuzzolin & Napoli 2008) and Germanic (Barðdal 2006), in AG we are dealing with constructions that are only documented sporadically. In Homer and Herodotus, these constructions are even less frequent than in later authors. This fact is difficult to explain if we accept, as comparison with other IE languages suggests, that verbs of emotion already featured non-canonical subjects in PIE (see Wackernagel 1920: 117, Brugmann 1925: 24–26, Hermann 1926: 290–291 and more recently Barðdal & Eythórsson 2009). In addition, it must be borne in mind that in AG constructions featuring non-nominative subjects are gradually replaced by canonical constructions, with nominative subjects. We can therefore conclude that the constructions that we are now analyzing are residual, although their evolution features some rather disharmonious stages.18 Leaving aside the diachronic interpretation of these constructions in AG, the characteristics of the genitive in the selected documents are described below.19 From a semantic point of view, the genitive denotes the triggering factor behind the state of affairs described in the sentence, i.e. the Stimulus (see, among others, Verhoeven, 2007: 54–55 on this semantic role). A loose relationship between the notion of Stimulus and those of Agent and Force, all triggering factors of a certain state of affairs, explains the existence of personal constructions such as those shown in examples (40)–(41). In these passages, the Stimulus is coded in the nominative; it corresponds to the genitive of the impersonal constructions discussed in this section (see examples (42)–(44)):20

18 The prevailing world view in works by a given author and the stylistic resources that characterize each literary genre also unquestionably act as conditioning factors, determining the extent to which impersonal constructions are used. Therefore, it is not surprising that impersonal constructions are much more frequent in tragedy, where reality is governed by uncontrollable, distant forces, than in the Homeric poems, whose heroes and gods fight for control over the events they experience. 19 Works analyzed include those of Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes. Among prose writers, works have been selected from Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, Xenophon, Demosthenes and Plutarch (Conti 2010b). 20 It can be argued that the dative Experiencer has subject properties in these occurences, as in those in which the Stimulus is in the genitive, see below, the discussion of examples (43) and (44). We do not pursue this issue further here, as it lies beyind the scope of the present paper.

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(40) eím’ Oduseùs Laertiádēs, hòs . . . be:PRS .1 SG Odysseus:NOM son.of.Laertes:NOM REL . NOM ánthrṓpoisi mélō . . . man:DAT. PL care:PRS .1 SG ‘I am Odysseus, son of Laertes, of great interest to men.’ (Hom. Od. 9.19–20); (41) . . . hōs autoîsi metamélēi pónos that DEM . DAT. PL repent:SBJV. PRS .3 SG penalty:NOM ‘. . . that the penalty will make them repent.’ (Aesch. Eum. 771). In so-called impersonal constructions, the genitive features one behavioral property of subjects: it can be used in coordination with clauses that contain infinitives and accusative subjects. It is widely accepted that coordination between two elements is only possible if their syntactic, semantic and pragmatic functions are equivalent (cf. Dik, 1997: 189–190): (42) ou NEG

nautikês kaì phaúlou stratiâs mónon fleet:GEN and insignificant:GEN army:GEN only

deî, allà kaì pezòn polùn xumpleîn need:PRS .3 SG but also infantry:ACC large:ACC sail.with:INF. PRS ‘Not only are a fleet and an insignificant army needed, but also a large infantry force to sail with them.’ (Th. 6.21.1). In complement clauses, genitives in impersonal constructions are not elided in the case that they are coreferential with the subject of the governing clause. Canonical subjects are either elided, or they may surface in the nominative or in the accusative (see Luraghi (1999) and above, fn. 9): (43) póthen? Tí d’ autêi soû mélein how why PTC 3SG .DAT. F 2SG .GEN matter:INF. PRS dokeîs, téknon? think:PRS .2 SG son:VOC ‘How is that? Why do you think, son, you matter to her?’ (Eur. El. 657). In (43), the genitive does not function syntactically as a canonical subject. The passage does not provide syntactic cues as to the status of the dative: note however that in other occurrences the dative NP does in fact display the syntactic behavior typical of subjects (cf. Conti 2010c: 263–264). Thus, the dative may qualify as a non-canonical subject as well, as we will show below.

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In terms of pragmatic properties, the data show that the genitive is usually rhematic, and expresses the comment, rather than the topic. Generally speaking, it is the dative that encodes the topic while the genitive, when placed in initial position, is often the focus of the clause. In this passage it is the dative constituent that can be interpreted a non-canonical subject: (44) pleiónōn dḕ geōrgôn te kaì tôn állōn more:GEN . PL PTC laborers:GEN . PL PTC and ART.GEN . PL other:GEN . PL dēmiourgôn deî hēmîn têi pólei craftsman:GEN . PL need:PRS .3 SG 1 PL . DAT ART. DAT city:DAT ‘More laborers and all the other craftsmen are what our city needs.’ (Pl. Rep. 371.a). In conclusion, subject properties of genitive NPs in personal and impersonal constructions are partly different. In personal constructions, such as those discussed in sec. 3.1.1, the genitive displays two coding properties of prototypical subjects: it agrees in number and person with the verb, and triggers nominative agreement with attributive and predicative adjectives. Its semantic properties, however, clearly differ from the properties that are most typical of subjects, i.e. to express the Agent. In impersonal constructions, in contrast, the genitive only displays one behavioral property which is typical of subjects: use in coordination with control infinitives. One significant feature is shared by the genitive of personal constructions and the genitive of impersonal constructions, which keeps both of them apart from prototypical subjects: the fact that they indicate discourse referents which are not topics. Non-topicality can be seen as a discourse reflex of low participation, as indicated by the partitive genitive.

4 Genitive third arguments As already remarked in sec. 1, the partitive genitive can also function as the third argument of certain three place predicates. Crucially, however, such third arguments are never indirect objects, and do not occur with verbs of giving or saying. This is an interesting restriction, as the indirect object function is apparently the only syntactic function which is not accessible to partitive genitives. We cannot offer an explanation for this restriction. Tentatively, we suggest that it might be connected with the fact that indirect object is a syntactic function partly different

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from others, as it is virtually always taken by NPs which refer to human entities. Dative coding seems to be strictly associated with human referents that take semantic roles typical of third arguments, such as Recipient and Addressee, as well as neighboring roles, such as Beneficiary. Basically, verbs which can have a genitive third argument belong to two groups: (a) Verbs referring to legal actions, like ‘accuse’ and ‘condemn’, as in (45). Here, the occurrence of the genitive can hardly be explained from a synchronic point of view: (45) ḕn Lakedaimoníous tês exapátēs timōrēsṓmetha if Spartan:ACC . PL ART.GEN trick:GEN punish:SBJV. AOR .1 PL ‘If we punish the Spartans for their trick. . .’ (X. An. 7.1.25.3). (b) Verbs of filling and commercial transaction that can take either a genitive or an instrumental dative. This group corresponds to two-place verbs such as térpomai, described in sec. 2.1; case alternation is also attested in other IE languages. An example of this alternation is given below: (46) en d’ ōteilàs plêsan aleíphatos enneṓroio in PTC wound:ACC . PL fill:AOR .3 PL ointment:GEN nine.years.old:GEN ‘They filled the wounds with an ointment that was nine years old.’ (Hom. Il. 18.351); (47) kalámēs plḗsantes pân tò ploîon reed:GEN fill: PTCP. AOR . NOM . PL all: ACC ART. ACC boat:ACC toûto apieîsi kata tòn potamòn DEM . ACC send.away: PRS .3 SG along ART. ACC river. ACC ‘They then fill all this boat with reeds and send it floating down the river.’ (Hdt 1.194.2); (48) dakrúois gàr Hellád’ hápasan éplēsen fill: AOR .3 SG tear:DAT. PL PTC Greece: ACC all: ACC ‘For she filled all Greece with tears.’ (E. Or.1363). The IE origin of this usage of the partitive genitive can be demonstrated by parallels with other languages, such as for example Latin:

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(49) plenus timoris full:NOM fear: GEN ‘full of fear’; (50) plenus expectatione full:NOM expectation: ABL ‘full of expectation.’

5 Adverbial A peculiarity of the AG partitive is its adverbial usage, which also has some parallel in the other IE languages, though to a limited extent. Adverbial genitives occur in spatial and temporal expressions, mostly in Homeric Greek. In addition, in Homeric Greek one can still appreciate the usage of the partitive genitive with adpositions. This was apparently an innovation in AG, whose semantic impact lost relevance after Homer.

5.1 Space and time Below are some local expressions in the genitive: (51) ê

ouk Árgeos êen A.:GEN be:IMPF.3 SG ‘Was he not in Argos?’ (Hom. Od. 3.251); PTC

NEG

(52) hína mḗ . . . ḕ halos ḕ epì gês algḗsete for NEG or sea: GEN or on land: GEN suffer: FUT.2 PL pêma pathóntes misery: ACC . PL endure:PTCP. AOR . NOM . PL ‘In order for you not to undergo trouble either at sea or on land.’ (Hom. Od. 12.26–27). In such examples, the genitive could alternate with a dative locative, as in: (53) patḕr d’ emòs Árgeï násthe father:NOM PTC POSS .1 SG . NOM Argos:DAT abide:AOR .3 SG ‘My father lived in Argos.’ (Hom. Il. 14.119).

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Elsewehere, it may alternate with a PP which basically indicates a locative, as shown in (52), in which halòs is coordinated with an epí phrase.21 Even though such occurrences are relatively few, they are very important when compared to occurrences of the so-called ablative genitive. Indeed, the genitive without prepositions could express the meaning of an ablative only under special contextual conditions, with verbs or adjectives that required such meaning.22 When no such indication was available from the context, apparently, the most readily available interpretation of a genitive was the partitive. This is shown by example (51), in which we find the verb ‘be’. The meaning of a dedicated ablative case here would be ‘being away from’: however, that the AG genitive is not a dedicated ablative is shown by the fact that such a meaning can only be expressed through a PP in Homer, as in (54): (54) kaì gár tís th’ héna mêna and PTC INDF. NOM PTC one:ACC month:ACC ménōn apò hês alókhoio . . . remain:PTCP. PRS . NOM from POSS .3 SG .GEN wife:GEN ‘For he that abides but one single month far from his wife . . .’ (Hom. Il. 2.292). Similarly, example (52) does not contain any indication encoded by the verb regarding the meaning of the spatial expression. The locative meaning of the NP halós is encoded only by the genitive case. As compared to other cases (the dative, which could functioned as a locative, and the accusative, which could appear in allative and perlative expressions), the partitive genitive points toward the conceptualization of a portion of space as constituted by subparts, separable from one another, among which an entity can be located. This has consequences on the structure of possible trajectories within genitive landmarks in PPs, as we will see in the next section. 21 The occurrence of the genitive in (52) is also remarkable in this respect. In Homeric Greek, adpositional phrases were not yet fully grammaticalized as such (see Hewson & Bubenik 2004 for a thorough discussion); especially on the spatial plane, adpositions often specified meanings that could be independently expressed by cases. This is especially clear in (52), where both halós and gês indicate location, and epí adds the specification of a relation which holds on the vertical axis. Interestingly, in similar occurrences with epí the dative also seems to express pretty much the same meaning as the genitive, see Luraghi (2003: 298, 302–303) for examples and discussion. 22 Remarkably, even with motion verbs the genitive does not per se express Source, and does not function as an ablative: it does so only when the verb itself requires a Source expression. Otherwise, the genitive indicates Direction, as does the dative with certain verbs of motion, and as does the accusative. See Chantraine (1953: 52–53), and Luraghi & Sausa (2012).

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After Homer, the partitive genitive in spatial expressions is no longer found. However, time expressions also occur in Classical Greek, as in (55):23 (55) pínein te kaì eupathéein, oute hḗmerēs oute drink:INF. PRS PTC and enjoy: INF. PRS NEG day: GEN NEG nuktós aníenta night: GEN let.go: PTCP. PRS . ACC ‘and would drink and enjoy himself, not letting up day or night,’ (Hdt. 2.133.4).

