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Andrej Malchukov and Bernard Comrie (Eds.) Valency Classes in the World’s Languages Vol. 2
Comparative Handbooks of Linguistics
Edited by Edith Moravcsik and Andrej Malchukov
Volume 1.2
Valency Classes in the World’s Languages
Volume 2 Case Studies from Austronesia and the Pacific, the Americas, and Theoretical Outlook
Edited by Andrej Malchukov Bernard Comrie
DE GRUYTER MOUTON
ISBN 978-3-11-043844-4 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-042934-3 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-042937-4 ISSN 2364-4354 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. © 2015 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Cover image: Jupiterimages/PHOTOS.com/thinkstock Typesetting: Meta Systems Publishing & Printservices GmbH, Wustermark Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck ♾ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com
Contents Volume 2 Andrej Malchukov and the Leipzig Valency Classes Project team Leipzig Questionnaire on valency classes xi
Part II: Case Studies (cont.) Austronesia and the Pacific Masayoshi Shibatani and Ketut Artawa 22 Balinese valency classes 877 Thomas Conners, John Bowden and David Gil 23 Valency classes in Jakarta Indonesian 941 Sebastian Nordhoff 24 Case frames in Sri Lanka Malay
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Claire Moyse-Faurie 25 Valency classes in Xârâcùù (New Caledonia) Nicholas Evans 26 Valency in Nen
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Eva Schultze-Berndt 27 Complex verbs, simple alternations: valency and verb classes in 1117 Jaminjung
Americas Osahito Miyaoka 28 Valency classes in Central Alaskan Yupik, an Eskimoan language Richard Rhodes and Rand Valentine 1205 29 Transitivity in Ojibwe
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Iren Hartmann 30 Valency Classes in Hoocąk (Ho-Chunk)
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Honoré Watanabe 31 Valency classes in Sliammon Salish~1~
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Zarina Estrada-Fernández, Mercedes Tubino and Jesús Villalpando 1359 32 Valency classes in Yaqui Eric Campbell 33 Valency classes in Zenzontepec Chatino Christian Lehmann 34 Valency classes in Yucatec Maya Frank Seifart 35 Valency classes in Bora
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Fernando Zúñiga 36 Valency classes in Mapudungun
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Part III: Theoretical Outlook Christian Lehmann 37 Situation types, valency frames and operations
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Tasaku Tsunoda 38 The hierarchy of two-place predicates: its limitations and uses Beth Levin 39 Verb classes within and across languages
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Cliff Goddard 40 Verb classes and valency alternations (NSM approach), with special 1671 reference to English physical activity verbs Language index Subject index
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Contents
Volume 1 Abbreviations
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Acknowledgments List of authors
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Part I: The Leipzig Valency Classes Project: Introducing the Framework Bernard Comrie, Iren Hartmann, Martin Haspelmath, Andrej Malchukov, and Søren Wichmann 3 1 Introduction Andrej Malchukov and the Leipzig Valency Classes Project team 27 2 Leipzig Questionnaire on valency classes Martin Haspelmath and Iren Hartmann 3 Comparing verbal valency across languages
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Andrej Malchukov 4 Valency classes and alternations: parameters of variation Martin Haspelmath 5 Transitivity prominence
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Damian E. Blasi 5a Assessing transitivity prominence from a statistical perspective: A 149 commentary on Martin Haspelmath’s “Transitivity prominence” Søren Wichmann 6 Statistical observations on implicational (verb) hierarchies
Part II: Case Studies Africa Martina Ernszt, Tom Güldemann, Alena Witzlack-Makarevich 7 Valency in Nǁng 185
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Denis Creissels 8 Valency properties of Mandinka verbs
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Ronald P. Schaefer and Francis O. Egbokhare 9 Emai valency classes and their alternations Joseph Dele Atoyebi 10 Valency classes in Yorùbá
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Csilla Kász 11 Valency properties of verbs in Modern Standard Arabic
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Eurasia Jóhanna Barðdal 12 Icelandic valency classes: oblique subjects, oblique ambitransitives and the 367 actional passive Michela Cennamo 13 Valency patterns in Italian
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Michael Daniel and Victoria Khurshudian 14 Valency classes in Eastern Armenian
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Bernard Comrie, Madzhid Khalilov and Zaira Khalilova 15 Valency and valency classes in Bezhta 541 Andrej Malchukov and Igor V. Nedjalkov 16 Valency classes in Even (North Tungusic) in a comparative Tungusic perspective 571 Edward J. Vajda 17 Valency properties of the Ket verb clause
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Robert Schikowski, Netra Paudyal, and Balthasar Bickel 18 Flexible valency in Chintang 669 Bingfu Lu, Guohua Zhang and Walter Bisang 19 Valency classes in Mandarin 709 Hideki Kishimoto, Taro Kageyama and Kan Sasaki 20 Valency classes in Japanese 765
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Anna Bugaeva 21 Valency classes in Ainu Language index Subject index
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Leipzig Questionnaire on valency classes
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Preliminaries The present questionnaire was compiled by Andrej Malchukov with feedback from the other Leipzig Valency Classes Project members (Bernard Comrie, Martin Haspelmath, Iren Hartmann and Søren Wichmann) at an early stage of the project and distributed to contributors to the volume. Since 2010 the conception of the project as reflected in the questionnaire has undergone certain changes, as described in the Database Manual (Haspelmath & Hartmann 2013, available at: http://www.eva.mpg.de/ lingua/valency/files/database_manual.php). The Database Manual can be seen as a follow-up to the questionnaire but is intended for contributions to the database rather than for book chapters. Moreover, it differs somewhat in scope (see in particular the advanced part of the Leipzig Questionnaire, which addresses a broader set of questions not implemented in the database) and also provides the database contributors with a succinct introduction to the framework and terminological conventions used in the project. The present questionnaire does not pursue this latter goal, which is largely fulfilled within the present volume by the chapter by Haspelmath and Hartmann (this volume). Thus, the Leipzig Questionnaire largely follows the original format reflecting its use to guide contributions to the volume rather than database contributions, except for one important update. It includes an updated list of 70 core meanings rather than the original list of 64 verbs. The definitive list was agreed on the basis of the input from the project participants, as well as the feedback from the contributors.
Introduction The present questionnaire deals with a typology of valency classes, or verb types, in terms of Levin (1993). Levin (1993) is a seminal study of syntactic classes of verbs in English, which shows that a semantic classification of verbs can be achieved through applying syntactic diagnostics. Yet, this study, as well as an earlier study by Apresjan (1969) on Russian, has not been followed up cross-linguistically, which leaves open the question of which aspects of these classifications are universal and which are language particular. Similarly, valency dictionaries are few in number and mostly deal with European languages, thus they cannot fill the gap. The questionnaire has been compiled by participants of the DFG funded project on valency classes1 and is designed to obtain a consistent set of data from a representative set * For convenience, we repeat the questionnaire chapter from volume 1 in identical form with adjusted page numbers. 1 See http://email.eva.mpg.de/~haspelmt/ValencyClasses.pdf for the project description.
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Tab. 1: The 70 verb meanings. meaning label
role frame
typical context
RAIN BE DRY BURN SINK ROLL BE A HUNTER BE HUNGRY BE SAD DIE FEEL COLD FEEL PAIN
(it) rains S is dry S burns S sinks A rolls S is a hunter E is hungry E is sad S dies S is cold E feels pain in X
SCREAM LAUGH PLAY LIVE LEAVE GO SING JUMP SIT DOWN SIT RUN CLIMB COUGH BLINK SHAVE DRESS WASH EAT HELP FOLLOW MEET HUG SEARCH FOR THINK
S screams S laughs S plays S lives somewhere (L) A left L S goes somewhere (L) S sings A jumps S sits down (somewhere (L)) S sits somewhere (L) A runs A climbs (up L) S coughs S blinks A shaves (his beard/hair) A dresses P A washes P A eats P A helps X A follows X A meets X A hugs P A searches for X A thinks about X
KNOW LIKE FEAR FRIGHTEN SMELL LOOK AT SEE TALK
A knows P E likes X E fears X A frightens P E smells X A looks at P E sees X A talks (to X) (about Y)
It rained yesterday. The ground is dry. The house is burning. The boat sank. The ball is rolling. This man is a hunter. The baby is hungry. The little girl was sad. The snake died. I’m cold. My arm is hurting. = I’m feeling pain in my arm. The man screamed. The little girl laughed. The child is playing. The old people live in town. The boy left the village. The woman went to the market. The boy sang (a song). The girl jumped. The children sat down on the bench. The children sat on the floor. The horse is running. The men climbed (up) the tree. The old man coughed. I blinked (my eyes). The man shaved his beard/cut his hair The mother dressed her daughter The mother washed the baby. The boy ate the fruit. I helped the boys. The boys followed the girls. The men met the boys. The mother hugged her little boy. The men searched for the women. The girl thought about her grandmother yesterday. The girl knew the boy. The boy liked his new toy. The man feared the bear. The bear frightened the man. The bear smelled the boy. The boy looked at the girl. The man saw the bear. The girl talked to the boy about her dog.
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meaning label
role frame
typical context
ASK FOR SHOUT AT TELL SAY NAME BUILD BREAK KILL BEAT HIT TOUCH CUT
A A A A A A A A A A A A
asks (X) for Y shouts at X tells (X) Y says “...” (to X) name X (a) Y builds P (out of X) breaks P (with I) kills P (with I) beats P (with I) hits P (with I) touches P (with I) cuts P (with I)
TAKE TEAR PEEL HIDE SHOW GIVE SEND CARRY THROW TIE
A A A A A A A A A A
takes P (from X) tears P (from X) peels (X off) P hides T (from X) shows T (to R) gives T to R sends T (to X) carries T (to X) throws T somewhere (L) ties P (to L) (with I)
PUT POUR COVER
A puts T somewhere (L) A pours T somewhere (L) A covers P (with X)
FILL LOAD
A fills P (with X) A loads T (onto L)
The boy asked his parents for money. The woman shouted at the children. The girl told the boy a funny story. They said “no” to me. The parents called the baby Anna. The men built a house of wood. The boy broke the window with a stone. The man killed his enemy with a club. The boy beat the snake with a stick. The boy hit the snake with a stick. The boy touched the snake with a stick. The woman cut the bread with a sharp knife. The man took the money from his friend. The girl tore the page from the book. The boy peeled the bark off the stick. The boy hid the frog from his mother. The girls showed pictures to the teacher. We gave the books to the children. The girl sent flowers to her grandmother. The men carried the boxes to the market. The boy threw the ball into the window. The man tied the horse with a rope to the tree. I put the cup onto the table. The man poured water into the glass. The woman covered the boy with a blanket. The girl filled the glass with water. The farmer loaded hay onto the truck. = The farmer loaded the truck with hay.
of languages to be described in contributions to the edited volume. It starts with the study of a list of 70 verb meanings (Vs, for short) taken as representative of the verbal lexicon, as well as Levin’s taxonomy (but see below, in particular § 6)2. Since Vs might allow for different uses, the meanings are narrowed down through the use of example sentences to be translated into the respective languages (see the reference to ‘typical contexts’ in Table 1 above). The subsequent parts of the questionnaire address coding and syntactic properties of Vs. It begins with questions about coding properties in constructions formed by a V (in particular, case-marking of arguments) in order to determine the basic valency pattern. In
2 This study focuses on lexical verbs rather than auxiliary verbs (with modal, aspectual and other uses).
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accordance with a conventional usage the valency of a V is understood here as the list of its arguments with their coding properties (referred to as coding frames; see Haspelmath & Hartmannn this volume, for definitions of terms). § 3 deals with case alternations, which do not involve voice morphology (cf. different ‘transformations’ used to cross-classify the English verbal lexicon in Levin’s work). § 4 addresses diathetic alternations (or verb-coded alternations), asking about availability of certain valency operations (like passives and applicatives) for Vs, as well as for the meanings expressed by the valency changing markers with Vs, in case they are polysemous. § 3 and § 4 can be seen as largely complementary, as what is a case alternation in one language will be coded as a diathetic alternation in another language (for example, many case alternations in English will be expressed by different valency operations in languages with richer morphology). The last (advanced) part of the questionnaire explores to what extent Vs are representative of lexical classes, i.e., which other verbs belong to the same valency class. This latter part cannot be fully reflected in individual contributions to the volume, which due to size limitations will just offer a summary of verb taxonomies starting from these 70 verb meanings.
I Basic Questionnaire 1 Valency patterns basic examples Please provide glossed examples of sentences containing the relevant Vs (see the prompt typical contexts in the Table 1 above).
The examples sentences exemplifying typical contexts are intended to elicit the verb meanings (Vs) introduced above. The author of a chapter is asked to provide either translational equivalents of the sentences above or other comparable constructions found with the Vs (possibly extracted from corpora). In either case, of special interest is the coding of verbal arguments, for this reason the arguments should be overtly expressed (at least in dependent-marking languages). For headmarking languages, constructions with pronominal (1st/2nd person) subjects and objects should also be considered, as 3rd person arguments are often not indexed on the verb. Alternatively the corresponding constructions with pronominal arguments should be described in § 2.2 under indexing. Examples might be somewhat modified to reflect cultural realities. In cases where a V has different translational equivalents, please choose the verbal lexeme which is more basic (i.e. more frequent and/or morphologically less complex); in the case of several basic items, please include all.
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The following sections will provide further explanation of the glossed examples with respect to coding and behavioral properties of Vs.
2 Coding properties of valency patterns Coding properties involve the following techniques (Haspelmath 2005; Malchukov et al. 2010): – flagging (case or adposition marking) – indexing (agreement, cross-referencing) – word order (in the absence of other kinds of marking)
2.1 Flagging How are the arguments of the verbs flagged (by a case or adposition)?
NB degree of differentiation will naturally depend on the number of cases available. Thus, German makes finer coding distinctions among verb classes than English, which is due to the availability of verb-specific dative and genitive case selection in German (Sauerland 1994). Further questions about flagging, which may be addressed in case they interact in an interesting way with verb classification. Does flagging differ for different kinds of nominals (animate/inanimate, definite/indefinite)?
Some languages show variation in case marking depending on nominal features such as animacy and definiteness; most commonly it has been observed for (direct) objects (cf. differential object marking in languages like Hindi; where P is marked if human, or definite in the case of inanimates). Other arguments may also differ in case marking depending on nominal features; cf. different cases for animate/ inanimate locations, as in Dyirbal. Do free pronouns show the same valency pattern? (Bound pronouns are considered in § 2.2).
This need not be the case, as witnessed by split-ergative languages of the Australian type. What are other relevant factors affecting argument marking here?
In some languages, alignment patterns further depend on TAM-features, as is familiar from split ergative languages like Hindi and Newari which have ergative
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alignment in the perfective/past and accusative in the imperfective. Such alternations are relevant for the project to the extent they are sensitive to verb classes. Thus, in Newari, availability of an ergative pattern depends on tense, on the one hand, and on lexical class of the verb, on the other hand, so that 2-argument verbs deviating from the transitive prototype can take this pattern optionally.
2.2 Indexing How are the arguments of Vs indexed (by agreement/cross-referencing)?
Some languages (head-marking languages), may distinguish valency patterns through indexing rather than flagging. Thus, Tlapanec has 4 different patterns: ergative vs. absolutive indexing patterns are used for canonical transitives, and the ‘pegative’-dative alternation is used for less canonical transitives (like ‘fear’ and ‘meet’). Note that the discussion of indexing (conjugation) markers that also signal voice distinctions (like the middle voice in Greek) should be postponed to § 4 dealing with diathetic alternations. Further questions about indexing; which need to be addressed to the extent these patterns reveal verb classification. Does indexing depend on the features of the nominal (see above)?
Indexing, like flagging, may depend on nominal features. For example, in many languages with object agreement only prominent (animate/definite) objects are indexed. Again, such cases will be relevant for our project insofar as these features further interact with the verb type. For example, in the Austronesian language Manam some experiencer verbs (‘like’, ‘know’, ‘be bad at’) use object indexing only when the object is prominent, while canonical transitives (like ‘break’) invariably index the object. Thus, here we observe effects of differential object marking (i.e. differential object indexing) for verb-types deviating from canonical transitives.
2.3 Word order What are the word order patterns associated with Vs?
Most often word order depends on syntactic transitivity, but some languages make further distinctions depending on the valency class. Thus, in (Gao) Songhai, canonical transitives (‘break’, ‘kill’), have SOV order, while less canonical transitives (‘see’, ‘follow’, ‘love’), have SVO order. Questions of word order need to be ad-
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dressed to the extent word order interacts in an interesting way with verb classification.
3 Argument alternations In this section only argument alternations (or uncoded case alternations) are considered; discussion of verb-marked diathetic alternation is postponed to the next section. The two sections should be seen as largely complementary, as alternations will be coded by dedicated markers in some languages with a richer morphology and left uncoded in other languages (like English). Do Vs allow for an alternative construction (valency pattern)?
For example, for English, Levin (1993) mentions, in particular, the following alternations. (The list below mentions only fairly productive alternations; and does not include verb-coded diathetic alternations like the passive alternation): a) the inchoative-causative alternation (John broke the stick ~ The stick broke) b) the “middle” alternation (John cut the bread ~ The bread cuts easily) c) the reflexive deletion (John washed himself ~ John washed) d) the reciprocal transformation (John married Mary ~ John and Mary married) e) the dative alternation (Mary gave the book to John ~ gave John the book) f) the locative alternation (John loaded the truck with hay ~ the hay onto the truck) g) the conative alternation (John cut the bread ~ cut at the bread) h) the object deletion alternation (John ate the bread ~ John ate). i) the preposition dropping alternation (John climbed up the hill ~ climbed the hill). Given that Levin’s list includes a number of other more lexically restricted alternations, it is clear that alternation types need to be generalized before they can be applied cross-linguistically. We will distinguish between the following general types of case alternations, which also find equivalents among voice-alternations to be considered in the next section: a) subject-demoting/deleting case alternations This type will include subject-demoting alternations frequently discussed under the heading of differential subject marking (e.g., genitive of negation in Russian, or ergative/oblique alternation related to volitionality in some ergative languages), but also subject-deleting alternations, as in the case of S/P labile verbs (like break; see Levin’s “inchoative-causative alternation”).
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b) object-demoting/deleting case alternations Object-demoting alternations refer, in particular, to varieties of differential object marking (e.g., asymmetric alternations such as the ACC/NOM alternation in Hindi, but also symmetric ones, such as the ACC/PART alternation in Finnish). Object-deleting alternations will refer, in particular, to A/S-labile verbs (like eat; see Levin’s “object deletion alternation”). c) object rearranging case alternations These include, in particular, varieties of dative and locative alternations (cf. (e, f) above), also found in other languages. So the first question to be addressed is: What are the major varieties of case alternations in your language (subject-demoting/deleting; object-demoting/deleting; object rearranging)?
Of course, there may be further varieties of argument alternations, not listed above (for example, object incorporation). These varieties, as well as the alternations listed above, are relevant to the project to the extent they are sensitive to verb classification (e.g., some varieties of differential object-marking apply to any transitive verb, which does not yield an interesting clustering of verb types). More generally for our purposes most relevant are those alternations which are fairly productive (not restricted to a few lexical items), but – most importantly – are sensitive to lexical classes. That is, we are interested in alternations which are distinctive for the verbal lexicon (as sampled here) rather than in those which apply across the board or apply to just few items. After delimiting in this way the set of most relevant case-alternations in your language, the question is to be addressed is: To which Vs in your language do these alternations pertain?
For example, if your language features labile verbs, which of the verbs from the list are labile: S/P labile (cf. the causative-inchoative alternation), and S/A labile (cf. the unspecified object-deleting transformation)?
4 Diathetic alternations and valency changing operations As mentioned above, languages with richer morphology use diathetic alternations for many argument alternations left uncoded in English. Thus in Even, a Tungusic language, the “middle alternation” is signaled by the mediopassive marker, the “inchoative-causative alternation” is signaled by the causative marker (in competi-
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tion with the mediopassive), while equivalents of English verbs allowing for a “reciprocal alternation” commonly involve a lexicalized sociative marker (e.g. bakalda [find-SOC] ‘meet’). It is convenient to use the same (or similar) taxonomy for the domain of verbcoded diathetic alternations, as we adopted for (uncoded) case alternations. Also in this case we will distinguish between the following types: a) Subject demoting/deleting (anticausatives, etc) b) Subject-Object rearranging (passives) c) Object demoting/deleting (antipassives) d) Object-Object rearranging (applicatives) In addition we address valency increasing alternations: e) Subject addition (causatives) f) Object addition (applicatives) It should be noted that in some cases the distinction between these subvarieties may be problematic (especially between subvarieties of valency rearranging vs. valency increasing applicatives). It is also convenient to treat Subject-Object rearranging operations (passives) together with subject demoting/deleting (anticausatives; reflexives, etc), as they frequently employ the same markers. From this perspective, the major distinction will be between valency reducing vs. valency increasing diathetic alternations. Obviously, the set of valency/voice markers varies across languages; some of these languages distinguish between several such markers (e.g., anticausatives vs. reflexives), while other languages use the same polyfunctional marker. For such cases it is important to state both availability and the meaning of particular markers for certain Vs.
4.1 Valency-reducing operations Valency reducing operations come in several subtypes, as illustrated below: a) Subject demoting/deleting voice alternations – anticausative (cf. a) in § 3 above) – middle (cf. b) in § 3 above) – reflexive (cf. c) in § 3 above) – reciprocal (cf. d) in § 3 above) b) Object demoting/deleting voice alternations – antipassive (cf. g), h) in § 3 above) c) Subject-Object rearranging voice alternations – passive (differs from anticausative in that A may be expressed, or is implied)
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Does your language have the voice alternations listed above? If not, how are these functions expressed (this information should be given in § 3 if the functions are expressed through argument alternations). If so, what Vs do these markers apply to?
What are the functions of these markers when applied to different Vs?
For example, in Russian the “reflexive” suffix -sja can be used in a reflexive function with some verbs (myt’-sja ‘wash’), while with other verbs it has anticausative (slomat’-sja ‘break’), passive (stroit’-sja ‘be built’), or reciprocal (vstrečat’-sja ‘meet’) function.
4.2 Valency-increasing and valency-rearranging operations The most important valency-increasing operations are causatives and applicatives; the latter however may rearrange rather than increase the valency. In some languages, the same marker is used both in causative and applicative functions; also for such cases it is important to determine which Vs select for which function. If your language has causative markers, which Vs can they apply to? Does the meaning of the causative marker differ with the V involved?
Note that some languages have several causative markers, for example, for building intransitive vs. transitive causatives. These can be used to test for transitivity of less prototypical transitive verbs. If your language has applicative markers, which Vs can they apply to? Does it have several applicative markers used with different Vs? Does the meaning of the applicative marker differ with the V involved?
There may be several subtypes of applicatives, depending on which object is promoted (for example, in Hoocąk (Siouan), there are 4 different applicative markers, including the benefactive applicative, the instrumental applicative and two types of locative applicatives). On the other hand, the general applicative in Salish has been claimed to have different meanings depending on the verb’s class. Applicatives may be used to render many of the alternations listed in § 3, including the dative (cf. e) in § 3 above), locative (cf. f)), but also preposition dropping (cf. i)). Other languages may use directional markers to code some of these alternations (cf. Russian na-gruzit’ seno na telegu [PREF-load hay on cart] ‘to load the hay on the cart’ vs. za-gruzit’ telegu senom [PREF-load cart hay.INSTR] ‘to load the cart with hay’; German laden vs. be-laden).
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4.3 Other valency/voice categories Of course, it is impossible to foresee (let alone, list here) all language-particular voice categories. While choosing to address certain voice alternations, one should again be reminded that voice constructions will be relevant to the project to the extent that they interact in an interesting way with the verb lexicon (in particular, are neither restricted to few lexical items, nor apply across the board to all verbs). Does your language have other voice categories? Which Vs do they apply to?
For example, some (Austronesian) languages show a variety of “voice” (or “focus”) forms (“actor focus”, “goal focus”, etc), used for ‘promotion’ of different objects to the subject position; for these languages it will be relevant which Vs allow for which voice constructions. On the other hand, head-marking languages of the “hierarchical type” show a direct-inverse alternation triggered by the relative prominence of the A and P arguments. In that case it is relevant to study the use of direct-inverse alternations with different groups of two and three argument verbs (in the latter case, it is also relevant which of the object arguments takes part in the alternation; e.g., Theme or Recipient of a ditransitive verb). But also for the domain of monotransitives some languages may show further differentiation; e.g., some languages (like Tlapanec) may have different inverse forms for different subtypes of 2-argument verbs.
II Advanced Questionnaire 5 Further properties of individual verbs 5.1 Morphological issues: complexity Indicate which of the Vs are morphologically complex?
In § 1 the contributors were prompted to select for the basic (nonderived) equivalent of verbs on the list. In some cases, however, this is impossible, as in the case where all ditransitives including GIVE are derived (e.g. applicative, as in Tzotzil). Therefore it is important to provide information about morphological complexity of Vs. This question is relevant insofar as morphological make-up may determine availability of a certain valency pattern. For example, in Malayalam, only derived ditransitives (causatives of transitives), take a double object construction, while basic (underived) ditransitives take a dative construction.
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5.2 Semantic issues: polysemy Do Vs have other meanings?
This question is relevant insofar as the valency pattern may be motivated through one of the meanings of the polyfunctional item. For example, in some languages, which use the same verbs for both ‘hit’ and ‘throw’, this verb follows the allative pattern, as expected for caused motion verbs.
5.3 Semantic issues: etymology Do you know etymology of Vs?
The motivation for this question is the same as for the previous one: a verb may inherit the valency pattern from its original meaning.
6 Further properties of lexical classes 6.1 Lexical issues: open and closed valency classes Which other verbs belong to the same valency pattern as individual Vs? Is it an open or a closed class? For an open class, please specify which verbs belong to this class (in terms of relevant semantic or formal features). For a closed class, please list other verbs in this class.
For example, if some of the Vs are labile (see § 3 above), please give the list of other (S/P and S/A) labile verbs. Do other verbs, semantically similar to a V, participate in the same alternations as this V?
Do other verbs, semantically similar to a V, show the same diathetic alternations as this V?
References Apresjan, Jurij D. 1969. Èksperemental’noe issledovanie russkogo glagola. Moskva: Nauka. Haspelmath, Martin. 2005. Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb ‘Give’. In Martin Haspelmath, Matthew S. Dryer, David Gil & Bernard Comrie (eds.), The World Atlas of Language Structures, 426–429. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Levin, Beth. 1993. English Verb Classes and Alternations. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
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Malchukov, Andrej, Martin Haspelmath & Bernard Comrie. 2010. Ditransitive constructions: A typological overview. In Andrej Malchukov, Martin Haspelmath & Bernard Comrie (eds.), Studies in Ditransitive Constructions, 1–65. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Sauerland, Ulrich. 1994. German diathesis and verb morphology. In Douglas A. Jones (ed.), Working Papers and Projects on Verb Class Alternations in Bangla, German, English, and Korean, 37–92. MIT AI Memo 1517.
Part II: Case Studies (cont.) Austronesia and the Pacific
Masayoshi Shibatani and Ketut Artawa
22 Balinese valency classes
1
1 Introduction Balinese (Basa Bali) is one of the eastern-most members of the Western MalayoPolynesian language family. According to Adelaar (2005), Balinese forms the Malayo-Chamic-BSS (Balinese-Sasak-Sumbawa) group together with Malayic, Chamic, Sasak, and Sumbawa. Like many other Western Malayo-Polynesian languages in Indonesia, Balinese shows a remnant of the Austronesian focus system, which has undergone a gradual attrition such that, while many Formosan and Philippine languages rather faithfully reflect the original four-way morphological contrast (Actorfocus , Patient-focus *-ən, Locative-focus -an, Circumstantial-focus -*(S)i), Balinese and many other focusing Austronesian languages of Indonesia retain only a two-way morphological opposition of a nasal vs. zero verbal prefix, which corresponds to the proto-Austronesian AF and PF morphology. This morphological contrast correlates with the structural opposition of the Actor-focus (AF) and the Patient-focus (PF) construction, where the former aligns the Subject/Actor with the Topic relation and the latter the Object with the Topic, as seen below:2 (1) a. Standard Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia) AF construction (N-) Saya me-motong daging. I af-cut meat ‘I cut some meat.’ b. PF construction (0̸-) Daging itu saya potong. meat that I pf.cut ‘I cut the meat.’
1 I Wayan Arka helped the preparation of this paper greatly by providing us with a number of relevant examples as well as his grammaticality judgments on many of the examples contained in this paper. Our sincere thanks also extend to Bernard Comrie for reading an earlier version of this paper closely and providing us with comments we found highly valuable in improving both the content and the style of this paper. The support by the U.S. National Science Foundation grant BCS0617198 is also gratefully acknowledged. 2 See Blust (2002), Ross (2009), and Starosta et al. (1982) for details on the Austronesian focus morphology and its syntactic correlates.
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(2) a. Balinese (Basa Bali) AF construction (N-) Tiang n-godot be. I af-cut meat ‘I cut some meat.’ b. PF construction (0̸-) Be=ne godot tiang. meat=def pf.cut I ‘I cut the meat.’ A distinction between the grammatical relations Subject and Topic must be made for Austronesian languages because many belonging to the Western Malayo-Polynesian family in the Philippines and Indonesia as well as Formosan languages exhibit syntactic phenomena controlled by the Subject, namely the union of the Agent (A) nominal of a transitive sentence and the intransitive subject (S), on the one hand, and those that are controlled by Topic nominals, irrespective of their Subject and Object status, on the other. Because the difference between the Subject=Topic alignment in the AF construction and the Object=Topic alignment in the PF-construction is not directly relevant to the issues of valency in this language, we shall primarily present the data in AF form and concentrate on the coding patterns at the semantico-syntactic level, where argument types are organized in terms of the syntactic relations of Subject, Object, and Oblique. That is, in the following discussion we shall ignore the characteristic Austronesian pragmatico-syntactic phenomenon of Subject=Topic and Object=Topic alignment alternation, except for illustration purposes. Balinese shows three levels of register that are known as Basa Bali sor (Low Balinese), Basa Bali kepara (Ordinary Balinese) or Basa Bali madya (Medium Balinese), and Basa Bali alus/singgih (High Balinese). Low Balinese is used only when speaking derogatively about the subject referent or to a socially lower addressee. Ordinary (or Medium) Balinese is used when speaking to a familiar person and is the most commonly heard variety, while High Balinese, with different degrees of formality, is used in addressing a respected person or in a formal setting like a ceremony. These are illustrated below, where the three different forms for the verb ‘eat’ (ngamah, ma-daar, and ngajeng), for ‘I’ (icang, tiang, and titiang), and for ‘child’ (panak, oka, and putra), in addition to the two different forms for ‘dog’ (cicing and asu) and the two adverbs for ‘still’ (nu and kari) should be noticed. (3) Low Balinese Speaking about a lowly thing to a familiar person: a. Cicing icang=e ngamah nasi. dog I=poss af.eat rice ‘My dog is eating a meal.’
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b. In a quarrel Panak cai=ne ngamah dogen. child you=def af.eat only ‘Your son is only eating (without doing anything else).’ (4) Ordinary/Medium Balinese Speaking to a friend a. Cicing tiang=e ngamah nasi. dog I=poss af.eat rice ‘My dog is eating a meal.’ b. Panak cai=ne nu naar nasi. child you=poss still af.eat rice ‘Your child is still eating a meal.’ c. Panak tiang=e nu naar nasi. child I=poss still af.eat rice ‘My child is still eating a meal.’ (5) High Balinese Speaking to a teacher a. Cicing tiang=e ngamah. dog I=poss af.eat ‘My dog is eating.’ a′. Asu-n guru=ne ngamah. dog-poss teacher=poss af.eat ‘Your dog is eating.’ / Lit. ‘The teacher’s dog is eating.’ b. Oka=n guru=ne kari ngajeng. child=poss teacher=def still af.eat ‘Your child is still eating.’ / Lit. ‘The teacher’s child is still eating.’ c. Speaking to the Indonesian Presidentip Asu=n titiang=e ngamah nasi. dog=poss I=poss af.eat rice ‘My dog is eating a meal.’ d. Putra=n ratu=ne kari ngerayunang. child=poss caste.title=poss still af.eat ‘Your child is still eating.’ / Lit. ‘Sir’s child is still eating.’ The following discussion is based on the data from Ordinary/Medium Balinese provided primarily by Ketut Artawa, who was born and grew up in Penatahan Village, Bali Island. Additional data come from several speakers from the capital city of
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Denpasar, whose dialect is less conservative than the varieties spoken in the villages away from Denpasar. Notable differences are pointed out in the relevant sections of the paper.
2 Basic properties of the Balinese verbal lexicon One peculiar feature of the Balinese verbal lexicon, which is also seen in Standard Indonesian and perhaps in other major Indonesian languages of Austronesian stock, is the existence of what Artawa (1994) and others call “precategorial” roots. While there are a fair number of verb roots that are associated with one or two basic valency patterns without derivation, there are also a large number of roots that cannot be used as verbs without a derivational affix and as such whose valency value and alignment pattern are not determined until a derivational affix is selected. Take the form uruk ‘learn/teach’. In order for this to function syntactically, it must take the middle prefix m(a)-, or one of the transitive suffixes -in or -ang, as below, where neither the AF marking (6a) nor the PF (zero) marking (6b) alone is sufficient.3 (6) Underived verb form a. *Tiang ng-uruk basa Inggeris (ka anak=e cenik ento). I af-learn language English to person=def small that ‘I am teaching English (to the child).’ b. *Basa Inggeris uruk tiang (ka anak=e cenik ento). language English pf.learn I to person=def small that ‘I am teaching English (to the child).’
(AF)
(PF)
(7) m(a)-derived form Tiang m-uruk (basa Inggeris). I mid-learn (language English) ‘I am learning (English).’ 3 Our definition of precategorials differs from that offered in Artawa (1994). When a root form is usable only after a verbal derivation, it is precategorial. AF and PF marking is not a derivational process and hence if a root is usable with just AF or PF marking, it is not precategorial. The verb root tegak ‘sit’, for example, is not precategorial and can be used as an intransitive verb without a derivation by simply marking it AF (i.e. by nasalizing the initial consonant) as I Nyoman negak di bataran ento ‘Nyoman sits on the floor’. There are also noun-based precategorial verbs such as suah ‘comb’ and sikat ‘tooth’, which can be used as nouns by themselves, but which must undergo a derivation in order for them to function as a verb (see § 5.3). There is one other way, besides ma-/-in/-ang derivations, in which some of these precategorial roots can be realized, namely reduplication. The precategorial verb kijep ‘blink’, for example, can be used as intransitive either via ma-derivation (ma-kijep-an) or in the form of kijep-kijep via reduplication (see § 7). As this example shows, ma-derivation produces a circumfixed ma…an form with certain roots.
Balinese valency classes
(8) -in derived form a. Tiang ng-uruk-in anak=e cenik ento (basa Inggeris). I af-learn-in person=def small that (language English) ‘I am teaching the child (English).’ b. Anak=e cenik ento uruk-in tiang (basa Inggeris). person small that pf.learn-in I (language English) ‘I am teaching the child (English).’ (9)
-ang derived form a. Tiang ng-uruk-ang basa Inggeris (ka anak=e cenik I af-lean-ang language English to person=def small ento). that ‘I am teaching English (to the child).’ b. Basa Inggeris uruk-ang tiang (ka anak=e cenik language English pf.learn-ang I to person=def small ento). that ‘I am teaching English (to the child).’
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(AF)
(PF)
(AF)
(PF)
Compare the above with the pattern shown by the non-precategorial verb tegul ‘tie’ below, where the AF (10a) and the PF (10b) forms without a derivational affix are both grammatical. (10) Underived basic verb form a. Tiang negul 4 jaran=ne (ka punyan kayu=ne). I af.tie horse=def to trunk tree=def ‘I tied the horse to the tree trunk.’ b. Jaran=ne tegul tiang (ka punyan kayu=ne). horse=def pf.tie I to trunk tree=def ‘I tied the horse to the tree trunk.’
(AF)
(PF)
(11) ma-derived form Jaran=ne ma-tegul (ka punyan kayu=ne). horse=def mid-tie to trunk tree=def ‘The horse is tied (to the tree trunk).’
4 In the Denpasar dialect, where the -in suffix is widely used as a transitivizing suffix, negul-in is also usable here.
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(12) -in derived form a. Tiang negul-in punyan kayu=ne jaran. I af.tie-in trunk tree=def horse Lit. ‘I tied the tree trunk (with) a horse.’ b. Punyan kayu=ne tegul-in tiang jaran. trunk tree=def pf.tie-in I horse Lit. ‘I tied the tree trunk (with) a horse.’ (13) -ang derived from a. Tiang negul-ang jaran=ne ka punyan kayu=ne. I af.tie-ang horse=def to trunk tree=def ‘I tied the horse to the tree trunk.’ b. Jaran=ne tegul-ang tiang ka punyan kayu=ne. horse=def pf.tie-ang I to trunk tree=def ‘I tied the horse to the tree trunk.’
(AF)
(PF)
(AF)
(PF)
The presence of the precategorial roots indicates that valency patterns5 and derivational processes are much more tightly integrated in Balinese than in other languages, where the basic verb valency patterns and the derived patterns (that is, valency alternations) are relatively clearly delineated in terms of the absence vs. the presence of derivational affixes. In addition, Balinese valency alternation has two aspects to it. One is valency increase and the other is argument realignment or rearrangement (without valency increase). These two aspects of valency alternation are effected by the same derivation affix. Compare the basic pattern and the -in derived pattern in (14a)–(14b) and (15a)–(15b) below, where one usage pattern of the verb GIVE (baang), i.e. with an animal goal, is illustrated. (14) SLEEP (pules) anyar). a. Ia pules6 telung jam (di umah=ne he pf.sleep three hour at house=3sg.poss new ‘He slept three hours (in his new house).’ b. Ia mules-in umah=ne anyar telung jam. he af.sleep-in house=3sg.poss new three hour ‘He slept three hours in his new house.’
5 By the term “valency pattern” we refer to two argument properties. One is valency value, which relates to the number of obligatory nominal expressions that a verb requires, and the other is the argument alignment pattern, especially the alignment of the Figure and Ground expressions with the grammatical relations of Object and Oblique. See below on the Figure/Ground distinction. 6 See Section 7 below on the focus marking on intransitive verbs.
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(15) GIVE (baang) a. Basic verb form Tiang maang banyu ka celeng=e. I af.give scrap to pig=def ‘I gave food scraps to the pig.’ b. -in derived form Tiang maang-in celeng=e banyu. I af.give-in pig=def scrap ‘I gave the pig food scraps.’ The verb pules ‘sleep’ is a monovalent intransitive verb and as such the specification of a goal location is optional, as in (14a) above. When the -in form is used, a location must be specified, as in (14b). The -in derivation here, therefore, counts as a case of valency increase. In the case of the trivalent verb baang ‘give’, however, a goal specification is obligatory, as in (15a). The -in derived form in (15b), therefore, does not increase valency since the goal specification is part of the basic valency of the verb. Thus the -in derivation in (15b) constitutes a case of argument realignment rather than valency increase. In addition to the cases where alternations involve no change in the valency value, -in and -ang derivations of precategorial roots cannot be characterized in terms of valency increase/decrease because precategorials, by definition, do not have a basic valency value. Because of these facts, it is essential to first understand the basic functions of the derivational suffixes -in and -ang and then to compare the valency patterns across the Balinese verbal lexicon, whether or not the derived forms/valency alternations result in valency change.
3 Figure and Ground in argument alignment In considering valency patterns within and across languages, a useful notion is the perceptual construct of the Figure-Ground distinction that has been invoked by a number of linguists in the descriptions of argument coding in several languages (Talmy 2000; Croft 1991; DeLancey 2001). In terms of the thematic roles, the Theme corresponds to the Figure and represents an entity that is situated at a location or in a state that moves from one location to another in physical space or from one state to another in the construal of a change-of-state as an abstract motion. The Ground is the background against which a Figure is delineated, and it subsumes various locative expressions in language such as a stationary location (expressed as at, on, in in English), a source location (from), a goal location (to, against), etc. with respect to which a Figure expression is predicated as being located or moving. Locations can be both physical or human, and thus both so-called goal locations
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(as in John walked to the station) and human recipients (as in John gave Bill the book) count as instances of the Ground. What is generally characterized as Patient in the study of thematic roles is construed to be an instance of the Ground=Object in this paper. The two main alignment patterns that figure importantly in the following discussion are the Ground=Object (GR=OBJ) alignment, seen in (16), and the Figure=Object (FIG=OBJ) alignment, as in (18) below. (16) GR=OBJ construction a. John loaded the wagon with hay. b. John hit the fence with the stick. (17) FIG=OBJ construction a. John loaded the hay onto the wagon. b. John hit the stick against the fence.
3.1 -in locative applicative As some of the earlier examples show, Balinese -in derived forms align a Ground expression with the Object, and this is consistent with the role this suffix plays in deriving locative applicative forms with a variety of locational meanings such as a locus of both static and dynamic events, a goal location (including a human recipient), and a source location. (18) COME (teka) a. Ia teka ka kantor=e ene. s/he pf.come to office=def this ‘S/he came to this office.’ b. Ia neka-in kantor=e ene. s/he af.come-loc office=def this ‘S/he came to this office’ / ‘S/he visited this office.’ (19) SIT (tegak) a. Ia negak di kursi=ne. s/he af.sit in chair=def ‘S/he sits in the chair.’ b. Ia negak-in kursi=ne. s/he af.sit-loc chair=def ‘S/he sits in the chair.’ (20) a. Tiang mula biyu di tegal=e. I af.plant banana in garden=def ‘I planted bananas in the garden.’
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b. Tiang mulan-in tegal=e biyu. I af.plant-loc garden=def banana ‘I planted the garden with bananas.’ (21) a. Cai nyilih pipis uli/sig bapa=ne. you af.borrow money from father=3sg.poss ‘You borrowed money from his father.’ b. Cai nyilih-in bapa=ne pipis. you af.borrow-loc father=3sg.poss money ‘You borrowed money from his father.’ Like locative applicatives in other languages, the Balinese -in locative derivation construes the conceptualization of the specified location as being somehow affected or more interactive with the activity of the described event. Thus, the -in derived ditransitive construction in (20b) implies that the entire garden has been planted with banana trees.7 Earlier we noted a situation where -in derivation increases valency and another in which it simply realigns arguments without valency increase – cf. (14) and (15). The latter realignment case results in the same alignment pattern as the valencyincreasing case; namely, in both cases the -in derived form has a locative Ground expression aligned with the Object. In other words, the role of the -in suffix as a valency-increasing operator is simply a consequence of the basic function of this suffix, namely that of aligning a Ground argument with the Object. If the basic verb valency frame includes a Ground expression, as in the case of baang ‘give’, the -in form selects it as the Object. If the basic valency does not contain a locative element construable as a Ground, then the -in derivation introduces a new locative argument and aligns it with the Object. This is the essence of the valency-increasing effect of -in derivation.
3.2 -ang causative In contrast to the -in locative applicative, which aligns a Ground expression with the Object, -ang derivation aligns a Figure with the Object. There are two types of Figure involved in this derivation. The typical causative construction aligns the Theme Figure of a caused motion with the Object, as in I pushed the chair across the room and I made him roll down the hill.
7 See Section 8 below for a fuller discussion on this sort of restriction.
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(22) a. Anak=e cenik ento menek ka gedebeg=e. person=def small that af.climb to cart=def ‘The child climbed onto the cart.’ b. Ia menek-ang anak=e cenik ento ka gedebeg=e. s/he af-caus person=def small that to cart=def Lit. ‘S/he loaded the child onto the cart.’ (23) a. Lumur=e ento ulung. glass=def that pf.fall ‘The glass fell down.’ b. Tiang ng-ulung-ang lumur=e ento. I af-fall-caus glass=def that ‘I dropped the glass. Balinese -ang morphological causatives are also semantically restricted, and they generally express direct causation (see Section 8). As such, favorite inputs to -ang causativization are inactive processes or stative predicates, where a Theme/ Figure undergoes either a concrete motion in space, as in (22) and (23), or an abstract motion from one state to another, as in (24) and (25) below. (24) a. Tembok=e tegeh. wall=def pf.high ‘The wall is high.’ b. Tiang negeh-ang tembok=e. I af.tall-caus wall=def ‘I made the wall high.’ (25) a. Celeng=e mati. pig=def pf.dead ‘The pig is dead.’ b. Anak=e ento nge-mati-ang celeng=e. person=def that af-dead-caus pig=def ‘The man killed the pig.’ The other type of Figure involved in -ang derivation is an instrument that moves in space and that typically comes into contact with a Ground element. The following illustrates the typical use of -ang aligning an instrumental Figure with the Object. (26) a. Ia ng-lempag cicing=e aji sampat. s/he af-hit dog=def with broom ‘S/he hit the dog with a broom.’
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b. Ia ng-lempag-ang sampat ka cicing=e. s/he af-hit-caus broom to dog=def ‘S/he hit the broom against the dog.’ Lit. ‘S/he caused the broom to hit the dog.’ (27) a. Ia nyikut natah=e aji tungked. s/he af.measure yard=def with stick ‘S/he measured the yard with a stick.’ b. Ia nyikut-ang tungked ka natah=e. s/he af.measure-caus stick to yard=def ‘S/he used a stick to measure the yard.’ The above use of -ang is normally analyzed as a case of instrumental applicative apart from causativization (Artawa 1999: Chap. 3; Arka 2003: 195 ff.). But, compare the alignment patterns of the earlier causative forms in (22b)–(23b) and the -ang instrumental applicative forms in (26b)–(27b) above. In both, the Figure expressions are aligned with the Object, and the Ground expressions are coded as a prepositional phrase. As discussed below, Balinese instrumental applicatives are based on the coding of an event as a caused motion involving an instrument as a causee Theme. In the following descriptions, the -ang suffix, which aligns a Figure expression with the Object, will be glossed ‘CAUS’. The following transitive/ditransitive sentences illustrate the contrastive functions of the locative -in and the causative -ang suffix with regard to the Object alignment. The valency phenomena involving bi-/trivalent verbs discussed next center around these two alignment patterns. (28) GR=OBJ alignment (-in locative suffix) Tiang ng-uruk-in anak=e cenik cenik (basa Inggeris). I af-learn-loc person=def small small language English ‘I teach the children (English).’ (29) FIG=OBJ alignment (-ang causative suffix)8 Taing ng-uruk-ang basa Inggeris (ka anak=e cenik cenik). I af-learn-caus language English to person=def small small ‘I teach English (to the children).’
8 The -ang causative, as a caused motion expression, normally requires or strongly implicates a Ground (goal) expression. Like the English counterpart, uruk ‘learn/teach’ can be used as monotransitive with a GR=Object or a FIG=Object, as in (29) and (30).
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4 The valency classes of transitive/ditransitive verbs As noted above, the locative -in and causative -ang suffixes play an integral role in the valency structures of Balinese verbs. In order to see this, observe first the transitive/ditransitive verb classes according to the basic valency patterns and their alternants. As is clear from Table 1, -in and -ang derivations supply the forms with the specific valency patterns where basic (underived) verbs displaying the relevant patterns are not available. Also recognized from the table is that the precategorial/ non-precategorial distinction in Balinese has an important implication for the study of valency due to the fact that a large number of verb forms do not have a basic valency pattern associated with them. -in and -ang derivations fix the valency value and argument alignment for them, without which they cannot function as a verb. On the basis of the Object alignment pattern, Balinese (di-)transitive verbs group themselves into four large classes: (i) a very small minority of verbs (e.g., baang GIVE) display unmarked (un-coded) alternating patterns of SU > GR=OBJ > FIG=OBJ/OBL (the GR=OBJ pattern) or SU > FIG=OBJ > GR=OBL (the FIG=OBJ pattern) (ii) a fair number of verbs (e.g., ejang PUT) are FIGURE-oriented and display the basic FIG=OBJ pattern, which alternates with the GR=OBJ pattern via -in derivation (iii) another class (e.g., lempag HIT) has GROUND-oriented verbs displaying the basic GR=OBJ pattern, which alternates with the FIG=OBJ pattern via -ang derivation
Tab. 1: Transitive/Ditransitive. Verb Classes and Alternation Patterns. Alignment:
GR=OBJ > FIG=OBL/OBJ (Locative pattern)
FIG=OBJ > GR=OBL (Causative pattern)
Basic verb class (A) Basic verb class (B) Basic verb class (C) Basic verb class (C′): Basic verb class (D)
basic forms basic forms -in forms _______
basic forms -ang forms basic forms basic forms -ang forms basic forms -ang forms ________
Precategorial class 1 Precategorial class 2
basic forms -in forms -in forms -in forms
(The dash mark for Class (C′) and Precategorial 2 indicates that no form is available for the respective alignment pattern even via -in or -ang derivations.)
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(iv) a considerable number of precategorial verbs (e.g., uruk LEARN/TEACH) have no basic valency pattern associated with them, their valency pattern being determined by -in (for the GR=OBJ pattern) and -ang derivation (for the FIG= OBJ pattern). It is in this manner that -in and -ang derivations fill the gap in the two transitive/ditransitive valency patterns, namely the GR=OBJ and the FIG=OBJ pattern. Other coded alternations effected by benefactive, middle, and passive operations do not revolve around the GR=OBJ/FIG=OBJ alternation per se, and, accordingly, their contributions to the Balinese valency patterns are discussed separately below. With this proviso, the Balinese transitive/ditransitive alternation patterns can be most conveniently discussed in terms of the seven classes of verbs on the basis of derivational possibilities, as summarized in Table 1 above.
4.1 Basic transitive verb class (A) Basic locative pattern: GR=OBJ > FIG=OBJ Basic causative pattern: FIG=OBJ > GR=OBJ/OBL GIVE (baang), FILL (isinin)9 The only basic verbs allowing the two alternate alignment patterns without coding/ derivation are GIVE (baang) and FILL (isinin). (30) GIVE (baang)10 a. Basic locative pattern: GR=OBJ > FIG=OBJ Guru=ne (nge-)maang anak=e cenik ento buku. teacher=def af.give person=def small that book ‘The teacher gave the child the book.’ b. Basic causative pattern: FIG=OBJ > GR=OBL Guru=ne (nge-)maang buku ka anak=e cenik ento. teacher=def af.give book to person=def small that ‘The teacher gave the book to the child.’
9 In this paper, verbs are cited in their root forms, which are identical with the PF forms for nonprecategorials. 10 The verb baang is interesting in that it allows an optional -in derivation when the goal is an animal as opposed to a human, permitting Valency Pattern C and indicating that animals are treated as if they were a locational Ground. There may be a possibility that ang of baang is related to the causative -ang. See next footnote.
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(31) FILL (isinin)11 a. Basic locative pattern: GR=OBJ (> FIG=OBJ/OBL) Anak=e ento ng-isinin lumur=e ento ((aji) yeh). person=def that af-fill glass=def that (with) water ‘The man filled the glass (with water).’ b. Basic causative pattern: FIG=OBJ > GR=OBL Anak=e ento ng-isinin yeh ka lumur=e. person=def that af-fill water to glass=def Lit. ‘The man filled water into the glass.’ GIVE (baang) is the only true ditransitive verb that requires both Figure and Ground expressions in both the GR=OBJ and the FIG=OBJ pattern. The verb FILL (isinin) does not require a Figure nominal in the GR=OBJ construction, as in (31a), while both Figure and Ground nominals are required in the FIG=OBJ construction (31b). Unlike the English verb put, the Balinese counterpart ejang does not obligatorily require a Ground expression. Sentence (32b) below, without a Ground specification, is perfectly well-formed and has a meaning similar to ‘put down’ in English. It is only when the Ground expression is aligned with the OBJ that both Figure and Ground nominals are required, as in (c). This makes ejang difficult to classify, but we consider it a member of Class (C), which would then contain both trivalent and bivalent verbs that optionally take a locative phrase. (32) PUT (ejang) a. Ia ng-ejang buku di meja=ne. s/he af-put book on table=def ‘S/he put the book on the table.’ b. Ia ng-ejang buku. s/he af-put book ‘S/he put down the book.’ c. Ia ng-ejang-in meja=ne (aji) buku. s/he af-put-loc table=def (with) book Lit. ‘S/he put the table (with) a book.’
11 The (n)in ending of isinin ‘fill’ is likely to have historically come from the locative -in suffix. Observe that it disappears in the middle-marked resultative form of this verb: Lumur-e ma-isi yeh ‘the glass is filled with water’. However, this ending does not seem to be functioning as the LOC suffix any longer. The true LOC -in suffix disappears, unlike ...(n)in in (32b), when a FIG expression is aligned with the Object.
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4.2 Basic transitive verb class (B): Basic locative pattern: GR=OBJ (> FIG=OBL/OBJ) -ang derived causative pattern: FIG=OBJ > GR=OBJ HIT/BEAT (lempag), TOUCH (tundik), STAB (tusuk), COVER (rurub) (CUT (godot), SAW (regaji)) These surface-contact verbs are Ground-oriented and have the GR=OBJ alignment pattern as basic. They yield the FIG=OBJ pattern through -ang derivation. (33) HIT/BEAT (lempag)12 a. Anak=e ento ng-lempag lalipi-ne (aji tungked). person=def that af-hit snake=def with stick ‘The man hit the snake (with a stick).’ b. Anak=e ento ng-lempag-ang tungked ka lalipi=ne. person=def that af-hit-caus stick to snake=def ‘The man hit the stick against the snake.’ / Lit. ‘The man caused the stick to hit the snake.’ In the basic pattern of this type, an instrumental Oblique is optional, whereas in the derived pattern it is aligned with the OBJ and is obligatory, rendering the -ang causative derivation here a valency-increasing operation. Notice that the Oblique ka-phrase in (33b) is a required argument. The -ang form here obtains most readily when the movement of a Figure in space is clearly perceived, as in the case of HIT/BEAT (lembag) and STAB (tusuk). When a surface contact does not result from a clearly perceivable directed motion, as in the case of slicing and sawing, it is rather difficult to apply the -ang derivation. The (b) form below is deemed not as well-formed as (33b) above. Similarly, while STAB (tusuk) and THROW (timpug) are perfect in the -ang derived form, SAW (regaji) is not. (34) CUT/SLICE (godot) a. Anake ento ngodot poh (aji tiuk). person that af.cut mango with knife ‘The man cut the mango with a knife.’
12 This verb permits an -in derived form as well, which adds a repetitive meaning to the basic meaning. The repetitive meaning associated with many action verbs is perhaps related to the transitivity effect associated with the -in suffix.
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b. *?Anake ento ngodot-ang tiuk=ne ka poh=e. person that af.cut-caus knife=def to mango=def ‘The man cut the mango with the knife.’ / Lit. ‘The man caused the knife to cut the mango.’ The verb COVER (rurub) is somewhat unusual and behaves differently from the other members of this class in allowing the -in locative derivation despite the fact that the basic form already has the locative GR=OBJ pattern associated with it. The -in derived form, however, is different from the basic form in that it allows both OBJ > OBJ (double Object) and OBJ > OBL configurations, though the FIG expression remains optional. (35) COVER (rurub) a. Basic locative pattern: GR=OBJ (> FIG=OBL) Ia ngerurub anak=e cenik ento (aji saput). s/he af.cover person=def small that (with blanket) ‘S/he covered the child with a blanket.’ b. -in locative pattern Ia ngerurub-in anak=e cenik ento (saput)/(aji saput). s/he af.cover-loc person=def small that (blanket)/(with blanket) ‘S/he covered the child with a blanket.’ c. -ang causative pattern Ia ngerurub-ang saput ka anak=e cenik ento. s/he af.cover-caus blanket to person=def small that Lit. ‘S/he covered the blanket to the child.’ Surface-contact verbs contrast with verbs of creation such as tulis ‘write’ and bangun ‘build’, which may take an instrumental nominal but which do not allow -ang derivation. (36) WRITE (tulis) a. Anak=e ento nulis surat (aji pulpen=ne ene). person=def that af.write letter with pen=def this ‘The man wrote a letter (with this pen).’ b. *Anak=e ento nulis-ang pulpen=ne ene ka surat. person=def that af.write-caus pen=def this to letter ‘The man wrote a letter with this pen.’ It is not clear how verbs of creation like these should be classified since the created objects seem to be neither a Figure nor a Ground, which classify those elements denoting things that exist independently from the activities expressed by the verbs. Interestingly, WRITE (tulis) also behaves somewhat like a member of Precategorial
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Class 1 and allows both -in locative and -ang causative derivations when a Ground is specified with respect to which an instrumental Figure is perceived to move. (37) a. Ia nulis aksara Bali (di tembok=e) (aji pulpen). s/he af.write characters Balinese on wall=def with pen ‘S/he wrote Balinese characters (on the wall) (with a pen).’ b. Ia nulis-in tembok=e (aksara Bali) (aji pulpen). s/he af.write-loc wall=def characters Balinese with pens ‘S/he wrote (Balinese characters) on the wall (with a pen).’ c. Ia nulis-ang pulpen=e aksara Bali ka tembok=e. s/he af.write-caus pen=def characters Balinese to wall=def ‘S/he wrote Balinese characters on the wall with the pen.’ Notice that the basic form of WRITE (tulis) is bivalent, with a location and an instrumental specification being optional (37a). The -in derivation, while it aligns a GR expression with the Object, does not increase valence, as seen in (37b), where the affected patientive entity and the instrument Figure are both optional. The -ang causative derivation in (37c), on the other hand, increases valence by two, requiring specifications of an instrument Figure aligned with the first Object (the first of the double Objects defined in terms of word order) and a Ground expression coded as an OBL. The effected patientive entity is then coded as a second Object as in (37c). (Cf. (37b, c) with the patterns exhibited by precategorial verbs below. The status of the first and second Objects of the double Object construction is discussed in Section 6.)
4.3 Basic transitive verb class (C) Basic causative pattern: FIG=OBJ (> GR=OBL/OBJ) -in derived locative pattern: GR=OBJ > FIG=OBL/OBJ PUT (ejang), SEND (kirim), STEAL (maling), ASK (idih), GIVE (baang with an animal recipient) Basic verb class (C) primarily contains caused-motion verbs exhibiting the trivalent FIG=OBJ > GR=OBL pattern with the -in derived alternate pattern. (38) SEND (kirim) a. Basic causative pattern: FIG=OBJ > GR=OBL Anak-e ento ngirim buku=ne ka sekolah. person=def that af.send book=def to school ‘The man sent the book to the school.’
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b. -in derived locative pattern: GR=OBJ > FIG=OBJ/OBL Anak=e ento ngirim-in sekolah buku=ne. person=def that af.put-loc school book=def Lit. ‘The man sent the school the book.’ (39) STEAL (maling) a. Basic causative pattern: FIG=OBJ (> GR=OBL) Tiang nge/ma-maling pipis (uli guru=ne). I af/mid-steal money from teacher=def ‘I stole money from the teacher.’ b. -in derived locative pattern: GR=OBJ > FIG=OBJ Tiang nge-maling-in guru=ne pipis. I af-steal-loc teacher=def money Lit. ‘I stole the teacher money.’ The verb GIVE (baang) shows the above pattern when the goal Ground is an animal as noted earlier (see (15)).
4.4 Basic transitive verb class (C′) Basic causative pattern: FIG=OBJ (> GR=OBL/OBJ) *-in derived locative pattern: GR=OBJ > FIG=OBL BRING (aba), CARRY (tenteng) GET (baan), TEAR (uek), WIPE (sapuh) This class is a subclass of C and contains those basic caused-motion verbs but that do not easily permit the alternate -in locative pattern. The GR=OBL expressions of the verbs belonging to this class take either the preposition ka ‘to’ or uli ‘from’. The verbs that introduce the GR=OBL by ka include BRING (aba) and CARRY (tenteng), and the other verbs listed use uli to mark the OBL. Compare the following examples with (38) above: (40) BRING (aba) a. Basic causative pattern: FIG=OBJ (> GR=OBL/OBJ) Tiang ng-aba buku=ne ka kantor pos. I af-bring book=the to office post ‘I brought the book to the post office.’ b. *Tiang ng-aba-in kantor pos buku=ne. I af-bring-loc office post book=def Lit. ‘I brought the post office the book.’
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When the Ground is a person, the -in derived form is possible with this verb, but it, in addition, has the benefactive meaning of carrying something for someone. (41) BRING (aba) a. Anak luh ento ng-aba buku=ne ka guru=ne. person female that af-bring book=def to teacher=def ‘The girl brought the books to the teacher.’ b. Anak luh ento ng-aba-in guru=ne buku.13 person female that af-bring-loc teacher=def book ‘The girl brought the books to the teacher.’ ‘The girl carried the teacher’s books (while walking with the teacher).’ The verb tenteng ‘carry’, on the other hand, does not permit the usual (i.e. the GR= OBJ) -in derivation whether the Ground is human or not. (42) CARRY (tenteng) a. Anak luh ento nenteng buku-ne ka sekolahl/guru=ne. person female that af.carry book=def to school/teacher=def ‘The girl carried the book to the school/teacher.’ b. Anak luh nenteng-in guru=ne buku. person female af.carry-loc teacher=def book ‘The girl carried the book for the teacher. ’ ‘*The girl carried the book to the teacher.’ c. *Anak luh nenteng-in sekolah buku. person female af.carry-loc school=def book Lit. ‘The girl carried the school a book.’ The verbs GET (baan), TEAR (uek), and WIPE (sapuh) introduce a locative Oblique expression with uli ‘from/with’, but -in suffixation is unavailable, preventing the GR=OBJ pattern to obtain with them. Compare the pattern of STEAL (maling) in (39) above with that of GET (baan) below. Perhaps the difference lies in the fact that STEAL implicates the affectedness of the Ground more strongly than GET. (43) GET (baan) a. Basic causative pattern: FIG=OBJ (> GR=OBL) Anak luh ento maan buku ento (uli guru=ne). person female that af.get book that (from teacher=def) ‘The girl got a book from the teacher.’
13 Both this example and (42b) below can replace -in with the benefactive -ang suffix. See Section 5.1 on -ang benefactives.
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b. -in derived GR=OBJ pattern *Anak luh ento maan-in guru=ne buku. person female that af.get teacher=def book
4.5 Basic transitive verb class D (a) Basic locative pattern: GR=OBJ (> FIG=OBL) -ang derived causative pattern: FIG=OBJ > GR=OBJ (b) Basic causative pattern: FIG=OBJ > GR=OBL -in derived locative pattern: GR=OBJ > FIG=OBJ TIE (tegul), NAIL (pacek), SMEAR (uap), GLUE (elim) The semantics of verbs of fixing contained in this class allows them to behave both like the surface-contact Class B verbs and like the caused-motion Class C verbs in allowing the basic forms to exhibit both the locative GR=OBJ and the causative FIG=OBJ pattern, respectively. These basic patterns are then altered to the reverse pattern via -in and -ang derivations. (44) TIE (tegul) a. Basic locative pattern: GR=OBJ (> FIG=OBL) Tiang negul(-in) jaran=e (aji tali). I af.tie horse=def with rope ‘I tied the horse (with a rope).’ b. -ang derived causative pattern: FIG=OBJ > GR=OBL Tiang negul-ang tali=ne ka jaran=e. I af.tie-caus rope=def to horse=def ‘I tied the rope to the horse.’ (45) TIE (tegul) a. Basic causative pattern: FIG=OBJ (> GR=OBL)14 Tiang negul jaran=e (di/ka punyan kayu=ne). I af.tie horse=def in/to trunk tree=def ‘I tied the horse (to the tree trunk).’
14 Without a Ground specification, we would not know whether the Object (the horse) is construed as a Figure or a Ground. The optional -in suffix in (44a), on the other hand, specifically marks the Object to be Ground.
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b. -ang derived causative pattern: FIG=OBJ > GR=OBL Tiang negul-ang jaran=e ka punyan kayu=ne. I af.tie-caus horse=def to trunk tree=de ‘I tied the horse to the tree trunk. c. -in derived locative pattern: GR=OBJ > FIG=OBJ Tiang negul-in punyan kayu=ne jaran. I af.tie-loc trunk tree=def horse Lit. ‘I tied the tree trunk (with) the horse.’ Example (45b) with -ang has the same FIG=OBJ alignment as the basic alignment pattern in (45a). But (45a) and (45b) differ crucially in that while a locative expression is optional in the former, it is obligatory in the latter due to the valency-increasing effect of the -ang suffix. (44b) and (45b) both align the Figure expressions with Object. In the former, an Instrumental Figure is aligned with the Object and has a valency-increasing effect due to the promotion of an Oblique to the Object position. In (45b) the valency is increased without promotion, the basic Theme/ Figure=OBJ alignment remaining unaffected. The verbs showing the alternation patterns above are either trivalent ditransitive verbs requiring both Ground and Figure expressions or those transitive verbs that optionally allow these. Those basic transitive verbs, such as KNOW (tawang), that do not take any optional Ground or Figure expression do not show the derived/ coded alternation patterns under study. (46) KNOW (tawang) I Made nawang anak=e cenik ento. I Made af.know person=def small that ‘I Made knows the boy.’ Other transitive verbs like EAT (ajeng/daar) and SLAUGHTER (tampah) may take an optional locative and/or an instrumental expression, but since these optional expressions do not satisfy the semantic requirements for either -ang or -in derivation (see § 4.2 and § 9), they do not show the relevant alternation patterns either. These verbs should perhaps be considered members of a separate class of transitive verbs that fail to, ones that fail to alternate due to the semantic restrictions pertaining to the alternate GR=OBJ construction. (47) EAT (ajeng) a. Anak=e luh ento ng-ajeng roti di kamar=ne. person=def female that af-eat bread in room=def ‘The girl is eating bread in the room.’
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b. *Anak=e luh ento ng-ajeng-in kamar=ne roti. person=def female that af-eat-loc room=def bread ‘The girl is eating bread in the room.’ (48) a. Anak=e ento nampah celeng=e aji parang. person=def that af.slaughter pig=def with cleaver ‘The man slaughtered the pig with a cleaver.’ b. *Anak=e ento nampah-ang parang=e ka celeng=e. person=def that af.slaughter-caus cleaver=def to pig-def ‘The man slaughtered the pig with a cleaver.’
4.6 Precategorial Class 1 No Basic pattern: -in derived locative pattern: GR=OBJ > FIG=OBJ -ang derived causative pattern: FIG=OBJ > GR=OBL (i) SHOW (edeng), GIVE (enjuh), SAY/TELL (orah), INSERT (selek) (ii) POUR (turuh), THROW (entung), HIDE (engkeb) (iii) DRESS SOMEONE (payas) Precategorial verbs form a large class, and, lacking a specified valency pattern, many of them allow both -in and -ang derivations with the respective alignment pattern, as shown below. (49) SHOW (edeng) a. -in deried locative pattern: GR=OBJ > FIG=OBJ Anak=e luh ento ng-edeng-in guru=ne buku. person=def girl that af-show-loc teacher=def book ‘The girl showed the teacher the book.’ b. -ang derived causative pattern: FIG=OBJ > FIG=OBL Anak=e luh ento ng-edeng-ang buku ka guru=ne. person=def girl that af-show-caus book to teacher=def ‘The girl showed the book to the teacher.’ (50) POUR (turuh) a. -in derived locative pattern: GR=OBJ > FIG=OBJ Anak=e ento nuruh-in lumur=e yeh. person=def that af.pour-loc glass=def water Lit. ‘The man poured the glass water.’
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b. -ang derived causative pattern: FIG=OBJ (> GR=OBL) Anak=e ento nuruh-ang yeh=e ento (ka lumur=e ento). person-=def that af.pour-caus water=def that to glass=def that ‘The man poured the water into the glass.’ (51) DRESS SOMEONE (payas) a. -in derived locative pattern: GR=OBJ (> FIG=OBL) Tiang mayas-in anak=e cenik ento (aji baju). I af.dress-loc child=def small that (with shirt) Lit. ‘I dressed the child (with a shirt).’ b. -ang derived causative pattern: FIG=OBJ > GR=OBL Tiang mayas-ang baju=ne ento ka anak=e cenik ento. I af.dress-caus shirt=def that to child=def small that ‘I put the shirt on the child.’ While the alignment patterns displayed by the -in and -ang forms above are similar, the three sets of the examples above represent three different argument patterns. SHOW (edeng), GIVE (enjuh), SAY/TELL (orah), and ENTER/INSERT (celep) all require both a Figure and a Ground expression as arguments in either the -in and the -ang pattern. With POUR (turuh), THROW (entung), and HIDE (engkeb), the -in LOC=OBJ pattern requires both Figure and Ground arguments, while in the -ang FIG=OBJ pattern, an OBL Ground expression typically shows up, but it is not a requirement. DRESS SOMEONE (payas) reverses this pattern and calls for both Figure and Ground arguments in the -ang FIG=OBJ form, while an OBL Figure expression is optional in the -in GR=OBJ pattern. Compared to POUR (turuh), the basic verb FILL (isinin) aligns with DRESS SOMEONE (payas) in that a Figure expression is optional in the GR=OBJ construction with them, whether the GR=OBJ pattern is basic as in FILL (isinin) or -in derived as in DRESS SOMEONE (payas). There are two GIVE verbs in Balinese. One is the basic verb baang, which allows the GR=OBJ and the FIG=OBJ alignment without derivation, as seen in the earlier examples in (30). The other is precategorial enjuh, which yields the GR=OBJ pattern through -in derivation and the FIG=OBJ pattern through -ang derivation, as shown below. The basic verb baang is more general in meaning, whereas the precategorial enjuh specifically means giving/delivering something to someone by hand. (52) GIVE (enjuh) a. -in derived locative pattern: GR=OBJ > FIG=OBJ Ia ng-enjuh-in timpal=ne buku. s/he af-give-loc friend=3.poss buku ‘S/he gave his/her friend a book.’ b. -ang derived causative pattern: FIG=OBJ > GR=OBL Ia ng-enjuh-ang buku=ne ento ka timpal=ne. S/he af-give-caus book=def that to friend=3.poss ‘S/he gave the book to his/her friend.’
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The -in derived form here contrasts with the -ang derived form in that the former has the double Object pattern, while the latter has the OBJ > OBL pattern, reflecting the semantics of caused motion characteristic of the -ang causative construction. A number of notionally bivalent precategorial verbs show somewhat irregular patterns. There are some that allow both -in and -ang derived forms with the same alignment pattern. In the case of LOOK (telektek), the -ang version is more commonly used than the -in version. (53) LOOK (telektek) Tiang nelektek-ang/-in anak=e cenik ento. I af.look-caus/-loc person=def small that ‘I look at the child.’ The verb FOLLOW (tuut) has a basic alignment pattern, but it still allows both -in and -ang derived forms that differ in meaning. The basic form tuut means to copy or to imitate, but the -in derived form means to follow or to obey, and the -ang derived form means to obey. (54) FOLLOW (tuut/tutut) a. Basic Tiang nuut anak=e luh ento. I af.follow person=def female that 1. ‘I copied (the work done by) the girl.’ 2. ‘I imitate the girl.’ 3. ‘I obeyed the girl.’ b. -in derived Tiang nuut-in anak=e luh ento. I af.follow-loc person=def female that 1. ‘I emulate the girl.’ 2. ‘I obeyed the girl.’ c. -ang derived Tiang nuut-ang anak=e luh ento. I af.follow-caus person=def female that 1. ‘I copied the girl.’ 2. ‘I obeyed the girl.’
4.7 Precategorial Class 2 No Basic pattern: -in derived locative pattern: GR=OBJ *-ang derived causative pattern: FIG=OBJ
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HELP (tulung), SEE/MEET (tepuk) CALL X Y (kauk) There are several precategorial verbs that have -in derived forms with no corresponding -ang derived forms. The verb CALL X Y (kauk) belongs to this class. (55) HELP (tulung) a. Tiang nulung-in anak=e luh ento. I af.help-loc person=def female that ‘I helped the girl.’ b. Tiang nulung-in guru=ne ngae umah. I af.help-loc teacher=def build house ‘I help the teacher to build a house.’ (56) CALL X Y (kauk) Luh Sari ngauk-in anak=e ento I belog. female Sari af.call-loc person=def that art fool ‘Sari called the man a fool.’
5 Other verb-coded valency alternations In addition to -in and -ang derivations, there are several other processes that provide verb-coded valency alternations in Balinese. The most pertinent ones are -ang benefactives, ma-middles, and -a passives. All these apply to (di)transitive verbs, provided the relevant semantic restrictions are satisfied. ma-middles play the important role of filling the lexical gap of missing intransitives and, thereby, feed the intransitive repertoire of the language.
5.1 Valency-increasing -ang benefactive applicative As in many other languages, the benefactive applicative is limited to situations involving the transfer of an object to a beneficiary, and, as such, it typically involves basic transitive verbs of procurement and production; however, it does not apply to intransitive verbs and those transitive situations where the transfer of an object to a beneficiary does not materialize, as e.g., throwing away garbage on someone’s behalf (Shibatani 1996). The following form with the verb BUY (beli) is a typical Balinese benefactive applicative, by which we mean a construction that aligns a Beneficiary with the Object and whose meaning conveys an intended or successful transfer of a Theme/Figure to the Beneficiary. Syntactically, the benefactive applicative is ditransitive, and semantically, it contrasts with expressions in which a Beneficiary is coded in Oblique form, as in the contrast between English I
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bought Made this book and I bought this book for Made – the former is a benefactive applicative without morphology (see below). (57) BUY (beli) a. Basic bivalent form Tiang meli buku=ne ene. I af.buy book=def this ‘I bought this book.’ b. Benefactive trivalent form Tiang meli-ang Made buku=ne ene. I af-ben Made book=def this ‘I bought Made this book.’ Involvement of the suffix -ang and of a transferred object would make us wonder whether the benefactive alignment pattern has the Theme/Figure argument in Object position. But this is not the case. As in (57b) above, the benefactive applicative has what looks like a Ground (recipient Beneficiary) expression in Object position, the pattern that -in derivation normally entails. Upon closer examination, however, it becomes clear that the Beneficiary expression in Object position is not a Ground. First of all, a true Ground expression cannot be aligned with the Object via benefactive derivation. Unlike the English dative-shift counterpart (as in the translation in the parentheses below), benefactive applicative (58b) below does not mean that the Beneficiary “my mother” was the goal to which the letter was to be sent. In other words, (58a) and (58b) are not synonymous as are the English translations I wrote a letter to my mother and I wrote my mother a letter. What grammatically corresponds to the English sentence I wrote my mother a letter would be (58c), but this sentence is not very well-formed in Balinese because of the semantic requirement on the -in derivation that the Ground be highly interactive with the relevant action (see Section 9, and compare (58c) with the earlier example in (38b) and with (60) below). (58) a. Tiang nulis surat ka meme=n tiang=e. I af.write letter to mother=poss I=poss ‘I wrote a letter to my mother.’ b. Tiang nulis-ang meme=n tiang=e surat. I af.write-ben mother=poss I=poss letter ‘I wrote a letter for my mother.’ (≠ I wrote my mother a letter.) c. *?Tiang nulis-in meme=n tiang=e surat. I af.write-loc mother=poss I=poss letter ‘I wrote my mother a letter.’ Secondly, a true Ground expression can be overtly specified in addition to a Beneficiary nominal, as in (59b) below.
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(59) a. Tiang ngirim buku ka sekolah. I af.send book to school ‘I sent books to the school.’ b. Tiang ngirim-ang guru=ne buku ka sekolah. I af.send-ben teacher=def book to school ‘I sent books to the school for the teacher.’ The above sentence still entails that the teacher is to ultimately receive the books that are sent to the school, but ka sekolah ‘to the school’ is the true Ground in this expression. Contrast this with the -in locative construction, where a true Ground is coded as the Object. (60) Tiang ngirim-in sekolah=e buku. I af.send-loc school=def book ‘I sent the school books.’ The Ground and the Beneficiary are also distinguished in Standard Indonesian when they occur as Obliques (see (61a, b) below). The benefactive applicative -kan form in (61c) is not exactly synonymous with (61b) in that the former implies that while “his/ her father” is not the addressee of the letter, he nevertheless temporarily obtains the letter written on his behalf. That is, (61c) means that s/he wrote the letter on his/her father’s behalf and handed it to him (to mail to the ultimate recipient).any other languages, the benefactive applicative (61) a. Standard Indonesian Dia me-nulis surat kepada ayah=nya. s/he af-write letter to father=3poss ‘S/he wrote a letter to his/her father.’ b. Dia me-nulis surat untuk ayah=nya. s/he af-write letter for father=3poss ‘S/he wrote a letter for his/her father.’ c. Dia me-nulis-kan ayah=nya surat. s/he af-write-ben father=3poss letter ‘S/he wrote a letter for his/her father. (≠ S/he wrote his/her father a letter.) (Sneddon 1996: 81) An OBL Beneficiary expression corresponding to (61b) is not available in Balinese (see (62c) below for an alternative). The -ang benefactive applicative, which aligns a Beneficiary expression with the Object, is, thus, different from the GR=OBJ construction effected via -in derivation in its alignment pattern. While synchronically we may want to distinguish the causative -ang, which aligns a causee Theme/Figure with the Object, from the -ang
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benefactive, which aligns a Beneficiary with the Object, the causative/benefactive applicative polysemy finds an explanation in the historical development of the benefactive applicative from the causative via direct causative construal of a causative semantics following the derivation pattern of the GIVE verb. The causative semantics [X CAUSE Y to HAVE Z] under the direct causative construal may lexicalize as [X HAVE-CAUSE Y (the child) Z (a book)], where the abstract causative predicate is realized as a causative suffix, as in Ainu kor-e (have-caus) ‘give’. Similarly, [X CAUSE Y to HEAR Z] is lexicalized as nu-re (hear-caus) ‘inform’ in Ainu. In some other languages, like English, lexicalization of these causative semantics incorporates the causative component CAUSE into a hosting verb, giving rise to expressions like “X gives Y (the child) Z (a book)” and “X informs Y of Z”. The rise of benefactive applicatives from causatives follows these lexicalization patterns. [X CAUSE Y to BUY Z], for example, may give rise to a lexical benefactive applicative “X buys Y Z” following the “X gives Y Z”, or it may give rise to a morphological benefactive applicative in the form of “X buy-CAUS Y Z” following the GIVE pattern “X have-CAUS Y Z”, where the causative suffix is subsequently reanalyzed as a benefactive applicative suffix. In Balinese the verb of giving baang follows the English lexicalization pattern, while benefactive applicatives follow the Ainu pattern of realizing CAUSE morphologically.15 Since the basic function of the locative -in, the causative-ang, and the benefactive -ang is to align respectively a Ground location, a Theme Figure, and a Beneficiary with the Object, rather than to increase valency per se, these do not combine. In other words, they compete for the (first) Object position and once Object alignment is fixed by a derivation, it cannot be altered by another derivation. Thus, even semantically plausible -ang/-in derived verbs such as turuh-ang ‘pour-CAUS’ and kirim-in ‘send-LOC’ do not yield -ang benefactives. Serial verb benefactive constructions involving the verb baang ‘give’ must be used instead, as in (62c). (62) a. Tiang nuruh-ang yeh ka lumur=e. I af.pour-caus water to glass=def ‘I poured water into the glass.’ b. *Tiang nuruh-ang-ang guru=ne yeh ka lumur=e. I af.pour-caus-ben teacher=def water to glass=def ‘I poured water into the glass for the teacher.’ c. Tiang nuruh-ang yeh ka lumur=e baang guru=ne. I af.pour-caus water to glass=def give teacher=def ‘I poured water into the glass for the teacher.’ Compare (62a–b) and (59a–b). Both (59a) and (62a) have the semantically comparable alignment pattern of FIG=OBJ > GR=OBL, but only the former yields a benefactive -ang form (59b). Similarly, while both (63a) and (64a) below have the same 15 Also note the interpretation “I carried the girl” of the causative form in (121b).