5.2 Complement of adposition The occurrence of the partitive genitive with adpositions is an innovative feature of Homeric Greek. In other ancient IE languages, the genitive does not normally occur with adpositions, unless its origin is adnominal: an example is the genitive with causā and gratiā in Latin. Remarkably, the independent meaning of cases was still quite strong in Homeric Greek even with adpositions (the adpositional phrase was still developing, see Hewson & Bubenik 2006, Luraghi 2010). The result of the extension of the partitive genitive to adpositional phrases had the effect that cases developed different oppositions between one another. Inherited from PIE was the threefold opposition: – – –

dative ! locative accusative ! allative genitive ! ablative

The inherited spatial meaning of cases had the consequence the AG dative encoded the locative relation (cf. example (53)). This fact depends on case syncretism, as the dative was the merger of the PIE dative and locative. However, as we have seen above, the independent spatial meaning of the partitive genitive is also locative: it indicates an area in which a certain event takes place. In addition, even the accusative could indicate a location, rather than a direction. When indicating location, the accusative is generally said to occur in situations in which a certain extension of space is envisaged, and often adds a perlative meaning, as in:

23 The use of the partitive genitive in time expressions can be reconstructed for PIE, as it is also attested in other ancient (and some modern) languages, for example in Germanic, cf. Gothic nahts, Modern German nachts ‘at night’.

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(56) póthen pleîth’ hugrà kéleutha; . . . mapsidíōs whence sail:PRS .2 PL wet: ACC . PL path: ACC . PL randomly alálēsthe . . . hupeìr hála . . .? sea: ACC wander:PRS .2 PL . M / P over “Whence do you sail over the watery ways? . . . do you wander at random over the sea?” (Hom. Od. 71–73). Example (56) is especially interesting when compared to (52): in both examples, similar spatial relations are expressed twice, the second time with the addition of an adposition that indicates a relation on the vertical axis. As the occurrence of the adverb mapsidíōs ‘at random’ shows, the accusative profiles non-directional movement on a surface: hence the name of ‘accusative of extension’ (see Chantraine 1953: 45). Especially when occurring with prepositions, the genitive and the accusative indicate two different types of extended areas. The opposition between the two cases can be understood as a spatial correspondence of the opposition between partial and total affectedness with partitive genitive or accusative direct objects of verbs of consumption. The partitive indicates a surface that can be divided into parts; the accusative, on the contrary, indicates an extension which is conceived as an indivisible whole. This difference affects the type of landmarks that can occur in the two cases. The difference is neatly examplified by metá, ‘among’. With this preposition, the accusative only occurs with singular collective nouns or with plurals modified by the adjective pâs ‘all’. An example is: (57) toîsi dè thumòn enì stḗthessin órine DEM . DAT. PL PTC soul:ACC in breast:DAT. PL stir:AOR .3 SG pâsi metà plēthún all:DAT. PL among crowd:ACC ‘He moved the soul of everyone in the crowd.’ (Hom. Il. 2.142–143). The genitive, on the other hand, only occurs with plural count nouns, as shown in: (58) hoì

mèn . . . metà Boiōtôn emákhonto among Boeotian:GEN . PL fight:IMPF. M / P.3 PL ‘These were fighting among the Boeotians.’ (Hom. Il. 13.699–700). DEM . NOM . PL

PTC

In the above examples, landmarks are multiplex following the terminology in Talmy (2000). However, while genitive landmarks are multiplex and discontinuous, accusative ones are continuous. This means that genitive landmarks are formed

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by sub-units which can be singled out separately, while accusative landmarks cannot be further analyzed. Such difference is reflected by the occurrence of plural count nouns (genitive) or collective or plural nouns with pâs (accusative).24 Another way in which the opposition between the genitive and the accusative can affect the conceptualization of the landmark is shown by the usage of diá. This preposition has a perlative meaning ‘through’, and indicates that a trajector is moving along a trajectory inside a landmark (without reference to the initial or endpoint of the trajectory). With this prepostion, case alternation alters the structre of the trajectory. The partitive genitive, which indicates a surface that can be divided into separate units, indicates a unique trajectory, along which the trajector can be traced down at any point in its movement. The accusative, instead, indicates that the trajectory is internal to the landmark, but cannot be traced in a precise manner. In much the same way as the ‘accusative of extension’ in example (56), the accusative with diá indicates a random, nondirectional motion. Consider the examples: (59) kephalḕn d’ hapalês apò deirês kópsen head:ACC PTC tender:GEN from neck:GEN cut:AOR .3 SG Oïliádēs . . . hêke dé min sphairēdòn son.of.O.:NOM throw:AOR .3 SG PTC 3 SG . ACC like.a.ball helixámenos di’ homílou roll:PTCP. AOR . MID. NOM through crowd:GEN ‘The son of Oïleus cut the head from the tender neck, and with a swing he sent it rolling through the throng like a ball.’ (Hom. Il. 13.202.204); (60) helixámenos dià bḗssas turn:PTCP. AOR . MID. NOM through glen:ACC . PL ‘(A wild boar) turning around through the glens.’ (Hom. Il. 17.283).

24 The dative also occurs with metá in Homeric Greek: indeed, it is the most frequent case. It occurs 215 times, while the accusative occurs 164 times and the genitive, which was most likely a recent innovation, only occurs five times, in occurrences similar to the one in (58). In location expressions, the dative was not constrained by specific types of landmark: in particular, it could occur both with count and with mass nouns. Thus, contrary to the other two cases, the dative was underspecified regarding the mass/count distinction in location expressions. Note that metá could occur with other types of expression, notably it could mean ‘between’ (only with the dative), or it could indicate motion after a landmark (with the accusative). See Luraghi (2003: 244–249) and (2005). Remarkably, the dative, which was the most frequent case in Homeric Greek, is no longer used with metá in Classical Attic-Ionic.

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In (59) and (60) the same verb form, helixámenos, indicates two different types of motion. The head of the champion in (59), cut off from his neck, rolls on itself along a straight trajectory inside an area defined by the crowd: here, the genitive landmark is a surface which can be divided into parts. Hence, the trajectory can be traced down. The wild boar in (60), instead, runs around in different directions among the glens. The accusative landmark does not allow for precise tracking of the trajector, and movement is performed at random. Thus, the difference between diá with the genitive and diá with the accusative with motion verbs can be captured in terms of trajectory structure: while diá with the genitive indicates a single path, diá with the accusative indicates multiple path.25 A similar distinction appears when the two types of prepositional phrase occur with verbs that denote static situations. Compare the following examples: (61) polloì dè súes thaléthontes many:NOM . PL PTC swine:NOM . PL bloom:PTCP. PRS . NOM . PL aloiphêi heuómenoi tanúonto dià grease:DAT singe:PTCP. PRS . M / P. NOM . PL stretch:IMPF. M / P.3 PL through phlogòs Hephaístoio flame:GEN H.:GEN ‘Many swine, rich with fat, were stretched to singe over the flame of Hephaestus.’ (Hom. Il. 9.467–468); (62) autàr ho Kúklōpas megál’ ḗpuen, hoí rhá then DEM . NOM K.:ACC . PL loudly call:IMPF.3 SG DEM . NOM . PL PTC min amphìs ṓikeon en spḗessi di’ 3 SG . ACC around live:IMPF.3 PL in cave:DAT. PL through ákrias ēnemoéssas height:ACC . PL windy:ACC . PL ‘Then he called aloud to the Cyclopes, who dwelt round about him in caves among the windy heights.’ (Hom. Od. 9.399–400). In (61), diá with the genitive denotes a situation in which a (number of) straight trajector(s) is stretched through an area identified by the flame. In (62) instead diá with the accusative indicates that the units which constitute the trajector are located randomly within a certain area (more details and other examples can be found in Luraghi 2003 ch. 3.9).

25 In a limited number of occurrences, diá takes the directional accusative in Homer and indicates movement across a landmark, see Luraghi (2012).

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6 Recapitulation In this paper, we discussed various usages of the AG genitive which may be regarded as connected with its partitive value. We have shown that, when functioning as a partitive, the genitive can take virtually any syntactic function, except apparently that of third argument of verbs of giving and communication. Accordingly, we have analyzed the semantic, syntactic and pragmatic features of the partitive genitive in specific syntactic functions. Originally, the partitive genitive indicates that an entity is made up of divisible parts. With such an entity, it is conceivable that an event does not affect all its parts. As a consequence, the partitive genitive indicates a low degree of involvement, or a reduced extent of participation, of a certain referent in a state of affairs. This general feature has different instantiations, depending on other variables, as e.g. the fact that the partitive genitive functions as an object, as a subject, or as an adverbial. In the case of partitive direct objects, low involvement may mean that a referent does not undergo a change of state, or that only a part of it does. These features are most clear with verbs that admit case variation for direct objects, whereby accusative objects indicate high involvement. Especially verbs that do not admit case variation and take partitive objects are low transitivity predicates, which do not indicate change of state (this is also true of some verbs that admit case variation). Genitive subjects, too, typically occur with low transitivity predicates, most often in presentative constructions or with unaccusative verbs. As they imply indefiniteness and are only seldom clause initial, they are not topical: rather, they introduce new participants into the discourse. In so-called impersonal constructions, typically with experiential predicates, genitive constituents display some behavioral properties of subjects. In such constructions, they typically indicate the Stimulus and co-occur with Experiencer NPs mostly in the dative (less frequently in the accusative), which can also display some behavioral properties of subjects. Thus, both genitive and dative NPs with experiential predicates qualify as non-canonical subjects. In several languages, partitives shown a strict connection with negation. This connection is also present in AG, even though to a limited extent: partitive subjects can occur under the scope of negation, but they are far from being obligatory, as the nominative case can occur as well, and is in fact more frequent. As already remarked, partitive third arguments are infrequent: in particular, they never occur in the function of indirect object, that is, with verbs of giving or saying, with which the indirect object is typically human. Indeed, they are virtually restricted to verbs of judging or condemning and to verbs of filling

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and of economic transaction, with which they alternate with the instrumental dative. Note that such third arguments are typically inanimate. Partitive adverbials can indicate a point in time or in space, the latter usage being virtually limited to Homer. They occur in passages in which the locative dative would also be possible. In addition, the partitive genitive can also occur in adpositional phrases, again mostly limited to Homeric Greek. With adpositions, the partitive genitive tends to be interpreted either as a locative, again competing with the dative, or as a perlative, which indicates unidirectional path. In the latter case, we find an opposition with the accusative, which denotes multidirectional path. The partitive nature of the genitive, when referring to space, envisages a landmark as composed by detachable units. A trajectory moving on such a landmark is conceived as moving along a clearly individuated trajectory, hence the implication of unidirectionality, as opposed to the accusative, which has no similar implications. In conclusion, the partitive genitive shows features which are also found in other Indo-European languages, and are typical of partitive cases in some non-Indo-European ones, thus confirming various cross-linguistic tendencies of partitives. Among them, the most notable is the fact that the partitive genitive does not indicate the syntactic function taken by a NP: rather, it can occur in virtually any syntactic function. This is at odds with what is normally considered the function of case, and makes the partitive genitive even more remarkable.

References Aikhenvald, Alexandra, R. M. W. Dixon & Masayuki Onishi (eds.) 2001. Non-canonical marking of subjects and objects. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Baños, José Miguel. 2003. Paenitet y los verbos impersonales de sentimiento en latín: Sintaxis y pragmática del acusativo personal. In José Miguel Baños, Concepción Cabrillana, Esperanza Torrego & Jesús de la Villa (eds.), Praedicativa, Complementación en griego y latín, 51–77. Santiago de Compostela: Universidad Santiago de Compostela. Barðdal, Johanna. 2006. Construction-specific properties of syntactis subjects in Icelandig and German. Cognitive Linguistis 17(1). 39–106. Barðdal, Johanna & Thórhallur Eythórsson. 2003. The Change that never happened: The story of the oblique subjects. Journal of Linguistics 39(3). 439–472. Barðdal, Johanna & Thórhallur Eythórsson. 2009. The origin of the oblique-subject construction: An Indo-European comparison. In Vit Bubenik, John Hewson and Sarah Rose (eds.), Grammatical Change in Indo-European Languages, 179–193. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Bauer, Brigitte. 2000. Archaic Syntax in Indo-European. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Benedetti, Marina. 2006. Mehr als Passiv: Über einige Verbalmorpheme in altindogermanischen Sprachen. International Journal of Diachronic Linguistics and Linguistic Reconstruction, 3. 91–110.