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alignment pattern of GR=OBJ > FIG=OBJ, only the underived structure in (63a) yields a correct -ang benefactive counterpart. (63) a. Tiang ngodot poh aji tiuk. I af.cut mango with knife ‘I cut the mango with a knife.’ b. Tiang ngodot-ang anake=e cenik poh aji tiuk. I af.cut-ben person=def small mango with knife ‘I cut the mango with a knife for the child.’ (64) a. Tiang ngebat-in meja=ne aji taplak meja. I af-spread-loc table=def with cloth table Lit. ‘I spread the table with a tablecloth.’ b. *Tiang ngebat-in-ang meme=ne meja=ne aji taplak meja. I af.spread-loc-ben mother=def table=def with cloth table Lit. ‘I spread the table with a tablecloth for mother.’ c. ?Tiang ngebat-in meja=ne aji taplak meja baang meme=ne.16 I af.spread-loc table=def with cloth table give mother=def Lit. ‘I spread the table with a tablecloth for mother.’ The precategorial verb HUNT (boros) is interesting with regard to the above discussion. As seen above, a transitive derived from the locative -in or the causative -ang suffixation cannot undergo the benefactive derivation. What is interesting about the verb boros ‘hunt’ is that (i) its ma-middle form takes an indefinite Object (see (65a) and the discussion on this topic in § 5.2), and (ii) the locative-based benefactive is directly built on the verb root, thereby avoiding the -in-ang combination. (65) HUNT (boros) a. Anak=e ento ma-boros kidang. person=def that mid-hunt deer ‘The man hunted (himself) deer.’ b. Anak=e ento moros-in kidang. person=def that af.hunt-loc deer ‘The man hunted deer.’
(Does not allow a definite Object)
(Allows a definite Object)
c. *Anak=e ento moros-in-ang tiang kidang. person=def that af.hunt-loc-ben I deer ‘The man hunted me deer.’ 16 The oddity of this sentence is due to the difficulty of construing the table with a tablecloth on it as a transferred entity. Compare this with (62c), where the glass of water is easily construable as a transferred entity.
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d. Anak=e ento moros-ang tiang person=def that af.hunt-ben I kidang. deer ‘The man hunted me deer.’
(Semantic equivalent of (65c))
Usually the (b) to (d) derivation above is not possible with -in transitive verbs. (66) HEAT (panas-in) a. Ia manas-in yeh=e ento. s/he af.heat-loc water=def that ‘S/he heated the water.’ b. *Ia manas-in-ang tiang yeh=e ento. s/he af.heat-loc-ben I water=def that ‘S/he heated me the water.’ c. *Ia manas-ang tiang yeh=e ento. s/he af.heat-ben I water=def that ‘S/he heated me the water.’ d. Ia manas-in yeh=e ento baang tiang. s/he af.heat-loc water=def that give I ‘S/he heated the water for me.’ We will look at the combinability of the -in locative with the -ang causative in Section 8 below.
5.2 Valency-decreasing ma-middle and -a passive Both ma-middle and -a passive reduce syntactic valency (but see below). While the resultative ma-middle and the passive are similar in syntactic transitivity, they differ in semantic transitivity; the former is syntactically as well as semantically monovalent, while the latter is syntactically monovalent but semantically bivalent, allowing the possibility of encoding the Agent as an Oblique nominal. Compare the following examples: (67) a. Anake ento negul jaran=e dipunyan kayu=ne. person that af.tie horse=def to trunk tree=def ‘The man tied the horse to the tree trunk.’ b. Jaran=ne ma-tegul di punyan kayu=ne (*teken anak=e horse=def mid-tie to trunk tree=def by person=def ento). that ‘The horse was tied to the tree trunk.’
(Active)
(Middle)
Balinese valency classes
c. Jaran=ne tegul-a di punyan kayu=ne (teken anak=e horse=def tie-pass to trunk tree=def by person=def ento). that ‘The horse was tied to the tree trunk (by the man).’
907 (Passive)
Together with a separate periphrastic transitive reflexive construction, Balinese morphological middle ma-forms cover the central middle semantics of body actions (grooming and changing body posture), translational and non-translational motions, reciprocals, resultatives, spontaneous processes, and antipassive middles (Shibatani & Artawa 2007). Many roots yielding grooming verbs are either precategorial (sugi ‘wash (face)’, baseh ‘wash (limbs)’, ambuh ‘wash (hair)’) or noun-based precategorials (suah ‘comb’, sikat ‘(brush) teeth’, pupur ‘powder (face)’, which can be used as nouns without any derivation but which must undergo a derivation in order for them to function as a verb. Similarly, many body-posture middles (malingeb ‘lie face down’, ma-sila ‘sit down cross-legged’, ma-jujuk ‘stand up (straight, not bending)’, ma-tangi ‘stand up’), non-translational and translational motion middles (ma-kecog ‘jump’, ma-lincer ‘spin’, ma-jalan ‘walk’, ma-laib ‘run’), as well as some miscellaneous types (ma-suryak ‘shout’, ma-takon ‘ask’, ma-bangkes ‘sneeze’, ma-kecuh ‘spit’, ma-kenyir ‘smile very briefly’) are all precategorials, and they can be used only with the middle marker. The middle derivation here does not constitute a case of valency reduction or intransitivization since these roots are precategorial without a basic valency value. There are, in addition, transitive grooming verbs that reduce valency via maderivation. (68) a. Wayan nyukur Ketut. Wayan af.shave Ketut ‘Wayan is shaving Ketut (his head hair).’ b. Wayan ma-cukur. Wayan mid-shave ‘Wayan is cutting his hair.’17 ‘Wayan had his hair cut (by somebody).’ Other valency-reducing middle constructions are also transitive-based. (69) Reciprocal middle a. I Nyoman ngaplug I Ketut. art Nyoman af.bump art Ketut ‘Nyoman bumped into Ketut.’
17 This reading is not available for some speakers.
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Masayoshi Shibatani and Ketut Artawa
b. I Nyoman lan I Ketut ma-kaplug. art Nyoman and art Ketut mid-bump ‘Nyoman and Ketut bumped into each other.’ (70) Resultative middle: COVER (rurub) a. Ia ngerurub anak=e cenik ento (aji) saput. s/he af.cover person=def small that (with) blanket ‘S/he covered the child with a blanket.’ b. Anak=e cenik ento ma-rurub (aji) saput. person=def small that mid-cover (with) blanket ‘The child is covered with a blanket.’ (71) Antipassive middle: EAT (daar) a. Tiang naar nasi=ne. I af.eat rice=def ‘I ate the rice.’ b. Tiang ma-daar (nasi). I mid-eat rice (Cannot have the definite nasi=ne ‘the rice/meal’) ‘I ate (a meal).’ A ma-middle form may enter the active (transitive)/antipassive (intransitive) opposition with a derived transitive construction when the root is precategorial, as below. (72) Active/antipassive opposition based on a precategorial a. -in derived transitive Ia ngeneh-in tiang. s/he af-think-loc I ‘S/he loves me.’ b. ma-antipassive middle Ia ma-keneh teken tiang. s/he mid-think with I ‘S/he is in love with me.’ While the valency-decreasing property of these middle constructions is clear, the nature of the syntactic transitivity of some middle expressions is not quite straightforward. That is, certain middle constructions have what looks like an Object. We have already seen instances of this in (65a) and (71b) above, where an indefinite Object may occur in ma-middle constructions. While it is true that a definite Object cannot occur in such a form, the definiteness restriction itself is not clear. Sometimes definite noun phrases such as basa Inggeris “English language” may co-occur with a middle verb, as in the following example (73a):
Balinese valency classes
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(73) a. Anak=e cenik cenik ento m-uruk basa Inggeris. Person=def small small that mid-learn language English ‘The children are learning English.’ b. *Basa Inggeris m-uruk-a teken anak=e cenik cenik ento. language English mid-learn-pass by person=def small small that ‘English is learned by the children.’ As indicated by (73b), the Object of the middle verbs cannot be turned into a passive Subject. This means either that the definite Object in (73a) is not a true Object syntactically or that middles, even if they had a syntactic Object, would not undergo passivization, which is the case in other languages. Notice that a (regular) transitive Object, whether it is basic or derived via the -ang causative or the -in locative, turns into a passive Subject. (74) a. Guru=ne ng-uruk-ang basa Inggeris ka anake cenik cenik teacher=def af-learn-caus language English to person small small ento. that ‘The teacher teaches English to the children.’ b. Basa Inggeris uruk-ang-a ka anake cenik cenik ento (teken language English learn-caus-pass to person small small that by guru=ne). teacher=def ‘English is taught to the children (by the teacher).’ c. *Basa Inggeris suba m-uruk-ang ka anake cenik cenik ento. language English already mid-learn-caus to person small small that ‘English is already taught to the children.’ (75) a. Guru=ne ng-uruk-in anake cenik cenik ento basa Inggeris. teacher=def af-learn-loc person small small that language English ‘The teacher teaches the children English.’ b. Anake cenik cenik ento uruk-in-a basa Inggeris (teken person small small that learn-loc-pass language English by guru=ne). teacher=def ‘The children are taught English (by the teacher).’ c. *Anake cenik cenik ento suba m-uruk-in basa Inggeris. person small small that already mid-learn-loc language English ‘The children are already taught English.’
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One of the major differences between the ma-resultative middle and the -a passive is that the former is far more restricted in its applicability, as indicated by the ungrammatical forms in (74c) and (75c) above. There are two factors relevant to the formation of Balinese middle constructions. One is a morphological consideration. Like some other derivational affixes, the middle prefix ma- does not combine with the locative -in suffix. Some causative forms can be made from either the -ang or -in suffix, as in (a) example below. But only the ma … ang combination, which is realized as ma … an, is permitted.18 (76) a. -ang(/-in) causative Tiang mutih-ang/in tembok-e. I af.white-caus/loc wall-def ‘I whiten the wall.’
(AF)
b. Tembok=e suba ma-putih-an. wall=def already mid-white-caus(?) ‘The wall is already whitened.’ c. *Tembok=e suba ma-putih-in. wall=def already mid-white-loc ‘The wall is already whitened.’ (77) a. -in derived transitive Ia mules-in umah=ne anyar. s/he af.sleep-loc house=3poss new ‘S/he slept in his new house.’ b. ma-resultative middle *Umah=ne anyar suba ma-pules-in. house=def new already mid-sleep-loc ‘His new house has already been slept in.’ (78) a. -ang derived causative Tiang nylampar-ang sandal ka cicing=e ento. I af.throw-caus sandal to dog=def that ‘I threw a sandal at the dog.’ b. ma-resultative middle Sandal=ne ento ma-slampar-an ka cicing=e ento. sandal=def that mid-throw-caus(?) to dog=def that ‘The sandal is thrown at the dog.’ 18 Some younger speakers from Denpasar permit both ma … in and ma … ang/an forms; that is, for them (76c) and (76b) are also acceptable as well as the ma … ang version of (76b). Some, on the other hand, do not even accept (76b), indicating the general resistance for ma- to combine with either -ang and -in.
Balinese valency classes
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The other restriction on the derivation of ma-resultatives is semantic in nature. Specifically, the subject of a ma-resultative middle must be in a perceptibly new state characterized in terms of a change of state or location resulting from the previous event. The best qualified resultative subjects, accordingly, are the following type: (79) a. Active with underived verb with GR=OBJ Anake ento ngodot poh aji tiuk. person that af.cut mango with knife ‘The man cut/sliced the mango with a knife.’ b. Resultative middle Poh=e suba ma-godot aji tiuk. mango=def already mid=cut with knife ‘The mango is already cut/sliced with a knife.’ (80) a. Active with underived verb with FIG=OBJ Anak=e ento ngejang buku di meja-ne. person=def that af.put book on table=def ‘The man placed the book on the table.’ b. Resultative middle Buku=ne suba ma-ejang di meja=ne. book=def already mid-put on table=def ‘The book is already placed on the table.’ Neither of the double Objects of GIVE (baang) and -ang benefactives qualifies as an entity in a new state, nor do they turn up as the subject of ma-resultatives. (81) GIVE (baang) a. Tiang maang anak=e cenik ento buku. I af.give person=def small that book ‘I gave the child a book.’ b. *Anak=e cenik ento suba ma-baang buku. person=def small that already mid-give book ‘The child is already given a book.’ c. *Buku suba ma-baang anak=e cenik ento. book already mid-give child=def small that ‘The book is already given to the child.’ (82) a. Benefactive -ang ditransitive Wayan meli-ang anak=e cenik ento buku. Wayan af.buy-ben person=def small that book ‘Wayan bought the child a book.’
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b. *Anak=e cenik ento suba ma-beli(-ang) buku. person=def small that already mid-buy(-ben) book ‘The child has already been bought a book.’ c. *Buku=ne ento suba ma-beli(-ang) anake=e cenik ento. book=def that already mid-buy-ben person=def small that Lit. ‘The book is already bought the child.’ Again, the -a passive is not as restricted as the ma-resultative, and the ungrammatical forms in (81b, c) and (82b, c) can be made passive grammatically by replacing the middle prefix with the passive suffix – see (83) and (85) below.
6 Object symmetry As seen above, Balinese passivization converts a wide variety of Objects into passive Subjects. Some of the second Objects of double Object constructions, however, cannot be converted in this way.19 Double Objects may be sanctioned by underived ditransitive verbs or by -in/-ang derivations. While some double Objects are symmetrical in the sense that both behave similarly to the monotransitive Object, some are not. The double Objects of the underived verb GIVE (baang) are symmetrical at least with respect to passivization and topic formation, such that both the first and the second Object can be made a passive Subject as well as the Topic of a PF construction. Passivization, therefore, provides two types of coded valency alternation, as shown below. (83) Lexical double Object constructions: GIVE (baang) a. Guru=ne maang anak=e cenik ento buku=ne. teacher=def af.give person=def small that book=def ‘The teacher gave the child the book.’
(AF)
b. Anak=e cenik ento baang=a buku=ne (teken guru=ne). person=def small that give=pass book=def by teacher=def ‘The child was given the book (by the teacher).’ c. Buku=ne ento baang=a anak=e cenik ento (teken guru=ne). book=def that give=pass person-def small that by teacher=def ‘The book was given to the child (by the teacher).’ 19 We avoid the terms Primary and Secondary Objects since determining which of the double Objects is syntactically primary requires a thorough investigation beyond the checking of the syntactic status of the two relevant Objects against a couple of syntactic phenomena. We use the terms “first Object” and “second Object” in reference to their order of occurrence in double Object constructions.
Balinese valency classes
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Double Object constructions similar to GIVE in meaning, such as -in derived SEND (kirim-in) and SHOW (edeng-in), as well as benefactive double Object constructions, have symmetrical Objects. (84) -in derived double Object construction: SHOW (precategorial: edeng) a. Wayan ng-edeng-in Made poto=ne. Wayan af-show-loc Made photo=def ‘Wayan showed Made the photo.’ b. Made edeng-in-a poto=ne (teken Wayan). Made show-loc-pass photo=def (by Wayan) ‘Made was shown the photo (by Wayan).’ c. Poto=ne edeng-in-a Made (teken Wayan). photo=def show-loc-pass Made (by Wayan) Lit. ‘The photo was shown Made (by Wayan).’ (85) Benefactive double Object constructions a. Guru=ne beli-ang Made buku=ne ene. teacher=def buy-ben Made book=def this ‘The teacher bought Made this book.’ b. Made beli-ang-a buku=ne ene (teken guru=ne). Made buy-ben-pass book=def this (by teacher=def) ‘Made was bought this book (by the teacher).’ c. Buku=ne ene beli-ang-a Made (tekan guru=ne). book=def this buy-ben-pass Made (by teacher=def) Lit. ‘This book was bought Made (by the teacher).’ In contrast, the second Objects of many other double Object constructions involving -in derived verbs do not behave like the first Object, showing the nonsymmetric nature of the double Objects involved. (86) POUR (turuh) a. Made nuruh-in lumur=e yeh. Made af.pour-loc glass=def water Lit. ‘Made poured the glass (with) water.’ b. Lumur=e ento turuh-in-a yeh (teken Made). glass=def that pour-loc-pass water (by Made) Lit. ‘The glass was poured water (by Made).’ c. *Yeh=e turuh-in-a lumur=e (teken Made). water=def pour-loc-pass glass=def (by Made). ‘The water was poured (into) the glass (by Made).’
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(87) HIDE (engkeb) a. Anak=e luh ento ng-engkeb-in guru=ne buku=n person=def female that af-hide-loc teacher=def book=3.poss dane=ne. dear/he=def Lit. ‘The girl hid the teacher his book.’ b. Guru=ne engkeb-in-a buku=n dane=ne (teken teacher=def hide-loc-pass book=3.poss dear/he=def by anak=e luh ento). person=def female that ‘The teacher had his book hidden by the girl.’ c. *Buku=n dane=ne engkeb-in-a guru=ne (teken book=3.poss dear/he=def hide-loc-pass teacher=def by anak=e luh ento). person=def female that ‘His book was hidden (from) the teacher by the girl.’ As with many other phenomena, object symmetry is not entirely clear-cut. The -in double Object construction with STEAL (paling) exhibits the following pattern, where the status of the second Object is unclear with regard to passivization: (88) STEAL (paling) a. Anak=e ento nge-maling-in guru=ne pipis spp. person=def that af-steal-loc teacher=def money school Lit. ‘The man stole the teacher the school money.’ b. Guru=ne paling-in-a pipis spp (teken anak=e ento). teacher=def steal-loc-pass money school (by person=def that) ‘The teacher had the school money stolen (by the man).’ c. ?Pipis spp paling-in-a guru=ne (teken anak=e ento. money school steal-loc-pass teacher=def (by person=def that) Lit. ‘The school money was stolen the teacher (by the man).’
7 Intransitive verbs On morphological grounds, basic (underived) Balinese intransitive verbs are divided into two classes: (i) those calling for the PF zero-marking and (ii) those taking the AF nasal-marking. While there are several eventive verbs such as ulung ‘fall’ and teka ‘come’ that are PF zero-marking, PF zero-marking verbs are generally
Balinese valency classes
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stative predicates denoting uncontrollable states of affairs, and the AF nasalmarked verbs are largely activity verbs, suggesting split intransitivity (Arka 2003).20 We shall, accordingly, consider the subject of AF-marked intransitives to be Agent (A), or Agent/Theme (A/TH) when motion is involved, and that of PFmarked intransitives to bear the Theme (TH) role. (89) PF (0̸-prefix) monovalent predicates a. Anak=e cenik ento seduk. person=def small that pf.hungry ‘The boy is hungry.’ b. Tembok=e putih. wall-def pf.white ‘The wall is white.’ c. Raket tiang=e usak. racket I=poss pf.broken ‘My racket is broken.’ (90) AF (N-prefix) monovalent predicates a. Anak-e cenik ento negak di bataran=e. person=def small that af.sit on ground=def ‘The child sits on the ground.’ b. Anak=e cenik ento nongos di desa=ne. person=def small that af.live in village=def ‘The child lives in the village.’ c. Anak=e cenik ento ng-eling. person=def small that af-cry ‘The child cried.’ The intransitive verbs in the sample verb list group in the following way on the basis of the marking they take.
20 These intransitives are all non-precategorial. A similar intransitive split is seen in Philippine languages as well (see Shibatani 1988). Arka (2003) gives a list of verbs showing the relevant meaning contrast between the PF zero form and the AF nasal form; e.g., joh ‘far’: nge-joh ‘make oneself far’, enceh-enceh ‘involuntarily urinate repeatedly’: ng-eceh ‘urinate’. We know that the nasal marking in these intransitive verbs is the same AF marking that occurs in transitive verbs from the fact that the intransitive nasal marking remains the same when intransitive verbs are transitivized via -ang derivation, and also from the fact that it is lost in PF transitive form (see (94)). Similarly, the PF intransitive verb has the same zero marking as in transitive PF verb forms (cf. (63a) and (93c)).
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(91) 0̸-marked COME (teka), LAUGH (kedek), SLEEP (pules), FALL (ulung), BURN (puun), BREAK/BROKEN (belah), DRY(tuh), DIE/DEAD (mati), HUNGRY (seduk), SAD (sebet), FEEL PAIN (sakit), LIKE (demen), FRIGHTENED (takut) (92) N-marked 21 SIT (negak), CLIMB (menek), ROLL (ngelilik), LIVE (nongos), APPEAR (ngenah), FEEL COLD (ngedged), and all other intransitives in the sample list. Many of these basic monovalent verbs undergo either -ang or -in derivation, or both, and become transitive, exhibiting the AF/PF alternation. Observe the alternation in the initial consonant between the transitive AF form (93b) and the transitive PF form (93c), which has the same zero marking as the basic PF intransitive form (93a). (93) Basic PF intransitive with a TH subject a. Tembok-e putih. wall-def pf.white ‘The wall is white.’ b. Tiang mutih-ang tembok-e. I af.white-caus wall-def ‘I whitened the wall.’
(AF)
c. Tembok-e putih-ang tiang. wall-def pf.white-caus I ‘I whitened the wall.’
(PF)
(94) Basic AF intransitve with an A/TH subject a. Tiang negak di dampar=e. I af.sit on bench=def ‘I sit on the bench.’ b. Cai negak-ang tiang di dampar=e. you af.sit-caus I on bench=def ‘You sat me on the bench.’
(AF)
c. Tiang tegak-ang cai di dampar=e. I pf.sit-caus you on bench=def ‘You sat me on the bench.’
(PF)
21 The root forms of these all have an oral/zero initial consonant, which reveals itself when the forms are used in PF of the derived transitive constructions.
Balinese valency classes
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d. Tiang negak-in dampar=e. I af.sit-loc bench=def ‘I sit on the bench.’
(AF)
e. Dampar=e tegak-in tiang. bench=def pf.sit-loc I ‘I sit on the bench.’
(PF)
Besides these basic (underived) intransitive verbs, there are two other types of derived intransitive verbs. They are: (i) ma-derived middles, discussed earlier in Section 6, and (ii) reduplicated intransitive verbs, which may be derived from precategorial roots like JUMP (kejong-kejong < kejong), from the roots of nasal-marked intransitives like ROLL (gelilik-gelilik < ngelilik), or from zero-marked intransitives like COME (teka-teka < teka). These reduplicated forms, which do not show the AF/ PF/MID marking contrast, may co-exist with basic or ma-derived forms, as below. (95) Basic intransitive: ROLL (gelilik) a. Bola=ne ngelilik. ball=def af.roll ‘The ball rolled.’ b. Bola=ne gelilik-gelilik. ball=def roll-roll ‘The ball is rolling.’ (96) Precategorial: JUMP (kejong) a. Anak=e cenik ento ma-kejong. person-def small that mid-jump ‘The child jumped/jumps.’ b. Anak=w cenik ento kejong-kejong. person-def small that jump-jump ‘The child is/was jumping.’ In our discussion of the transitive/ditransitive alternation earlier, we noted that in Balinese the notion of valency increase is difficult to maintain consistently with the derivational processes, partly because of the presence of precategorial verbs, which do not have a basic valency value, and partly because the relevant derivation may simply alter the alignment patterns without affecting the number of required nominal expressions. A similar problem is seen with some semantically bivalent but syntactically intransitive verbs which require two nominal expressions in completing a predication but which code the second nominal as an OBL. Compare example (97) and (98):
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Masayoshi Shibatani and Ketut Artawa
(97) Bivalent transitive verb Tiang nyepak cicing=e. I af.kick dog=def ‘I kicked the dog.’ (98) Bivalent intransitive verb: DISTRUST (sangsaya) a. Tiang sangsaya teken anak=e ento. I pf.distrust with person=def that ‘I distrust that man.’ b. Tiang nyangsaya-in anak=e ento. I af.distrust-loc person=def that ‘I distrust that man.’ As shown in (98b) above, the -in derivation makes DISTRUST (sangsaya) syntactically transitive, but without increasing valency (since the basic form of the verb is semantically bivalent, requiring two arguments). This contrasts with the valency-increasing transitivization by the -in derivation shown below. (99) Monovalent intransitive: STUDY (plajah) a. Tiang mlajah. I af.study ‘I am studying.’ b. Tiang mlajah-in basa Inggeris. I af.study-loc language English ‘I am studying English.’ On the basis of the realization pattern of the Oblique expression marked teken ‘with/about’ seen in (98a), we can distinguish several classes of (syntactically) intransitive verbs.
7.1 Basic monovalent disallowing a teken OBL This class of intransitive verbs does not permit an Oblique nominal marked teken ‘with’ and shows the following valency alternation pattern: Basic: Intransitive (*teken OBL) -in derived: Transitive -ang derived: Transitive (100) CRY (eling) a. Tiang ng-eling (*teken Ketut). I af-cry with Ketut ‘I cried.’
Balinese valency classes
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b. Tiang ng-eling-in Ketut. I af-cry-loc Ketut ‘I cry over/about Ketut (because e.g., he is leaving / he is suffering).’ c. Ketut ng-eling-ang tiang. Ketut af-cry-caus I ‘Ketut made me cry.’ There do not seem to be many verbs that disallow a teken OBL nominal but that can introduce an OBJ via -in/-ang derivation.
7.2 Basic monovalent intransitive verbs with an optional teken OBL These verbs allow an optional teken OBL nominal, dispalying the following alternation pattern: Basic: Intransitive (teken OBL) -in derived: Transitive -ang derived: Tranistive ANGRY (pedih), CRAZY ABOUT (buduh), APPEAR (enah) (101) ANGRY (pedih) a. Nadi pedih (teken Ketut). Nadi pf.angry (with Ketut) ‘Nadi is angry (at Ketut).’ b. Nadi medih-in Ketut. Nadi af.angry-loc Ketut ‘Nadi is angry at Ketut / Nadi scolded Ketut.’ c. Ketut medih-ang Nadi. Ketut af.angry-caus Nadi ‘Ketut made Nadi angry.’
7.3 Basic bivalent intransitive verbs with an obligatory teken OBL These verbs are semantically bivalent, requiring a teken Oblique nominal, but are syntactically intransitive, and they display the following alternation pattern: Basic: Intransitive *(teken OBL) -in derived: Transitive (-ang derived: Transitive)
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In addition to DISTRUST (sangsaya), illustrated above in (98) above, LIKE (demen) and a few others belong to this class. LIKE (demen) is odd in that it does not nasalize the initial consonant under -in conversion and the derived -in form only accepts an indefinite Object, similar to ma-middles. Many of these verbs, e.g., LOVE (tresna) and BELIEVE (percaya), do not allow -ang forms, and even those that do have irregular meanings, as in the cases of REMEMBER (inget) and HATE (gedeg). (102) REMEMBER (inget) a. Tiang inget teken anak=e ento. I pf.remember with person=def that ‘I remember the man.’ b. Tiang ng-inget-in anak=e ento. I af-remember-loc person=def that 1. ‘I recognize the man.’ 2. ‘I reminded the man (to do something).’ 3. ‘I made the man remember.’ c. Tiang ng-inget-ang anak=e ento. I af-remember-caus person=def that 1. ‘I made the man remember.’ 2. ‘I reminded him (to do something/no to do something).’ (103) HATE (gedeg) a. Tiang gedeg teken anak=e luh ento. I pf.hate with person=def female that ‘I hate that girl.’ b. Tiang ngedeg-in anak=e luh ento. I af.hate-loc person=def female that ‘I hate that girl.’ c. Tiang ngedeg-ang anak=e luh ento. I af.hate-caus person=def female that ‘I am angry at that girl.’ While the verbs allowing the classification above in terms of a teken Oblique are mostly psychological/cognitive verbs, other intransitive verbs can also be classified on the basis of the realization pattern of a locational Oblique nominal. The following expemplify the two patterns – one involving a verb that calls for an obligatory locational Oblique (104) and the other with a verb taking an optional locational Oblique (105):
Balinese valency classes
921
(104) CLIMB (penek)22 a. Anake cenik ento menek ka gedebeg=e. person small that af.climb to cart=def ‘The child climbed onto the cart.’ b. Anake cenik ento menek-in gedebeg=e. person small that af.climb-loc cart=def ‘The child climbed onto the cart.’ c. Tiang menek-ang anake cenik ento ka gedebeg=e. I climb-caus person small that to cart=def ‘I made the child climb onto the cart.’ (105) APPEAR (enah) a. Anake cenik ento ng-enah. person small that af-appear ‘The child is visible.’ b. Tiang ng-enah ka anak=e cenik ento. I af-appear to person=def small that ‘I became visible to the child.’ / ‘I emerged in front of the child.’ c. Tiang ng-enah-in anak=e cenik ento. I af-appear-loc person=def small that Lit. ‘I appeared to the child.’ / ‘I became visible to the child.’ d. Tiang nge-nah-ang anak=e cenik ento. I af-appear-caus person=def small that ‘I made the child visible.’
7.4 Precategorial intransitives Many precategorial roots yield intransitive verbs via ma-derivation, exhibiting the following pattern, where ma-forms fill the gap in the basic intransitive repertoire. This is actually the complete paradigm, including the intransitive version, for the transitive/ditranstive alternation pattern of precategorial roots that we saw earlier in § 4.6 and § 4.7. Examples (106)–(109) below show the triad pattern, consisting of a ma-derived middle intransitive, an -in derived transitive, and an -ang derived transitive form. As can also be seen in the following examples, the derivation patterns and the semantics involved are irregular with some of these verbs. *Basic: Intransitive ma-derived: Intransitive 22 This verb also allows a transitive version without the preposition ka.
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Masayoshi Shibatani and Ketut Artawa
-in derived: Transitive -ang derived: Transitive LEARN/TEACH (uruk), DRESS (payas), COMB (suah), THINK ABOUT (keneh), SWEAR (sumpah) (106) GET DRESSED (payas) a. Precategorial: no basic intransitive/transitive form *Anak=e cenik ento mayas. person=def small that af.dress ‘The child dressed.’ b. ma-derived monovalent intransitive Anak=e cenik ento ma-payas. person=def small that mid-dress ‘The child dressed.’ c. -in derived transitive Tiang mayas-in anak=e cenik ento baju. I af.dress-loc person=def small that shirt Lit. ‘I dressed the child (with) a shirt.’ d. -ang derived transitive Tiang mayas-ang baju=ne ka anak=e cenik ento. I af.dress-caus shirt=def to person=def small that ‘I put the shirt on the child.’ (107) ASK ABOUT (takon) a. Precategorial *I Made nakon teken tiang unduk sekolahan. I Made af.ask with I about school ‘I Made asked me about the school.’ b. ma-derived intransitive I Made ma-takon teken tiang unduk sekolahan. I Made mid-ask with I about school ‘I Made asked me about the school.’ c. -in derived transitive I Made nakon-in tiang unduk sekolahan. I Made af.ask-loc I about school ‘I Made asked me about the school.’ d. -ang derived transitive I Made nakon-ang (unduk) sekolahan teken/ka tiang. I Made af.ask-caus (about) school with/to I ‘I Made asked me about the school.’
Balinese valency classes
923
(108) SWEAR (sumpah) a. Precategorial *Ia nyumpah. he af.swear ‘He is swearing.’ b. ma-derived intransitive Ia ma-sumpah unduk Nyoman teken/ka tiang. he mid-swear about Nyoman with/to I ‘He is swearing to me about Nyoman.’ c. -in derived transitive Ia nyumpah-in tiang (*unduk Nyoman). he af.swear-loc I (about Nyoman) ‘He is swearing to me.’ d. -ang derived transitive Ia nyumpah-ang Nyoman teken tiang. he af.swear-caus Nyoman with I 1. ‘He swears about Nyoman to me.’ 2. ‘He makes Nyoman swear to me.’ (109) THINK ABOUT (keneh) a. Precategorial *Ia ngeneh teken tiang. s/he af.think with I ‘S/he is in love with me.’ b. ma-derived bivalent intransitive Ia ma-keneh teken tiang. s/he mid-think with I ‘S/he is in love with me.’ c. -in derived transitive Ia ngeneh-in tiang. s/he af-think-loc I ‘S/he loves me.’ d. -ang derived transitive Ia ngeneh-ang tiang. s/he af.think-caus I ‘S/he loves me.’ Most of these precategorial roots have both ma-middle intransitive and -ang causative transitive forms, but some lack -in locative forms largely for the reason
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Masayoshi Shibatani and Ketut Artawa
discussed in the next section. In other words, a few items are like COUGH (kokohan) in that they are usable only as ma-middle intransitives. (110) COUGH (kokohan) Anak-e cenik ento ma-kokohan. person=def small that mid-cough ‘The child coughed.’
8 Semantic and morphological restrictions on valency-increasing processes As is clear from the previous discussions, two productive valency-increasing operations allowing coded valency alternation in Balinese are the -in locative applicative and the -ang causativization. Both processes, however, are semantically constrained. As for the locative applicative, the Ground expression to be placed in the Object position must be construable as something highly interactive with the action, such as being fully affected or being integral and connected to the denoted action in terms of a function conventionally defined. Observe the following contrast between grammatical and ungrammatical forms: (111) SIT (tegak): di-marked location a. Ia negak di kursi=ne. s/he af.sit in chair=def ‘S/he sat in the chair.’ b. Ia negak-in kursi=ne. s/he af.sit-loc chair=def ‘S/he sat in the chair / S/he occupies the chair – a professional post.’ (112) a. Ia negak di taman=e. s/he af.sit in garden=def ‘S/he sat in the garden.’ b. *Ia negak-in taman=def. s/he af.sit-loc garden=def ‘S/he sat in the garden.’ (113) COME (teka): ka-marked goal location: a. Ia teka ka rumah sakit (ng-adep nasi/bakal ma-preksa gigi). s/he come to house sick af-sell food/to mid-exam tooth ‘S/he came to the hospital (to sell food/to get his/her teeth examined).’
Balinese valency classes
925
b. Ia neka-in rumah sakit (?ng-adep nasi/bakal ma-preksa gigi). s/he af.come-loc house sick af-sell food/to mid-exam tooth ‘S/he visited the hospital (to sell food/to get his/her teeth examined).’ (114) a. Ia teka ka Bali jani. s/he pf.come to Bali today ‘S/he came to Bali today.’ b. *Ia neka-in Bali jani. s/he af-come-loc Bali today ‘S/he came to Bali today.’ (115) STEAL (maling): uli-marked source location a. Tiang nge-maling pipis uli guru=ne. I af-steal money from teacher=def ‘I stole money from the teacher.’ b. Tiang nge-maling-in guru=ne pipis. I af-steal-loc teacher=def money Lit. ‘I stole the teacher money.’ (116) GET (baan): uli-marked source location a. Anak luh ento maan buku ento uli guru=ne. person female that af.get book that (from teacher=def) ‘The girl got a book from the teacher.’ b. *Anak luh ento maan-in guru=ne buku. person female that af.get teacher=def book ‘The girl got a book from the teacher.’ Since ma-middles do not generally allow a definite object, they do not undergo the -in locative derivation, which creates a transitive structure. For example, while the lexical/underived middle tegak ‘sit’ can undergo -in derivation, the ma-derived middle verb ma-sila ‘sit cross-legged’ cannot. (117) SIT (tegak) a. Ia negak di kasur=e. s/he af.sit on bed=def ‘S/he sat on the bed.’ b. Ia negak-in kasur=e. s/he af.sit-loc bed=def ‘S/he sat on the bed.’
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Masayoshi Shibatani and Ketut Artawa
(118) SIT CROSS-LEGGED (ma-silla) a. Ia ma-sila di kasur=e. s/he mid-sit.cross-legged on bed=def ‘S/he sat cross-legged on the bed.’ b. *Ia ma-sila-in kasur=e. s/he mid-sit.cross-legged bed=def ‘S/he sat cross-legged on the bed.’ The -ang causativization is also restricted both semantically and morphologically. The morphological causative with -ang typically requires a causee bearing a Theme role construed as a Figure in the Figure-Ground framing of an event. This applies to both intransitive-based and transitive-based constructions, as below. (119) WHITE (putih) a. Tembok=e putih. wall=def white ‘The wall is white.’ b. Tiang mutih-ang tembok=e. I white-caus wall=def ‘I whitened the wall.’ (120) STAB (tusuk) a. Tiang nusuk anak=e ento aji temutik. I af.stab person=def that with knife ‘I stabbed the man with a knife.’ b. Taing nusuk-ang temutik ka baong anak=e ento. I af.stab-caus knife to neck person=def that Lit. ‘I caused the knife to stab to the neck of that person.’ Where the causee of an -ang causative is understood to be agentive, the causation involved is of the sociative type, where the causer is directly involved in and is totally in control of the activity denoted (Shibatani & Pardeshi 2002). In (121b) below, the interpretation is either that the causer also ran along with the girl holding her hand and assisting her or that the causer carried the girl. (122b) expresses a situation where the causer brought the causee’s face closer to the younger sibling so that s/he may be able to kiss him/her (Arka 2003: 187). “Normal” indirect causation with an agentive causee calls for a periphrastic construction with the causative verb derived from the verb ngae ‘make’, as in (122c). (121) RUN (palaib) a. Anak=e luh ento malaib. person=def female that af.run ‘The girl ran.’
Balinese valency classes
927
b. Tiang malaib-ang anak=e luh ento. I af.run-caus person=def female that ‘I made the girl run / I carried the girl and ran / I ran carrying the girl.’ (122) KISS (diman) a. Ia niman adi=ne. s/he af.kiss younger.sibling=3.poss ‘S/he kissed his/her younger sibling.’ b. Tiang niman-ang ia sig adi=ne. I af.kiss-caus s/he to younger.sibling=3.poss ‘I made him/her kiss his/her younger sibling. ’ (Arka 2003: 187) c. Tiang ngae ia niman adi=ne. I af.caus s/he af.kiss younger.sibling=def ‘I made him/her kiss his/her younger sibling.’ The -ang derivation is restricted morphologically as well, such that it cannot apply to an -in derived transitive structure even if the valency structure itself satisfies the condition for it. (123) PUT (ejang) a. Basic causative pattern: FIG=OBJ (> GR=OBL) Anak=e ento ng-ejang buku=ne (di meja=ne). person=def that af-put book=def on table=def ‘The man put (down) the book (on the table).’ b. -in derived locative pattern: GR=OBJ > FIG=OBJ/OBL Anak=e ento ng-ejang-in meja=ne (aji) buku. person=def that af.put-loc table=def (with) book Lit. ‘The man put the table with the book.’ c. -ang derived pattern: FIG=OBJ > GR=OBL *Anak=e ento ng-ejang-in-ang buku ka/di meja=ne. person=def that af-put-loc-caus book to/on table=def ‘The man put the book on the table.’ / Lit. ‘The man caused the book to put to/on the table.’ The -ang derived form in (123c) may strike one as superfluous (and accordingly ungrammatical) since that entails a similar alignment pattern with the basic form of the verb PUT (ejang), as in (123a). But the -ang derivation typically creates a valency pattern in which an OBL Ground is obligatory. -ang derivation here is thus functional, as the comparison between (123a) and (123c) indicates (cf. earlier exam-
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Masayoshi Shibatani and Ketut Artawa
ples (8) and (11)). The ungrammaticality of (123c) is again due to the ban against tampering with the valency pattern fixed by a previous derivational process. The -ang causative derivation cannot apply to -ang derived causatives either. (124) BREAK (belah-ang) (GR=OBJ (> FIG=OBL)) a. Tiang melah-ang jendela aji tungked=e. I af.break-caus window with stick=def ‘I broke the window with a stick.’ (FIG=OBJ > GR=OBL) b. *Tiang melah-ang-ang tungked=e ka jendela.23 I af.break-caus-caus stick=def to window ‘I broke the window with a stick.’ / Lit. ‘I caused the stick to break the window.’ Compare the above with the following pattern, where the FIG=OBJ (> FIG=OBL) argument pattern by an underived basic verb is shown to undergo -ang causativization. (125) TOUCH (tundik) a. Anak=e ento nundik lelipi=ne (aji tungked=e). person=def that af.touch snake=def with stick=def ‘The man touched the snake with the stick.’ b. Anak=e ento nundik-ang tungked=e ka lelipi=ne. person=def that af.touch-caus stick=def to snake=def ‘The man touched the snake with the stick.’ / Lit. ‘The man caused the stick to touch the snake.’
9 Summary and theoretical implications A major Balinese valency phenomenon revolves around argument coding in Object position. Non-agentive, secondary event participants are divided into two groups according to the Figure/Ground distinction. Instrument, Theme, Causee-Theme, and Beneficiary-Theme are grouped as Figure, while locations of various types including a human recipient as well as the contact point of a surface-contact action are grouped as Ground. It is the alternation between the Figure=Object and the
23 The ungrammaticality of this sentence may be due to the possibility that the derived verb melahang ‘break’ does not count as a surface contact verb.
Balinese valency classes
929
Ground=Object alignment that largely determines the valency patterns underlying the classification of transitive and ditransitive verbs. Except for the verbs GIVE (baang) and FILL (isinin), the alternation patterns in Balinese are morphologically coded in the verb, such that the locative -in suffix aligns a Ground expression with the Object, and the causative -ang suffix aligns a Figure expression with the Object, effecting the two alternative alignment patterns corresponding to John loaded the truck with hay (GR=OBJ pattern) and John loaded the hay onto the truck (FIG=OBJ pattern). When the basic (underived) verb is Ground-oriented and countenances the GR=OBJ pattern as a non-coded alternant, the -ang derivation typically supplies the FIG=OBJ pattern as a coded alternant. Surface-contact verbs CUT (godot), TOUCH (tundik), HIT/BEAT(lempag), and COVER (rurub) are all Ground-oriented. On the other hand, caused-motion verbs such as PUT (ejang), SEND (kirim), TAKE (jemak), STEAL (paling), etc. are Figure-oriented, and the basic verb form shows the FIG=OBJ pattern, which alternates with the GR=OBJ pattern through -in derivation. Fixing verbs, e.g., TIE (tegul), NAIL (pacek), SMEAR (uap), have neutral orientation and allow both GR=OBJ and FIG=OBJ patterns without derivation. But unlike GIVE (baang) and FILL (isinin), these verbs also allow coded valency patterns through -in and -ang derivations. The two versions of the GR=OBJ construction, one uncoded (e.g., “TIE (negul) the horse (with a rope)”) and the other, the -in coded pattern (e.g., “TIE (negul-in) the tree trunk with a horse”), are different in valency value in that, while in the former, the instrumental Figure expression is optional, both the Ground expression (tree trunk) and the Figure expression (horse) are obligatory in the latter. The same observation holds for the two versions of the FIG=OBJ construction. In the uncoded version (e.g., “TIE (negul) the horse (to the tree trunk)”), the Ground expression is optional, whereas in the -ang derived form (e.g., “TIE (negul-ang) the rope to the horse”), both the Figure expression (rope) and the Ground expression (horse) are obligatory. Similar valency-increasing properties of -in and -ang derivations are observed between underived intransitive constructions and the transitive counterparts resulting from these derivations. These observations about the -in locative applicative and the -ang causative are consistent with the general understanding about them as valency-increasing processes. Balinese, however, presents two cases where these processes cannot be characterized as valency-increasing. One is where a Ground expression is obligatory as in “SEND (ngirim) the books to the school”. The -in derived form aligns the Ground expression with the Object and yields a form like “SEND (ngirim-in) the school the book” without increasing valency. This represents the case of argument realignment without valency increase. More unusual is the existence of so-called precategorial roots that do not have a basic valency value and that need to be derived in order to function as a verb. These may undergo ma-middle, -in locative, or -ang causative derivation (as well as reduplication for some). The ma-middle derivation typically reduces valency. However, with precategorials, one cannot really speak of valency reduction for this
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Masayoshi Shibatani and Ketut Artawa
or valency increase for -in and -ang derivations because precategorials by definition do not have a basic valency value. Yet, even with precategorials, ma-derivation derives various types of intransitive middle expressions, and -in/-ang derivations align a Ground expression with the Object and the Figure expression with the Object, respectively; e.g., ma-uruk ‘to learn’, nguruk-in ‘teach’ children (English), nguruk-ang ‘teach’ English (to children). What Balinese shows with these two cases where the -in locative applicative and the -ang causative do not increase valency is that the essential function of these processes is that of aligning a Ground or a Figure expression with the Object rather than what our customary characterization of them as valency-increasing processes suggests.24 The valency-increasing property associated with these processes is simply a consequence or a side effect of their fundamental function; when there is a Ground or Figure argument in the specified valency frame of the verb root, -in/-ang derivations align them with the Object, and if neither of them is countenanced by the verb root, they introduce them in Object position, regardless of whether it results in actual valency increase or not. On the basis of the following kind of pattern, causatives are usually understood as introducing a new agent/Subject. (126) a. Lelipi=ne mati. nake=def dead ‘The snake is dead.’ b. Anak=e ento nge-mati-ang lelipi=ne. person=def that af-dead-caus snake=def ‘The man killed the snake.’ (127) a. Anak=e cenik ento menek ka gedebeg=e. person=def small that af.climb to cart=def ‘The child climbed onto the cart.’ b. Ia menek-ang anak=e cenik ento ka gedebeg=e. s/he af-caus person=def small that to cart=def ‘He made the child climb onto the cart.’ But we have argued above that the -ang causative derivation places a causee Figure in Object position as if it were a causee that was being introduced. Indeed, the pattern below suggests this.
24 Our characterization of the functions of applicativization and causativization must be generalized in order to accommodate those languages that may not have the grammatical relation Object, as in ergative-alignment languages.
Balinese valency classes
931
(128) a. Ia menek-in gedebeg=e somi. s/he af.load-loc cart=def hay ‘S/he loaded the cart with hay.’ b. Ia menek-ang somi=ne ka gedebeg=e. s/he af.load-caus hay=def to cart=def ‘S/he loaded the hay onto the cart.’ Moreover, (128b) has no corresponding non-causative intransitive like (127a); the following is not possible. (129)* Somi=ne menek ka gedebeg=e. hay=def af.climb to cart=def. Lit. ‘The hay climbed onto the cart.’ Actually the Subject of (127a), which bears the A/TH (Agent/Theme) double roles, and does not semantically correspond to the causee Object in (127b), which bears only the Theme role. It is only when there is a strict thematic correspondence between the Subject of an intransitive sentence and the causee Object of a causative expression, as in (126a) and (126b), that we can speak of introducing a causer in the formation of direct causatives of the type that Balinese -ang causatives represent. We have also suggested that the causative-instrumental applicative and the causative-benefactive polysemy, also observed in a fair number of other languages, should be analyzed as resulting historically from the direct causative construal of causative structures, where a parellism was drawn between the HAVE-CAUS and BUY-CAUS lexicalization patterns: (i-a) I give (HAVE-CAUS) him a book / (i-b) I buy (BUY-CAUS) him a book vs. (ii-a) I have-CAUS him a book / (ii-b) I buy-CAUS him a book. While the Balinese verb baang ‘give’ opts for the (i-a) lexicalization pattern, its benefactive applicatives are based on the reanalysis of the (ii-b) pattern effected by direct causative construal of the relevant structure; e.g., a direct causative situation of making someone buy a book can be brought about by buying a book and giving it to the person in question. There is an interesting debate going on regarding whether the kind of alternation shown by Balinese -in and -ang forms involves derivation at all. The problem is acute in a case like English, where the relevant alternation is not accompanied by morphological derivation (see Iwata (2008) on the controversy over the derivational vs. non-derivatonal accounts). Balinese presents a clear case where the direction of derivation is indicated morphologically. Apart from the precategorial roots, which show a bipolar derivation pattern, Figure-oriented verbs (caused-motion verbs) are morphologically unmarked for the FIG=OBJ alignment pattern, and they realize the alternate GR=OBJ pattern through -in derivation. Surface-contact Ground-oriented verbs, on the other hand, are unmarked in realizing the GR=OBJ
932
Masayoshi Shibatani and Ketut Artawa
pattern, while they must undergo -ang derivation in realizing the alternate FIG= OBJ pattern. In ascertaining the role of derivation in the alignment alternations of this type, it is necessary that we look into both cognitive and functional underpinnings of morphological derivation. Crosslinguistic investigations of the markedness patterns and examination of the usage patterns of alternating forms provide a useful avenue of inquiry into this problem.25 Balinese presents some clear evidence that morphological derivation matters. For example, in contrast to basic verb forms, those derived via ma-, -in, and -ang derivations generally do not undergo further derivations. It is noteworthy that derived forms that have the same alignment pattern as underived forms do not undergo (further) derivation, while the latter may undergo the relevant derivation, indicating that the grammatical status of derived forms is different from that of underived basic forms. The three central derivations effected by the ma-middle prefix, the -in locative applicative, and the -ang causative are best considered as lexical derivational processes, which create new verbs. These are highly productive processes, but they on occasion create verbs whose meanings are irregular and are unpredictable from the forms themselves. ma-middle formation and a-passivization both typically reduce valency, and both involve morphology in Balinese. Yet, they differ in that the former is more severely constrained by semantic and morphological restrictions than the latter. Though ma-forms as a whole constitute a middle-voice domain, they vary considerably in the specific meanings they express (see the summary table below). This differs significantly from passivization, which does not create new verbs with different referential meanings. While Balinese ma-middle formation and -a passivization can be both considered voice phenomena, they differ in a way similar to the way lexical aspect and grammatical aspect do. The summary table in the appendix includes information on the basic valency patterns for representative verbs and their derivational possibilities for alternate valency patterns. The table does not indicate the Actor-focus/Patient-focus and the active/passive alternation patterns since they are generally predictable; those forms with a definite Object typically show alternations over these oppositions.
25 See Shibatani (forthcoming).
Meaning label
RAIN
BLINK
COUGH
RUN
JUMP
SING
LAUGH
SCREAM
FEEL COLD
DIE
PLAY
BE SAD
BE HUNGRY
ROLL
#
69
46
47
49
52
53
57
58
60
61
62
63
64
65
ngelilik
seduk
sebet
macanada
mati
dingin
makraik
kedek
magending
makejog
malaib
makokohan
ngedipang mata
ujan
Verb form
1V
1V
1V
1V
1V
1V
1V
1V
1V
1V
1V
1V
1V
V
Coding frame schema
Appendix: Summary table
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Causative with instrument causee
+
–
–
–
+
+
–
–
–
m
–
–
–
–
Causative with Theme causee
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
+
–
–
–
Locative alternation (argument adding)
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Locative alternation (argument rearanging)
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Locative alternation (oblique to object)
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Passive -a alternation
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Passive ka- Resultative alternation ma- alternation
Balinese valency classes
933
Meaning label
SINK
BURN
BE DRY
BE A HUNTER
EAT
HUG
LOOK AT
SEE
SMELL
FEAR
FRIGHTEN
LIKE
KNOW
THINK
SEARCH FOR
WASH
DRESS
SHAVE
#
66
67
68
70
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
nguris
majunin
ngayehang
ngalihin
ngenehang
nawang
nemenin
nakutin
nakutin
ngadekin
nepukin
nlektekang
ngelut
ngajeng
tukangboros
tuh
puun
nyilem
Verb form
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V
1V
1V
1V
Coding frame schema
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Causative with instrument causee
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
+
+
+
Causative with Theme causee
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Locative alternation (argument adding)
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Locative alternation (argument rearanging)
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Locative alternation (oblique to object)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
–
–
–
Passive -a alternation
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
–
–
–
+
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
–
–
–
–
Passive ka- Resultative alternation ma- alternation
934 Masayoshi Shibatani and Ketut Artawa
HELP
FOLLOW
SHOUT AT
PEEL
CLIMB
LEAVE
FEEL PAIN
ASK FOR
TELL
NAME
BUILD
BREAK
KILL
BEAT
HIT
TOUCH
CUT
COVER
FILL
15
16
20
33
48
55
59
19
21
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
43
44
ngisinin
ngerurub
ngodot
nundik
nglempag
nglempagin
ngematiang
melahang
mangunang
ngelunin
ngorahin
nagihin
nyakitang
ngalahin
menekin
melutin
ngerakin
ngikutin
nulungin
1 V 2 aji+3
1 V 2 aji+3
1 V 2 aji+3
1 V 2 aji+3
1 V 2 aji+3
1 V 2 aji+3
1 V 2 aji+3
1 V 2 aji+3
1 V 2 aji+3
1V23
1V23
1V23
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
+
+
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
Balinese valency classes
935
Meaning label
TIE
PUT
SHOW
GIVE
SEND
CARRY
THROW
POUR
LOAD
TAKE
TEAR
HIDE
TALK
SIT
SIT DOWN
LIVE
#
40
41
35
36
37
38
39
42
45
31
32
34
18
50
51
56
1 V 2 uli+3
1 V 2 uli+3
1 V 2 ke+3
1 V 2 ke+3
1 V 2 ke+3
1 V 2 ke+3
1 V 2 ke+3
1 V 2 ke+3
1 V 2 ke+3
1 V 2 di+3
1 V 2 aji+3 ke+4
Coding frame schema
nongos
negak
negak
ngomongin
1 V di+2
1 V di+2
1 V di+2
1V2 unduk+3
ngengkebang 1 V 2 uli+3
nguek
nyemak
menekang
nuruhang
ngentungang
ngaba
ngirimang
maang
ngedengang
ngejang
negul
Verb form
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
Causative with instrument causee
+
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Causative with Theme causee
–
–
–
Locative alternation (argument adding)
–
–
+
+
+
–
Locative alternation (argument rearanging)
+
+
+
–
+
–
+
–
+
+
+
+
Locative alternation (oblique to object)
–
–
–
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
Passive -a alternation
–
–
–
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
–
–
–
+
+
+
–
+
+
+
+
–
+
+
+
Passive ka- Resultative alternation ma- alternation
936 Masayoshi Shibatani and Ketut Artawa
MEET
SAY
17
22
ngorahang
matemu
luas
1 V UTT2 teken+3
1 V teken+2
1 V ke+2
–
–
–
–
–
–
Legend: + occurs regularly; m occurs marginally; − occurs never; _ no data
GO
54
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
Balinese valency classes
937
938
Masayoshi Shibatani and Ketut Artawa
Abbreviations AF ANG FIG GR IN MID PF
actor focus -ang marked derivation figure ground -in marked derivation middle patient focus
References Adelaar, Alexander. 2005. Malayo-Sumbawan. Oceanic Linguistics 22. 357–388. Artawa, Ketut. 1994. Ergativity and Balinese syntax. Doctoral thesis, La Trobe University. Arka, I Wayan. 2003. Balinese Morphosyntax: A Lexical-Functional Approach (Pacific Linguistics 547). Canberra: Australian National University. Blust, Robert. 2002. Notes on the history of “focus” in Austronesian languages. In Fay Wouk & Malcolm D. Ross (eds.), The History and Typology of Western Austronesian Voice Systems, 63–78. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University. Croft, William. 1991. Syntactic Categories and Grammatical Relations: The Cognitive Organization of Information. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. DeLancey, Scott. 2001. Lectures on Functional Syntax. 2001 LSA Summer Institute, UC Santa Barbara. Iwata, Seizi. 2008. Locative Alternation: A Lexical-Constructional Approach. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Ross, Malcom. 2009. Proto Austronesian verbal morphology: a reappraisal. In Alexander Adelaar & Andrew Pawley (eds.), Austronesian Historical Linguistics and Culture History: a Festschrift for Robert Blust, 295–326. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University. Shibatani, Masayoshi. 1988. Voice in Philippine languages. In M. Shibatani (ed.), Passive and Voice, 85–142. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Shibatani, Masayoshi. 1996. Applicatives and benefactives: A cognitive account. In M. Shibatani & S. A. Thompson (eds.), Grammatical Constructions: Their Form and Meaning, 157–194. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Shibatani, Masayoshi. forthcoming. The role of morphology in valency alternation phenomena. In T. Kageyama & W. M. Jacobsen (eds.), Transitivity and Valency Alternations: Studies on Japanese and Beyond. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Shibatani, Masayoshi & Prashant Pardeshi. 2002. The causative continuum. In M. Shibatani (ed.), The Grammar of Causation and Interpersonal Manipulation, 85–126. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Shibatani, Masayoshi & Ketut Artawa. 2007. The middle voice in Balinese. In S. Iwasaki, A. Simpson, K. Adams & P. Sidwell (eds.), SEALS XIII: Papers from the 13th Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society, 241–263. Pacific Linguistics, Canberra: Australian National University. Sneddon, James. 1996. Indonesian: A Comprehensive Grammar. London: Routledge. Starosta, Stanley, Andrew K. Pawley & Lawrence A. Reid. 1982. The evolution of focus in Austronesian. In Amran Halim, Lois Carrington & S. A. Wurm (eds.), Papers from the Third
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International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics, Vol. 2: Tracking the Travellers, 145–170. Canberra: Australian National University. Talmy, Leonard. 2000. Toward a Cognitive Semantics. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Thomas Conners, John Bowden and David Gil
23 Valency classes in Jakarta Indonesian 1 Introduction Jakarta Indonesian is an Austronesian language belonging to the Malayic subgroup. It is the general colloquial language used in Jakarta, the capital and largest city of Indonesia, by well over 10 million people, in most everyday contexts, for inter-ethnic and increasingly also intra-ethnic communication. Jakarta Indonesian has been described in a reference grammar by Sneddon (2006), in articles by Wouk (1989, 1999) and Sneddon (2003), and more recently in publications associated with the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Jakarta Field Station, including Cole & Hermon (2005), Cole et al. (2005, 2006), Tjung (2006), Gil (2006b, 2010) and Hidayat (2010, 2011). Within the city itself, Jakarta Indonesian is distinct from albeit very similar to Betawi Malay, the now endangered native dialect of the city’s indigenous ethnic community, described by Kähler (1966), Abdul Chaer (1976), Ikranagara (1980), Muhadjir (1981), Grijns (1991) and others. Jakarta Indonesian is much more different from Standard Indonesian, used in more formal contexts, and familiar to many general linguists from an extensive literature. However, as is often the case in situations of diglossia, there exists a continuum of language varieties between Jakarta Indonesian and Betawi Malay, and between Jakarta Indonesian and Standard Indonesian. Further afield, Jakarta Indonesian is one of a number of varieties of Malay and Indonesian used as regional contact varieties throughout the archipelago, among which are Riau Indonesian, as described in Gil (2001a, b, 2002, 2004, 2005b, 2006a, 2013, to appear), Manado Malay, as in Stoel (2005), and Ambonese Malay, as in van Minde (1997). However, Jakarta Indonesian is itself gaining in currency throughout Indonesia as an informal lingua franca, especially amongst younger and more upwardly mobile populations, where it is used as a mesolectal variety alongside and in competition with the more basilectal regional varieties of Malay/Indonesian such as those mentioned above. (For this reason perhaps, Jakarta Indonesian is sometimes referred to simply as “colloquial Indonesian”.) In general, Jakarta Indonesian shares a common typological profile with most other regional contact varieties of Indonesian, though differences in grammar, phonology and lexicon often lead to reduced mutual intelligibility.1
1 In contrast, Jakarta Indonesian and other varieties of Malay/Indonesian spoken in insular Southeast Asia are typologically very distinct from the genealogically closely related Sri Lanka Malay discussed in Nordhoff (this volume).
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2 Basics of Jakarta Indonesian morphosyntax Jakarta Indonesian morphosyntax may be insightfully described not from the vantage point of Standard Average European, as is tacitly presupposed by many current theoretical approaches, nor from the frame of reference of Standard Indonesian, as is explicitly assumed by Sneddon (2006) and others, but rather from the perspective of Isolating-Monocategorial-Associational (IMA) Language, an idealized language type introduced in Gil (2005a), and defined as follows: Isolating-Monocategorial-Associational Language a) Morphologically Isolating No word-internal morphological structure; b) Syntactically Monocategorial No distinct syntactic categories; c) Semantically Associational No distinct construction-specific rules of semantic interpretation (instead, compositional semantics is exclusively associational). The three defining properties of IMA Language pertain to three different linguistic domains, morphology, syntax and semantics, representing the limiting points of maximal simplicity within each of these domains. The first property, morphologically isolating, asserts that in IMA language there is no word-internal structure: every word contains exactly one morpheme, and every morpheme constitutes a word. The second defining property, syntactically monocategorial, says that in IMA language, all words belong to the same syntactic category: there is no distinction between categories such as noun, verb, adjective and preposition, or between lexical categories and their phrasal projections. The third defining property, semantically associational, pertains to the compositional semantics, the ways in which the meanings of complex expressions are derived from the meanings of their constituent members; what it says is that when a set of expressions E1 ... En, with meanings M1 ... Mn respectively, are brought together, the meaning of the whole is anything that is associated in some way with the meanings of the individual expressions – using A to denote the Association Operator, the resulting meaning may thus be represented as A (M1 ... Mn). While no naturally occurring language meets the definition of IMA Language in full, some languages come closer to the idealized IMA Language type than others. As argued in Gil (2005a), the closely related Riau dialect of Indonesian is one language that comes close to the ideal type, thereby justifying its appellation as a Relative IMA Language. In fact, many of the arguments cited for Riau Indonesian carry over also to the Jakarta dialect of Indonesian, which may thus also be characterized as a Relative IMA Language, if perhaps less so than Riau. Our description of Jakarta Indonesian thus proceeds in two stages: first showing how in
Valency classes in Jakarta Indonesian
943
broad outline it exhibits the patterns of IMA Language, then focusing in on those respects in which it goes beyond the ideal IMA Language type. Jakarta Indonesian is a highly isolating language; along with other colloquial varieties of Malay/Indonesian, it is perhaps among the world’s most extreme exemplars of the isolating type. Case marking and agreement morphology are completely absent, while tense-aspect-mood morphology is limited to subtle aspectual effects associated with the prenasalization marker N- discussed in Section 5 below. In contrast to the more well-known isolating languages of Mainland Southeast Asia, compounding is also relatively infrequent. Thus, a typical naturalistically occurring utterance might consist entirely of monomorphemic words. There are, however, a small number of other affixes, some of which occur quite frequently; a few of these are discussed in Section 5 below. Two other relatively common morphological processes are reduplication and truncation.2 Jakarta Indonesian is for the most part monocategorial: with just a very few exceptions, all words and larger expressions exhibit similar syntactic behavior and may accordingly be said to belong to a single open syntactic category. All members of this category exhibit similar distributional properties; accordingly, any combination of such words and larger expressions is grammatical (albeit not necessarily semantically felicitous). Morphologically, words differ with respect to the derivational affixes that they may take: whether a word can take a particular affix is partly arbitrary and partly based on semantic criteria. However, no two affixes select the same (or even roughly the same) class of host words; there are thus no morphological word classes either. Exceptions to the monocategoriality of Jakarta Indonesian are provided by a few dozen “functional” items whose grammatical properties are more highly constrained, and are accordingly assigned to a distinct closed syntactic category. However, the role of such items in the overall grammatical organization of the language is relatively minor, compared to most other languages. Jakarta Indonesian is characterized by a compositional semantics that is based largely on associationality, the principle whereby, when two or more expressions are juxtaposed, the meaning of the whole is anything that has to do with the meanings of the juxtaposed expressions. Associationality is universally present in the compositional semantics of all languages; where languages differ is in the extent to which associationality is supplemented by additional semantic rules making reference to specific morphosyntactic configurations involving properties such as word order, case marking, agreement, and various other functional items. In Jakarta Indonesian, the role of such additional semantic rules is substantially more limited than in many other languages, thereby supporting its characterization as a highly associational language.
2 In the interlinear glosses that follow below, reduplication and truncation are glossed as distr and fam respectively, reflecting their prototypical functions.
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Thomas Conners, John Bowden and David Gil
To get a feel for how the IMA structure of Jakarta Indonesian works in practice, consider the following three typical naturalistic utterances:3 (1) Hape gembira. mobile.phone happy ‘If you have a mobile phone you’re happy.’ [speaker talking enviously about his friends who had recently acquired mobile phones] A ( mobile phone, happy ) (DGD) (2) Tembak ma bencong. shoot prt transgendered.person ‘Shooting is for sissies.’ [speaker talking dismissively about his friends who had their ears pierced by a “shooting” method] A ( shoot, sissy ) (DGD) (3) O, dia ujan ni, Timo. Oh 3 rain dem.prox Timo ‘Oh, he’s getting rained on, Timo.’ [adult and child playing with colouring books; adult talking about Mickey Mouse, who, in one of the pictures, is walking in the rain] A ( he, rain ) (JFS 613025161552120601) Each of the above three utterances consists of a core of two words, underlined, plus, in the latter two examples, one or more additional items which have no bearing on the grammatical structure of the utterances and hence may be ignored. The isolating nature of Jakarta Indonesian is evidenced in the fact that the underlined words (as well as, for that matter, all of the other forms occurring in these examples) are monomorphemic. The monocategorial character of Jakarta Indonesian is
3 Most of the data cited in this paper are presented in 5 lines: (i) a transcription in the semiconventionalized orthography of Jakarta Indonesian; (ii) an interlinear gloss; (iii) the context in which the utterance occurred, enclosed in square brackets; (iv) a translation into English; and (v) the source of the data, also enclosed in square brackets. Most of the data is taken from the Jakarta Field Station corpora, and is accordingly marked with “JFS” followed by the unique ID number of the utterance in the corpus database. A smaller number of examples are from the third author’s ongoing diary study and are marked with “DGD”. One example comes from the internet and is marked accordingly. In examples (1)–(3) below, an additional line inserted between the context and the English translation presents the logical formulas representing the meaning of the utterances in question.
Valency classes in Jakarta Indonesian
945
reflected in the fact that the underlined words belong to variegated semantic classes, such as thing, property and activity, which, in other languages (see, for example, their English glosses), would likely belong to different syntactic categories, such as noun, adjective and verb. As suggested, however, by the above examples, in a simple two-word sentence, each of the two positions can be occupied by a word belonging to any semantic class whatsoever. The associational semantics of Jakarta Indonesian is represented with logical formulas involving the association operator A, which may be read ‘Mobile phones are associated with happiness’, ‘Shooting is associated with sissies’, and ‘He is associated with rain’. Beneath these formulas, the more natural-sounding translations reflect the actual contexts of these utterances. Semantically, these English translations are much more specific than the formulas, introducing additional semantic relations such as conditionality in (1), habituality in (2), and affectedness in (3). However, these additional semantic relations are present only in the English translations, not in the Jakarta Indonesian source sentences, whose semantic representations are completely parallel, involving nothing more than the relationship of association, as represented in the logical formulas. As suggested by the above examples, the IMA structure of Jakarta Indonesian provides no grammatical mechanisms for the assignment of thematic roles. Still, words in Jakarta Indonesian have semantic frames similar to those of corresponding words in other languages, and very often, these semantic frames are satisfied by other expressions occurring in the same construction. Naturalistic examples (4)–(6) present three occurrences of two-word utterances in which the second word is bawa ‘carry’, whose semantic frame contains at least an agent and a patient.4 (4) Untung bawa. fortune carry ‘Fortunately you brought it.’ [Playing a game involving a tea set] A ( fortune, carry ) (JFS 223278083757270503) (5) Tante bawa. aunt carry ‘Yes I brought one.’ [Interlocutor asks speaker if she brought a gift] A ( aunt, carry ) (JFS 659236135415100502)5 4 In examples (4)–(6) and subsequently throughout this chapter, the word whose valency properties are at issue is underlined, while other words whose semantic relationships to the underlined word are under discussion in the text are indicated in boldface. 5 The reader may note that several of the JFS examples come from a child-language corpus and involve interactions between adults and young infants; however, all of the cited examples are from
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Thomas Conners, John Bowden and David Gil
(6) Kompor bawa. stove carry ‘I brought a stove.’ [Discussing plans for cooking] A ( stove, carry ) (JFS 373687155731130607) Whereas in (4), untung ‘fortune’ is not understood as bearing either of these roles, in (5), tante ‘aunt’ is understood as the agent of bawa, while in (6), kompor ‘stove’ is understood as its patient. Thus, in (5) and (6), the semantic frame of bawa is satisfied by the word preceding it, albeit via different thematic roles. However, there is nothing in the structure of (5) and (6) to suggest the presence of differential grammatical processes of thematic role assignment involving agent and patient respectively. Rather, (5) and (6) share with each other, as well as with (4), an identical grammatical structure, as well as identical compositional semantics, involving a relationship of association between bawa and the word preceding it. As in (1)– (3) previously, the meaning of these sentences is most appropriately represented in terms of the association operator, as suggested by the logical formulas provided. Thus, example (5) says ‘I am associated with a carrying’, while (6) says ‘A stove is associated with a carrying’, any further inference of thematic roles being left to the pragmatics.
3 Valency patterns As a mostly monocategorial language, Jakarta Indonesian has an exceedingly simple system of valency patterns. With the exception of the small closed class of functional items, all words in Jakarta Indonesian exhibit the same valency patterns and therefore constitute a single valency class. This is true not only of words expressing the 70 meanings specified by the Leipzig Valency Classes Project, most of which correspond in other languages to verbs, but also of words expressing other meanings, of the kinds which in other languages are typically encoded by adjectives or nouns. To illustrate this, we shall contrast the behavior of four example words, satpam ‘security guard’, gede ‘big’, tidur ‘sleep’, and beli ‘buy’, all typical members of the single open lexical class of Jakarta Indonesian. These four words represent four
the adults’ speech, and there is no reason to believe that these utterances exhibit grammatical properties that are peculiar to a specific child-directed “motherese” register. In particular, the expression of first or second person reference by means of kinship terms (eg. tante ‘aunt’ as in (5) above) or names (eg. Ica as in (16a) below), although particularly common in child-directed speech, is not limited to such speech, and occurs also in other registers of adult-to-adult conversation.
Valency classes in Jakarta Indonesian
947
different semantic categories, thing, property, monovalent activity and bivalent activity; accordingly, in many other languages, the counterparts of these four words belong to different grammatical categories: noun, adjective, intransitive verb, and transitive verb respectively. However, in Jakarta Indonesian all four words exhibit identical valency patterns. This is illustrated in the (artificially constructed) paradigms in (7)–(9) below: (7) a. Satpam security.guard ‘He is a security guard.’ security guard b. Gede big ‘He is big.’ big c. Tidur sleep ‘He is sleeping.’ sleep d. Beli buy ‘He bought it.’ buy (8) a. Rahmat satpam. Rahmat security.guard ‘Rahmat is a security guard.’ A ( Rahmat, security guard ) b. Rahmat gede. Rahmat big ‘Rahmat is big.’ A ( Rahmat, big ) c. Rahmat tidur. Rahmat sleep ‘Rahmat is sleeping.’ A ( Rahmat, sleep ) d. Rahmat beli. Rahmat buy ‘Rahmat bought it.’ A ( Rahmat, buy )
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Thomas Conners, John Bowden and David Gil
(9) a. Satpam rumah. security.guard house ‘He is a security guard of a house.’ A ( security guard, house ) b. Gede rumah. big house ‘He is as big as a house.’ A ( big, house ) c. Tidur rumah. sleep house ‘He is sleeping in a house.’ A ( sleep, house ) d. Beli rumah. buy house ‘He bought a house.’ A ( buy, house ) In examples (7)–(9) above, the meaning of each sentence is provided first in terms of a logical formula representing, where appropriate, the general associational semantics, and then in terms of a more specific English translation corresponding to one of the most likely contexts in which the sentence might be uttered, though other quite different translations might also be available. Example (7) shows that all four words may occur as independent sentences without any additional words or grammatical markers present. Whereas (7b–d) are typical of so-called “pro-drop” languages, (7a) is somewhat more exceptional from a cross-linguistic perspective, since many “pro-drop” languages exhibit a noun/ verb asymmetry whereby if the predicate is nominal, an overt subject is required.6 Examples (8) and (9) show that all four words exhibit similar behavior with regard to their ability to co-occur with an additional expression, without any further grammatical markings. Whereas in (8) the additional expression, Rahmat ‘Rahmat’, occurs before the word in question, in (9) the additional expression rumah ‘house’ occurs after it; all of the combinations shown are grammatical. In particular, examples (9c) and (9d) reflect the absence of any structural distinction between words constituting the translational equivalents of intransitive and transitive verbs in other languages. Of course, words such as tidur ‘sleep’ and beli ‘buy’ differ with regard to their semantic frames in much the same way as their English glosses; accordingly, rumah in (9d) has the option of being understood as the pa-
6 For some discussion of this generalization in the context of Malay/Indonesian and other languages of the region, see Gil (2003: 497–498).
Valency classes in Jakarta Indonesian
949
tient of beli, as per the chosen English translation, whereas the corresponding option is not readily available with tidur in (9c). However, there is no difference in the grammatical structures of (9c) and (9d), nor is there any difference in their semantic representations: just as (9c) denotes a sleeping associated with a house, so (9d) refers to a buying associated with a house. Thus, examples (7)–(9) above show that satpam, gede, tidur and beli exhibit identical valency patterns. In general, all words belonging to the single open syntactic category of Jakarta Indonesian, that is to say, almost all words in the language, exhibit identical valency properties. Stated simply: there are no valency classes in Jakarta Indonesian. A description of Jakarta Indonesian concerned exclusively with distinguishing the possible from the impossible in the realm of valency classes would stop here. All combinations of expressions belonging to the single open syntactic category are grammatical, and their compositional semantics is as provided for by the Association Operator – end of story. However, there is another story to be told, one that is concerned with distinguishing not just the possible from the impossible, but also the common from the rare, and the more frequent from the less frequent. It is this additional story that constitutes the focus of the remainder of this chapter and of the accompanying electronic database.7 All languages distinguish between constructions that are more common and others that are less. One way of representing such differential frequency patterns is by means of preference rules of the kind proposed in another cognitive domain, tonal music, by Lerdahl & Jackendoff (1983). Some proposals for preference rules governing the grammatical patterns of Riau Indonesian are provided in Gil (2005b: 258–260, 2012); these preference rules are equally applicable to the Jakarta dialect of Indonesian, as further discussed below. One such rule proposed in Gil (2012), Semantic Frame Satisfaction, specifies a preference for interpretations in which, given two expressions in construction with one another, one of the expressions satisfies the semantic frame of the other one. This rule is in effect a weakened version of Chomsky’s (1981) “theta criterion”. For example, in the JFS Valency Corpus, the word beli ‘buy’ occurs in construction with a following unmarked expression (as in (9d) above) a total of 599 times: of these, the second expression satisfies the semantic frame of beli as agent, patient, benefactive or source in 566 cases (94 %), while failing to do so in 33 cases (6 %), most involving a locative expression. The effect of Semantic Frame Satisfaction is thus
7 The description of the differential frequency patterns of Jakarta Indonesian that follows is supported by a subcorpus of the Jakarta Field Station naturalistic corpus containing 23,040 word tokens that were coded for their valency properties; these word tokens were chosen to express the 70 meanings specified by the Leipzig Valency Classes Project plus a number of additional meanings of specific interest for Jakarta Indonesian. This subcorpus is referred to henceforth as the JFS Valency Corpus.
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evident in example (9) above. Although all four constructions in (9) are grammatical, not all occur with equal frequency. In particular, whereas simple expressions without further grammatical marking are very common after words such as beli, they are somewhat less common after words such as tidur, and considerably less common after words such as gede. That they do, nevertheless, occur, is evidenced by naturalistic examples such as (19a) in Section 4.2 below, corresponding to (9c), and the following example, corresponding to (9b): (10) Dulu ma asal ada perawan namanya segede juga, gede si before prt as.long.as exist virgin name:assoc one:big also big pers Kori, udah dipagerin. Kori prf g.pass:fence:g.appl ‘Before if a girl grew up to be that big, as big as Kori, they’d be secluded.’ [Discussing customs in the old times] (JFS 412497032528240209) However, the relative infrequency of examples such as (19a) and (10) is due to the Semantic Frame Satisfaction preference rule and the different semantic frames of the respective words; specifically, whereas the semantic frame of beli includes, inter alia, both agent and patient, that of tidur and gede includes only a theme. A complete description of Jakarta Indonesian must take cognizance of the fact that such constructions occur with less frequency than alternative constructions available in the same contexts to express similar meanings. In order to represent such frequency facts, reference can be made to valency preference classes, sets of lexical items which differ with respect to the ease and frequency with which they enter into constructions associated with various valency patterns. For example, words such as beli and tidur would belong to distinct valency preference classes by dint of the greater frequency of occurrence of a following grammatically unmarked expression such as rumah with beli, as in (9d), in contrast to tidur, as in (9c). The contents of the accompanying electronic database are, in general, most appropriately construed as making reference to such valency preference classes.
4 Order and flagging alternations Order and flagging alternations are the two major kinds of alternations involving the arguments of the words whose valency properties are under consideration.
4.1 Order alternations Linear order is flexible; expressions can occur in any order with respect to one another. For example, tidur ‘sleep’ may be either preceded or followed by its associated theme, as in (11):
Valency classes in Jakarta Indonesian
951
(11) a. Ais tidur. Ais sleep ‘Ais is sleeping.’ [Small talk] (JFS 820946082433020201) b. Oh Tidur Intan. Oh sleep Intan ‘Oh, Intan is sleeping.’ [Somebody asks where Intan is] (JFS 283860014242281007) Similarly, bawa ‘carry’ may be either preceded or followed by its associated agent, as in (12); patient, as in (13); or locative, as in (14): (12) a. Tante nggak bawa. aunt neg carry ‘I didn’t bring it.’ [Child asks speaker for something] (JFS 830645105327220501) b. Nggak bawa Tante. neg carry aunt ‘I didn’t bring one.’ [Child asks speaker whether she brought a pencil] (JFS 729646104010061101) (13) a. Kuartet bawa. quartet carry ‘I brought the quartet.’ [Speaker is asked if he brought the quartet (a card game), and answers] (JFS 523254120651180603) b. Bawa koper. carry briefcase ‘He’s carrying a suitcase.’ [Playing a lego game with a child] (JFS 826944102619050701) (14) a. Sekolah bawa payung? school carry umbrella ‘Do you take an umbrella to school.’ [Small talk] (JFS 374775141419120701)
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b. Kalo pegang-pegang, aku bawa kamar, lho. top distr~hold 1sg carry room excla ‘If you touch it I’ll take it into the other room.’ [Warning a child who is playing with an electric fan] (JFS 303211142018290503) Such flexibility is not limited to constructions with only one argument present, but is equally characteristic of constructions with two or more arguments expressed. For example, when occurring with both agent and patient expressions, bawa may be preceded by the agent and followed by the patient, as in (15a), or preceded by the patient and followed by the agent, as in (15b): (15) a. Tapi Om Okki nggak bawa duit-duitannya. but uncle Okki neg carry money:assoc ‘But I didn’t bring the toy money.’ [Playing with child] (JFS 751790145633060803) b. Piso-pisoan nggak bawa Om Okki. knife neg carry uncle Okki ‘I didn’t bring the toy knife.’ [Playing with child] (JFS 486192154806260603) In fact, all 6 logically possible orders are grammatical, as shown by the following example, involving suka ‘like’ and its experiencer and theme arguments: (16) a. Nggak suka Ica bukunya? neg like Ica book:assoc ‘Don’t you like the book?’ [Looking through picture book; adult asks child] (JFS 431431101132090501) b. Oh, suka kacang tupainya. excla like bean squirrel:assoc ‘Oh, the squirrels like peanuts.’ [Watching cartoons on TV] (JFS 792852083710261101) c. Omnya suka dangdut. uncle:assoc like dangdut ‘He likes dangdut.’ [Talking about a prospective visitor’s musical tastes (dangdut is a genre of Indonesian pop music)] (JFS 691423081100010199)
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d. Semua suka Mami, ya. all like mother yes ‘I like everything.’ [People discussing what kinds of food they like to eat] (JFS 584137094010290501) e. Kalo Indri ayam suka. top Indri chicken like ‘But Indri likes chicken.’ [People discussing what kinds of food they like to eat; interlocutor says she doesn’t like chicken; mother, talking about her child, says] (JFS 272105063705120901) f. Kalo Joshua Tante nggak suka. top Joshua aunt nrg like ‘I don’t like Joshua.’ [Discussing music (Joshua is a famous child singer)] (JFS 450047132340210901) Nevertheless, although word order is extremely flexible, not all word orders are of equal frequency. Table 1 shows the relative frequencies of the six logically-possible word orders for beli ‘buy’ and makan ‘eat’ with both agent (A) and patient (P) arguments present, in the JFS Valency Corpus: Tab. 1: Word Order Preferences in Jakarta Indonesian, for beli and makan. VAP
VPA
AVP
PVA
APV
PAV
beli ‘buy’ 145 tokens
1% 1
7 % 10
88 % 128
0% 0
0% 0
4 % 6
makan ‘eat’ 355 tokens
0% 0
2 % 8
94 % 333
1% 2
>0% 1
3 % 11
As evident from Table 1, AVP order is by far the most common, which is why Jakarta Indonesian is often thought of as exhibiting basic SVO word order. While VPA and PAV are the most common variants, the remaining three orders occur much more rarely. The relative frequencies of the various orders can be captured in terms of the preference rules proposed for closely related Riau Indonesian in Gil (2005b: 258– 260). As in most or all languages, principles of information flow make reference to notions such as topic and comment, effecting a preference for topic-first order, while permitting focus-first order as a more highly-marked variant. Semantic factors are also responsible for differential frequencies. Again as in most or all lan-
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guages, activities, especially “highly transitive” ones, are commonly conceptualized as following a metaphorical trajectory beginning with the agent, proceeding through the activity itself, before culminating in the patient or other associated participants. In many languages, this conceptualization is then iconically reflected in linear order, yielding a preference for agents to precede activities, and activities to precede patients and other participants. Finally, but this time language specifically, Jakarta Indonesian exhibits a preference for heads to precede modifiers, which in the case of clauses containing an activity word and associated arguments translates into a preference for the activity word to precede all of its associated arguments. In conjunction, these and additional principles account for the flexibility of word order and also the existence of preferences amongst available orders. For example, whereas an activity-precedes-patient order is consistent with both iconicity and headedness, an opposite patient-precedes-activity is inconsistent with these two principles, and accordingly less frequent. Still, patients do sometimes precede activities, and when they do, it is generally because these two principles have been overridden by principles of information flow, as is clearly the case in (13a) with its salient topic-initial character. It should be noted, however, that while some linear orders are more common than others, there is no evidence to suggest that the less frequent orders are derived in any sense (e.g. by “movement”, “scrambling”, or some other kind of unidirectional alternation) from their more frequent counterparts.
4.2 Flagging alternations So far, all of the examples considered have involved “bare” participants, that is to say, participants that do not contain any kind of morphosyntactic flagging expressing their relationship to the associated activity. However, Jakarta Indonesian does possess a variety of morphosyntactic devices whose primary function is that of flagging, among the most common of which are di, expressing locative-related notions; ke, a rather typical dative marker; dari ‘from’; and (s)ama, a macrofunctional marker whose basic meaning is comitative but also encompassing a range of other functions which can be subsumed under the general rubric of non-absolutive.8 Unlike most other words, which belong to a single open syntactic category, these four items belong to a closed class of items whose behavior is more restricted; in particular, they must always precede their hosts, never follow them. In fact, two of these items,
8 The representation of the form in question as (s)ama reflects its alternative pronunciations as sama or ama. Gil (2004) presents a detailed analysis of the corresponding form in Riau Indonesian, plus, in the concluding section, some discussion of minor differences with respect to its function in the Riau and Jakarta varieties of Indonesian.
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di and ke, are probably more appropriately analyzed as proclitics rather as separate words (but this is of no concern in the context of the present chapter). In keeping with the basic design of the language, as presented in Sections 2 and 3 above, these markers are always optional: there is no morphosyntactic environment in which any one of them is obligatory. Their role is simply to add semantic specificity to a construction whenever this is deemed necessary. In this respect, their behavior is more like that of attributive adverbs or adjectives than that of typical adpositions or case markers in other languages. Unlike verbs in many languages, which are often said to “govern” a particular adposition or case marker, in Jakarta Indonesian, a given activity word typically offers a choice between no flagging expression whatsoever and one or more flags, making possible the expression of occasionally fine shades of meaning. In examples (17)–(20) below, an (a) example without any flagging is contrasted with one or more subsequent examples illustrating various flagging possibilities. Example (17) shows that for kasi ‘give’, a preceding agent may occur either without any flagging or with the non-absolutive marker (s)ama: (17) a. He-eh, saya nggak kasi. uh-huh 1sg neg give ‘Uh-huh, I won’t let her.’ [About a friend who wanted to take a certain job] (JFS 784562142936300606) b. Tapi ama bapaknya nggak kasi. but with father:assoc neg give ‘But his father didn’t let him.’ [About a friend who wanted to take a certain job] (JFS 770444090205170707) Example (18) shows that for the same kasi, a following goal may also occur bare or with (s)ama; however, it also has the option of taking the dative marker ke: (18) a. Kasi Tante Bety. give aunt Bety ‘Give it to Bety.’ [Mother telling child to give friend a drink] (JFS 495302083525290801) b. Kasi dulu sama Tante. give before with aunt ‘Give it to her.’ [Telling child to give transmitter to experimenter, so she can then fasten it to child’s pants] (JFS 907183153320220601)
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c. Dah, kasi ke Om Okki. prf give to uncle Okki ‘Alright, give it to Okki.’ [Father telling child to give a puzzle to the experimenter] (JFS 724923114124050603) In conjunction, (17) and (18) show that for kasi ‘give’, neither word order nor marking with (s)ama serve to differentiate between agents and goals; only the dative marker ke possesses this particular function. Example (19) shows how for tidur ‘sleep’, a following locative may occur either bare, or with one of two different markers, locative di or dative ke: (19) a. Wah, pada selalu tidur rumah ni. excla pl always sleep house dem.prox ‘Wow, they always sleep at home, then.’ [Talking about some TV characters who go places with a camper van] (JFS 378758154328170901) b. Mulai ntar malem, tidur di rumah Ayu. beginning later night sleep in house Ayu ‘Starting from tonight, you sleep at Ayu’s house.’ [To child who was fighting] (JFS 340124105028230801) c. Tidur ke apotik. sleep to pharmacy ‘He slept at the pharmacy.’ [Explaining why her father had not come home since yesterday] (JFS 227294130017060802) The contrast between (19b), with di, and (19c), with ke, conveys a fine semantic distinction not readily expressible in English: whereas locative di provides the usual means for expressing location, dative ke contributes an additional shade of meaning, highlighting the location as being somewhere that the actor had to go to in order to be in. Finally, example (20) illustrates an embarras de richesses of possibilities for beli and a following source or locative, which may occur either bare, or with one of four different flags, di, ke, dari, or (s)ama: (20) a. Eh Rizka, Rizka beli apa di Pasar Minggu, beli apa Pasar excla Rizka Rizka buy what in Pasar Minggu buy what Pasar Minggu. Minggu
Valency classes in Jakarta Indonesian
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‘Hey, Rizka, what did you buy at Pasar Minggu?’ [Mother asking child about her recent shopping trip to Pasar Minggu (Sunday Market)] (JFS 874342075524250903) b. Saya dulu ma punya duit lima puluh rebu udah segala 1sg before prt have money five ten thousand prf all macem kita beli ke pasar, ya. sort 1pl buy to market yes ‘Before, if I had fifty thousand, we could buy all kinds of things in the market, right.’ [Talking about how expensive things have become] (JFS 299165093032241108) dari sana. c. Kata dia capek-capek beli pala word 3 distr~tired buy nutmeg from there ‘He said he was tired buying nutmeg from there.’ [About shopping at the market] (JFS 626931142219150403) d. Tu Mbak War beli ama Nenek? dem.dist ma’am War buy with grandmother ‘So War bought it from you?’ [Talking about a plot of land] (JFS 923865071849290508) Example (20a) illustrates alternation between bare source and source marked with locative di within a single utterance, highlighting how difficult it is to define precise conditions on the alternation (other than the rather trivial observation that, once the locative relation is specified in the first part of the utterance, there is no need to repeat it in the second). Example (20b) with dative ke conveys a shade of meaning analogous to that in (19c), in the present case focusing on the activity of going to the market. Example (20c) with dari ‘from’ is arguably that which gives most explicit expression to the inherent semantic relationship between the activity of buying and its source participant, though it is perhaps the least frequently occurring of all the available options. Finally, example (20d) with nearly all-purpose (s)ama emphasizes the active participation of the source participant, here in human form, in the act of buying (or selling). Thus, examples (17)–(20) underscore the optional nature of flagging alternations in Jakarta Indonesian. A quantitative view of this optionality is provided in Table 2 below, showing the distribution of flagging across the arguments of a selected word, beli ‘buy’, in the JFS Valency Corpus:
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Tab. 2: Flagging Preferences in Jakarta Indonesian, for beli. Patient
Agent
Benefactive
Source
Locative
bare
100 % 630
100 % 366
22 % 2
0 % 0
44 % 52
flagged
*
0 % 0
78 % 7
100 % 21
56 % 66
In Table 2, the columns represent the four main participants of beli, plus a fifth semantic role, locative (which is often hard to distinguish from source), while the rows represent the two options, bare vs. flagged. Whereas the grammar of Jakarta Indonesian does not offer any option for the flagging of patients, all other semantic roles may optionally be flagged, however, the frequency of such flagging varies across different semantic roles. In general, the weaker the syntactic and semantic nexus between the participant and its semantic role assigner, the more likely it is to be flagged. In Table 2, this tendency is evident in the contrast between agents, which are never flagged in the restricted sample of the JFS Valency Corpus (although such flagging, with (s)ama, is a grammatical option, as exemplified in (17b) above), and the more weakly bound benefactives, sources and locatives, which are all flagged with over 50 % frequency.9 Nevertheless, even though in many cases the presence of some kind of morphosyntactic flag is more frequent than its absence, from a formal point of view the bare option is the more basic one, with the presence of a flag conforming to the general principle whereby morphemes and words are added in order to achieve greater semantic specificity. In this section, we considered linear order and flagging as independent alternations, as is indeed the case. However, they clearly interact in myriad ways. To cite just one example, the non-absolutive marker (s)ama occurs much more frequently on agents when they follow the activity word than when they precede it – as is the case in (17b). However, a more detailed account of such interactions lies beyond the scope of this chapter.
5 Generalized-voice and other similar alternations This section deals with alternations that are encoded, for the most part morphologically, on the words whose valency properties are under consideration; such alter-
9 The flags used for arguments of beli were as follows: for benefactives, buat (all 7 tokens); for sources, di (11), (s)ama (8), ke (1), dari (1); and for locatives, di (59), ke (7).
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nations involve primarily the three markers N-,10 di- and -in, plus, secondarily, a handful of additional markers, including -an, ke-, ke--an, and kena.
5.1 Generalized voice alternations The forms N-, di- and -in 11 may be characterized as marking generalized voice, in accordance with the following definition from Gil (2002: 276): “A generalized voice marker is a marker M which, when applied to a form X, marks the argument of X bearing the thematic role T as having a set of properties P”. For example, a prototypical active voice marker in a language would be one which marks the argument of its host bearing the thematic role of agent as having a set of properties associated in that language with subjects: such properties might include nominative case marking, control of agreement, pre-verbal position, and others. The larger the set of properties associated with the argument in question, the stronger the generalized voice marker is said to be. However, in Jakarta Indonesian, the set of properties that N-, di- and -in associate with their respective arguments is significantly smaller; accordingly, they may be viewed as weak generalized voice markers. The markers N- and di- constitute a pair of agent-oriented and patient-oriented generalized voice markers respectively (see Gil (2002) for a detailed description of the corresponding markers in Riau Indonesian plus also a brief discussion of Jakarta Indonesian). The marker N-, when applied to a given word, simply asserts that the word in question has an agent in its argument structure: in terms of the above definition, the set of properties P associated with the agent consists just of the single property of existence. Analogously, the marker di-, when applied to a given word, asserts that that word has a patient in its argument structure. Accordingly, N- and di- may be characterized as generalized active and passive markers respectively; they differ from prototypical active and passive markers in other languages
10 The symbol N- (commonly referred to in speech as “prenasalization”) represents a morpheme whose realization depends on the phonological properties of the host word. For monosyllabic words (a small minority in Jakarta Indonesian) it assumes the form nge- (eg. cat > ngecat ‘paint’), while for polysyllabic words, its realization depends on the initial segment of the host word: for l and r it is nge- (eg. liat > ngeliat in (23)); for b, d, j and g either nge- (eg. buka > ngebuka in (22)) or, in a different subdialect, a homorganic nasal (eg. buka > mbuka); for p, t, c, k and s the initial consonant is replaced by a homorganic nasal (eg. senter > nyenter in (21)); for vowels it is ng- (eg. ambil > ngambil ‘take’), while for m, n, ny and ng there is but a single form of the word with no overt marker of prenasalization, this form occurring both in contexts where N- would be likely to occur and contexts where it would not. 11 Of these three markers, two, N- and -in, have cognates in Balinese, discussed in Shibatani & Artawa (this volume), with related but not identical functions. Historically, whereas Jakarta Indonesian and Balinese N- are probably both retentions from a common ancestral language, Jakarta Indonesian -in comes from the corresponding Betawi Malay form which was borrowed from Balinese.
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in that they make no reference to specific morphosyntactic properties associated with the agent and patient arguments. The words to which N- and di- may apply constitute two partially overlapping sets lacking any general systematic defining features; whether or not it can take Nand/or di- thus forms part of the grammatical information associated with each individual word. For example, whereas puter ‘revolve’ can take both generalized voice markers, pergi ‘go’ can take neither. The agent-oriented marker N- also exhibits a significant degree of arbitrariness with regard to the frequency with which it actually occurs on words to which it may attach. For example, whereas it applies readily to kopi ‘coffee’ to yield ngopi ‘drink coffee’, it attaches less commonly to teh ‘tea’ to yield ngeteh ‘drink tea’, even though Indonesians are no less fond of tea than they are of coffee.12 Because of such frequency effects, words marked with N- have the potential of undergoing reanalysis, with the initial nasal being reinterpreted as part of the stem. For example, the form tangis ‘cry’, familiar to many speakers of Jakarta Indonesian from the standard language, no longer occurs in Jakarta Indonesian, since it was marked so often with N- that the resulting form, nangis, became reanalyzed as a new stem, which, like other nasal-initial stems, cannot be marked with N-. Constructions containing N- or di- are of two types, depending on the basic semantic frame of the host word. In the first construction type, the host word, in its unmarked form, lacks the relevant thematic role in its semantic frame; in such cases, the effect of applying N- or di- is to enrich the semantic frame of the host word by adding the relevant thematic role, a process typically involving a semantic type shift, such as from thing to activity. Example (21) below illustrates this for the case of host word senter, whose basic meaning is ‘torch’ (or in American English ‘flashlight’): (21) a. Ini kan senter bagus, Timo. dem:dem.prox q torch good Timo ‘This is a good torch, Timo.’ [Mother suggesting to her son to use a torch] (JFS 989892173255021003) b. Oo cuma senter kepalanya Ica tuh. aunt only torch head:assoc Ica dem.dist ‘I’m only shining it on your head.’ [Playing with a torch] (JFS 351516185632260303)
12 Thus, in the complete Jakarta Indonesian corpus, N- applies to kopi with 4.2 % frequency (in 8 out of 191 utterances containing host word kopi), but to teh with just 0.5 % frequency (in 3 out of 593 utterances containing host word teh).
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c. Enggak, Oo ... Oo cuman nyenter ... neg aunt aunt only g.act:torch ‘No, I’m just shining it.’ [Playing with a torch] (JFS 167799185458260303) d. Ica ntar disenter lho. Ica fut g.pass:torch prt ‘They’re going to film you.’ [To a child about to be recorded] (JFS 314245080600010199) In (21a), senter occurs morphologically unmarked, and with its basic thing-denoting meaning. In (21b), senter is also morphologically unmarked; however, it has undergone semantic type-shifting, in order to denote an activity, ‘shine on with torch’; such zero-marked type-shifting is widespread in Jakarta Indonesian (see Gil 2013 for extensive discussion of the same phenomenon in Riau Indonesian). In the following two utterances, a similar type shifting is achieved by means of the generalized voice markers. In (21c), senter is marked with N-, the presence of the agent-oriented generalized voice marker being to introduce an agent into the semantic frame of senter, and, in so doing, convert its ontological category from thing to activity. Similarly, in (21d), senter is marked with di-, the patient-oriented generalized voice marker here introducing a patient into the semantic frame of senter, and, again, converting its meaning from thing to activity. As suggested by the above example, when the application of N- or di- induces a semantic type shift, some additional semantic feature of an arbitrary, unpredictable nature may be added; thus, nyenter and disenter mean ‘illuminate with torch’, and not, say, ‘ignite with torch’ (like the English verb torch), or ‘hit with torch’. In the second construction type, the host word, in its unmarked form, already contains the relevant thematic role in its semantic frame; in such cases, applying N- or di- does not alter the semantic frame of the host word, or result in semantic type-shifting. Rather, its effect is merely to emphasize and highlight the presence of a participant bearing the appropriate thematic role, generally for purposes of discourse coherence. Example (22) below illustrates this for the case of host word buka ‘open’: (22) a. Daud, Daud juga uda jarang buka. Daud, Daud also prf seldom open ‘Daud also seldom opens it any more.’ [Discussing Friendster] (JFS 606276082702230508)
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b. Dia ngebuka aura. 3 g.act:open aura ‘He can open the aura.’ [Discussing mysticism] (JFS 256297085410101008) c. Orang ma pada dibuka. person prt pl g.pass:open ‘People were opening them.’ [About people at railway station buying food bags and eating] (DGD) Whereas in (22a) buka occurs in bare form, in (22b) the agent-oriented generalized voice marker N- emphasizes the existence of an agent in the semantic frame of buka, while in (22c) the patient-oriented generalized voice marker di- highlights the presence of a patient in the same word’s semantic frame. As agent- and patient-oriented generalized voice markers, N- and di- resemble active and passive voice markers, but don’t quite make the cut. Comparing (21c) and (21d), it looks as though they could in fact be active and passive markers: while in (21c) Oo, preceding nyenter, is its agent, in (21d), Ica, preceding disenter, is its patient. Indeed, it is contrasts such as these which underlie the widespread characterization of these forms (and their cognates in other dialects of Malay/Indonesian) as expressing an active/passive contrast. However, whereas (21c) and (21d) represent the most frequent pattern in Jakarta Indonesian, alternative patterns are also in evidence. In actual fact, the presence of N- or di- does not rule out any assignment of thematic role to a preceding (or following) expression. Thus, for example, in (22b) and (22c), ngebuka and dibuka are both preceded by an expression bearing the thematic role of agent. Whereas constructions like (22b) are common, constructions such as (22c) are much less frequent, but nevertheless still possible. Paradigms similar to (22) are presented in (23)–(25) below: (23) a. Saya dulu bisa liat. 1sg before can see ‘Before, I could see them.’ [Talking about visiting their kids] (JFS 363772095322071004) b. Eh, si Mita ngeliat. excla pers Mita g.act:see ‘Mita happened to see it.’ [Small talk] (JFS 467738093826050607)
Valency classes in Jakarta Indonesian
963
c. Terus Ica diliat, punya nggak yang jumlahnya empat. continue Ica g.pass:see have neg rel total:assoc four ‘So see if there are any that add up to four.’ [Playing a card game] (JFS 402707141333260902) (24) a. Tangannya coba liat. hand:assoc try see ‘Let me see your hands!’ [Adult to infant] (JFS 804307101317290301) b. Poto putih kan udah ngeliat. photo white q prf g.act:see ‘She’s already seen the white photo.’ [Child asks to see white photo, mother says to friend] (JFS 596710140953200404) c. Om diliat pake itu. uncle g.pass:see use dem:dem.dist ‘Look at me using that.’ [asking child to look at him with a pair of binoculars] (JFS 153689122431270202) (25) a. Tutupnya kasi Oma. close:assoc give grandma ‘Give granny the lid.’ [Adult to child] (JFS 274323092313021000) b. Sisah ngasi saudara. remainder g.act:give relative ‘I gave the rest to my family.’ [About the money that he took on a trip] (DGD) c. Obatnya cuma dikasi buat lima hari. medicine:assoc only g.pass:give for five day ‘The medicine was only given for five days.’ [Talking about the medicine for her high blood-pressure] (JFS 899547064124080109) Example (23) shows liat ‘see’ preceded by its experiencer, (24) shows the same form liat ‘see’ preceded by its theme, and (25) shows kasi ‘give’ preceded by its patient;
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Tab. 3: Generalized Voice Markers N- and di- in Jakarta Indonesian. A before V
P before V
total
N-V
98.2 % 266.0
1.8 % 5.0
100 % 271
di-V
1.5 % 2.0
98.6 % 137.0
100 % 139
within each example, the activity word is bare in (a), marked with N- in (b), and marked with di- in (c). These examples further support the observation that the generalized voice markers N- and di- do not unequivocally determine the thematic role of a preceding argument. Nevertheless, the generalized voice markers N- and di- do make for different preferences: with N- a preceding argument is more likely to be an experiencer as in (23b), than a theme as in (24b), or a patient as in (25); conversely, with di- a preceding argument is less likely to be an experiencer as in (23c), than a theme as in (24c), or a patient as in (25c). The effect of these two markers on the preferred interpretations is shown in Table 3. Table 3 looks at all words in the JFS Valency Corpus marked with either N- or di-, in which the closest preceding argument is either its agent (A) or its patient (P), and examines which of the two it is. The preferences are overwhelming: whereas for words marked with N- the preceding argument is understood as its agent in over 98 % of the cases, for words marked with di- the preceding argument is understood as its patient in a similarly large proportion of cases. It is of course these very strong preferences that are in large part responsible for the widespread characterization of these forms as active and passive markers. However, the existence of the dispreferred interpretations, albeit at a frequency of under 2 %, shows that N- and di- cannot be characterized straightforwardly as active and passive markers. Another reason why N- and di- are not proper markers of active and passive voice is that they do not constitute a paradigm of forms in complementary distribution. As evidenced in many of the above examples, words denoting activities frequently occur in bare form, containing neither N- nor di-. Conversely, it is also possible for the two markers, N- and di-, to co-occur on a single word: (26) Udah dinempel di sini. prf g.pass:g.act:attach in loc:dem:dem.prox ‘It got stuck here.’ [Talking about some food in the freezer] (JFS 457652161136221001) In (26) above, tempel ‘attach’ is marked by both N- and di-. Such cases of combined agent- and patient-oriented generalized voice marking are rare, but they do occur –
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see also example (35) below. Examples such as these show that the two markers, N- and di-, cannot be considered as regular markers of active and passive voice. With respect to N-, at least, yet another way in which it differs from a prototypical marker of active voice is that it is also associated with an aspectual function, sometimes inducing a preference for progressive and other atelic interpretations, occasionally even forcing such interpretations; see Hidayat (2011); Conners (2012) and Conners & Brugman (to appear). In summary, though, the semantic function of N- and di- involving agent and patient thematic roles, and the frequency effects associated with the clause types in which they occur, underscore the affinity of these two markers with more prototypical actives and passives, as captured in their proposed characterization as generalized voice markers. Alongside N- and di-, an important role is also played by a third generalized voice marker, the suffix -in. Whereas N- and di- select agent and patient roles respectively, the semantic role associated with the marker -in is less readily amenable to a single uniform characterization. In general, words marked with -in denote activities which are construed as highly transitive, in the sense that they involve metaphorical motion from an initial source to a final target or end-point where the activity terminates. Target may be understood as a kind of thematic role, though, as shown below, it typically overlaps with other thematic roles, such as stimulus, patient, instrument, benefactive, and the like. The suffix -in may thus be characterized as a target-oriented generalized voice marker. Like N- and di-, it is a weak generalized voice marker, in that it merely asserts the existence of a target in the semantic frame of the host word; it does not associate the target expression with any further grammatical properties. Whereas N- and di- are considered to be markers of generalized active and passive voice, -in may thus be characterized as a generalized applicative marker. Compared to N- and di-, the usages of -in involve a greater amount of lexical idiosyncrasies, pertaining to whether it can attach to a given word, and if it can, what kind of effect it has. For a few words, -in seems to function as a marker of iterativity, for example, pukul ‘hit’, pukulin ‘hit repeatedly’; such cases would appear to fall outside the function of -in as a generalized applicative marker. For some other words, addition of -in seems to have no obvious syntactic or semantic effect; for example, denger ‘hear’ and its counterpart dengerin ‘listen to’ are associated with identical grammar and a subtle and rather idiosyncratic difference in meaning. In such cases, -in would seem to be marking the existence of a target participant already present in the semantic frame of the host word, namely the stimulus; in this respect its function is analogous to that of N- and di- in examples (22)–(25). Most commonly, however, the presence of -in serves to introduce a new target participant into the semantic frame of the host word, though even here there is a considerable amount of idiosyncratic variation, not least with regard to the themat-
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ic role associated with the target participant. One such example is kulkas ‘refrigerator’, which forms the basis for kulkasin ‘put in the refrigerator’ (cf. English refrigerate with different meaning), thereby introducing a new target semantic role, that of patient, as well as a new agent role; however, lemari ‘cupboard’ does not allow an analogous *lemariin ‘put in the cupboard’. A quite different example is tutup ‘close’, which forms the basis for tutupin ‘cover’; here, the function of -in is to introduce a new target participant bearing the role of instrument – rather than making use of a completely different word, a more perspicuous English gloss might be ‘close with’. Nevertheless, in spite of examples such as the above, the majority of usages of the suffix -in fall into two major productive construction types: causative and benefactive. In the causative construction, addition of -in characterizes the theme of the host word as the target of a derived activity, thereby entailing the introduction of an additional participant into the semantic frame, namely the causer. For example, gede ‘big’ forms the basis for gedein ‘enlarge’; similarly, in (27) and (28) below, masuk ‘enter’/‘go in’ forms the basis for masukin ‘enter’/‘put in’: (27) a. Jarinya masuk. finger:assoc enter ‘Put your fingers in.’ [Adult to child] (JFS 626985091916080900) lagi, Na. b. Gasingnya masukin spinning.top:assoc enter:g.appl again fam\Hana ‘Put the top in, Hana.’ [Playing with child] (JFS 374255083417190203) (28) a. Kamu kok nggak mau masuk? 2sg how.come neg want enter ‘How come you can’t score.’ [Father to son playing football] (JFS 927778153506061101) yok. b. Yok, Dedek masukin exhrt younger.sibling enter:g.appl exhrt ‘Go on, put one in.’ [Playing a cooking game] (JFS 483073101518181202) While the (a) examples contain the bare form masuk, the (b) examples contain the derived form masukin. And whereas in (27) masuk is preceded by its theme, in (28) it is preceded by an expression denoting its causer. Note that the constructions
Valency classes in Jakarta Indonesian
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with and without -in are formally parallel. What makes -in causative in the above examples is a semantic feature: while masukin is always interpreted as causative, the bare form masuk is seldom understood as causative, though as shown in example (28a), such an interpretation is nevertheless possible. Thus, unlike prototypical causative constructions in other languages, the causative use of the generalized applicative marker -in bears no consequences vis-à-vis the syntactic organization of the clause; its function is entirely semantic. In the benefactive construction, addition of -in introduces a new target participant into the semantic frame, and associates it with the semantic role of benefactive. For example, cabut ‘pull out’ forms the basis for cabutin ‘pull out for’; similarly, in (29)–(31) below, beli ‘buy’ forms the basis for beliin ‘buy for’. (29) a. Beli saya. buy 1sg ‘I bought one.’ [Talking about a shopping trip] (JFS 364366153158130607) b. Beliin bos Tante. buy:g.appl bos aunt ‘My boss bought it.’ [Talking about a toy] (JFS 418291130943140105) (30) a. Udah beli baju Lebaran? prf buy clothes Lebaran ‘Have you bought the clothes for Lebaran yet.’ [Talking about preparations for Lebaran (the most important Muslim holiday, also known as Idul Fitri)] (JFS 450823143141210601) b. Oh, nanti Oo beliin baterai. oh fut aunt buy:g.appl battery ‘I’ll buy the batteries.’ [Playing a game, the batteries run out] [JFS 436762104820080201] (31) a. Mau beli lu baju ni. want buy 2sg clothes dem.prox ‘I want to buy you a shirt.’ [Small talk] (https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid= 128176783908958&id=161146877260600, accessed 1 May 2012)
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b. Nanti saya beliin Bang kalo dah waras. fut 1sg buy:g.appl fam\elder.brother top prf recover ‘I’ll buy you some once you’re better.’ [Discussing food] (JFS 298246084300131009) Again, while the (a) examples contain the bare form beli, the (b) examples contain the derived form beliin. And whereas in (29) beli is followed by its agent, in (30) it is followed by its patient, and in (31) by its benefactive target. As with the causative examples, here too, the constructions with and without -in are formally parallel, and are distinguished only by the benefactive interpretation of the derived form beliin. What makes the benefactive function of -in resemble applicative constructions in other languages are the differential frequencies of the various possible patterns. For example, if both patient and benefactive expressions are present, then with beli the most common pattern is for the patient to precede the benefactive and for the benefactive to be flagged with buat ‘for’, as in (32), whereas with beliin the most common pattern is for the benefactive to precede the patient without any flagging, as in (33): (32) He, Oo mau beli mainan buat Timo. fill aunt want buy play:nmlz for Timo ‘Hey, I’m going to buy a toy for Timo.’ [Adults playing with child] (JFS 742330153105100501) (33) Oo kan beliin kamu es krim sama biskuit? aunt q buy:g.appl 2sg ice cream with biscuit ‘But I bought you ice cream and biscuits, didn’t I?’ [Adult playing with child] (JFS 391080143454100903) As suggested by their English translations, the above pair of sentences present a close superficial parallel to, among others, the dative-shift alternation in English. The crucial difference, however, is that in Jakarta Indonesian such patterns represent mere preferences which can be violated. For example, in (31a), an unflagged benefactive lu precedes a patient but without being licensed by a benefactive -in. Conversely, in (34) below, a flagged benefactive follows a patient although the benefactive -in is present. (34) Oo kan pernah beliin buku cerita buat kamu. aunt q exp.asp buy:g.appl book story for 2sg ‘But I’ve already bought you story books.’ [Adult playing with child] (JFS 377391095321121000)
Valency classes in Jakarta Indonesian
969
Thus, with respect to flagging and word order, (34) with -in presents a complete parallel to (32) without -in. Examples such as this show that, unlike at least some of the corresponding constructions in other languages, the benefactive use of -in bears no consequences vis-à-vis the syntactic organization of the clause. Like its causative counterpart, the benefactive usage of the generalized applicative marker is thus of an essentially semantic nature. Whereas the generalized active and passive markers N-and di- co-occur very infrequently, the generalized applicative marker -in commonly occurs with either of these two markers; one such example was dipagerin in (10). In fact, as shown in the following example, all three markers may co-occur on a single word: (35) diminggirin dulu rambutnya. g.pass:g.act:edge:g.appl before hair:assoc ‘Move your hair aside.’ [Adult to child] (JFS 667645134006290601)
5.2 Other similar alternations In addition to the three generalized voice markers considered above, there are a number of additional markers which, to varying degrees, involve alternations of relevance to valency and valency classes. One such marker is the suffix -an, which occurs with great frequency and with a wide range of functions which are not obviously related to one another. One common function takes a word denoting an activity and derives a word denoting a conventionally associated thing, for example goreng ‘fry’ > gorengan ‘fritter’, tulis ‘write > tulisan ‘script, main ‘play’ > mainan ‘toy’ (see example (32) above). Another, somewhat more systematic function takes a word denoting a property and yields its comparative counterpart, for example cakep ‘beautiful’ > cakepan ‘more beautiful’. Yet another function, somewhat more idiosyncratic, but applying in a few high-frequency activity words, involves the semantic augmentation of the activity and its associated arguments, for example jual ‘sell’ > jualan ‘engage in habitual selling’, udah ‘finish’ (usually used to denote the more abstract tense-aspect notion of perfect) > udahan ‘all finished’. Whereas none of the above functions involve voice alternations, in some cases -an is used to mark reciprocals, as for example peluk ‘hug’ > pelukan ‘hug each other’, ganti ‘change’ > gantian ‘swap’, and in a very recent innovation internet ‘internet’ > internetan ‘go online’ (reflecting the interactive reciprocal nature of the two probably most common online activities, namely chatting and gaming). Another marker, also associated with several apparently unrelated functions, is the form ke/ke-, which, depending on context, is written either separately or
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joined to the following word (though it is not clear whether this orthographic contrast reflects any substantive difference with respect to the strength of the bond between it and its host). Written as a separate word, ke is the dative marker discussed in Section 4.2 above. Written joined on to the following word, ke- has a number of additional functions. From cardinal numerals it forms ordinals, for example tiga ‘three’ > ketiga ‘third’. From at least one word, beli ‘buy’, it adds an abilitative meaning, kebeli ‘can afford’. Its main function, however, is to mark certain words as being associated with an agent of decreased level of volitionality or involvement; for example, bawa ‘carry’ > kebawa ‘get taken away accidentally’, jepit ‘pinch’/‘squeeze’ > kejepit ‘get squeezed’, setrum ‘electricity’ > kesetrum ‘get an electric shock’. As suggested by the above examples, this function of ke- resembles that of a passive. However, it differs from the generalized passive marker didiscussed in Section 5.1 in that whereas di- highlights the salience of the patient, what ke- does is to downplay the salience of the agent, by negating the characteristic agentive features of volitionality or control – it might therefore be characterized as a marker of de-agentivity. Another related difference is that, as suggested by the above examples, this function of ke- is often associated with an adversative meaning. Yet another difference between ke- and di- is that ke- is much less commonly used, and is more idiosyncratic in its application. In particular, in some words with an inherently deagentive meaning, ke- may apply without obvious semantic effect, for example temu ~ ketemu ‘find’/‘meet’. In fact, for at least one such word, the presence of ke- is almost obligatory: ?*tawa > ketawa ‘laugh’. A third marker, the circumfix ke--an, appears to constitute a combination of the two preceding markers, ke- and -an. While there are indeed some affinities between the functions of ke--an and the two markers that form its constituent parts, the properties of ke--an are not predictable from those of ke- and -an; it is thus most appropriately analyzed as a unitary circumfix. One common function of the circumfix ke--an is to form words denoting abstract entities, for example bakar ‘burn’ > kebakaran ‘fire’ (a spatio-temporal event), jadi ‘become’ > kejadian ‘event’, putus ‘disconnect’ > keputusan ‘decision’. Of relevance here is its function as a deagentive marker, resembling the corresponding function for ke- described above. Generally speaking, the use of ke--an is of somewhat greater generality than that of ke-, though it is also conditioned in lexically idiosyncratic ways. One class of cases involves property words, for which ke--an introduces an adversely affected experiencer, which may often be translated into English with ‘too’, for example sempit ‘tight’/‘narrow’ > kesempitan ‘be in an unpleasantly narrow enclosure’, gede ‘big’ > kegedean ‘too big’, pendek ‘short’ > kependekan ‘too short’. Another class of cases also introducing an adversely affected experiencer is that of meteorological and other similar expressions, for example ujan ‘rain’ > keujanan ‘get rained on’, banjir ‘flood’ > kebanjiran ‘get flooded’, siang ‘daytime’ > kesiangan ‘experience time pressure by getting going too late in the morning’. Yet another class involves activity words, where the resulting meaning would seem to be a little more idiosyn-
Valency classes in Jakarta Indonesian
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cratic, though still preserving the basic deagentive meaning, for example tinggal ‘stay’/‘leave’ > ketinggalan ‘get left behind’, tau ‘know’ > ketauan ‘get found out’, liat ‘see’ > keliatan ‘be visible’. Until now, all of the markers considered in this section have been bound forms. However, the final form which we shall consider here, kena, is an independent content word whose closest translation into English is perhaps ‘undergo’. As a content word it has a semantic frame, consisting of an experiencer and a theme. The word kena is a member of the single open syntactic category of Jakarta Indonesian; like almost all other such words, it can stand alone as a complete non-elliptical sentence – on its own, kena might be translated into English as ‘He got hit’, ‘Something’s happening to it’, or whatever, depending on the context. However, when occurring with an associated theme denoting an activity, the resulting construction resembles a periphrastic passive. Consider the following examples: (36) a. Kena mata nanti. undergo eye fut ‘It’ll get into your eyes.’ [Warning child playing with fish] (JFS 541816085900060505) b. Kena duri? undergo thorn ‘Did she get stuck by a thorn?’ [About her friend who was walking] (JFS 225025125344140904) c. Emang Lily kena tembak? indeed Lily undergo shoot ‘Did Lily get shot?’ [Playing doctor with a child] (JFS 619450091651230402) While in (36a) kena is followed by its experiencer mata ‘eye’, in (36b) and (36c) it is followed by its theme. However, whereas in (36b) the theme is a thing, duri ‘thorn’, in (36c) it is an activity tembak ‘shoot’, yielding what looks just like a periphrastic passive. But as suggested by (36a, b), there is nothing “grammatical” about (36c); it is the straightforward product of the juxtaposition of three content words belonging to the single open syntactic category of Jakarta Indonesian, kena and its experiencer and theme arguments.13 13 Note how example (36c) differs crucially from its counterparts in many other languages, e.g. the English Lily got shot. As for kena in kena duri in (36b) and kena tembak in (36c), it might be suggested that English offers a parallel between got in got a thorn and in got shot. However, in English there is plenty of evidence that the got in got shot is a “different” got to that in got a thorn; specifically, that it is of a grammatical rather than a lexical nature. Formally, the got in got shot
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6 Conclusion Having surveyed the valency patterns of Jakarta Indonesian in the preceding sections, we may now address the more general question of how these valency patterns compare with those of other languages, or in other words, how Jakarta Indonesian fits into typological space. The answer depends crucially on whether we consider valency classes as categorical black-or-white entities, or as preferencebased entities in various shades of grey. Adopting the former, categorical perspective, Jakarta Indonesian, as a Relatively IMA Language with but a single valency class, is very much a typological outlier – at least with respect to the other languages considered in this volume. However, following the latter, preference-based approach, represented in the accompanying database, Jakarta Indonesian turns out looking substantially more like other, more familiar languages. The contrast between these two different perspectives is illustrated schematically in Figures 1 and 2 below. These two figures both make reference to a sample set of 15 coding frames, involving a bivalent word V, its A(gent) and P(atient) arguments, the non-absolutive marker (s)ama, and the generalized active and passive voice markers N- and di-. Figure 1 shows these 15 coding frames ranked in terms of formal complexity, while Figure 2 shows the same coding frames ranked in terms of frequency of occurrence.
N-V
V
di-V
A N-V P P N-V A
AVP PVA
A di-V P P di-V A
(s)ama A N-V P P N-V (s)ama A
(s)ama A V P P V (s)ama A
(s)ama A di-V P P di-V (s)ama A
Fig. 1: 15 coding frames ranked by formal complexity.
governs a particular form of the verb, the past participle, whereas the got in got a thorn is actually assigning accusative case (as can be seen by replacing the NP with a pronoun, got him). And semantically, its meaning is different: whereas the got in got shot has an abstract passive meaning, the got in got a thorn possesses a more concrete meaning involving the notion of acquisition and various extensions thereof – without further modification it cannot mean ‘get stuck by a thorn’. Similar arguments extend to many similar cases in other languages. In contrast, kena has the same grammatical and semantic function in both kena duri and kena tembak.
Valency classes in Jakarta Indonesian
N-V
V
di-V
A N-V P
AVP
P di-V A P di-V (s)ama A
(s)ama A N-V P
(s)ama A V P PVA P V (s)ama A
P N-V A P N-V (s)ama A
973
A di-V P (s)ama A di-V P
Fig. 2: 15 coding frames ranked by frequency.
Figure 1 ranks the 15 coding frames in terms of formal complexity. The simplest coding frame consists just of V; more complex frames are derived by the sequential introduction of additional items. Moving left or right adds a generalized voice marker, while moving down introduces A and P arguments and then the flagging marker (s)ama. The perspective adopted in Figure 1 is additive, or incremental; coding frames are viewed as being derived from simpler coding frames by the introduction of meaning-bearing expressions, all of which are, from a strictly grammatical point of view, completely optional. This perspective is reminiscent of the usual way of looking at stacked modifier constructions, for example, English sentential adverbs, as in, say, John met Bill → John met Bill unexpectedly → John met Bill unexpectedly in the park → John met Bill unexpectedly in the park on Saturday. Both involve the incremental introduction of grammatically-optional expressions, each expression adding to the semantic specificity of the entire construction. However, while such a perspective is commonplace for stacked modifier constructions, it is less familiar in the context of basic clause structure and its associated alternations. Nevertheless, to the extent that Jakarta Indonesian is a relatively IMA Language with but a single valency class, this is the most appropriate way of representing the relationship between the various coding frames present in the language. In contrast, Figure 2 ranks the same 15 coding frames in terms of frequency of occurrence, classifying them into four groups, which may be assigned the informal labels very frequent, frequent, infrequent and very infrequent. The ranking is of a rough and approximate nature, averaging across different choices of V associated
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with different relative frequencies. The first group consists of the V with no additional lexical items, reflecting the fact that in Jakarta Indonesian, like in many other languages, the default and most frequent case is for arguments not to be expressed. (Within this group, the relative frequency of the bare V and the V marked with generalized active or passive markers varies considerably across different choices of V, but for very many, all the possibilities are very frequent.) The second group, consisting of coding frames that are also frequent, though less frequent than those of the first group, contains two active-like A V P constructions, with the V either bare or marked by the generalized active voice marker N-, and two passive-like P V A constructions, with the V marked by the generalized passive marker di- and the A either bare or flagged with (s)ama. The third group, consisting of coding frames that are infrequent, contains two A V P frames where the A is flagged with (s)ama and the V is either bare or marked with N-, and also two P V A frames, where the V is bare, and the A either bare or flagged with (s)ama. And the fourth group, consisting of coding frames that are very infrequent, involves cases where the V is flanked by A and P arguments but marked with the generalized voice marker that is dispreferred with regard to the given relative order of A and P: two P V A frames where the V is marked with the generalized active voice marker N-, with the A either bare or flagged with (s)ama, and two A V P frames where the V is marked with the generalized passive voice marker di-, and the A, again, either bare or flagged with (s)ama. Viewed from the perspective of Figure 2, Jakarta Indonesian looks less of a typological outlier, and more like many other languages, in particular other Austronesian languages. Focusing on the second group, containing the four most frequently occurring coding frames with both arguments expressed, we see that two of the four coding frames, A N-V P and P di-V (s)ama A, look just like garden variety active and passive constructions in a typical SVO language, with voice morphology marking the verb, and overt flagging of the agent in the passive construction. A third coding frame in this group, P di-V A, is somewhat less typical cross-linguistically; however, similar frames in other varieties of Malay/Indonesian and in other languages of the region have been argued, by Himmelmann (2005 and elsewhere), to support the characterization of such languages as involving so-called symmetric voice systems, in which active and passive are formal mirror-images, as is the case for the A N-V P and P di-V A coding frames here. Symmetric voice systems thus stand in opposition to the more cross-linguistically widespread state of affairs in which the passive construction is more formally complex than its active counterpart, and therefore, arguably, derivable from it: in symmetric voice systems, there is no evidence that one of the two members of an active-passive pair is more basic, and the second member derivable from the first. However, it is the fourth coding frame in this same group, namely the bare A V P construction, that poses the most serious challenge to various other approaches to voice in Jakarta Indonesian and related languages: if the A N-V P and P di-V A frames represent symmetric active
Valency classes in Jakarta Indonesian
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and passive respectively, how, then, is the A V P frame to be characterized? In fact such three-way oppositions between bare V and Vs marked with generalized active and passive voice are not specific to Jakarta Indonesian but rather quite common across the region. In summary, then, if attention is limited to the top half of Figure 2, showing just the frequent coding frames, Jakarta Indonesian emerges as a relatively unexceptional language. It is only when the infrequent coding frames in the bottom half of Figure 2 are added to the picture that Jakarta Indonesian appears to be more of a typological outlier. In conjunction, Figures 1 and 2 show that formal complexity and frequency do not always coincide. Sometimes they may; for example, the bare V is both the simplest and one of the most frequent coding frames. But in other cases the two criteria conflict; for example, the P di-V (s)ama A coding frame, marked with both di- and (s)ama, is more formally complex but more frequent than its P V A counterpart, marked with neither. Such clashes between complexity and frequency pose a serious challenge to any attempt to organize the various coding frames into a small set of basic frames plus a larger set of frames derived from the basic frames by means of alternations. For example, whereas an incremental complexity-based approach might derive the P di-V (s)ama A coding frame from its P V A counterpart by means of the introduction of the two markers di- and (s)ama, a frequency-oriented approach would probably opt to derive the P di-V (s)ama A coding frame from its A N-V P counterpart by means of a “passive” alternation. We leave it to the reader to choose the approach that is most amenable to his or her needs and theoretical persuasions. The contrast between Figures 1 and 2 highlights the nature of Jakarta Indonesian as a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The wolf is the basic IMA structure of the language, with the absence of more than a single valency class. The sheep’s clothing is the frequency effects and associated system of valency preference classes, which conspire to make Jakarta Indonesian seem more similar to many other languages than it really is. In the context of the Leipzig Valency Classes Project, what is perhaps most striking about Jakarta Indonesian is that although the basic architecture of the language is much closer to the IMA prototype than is the case for most other languages, the superimposed frequency effects lead in the direction of a language that is quite ordinary from a cross-linguistic point of view, rather than in any number of other logically possible directions. As evident from the accompanying database, the valency preference classes and more frequent coding frames of Jakarta Indonesian fall within the range of variation of valency classes and grammaticalized coding frames observed in most other languages. Diachronically, the Jakarta Indonesian system of valency preference classes is perhaps most appropriately understood as the outcome of a lengthy process in which a prior and more categorical system of valency classes undergoes weakening, driven by some combination of contact-induced simplification and assimila-
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tion to various substrate languages with a prior presence in the region: see Gil (2015) for detailed discussion. Phylogenetically, though, the Jakarta Indonesian system of valency preference classes may be viewed as a kind of “living fossil”, providing a model for an intermediate stage in the evolution of valency classes, whereby the typically categorical valency classes of most languages might have emerged out of ancient IMA language origins by means of the conventionalization and grammaticalization of the kinds of preference rules that are still in evidence in Jakarta Indonesian.
pikir
teriak
ng(k)edip
batuk
lari
loncat
lompat
nyanyi
pergi
berangkat
ketawa
10 THINK
20 SHOUT AT
46 BLINK
47 COUGH
49 RUN
52 JUMP
52 JUMP
53 SING
54 GO
55 LEAVE
57 LAUGH
Verb form
ujan
Meaning label
69 RAIN
#
Appendix
1V
1V
1V
1V
1V
1V
1V
1V
1V
1V
1V
V
Coding frame schema
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
Accidental Passive
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
Adversative Passive
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Applicative Allative
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Applicative Benefactive
+
–
–
+
+
+
–
–
+
+
+
–
Bare Applicative Transitive
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Ditransitive Alternation
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
Impersonal Passive
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Intransitive alternation
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Obl. Subj. Passive Agentive byphrase
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Obl. Subj. Passive Ditransitive
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Passive Transitive
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Thematic Adversative Passive
–
–
–
+
–
+
–
–
–
–
+
–
Transitive Alternation
Valency classes in Jakarta Indonesian
977
Verb form
teriak
sakit
dingin
mati
tinggal (2)
sedih
laper
gelinding
tenggelem
nyala
kering
pemburu
mendidih
nongol
sakit
Meaning label
58 SCREAM
59 FEEL PAIN
60 FEEL COLD
61 DIE
61 DIE
63 BE SAD
64 BE HUNGRY
65 ROLL
66 SINK
67 BURN
68 BE DRY
70 BE A HUNTER
80 BOIL
81 APPEAR
82 BE ILL
#
1V
1V
1V
1V
1V
1V
1V
1V
1V
1V
1V
1V
1V
1V
1V
Coding frame schema
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Accidental Passive
+
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
+
–
+
–
+
+
–
Adversative Passive
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Applicative Allative
–
–
–
–
+
+
–
–
–
–
+
–
+
–
–
Applicative Benefactive
+
+
–
–
+
+
–
+
–
–
+
–
+
+
+
Bare Applicative Transitive
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
+
–
–
+
–
+
–
–
Ditransitive Alternation
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Impersonal Passive
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Intransitive alternation
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Obl. Subj. Passive Agentive byphrase
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Obl. Subj. Passive Ditransitive
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
Passive Transitive
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
Thematic Adversative Passive
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Transitive Alternation
978 Thomas Conners, John Bowden and David Gil
n(t)angis
jatoh
dingin
omong
makan
peluk
liat
liat
cium
takut
takutin
suka
seneng
kenal
cari
mandiin
cuci
cukur
tolong
bantu
ikut
83 CRY
84 FALL
91 BE COLD
22 SAY
1 EAT
2 HUG
3 LOOK AT
4 SEE
5 SMELL
6 FEAR
7 FRIGHTEN
8 LIKE
8 LIKE
9 KNOW
11 SEARCH FOR
12 WASH
12 WASH
14 SHAVE
15 HELP
15 HELP
16 FOLLOW
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1 V (UTT2)
1V
1V
1V
–
+
+
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
+
–
+
+
–
–
–
+
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
–
–
–
+
–
–
+
+
(m)
+
+
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
–
+
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
+
+
+
–
–
+
+
+
+
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
+
+
–
–
–
+
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
+
+
+
+
(m)
–
–
+
–
–
+
+
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
+
–
+
+
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
Valency classes in Jakarta Indonesian
979
temu
minta
bangun
pecahin
patahin
bunuh
matiin
pukul
pukul
gebuk
sentuh
colok
pegang
potong
17 MEET
19 ASK FOR
24 BUILD
25 BREAK
25 BREAK
26 KILL
26 KILL
27 BEAT
28 HIT
28 HIT
29 TOUCH
29 TOUCH
29 TOUCH
30 CUT
Verb form
ketemu
Meaning label
17 MEET
#
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
Coding frame schema
+
+
+
–
–
+
+
–
+
–
–
+
–
+
–
Accidental Passive
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
Adversative Passive
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
Applicative Allative
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
Applicative Benefactive
–
+
+
–
+
+
+
–
+
–
–
+
+
+
+
Bare Applicative Transitive
+
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
–
–
Ditransitive Alternation
+
–
–
+
+
+
+
–
+
–
–
+
+
–
–
Impersonal Passive
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
–
–
+
Intransitive alternation
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Obl. Subj. Passive Agentive byphrase
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Obl. Subj. Passive Ditransitive
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
–
–
Passive Transitive
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Thematic Adversative Passive
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Transitive Alternation
980 Thomas Conners, John Bowden and David Gil
sobek
kupas
kulitin
umpetin
bawa
ikat
tutup
penuhin
panjat
naik
main
giling
lap
gali
dorong
bawa
colong
ajar
dengar
masak
bikin
32 TEAR
33 PEEL
33 PEEL
34 HIDE
38 CARRY
40 TIE
43 COVER
44 FILL
48 CLIMB
48 CLIMB
62 PLAY
71 GRIND
72 WIPE
73 DIG
74 PUSH
75 BRING
76 STEAL
77 TEACH
78 HEAR
79 COOK
85 MAKE
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
–
+
+
–
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
–
+
–
+
–
+
–
–
+
+
–
–
+
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
–
(m)
+
+
–
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
+
–
–
+
+
–
+
+
–
+
–
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
–
+
+
–
–
–
+
+
–
+
–
+
+
+
–
+
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
+
+
–
+
–
–
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
–
–
–
+
+
+
–
–
–
+
–
+
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
(m)
–
–
+
–
–
+
–
–
+
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
+
+
+
(m)
+
+
–
–
–
+
+
+
+
–
+
+
+
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Valency classes in Jakarta Indonesian
981
pengen
dapet
bakar
panggil
kasitahu
kasi
kirim
ambil
curi
pakein
tunjukin
lempar
tuang
87 WANT
89 GET (= obtain)
116 BURN (tr)
140 BE NAMED
21 TELL
36 GIVE
37 SEND
31 TAKE
76 STEAL
13 DRESS
35 SHOW
39 THROW
42 POUR
Verb form
terima
Meaning label
86 GET
#
1 V 2 ke+3
1 V 2 ke+3
1 V 2 ke+3
1 V 2 ke+3
1V2 dari+3
1V2 dari+3
1V23
1V23
1V23
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
1V2
Coding frame schema
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
–
–
+
+
–
+
+
Accidental Passive
–
–
–
–
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Adversative Passive
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
Applicative Allative
+
+
–
–
–
+
+
+
–
+
+
+
–
+
Applicative Benefactive
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
+
+
–
–
–
Bare Applicative Transitive
+
+
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
+
+
+
–
–
Ditransitive Alternation
+
+
–
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
+
+
Impersonal Passive
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Intransitive alternation
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
+
–
–
–
–
Obl. Subj. Passive Agentive byphrase
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
+
+
+
–
–
–
–
Obl. Subj. Passive Ditransitive
+
+
–
+
+
+
(m)
+
+
–
+
–
–
+
Passive Transitive
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
Thematic Adversative Passive
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Transitive Alternation
982 Thomas Conners, John Bowden and David Gil
masuk
isi
taro
taro
bicara
cerita
bilang
duduk
duduk
tinggal (1)
muncul
45 LOAD
45 LOAD
41 PUT
45 LOAD
18 TALK
21 TELL
22 SAY
50 SIT
51 SIT DOWN
56 LIVE
81 APPEAR
+
–
+
1 V LOC2
1 V LOC2
1 V LOC2
1 V LOC2
1 V ke+2 UTT3
1 V ke+2 soal+3
1 V ama+2 soal+3
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
1 V 2 LOC3 –
1 V 2 LOC3 –
1 V 2 ke+3
1 V 2 ke+3
1 V 2 ke+3
–
+
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
–
+
–
Legend: + occurs regularly, m occurs marginally, − occurs never, _ no data
isi
44 FILL
–
+
+
+
–
–
+
–
–
+
+
+
–
+
–
–
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
+
+
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
+
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
(m)
(m)
+
–
+
–
+
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Valency classes in Jakarta Indonesian
983
984
Thomas Conners, John Bowden and David Gil
Acknowledgements The Jakarta Indonesian valency database was completed by Thomas Conners. The accompanying chapter was written by David Gil. The database and the chapter are products of a joint project at the Jakarta Field Station of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, in which the naturalistic corpora of Jakarta Indonesian were coded for valency patterns; this project was led by Thomas Conners, with the participation of John Bowden, Erni Farida Sri Ulina Ginting, David Gil, Dalan Mehuli, Poppy Siahaan, Nadia Sulistiono, and Tessa Yuditha, and with technical assistance from Brad Taylor. This material was presented at two workshops of the Leipzig Valency Classes Project held at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig; we are grateful to several participants at these events for helpful comments and suggestions. Finally, we are indebted to the leaders of the Leipzig Valency Classes Project, Bernard Comrie, Iren Hartmann, Martin Haspelmath, and Andrej Malchukov for their ongoing advice, assistance and patience, and their extensive comments on earlier versions of the database and chapter.
Abbreviations assoc circ distr excla exhrt exp.asp fam fill g.act g.appl g.pass imit pers prt
associative [second half of] circumfix distributive exclamation exhortative experiential aspect familiar filler generalized active generalized applicative generalized passive imitative personal particle
References Abdul Chaer. 1976. Kamus Dialek Jakarta. Jakarta: Nusa Indah, Ende. Cole, Peter & Gaby Hermon. 2005. Subject and non-subject relativization in Indonesian. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 14. 59–88. Cole, Peter, Gaby Hermon & Yassir Nasanius Tjung. 2005. How irregular is WH in situ in Indonesian? Studies in Language 29. 553–581.
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Cole, Peter, Gaby Hermon & Yassir Nasanius Tjung. 2006. Is there pasif semu in Jakarta Indonesian? Oceanic Linguistics 45. 65–90. Chomsky, Noam. 1981. Lectures on Government and Binding: Studies in Generative Grammar. Dordrecht: Foris. Conners, Thomas. 2012. More on the aspectual role of the nasal prefix in Jakarta Indonesian. Paper presented at the 16 th International Symposium on Malay/Indonesian Linguistics, Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 24 June 2012. Conners, Thomas & Claudia Brugman. (to appear). The event semantic role of the nasal prefix in Jakarta Indonesian. In Wayan Arka (ed.), Proceedings of the 12 th International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics. Gil, David. 2001a. Creoles, complexity and Riau Indonesian. Linguistic Typology 5. 325–371. Gil, David. 2001b. Escaping Eurocentrism: Fieldwork as a process of unlearning. In Paul Newman & Martha Ratliff (eds.), Linguistic Fieldwork, 102–132. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gil, David. 2002. The Prefixes di- and N- in Malay / Indonesian Dialects. In Fay Wouk & Malcom Ross (eds.), The History and Typology of Western Austronesian Voice Systems, 241–283. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Gil, David. 2003. English goes Asian: number and (in)definiteness in the Singlish noun-phrase. In Frans Plank (ed.), Noun Phrase Structure in the Languages of Europe, Empirical Approaches to Language Typology, 467–514. Eurotyp 20–7. Berlin & New York: Mouton. Gil, David. 2004. Riau Indonesian sama, explorations in macrofunctionality. In Martin Haspelmath (ed.), Coordinating Constructions (Typological Studies in Language 58), 371–424. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Gil, David. 2005a. Isolating-monocategorial-associational language. In Henri Cohen & Claire Lefebvre (eds.), Categorization in Cognitive Science, 347–379. Oxford: Elsevier. Gil, David. 2005b. Word order without syntactic categories: how Riau Indonesian does it. In Andrew Carnie, Heidi Harley & Sheila Ann Dooley (eds.), Verb First: On the Syntax of VerbInitial Languages, 243–263. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Gil, David. 2006a. Intonation and thematic roles in Riau Indonesian. In Chungmin M. Lee, Matthew Gordon & Daniel Büring (eds.), Topic and Focus, Cross-Linguistic Perspectives on Meaning and Intonation, Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy 8, 241–268. Dordrecht: Springer. Gil, David. 2006b. The acquisition of voice morphology in Jakarta Indonesian. In Natalia Gagarina & Insa Gülzow (eds.), The Acquisition of Verbs and Their Grammar: The Effect of Particular Languages, 201–227. Dordrecht: Springer. Gil, David. 2010. The acquisition of syntactic categories in Jakarta Indonesian. In Jan Don & Roland Pfau (eds.), Parts of Speech, Empirical and Theoretical Advances, 135–167. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. (First appeared in Studies in Language 32. 637–669, 2008.) Gil. 2012. Where does predication come from? Canadian Journal of Linguistics 57(2). 303–333. Gil, David. 2013. Riau Indonesian: a language without nouns and verbs. In Jan Rijkhoff & Eva van Lier (eds.), Flexible Word Classes, 89–130. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gil, David. 2015. The Mekong-Mamberamo linguistic area. In Nick J. Enfield & Bernard Comrie (eds.), Languages of Mainland Southeast Asia: The State of the Art, 262–351. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Gil, David (to appear) What is Riau Indonesian? In Scott Paauw & Peter Slomanson (eds.), Studies in Malay and Indonesian Linguistics [tentative title]. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Grijns, C. D. 1991. Jakarta Malay: A Multidimensional Approach to Spatial Variation, Leiden: KITLV Press. Hidayat, Lanny. 2010. The acquisition of verb argument structure in Basilectal Jakarta Indonesian. PhD Dissertation. Newark, DE, USA: University of Delaware.
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Hidayat, Lanny. 2011. The analysis of the semantic function of the prefix N- in Basilectal Jakarta Indonesian. Proceedings of the Workshop on Tense, Aspect, Mood and Evidentiality in Indonesian Languages. Tokyo: ILCAA. Himmelmann, Nikolaus P. 2005. The Austronesian languages of Asia and Madagascar: typological characteristics. In K. Alexander Adelaar & Nikolaus P. Himmelmann (eds.), The Austronesian Languages of Asia and Madagascar, 110–181. London: Routledge. Ikranagara, Kay. 1980. Melayu Betawi Grammar (NUSA Linguistic Studies in Indonesian and Languages in Indonesia, vol. 9) Jakarta: Universitas Atma Jaya. Kähler, Hans. 1966. Wörterverzeichnis des Omong Djakarta. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer. Lerdahl, Fred & Ray S. Jackendoff. 1983. A Generative Theory of Tonal Music. Cambridge: MIT Press. Muhadjir. 1981. Morphology of Jakarta Dialect, Affixation and Reduplication. NUSA Linguistic Studies in Indonesian and Languages in Indonesia, Volume 11. Jakarta: Universitas Atma Jaya. Nordhoff, Sebastian. (this volume). Valency Classes in Sri Lanka Malay. DeGruyter Mouton. Shibatani, Masayoshi & Ketut Artawa. (this volume). Balinese Valency Classes. DeGruyter Mouton. Sneddon, James Neil. 2003. Diglossia in Indonesian. Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 159. 519–549. Sneddon, James Neil. 2006. Colloquial Jakartan Indonesian, Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Stoel, Ruben. 2005. Focus in Manado Malay, Grammar, Particles and Intonation, Leiden: CNWS Publications. Tjung, Yassir Nasanius. 2006. The formation of relative clauses in Jakarta Indonesian: a subjectobject asymmetry. PhD Dissertation. Newark, DE, USA: University of Delaware. van Minde, Don. 1997. Melayu Ambong, Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, Leiden: CNWS Publications. Wouk, Fay. 1989. The impact of discourse on grammar: verb morphology in spoken Jakarta Indonesian. PhD Dissertation, Los Angeles: UCLA. Wouk, Fay. 1999. Dialect contact and koineization in Jakarta, Indonesia. Language Sciences 21. 61–86.
Sebastian Nordhoff
24 Case frames in Sri Lanka Malay 1 Introduction Sri Lanka Malay is a high contact variety with Malayic lexicon and South Asian grammar. It is spoken by the descendants of mercenaries and exiles, who were brought by the colonial powers, the Dutch and the British, roughly between 1650 and 1850. During the last three centuries, the language has radically restructured its grammar. It has, for instance, shifted to head-final word order and developed a number of morphosyntactic categories unheard of elsewhere in the Malay world (case markers, infinitives, participles). The grammatical changes are nearly all traceable to influence from the local languages Sinhala and Tamil (see Nordhoff (2009) and references therein for a more thorough discussion). An area where patterns of the adstrate languages have not been copied is valency: Sinhala and Tamil have distinct conjugation classes for transitive and (certain types of) intransitive verbs; this is not found in Sri Lanka Malay. Sri Lanka Malay is a language with direct linking between semantic role and morphosyntactic expression. This direct link is established by means of postpositions, and these postpositions neatly map onto semantic roles. For instance, the clitic =yang is used to express patient, and patient can generally not be expressed by any other means. Similarly, =nang expresses recipient, and recipient cannot be expressed by any other means. This is different from languages like English, where the mapping between semantic roles and morphosyntactic expression is more involved. Typically, direct objects are patients or themes in English, but this general rule does not hold in a number of cases. For instance, a patient can be found in subject position, typically reserved for agents, under passivization. (1) The city was destroyed by Caesar. In addition, a recipient can be found in direct object position under dative shift. (2) John gave me the cake. Finally, a goal can be found in direct object position with locative alternation. (3) John loaded the truck with hay. In languages like English, it is therefore necessary to keep track of the other morphosyntactic marking applied in a particular sentence in order to successfully decode the propositional content. This is not necessary in Sri Lanka Malay, where no
988
Sebastian Nordhoff
such alternations exist. Sri Lanka Malay is a WYSIWYG language (Hengeveld 2011; Nordhoff 2011b) as far as the encoding and decoding of argument structure is concerned: what you seen in morphology (the enclitic postposition) is what you get in semantics (the thematic role). This has also been observed for the adstrate Sinhala by Gair (1991), who coined the term ‘Strong Lexical Case Assignment Hypothesis’.
2 Basics of Sri Lanka Malay morphosyntax Sri Lanka Malay is a language based on Malay vocabulary and Dravidian grammar. Its grammar differs dramatically from any other variety of Malay, so that it is considered ‘a language in its own right’ (Adelaar 1991), rather than a dialect of Malay/ Indonesian, e.g. Jakarta Indonesian (Gil, this volume). Among the features which distinguish Sri Lanka Malay from Malay/Indonesian, we find: − retroflex consonants, prenasalized stops, vowel length, consonant length − relatively abundant morphology, e.g. infinitives and participles − SOV word order − postpositional case markers − preposed relative clauses − grammaticalized indefiniteness marking − copula constructions (Nordhoff 2011a) − solid word class distinctions (Nordhoff 2013) − serial verbs (Nordhoff 2012) It is thus about as different from Malay/Indonesian as English is from Marathi as far as grammar is concerned. Its lexicon, on the other hand, is solidly Malay with about 90 % cognacy with other Malay varieties (Paauw 2004). In the context of valency, word order, head marking, and dependent marking are the most interesting domains. These will briefly be discussed here.
2.1 Word order Sri Lanka Malay word order is generally head final, with SOV being the normal case for pragmatically neutral sentences.1 A model sentence is given in (4).
1 SOV is understood to mean Agent Patient V with no claim as to the existence of grammatical relations like subject and object in Sri Lanka Malay.
Case frames in Sri Lanka Malay
989
(4) Itthu baathu=yang incayang Seelong=dering laayeng nigiri=nang dist stone=acc 3s.polite Ceylon-abl other country=dat asà-baapi. cp-bring ‘These stones, he brought them from Ceylon to other countries.’ (K060103nar01) Note that the realization of four NPs is very atypical; it is more common to only have one overt NP, with the other NPs being dropped. The nature of the NPs has no bearing on the possibility to drop them; any NP can be dropped if recoverable from context. The order of the prenominal NPs is governed by pragmatic considerations of topicality, in this case itthu baathu ‘those stones’ is topicalized. As far as morphosyntax is concerned, word order is free. In pragmatically neutral contexts, all NPs are preverbal. For focalization purposes, right extraposition of one NP is possible. Example (4) also shows the main device Sri Lanka Malay uses for the indication of semantic roles: postpositional case markers. We find the accusative marker =yang, the dative marker =nang, and the ablative marker =dering. The pronoun incayang ‘he’ does not take a postposition in this sentence. In the context of this paper, I will consider NPs like incayang to be in the nominative.
2.2 Head marking While the encoding of semantic roles/valency is quite rich as far as dependents are concerned, such is not the case for verbs: there is no indexing, and the existence of any diathesis marking on the verb is debatable (see below).
2.3 Dependent marking The question of ‘who did what to whom’ is answered by postpositions in Sri Lanka Malay. These morphemes are also often analyzed as clitics, a theoretical problem common in head-final languages. Nordhoff (2009) adduces evidence for their sta-
Tab. 1: Case postpositions in Sri Lanka Malay and their glosses. =yang =nang =dering =ka =sàsaama
accusative dative ablative locative comitative
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tus as clitics, rather than affixes or independent words. Table 1 gives an overview of the most common morphemes and their meanings. Examples (5)–(8) show prototypical instances of the use of these postpositions.2 (5) Itthusubbath deram pada jaalang arà-kijja butthul ruuma therefore 3pl pl road non.past-make correct house pada=yang arà-picca-kang. pl=acc non.past-broken-caus ‘Therefore, they build the street, they demolish many houses.’ (K051222nar04) (6) Kithang lorang=nang baaye mliiga athi-kaasi. 1pl 2pl=dat good palace irr-give ‘We will give you beautiful places.’ (K051213nar06) (7) Kaaya oorang=dering=jo arà-cuuri. rich man=abl=emph non.past-steal ‘It was from rich people that he stole.’ (K051206nar02) (8) Minnyak klaapa=ka gooreng. coconut.oil coconut=loc fry ‘Fry it in coconut oil.’ (K060103rec02) In certain cases, the postpositions can be dropped. This is most notably found in topicalizations as in (9), where the locative marker =ka is dropped. (9) Seelong=0̸ samma thumpath=0̸ mlaayu aada. Ceylon all place Malay exist ‘In Sri Lanka there are Malays everywhere.’ (K051222nar04)
2 Most examples in this paper come from naturalistic discourse. The source of the examples follows the English translation. ‘K051222nar04’ for instance refers to the fourth narrative of the 22 nd of December 2005 from the city of K(andy). All media files and texts are in principle available from the Dobes archive (http://www.mpi.nl/tools/imdi_browser). Examples come from a variety of speakers whom I recorded during my stays in Sri Lanka (7 months between 2006 and 2011) and the visit of some speakers to Europe (three weeks in 2008). Examples with the source XXXXXXXeliXXX are from elicitation sessions. Some examples in the introductory passages of sections are constructed by me. These do not have source attributions.
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The accusative marker =yang is furthermore often dropped if the context of the sentence already makes it clear which referent is the agent (baapa ‘father’) and which referent is the patient (pohong ‘tree’), as reverse roles are very unlikely.3 (10) Baapa derang=pe kubbong=ka hatthu pohong=Ø nya-poothong. father 3pl=poss garden=loc indf tree past-cut ‘My father cut a tree in their garden.’ (K051205nar05) The particular parameters conditioning the occurrence of =yang are poorly understood, and no hard and fast rule can be given. Animacy, definiteness, topicality, number, affectedness, and idiolect all play a role, but none of these parameters is sufficient on its own to predict the occurrence of =yang (Nordhoff 2009: 286–291). Taking a look at a number of semantic roles and a number of postpositions, one can map the ways in which they relate to each other. This is shown in Table 2. Above, I have argued that there is a clear and direct mapping between semantic roles and morphosyntactic expression. Taking a look at Table 2, we see that this overstates the regularities. It is common that a morpheme can be used for more than one function, and, more problematically, several functions can be encoded by more than one morpheme. This is the case for the coding of patient by both =yang and =nang, as well as the coding of goal by both =nang and =ka. Looking more closely into these cases, it appears however that they are not of the same type as passivization, dative shift or locative alternation in English. The use of =nang for marking arguments normally seen as patients is restricted to a very small set of three verbs: puukul ‘hit’, theembak ‘shoot’, thiikam ‘stab’. In all of these three cases, we are dealing with transfer or impact, so that the semantic role could as well be interpreted as goal or recipient. This shows that what we first took as a patient is indeed not a patient in Sri Lanka Malay, but rather a recipient. This thus relieves us of the unfortunate one-to-many mapping of roles and cases. There is a lexical specification of which highly transitive verbs take a recipient (the three just discussed), and which take a patient (all the others). There is no way to alter this and to make a verb from group 1 take =yang, or to make a verb from group 2 take =nang. The second one-to-many mapping concerns the encoding of goal. This is discussed below in Section 4.1 To sum up, even with the two minor glitches just presented, it seems fair to say that Sri Lanka Malay is very close to a direct mapping of semantic roles onto morphosyntax.
3 A similar argument can be made for jaalang ‘street’ in (5) and mliiga ‘palace’ in (6), but in those cases it could be argued that the absence of the accusative marker has to do with the lack of affectedness. This is clearly not the case in (10), where the tree is highly affected.
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Tab. 2: Mapping of postpositions on semantic roles in Sri Lanka Malay. yang patient theme
nang
ka
dering
locative
instrumental source path
goal recipient benefactive purpose experiencer
2.4 Some complications: modals, institutions and involitive derivation Verbs are the prototypical assigners of case in all morphosyntactic theories. In Sri Lanka Malay, there are two additional processes which lead to the expression of case on an NP, and which are unrelated to verbs. These are modals and institutional actors. A third process, involitive derivation, changes the feature [+volition] of a verb to [−volition]. As a result, a former actor will lack volition and will instead be coded as an experiencer. These three cases will now be discussed and illustrated in turn. Sri Lanka Malay has a lexical category of modals, whose main members are boole ‘can’, thàrboole ‘cannot’, maau ‘want’ and thussa ‘want.not’. These words have in common that they assign the infinitive mà- to their clausal complement, and the dative =nang to the agent of the verb of their clausal complement. This is exemplified in (12) and (13). In (11), we see a plain clause without case marking on the NP. In (12), where a modal is added, we see that the verb is marked for infinitive with mà-, and the NP takes the dative marker =nang. (11) Tony arà-nyaanyi. Tony nonpast-sing ‘Tony sings.’ (12) Tony=nang mà-nyaanyi boole. Tony=dat inf-sing can ‘Tony can sing.’ When the modal is procliticized, the infinitive marker is dropped. (13) Tony=nang boole-nyaanyi. Tony=dat can-sing ‘Tony can sing.’
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In cases like (13), the coding of the actor is thus not as expected. Given that the propositional content changes as far as its epistemic value is concerned, we are, however, not dealing with a morphosyntactic alternation expressing the same semantic content, but with a difference in semantic content mirrored by a difference in morphosyntactic encoding. Still, it is important to point out that not all instances of case marking in Sri Lanka Malay are due to the 1 : 1-mapping argued for above. Another instance of an erstwhile actor bearing the dative marker after the addition of some material is the so-called ‘involitive derivation’. The prefix kànà-, when applied to a verb, indicates lack of volition and makes the new verb assign the dative to a former agent. This is shown in examples (14)−(15). In (14), the singer is volitional and is 0-̸ marked, whereas in (15), he is non-volitional, and is marked with the dative. One can argue that kànà-changes the semantic role a verb assigns from agent to experiencer, the latter unintentionally taking part in the action. (14) Tony arà-nyaanyi. Tony nonpast-sing ‘Tony is singing.’ (15) Tony=nang arà-kànà-nyaani. Tony=dat nonpast-invol-sing ‘Tony is singing involuntarily/against his will.’ Involitive derivation can also be found in predications with more than one argument (16). (16) Tony-nang naasi anà-kànà-maakang. Tony=dat rice past-invol-eat ‘Tony ate rice against his will.’ Modals and involitive derivation both belong to the verbal domain, and act upon the arguments of the verb. As such they are close to the traditional idea of case being assigned by verbs, although they operate outside of lexical semantics. A third process that complicates case assignment in Sri Lanka Malay is unrelated to verbs: institutional actors. Institutional actors (e.g. governments, armies or law enforcement) in Sri Lanka Malay take ablative marking instead of the normal 0-̸ marking. This does not depend on the number of arguments the verb takes, and it also does not alter the coding of the remaining arguments. Examples (17)–(18) show the difference in encoding of non-institutional and institutional actors. In (17), we are dealing with a non-institutional actor, where we find 0-̸ marking. The institutional actor in (18) receives ablative marking. Again, it is not possible to swap these markings, as this would lead to ungrammaticality.
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(17) Tony arà-dhaathang. Tony nonpast-come ‘Tony is coming.’ (18) Police=dering arà-dhaathang. police=abl nonpast-come ‘The police are coming.’ Like the modals, institutional actors obscure the direct link between thematic role and morphosyntactic expression, but do not give rise to a free alternation of case frames, which could be exploited for stylistic purposes for instance. To sum up this section, case marking in Sri Lanka Malay mainly depends on the lexical verb and the thematic roles it licenses. There is generally a transparent relation between the case selected and the underlying thematic role. This can be obscured by processes unrelated to argument structure, namely modals, involitive derivation, and institutional actors. We will now see how case markers are employed in predicates with between zero and four arguments.
3 Valency patterns One result of this study is that Sri Lanka Malay verbs can hardly be categorized based on the number of arguments they take. In order to make this article comparable to the other articles in this volume, a practical approach based on the arity of the English translational equivalent is chosen. I will start with 0-place predicates and end with 4-place predicates. I have used my best judgment to decide which verb goes where, but different choices would always have been possible.
3.1 Zero-place predicates There is one zero-place predicate, uujang ‘rain’. Other types of precipitation (snow, hail, sleet) are unknown in Sri Lanka. One could probably add a beneficiary or a source to this predicate, but this is outside of the prototypical context this predicate is used in. (19) 0̸ arà-uujang. nonpast-rain ‘It is raining.’
3.2 One-place predicates Sri Lanka Malay is a role-dominated language with no grammatical relations. The semantic role of a referent is directly reflected in morphosyntax through the case
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marker selected (see Section 2.3). One-place-predicates can have their argument marked with either nominative, accusative, dative, or ablative.4 The discussion of case frames will therefore focus on these four cases here. Eventually, the locative will also enter the picture. Cases not assigned by the verb, but by a modal or an ‘institutional actor’ (see Section 2.4), are marked by an asterisk. (20) IO nom SL J P P M J P P M J P P M J P P M J P dat J P P M JP P PM M JQ acc TM J J P P M JP P dat*P PM M P J M P PM JP M P P J KR abl UM N With one-place predicates, nominative is the most common case (21). Dative is assigned for experiencers (22), or if a modal is present in the clause (25). Accusativemarking is very restricted in one-place predicates and has only been found on two verbs: thìnggalam ‘sink’ (23) and jaatho ‘fall’ (24). The ablative finally is not conditioned by semantic role, but by the nature of the referent: if it is an institution, such as a government or a committee, use the ablative, otherwise, stick with the semantic role the verb assigns (26). (21) Itthukapang Tony Hassan=Ø su-pii. then Tony Hassan past-go ‘Then Tony Hassan left.’ (K060116nar09) (22) Go=dang karang bannyak thàràsìggar. 1s.familiar=dat now very sick ‘I am now very sick.’ (B060115nar04) (23) Titanic kappal=yang su-thìnggalam. Titanic ship=acc past-sink ‘The ship “Titanic” sank.’ (K081104eli05) (24) Piiso=yang meeja=dering baawa=nang asà-jaatho seppe kaaki knife=acc table=instr down=dat cp-fall my foot su-poothong kìnna. past-cut advers ‘The knife fell down (from the table) and cut my foot.’ 4 To the best of my knowledge, there is no way to distinguish arguments from adjuncts in Sri Lanka Malay. I therefore treat all participants of a verb alike and refer to them as ‘arguments’. Note
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(25) Kithang=nang ... two o’clock=ke=sangke bole=duuduk. 1pl=dat two o’clock=simil=until can-stay ‘We can stay up until two o’clock.’ (K061026rcp04) (26) Police=dering su-dhaathang. police=abl past-come ‘The police came.’ (K081105eli02) Overall, nominative marking is by far the most frequent, followed by the well-developed dative for actors lacking volition (see below), mainly experiencers. The accusative is rare, and the ablative is not conditioned by the verb. To my knowledge, the only one-place predicates taking the accusative are thìnggalam ‘sink’ and jaatho ‘fall’, but there might be more. Both cases can be explained by influence from Sinhala (Gair 1991).