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Bhaskararao, Peri & Karumuri Venkata Subbarao (eds.). 2004. Non-Nominative Subjects. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Blake, Barry. 1994. Case. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bossong, George. 1998. Le marquage de l’expérient dans les langues d’Europe. In Jack Feuillet (ed.), Actance et Valence dans les Langues de l’Europe, 259–294. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Brugmann, Karl. 1913. Griechische Grammatik II. München: C. H. Beck. Brugmann, Karl. 1925. Die Syntax des einfachen Satzes im Indogermanischen. Berlin & Leipzig: Mouton de Gruyter. Brugmann, Karl & Berthold Delbrück. 1911. Grundriss der vergleichende Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen, 2nd edn, vol. 2: Vergleichende Laut-, Stammbildungs- und Flexionslehre. Strassburg: Trübner. Carlier, Anne. 2007. From Preposition to Article: The Grammaticalization of the French Partitive. Studies in Language 31. 1–49. Chantraine, Pierre. 1953. Grammaire homérique II: Syntaxe. Paris: Klincksieck. Cole, Peter, William Harbert, Gabriella Hermon & S.N. Sridhar (eds.). 1980. The acquisition of subjecthood. Language 56(4). 719–743. Conti, Luz. 1998. Zum Passiv von griechischen Verben mit Gen. bzw. Dat. als zweitem Komplement. Münchener Studien zur Sprachwissenschaft (MSS), 58. 13–50. Conti, Luz. 2002. Kasussyntax bei Homer: Überlegungen zum adverbalen Akkusativ. In Heinrich Hettrich & Jeong-So Kim (eds.), Indogermanische Syntax: Fragen und Perspektiven, 1–19. Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag. Conti, Luz. 2010a. Synchronie und Diachronie des altgriechischen Genitivs als Semisubjekt. Historische Sprachforschungen 121. 2008 (2010):94–113. Conti, Luz. 2010b. Weiteres zum Genitiv als Semisubjekt im Altgriechischen: Analyse des Kasus bei impersonalen Konstruktionen, Historische Sprachforschungen 122. 2009 (2010):182– 207. Conti, Luz. 2010c. Análisis del dativo en construcciones impersonales: Los conceptos de sujeto y de semisujeto en griego antiguo. Emerita 78(2). 249–273. Conti, Luz. 2010d. Nota sobre Odisea 1.7. Exemplaria 14. 3–14. Crespo, Emilio, Luz Conti & Helena Maquieira. 2003. Sintaxis del griego clásico. Madrid: Gredos. Cuzzolin, Pierluigi & Maria Napoli. 2008. An Overview of Impersonal Verbs in Indo-European. In Rosemarie Lühr & Sabine Ziegler (eds.), Protolanguage and Prehistory: Proceedings of the Twelfth Congress of the Indogermanische Gesellschaft in Krakow, 75–81. Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag. Dik, Simon C. 1997. The Theory of Functional Grammar, Part 2, Complex and Derived Constructions (ed. by Kees Hengeveld). Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Eckert, Rainer, Emilia Crome & Christian Fleckenstein. 1983. Geschichte der russischen Sprache. Leipzig: VEB Verlag. Eythórsson, Thórhallur & Johanna Barðdal. 2005. Oblique subjects: A common Germanic inheritance. Language 81(4). 824–881. Haspelmath, Martin. 2001. Non-canonical marking of core arguments in European languages. In Alexandra Aikhenvald, R. M. W. Dixon & Masayuki Onishi (eds.), 53–83. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

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Hermann, Eduard. 1926. Die subjektlosen Sätze bei Homer und der Ausdruck der Tätigkeit, des Vorgangs und des Zustands, Nachrichten von der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen. Philologisch-Historische Klasse, Heft 3. Hettrich, Heinrich. 1990. Rektionaler und autonomer Kasusgebrauch. In Heiner Eichner & Helmut Rix (eds.), Sprachwissenchaft und Philologie, Jakob Wackernagel und die Indogermanistik heute, 82–98. Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag. Hettrich, Hettrich. Some remarks on the adverbal genitive in Rigvedic Sanskrit. In Jared Tucker & Elizabeth Klein (eds.), Proceedings of the 13th World Sanskrit Conference. Edinburgh, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas, in press. Hewson, John & Vit Bubenik. 2006. From Case to Adposition: The Development of Configurational Syntax in Indo-European Languages. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Hopper, Paul J. & Sara A. Thompson. 1980. Transitivity in Grammar and Discourse. Language 56. 251–99. Hualde, José Ignacio & Jon Ortiz de Urbina (eds.) 2003. A grammar of Basque. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Huumo, Tuomas. 2003. Incremental Existence: The World According to the Finnish Existential Sentence. Linguistics 41(3). 461–493. Keenan, Edward. 1976. Towards a universal definition of ‘subject’. In Charles N. Li (ed.), Subject and Topic, 303–334. New York: Academic Press. Keenan, Edward & Bernard Comrie. 1977. Noun phrase accessibility and universal grammar. Linguistic Inquiry 8. 63–99. Kiparsky, Paul. 1998. Partitive case and aspect. In Miriam Butt & Wilhelm Geuder (eds.), The Projection of Arguments, 266–307. Stanford, California: CSLI. Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria. 2001. “A piece of the cake” and “a cup of tea”: Partitive and pseudo-partitive nominal constructions in the Circum-Baltic languages. In Östen Dahl & Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm (eds.), The Circum-Baltic Languages: Typology and Contact, vol. 2., 523–568. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Kirschbaum, Ernst-Georg & Elizabeth Tauscher Kretschmar. (198013) Grammatik der russischen Sprache. Düsseldorf: Brücken Verlag. Kopjevskaja-Tamm Maria. 2006. Partitives. In Keith Brown (ed.), Encyclopedia of Languages and Linguistics, vol. 9, 2nd edn., 218–221. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Kühner, Rapahel & Bernhard Gerth. 1898. Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, II.1. Hannover-Leipzig: Hahn. Lasso de la Vega, José Luis. 1958. Genitivo partitivo sujeto en griego. Sociedad española de Estudios Clásicos 2. 462–472. Lestrade, Sander. 2006. Marked Adpositions. Paper presented at the SIGSEM Workshop on Prepositions. University of Trento: University of Trento, 3–6 April, 2006. Levin, Beth & Malka Rappaport Hovav. 1995. Unaccusativity. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Luraghi, Silvia. 1999. The subject of complement clauses with the infinitive. In Bernard Jaquinod (ed.), Les complétives en grec ancien, 199–213. St. Etienne: Publications de l’Université. Luraghi, Silvia. 2003. On the Meaning of Prepositions and Cases: A Study of the Expression of Semantic Roles in Ancient Greek. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Luraghi, Silvia. 2005. The history of the Greek preposition metá: From polysemy to the creation of homonyms. Glotta 81. 130–159. Luraghi, Silvia. 2006. Greek prepositions: Patterns of polysemization and semantic bleaching. In Emilio Crespo, Jesús de la Villa & Antonio Revuelta (eds.), Word Classes and Related Topics, 487–499. Louvain-la-Neuve: Peeters.

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Luraghi, Silvia 2009. The internal structure of adpositional phrases. In Johannes Helmbrecht, Yoko Nishina, Yong-Min Shin, Stavros Skopeteas, Elisabeth Verhoeven (eds.), Form and Function in Language Research: Papers in honour of Christian Lehmann, 231–254. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Luraghi, Silvia 2010. The extension of the passive construction in Ancient Greek. In Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 42(1): 60–74. Luraghi, Silvia. 2011. Two theoretical approaches to cases in comparison. In Thomas Krisch & Thomas Lindner (eds.), Akten der 13. Fachtagung der Indogermanischen Gesellschaft, 331–341. Wiesbaden: Reichert. Luraghi, Silvia. 2012. The spatial meaning of diá with the accusative in Homeric Greek. Mnemosyne 65(3). 357–386. Meillet, Antoine & Joseph Vendryes. 1927. Traité de grammaire comparée. Paris: Champion. Miklosich, Franz. 1883. Vergleichende Syntax de slavischen Sprachen 4: Syntax. Wien: Braumiiller. Moreno, Juan Carlos. 1990a. Universal and typological aspects of impersonality. In Werner Bahner, Joachim Schildtand & Dieter Viehweger (eds.), Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Congress of Linguists, III, 2396–2398. Berlin: Academy Verlag. Moreno, Juan Carlos. 1990b. Processes and actions: internal agentless impersonals in some European languages. In Johannes Bechert, Giuliano Bernini & Claude Buridant (eds.) Toward a Typology of European Languages, 255–272. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Nachmanson, Ernst. 1942. Partitives Subjekt im Griechischen. Göteborg: Elanders boktryckeri aktiebolag. Napoli, Maria. 2010. The case for the partitive case: The contribution of Ancient Greek. Transactions of the Philological Society 108(1). 15–40. Riaño, Daniel. 2005. La sintaxis de los verbos ‘‘comer’’ y ‘‘beber’’ en griego antiguo: un estudio sobre el genitivo partitivo. Emerita 73. 263–302. Sasse, Hans Jürgen. 1982. Subjektprominenz. In Sieglinde Heinz & Ulrich Wandruszka (eds.), Fakten und Theorien: Beiträge zur romanischen und allgemeinen Sprachwissenschaft. Festschrift fur Helmut Stimm zum 65. Geburtstag, Tübingen: Narr, 266–86. Schwyzer, Eduard & Albert Debrunner. 1950. Griechische Grammatik II. München: C.H. Beck. Seefranz-Montag, Ariane von. 1983. Syntaktische Funktionen und Wortstellungsveränderung. Die Entwicklung ‘subjektloser’ Konstruktionen in einigen Sprachen. München: Fink. Seefranz-Montag, Ariane von. 1984. Subjectless Constructions and Syntactic Change. In Jacek Fisiak (ed.), Historical Syntax, 521–553. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Senn, Alfred. 1966. Handbuch der litauischen Sprache I. Heidelberg: Carl Winter Verlag. Večerca, Radoslav. 1993. Altkirchenslavische (altbulgarische) Syntax II. Freiburg: Weiher. Wackernagel, Jacob. 1920. Vorlesungen über Syntax I. Göttingen: Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen. Wandruszka, Ulrich. 1981. Typen romanischer Subjektinversion. In Horst Geckeler, Brigitte Schlieben-Lange, Jürgen Trabant & Harald Weydt (eds.), Logos semantikos: Studia linguistica in honorem Eugenio Coseriu (1921–1981) IV, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Anne Carlier and Béatrice Lamiroy

14 The grammaticalization of the prepositional partitive in Romance The paper is devoted to the adverbal use of the partitive in Romance. Romance languages developed a partitive marker out of the Latin adposition de (+ NP), whose original meaning was ‘away from’. This grammaticalization process is represented in a five-step model, defining the different stages of the shift of morpho-syntactic categorization, from Late Latin onwards: primitively a preposition, de (+ NP) turns into an article. We show that, although the source expression of the partitive is the same in French, Italian and Spanish, the outcome of the evolution differs significantly according to the language. As to Spanish, we find in Old Spanish a hybrid use of de, between preposition and determiner, with a proper partitive meaning, but the grammaticalization process stops at that stage. In French and Italian, on the contrary, de turned into a full-fledged indefinite article, thus changing its morpho-syntactic status as well as its meaning. Italian however differs from French in that the process has not fully reached its endpoint, as the partitive article remains optional (next to zero marking) and it is more widely spread in the North than in the South. The authors argue that the different patterns which characterize the emergence of the partitive in Romance can be linked to global typological properties regarding word order and information structure. Keywords: French, Spanish, Italian, Late Latin, grammaticalization, adpositions, indefinite article

1 Introduction From a syntagmatic viewpoint, the Romance partitive is used in two configurations: – in the adnominal use, the partitive is linked to a nominal or pronominal quantifying expression (e.g. Fr. Un morceau du gâteau ‘a piece of the cake’ cf. Koptjevskaja-Tamm 2001); – in the adverbal use, the partitive is used for the expression of core arguments, without any quantifier (e.g. Fr. Je bois du café ‘I drink coffee’). This paper will be devoted to the latter case.