3.3 Two-place predicates With two place predicates, we have to distinguish the actor argument and the undergoer argument. The actor can be described in exactly the same way as for oneplace predicates: normally, it is encoded in the nominative, but lack of volition or modals in the clause trigger dative marking. Institutional actors take the ablative. Note that accusative marking for actors is not attested in Sri Lanka Malay.5 The non-actor argument will normally be in the accusative, although the accusative marker =yang is often dropped. Recipients and beneficiaries, as well as some rare patients (of the verbs puukul ‘hit’, thiikam ‘stab’ theembak ‘shoot’) will be in the dative. Askees are in the locative. (27) I O nom S J P J P P J P dat P P J J JQ T JP dat* P P P P P J J J JR abl U J J K
O nomS L P P M P M P P M P acc P P M P P P M P PM M Q dat TM P P M P M P P M abl P P P M P P M P PM R loc UM N
Note that the forces operating on the actor argument (modals, institutions) are independent of the forces operating on the undergoer argument, which is only
that this might lead to more than four arguments for a predicate, although I limit myself to up to four arguments in this paper. 5 Accusative marking for actors is found in the adstrate Sinhala (Gair 2003: 791), so it is significant that it is not found in Sri Lanka Malay.
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conditioned by the thematic roles the verb assigns. As a result, any of the 3×5 possible combinations in (27) is grammatical. I will not illustrate the different possibilities for actors here, as these are identical to what has been said above for one-place arguments. As far as the undergoer argument is concerned, it can be marked as nominative (28) or accusative (29). (28) Baapa derang=pe kubbong=ka hatthu pohong=0̸ nya-poothong. father 3pl=poss garden=loc indf tree past-cut ‘My father cut a tree in their garden.’ (K051205nar05) (29) Ithukapang lorang=pe leher=(yang) kithang=Ø athi-poothong. then 2pl=poss neck=acc 1pl irr-cut ‘Then we will cut your neck.’ (K051213nar06) Dative marking of the undergoer argument is also found, but refers to three semantically distinct concepts: Patients of some verbs are marked with the dative, as explained above. An example for this is given in (30). (30) Rose-red=Ø buurung=nang su-puukul. Rose-red bird=dat past-hit ‘Rose-red hit the bird.’ (K070000wrt04) If a modal is present in a clause with a verb which already assigns dative to the non-actor, both actor and non-actor will be marked with the dative, giving rise to ambiguity. (31) Se=dang Farook=nang bole=puukul. 1s=dat Farook=dat can=hit ‘I can hit Farook.’ (K081104eli05) In those cases, the actor is normally associated with the leftmost argument, as in (31), while the undergoer is the other argument. When using pointing gestures, this can be overruled, as in (32). (32) Ini kaaka=nang itthu kaaka=nang bole=puukul. prox elder.brother=dat dist elder.brother=dat can=hit ‘This brother can hit that brother.’ ‘That brother can hit this brother.’ (K081104eli05)
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A more typical use of the dative is the marking of beneficiaries, as in (33). Recipients are not found in two-place predicates, since they necessarily involve an item received; they require at least two additional participants in their predication. (33) Derang pada=0̸ arà-banthu cinggala raaja=nang. 3pl pl non.past-help Sinhala king=dat ‘They help the Sinhalese king.’ (K051206nar03) Finally, goal of motion is also marked with the dative (34b). (34) a. Guunung=ka=jo kithang arà-duuduk; mountain=loc=emph 1pl non.past-stay ‘It is in the hills that we live;’ b. guunung=nang=jo kithang arà-pii. mountain=dat=emph 1pl non.past-go ‘it is to the hills that we go.’ (B060115prs01) Example (34a) also serves to illustrate the use of the locative in two-place predicates, in this case duuduk ‘reside’. The ablative is used with two-place predicates to encode the source of motion, as in (35). (35) Spaaru Indonesia=dering dhaathang aada. some Indonesia=abl come exist ‘Some came from Indonesia.’ (K060108nar02) Another use of the ablative, namely instrument, is rarer with two-place predicates, since an instrument normally requires an additional participant to manipulate, so that we are dealing with at least three participants, which is the topic of the next section. An exception to this generalization is (36), where we find two uses of instruments in the act of playing. (36) Thaangang=dering bukang kaaki=dering masà-maayeng. hand=abl neg.nonv leg=abl must-play ‘You must play not with the hands, but with the feet.’ (N060113nar05) We have assumed that the actor always is in the nominative in the examples above, barring presence of modals or institutional actors. With experiencer verbs, the ac-
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tor/experiencer can actually be in the dative, and the undergoer/stimulus either in the nominative or in the accusative. (37) Suaara-Ø derang=nang su-dìnngar. noise indf 3pl=dat past-hear ‘They heard a noise.’ (K070000wrt04) (38) Se=dang ini oorang=yang thaau. 1s=dat prox man=acc know ‘I know this man.’ To sum up, two-place predicates normally have zero-marked actors, and undergoers are either marked for accusative or dative, with locative and ablative being more marginal possibilities. In special cases, actors can be marked for dative.
3.4 Three-place predicates Three-place predicates are typically predicates of transfer, i.e. giving and taking away. As such, they include an agent, a theme, and a goal (or source). The agent is typically in the nominative, although modals in the sentence can change this to dative, and institutional agents trigger ablative marking, as always. The theme is either unmarked (=nominative) or in the accusative. Recipients are marked by the dative, and sources by the ablative. This is schematized in (39). (39) I O nom S J P P J J P P JP P dat P P JQ T dat* P J J P P JP P P P J P KR abl U
O Q nomS T R acc U
O Q datS TL M M M R src UM M M M M M N
The following examples illustrate these patterns for the verb kaasi ‘give’. (40) Se=ppe baapa=0̸ incayang=nang ummas=0̸ su-kaasi. 1s=poss father 3s.polite=dat gold past-give ‘My father gave him gold.’ (K070000wrt04) (41) Incayang=nang [appointed member=pe hathu thumpathan]=yang 3s.polite=dat appointed member=poss indf post=acc government=ka anà-kaasi. government=loc past-give ‘(They) gave him a post as appointed member in the government.’ (N061031nar01)
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It is generally rare to find a clause with three realized (i.e. non-dropped) NPs. Most three-place predicates in the corpus with three NPs contain the verb kaasi ‘give’. There are other canonical three-place verbs in the corpus, but there are complications unrelated to argument structure which make them less suitable for illustration purposes. Example (42) for instance has a syntactically complex theme. It furthermore does not show =yang marking because of the low animacy and affectedness of the theme. Example (43) has three arguments with nice case markers, but one of them is an ‘institutional actor’, marked with the ablative. (42) Derang=pe umma=Ø derang=nang [jaithan=le, jaarong pukurjan=le] 3pl=poss mother 3pl sewing=addit needle work=addit su-aajar. past-teach ‘Their mother taught them sewing and needle work.’ (K070000wrt04) (43) Police=dering see=yang remand=nang su-kiiring. police=abl 1s=acc remand=dat past-send ‘The police sent me into custody.’ (K081105eli02) There are no instances of instruments in genuine three-place predicates with three overt NPs in the corpus. An elicited example is (44). (44) Tony piiso=dering ini daaging=yang arà-poothong. Tony knife=abl prox meat=acc nonpast-cut ‘Tony cuts this meat with a knife.’ Other combinations of roles (and therefore cases) are possible for three-place predicates. Example (45) for instances involves a path, next to an actor and a goal. (45) Spaaman derang=pe maama-yang=pe ruuma=nang itthu jaalang=dering 3s 3pl=poss uncle-3kin=poss house=dat dist street=abl pii aada. go exist ‘He went to his uncle’s house via that street.’ (B060115nar05)
3.5 Four-place predicates Four-place predicates nearly exclusively involve transfer of a theme from a source to a goal. As such the typical case frame is [NOM ACC ABL DAT]. An example is (46). The accusative marker can be dropped as usual.
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(46) Itthu baathu=yang incayang=Ø Seelong=dering laayeng nigiri=nang dist stone=acc 3s.polite Ceylon-abl other country=dat asà-baapi. cp-bring ‘These stones, he brought them from Ceylon to other countries.’ (K060103nar01) By leaving out one or several of the NPs, most of the types discussed in the previous sections can be obtained.
3.6 Summary of valency structure To sum up the assignment of zero, accusative, dative and ablative, on the roles of S, A, P and R, the following can be said: − The dative marker can be found on R and rarely P. Additionally, it can be found on S and A if they are experiencers. Furthermore, modals can assign the dative to S or A. − The accusative marker can be found on P and in rare instances on S. − The ablative marker can be found on S and A when they are institutional. It can furthermore be found on instruments and sources, widely construed. − Zero can be found on S, A and P. Zero is never found on R.
4 Alternations Sri Lanka Malay does not have any straightforward alternations. In the following I list some phenomena which may be considered alternations, but none of those is truly convincing.
4.1 Uncoded alternations: Case There are some idiolectal variations as to the cases verbs of motion and asking require. For some speakers, verbs of motion work with both the locative and the dative for the goal argument, while for others, only the dative is possible. This might be due to influence from Sinhala, where for very salient places, like the national capital, the dative marker can be dropped, and the bare stem is used, which is homophonous with the genitive/locative in these cases. Upon investigating the distribution of verbs in more detail, it was found that when asked, speakers judge the locative as ungrammatical.
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A second alternation, even more restricted, is the choice between locative and ablative for the verb mintha ‘ask’. The ablative is normally used when the item requested is tangible, whereas the locative is used when information is requested. Upon more detailed investigation, speakers judged the ablative ungrammatical, so that this alternation might be idiolectally restricted. For all other semantic roles, the mapping is deterministic. What you see in semantics is what you get in morphosyntax, and there is no way to change this. Depending on the analysis of the accusative marker =yang, one could argue that there is a alternation between 0̸-marked nominative and =yang-marked accusative for certain verbs. (47) Baapa derang=pe kubbong=ka hatthu pohong=Ø nya-poothong. father 3pl=poss garden=loc indf tree past-cut ‘My father cut a tree in their garden.’ (K051205nar05) (48) Ithukapang lorang=pe leher=yang kithang=0̸ athi-poothong. then 2pl=poss neck=acc 1pl irr-cut ‘Then we will cut your neck.’ (K051213nar06) An analysis involving the optionality of =yang depending on parameters such as animacy, topicality and affectedness seems to be the better solution, though.
4.2 Labile Verbs The issue of labile verbs is not directly relevant in Sri Lanka Malay. If we define a labile verb as a verb which, besides its canonical ‘transitive’ realization, occurs in ‘intransitive’ frames as well, then all Sri Lanka Malay verbs which have a ‘transitive’ realization are labile verbs, as they will always also allow for an ‘intransitive’ realization.6 To be more precise, they will always allow for two ‘intransitive’ realizations: one with the agent dropped and one with the patient dropped. Given that =yang marking is optional, the sequence NP V can always have two interpretations: either the NP refers to the actor or to the undergoer. Pragmatic considerations, as well as our knowledge of the world will of course always be suggestive of one interpretation or the other, but on morphosyntactic grounds alone, the linking of the only NP of the NP V sequence to a semantic role cannot be accomplished.
6 Note that while all two-argument verbs can surface with one argument only, the reverse is not true: not all one-argument verbs can add an additional argument without further measures being taken.
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4.3 Coded alternations: Verb Sri Lanka Malay is not a language with strict subcategorization for the number of arguments a verb takes. It is always possible to drop arguments, and in most cases, it is possible to add arguments without further ado. There are a number of additional morphosyntactic devices which are related to the number of arguments a verb takes and which will be discussed in this section. These devices comprise the causative suffix, the prefix kasi- and the postverbal ‘vector verbs’ kaasi ‘give’ and ambel ‘take’.
4.3.1 Causative -king The most trivial case is the causative morpheme -king with the allomorph -kang. This morpheme attaches to a verb or an adjective and introduces an additional causer, who causes the initial actor to take part in the event denoted by the predicate. Examples (49)–(51) show this for an adjective, an ‘intransitive’ verb and a ‘transitive’ verb. The causer is always in the nominative (with the usual exceptions for modals and institutional actors), while the causee is either zero-marked, or marked with the accusative marker =yang. (49) Itthuka asà-thaaro, itthu=yang arà-panas-king. dist=loc cp-put dist=acc non.past-hot-caus ‘Having put (it) there, you heat it.’ (B060115rcp02) (50) Inni=ka inni daalang=ka kithang aayer masà-mlidi-king. prox=loc prox inside=loc 1pl water must=boil-caus ‘On this, inside this, we must boil water / bring the water to a boil.’ (B060115rcp02) (51) De laaye hathu nigiri=nang anà-baapi, buunung-king=nang. 3s.impolite other indf country=dat past-bring kill-caus=dat ‘They brought him to another country to have him executed.’ (K051206nar02)
4.3.2 Prefix kasiThere are two, possibly three, verbs in Sri Lanka Malay which can be argued to involve a valency-changing derivation with the element kasi, related to kaasi ‘give’ (Nordhoff 2012). These are kasithaau ‘inform’ from thaau ‘know’, kasikaaving ‘to give in marriage’ from kaaving ‘marry’, and kasikìnnal ‘introduce’ from kìnnal
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‘know, be acquainted’. In all the three cases, a recipient is added as a new semantic role. The two other roles remain or become actor and theme.7 Recipients are not among the roles the verbs without kasi assign. The morpheme kasi- is the mechanism closest to a valency-changing device Sri Lanka Malay has, but, as stated above, it is limited to a handful of verbs and probably lexicalized.
4.3.3 Vector verb kaasi At first sight, there is another process which seems to add a beneficiary, the vector verb kaasi ‘give’. Note that this form is obviously etymologically related to the form just discussed, but has a long vowel and occurs after the verb it modifies, not before. Combinations of V+kaasi are used to mark beneficiaries as in (52), where the fact of receiving explanations is highlighted as beneficial. Related constructions in Sinhala and Tamil have been termed ‘alterbenefactive’ (Lehmann 1989: 227). (52) Kithang=pe ini younger generation=nang=jo konnyong masà-biilang 1pl=poss prox younger generation=dat=emph few must-say kaasi, masà-aajar. give must-teach ‘It is to the younger generation that we must explain it, must teach it to.’ The question which arises is whether kaasi changes the valency structure of the verb it modifies. Already example (52) suggests that this is unlikely. The verb biilang ‘say’ typically takes three arguments, a speaker, a message, and an addressee. This fact does not change through the addition of kaasi in (52). This is even clearer in (53). Kaasi could be thought to increase valency, but example (53) shows that it does in fact not have any influence on the number of arguments. (53) Itthu muusing, [Islam igaama nya-aajar kaasi 0]̸ Jaapna Hindu teacher. dist time Islam religion past-teach give Jaffna Hindu teacher ‘At that time, those who taught Islamic religion were Hindu teachers from Jaffna.’ (K051213nar03) The verb aajar ‘teach’ has already three arguments before derivation, an agent, a theme, and a recipient/beneficiary. The same three roles are present after kaasi is 7 The ‘knower’ of the erstwhile thaau ‘know’ is either in the nominative or the dative, depending on idiolect. This is due to different exposure to the contact languages: Tamil uses the dative with ‘know’, while Sinhala uses the nominative. It is likely that the Sri Lanka Malay idiolectal differences find their explanations in the particular linguistic ecology an individual speaker evolves in.
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added, but the beneficial component is highlighted. It is impossible to claim that kaasi adds an argument to aajar, since the number of arguments does not change. Furthermore, we also note that the nature of arguments does not change: the semantic roles are exactly identical, with the proviso that the ambiguous status of recipient/beneficiary is definitely changed to beneficiary in the kaasi-clause. This semantic difference, however, is not discernible in case-marking since both recipients and beneficiaries are marked by the dative.8
4.3.4 Vector verb ambel Next to the vector verb kaasi ‘give’, we also find the vector verb ambel ‘take’, which is in a number of respects the opposite of kaasi. Kaasi highlights the alterbenefactive aspect of a certain event; ambel highlights the self-beneficial aspect.9 An example is (54), where the normally neutral action of catching is marked as self-benefactive. (54) British government Malaysia Indonesia ini nigiri pada samma British government Malaysia Indonesia prox country pl all anà-peegang ambel. past-catch take ‘The British government captured Malaysia, Indonesia, all these countries.’ (K051213nar06, K081104eli06) Compare this to (55), where the action is not beneficial, and ambel is absent. (55) 0̸ Heart attack asà-peegang, baapa=le su-niinggal. heart attack cp-catch father=addit past-die ‘(My father) got a heart attack and died as well.’ (K051205nar05, K081104eli06) Note that neither the number of arguments nor their morphosyntactic coding change with regard to the sentence without ambel, showing that self-benefactive ambel triggers no morphosyntactic changes.
8 Kaasi can also be combined with a one-place (‘sing’) or two-place verb (‘build’) to indicate a beneficiary (‘sing for’, ‘build for’), but the same could be accomplished by simply adding a =nang beneficiary without kaasi. It is generally possible to add a beneficiary to any verb without further measures (also see Section 4.4). The addition of the beneficiary is thus not the result of the presence of kaasi, but rather independent of it. 9 There are other usages of ambel which will not be discussed here. The reader is referred to Nordhoff (2009) and Nordhoff (2012).
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The last process, related to self-benefactive ambel, is reflexive ambel. This is often found together with the emphatic clitic =jo, although this is optional. (56) Incayang incayang=yang(=jo) su-buunung ambel. 3s.polite 3s.polite=acc=emph past-kill take ‘He killed himself.’ (K081106eli01) The question is again whether this changes the number or nature of arguments. The answer is again negative. Even when ambel or =jo is present, it is possible to express both the agent and the patient, as shown in (56). This is normally not done for obvious pragmatic reasons of economy. We can say that the sentence in (56) has an agent NP and a patient NP just like its non-reflexive counterpart, e.g. (57). (57) Kaake baapa=yang su-buunung. grandad father=acc past-kill ‘His grandad killed his father.’ (K081103eli04) These NPs in (56) and (57) are marked in the same way, so that there is no reason to suspect morphosyntactic reflexes of valency structure. The best candidates for valency-changing operations, kasi-V, V kaasi, and V ambel were discussed in this section. The first of these operations might be seen as valency-changing, but is restricted to three lexemes. The remaining two looked promising at first sight, but had to be discarded after closer scrutiny because they affected neither number nor nature of arguments.
4.4 Other alternations Sri Lanka Malay can drop any NP if it is recoverable from context. This means that it is perfectly normal for a three-place verb like kaasi ‘give’ to be uttered in isolation as in (58). (58) su-kaasi past-give ‘X gave Y to Z (and, you, my dear addressee, will surely be smart enough to figure out who X, Y, and Z are).’ It is clear that there are no slots which obligatorily have to be filled in Sri Lanka Malay. As such, the question arises how a sentence like (58) can be distinguished from a sentence like (59).
Case frames in Sri Lanka Malay
1007
(59) su-uujang past-rain ‘(it) rained’ The overt morphosyntactic structure is exactly parallel. The two sentences (58) and (59) can however be distinguished by the possibility to add new referents. This is patently simple for (58), see (60), but nigh impossible for (59), barring very contrived contexts. (60) Tony kaake=nang ini car=yang su-kaasi. Tony grandfather=dat prox car=acc past-give ‘Tony gave this car to Grandfather.’ While it is very difficult to add more referents to uujang ‘rain’, similar problems are not found with kaasi ‘give’. The question arises whether the (im)possibility to add new referents might not be a better cue to case frame membership than the (im)possibility to leave out certain referents. Taking a look at a prototypical transitive predicate like poothong ‘cut’, it is immediately obvious that referents bearing the dative and the ablative can be added without problems. The normal transitive sentence in (61) can be made to accommodate four NPs. The resulting sentence is (62) and is as such then indistinguishable in argument structure from (46). (61) Tony ini daaging=yang arà-poothong. Tony prox meat=acc nonpast-cut ‘Tony cuts this meat.’ (62) Tony piiso=dering ini daaging=yang kaake=nang arà-poothong. Tony knife=abl prox meat=acc grandfather=dat nonpast-cut ‘Tony cuts this meat for his grandfather with a knife.’ NPs referring to space or time can also be added to the sentence without problems, a fact which is little surprising. All predicates can accommodate a phrase like Kluumbu=ka ‘in Colombo’ or soore=ka ‘in the evening’. Out of the case markers surveyed in this chapter (=yang ‘acc’, =nang ‘dat’, =ka ‘loc’, =dering ‘abl’), there is only one which cannot be added to a predicate without further ado: the accusative marker =yang. Augmenting a predication with beneficiaries, instruments, locations and points in time is no problem, but adding an extra patient is impossible. This clear separation, and the absence of similar patterns elsewhere, suggests that Sri Lanka Malay verbs can be divided into two classes: those which can take an argument with =yang (but might drop it), and those which never can take such an argument. This is the main difference made in the Sri Lanka Malay lexicon as far as verbs go. These two classes will now be surveyed in turn.
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5 Verb classes in Sri Lanka Malay 5.1 Verbs taking =yang These are verbs which have the semantic component of affectedness in them, and which thus assign a patient. Patient-taking verbs can be intransitive, like thìnggalam ‘sink’, transitive like poothong ‘cut’, ditransitive like kaasi ‘give’ or tritransitive like kiiring ‘send’.
5.2 Verbs not taking =yang These are verbs which either do not have any connection with affectedness at all in their meaning (dhaathang ‘come’), or whose affected argument takes dative marking, suggesting an interpretation as recipient.10 This set comprises atransitive verbs like uujang ‘rain’, intransitive verbs like laari ‘run’, and transitive verbs like maaki ‘scold’. Verbs with three or more places typically involve a patient or a theme and hence show a possibility to include =yang-phrases. Themes are normally marked by 0,̸ but by choosing a referent ranging high on the scales of animacy, definiteness, individuatedness, and topicality, =yang-marking becomes an option. Verbs not taking =yang can undergo derivation by the causativizer -king and then allow the use of =yang.
6 Conclusion Grammatical information which is non-predictable and arbitrary is stored in the lexicon. The English lexicon has to store that eat can have one or two arguments, but that devour has exactly two. The intransitive option is not available for the latter verb. What is there to store in the Sri Lanka Malay lexicon, and in how far does it inform our theorizing about valency? It is clear that the minimal number of argument slots is not an important category in Sri Lanka Malay. In discourse, the number of arguments is quite low due to the frequent dropping of whole NPs. Any verb in Sri Lanka Malay can be used with 0 realized arguments without leading to ungrammaticality. The maximum number of arguments a Sri Lanka Malay verb can take is not important either. In Sri Lanka Malay, NPs taking the dative =nang or the ablative =dering can always be added. This shows that the number of argu-
10 Sinhala aligns with Sri Lanka Malay in this respect. See Garusinghe (1962: 36, 92) and (Gair 1991: 18 f.). The behavior of Tamil dialects in Sri Lanka is understudied and cannot be commented on here.
Case frames in Sri Lanka Malay
1009
ments any verb can take is always between 0 and at least 3.11 The distinction between intransitive, transitive and ditransitive is thus not an important one in Sri Lanka Malay, and in fact, the presentation above structured into 0-place up to 4-place arguments is more an expository device than a solid fact about the language. The assignment of verbs to any of those four categories was based on their translational equivalents in English; I am not aware of any morphosyntactic test in Sri Lanka Malay to arrive at a similar classification. The number of arguments is thus not what has to be stored in the lexicon, since this is basically only constrained by semantic plausibility, which is found in knowledge of the world, or the ‘encyclopedia’. What must be stored in the lexicon, however, is the nature of arguments in some cases. Very often, the arguments simply match what semantics would predict (dative for recipient, ablative for instrument), but especially for the =yang-cases, there is a certain degree of arbitrariness. For instance, the transitive verb giigith ‘bite’ takes a =yang-marked NP, while the semantically similar thiikam ‘stab’ takes an NP marked for dative by =nang. The question is whether this information needs to be stored in the lexicon as a morphosyntactic irregularity, or whether a purely semantic analysis would not be possible as well. Above, I have argued that the special dative marking for the three transitive verbs theembak ‘shoot’, puukul ‘hit’, and thiikam ‘stab’ is in fact not a case of lexical irregularity, but instead reflects the semantic component of transfer of a weapon towards a point of impact, a goal. It is true that these words behave differently from other verbs with a high degree of affectedness, but a straightforward explanation is available.
Appendix: Summary table #
Meaning label
Verb form
Coding frame schema
General NP addition
General NP drop
69
RAIN
uujang
V
–
–
5
SMELL
vaanging liiyath
1V
m
+
47
COUGH
baathok
1V
m
+
49
RUN
laari
1V
m
+
Reciprocal alternation
11 We exclude the meteorological verb uujang ‘rain’ for the moment, where one could think of a context with an instrument and a beneficiary, but will need a lot of time to convince speakers of the acceptability of this context.
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#
Meaning label
Verb form
Coding frame schema
General NP addition
General NP drop
52
JUMP
lompath
1V
m
+
53
SING
nyaanyi
1V
m
+
58
SCREAM
bitharak
1V
m
+
59
FEEL PAIN
saakith
1V
m
+
61
DIE
maathi
1V
m
+
61
DIE
mniinggal
1V
m
+
62
plAY
maayeng
1V
m
+
68
BE DRY
kìrring
1V
m
–
70
BE A HUNTER
oorang neembak
1V
–
m
80
BOIL
mdiidi
1V
m
+
83
CRY
naangis
1V
m
–
84
FALL
jaatho
1V
m
+
66
SINK
thìnggalam
1-acc V
m
+
60
FEEL COLD
diinging
1-dat V
+
+
63
BE SAD
suusa
1-dat V
m
+
64
BE HUNGRY
laapar
1-dat V
m
–
67
BURN
appi aràpeegang
1-dat V
m
+
82
BE ILL
thàràsìggar
1-dat V
m
–
55
LEAVE
luppas
12V
m
+
16
FOLLOW
pii (2)
1 2-abl V
m
+
55
LEAVE
pii (2)
1 2-abl V
m
+
1
EAT
maakang
1 2-acc V
m
+
2
HUG
pullok
1 2-acc V
m
+
4
SEE
kuthumung
1 2-acc V
m
+
7
FRIGHTEN
thakuthking
1 2-acc V
m
+
10
THINK
thaksir
1 2-acc V
m
–
10
THINK
iingath
1 2-acc V
m
–
11
SEARCH FOR
caari
1 2-acc V
m
–
12
WASH
cuuci
1 2-acc V
m
+
13
DRESS
pakeking
1 2-acc V
m
+
Reciprocal alternation
Case frames in Sri Lanka Malay
#
Meaning label
Verb form
Coding frame schema
General NP addition
General NP drop
30
CUT
poothong
1 2-acc V
m
+
33
PEEL
kuupas
1 2-acc V
m
+
73
DIG
gaali
1 2-acc V
m
+
79
COOK
maasak
1 2-acc V
m
+
126
BOIL (tr)
rubbus
1 2-acc V
m
+
6
FEAR
thaakuth
1 2-dat V
m
+
8
LIKE
suuka
1 2-dat V
m
+
15
HELP
banthu
1 2-dat V
m
+
20
SHOUT AT
kaaluth
1 2-dat V
m
+
48
CLIMB
naayek
1 2-dat V
m
+
54
GO
pii (1)
1 2-dat V
m
+
141
LAUGH ABOUT
thàthaava
1 2+atthas V
m
–
50
SIT
duuduk
1 LOC2 V
m
+
51
SIT DOWN
duuduk
1 LOC2 V
m
+
56
LIVE
duuduk
1 LOC2 V
m
+
24
BUILD
ikkath (1)
1 2-acc 3-abl V
m
+
25
BREAK
picaking
1 2-acc 3-abl V
m
+
26
KILL
buunung
1 2-acc 3-abl V
m
+
26
KILL
mathiking
1 2-acc 3-abl V
m
+
27
BEAT
puukul
1 2-acc 3-abl V
m
+
28
HIT
puukul
1 2-acc 3-abl V
m
+
31
TAKE
ambel
1 2-acc 3-abl V
m
–
32
TEAR
soovek(kang)
1 2-acc 3-abl V
m
+
34
HIDE
sbuuniking
1 2-acc 3-abl V
m
+
43
COVER
thuuthup
1 2-acc 3-abl V
m
+
44
FILL
punuking
1 2-acc 3-abl V
m
+
71
GRIND
giiling
1 2-acc 3-abl V
m
+
72
WIPE
saapu
1 2-acc 3-abl V
+
m
76
STEAL
cuuri
1 2-acc 3-abl V
m
+
85
MAKE
kijja
1 2-acc 3-abl V
+
m
1011
Reciprocal alternation
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#
Meaning label
Verb form
Coding frame schema
General NP addition
General NP drop
35
SHOW
cunjiking
1 2-acc 3-dat V
m
+
36
GIVE
kaasi
1 2-acc 3-dat V
m
+
37
SEND
kiiring
1 2-acc 3-dat V
m
+
39
THROW
buwang
1 2-acc 3-dat V
+
+
40
TIE
ikkath (2)
1 2-acc 3-dat V
m
+
74
PUSH
thoolak
1 2-acc 3-dat V
m
+
75
BRING
baa(va)
1 2-acc 3-dat V
m
+
41
PUT
thaaro
1 2-acc LOC3 V
m
+
42
POUR
thuuwang
1 2-acc LOC3 V
m
+
44
FILL
thuuwang
1 2-acc LOC3 V
m
+
45
LOAD
thaaro
1 2-acc LOC3 V
m
+
38
CARRY
angkath baapi
1 2-dat 3 V
m
+
77
TEACH
aajar
1 2-dat 3 V
m
+
18
TALK
oomong
1 2-dat 3-abl V
m
+
29
TOUCH
thìkkam
1 2-dat 3-abl V
m
+
23
NAME
naama thaaro
1 2-dat 3+katha V
+
+
21
TELL
biilang
1 2-dat UTT3 V
m
+
22
SAY
biilang
1 2-dat UTT3 V
m
+
19
ASK FOR
mintha
1 2-loc 3-acc V
m
+
3
LOOK AT
diyath
1-dat 2-acc V
m
+
9
KNOW
thaau
1-dat 2-acc V
m
+
17
MEET
caanda
1-dat 2-acc V
m
+
78
HEAR
dìnngar
1-dat 2-acc V
m
+
87
WANT
maau
1-dat 2-acc V
m
+
86
GET
daapath
1-dat 2-loc 3-acc V
m
+
Legend: + occurs regularly; m occurs marginally; − occurs never; _ no data
Reciprocal alternation
+
Case frames in Sri Lanka Malay
1013
Abbreviations addit cp invol nonv simil
additive conjunctive participle involitive nonverbal similative
References Adelaar, K. Alexander. 1991. Some notes on the origin of Sri Lankan Malay. In H. Steinhauer (ed.), Papers in Austronesian Linguistics, 23–37. Canberra: The Australian National University. Gair, James W. 1991. Subjects, case and INFL in Sinhala. In Manindra Verma & K. P. Mohanan (eds.), Experiencer Subjects in South Asian Languages, 13–41. Palo Alto: Center for the Study of Language and Information. [Reprinted in Gair (1998), 65–86.] Gair, James W. 2003. Sinhala. In George Cardona & Danesh Jain (eds.), The Indo-Aryan Languages, 766–818. London: Routledge. Garusinghe, Dayartne. 1962. Sinhala, the Spoken Idiom. München: Max Hueber. Hengeveld, Kees. 2011. Transparency in functional discourse grammar. Linguistics in Amsterdam 4(2). 1–21. Lehmann, Thomas. 1989. A Grammar of Modern Tamil. Pondicherry: Pondicherry Institute of Linguistics and Culture. Nordhoff, Sebastian. 2009. A grammar of Upcountry Sri Lanka Malay. Ph.D. thesis, University of Amsterdam. Nordhoff, Sebastian. 2011a. Having come to be a copula in Sri Lanka Malay – an unusual grammaticalization path. Folia Linguistica 45(1). 103–126. Nordhoff, Sebastian. 2011b. Transparency in Sri Lanka Malay. Linguistics in Amsterdam, 4(2). 96– 110. Nordhoff, Sebastian. 2012. Multi-verb constructions in Sri Lanka Malay. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 27(2). 303–343. Nordhoff, Sebastian. 2013. Jack-of-all-trades: The Sri Lankan Malay property word. In Eva van Lier & Jan Rijkhoff (eds.), Flexible Word Classes: A Typological Study of Underspecified Partsof-Speech. Oxford: OUP. (Paper presented at the Workshop on flexible languages, Amsterdam.) Paauw, Scott. H. 2004. A historical analysis of the lexical sources of Sri Lanka Malay. M.A. thesis, York University.
Claire Moyse-Faurie
25 Valency classes in Xârâcùù (New Caledonia) 1 Introduction This article provides an overview of valency classes and valency alternations in Xârâcùù1 and tries to describe the main developments which are still perceivable and which explain the great variety and some of the specificities found in Xârâcùù verb classes. Xârâcùù is spoken by about 6000 people living in the Canala and Thio areas of the Mainland of New Caledonia, and belongs to the Southern subgroup of New Caledonian, itself one of the main subgroups of Oceanic, which is part of the Austronesian language family. The article is organized as follows: Section 2 summarizes general information on morphosyntactic aspects of Xârâcùù relevant to valency, in contrast to those of other New Caledonian/Kanak languages2 and to Proto Oceanic. Section 3 describes Xârâcùù’s major verb classes, and discusses the sample obtained from the database questionnaire. Section 4 deals with uncoded argument alternations, while section 5 describes valency-changing devices. In section 6, verb compounds stemming from former serial verb constructions are presented. Section 7 raises the problem of distinguishing between adjuncts and oblique objects in a language which does not have any anaphoric verbs. A final conclusion summarizes the major results.
2 Basics of Xârâcùù morphosyntax According to Pawley & Reid (1979) and Ross (2004), the basic word order reconstructed for Proto Oceanic is S sVo O (s and o are the obligatorily person forms that index subject and object arguments and are coreferential with the optional lexical subject (S) and object (O), respectively). Moyse-Faurie & Ozanne-Rivierre (1983),
1 The data, unless otherwise indicated, comes from my fieldnotes, from my grammar (Moyse-Faurie 1995) and dictionary (the latter written with M.-A. Néchérö-Jorédié, a native Xârâcùù speaker). I wish to thank Martin Haspelmath and the editors of this volume for their fruitful comments on an earlier version of this article. 2 ‘Kanak’ has become the usual and politically correct term to designate the autochtonous inhabitants of New Caledonia and their vernacular languages. It is invariable, even in French. More informations on these languages can be found on the Académie des Langues Kanak website (http:// www.alk.gouv.nc).
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however, reconstructed sVo O smS word order for Proto New Caledonian (sm is the subject marker preceding the optional lexical subject). In Xârâcùù, the basic word order changed to SVO3, without any cross-referencing index (1a). The subject, however, can still occur after the verb phrase, if it is introduced by the subject marker ngê. 4 In this configuration, a coreferential argument index must occur in front of the verb (as shown in 1b), and the postposed subject is preceded by a short pause, and has a falling intonation contour, a typical case of topicalization by right dislocation. In Xârâcùù, this type of subject topicalization is available for mono-, bi- or trivalent verbs. Preverbal subject indexes are also compulsory when the subject is topicalized by fronting (1c). (1) a. Mûduè-nâ pwâxwâ néxä kèè-xê. young.brother-1sg very know nmlz-swim ‘My little brother knows how to swim very well.’ b. Rè pwâxwâ néxä kèè-xê, ngê mûduè-nâ. 3sg very know nmlz-swim sm young.brother-1sg ‘He knows very well how to swim, my little brother.’ c. Mûduè-nâ, rè pwâxwâ néxä kèè-xê. young.brother-1sg 3sg very know nmlz-swim ‘My little brother, he knows how to swim very well.’ In all other grammatical contexts, there is no argument indexing on the verb – no cross referencing of arguments on verbs –, although this feature is frequent in Oceanic languages (Lynch et al. 2002). Xârâcùù has also lost several other major Oceanic characteristics. Transitivity, for example, is not formally marked on the verb, contrasting in this feature with most New Caledonian languages, and Oceanic languages more generally. Furthermore, there is no verbal morphology depending on the grammatical status or the degree of animacy of the object argument as is found, for example, in the Loyalty Islands languages. Thus, Xârâcùù has lost the productive applicative and transitivizing Proto Oceanic suffixes; only one reflex of these suffixes has been retained, the -ri suffix (cf. § 5.2.1), which itself fossilized in
3 However, existential and non-existential clauses (i), as well as nominal clauses (ii) are still verb initial. (i)
Wâ siè aguu-söö. pfv non.exist sound-song ‘Songs have stopped.’ [Songs are no longer sung.]
(ii) Pepe-nâ taa rö. difference-1sg from 2sg ‘I am different from you.’ 4 The preposition ngê also introduces diverse oblique arguments and adjuncts (cf. § 3.2.3.5).
Valency classes in Xârâcùù (New Caledonia)
1017
a few cases. TAM-features do not interfere with alignment patterns in Xârâcùù, in contrast with the languages of the Loyalty Islands such as Drehu (Moyse-Faurie 1983) or Iaai (Ozanne-Rivierre 1976). On the other hand, Xârâcùù shares some characteristics with other Oceanic languages, such as those described by Margetts (2007), which directly concern this valency study: (i) There are few basic (i. e. non-derived) bivalent verbs, with two participants expressed as direct arguments of the verb, and no three-place predicates occurring with a direct argument strategy (i.e., trivalent verbs with three participants expressed as direct arguments of the verb). (ii) There is a productive causative derivation strategy, deriving bivalent verbs from monovalent verbs or from nominals; in most of the Oceanic languages, there are, however, very few cases of trivalent verbs derived by a causative strategy, in contrast to the lack of relevant restrictions in Xârâcùù. (iii) The ‘extended transitive’ configuration, in which the verb takes two direct arguments and a third participant as an oblique argument or adjunct, or one direct argument plus one oblique argument, is well attested. Margetts (2007: 88) and Margetts & Austin (2007: 400) point out difficulties in making a clear distinction between oblique arguments and adjuncts in these languages. We return to this crucial point in § 7. Xârâcùù has productive serial verb constructions, restricted to verbs with a shared subject; no morpheme is allowed to occur between two or more serialized verbs. This nuclear-layer verbal serialization5 gave (and still gives) rise to (i) prepositions, (ii) to verbal modifiers (directionals, aspectual or manner adverbs) and (iii) to verbal compounds. A question of terminology remains to be settled. We need to make a distinction between valency classes (= verb classes), which are relevant at the lexical level, and the constructions in which a verb may occur. Valency classes should be differentiated from constructions, since, due to possible alternations, one and the same verb may enter different types of constructions. Malchukov et al. (2010) among others use ‘ditransitive’ for constructions as well as for verb classes,6 though triva-
5 Nuclear serialization consists of several contiguous nuclei which share arguments (cf. Foley & Olson 1985: 32–34). 6 More precisely, Haspelmath (2005, 2011) and Malchukov et al. (2010) have a semantically-based definition of transitive and ditransitive constructions. Transitive clauses have a P and an A argument, with verbs such as ‘kill’, ‘break’, ‘cut’, and ditransitive clauses are built on verbs such as ‘give’, ‘buy’, ‘write’, and so on. Such ditransitive constructions involve three semantic arguments: an agent (A), a recipient or goal (R/G), and a theme (P/T). These semantic definitions suppose that the arguments referring to A, P or R are always marked in the same way, at least with the typical verbs belonging to the predefined semantic categories. Xârâcùù, like many Oceanic languages, does not have a single major transitive construction, since objects often refer to several other roles than
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Tab. 1: Personal markers. indep.
subject
object
possessive
sing
1 2 3 3impers
gu gè niè
nâ ke rè/è êê
nâ/nû rö rè/è
nâ/-râ rö/-ö rè/-è
dual
1incl 1excl 2 3
ûrû ngôô göu nuu
ûrû/nû ngôô göu ru
rû ngôô göu ru
rû ngôô göu ru
plur
1incl 1excl 2 3
îrî ngêê wîrî nii
îrî/nî ngêê wîrî ri
rî ngêê wîrî ri
rî ngêê wîrî ri
lent verbs may occur in transitive and in intransitive constructions. Similarly, monovalent verbs may occur both in impersonal and in intransitive constructions, and bivalent verbs may occur in transitive and in intransitive constructions with only one argument expressed (either the subject or the object), or with different marking on the object, and so on and so forth. The bivalent class assignment is only due to the fact that it may occur with two (but no more than two) arguments. Consequently, I will use ‘avalent’, ‘monovalent’, ‘bivalent’ and ‘trivalent’ as terms for the verb classes (‘valency classes’ properly speaking), and ‘impersonal’, ‘intransitive’, ‘(mono)transitive’ and ‘ditransitive’ as terms for the constructions in which a verb occurs. Above are listed the 70 English verbs with their role frame as specified in the questionnaire, along with the Xârâcùù verbs, their basic case frame, and specific alternations (others than the general ones, such as the causative alternation) they allow. Practically all the verbs may be combined with the causative prefix (cf. § 5.2.2), and with one or several of the nominalizing prefixes. The object omission alternation is also very frequent (cf. § 4.3).
3 Valency classes Quite a few Xârâcùù verbs can enter different types of constructions, without derivation; each construction has correlates in terms of the semantic role of the argu-
patient, and patients themselves are often flagged diversely; very few bivalent verbs have two direct arguments, most of them have a direct argument and a prepositional one.
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ments. Such alternations will be considered after a brief presentation of each of the valency classes. There are no avalent verbs in Xârâcùù, but as we will see later (§ 4.1.1), some monovalent verbs may occur in an impersonal construction.
3.1 Monovalent verbs The main two subcategories of monovalent verbs match the actor subject argument and the undergoer subject argument distinction, with dynamic verbs in (2), and non-dynamic verbs in (3). In both cases, the subject may refer to an animate entity (2a and 3a) or to an inanimate one (2b and 3b). When causativized, the undergoer argument becomes the object of the derived verb, and an agent is added as subject argument (cf. § 5.2.2). Labile verbs, by contrast, do not have to be derived in order to undergo this semantic alternation (cf. § 4.1). (2) a. Mwêê-nâ xânî cuè tö nä.7 uncle-1sg often sit loc there ‘My uncle often sits there.’ b. Chaa pwê xuu kwiè wâ nä xwa rè. one unimportant little rain pfv ipfv fall ipfv ‘A small rain began to fall.’ (3) a. È pwârâ kèèrè nyî-ji. 3sg white as juice-breast ‘(S)he/it is as white as mother’s milk.’ b. Ääda niyaa. food bitter ‘The food is bitter.’ Monovalent verbs mainly denote positions or movements8 (cuè ‘sit’, tââ ‘stand’, pûxûrû ‘run’), natural events (xwa ‘fall (rain)’, mutu ‘sink’), physiological or com-
7 Xârâcùù does not have specific pronominal forms for different functions (such as object, subject or possessive), except for the tonic forms, and the 2nd singular subject form (cf. Table 1). Hence, in the glosses, I will only indicate the number and person of the pronominal forms. 8 These verbs, denoting body positions or movements, do not require complements, and most often occur in nuclear-layer verbal constructions: Ru wâ chaga cuè. 3du pfv warm.oneself.in.the.sun sit ‘They are warming themselves sitting in the sun.’
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municative manifestations (nimè ‘blink’, mêrê ‘be hungry’, paii ‘feel pain’, têî ‘cry’, xô ‘sing’, xùpè ‘feel cold’, mwârâ ‘laugh’, ‘play’), inherent reciprocity (pùùtè ‘meet’), and qualities (mëtë ‘be dry’), since Xârâcùù only has a handful of adjectives.9 Some of the Xârâcùù monovalent verbs are compounds, such as chéxô (ché ‘say’ + xô ‘sing’) ‘cough’, paiimè (paii ‘be sick’ + mè ‘completely’) ‘die’, nârâyaa (nârâ ‘think’ + -yaa ‘badly’) ‘be sad’, cîchéé (cî- < cîîrî ‘fly’ + chéé ‘go down’) ‘jump’, etc.
3.2 Bivalent verbs 3.2.1 Bivalent verbs with direct objects Let us turn now to non-derived bivalent verbs and look at the meaning of their direct objects. Oceanic languages are well known for allowing direct objects of bivalent verbs referring not only to patient, but also to location, goal, or cause, as long as they have been derived by one of the transitive or applicative suffixes. Xârâcùù, however, has at least two dozen non-derived bivalent verbs, which are still very few compared to Indo-European languages. Such non-derived bivalent verbs taken from the list are bu ‘smell’, cee ‘peel’, ciiwi ‘help’, da or kê ‘eat’, jee ‘wipe’, nârâ ‘think’, néxä ‘know’, ngûrû ‘wash’, pè ‘take’, suè ‘put’, téé ‘see’, cee or coa ‘peel’, xwêê ‘pour’, xwèrii ‘want’, ‘like’; and also chavaa ‘pay attention to’, fùtù ‘to make fool of’, nèi ‘lay out’, wîjö ‘drink’, xöyö ‘marry’, xwata ‘hear’, tê ‘throw’, etc. Note that some of these verbs do not belong to the prototypical transitive situations. Besides, the Xârâcùù verbs translating the action ‘to kill’ (described as the prototypical verb of the transitive construction) are compounds which necessarily include the expression of the means or of the gesture involved in the killing. These verbs are thus semantically and morphologically complex. The non-derived bivalent verbs occur with direct objects, referring mainly to location (4), goal (5–6) or patient (7–8) participants: Location (4) Siibù cura bwasituu rè sêgè. rat creep heap poss stone ‘The rat is creeping away under the stones.’
9 Xârâcùù has no auxiliary verbs. Qualities are expressed by adjectival verbs, which behave as stative verbs but can also directly determine nouns, with the exception of six adjectives which specify nouns but cannot occur as predicates, such as dö ‘true, genuine’ (dö ku ‘yam of value’) or mwîî ‘important’ (mwîî aaxa ‘big chief’), all belonging to the main semantic domains (age, size, value) listed by Dixon (1977).
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Goal (5) Nâ nä nârâ rè kamè-nâ. 1sg ipfv think ipfv home- 1sg ‘I am homesick.’ (6) Gèè téé kèè-kê rè nè. grandmother look.at nmlz-burn poss fire ‘The grandmother is looking at the burning fire.’ Patient (7) Nèxuu coa ku mê kumwara êrê-nuu. girl peel yam and sweet.potato contents-bounia ‘The girl is peeling yam and sweet potatoes for the bounia.’10 (8) Êê nää chûrû mê bikörö rè pîî-köfi. 3sg.ipers pst.prog grill and turn+crush ipfv grain-coffee ‘We used to grill and grind coffee beans.’ However, transitive constructions with a direct object are mostly attested with predicates resulting from compounding, such as fèèté ‘follow’, fîda ‘hit’, fîgai ‘beat’, jikörö ‘break’, piicè ‘search for’, sakai ‘touch’, satee ‘hug’, söömè ‘kill’, söpuru ‘cut’, xâpârî ‘see’, and such as bikörö in (8), or from a causative derivation, as in fabata ‘frighten’, famwâmwâ ‘dress’, faxûda ‘fill’. I will return to verb compounding in § 6, and to causativation in § 5.2.2.
3.2.2 Reflexive verbs A few truly reflexive verbs (reflexivum tantum verbs) only occur in a superficially transitive construction, in which the object can only be a pronominal which must be coreferential with the subject: pètù or pètoa ‘boast’, pitèri ‘roll on the floor’; and the compound verbs bachëe ‘be unsuccessful (of a speech)’, bagwéré ‘be successful (of a speech)’ and gwébasùù ‘bump, bounce along’. The meaning of these verbs is either reflexive as in (9) and (10), or inchoative (11). (9)
Ke pètù rö tiwâ panèè-rö. 2sg boast 2sg loc father-2sg ‘You think you’re your father?’ (Lit. ‘You are boasting up to your father.’)
10 Bounia is a traditional dish with tubers, meat or fish, and coconut milk, wrapped in banana leaves and cooked in the earth oven.
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(10) Nâ pitèri nâ. 1sg roll 1sg ‘I am rolling (on the floor).’ (11) Tèpe bachëe è. talk miss 3sg ‘The talk was unsuccessful.’
3.2.3 Bivalent verbs with an oblique object Among bivalent verbs which occur with an oblique object, one must distinguish between verbs which require such an oblique argument, and verbs which simply allow it. Oblique arguments are introduced by various prepositions, most of them resulting from the grammaticalization of the second verb of former serial verb constructions. Some of these prepositions have other uses than introducing oblique arguments. I already mentioned the difficulty in differentiating adjuncts and obliques in a language without anaphoric/auxiliary verb constructions (cf. note 9). Since there are no such verbs in Xârâcùù that would allow adjuncts to be moved out into a clause, we will see if other criteria can be put forward in order to differentiate adjuncts from oblique arguments (see § 7). I will first present the most frequent prepositions that may introduce oblique objects of bivalent verbs, mentioning their origin11 and different uses, along with examples of bivalent oblique-object verbs. Xârâcùù makes fine coding distinctions among verb classes due to the availability of different oblique prepositions, each with a specific semantic role and various functions (cf. Table 2). The main prepositions which may introduce oblique arguments (but often also have other functions) are presented below. Before examining in detail each of these prepositions, I must first consider the following point. As we will see, several of these prepositions can either be expressed in front of the noun phrase they introduce, or be included in the verb phrase, separated from their argument by another argument, a tense marker or an adverb. The question of their status is then raised:12 when included in the verb phrase, are these morphemes applicative suffixes? I would answer no for the following reasons. First, the inclusion into the verb phrase is always optional. Second, there is no difference in meaning. Third, when topicalized, the prepositional argu-
11 Some of these prepositions are good examples of grammaticalization process well-known worldwide, such as the attributive/recipient/beneficiary preposition xù, formally identical to the verb ‘give’. 12 Both Martin Haspelmath and another anonymous reviewer were skeptical about my analysis concerning the free word order allowed for some prepositions, and rather see them as applicatives when they are included into the verb phrase. I still opt for the cliticization explanation, and try to provide more arguments in favor of it.
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Tab. 2: The bare prepositions. Verb-like prepositions nârâ for taa off tara goal xù ben
(< nârâ ‘think’) ‘in order to’, Lit. ‘thinking at’ (–) (< witaa ‘throw away’) disassociative, non-beneficiary (+); also adverb (< tara ‘see’) ‘towards’ (+) (< xù ‘give’) recipient/beneficiary (+)
Adverb-like prepositions cè purp tùù/-dùù about
also adverb (+) ‘concerning’ (pertentive) (+)
Noun-like prepositions êê-/ngêê-/nèxêê ngê ins wâ at
(< ‘belongings’) ben recipient/beneficiary (–) oblique/instrumental (+); sm subject marker (–); during temporal adjunct (–) (wâ- ‘inner’) oblique (+), locative adjunct (–)
Purely locative prepositions (loc) static dynamic
tö/rö ‘at’ (–), xû ‘on’ (–) ti ‘towards’ (–), tù ‘towards the inside’ (–), kè ‘from’ (ablative) (–)
Only the bare prepositions discussed in this article are listed. (–) cannot be separated from its complement (+) can cliticize to the verb, and hence, be separated from its complement
ments keep their prepositions, except for the subjects, as in example (1c). In Xârâcùù, the optional inclusion of prepositions into the verb phrase is merely a morphological cliticization process. None of these prepositions have a genetic affiliation with the Proto Oceanic applicative suffixes, except, putatively, ngê (see note 16 below). When they originate in a verb (xù, tara, nârâ, taa), the most likely explanation of their optional inclusion into the verb phrase is that they keep the position they had in a serial pattern, before they were grammaticalized into prepositions. If these morphemes were applicative suffixes, they could occur even without an overt argument, and this is never the case in Xârâcùù. Another hypothesis would be to explain the cliticization of the Xârâcùù prepositions as a change from adpositions to adverbs, similar to the one described by Craig & Hale (1988) in some Amerindian languages, in which ‘relational adverbs’ come from postpositions. This explanation is not adequate here, since, as I already said, the preposition can never occur without its argument, and conveys the same meaning whatever its position. When the preposition is included into the verb phrase, the focus is on the noun phrase it is related to, whereas when the preposition occurs with the noun phrase, the focus is on the event described by the verb. I agree that the focus on the noun phrase when the preposition is cliticized is
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reminiscent of the orientation towards a specific object (generally a non-patient one) induced by applicatives, but I still think that, synchronically, the prepositions that can cliticize are always plain prepositions, whatever their position.
3.2.3.1 Addressee/recipient/beneficiary preposition xù (< xù ‘give’) In his 1985 article, Lichtenberk mentions several Oceanic languages which have grammaticalized a benefactive/recipient marker from the verb ‘give’, reconstructed in Proto Oceanic as *pani/*pañi. The Xârâcùù verb xù ‘give’ is not cognate with the Proto Oceanic form, but has still undergone a similar development. In all the other New Caledonian languages, the benefactive marker has a different origin, being either identical to a possessive marker, or to a locative preposition. In Xârâcùù as well, beneficiaries may be expressed as possessors in specific noun phrase constructions (cf. § 4.2.2). Xù introduces oblique objects (mainly referring to the addressee) of some bivalent verbs: verbs of communication such as nîmö ‘tell a story’, ngââ ‘cry out’, yaaru ‘set riddles’, xa ‘speak’ and also baa ‘show oneself, appear’. With bivalent verbs, xù occurs immediately before the oblique object. (12) Nâ nîmö xù chaa kâmûrû. 1sg tell.story ben one man ‘I am telling the story of a clan to someone.’ (13) Anyââ xa xù xûûchî a. Mummy speak ben child deic ‘Mummy speaks to this child.’ The use of this marker in combination with trivalent verbs will be discussed later (cf. § 3.3.1.1). In ditransitive constructions, xù can be placed either within the verb phrase after the predicate, or immediately before its argument.
3.2.3.2 Disassociative/disattributive preposition taa (< witaa ‘throw away, take off’) Taa has a disassociative13 meaning, ‘off’, ‘away from’, the exact opposite meaning of the attributive/beneficiary preposition xù. 14 It may also convey a modal mean-
13 ‘Malefactive’ is the usual term to refer to non-beneficiary recipients. If this term seems adequate with verbs such as ‘rob’, it does not do justice to verbs such as ‘ask sth. to/from s.o.’, ‘buy sth. from s.o.’ or ‘receive sth. from s.o.’, and for this reason, we prefer to use either ‘disassociative’ or ‘nonbeneficiary’ to refer to such arguments. 14 German makes a similar distinction between beneficiary and detrimentary participants, with two different prepositions, für and gegen (Ich bin allergisch gegen Nüsse ‘I am allergic to nuts’). By
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ing, mainly as a postverb: ‘once and for all’, ‘getting rid of sth.’, denoting the termination of the action of the verb; besides, it is part of numerous verbal compounds, as a second element; finally, it occurs in comparative phrases, introducing the standard of comparison. A few bivalent verbs require a following object introduced by taa: könyi ‘avoid something’, mawâ ‘avoid a blow’, mwâ ‘avoid s.th. thrown’, mä ‘be discouraged with’, chörè ‘pass’, tecâ ‘leave someone’, mââî ‘precede’, bata ‘fear’. (14) Nâ könyi chaapu na taa loto. 1sg avoid suddenly pst off car ‘I got out of the way of the car.’ The relational noun pepe- ‘be different’ also requires an oblique argument introduced by taa: (15) Dui, va pepe-è taa Dapé. Dui really different-3sg off Dapé ‘Dui and Dapé are really different.’ (Lit. ‘Dui, his difference away from Dapé.’)
3.2.3.3 Goal preposition tara (< tara ‘see, note’) ‘towards’ As a verb (16a), tara means ‘to see, to note’: (16) a. Dèèri kè nä tara mîâdara. people from there see suffering ‘People from there know what suffering means.’ It may occur in serial verb constructions, as V2: (16) b. È mwâbéré tara kwéé-kârâmè rèè biri. 3sg look note shadow-eye poss+3sg move ‘He notices the shadow of his eyes moving.’ As a preposition, tara introduces oblique objects with a goal or directive meaning. In (16c), it occurs after the past tense marker which ends the verb phrase: (16) c. Nâ piaxô mwâmwaa na tara dèèri. 1sg whistle long pst goal people ‘I was whistling to the people (to get their attention).’ contrast, French and English use the same preposition (respectively to and à) for both types of arguments.
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Other word orders are allowed, with inclusion of the preposition into the verb phrase: nâ piaxô mwâmwaa tara na dèèri as well as nâ piaxô tara na dèèri mwâmwaa are alternatives. Note that if tara immediately follows the verb, the temporal adverb mwâmwaa ‘long time’ is then peripheralized out of the verb phrase. The variety of positions allowed for prepositions such as tara, along with the fact that most prepositions may still occur as main verbs, shows the difficulty we encounter in differentiating serial verbs from verb + preposition sequences, not to mention the status of the complements the preposition introduces.
3.2.3.4 Pertentive 15 preposition tùù/-dùù This preposition means ‘about’, ‘concerning’, ‘with regard to’, ‘in connection with’, and belongs to the set of prepositions for which it is difficult to determine if they introduce adjuncts or oblique objects. It seems to have an oblique use after verbs such as bere ‘be angry’, pia ‘fight for’; mââ ‘struggle’, tèpe ‘speak about’; têî ‘cry for’, xati ‘quarrel for’. When following a verb with a final nasal vowel, the initial stop /t/ of the preposition changes to a prenasalized stop /d/ ([nd]) and the preposition cliticizes to the verb. The two following examples are semantically equivalent: (17) a. Nâ mââ na tùù döö. 1sg struggle pst about earth ‘I struggled for earth.’ b. Nâ mââ=dùù na döö. 1sg struggle=about pst earth ‘I struggled for earth.’ The last two prepositions mentioned in this chapter each have several uses. Their origin is uncertain, possibly nominal rather than verbal.
3.2.3.5 The multifunctional preposition ngê Ngê 16 introduces oblique objects (most often referring to the theme) of bivalent verbs such as jana ‘to trade’, sôôbö ‘fool with’, cîîrî ‘dispose, set out’, etc. (18) Ri xwi kaasé rè mwè […] nä ri wâ cîîrî ngê döu wânîî. 3pl make heap poss taro then 3pl pfv dispose ins thing all ‘They make heaps of taros [they make heaps of sea products …] and then they dispose of all these things.’ 15 The term ‘pertentive’ is the term used by Hagège (2010) to designate this non-spatial-temporal adposition meaning ‘about’, ‘concerning’, ‘with respect to’. 16 Ngê might have some syntactic affinity and phonological correspondences with the Tukang Besi oblique preposition kene ‘instrument’, itself cognate with the applicative ‘(co-)agent’ clitic =ngkene (Donohue 2001: 220).
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In this oblique use, ngê may be placed within the verb phrase or immediately before the oblique: (19) a. Papêê jana ngê na mwè. coll+woman trade ins pst taro ‘Women are trading [their] taros.’ b. Papêê jana na ngê mwè. coll+woman trade pst ins taro ‘Women are trading [their] taros.’ In (19a), the focus is on the object of the trading, that is the taros, while in (19b), the focus is on the action of trading.17 I have already mentioned the use of ngê introducing a postposed subject as in (1b). It also introduces instrumental (means) adjuncts as in (20a, 20b and 20c), and temporal adjuncts as in (20d). (20) a. Kâmûrû téé bwaakwè ngê béré. man look.at mountain ins binoculars ‘The man is looking at the mountain with binoculars.’ b. Ke xacè na chaa kâmûrû a ngê Dapé. 2sg call pst one man deic ins Dapé ‘You named this man Dapé.’ c. È xagèri nâ ngê chaa catùmê. 3sg welcome 1sg ins one gift ‘He makes me welcome [with a gift].’ d. Winâ nâ ngê chaa nèkwaaxiti mè nâ nârâ! leave 1sg during one week comp 1sg think ‘Let me think about it during this week!’ (Lit. ‘Leave me during a week that I think!’)
17 Other examples: a. È söömè ngê è chaa kwââ. 3sg kill ins 3sg one stick ‘He clubbed him, with a stick, to death.’ b. È söömè è ngê chaa kwââ. 3sg kill 3sg ins one stick ‘He clubbed him to death with a stick.’ In (a), the focus is on the instrument used to kill, while in (b), the focus is on the killing itself.
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These different uses have correlates and restrictions concerning the position of the argument or adjunct, and the (in)separability of the preposition from the phrase it introduces. As an instrumental preposition or as an oblique object marker, ngê can be separated from its complement, while as a subject marker or as a temporal adjunct marker, it cannot.
3.2.3.6 Wâ ‘about’, ‘at’ Wâ introduces oblique arguments with verbs of emotions (ooro ‘rejoice at’, bere ‘be angry at’18, kwèche ‘be worried about’, etc.), verb of unpleasant attitudes (virè ‘wrong s. o.’, gîî ‘injure, damage’, chèfa ‘disobey’, mêmè ‘be jealous’, nêê ‘be fussy (about food)’, etc.), and a few verbs of communication (tèpe ‘speak about’, xanyê ‘insult’, jaxûju ‘make fun of’). A possible origin of the preposition wâ could be the relational noun wâ- ‘inner’, ‘form’ (cf. § 4.2.1). (21) a. È pia, è bere wâ dèèri. 3sg unkind 3sg angry at people ‘He is unkind, he gets angry at people.’ b. Ri gîî wâ mwââkè rè béé-nâ. 3pl damage at possessions poss friend-1sg ‘They are causing damage to my friend’s belongings.’ With verbs of communication, wâ may replace either the addressee preposition xù (22a) or the disassociative preposition taa (22b), as long as the oblique object refers to an animate entity: In (22a) and (22b), only a recipient is expressed, not affected in (22a) with the preposition xù, deeply affected in (22b) with the preposition wâ:
18 A verb such as bere ‘be angry’ can have different oblique arguments introduced by different prepositions. Compare (i), in which the oblique argument is the direct cause of the anger felt by the experiencer, with (ii) in which the oblique argument is introduced by the pertentive preposition tùù, being no longer the direct cause of the anger. Both prepositional phrases may occur in the same sentence (iii): (i)
È bere wâ kwêê-rè. 3sg angry at wife-3sg ‘He is angry at his wife.’
(ii) È bere tùù kwêê-rè. 3sg angry about wife-3sg ‘He is angry [at somebody] concerning his wife.’ (iii) È bere wâ Kamilo tùù kwêê wèi a. 3sg angry at Kamilo about wife person deic ‘He is angry at Kamilo concerning his [Kamilo’s] wife.’
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(22) a. Kamûrû xangââ na xù nèxuu. man shout pst ben girl ‘The man shouted to the girl.’ (to say hello to her) b. Kamûrû xangââ na wâ nèxuu. man shout pst at girl ‘The man shouted at the girl.’ (the man scolded her) Wâ also introduces different types of adjuncts, spatial or temporal locatives, either by itself (23) or combined with purely locative prepositions such as kè ‘(coming) from’, tö ‘in the direction of’, forming complex prepositions such as kèwâ ‘among’, töwâ ‘about’, etc. (23) Nâ miiri mè ke toa wâ chêêdè. 1sg refuse comp 2sg arrive at evening ‘I don’t want you to come in the evening.’
3.2.3.7 Nârâ ‘for’, ‘in order to’ (< nârâ ‘think’, ‘intend’) The verb nârâ ‘think’, ‘intend’ has grammaticalized into a preposition but still occurs as a verb with a clausal complement: (24) a. Nêmwâ nâ nä nârâ mè nâ pè rö xû kwâ. today 1sg ipfv intend comp 1sg take 2sg on boat ‘Today, I intend to take you on a boat trip.’ b. Bwèrè dèèri nârâ bare mè nä xwi rè chaa xwâî. some people think also comp ipfv make ipfv one road ‘Some people also think that a road will be made.’ As a preposition, nârâ means ‘for’, ‘in order to’, and only introduces nominal or nominalized complements expressing intention, aim or goal: (25) a. Nâ nä xwi rè chaa xiti nârâ kèè-fa-abaa röö xù 1sg ipfv make ipfv one feast for nmlz-caus-appear poss+2sg ben dèèri kè xûâ. people from village ‘I will organize a feast in order to introduce you to the people of the village.’ b. Pa xûûchî mwârâ ti nèkwétaa nârâ kèè-caa. coll child play at sea for nmlz-fish ‘Children are playing fishing by the sea.’
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3.2.3.8 Cè ‘for the purpose of’ between adverb and preposition Finally, the morpheme cè ‘towards’, ‘for the purpose of’, ‘on purpose’ of unknown origin, has both the use of an adverb with bivalent verbs (26a), indicating that the event is done on purpose, and the use of a preposition, introducing arguments (26b) or adjuncts (26c and 26d). (26) a. Mè êê wâ nä chuè cè rè balôô döbwanä mwârâ nä fut 3sg.ipers pfv ipfv blow purp ipfv ball when play ipfv nââbu rè. begin ipfv ‘Someone will have blown up the ball on purpose when the game starts.’ b. Nâ târâ cè nîî-rö. 1sg ignore purp name-2sg ‘I don’t know your name.’ (Lit. ‘I am ignorant towards your name.’) c. È cemîâ mwâmwaa na cè dù rè kwââ-rè. 3sg suffer for.long pst purp price poss boat-3sg ‘He had to suffer a long time before paying for his boat.’ (Lit. ‘… for the price of his boat.’) d. Ri xwaé achaa xûjöu cè nènè-ri êrêcaa. 3pl go.all.over together reef purp food-poss.3pl sea.products ‘They are together walking all over the reef to find shells to eat.’ Cè also forms compounds with a few verbs, such as xa-cè ‘call’ (xa ‘speak’), pii-cè ‘search for’ (= pisi cè), xwi-cè ‘try’ (xwi ‘exist, make’).
3.3 Trivalent verbs Trivalent verbs with two unmarked objects are said to be rare in Oceanic languages: “There are a large number of Oceanic languages that have no ditransitive or extended transitive verbs at all. This tendency may be related to the typological characterization of Oceanic languages as preferring intransitives, which was suggested by Margetts (1999) following Nichols (1982, 1984a, 1984b)” (Margetts 2007: 124). Following Malchukov et al. (2010), I will try to distinguish the different types of trivalent verbs according to their alignment types. As already mentioned, there are no three-place predicate (direct-argument) strategies in Xârâcùù, but two oblique strategies (R-type oblique and T-type oblique) are well attested. According to Malchukov et al. (2010: 2) “the most typical ditransitive constructions contain a verb of physical transfer such as ‘give’, ‘lend’, ‘hand’, ‘sell’, ‘return’ […], some verbs denoting a mental transfer such as ‘show’ or ‘tell’, […] and less central transfer
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verbs such as ‘offer’, ‘bequeath’ and ‘promise’”. Xârâcùù has such verbs of physical or mental transfer occurring in ditransitive constructions, with one or the two object arguments expressed as obliques.
3.3.1 One oblique argument in addition to the direct object Indirective alignment, with Theme(T) = Patient(P) as direct arguments, and the Recipient(R) introduced by a preposition (T=P vs. xù/taa+R) is the most common pattern for this type of trivalent verbs. The word order is most often V T xù/taaR, but whatever the word order and the syntactic category of the recipient, the alignment does not change.
3.3.1.1 Beneficiary/recipient argument The recipient is always an animate being. Whatever its syntactic category may be, it may be introduced by the preposition xù. The following verbs can occur with a direct object (the theme) and an oblique object (the recipient): xù ‘give’, numârâ ‘offer’, ‘give away’, su ‘write’, suè ‘entrust’, xipwèi ‘announce’, xwi ‘do s.th. for s.o.’, ‘prepare’, nêgé ‘request respectfully’, xacië ‘show’, nû ‘send’, xâdùù ‘pay’, etc. The theme is unmarked and the beneficiary/recipient is introduced by the preposition xù. In (27), only the theme (kwé) is expressed, while in (28) and (29), a recipient introduced by the marker (xù) is added to the theme: (27) È miiri mè rè xâdùù kwé ngê xiti. 3sg forbidden that 3sg pay alcohol during sunday ‘It is forbidden for him to buy alcohol on Sundays.’ (28) Anyââ xâdùù na chaa lotoo xù Yaya. Mummy pay pst one car ben/rec Yaya ‘Mummy bought Yaya a car.’ (29) Nèxuu xacië na péci xù afainû. girl show pst book ben teacher ‘The girl showed the book to the teacher.’ The position of the recipient/benefactive marker may vary. In (30a), it precedes its argument (nâ ‘1sg’), but in (30b), it cliticizes onto the verb, and is separated from its argument (nû, allomorph of nâ ‘1sg’ when occurring after the past tense marker na) by the past tense marker: (30) a. Ke xù na chaa mwanöö xù nâ. 2sg give pst one cloth ben 1sg ‘You gave me a piece of cloth.’ (Lit. ‘You gave a piece of cloth to me.’)
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b. Ke xù xù na nû chaa mwanöö. 2sg give ben pst 1sg one cloth ‘You gave me a piece of cloth.’ (Lit. ‘You gave to me a piece of cloth.’) In these examples, both the verb xù ‘to give’ and the preposition xù are expressed in the same clause.19
3.3.1.2 Disassociative (non-beneficiary) argument This construction, with the non-beneficiary introduced by the preposition taa, is found with verbs such as pè ‘take’, pêdè ‘steal’, fatere ‘ask’, nââ ‘ask for sth.’, sûûârâ ‘hide’, xanöè ‘ask for permission’, etc. (31) Rè xanöè taa wîrî mè rè bwa ra tö xûâ ngê chaaké 3sg ask.permission off 2pl that 3sg stay still loc tribe during several daa. day ‘He is asking you for permission to stay in the tribe for a few more days.’ The verb xâdùù ‘buy, pay for’, already mentioned above in association with xù in (28a), may also occur with oblique arguments introduced by taa: (32) Nûnûû kae dönä è xâdùù na tapwaka taa pèèröö? grandfather interr deic 3sg buy pst tobacco off priest ‘Is it Grandpa who bought tobacco from the priest?’ The ordering of the disassociative recipient and the theme is free, but the disassociative preposition usually remains immediately before its argument, contrasting in this with the recipient/beneficiary preposition xù, which may occur inside the verb phrase, separated from its complement. In examples (33), the recipient is expressed after the theme, while it occurs first in (34): (33) a. Nâ nââ sää-pwî taa rö. 1sg ask.for sucker-banana.tree off 2sg ‘I am asking you for banana-tree suckers.’ (Lit. ‘I request banana-tree suckers from you.’)
19 Note that the verb xù ‘give’ may have non-predicative uses, and occur after the preposition taa, that is, the preposition just opposite in meaning to the beneficiary preposition xù: È dii taa xù döu nä. 3sg refuse off give thing deic ‘He refuses to give that thing.’
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b. Nèxuu pêdè na péci taa afainû. girl steal pst book off teacher ‘The girl stole the book from the teacher.’ (34) Nâ fatere taa è xöu rè nâ. 1sg ask off 3sg cloth poss 1sg ‘I asked him for my clothes.’
3.3.2. Two oblique arguments This alignment resembles the indirective alignment described in the preceding section in so far as the flagging of T and P is identical,20 each of these arguments being introduced by the instrumental preposition ngê. The theme in (35b) and (36) is flagged as instrumental, as is the patient in (35a) (= 19), while the recipient is introduced by the benefactive/recipient marker xù: (35) a. Papêê jana ngê na mwè. coll+woman trade ins pst taro ‘Women were trading [their] taros.’ b. È xwiri21 ngê nô xù sîbêêrî a. 3sg sell ins fish ben old.lady deic ‘He is selling fish to the old lady’. Some verbs of communication, such as faxwata ‘tell’ or xangââ ‘shout sth. at s.o.’ follow this type of alignment. (36) Nâ faxwata xù rö ngê chaa êrêché. 1sg tell ben/rec 2sg ins one story ‘I am going to tell you a story.’
20 In the ‘Comrian’ approach, an argument marked as instrumental would not be regarded as P, whereas it would still be a core argument in the ‘Dixonian’ approach (Haspelmath 2011: 542), that is, a case of non-canonically marked O. Since I am having difficulties in defining a major transitive construction in Xârâcùù, I choose to consider such oblique complements as core arguments, also because they are necessarily expressed. 21 The verb xwiri ‘sell’ does not allow a direct object. It most often occurs with an oblique object introduced by the instrumental preposition. It can also occur with a theme introduced by the adverb/disassociative preposition taa: Kâmûrû nä xwiri taa mîî kura nä. man deic sell off art.pl shrimp deic ‘This man is selling these shrimps to get rid of them.’
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(37) a. Kamûrû xangââ ngê na xwâxatii xù nèxuu. man shout ins pst scolding ben girl ‘The man shouted at the girl to scold her.’ (Lit. ‘The man shouted with a scolding to the girl.’) In (37b), it is the disassociative preposition taa which introduces the recipient of the verb of communication xangââ ‘shout’, due to the meaning of the oblique object introduced by the preposition ngê and expressing the content of the shouting, i.e. a demand. (37) b. Kamûrû xangââ ngê na chaa ùnââ taa nèxuu. man shout ins pst one demand off girl ‘The man shouted at the girl to ask her for something.’ (Lit. ‘The man shouted with a demand from the girl.’)
4 Argument coding alternations Insufficient information and the great variability in the usage of speakers make it impossible for me to answer certain questions concerning the formal marking of arguments as well as the extension of verb classes in patterns of alternations. Below are examples of the main alternations I was able to identify.
4.1 Labile alternations Nichols’s (1986: 156) definition of lability concerns valency on the one hand, and the semantic aspect on the other hand: “Lability is a valence pattern in which a verb can be either transitive or intransitive without the application of formal transitivizing or detransitivizing derivations. […] If a language has labile verbs, they will center on those which, like ‘break’, ‘open’ or ‘fill’, refer to changes of state which can either happen spontaneously or be brought about by human agency”. This definition of lability corresponds to one of Haspelmath’s non-oriented verb alternations (Haspelmath 1993: 91–92). Xârâcùù labile verbs have these kinds of semantic alternation, and others (Moyse-Faurie 2010).
4.1.1 Impersonal construction vs. intransitive construction Some Xârâcùù monovalent verbs may enter either an impersonal construction, as in (38a) and (39a), without any argument, or an intransitive one, with a referential experiencer subject argument, as in (38b) and (39b).
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This alternation concerns non-dynamic verbs denoting qualities or meteorological situations, such as mêgi ‘warm’, ‘have fever’, müü ‘(be) cold and humid’ and xùpè ‘cold’, ‘feel cold’, on the one hand, or verbs related to durative or phasal aspect situations such as xutuè ‘be a long time’ and cokwa ‘be finished’, on the other hand: (38) a. Xùpè sé na amû. cold big pst yesterday ‘It was very cold yesterday.’ b. Nâ xùpè. 1sg cold ‘I feel cold.’ (39) a. Wâ xutuè. pfv last.long ‘It has lasted a long time.’ b. È xutuè rö a. 3sg last.long loc here ‘S/he has been here for a long time.’
4.1.2 Inchoative vs. causative pairs Some Xârâcùù labile verbs have inchoative/stative versus causative meanings, such as tëi ‘be empty, empty’, xwi ‘exist, build’, cokwa ‘be finished, finish’22, nââbu ‘begin’, kê ‘be burned, burn’, sùù ‘suffer, treat’, xwêê ‘fall, pour’, and English loanwords such as sukwa ‘be sugared, sugar’. Some of these verbs (‘burn’, ‘finish’, ‘start’, etc.) are labile verbs in many languages including German, French or English. The intransitive construction has an undergoer subject argument, corresponding to the object argument in the transitive construction, which in addition has an actor subject argument (S = P, A causer). In the intransitive construction (40a) and (41a) the verb takes a passive, resultative, or inchoative meaning, and the subject refers to the patient. In the transitive construction (40b) and (41b), the verb is active, with the agent as subject, and the patient as object:
22 The verb cokwa ‘be finished, finish’ may occur in three different constructions: in an impersonal construction, it only means ‘be finished’ and refers to the end of a temporal phase. In intransitive vs transitive constructions, it is part of a resultative vs causative pair (‘something is finished’ vs ‘someone finished something’).
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(40) a. Ku kê. yam burn ‘The yam is burnt.’ (resultative) b. Kâmîâ kê nùi a. sun burn island deic ‘The sun is burning the island.’ (causative) (41) a. Märä nèè. bird fly ‘The bird is flying away.’ (inchoative) b. Kâmûrû a nèè nôô. man deic fly sail ‘The man is sailing away.’ (Lit. ‘The man is flying the sail.’) (causative) (42) a. Nâ xwêê. 1sg fall ‘I fell down.’ b. Nâ xwêê kwé. 1sg fall water ‘I am pouring water.’ In the case of xwêê ‘fall’, however, only an inanimate object argument can be expressed; otherwise, the verb has to be derived with the causative prefix: (42) c. Nâ fa-xwêê chaa xûûchî. 1sg caus-fall one child ‘I make the child fall down.’
4.1.3 Middle alternation The middle alternation is the consequence of the nearly complete loss of reflexes of the middle Proto Oceanic prefix (see § 5.1.2). It differs from the preceding alternation in that the role of the subject does not change whatever the valency of the construction is. The subject in both intransitive and transitive constructions is an animate actor subject argument, and the situation expressed belongs to the middle domain, such as grooming actions (43a), or inherent reciprocity (44a and 45a). In the transitive construction, the object is the undergoer, whether it refers to an animate (43b, 44b) or an inanimate (43c, 44c) and the causative meaning is other-directed.
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Grooming events (43) a. Nâ xii. 1sg shave ‘I am shaving.’ b. Nâ xii è. 1sg shave 3sg ‘I am shaving him.’ c. Nâ xii nû. 1sg shave coco ‘I am grating coconut flesh.’ Inherent reciprocity This subclass includes verbs denoting inherent reciprocity, which can occur with only one argument, a subject, referring to a plurality of participants. For example, penyi ‘to take leave’ as well as tôôbùtù ‘assemble’, always occur with a dual or plural subject when used intransitively: (44) a. Ri tôôbùtù. 3pl assemble ‘They are assembling.’ b. Ri tôôbùtù ri. 3pl assemble 3pl ‘They are assembling them.’ c. Ri tôôbùtù köfi. 3pl assemble coffee ‘They are gathering coffee beans.’ Whereas the verb tôôbùtù ‘to assemble’ may take a direct object, penyi ‘to take leave’ has an oblique object in an ‘extended transitive’ construction; this otherdirected/disjoint object is introduced by the disassociative preposition taa:23 (45) a. Ri penyi. 3pl separate ‘They are leaving each other.’ b. Ri penyi kété taa na rî. 3pl separate quickly off pst 1pl.excl ‘They quickly left us.’ (Lit. ‘They quickly separated from us.’)
23 Interestingly enough, French shows exactly the same kind of middle alternation: Ils se sont séparés ‘they left each other’ vs. Ils se sont séparés de nous ‘they left us’.
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4.1.4 Reflexive inchoative alternation Some bivalent verbs must always have two overt arguments expressed. Thus, the lability of these verbs is not related to the shift from an intransitive to a transitive construction, but it is related to the degree of animacy of the subject. If the subject refers to an inanimate entity, the pronominal object must have the same number and person features as the subject; the situation falls into the middle domain (46a, 47a), and there is no possible ambiguity. When the subject is animate, the object does not have to be coreferential with the subject, and the orientation of the event is then causative (46b, 47b). These verbs contrast with the ‘truly reflexive verbs’ (§ 3.2.2), for which there is no available choice for the object, and which must always be coreferential with the subject. (46) a. Kö chèpùtù ri. cloud gather 3pl ‘The clouds are gathering.’ b. Nâ chèpùtù ri. 1sg gather 3pl ‘I am getting people together.’ (47) a. Buké nä fasaa è töwâ kâmîâ nä. bouquet ipfv damage 3sg loc sun deic ‘The bunch of flowers is withering in the sun.’ b. Nâ fasaa buké. 1sg damage bouquet ‘I am making the bunch of flowers wither.’
4.2 Possessive flagging alternations As already mentioned, some Xârâcùù prepositions result from a grammaticalization process. As far as inalienable nouns are concerned, the change in syntactic category is not totally complete, and in some cases, it is difficult to determine if we are dealing with a preposition + its object, or with a possessive noun phrase. Two cases are described below. The first one concerns the expression of the experiencer, and the second the expression of the recipient or beneficiary. The position of the argument is one of the main points to be taken into consideration. When the argument follows the verb phrase, we can consider that it consists in a prepositional phrase. When the argument is the subject, however, it still is a possessive noun phrase.
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4.2.1 Experiencer flagging as possessor This alternation concerns a few verbs involving experiencer arguments, whose degree of affectedness changes according to the construction involved. With a nominative experiencer, the verb expresses a descriptive/non-dynamic emotional state while as a possessor, it strongly expresses the experiencer’s deeper feelings. Xârâcùù verbs having such optional constructions for the expression of the experiencer are verbs of feelings or emotions such as saa ‘bad, bad looking’, ‘feel bad’; kwèti ‘be tired’, ‘feel tired’; wîrî ‘disgusting’, ‘feel disgusted’; mârâ ‘be worried’, ‘feel dizzy’. Some of these verbs may derive bivalent verbs with the applicative suffix (see § 5.2.1). The possessive experiencer is in an inalienable relation with the relational noun wâ- ‘inner’. This relational noun very probably is the source of the preposition wâ ‘at’, ‘about’ which introduces diverse complements24 (cf. § 3.2.3.6). The experiencer is totally affected and powerless (example 48b), in a similar way as Creissels’s ‘affective covert impersonals’ (2007: 28), while example (48a) is simply objective, with the experiencer expressed as a nominative argument. (48) a. Nâ kwèti ù-sööpö rè xöu. 1sg tired nmlz-wash poss clothes ‘I am tired of washing clothes.’ b. Nâ sii fè ti nuö döbwa wâ-nâ kwèti. 1sg neg go loc bush because inner-1sg tired ‘I don’t go to the bush because I feel tired.’ The semantic orientation of the verb itself doesn’t change with the construction; the only difference lies in its scope, whether it applies to a non-dynamic or a more agentive experiencer, which is more or less affected depending on the way (as a possessor or as a plain argument) it is expressed. When expressed after the verb phrase, wâ has grammaticalized as a preposition, and introduces an experiencer involved in a higher responsibility: (49) Rè nöö wâ rö mè ke fârâ daa kèwâ kèè-bôô tiwâ kèè-näü. 3sg stay at 2sg that 2sg count day from nmlz-dig to nmlz-plant ‘It is up to you to calculate the time needed between digging and planting.’
4.2.2 Recipient or beneficiary flagging as possessor Besides the use of the preposition xù, a recent development from the homophonous verb ‘give’, Xârâcùù exhibits a well-known Oceanic pattern for encoding recipients 24 It must not be confused with the homophonous perfective aspect.
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and beneficiaries, viz. the use of a possessive classifier to introduce them (cf. Lichtenberk 2002; Song 1998, 2007). The relational nouns ngêê-25 (or its reduced form êê-, very common among speakers under forty) and nèxêê- have the general meaning of ‘belongings’. The exact meanings and status of ngêê-/êê-/nèxêê- are complex. According to some informants, êê- and ngêê- convey a responsibility meaning in addition to the beneficiary meaning, while nèxêê- mostly applies to the possession of object belongings. The relational noun ngêê-/êê-/nèxêê- ‘belongings’ tends to grammaticalize into a beneficiary or recipient marker when expressed after the verb phrase, but remains a noun when occurring in the different functions listed below. a) The relational noun can enter a predicative-possession construction, either by itself, (50), or in an equative clause (51): (50) Ngêê-yaa? Ngêê-nâ. belongings-who belongings-poss1sg ‘Whose is it?’ ‘It is mine’ or ‘It is my turn/my duty.’ (51) Nèxêê-nâ bachèé pa xûûchî. belongings-1sg three coll child ‘I have three children.’ b) It can take a clausal complement: (52) Ngêê-wîrî mè wîrî toanôô kètè bwa è nä nöö nä. belongings-2pl that 2pl find place deic 3sg ipfv stay loc.anaph ‘It is your responsibility to find the place where he lives.’ (53) Êê-rö mè ke kane pwâ-mêdè. belongings-2sg that 2sg pick.up fruit-orange ‘It is your task to pick up oranges.’ c) It is the only way to render the English possessive pronoun, occurring as a subject noun phrase: (54) Mwâsöö rè nâ mîâ, ngêê-rö ngürü. hat poss 1sg red belongings-2sg black ‘My hat is red, yours is black.’
25 Ngêê- is also clearly related to the verb angê ‘to possess’: Nâ nä angê rè chaa lotoo. 1sg ipfv possess ipfv one car ‘I have a car.’
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When occurring after the verb phrase, these relational nouns have grammaticalized into beneficiary/recipient markers, as shown in the following examples: (55) Êê kêgörö nêkwââ ngêê xûûchî abaa. 3sg.ipers crush.with.fingers leaves ben child newborn ‘One crushes leaves with fingers for the newborn child.’ (56) Wînâ chaa ùbwa nèxêê sê röö. leave one place ben sister poss+2sg ‘Leave a little place for your sister.’ (57) Nâ nä xwi rè chaa xiti êê béé-nâ. 1sg ipfv make ipfv one feast ben friend-1sg ‘I will organize a party for my friend.’ Compared to the preposition xù, these former relational nouns may not be separated from their arguments, and convey a meaning of higher responsibility in the type of attribution. Compare (58a) and (58b): (58) a. Anyââ xâdùù na chaa lotoo xù Yaya. Mummy pay pst one car ben Yaya ‘Mummy bought Yaya a car.’ (It was not necessary, just a gift) b. Anyââ xâdùù na chaa lotoo êê Yaya. Mummy pay pst one car ben Yaya ‘Mummy bought Yaya a car.’ (Yaya needed it)
4.3 Argument deletion alternation The omission of the subject does not lead to ambiguity in connection with bivalent verbs, since the basic word order is SVO, and since there is no passive voice in Xârâcùù. With most active verbs, there is no need for the presence of a dummy pronoun, or of an impersonal pronoun, although the latter may always occur. Compare examples (59a) and (60a), with no subject, with examples (59b) and (60b) containing explicit subjects. In both cases, the verb keeps its orientation. (59) a. Wâ chèè kwâjùù-rè. pfv pull sheet-poss3sg ‘[Someone] is pulling the sheets of the sail.’ b. Apuukwâdè wâ chèè kwâjùù-rè. wind.chief pfv pull sheet-poss3sg ‘The chief of the wind is pulling the sheets of the sail.’
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(60) a. Wâ tara mîî mwâ ri wâ kä xêêdi. pfv see pl house 3pl pfv ready totally ‘[One] can see these houses which are totally finished.’ b. Mô tara è. night see 3sg ‘Night caught up with him.’ (Lit. ‘Night sees him.’) The omission of bivalent verb objects is also possible in Xârâcùù, except with reflexive verbs which require a pronominal coreferential object (cf. § 3.2.2); the verb then takes a more stative or inherent meaning (61a and 62a), but in contrast with labile verbs, the meaning of the verb does not change. This alternation often concerns verbs of consumption, or regular activities. (61) a. Dèèri bôô. people weed.out ‘People are weeding.’ b. Dèèri bôô nècaa rè Fabio. people weed.out field poss Fabio ‘People are weeding the field of Fabio.’ (62) a. Dapé chii. Dapé angle ‘Dapé is fishing.’ b. Dapé chii chaa mèröö. Dapé angle one parrot fish ‘Dapé is catching a parrot fish with a rod.’ Most of the verbs which take an oblique object are also only optionally followed by it. They may occur in an intransitive construction, or with an oblique object, as it is the case with verbs such as xuru ‘flee (from)’, mââî ‘be ahead, precede’, or bata ‘be scared, be afraid (of)’, occurring in an intransitive construction in (63a) or in an “extended transitive” construction in (63b): (63) a. Ke nä wita bata rè arè döumè ke nä ciköpuru 2sg ipfv proh be.afraid ipfv tomorrow when 2sg ipfv cross rè xwârè. ipfv river ‘You must not be afraid tomorrow when you will have to cross the river.’ b. È bata taa na fètaa rè mwâciri rèè. 3sg be.afraid off pst leave poss country poss+3sg ‘He has been afraid of leaving his country.’
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4.4 Dative (indirective/secundative) alternation Three subtypes of dative alternation can be distinguished. a) Some verbs can occur with the recipient as direct argument when no other complement is expressed, as in (64a) and (65a). When another argument is added, it takes the place of the recipient as a direct object argument (65b), or as a complement clause (64b), while the recipient is flagged as oblique, introduced by xù if it is a beneficiary (64b), or by taa if it is a disassociative (65b): (64) a. È fi rö. 3sg lie 2sg ‘He is lying to you.’ b. È fi xù rö mè siè kii. 3sg lie ben 2sg comp not.exist key ‘He is lying to you [saying that] he doesn’t have any key.’ (65) a. Apêdè pêdè axwiri. robber rob merchant ‘The robber is robbing the merchant.’ b. Apêdè pêdè mwânêê taa axwiri. robber rob money off merchant ‘The robber is stealing money from the merchant.’ b) Another subtype of alternation occurs between a theme, unmarked when it is the only expressed object as in (66a), or followed by a beneficiary introduced by the preposition xù (66b), and flagged with the instrumental when a recipient/beneficiary is added (66c): (66) a. Nâ fadù ääda. 1sg share food ‘I am sharing the food.’ b. Nâ fadù ääda xù dèèri. 1sg share food ben people ‘I am sharing the food for the people.’ (so that everyone will have food) c. Nâ fadù dèèri ngê ääda.26 (= Nâ fadù ngê ääda dèèri.) 1sg share people ins food ‘I am sharing the food among the people.’ (so that the food will be sufficient for all) 26 Or, with the cliticization of the preposition into the verb phrase: nâ fadù ngê dèèri ääda, semantically equivalent, but with a focalization on the food.
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This alternation recalls the one occurring with English verbs such as ‘provide’ (‘I provide food to people’ vs. ‘I provide people with food’). c) The situation is different with another verb of transfer, xù ‘give’. In example (67b), the verb xù ‘give’ occurs in a tripartite alignment construction (P≠ngêT≠xùR), indicating the desire of the agent to show off. In example (67a) the theme is unmarked, while in (67b) it is introduced by the instrumental preposition ngê. In both examples, however, the recipient is marked by the benefactive preposition xù. (67) a. Ke xù xù na nû chaa mwanöö. (= Ke xù na chaa mwanöö xù nâ.) 2sg give ben pst 1sg one cloth ‘You gave me a piece of cloth.’ b. Nèxuu xù na ngê chaa péci xù afainû. girl give pst ins one book ben teacher ‘The girl gave the book to the teacher (to show off).’
4.5 Reflexive or reciprocal alternation Except in a few cases (such as reflexive verbs in § 3.2.2), bivalent verbs are generally not restricted as far as the choice of an object is concerned; if the latter turns out to be a pronoun of the same person and number as the animate subject, the interpretation can be ambiguous out of context, between a reflexive or reciprocal and a disjoint (other-directed) interpretation: (68) a. Taiki kèkè è. dog bite 3sg ‘The dog is biting it/her/him/itself.’ (69) a. Ri ciiwi ri. 3pl help 3pl ‘They are helping them/each other.’ The reflexive/reciprocal/disjoint alternation requires animate subjects. It is possible to add the reflexive/reciprocal marker in order to get a more restrictive interpretation. The Xârâcùù reflexive/reciprocal marker is mûgé, which, as an (ad)verb, means ‘return’, ‘again’, and consequently also conveys a repetitive reading: (68) b. Taiki kèkè mûgé è. dog bite return 3sg ‘The dog is biting itself.’ or ‘The dog is biting it/her/him again.’ (69) b. Ri ciiwi mûgé ri. 3pl help return 3pl ‘They are helping each other.’ or ‘They are helping them again.’
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Inherent reciprocity is usually unmarked: tôôbùtù ‘gather’, pùùtè ‘meet’, xöyö ‘marry’, pia ‘fight’.
4.6 Conative alternation I only found this conative alternation with verbs of consumption. In (70a), the direct object referring to the patient is totally affected by the event, while in (70b), the patient is flagged as an adjunct with the complex locative preposition kèwâ ‘among’, and is only partially affected: (70) a. È da na xöö-dö amû ngê chêêdê. 3sg eat pst egg-hen yesterday loc evening ‘He ate eggs yesterday evening.’ b. Nä wèa bù fè ti mûgé da kèwâ ääda mwîrî. then this.one flying.fox go loc again eat loc food anaph ‘Then the flying fox went back to eat some of the food.’
5 Valency changing devices in Xârâcùù Xârâcùù has several valency changing devices: − the causative prefix fa-, a reflex of Proto Oceanic *pa[ka]-, which is productive with almost all types of verbs; − the resultative prefix mê-, a reflex of POc *ma-, which is no longer productive; − the middle prefix ù-, a reflex of POc ‘plurality of actions’ middle/reciprocal prefix *paRi‑, also no longer productive in Xârâcùù. Xârâcùù has only kept a few traces of the applicative POc *-akin[i] suffix, with the -ri suffix now unproductive. Instead, as I have already mentioned, Xârâcùù has developed several oblique constructions, with various markers of verbal or nominal origin (cf. § 3.2.3 above), and a very productive lexical compounding process (cf. § 6.2 below), both resulting from nuclear verb serialization developments.
5.1 Valency-reducing operations In this section, I shall examine on the one hand, marked valency reducing operations, which mainly have resultative, reciprocal and middle semantic values and, on the other hand, an unmarked valency reducing operation, the incorporation strategy. None of these operations are still productive in Xârâcùù. Besides, in con-
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trast with what is reconstructed for Proto Oceanic (cf. for example Evans 2003: POc *kani ‘to eat sth’ > *kanikani ‘to eat’), reduplication is not used as a valency-reducing operation in Xârâcùù. It only has the semantic function of intensity, whether the reduplication is partial or total 27: ngû ‘move’ > ngûngû ‘wriggle’; xa ‘speak’ > xaxa ‘speak loudly, speak a lot’; sùù ‘push’ > sùsùù ‘push with energy’; cemîâ ‘suffer’ > cemîmîâ ‘suffer a lot’. Another uncoded valency reducing operation has already been described, concerning labile alternations (see § 4.1).
5.1.1 The resultative prefix mêThe POc prefix *ma- is described as being quite productive with verbs high in transitivity such as *liŋi- ‘to pour sth. out’ > *maliŋi ‘to be poured, split’ (Evans 2003: 268). The Xârâcùù reflex mê- is only attested in a few verbs belonging to the semantic field of destruction, but it has the same valency-reducing role, with intransitive S corresponding to transitive P. The nasal vowel of the prefix changes the initial oral consonant of the verb into a prenasalized consonant: pöru pùtù pwéa tia
‘peel, skin’ ‘paste, crush’ ‘bend’ ‘tear, split’
mê-böru mê-bùtù mê-bwéa mê-dia
‘be skinned, scraped’ be crushed, battered’ ‘be bent’ ‘be splitted, torn’
Bound verb stems also admit the mê- prefixation: -kai ‘crush’ -körö ‘break’ -nyûû ‘pierce’
mê-gai ‘be crushed’ mê-görö ‘be broken’ mê-nyûû ‘be pierced’
5.1.2 The middle prefix ùXârâcùù almost completely lost one of the most interesting and productive prefixes found in the great majority of Oceanic languages, namely the prefix reconstructed in POc as *paRi-. This prefix had several uses, and is reflected in most Kanak languages with middle, reciprocal and, more rarely, reflexive meanings. Reflected as ù- in Xârâcùù, it only derives a dozen verbs (a few more in the Xârâcùù variety
27 If the initial verb is plurisyllabic, or if its first syllable includes a long vowel, the first part of the reduplicated form will only consist in two moras, that is a consonant followed by a short vowel.
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spoken in Thio), of different classes and conveys in all cases a middle meaning, referring to either generic or habitual characteristics, or grooming actions and sociative situations: Action vs. bë da nêê pè xù sö
habitual behavior ‘move to some place’ ‘eat’ ‘choose’ ‘take’ ‘give’ ‘to pride oneself on sth.’
Grooming actions cù ‘comb s.o.’ mwé ‘dive, put into water’
ù-bë ù-da ù-nêê ù-pè ù-xù ù‑sö
‘be restless’ ‘bite (fish)’ ‘be picky’ ‘juggle’ ‘be contagious’ ‘be haughty, be a boaster’
ù-cù ù-mwé
‘comb one’s hair’ ‘take a bath’
Other grooming action verbs are either labile verbs, such as xii ‘shave’ or lexically specific verbs such as pêrê ‘look at oneself in a mirror’. Sociative cuè ooro juu xâpârî
‘sit’ ‘rejoice of sth.’ ‘agree to sth.’ ‘see s.o. or sth.’
ù-cuè ù-ooro ù-juu ù-xâpârî
‘assemble’ ‘rejoice together’ ‘come to an agreement’ ‘meet’
5.1.3 Object incorporation Object incorporation is a well attested feature in Oceanic languages, inducing valency reduction in accusative as well as in ergative languages. The incorporated object is non-referential and is included in the verb phrase, often leading to compounds which can themselves undergo a new transitivization. In several Kanak languages, verbs vary formally, depending on the grammatical status of the object. This is the case, for example, in Drehu, one of the Loyalty Island languages. Hence in (71a), the verb öj ‘to press’ has an object modified by an article and a plural morpheme. In (71b), the verb changes to öji, the former object is incorporated, loses its determiners, takes a generic meaning, and cannot be separated from the verb: Drehu (Lifu, Loyalty Islands) (71) a. Eni a öj la itre ono. 1sg ipfv press art pl coconut ‘I am squeezing the milk out of the coconut gratings.’
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b. Eni a öji=ono. 1sg ipfv press=coco ‘I am squeezing coconut gratings.’ (Moyse-Faurie 1997: 235) In Xârâcùù, incorporation is a very marginal alternation and it does not affect the verb formally. The semantic and syntactic correlates, however, are identical to the ones found in Drehu. In (72a), the object and its determiner are separated from the verb by the postverbal part of the imperfective tense-aspect marker, required in the transitive construction, while in (72b), the verb phrase comprising the incorporated object forms a non-separable unit: (72) a. Chaa kamûrû nä tuu rè chaa kwâ. one man ipfv step.on ipfv one boat ‘The man is stepping on the boat.’ b. Chaa kamûrû nä tuu=kwâ. one man ipfv step.on=boat ‘The man is going on board.’
5.2 Valency-increasing operations Valency-increasing devices, which were very productive in Proto Oceanic (Evans 2003), include, in particular, the following affixes: a) the Proto Oceanic *-i suffix (occurring only with consonant-final and *-a final verb stems; otherwise: object enclitics attach directly): – with Actor subject verbs: applicative (P: role of location, goal, addressee or stimulus) – with Undergoer subject verbs: causative b) the POc *-akin[i] suffix: – applicative use, with P in role of concomitant, cause/stimulus, content, product, instrument, beneficiary; – causative use: first with motion verbs and further extended to non-motion verbs. c) the POc *pa[ka]- prefix: – *pa- and *paka- causative prefixes: S = P, A = causer participant; – in a few languages: *pa- causative, *paka- multiplicative use with numerals. In contrast with the various Proto Oceanic affixal valency strategies, Xârâcùù has only one reflex of the applicative suffix *-akin[i], viz. ‑ri, and a reflex of the causative prefix *pa[ka]-, viz. fa‑, for which the multiplicative use has been preserved (see below § 5.2.2).
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5.2.1 The transitivizing/applicative suffix -ri The Xârâcùù transitive/applicative suffix ‑ri can only apply to a few verbs. The loss of POc transitive suffixes has been compensated for by the development of several relational morphemes, in relation to verb serialization (Moyse-Faurie 1991). This morpheme -ri is still a suffix, in the sense that it cannot be separated from the verb, and it did not evolve into a preposition, as has been the case, for example, with the applicative suffix POc *akin[i] reflected in East Uvean (Moyse-Faurie, personal data) and Tongan (Churchward 1953: 120) both by the suffix -’aki and by the preposition ’aki ‘instrumental’. The Xârâcùù suffix -ri derives half a dozen verbs denoting emotions or feelings: fiö
‘be lazy’
mârâ muru kwèti cara
‘be ‘be ‘be ‘be
nyôô nyînyôô
‘be foolish, drunk’ ‘be complicated, merge’
worried, be upset’ alive’ tired’ ashamed, dazzled’
‘to refuse, to have had enough of’ mârâ-ri ‘be disgusted with’ muru-ri ‘live on’ kwèti-ri ‘be tired of’ cara-ri ‘be ashamed of, be dazzled by’ nyôô-ri ‘be confused about’ nyînyôô-ri ‘not recognize sth. or s.o.’ fiö-ri
The subject is an undergoer in both intransitive and transitive constructions, and the object licensed by the applicative suffix -ri is obligatorily expressed; it denotes the means, the source or the stimulus of the emotion, and can refer to an animate (74c, 75) or an inanimate entity (73b and 74b). Since no element can separate the verb from its suffix, the past tense marker na has to be postposed to the suffixed verb (73b), before the object: (73) a. Pwénîî mè nâ muru mwâmwaa! optative that 1sg live long ‘[I] wish I would live for a long time.’ b. Nâ muru-ri na nû. 1sg live-appl pst coconut ‘I had my fill of coconut.’ (74) a. È kwèti. 3sg be.tired ‘He is tired.’ b. Ri wâ kwèti-ri kèchö. 3pl pfv tired-appl magnania ‘They are sick of (eating) magnania28.’ 28 Pueraria lobata, has a fleshy tapioca-like tuber, eaten in times of famine.
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c. Nâ kwèti-ri môrô rö. 1sg be.tired-appl already 2sg ‘I am already tired of you.’ (75) È sii cara-ri xéré bwa è nöö Numéa. 3sg neg ashamed-appl grandson deic 3sg stay Nouméa ‘She is not ashamed of her grandson who lives in Nouméa.’ To the above list of verbs denoting sensations or natural states, two locative (ad)verbs also requiring the -ri suffix must be added: nûbö- ‘(be) near of’ in (76) and bèbè- (< bè ‘bottom’ as in bè-nâ ‘my bottom’, bè-kùrè ‘bottom of the pot’) in (77a) and (77b): (76) È nûbö-ri mwâ. 3sg near-appl house ‘S/he is near the house.’ (77) a. È tââ bèbè-ri nâ. 3sg stand behind-appl 1sg ‘S/he is standing behind me.’ b. È köö bèbè-ri kwââ. 3sg hide behind-appl tree ‘S/he is hiding behind a tree.’ There is also one case of a nominal derivation with -ri: mwaraa- ‘shallow light, gleam’ is a relational noun (obligatorily followed by a possessor); the derived verb means ‘be at a shallow light of sth.’, as a single predicate in (78a), and as V2 in a serial verb construction in (78b): (78) a. Nâ mwaraa-ri nè. 1sg be.at.shallow.light-appl fire ‘I am [staying] by the light of the fire.’ b. Nâ pètù mwaraa-ri nè. 1sg weave be.at.shallow.light-appl fire ‘I am weaving by the light of the fire.’ In all probability, a variant form of the applicative suffix -ri has been incorporated into bivalent verbs such as cîîrî (in free variation with cîî) ‘distribute, share’, and in the verb faari (var. faare) ‘ask for’, perceived by the speakers as being an underived form, although it originally is the transitivized form for faa ‘ask’:
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(79) a. Faa wâ rè nämè xai péci bwa. ask at 3sg that where book deic ‘Ask him where the book is.’ b. Aaxa Pokwé faari taa dèèri rèè mè ri dèpuu sùù chaa chief Uvea ask off people poss+3sg that 3pl in.turn push one mwîî kwâdè. big wind ‘The chief from Uvea asks his people to raise a strong wind.’ Finally, the verb mwârâ ‘laugh’, ‘play’ becomes bivalent with the suffix -kaciri. It is the only occurrence of this strange suffix:29 (80) Nâ mwârâ-kaciri tèpe nä. 1sg laugh-appl story deic ‘I am laughing at this story.’
5.2.2 The causative prefix faAlmost all Xârâcùù verbs, whatever their valency, may take the causative prefix fa-. Exceptions concern semantic restrictions, with verbs denoting inherent properties such as aéé ‘(be) authentic’, afädë ‘(be) foreign’, xwâkètè ‘be profane’, or inherited deformities and diseases such as amè ‘(be) paralyzed’, bëpaii ‘(be) sickly’, dööpwé ‘be hunchbacked’, mèrèdêê ‘be deaf’, or natural inevitable processes such as kèpwiri ‘(be) high (tide)’, pââmé ‘be toothless’, etc. In Xârâcùù, causativization is used as a strategy for deriving bivalent and trivalent verbs; it occasionally also derives causative verbs from nouns, mainly referring to plants or animals. a) prefix fa- + monovalent verbs The undergoer or experiencer subject argument becomes the undergoer object, and an agent is added. bata sé mëtë mwâmwâ muru xûda
‘be afraid’ ‘big’ ‘dry’ ‘dress oneself’ ‘live’ ‘be full of sth.’
fa-bata fa-sé fa-mëtë fa-mwâmwâ fa-muru fa-xûda
‘to frighten’ ‘make sth. big, honor s.o.’ ‘dry s.o. or s.th.’ ‘dress someone’ ‘provide the living for s.o.’ ‘fill’
29 Kaci must have been a verb, but is no longer attested. A similar construction occurs with bata ‘be afraid’, to which a direct object can be added as long as it is followed by xwi ‘exist, make’ and cara ‘be ashamed’, deriving the verb bata-xwi-cara ‘to respect’.
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(81) a. Nè xiri. fire light ‘The fire lights up.’ b. Nâ fa-xiri nè. 1sg caus-light fire ‘I light the fire.’ The actor-subject argument remains the agent of the derived verb, and an undergoer object is added: cuè tââ
‘sit’ ‘stand’
fa-cuè fa-tââ
‘make s.o. sit’ ‘stop’, ‘make s.o. stand up’
(82) a. Wîrî cuè xö tö nèpwéé-kâmîâ nêmwâ. 2pl sit à.jeun loc inside-sun today ‘Today, you are sitting not eating anything.’ b. Yaya wâ fa-cuè chéé xûûchî rè nâ. Yaya pfv caus-sit down child poss 1sg ‘Yaya made my child sit down.’ b) prefix fa- + bivalent verbs Bivalent verbs may have a derived causative, such as: sia ‘grate (tubers)’ xwata ‘hear, understand’ näü ‘plant’
fa-sia ‘make s.o. grate (tubers)’ fa-xwata ‘tell sth. to s.o.’; ‘information, news’ fa-näü ‘make s.o. plant’
Bivalent causativized verbs from intransitive verbs may in turn be causativized as trivalent verbs: xûda ‘be full’ > fa-xûda ‘fill sth.’ > fa-fa-xûda ‘make s.o. fill sth.’ The examples below show how the theme, unmarked in a transitive construction (83a), is flagged as instrumental in a ditransitive construction (83b):
(83) a. È näü baaru döxöu. 3sg plant two pandanus ‘(S)he is planting two pandanuses.’
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b. Pa jöösè fa-näü ngê pa Xârâcùù köfi töxû coll. soldier caus.-plant ins coll Xârâcùù coffee on mê-nèpärä.30 ancient-mound ‘Soldiers are making the people of Xârâcùù plant coffee on the old yam mound.’ The causer pa jöösè in (83b) replaces the agent (è in (83a)) in the subject position. The patient (baaru döxöu) is unmarked in the transitive construction, but is flagged as instrumental in (83b) with the preposition ngê cliticized to the predicate, and separated from its complement (köfi) by the direct object argument (pa Xârâcùù). c) Multiplicative use of faIn Xârâcùù, the causative prefix fa-, as it was the case with Proto Oceanic *pa[ka]-, also derives ordinals: baaru ‘two’ bachéé ‘three’
fa-baaru fa-bachéé
‘second (of a series)’; ‘in two (pieces)’ ‘third’; ‘in three (pieces)’
6 Verbal compounds Serial verb constructions are still very productive in Xârâcùù. Most often, they consist of two verbs, referring to different aspects or stages (position, manner, purpose, etc.) of an event, but constructions including three serial verbs are not infrequent, e.g. cuè köö pwâârî in (84): (84) Ri wâ cuè köö pwâârî sêgè mwîrî gaka nä saù mê da 3pl pfv sit hide pass.round stone anaph crow ipfv each.time come eat tixû. loc ‘They [turtledoves] lay in ambush around the stone to which the crow used to come and eat on top of.’ The valency of the compounds mostly relies on the valency of the second element. If the second element is bivalent, the compound is also bivalent, whatever the valency of the first element. By contrast, a few compounds are monovalent although the first element is bivalent. This is the case with compound verbs such as
30 The other word order, with the preposition occurring just before its complement, is also possible: Pa jöösè fa-näü pa Xârâcùù ngê köfi töxû mê-nèpärä.
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cipwîrî ‘roll’ (ci- < cii ‘spread’ + pwîrî ‘turn’), nârâyaa ‘be sad’ (nârâ ‘think’ + -yaa ‘badly’), chéxô ‘cough’ (ché ‘say’ + xô ‘sing’). These productive serial verb constructions evolved on the one hand into different types of compounds, and on the other hand, into prepositions, as we have seen in § 3.2.3. Two main types of bound verbs must be distinguished: (i) bound stem elements of verbal origin; (ii) classificatory affixes of nominal or verbal origin. Bound stem elements consist of a reduced verb as first element. For example, the verb xuru ‘flee’ occurs as xö- in compounds, stemming from a former serial verb construction: (85) È wâ xö-fètaa möö chaa nii. 3sg pfv flee-leave first one penis.sheath ‘He fled, first leaving his penis sheath.’ In some cases, the original verb is unknown, and only its first syllable remains, as it is the case with ta- ‘shoot at, thrust with a spear’, a form attested in a dozen compounds: (86) Ri wâ ta-faaté è ngê a wââî nä. 3pl pfv shoot-run.after 3sg sm deic these.men deic ‘They shot at him and ran after him, these men.’ Most compound verbs, however, include classificatory affixes. − Classificatory prefixes are known to be a typical feature of Oceanic languages spoken in New Guinea, but they are quite numerous in New Caledonian languages of the Center and South of the Mainland (Osumi 1995: 135–138; Ozanne-Rivierre & Rivierre 2004). The prefixes often have a transparent nominal origin, although they are always monosyllabic, having been reduced to a single mora. In Xârâcùù, as in these other New Caledonian languages, classificatory prefixes mostly indicate the manner or the body part with which the event is brought about. − The second elements, most often of verbal origin, indicate the result of the action. As described by Ozanne-Rivierre & Rivierre (2004: 362), the lexical suffixes “may be grouped around two axes: action on the form, integrity of the object (break, cut, split, crush, tear, etc.); action on the location, position, or trajectory of the object (return, block, tear off, detach, etc.)”. Many of the classificatory suffixes reflect former verb forms, and probably stem from former nuclear-layer serialization. Compounds, however, now form a single phonological word stressed on the first syllable. In some cases, both the suffix and the verb coexist in the language, as for example the verb tia ‘split, tear’, and the corresponding bound forms -tia/
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-dia. In some cases, assimilation processes have led to the change of the initial consonant of the suffixes: bë ‘move (oneself)’ + -körö ‘break’ ngî- < ngîrî ‘rub’ + -körö ‘break’ kè- ‘with teeth’ + tia ‘split’ kê- ‘with fingers’ + tia ‘split’
bëkörö ‘break sth. while moving’ ngîgörö ‘break sth. while rubbing’ kètia ‘split with teeth’ kêdia ‘split with fingers’
Both elements forming the compound may have lost their status as independent verbs, as for example bi- < biri ‘turn’ which combines with the suffixed form -chëe ‘miss’, giving rise to bichëe ‘screw in the wrong way’. As already mentioned, most compound verbs belong to the bivalent or trivalent verb classes, as long as the second element is itself bivalent. Here again, their object can refer to location (87), patient (88), etc. (87) È tètùrù chaa xwâkûû-purèkwé. 3sg hand+pierce one shard-bottle ‘He hurt his hand on a shard of bottle.’ (88) Xötö söpuru na farawa ngê nea. boy circular.hand.movement+break.in.two pst bread ins knife ‘The boy cut the bread with a knife.’ Among the 70 verbs included in the database, 22 are compounds in Xârâcùù, among which fètaa ‘leave’, chéxô ‘cough’, paiimè ‘die’ and cipwîrî ‘roll’ (monovalent verbs), jikörö ‘break’, fîgai ‘beat’, söpuru ‘cut’ and chètia ‘tear’ (bivalent verbs).
7 Oblique arguments or adjuncts? The remaining problem is to account for the use of some prepositions for both oblique arguments and adjuncts, but this is a well known problem that Xârâcùù does not help much to resolve, even if we have seen that different uses of the same preposition often have correlates and restrictions concerning the position of the complement, and the (in)separability of the preposition with respect to the phrase it introduces. For example, we have seen that as an instrumental preposition or as an oblique object marker, the preposition ngê can be separated from its complement, while as a subject marker or as a temporal adjunct marker, it cannot. As is the case in many languages, it is indeed difficult to determine the status of prepositional noun phrases. Still, a distinction between adjuncts and obliques may be observed in some operations, such as fronting, nominalization or argument deletion, but is never sufficient, to strictly delimit these two types of functions.
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7.1 Fronting One of the possible criteria that could be relevant to distinguish adjuncts and oblique arguments is the position of the preposition when the noun phrase is fronted. Two oblique prepositions, ngê and wâ, can occur sentence-initially: adjuncts keep these prepositions when fronted (89) while oblique arguments are fronted without them, the preposition remaining after the predicate (90b). Instruments are in between since they keep the preposition when fronted, but the preposition occurs a second time after the predicate (91b). (89) Ngê chêêdè, è wâ toa. ins evening 3sg pfv arrive ‘In the evening, s/he arrived.’ In (90b), the fronting of the oblique object necessitates the occurrence of a resumptive pronoun (è); the preposition is maintained after the main verb, cliticized to it, and is thus separated from the resumptive pronoun by the past tense marker: (90) a. Famuru sôôbö ii na ngê pupèè rèè. Famuru play.with always pst ins doll poss+3sg ‘Famuru used to play with her doll all the time.’ b. Pupèè rèè, Famuru sôôbö ii ngê na è. doll poss+3sg Famuru play.with always ins pst 3sg ‘Her doll, Famuru used to play with it all the time.’ By contrast, in (91b), the preposition ngê is maintained in front of the fronted instrumental complement, and it occurs also just after the verb, separating the verb from its direct object: (91) a. È wâ sa ri ngê kwâdè. 3sg pfv hit 3pl ins wind ‘He started to hit them with the wind.’ b. Ngê kwâdè, è wâ sa ngê ri. ins wind 3sg pfv hit ins 3pl ‘The wind, he started to hit them with [it].’ (Lit. ‘With the wind, he started to hit with them.’)
7.2 Object relativization As mentioned earlier, Xârâcùù has no passive voice. However, a type of object relativization with the nominalizing prefix êê- expressing resultative events often
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renders French or English passives. Adjuncts, by contrast, do not seem to be possible antecedents in such nominalized relative constructions. The agent – the subject in the original verb phrase (92a) – is expressed as a possessor, reflecting the origin of the construction in a nominalized resultative construction. The agent is optional with some verbs, as in example (92b): (92) a. Aaxa su péci. chief write letter ‘The chief is writing a letter.’ b. péci êê-su (rè aaxa) letter [res-write poss chief] ‘letter (which has been) written (by the chief)’ It is compulsory with other verbs which require the overt expression of subject (the possessor in the relative clause), as in (93a): (93) a. Kâmîâ chä bwaa-rè. sun [strike(sun)] head-3sg ‘The sun is beating his head down.’ b. bwaa-rè êê-chä rè kâmîâ head-3sg [res-strike(sun) poss sun] ‘his head got struck by the sun’ If the object as antecedent refers to an animate entity, a resumptive pronoun necessarily occurs after the agent (which is expressed as a possessor); the resumptive pronoun does not have the object pronominal form, but the tonic form (niè), simply juxtaposed to the possessive noun phrase, without forming part of it: (94) Oosi êê-fawîjö na röö niè, wâ tââtoa mûgé. horse [res-caus.drink pst poss+2sg 3sg.indep] pfv stand.up again ‘The horse to whom you gave something to drink set himself on his feet again.’ Oblique arguments may become the head of such relative nominalized clauses and the oblique preposition keeps its position after the nominalized verb: (95) döö êê-pia tùù earth [res-fight about] ‘the earth about which [we] fought’ If the oblique argument refers to an animate entity, e.g. the beneficiary in (96), the preposition which remains in situ is followed by a resumptive pronoun:
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(96) Afädë êê-xù na rè rî nô xù è, è wâ fè na. foreigner res-give pst poss 1pl.incl fish ben 3sg 3sg pfv go pst ‘The foreigner to whom we had given some fish has left.’ If the oblique argument refers to an inanimate entity, e.g. the theme in the following examples, no resumptive pronoun is required, as we can see in (97b): (97) a. Xuu nèèxu êê-fâda röö niè ngê nêkwââ, wâ pua small girl res-caus.eat poss+2sg 3sg.indep ins leaf pfv stay xöru mûgé. well again ‘The young girl you fed with medicinal leaves is now doing well.’ b. Nêkwââ êê-fâda röö xuu nèèxu ngê, tuè cécöö tö leaf res-caus.eat poss+2sg small girl ins grow no.matter loc nèca. gardens ‘The medicinal leaves with which you fed the young girl grow anywhere in the gardens.’
7.3 Argument deletion Going through the dative alternation (cf. § 4.4), I showed that the addition of a clausal complement shifted the recipient from an unmarked object to oblique marking, as in (98a) and (98b) repeated below: (98) a. È fi rö. 3sg lie 2sg ‘He is lying to you.’ b. È fi xù rö mè siè kii. 3sg lie ben 2sg comp not.exist key ‘He is lying to you [saying that] he doesn’t have any key.’ If a noun phrase introduced by the instrumental preposition is added (ngê xwâvirè ‘with unkindness’), the recipient (îrî) remains unmarked. In this case, it is clear that the prepositional phrase ngê xwâvirè is an adjunct, and not an oblique object: (98) c. È fi ngê îrî xwâvirè. 3sg lie ins 1pl.incl unkindness ‘He is unkindly lying to us.’ (Lit. ‘He is lying us with unkindness.’)
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This situation allows us to distinguish, at least in some cases, between adjuncts, which do not require the oblique marking of the recipient, and oblique objects, with which the recipient also has to be introduced by a preposition, as we have seen in § 3.2.3.
8 Conclusion Xârâcùù stands apart from prototypical Oceanic languages. It has unmarked SVO word order, having lost any person indexation on the verb. It has lost almost all the productive transitivizing and applicative suffixes, with the exception of the causativizing prefix, and it has no productive intransitivizing prefix; it has no verbal morphology, in particular, no verbal inflections depending on the object, and no actancy variation depending on tense-aspect marking. In addition, the pronominal markers almost all have the same form whatever their functions, so this does not help determine their syntactic status. Due to unknown historical factors, most of the argument encoding strategies now rely on the choice between different prepositions, or on the choice between different types of deletion alternations. Xârâcùù has rich verbal compounding patterns, along with productive serial verb constructions, and a number of oblique prepositions of verbal origin. These developments certainly explain the multiplication of small verbal classes, and the fact that valency classes are more differentiated than in other Oceanic languages, partly due to the numerous oblique prepositions, some of which are specific to a small group of verbs. Xârâcùù has indeed several prepositions of (ad)verbal origin, grammaticalized through the development of serial verb constructions. This fact accounts for some cases of indirective alignment. Most of the prepositions have a choice of position, either immediately postposed to the verb, in which case they can be separated from their complement, or preposed to the latter. Consequently, besides the difficulty of differentiating between adjuncts and oblique objects, there is also the difficulty of differentiating in some cases between adverbs and prepositions, as it is the case for example with the purposive cè, or the disassociative taa. The boundaries of each verb class are not easy to delimit, with certain verbs so flexible that they can combine with several different prepositions (as for example xwiri ‘sell’), or they belong to different classes across speakers. Still, I will try to summarize some of the most interesting Xârâcùù characteristics concerning valency flagging and alternations. Grammaticalization of possessive classifiers as recipient/beneficiary markers has been recorded in other Oceanic languages (cf. Song 2007), and it is not surprising to find such cases in Xârâcùù, such as the use of êê-/nèxêê-/ngêê- ‘belongings’, to introduce the beneficiary. It is the additional use of the preposition xù (< xù ‘give’) which is a Xârâcùù innovation among the New Caledonian languages. The alternation of recipient/beneficiary expressed either by a prepositional phrase or
1060
Claire Moyse-Faurie
as a possessor has correlates in terms of requirement in favor of the beneficiary. The fact that experiencers and beneficiaries can both be flagged as possessors, as I have shown in § 4.2, is the syntactic manifestation of the close relationships among concepts such as possession, gift, and personal experience. Concerning verb classes, we noted the existence of a small ‘inherently reflexive’ verb class (§ 3.2.2), which requires a pronominal object coreferential with the subject; this minor class contrasts with verbs which also require two overt arguments, but which show a degree of animacy alternation (§ 4.1.4), allowing variation in their choice of objects. Other features, such as the existence of some labile verbs with well-known specific semantic orientation are typologically more common. Some more fieldwork would be necessary for a better understanding of the different Xârâcùù verb classes and alternations, even if the lack of any normative tendency among speakers does not make it easy!
Meaning label
RAIN
SHAVE
MEET
BLINK
COUGH
RUN
SING
LAUGH
SCREAM
FEEL PAIN
FEEL COLD
DIE
PLAY
BE SAD
BE HUNGRY
#
69
14
17
46
47
49
53
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
Appendix
mêrê
nârâyaa (Co)
mwârâ
paiimè (Co)
xùpè
paii
ngââ
mwârâ
xô
pûxûrû
chèxô (Co)
nimè
pùùtè
xii
kwiè
Verb form
1>V
1>V
1>V
1>V
1>V
1>V
1>V
1>V
1>V
1>V
1>V
1>V
1>V
1>V
V
Coding frame schema
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Ambitransitive 1
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
Ambitransitive 2
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Applicative
+
–
+
m
+
+
m
+
+
m
+
+
m
m
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Causa- Conative tive
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
+
Impersonal
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
Middle
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
m
+
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Nomi- Obnaliject zation omission
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Oblique/ Direct
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Refl./ Recip. omission
Valency classes in Xârâcùù (New Caledonia)
1061
Meaning label
ROLL
SINK
BURN
BE DRY
RAIN
BE A HUNTER
BOIL
APPEAR
BE ILL
CRY
SIT
JUMP
GO
LEAVE
LIVE
EAT
EAT
EAT
#
65
66
67
68
69
70
80
81
82
83
50
52
54
55
56
1
1
1
xwè
kê (2)
da
muru
fè
fè
cîchéé (Co)
cuè
têî
paii
abaa
bö
acaa (CN)
xwa (N)
mëtë
kê (1)
mutu
cipwîrî (Co)
Verb form
1>V2
1>V2
1>V2
1 > V (LOC2)
1 > V (LOC2)
1 > V (LOC2)
1 > V (LOC2)
1 > V (LOC2)
1>V
1>V
1>V
1>V
1>V
1>V
1>V
1>V
1>V
1>V
Coding frame schema
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Ambitransitive 1
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
Ambitransitive 2
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Applicative
m
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
m
+
+
+
+
+
m
m
m
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Causa- Conative tive
v
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
ImMidperso- dle nal
m
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
m
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Nomi- Obnaliject zation omission
–
m
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Oblique/ Direct
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Refl./ Recip. omission
1062 Claire Moyse-Faurie
HUG
LOOK AT
SEE
SEE
SMELL
FRIGHTEN
LIKE
KNOW
KNOW
THINK
SEARCH FOR
WASH
DRESS
HELP
FOLLOW
KILL
KILL
TOUCH
PEEL
PEEL
CLIMB
2
3
4
4
5
7
8
9
9
10
11
12
13
15
16
26
26
29
33
33
48
1>V2
1>V2
1>V2
1>V2
1>V2
1>V2
1>V2
1>V2
1>V2
1>V2
1>V2
1>V2
péré
cee
tapöru
xâânîî
pwââmè
sa
fèèté (Co)
ciiwi
1>V2
1>V2
1>V2
1>V2
1>V2
1>V2
1>V2
1>V2
famwâmwâ (Caus) 1 > V 2
ngûrû
piicè (Co)
nârâ
tâmwâ
néxä
xwèrii
fabata (Caus)
bu
xâpârî (Co)
téé
téé fè
satee (Co)
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
+
+
+
+
m
m
m
m
+
–
–
+
m
+
m
+
+
m
–
–
–
–
–
–
m
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
m
–
–
+
+
m
+
+
+
+
+
m
+
+
+
+
+
+
m
m
+
+
+
m
+
+
m
m
m
–
m
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
m
m
Valency classes in Xârâcùù (New Caledonia)
1063
Meaning label
LEAVE
DIG
DIG
PUSH
HEAR
COOK
WANT
FEAR
SIT DOWN
TEAR
WIPE
CARRY
CARRY
THROW
THROW
TIE
PUT
POUR
BRING
#
55
73
73
74
78
79
87
6
51
32
72
38
38
39
39
40
41
42
75
pè mê
xwêê
suè
curu
tê
gwéré
akö
pè mê (Dir)
jee
chètia (Co)
cuè chéé
bata
xwèrii
chutââ
xwata
sùù
ja
kîî
fètaa
Verb form
1 > V 2 (LOC3)
1 > V 2 (LOC3)
1 > V 2 (LOC3)
1 > V 2 (LOC3)
1 > V 2 (LOC3)
1 > V 2 (LOC3)
1 > V 2 (LOC3)
1 > V 2 (LOC3)
1 > V 2 (kè+3)
1 > V > 2 (kèwâ+3)
1 > V tö+2
1 > V taa+2
1>V2
1>V2
1>V2
1>V2
1>V2
1>V2
1>V2
Coding frame schema
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Ambitransitive 1
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Ambitransitive 2
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Applicative
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
m
+
+
+
+
m
–
–
–
Causa- Conative tive
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
ImMidperso- dle nal
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
+
+
–
–
–
–
+
Nomi- Obnaliject zation omission
–
–
–
–
Oblique/ Direct
–
–
–
m
–
–
–
–
Refl./ Recip. omission
1064 Claire Moyse-Faurie
NAME
BUILD
BREAK
KILL
KILL
BEAT
HIT
HIT
TOUCH
CUT
COVER
COVER
FILL
LOAD
GRIND
DIG
MAKE
ASK FOR
TAKE
HIDE
STEAL
GET
23
24
25
26
26
27
28
28
29
30
43
43
44
45
71
73
85
19
31
34
76
86
pè
pêdè (Co?)
sûûârâ
pè
nââ
xwi
sëi
bikörö
nîî
faxûda (Caus)
sache
kasache
söpuru (Co)
sakai (Co)
chëi
fîda (Co)
fîgai (Co)
pwèkè (Co)
söömè (Co)
jikörö (Co)
xwi
xacè (Co)
1 > V 2 taa+3
1 > V 2 taa+3
1 > V 2 taa+3
1 > V 2 taa+3
1 > V 2 taa+3
1 > V 2 (ngê+3)
1 > V 2 (ngê+3)
1 > V 2 (ngê+3)
1 > V 2 (ngê+3)
1 > V 2 (ngê+3)
1 > V 2 (ngê+3)
1 > V 2 (ngê+3)
1 > V 2 (ngê+3)
1 > V 2 (ngê+3)
1 > V 2 (ngê+3)
1 > V 2 (ngê+3)
1 > V 2 (ngê+3)
1 > V 2 (ngê+3)
1 > V 2 (ngê+3)
1 > V 2 (ngê+3)
1 > V 2 (ngê+3)
1 > V 2 (ngê+3)
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
m
m
+
–
+
+
+
+
+
m
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
m
+
+
–
–
m
–
m
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
m
+
+
+
m
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
m
+
m
–
m
m
–
m
+
–
–
–
–
m
–
–
Valency classes in Xârâcùù (New Caledonia)
1065
GET
ASK FOR
SAY
SHOW
GIVE
SEND
BRING
SHOUT AT
TELL
TELL
TEACH
TALK
TIE
86
19
22
35
36
37
75
20
21
21
77
18
40
fëi
tèpe
faînû
sömârâ (Co)
faxwata (Caus)
xangââ (Co)
mê kèrè
nû
xù
xacië (Co?)
ché
nêgé
töpwé
Verb form
1 > V 2 (LOC3) (ngê+4)
1 > V wâ+2 (xù+3)
1 > V ngê+2 xù+3
1 > V ngê+2 xù+3
1 > V ngê+2 xù+3
1 > V ngê+2 xù+3
1 > V 2 xù+3
1 > V 2 xù+3
1 > V 2 xù+3
1 > V 2 xù+3
1 > V 2 xù+3
1 > V 2 xù+3
1 > V 2 taa+3
Coding frame schema
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Ambitransitive 1
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Ambitransitive 2
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Applicative
m
+
m
m
m
+
m
+
–
+
+
+
–
Causa- Conative tive
m
m
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
m
–
–
–
ImMidperso- dle nal
m
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
m
m
Nomi- Obnaliject zation omission
Legend: Verbs: Caus – causative, Co – compound verb, Dir – directional, – nominal, + regularly, – never, m marginally, _ no data
Meaning label
#
+
+
m
–
Oblique/ Direct
Refl./ Recip. omission
1066 Claire Moyse-Faurie
Valency classes in Xârâcùù (New Caledonia)
1067
Abbreviation ANAPH COLL CLS DEIC DIR INDEP IPERS REC SM
anaphoric collective (human) classifier deictic directional independent impersonal (pronoun) recipient subject marker
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Margetts, Anna. 2007. Three-participants events in Oceanic languages, Oceanic Linguistics 46(1). 71–127. Margetts, Anna & Peter K. Austin. 2007. Three-participant events in the languages of the world: Towards a cross-linguistic typology. Linguistics 45(3) (Special issue edited by P. Brown, B. Narashinran and S. Eizenbeiss). 393–451. Moyse-Faurie, Claire. 1983. Le drehu, langue de Lifou (Îles Loyauté). Phonologie, morphologie, syntaxe (Langues et cultures du Pacifique 3). Paris: Peeters-Selaf . Moyse-Faurie, Claire. 1991. Relational morphemes and a transitivising suffix in Xârâcùù (New Caledonia). In Robert Blust (ed.), Currents in Pacific Linguistics: Papers on Austronesian Languages and Ethnolinguistics in Honour of George W. Grace, Pacific Linguistics, C-117. 305–320. Canberra: ANU Moyse-Faurie, Claire. 1995. Le xârâcùù, langue de Thio-Canala (Nouvelle-Calédonie). Éléments de syntaxe (Langues et Cultures du Pacifique 10). Paris: Peeters-Selaf. Moyse-Faurie, Claire. 1997. Phénomènes d’incorporation dans quelques langues océaniennes. Studi italiani di linguistica teorica e applicata, XXVI, Rome, 1997(2), 227–246. Moyse-Faurie, Claire. 2010. L’ambitransitivité: exemples océaniens. In Franck Floricic (ed.), Essais de typologie et de linguistique générale. Mélanges offerts à Denis Creissels, ENS éditions. Moyse-Faurie, Claire & Françoise Ozanne-Rivierre. 1983. Subject case markers and word order in New Caledonia and Loyalty Islands languages. In Papers from the Third International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics, Canberra, Pacific Linguistics C-77. 113–152. Nichols, Johanna. 1982. Ingush transitivization and detransitivization. Berkeley Linguistics Society 8. 445–464. Nichols, Johanna. 1984a. Direct and oblique objects in Chechen-Ingush and Russian. In Frans Plank (ed.), Objects: Towards a Theory of Grammatical Relations, 183–209. New York: Academic Press. Nichols, Johanna. 1984b. Transitivity and valence in Chechen-Ingush. Folia Slavica 1(2). 254–267. Nichols, Johanna. 1986. On form and content in typology. In Winfred Lehmann (ed.), Language Typology, 141–162. Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, Vol. 47. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Osumi, Midori. 1995. Tinrin Grammar (Oceanic Linguistics Special Publication 25). Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Ozanne-Rivierre, Françoise. 1976. Le iaai. Phonologie, morphologie, syntaxe. Paris: Peeters-Selaf. Ozanne-Rivierre, Françoise & Jean-Claude Rivierre. 2004. Verbal compounds and lexical prefixes in the languages of New Caledonia. In Isabelle Bril & Françoise Ozanne-Rivierre (eds.), Complex Predicates in Oceanic Languages Studies in the Dynamics of Binding and Boundness, 347–371. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Pawley, Andrew & Lawrence A. Reed. 1979. The evolution of transitive constructions in Austronesian. In Paz B. Naylor (ed.), Austronesian Studies: Papers from the Second Eastern Conference on Austronesian Languages, 103–130. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan. Ross, Malcolm. 2004. The morphosyntactic typology of Oceanic languages. Language and Linguistics 5(2). 491–541. Song, Jae Jung. 1998. Benefactive marking in Oceanic languages: From possessive classifiers to benefactive markers. In Anna Siewierska & Jae Jung Song (eds.), Case, Typology and Grammar: In Honor of Barry J. Blake, 247–275. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Song, Jae Jung. 2007. Getting three out of two. The development of a three-participant construction in Oceanic languages. Functions of Language 14(1). 127–148.
Nicholas Evans
26 Valency in Nen 1 Introduction1 Nen, (Ethnologue Code NQN) is a language of the Morehead-Maro Family of Southern New Guinea, also known as Nen Ym or Nen Zi (pronounced [nɛn dʒi]).2 The Morehead-Maro family, with around a dozen members3, straddles two modern nations, Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Indonesia (Merauke district), in a low-lying area bounded to the north and east by the Fly River, to the south by the Torres Strait which separates New Guinea from Australia, and to the east by the Maro river. The Morehead-Maro family, on our current knowledge, appears unrelated to any other language family. In particular it is unrelated to the giant Trans-New Guinea (TNG) family, which with its 400+ languages has tended to dominate typologists’ perceptions of what so-called “Papuan”4 languages are like, as shaped by typological overviews like Foley (1986, 2000). Nonetheless, languages which have been claimed to belong to the TNG family figure prominently to the west (Marind, Marori), north (Suki, Tirio) and east (Kiwai). Just south, in the western Torres Strait, the Morehead-Maro family had regular interactions with an Australian language of the Pama-Nyungan family, Kala Kawaw Ya. Morehead-Maro also appears to be unrelated to two other families which were grouped together by e.g. Ross (2005)
1 For financial support of my PNG fieldwork I thank the Australian National University (Professorial Setup Grant), the Australian Research Council (Discovery Projects Language and Social Cognition and Languages of Southern New Guinea), and the Volkswagenstiftung (DoBeS Grant Nen and Tonda). I would like to thank the Valency project organizers and participants for the stimulus they provided to exploring Nen valency further, and in particular Andrej Malchukov, Martin Haspelmath, Iren Hartmann, Ger Reesink and Bernard Comrie for their comments on an earlier draft of this chapter. 2 Language names in the region are based on their word for ‘what’ – nen in Nen, idi in Idi, nambu in Nambo – plus an optional extra word such as Zi ‘word, language’ or ym ‘is’ – as if English were called Whatish, German Wasisch, French Quoiais, and Russian štoskij. 3 More precise figures will need to await further research – the low level of knowledge we have of most languages in the group makes it hard to determine where dialect chains end and separate languages begin. The most likely scenario, based on current data (see Evans 2009), is that the family divides into four branches, two on the Indonesian side and two on the PNG side: from West to East, Kanum (many dialects, some perhaps best treated as distinct languages), Yei (at least 2 divergent dialects), Tonda (five languages: Mblafe/Renmo, Guntai, Kancha, Were/Kamnzo, Arammba) and Nambu (seven languages: Nen, Nambo/Namna, Nama, Namo, Neme, Len, and Dre). 4 ‘Papuan’ does not denote any genetic unit and is hence a rather misleading term – it includes all languages of the South-western Pacific that are neither Austronesian nor Australian, and as such contains something like 40 maximal genetic units (including isolates), exhibiting great diversity among themselves.
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Map 1: main language groups of Southern New Guinea (showing selected languages only).
as the ‘South-Central Papuan’ languages – the Pahoturi River languages (including Idi) to its east, and the Yelmek-Maklew languages that lie some 150 km to the west of the Morehead-Maro family. See Evans (2012) for an overview of the linguistic situation in Southern New Guinea. The Southern New Guinea region is new land, built up by progradation in the last few millennia, and exhibits great apparent variation in both the languages and physical characteristics of its inhabitants. With a great number of apparently unrelated language families, it is one of the most important foci of linguistic diversity within the most linguistically diverse part of the earth’s surface, yet we know vanishingly little about the languages of the region. No language of the MoreheadMaro family yet possesses more than a sketchy description,5 and this chapter, confined as it is to a relatively early stage of research,6 must be regarded as provisional in the data and analyses it presents.
5 Best materials so far are Boevé & Boevé (2003) on Arammba and Sarsa (2001) on Wara, and sections of Martin (2001) on tense in Nambo, along with brief older material in Drabbe (1954) and Boelaars (1950). 6 Data presented here was gathered by the author over 5 fieldtrips, totalling 14 weeks, between 2008 and 2012. During 2010 I worked through the Valency Questionnaire then checked some gaps
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Nen itself is primarily spoken in just one village of around 300 people, Bimadbn. Marriage, based on sister-exchange,7 produces de facto linguistic exogamy, so that many wives residing in the village have another language as their mother tongue, but have usually learned fluent Nen. Conversely, women for whom Nen is a mother tongue are to be found living in nearby surrounding villages where they have moved after marriage. Most residents of Bimadbn know at least one other neighboring language (typically Nambo, which is closely related, and Idi, which is unrelated). Some older people know Hiri Motu and many young to middle-aged people speak fluent English; use of Tok Pisin is limited. Despite its small speaker population, Nen is currently secure and being learned by children of all ages. Typologically, Nen is a predominantly SOV language, with case roles shown by suffixing, an ergative/absolutive system of case marking, and complex verbal morphology involving both prefixes and suffixes. Prefixes belong to one of three series for which it is impossible to give consistent glosses (and which will therefore just be glossed α, β and γ when we have reason to segment them), but once these combine with suffixes an intricate system of TAM results. Argument indexing normally indexes the undergoer by prefix and the actor by suffix. Indexing in one-place predicates splits along the lines of stative vs. dynamic predicates. Non-finite constructions, generally formed by suffixing a case marker to a nominalized verb stripped of all inflection, are widely employed. Verbs possess a developed system of ‘diathetic prefixes’, lying between the root and the undergoer/TAM prefix, which play a key role in overtly coding valency alternations. For its phoneme inventory and orthography see Appendix 1. Note that like many Papuan languages (most famously Kalam – Blevins & Pawley (2010)) – many syllables lack phonemically specified vowels, though brief epenthetic vowel phones (typically schwa) may be present. The main clause types are given in Table 1. A and U stand for actor suffix and undergoer prefix, M for the ‘middle’ prefix, RR for reflexive/ reciprocal diathetic prefix, and DI for the diathetic prefix slot; X + Y indicates that X normally precedes Y, while X > Y indicates a more rigid ordering of X before Y. NP^ indicates a lexically fixed NP forming part of an idiomatic expression, but nonetheless occupying a case-marked and cross-referenced argument slot.
and anomalies during the 2011 and 2012 field seasons. Most importantly I thank my Nen teachers, particularly Michael Binzawa, †Aramang Wlila and Jimmy Nébni, for their sensitive and intense involvement in explaining their language’s intricacies to me, as well as to the whole village of Bimadbn for its hospitality and friendship. 7 See Williams (1936) and Ayres (1983) for ethnographic background on marriage patterns in the Morehead region.
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Tab. 1: Summary of major valency patterns and case/voice alternations. Clause type
Flagging
Indexing
Sample verb(s)
1 Basically Monovalent 1.1
Basic intransitive (stative)
NPABS
U-V
m ‘be’; tromngr ‘be erected’
1.2
Inherent middle (dynamic)
NPABS
M-V-A
armbs ‘ascend’, ogyabs ‘work’
1.3a
Inherent middle with cognate object
NPABS (+NPABS)
M-DI-V-A
momae ke otärs ‘cough’
1.3b.
Derived middle (e.g. refl/recp, decausative)
NPABS (+NP:RRABS)
M-RR-V-A
awakaes ‘look at oneself/ each other’, edrers ‘tear, i.e. get torn’
2 Basically Divalent 2.1
Basic Transitive
NPERG + NPABS
U-V-A
wakaes ‘see, look at’
2.2
Transitive (experiencer object)
NPABS > NP^ERG
U-V-A3sg
gersäm räms ‘X be hungry’, lit. ‘hunger does X’
2.3
Transitive deponent middle
NPERG + NPABS
M-DI-V-A
ors ‘leave, divorce’
2.4
Semi-transitive
NPABS + NPOBL
U-V-A
wetrs ‘help’
(3.2.
Ditransitive: theme-indexing)8
NPERG + NPABS + NPDAT/OBL
UT-V-A
oyabs ‘exhibit’
NPERG + NPABS + NPDAT/OBL
UR-V-A
räms ‘give’
3 Basically Trivalent 3.1
Ditransitive: recipient-indexing
8 In brackets here, because it can be more parsimoniously treated as a transitive verb with an oblique adjunct – see below.
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2 Basics of Nen morphosyntax Coding of grammatical relations in Nen makes use both of flagging (absolutive vs. ergative case, as well as around ten other cases), and verbal indexing. Though there is considerable pragmatic flexibility, constituent order is normally SOV – or more accurately, AUV since there is no real evidence for ‘subject’ as a grammatical relation above and beyond the categories that can be triangulated from the case plus verb agreement systems.9 The exception is in ‘experiencer object’ constructions (§ 3.2.2) where the absolutive undergoer precedes the ergative ‘stimulus’ giving a UAV order.
2.1 Flagging (case suffixation) Case suffixes are organized on an absolutive/ergative system for core participants. Free pronouns don’t distinguish number in the absolutive, but distinguish singular from non-singular in other cases.10 Number is organized on a singular vs. nonsingular basis for most free pronouns except those in the absolutive (which neutralize number), while for nouns the situation is more complex with different syncretisms in different cases: for är ‘man, person’, for example, the absolutive makes no number distinction, the ergative distinguishes singular from dual/paucal from plural, the oblique distinguishes singular from dual from paucal/plural and the first dative distinguishes all four values (singular äreita, dual äräbet, paucal ärbet and plural ärbeita). In general, then, free pronouns contrast singular vs. non-singular while nouns contrast up to four numbers, though most cases syncretize some of the number values. Within the verb, a singular vs. non-singular distinction in indexed arguments is crossed with a dual vs. non-dual distinction either on the
9 I follow Bickel (2011: 443) in taking as primary, for the purposes of defining grammatical relations, the properties characterizing particular constructions (e.g. case assignment, agreement etc.) and then – to the extent useful – building the definition of grammatical relations on these. If we do this for Nen, we can define grammatical relations as secondary notions in the following rather contorted way. Subject: either an ergative NP exhibiting actor agreement, or an absolutive NP exhibiting some verb agreement (in the absence of an ergative NP). Indirect object: dative NP exhibiting undergoer verb agreement. Object: Absolutive NP exhibiting undergoer agreement, in the presence of some other NP exhibiting actor agreement. It will occasionally be useful to employ one or more of these terms as handy metalinguistic terms. 10 Additionally, 1 st and 2 nd person singular free pronouns don’t distinguish absolutive from ergative; thus ynd can mean ‘1sgABS|ERG; 1 st person ABS (any number)’; the non-singular ergative form is yndbem. Likewise bm can mean ‘2sgABS|ERG; 2 nd person ABS (any number)’; the non-singular ergative form is bmbem. This makes 1/2sg forms bad diagnostics for coding frames, whereas 3 rd person or non-singular forms, on the other hand, always give a clear result. To simplify the exposition in this paper, I use ERG or ABS glosses as appropriate with 1sg and 2sg pronouns on the basis of what case would be chosen with some other person/number combination.
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stem itself or as part of the TAM-sensitive ‘thematic’ immediately after it to give a three-way number distinction on most verbs – singular, dual and plural. Absolutive arguments, in some constructions are capable of distinguishing a fourth number, further splitting the plural into either a non-exhaustive vs. exhaustive or paucal vs. plural distinction according to a range of different strategies too complex to discuss here. (1) a. Bä/är mer y-m. 3abs/man(abs) good 3sgU:α-be:nd:ipfv ‘He/she/the man is good.’ b. Bä/terber är mer yä-m. 3abs/many man(abs) good 3nsgU:α-be:nd:ipfv ‘They (3 or more)/the men are good.’ c. Bä/sombes är mer yä-ren. 3abs/two man(abs) good 3nsgU:α-be:du:ipfv ‘They two/the two men are good.’ (2) a. Ymam/är-äm bä y-aka-t-e. 3sg.erg/man-sg.erg 3abs 3sgU:α-see-nd:ipfv-3sgA ‘(S)he/The man sees him/her.’ b. Ymam/är-äm ynd w-aka-t-e. 3sg.erg/man-sg.erg 1abs 1sgU:α-see-nd:ipfv-3sgA ‘(S)he/The man sees me.’
2.2 Verb morphology On grounds of morphological indexing, verbs can be divided into a) prefixing11 verbs, whose sole (‘undergoer’12) argument is indexed by prefix (1) b) ambifixing verbs, with argument indexing on both sides of stem; these divide in turn into Transitive: patient (‘undergoer’) is indexed by prefix, actor by suffix (2)13 11 The terms ‘prefixing’ and ‘ambifixing’ are based just on the capacity to index arguments. Even so-called ‘prefixing’ verbs, however, are able to take some other kinds of suffix, most importantly some TAM suffixes. 12 I use scare quotes around ‘undergoer’ because (a) there are a few prefixing verbs – ‘come’ and ‘go’, both directional forms of ‘be’, and ‘walk’ – which are indexed by an undergoer prefix even though the sole argument is in fact agentive, and (b) because the undergoer prefix also codes recipients with some verbs. 13 The separation of actor and undergoer information holds for the vast majority of actor/undergoer combinations. However, for some combinations involving duals, there are ‘interactive’ prefixes and/or suffixes that encode information about both actor and undergoer. See Evans (forthcoming).
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Middle: undergoer slot filled by person/number-invariant prefix14 (n-, k- or g-, according to the TAM value); actor slot indexes sole argument (3) (3) a. Bä/togetoge n-owab-ta-t. 3abs/children(abs) M:α-talk-nd:ipfv-3nsgA ‘They/the children (>2) are talking.’ b. Bä/toge n-owab-0-̸ t. 3abs/child(abs) M:α-talk-du:ipfv-3nsgA ‘They two/the two children are talking.’ In addition to the undergoer prefix and actor suffix, the post-stem ‘thematic’ – which encodes a composite of aspect/tense and number (like the -ta- vs. -0̸- contrast in (3)) – is potentially sensitive to the number (dual vs. non-dual) of either indexed argument.15 Nen verbs are best treated as having a circumfixal paradigm, integrating prefixes and suffixes into a large paradigm arrayed on the dimensions of tense/aspect/ mood, actor person/number and undergoer actor person/number, rather than segmented into prefixes and suffixes as has been done so far. Among the advantages to doing this are the clearer semantic values for the glosses (e.g. eliminating arbitrary markers like α, and giving a constructive number value that integrates partial specifications at several morphological sites) and the fact that for some person/ number combinations the clean division into undergoer-coding prefix and actor suffix does not hold. In the rest of this chapter I will therefore bundle together all information in the inflectional prefixes and suffixes and give them a single circumfixal gloss: on this system, (3a) is re-presented as (3c), and (3b) as (3d). Note that morphologically middle verbs index an A but not a U argument, but are not otherwise glossed as middle. I will, however, give separate glosses to the valency-changing ‘diathetic’ prefixes which are of special interest to this chapter (e.g. 4, 5, 26b, c below).
14 It is not quite true that the middle prefix is always person/number invariant. Many Nen verbs allow a fourth number value – a large or exhaustive plural – and when forming these for middle verbs it is the prefix that is used to code the person/number (at least in the the third person, with yaw- ‘3nsgU’ instead of the normal middle prefix n-) while the suffix is filled with an invariant third person singular form (-de in the 3 rd singular): cf. amni naebnde ‘a bird is flying’, amni naebyängt ‘two birds are flying’, amni naebndat ‘several birds are flying’ all with person/number invariant nprefix, as opposed to amni yawaebnde ‘all/a whole lot of birds are flying’. In this sense both prefixes and suffixes are potential coding sites for the person/number properties of the argument of middle verbs. 15 In principle it can encode the dual cardinality of either argument. If one argument is encoded as singular the dual value will be associated with the other argument; if both are non-singular more complex mechanisms come into play, which we lack the space to discuss here.
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(3) c. Bä/togetoge n\owab/tat. 3abs/children(abs) 3pla.npreh.ipfv\talk ‘They/the children (>2) are talking.’ d. Bä/toge n\owab/t. 3abs/child(abs) 3duA.npreh.ipfv\talk ‘They two/the two children are talking.’
2.3 Other typological features of Nen It is also helpful, in contextualizing the discussion that follows, to note the following other typological features of Nen. a) Rich TAM system of eleven tense/aspect/mood categories16 which is encoded by combining the prefix and the suffix series. Since TAM is orthogonal to valency I do not go into details here. Note also that while I gloss the suffixal aspectual contrast as ‘perfective’ vs. ‘imperfective’, aspect sensitivity is largely focused on the inceptive-phase boundary, so that the dominant semantic realization of the aspectual contrast is as ‘begin doing’ (perfective) vs. ‘keep doing’ (imperfective). b) Directional prefixes n- ‘towards’ and ng- ‘away from’, which may be placed between the undergoer prefixes and the verb stem, are employed with great frequency. Cf. narmbte ‘(s)he is ascending (neutral)’, nnarmbte ‘(s)he is coming up (towards speaker)’, nngarmbte ‘(s)he is going up (away from speaker)’. The liberal use of directional prefixes impacts on the lexicalization of some verbs in the Leipzig list (BRING, TAKE), which in Nen are translated most accurately using a directional prefix plus a directionally-neutral verb e.g. renzas ‘carry’. In contrast with e.g. Russian, which the system otherwise resembles (e.g. nosit’/prinosit’/unosit’ ‘carry (neutral/towards/away)’), the directional prefixes in Nen are not available in infinitives/nominalized forms, which are always neutral with respect to directionality. Thus there is an infinitive armbs ‘ascend’ but no *narmbs ‘come up’ or *ngarmbs ‘go up’.
16 Namely: irrealis, four imperatives (perfective and imperfective present imperatives, future imperative, and ‘mediated imperative’ sent via a messenger), two perfective declaratives (past and future) and three imperfective declaratives (non-prehodiernal for any time from this morning on into the future, prehodiernal for yesterday and one or two days before that, and remote for more distant past), plus two further aspectually-neutral pasts (the preterite, and the primordial meaning ‘first [in a series of actions, or doing for the first time, or beginning the action without completing it]’. For discussion of how these values are composed from the prefix and suffix combinations see Evans (forthcoming).
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c) Interclausal syntax uses non-finite verbs, typically inflected for case, rather than the verb chaining more typical of Trans-New Guinea languages:17 (4) a. Ynd anḡ-s-t n\opap/ndm. 1abs return-nmlz-all 1pla:ppf\begin ‘We are about to return.’ b. Ynd bä wnḡi-s-t y\a-pap/ndn. 1sg.erg 3abs tr:stand.up-nmlz-all 1sgA>3sgU.ppf\tr-begin ‘I am beginning to/about to/trying to stand him up.’ Nominalized forms in -s are used as infinitives and as the citation form, e.g. anḡs ‘return, go/come back’, wnḡis ‘to stand up (v.t.)’. Valency-altered forms (e.g. reflexive/reciprocal) have distinct infinitives. Prefixing verbs generally lack infinitives, but in other respects exhibit the same inflectional features and formal patterning as ambifixing verbs.18 As (4a) and (4b) illustrate, not only is argument indexing from verbs ‘raised’ onto phasal auxiliaries – so that the phasal ‘begin/start’ will register one argument for ‘return’ (4a) and two for ‘stand up (tr.)’, but the phasals themselves have distinct forms chosen to match the valency of the lexical verb: the stem for ‘begin to’ is opap for one-place verbs, and (w)apap for two-place verbs.19 Interestingly, there is a third variant on this pattern found with ditransitive verbs such as räms ‘give’20 in (5): here the stem of the phasal auxiliary is extended further by adding the benefactive applicative (w)a- to the transitive stem ∑(w)apap, to give ∑(w)awapap, which then agrees with the indirect object ‘you’. (5) Ahã Gbae ynd begta tande yép räm-s-t here.you.are [name] 1sg.abs 2sg.dat1 1sg.poss bag(abs) give-nmlz-all n\ng-a-wa-pap/ndn. 1sgA>2sgU.ppf\aw-ben-tr-begin ‘Here, Gbae, I’m about to give you my bag.’
17 Incidentally this example shows a further feature of Nen: that with phasal constructions like ‘begin to V’, ‘finish Ving’, BOTH actor and undergoer are raised in the sense of being registered on the phasal verb. We see below that this furnishes a valuable test for valency. 18 The form yls ‘to go/come’ is sometimes used as a sort of de facto infinitive for the directional forms n-m ‘come’ and ng-m ‘go’. 19 Treated here, in glossing, as involving a base middle form √opap which is causativised to yield ∑apap (see § 5.5 for other examples of o- > a- in forming causatives). There is an infinitive opaps ‘to begin’ but no *apaps or *wapaps. 20 Formally ‘give’ is the derived benefactive form of ‘do’, i.e. ‘do for’. There is variation across verb lexemes as to whether the benefactive prefix appears in the infinitive – in this case it doesn’t – but it always appears in some part of the construction – see § 5.6.
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d) Diathetic prefixes. Particularly relevant for studies of valency and valency alternations is a slot at the left edge of the stem, optionally filled by one or more ‘diathetic prefixes’. The most important of these are: the transitive prefix w-: cf. amzs ‘sit (v.i.)’, wamzs ‘set, sit (v.t.)’, inherent in many transitive verbs but also present in intransitive/causative pairs21 the reflexive/reciprocal prefix a-/ä-/e-/i- (allomorphs harmonising with the following vowel) cf. wakaes ‘see, look at’, awakaes ‘see, look at each other’ the benefactive applicative (w)a-, which adds an indirect object argument: cf bens ‘feed up, tame [e.g. a pig] (v.t.)’, wabens ‘fatten up [e.g. a pig] for someone [typically as a planned ritual gift]’
Sometimes these are inherent to the verb (as with the w in wakaes ‘see, look at’, or the o- in ogyabs ‘work’), or involve significant semantic shift with regard to the agnate form (wabs ‘count’, owabs ‘talk’; cf. zählen, erzählen). In such non-contrastive or lexicalized cases they will not be glossed separately in examples. In general verbs can take at most one diathetic prefix, but benefactives are an exception in that they can be added to verbs with transitive/causative prefixes (as with a-wa-pap [BEN-CAUS-begin] in (5)).
3 Valency patterns 3.1 Basically monovalent patterns There are three types of clauses with single arguments in the absolutive, indexed on the verb. Subtypes differ in how the verbal organization is manifested – by ‘undergoer’ prefix (‘Basic intransitive’; 3.1.1), or by person/number-invariant ‘middle’ prefix plus ‘actor’ suffix (‘Inherent middle’; 3.1.2) – and in whether a further, syntactically inert cognate object NP is also employed (3.1.3).
3.1.1 ‘Basic’ intransitive: NPABS U-V This is a closed class, basically restricted to monovalent states (only ‘come’, ‘go’ and ‘walk’ are exceptions). Its members are peculiar in lacking true infinitives. It contains:
21 Unlike the other diathetic prefixes this is phonologically unstable, disappearing after most undergoer prefixes, but it is overt (a) in infinitives, (b) before 2/3nsg U prefixes (c) before RR diathetic prefixes.
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‘be’ (1; 6a, 6b), plus ‘come’ and ‘go’ (6c, 6d) which are directional derivatives of ‘be’; ‘come’ is ‘be hither’ and ‘go’ is ‘be thither’. ‘walk’ around 30 ‘positionals’, which are statives of position or posture with meanings like ‘be standing’, ‘be the end of something’, ‘be precariously up high’ and ‘be in a tree fork’ (discussed in § 5.7),
(6) a. Ynd mer w-m. 1abs good 1sgU:α-be:nd ‘I’m good.’ b. Ynd mer yn-ren. 1abs good 1nsgU:α-be:du ‘We two are good.’ c. Ynd wensde-wan nambt q-ng-m. 1abs Wednesday-loc ±a.few.days 1sgU:β-aw-be:du ‘I went last Wednesday.’ d. Ynd wensde-wan nambt tn-ng-ren. 1abs Wednesday-loc ±a.few.days 1nsgU:β-aw-be:du ‘The two of us went last Wednesday.’ Only a few verbs from the Leipzig list are in this class: yls ‘go’ plus were ‘sit = be in a sitting position; live/dwell’. In addition, one of the translations of DIE22 uses ‘be’ from this class, plus kr ‘dead, death’, i.e. as a nominal predicate construction, with appropriate tense/aspectual modulation (another translation uses an experiencer object verb – see § 3.2.2). Likewise BE DRY and WANT are encoded, respectively, by the verb ‘be’ plus the adjectives srnete ‘dry’ and mñte ‘desirous’. KNOW is coded by ‘be’ plus mete ‘knowing, knowledgeable’ or mete spsp ‘be expert, know well’; both these can take objects in a double-absolutive construction (§ 3.1.3). Other members of this class, not on the Leipzig list, are around forty ‘positional verbs’ with meanings like ‘be up high’, ‘be wedged’, ‘be in a tree fork’, ‘be lying’, ‘be in water’. See Appendix 2 for a full list. Posals enter into a three-way alternation with ‘placement’ (transitive) and ‘assume position’ verbs – see § 5.7 for more details. They have a number of other distinct properties, such as the ability to take the stative suffix -ngr – see Evans (2014) for details.