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1.1 The partitive in Indo-European The adverbal use of the partitive appears to be an endemic feature of IndoEuropean, since it appears in languages or language stages belonging to different branches of the Indo-European family, such as Sanskrit, Slavonic, Old Germanic, Gothic, and Ancient Greek. Contrary to languages such as Finnish or Basque, endowed with a partitive case, Indo-European languages however do not have a specific partitive marker, but use either the genitive case or – especially in language stages where nominal declension is weakening or is missing – an adposition meaning primitively ‘away from’. Cases, generally speaking, indicate dependency relations, both syntactic and semantic, with respect to another term. For instance, the genitive typically marks a dependency relation with respect to a noun. The partitive use of the genitive, as observed in several Indo-European languages, is atypical, because, unlike other inflectional cases, it does not create a specific relationship between the inflected NP and some external element (Carlier 2007). This flexibility explains why it can be used instead of other inflectional cases (for a detailed discussion, see Humbert 1960, Luraghi 2009, and Conti & Luraghi, this volume with respect to Greek, and Serbat 1996 for Latin). The Homeric epics provide some nice illustrations of the syntactic flexibility of the partitive genitive: it occurs not only in the object position of verbs meaning ‘to drink’ or ‘to eat’ (1a), but is also used in other syntactic functions such as subject, locative (2) or instrumental function. (1) a. Haímatos óphra píō. blood:GEN . SG ( N ) in.order.that drink: PRS .1 SG ‘So that I drink of the blood.’ (Hom.Od. 11.96) b. Epeì píen haíma kelainón. after drink:INF. AOR blood:ACC . SG ( N ) black:ACC . N . SG ‘After having drunk the dark blood.’ (Hom. Od. 11.98) (2) Loessámenos potamoĩo. [instead of: en tō(i) potamō(i) [DATIVE ]] bathe:PTCP. MID. AOR . M . SG river: GEN . SG ( M ) ‘After taking a (little) bath in the river.’ (Hom. Il. 21.560) The partitive genitive is however not a syntactic ‘joker’ (Meillet & Vendryes 1927: §797, Serbat 1996), i.e. its use instead of another inflectional case is not indifferent: the partitive genitive marks an operation within its constituent, which consists in isolating an indeterminate quantity from a whole. Humbert (1960: 269–70) explains the difference between the two examples in (1) along

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this line: the first example, with the partitive genitive, relates the desire of Tiresias to drink some of the blood of the victims killed by Odysseus, whereas the second example, with the accusative, evokes the strength he draws from drinking the substance of blood.

1.2 The partitive in Latin In Classical Latin, the partitive genitive is commonly used for adnominal complements. It indicates the definite or indefinite whole from which a fraction is isolated: (3) Multum operae. much:N . SG time:GEN . F. SG ‘A lot of work’ (Cic., Brutus, 89, LXXXIX, 304) (4) Magna copia frumenti. great:NOM . F. SG abundance:NOM . SG ( F ) corn:GEN . SG ( N ) ‘Great supplies of corn’ (Civ. 1, 52, 4) Interestingly, the prepositional phrase headed by ex or de ‘from’ already enters in competition with the genitive case in this context: (5) Unus ex capitivis. one:NOM . M . SG of prisoner:ABL . PL ‘One of the prisoners’ (Caes. Gal. 6.35.8) (6) Nulla de virtutibus tuis plurimis. none:NOM . F. SG of virtue:ABL . PL ( F ) POSS .2 SG .ABL . PL very.numerous:ABL . PL ‘None of your very numerous qualities.’ (Cic. Pro Q. Ligario, 37) As to the adverbal partitive genitive, it is sporadic in Latin, to the point that it would probably have gone unnoticed if it were not rather widespread in other Indo-European languages such as Homeric Greek, Sanskrit and Slavonic. The partitive genitive is nevertheless attested in Pre-Classical Latin, mainly in nonliterary, technical texts, such as medical and culinary treatises. Witness the following example, quoted from Väänänen (1981), where the object of addito ‘add’ is expressed by the partitive genitive, whereas the object of indito ‘put in’ has the canonical form corresponding to its syntactic function, i.e. the accusative case:

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(7) Farinam in mortarium indito; flower:ACC . SG ( F ) in mortar:ACC . SG ( N ) put.into: IMP. FUT.2 SG aquae paulatim addito. water:GEN . SG ( F ) little.by.little add:IMP. FUT.2 SG ‘Put the wheat in the mortar; add (some) water little by little.’ (Cato Agr. 74, 2nd c. BC, quoted from Väänänen 1981) The tendency to make use of a partitive genitive instead of another case is repressed in the Classical Latin period, privileging the marking of clear syntactic relations over the expression of subtle semantic distinctions. But the partitive construction surfaces again in Late Latin, not only in the form of the genitive case but also as a prepositional construction with de. Examples are legion in the popularizing texts of the 4th and 5th century written in Gaul, in particular by Christian authors. A remarkable fact is noted by Väänänen (1981) on the basis of the inventory of all the occurrences of the prepositional partitive construction in the Vulgate Bible: in a language (or language stage) lacking a grammaticalized article, all but two occurrences consist of a noun which is either preceded or followed by a demonstrative or a possessive determiner (8b–8c) or followed by a relative clause (9) that indicates the spatiotemporal location of the partition set denoted by the noun. Hence, we find the following distribution between accusative, on the one hand, and partitive genitive, on the other hand: – the accusative is normally used when no such partition set is available (8a); – the partitive construction with the preposition de, ex or ab can be used when there is a contextually specified partition set (8b–8c–9). (8) a. Ut comedatis carnem et bibatis so.that eat:SBJV. PRS .2 PL meat:ACC . SG ( F ) and drink:SBJV. PRS .2 PL sanguinem. blood:ACC . SG ( M ) ‘So that you eat my flesh and drink my blood.’ (Ezechiel 39,17) illo edat. b. Et sic de pane and thus of bread:ABL . SG ( M ) DEM .ABL . M . SG eat:SBJV. PRS .3 SG ‘And so let him eat of that bread.’ (Vulgata, I Corinthians 11, 28) c. Comede de venatione mea. eat:IMP. PRS .2 SG of venery:ABL . SG ( F ) POSS .1 SG . ABL . F. SG ‘Eat of my venery.’ (Vulgata, Gen. 27, 19)

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(9) Nam et catelli edunt de micis quae for and puppy:NOM . PL ( M ) eat:PRS .3 PL of crumb:ABL . PL ( F ) REL . NOM . F. PL cadunt de mensa dominorum suorum. fall:PRS .3 PL from table:ABL . SG ( F ) masters:GEN . PL ( M ) poss.GEN . M . PL ‘Yet the young dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.’ (Vulgata, Matthew 15:27) The expression of the object by means of a PP introduced by de instead of a prepositionless NP in the accusative, as exemplified in the above examples, is the common starting point for the evolution of the partitive in Romance.

1.3 The partitive in Romance 1.3.1 The different stages of the grammaticalization process: from preposition to article In the Romance area, the preposition de, combined with the definite article (derived from the Latin demonstrative ille), grammaticalized into a partitive article. The different stages of the grammaticalization process from Latin to French are represented in Figure 1. The label “partitive” applies from stage III onwards. Crucially, the emergence of the partitive article has to be conceived as a shift in morpho-syntactic category: de, a preposition, turns into an article. Therefore, for each of the stages, we will specify the semantic and syntactic features that reveal to which paradigm de belongs and to which degree it is integrated in the paradigm. Importantly, it has to be pointed out that the shift from one stage to another does not mean that the earlier stage is discarded. According to Hopper (1993), grammaticalization phenomena often display layering, i.e. the coexistence of more conservative and more innovative evolutionary stages. This means for example that when de + NP reaches stage III, usages that were typical of stage I or II still may occur.

S TAGE I – Syntax: The PP headed by de has the status of an adjunct with respect to the verb. – Semantics: The preposition de has originally a spatial meaning: it heads an NP that introduces a reference point and, in its primitive meaning, marks a downward movement (10). As a result of desemantization, the notion of downward movement will progressively fade out, so that Latin de can also simply express a movement away from a reference point, as in (11).

Figure 1: Grammaticalization chain: from preposition to partitive article (Carlier 2007)

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(10) Decido de lecto. fall.from: PRS .1 SG from bed:ABL . SG ( M ) ‘I fall from my bed.’ (Latin: Plautus, Casina 931) (11) De provincia clam abire. from province:ABL . PL ( F ) secretly go.away:INF ‘Leave in secret the province.’ (Latin: Cic, Verr. II, 2,55) –

Paradigm: the Latin preposition de alternates with zero, on the one hand (the prepositionless ablative also expresses distancing), and with prepositions such as ex + ablative ‘out of’ and ab + ablative ‘from’, on the other. In the case of ex, the reference point is conceived of as a containing space, and the preposition indicates a movement out of it, e.g. profluit ex monte ‘it flows out of the mountain’. In the case of ab, the starting point of the movement is located outside of the reference point, e.g. aps te abire ‘go away from you’ (Plautus, Miles gloriosus 4,1), caput a cervice revulsum ‘the head pulled off from the neck’ (Vergilius, Georgica 4, 523). Contrary to ex and ab, de does not specify the position of the moved entity with respect to its reference point, but at least in its primitive meaning, it describes the pathway as a downward movement. In the evolution from Latin to Romance, de will replace ex and ab in most Romance languages. In Italian the situation is more complex, as Italian developed two distinct prepositions, viz. di ( re is a consequence of post-verbal position and close phonological association with the (vowel-final) verb complex.

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Yet, as Crowley (2006: 102) states, “this form can also be used to express a partitive meaning with a transitive verb, indicating that the referent of the object is only partly affected by the action expressed in the verb. Thus: (Avava) tuut emer ki (82) I-yan 3 SG : R-eat PAR eel DEM ‘He ate some of the eel.’ (Crowley 2006: 102) Although the resulting meanings are very similar, it is recalled that there is a different word order here: tuut occurs after the verb and before the NP object in the second example, in contrast with its post-nominal position in the previous example, meaning ‘some of its ribs’. For both Lewo and Avava it seems most likely that the post verbal function of the form has evolved from the NP article/ quantifier function, as will be demonstrated below. Outside the Vanuatu group of languages, Yapese (Micronesia) is another language with a partitive marker occurring in the same two environments. Recall that this language has a form boech ‘some, a little’ which is analysed by Jensen (1977: 160) as a combination of the indefinite article ba and the diminutive chi. It occurs with a connector ee or ea in NPs to give a partitive meaning: (Yapese) niig (83) boech ee some CONN fish ‘Some fish.’ (Jensen 1977: 160) However, it also functions as a post-verbal partitive modifier, as does the related form boechquw ‘a little’: marwee worked

boech some.’

(84)

Qii ‘He

(85)

Qii marwee boechquw ‘He worked a little.’ (Jensen 1977: 160)

Given Jensen’s synchronic analysis that boech and boechquw include the indefinite article ba, it seems most likely that the pre-nominal NP partitive functions of these

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forms pre-date their verb modifying functions. To argue for the reverse process in Yapese, would entail that an indefinite article ba has evolved by splitting from a post-verbal adverb boech, which seems highly implausible. For the Vanuatu languages discussed above, the grammaticalisation pathway of the post-verbal partitives must in many cases also involve a shift from an article-like form, which presumably occurred in NPs of any grammatical function (subject, object, existential subject, attribute of equational clause etc), and which then became restricted to the post-verbal position with scope over the object NP. Speculating further, in some languages, from this post-verbal position its function appears to have generalised, such that it can be used even with mono-valent verbs to mark a partial accomplishment of the action. This stage of the grammaticalisation pathway is substantiated by the fact that of the languages which exhibit post-verbal partitives, there are some in which the forms are restricted to transitive clauses (e.g. Avava tuut and Mwotlap te), some in which the forms occur in both transitive and intransitive clauses (e.g. Sye -wi, Bierebo ja, Abma te), but no examples of languages in which the post-verbal partitive occurs exclusively with intransitive verbs. There is possibly a further explanation for the presence of post-verbal partitive forms in some Vanuatu languages. Bierebo ja seems likely to be an accreted form of gicha, a variant form which occurs in some more conservative dialects of the language. In turn, gicha can be diachronically analysed as gi-cha, where gi is a serial verb meaning ‘take time’ which is still productive in the contemporary language and cha is perhaps a phonologically-conditioned variant of ta. What seems plausible here then, is that a modified serial verb with a literal meaning of ‘take a little time’ has developed into a more general VP partitive meaning ‘do a little’. It remains to be seen whether this analysis would be valid for other Vanuatu languages with VP partitives.

5.3 The role of partitives in negation One area in which both NP and post-verbal partitives appear is in the expression of negation. It is a well-established cross-linguistic diachronic tendency for partitives and other minimisers to enter into negative constructions as emphatic devices15 through Jespersenian cycles. As a result of their occurrence as emphatics in negative constructions such minimising forms may take on negative semantics themselves and develop into fully grammaticalised negators. In some Oceanic languages partitive markers have followed this path and grammaticalised to 15 French pas is the most well-known example.

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varying degrees. This point has received some attention in the typological literature (see e.g. Kahrel & van den Berg (eds) 1994; Miestamo 2005; Auwera 2010, Horn (ed.) 2010), and examples are also provided elsewhere in Miestamo (this volume) and Luraghi (this volume). Most of the examples cited are from Vanuatu languages and it is still unclear how widespread the phenomenon is across the whole Oceanic subgroup. The phenomenon is briefly illustrated below. In Samoan, the partitive article sina functions to reinforce the negative, in conjunction with another emphatic lava: (Samoan) (86) 0 ua

leai lava sina ofi not.exist EMPH ART ( PAR . SG ) room ‘There was absolutely no room at all.’ (Mosel 1992: 265)

PFV

Similarly, in Abma, which has bipartite negation of the form ba. . .=nga, the addition of the partitive –te after the verb adds further emphasis: (Abma) (87) Ko=t ih bamte abma 2SG = PFV hit make.die what ‘What did you kill yesterday?’

nanib? yesterday

(88)

Na=t=ba if bamte 1SG = PFV =NEG 1 hit make.die ‘I don’t kill things.’

abma=nga something=NEG 2 16

(89)

Na=t=ba if bamte=te 1SG = PFV =NEG 1 hit make.die=PAR ‘I didn’t kill anything.’ (Schneider 2010: 161)

abma=nga something=NEG 2

In Paamese the form tei occurs in negated clauses but is still analysed by Crowley (1982: 144) as the partitive marker:

16 A number of Vanuatu languages have discontinuous negation marking and the glossing convention is to mark each negator with a numeral indicating its relative order in the construction.

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(Paamese) (90) a. Longe-nV ree-ku 3SG . R .hear-COMN voice-1SG ‘He heard my voice.’ b.

ree-ku Ro-longe-tei 3SG . R . NEG -hear-PAR voice-1SG ‘He didn’t hear my voice.’ (Crowley 1982: 144)

In Lewo the cognate re is treated in Early’s (1994) description as two separate forms, a partitive and a negator, which do not co-occur, i.e. re is now analysed as an obligatory marker in negative expressions: (Lewo) (91) Ve

a-tol 3PL . SBJ-touch ‘Don’t touch me!’ (Early 1994: 78)

NEG 1

inu 1SG

re NEG 2

In Bierebo the same has occurred: re is fully grammaticalised as a negative marker (and there is in fact no homophonous partitive marker. It is glossed NEG 2 to reflect its relative position in the maximally tripartite negative marking, but in Irrealis clauses it is the sole and exclusive negator, leaving no doubt that it has moved from an emphatic to a genuine negative marker: (Bierebo) (92) Ko-teng 2 SG - IRR : cry ‘Don’t cry.’

re NEG 2

Further evidence of the cycle can be seen in Lewo and Bierebo: With the postverbal partitive marker re having fully grammaticalised into a negator in both languages, other partitive minimisers are pressed into service as emphatics in negative constructions. The indefinite markers tai or ta are used for the expression of ‘no one’, ‘nothing’ etc: (Bierebo) (93) Mara NEG

ta INDF

‘There’s no-one/none.’

558 (94)

Peter Budd

Ta ø-to re one 3SG - IRR :be.at NEG 2 ‘Nothing will remain.’ (Author’s data)

(Lewo) ø-pa (95) Tai pe one NEG 1 3SG - R :go ‘No-one/none went.’ (Early 1994: 249)

re NEG 2

poli NEG 3

Not only this, but the post-verbal partitive ja in Bierebo also occurs as a negative emphatic: (Bierebo) ja Bonkovio (96) Mara kama ø-pinim NEG 1 EMPH 3SG -R :come PAR Bokonvio ‘He never ever came to Bonkovio.’17 (Author’s data)

rui already

6 Conclusion This chapter has provided an initial synthesis of findings on partitive morphemes in Oceanic languages. Given the large size of the Oceanic subgroup and the significant number of undocumented languages, much work remains to be done in order to form a more definitive picture. From the languages investigated, the following general statements can be offered: it appears that partitive meanings are most frequently expressed by NP dependents in the form of indefinite markers and quantifiers. In some of the languages of Vanuatu and also in Yapese there are also post-verbal particles and other quantifying modifiers. There is no evidence to suggest that the NP and VP partitives are mutually exclusive and one must assume that there are simply different sources for each. Kittilä and Luraghi (this volume) propose a diachronic pathway of case-marking morphemes grammaticalising into indefinite markers, and according to Lynch

17 Vanuatu’s National language, Bislama, an English-lexifier creole has equivalent constructions using lelebet (from English little bit) as a minimiser to emphasise negation e.g. hem i neva kam lelebet long ples ia ‘he never ever came to this place’.

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et al (2002: 58ff), the indefinite markers of many modern Oceanic languages can indeed be traced back to the Proto Malayo-Polynesian accusative article *ta. PMP is notable for its voice systems, including a distinction between a direct passive and an active voice, both of which were used transitively with two core NP arguments. The accusative case marker occurred in the ‘low transitivity’ active voice, associated with indefiniteness, giving rise to the Oceanic reflexes of *ta as an indefinite marker. However, the formal similarity of the reconstructed POc terms meaning ‘one’ with the POc indefinite *ta make it difficult to say with certainty which forms modern partitive markers reflect. Post-verbal partitive markers are identifiable in a number of languages of North and Central Vanuatu. The data presented here demonstrate that for transitive clauses they express partial affectedness of object NPs in two senses: either part of the entity is affected (to any degree), or all of the entity is affected to a lesser degree. When they occur with intransitive verbs, they express a limited, partial, reduced, or incomplete instance of the verb’s action or situation. A number of tangential meanings have arisen, such as low assertivity or politeness, and various aspectual nuances. Based on the available data it seems most plausible that the post-verbal partitive markers have developed from the NP partitive morphemes rather than vice-versa. In some cases the distribution of the postverbal partitives appears to have spread from marking object NPs to also marking intransitive verbs. In the case of Araki the grammaticalisation has gone further still and it now occurs in multiple environments with a variety of functions. A reasonably well-known function of partitive morphemes in Oceanic languages, and one which fits with cross-linguistic tendencies, is the role they play in negative marking. Their minimizing function serves as an emphatic negator, but partitives may develop into negative markers proper. Various stages along this grammaticalisation pathway have been demonstrated for Oceanic languages and it is interesting to note that both VP and NP partitives enter into the Jespersenian negative cycle.

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7 Appendix Table 4: Partitive markers in selected Oceanic languages WOc North New Guinea Manam

alu; sesu; suka; muku

Papuan Tip Tawala Motu

gehou-na taina

Meso Melanesian Nakanai Mono-Alu Kokota Hoava Teop

isahari aiina; aabau keha kiqa peha; sa

EOc Southeast Solomonic Kwaio Toqabaqita Bugotu Remote Oceanic Mwotlap Abma Araki Neve‘ei Ske Avava Paamese Lewo Bierebo

ta-; gulata; tootoqe si na

re te re tuan ar tewa tuan ier; tuut tei tai; re ta; tiala; kurua-; ja;

Lamen South Efate Sye Anejom

sai tete -wi tah

Lenakel Canala Bwatoo Grand Couli

ker; nɨvin bwere; bwete bee pweře

Central Pacific Boumaa Fijian Samoan West Futuna Aniwa Tongan Māori

vica; soo se; ni; sina sa ha he; (t)ētahi

Tuvaluan Hawaiian Rapa Nui

niisi kekahi he; hai; tetahi no

Micronesian Mokilese

ekij; epwi

Ponapean Woleaian Kiribatese

ekei sete; taian

Yapese

boech; boechqw

References Auwera, Johan van der. 2010. On the diachrony of negation. In Horn (ed.). Bauer, Winifred. 1997. The Reed reference grammar of Māori. Auckland: Reed books. Besnier, Niko. 2000. Tuvaluan: a Polynesian language of the Central Pacific. London: Routledge. Crowley, Terry. 1982. The Paamese language of Vanuatu. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.

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Crowley, Terry. 1998. An Erromangan (Sye) grammar. Oceanic Linguistics Special Publication No. 27. Honolulu: University of Hawai’I Press. Crowley, Terry. 2006. The Avava language of central Malakula (Vanuatu). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Dixon, R.M.W. 1988. A grammar of Boumaa Fijian. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Early, Robert. 1994. A grammar of Lewo, Vanuatu. Unpublished PhD dissertation. Canberra: The Australian National University. François, Alexandre. 2001. Contraintes de structures et liberté dans l’organisation du discours. Une description du mwotlap, langue océanienne du Vanuatu. PhD dissertation, Université Paris-IV Sorbonne. François, Alexandre. 2002. Araki: A disappearing language of Vanuatu. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Hamel, Patricia J. 1994. A grammar and lexicon of Loniu, Papua New Guinea. Pacific Linguistics C-103. Canberra: The Australian National University. Harrison, Sheldon, R. 1976. Mokilese reference grammar. Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii. Horn, Laurence R. (ed.). 2010. The expression of negation. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Hunkin Galumalemana, Afeleti. 2009. Gagana Samoa: A Samoan language coursebook. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Jensen, John Thayer. 1977. Yapese Reference Grammar. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Kahrel, Peter & Rene van den Berg (eds.). 1994. Typological studies in negation. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Keesing, Roger M. 1985. Kwaio grammar. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Koptjevskaja-Tamm, M., 2006, Partitives, in K. Brown, ed., Encyclopedia of Languages and Linguistics, Second Edition, Oxford: Elsevier, 218–221. Lichtenberk, Frantisek. 2008. A grammar of Toqabaqita. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Lynch, John. 1978. A grammar of Lenakel. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Lynch, John; Malcolm Ross & Terry Crowley (eds.). 2002. The Oceanic Languages. Richmond: Curzon Press. Lyons, Christopher. 1999. Definiteness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Miestamo, Matti. 2005. Standard negation: The negation of declarative, verbal main clauses in a typological perspective. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Musgrave, Jill. 2007. A grammar of Neve‘ei, Vanuatu. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Mosel, Ulrike & Even Hovdhaugen. 1992. Samoan Reference Grammar. Oslo: Scandinavian University Press. Mosel, Ulrike & Evan Hovdhaugen (eds.). 1999. Negation in Oceanic languages. München: Lincom Europa. Pawley, Andrew. 1967. The relationships of Polynesian outlier languages. JPS 76:259–296. Rivierre, Jean-Claude, Sabine Ehrhart & Raymond Diéla. 2006. Le bwatoo et les dialectes de la région de Kone (Nouvelle Calédonie). Leuven: Peeters. Ross, Malcolm. 1988. Proto Oceanic and the Austronesian languages of Western Melanesia. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Ross, Malcolm. 1998. The Lexicon of Proto Oceanic: Material Culture. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Ross, Malcolm, Andrew Pawley & Meredith Osmond (eds.) 1998–2011. The Lexicon of Proto Oceanic: The culture and environment of ancestral Oceanic society, vols. 1–4. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Schneider, Cynthia. 2010. A grammar of Abma: A language of Pentecost island, Vanuatu. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.