3.1.2 Intrinsic middle: NPABS M-V-A This is the standard pattern for coding monovalent patterns (we shall see in § 5.1 that its inflectional morphology patterns like derived middles, most importantly 22 I adopt the convention of using capitals for the reference verb on the Leipzig list, then giving a more accurate characterization of the verb’s meaning in single quotes after the Nen verb.
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reflexive/reciprocals). With just a couple of exceptions it is used for all dynamic, monovalent predicates. Nen thus exhibits a proliferation of middle verbs, which goes well beyond even what is found in languages like Spanish, Italian, Lithuanian or Russian which are well-known for their large number of reflexiva tanta and other middle-type constructions. The verbs listed as inherent middles/reflexiva tanta in Geniušieniė (1987), and Kemmer (1993) are middles in Nen, too, but so are many more. This class takes in almost all dynamic one-place predicates: activity verbs and monovalent change-of-state verbs (except ‘come’, ‘go’, and ‘walk’), as well as change-of-posture/position and motion verbs, phase change (begin, finish) and verbs of controlled perceptual or cognitive activity. A note on glossing: even though I use the gloss A for ‘actor’, there is no need for the action to be volitional (e.g. it includes ‘fall’ and ‘burn’), or for the subject to be animate (e.g. ‘rain’). What is crucial is that the predicate be dynamic. (3a, b and 7) illustrate ‘talk’ for various numbers, thus showing the thematic alternation between dual and non-dual. (7) Sombes är n\owab/t. two man(abs) 3duA.npreh.ipfv\talk ‘Two men are talking.’ The intrinsic middle class includes 16 verbs from Leipzig list:23 APPEAR ipars ‘appear’, BE A HUNTER ärs ‘hunt’, BOIL rngs ‘boil’, BURN äkrärs~ekrers ‘burn’, uzers ‘burn’, CLIMB armbs ‘ascend’, CRY engs ‘cry’, FALL uwis ‘fall’, JUMP ätäns and ábrms ‘jump’, LAUGH urs ‘laugh’, PLAY izers ‘play’, RAIN aparns ‘rain’, RUN alnzs ‘run’, SCREAM awambs ‘scream’, SINK olets ‘sink’, SIT amzs ‘sit down’, THINK embärs ‘think’.
An important class not evident from the Leipzig list are phrasal middles formed by combining a predicate adjective with the middle verb ämts ‘become’, e.g. mete ämts ‘to learn, become knowledgeable’ (mete ‘knowing, knowledgeable), qgibba ämts ‘to become covered with dark clouds (sky)’ (qgib ‘dark cloud’, -ba comitative). At present, the syntactic consequences (if any) of the difference between basic intransitives and inherent middles are unclear, though at this stage none have clearly emerged except for the lack of infinitive forms for (most) prefixing verbs. The lack of infinitive constructions for prefixing verbs makes it difficult to apply most of the syntactically sensitive tests (such as formation of purposive complements, phasal complements etc.) to the prefixing verbs.
23 I count these by the meaning on the Leipzig list, rather than the number of Nen lexemes, so if there are two (near-) synonyms in Nen (e.g. two words for ‘jump’) this counts as one, not two.
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3.1.3 Middles with cognate object: NPABS + NPABS M-V-A This type has middle morphology, and two NPs in the absolutive. Only the first is indexed on the verb, by the actor suffix. The other NP is more like a cognate object, being syntactically inert. Two verbs from the Leipzig list have this pattern. Both are verbs of sound emission or at least involve the pronunciation of a word: COUGH momae ke otärs ‘cough’ and NAME yétqén ewets ‘name’. Many other verbs of sound production behave similarly, e.g. grr ke otärs ‘snore’. Several other verbs of speech and communication also pattern like this, but with an optional dative adjunct for the recipient of the information; the second, cognate-object like argument is zi ‘word, speech’ or ke ‘cry, noise’. The two verbs taking this coding frame from the Leipzig List are SAY, TALK (TO) zi owabs ‘say, talk (to dat) (about: ABL)’ and SHOUT AT ke oters ‘shout at’. As mentioned in § 3.1.1, the expressions for ‘know’ and ‘be expert (in)’, formed by combining the verb BE with a stative adjective (mete ‘knowledgeable’ or mete spsp ‘expert’), can optionally take a cognate object, again giving a double-absolutive construction. Note that this is the same case frame as is found in the much more productive reflexive/reciprocal construction, in which the first absolutive is indexed on the verb, while the second is optionally filled with a reflexive/reciprocal pronoun (§ 5.1). A further variant is with the verb epss ‘mix with’: though morphologically a middle verb, it still takes an object in the absolutive denoting one element of the mixture, and a comitative adjunct denoting the other: (8) Wagib bi-ba k\eps/ta ! fish(abs) sago-com 2sgA.imp.ipfv-mix ‘Mix the fish with the sago!’
3.2 Basically divalent patterns These take two indexed arguments. In this section we proceed from prototypical transitive frames, with an ergative plus an absolutive argument each indexed on the verb, through various forms of deviation from this prototype in terms of either flagging or indexing.
3.2.1 Basic transitive: NPERG + NPABS U-V-A These are the basic transitive type: they take two arguments (one ergative, one absolutive) and the verb indexes both, through the actor suffix and undergoer prefix respectively.
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(9) Yndbem kae ombte nu y\z/wam. 1nsg.erg ±1day hot water(abs) 1duA>3sgU.ppf\cook ‘We two boiled the hot water yesterday (from scratch).’ Transitive coding is used for the usual suspects: impact, caused change-of-position, changed material composition, perception and cognitive apprehension. From the Leipzig list, it contains 29 members:24 BREAK räbärs ‘break’, dars ‘break’, BUILD räms ‘build’, CARRY wazrs2 ‘carry’, COOK zeyas ‘cook’, DIG tars ‘dig’, EAT nne ‘eat’, FOLLOW waets ‘follow’, FRIGHTEN brbr wets ‘frighten’, GRIND ess ‘grind’, HEAR weres ‘hear’, HIDE wérnis ‘hide’, HUG wambns ‘hug’, LIKE mñteba wakaes ‘like’ (lit. ‘look upon with sweetness’), MAKE räms ‘make’, MEET winḡs ‘see (catch sight of); meet’, äbäts 25 ‘meet’, PEEL wétrers ‘scratch, peel’, PUT kms ‘put in lying position’, ROLL paes ‘roll’, SEARCH FOR ronzas ‘search for’, SEE winḡs ‘see (catch sight of); meet’, wakaes ‘look at, see, gaze at’, SHAVE btkamgeb wérnas ‘shave’, SHOUT AT weräns ‘shout at’, SING angan räms ‘sing’, SMELL wambaes ‘smell; sniff’, STEAL wr ‘steal’, TEAR drers ‘tear’, THINK ABOUT wabaes ‘think (about)’, TIE sns and wmbaes ‘tie’, WASH wémbärs ‘wash’
Placement forms of positionals are standard transitives (§ 5.6). ‘Think about’ is transitive but ‘think’ is an inherent middle. As illustrated by the example brbr wets [frightened make] for FRIGHTEN, the transitive forms of predicates expressed by BE + stative adjective are composed by combining the same stative adjective with the transitive verb wets ‘make, cause to be’26. A number of transitive verbs regularly occur with semantically-motivated adjuncts – e.g. wwis ‘throw’ can appear as a basic transitive ‘throw a stone’ or can add path and destination by case-marked adjuncts; likewise wmbaes ‘tie (up)’ can optionally add instrument and location NPs. These are dealt with in § 3.2.5. A couple of other verbs – of communication – exhibit this coding frame but augment it with some form of clause setting out the material communicated – wémés takes an infinitive complement when it means ‘ask to’, but an indicative complement when it means ‘ask (where etc.)’. Mts ‘tell to’ likewise takes an infinitive complement.
24 One of these has a cognate object (angan ‘song, dance’), and another takes a secondary predicate on the object, i.e. mñteba ‘[see] with sweetness [i.e. like, love]’ and brbr ‘[be] frightened [of]’. 25 This verb is deponent in its infinitive but not its finite forms. It possesses only a reflexive/ reciprocal infinitive form äbäts (speakers denied the existence of expected transitive infinitive forms wbäts or bäts) but the transitive stem can be used in normal transitive constructions such as ynd bende ane te ybätwen ‘I met your younger sibling’ – note the y- undergoer prefix directly precedes the expected transitive root bät. 26 This verb, in turn, is interestingly relatable as the transitive of the positionals root et- ‘be at an end, be the end of something’, i.e. to ‘make something’ is to ‘bring it to an end’ (of the making process).
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3.2.2 Experiencer object constructions: NPABS > NPERG U-V-A3sg These are a subtype of divalent, transitive construction which are effectively transitive subject idioms: the ergative/actor NP is completely or partly fixed,27 denoting a stimulus, drive or illness, and the absolutive/undergoer NP denotes the experiencer. Unlike normal transitive constructions, the order is OAV rather than AOV.28 For their citation form in the data-base I use the ergative form of the A noun, plus the relevant infinitive, e.g. gersäm räms [hunger(ERG) do] for BE HUNGRY.29 räms ‘do’ is the commonest such verb (and the only one showing up in the Leipzig set) but other verbs such as krärs ‘burn’ and wñäms ‘seize, overpower’ are also found. (10) a. Zän ak-äm y\ram/te. dog(abs) thirst-erg 3sgA>3sgU.npreh.ipfv\make ‘The dog is thirsty.’ b. Ynd kae gers-äm q\ram/te, totr nne 1abs ±1day hunger-erg 3sgA>3sgU.preh.ipfv\make today food(abs) tba y\ne/tan. just.now 1sgA>3sgU.npreh.ipfv\eat ‘I was hungry yesterday, but today I’ve eaten.’ The semantics of experiencer-object verbs corresponds rather closely to ‘dative subject’ constructions in languages that have them. The experiencer-object coding solution to expressions of bodily sensation and sickness is a macro-areal phenomenon widespread in ‘Sahul’ – Australia (e.g. Murrinhpatha (Walsh 1987), Iwaidja and Mawng (Evans 2004)), and in New Guinea (e.g. Kalam – Pawley et al. 2000) – though it also present in many African languages in the form of constructions of the type ‘hunger kills me’ for ‘I am hungry’, as in Yoruba (Atoyebi, this volume). Seven verbs from the Leipzig list take this coding frame: BE HUNGRY gersäm räms ‘be hungry’ (lit. ‘hunger do OBJ’), BE ILL enznewäm räms ‘be ill’ (lit. ‘illness do OBJ’), BE SAD weiweiyäm räms ‘be sad’ (‘sadness/pity do’), DIE zängs ‘die’ (lit. ‘(it)
27 Though it may be modified in various ways, e.g. ‘hunger’ can be modified by the name of the object hungered for, along the lines of ‘cassowary hunger does me’ for ‘I am hungry for cassowary’, or krbr ‘cold’ can be modified by kitong ‘large’, as in mleg toge krbr kitongäm yramte ‘the girl got really cold, really froze’. 28 In the data so far, basic transitive clauses sometimes occur with personal pronouns placed before ergative non-pronominal arguments, even when in undergoer role. The order in experiencer object constructions could be seen to have grammaticalized this tendency, though more naturalistic data is needed before a meaningful statistical comparison can be made. 29 Though some speakers have suggested they would prefer the relevant dictionary entry to be made without the ergative, e.g. kérbér räms rather than kérbéräm räms. This is interesting in suggesting that the ergative element is a syntactically live element, rather than just an inert coverblike nominal.
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kills me’)30, FEAR brbräm räms ‘fear’ (‘fear do’), FEEL COLD kérbéräm räms ‘feel cold’ (‘cold do’), and FEEL PAIN tkretewäm räms ‘feel pain’ (‘pain do’).
A variant on this construction is found with the verb waorers ‘forget’: here the forgetter is encoded as an experiencer object (absolutive NP, U-agreement) and the thing forgotten evokes actor agreement but instead of taking the ergative it takes the absolutive. So far this is the only verb attested with this case frame. (11) Bä ya-nde ws y\aorer/nda. 3abs 3sg-poss bottle 3sgA>3sgU.ppf\forget ‘He forgot his water bottle.’
3.2.3 Transitive verbs with deponent middle verbal morphology: NPERG + NPABS M-V-A One verb from the Leipzig list has a transitive ERG:ABS case frame but middle morphology on the verb, agreeing just with the actor argument: LEAVE ors ‘leave’. (The other verb for ‘leave’, branḡs, is a regular transitive verb.) (12) Ymam n\or/te ya-nde dmab. 3sg.erg 3sgA.npreh.ipfv\leave 3sg-poss wife ‘He left his wife.’
3.2.4 Semi-transitive verb registering oblique on undergoer slot: NPERG + NPOBL U-V-A These verbs have an ERG: OBL/DAT1 case frame (13), and register the oblique/ dative argument on the undergoer slot (and of course the ergative on the actor slot), without there being any evidence of an object argument (i.e. an absolutive NP). There may, however, be some form of clausal complement, e.g. ‘teach to [S]’ (14). (13) Buder, ta q\ete/na! friend 1sg.obl 2sgA>1sgU.imp.ipfv\help ‘Friend, help me!’
30 This verb is slightly different from the others in that there is no ergative NP. Kr ‘death’ can optionally appear, but in the absolutive (e.g. Bä kr yzanḡte ‘(s)he is dying’). If a cause of death is mentioned, this takes the source/consequence-marking case -mne instead of the ergative, e.g. Ynd enznemne / abemne wzanḡte ‘I am dying of disease / sorcery’). Note that, in discussing dying, the verb zängs is used for the process of dying, while kr + BE is used for the result ‘be dead’.
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(14) Ymam ta-gta q\awapap/te qämblä zéḡ weng-s. 3sg.erg 1sg-dat1 3sgA>1sgU.preh.ipfv\teach cats.cradle string roll-nmlz ‘He is teaching me to roll cats-cradle string.’ Three verbs on the Leipzig List take this coding frame: HELP wetrs ‘help’31, TEACH wawapaps ‘teach’ and LOAD ewes (one of the ‘load’ verbs). An additional verb with this frame is wémnzs ‘wait in prey for’. A slight variant, with an ABS:DAT case frame, is wawapañs ‘[ABS] fall from the grasp of [DAT]’, which is the usual translation of English ‘drop’ (15). (15) Tbe-gta yép tn-awapañ-t-e. 1nsg-dat bag(abs) 3sgA>1plu.preh.ipfv\fall.from.grasp.of ‘We dropped our bag.’ (Lit. ‘Our bag fell from us.’) Two of these verbs – wawapaps and wawapañs – appear to contain fossilized forms of the benefactive applicative (§ 5.6), which would square with their deployment of a dative undergoer argument. For wawapañs there is no clear corresponding verb without the benefactive (though there is a verb apañs ‘bend over (as one when offering oneself for anal sex)’), and for wawapaps the base meaning is the auxiliary ‘begin to, try to’, but in neither case is the semantic derivation completely transparent.
3.2.5 Transitive constructions with various kinds of adjuncts There are quite a few rather small lexical sets that are basically divalent transitives augmented by specific types of adjunct. These have no discernible argument-like properties and are generally not promoted to argument status by any valency alternation – the sole exception being oblique/dative adjuncts which can be promoted to indirect object status by the benefactive applicative. However, in some cases the choice of case is not semantically predictable – e.g. sources take the ablative with some verbs and the locative with others – so it can at least be said of some of them that there is some subcategorization by the verb for choice of case. Various transitive plus adjunct frames are grouped together in this section, though listed as different coding types in the valency database and not shown in the summary table. Transitive verb with optional ablative instrument. Six verbs from the Leipzig list are basic transitive verbs, but can optionally take an NP in the ablative specifying
31 Cf. similar case frames in German helfen and Russian pomogat’.
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the instrument. COVER wapars ‘cover’, DRESS wamanes ‘dress’, FILL waps ‘fill’, HIT gms ‘hit, beat, kill’, KILL gms ‘hit, beat, kill’, WIPE läns ‘wipe’. Transitive verb with ablative adjunct for source. Two verbs: TAKE kaps ‘take (from:ABL)’ and POUR wazrs1 ‘pour (from:ABL)’. Transitive verb with locative adjunct for source. RECEIVE=GET: √ane ‘get, receive (from: LOC)’ Transitive verb with locative adjunct for goal. LOAD: wapls ‘load (onto/into: LOC)’ Transitive verb with optional ablative instrument and locative location. TOUCH wenzas ‘touch (on L) (with ABL)’, TIE sns ‘tie, fasten (onto L) (with ABL)’32 Transitive verb with allative destination and perlative route adjuncts. Just one verb from the Leipzig List – THROW wwis ‘throw (to DAT through PERL). Transitive verb with allative/dative1,2 destination/recipient adjuncts. Several verbs from the list have optional adjuncts, in the allative or dative. The former encodes places, the latter human recipients, with an additional choice between ‘dative1’ and ‘dative2’ depending on whether the object reaches or is only intended for its recipient. Otherwise, these behave like typical transitive verbs, registering the theme – the thing carried or shown – as the absolute NP / undergoer prefix. The directional prefixes can be used to evoke the recipient through direction – ‘towards’ for a first person, ‘away’ for a third – without overtly employing argument indexing. (16) illustrates two such verbs, both of sending: wäbärs ‘send (as first act in an exchange relationship)’ and trärs ‘send (as continued participation in an exchange relationship)’, each used here with no adjunct present for the recipient, while (17) elaborates this structure by adding a Dative.1 adjunct for the recipient. (16) Ymam sombes bñe tä\n-wäbär/ng kae, 3sg.erg two letter(abs) 3sgA>3duU.preh.ipfv-tow\send.first ±1day ynd kae wnde sombes bñe tä\ng-trär/n. 1abs ±1day in.return two letter(abs) 1sgA>3duU.preh-aw\send ‘He sent two letters (+>me) hither yesterday, and I sent two letters thither (+>him) in return.’ (17) Ynd sombes bñe ya-gta tä-ng\wäbär/n. 1sg.erg two letter(abs) 3sg-dat1A 1sgA>3duU.preh.ipfv-aw\send.first ‘I sent him/her two letters thither.’
32 Another ‘tie’ verb, wémaes, can take two case frames (with no formal marking of the alternation on the verb): ‘tie (string etc.: ABS) onto (entity: LOC)’, and ‘tie up (entity: ABS) with (string etc.: ABL)’. Examples are Ynd kend kup aba yépnan zéḡngama ‘I tied up the paperbark bundle with rope’ and Ynd zéḡ yéparnda qtowan ‘I tied it onto the axe handle’.
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Verbs of this type often correspond to three-place predicates cross-linguistically, but for this construction there is no evidence that the NP expressing the recipient role, such as yagta in (17), has argument status in Nen. It is simply an adjunct – and note that the undergoer slot agrees with ‘two letters’ here, which also triggers the dual form of the thematic. This observation extends to räms, whose basic meaning is ‘do’ but which can be used with the meaning ‘give’ in some contexts . In such cases the recipient is indicated by an oblique/dative NP, or implicated by a directional prefix (cf. English ‘give it here’) but in neither case indexed on the undergoer prefix, which is used to represent the theme (18a, b ). (18) a. T-n\rama! 2sgA>3sgU.imp.pfv-tow-do/give ‘Give it here!’ b. Tä-ng\rama/e! 2sgA>3duU.imp.pfv-tow\give ‘Give those two things (away)!’ Seven verbs from the Leipzig list are in this class: CARRY/TAKE/BRING renzas ‘carry, take, bring (typically non-human object)’, menzas ‘carry (typically human object)’, GIVE räms ‘give [object] (hither/thither)’ LOAD ags ‘load up’, POUR wazrs ‘pour (for: DAT)’ and SEND watembs ‘send’. For many members of this class there is a verb-coded valency alternation with a true trivalent pattern (§ 3.3), employing the benefactive prefix (§ 5.6). This yields a coding frame in which the recipient is an indirect object argument, retaining the dative/oblique case but coding the recipient in the undergoer prefix. A slightly deviant member of this class is SHOW, which can be expressed by oyabs ‘exhibit, hold up for viewing’. Like other members of the class this has ERG and ABS arguments (plus an oblique adjunct) but unlike them the undergoer slot of the verb is filled with the middle prefix; it has a benefactive counterpart wayabs ‘show’. (19) Gbay-em sombes qämblä zéḡ n\n-oyab/te Gbae-erg two catscradle string(abs) 3sgA.npreh.ipfv\tow-exhibit ta-gta. 1sg-dat ‘Gbae is showing two catscradle strings to me.’
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3.3 Trivalent pattern Four verbs from the Leipzig List exhibit this pattern: GIVE räms ‘give’,33 TELL wawaets and wétls, both ‘tell’, POUR wazrs ‘pour’ and SHOW wayabs ‘show’. It is defined by taking a three-place ERG ABS DAT case array, and exhibits ‘secundative indexing’, registering the DAT rather than the ABS on the undergoer prefix slot of the verb, and in the dual/non-dual morphology on the verb (-nda in (20) and (21) is the past perfective third person non-dual form; to express ‘he showed them two’ the verb form would be changed to yawayabae, employing the suffix -ae ‘2|3sgA>duU. ppf). (20) Ymam wagib ta w\a-rama/nda. 3sg.erg fish(abs) 1sg.obl 3sgA>1sgU.ppf-ben\give ‘She gave me a fish.’ (21) Ymam ybe-gta ag ya\wa-yab/nda. 3sg.erg 3nsg-dat1 coconut(abs) 3sgA>3plu.ppf-ben-show ‘He showed them the coconut.’ Two further morphosyntactic properties distinguish trivalent verbs. Firstly, as indicated in § 2.3(d), an unusual typological feature of Nen is that phasal auxiliaries must take a benefactive applicative prefix when their complement is a trivalent verb, and register the recipient argument on the undergoer prefix of the phasal. See (22), and (5) above for an additional example. (22) Ymam ta-gta ag räm-s-t 3sg.erg 1sg-dat coconut(abs) give-nmlz-all w\n-a-wa-pap/nda. 3sgA>1sgU.ppf-tow-ben-tr-begin ‘He was about to give me the coconut.’ Secondly, just with trivalent verbs there are two special ways of coercing other morphology into expressing the difference between singular and multiple objects: the aspectual contrast, and a coerced use of the ‘away’ prefix. Cf. the perfective form arama in daramanga ‘he should give him one thing’ and the imperfective form aramta in daramtanga ‘he should give him many things’.34 The ‘away’ prefix 33 At least, in its benefactive stem form aram(a); the benefactive prefix shows up in finite forms and on phasal auxiliaries, but not in the infinitive which (irregularly) is räms for both the transitive and the ditransitive frames. 34 Analyzing these words further: d\a-rama/nga [3sgA>3sgU.f.pfv\ben-give] vs. d\a-ram/ta-nga [3sgA>3sgU.f.pfv\ben-give-ipfv]. This is an example of aspectual conversion, in which a verb stem first takes the basic imperfective thematic (-ta), but is then inflected for a perfective suffix. Aspectual conversion from imperfective can have a number of functions, including some shift to the lexical
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can also be coerced into expressing multiplicity of objects, as in q\a-yab/ta! ‘show me one!’ [2sgA>1sgU.imp.pfv-ben-show] vs. q\ng-a-yab/ta! ‘show me many!’ [2sgA>1sgU.imp.ipfv-aw-ben-show]. The use of the ‘away’ prefix to encode large plurals is not unique to trivalent verbs, but it is only with them that it counts entities that are not one of the indexed arguments.
4 Uncoded alternations (case alternations) 4.1 Allative / goal alternations These alternate between marking the destination with the allative and with the dative. The number and identity of arguments indexed stays unchanged, and there is no morphological marking on the verb in the form of diathetic prefix alternations. Semantically the allative stresses a spatial destination while the dative encodes a human goal or recipient. This alternation is available with the theme-indexing verb CARRY, TAKE renzas ‘carry’. Illustrative examples are: (23) Ymam kiémb-ngama w\ng-renz/e Mowet-t. 3sg.erg truck-abl 3sgA>1sgU.npreh.ipfv-aw-carry Morehead-all ‘He took me to Morehead in a truck.’ (24) Ynd wawapapser-epap buk aba 1sg.erg teacher-dat2 book(abs) imm y\n-renz/an. 3sgA>1sgU.npreh.ipfv\tow-carry ‘I brought/carried the book to the teacher.’ This case alternation is also possible with the recipient argument of GIVE räms ‘give’, with the allative implying direct giving of the theme to the recipient, while the dative is compatible with the theme just being left for the recipient to collect later.
semantics (e.g. ‘talk’ to ‘speak, say’). In this example, the inner imperfective marker is signalling the multiplicity of the theme argument, while the outer perfective inflection gives a ‘mediated imperative’ meaning (i.e. letting the addressee know they should convey the speaker’s command to a third person).
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4.2 Dative addition Here a dative NP is added, as a case-marked NP, but there is no registration of this on the verb through diathetic prefix, middle morphology or change to indexation. This is marginal as an alternation type, and is best treated as the predictable addition of a dative adjunct, of the type discussed in § 3.2.5. The case may be DAT1 or DAT2 − it is not yet clear what the difference is, but the difference is subtle and I provisionally lump these two alternations together. Verbs showing this alternation, from the Leipzig list, are: SING angan räms ‘make a song [to DAT]’, APPEAR ipars ‘appear [to DAT]’, SEND watembs ‘send [to DAT]’.
4.3 Middle object addition Here an absolutive NP is added, as a goal, patient or theme, to a monovalent middle verb. This results in a double-absolutive case frame (cf. § 3.1.3). There is no additional marking on the verb. (Though in the case of awags ‘load oneself up’, this is already derived from wags ‘load up’ by the RR prefix). Examples: (25) a. Ynd n\a-wag/tan. 1sg.abs 1sgA.npreh.ipfv\rr-load ‘I load myself up.’ b. Bä nne n\a-wag/tan. 3sg.abs yam(abs) 1sgA.npreh.ipfv\rr-load ‘She loads herself up with yams.’ Two verbs from the Leipzig list that exhibit this alternation are: LOAD awags ‘load oneself up’ > ‘ABS load oneself up with ABS’, and BE A HUNTER ärs ‘hunt, be a hunter’ > ‘ABS hunt ABS’. Another verb of this type, not on the Leipzig list, is äbäms ‘suckle, suck (at the breast)’, which can optionally add nono ‘breast’ as an absolutive NP to give nono äbäms ‘suckle the breast’.
4.4 Other possible uncoded alternations A couple of other possible types are given in the data-base: a) a pseudo-passive, in which the external NP corresponding to the A is simply omitted, and b) a possible source-omission with ‘wipe’ (i.e. wipe the mud vs. wipe the mud off the mat) which may simply involve optional adjunct omission/inclusion. These could readily be handled as instances of optional inclusion of adjuncts.
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5 Verb-coded alternations Verb-coded alternations are a productive process in Nen lexicogrammar, making heavy use of the diathetic prefix series. It is not yet possible to give a definitive statement of how many diathetic prefixes there are, owing to the interaction of a certain degree of so far unexplainable formal variation with differences in the precise meaning of the alternation; below I give the best current schema.35 In addition to the verb stem alternations created by the diathetic prefix itself, the alternations it produces lead to differences in whether the prefix is filled by a middle marker or an undergoer prefix. Some, like the transitivizing and benefactive prefixes, move the stem from middle to transitive; others like the reflexive/reciprocal, move it from transitive to middle. Prefixes increasing valency (transitive, benefactive) are w-initial, while those decreasing valency (reflexive/reciprocal, decausative, autobenefactive) are vowel-initial. In the case of the autobenefactive (§ 5.3), the case frame remains unaltered (ERG: ABS) but the verb indexing goes from transitive to middle. Tr
wakaes ‘see’
warmbs ‘take up’
Diathetic prefix
RR
transitive
Middle
awakaes ‘see self/each other’
armbs ‘ascend’
Normally there are distinct infinitives for verbs with diathetic prefixes. Cf. wapars ‘to cover’, awapars ‘to cover self/each other’; nps ‘cut (tr.)’, awañps ‘cut each other’, eñps ‘get cut’, uñps ‘cut for oneself’. Though it is commonest for verbs to take just one diathetic prefix at a time (if any), there are some cases of verbs that take two. Most commonly this is where a middle verb has first been transitivized by w- via the transitive, then prefixed by the benefactive – see (33) below for an example. There are a few other sets which appear to exhibit multiple prefixation (cf. eres ‘listen’, weres ‘hear’, oweres ‘listen
35 One obvious alternative to the current schema would be to consider the causative and benefactive prefixes as instantiations of a single prefix which we could call ‘valency-increasing’ – which could have either transitive or benefactive readings according to what it attaches to. In addition to the generalization that both increase valence by one, they exhibit formal similarity, namely (w)a-. At present I do not adopt this solution, because of the fact that it would leave unexplained certain apparent gaps in the data – e.g. the fact that there are not examples of prefixing (w)a- to a monovalent stem with a benefactive reading (e.g. ‘work for the benefit of’). On top of this, with some verbs the benefactive is not overtly present in the infinitive form (see § 5.6), whereas the transitive is always overt in infinitives. For these reasons I prefer to analyze the two as separate morphemes, though their formal identity and functional similarity suggest a historical connection between them.
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out for, await news of’, exhibiting the derivational pathway middle > transitive > autobenefactive) but the semantic relations in such cases are idiosyncratic.
5.1 Reflexive/reciprocal The ‘reflexive/reciprocal’ is formed from transitive verbs by: a) substituting the person/number-coding U-prefix with a person/number-invariant middle prefix b) dropping the overt NP coding the P role c) flagging the NP coding the A role with the absolutive instead of the ergative case, i.e. treating it as an S d) prefixing the diathetic prefix (a-, e-, ä, i-, o- etc.36) to the verb stem. e) (optionally) deploying a reflexive/reciprocal pronoun tanzo(s), in the position usually occupied by NPs in P role The semantics permits either reflexive or reciprocal readings. Reflexive is the only possible reading in singulars. With non-singulars reciprocal readings are the default reading but reflexive readings are also possible. (26) a. Bmbem togetoge ta\waka/tang! 2nsg.erg children(abs) 2pla>3plu.imp.ipfv\look.at ‘You (pl.) look at the children!’ b. Bm (benzo) k\a-waka/ta! 2abs 2sg.rr 2sgA.imp.ipfv\rr-look.at ‘You look at yourself!’ c. Bm (bbenzos) k\a-waka/tang! 2abs 2nsg.rr 2pla.imp.ipfv\rr-look.at ‘You (pl.) look at yourselves / each other!’ In the case of at least some ditransitive verbs, RR-formation produces a middle, RR-prefixed verb whose semantics involves coreference between agent and recipient and which takes two absolutive arguments: the agent and the theme (cf. the underived equivalent in § 3.1.3). (27) Yna sombes är nne n\o-trär/t. dem two person(abs) food(abs) 3duA.npreh.ipfv\rr-send ‘These two are exchanging (sending each other) food.’
36 Conditioned by vowel harmony with the following vowel in cases where just a single C intervenes, but o- before clusters (e.g. trars/otrars) and awa- before root-initial ñ (surface n) as in ñps ‘cut’, awañps ‘cut each other’ – see further discussion in fn. 39 below.
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Verbs from the Leipzig test list showing this alternation are listed below. BREAK dars ‘break, crack (v.t.)’ / adars ‘break, crack (of its own accord)’, COVER wapars ‘to cover’ / awapars ‘to cover self/each other’, CUT nps ‘cut’ / awañps ‘cut self/each other’, FOLLOW waets ‘follow’ / awaets ‘follow each other’, HIDE wernis ‘hide (v.t.)’, ewernes ‘hide oneself’, HUG wambns ‘embrace’ / awambns ‘embrace each other’, LEAVE branḡs ‘leave’ / abranḡs ‘leave each other, divorce’, LOAD wags ‘load’, awags ‘load oneself up’, MEET / äbäts ‘meet; meet each other’37, winḡs ‘see, meet’ / iwinḡs ‘see, meet each other’, SEE wakaes ‘see’, awakaes ‘see, look at self / each other’, SEND trärs ‘send (as an initial or once-off move)’ / oträrs ‘send (as part of an exchange)’, SHAVE btkamgeb renas ‘shave (someone else)’, btkamgeb ärens ‘shave (oneself)’, SMELL wambaes ‘smell, sniff’ / awambaes ‘smell, sniff each other’, THINK ABOUT wabaes ‘remember, think about’, awabaes ‘remember to do something, recall, think about’38, TOUCH wenzas ‘touch’ / ewenzs ‘touch each other’.
Where a two-place predicate is coded by a construction with a copula plus a predicative adjective, reciprocals can be derived, without predicate coding, simply by using the RR pronoun, along with the verb BE in the appropriate person and number: (28) Yna är sombes bä ybenzos mete yä-ren. dem man two(abs) 3abs 3nsg.rr know 3nsgU.npreh.ipfv-be:du ‘Those two men know each other.’
5.2 Decausative This denotes activities that occur without obvious agentive input from an outside party. The verb root takes e, ä, a, or o as diathetic prefix, the argument frame is reduced from A:P to S, and middle verb morphology is employed. There is some overlap in form with the RR, but unlike that alternation the RR pronoun benzo(s) cannot be used. Moreover there are a few verbs that possess contrasting diathetic prefixes distinguishing the two alternations: cf. Reflexive/reciprocal awañps (~änps) ‘cut each other’, Decausative eñps ‘get cut’; and Autobenefactive uñps ‘cut (for oneself)’, all three derived from nps ‘cut’;39 also oträrs ‘exchange’, äträrs ‘cross paths with’, both derived from trärs ‘go along a path’. Nonetheless, in cases where
37 As mentioned in an earlier footnote, this verb has a deponent infinitive, employing what looks formally like a reflexive/reciprocal infinitive for both reflexive/reciprocal and transitive readings, but the finite forms behave in the expected way, distinguishing the two through their affixation possibilities and the form of the stem. 38 As these glosses indicate, the reflexive/reciprocal form has undergone some semantic specialization away from a pure reflexive/reciprocal meaning. 39 ñ is not permissible word- or stem-initially in Nen, but the underlying initial ñ surfaces once diathetic prefixes are added. Forms are cited with whichever initial nasal is found in the relevant simple or derived stem.
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there is no contrast set, it can be fairly arbitrary whether a given form is considered RR or DC – it may simply be a RR form which has not yet been attested with a RR pronoun. An example of this alternation is: (29) a. Ymam yéb_tr y\drer/nda. 3sg.erg bag_handle 3sgA>3sgU.ppf-tear ‘He tore the handle from the bag.’ b. Yna yéb n\e-drer/nda. dem bag 3sgA.ppf\dc-tear ‘This bag tore.’ Verbs from Leipzig list taking this alternation: BREAK räbärs ‘break (v.t.)’ / äräbärs ‘break (v.i.), get broken’, BURN zers ‘set fire to’, uzers ‘catch fire’, CUT nps ‘cut’, eñps ‘get cut’, TEAR drers ‘tear (v.t.)’ / edrers ‘tear, get torn’ (v.m.); TIE sns ‘attach, tie, hook (v.t.)’, esns ‘get hooked, tied’.
5.3 Autobenefactive This derives verbs meaning ‘for one’s own benefit, on one’s own account’. In many contexts this conveys a negative evaluation of selfishness or refusal to share (e.g. (30)40) but this need not be the case, e.g. (31b) encoding independent action by a child, and this prefix is often used frequently in hospitable invitations such as koneta! (k\o-ne/ta) [2sgA.imp.pfv\ab-consume] ‘eat/drink this yourself − tuck in, no need to share!’. The derived verb takes u-/o- as its diathetic prefix and the middle prefix. In contrast to the RR and DA prefixes this usually directly precedes (or even goes inside) the minimal stem, rather than in front of the longer w-expanded transitive stem. As with the preceding two alternations, the case frame is reduced from ERG:ABS to ABS:ABS. (30) Yao y-m, ya Zerus-m wagib-ta yergb yna-o neg 3sgU.npreh.ipfv-be:nd conj Zerus-erg fish-all river(abs) dem-rel k\o-tr/ne. 3sgA.npreh.ipfv\ab-follow.riverbank ‘I can’t believe it, that Zerus followed along the riverbank for fish (implied: with lots of success because he was alone) all for himself.’
40 kotrne here could be replaced by its straightforward transitive equivalent ttrne; the difference is that the use of kotrne is ‘blaming him’ for his selfishness.
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(31) a. Mleg-äm toge selemi-ngama t\amane/te. girl-erg child(abs) clothes-abl 3sgA>3sgU.preh.ipfv\dress ‘The girl dressed the child.’ b. Yna mleg k\o-mane/te selemi-ngama. dem girl(abs) 3sgA.preh.ipfv\ab-dress clothes-abl ‘The girl got dressed.’ Verbs from the Leipzig list exhibiting this alternation are the following: BUILD räms ‘build’, oräms ‘build for oneself’, COOK zeyas ‘cook’, ozs ‘cook for one’s own benefit’, CUT nps ‘cut’, uñps ‘cut a piece for oneself; desist from, give up’41, DRESS wamanes ‘dress (v.t.)’, omanes ‘get dressed’, HEAR weres ‘listen to’, oweres ‘listen carefully, concentrate on, tune in, attend to’, SHOW wayabs ‘show’, oyabs ‘show off (e.g. something that one has caught)’, TEACH awapaps ‘teach’, aowapaps ‘learn’, WASH wémbärs ‘bathe, wash (v.t.)’, umbärs ‘take a bath, bathe oneself’.
5.4 Simple Middle Alternation This is a simple alternation between middle and transitive ambifixing verbs. This alternation is coded by a) substituting the middle prefix for the pronominal undergoer prefix b) adding the prefix w- in a very unusual way, not coding transitivity/agentivity in the way normal for this form c) dropping the erstwhile A argument, and treating the other core argument as an S(A), i.e. represented by a core NP in the absolutive and indexed by the Actor prefix. Just two verbs from the Leipzig list display this alternation: FILL waps ‘be full’ (< aps ‘fill (v.t.)’), POUR wazrs1 ‘pour into (v.t.)’ azrs ‘pour out’
5.5 Causative This derives transitives from middles denoting motion events, adding the meaning ‘cause (motion/trajectory) through sustained contact (carrying, leading etc.)’. It is coded as follows:
41 For some reason, the diathetic u disappears in the future: Ta parwae pip bende dñpangn. (*duñpangn) ‘I’ll cut your meat for myself.’, but it is kept in the imperative (Ê, tande parwae pip be kuñpa! ‘Yes, cut yourself a piece of my meat.’
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a) prefixing (w)(a)- to the basic stem, though there are many phonological contexts in which neither vowel is overtly present 42 b) using transitive indexing morphology instead of the basic middle morphology c) adding an ERG argument denoting the causer; the causee is coded by ABS A sample pair is armbs ‘ascend’ / warmbs ‘take/bring up, cause to ascend’: (32) a. Är k\armb/te läda-wama. man(abs) 3sgA.preh.ipfv\ascend ladder-abs ‘The man climbed the ladder (ascended by means of the ladder).’ b. Är-äm toge t\armb/te läda-wama man-erg child(abs) 3sgA>3sgU.preh.ipfv\cause.to.ascend ladder-com kitara tq-t. platform high-all ‘The man took the child up the ladder onto the balcony.’ The verbs in the Leipzig set which show this alternation are shown in Table 2:
Tab. 2: Verbs from the Leipzig list exhibiting the causative alternation. Middle
Transitive
CLIMB
armbs
‘ascend (steeply)’
warmbs
‘take/bring up’
SINK
olets
‘sink (itr.)’
walets
‘sink (tr.)’
SIT
amzs
‘sit (intr.)’
wamzs
‘seat, sit, set (tr)’
Further verb pairs exhibiting similar alternations between middle and transitive forms, all involving caused movement, are: esrs ‘descend’, wesrs ‘cause to descend’ anḡs ‘return’, wanḡs ‘cause to return’ itrs ‘move’, witrs ‘cause to move’ urtäms ‘ascend (e.g. walking up a slope)’, wurtäms ‘cause to ascend (e.g. taking a child up a slope)’ azrs ‘pour (v.i.)’, wazrs ‘pour (v.t.)’
42 Though clearly present in the infinitive, the w- drops in some contexts, notably after any singular undergoer prefix, as in (32b). With a nonsingular undergoer it would appear, i.e. the form would be ta\warmb/te ‘he took them up’. The a-vowel is only visible when the causative is prefixed to vowel-initial words (like olets ‘sink (itr.)’), where it displaces the other vowel (i.e. wa- + olets > walets.
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1097
5.6 Benefactive The addition of a beneficiary argument is signalled by the benefactive applicative (w)a-. The beneficiary is then indexed on the undergoer slot – either of the main verb, if finite (33), or the auxiliary, in a phasal auxiliary + infinitive construction (5, 22 above). (33) Ymam tbe-gta sombes ag yn\a-rama/e. 3sg.erg 1nsg-dat1 two coconut(abs) 3sgA>1duU.ppf\ben-give ‘He gave the two of us 2 coconuts’. (34a, b, c) illustrate the use of the benefactive with the verb pair bens ‘feed (X) [with Y-ABL]’ wabens ‘feed up/ fatten up (X) for Y[DAT1]’. With the basic verb, the feedee is indexed by the undergoer prefix on the lexical verb (34a) or the phasal auxiliary (34b), whereas in the benefactive construction it is the beneficiary that is indexed by the undergoer prefix, illustrated here (34c) in a phasal auxiliary construction. (34) a. Ẽ, bä n\ben/tan. yes fut 1sgA>2sgU.npreh.ipfv\feed ‘Yes, I’m going to feed you.’ b. Ynd nne-ngama ben-s-t bä y\a-pap/ndn. 1sgA yam-abl feed-nmlz-all fut 1sgA>3sgU.ppf\caus-begin ‘I’m trying to feed him with yams.’ c. Ynd kiemb tande sakrsakr-äbeta bä 1sgA pig(abs) 1sg.poss brothers-PL.dat1 fut ya\wa-ben/tan. 1sgA>3nsgU.npreh.ipf\ben-feed ‘I’m taming (feeding up) a pig for my brothers.’ In the bens/wabens pair just illustrated the benefactive applicative is overtly present in the infinitive, but this is not the case for all verbs: räms ‘give’ and wazrs ‘pour’ lack an overt distinction in the infinitive, for example. Crucially, for all verbs the benefactive is visible on either the infinitive, the prefixed finite form, or on accompanying phasal auxiliaries. (35a–d) illustrate a three-way contrast with the verb ‘pour’ between the middle verb azrs ‘pour (v.i.)’, the derived causative verb wazrs ‘pour (v.t.)’, and the benefactive verb wazrs ‘pour for (v.t.)’ respectively. Note that the infinitive for the transitive and benefactive verbs is identical, so that the regular transitive infinitive wazrs is used in (35d) but its benefactive status gets marked on the phasal auxiliary nawapapndn. The finite transitive verbs in (35b, c) clearly contrast the transitive and
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ditransitive constructions, both in terms of which argument is indexed on the undergoer slot (theme in (35b), recipient in (35c)), and in the presence of the benefactive prefix in (35c) versus its absence in (35b). A comparable triplet is found with the set anḡs ‘return (itr.)’ / wanḡs ‘return (tr.)’ / wawanḡs ‘return (tr.) to/for’. (35) a. Yna nu n\ap/nda biliken-an nu azr-s dem water(abs) 3sgA.ppf\overflow pot-loc water(abs) pour-nmlz n\opap/nda. 3sgA.ppf\begin ‘The water is overflowing in the pot and is beginning to pour out.’ b. Ynd nu y\az/nan be-gta. 1sg.erg water(abs) 1sgA>3sgU.npreh.ipf\pour 2sg-dat1 ‘I’m pouring the water for you.’ c. Ynd nu n\a-w-az/nan be-gta. 1sg.erg water(abs) 1sgA>2sgU.npreh.ipf\ben-caus-pour 2sg-dat1 ‘I’m pouring the water for you.’ d. Ynd nu begta w-azr-s 1sg.erg 1sgA water(abs) 2sg-dat1 caus-pour-nmlz n\a-wa-pap/ndn. 1sgA>2sgU.ppf\ben-caus-begin ‘I’m trying to pour the water for you.’ The benefactive alternation is a particularly interesting one in Nen because it appears that all but one of the ditransitive verbs in Nen – i.e. those which index the beneficiary by undergoer prefix – include the benefactive prefix, in either a productive or a lexicalized form. An inspection of the trivalent verbs listed in § 3.3 will reveal that all but wétls ‘tell to’ begin with wa-, the form of the benefactive prefix. In some sense, then, most ditransitive verbs in Nen are morphologically derived.
5.7 ‘Placement’ and ‘assume position’ alternations An − − −
important and productive three-way alternation in Nen is between intransitive positionals (‘be in position/posture P’), which are prefixing verbs their transitive ‘placement’ counterparts ‘place/cause to be in position P’ their middle counterparts ‘assume/come to be in position P’.
This alternation set exhibits a number of special characteristics that cannot be dealt with here – see Evans (2014) for details. All positionals participate in this alternation. The basic form means ‘be in position X’. This has no infinitive, just a root, and is morphosyntactically a prefixing
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Tab. 3: Placement and assume position alternations. verb structure
Positional U[X]-V-STAT
Placement U[X]V-A[Y]
Assume position M-V-A[X]
meaning
‘X be in location/ position P’
Cause(Y, P(X)) a) ‘Y place X in location/ position P’ (e.g. place up high) b) ‘Y cause X to have positional characteristic P’ (e.g. cause to be open)
Become(P(X)) a) ‘X come to be in location/ position P’ b) ‘X come to have positional characteristics P’ (e.g. become open, shattered)
‘be erected’
trom ‘be erected (e.g. a house)’ ser ‘be in water, be immersed’
tronḡs ‘erect, build (e.g. a house)’ wésers ‘put in water, immerse’
ätronḡs ‘come to be erected, built’
‘be in water’
ésers ‘come to be in water, come to be immersed’
verb with an extra stative suffix. The derived verb of (causative) placement is a transitive verb meaning ‘to put in position X’. In general the infinitive of placement verbs is based directly on the positional root; their finite forms take an undergoer prefix and an actor suffix. An example illustrating the alternation between positional and placement frames is: (36) a. Wagib nu-wan y\éser/ngr. fish(abs) water-loc 3sgU.npreh.ipfv.stat\be.immersed ‘The fish is in the water.’ b. Ynd sombes wagib nu-wan e\ser/an. 1sg.erg two fish(abs) water-loc 1sgA>3duU.npreh.ipf\put.in.water ‘I put two fish in the water.’ In most but not all cases, the placement infinitive is built from the positional stem, with the middle infinitive then derived from the transitive by a prefix formally resembling the reflexive/reciprocal or decausative. Examples are kms/äkms ‘lay (v.t.)/lie down (v.i.)’, pis/äpis ‘place up high / get (oneself) up high’, mss/emss ‘lean (v.t.) / get into a leaning position (v.m.)’ and numerous other pairs. Note the difference of these pairs from the causative alternation, where the direction of derivation goes the other way, from middle to transitive. However, a couple of triplets in this set follow the direction of causative derivation, e.g. amzs/
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wamzs ‘sit (v.i.)/set, sit, seat (v.t.)’. As is characteristic of prefixing verbs, the basic posals lack infinitives, whereas the placement and middle forms have them. Posal √dar ‘be open [stem]’
Placement dars ‘cause to be open’
Middle adars ‘become open’
Within the Leipzig set, this alternation is not well represented. The ‘put’ verb in the Leipzig list can be translated into Nen with dozens of more specific verbs, depending on the position into which the object is put. In the data base I take the two verbs kms/äkms ‘lay/be lying’ and wémzs/amzs ‘sit, place/be in a sitting position’ as examples. Appendix 2 gives a fuller listing of this rich and elaborated set.
5.8 Conative alternation For at least one perception verb series, concerning audition, there is evidence of a verb-coded conative alternation. As indicated above, ‘hear’ can be coded either by the middle verb eres or the transitive verb weres (examples of both in (38 below)). In both of these cases the P is coded with the absolutive, though the flagging of the perceiver changes – ergative with the transitive form weres, and absolutive with the middle eres. On top of this alternation, it is possible to prefix o- (elsewhere the autobenefactive) to the transitive form and employ an ABS: AL case frame to give the conative meaning ‘listen out for’, as in (37). So far this is the only example of this alternation. (37) Bä n\o-w-ere/te traka-ta. 3sg.abs 3sgA.npreh.ipfv\ab-caus-hear truck-all ‘He is listening out for the truck.’
6 Other alternations 6.1 Verbs exhibiting middle/transitive alternations without any diathetic prefix For at least one verb, a coding alternation between ERG:ABS and ABS:ABS frames reflects a lexical difference between ‘perceive’ and ‘attend to carefully’ rather than any actual difference in argument structure. This involves the transitive and middle forms of eres ‘to hear’ (note that the prefix y- is realised as 0̸ before the vowel /e/, which is why no material precedes the stem in (38a)).
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(38) a. Ymam boraro ke \ere/te. 3sg.erg flute noise(abs) 3sgA>3sgU.npreh.ipfv\hear ‘He can hear the sound of a flute.’ (‘just hearing it’). b. Bä boraro ke n\ere/te. 3sg.abs flute noise(abs) 3sgA.npreh.ipfv\hear ‘He is listening carefully to the sound of the flute.’
6.2 Other voice alternations not treated as valency alternations Resultatives are encoded by a sort of special deverbalizing construction rather than a valency alternation. This is signalled by adding the ‘source’ case suffix -mne to the nominalized form, then combining the resultant word with a copula. Cf. wapars ‘to cover’, waparsmne ‘covered’; wayanḡs ‘to show’, wayanḡsmne ‘already shown’. (39) a. Ymam toge äme-ngama y\ap/ne. 3sg.erg child(abs) mat-abl 3sgA>3sgU.npreh.ipfv\cover ‘(S)he covered the child with the blanket.’ b. Toge äme-ngama wapar-s-mne y\m. child(abs) mat-abl cover-nmlz-SOURCE 3sgU.npreh.ipfv\be:nd ‘The child is covered with the blanket.’ State passives add -ere to the middle infinitive (without the transitive marker). Consider the following deverbal derivatives of waps ‘fill’: (40) a. Kap (nu-ngama) ap-s-ere y\m. cup(abs) water-abl fill-nmlz-pass.stat 3sgU.npreh.ipfv\be:nd ‘The cup is full (of water).’43 b. Kap (nu-ngama) w-ap-s-mne y\m. cup(abs) water-abl caus-fill-nmlz-source 3sgU.npreh.ipfv\be:nd ‘The cup has been filled (with water).’ Negative state passives are formed by adding the privative suffix -pner ~ -pnä to the infinitive: (41) Toge w-apar-s-pner y\m. child(abs) caus-cover-nmlz-priv 3sgU.npreh.ipfv\be:nd ‘The child is uncovered.’
43 Note that the infinitive aps is also attested in Kmboke marete ws nungama apst pitas ym. ‘This broad-necked bottle is easy to fill.’
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7 Discussion/conclusion Nen is a language in which valency classes are clearly flagged, through its ergative/absolutive case-marking system, its system of double indexing, and the overt signalling of valency change on the verb through diathetic prefixes and transitive/ middle alternations. With regard to its verb classes, it has the following four striking features. a) the very small set of true intransitives, in the sense of verbs for which both morphological and syntactic criteria treat them as fully intransitive. Verbs which would be typologically expected to be intransitive are assigned either to inherent middle verbs, or to experiencer object verbs. In the case of inherent middle verbs, there is just one NP argument, but both argument indexing slots (U and A) are filled. In the case of experiencer object verbs, there is a fixed transitive subject argument bearing the ergative case and indexed in the third person actor slot of the verb. b) its large and semantically elaborated set of positional verbs, the causative derivatives of which give a large number of more semantically specific counterparts to PUT. c) indexing in Nen, which in the form of undergoer prefixes does not distinguish true objects (patients, themes) from indirect objects (obliques), even though these receive different case-marking (respectively absolutive and oblique/dative) and obligatorily employ a benefactive prefix in the diathetic slot. This is also the case in e.g. Arammba (Boevé & Boevé 2003). However, other members of the family, such as Kómnzo (Doehler in prep.), have a distinct series for indirect objects. d) the presence of both ergative/absolutive case-coding and a morphologicallysplit system for monovalent verbs (i.e. prefixing vs. ambifixing verbs) might be expected to reflect a semantic emphasis on the coding of agency or volitionality in verb classes, along the lines expected from languages like Italian where auxiliary selection with monovalent verbs is sensitive to agentivity (among other factors) – see e.g. Sorace (2000). But, surprisingly, coding patterns in Nen are not really sensitive to this dimension – ‘fall’ and ‘burn (itr.)’ pattern just like ‘work’ and ‘talk’. Rather, the contrast primarily reflects a stative vs. dynamic contrast: statives are lexicalized as prefixing verbs, and one-place dynamics as ambifixing middle verbs. There are just a couple of exceptions to this – the prefixing verb utan ‘walk’ is likely to be a historical relic of a time when prefixing verbs occupied a greater proportion of the lexicon, and ‘come’ and ‘go’, though their translations suggest dynamicity, are formally based on the stative ‘be’ plus a directional. With regard to coded alternations, five points are worthy of note:
Valency in Nen
1103
a) the series of diathetic prefixes play a crucial role, tied up with overtly-coded valency alternations. There are two of these for increasing valency – causative/ transitivizing w-, and benefactive (w)a- and several for decreasing it. There is a limited set of circumstances in which two overt diathetic prefixes can construct two successive changes of valency. b) with the exception of alternations based on referential equivalence of two argument positions (i.e. reflexives/reciprocals), all verb alternations alter the indexing but leave the flagging alone, at least for those arguments that participate in both alternations. For example, in both causatives and decausatives the affected argument remains in the absolutive (a cause or agent in the ergative is added or subtracted). Likewise, in the benefactive alternation the beneficiary/ recipient remains in the dative or oblique in both constructions – what differs is whether it gets indexed on the verb or not. c) in contrast to well-studied West European languages like French, Italian, Spanish or German, the task of coding such alternations as reflexives, reciprocals, autobenefactives and decausatives is split across two sites – one (the middle prefix) that formally occupies the undergoer indexing slot on the verb, and a second (the diathetic prefix) that gives more precise information about the nature of the alternation (reflexive/reciprocal vs. autobenefactive vs. decausative). d) there is overt marking of reflexive/reciprocal alternations throughout the verb lexicon – there are no ‘light reflexives/reciprocals’ in which reflexive or reciprocal readings are obtained without overt marking of the verb. e) the three-way alternation between positional, transitive verbs of placement, and middle verbs of assuming position, is a central set of alternations with a cluster of convergent properties. Note that this series makes use of alternations in the argument-indexing positions (i.e. prefixing > ambifixing transitive > ambifixing middle). It does not employ diathetic prefixes to get from the stative to the dynamic forms, but within the dynamic forms the diathetic prefixes are widely used to distinguish transitive ‘place in position’ meanings from middle ‘assume position’ meanings, primarily by adding a prefix to the transitive form. Overall, the pattern of indexing suggests the strong influence of a morphological template, for the verb, which favors the employment of two argument positions, no more, no less. A number of factors conspire to maintain this, the two most important being (i) the favoring of middle constructions, with their filling of both undergoer-prefix and actor-suffix slots, for a bloated proportion of one-participant events, and (ii) limitation of agreement to just two argument positions with ditransitives (even though some information about the third argument can be expressed through coerced uses of directional prefixes and aspect). Because of the early stage of research on these languages we are not in a position to make observations about diachronic trends in the membership of the vari-
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Nicholas Evans
ous valency classes – a task we will be investigating in the next couple of years. It is worth noting, however, that other languages in the family include somewhat different verbs in their prefixing class – Kómnzo includes ‘shout’, for example (Döhler, in prep.), which is an inherent middle verb in Nen. However, there does appear to be a preference right through the family to employ some form of divalent coding as far as possible. In addition to the middle construction exemplified here, there is also a construction of the type ‘walk walking’, ‘sing singing’ etc. that is somewhat restricted in Nen but much more widespread in the more westerly languages of the family, such as Yei (Boelaars 1950).
Appendix 1: Orthography summary (graphemes in < >) Consonants:
Voiceless stop Voiced stop Prenasalised stop Nasal Voiced fricative Voiceless fricative Lateral Trill Semi-vowel
Bilabial
Alveolar/ dental
p b mb m
ṱ d nd n
Palatal
nz ~ndʒ ɲ
z ~dʒ
Velar
Labialvelar
k g ŋg
kp͡ w ͡ w gb ͡ w ŋgb
s l r
h
j
w
Vowels: Front
High Mid Low
Glottal
Back
Non-short
Short
(Short)
Non-short
i (i) e (e) æ ~ ɛ (ä)
ɩ (é)
ɐ (á)
u (u) o (o) a (a)
Valency in Nen
1105
Appendix 2: Positional verb set Only singular forms of the basic posal set are given. See Evans (2014) for a listing that includes the transitive and middle counterparts together with their infinitives and dual forms. Meaning
Stem
3rd singular stative form
‘stand, be standing’ ‘lie, be lying, be asleep’ ‘be up high’ ‘be balanced, be precariously high’ ‘be on (clothes etc.)’ ‘be leaning’ ‘be inside’ ‘be on shoulders, be on top of something’ ‘be in a fork’ ‘be erected’ ‘be stuck up high’ ‘be attached, be tied’ ‘be inside’ ‘be open, be a hole’ ‘be sitting’ ‘be sitting down’ ‘be lying on back’ ‘be wedged’ ‘be in water’ ‘be away’ ‘be dispersed, scattered about, jumbled’
√aki √kma √pis1 √pis2 √awas √mse √ple √ténḡ √zär √trom ~ tronḡ √ki √sne √lewa √dar √et, ere √mz √élénḡ √ézén √éser √égér √mäng
yakingr ykmangr ypingr yprängr yawasngr ymsengr yplengr y-ténḡ-ngr yzärngr ytronḡr ykingr ysnengr ylewangr ydarngr etngr, erengr ymzngr yélénḡngr yézénngr yéserngr yégérngr yngmängaran44
44 So far only attested in non-singular.
weret
√mzngr
yls
weret
tkretewäm räms
kérbéräm räms
kr √m
weiweiyäm räms 1-abs und[1].V
gersäm räms
ombtes √m
enzinewäm räms 1-abs und[1].V
embärs
50 SIT
50 SIT
54 GO
56 LIVE
59 FEEL PAIN
60 FEEL COLD
61 DIE
63 BE SAD
64 BE HUNGRY
68 BE DRY
82 BE ILL
10 THINK
1-abs V.act[1]
1-abs und[1].V
1-abs und[1].V
1-abs und[1].V
1-abs und[1].V
1-abs und[1].V
1-abs und[1].V
1-abs und[1].V
1-abs und[1].V
1-abs und[1].V
1-abs und[1].V
brbräm räms
6 FEAR
V
nu apams
69 RAIN
+
Auto- Cauben- saefac- tive tive
DaDeagent- Midtive ive alter- dle alter- nation nation
Middle object addition
Middle objectdowngrading alternation
Object omission
Placement alternation
Reciprocal (copular version)
Reflexive/ reciprocal
#
Coding frame schema
Appendix 3: Summary table of verbs and alternations
Verb form
Nicholas Evans
Meaning label
1106
awapars
momae ke otärs
alnzs
ätäns
ábrms
urs
awambs
izers
olets
äkrärs
uzers
rngs
ipars
engs
uwis
ärs
yétqén ewets
amzs
mete
mñte √m
kiwinḡs
43 COVER
47 COUGH
49 RUN
52 JUMP
52 JUMP
57 LAUGH
58 SCREAM
62 PLAY
66 SINK
67 BURN
67 BURN
80 BOIL
81 APPEAR
83 CRY
84 FALL
93 HUNT (FOR)
23 NAME
51 SIT DOWN
9 KNOW
87 WANT
17 MEET
1-abs 2-com V.act[1]
1-abs 2-all und[1].V
1-abs 2-abs und[1].V
1-abs (2-loc) V.act[1]
1-abs (2-loc) V.act[1]
1-abs V.act[1]
1-abs V.act[1]
1-abs V.act[1]
1-abs V.act[1]
1-abs V.act[1]
1-abs V.act[1]
1-abs V.act[1]
1-abs V.act[1]
1-abs V.act[1]
1-abs V.act[1]
1-abs V.act[1]
1-abs V.act[1]
1-abs V.act[1]
1-abs V.act[1]
1-abs V.act[1]
1-abs V.act[1]
+
+
+
+
+
Valency in Nen
1107
ke oters
wamanes
gms
gms
gms
wenzas
nps
wazrs (1)
wapars
waps
20 SHOUT AT
13 DRESS
26 KILL
27 BEAT
28 HIT
29 TOUCH
30 CUT
42 POUR
43 COVER
44 FILL
Verb form
armbs
Meaning label
48 CLIMB
#
1-erg 2-abs (3-abl) und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs (3-abl) und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs (3-abl) und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs (3-abl) und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs (3-abl) und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs (3-abl) und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs (3-abl) und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs (3-abl) und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs (3-abl) und[2].V.act[1]
1-abs 2-dat V.act[1]
1-abs 2-com V.act[1]
Coding frame schema
+
+
+
Auto- Cauben- saefac- tive tive
+
+
+
DaDeagen- Midtive tive aldle alter- ternation nation
Middle object addition
Middle objectdowngrading alternation
Object omission
Placement alternation
Reciprocal (copular version)
+
+
+
+
+
+
Reflexive/ reciprocal
1108 Nicholas Evans
kaps renzas
wémés
wwis
mts
mts
renzas
wayabs
watembs
renzas
menzas
wawags
renzas
wawaets
31 TAKE
19 ASK FOR
39 THROW
18 TALK
21 TELL
31 TAKE
35 SHOW
37 SEND
38 CARRY
38 CARRY
45 LOAD
75 BRING
21 TELL
1-erg 2-abs 3-dat und[3].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs 3-dat und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs 3-dat und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs 3-dat und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs 3-dat und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs 3-dat und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs 3-dat und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs 3-dat und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs 3-all und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs 3-all und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs (LOC3) und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs (3-obl) und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs (3-dat-abl) und[2].V.act[1]
+
+
+
+
Valency in Nen
1109
räms
wapls
läns
√ane
owabs
owabs
nne
wambns
wakaes
36 GIVE
45 LOAD
72 WIPE
86 GET
18 TALK
22 SAY
1 EAT
2 HUG
3 LOOK AT
Verb form
wetls
Meaning label
21 TELL
#
1-erg 2-abs und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs und[2].V.act[1]
1-abs 2-abs 3-dat V.act[1]
1-abs 2-abs 3-dat V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs 3-loc und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs 3-loc und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs 3-loc und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs 3-dat und[3].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs 3-dat und[3].V.act[1]
Coding frame schema
+
Auto- Cauben- saefac- tive tive
+
DaDeagen- Midtive tive aldle alter- ternation nation
Middle object addition
Middle objectdowngrading alternation
Object omission
Placement alternation
Reciprocal (copular version)
+
+
+
+
Reflexive/ reciprocal
1110 Nicholas Evans
winḡs
wakaes
wambaes
brbr wets
mñteba wakaes
wabaes
ronzas
wémbärs
btkamgeb rens
waets
bäts
weräns
räms
4 SEE
4 SEE
5 SMELL
7 FRIGHTEN
8 LIKE
10 THINK
11 SEARCH FOR
12 WASH
14 SHAVE
16 FOLLOW
17 MEET
20 SHOUT AT
24 BUILD
1-erg 2-abs und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs und[2].V.act[1]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
Valency in Nen
1111
dars
drers
wétrers
wérnis
trärs
wäbäres
wazrs (2)
wmbaes
sns
25 BREAK
32 TEAR
33 PEEL
34 HIDE
37 SEND
37 SEND
38 CARRY
40 TIE
40 TIE
Verb form
räbärs
Meaning label
25 BREAK
#
1-erg 2-abs und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs und[2].V.act[1]
Coding frame schema
Auto- Cauben- saefac- tive tive
+
+
+
DaDeagen- Midtive tive aldle alter- ternation nation
Middle object addition
Middle objectdowngrading alternation
Object omission
Placement alternation
Reciprocal (copular version)
+
+
+
Reflexive/ reciprocal
1112 Nicholas Evans
kms
branḡs
éss
tars
wédéḡés
wr
wérnis
weres
zeyas
dus
räms
waprs
paes
41 PUT
55 LEAVE
71 GRIND
73 DIG
74 PUSH
76 STEAL
76 STEAL
78 HEAR
79 COOK
79 COOK
85 MAKE
85 MAKE
128 ROLL (tr)
1-erg 2-abs und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs und[2].V.act[1]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
Valency in Nen
1113
wewes
awapaps
angan räms
no direct counterpart
45 LOAD
77 TEACH
53 SING
46 BLINK
/A
1-erg V.act[1]
1-erg 2-obl und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-obl und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-obl und[2].V.act[1]
1-erg 2-abs V.act[1]
Coding frame schema
+
Auto- Cauben- saefac- tive tive
Legend: + occurs regularly; m occurs marginally; − occurs never; _ no data
wetrs
15 HELP
Verb form
ors
Meaning label
55 LEAVE
#
+
+
DaDeagen- Midtive tive aldle alter- ternation nation
Middle object addition
Middle objectdowngrading alternation
Object omission
Placement alternation
Reciprocal (copular version)
Reflexive/ reciprocal
1114 Nicholas Evans
Valency in Nen
1115
Abbreviations A AB AW CONJ CUR DC DI IMM IPF M ND NPREH PPF PREH PRIV RR STAT TOW TR U α, β, γ √ ∑
actor autobenefactive away conjunction current decausative diathetic prefix immediate imperfective middle non-dual non-prehodiernal past perfective prehodiernal privative reflexive/reciprocal stative towards transitiviser undergoer different series of undergoer prefixes, varying according to TAM but no straightforward semantics possible until they are combined with TAM suffix series root (derived) stem
References Ayres, Mary C. 1983. This Side, That Side: Locality and Exogamous Group Definition in the Morehead Area, Southwestern Papua. PhD Thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago. Bickel, Balthasar. 2011. Grammatical relations typology. In Jae Jung Song (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Typology, 399–444. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Blevins, Juliette & Andrew Pawley. 2010. Typological implications of Kalam predictable vowels. Phonology 27. 1–44. Boelaars, J.H. 1950. The Linguistic Position of South-Western New Guinea. Leiden: E. J. Brill. Boevé, Alma & Boevé, Marco. 2003. Arammba grammar essentials. Unpublished MS. Doehler, Christian. In prep. A grammar of Kómnzo. Doctoral Dissertation, Australian National University. Drabbe, Peter. 1954. Talen en Dialecten van Zuid-West Nieuw-Guinea. Micro-Bibliotheca Anthropos 11. Posieux (Freiburg), Anthropos-Institut. Evans, Nicholas. 2004. Experiencer objects in Iwaidjan languages. In Peri Bhaskararao & K. V. Subbarao (eds.), Non-nominative Subjects − Volume 1, 169–192. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Evans, Nicholas. 2009. Two plus one makes thirteen: senary numerals in the Morehead–Maro region. Linguistic Typology 13(2). 319–333.
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Evans, Nicholas. 2011. Posal verbs in Nen. Seminar handout, Department of Linguistics, Australian National University. Evans, Nicholas. 2012. Even more diverse than we thought: the multiplicity of Trans-Fly languages. In Nicholas Evans & Marian Klamer (eds.), Melanesian Languages on the Edge of Asia: Challenges for the 21 st Century. Language Documentation and Conservation Special Publication No. 5, 109–149. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Evans, Nicholas. 2014. Positional verbs in Nen. Oceanic Linguistics 53(2). 225–255. Evans, Nicholas. Forthcoming. Inflection in Nen. In Matthew Baerman (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Inflection. Foley, William A. 1986. The Papuan Languages of New Guinea. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Foley, William A. 2000. The languages of New Guinea. Annual Review of Anthropology 29. 357– 404. Geniušieniė, Emma. 1987. The Typology of Reflexives. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Kemmer, Suzanne. 1993. The Middle Voice. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Martin, Grahame Clarence. 2001. A Study of Time as Being According to the Keraakie People of Southwest Papua New Guinea. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, Department of Religious Studies, University of Sydney. Pawley, Andrew, Simon Peter Gi, Ian Saem Majnep & John Kias. 2000. Hunger acts on me: the grammar and semantics of bodily and mental process expressions in Kalam. In Videa P. De Guzman & Byron W. Bender (eds.), Grammatical Analysis: Morphology, Syntax and Semantics: Studies in Honor of Stanley Starosta. Oceanic Linguistics Special Publication No. 29, 153–185. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Ross, Malcolm. 2005. Pronouns as a preliminary diagnostic for grouping Papuan languages. In Andrew Pawley, Robert Attenborough, Jack Golson & Robin Hide (eds.), Papuan Pasts. Cultural, Linguistic and Biological Histories of Papuan-Speaking Peoples, 15–65. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Sarsa, Risto. 2001. Studies in Wára verb morphology. University of Helsinki: Unpublished MA Thesis. Sorace, Antonella. 2000. Gradients in auxiliary selection with intransitive verbs. Language 76. 859–890. Walsh, Michael. 1987. The impersonal verb construction. In R. Steele & T. Threadgold (eds.), Language Topics: Essays in Honour of Michael Halliday. Vol. 1, 425–438. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Williams, Francis Edgar 1936. Papuans of the Trans-Fly. Oxford: Clarendon.
Eva Schultze-Berndt
27 Complex verbs, simple alternations: valency and verb classes in Jaminjung
1
1 Introduction This chapter investigates valency patterns in Jaminjung, a name used here for two named varieties, Jaminjung and Ngaliwurru, which are mutually intelligible and exhibit mainly lexical differences. They belong to the small Jaminjungan (or Western Mirndi) subgroup of the geographically discontinuous Mirndi family (Chadwick 1997; Harvey 2008), one of the non-Pama-Nyungan families of northern Australia. The traditional country of Jaminjung and Ngaliwurru speakers is located north and south of the Victoria River around the present-day township of Timber Creek in the Northern Territory. Jaminjung is no longer acquired by children; only a few dozen elderly speakers are alive today. The discussion in this chapter is based on both elicited and naturalistic speech recorded during multiple field trips undertaken by the author between 1993 and 2008. All examples were offered by speakers either unprompted or prompted e.g. by translation equivalents or visual stimuli; no examples were merely constructed by the linguist and submitted to grammaticality judgments.
2 Basics of morphosyntax of Jaminjung 2.1 General information Jaminjung shares many of its main characteristics with other Australian languages, in particular other non-Pama-Nyungan languages (for a brief overview, see Gaby 2008). It has “free word order” in the sense that word order is not used to distin-
1 This paper is the outcome of many years of research and documentation, and of input from many directions. My first and foremost thanks go to all Jaminjung and Ngaliwurru speakers who have worked with me over the years. I am also extremely grateful for fieldwork and research funding received from the Max Planck Society, the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, and the DoBeS Programme of the Volkswagen Foundation. The analyses presented here have benefitted from discussions with too many people to mention them all individually, but I would like to acknowledge my indebtedness to David Wilkins, Felix Ameka, Jürgen Bohnemeyer, Bill McGregor, Penelope Brown, and the late Melissa Bowerman. I would also like to thank Bernard Comrie, Martin Haspelmath and Andrej Malchukov for very helpful comments on a draft version of this paper.
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Eva Schultze-Berndt
guish the grammatical roles of arguments, but is rather conditioned by information structure on a discourse-pragmatic level. It is a double-marking language in the sense of Nichols (1986), i.e. the role of core arguments is indicated both by person indices on verbs and by case marking on noun phrases (see further Section 3.1). Noun phrases can be freely omitted if understood from context. There is no clear cut distinction between nouns and adjectives, in that property expressions can function as heads of noun phrases in their own right. For case-marked noun phrases, alignment follows an ergative-absolutive pattern, with optional ergativity, but no clear cut split (see Section 4.1). As in many other Australian languages, the instrumental case is identical to the ergative; both can be subsumed under the general role of ‘effector’ (Van Valin & Wilkins 1996). Other case markers include the dative, locative, allative, ablative, and origin case, and a number of possessive markers found on adnominal modifiers and on nominal predicates. Case may be marked on one (as in (1)) or more elements of a noun phrase. (1) Gurrany ya-wun-dum [ngarrgina-bina yagbali]! neg irr-2du.s-come 1sg:poss-all place ‘Don’t come here to my place, you two!’ The fact that case only has to be marked once can be used as evidence for a configurational rather than a flat structure, i.e. the phrasal status of contiguous nominals construed as identifying a single referent. If the syntactic structure were completely flat, the grammatical function of each individual nominal would have to be flagged, that is, one would expect consistent case marking on each and every one of the nominal constituents. And while the word order within a noun phrase is relatively free, there are certain restrictions which likewise suggest a phrasal rather than flat status. Discontinuous noun phrases are attested, but are relatively rare (approximately 8 % of all multi-word NPs), and restricted to very specific information structure configurations such as contrastive focus with “given” entity nominals (for details, see Schultze-Berndt 2000: Ch. 2; Schultze-Berndt & Simard 2012). Simple clauses can be divided into nonverbal and verbal clauses. The predicate in nonverbal clauses – with the subtypes of equational, ascriptive and possessive clauses – can be an absolutive noun phrase2 or a possessive noun phrase marked with dative case or one of the possessive suffixes. Clauses with a locative predicate always contain a locative verb gagba ‘be’ and thus do not fall under the nonverbal type. A peculiarity of ascriptive clauses is indexing of the absolutive subject (predication base) with an oblique (dative) enclitic pronominal, as illustrated in (2) and (3), except for 3rd person singular (4).
2 Since the absolutive is formally unmarked, it is not glossed in examples.
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(2) Yawayi, yayiliny-ngarna=gun=bunyag. yes sand-assoc=contr=3du.dat ‘Yes, the two are indeed sand things (= trucks for carrying sand).’ (3) Jamang gujugu=ngunggu nami! enough big=2sg.dat 2sg ‘You are big enough (to fight for yourself)!’ (4) Majani yinthu jarlag. maybe prox good ‘Maybe this one is good.’ Apart from non-finite subordinate clauses, illustrated below, Jaminjung has a general finite subordinate clause type which can function both as a temporal or conditional adverbial clause and as a relative clause. A pervasive feature of Jaminjung lexicon and grammar, which proves to be highly relevant for the discussion of verb classes and alternations, is a division of the “verbal” lexicon into two distinct parts of speech. This is an areal phenomenon found in a number of unrelated languages in Northern Australia (for overview discussions see e.g. Capell 1979; Dixon 2001; McGregor 2002; Schultze-Berndt 2003). Inflecting verbs (IVs) in Jaminjung are obligatorily marked for person and number of one or two arguments, and for tense, aspect or mood. The morphological structure of IVs is shown in (5). (5) (IMP/IRR-)A/S-(POT-)(P-)Verb_root(-REFL/RECP)(-TAM) Members of the second “verbal” part of speech, variously labeled “coverb”, “preverb”, “verbal particle”, and “uninflecting verb” (UV) in the literature, can be distinguished from IVs by the fact that they cannot take verbal inflections.3 They can also be distinguished from nominals in that they do not co-occur with determiners such as demonstratives. In non-finite subordinate clauses, but not in independent clauses, UVs can function as the main predicate without an IV, with one of a subset of case markers in subordinating function. This is illustrated with the purposive clause in (6). (6) Nga-b-arrga ngiyina babiny-guluwa [yirrgbi-wu]. 1sg.a>3sg.p-pot-approach dist elder.sister-kin2 [talking-dat] ‘I’m going to go up to your older sister there for talking.’ (i.e. for a chat, or an elicitation session)
3 The two labels “Inflecting Verb” and “Uninflecting Verb” should not be taken to suggest that the two parts of speech represent subclasses of a single part of speech “Verb”; they are just chosen for want of a better term, because both classes contain mainly translation equivalents of verbs in Euro-
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UVs form an open class which can be expanded by lexical borrowings. They cover, by and large, the semantic area covered by members of the verb class in European languages. In addition, they also express notions of property (e.g. color) and state, and of spatial configuration (thus corresponding also to adverbs, verbal particles and adpositions in some other languages). Inflecting verbs (IVs), in contrast, form a closed class with only about 30 members (with some variation depending on the dialect affiliation and also the age of individual speakers). The predicate of an independent verbal clause may be an IV on its own, i.e. a simple predicate, or a complex predicate. Since argument structure alternations are achieved by complex predicate formation in Jaminjung, the analysis proposed here for this phenomenon is discussed in more detail in the next subsection.
2.2 Complex predicate formation Not surprisingly given the closed-class nature of IVs, the Jaminjung translation equivalents of most verbs in a language like English are complex predicates, consisting of an IV and a UV. These combinations meet the widely accepted definition (see e.g. Butt 1997: 108) of Complex Predicates as monoclausal constructions (confined to a single intonation unit) where two or more predicative constituents jointly contribute to the argument structure of the clause, share at least one argument, and share values for tense, aspect, modality and polarity. While IV and UV are clearly distinct phonological words, they constitute a close-knit formal unit: they are usually immediately contiguous, with the UV preceding the IV, although the reverse order is also possible. As is also to be expected in the case of a closed class, IVs tend to have generic, schematic meanings, and in fact can be regarded as classificatory (Silverstein 1986; Schultze-Berndt 2000: Ch. 5; McGregor 2002): they specify the general type of event that the complex predicate encodes, irrespective of the more specific semantic relationship between UV and IV, which is variable. Examples (7), (8) and (9) illustrate verbal clauses with simple and complex predicates. The generic verb of caused locative relation ganarrany 4 ‘put’ is illustrated in (7) as a simple predicate and in (8) in a complex predicate encoding a specific type of placement, i.e. covering. The IV ganangu, with a generic meaning of manipulation and contact, can simply be translated as ‘get’ in (7). In (9) it categorizes a specific type of obtaining something through manipulation of an entity, i.e. digging up something. pean languages, and because they both meet the definition of verb as a part of speech that primarily has predicative use (Hengeveld 1992: 58). 4 Since there is no infinitive form of the inflecting verb in Jaminjung and roots are not produced in isolation by speakers, the 3 rd person singular subject (+ 3 rd person singular object for transitive verbs) past perfective form of inflecting verbs (one of the most frequent forms) is used as citation form for IVs throughout this paper.