Subject index Note: The terms ‘genitive’ and ‘partitive (case)’ are not included in this index on account of their high frequency, which would have made them uninformative, as they occur in virtually every page. Abessive 113, 119, 120, 121–123, 132, 134, 137 Ablative 1, 8, 33, 35, 48–55, 71, 89, 110, 113, 115–121, 123, 130, 134, 137–138, 145, 267, 323, 325, 333–342, 365, 370, 372, 419, 444, 467–468, 483 Accusative 7–8, 10, 19–20, 28–31, 37–45, 47, 52–53, 64–65, 70–71, 92, 97–98, 105, 111, 113–115, 120–12, 123, 126– 128, 130–135, 139–143, 191–192, 195, 201, 226, 249–250, 281, 347, 356, 367, 379, 382–384, 386–387, 391, 393– 394, 396, 399–401, 405–413, 419, 421–422, 424–432, 434, 436, 438– 440, 443, 445, 447, 449–450, 452– 454, 457–461, 463, 467–473, 479, 481, 486, 490–491, 501, 505, 523, 551–552, 559 Adessive 119–120, 134, 137, 159–160, 162 Adjunct 92, 133, 230, 278, 481, 483, 492 Adposition 6, 11, 17, 20, 22, 46, 48, 112, 118, 133, 138, 279, 280, 466–469, 473, 477–488 Affectedness 1, 6–7, 17–18, 40–44, 56–58, 60–61, 128, 139, 220, 247, 367, 371– 372, 420, 429, 431, 447, 449–453, 461, 469, 486, 496, 543, 559 Agreement 7, 22, 26–28, 59, 93, 132, 154– 156, 158–159, 164, 167, 170, 174, 177, 180, 182–183, 186–187, 200, 205, 243, 245–247, 249–251, 341, 349, 371, 383, 404, 454–456, 464 Alignment 28, 52, 63, 68, 80, 114, 179, 184, 188, 226, 248–250 Allative 113, 115, 119, 137, 341–342, 467– 468 Argument 7, 9, 11, 36, 52, 58–59, 78–79, 103, 112–113, 123, 127–128, 132–135, 167–169, 177–189, 191–192, 195–207, 209–218, 220–221, 224–226, 230,

232–234, 236–240, 242–252, 294– 296, 307–308, 311, 325–326, 330, 365, 379, 382, 384, 388, 392, 394, 396, 417–422, 424–427, 429–434, 437– 440, 443–445, 447–449. 454, 457, 459–460, 464–465, 472–473, 477, 483–485, 492, 515, 551–552, 559 Article – Definite 10, 23–25, 72–73, 291, 298, 300–301, 303–304, 306–308, 310– 316, 325, 327, 341, 447, 457, 481, 497, 500, 505, 515 – Indefinite 7, 23, 55, 71, 72–74, 82, 259, 301, 327, 478, 488, 503–504, 509, 526–530, 550–551, 554–555 Aspect 4, 7–10, 18, 38–40, 58, 61, 64, 66, 70–71, 76, 83, 90, 92–93, 95–96, 111, 126, 139–141, 143, 146, 174, 178, 184– 185, 188–193, 199, 201, 206, 208–209, 218, 220, 237, 240, 252, 257–265, 270, 275–276, 280–281, 379–380, 384– 385, 387–392, 394–396, 404, 434– 435, 547 Asymmetry 8, 64–65, 81–82, 135, 137 Atelic 108, 139, 141, 143, 218, 260–261, 263, 278, 299, 317, 425, 429, 433–435, 439–440, 453 Authority, verbs of 417, 422, 430–431 Bare nouns 89, 105, 126, 145, 225, 227, 229, 293 Bounded 38–39, 41, 107, 110, 128, 139, 194, 218, 260–261, 269, 276, 279, 385–386, 405, 546 Change of state 42–43, 56, 58, 142, 159, 260, 417, 420, 422, 424, 429, 431, 434, 447–453, 461, 472 Co-text 273, 281

564

Subject index

Comitative 113, 121, 123, 274 Count 29, 31, 56, 72–73, 128–129, 154–157, 164, 168, 171–172, 191, 193–196, 241, 269, 299–301, 310–311, 381, 451, 469– 470, 488, 503 Cross-categorial 113, 130–135, 137, 143, 145 Definiteness 5, 19, 50, 57, 71, 74–76, 82, 96, 106, 113, 126, 140, 145, 157, 184, 188, 201, 224, 238–242, 246, 251, 264, 272, 296, 301, 325, 339, 406, 500–501, 505– 506 Delimitation 379, 394–396 Determiner 1, 6, 23, 56, 71–73, 75, 80, 82, 225, 293–295, 297, 298, 302, 311, 323– 325, 327, 335, 344, 383, 477, 480, 485, 490, 492, 502, 505, 510 Diminutive 271, 276, 350–351, 359, 361, 363, 374, 381, 528, 530, 540, 554 Elative 2–3, 19, 89–91, 100, 102, 107, 110, 113, 115–118, 120–122, 124, 126, 127, 134–135, 137, 145, 159, 163, 267, 364– 365, 370 Epistemic 89, 95, 106, 108–109, 139–143, 146, 165 Evidential 37, 60, 89, 91–92, 106–109, 131, 138–141, 143–146 Existential – Clause 5, 9, 58–59, 61, 70, 153, 155–160, 163, 165, 167–168, 173–174, 231, 251, 542 – Construction 27, 31, 153, 155, 158, 161– 162, 173, 177–178, 181, 205, 221, 486 – NP 9 – Subject 6–7, 27, 154–156, 159–160, 162– 165, 167–168, 173–174, 555 Extraction 483, 502, 507 Grammaticalization 10–11, 35, 49–50, 53, 57–58, 82, 89, 106, 130, 323, 325, 335, 336–339, 342, 447, 456, 477, 481, 488–489, 499–500, 502, 504, 515 Illative 113, 115, 121, 135, 265 Impersonal 45–46, 179, 192, 206, 250, 328, 362, 382–384, 443, 454, 461–464, 472

Indefiniteness 1, 2, 4–7, 11, 17–19, 22, 23, 28, 29, 31, 36–38, 53, 56–61, 93, 95, 105, 111, 130, 139, 157, 164, 171, 173, 237, 264, 323, 383, 388, 389, 391, 396, 443, 446, 447, 452, 453, 457, 458, 472, 487, 488, 497, 501, 503, 504, 518, 523, 524, 527–529, 536, 559 Individuation 248, 355, 486, 496 Information – Given 156, 224, 232 – New 11, 156, 232, 443 – Structure 11, 156, 158, 170, 185, 230, 249, 384, 477, 500 Ingestion, verbs of 56, 417, 422–426, 452 Instrumental 113, 115, 123, 393, 419, 449, 465, 473, 478 Intransitive 4, 9, 22, 45, 52, 71, 79, 129, 156–157, 168, 177–179, 181–183, 188, 201, 204–205, 210, 218–219, 231–232, 244, 247, 249–251, 268, 279–280, 308, 325–326, 336, 393, 460–461, 540, 545, 547, 555, 559 Intransitivity, fluid 177, 179, 183, 248, 250, 252 Layering 481 Lineage 483 Mass 5, 18, 29, 31–32, 56, 82, 99–100, 128–129, 154, 156–157, 160, 164, 168, 184, 194, 198, 207, 297, 299–301, 304– 305, 307, 310–311, 314, 358–359, 367, 371–372, 374, 380, 382, 401, 470, 485, 488, 493 Message packaging 177–179, 224, 239, 243–244, 246–247, 250–252 Motivation 26, 54, 63, 66–67, 74, 80–83, 97, 179, 207–209, 217, 372, 389, 399, 401, 412, 427, 444, 450 Negation 4, 6–8, 36–38, 58, 61, 63–83, 93, 107, 131, 154–155, 158, 160, 163–165, 167–170, 172–173, 180, 186, 206, 209, 217, 235, 237, 271, 324, 326–329, 348, 368, 372, 384, 400, 453, 460–461, 472, 509, 523, 555–556, 558

Subject index

Nominative 7, 9–10, 20, 26–28, 32, 38–39, 46, 55, 58–59, 69–71, 76, 113, 115, 119– 121, 123, 125, 134, 137, 140, 153–159, 162, 164–166, 168–174, 178, 183, 186– 187, 189, 192–196, 200–201, 203–206, 208, 210–212, 214, 217, 219, 226–229, 240–241, 247, 249–250, 329, 347–348, 356, 379, 382–384, 387, 394, 396, 418–419, 422, 431, 445, 454–456, 461–464, 472, 492, 551–552 Non-bounded 139, 386 Non-finite 60, 80, 89, 92, 106, 108, 111, 113, 119, 131–135, 137–138, 143, 145, 178, 180–181, 329, 337 Number 22, 26, 34, 50, 69, 76, 100, 103, 104, 122, 155–156, 167, 179, 186–188, 192, 196, 210, 213–217, 227, 243–244, 251, 263, 293, 304, 305, 307, 311, 314, 324–325, 339, 347, 454–456, 464, 500, 504, 514–515, 528, 532, 537 Oblique complement 483–484 Overlap stage 512 Paradigm 24, 115–116, 120–121, 131, 133, 134, 137, 186, 187, 348, 350, 356, 387, 481, 484, 488, 497–498, 507, 509, 531 Paradigmatization 498 Part-whole 1–2, 17–19, 32–33, 52–55, 89, 91, 106, 139, 145 Participle 143–144, 279, 295, 310, 335, 337–338, 456, 499, 510, 515 Partitive construction 1–3, 18, 22–25, 32– 35, 48, 51, 53–58, 61, 73, 92, 101, 110, 124, 325, 445–447, 452, 453, 457, 480, 525 Perception, verbs of 44, 99, 108, 142, 267– 268, 281, 407–408, 417, 422, 425–429, 433, 444, 447, 449, 452–453, 461 Perfectivity 57, 70, 140, 263, 379, 387, 396, 545 Pseudopartitive 8, 32, 33, 62, 91, 101, 112, 123, 124 Plural 5, 9, 18, 23–24, 27–29, 31–32, 39, 56, 59, 70, 72–73, 105, 121, 128, 130, 153–158, 160, 164, 168, 174, 187, 189, 192, 194, 198, 200–207, 213–217, 251,

565

291, 293–294, 297–300, 304–307, 311–316, 318, 323, 333–334, 339, 347, 350, 356, 380, 382–383, 386, 392, 451, 455, 459, 469–470, 488, 500, 503–505, 509, 514, 526–527, 529–531, 536–539, 550 Possessive 38, 54, 96, 159–163, 165, 185, 222, 279, 349, 417–419, 428, 480, 542 Post-verbal 53, 178, 205, 230, 248, 250, 459, 523, 528, 540–546, 553–555, 558– 559 Pragmatic strengthening 487, 497 Praising, verbs of 422, 432–433 Prefix 10, 75–76, 262, 384, 392–393, 399– 405, 407, 412, 541 Preposition 6, 10, 11, 22–24, 46–47, 52–53, 72–73, 101, 104, 327, 340, 347–348, 352, 354, 357, 362–366, 368, 370, 372, 376, 381, 443–445, 467, 469–471, 477, 480–487, 490, 492, 509, 515, 539 Progressive 133, 228, 268–271, 275, 379, 385, 388–391, 396, 435, 439, 481, 486, 498 Prolative 113, 115, 120, 134 Prosecutive 113, 115, 338–339, 341–342 Quantification 8, 18, 64, 66, 70, 82, 96, 138, 196–198, 201, 207, 209, 251, 348, 355, 363–364, 524, 529 Quantifier 1, 6, 28, 33–35, 61, 73, 91, 105, 225, 295, 309, 316, 331, 333, 362, 384– 385, 388–390, 393, 477, 523–529, 534, 538, 550, 553–554, 558 Referentiality 5, 8, 64, 66, 73, 77–83, 196– 197, 391, 537 Resultative 7, 9, 43, 139, 159–160, 257–260, 262, 264–265, 267, 271–272, 274, 279, 335 Secondary case 10, 347, 352, 371 Spatial meanings 47–48, 159, 162, 468, 481, 483 Specificity 5, 8, 64, 66, 71, 78, 188, 527 Subject 1, 4–7, 9, 11, 17, 20–22, 25–28, 31–32, 36, 43, 45–46, 48, 55, 58–59,

566

Subject index

68–71, 76, 92–94, 96, 105, 107, 141, 153–174, 177–183, 185–188, 192, 194, 196–197, 200–201, 203–206, 210–212, 221, 224, 226, 230–234, 244, 246–247, 249–252, 263–264, 267, 271, 274, 281, 296, 302–303, 306, 308, 325–326, 328, 336, 365, 367–368, 372, 379– 380, 382–384, 386–387, 394, 396, 417–419, 421–422, 426, 433–434, 436–440, 443–445, 447, 453–464, 472, 478, 486, 488, 492, 494, 501–502, 505–507, 509, 524, 541–542, 547, 550, 555 Subjecthood 59, 95, 177, 179, 197, 204, 249 Subjectivity 264, 281 Telic 108, 111, 127, 139, 140, 218, 260, 260, 263, 428–429, 453 Telicity 111, 113, 139, 140–141, 145, 261, 420 Temporal 128, 132–133, 140, 158, 332, 335– 336, 338, 402, 406–407, 419, 445, 466, 483 Terminative 113, 119–120, 134, 137, 266 Transitivity 7, 11, 17–18, 39–40, 43–44, 56– 58, 82, 178–179, 219–220, 223, 244– 245, 249, 420, 437, 439, 443, 447, 449–450, 452–453, 472, 486, 496, 541, 549

Translative 113, 115, 119, 123, 132, 137, 141, 269–270, 273 Unaccusative 4, 21–22, 58–59, 195, 382– 382, 438–440, 458–460, 472, 486, 501, 507 Undbounded 4, 18, 31–32, 38–39, 105, 107–108, 111, 127–128, 166, 200, 218, 260, 264, 276, 278, 385–387, 395, 433, 446, 545–546 Unergative 4, 458, 486 Vocative 113, 115, 348, 371, 418–419 Voice morphology 436, 437 Word order 11, 69, 155–159, 164, 178, 180, 183, 185, 196, 203, 224, 227, 230–232, 243–245, 250–251, 273, 275–276, 282, 296, 477, 498, 500–501, 505–506, 514–516, 526, 530, 554 Zero 36, 101, 126, 178, 183, 186, 201, 210, 224, 225–226, 229, 231, 233, 237, 245, 348, 380, 477, 483, 485–486, 488, 493, 495–498, 500, 502–503, 507, 509–510, 512–513, 516

Author index Abeillé, Anne 316 Abondolo, Daniel 92 Ackerman, Farrell 139 Adelaar, Willem F. H. 131 Adillo Rufo, Sergio 502 Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 131, 132, 143, 339 fn, 454 fn Almqvist, Ingrid 69, 70, 82 Alves, Flávia de Castro 80 Ambrazas, Vytautas 70 Amon, Marri 266 Andoni Lakarra, Joseba 342 Anttila, Arto 93, 125 Ariste, Paul 70, 114 fn Artiagoitia, Xabier 292, 293, 294 fn, 295, 298 fn, 311, 314 Askonen, Ebba 257, 264, 265, 267, 276, 281 Auwera, Johan Van der 83, 143, 556 Azkue, Resurreción M. 308 Babby, Leonard H. 382 Baños, José Miguel 454 fn Barðdal, Johanna 249, 413, 454 fn, 461, 462 Bartning, Inge 316 Bauer, Brigitte 461 fn Bauer, Winifred 535, 550 Beavers, John T. 420, 424 Belletti, Adriana 514 Berg, Rene van den 556 Besnier, Niko 529, 534 Bhaskararao, Peri 454 fn Bickel, Balthasar 180, 181, 182, 184, 188, 192, 200, 201, 202, 225, 248, 249 Bielec, Dana 70 Bilbao, Gidor 326 fn Blake, Barry 1, 6, 17, 60, 131, 267, 445 Bleam, Tonia 300 Bobrova, Tat’jana A. 104 fn Bonvino, Elisabetta 508, 513 Bosque, Ignacio 298 fn, 300, 306 Bossong, George 461 Bosveld-de Smet, Leonie 298 fn, 386 Brattico, Pauli 4, 93 Bresnan, Joan 301 fn

Bromley, Sofja V. 348, 354 Brown, Sue 381, 384 Brugmann, Karl 444 fn, 448, 449, 462 Brunet, Jacqueline 509, 512 Bubenik, Vit 467 fn, 468 Budd, Peter 11, 24, 26, 33, 34, 53, 78 Bulatova, Lidia N. 348, 354 Buridant, Claude 498 Butt, Miriam 131, 177 Bybee, Joan L. 133 Campbell, Lyle 58, 59, 107 fn, 143, 493 Carey, Susan 96 Carlier, Anne 5, 7, 11, 24, 52, 57, 60, 73, 316, 327 fn, 459, 478, 482, 483 fn, 485 fn, 487, 489, 496, 503 fn, 515 Carlson, Greg 297, 298, 304 Casenave-Harigile, Junes 302, 317 Chafe, Wallace L. 168, 177, 210, 211, 224, 233 Chantraine, Pierre 445, 467 fn, 469 Chelliah, Shobhana 413 Chesterman, Andrew 5, 156 Cheung, Johnny 423 Chierchia, Gennaro 297, 298 fn, 305 Cienki, Alan 267 Clark, Ross 53 Cole, Peter 454 fn Collinder, Bjőrn 110 Combettes, Bernard 498, 515 Company Company, Concepción 505 Comrie, Bernard 83, 184, 191, 192 fn, 201, 261, 454 fn Conti, Luz 4, 6, 7, 11, 27, 41, 42, 44, 46, 47, 48, 55 fn, 59, 423, 438, 452, 453 fn, 454 fn, 455, 460, 461, 462 fn, 463, 478 Corbett, Greville 65, 83, 305, 347 fn, 348, 351, 371 Coyos, Battittu 291 fn, 302 Creissels, Denis 74, 75, 83, 179, 250, 323 fn Croft, William 180, 181 fn, 182, 184, 185, 361, 372 Crowley, Terry 26, 78, 79, 532, 535, 541, 542, 545, 553, 554, 556, 557

568

Author index

Cuzzolin, Pierluigi 461 fn, 462 Cyffer, Norbert 79 Dahl, Eystein 4, 11, 21, 40, 42, 43, 44, 59, 419, 420, 425, 427, 430, 434, 435, 448, 454 fn Dahl, Östen 65, 97, 261, 263 Dambriunas, Leonardas 70 Daniel, Mikhail 10, 22, 50, 371 Dasher, Richard B. 57 Dayal, Veneeta 297, 305 Debrunner, Albert 445 Delbrück, Berthold 417, 444 fn, 448, 449 Delfitto, Denis 305 Denison, Norman 93, 263 Depraetere, Ilse 260 Dickey, Stephen M. 405, 406 Dik, Simon C. 454 fn, 459 fn, 463 Dixon, R. M. W. 188, 189, 192, 196, 197, 201, 210, 250, 339 fn, 454 fn, 530, 534, 551 Dobrovie-Sorin, Carmen 300 Doetjes, Jenny 305, 316 fn Doke, Clement M. 75 Donohue, Mark 250 fn Dowty, David R. 218, 258 Dryer, Matthew S. 66, 182 É. Kiss, Katalin 135 fn Early, Robert 33, 79, 528, 529, 539, 547, 548, 552, 553, 557, 558 Eguren, Luis 293, 294 fn, 295 fn, 298 fn, 299 Ehrhart, Sabine 530 Englebert, Annick 316 Erelt, Mati 70, 128 fn, 139, 143, 158, 159, 160, 181 fn, 185, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 198, 210, 218, 249 Erteschik-Shir Nomi 234, 239 Espinal, Maria Teresa 300 Etxebarne, Jüje 302, 317 Etxeberria, Urtzi 4, 9, 10, 20, 31, 34, 35, 71, 292, 293, 294, 295, 298 fn, 299, 300, 301 fn, 302, 305, 306 fn, 307 fn, 311, 316 fn, 317, 325, 458, 460 Etxepare, Ricardo 292, 301 fn, 307 fn, 309, 325 fn, 331, 342 fn

Fara, Delia Graff 297 Fennel, Trevor G. 70 Fernandez-Vest, M.M. Jocelyne 4, 9, 257, 259, 263, 266, 267, 280, 282 Fischer, Susann 4 Foley, William A. 80, 258 Fong, Vivienne 93, 125 Forest, Robert 65 Foulet, Lucien 491, 493, 503 fn Frajzyngier, Zygmunt 78 François, Alexandre 34, 76, 77, 83, 532, 541, 542, 545, 546, 547, 551, 552 Franks, Steven 380, 381, 384 Freeze, Ray 301 fn Garde, Paul 349, 351, 352, 354, 358, 361, 362, 364, 365, 368, 371 Geeraerts, Dirk 402 Geisler, Hans 499 Gelsen, Henry 70 Gershevich, Ilya 423 Giannakidou, Anastasia 295 fn Givón, Talmy 73, 75, 81, 165, 173, 200, 201, 202, 233, 238, 239, 249 Goenaga, Patxi 294 fn Goldberg, Adele E. 180, 181, 185, 258 Gómez, Ricardo 323 fn, 333 fn, 338 Goyens, Michèle 483 fn, 484 Greenberg, Joseph H. 498 Grimm, Scott 420 Grzegorczykowa, Renata 405 Guérin, Valérie 77 Guillaume, Gustave 503 fn Hagège, Claude 279 Hajdú, Péter 130 Hakanen, Aimo 156, 157, 159 Hakulinen, Auli 64, 161, 162, 163, 261 Hakulinen, Lauri 70 Hamel, Patricia J. 525 fn Harbert, William 454 fn Harris, Alice C. 493 Harrison, Sheldon R. 528 Haspelmath, Martin 3, 59, 66, 93, 94, 95, 137, 371, 455 fn, 461 fn

Author index

Hayek, John 340 Heath, Jeffrey 75, 76 Heinämäki, Orvokki 4, 93, 260 Heine, Bernd 2, 3, 49, 51, 337, 338, 340, 512, 515 Helasvuo, Marja-Liisa 59, 154, 161, 178, 192, 203, 211, 226, 233, 244, 247 fn Helimski, Eugen 113 fn, 115 fn Hermann, Eduard 462 Hermon, Gabriella 454 fn Herslund, Michael 503 Hettrich, Heinrich 424, 426, 433 Hewson, John 467 fn, 468 Heyd, Sophie 298 fn, 316 Hiietam, Katrin 93, 185 Hoeksema, Jacob 91, 327 Holst, Jan Henrik 70 Honda, Isao 65 Honti, László 114 fn Hoop, Helen de 5, 23, 91, 187, 188, 201 Hopper, Paul J. 40, 43, 82, 83, 219, 220, 244, 248 fn, 263, 420, 453 fn, 481, 486, 496 Horn, Laurence R. 556 Hovdhaugen, Even 24, 78, 86 Hualde, José Ignacio 71, 324, 334 fn, 335 fn, 336, 339 fn Humbach, Helmut 429, 432 Humbert, Jean 478 Hunkin Galumalemana, Afeleti 527 Huumo, Tuomas 4, 5, 6, 8, 21, 35, 36, 37, 39, 59, 70, 89 fn, 93, 141, 154, 161, 169, 178, 185, 211, 218, 230, 233 fn, 261, 282, 291 fn, 323 fn, 458 Hyman, Larry M. 79, 83 Iggesen, Oliver A. 113 Ikola, Osmo 107 fn Ingram, Andrew 340 Insler, Stanley 437 Irigoien, Alfonso 292, 310 Itkonen, Esa 81 Itkonen, Terho 260, 263 Iva, Sulev 114 fn Jackendoff, Ray 92, 94 Jakobson, Roman 348, 379, 380, 382, 385, 388, 390, 391