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(7) Janggagu gan-arra-ny jalig-di gurrany yan-angu. above 3sg.a>3sg.p-put-pst child-erg neg irr:3sg.a>3sg.p-get/handle ‘She put it on top so the child would not get it.’ (8) Nami-ni ngayiny bard-bard nganth-arra-m larriny-ni. 2sg-erg meat rdp-cover 2sg.a>3sg.p-put-prs paperbark-erg/ins ‘You cover the meat with paperbark.’ (9) Gurr yirra-ngu (gugu). dig 1pl.excl.a>3sg.p-get/handle.pst (water) ‘We dug [up water].’ In terms of both their lexical semantics and their argument structure, Jaminjung complex predicates form nuclear junctures (or “merger” constructions, in the terminology of Baker & Harvey (2010)). In line with this and other proposals on the argument structure of complex predicates (see e.g. Butt 1997; Nordlinger 2010), the analysis of Jaminjung complex predicates that will be adopted here is based on the principles of compositionality and unification. The constraints on unification of nuclear (or merger) complex predicates stipulate that neither of the components can introduce a participant that would duplicate a grammatical function already contributed by the other, as would be the case e.g. for two bivalent predicates each taking a different object (attested in serial verb constructions of the core juncture type). Thus, while IV and UV can have different valences, there is a requirement for the complete sets of arguments of the two components to be unified. In addition, the principles of monosemy and monotonicity will be adopted. The principle of monosemy states that polysemy of lexical entries should not be assumed without necessity, while the principle of monotonicity amounts to the assumption that compositional operations do not remove meaning components (Rappaport Hovav & Levin 1998: 103–105; Koontz-Garboden 2008). All of these principles can be illustrated with the simple example in (10). At first glance, based on the English translation of the entire expression, the UV jab in (10a) could be translated as ‘pull’ and assumed to be bivalent. However, as (10b) shows, jab is also compatible with an intransitive motion verb. (10) a. Warnda=biyang jab-jab burra-mila grass=seq rdp-become.detached 3pl.a>3sg.p-get/handle.ipfv (mayi-ni). (man-erg) ‘Then the men used to pull out grass.’ b. Wirra jab ga-ram. hair become.detached 3sg.s-come.prs ‘Her hair is coming out.’
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Rather than assuming a polysemous entry ‘1. pull; 2. come off’, an analysis that respects the principles of monotonicity and monosemy will assign the UV jab a meaning like ‘become detached (of end of long flexible entity rooted at one end, such as grass, hair or feathers)’. The compatibility with an intransitive IV is thus a diagnostic of the monovalent nature of the UV; in addition, intuitively speaking, its semantics of detachment can be unified with the motion semantics of the IV (the details of semantic compatibility requirements for unification need not concern us here). As a consequence, we also need to assume that in (10a) the IV contributes an A argument, while the P argument of the IV is unified with the single (S) argument of the UV. In semantic terms, the unification is possible in this case because the detachment can be construed as a result of the causing manipulating event in what amounts to a causative formation (‘the men handle the grass such that it becomes detached’). Conversely, if a UV cannot be combined with any intransitive IV, we assume that unification fails because the UV is bivalent and requires an agent to be expressed. For example, gurr ‘dig’ in (9) cannot combine with intransitive IVs, which can be taken as evidence that it really corresponds to transitive ‘dig’ rather than, say, ‘be/become exposed, of something in the ground’. The main evidence for the basic valency of UVs is therefore their combinatorial potential with IVs (see also Schultze-Berndt 2007). This is not a trivial point, since UVs do not occur in a full coding frame on their own (only with IVs); thus this combinatorial diagnostic is crucial. A plausible compositional analysis along these lines can be produced for most complex predicates in Jaminjung, given sufficient attention to the semantics of UVs that allow combinations with multiple IVs, and given assumptions about a sufficiently general meaning of most IVs. There are cases, however, where additional, secondary senses of IVs (and occasionally, UVs) have to be assumed because a single general meaning fails to account for all attested combinations. One such case – involving the verb ganimangu with a primary sense of ‘hit’ – is discussed in Section 3.2.2 below. Appendix 2 lists the most frequent IVs in Jaminjung with their primary and any prominent secondary senses. For details on these points, see Schultze-Berndt (2000: Chs. 4, 5). Considering only the valency of complex predicates and their components, the following main patterns are attested: a) Both components are monovalent, resulting in a syntactically intransitive complex predicate like that in (10b) (usually, this will involve a morphologically intransitive IV except for syntactically intransitive uses of morphologically transitive IVs; see Section 3.2 for such mismatches). b) Both components are bivalent, resulting in a syntactically transitive complex predicate like that in (9). c) The UV is monovalent combining with a bivalent IV. In this case the IV can add either the A argument (usually resulting in a causative interpretation, but see Section 5.2.10), or the P argument (see Sections 5.2.6 to 5.2.8).
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d) The UV is bivalent with a monovalent IV. This possibility is only attested for two intransitive IVs, gagba ‘be’ and gajgany ‘go’, which take on a secondary meaning of markers of atelicity. Moreover, the coding frame of the resulting combinations differs from that of typical transitive combinations in terms of both flagging (double absolutive rather than (optional) ergative plus absolutive) and indexing (only A is indexed by the single prefix of the verb). See further Sections 3.2.3 and 5.3. e) The case of ditransitives is somewhat more complex. Ditransitive complex predicates can be formed with one of the two ditransitive IVs ganingarnany ‘give’ or ganiyunggany ‘rob, take away from’ and an UV of any valency (see also Section 5.2.9). Alternatively, in some combinations, the IV ganarrany ‘put, cause to be in a locative relation’ is employed. On its own this verb cannot be used with a ditransitive coding frame (see Section 3.1), but in combination with a trivalent UV like yurrg ‘show’ it can, plausibly due to its inherent locative argument. As a general rule, thus, the valency of the IV includes or equals that of the UV. The semantic effect of a change of IV with the same UV is not restricted to valency change. Rather, different IVs can also be employed to indicate differences in lexical aspect (aktionsart), differences in deictic direction in the case of some predicates of motion, and differences in the types of instrument employed with certain predicates of activity or accomplishment. The choice of IV could even be responsible for more subtle differences in predicate semantics and event structure between the resulting complex predicates, which may or may not affect the valency of the resulting complex predicate. Example (11) illustrates a difference in aktionsart, but not in argument structure, brought about by the choice of one of two different IVs. The UV in this example is wurlurlu ‘enter/go inside, of multiple entities’; the complex predicate formed with gajgany ‘go’ is interpreted as an accomplishment (locomotion preceding the entering), while the equivalent formed with gardbany ‘fall’ is interpreted as an achievement (this IV, despite its gloss, does not entail downward motion). This pattern of combination serves to define a semantically coherent class of UVs of ‘boundary crossing’, since it is available to a number of other UVs expressing either a position or a change of position or location, e.g. walthub ‘be inside’, bagurr ‘be inside an open container’, malang ‘cross, go across’. Again, monosemy and monotonicity are applied in determining the semantics of the UV. For example, unlike its near-equivalent walthub ‘be inside, of single entity’, wurlurlu ‘enter of multiple entities’ is not stative, but dynamic, since it does not allow the combination with the stative intransitive IV gagba ‘be’. Furthermore, since wurlurlu allows the combination with gardbany ‘fall’ in an achievement reading, we can conclude that it is an achievement predicate itself, i.e. it only encodes a change of location. The IV gardbany ‘fall’ thus does not add any semantic component to the complex predicate, it merely serves as IV compatible with the UV in a complex
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predicate expressing achievement. The IV gajgany ‘go’ on the other hand adds the semantic component of locomotion and thus turns the resulting complex predicate into an accomplishment. (11) a. Wurlurlu yurra-ngga intit jarriny-gi. enter(pl) 1pl.incl.s-go.prs tag cave/house-loc ‘Let’s go inside the house, right?’ b. Jarlig wurlurlu burr-irda-m (gurrurrij-gi). child enter(pl) 3pl.s-fall-prs car-loc ‘The children are getting in (the car).’ Of the many alternations involving regular collocational patterns of IVs with the same semantically coherent subsets of UVs we will only consider here those resulting in a change of valency, and of those only the most salient ones (either in terms of productivity or in terms of typological interest). More detail on classes of UVs and a full justification of the classification can be found in Schultze-Berndt (2000: Ch. 6).
3 Valency patterns The lexicalization of inherently predicative parts of speech in two distinct classes raises the question of what should be considered “verbs” for the purposes of a comparative investigation of valency. Coding frames, by definition, can only be established for independent predicates, i.e. either IVs on their own or complex predicates, because only they appear with the full set of argument encoding expressions (both case-marked NPs and indexing morphology). This section and the following Section 4, therefore, describe valency patterns and alternations, respectively, for independent predicates involving IVs. However, as we will see in more detail in Section 5, covert predicate classes based on valency alternations are best investigated for the open lexical class of predicates (UVs), for which alternations are mainly achieved by the choice from a set of IVs of different valency combining with the same UV.
3.1 Default encoding with intransitive, transitive and ditransitive predicates From the point of view of indexing morphology, inflecting verbs (IVs) fall into two non-overlapping classes. Morphologically transitive verbs in their non-reflexive/ reciprocal form occur with a set of person prefixes which always index the most
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agentive argument (A) and in addition the patient-like (P) argument. They represent macro-roles in the sense of Foley & Van Valin’s (1984) Actor and Undergoer, or Dowty’s (1991) Proto-Agent and Proto-Patient. The order of prefixes is usually A followed by P, although in some cases a portmanteau prefix is used. The 3rd person singular object (P) is not overtly expressed except with a 3rd person singular subject. Morphologically intransitive verbs indicate their single argument (S) by a person prefix which in most cells of the paradigm (except 2nd person singular) is identical to the A prefix. Thus, indexing, not unexpectedly, more or less follows a nominative-accusative pattern. Typical transitive and intransitive predicates are shown in (12) and (13), respectively. (12) Gugu=biyang burrb burru-minda-ny jalig-ni. water=seq finish 3pl.a>3sg.p-eat-pst child-erg ‘Then the children finished / drank up all the water.’ (13) Thanthu=biya ngayiny bunburr burr-angga. dem=seq animal many.take.off 3pl.s-go.prs ‘Those animals all take off.’ An additional indexing phenomenon is the indexing of dative, locative and allative arguments or adjuncts by an enclitic oblique (dative) pronoun. This “clitic doubling” is mainly restricted to animate or otherwise prominent referents. (14) Gan-anyjam=nu buru jalig-gu. 3sg>3sg-bring.prs=3sg.dat return child-dat ‘She brings it (food) back for the child.’ Animate participants which are not arguments but presented as affected by the event in any way, though not as goals, recipients or beneficiaries, can be indexed with an absolutive enclitic pronoun; an example is (30). As examples (12) and (13) also show, case marking follows ergative-absolutive alignment (with optional ergativity; see Section 4.1). As a general rule, the case frame used with a particular predicate, whether simple or complex, follows from the morphological transitivity of the IV. That is, a single absolutive argument occurs with intransitive IVs, and an ergative-absolutive case frame (or double absolutive if ergative marking is omitted) can be used with morphologically transitive IVs. In one case, that of the polyfunctional IV ganiyu ‘say/do’, which functions as framing verb with quotations, the quotation takes the position of the absolutive P argument, as illustrated in (25) below. Optionally, the addressee can be represented by a dative-marked NP and/or by the dative pronominal clitic. However, since ad-
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dressees or recipients encoded in this way cannot be formally distinguished from benefactive adjuncts (as in (14)), they are not considered as arguments for the purpose of this paper. Further divergences from the ergative-absolutive case frame with morphologically transitive IVs, i.e. mismatches between the case frame and the index frame, will be discussed in Section 3.2. Ditransitive predicates involve morphologically transitive IVs but license an additional absolutive argument, i.e. they take two absolutive objects corresponding to the theme-like (T) and the recipient-like (R) participant. Indexing typically follows a “secondary object” (Dryer 1986) or “secundative” alignment (Haspelmath 2005; Malchukov et al. 2010), that is, the recipient-like participant (R) rather than the theme-like participant (T) is indexed by the P prefix of the inflecting verb (exceptions are discussed in Section 4.2). An example of a ditransitive predicate is the complex verb burlug ganingarnany ‘give to drink’, illustrated in (15) with its two absolutive objects. (15) Ngayug=biya ti=binji ba-wun-ngarna burlug. 1sg=seq tea=only imp-2du.a>1sg.p-give drink ‘Me, give me only tea to drink, you two.’ Reflexive-reciprocal forms are productively formed from morphologically transitive IVs which consequently become morphologically and syntactically intransitive, i.e. they take the intransitive person prefix, and the A=P is encoded by an absolutive noun phrase (see Section 5.1).
3.2 Divergent encoding frames While generally (with the exception of ditransitive predicates) the morphological transitivity of a given IV corresponds to the syntactic transitivity in a clause involving this IV as simple predicate or part of a complex predicate, some mismatches do occur; these are the topic of this section. Where the mismatches concern the valency contribution of UVs and IVs within complex predicates this will be discussed in more detail in Section 5.2.
3.2.1 Ergative marking with intransitive indexing morphology The first mismatch concerns one of the five morphologically intransitive IVs, garna ‘burn, be affected by heat’. As example (16) shows, the heat source can be encoded by an NP marked with ergative/instrumental case which is not indexed on the verb. (16) Ya-nj-irna buna-ni! irr-2sg.s-burn ashes-erg/ins ‘The hot ashes might burn you!’ / ‘You might get burnt by the hot ashes!’
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This IV has a transitive counterpart, ganirriga ‘cook, burn’, which in contrast to garna ‘burn’ usually takes an animate agent, although the sun is also attested as agent with this verb. It is argued in Schultze-Berndt (2000: 167, 175–177) that the ergative/instrumental case encodes the role of ‘effector’ in the sense of Van Valin and Wilkins (1996), subsuming instruments, natural forces, and agents, while the A prefix on transitive verbs encodes the ‘ultimate cause’ or ‘first cause’ of an event (see e.g. DeLancey 1991; Van Valin & LaPolla 1997: 146). Thus, the situation of a fire as an effector, as in (16), does not warrant the encoding as ultimate cause, and therefore does not license the use of a transitive verb with its A prefix.
3.2.2 Intransitive syntax with transitive indexing morphology Other mismatches are related to the fact that IVs can take on secondary meanings or become semantically “bleached” in some types of complex predicate (see also Section 5.2). For example, the morphologically transitive IV ganimangu ‘hit’ occurs in syntactically intransitive complex predicates encoding a type of appearance or emerging, as illustrated in (17). In these cases, the P prefix of the IV invariably takes the third person singular form, and no object noun phrase is possible. (17) Julag=biyang bul gani-mangu=nu. bird=seq emerge 3sg.a(>3sg.p)-hit.pst=3sg.dat ‘A bird then appeared on/for him.’ Similarly, the multifunctional verb ganiyu ‘say/do’ forms syntactically intransitive complex predicates with some UVs of manner of motion as in (18). (18) Jalig=biyang yugung gani-yu. child=seq run 3sg.a(>3sg.p)-say/do.pst ‘The child ran off.’ This IV is used more generally as a verb indicating internal causation and thus also combines with UVs of internal motion, emotional condition, and internally caused change of state. Even in its other uses it has to be regarded as less than fully transitive (in a behavioral sense), since it does not allow reflexive/reciprocal marking.
3.2.3 Transitive syntax with intransitive indexing morphology in activity expressions The final type of mismatch between morphological and syntactic transitivity to be discussed here is the converse of the former: semantically transitive complex
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predicates are formed with the morphologically intransitive verbs gagba ‘be’ or gajgany ‘go’ in their secondary function of marking atelicity, as in (19) (see also Section 5.2 and Schultze-Berndt 2012). gugu. (19) En janyungbari burlug-mayan ga-yu and another(abs) drink-iter 3sg.s-be.prs water(abs) ‘And the other one (animal) is drinking water.’ Such complex predicates often, but not always, have an alternant with a morphologically transitive IV; these are discussed further in Section 5.3. Unlike with true transitive complex predicates, however, the A in complex predicates formed with these two intransitive verbs is never ergative-marked, i.e. these predicates only occur with a double absolutive frame.
3.2.4 External possessor constructions Jaminjung exhibits the phenomenon of external possession with body parts, that is, if a body part is involved as the single participant or the patient of an event, the possessor is the core argument in terms of indexing morphology, and the body part itself is added as an additional absolutive argument, as shown in (20). (20) Ngamayag-di gan-birri-m burru. diarrhoea-erg 3sg.a>1sg.p-bite-prs belly ‘My belly hurts because of diarrhoea.’ (Lit. ‘Diarrhoea is biting me (with respect to the) belly.’) While this phenomenon also results in an impression of mismatch between morphological transitivity and the number of syntactic arguments, it is not considered an alternation here, because it is licensed exclusively by the relationship between one of the core arguments and an inalienable part, and is unrelated to the valency of the predicates involved.
4 Uncoded Alternations Jaminjung exhibits few types of uncoded alternations, i.e. alternations manifested only in the choice of argument marking. One type concerns different options of marking agents as ergative, absolutive (zero-marking), or ablative (Section 4.1). Another type is a marginal alternation in the encoding of theme and recipient of ditransitive predicates (Section 4.2). A further type of alternation, a choice between alla-
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tive-marked and locative-marked goals with certain predicates subcategorizing for a Location, can also be analyzed as an uncoded alternation, but it is not further considered here because it involves an oblique argument rather than a core argument. Since noun phrase arguments can generally be omitted when their referents can be retrieved from discourse, there are no grounds for identifying any “omission” alternation of the type eat X vs. eat. However, the telicity alternation (Section 5.3) – marked by the use of either gagba ‘be’ or gajgany ‘go’ employed as markers of atelicity – often applies in cases of events such as ‘eating’ that can be viewed either as activities with unspecified objects or as achievements with a totally affected object.
4.1 Alternations involving agent marking In Jaminjung, there is a three-way alternation in agent marking with syntactically transitive (and ditransitive) predicates: since the language exhibits optional ergativity, agents can be ergative-marked or unmarked (i.e. in the absolutive case). Moreover, the ablative case also functions as an agent marker in certain cases. Both possibilities are discussed here in turn. Optional ergativity is a phenomenon now widely attested in the languages of the world, including Australian languages (for an overview, see McGregor 2010). Unlike in split ergative systems, there is no clear grammatical factor responsible for the absence or presence of ergative marking, although the factors identified for split systems also account for some of the alternations observed (details remain to be worked out in further research). The factor most relevant for the purposes of this paper is verb class, with less “effective” verbs in the sense of Tsunoda (1981) less likely to appear with ergative-marked NPs. In a frequency count based on a small subset of the corpus (Schultze-Berndt 2006), it was found that overall approximately 30 % of overt A noun phrases are not marked for ergative. However, the inflecting verb ganiyu ‘say/do’ used as a speech framing verb (i.e. followed by a quotation) was much more frequently used without than with ergative marking, whereas simple or complex predicates encoding a type of contact and impact (e.g. ‘bite’, ‘hit’, ‘poke/spear’) almost always occurred with ergative-marked agents. With the verb ganamaya ‘have’, a distinction can be observed between uncontrolled possession (basically a part-whole relationship) which is usually expressed without ergative marking, and controlled holding or handling, usually with ergative marking, as illustrated in (21) and (22). (21) Jabarlng mawiya gana-ma-ya. frog poison 3sg.a>3sg.p-have-prs ‘The frog has poison.’ (generic; referring to cane toads) (22) Jalig wuju-ni gana-ma-ya warrag. child small-erg 3sg.a>3sg.p-have-prs catfish ‘The little child has/is holding a catfish.’
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Absence of ergative marking can also be related to the animacy of A (pronominal Agents, in particular, are less likely to be ergative-marked). Moreover, focal rather than topical Agents tend to be ergative-marked, and other discourse-pragmatic factors come into play as well, in that absence of ergative-marking can be employed by speakers to downplay the agentivity of A or the effect of an event, in a similar way to that identified for Gooniyandi by McGregor (1992, 1998). This is illustrated in (23) and (24). The absence vs. presence of ergative marking with predicates using the same IV in the two examples is most likely explained with the difference in impact between a pet frog leaving its ‘owner’ (23) and a mother leaving her child (24). (23) Malara=biya dibard ganuny-ngunga-m, ba-ngawu. frog=seq jump 3sg.a>3du.p-leave-prs imp-see ‘The frog now is leaving the two jumping away, look.’ (from a Frog Story) (24) Majani gujarding-ni waj gan-unga-m. maybe mother-erg leave.behind 3sg.a>3sg.p-leave-prs ‘Maybe the mother leaves her (a child).’ A second complicating factor regarding the marking of Agents in Jaminjung is the existence of a second ergative case, formally identical to the ablative case. This ablative marking of As is very infrequent and is mainly used to indicate unexpected or contrastive agents, similar to the focal ergative marker in Warrwa (McGregor 2006). A good example of unexpectedness, from a narrative, is the case of a kangaroo which starts to speak to the men hunting it, in (25). (25) “Nanggayan guny-bi-yarluga?” gani-yu=bunyag, who 2du.a>3sg.p-pot-poke 3sg.a>3sg.p-say/do.pst=3du.dat yangarra-ngunyi=marlang. kangaroo-abl=given ‘“Who do you want to spear?” it said to the two, the kangaroo did.’
4.2 Alternations involving ditransitive predicates The clearest case of an uncoded alternation, though marginal in terms of its frequency, is the indexing of either the recipient or the theme of ditransitive predicates on the verb. This phenomenon is discussed in more detail in Schultze-Berndt (2010) and only briefly outlined here. Ditransitive inflecting verbs like ganingarnany ‘give’ as well as certain complex predicates are syntactically ditransitive in that they allow for two absolutive objects (see Section 3.1). However, the inflecting verbs occurring in these expressions are morphologically transitive in that they take the A > P prefix. Therefore, only one
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of the objects can be indexed on the verb. Usually, the Recipient of ditransitive predicates is the primary object in terms of indexing, as shown in (26). Only in the rare case of animate themes (e.g. in the context of ‘giving’ in marriage, or conversely, robbing someone of a spouse, as in (27)) or otherwise highly salient themes (e.g. traditional country as in (29)) the theme may be indexed instead. Due to the scarcity of examples it is not clear whether a lexically encoded recipient takes dative or absolutive case, though the dative form of an enclitic person index is attested (29). (26) Majani bun-bu-ngarna buru ngayiny, majani gara. maybe 3pl.a>1sg.p-pot-give return meat maybe nothing ‘Maybe they are going to give me back some meat, maybe not.’ (27) Gurrany ganu-buny-ngarna-nyi nuwina jarlig. neg 3sg.a-pot:3du.p-give-ipfv 3sg:poss child ‘He wouldn’t give (him) the two, his children.’ (It is clear from the context that a potential father-in-law refuses to give his two daughters to a specific man; in isolation this sentence could also mean ‘he wouldn’t give the two (men) his child’.) Examples (28) and (29) show the ditransitive alternation with a complex predicate, yurrg ganarrany ‘show’. (28) Yurrg gan-garra-ny ngayug. show 3sg.a>1sg.p-put-pst 1sg ‘She showed (it) to me.’ (Lit. ‘She showed me’; referring to yam root) (29) Yurrg nga-rra-m=ngunggu yagbali Ngaliwurru. show 1sg.a>3sg.p-put-prs=2sg.dat place Ngaliwurru ‘I’m showing you the Ngaliwurru country.’
5 Verb-coded alternations (voice alternations and valency change) As already indicated above, the division of predicative lexical items into two distinct parts of speech – inflecting verbs (IVs) and uninflecting verbs (UVs) or coverbs – has important ramifications for the grammar, and in particular for the argument structure, of Jaminjung. As we have already seen in Section 4, uncoded alternations only play a marginal role in this language. Verb-class sensitive alternations mainly manifest themselves in the choice of different inflecting verbs with the same UV, to be discussed in Section 5.2. Other valency-changing inflectional markers (e.g. passive or antipassive) or derivational mechanisms (e.g. causative, applicative, middle forms) are completely absent from the grammar of Jaminjung. The
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only case of an alternation which is morphologically encoded on the inflecting verb is the reflexive-reciprocal alternation, discussed in Section 5.1.
5.1 Reflexive-reciprocal marking with transitive verb roots All morphologically transitive IVs except for ganiyu ‘say/do’ (see also Section 3.2.2) can take a suffix ‑ji ~ ‑ja which encodes both the reflexive and reciprocal function in the narrow sense. That is, its use is restricted to agents acting upon themselves, or multiple agents acting upon each other. It thus has no additional functions such as middle, inchoative, or collective marking. In complex predicates, the productivity of reflexive/reciprocal marking is only constrained by considerations of semantic compatibility. Formally, reflexive/reciprocal marking results in both morphological and syntactic intransitivity of the IV, i.e. the verb takes the intransitive paradigm of indexing prefixes, and a single absolutive argument corresponding to both A and P of the underived verb. The reflexive interpretation is illustrated in (30) (see (8) for the underived counterpart); an example in reciprocal interpretation is (31) (compare this with (32e)). (30) Bard-bard ga-rra-ja=burrinyi, bagarli-ni. rdp-cover 3sg.s-put-refl.pst=3du paperbark-erg/ins ‘He covered himself with paperbark (to hide from, with negative effect) on the two.’ (Referring to a (mythical) man going into hiding to be able to surprise and assault two women.) (31) Marlayi gurdurru-ni burru-ma-ja. woman fighting.stick-erg/ins 3pl.s-hit-refl.pst ‘The women fought (lit. ‘hit each other’) with fighting sticks.’
5.2 Alternations by change of inflecting verb In this section, we will consider verb-class sensitive alternations which operate at the level of the complex predicate, but identify semantically based predicate classes for uninflecting Verbs (UVs), i.e. for the open-class predicative lexemes. This is because the alternations are brought about by the opposition of different inflecting verbs (IVs) with the same UV; they are thus unavailable to IVs themselves.5 This 5 Inflecting verbs may have formally unrelated (or only diachronically related) lexical alternants (comparable to the causative-inchoative pair kill-die in English). These can either be other inflecting verbs (e.g. ganirriga ‘cook, affect something by heat’ vs. garna ‘burn, be affected by heat’) or else complex predicates, usually creating a telicity opposition similar to the UV-based telicity alternation
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type of alternation is treated here as “coded alternation” since it is marked – albeit not by morphological means – within the complex predicate. There is no “basic” alternant in the sense that it has no coding – the alternants are simply coded differently, by the choice of a different IV, and are thus in an equipollent relationship to one another. The argument structure of complex predicates, including constraints on argument merger and diagnostics for the basic valency of UVs, was discussed in Section 2.2. The first main set of alternations to be discussed below (Sections 5.2.1 to 5.2.5) exhibits a causative-inchoative(-stative) pattern, i.e. S = P (in the sense that an intransitive complex predicate corresponds to a transitive one where the S argument of the former corresponds to the P argument of the latter). The second set (Sections 5.2.6 to 5.2.8) exhibits a non-causative transitivity alternation pattern (S = A). The remaining sections (5.2.9 to 5.2.11) are devoted to various other alternations.
5.2.1 Causative-inchoative alternation with predicates of externally caused change of state (S = P) One of the most productive alternations is the equivalent of the causative-inchoative alternation, restricted to externally caused change of state predicates – in the sense of Levin & Rappaport Hovav (1995) – such as bag ‘break’. Formally, UVs of externally caused change of state are defined by the property, unique to members of this class, of forming inchoative complex predicates with the intransitive verb gajgany ‘go’ in a secondary sense of ‘state change’, but not with other locomotion verbs. Interestingly, all UVs that meet this formal criterion encode a change of state which leads to some kind of abnormal result state, usually irreversible and undesirable, i.e. destruction or destabilization. With these UVs, a causing event can be specified; this can be encoded by an intransitive IV (e.g. gardbany ‘fall’ to express a change of state arising from contact with a location, or garna ‘burn’ to express change of state resulting from heat), or, in the transitive causative alternants, by one of several transitive IVs expressing contact and force with different types of instruments or trajectories of impact. The full range of possibilities is illustrated in (32) for bag ‘break’. (32) a. A:, bag ga-jga-ny=ni bottle. ah break 3sg.s-go-pst=ds bottle ‘Ah, the bottle broke.’ (Frog Story) b. Miri bag buny-b-irdbaj. upper.leg break 3du.s-pot-fall ‘The two are going to fall so that they break a leg.’ described in Section 5.3. An example is the pair ganimindany ‘eat’ (transitive IV) vs. thawaya gagba ‘be eating’ (involving the intransitive IV ‘be’ used with a general meaning of atelicity).
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c. Wurlug=gung ga-rna-ya bag. alone=restr 3sg.s-burn-prs break ‘It breaks by itself through burning.’ (log in fire) d. Nawij bag burr-angga-m. neck break 3pl.a>3sg.p-get/handle-prs ‘They break its neck (by strangling it).’ (bird) e. Miri bag burra-ma-nyi gurrubardu-ni. upper.leg break 3pl.a>3sg.p-hit-ipfv boomerang-erg/ins ‘They used to break their legs with a boomerang.’ (kangaroo) f. Majani bag yanth-ina thanthu mali. maybe break irr:2sg.a>3sg.p-chop dem thing ‘(Don’t throw a stone), you might break (with the edge of an instrument) that thing (tape recorder).’ g. Nga-w-inama bag, bijjingman. 1sg.a>3sg.p-pot-kick/step.ipfv break moist ‘I wanted to break it with my foot, (but it was still) fresh (and therefore too strong).’ (firewood) h. Jurruny-ni bag gan-ijja-ny. hand-erg/ins break 3sg.a>3sg.p-poke-pst ‘He broke it by poking with his finger.’ i. Bag gan-ardgiya-ny langiny-bina. break 3sg.a>3sg.p-throw-pst wood-all ‘She broke it by hitting it against another branch.’ (firewood) j.
Bag gan-uga barrigi. break 3sg.a>3sg.p-take.pst fence ‘It (the bull) broke (out of) the fence.’ (at a rodeo)
k. Guyuwarn bag nga-rra-ji. bone break 1sg.s-put-refl ‘I broke a bone.’ UVs of externally caused state change such as bag are analyzed here as monovalent and telic – the former, because they may occur with intransitive UVs, the latter, because they cannot combine with the stative IV gagba ‘be’ (see Section 2.2). Thus, bag means ‘break (intr.)’, not ‘be in a broken state’. From this it follows that the causative alternants are ‘derived’, in comparison with the inchoative alternants, in that the second argument in the causative alternants is added by the IV, and not inherent to the UV. Some of those monovalent UVs of externally caused state change showing the same pattern of alternations as bag ‘break’ are listed in
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Tab. 1: Monovalent Uninflecting Verbs (UVs) of externally caused change of state. bag garl ning lag bily gad jibug lum jinku digirrij burrb
break (into pieces) [25] break [25] 1. break (in two parts), break off [25] 2. stop, finish, die [26, 61] split, crack burst open, bust cut, get cut [30] get a hole swell up go down (e.g. swelling, fire) 1. die [26, 61] 2. really suffer, get badly severed finish, run out
Table 1. (Here and in the following tables, numbers in square brackets refer to the list of verb meanings in the valency database).
5.2.2 Causative-inchoative alternation patterns with predicates of change of location and path of motion (S = P) In contrast to “pure” change of state predicates (discussed in Section 5.2.1), UVs of change of location and motion are compatible with IVs of locomotion (i.e. both gajgany ‘go’ and garumany ‘come’), as well as with gardbany ‘fall’, in the inchoative alternant. The causative alternants are mainly formed with the transitive IVs ganangu ‘get, handle, manipulate’, expressing removal from a location, and ganarrany ‘put’ expressing placement in a location (this latter IV semantically entails that an endpoint is reached). UVs in this class may also occur with IVs encoding a manner and trajectory of impact, depending on the specific semantics of the UV. One of the subclasses undergoing this type of alternation consists of predicates of severance, listed in Table 2 and illustrated with jab ‘detach attached point of long flexible entity e.g. feather, hair or grass; shave’ in (10) above.
Tab. 2: Monovalent UVs of severance. larara bawu gub jab dirawu
separate, go separate ways (of multiple animates) open up, go into the open, get out come out, come off (general) [32] get detached, of long entity attached with its end point (e.g. hair, grass); with transitive reflexive IV: ‘shave’ [14] peel off [33]
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UVs of path and direction of motion, likewise, form their inchoative alternant with any intransitive verb of motion, and their causative alternant (mostly) with ganarrany ‘put’. The alternation is illustrated in (33) with burduj ‘move upwards’; a representative list of UVs from this class can be found in Table 3. (33) a. Burduj ga-jga-ny langiny-bina jayiny ngarrgina. go.up 3sg.s-go-pst tree-all DaCh 1sg:poss ‘My grandchild climbed up a tree.’ b. (Jalig-di) burduj gan-arra-m thanthu C. child-erg go.up 3sg.a>3sg.p-put-prs dem name ‘(The child) is lifting that C up (into the car).’
Tab. 3: Monovalent UVs of path / direction of motion. burduj jid, jag buru walig yirrbag wurlurlu
climb up, move upwards [48] move downwards return, go back move in a circle-shaped path, move around move over, shift place enter (of multiple participants)
Finally, UVs of ballistic motion (listed in Table 4) mainly form their inchoative alternant with gardbany ‘fall’ and their causative alternant with ganardgiyany ‘throw’ or ganiyu ‘say/do’, but sometimes also with other transitive verbs. For example, the UV lawu ‘spill, pour’ in combination with ganiyu ‘say/do’ simply expresses caused dispersal of a liquid, but in combination with ganarrany ‘put’ encodes a goal-oriented transfer, i.e. the pouring of a substance into a container.
Tab. 4: Monovalent UVs of ballistic motion. didid diny jarndang buwu dulb burrurrug lawu
roll [65] lie down, fall over get down enter water fall of multiple entities (e.g. of dust, leaves) scatter, get scattered spill, pour [42]
(34) a. Lawu ga-rda-m gugu. spill/pour 3sg.s-fall-prs water ‘The water pours/spills.’
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b. Lawu gani-yu ngabulu janju-ni jalig-ni. spill/pour 3sg.a>3sg.p-say/do.pst milk dem-erg child-erg ‘The child spilled the milk.’ c. (Nalija) lawu nga-w-arra=gunyag, birrigud-gi. [tea] spill/pour 1sg.a>3sg.p-pot-put=2du.dat tin-loc ‘I will pour it [the tea] for you two, in the tin.’
5.2.3 Causative-inchoative alternation with predicates of application of heat (S = P) A good illustration of how the encoding of valency alternations in Jaminjung is dependent on the specific semantics of IVs comes from a class of monovalent predicates encoding conventionalized, culture-specific ways of applying heat. This includes not only manners of cooking, but also drying, applying heat or smoke for medicinal purposes and ritual cleansing, and the (usually deliberate) lighting of bush fires. For example, the UV murl ‘heat with hot ground or stones’ can describe both roasting of food with hot stones in a ground oven, and heating parts of the human body by means of hot ground for medicinal purposes. None of these UVs entails that a state of change results from the application of heat (e.g. consumption by fire), although a number of them may convey, by implicature, the interpretation that the cooked, edible state of food is reached. UVs from this class – listed in Table 5 – combine with the IV garna ‘burn’ as well as with one of a number of transitive verbs. Usually, this is ganirriga ‘cook’, the transitive equivalent of garna ‘burn’ (see also Section 3.2.1). Both verbs are illustrated in (35) with the coverb bum ‘apply smoke’; in addition, a second transitive IV ganima ‘hit’ in its secondary sense of ‘totally affect’ is shown in combination with the same UV. (35) a. Julany-ni bum burr-irna. smoke-erg/ins apply.smoke 3sg.s-burn.pst ‘They cleaned themselves with smoke.’ (cleansing ceremony after the death of a relative) b. Bum burru-rriga burrb gurrurrij. apply.smoke 3pl.a>3sg.p-cook.pst finish car ‘They finished smoking the car.’ (cleansing ceremony) c. Bum yirri-ma motika, bula. apply.smoke 1pl.excl.a>3sg.p-hit.pst car track ‘We smoked the car, the traces (of the deceased).’
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Tab. 5: Monovalent UVs of application of heat. murl bud bum marl gumarl
‘roast’, heat by means of hot ground or stones, usually in ground oven [79, 80] cook on coals or in hot ashes apply smoke (e.g. in ritual cleansing), surround with smoke apply s.th. hot (e.g. stones for cooking, or hot bandage) burn (of country), burn as a bushfire
5.2.4 Causative-inchoative alternation with predicates of internal causation (S = P) In Jaminjung, predicates of internal causation have the characteristic property of being formed with the IV ganiyu ‘say, do’ in a monovalent reading (see Section 3.2.2). This category includes predicates of sound emission, speech act, internal motion, and bodily or emotional condition, as well as predicates of internally caused state change such as luba ganiyu ‘grow’, lit. ‘become big’. Most of the UVs involved do not undergo any valency alternations, but some of them (listed in Table 6), notably those of bodily or emotional condition, occur in causative complex predicates formed either with the IV ganangu ‘get, handle’ in a reading of nonphysical manipulation, as in (36), or with the IV ganilinymany ‘make’ which otherwise is rarely used as a causative verb. (36) a. Ngayug=gayi bujarl nga-yunggu-m, Nangari-wu. 1sg=also sad/sorry 1sg.a(>3sg.p)-say/do-prs subs.name-dat ‘I too am worried for/sad about Nangari.’ b. Bujarl guny-ngangga-m. sad/sorry 2du.a>3sg.p-get/handle-prs ‘You two make her sad.’ Tab. 6: UVs of internal causation which occur in a causative-inchoative alternation. bujarl wangarr birdinyiny jili
be(come)/make someone sad, sorry [63] be(come)/make someone mad, silly, out of one’s mind rotate, spin, turn round and round (intr./tr.) stir, move (intr.), wake someone up (tr.)
5.2.5 Causative-inchoative-stative alternation with predicates of spatial configuration (S = P) A very productive pattern of alternations is found with monovalent stative UVs expressing a position, posture, location, or configuration. These regularly occur with four IVs: gagba ‘be’ (stative intransitive alternant), ganimuwa ‘have’ (stative
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transitive alternant), gardbany ‘fall, change locative relation’ (inchoative alternant, not entailing downward motion), and ganarrany ‘put, cause to change locative relation’ (causative alternant). The pattern is illustrated in (37) for the UV nang ‘be in a sticking position, adhere’. (37) a. Nang ga-yu larriny-gi. stick 3sg.s-be.prs paperbark-loc ‘It is sticking on the paper.’ (stamp) b. Nang-nang=biya burr-irda-m=nu. rdp-stick=seq 3pl.s-fall-prs=3sg.dat ‘They (ants) get stuck on it then.’ (on echidna tongue) c. Nang burr-arra-m. stick 3pl.a>3sg.p-put-prs ‘They stick it on.’ (stamp) d. Nang gana-ma-ya jurruny-gi. stick 3sg.a>3sg.p-have-prs hand-loc ‘He has it stuck in his hand.’ (a lolly) UVs of spatial configuration undergoing the above alternation form a large set, due to the propensity of Jaminjung to lexically encode specific types of configurations. The most frequent monovalent UVs of spatial configuration are listed in Table 7. Bivalent UVs of spatial configuration such as warrgi ‘hold in front’ also undergo an alternation between caused state and causative inchoative, which however does not affect the valency of the resulting complex predicates.
Tab. 7: UVs of spatial configuration. waga jalu jardarda mugurn lula yirrb ngamang balbba darl yarr mundalung warrb murruny linkid bilwa
sit, stay in a place [50, 51] squat, crouch, sit on haunches kneel, sit/stand on knees lie, sleep lie (multiple entities) be together, gather around s. o./s.th. ride, be astride, sit on s. o.’s back or shoulders be side by side, be flat on something, be close together (of two entities) lined up, be in a line side by side (of multiple entities) be in one line side by side back to front, head to toe be together heaped up, in a heap sidewards, on the side belly up, on the back
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mun walthub bagurr jardi bardbard thawu gurdij bayirr thuward ngardurdug dibird nang narrng bardag thabba
belly down, upside down, bent over be inside, enclosed be in a flat container with open top (e.g. nest) be full (in a container), be filling out a container be covered with a layer (e.g. leaves, clothes) be immersed in a liquid, soak stand (still) be on top of s.th., be supported lie across, be stretched out across folded (also of clothes), collapsed, crossed (of arms, legs), curled up be wound around s.th., be tied up, be entangled [40] stick, adhere to a surface be stuck on/in s.th. joint, be in tight fit be pierced with s.th. such that it protrudes
5.2.6 Transitivity alternation with stative UVs (S = A) A number of stative UVs participate in a transitivity alternation with non-causative semantics where the S in the intransitive alternant corresponds to the A in the transitive alternant. The UV malangayij ‘hear, listen’ is of this type. A class of UVs of direction of gaze, listed in Table 8, also exhibits this alternation. With these UVs, the intransitive alternant is formed with the IV gagba ‘be’ and a transitive alternant with ganingawu ‘see’. The most frequent and semantically general member of this set is mung ‘look at, watch’, illustrated in (38). In (38a), it is combined with a second, more specific member of this class, mirrang ‘look up’.
Tab. 8: UVs of direction of gaze. mung mirrang wib ngayirr riyi wiyama
look at s.th., watch [3, 4] look up look back over one’s shoulder peep in/out, look into/out of a location be alert, look out from somewhere look out at night (e.g. of owl)
(38) a. Wirib mirrang mung ga-yu, ba-ngawu! dog look.up look.at 3sg.s-be.prs imp-see ‘The dog is looking (at something) looking up, look!’ (Frog Story, dog looking at beehive) b. S.-ni =biya mung ganurra-ngayi-na=ngarndi -erg=seq look.at 3sg.a>3pl.p-see-ipfv=evid
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(yalumburrma). saltwater.crocodile ‘S. then was watching the saltwater crocodiles.’ (eating cattle)
5.2.7 Transitivity alternation with UVs of motion (S = A) Another well-defined class of UVs participating in a transitivity alternation with non-causative semantics involves UVs of manner or direction (path) of motion, listed in Tables 9 and 10. These may all occur with both intransitive and transitive IVs of locomotion, characterizing the manner/direction of motion of S or A, respectively, as illustrated in (39) for yugung ‘run’. Note that some UVs of direction of motion (but not UVs of manner of motion) also participate in a causative/inchoative alternation (see Section 5.2.2). (39) a. Jayiny ngarrgina yugung ga-ram. daughter’s.child 1sg:poss run 3sg.s-come.prs ‘My grandchild comes running.’ b. Jarlig-di=malang yugung gan-anja=nu (...) child-erg=given run 3sg.a>3sg.p-take.prs=3sg.dat ‘The child takes it (food) for her, running.’ (... and gives it to the grandmother) c. Yugung gan-jib-unga-nyi, (...) run 3sg.a>1sg.p-pot-leave-ipfv ‘He was going to run away from me (but I held him back).’ (Lit. ‘he was going to leave me running’) Tab. 9: UVs of manner of motion. warlnginy, galu(wirrb) warrng yugung yawal burdurdub dibard mingib ngarrang digurrgba jaburrb liwu, lilaj rayib lalama
walk, be on foot, walk around move by moving legs or wings, walk, fly run, race, speed [49] run (of multiple animates) race, rush, gallop jump [52] crawl stagger limp wade swim sneak rustle
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Tab. 10: UVs of path and direction of motion. burduj jid, jag buru yirrbag malang wurlurlu jarubaj laginy marraj walig jurdug buyi
climb up, move upwards [48] move downwards return, go back move over, shift place go across, cross enter (of multiple participants) go back and forth take a turnoff go past (point), go through (volume) go round, around (in circle- or semi-circle-shaped path) go in a straight path continue, keep going in same direction
5.2.8 Transitivity alternation with UVs of activity (S = A) A small class of UVs encoding an activity (see also Section 5.4) also participate in a transitivity alternation with non-causative semantics. In this case the transitive alternant invariably expresses the affectedness of a second participant by the activity. Inflecting verbs used in this context tend to be restricted to ganima ‘hit’ in a secondary sense of ‘affect completely’ and ganingawu ‘see’ in a secondary sense of ‘direct aggression at someone’. The examples in (40) and (41) illustrate the alternation for the UVs ngarlma ‘be barking’ and gambaja ‘be laughing’ (#57 in the verb list). (40) a. Ngarlma=biyang ga-yu wirib. barking=seq 3sg.S-be.prs dog ‘It is barking now, the dog.’ b. Wirib-di ngarlma gani-ngayi-m marlajagu. dog-erg barking 3sg.a>3sg.p-see-prs goanna ‘The dog is barking at the goanna.’ (41) a. Mayi gambaja ga-yu. man laugh 3sg.s-be.prs ‘The man is laughing.’ b. Mayi-ni gambaja gani-ma (janyungbari). man laugh 3sg.a>3sg.p-hit.pst another ‘The man is laughing at another one.’
5.2.9 Transitive-ditransitive (locative-recipient) alternation (L = R) While some trivalent UVs only occur in complex predicates with a ditransitive coding frame (see Section 3.1), a small class of UVs participate in an alternation between a transitive coding frame (with a dative noun phrase encoding a recipient,
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addressee or beneficiary) and a ditransitive coding frame where this recipient, addressee or beneficiary is promoted to primary object role in terms of indexing on the verb, and is encoded by an absolutive noun phrase (see also Schultze-Berndt 2010). This alternation occurs with UVs semantically selecting for a locative argument, which in the transitive alternant is flagged by one of the spatial cases. In the ditransitive alternant the location is equated with the recipient and is encoded as R, indexed on the verb and corresponding to an absolutive object. Consider the case of lawu ‘pour, spill’, already illustrated in (34) (Section 5.2.2) above. In (42), this UV is combined with the IV of spatial transfer, ganarrany ‘put’. In this case, the recipient/beneficiary is expressed by a dative noun phrase and a dative pronominal clitic; in addition, a spatial goal is specified by a locative-marked NP. The ditransitive alternant is formed with the IV ganingarna ‘give’; in this case the R participant is indexed by a verbal object prefix rather than an enclitic. Consequently, the overall event is construed as one of transfer of possession rather than as mere spatial transfer; a location is not specified separately. Apart from lawu ‘spill, pour’ (#42 in the verb list), wurlmaj ‘splash with water’ also occurs in this alternation. (42) a. (Nalija) lawu nga-w-arra=gunyag birrigud-gi. tea pour/spill 1sg.a>3sg.p-pot-put=2du.dat tin-loc ‘I will pour (tea) for you two, in(to) the tin.’ b. (Nalija) nga-buny-ngarna=biya na: lawu. tea 1sg.a>pot:2du.p-give=seq now pour/spill ‘I will pour you two (tea).’ A second example is the alternating use of the syntactically transitive IV ganangu ‘get/handle’ and the syntactically ditransitive IV ganiyunggany ‘rob, take away from’ with the UV bunug ‘steal’ (#76), illustrated in (43). The first expression is used when T (the stolen entity) is not removed from a position of direct contact with R. If T is physically taken away from R, on the other hand, the ditransitive alternant is used. (43) a. Chukchuk=biya thanthu bunug gan-angu chicken=seq dem steal 3sg.a>3sg.p-get/handle.pst warnang-ngunyi=warra. where-abl=ignorative ‘She stole that chicken from I don’t know where.’ (commenting on a film) b. Majani bunug bun-jungga-ny. maybe steal 3du.a>1sg.p-take.away-pst ‘Maybe they robbed me.’ (of a bank card, the implication being that it was near the body of the speaker when stolen)
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5.2.10 Ambitransitive alternation (S = P) In this alternation, the same UV is used both with an intransitive verb and a transitive verb, and S in the intransitive version corresponds to P in the transitive version; however, the semantics is not causative/inchoative. This alternation is marginal in terms of the UVs involved. It is illustrated here for ngabuj ‘smell’ (#5). (44) a. Ngabuj ga-yu guyug. smell 3sg.s-be.prs fire ‘The fire smells.’ b. Wirib-ni ngabuj ganuny-ngangu. dog-erg smell 3sg.a>3du.p-get/handle.pst ‘The dog smelled the two.’
5.2.11 Locative-object (applicative) alternation (L = P) This alternation is attested for two UVs, the path UV walig ‘move in a circle-shaped path, move around’, and the positional dibird ‘be wound/tied around something’ (#40), the latter illustrated in (45). Both UVs have in common that they semantically select for a location as well as a theme participant, and that, depending on the situation, the location can simultaneously be conceived of as a patient affected by the encirclement. In the locative alternant, the UVs combine with an intransitive IV, with L flagged by one of the spatial cases. In the “object” alternant, the UV combines with the transitive IVs ganangu ‘get/handle’ or ganima ‘hit’ (the latter in a secondary sense of ‘completely affect’, already illustrated in (41)). The alternation is reminiscent of some applicative alternations in other languages, in that the locative is promoted to direct object status and encoded as P indexed on the verb and as absolutive object (compare the uses of dibird ‘be wound around something’ with the German near-equivalents sich wickeln (um L) and P(=L) umwickeln). (45) a. Dibird ga-yu langiny-gi (mununggu). wound 3sg.s-be.prs tree-loc (rope) ‘(A rope) is wound around a tree.’ b. Dibird ngantha-ngga-m thanthiya mawud. wound 2sg.a>3sg.p-get/handle-prs dem glass ‘You wound (something) around that bottle.’ (Lit. ‘you wound the bottle (with something))’ c. Langin thudbung dibird burri-ma, rope-mij. tree short wound 3pl.a>3sg.p-hit.pst rope-com ‘They wound the short tree with a rope.’
Complex verbs, simple alternations: valency and verb classes in Jaminjung
1145
d. Dibird=biji=wung yan-iny-mangu garridan-ni. wind=only=restr irr-3sg.a>2sg.p-hit yellow.tree.snake-erg ‘(It will not bite you,) it will only wind itself around you, the yellow tree snake.’ Interestingly, this alternation does not apply to translation equivalents of many predicates for which one might expect a locative alternation on semantic grounds, e.g. bardag ‘be covered’, yurr ‘rub’, and jardi ‘be full’, for which the “location” is always encoded as a theme.
5.3 Telicity alternation The telicity alternation, illustrated in (46) to (48), has a special status because, unlike the alternations discussed in Section 5.2, it is not only coded by a change of inflecting verb (IV), but also by morphological marking (of iterative lexical aspect) on the uninflecting verb (UV). This makes it more productive and less verbclass specific than any of the other alternations. As examples (46) to (48) show, one of the alternants involves a telic complex predicate. In the atelic alternant, the UV is followed by the productive iterative marker -mayan; alternatively, it has one of a number of non-productive endings such as , , or . The IV in the atelic combinations is invariably gagba ‘be’ or, less frequently, gajgany ‘go’, which adds a durative or habitual component to the expression. gugu. (46) a. En janyungbari burlug-mayan ga-yu and another drink-iter 3sg.s-be.prs water ‘And the other one is drinking water.’ b. Majani gugu burlug gani-bida ngayin-ni thanthu-ni. maybe water drink 3sg.a>3sg.p-pot:eat animal-erg dem-erg ‘Maybe it wants to drink water, that animal.’ (47) a. Wirib du-mayan ga-yinyji. dog shoot-iter 3sg.s-go.ipfv ‘He was (going around) shooting dogs.’ b. (Mayi) dirrg-dirrg burrurr-arra-na, burrurr-ijja-na du. person rdp-tied 3pl.a>3pl.p-put-ipfv 3pl.a>3pl.p-poke-ipfv shoot ‘They used to tie them (Aboriginal people) up and shoot them.’ (48) a. Langiny=biya dirrg-dirrg-mayan ga-yu=ni nawurlu-ngguluwa. tree=seq rdp-tied-iter 3sg.s-be.prs=ds daughter-kin2 ‘She is tying branches (to the frame, while building a shed), your daughter.’
1146
Eva Schultze-Berndt
b. Langiny-gi dirrg ga-yu. tree-loc tied 3sg.s-be.prs ‘It is tied up on a tree.’ (stative; compare also the causative telic alternant in (47b)). The atelic construction is reminiscent of a progressive in some ways, in that it is used in discourse to present an event as ongoing with respect to a reference time or, in the case of gajgany ‘go’, as ongoing not relative to a single point in time but relative to a larger time interval (Bertinetto et al. 2000: 523–527). Moreover, both locative and motion verbs are cross-linguistically common as sources of progressive meaning (Bybee & Dahl 1989: 79; Bybee et al. 1994: 133). However, the construction behaves just like other complex predicates in all respects, and can be shown to express (iterative) lexical aspect rather than (progressive) grammatical aspect in that it is restricted to events which can be conceived of as either semelfactive or iterative (Schultze-Berndt 2012). For example, both burlug ‘drink’ and du ‘shoot’ can be conceived of as either single or repeated instances. However, example (48) demonstrates that the alternation is also available to monovalent stative UVs like dirrg ‘be tied’ (which form intransitive stative complex predicates with the same IV gagba ‘be’); the combination with the suffix -mayan coerces a dynamic bivalent interpretation, i.e. multiple acts of tying up, corresponding to the transitive telic complex predicate shown in (47b)). A second special characteristic of this alternation is that it affects the coding frame, but not the numerical valency of the alternants (see also Section 3.2.3). The Agent in the (transitive) telic alternant is encoded by an (optionally) ergative marked NP and the A prefix on the IV, as one would expect. In the atelic alternant the Agent is encoded by the S argument on the IV and as an absolutive noun phrase (in this case, ergative marking is excluded rather than optional). The Patient argument is likewise encoded as a second absolutive noun phrase, otherwise impossible with intransitive IVs, as illustrated in (46a), (47a) and (48a).
5.4 Predicate classes not participating in alternations In addition to the UVs discussed in the previous subsections, there exist a large number of UVs which do not participate in valency alternations except (possibly) for the telicity alternation which is also encoded on the UV. However, they will often combine with more than one IV encoding specific features of the event other than valency. Three major classes of UVs not participating in valency alternations are discussed below. The first class is composed of monovalent UVs expressing internally caused events including events of sound emission, speech act, internal motion, and bodily or emotional condition; a representative list is provided in Table 11 (see Section 5.2.4 for some members of these semantic classes which do exhibit alternations).
Complex verbs, simple alternations: valency and verb classes in Jaminjung
1147
These UVs all combine with the polyfunctional IV ganiyu ‘say, do’ in its syntactically intransitive reading (see Section 3.2.2). A typical example is winy ‘whistle’, illustrated in (49). (49) Winy nganth-unggu-m, nganthan jalag nanthi-ngawu? whistle 2sg.a>3sg.p-say/do-prs what good 2sg.a>3sg.p-see.pst ‘You are whistling, what kind of good thing have you found?’
Tab. 11: UVs expressing internally caused events. bawa winy ngujul ngajirr daggarrag dirrng yirrirrib jilag jaj gumbulung mirrung dalala burrurrd duwaj, nunaj mangan mangmang yimij wuburr burrngburrng nyam yarl jalug
call out, shout [20] whistle cough [47] sneeze burp, hiccough fart rustle, make a noise report, tell an experience say/warn in vain tell the truth tell a lie, deceive, pretend shiver, shake shake in fright, shudder nod (with the head) wave move knees in and out (in women’s dance) blink (with the eye) be turbulent (of water) bubble, boil up [80] float up (of fish after being poisoned) be itchy be lively, excited
A second large class of UVs not undergoing alternations consists of UVs of continuous activity, with members from a variety of semantic fields. This class does not exhaust the class of activity predicates, in Vendler’s sense of ‘activity’, which includes, for example, also UVs of manner of motion. Rather, the class of UVs of continuous activity is defined formally in that its members combine almost exclusively with the IVs gagba ‘be’ and gajgany ‘go’ which with these UVs function as mere markers of atelicity. This class includes conventionalized activities consisting of multiple sub-events such as thawaya ‘eating’, wajama ‘fishing’ and wirrigaja ‘cooking’; as (50) shows, these may be bivalent and allow two absolutive noun phrases (see Section 3.2.3). A few alternating members of the class are discussed in Section 5.2.8.
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(50) Guruwuny thawaya ga-yu jalig wuju. boab eat 3sg.s-be.prs child small ‘The small child is eating boab nuts.’ Another type of UVs which does not allow a change of UV bringing about a valency change consists of bivalent UVs with a manner component, e.g. manner of touch, manipulation, or impact. Some frequent UVs of this type are listed in Table 12. Notably, UVs like wunyu ‘wipe out’, wirrb ‘wipe’ and yurr ‘rub’ only occur in a pattern where the ground affected by the wiping, not the substance wiped, is encoded as P (direct object). The lexical aspectual distinction between activity and accomplishment can still be expressed by the choice of the IVs ganangu ‘get/handle’ and ganima ‘hit; completely affect’, respectively, as illustrated in (51). (51) a. Gidbi-ni yurr nga-bili guruwuny. red.ochre-erg/ins rub 1sg.a>3sg.p-pot:get/handle boab ‘I’m going to rub the boab nut with red ochre.’ b. Yurr nga-ba-ji yathang, mangurrb-bari-ni. rub 1sg.s-pot:hit-refl alright black-qual-erg/ins ‘I will dye my hair all right, with black dye.’ (Lit. ‘I will rub myself, with black’)
Tab. 12: Bivalent UVs with a manner component not undergoing valency alternations. mard lurrb durd garrb laburru nyittiny buny ngalyag gulyu warr wunyu yurr wij gurr ngarrg durl wanywany burrg durrg jang
touch [29] seize, grab hold or pick up a single entity hold or pick up multiple entities or mass; gather scoop up water pinch kiss lick wash, rinse [12] scratch wipe (out) [72] rub scrape dig [73] strangle push [74] beat, belt [27] hit with hands, clap sweep chew
Complex verbs, simple alternations: valency and verb classes in Jaminjung
1149
6 Discussion As the preceding sections have shown, the existence of two distinct “verbal” parts of speech has far-reaching consequences for the grammatical manifestations of valency in Jaminjung (and in other languages in a linguistic area in Northern Australia with a similar part of speech division). It also raises the question of what should be considered as “verbs” for the purposes of investigating valency and verb classes. Translation equivalents of the meaning labels forming the basis for this investigation, for example, can be simple IVs (semantically generic inflecting verbs from a closed class, e.g. gardbany ‘fall’) or complex predicates (e.g. waga gardbany ‘sit down’), or in fact nominal predicates or N + V collocations, e.g. gugu gardbany ‘water + fall’ = ‘rain’, not further discussed in this paper. Predicate classes based on coding frames can be established only for IVs and complex predicates, as shown in Section 4. However, as shown in Section 5, the main strategy of achieving valency change – in the absence of derivational mechanisms other than the formation of reflexive/reciprocal verbs – is a change of IV, with an accompanying change in coding frame, while leaving the UV (uninflecting, open class predicative part of speech) constant. This strategy is restricted to complex predicates, and as a result, predicate classes based on alternations (or absence of alternations) can be established mainly for UVs. Indeed, the classes of UVs established by this diagnostics partly correspond to predicate classes attested cross-linguistically. Examples discussed here are predicates of externally caused change of state, participating in a causative-inchoative alternation (Section 5.2.1), predicates of internal causation, which rarely alternate (see Section 5.4), predicates of manner of motion exhibiting an S = A alternation (see Section 5.2.7), predicates of posture/position, participating in a causative-inchoative-stative alternation (see Section 5.2.5), and predicates of manner of manipulation or impact, which do not participate in alternations except possibly for the telicity alternation (see Section 5.4). In addition, the same method also revealed predicate classes corresponding to rather language-specific (possibly culture-specific) lexical fields, such as that of manner of application of heat (participating in a causative-inchoative pattern, see Section 5.2.3) or direction of gaze (participating in an S=A alternation, see Section 5.2.6). The partition of the verbal lexicon in Jaminjung into an open class of UVs and a closed class of IVs also brings about a particular division of labor between the two classes, which in turn leads to a skewed distribution of the major valency classes between the two parts of speech: Overall, there are many more monovalent than bivalent or trivalent UVs, owing to the existence of large classes of UVs of position/configuration, externally caused change of state, change of location, manner of motion, and internal causation, which are all monovalent. Conversely, there are many more transitive (20+) than intransitive (5) or ditransitive (2) IVs. In complex predicates, while the valency of UV and IV can of course also be identical, it is often the IV that contributes an additional A (in causative combinations) or P
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argument. This can be seen as a manifestation of Economy, since it greatly increases the combinatorial potential of UVs, which after all are the open class of predicates in the language. Thus, caution needs to be exerted when determining a position on a “transitivity hierarchy” for Jaminjung since the position will be radically different depending on whether UVs, IVs, or complex predicates are taken as “verb” equivalents.
Appendices Appendix 1: Tabular summary of major valency patterns and case/voice alternations Only the alternations discussed in Sections 5.2 and 5.3, achieved by a choice of different IV (inflecting verb) with the same UV, are listed here. There is only one regular alternation available to simple (IVs) or complex predicates (with lexical content unchanged), the reflexive/reciprocal alternation (Section 5.1); this is available to all syntactically transitive simple and complex predicates and is not listed here. A marginal alternation available only to the semantically trivalent (simple or complex) predicates is that between R and T as primary object (Section 4.2). This is only attested for the equivalents of the following verb meanings in the list: ‘TAKE’ [31] in the sense of ‘take away from, rob’, ‘SHOW’ [35], ‘GIVE’ [36], and ‘STEAL’ [76].
Meaning label
RAIN
BE A HUNTER
BLINK
COUGH
SIT
SIT DOWN
JUMP
SING
LAUGH
FEEL PAIN
DIE
PLAY
BE SAD
BE HUNGRY
ROLL
SINK
BURN
BE DRY
BOIL
#
69
70
46
47
50
51
52
53
57
59
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
80
burrngburrng garna
larrman gagba
garnaya
thawu gardbany
dididmayan gangga
guyawud gagba
burru marring ganiyu
garlagarla gagba
digirrij gajgany
janga gagba
gambaja gagba
nganya gagba
dibard gajgany
waga gardbany
waga gagba
ngujul ganiyu
yimij ganiyu
lalabangngarna
gugu gardbany
Verb form
1-abs subj[1].V
1-abs subj[1].V
1-abs subj[1].V
1-abs subj[1].V
1-abs subj[1].V
1-abs subj[1].V
1-abs subj[1].V
1-abs subj[1].V
1-abs subj[1].V
1-abs subj[1].V
1-abs subj[1].V
1-abs subj[1].V
1-abs subj[1].V
1-abs subj[1].V
1-abs subj[1].V
1-abs subj[1].V
1-abs subj[1].V
1-abs V
V
Coding frame schema
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Caus. Caus.- Caus.- Caus.- Inch.- Inch- Loc.inch. inch. inch. caus. caus. obj. 1 2 3 1 2
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Telicity
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Trans. Trans. Trans. 1 2 3 Complex verbs, simple alternations: valency and verb classes in Jaminjung
1151
COOK
CLIMB
RUN
GO
FEAR
KNOW
THINK
SEARCH FOR
TALK
APPEAR
CRY
HUNT (FOR)
79
48
49
54
6
9
10
11
18
81
83
93
lalabang gajgany
ngilijga gagba
bul garumany
yirrgbi gagba
wurdbaj gajgany
langa gagba
jurriya (gagba)
yarrajgu gagba
gajgany
yugung gajgany
burduj gajgany
wirrigaja gagba
jab gamaja
SHAVE
14
gardbany
thawaya gagba
FALL
84
warlad gagba
EAT
BE ILL
82
bul ganimangu
1
APPEAR
81
bud garna
bujarl ganiyu
BOIL
80
Verb form
142 BE SAD ABOUT
Meaning label
#
1-abs 2-dat subj[1].V
1-abs 2-dat subj[1].V
1-abs 2-dat subj[1].V
1-abs 2-dat subj[1].V
1-abs 2-dat subj[1].V
1-abs 2-dat subj[1].V
1-abs 2-dat subj[1].V
1-abs 2-dat subj[1].V
1-abs 2-all subj[1].V
1-abs 2-all subj[1].V
1-abs 2-all subj[1].V
1-abs 2-abs subj[1].V
1-abs 2-abs subj[1].V
1-abs 2-abs subj[1].V
1-abs subj[1].V
1-abs subj[1].V
1-abs subj[1].V
1-abs subj[1].V
1-abs subj[1].V
Coding frame schema
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Caus. Caus.- Caus.- Caus.- Inch.- Inch- Loc.inch. inch. inch. caus. caus. obj. 1 2 3 1 2
–
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+
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Telicity
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Trans. Trans. Trans. 1 2 3
1152 Eva Schultze-Berndt
LIVE
NAME
NAME
NAME
TAKE
SHOW
GIVE
STEAL
ASK FOR
TELL
SEND
BRING
TEACH
56
23
23
23
31
35
36
76
19
21
37
75
77
jurriya ganangu
gananthamany
dalag ganarrany
yirrg ganarrany
yanggi ganarrany
bunug ganiyunggany
ganingarnany
yurrg ganarrany
birrg ganiyunggany
ganarrany (2)
nij ganarrany
bag ganima (2)
gagba
1-erg 2-abs 3-dat subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs 3-dat subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs 3-dat subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs 3-dat subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs 3-dat subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs 3-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs 3-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs 3-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs 3-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs 3-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs 3-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs 3-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-abs 2-loc subj[1].V
–
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– Complex verbs, simple alternations: valency and verb classes in Jaminjung
1153
Meaning label
TIE
PUT
POUR
FILL
LOAD
EAT
HUG
HUG
LOOK AT
SEE
SMELL
#
40
41
42
44
45
1
2
2
3
4
5
ngabuj ganangu
ganingawu
mung ganingawu
warrgi ganangu
warrgi ganimuwa
ganimindany
bagurr ganarrany
jardi ganarrany
lawu ganarrany
ganarrany (1)
dibird ganangu
Verb form
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs LOC3 subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs LOC3 subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs LOC3 subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs LOC3 subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs LOC3 subj[1].obj[2].V
Coding frame schema
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Caus. Caus.- Caus.- Caus.- Inch.- Inch- Loc.inch. inch. inch. caus. caus. obj. 1 2 3 1 2
+
–
–
–
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m
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Telicity
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m
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Trans. Trans. Trans. 1 2 3
1154 Eva Schultze-Berndt
FEAR
FRIGHTEN
LIKE
WASH
WASH
HELP
FOLLOW
MEET
SHOUT AT
BUILD
BUILD
HIT
TOUCH
6
7
8
12
12
15
16
17
20
24
24
28
29
mard ganangu
ganima
jardij ganima
ganilinymany (2)
bawa ganiyu
wamam ganangu
ganiwardagarrany
helpim ganangu
gulyu ganangu
ngabulg ganarrany
ngunthug ganangu (1)
braitenim ganangu
ganiyangmany
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
+
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Complex verbs, simple alternations: valency and verb classes in Jaminjung
1155
Meaning label
TAKE
TAKE
TEAR
PEEL
HIDE
CARRY
THROW
LEAVE
SCREAM
WIPE
DIG
#
31
31
32
33
34
38
39
55
58
72
73
gurr ganangu
wunyu ganimangu
bawa ganiyu
ganungany
ganardgiyany
thuruny ganuga
marrug ganarrany
dirawu ganangu
gub ganangu
ganangu (2)
ganuga
Verb form
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
Coding frame schema
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
m
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
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–
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–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Caus. Caus.- Caus.- Caus.- Inch.- Inch- Loc.inch. inch. inch. caus. caus. obj. 1 2 3 1 2
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
Telicity
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
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–
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–
–
–
–
–
–
Trans. Trans. Trans. 1 2 3
1156 Eva Schultze-Berndt
PUSH
STEAL
HEAR
COOK
MAKE
GET
GET
BREAK
KILL
KILL
BEAT
CUT
74
76
78
79
85
86
86
25
26
26
27
30
gad ganima
wanywany ganima
digirrij ganima
ning ganima
bag ganima (1)
ganangu (2)
ganangu (1)
ganilinymany (1)
ganirriga
malangayij ganuga
bunug ganangu
durl ganuga
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V 3-instr
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V 3-instr
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V 3-instr
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V 3-instr
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V 3-instr
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
m
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
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–
–
–
–
–
–
–
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–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
m
+
m
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
– Complex verbs, simple alternations: valency and verb classes in Jaminjung
1157
COVER
GRIND
TIE
WANT
FEEL COLD
SAY
43
71
40
87
60
22
ganiyu
garrijni ganangu
ngunthug ganangu (2)
dirrg ganarrany
gardaj ganarrany
bardbard ganarrany
Verb form
UTT2 1-erg 3-dat subj[1].obj[2].V
2-abs obj[2].V
1-erg CC2 subj[1].obj[2].V
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V 3-instr 4loc
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V 3-instr
1-erg 2-abs subj[1].obj[2].V 3-instr
Coding frame schema
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
m
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Caus. Caus.- Caus.- Caus.- Inch.- Inch- Loc.inch. inch. inch. caus. caus. obj. 1 2 3 1 2
Legend: + occur regularly; m occurs marginally; − occurs never; _ no data Caus.: Causative alternation of UV with internally caused change of state predicates and non-locative states Caus.-inch. 1: Causative-inchoative alternation of externally caused change of state predicates Caus.-inch. 2: Causative-inchoative alternation of change of location predicates Caus.-inch. 3: Causative-inchoative-stative alternation of predicates of location, position and configuration Inch.-caus. 1: Inchoative-causative alternation of change of location predicates Inch.-caus. 2: Inchoative-causative-stative alternation of predicates of location, position and configuration Loc.-obj.: Locative-object (applicative) Alternation Telicity : Telicity alternation Trans. 1: Transitivity alternation of activity predicates Trans. 2: Transitivity alternation of motion predicates Trans. 3: Transitivity alternation of stative predicates
Meaning label
#
–
–
–
m
Telicity
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Trans. Trans. Trans. 1 2 3
1158 Eva Schultze-Berndt
Complex verbs, simple alternations: valency and verb classes in Jaminjung
1159
Appendix 2: Overview of Jaminjung inflecting verbs (IVs) The table lists a) morphological transitivity as determined by the indexing paradigm, b) gloss and c) informal generic semantic characterization; polysemy is indicated by small roman numbers accompanied by different senses, and syntactic transitivity specified where diverging from morphological transitivity.
Location, existence, possession, and change of locative relation -yu
intr
be
-muwa -irdba
tr intr
have fall
-arra
tr
put
(i) x is located at LOC (ii) x is (involved) in a state/an activity (may appear in syntactically transitive complex predicates) y is in possession of x x comes to be in a locative relation with respect to a location (i) x causes y to be in a locative relation with respect to a location (ii) x (human) conventionally calls y by a word “z”
Translational motion -ijga
intr
go
-ruma
intr
come
-uga
tr
take
-anthama
tr
bring
-unga -arrga -wardagarra
tr tr tr
leave approach follow
-mili /-angu
tr
get, handle
-ma
tr
hit
-ina(ngga)
tr
chop
-inama
tr
kick/ step
(i) x moves along a path (ii) x changes state (iii) x is (involved) in a state / an activity for a long time (may appear in syntactically transitive complex predicates) x moves along a path which is oriented towards the deictic center (i) x moves along a path and has y with it (ii) x (animate) has y permanently (iii) x applies force on y by means of x’s body weight x moves along a path which is oriented towards the deictic center and has y with it x moves along a path which is oriented away from y x moves along a path which is oriented towards y x moves along a path which is oriented towards y and in the same direction in which y is moving
Contact/force (i)
x is in contact with y with a movable(body) part or instrument & x affects y (ii) x (animate) is in contact with y through its lower senses (touch, smell) (i) x makes an impact on y & x affects y (ii) x completely affects y (iii) x emerges (syntactically intransitive) x makes an impact on y with the edge of a body part or instrument & x affects y x makes an impact on y with the foot & x affects y
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-ijja / ‑jaluga
tr
poke
-ba
tr
bite
-bardgiya
tr
throw
-irna
intr
burn
-irriga
tr
cook
x makes an impact on y with the pointed end of a body part or instrument & x affects y x makes forceful contact with y with the mouth part & x affects y x causes y to move along a trajectory determined by gravity/the direction of force applied
Burning / cooking x is affected by heat (‘heat’ argument ERG marked if overt) y affects x by means of heat
Caused change of possession -ngarna
tr
give
-jungga
tr
take away
-ju(nggu)
tr
say/do
-ngawu
tr
see
-minda -malinyma
tr tr
eat make
x (animate) gives y to z (animate) (syntactically ditransitive) x (animate) causes y to be removed from its location at z (animate) (syntactically ditransitive)
Other major verbs x internally causes, and gives immediate evidence of, an event E (E includes direct speech) (syntactically transitive, semi-transitive – e.g. with quotation or mimetic as argument – or intransitive) (i) x directs one’s eyes at y & x visually perceives y (ii) x directs aggressive behavior at y x takes y into x’s mouth x brings y into existence (from something)
Abbreviations 1, 2, 3 > a assoc contr dem ds evid given iter kin2 qual p pot priv rdp restr s
1st, 2nd, 3rd person A/Subject acting on P/Object (in person indices) Actor (Agent) indexing prefix Associative nominalization Contrastive focus clitic Demonstrative (distance-neutral / recognitional) Different subject marker Direct evidential clitic Discourse clitic indicating contextually given but re-activated referent Iterative marker your X (on kin terms) Quality nominaliser (‘having the quality of X’) Undergoer (Patient) indexing prefix Potential/Future Privative (‘without, lacking’) Reduplication Restrictive clitic (‘right there/then; still’) Subject / single argument indexing prefix
Complex verbs, simple alternations: valency and verb classes in Jaminjung
seq tag
1161
Sequential clitic (‘now’, ‘then’, ‘on the other hand’) tag (‘right’, ‘is that so’)
References Baker, Brett & Mark Harvey. 2010. Complex predicate formation. In Mengistu Amberger, Brett Baker & Mark Harvey (eds.), Complex Predicates. Cross-Linguistic Perspectives on Event Structure, 13–47. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bertinetto, Pier Marco, Karen H. Ebert & Casper de Groot. 2000. The progressive in Europe. In Östen Dahl (ed.), Tense and Aspect in the Languages of Europe, 517–558. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Butt, Miriam. 1997. Complex predicates in Urdu. In Alex Alsina, Joan Bresnan & Peter Sells (eds.), Complex Predicates, 107–149. Stanford CA: CSLI Publications. Bybee, Joan L. & Östen Dahl. 1989. The creation of tense and aspect systems in the languages of the world. Studies in Language 13. 51–103. Bybee, Joan, Revere Perkins & William Pagliuca. 1994. The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect and Modality in the Languages of the World. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Capell, Arthur. 1979. Classification of verbs in Australian languages. In Stephen A. Wurm (ed.), Australian Linguistic Studies, 229–322. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Chadwick, Neil. 1997. The Barkly and Jaminjung languages: a non-contiguous genetic grouping. In Tryon T. Darrell & Michael Walsh (eds.), Boundary Rider: Studies in the Lexicology and Comparative Linguistics of Australian Languages. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. DeLancey, Scott. 1991. Event construal and case role assignment. Berkeley Linguistic Society 17. 338–353. Dixon, R. M. W. 2001. The Australian linguistic area. In Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald & R. M. W. Dixon (eds.), Areal Diffusion and Genetic Inheritance. Problems in Comparative Linguistics, 64–104. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dowty, D. R. 1991. Thematic proto-roles and argument selection. Language 67. 547–619. Dryer, Matthew S. 1986. Primary objects, secondary objects, and antidative. Language 62. 808– 845. Foley, William A. & Robert D. Van Valin. 1984. Functional Syntax and Universal Grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gaby, Alice. 2008. Rebuilding Australia’s linguistic profile: Recent developments in research on Australian aboriginal languages. Language and Linguistics Compass 2. 211–233. Harvey, Mark. 2008. Proto Mirndi. A Discontinuous Language Family in Northern Australia. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Haspelmath, Martin. 2005. Argument marking in ditransitive alignment types. Linguistic Discovery 3. 1–21. Hengeveld, Kees. 1992. Non-Verbal Predication: Theory, Typology, Diachrony. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Koontz-Garboden, Andrew. 2008. Monotonicity at the lexical semantics-morphosyntax interface. In Emily Elfner & Martin Walkow (eds.), Proceedings of the 37 th Annual Meeting of the Northeast Linguistic Society, 15–28. Amherst, Mass.: GLSA. Levin, Beth & Malka Rappaport Hovav. 1995. Unaccusativity: At the Syntax-Lexical Semantics Interface. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Malchukov, Andrej, Martin Haspelmath & Bernard Comrie. 2010. Ditransitive constructions: a typological overview. In Andrej Malchukov, Martin Haspelmath & Bernard Comrie (eds.), Ditransitive Constructions: A Comparative Handbook, 1–64. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
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McGregor, William B. 1992. The semantics of ergative marking in Gooniyandi. Linguistics 30. 275– 318. McGregor, William B. 1998. Optional ergative marking in Gooniyandi revisited: implications for the theory of marking. Leuvense Bijdragen 87. 491–534. McGregor, William B. 2002. Verb Classification in Australian Languages. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. McGregor, William B. 2006. Focal and optional ergative marking in Warrwa (Kimberley, Western Australia). Lingua 116. 393–423. McGregor, William B. 2010. Optional ergative case marking systems in a typological-semiotic perspective. Lingua 120. 1610–1636. Nichols, Johanna. 1986. Head-marking and dependent-marking grammar. Language 62. 56–119. Nordlinger, Rachel. 2010. Complex Predicates in Wambaya: detaching predicate composition from syntactic structure. In Mengistu Amberber, Brett Baker & Mark Harvey (eds.), Complex Predicates. Cross-Linguistic Perspectives on Event Structure, 237–258. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rappaport Hovav, Malka & Beth Levin. 1998. Building verb meanings. In Miriam Butt & Wilhelm Geuder (eds.), The Projection of Arguments, 97–134. Stanford: CSLI Publications. Schultze-Berndt, Eva. 2000. Simple and complex verbs in Jaminjung: A study of event categorisation in an Australian language. PhD dissertation, Nijmegen: University of Nijmegen. Schultze-Berndt, Eva. 2003. Preverbs as an open word class in Northern Australian languages: synchronic and diachronic correlates. In Geert Booij & Jaap van Marle (eds.), Yearbook of Morphology 2003, 145–177. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Schultze-Berndt, Eva. 2006. Towards a semanto-pragmatic account of optional ergativity in Jaminjung/Ngaliwurru. Paper presented at the Second European Workshop on Australian Languages, 23rd–25 th April 2006, Somlószöllös, Hungary. Schultze-Berndt, Eva. 2007. Making sense of complex verbs: on the semantics and argument structure of closed-class verbs and coverbs in Jaminjung. In Melissa Bowerman & Penelope Brown (eds.), Cross-Linguistic Perspectives on Argument Structure. Implications for learnability, 69–88. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Schultze-Berndt, Eva. 2010. Grammatical properties and classification of three-participant predicates in Jaminjung. In Andrej Malchukov, Martin Haspelmath & Bernard Comrie (eds.), Studies in Ditransitive Constructions, 510–528. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Schultze-Berndt, Eva. 2012. Pluractional posing as progressive: a construction between lexical and grammatical aspect. Australian Journal of Linguistics 32. 7–39. Schultze-Berndt, Eva & Candide Simard. 2012. Constraints on noun phrase discontinuity in an Australian language: the role of prosody and information structure. Linguistics 50. 1015– 1058. Silverstein, Michael. 1986. Classifiers, verb classifiers, and verbal categories. Berkeley Linguistics Society 12. 497–514. Tsunoda, Tasaku. 1981. Split case-marking patterns in verb-types and tense/aspect/mood. Linguistics 19. 389–438. Van Valin, Robert D. & Randy J. LaPolla. 1997. Syntax: Structure, Meaning and Function Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Van Valin, Robert D. & David Wilkins. 1996. The case for ‘effector’: case roles, agents, and agency revisited. In M. Shibatani & S. A. Thomas (eds.), Grammatical Constructions: Their Form and Meaning, 289–322. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Americas
Osahito Miyaoka
28 Valency classes in Central Alaskan Yupik, an Eskimoan language 1 Introduction This is a brief description of valency classes and patterns in Central Alaskan Yupik or CAY, an Eskimoan language. CAY belongs to the Eskimo-Aleut family, with Eskimo consisting of five Yupik (or Western) languages and one dialect continuum, Inuit (or Eastern), which includes the well-known West Greenlandic (Woodbury 1984). CAY is spoken in southwestern Alaska and now also in major Alaskan cities by about 10,000 people (out of 21,000 ethnic Yupiks), but it is a very rapidly changing and severely endangered language, with fluent and traditional speakers (generally in their 60s and older) becoming fewer and fewer. The data come from Jacobson (1984, 1995) as well as my on-going documentation (Miyaoka 2012). CAY forms are represented here by the new orthography which replaced the old one around 1973 (Miyaoka 2012: 12).1 This chapter is structured as follows: Section 2 provides preliminary information about the morphosyntactic features of the language relevant to the discussion of the topic concerned; Section 3 deals with basic valency patterns; Section 4 looks at verb-uncoded alternations; Section 5 deals with coded alternations; and Section 6 provides a brief conclusion. Figure (1) previews the six valency classes of CAY primary (non-extended) verbs, listing the seventy verbs in the Leipzig List (the number of the class heading each list) with a number of additions indicated by means of shading. A complete presentation of all valency-related issues is beyond the scope of this paper. I refer the reader to the relevant sections in Miyaoka (2012).