569

Janhunen, Juha 83, 113 fn Janowska, Aleksandra 403, 404, 405, 411 Jensen, John Thayer 530, 554 Jernej, Josip 509 Jespersen, Otto 305 Jodłowski, Stanisław 400 Kahrel, Peter 556 Kaleta, Zofia 400 Kangasmaa-Minn, Eeva 113 fn, 261, 262, 268 Karlsson, Fred 97, 161, 162, 261, 263 Keenan, Edward 454 fn Keesing, Roger M. 530 Kehayov, Petar 143 Kempf, Zdzisław 45, 401, 402, 407, 412 Kiefer, Ferenc 135 fn Kiparsky, Paul 4, 93, 139, 261, 385, 386, 387 Kittilä, Seppo 8, 82, 105 fn, 124, 178, 368, 458, 487, 504, 558 Klaas. Birute 261 Kleiber, Georges 297, 298 fn Klenin, Emily 391, 395 Kont, Karl 139 Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria 1, 2, 3, 48, 61, 65, 67, 68, 70, 71, 91, 101 fn, 124, 194, 325, 328, 445, 447, 477, 533 Korzen, Iørn 485, 512 Krajewska, Dorota 335 fn Krasovitsky, Alexander 64, 71, 82 Kratzer, Angelika 105 fn Krifka, Manfred 91, 143, 297, 305 Kroeker, Menno 74 Kupferman, Lucien 316 Kuroda, Sige-Yuki 384 Kurzowa, Zofia 404 Kuteva, Tania 2, 3, 49, 51, 337, 338, 340, 513, 515 Laanest, A. 143 Laca, Brenda 298 fn Lafitte, Pierre 308, 316 Lafon, René 341 fn Lahousse, Karen 498, 501, 505, 514 Laka, Itziar 6, 295, 310, 324, 328 fn Lakarra, Joseba A. 323 fn, 338 fn, 339, 340, 341 fn

570

Author index

Lakoff, George 48 Lambrecht, Knud 181, 203, 232, 234, 237 Lamiroy, Béatrice 5, 7, 11, 24, 52, 60, 327 fn, 459, 483 fn, 484, 498, 501, 505, 514, 515 Langacker, Ronald W. 162, 168, 180, 405, 406 Lapesa, Rafael 501 fn, 505 Larjavaara, Matti 28, 50, 107 fn, 143 Larramendi, Manuel 308 Larsson, Lars-Gunnar 93, 139, 262, 281 Lass, Roger 51 Lazard, Gilbert 486, 496 Lazdiņa, Terẽza B. 70 Lees, Aet 93, 139 Lehmann, Christian 484, 488 Lehmann, Winfred P. 498, 499 Leino, Pentti 260, 263 Leinonen, Marja 263 Leiss, Elisabeth 500, 505 Letuchij, Alexander 368 Levelt, Willem Johannes Maria 258 Levin, Beth 183, 420, 458 Lichtenberk, Frantisek 536 Lindström, Liina 5, 9, 36, 37, 70, 93, 185, 203, 211, 224, 230 Lõhmus, Maarja 98 fn Luján, Marta 301 fn Luraghi, Silvia 4, 6, 7, 8, 11, 29, 41, 42, 44, 46, 47, 48, 55fn, 59, 61, 82, 83, 89fn, 105fn, 124, 178, 291fn, 323fn, 368, 423, 426fn, 427, 438, 445, 449fn, 450, 452, 454fn, 458, 463, 467fn, 468, 470fn, 471, 478, 486fn, 487, 488, 501, 504, 505fn, 506, 509, 510fn, 513, 533, 546, 556, 558 Lynch, John 523, 525 fn, 537, 548, 549, 550, 551, 552, 558 Lyons, Christopher 5, 184, 238, 459, 535 fn, 545 Lytkin, Vasilij I. 113 fn

Maslov, Jurij S. 263 Matushansky, Ora 293 fn, 295 fn Mayrhofer, Manfred 432 fn McNally, Louise 300 Meillet, Antoine 478 Melis, Ludo 484 Metslang, Helena 4, 9, 39, 44, 60, 70, 166, 185, 188, 193, 194, 195, 196, 200, 207 Metslang, Helle 93, 139, 159, 160, 178, 185, 260, 262 Miestamo, Matti 8, 35, 64, 65, 66, 67, 79, 80, 81, 83, 93, 327 fn, 368, 460, 556 Mihkla, Karl 158, 166 Miklosich, Franz 458, 460 Miller, Jim 266 Milsark, Gary 301 fn Mitxelena, Koldo 323, 326 fn, 338, 341 fn, 342 Moore, John 139 Moravcsik, Edith 5, 6, 51, 65, 127, 263, 402 Moreno, Juan Carlos 461 fn Mosel, Ulrike 24, 78, 528, 556 Mulder, Walter De. 515 Musgrave, Jill 531 Mustajoki, Arto 356 Muysken, Pieter C. 131

Maling, Joan 4, 93, 105 fn Manterola, Julen 292, 293 fn, 294, 295 fn, 299 Marchello-Nizia, Christiane 498, 501, 505 Markianova, Ludmila 114 fn Marty, Anton 384 fn

Oihenart, Arnaud 329 Oliveira, Christiane Cunha de 80 Onishi, Masayuki 173, 249 Orav, Heili 137 Ortiz de Urbina, Jon 334 fn, 335 fn, 336, 339 fn

Nachmanson, Ernst 452 Napoli, Maria 25, 423, 424, 425, 447, 453 fn, 461 fn, 462 Naughton, James 71 Nedyalkov, Igor 71 fn Neidle, Carol 380, 382, 384 Nelson, Diane 4, 104 Nemvalts, Peep 93, 158, 166, 178, 185, 193, 195, 207 Newmark, Leonard 73 Newmeyer, Frederick J. 95 Nikiforidou, Kiki 48, 54 Nordlinger, Rachel 131

Author index

Paducheva, Elena V. 368 Pajusalu, Renate 137 Pakendorf, Brigitte 71 fn, 83 Pärn, Priit 99 Partee, Barbara H. 5 Pastuchowa, Magdalena 403, 404, 405, 411 Paus, Charles 380 Pawley, Andrew 549 Paykin, Katia 10, 30, 38 fn, 59, 195, 380 fn, 382 fn, 383, 384, 392 fn Payne, John R. 65 Penttilä, Aarni 260 Plungian, Vladimir 143 Posner, Rebecca 504 Press, Ian 71 Pugh, Stefan M. 71 Rajandi, Henno 93, 260 Rannut, Lehte 158, 166 Rappaport Hovav, Malka 183, 420, 458 Rätsep, Huno 195, 196, 207, 209 Reed, Ann M. 92 Regula, Moritz 509 Reichelt, Hans 417 Renzi, Lorenzo 509, 511 Riaño, Daniel 453 fn Riese, Timothy 113 fn Rijk, Rudolf P. G. de 308, 309, 310, 323, 332, 335 fn Ritter, Ralf-Peter 93 Rivierre, Jean-Claude 530 Rix, Helmut 432 fn Rodriguez, Sonia 294 fn, 299 Roodenberg, Jasper 297 Ross, Kristiina 133 Ross, Malcolm 52, 548, 551 fn Rudzka-Ostyn, Brygida 400, 403, 405, 408, 412 Rullmann, Hotze 305 Ruttkay-Miklián, Eszter 123, 125 Sabatini, Francesco 513 Sadler, Louisa 131 Salminen, Tapani 113 fn, 115 fn Saloni, Zygmunt 400, 406 Sands, Kristina 59 Sang, Joel 158, 169, 171

571

Santazilia, Ekaitz 292, 293 fn, 295 fn, 333 fn Sarasola, Ibon 326 Sasse, Hans Jürgen 455 Sausa, Eleonora 449 fn, 467 fn Schmid, Maureen Alicia 83 Schmitt, Cristina 301 fn Schneider, Cynthia 544, 545, 556 Schroeder, Christophe 515 Schroten, Jan 305 Schwyzer, Eduard 444 Seefranz-Montag, Ariane von 454 fn, 455 Selkirk, Elisabeth O. 3 Senn, Alfred 458 Serbat, Guy 478 Serianni, Luca 507 Seržant, Ilja A. 5, 171, 354 fn, 379 fn Shakhmatov, Alexei A. 352, 354, 361 Shanskiy, Nikolaj M. 104 fn Shay, Erin 78 Silva, Maria Amélia Reis 80 Sornicola, Rosanna 514 Spencer, Andrew 131, 348, 351, 371 Spore, Palle 509 Sridhar, S.N. 454 fn Stark, Elisabeth 505, 514 Subbarao, Karumuri Venkata 454 fn, 461 Sulkala, Helena 139 Surányi, Balázs 135 fn Swan, Oscar E. 70 Świdziński, Marek 400, 406 Szimoncsics, Péter 113 fn, 115 fn Szober, Stanisław 400 Tabakowska, Elzbieta 4, 10, 45, 412 Tael, Kaja 178 fn, 230 Talmy, Leonard 266, 282, 469 Tamm, Anne 1, 4, 8, 26, 31, 48, 93, 105 fn, 111 fn, 125, 130, 133, 134, 139, 140, 143, 185, 192 fn, 260, 261, 262 Taraldsen, Knut Tarald 75 Tauli, Valter 93 Tekavčic, Pavao 506, 509, 511, 513 Tereščenko, Natalija Mitrofanovna 130 Terrill, Angela 79 Thompson, Sandra A. 40, 43, 82, 219, 220, 244, 248 fn, 420, 453 fn, 486, 496 Ticio, Emma 294

572

Author index

Toivonen, Ida 103, 121, 122 Tommola, Hannu 260, 282 Torn-Leesik, Reeli 185 Trask, Robert Lawrence 293, 294 fn, 309, 324, 341 fn Traugott, Elizabeth C. 57 Tsunoda, Tasaku 420 Tsvetkov, Dmitri 114 fn Tveite, Tor 92, 139 Txillardegi ( José Luis Álvarez Enparantza) 292, 302 Urbina, Jon Ortiz de 71, 334 fn, 335 fn, 336, 339 fn Uribe-Etxebarria, Myriam 310 Urquizu, Patricio 333 fn

Verkuyl Henk 261 Viitso, Tiit-Rein 114 fn Vilkuna, Maria 31, 36, 57 fn, 58, 158, 167, 194, 215, 232, 238, 239, 241, 247, 248 Wackernagel, Jacob 462 Wade, Terence 71 Wälchli, Bernhard 65, 67, 68, 70, 71, 83, 143, 194, 328 Wiedemann Ferdinand J. 262 Wierzbicka, Anna 388 Wilhelm, Andrea 305 Witzlack-Makarevich, Alena 181, 182, 183, 188, 196, 201, 210, 250 Wolff, H. Ekkehard 78 You, Aili 305

Väänänen, Veikko 479, 480, 483 fn, 490 Vaillant, André 370 Vainikka, Anne 4, 93, 105 fn Vaiss, Natalia 93, 185, 190, 191, 198, 205, 218 Van Peteghem, Marleen 30, 379 fn, 380 fn, 382 fn, 383, 384, 392 fn Van Valin, Robert D. 183, 218, 258, 259 Večerca, Radoslav 460 Vendler, Zeno 218, 260, 386 Vendryes, Joseph 478 Vennemann, Theo 498

Zabala, Igone 293 fn, 295 fn Zaicz, Gábor 113 fn Zalizniak, Andrej A. 348, 351, 370 Zamboni, Alberto 505 fn Zamparelli, Roberto 297, 298 fn Zavala, Roberto 340 Zribi-Hertz, Anne 316 Zuazo, Koldo 292 Zubizarreta, María Luisa 505