2 Morphosyntactic preliminaries Morphologically CAY is an agglutinative language characterized by non-templatic polysynthesis (with no incorporation as a type of stem compounding) by means of
1 I would like to thank the editors Bernard Comrie and Andrej Malchukov as well as Marianne Mithun and Anna Bugaeva who gave me comments and suggestions on the draft of this presentation. The letters e, ng, g, r, and q stand for high-central vowel /ɨ/, front velar nasal /ŋ/, front velar fricative /ɣ/, back velar fricative /ɣ̇/, and back velar stop /q/. The fricatives v, s, l, g, and r are voiced next to a voiced sound but voiceless next to a voiceless sound, while a voiceless sound between
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a rich variety of derivational suffixes, which basically shows predictable phonological adjustments.2 Many grammatical markers are composite suffixes susceptible of analysis (fns. 10, 13, 33). A functional variety of suffixes, some with a limited extent of recursiveness, are responsible for the remarkable degree of synthesis and for the extremely complex internal syntax; this allows in particular (i) multivalent verbs by way of multiple valency increases (incl. upper clause agent) and (ii) transcategorial expansions, although the latter are beyond the scope of this paper. Syntactically, CAY is basically an ergative (absolutive-relative) language and is a double-marking language at the clause and the (attributive) nominal phrase level where grammatical relations are marked on both the head and the dependent simultaneously. Word order is largely free, though greatly determined by discourse factors and minimally relevant to the expression of valency pattern, cf. (62).
2.1 Verb and nominal inflection CAY has three morphologically distinct categories, i.e. verbs, nominals (incl. demonstratives, numerals, etc.), and particles (incl. enclitics). Verbs and nominals are composed of one stem, derivational suffix(es), and one inflection (consisting of one to three inflectional suffixes), occurring in this particular order. A stem and an inflection are obligatory, but a derivational suffix is not, thus: (1) STEM1 + DERIVATIONAL SUFFIX0~ + INFLECTION1 The subscript1 on the stem implies no compounding or noun incorporation, and 0~means it may be zero or, theoretically, indefinitely large. Verbal inflection encodes mood and person-number (subject or subject/object; hence intransitive or transitive, with one- or two-slot agreement), while nominal inflection encodes case, number, and person (possessor; optional). Number category includes singular, dual, and plural, and person includes first, second, third, and reflexive third (3r). Verb mood includes: [independent] indicative (IND), participial (PTP), interrogative (INT), optative (OPT); [subordinate] connective (CNN); and [cosubordinate] appositional (APP);3 all are marked for person-number. Details of their uses are provided in Miyaoka (2012; § 46 through § 51).
voiced sounds is written double (vv, ss, ll, gg, rr). The apostrophe (’) stands for (i) blocking of devoicing and (ii) unpredictable consonant gemination. The equal and non-equal signs (=, ≠) in this paper indicate boundaries for enclitic and non-enclitic bound phrases. 2 Though with a small number of suppletive markers (e.g. -vkar- ~ -cic-; § 5.2.1) and some portmanteaus in inflection. 3 An appositional mood verb is monopersonal in that it marks only one argument S or P (with the subject S or A being coreferential with the main clause subject), cf. Miyaoka (2012: § 5.1.1).
Valency classes in Central Alaskan Yupik, an Eskimoan language
1167
There are seven cases for nominals: (i) absolutive (ABS; 0̸) and relative (REL; -m)4 for core arguments; (ii) ablative-modalis (ABM -mek; source), allative (ALL -mun; goal), locative (LOC -mi; location, reference, comparison, vocative/exclamative) for both adjuncts as well as demoted arguments ‒ ablative-modalis from absolutive, allative from relative, locative for S/P/A/G (Miyaoka 2012: § 27); (iii) perlative (PRL -kun ‘by means of’ ), equalis (EQL -tun; ‘like’) for adjuncts. Choice of a case for adjunct NPs basically depends on the semantics of the verb concerned. There is little case framing that helps to set up valency classes. P/S in the absolutive case and A in the relative case control verbal indexing, with S and A as the subject and P as the object. Case marking of core NPs and verbal indexing are thus ergative, but this holds true only for third person arguments.5 An absolutive-case (and a relative-case) NP is amenable to relativization. See Miyaoka (2012; § 23 through § 30, etc.) for details. CAY has no morphosyntactically distinct class of adjectives and no adpositions. It has a rich system (thirty kinds) of demonstratives which have functions similar to definite articles in other languages; articles proper are absent in the language. Free personal pronouns are optionally used for emphasis or when the inflectional reference is not feasible (like wang-nun in (17b), and the absolutive-relative distinction is only made for third person, which is used only with reference to humans.
2.2 Primary and extended verbs Primary verbs, i.e. verbs without valency extension, are primarily of three classes: intransitive (I: monovalent), monotransitive (II: bivalent), and ditransitive (III: trivalent). Arguments involved in each are given below: (2) intransitive (I) monotransitive (II)
ditransitive (III)
S (may be impersonal [SIMP]) agentive: P≠S=A patientive: P=S≠A impersonal patientive: P=S≠AIMP secundative: (T) R A indirective: T (R) A
§ 3.1 § 3.2.1 § 3.2.2 § 3.2.3 § 3.3
4 The CAY relative case can be ergative (A) as well as genitive (G) for the dependent of an attributive phrase. 5 If P/S or A/G refers to a first or a second person, the (dependent) NPs neutrally occur in the locative case (Miyaoka 2012: § 27.4).
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2.2.1 Arguments in primary verbs As far as primary verbs are concerned, valency patterns are straightforward in terms of the indexing frames, with hardly any discernible semantic basis. Monotransitive and ditransitive verbs show uncoded detransitivization, that is, antipassive alternation by agentive monotransitives, but medial or passive alternation by patientive monotransitives and ditransitives – § 3.2.1 vs. § 3.2.2, and § 4.1. The impersonal argument (SIMP and AIMP) is some natural process/force and is subject to indexing (as 3rd person singular subject), but it cannot be expressed externally by a free-standing NP and is thus not subject to flagging.
2.2.2 Valency patterns of primary verbs (3)
intransitive impersonal
Sabs V.subj[A] (SIMPabs) V.subj[SIMP]
§ 3.1
monotransitive impersonal
Pabs Arel V.subj[A].obj[P] Pabs (AIMPrel) V.subj[AIMP].obj[P]
§ 3.2.1, § 3.2.2 § 3.2.3
ditransitive secundative indirective
Tabm Rabs Arel V.subj[A].obj[T] Tabs Rall Arel V.subj[A].obj[R]
§ 3.3
Denominal verbs (including relational verbs; § 3.1(ii), 3.2.2ip(ii)) are intransitive or monotransitive, with one or two arguments supplied by the verbalizing suffix involved. There are no denominal ditransitive verbs.
2.2.3 Valency-increasing markers Secondary (i.e. extended) verbs are morphologically characterized by the valency increasing (and rearranging) markers listed in (4). They are responsible for the rich pattern of valency changes in the language: they are of two kinds, simplex (§ 5.1) and complex (§ 5.2), which are mutually interrelated. A complex verb adds one or more upper-layer verbs to a simplex verb cumulatively (thus A′+A″+…). Despite a bi- or multi-clausal construction, it is morphologically a single verb with suffixation (hence, neither a compound nor a periphrastic verb such as a serial verb), just like a simplex verb. A complex verb shows a much more regular pattern and is more freely productive than a simplex verb. Of the markers, greater focus will be directed in this paper to the applicative and the adversative E and their connection to the two valency-decreasing antipassive markers in (5).
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(4)
simplex (§ 5.1.1~4)
complex (§ 5.2.1~6)
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A (causative)
-c- +
* direct causative * cf. complex causative A′
E (applicative) (means/T) (place/R)
-uc-
* wide range of roles incl. benefactive
-uteke-vike-
* valency rearranging as well as increasing
E (adversative)
-gi-
* malefactive ‘on, to the disadvantage of’
AIMP (necessitative)
-narqe- +
* may also be modality marker
A′ (causative)
-vkar- ~ -cic- +
‘make, let s.o. ―’; cf. simplex A
A′ (directive)
-sqe- +
‘ask, tell s.o. ― to’
A′ (speculative)
-cuke- +
‘think that s.o. ―’
A′ (reportative)
-ni-
‘say that s.o. ―’
A′ (ignorative)
-uciit- +
‘not know, be unsure that/ whether s.o. ―’
A′ (expectant)
-nercir-
‘wait s.o. ― to’
+ less common or more specific alternative markers are given in footnotes. * phonological adjustments involved in the markers: suffix-initial u is deleted after a stemfinal full vowel (a, i, u); g is deleted between two single vowels; c of -cuke- alternates with s and y.
E, either applicative -uc- (EAPPL) or adversative-gi- (EADV), is an extended argument with the semantic role of “experiencer”; this is not in the more common use as a recipient of a sensory impression or a psychic state6 but in its wider sense as an indirectly affected participant of some event or activity. It is possible not only with an intransitive or a monotransitive (incl. impersonal patientive with an uncoded AIMP in (2)) but also with a ditransitive verb. It can also occur after an antipassivized verb. EAPPL has a wider range of roles ‒ benefactive (adversative), accompaniment, goal, recipient, etc. – than EADV (which contextually can be benefactive). Given the variety of roles, two Es (EAPPL + EAPPL or EAPPL + EADV) may occur within a single verb. EAPPL and EADV behave syntactically in the same way, with a few important exceptions, i.e. in relation to intransitive verbs ((6), § 5.1.2, § 5.1.3, § 5.3) and to extended AIMP (just below and § 2.2.6). EAPPL + S serves as a patientive monotransitive, i.e. with P + A (§ 5.1.1). It is important to note that EADV and (less commonly) EAPPL occur as the valency-decreasing antipassivizers (APAS); see (5). Inter-
6 A recipient of a sensory impression or a psychic state is treated in CAY as A or S for purposes of grammatical expression (thus not as E).
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relatedness between the two functions of increase and decrease is briefly touched upon in § 5.1.5. Another valency extension is represented by AIMP, which expresses necessity or destiny, distinct from the uncoded SIMP/AIMP in (2) primary verbs. Like the uncoded one in primary verbs, it cannot be an overt NP. An extended AIMP is possible with EAPPL but not with EADV. A simplex verb extension (A, E, or AIMP) cannot stand after a complex verb (A′).7 Any argument, primary or extended, can eventually, by means of a chain of modifications, be indexed as a core (intransitive subject, transitive subject, or object), and any argument other than SIMP and AIMP (primary or coded) can be flagged by a syntactic case (absolutive or relative) and can be targeted for relativization. Any expanded verb, either simplex or complex, is patientive (§ 2.2.1), thereby requiring coded antipassivization (by -gi-), except for a complex verb with the reportative complex marker (-ni-),which is agentive (§ 5.2.4).
2.2.4 Valency-decreasing markers (5)
decreasing
antipassive (§ 5.1.5)
-gi-
cf. EAPPL; most productive
-uc-
cf. EADV
-kengepseudo-passive8 (§ 5.1.6)
-sci(u)r-*
dynamic; generally adversative
-gau-/-gaqe-
stative
* suffix-initial s of -sci(u)r- is deleted postconsonantally.
2.2.5 Multi-valent verbs and multifarious patterns Most of the valency-increasing markers listed in (4) are very productive and can occur one after another, often recursively, with decreasing ones (esp. antipassivizers) in (5) intervening also recursively. Their varied combinations yield multivalent verbs with multifarious valency patterns, rendering it hardly practical to list all the patterns that a verb may occur in. 7 An applicative E -uc-, however, may be used after a complex verb A′ by a few people but is not accepted by most traditional speakers. I tend to regard this as a relatively recent innovation, though the issue remains a matter for further study. 8 CAY has no solid suffix whose function is productive passivization like the ‘unreservedly productive’ -niqar- in West Greenlandic (Fortescue 1984: 265–266). The two in CAY are composite suffixes (§ 5.1.6(i), (ii)).
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Since the number of arguments that can be indexed is maximally limited to two core positions (subject and object), multivalent verbs with three or more arguments are obligatorily subject to the processes of valency reduction, such as demotion and deletion, in order to promote the lower argument and to be inflected. Trivalent verbs (incl. primary ditransitive) require one reduction, quadrivalent ones require two, and so on. Demotion is made from the absolutive to the ablative-modalis or from the relative to the allative. Deletion is limited to A, AIMP and A′ (A″…). In addition, reduction may also be attained by agent coreference specific to complex verbs (like S/A = A′, A′ = A″; e.g. (63b) and (65b) as well as the cases of reflexivization and reciprocalization (like S = P; e.g. in § 4.1(ii), (iii)) ‒ see also Miyaoka (2012, § 30.3.2.4, etc.).
2.2.6 Argument hierarchy CAY arguments, both primary (non-extended) and extended ones responsible for verb-coded alternations, are hierarchically ordered in terms of accessibility to the absolutive status (intransitive subject or transitive object) and the whole case assignment of arguments involved with this: (6) Valency extension and argument hierarchy simplex S > EADV / EAPPL > P
complex
S9 >E >A
> AIMP
> A′ > A″ ...
T>R
Extended arguments are shown in italics, while primary arguments are not italicized. S extended with causative A (§ 5.1.1) is comprised in P > A, as in (33b). The hierarchy reflects the morphological ordering inside a verb, except for an E argument (both applicative and adversative). This means that an E does not split a primary verb but follows it. Extended trivalent verbs, which include only P E A, P A AIMP, P A A′ (from monotransitive), S EADV A′, EAPPLS A′, S AIMP A′, or S A′ A″ (from intransitive), given the constraint of no co-occurrence of EADV and (coded) AIMP (§ 2.2.3), follow exactly the same pattern for (primary) ditransitives of the two types, secundative and indirective (§ 3.3), with the caveat for EAPPL S A′ (see fn. 9).
9 Reflects the caveat of EAPPL in relation to intransitive verbs, cf. (38), requiring argument rearrangement (hierarchical reversal).
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The case assignment of extended verbs, either simplex or complex, starts from the absolutive case on the highest (leftmost) argument and the relative on the next, followed by their demotion (absolutive to ablative-modalis or relative to allative) or deletion (of A, AIMP, or A′, ...) in order to promote the next higher (if any) to fill the vacated position. Agent coreference specific to complex verbs (i.e. of A′ with a lower- or upper-clause agent) also serves for valency reduction, as mentioned in § 2.2.5 and illustrated by (65b). A fuller illustration of the process of case assignment is available in Miyaoka (2010: 558–560, 2012: § 30).
3 Basic patterns CAY has a considerable number of avalent roots, which are mainly emotional (e.g. afraid, lovely, lonesome, frustrated, repulsive), dimensional (Jacobson 1984; e.g. loud, wide, elevated), or positional (e.g. open, bent, face down, upright, standing, hanging, dirt). In order for them to be inflected, they are subject to an obligatory extension by one of a fairly limited number of root expanders as either intransitive or transitive verbs, e.g. (34) -t-. Primary verbs (below) – intransitive, monotransitive, and ditransitive – respectively show the single valency pattern as given in Table 1 through 5 below, with little subgrouping. Representative lists of the three classes and the more common expanders are available in Miyaoka (2012: § 36.2 and § 36.3).
3.1 Intransitive verbs: This is the basic pattern for intransitive verbs. Intransitives include, among others, animate/agentive, inanimate/non-agentive verbs, adjectival verbs, and denominal verbs. They can optionally take an NP in one of five cases for adjuncts; the NP is semantically compatible with the verb concerned, which is also the case with monotransitive and ditransitive verbs below. A number of subclasses may be worthy of note. (i) meteorological verbs, which have no overt ABS NP for the phenomenon concerned, are not possible with an A or 0̸ causative extension. But note in the following (b), where the location NP stands as the (dual) subject: (7) a. Kiag-tuq Mamteriller-ni. summer-ind.3sg place-loc.pl ‘It has become (is now in) the summer in Bethel.’
b. Kiag-tuk [ma-n’a
summer-ind.3du this-ex.abs.sg qag-na=llu]. outside-ex.abs.sg=and ‘It has become (is now in) the summer here and in the north.’
○
–
detransitivization (5.1.1) –
antipassive -gi-,-uc-, -kenge(3.2.1, 3.2.2) ○
adversative EADV-gi(5.1.3)
○
applicative EAPPL-uc-, -utke-, -vike(5.1.2) ○
impersonal AIMP-narqe(5.1.4) ◎
complex transitive A′ (5.2)
Examples (a) – the Leipzig List contains 20 verbs: rain ellall-ir- (denominal from ellalluk ‘rain’), burn eke-, sink kic-, roll akag-, be hungry kaig-, be sad iluteqe-, die tuqu-, laugh engelar-, play aqua-, live uita(-lar)-, run aqva-qur-, sit down aqume-, leave ayag-, go ayag-, jump qecg-, climb mayur-, cough qusr-, feel pain akngi-a-, be dry kine-ngqa-, be a hunter piste-ngu- (denominal from piste- ‘hunter’) (b) – Additional 3 verbs: be wide iqtu, be wider iqtu-nru-, be big-nosed qengar-pa-u- (denominal from qengar- ‘nose’), be inside a boat angya-mte- (denominal from angyar- ‘boat’)
○○
locational P (4.2(i))
uncoded (0̸)
10 A -c- and 0̸ are direct causatives, while two of the six types of complex transitive extensions with A′ (rightmost) are direct and indirect causatives, i.e. -vkar ~ -cic- (§ 5.2.1) and -sqe- (§ 5.2.2). See fn. 22 for additional and less common causative markers which are perhaps related to -c-. CAY has no analytical causatives.
Notes: ○ means general possibility with actual occurrence widely depending upon each verb and idiolect, while ◎ means free productivity.
intransitive (I) abs (abs)i
causative10 A 0̸ (5.1.1, 4.2(ii))
Tab. 1: Various intransitive verbs.
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(ii) relational verbs,11 which are denominal verbs characterized by verbalizing -ngu‘be N’, are, being copula-like, functionally much more diverse than copulas in many languages and, in particular, their corresponding (patientive) monotransitive verbs are characterized by -ke- (§ 3.2.2(i)). (8) [Ing-na angun] pissurte-ngu-uq. that-ex.abs.sg man.abs.sg hunter-be-ind.3sg ‘That man (over there) is a hunter.’ In (8) the ‘hunter’ (relativized from pissur- ‘to hunt’) is not a core argument or a “copula complement” (Dixon 2002) but simply the head (noun stem) of the predicate. Compare with the corresponding transitive relational verb (13) pissurte-ke-. See Miyaoka (2012, § 37) for details. (iii) comparative verbs, characterized by -nru-, also have corresponding transitive verbs with -nqe- (like the preceding relational verbs).12 Both intransitive and transitive comparative verbs are illustrated in § 3.2.2(ii), with the standard of comparison occurring differently, namely, in the locative vs. relative. A parameter for CAY comparative verbs can be non-adjectival intransitive (e.g. go, speak faster than) or monotransitive (e.g. eat, freeze more than). A time word can be the standard of comparison (e.g. hotter than yesterday). See Miyaoka (2012, § 45) for details. (iv) verbs implying involvement/judge occur with an adjunct (e.g. ‘as far as I am concerned’, ‘in my thinking’, etc.) either in the locative or in the allative, possibly with some semantic difference: (9) Anirtur-i-lleq qacignarq-uq angalku-u-lria-ni ~ angalku-u-lria-nun. help-apas-nmlz.abs.sg easy-ind.3sg shaman-ev-rlvz-loc.pl ~ -all.pl ‘For a shaman, it is easy to help (people).’ (v) verbs of motion occur with a locational adjunct in the ablative (e.g. ‘[go] out of the river’), allative (‘[go] to the mouth of the river’), locative (‘[live] in Bethel’), or in the perlative (‘[walk] through the tundra’). The locational adjunct NPs are combined (e.g. ‘he went from the house through the tundra to the mouth of the river’). Many of the motion verbs may be inflected transitively with uncoded locational P (§ 4.2(i)). They should not be taken as monotransitive verbs but as intransitive, given the diagnostic evidence provided by adversative -gi- (§ 5.1.3).
11 Distinct from what has traditionally been called a “relational” verb construction in the Algonquian literature since Bloomfield (1928). 12 The intransitive -nru- and the transitive -nqe- are composite suffixes derived respectively from the preceding relational verb -ngu- and -ke-.
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(vi) locative verbs, morphologically contracted verbs13 (called “compound phrases”) from a locational nominal (incl. demonstrative; possessed or non-possessed) in the locative case and an obsolete verb of existence (-et-), never take a locational adjunct. They have no corresponding transitives, unlike the other denominal, i.e. relational, verbs in (ii) above. (10) a. Angya-mt-ut. boat-be.at-ind.3pl ‘They are in the boat.’ b. Angya-mnit-ut. boat-1sg.be.at-ind.3pl ‘They are in my boat.’ c. Angya-mni uita-ut. boat-loc.1pl.sg stay-ind.3pl ‘They stay in my boat.’ (with the intransitive verb uita- ‘stay’) Other members of this class come from possessed location nouns (like aci-ant- ‘be underneath of’) and adverbial demonstratives (ika-nt- ‘be across there’) besides personal pronouns and place names. (vii) 0̸ locational P alternation occurs with verbs like leave, jump, climb, cough. See § 4.2(i). (viii) 0̸ causatives are possible mainly with adjectival (incl. color terms) and denominal verbs like be wide, be big-nosed. See § 4.2(ii).
3.2 Monotransitive verbs: CAY monotransitive verbs with P and A arguments are basically labile, being either transitively or intransitively inflected (uncoded alternation, § 4.1).14 Morphosyntax necessitates classification of monotransitive verbs into two classes – agentive with accusative alignment of P and S=A and patientive with ergative alignment of P=S and A. The latter includes a fair number of impersonal patientive verbs with an impersonal A.
13 See Miyaoka (2012: § 2.4, § 27.8, etc.) for problems in interpreting these as single words. 14 By far the greater part of the so-called “transitive-only” verbs (Jacobson 1984: 19, 1995: 116; Mithun 2000: 87), including ditransitives, will turn out to occur with intransitive inflection as well, given certain contexts.
–
patientive transitive (II-pat) abs rel
APAS
detransitivization (5.1.1) –
antipassive -gi-, -uc-, -kenge(3.2.1, 3.2.2) ○
adversative EADV-gi(5.1.3)
○
applicative EAPPL-uc-, -utke-, -vike(5.1.2) ○
impersonal AIMP-narqe(5.1.4)
◎
complex transitive A′ (5.2)
–
locational P (4.2(i))
uncoded (0̸)
MED-PAS
detransitivization (5.1.1) APAS
○
adversative EADV-gi(5.1.3)
○
applicative EAPPL-uc-, -utke-, -vike(5.1.2)
○
impersonal AIMP-narqe(5.1.4)
◎
complex transitive A′ (5.2)
Examples (a) – the Leipzig List contains 14 verb: sit aqum-vike-, blink qelem-c-, shave unga-ir- (denominal; ungak ‘whiskers’), wash erur-, help ikayur-, think umyua-qe-, like assi-ke-, fear ali-ke-, frighten ali-nge-vkar-, break navg-, kill tuqu-c-, beat kaug-, tear allg-, hide iir-, (b) – Additional 2 verbs: be someone’s hunter piste-ke- (denominal; piste- ‘hunter’), be wider iqtu-nqe-
–
causative A 0̸ (5.1.1, 4.2(ii))
antipassive -gi-, -uc-, -kenge(3.2.1, 3.2.2)
Examples – the Leipzig List contains 20 verbs: scream (to) aar-a-, dress ac-, eat nere-, sing atur-, follow maligc, meet pairc-, hug qec-, search for yuar-, know nallu-nrit (with negative -nrit-), smell nare-, look at tang-vag-, see tangrr-, shout at qayag-pag-, say qanr-, build (e.g. boat) (angya-)li-, hit kaug-tur-, touch agtur-, cut ingqi-, take/steal teglg-, carry ang’aqe-
–
locational P (4.2.1(i))
uncoded (0̸)
Tab. 3: Various patientive monotransitives.
agentive transitive (II-agn) abs rel
causative A 0̸ (5.1.1, 4.2(ii))
Tab. 2: Various agentive monotransitives.
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3.2.1 Agentive monotransitives This class of monotransitive verbs is represented by eat ‘to eat’ in the following – (a) is transitive and (b) is intransitive, i.e. antipassive, as an uncoded alternation (vs. coded antipassive from patientive monotransitives, § 3.2.2, § 5.1.5). (11) a. Angute-m neqa ner-aa. man-rel.sg fish.abs.sg eat-ind.3sg.3sg ‘The man is eating the fish.’
b. Angun neq-mek ner’-uq.
man.abs.sg fish-abm.sg eat-ind.3sg ‘The man is eating a fish.’ (antipassive (“indefinite” P demotion), as contrasted with coded antipassive for patientive verbs, cf. (12c)) Note the resultant abs ~ abm alternation yields contrast in the definiteness of ‘fish’
3.2.2 Patientive monotransitives This class of monotransitive verbs is represented by tear allg- in the following, though many of them are not inchoative-causative “destruction verbs”: (a) is transitive and (b) is intransitive, i.e. medio-passive, as an uncoded alternation. By contrast with the agentive (11b) above, antipassivization is a coded productive alternation (c) by means of one of the three antipassivizers (§ 5.1.5): (12) a. Angute-m kuvya-ni man-rel.sg net-abs.3rsg.sg allg-aa. tear-ind.3sg.3sg ‘The man tears/tore his (own) net.’
b. Kuvya-a alleg-tuq.
net-abs.3sg.sg tear-ind.3sg (i) ‘His net tears/tore (by itself).’ (taken as “medialization” (neutralization) between P and A15) (ii) ‘His net was torn (by someone).’ (passivization (A deletion), less common than preceding i.16 – hence “medio-passives” for intransitives (like alleg-tuq) for patientive monotransitives) 15 Term used instead of anticausativization, which occurs not only with P and A but also with E and A, responsible for cay antipassivization; § 5.1.5 (51). 16 See (33c) and (34b) also for two readings (i, ii), the crucial significance of which will emerge later in this paper (§ 5.1.5).
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c. Angun kuvya-minek
man.abs.sg net-abm.3rsg.sg allg-i-uq. tear-apas-ind.3sg ‘The man tore his (own) net.’ (coded antipassive, cf. (48) and (50b(i)) Just like (12b(i)), (12b(ii)) above cannot have the agent expressed. No valency pattern specific to any semantically relevant subclasses is observed, apart from the impersonal patientives below (§ 3.2.3). However, the following two types of patientive monotransitive verbs (§ 3.2.2.1, § 3.2.2.2) are characterized by a semantically atypical A argument. (i) relational verbs, denominal verbs characterized by the verbalizing suffix -ke(Table 3), are (patientive) monotransitives, which yield copula-like sentences like ‘X is Z’s Y’. The following examples correspond to the intransitive relational verb (8), marked by -ngu- (§ 3.1): (13) [Ing-na angun] pissurte-k-aqa. that-ex.abs.sg man.abs.sg hunter-have.as-ind.1sg.3sg ‘That man (over there) is my hunter (a hunter for me); lit. I have that man as a hunter.’ In (13), Y (‘hunter’), again, is not a core argument or a “copula complement” but simply the head (noun stem) of the predicate, while X (‘that man’) is the P argument and Z (‘my’) is the A argument. A detransitivized -ke- relational verb cannot be medio-passive but may be reciprocal if it has a dual intransitive subject (cf. uncoded reciprocals; § 4.1-iii) or reflexive if it has a reflexive pronoun, that is, a reflexively-used personal pronoun: (14) aana-k-uk mother-have.as-ind.3du ‘they (du) are mother and daughter; lit. they two have each other as mothers.’ (cf. aana-u-guk (mother-be-ind.1du) ‘they (du) are (two) mothers (whether related or not)’ – intransitive relational verb) Transitive and intransitive pairs of relational verbs, denominal with -ke- and -ngu-, are also: a) involved in grammaticalization of a fair number of composite suffixes as grammatical markers such as TAM, negation, and valency-modification, e.g. PST -llru-(/-nqe-; few dialects), AIMP -narqe- (§ 5.1.4), and EAPPL-uteke-/-vike(§ 5.1.2)
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b) morphologically expanded into the inchoative pair -k-saguc- (monotransitive)/ -ngu-rc- (intransitive), yielding the four-way opposition (transitive vs. intransitive and stative vs. inchoative), which is the case with not only copular-like constructions (e.g. ‘he is/has now become my/a teacher’) but also in comparative verbs (see (ii) immediately below) and pseudo-passive (§ 5.1.6(ii)) c) productive devices for synchronic transcategorial (or “cyclical”) expansions through re-nominalization (mainly relativization) and re-verbalization (by relative verbs), though this is beyond the scope of the present topic. Details are provided in Miyaoka (2012; § 20.4, § 37, § 45). (ii) comparative verbs, characterized by -nqe- (vs. intransitive -nru-), show a morphosyntactic parallelism to relational verbs, given that the markers are derived from the abstract nominalizer -nr- and the monotransitive and intransitive relational verb as well as -ke- (§ 3.2.2-i) and -ngu- (§ 3.1) – see Miyaoka (2009, 2012 § 45) and 3.1(iii) for details. Only the stative comparative degree (without inchoative and superlative/equalitive) is illustrated – (a) intransitive and (b) transitive: (15) a. Angyaq ange-nru-uq pi-mni (~ angya-mni). boat.abs.sg big-more-ind.3sg thing(boat)-loc.1sg.sg ‘The boat is bigger than mine (~ my boat).’ b. Angyaq ange-nq-aa (~ ang-neq-aa) pi-ma(~ angya-ma). boat.abs.sg big-more-ind.3sg.3sg thing(boat)-rel.1sg.sg ‘The boat is bigger than mine (~ my boat) (lit. mine has the boat as the big(ger) one).’ (the pronoun pi-(mni/-ma) is more common here than angya-(mni/ma) with the stem repeated) Note in (15) that the comparee (‘the boat’) is in the absolutive case, functioning as the S argument in (a) but P in (b), while the standard of comparison (‘[than] mine/ boat’) is in the locative case in (a) but in the relative case in (b), atypically functioning as the A argument. Accordingly, the standard of a transitive comparison can be relativized, but not that of the corresponding intransitive comparison since it is an oblique NP (§ 2.1). In addition, the intransitive vs. transitive pair is coupled with a stative vs. inchoative pair (‘the boat is/becomes bigger than mine’), showing a four-way opposition, as mentioned in § 3.2(i)(b).18
17 The verb variations with/without e insertion depend on the speaker. 18 This four-way opposition is also the case with a superlative (‘the biggest’) and an equalitive (‘as big as’) comparison; see (55).
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A -nqe- comparative verb cannot be detransitivized. The same kind of atypical A argument as the possessor is also found in the pseudo-passive in § 5.1.6(ii) and (53b). (iii) causativization, occurring in simplex verbs (with -c-, e.g. blink, kill) and in complex verbs (with -vkar- ~ -cic-, e.g. frighten). See § 5.1.1 and § 5.2.1.
3.2.3 Impersonal patientives: The seventy verbs in the Leipzig List contain two relevant verbs like (A) above, which are impersonal causatives from qerru- ‘freeze to death’ and kii- ‘to come off’. This type of CAY verbs refers to a natural process or a force such as temperaturerelated phenomena (e.g. ice/freeze, jell, melt, burn, cook, smoke, dry), changes in condition/shape/position (e.g. ripen, get rusty, get dirty, swell, flood, shrink, ooze, move, fly, bend, peel off) and processes related to body parts (e.g. heal, shed hair/fur, get chapped, get head sores, get blood poisoning). As noted in § 2, the AIMP, a natural process/force, cannot be overt, hence flagging is irrelevant. The intransitive alternation, with AIMP-deleted passivization, is nearly equivalent or quasi-equivalent (≒) to the transitive: (16) a. Nanvaq ciku-a.
lake.abs.sg freeze-ind.3sg.3sg b. Nanvaq ciku-uq.
lake.abs.sg freeze-ind.3sg a≒b ‘The lake is frozen.’ (literally, (a) ‘it (Aimp) has frozen the lake’ (transitive) vs. (b) ‘the lake is frozen’ (intransitive), possibly with a semantic difference (Miyaoka 2012; § 34.3.1)) Contrasted with non-impersonal patientives (§ 3.2.2), these cannot have medialization like (12b(ii)); this, for the good reason that AIMP and P cannot be medialized (see § 5.1.5).
PAS
detransitivization (5.1.1) –
antipassive -gi-, -uc-, -kenge(3.2.1, 3.2.2) ○
adversative EADV-gi(5.1.3)
○
applicative EAPPL-uc-, -utke-, -vike(5.1.2) –
impersonal AIMP-narqe(5.1.4) ◎
complex transitive A′ (5.2)
–
locational P (4.2(i))
uncoded (0̸)
PAS
detransitivization (5.1.1) APAS
Antipassive -gi-, -uc-, -kenge(3.2.1, 3.2.2) ○
adversative EADV-gi(5.1.3)
○
applicative EAPPL-uc-, -utke-, -vike(5.1.2)
○
◎
impercomplex sonal transitive AIMP-narqe- A′ (5.2) (5.1.4)
examples (a) – the Leipzig List contains 14 verbs: give cikir- | tune- (‘give/sell’), talk qanemci-(c-) | –, tell qanr-uc- | qanr-utke-, show nasvic- | nasvag-, send tuyur- | tuyu-uc (‘order for’), throw mil-qar- | mil-qa-uc-, ask for kaiga-vike- | kaiga-tke-, tie petug-vike- | petug-, put elli-vike- | elli-, pour kuve-vike- | kuve- ~ kuv-utke-, cover patu-c- | patu-, fill im-ir- | im-i-uc-, load uci-lir- | uci-li-uc- , name at’-lir- ~ ac-ir- | ac-i-uc-. The last three are denominal (respectively from im(ar)- ‘content’, uci- ‘load’, atr- ‘name’ with -lir- ‘supply’,19 as in intransitive rain ellall(-ir)- ). (b) – Additional: deprivative oversupply cipec- | – remove allurc- | –. See (19) for oversupply, which is responsible for the most common type of CAY phrasal (additive) numerals.
–
causative A 0̸ (5.1.1, 4.2(ii))
19 One of the common -li- group suffixes which are characterized by deletion of the preceding final vowel and -l-. See also the composite pseudo-passive suffix +sci(u)r- (§ 5.1.6(i)).
ditransitive (III) secundative (ABM) ABS REL | indirective (ALL) ABS REL
–
locational P (4.2(i))
uncoded (0̸)
examples (a) – the Leipzig List contains 2 verbs: feel cold qerru-c-, peel kii-c(b) – Additional 2 verbs: freeze ciku-, spill maqe-. See § 3.2.3 for a fuller list of this class of verbs. The verbs have no overt REL NP
○–
Tab. 5: Various ditransitive verbs.
impersonal patientive transitive (II-imp) ABS (REL) i
causative A 0̸ (5.1.1, 4.2(ii))
Tab. 4: Various impersonal patientives.
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3.3 Ditransitive verbs secundative pattern: indirective pattern:
Note that, except for ‘give/sell’ having different stems for secundative and indirective, most of the others have secondary stems derived from either secundative or indirective. As mentioned in § 2.2.5, demotion of one argument is obligatory in order for a ditransitive verb to be inflected. T for (a) secundative and R for (b) indirective are demoted respectively to the ablative-modalis and the allative, accordingly parenthesized (T) and (R) in (2). The ditransitive give is illustrated below: note that R for the former and T for the latter are encoded as the transitive object, with the other being demoted to one of the oblique cases.
(17) a. Angute-m qimugta neq-mek cikir-aa. man-rel.sg dog.abs.sg fish-abm.sg give-ind.3sg.3sg ‘The man gave fish to the dog.’ b. Angute-m neqa wang-nun tun-aa. man-rel.sg fish.abs.sg 1sg-all give-ind.3sg.3sg ‘The man gave/sold the fish to me.’
The two, secundative and indirective, are notably correlated in a valency pattern with two types of complex transitives (1 vs. 2) and extended trivalent verbs, as shown by (1). Apart from the ditransitive ‘give’, which has a suppletive pair (neither analyzable cikir- vs. tune- above), most ditransitive verbs form alternating pairs with secundative and indirective alignment, derived with an applicative suffix (§ 5.1.2). Valency rearrangement made by the composite applicative -uteke- or -vike(§ 5.1.2(iii)) respectively yields an indirective or a secundative verb, as seen in e.g. (18), (22), and (42). A ditransitive verb may have an (uncoded) passive, e.g. cikir- with R as a subject and A deletion in the following (a), as is the case with (8b(ii)) for patientive monotransitives, while the indirective tune- is used, with the obligatory valency rearrangement as in (b):
(18) a. Angun ciki-llru-uq neq-mek. man.abs.sg give-pst-ind.3sg fish-abm.sg ‘The man was given fish.’
Valency classes in Central Alaskan Yupik, an Eskimoan language
b. Angun tune-vike-llru-uq man.abs.sg give-pst-ind.3sg neq-mek. fish-abm.sg ‘The man was given/sold fish.’
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Medialization is not possible with ditransitive verbs (between A and T), but antipassivization occurs as a coded alternation (i.e. through medialization between A and EADV; § 5.1.5). CAY has a secundative ditransitive verb, oversupply cipec-, which is responsible for phrasal (additive) numerals (e.g. 22 < 20+3), the most common type of CAY numerals (Miyaoka 2012: § 14.3.1.1): (19) Qula malru-gnek cip-luku neqe-t tais-ki. ten.abs.sg two-abm.du oversupply-app.3sg fish-abs.pl bring-opp.2sg.3pl ‘Bring the twelve fish to me!’ (‘the fish’ (main-clause object) is modified by the cosubordinate (adnominal) clause ‘(you) oversupplying ten with two’, which is coreferential with the main clause subject (2sg) cf. qula malru-gnek cipt-aa (ind.3sg.3sg) ‘he/it oversupplies ten with two’)
4 Uncoded alternations Major uncoded alternations, which are more or less restricted to certain (classes of) verbs, include two types:
4.1 Uncoded detransitivization As already illustrated (§ 3.2, § 3.3), monotransitive and ditransitive verbs are subject to uncoded and (generally) productive detransitivization, that is, (i) antipassive alternation relevant to agentive verbs, e.g. (11), and (ii) mediopassive alternation relevant to patientive verbs, e.g. (12). Apparently less productive are (TAM-sensitive) passive, reflexive, and reciprocal uncoded alternations. Some verbs require (or prefer) coded alternations for the second and the third, see § 3.2.2.1 and § 5.1.2(ii). (i) TAM-sensitive passives, which are obligatorily agentless, contrasted with pseudo-passives (§ 5.1.6).
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(20) Neqa ner’-uq ak’a. fish.abs.sg eat-ind.3sg already ‘The fish is/has been eaten.’ (compare with the uncoded antipassive (11b) with the same ner’-uq) TAM specification is made not only by means of a particle (like ak’a) but also by means of a cosubordinate clause, e.g. nang-luku (use.up-APP.3SG ‘finishing it’), or a suffix, e.g. ner-uma-uq (cf. Jacobson 1995: 208; Mithun 2000: 91–93). (ii) Reflexives co-occur with a reflexive(ly-used) pronoun in the ablative-modalis case: (21) Qimugta evcug-tuq ellmi-nek. dog.abs.sg shake-ind.3sg 3rsg-abm ‘The dog is shaking/brushing himself (snow off himself).’ (22) Tun-ua wang-nek Agayut-mun. give-ind.1sg 1sg-abm God-all.sg ‘I am giving (voluntarily surrendering) myself to God.’ ≒ Ciki-utek-ua wang-nek Agayut-mun (with valency rearrangement by -utek- on secundative cikir-, yielding quasiequivalence with the indirective tune-) (iii) Reciprocals with dual subject, often co-occurring with a reflexive pronoun (though this is not obligatory). The following example has the patientive transitive (II-pat) with intransitive inflection. (23) Ikayur-tukuk wangkug-nek. help-ind.1du 1du-abm ‘We (du) are helping each other.’ (cf. transitive ikayur-anga ‘she is helping me’ (ind.3sg.1sg.)) See also (14) aana-k-uk ‘they are mother and daughter’ (ind.3du), a reciprocal relational verb.
4.2 Uncoded transitivization Two kinds of uncoded transitivization (of intransitive verbs) are found, namely, (i) locational alternation and (ii) causative alternation. These are two patterns in particular which are now in marked decline among (innovative) speakers, in contrast to uncoded detransitivization (§ 4.1).
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(i) locational alternation is found with many intransitive verbs of motion, including go down, go up, jump over, (liquid) ooze, flow out on, land. With an uncoded P, the primary S becomes A. A transitive construction like (b) in the following is employed mostly by the older generation (though to different extents depending upon speakers), but it seems to sound odd or unnatural to younger speakers in general. The uncoded locational object may also be a time noun. (24) a. Angyar-pa kuig-mek an’-uq. boat-big.abs.sg river-abm.sg go.out-ind.3sg ‘The big boat went out of the river.’ b. Angyar-pi-i-m kuik an-aa. boat-big-ev-rel.sg river.abs.sg go.out-ind.3sg.3sg ‘The big boat made it out of the river (at full tide).’ (25) a. Atrar-tuq ingri-mek. go.down-ind.3sg mountain-abm.sg ‘He is climbing down from the mountain.’ b. Atrar-aa ingriq. go.down-ind.3sg.3sg mountain.abs.sg ‘He is climbing down the mountain.’ The inverse interpretation, taking the verbs basically as monotransitive instead of intransitive, is rejected because of the diagnostic property of the adversative E -gi(§ 5.1.1.3), namely that the E argument (with the role of sufferer) becomes a transitive subject when added to an intransitive verb, but a transitive object when added to a transitive verb. In the following example with tekic- ‘arrive (at place/time)’, the uncoded transitive alternation (b) is subject to uncoded antipassivization in (c), accordingly with an ablative-modalis NP, like (11b) above since it is an agentive monotransitive verb: (26) a. Tekit-uq [u-u-mun ene-mun]. arrive-ind.3sg this-ex-all.sg house-all.sg b. Tekit-aa [u-na ena]. arrive-ind.3sg.3sg this-ex.abs.sg house.abs.sg c. Tekit-uq [u-u-mek ene-mek]. arrive-ind.3sg this-ex-abm.sg house-abm.sg a ≒ b ≒ c ‘He arrived at this house.’ (with the slight semantic difference that (b), as contrasted to (a), may imply ‘his’ arrival at ‘this house’ despite some doubt, uncertainty, or limita-
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tion, or the connotation ‘accidentally, happen to’;20 and (c), closer to (b), may sound like a house not well known beforehand) (ii) causative alternation Mostly adjectival (including color terms) and denominal verbs. The causer may either be (a) impersonal or (b) personal (human/animate): (27) a. Iqtu-a kuik atam. wide-ind.3sg.3sg river.abs.sg look/hey ‘Hey, the river is (has become) wide, lit. it (Aimp) has widened it [unnoticed by hearer]!’ (cf. intransitive iqtu-uq (ind.3sg) kuik ‘the river is wide’ – mere statement) b. Iqtu-an qasp-e-li-a-n. wide-ind.2sg.3sg parka-ev-make-rlvz-abs.2sg.sg ‘You (SG) made your parka too wide. (lit. your made parka is too wide)’ At least some of the speakers who accept the transitive construction seem to perceive that the transitive alternate often implies a mirative sense of the speaker noticing or encountering (with surprise) some natural or supernatural change/ force involved, or something that is unseen or unnoticed by the hearer (‘here it is’). This is reflected by frequent co-occurrence of attention-calling interjectional particles like atam ‘look!’ as above – see also (31). Acceptability is generally lower for AIMP as in (a) than for A as in (b), but transitive alternations with AIMP are attested at least with adjectival verbs such as be small, be big, be wide, be short, be clever, and be tasty. Only personal A is attested also with such verbs as be dirty, be hard, be little, and be heavy/ light. Change of color is illustrated by the following: (28) a. Kelipa-a tungu-uq ~ tungu-a. bread-abs.3sg.sg black-ind.3sg ~ -ind.3sg.3sg ‘Her bread is black; it (Aimp) has blackened her bread.’ b. Arna-m tungu-a mingug-a-ni. woman-rel.sg black-ind.3sg.3sg paint-rlvz-abs.3rsg.sg ‘The woman made her painting (painted one) too black.’21
20 Accordingly often accompanied by adverbial adjuncts alqunaq ‘suddenly’ or aya-inanemini (CNN.3rsg) ‘while he was going on his way’. 21 Note the contrast between the reflexive third person possessor for ‘her (own) painting’ vs. the third person for ‘her bread’, triggered by the impersonal vs. personal A.
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(29) Keggina-a qater-tuq ~ qatr-aa. face-abs.3sg.sg white-ind.3sg ~ -ind.3sg.3sg ‘His face is white.’ Lit.: ‘it (Aimp) has whitened his face’. Another group of intransitive verbs which are subject to the impersonal causative alternation consists of several kinds of denominal verbs like have a good N (smell), have a cold N (body part), and catch a lot of N (fish) and relational verbs like (31): (30) Tep-liq-uq ~ Tep-liq-aa issuriq. smell-affected-ind.3sg ~ -ind.3sg.3sg seal.abs.sg ‘The spotted seal smells bad.’ (31) Ciul-va-u-guq ~ Ciul-va-u-gaa atam Nac’aq. ear-big-be-ind.3sg ~ -ind.3sg.3sg look personal.name.abs.sg ‘See, Nac’aq is big-nosed.’ Finally, a number of motion verbs also exhibit the AIMP causative alternation, such as go away, move, and roll: (32) Akag-tuq ~ akag-aa angqa-a. roll-ind.3sg ~ -ind.3sg.3sg ball-abs.3sg.sg ‘His ball is rolling; lit. it rolls his ball.’ (the transitive construction with akag-aa is much less common) More details and examples of uncoded causative alternations are available in Miyaoka (2012; § 33.4.2, § 33.4.3).
5 Verb-coded alternations Given the variety of valency-increasing suffixes (simplex and complex) and their (limited) cumulativeness, verbs can be multivalent, even with six or seven arguments in fact. See § 2.2.6 for the argument hierarchy for case assignment in view of accessibility to the absolutive status.
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5.1 Simplex verbs 5.1.1 Causative A: -c- ‘make’ (coercive) 22 In contrast to the other valency-increasing markers, this is only possible with (i) intransitive verbs and (ii) postural roots, yielding patientive monotransitive verbs P(=S) A; the original S becomes P. Just like the patientive monotransitives mentioned in § 3.2.2, the derived verbs may undergo a further detransitivization like (12b-c). This is direct causation, while causative complex verbs with A′ (§ 5.2.1) denote two-event indirect causation. See § 4.2(ii) also for uncoded causative alternation, also limited to intransitive verbs. (33) a. tuqu-uq ind.3sg ‘he died’ b. tuqu-t-aa ind.3sg.3sg ‘he killed her/it’ (with the regular phonological change of -c- to -t-) c. tuqu-t-uq ind.3sg (i) ‘he choked’ (ii) ‘he killed himself’ (with the reflexive pronoun ellminek; cf. § 4.1-iii)) d. tuqu-c-i-uq apas-ind.3sg ‘he killed (s.o./sth.)’ (§ 5.1.5 – compare (b) with the causative complex verb (56a) ‘he is making/ letting her die’ which may be coercive or permissive) The causative (b) is bivalent P > A from the original S + A, as given in (6) valency extension and argument hierarchy, which is also the case with the following (a): (34) a. nanger-t-aa ind.3sg.3sg ‘he stood her/it up; he helped her to stand up’
22 And less common (a) -car-/-caa(ra)r- ‘make sth. -er’ and (b) -cir- ‘wait/let – (to)’ (‘causation without direct effort’; Mithun 2000: 100), while (c) -rqe- ‘make repeatedly’ is attested in a limited number of lexicalized causatives.
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b. nanger-t-uq ind.3sg (i) ‘she/it stood up’ (ii) ‘she/it was helped to stand (by s.o.)’
5.1.2 Applicative E: -uc-/-uteke- and -vike(i) -uc-, with roles of accompaniment, addressee, goal, beneficiary (or maleficiary), and recipient. The EAPPL is possible not only with intransitives (38) and monotransitives (35) and (36) but also with ditransitives (37). The following example (35) has a beneficiary E, while (36) has a goal E; these have different oblique cases: (35) a. nalaq-aa ind.3sg.3sg ‘he found it’ a′. nalaq-uq ind.3sg ‘it has been found’ b. Nalaq-ut-aanga irnia-ma sass’a-mek. find-eappl-ind.3sg.1sg child-rel.1sg.sg watch-abm.sg ‘My child found a watch for me.’ – beneficiary E c. nalaq-ut-uq find-apas-ind.3sg ‘He found (sth.).’ (antipassive; see (49)) Case assignment of (b), with P demotion to the ablative-modalis, follows the argument hierarchy (§ 2.2.6): (36) Imi-ut-aa emeq qalta-mun. fill-Eappl-ind.3sg.3sg water.abs.sg pail-all.sg ‘She poured the water into the pail.’ (recipient-like E, thus serving as an indirective ditransitive; see (17b)) Unlike the preceding example, this has the recipient-like E, which is demoted to the allative-like R for an indirective ditransitive verb (§ 3.3) or A for Transitive 2 of a complex verb (§ 5.2): . Compare two types of extended trivalent verbs like the preceding two applicative verbs (35b), (36) with secundative vs. indirective ditransitives (17) and transitive 1 vs. 2 of complex verbs (56a, b).
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The following example shows the applicative E added to a ditransitive stem, (a) indirective nasvag- ‘show’ and (b) secundative payugc- ‘bring (food)’. The quadrivalent stems require two demotions, hence the neutral pattern of: (37) a. nasva-ut-aanga
show-eappl-ind.3sg.1sg ‘he showed (sth.; abm) (to s.o.; all) for me’ b. payug-ut-aa bring-eappl-ind.3sg.3sg ‘he brought (sth.; abm) (to s.o.; all) for her’ With intransitive verbs, applicative E (but not adversative E) becomes P, while the primary S becomes A (cf. § 5.1.3): (38) a. Kicaq kit’-uq. anchor.abs.sg sink-ind.3sg ‘The anchor sank.’
< P(E)abs A(S)rel V.subj[S].obj[E]>
b. Kica-m kis’-ut-aanga. anchor-rel.sg sink-eappl-ind.3sg.1sg ‘The anchor sank with me, i.e. I (entangled) sank along with the anchor.’ Only with intransitive verbs (but not with monotransitives or ditransitives as above), the applicative E -uc- and the adversative E -gi- show a contrast in terms of argument hierarchy: compare (38b) with adversative (43a) (‘the seal sank on me’), which shows the opposite person relationship (IND.1SG.3SG.) in verb inflection. Two applicative Es may occur (‘he spoke English to s.o. for s.o.’) or be reduplicated for added implication (‘unintentionally’), and an applicative E may be followed by an adversative E (‘he went with (took away) sth. on her’). Apart from the above-mentioned contrast of the applicative E -uc- against the adversative E -gi- in relation to the intransitive S, it is important to note that both the E markers also function as antipassivizers (APAS). (ii) -uc- is for reflexives/reciprocals, cf. § 4.1(ii) and (iii) (uncoded). (39) a. Qenr-ut-uq ellmi-nek. angry-eAPPL-ind.3sg 3rsg-abm ‘He is angry at himself.’ b. Qenr-ut-uk. ind.3du) ‘They (du) are angry at each other.’ (iii) -uteke- and -vike-, the former adds instrumental P or replaces R with T, while the latter adds locational P or replaces T with R.
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(40) a. quya-tek-aqa thankful-means-ind.1sg.3sg ‘I am thankful/glad of it/him; I have it/him as a reason for being thankful’ b. quya-vik-aqa ind.1sg.3sg ‘I am thankful/glad for it/him; I have it/him as a place for being thankful’ – quya- ‘be thankful, glad’, -aqa (41) Nuk’a-m nanvaq kuimar-vik-aa. p.n-rel.sg lake.abs.sg swim-place-ind.3sg.3sg ‘The lake is where Nuk’aq swims.’ (42) a. secundative ditransitive Cikir-aqa qimugte-mek irnia-qa. give-ind.1sg.3sg. dog-abm.sg. child-abs.1sg.sg ‘I gave the black dog to my child.’ b. indirective ditransitive, cf. also (18b) Ciki-utek-aqa qimugta irnia-mnun. give-means-ind.1sg.3sg dog.abs.sg child-all.1sg.sg ‘I gave the black dog to my child (it is the black dog I gave away to my child).’
5.1.3 Adversative E: -giThis frame introduces an adversative E argument with the role of sufferer exclusively, hence EADV, though it can be benefactive depending upon different verbs’ semantics and contexts. As such, CAY adversative constructions are primarily transitive, though they may be subject to detransitivization.23 With intransitive verbs like sink ‘sink’ below, the adversative E becomes A, while the primary S becomes P: – this is in contrast with applicative E, which becomes P (§ 5.1.2). Compare (38b) with (43a) which show the opposite person relation of 3SG.1SG vs. 1SG.3SG. The transitive (a) is quasi-equivalent to its detransitivized (b): (43) a. Kic-i-aqa maklaar-t-a-qa. sink-eADV-ind.1sg.3sg young.seal-catch-rlvz-abs.1sg.sg cf. (38a) kit’-uq (ind.3sg) ‘it sank’
23 I am aware of a possibility of a causative construction for adversative verbs (cf. Japanese ‘adversative-passive’), but the CAY argument E is not taken here as causative, cf. P > EADV > A vs. P > A > A′ (§ 6.1).
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b. Kic-i-unga maklaar-t-a-mnek. sink-eadv-ind.1sg young.seal-catch-rlvz-abm.1sg.sg a ≒ b ‘The young (spotted seal) I caught sank on me (negatively affected me); I had my caught seal sunk.’ By contrast, the following has the agentive monotransitive eat ‘eat’. Note that the affected participant or sufferer (1SG) is the subject in (43) but is the object in (44): (44) a. Ner-i-anga chj eat-eadv-ind.3sg.1sg neqe-m neqca-mnek. fish-rel.sg bait-abm.1sg.sg ‘The fish ate my bait (on me).’ (with obligatory demotion of P (due to trivalency), cf. (11a) ner-aa (ind.3sg.3sg) ‘he eats it’) b. Ner-i-unga neqca-mnek.
eat-eadv-ind.1sg bait-abm.1sg.sg ‘I had my bait eaten.’ (adversative experience is retained by A demotion) An example of a patientive monotransitive verb in the adversative construction would perhaps be appropriate here, but it will be postponed until § 5.1.5 because of two possible readings, one of which is antipassive; see (50b). Other verbs attested in adversative constructions include: [intransitive] die, extinguish, go out, flow out/ooze, fly away; [monotransitive] steal, take (away); hide, tear, bruise, lose, acquire, find, wash, freeze, etc. Meteorological verbs occur instead with the applicative -ut- for adversative constructions.24 Incidentally, as is clear from the indexing in (43) and (44a), EADV -gi- serves as a diagnostic of intransitive vs. monotransitive verbs, as mentioned after example (25) in § 4.2(i). Though rarely, an adversative E may occur after an applicative E.
5.1.4 Impersonal A: -narqe- ‘behoove – to’ 25 This frame introduces impersonal A, although it can serve merely as a modality marker [‘should’] with no valency increase. As mentioned (§ 2.2.3), the extended argument AIMP does not occur with E, which means that the former only occurs
24 E.g. qani-ut-aanga ‘it is snowing on me’, with the same person relation of (38b) 3SG.1SG instead of (43a) 1SG.3SG. 25 Less common -nari- ‘be time-wise necessitated to, be time to’, -keggnarqe- ‘be a good time to’.
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with a primary verb (apart from extension by a complex verb). Example (45) contains the intransitive verb ayag- ‘go’, (46), the monotransitive nere- ‘eat’, and (47), the secundative ditransitive cikir- ‘give’, forming a quadrivalent impersonal verb. (46′) shows the marker serving merely as a modality marker and has no connection to the valency topic, but it is given for comparison with (46) and for the difference in indexing between the two. More details about (coded) impersonal verbs, including their case assignment processes (as distinct from modality), are available in Miyaoka (2011, esp. 479–85). (45) a. Ampi ayag-narq-aaten.
hurry go-nec-ind.3sg.2sg ‘You (sg) have to hurry up and go (lit. it behooves you to hurry up and go).’ (no overt np for Aimp, though coded as a transitive subject, hence (rel)) b. Ampi ayag-narq-uten.
hurry go-mod-ind.2sg ‘You (sg) should hurry up and go.’ (with Aimp deleted in detransitivization, hence 0̸ (zero)) (46) a. Ner-narq-aanga
eat-nec-ind.3sg.1sg neq-mek. fish-abm.sg ‘I have to eat fish.’ (with P demoted, cf. the contrastive person relation in the primary constructions: ner’-aqa (ind.1sg.3sg) ‘I am eating it’ vs. ner-aanga (ind.3sg.1sg) ‘he is eating me’)) b. Ner-narq-ua neq-mek.
eat-nec-ind.1sg fish-abm.sg ‘I should eat fish.’ (with Aimp deleted in detransitivization. cf. ner’-ua (ind.1sg) ‘I am eating (sth.)’ (uncoded antipassive)) (46′) a. Ner-narq-aqa neqa.
eat-mod-ind.1sg.3sg fish.abs.sg ‘I should eat the fish (e.g. before a dog eats it).’ b. Ner-narq-ua neq-mek. eat-mod-ind.1sg fish-abm.sg ‘I should eat fish (right away).’ (with P demoted)
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(47) a. Angun cikir-narq-aa akuta-mek. man.abs.sg give-nec/mod-ind.3sg.3sg ice.cream-abm.sg (i) ‘The man has to be given ice cream.’ (less acceptable) < Tabm Rabs A0̸ Aimp(rel)> (ii) ‘She must give ice cream to the man.’
b. Angun cikir-narq-uq akuta-mek. man.abs.sg give-nec-ind.3sg ice.cream-abm.sg ‘The man must be given ice cream.’ (with both Aimp and A deleted) Extended trivalent verbs (with A, EAPPL, EADV, AIMP above and A′ below) are correlated in valency pattern with the two types of ditransitive constructions, secundative and indirective (§ 3.3), and two types of complex transitives (1 vs. 2; § 5.2), as shown by (1). Comparison with transitives (right column) shows that the two types of extended trivalents and ditransitives correspond to the antipassive (either coded or not) vs. transitives of monotransitives. Here we are only concerned with extended trivalent verbs, but quadrivalent and multivalent verbs with one or more additional extended arguments (E and/or A′, ...) all follow exactly the same pattern of case assignment according to the hierarchy, necessarily accompanied by further reduction(s) (§ 2.2.5.1). By contrast, the two markers in Table 6 to be discussed (§ 5.1.5, § 5.1.6) are valency-decreasing markers. 5.1.5 Antipassive: -gi-, -uc-, -kengeAntipassivizers for patientive verbs (§ 3.2.2; as contrasted with uncoded antipassives for agentive verbs, § 3.2.1 and (11b)). The first marker is the most productive, and the Tab. 6: Various trivalents vs. transitives, with case alignments. trivalents
transitives
ditransitives
secundative: (T) R A
indirective: T (R) A
extended
complex 1: (EAPPL) S A′*, (S) EADV A′, (S) AIMP A′, (S) A′ A″, (P) A A′
complex 2: S (EAPPL=R***) A′
simplex: (P) E A**, (P) A AIMP
----
abm abs rel
abs all rel
case alignm
antipassive (P) A
transitive PA
abm abs
abs rel
* Reflects the mentioned caveat, i.e. valency rearrangement concerning EAPPL. ** E here may be EAPPL or EADV. *** R stands for R-like EAPPL .
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next two are lexically restricted. A verb can be formed with a restricted marker in addition to the productive marker. Of the two restricted ones, speakers may prefer one to the other. If both are used, there may be some appreciable difference. The first two, -gi- and -uc-, are illustrated (the following with -gi- is a repetition of (12c)): (48) Angun kuvya-minek man.abs.sg net-abm.3rsg.sg allg-i-uq. tear-apas-ind.3sg ‘The man tore his (own) net.’ (repeated again as (50b(i)))
(49) Nalaq-ut-uq pi-yu-llr-anek. find-apas-ind.3sg thing-wish-rlvz-abm.3sg.sg ‘He found what she wanted.’ (cf. (35c) – the -ut- antipassive verb from patientive monotransitive nalaqe- is quasi-equivalent to nalaq-i-uq, with the most productive antipassive). It is noteworthy that the first and the second antipassive markers in (49) and (50) are identical to the adversative -gi- and applicative -uc- (see (4), § 5.1.3, § 5.1.2, and cf. Mithun 2000: 97), suggesting a parallel pattern between an antipassive and an applicative in this language. This bifunctionality would actually present the same problem as the two readings of an (uncoded) detransitivized form of patientive verbs like (12b), (33c), and (34b). The detransitivized (12b) alleg-tuq (with patientive monotransitive tear ‘tear’), for instance, has two readings – (i) ‘it tears/tore (by itself)’ with medialization between P and A (cf. fn. 16) and (ii) ‘it was torn (by someone)’ with A deletion. In order to understand the antipassive (49), we have to consider the postponed adversative construction with a patientive verb, mentioned just after example (44), which is now given below: (50) a. Kass’a-m allg-i-a angun kuvya-anek. white.man-rel.sg tear-e-ind.3sg man.abs.sg net-abm.3sg.sg ‘The white man tore his (man’s) net on the man; the white man tore the man’s net.’ (cf. (12) all-gaa ‘he tears/tore it’) b. Angun kuvya-minek
man.abs.sg net-abm.3rsg.sg allg-i-uq. tear-apas-ind.3sg (i) ‘The man tore his (own) net.’ (medialization (antipassivization)) (ii) ‘The man had his (own) net torn.’ (passivization, accepted only by a limited number of speakers)
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The first of the two readings of the detransitivized (b) is exactly the same antipassive as in (48), and the second is adversative. Just like the detransitivized (12b), alleg-tuq has two readings – (i) ‘it tears/tore (by itself)’ with medialization between P and A and (ii) ‘it was torn (by someone)’ with A deletion; a detransitivized form of an adversative -gi- coded verb, for instance, is subject to the same two processes, i.e. medialization (between E [maleficiary] and A, in this case) and passivization (A deletion), which respectively yield antipassive (48) = (50b(i)) and intransitive adversative (44b). As a matter of fact, this same pattern is found with an -uc- coded verb, which may have the two readings, namely, antipassive and intransitive applicative (incl. benefactive). Thus, medialization of P and A for patientive monotransitive verbs (§ 3.2.2) is obviously parallel to that of EADV and A (with demoted P) for adversative trivalent verbs (§ 5.1.3). The former is responsible for (medial) intransitives and the latter for antipassives. Deletion of A may also occur, responsible for passives (thus “medio-passives”) with the former and for intransitive adversatives with the latter. This is summarized by: (51) patientive monotransitives with P A adversative trivalents with (P) EADV A
medialization
A deletion
medial antipassive
passive intransitive adversative
It should now be clear that, as mentioned in § 3.2.3, impersonal patientives cannot have medialization like (12b(i)) , though they can have passivization like (12b(ii)), thus (16) ciku-uq ‘it (e.g. lake) is frozen’ (*medial ‘it freezes’). By the same token, an impersonal patientive verb cannot have an antipassive since something impersonal cannot be medialized with P or E (either maleficiary or beneficiary). An antipassivizer may occur not only after patientive monotransitives (§ 2.2.1, § 3.2.2), an applicative, or adversative E (§ 5.1.2, § 5.1.3; though not AIMP), but, importantly, it also occurs after a complex transitive A′ (§ 5.2), as in (60c) and (61); as a matter of fact the only valency-changing marker. Thus, a single word may actually have two antipassivizers, i.e. within a simplex and a complex verb, as in (61).
5.1.6 Pseudo-passive +sci(u)r- and -au-/-aqeThis operation decreases valency by one argument, but the agent may be overt, as contrasted with TAM-sensitive passives (§ 4.1(i)). Neither of them is particularly productive, cf. fn. 8. (i) Dynamic pseudo-passive -sci(u)r- ‘be -ed by s.o. to the detriment of’ (with suffixinitial s postconsonantal deletion noted in (5)).26 The marker should be analyzed 26 Jacobson (1984: 445–446) notes that -scir- is more typical in the Yukon area and -sciur- in nonYukon, demonstrating this with two forms with nere- ‘to eat’ and tegleg- ‘to steal’.
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as a composite suffix (below), which actually causes the pseudo-passive marker (-scir-) to be deceptive or confused with an uncoded passive (§ 3.2.2) of the causative -cir- ‘wait / let – (to)’ (fn. 25, cf. Miyaoka 2012: § 38.3, § 39.3.1). Though mostly adversative, the pseudo-passive is distinct from the much more productive adversative E -gi-. Also, as contrasted with uncoded passives (12b(ii)) and (20), where the agent can never be expressed, a pseudo-passive construction may have it expressed either by an ablative-modalis NP (just below) or by an allative (like agent demotion in relation to complement clauses as well as complex verbs, esp. (57)), with the choice depending on the dialect. (52) Carayag-mek ~ -mun maligce-sci(u)-llru-uq nepa-u-nani.27 bear-abm.sg/-all.sg follow-ppas-pst-ind.3sg sound-prv-app.3rsg ‘He was silently followed by the bear.’ In order to see the nature of the construction and the case fluctuation, it is necessary to understand that the suffix is a composite of the agentive/active relativizer -st‘one who’ followed by the verbalizing -lir- ‘deal with’ or -liur- ‘supply with’ (with regular /V-l/ deletion), though the semantic difference between -lir- and -liurseems irrelevant to the composite suffixes. The ablative-modalis NP would eloquently suggest that the pseudo-passive construction derives from a verbalization by -li(u)r- of an appositive phrase like: (52′) carayak maligce-sta bear.abs.sg follow-rlvz.abs.sg ‘the bear that is following, i.e. the bear, the one following’ It is a very productive pattern that one nominal (e.g. maligce-sta) of an appositive phrase is verbalized (by -lir- or -liur-), with the other being stranded with ablativemodalis status (carayag-mek). Thus (52) would originally have meant ‘he was dealing with the bear that was following’ where the ‘bear’ is far from an agent. Use of the allative case, by contrast, may perhaps be an innovative reinterpretation as an agent. More details are provided in Miyaoka (2012; § 25.2.3, § 34.1.2.2, § 39.3, etc.), illustrating pseudo-passive constructions with such verbs as [agentive] attack, scold, shoot, eat, see, work, steal, talk to/admonish, follow; [patientive] kill, wash, row, turn/translate, read; [impersonal patientive] grow. (ii) Stative pseudo-passive -gau- (intransitive)/-gaqe- (transitive), which is also a composite suffix, i.e. from the passive relativizer -ga(r)- (e.g. ner’-aq ‘one eaten’)
27 The privative verbalizing suffix -it- ‘have no’ commonly has -i- replaced by -u- before the negative appositional marker with -na-.
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followed by the relational verb -ngu-/-ke- (§ 3.2.2(i)), is not so productive a process. The agent may be expressed by a perlative or an ablative-modalis NP, but its occurrence is very rare. Examples of (a) intransitive and (b) transitive follow: (53) a. Qaya-qa mingug-au-guq assir-luku. kayak-abs.1sg.sg paint-ppas-ind.3sg good-app.3sg ‘My kayak is painted well; lit. is (the one) painted (it) being good.’ (cf. passive-relative clause mingug-a-ni ‘her own painted one, the one painted by herself’ in (28b)) b. Qaya-qa mingug-aq-aqa assir-luku. kayak-abs.1sg.sg paint-ppas-ind.1sg.3sg good-app.3sg ‘I had my kayak painted well.’ (the painter being ‘I’ or ‘someone else’) Note in an example like (b), resembling a ‘passive of experience‘, the parallelism with the transitive relational verb (13) and with the transitive comparative construction (15a), i.e. possessor and standard of comparison as the transitive subject. Likewise, the transitive (b) vs. intransitive (a) pair of this pseudo-passive construction, which is stative, is coupled with an inchoative one (‘my kayak got painted well’ / ‘I got my kayak painted well’) just as is the case with relational verbs (8) vs. (13) and comparative verbs (15) vs. (15b). This means that a portion of the CAY valency pattern is organized on the same four-way opposition of relational verbs as the following table summarizes (the second and the third pair are characterized by composite suffixes based on relational verbs):
(54)
relational verbs § 3.2.2(i)
-ngu- -ke-ngurc- -ksaguc-
comparative (/superlative/equalitive) § 3.2.2(ii)
-nru- -nqe-nrurc- -neqsaguc-
pseudo-passives § 5.1.6(ii)
-gau- -gaqe-gaurc- -gaqsaguc-
intransitive transitive stative stative intransitive transitive. inchoative inchoative
5.2 Complex verbs Added to a simplex verb (irrespective of its valency), a complex verb forms an upper-layer clause with its own agent (A′) of six kinds, i.e. causative, directive, speculative, reportative, ignorative, and expectant; see the lower part of (4) and § 5.2.1 through § 5.2.6. Two or more complex verbs may occur in one word, e.g. (59),
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(62), (64), with the six kinds freely combinable. A complex transitive construction of any kind has two types, which I label “Transitive 1” and “Transitive 2”, e.g. (56) and (58b) (Miyaoka 2010: 556–557). Since a complex verb construction is primarily transitive, it may be subject to detransitivization, e.g. (57), (60b), (61), (63b), (65b). The six types of complex transitives with different upper-layer agents A′ behave the same way in case assignment except that, in view of detransitivization, only the reportative |+ni-| (§ 5.2.4) is agentive (hence uncoded antipassive), while the other five types are patientive. See (1) for the correspondence of the two types of complex transitives (labeled 1 vs. 2) with extended trivalent verbs (§ 5.1.1 through § 5.1.4) and with the two types of ditransitive constructions, secundative and indirective (§ 3.3).
5.2.1 Causative A′: -vkar-/-cit- (the latter as suppletive variant after a stemfinal consonant) 28 This complex verb introduces an upper clause causer ‘one who makes (coercive)/ lets (permissive)/has (coreferential)’,29 e.g. (55a) on intransitive (33a) tuqu- ‘die’ and (55b) on monotransitive (33b) tuqu-t- ‘kill (choke)’ with A. (55) a. Tuqu-vkar-aa. die-a′-ind.3sg.3sg ‘He is letting her die.’ b. Tuqu-te-vkar-aa. die-a-a′-ind.3sg.3sg ‘He is letting (s.o.) kill her/it, letting her kill (s.o./sth.), letting her choke (on sth.).’ The following example shows two types (1 and 2) of complex transitive constructions (a) and (b), respectively corresponding to simplex (a′) intransitive (antipassive) and (b′) transitive sentences: (56) a. Angute-m taquka qimugte-mek nere-vkar-aa. man-rel.sg bear.abs.sg dog.abm.sg eat-a′.make-ind.3sg.3sg ‘The man caused/let the bear (to) eat a dog.’ (Type 1)
28 Less common +citaar- ‘A′ try to make/induce (by taking time)’. 29 Coreferential in the sense that it supplies an appositional (cosubordinate) verb with a subject coreferential to the main clause subject, e.g. tangrr-aqa (see-ind.1sg.3sg) qia-vkar-luku (cry-haveapp.3sg) ‘I saw her crying (I saw her, I having her cry).’ This is distinct from the agent coreference specific to complex verbs (§ 2.2.5).
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Osahito Miyaoka
b. Angute-m taquka-mun qimugta nere-vkar-aa. man-rel.sg bear-all.sg dog.abs.sg eat-a′.make-ind.3sg.3sg ‘The man caused/let the bear (to) eat the dog.’ (Type 2) – respectively corresponding to the following examples: (56′) a. Taqukaq qimugte-mek ner’-uq. bear.abs.sg dog-abm.sg eat-ind.3sg ‘The bear is eating a dog.’ (cf. antipassive (11b)) b. Taquka-m qimugta ner-aa. bear-rel.sg dog.abs.sg eat-ind.3sg.3sg ‘The bear ate the dog.’ (cf. transitive (11a)) Besides this correspondence to simplex verb constructions, the Transitive 1 complex construction is in a valency pattern correlated with a secundative ditransitive, e.g. (17a) and a non-recipient-like applicative (P E=non-R A), while the Transitive 2 complex construction is correlated with an indirective ditransitive, e.g. (17b) and a recipient-like applicative (P E=R A). The following illustrates passivization (by deletion of the upper agent ‘man’): (57) Qimugt taquka-mun nere-vkar-tuq. dog.abs.sg bear-all.sg eat-a′.make-ind.3sg ‘The dog let itself be eaten by the bear.’
5.2.2 Directive A′: -sqe- 30 This complex verb introduces an upper clause directive agent ‘one who asks/tells s.o. to’ as a more indirect causation than the preceding. (58) a. Qimugte-ka qetunra-mnun auluke-sqe-ssaaq-aqa. dog-abs.1sg.sg son-all.1sg.sg take.care-a′.ask-but-ind.1sg.3sg ‘I [A′] asked/wanted my son to take care of my dog (but …).’ (Type 1) b. auluk-i-sq-aqa take.care-apas-a′.ask-ind.1sg.3sg (i) ‘I asked him to take care of (s.o.; abm).’ (Type 1) (ii) ‘I asked (s.o.; all) to take care of him.’ (Type 2) (59) Erur-i-ni-sq-iu angut-mun. wash-apas-a′.say-a″.ask-opt.2sg.3sg man-all.sg ‘(You) ask her to say that the man is washing dishes!’
30 Also -squma- ‘wish continuously (s.o.) to do (sth.)’.
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5.2.3 Speculative A′: -cuke- 31 This complex verb contains an upper clause speculative agent ‘one who speculates/thinks that s.o. –’. A reflexive construction is illustrated by (60b) and two antipassivizations (on simplex and complex verbs) by (61): (60) a. Angut-ngu-yuk-aa. man-be-a′.think-ind.3sg.3sg ‘She thinks it is a man.’ b. Angut-ngu-yuk-uq. man-be-a′.think-ind.3sg ‘She considers her(self) to be a man.’ (reflexive) c. Angut-ngu-yuk-i-uq. man-be-a′.think-apas-ind.3sg ‘She considers (sth./s.o.) to be a man.’ (61) Tuqu-c-i-yuk-i-unga taquka-mun qimugte-mek. die-a-apas-a′.think-apas-ind.1sg bear-all.sg dog-abm.sg ‘I thought the bear killed (made die) a/the dog.’ A pentavalent complex verb is illustrated by (62), with three complex verbs, two agent NPs of which (for directive ‘Nuk’aq’ and causative ‘woman’) both are flagged by the allative case: (62) Nere-vka-a-sqe-ssuk-aqa Nuk’a-mun arna-mun eat-a′.make-ev-a′′.ask-a′′′.think-ind.1sg.3sg p.n.-all.sg woman-all.sg mikelnguq nayir-mek. child.abs.sg seal-abm.sg ‘I think Nuk’aq asked the woman to let the child eat a seal.’ The word order of the two -mun words helps avoid any possible ambiguity as it bears a ‘mirror image’ relation to the suffix order concerned; i.e. Nuk’a-mun for ‘asker/orderer’ preceding arna-mun for ‘causer/allower’, exactly opposite to the suffix -vka(r)-A′ preceding the suffix -sqe- for A″. See also Woodbury (1985: 275).
5.2.4 Reportative A′: -niThis complex verb introduces an upper clause reportative agent ‘one who says/ considers that s.o. –’: 31 Also +nayuke- ‘speculate/think that (s.o.) might’.
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(63) a. Tangerr-sug-ni-a arna-m angun Nuk’a-mek. see-des-a′.say-ind.3sg.3sg woman-rel.sg man.abs.sg p.n.-abm.sg ‘The woman says that the man wants to see Nuk’aq.’ b. Tangerr-sug-ni-uq arnaq Nuk’a-mek. see-des-a′.say-ind.3sg woman.abs.sg p.n.-abm.sg ‘The woman says that she wants to see Nuk’aq.’ (detransitivization owing to agent coreference (S/A=A′)) The reportative -ni- is attested to occur both in main and embedded relative clauses: (64) iga-y(’)u-ni-lriar-u-ni-luni 32 write-well-a′.say-rlvz-be-a′.say-app.3rsg ‘(he) saying that he is one who brags that he is a good writer.’ (cf. iga-y(’)u-ni-lria ‘one who says/brags he (himself) is a good writer’)
5.2.5 Ignorative A′: -uciit- 33 ++ This complex verb introduces an upper clause ignorative agent ‘one who does not know/is unaware that s.o. –’: (65) a. Na-ni≠qapiar kuvya-llru-ciit-aqa May’aq. where-loc=its net-pst-a′.ign-ind.1sg.3sg p.n.abs.sg ‘I [A′] do not know exactly where May’aq drift-netted.’ b. Na-ni≠qapiar kuvya-llru-ciit-uq May’aq. where-loc=its net-pst-a′.ign-ind.3sg p.n. abs.sg ‘May’aq does not know exactly where he (himself) drift-netted.’ (detransitivization owing to agent coreference (S = A′))
5.2.6 Expectant A′: -nercirThis complex verb introduces an upper clause expectant agent ‘one who waits for s.o. – to’:
32 Regressive accent (gemination) indicated by the apostrophe is optional. 33 Composite suffix from nominalizer -ucir- followed by privative -ngit-. Also +ucirkait ‘not know that – will’, +uciir(ut)- ‘no longer know, be (get) confused’.
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(66) a. Tuntuq qimugte-mun tuqu-t-nercir-aa. caribou.abs.sg dog-all.sg die-a-a′.wait-ind.3sg.3sg ‘He waited until the/a dog killed the caribou.’ b. Tuntuq qimugte-mek tuqu-t-nercir-aa. caribou.abs.sg dog-abm.sg die-a-a′.wait-ind.3sg.3sg ‘He waited until the caribou killed a dog.’
6 Conclusion CAY has six major verb classes – I intransitive; II-agentive, II-patientive, and II-impersonal patientive monotransitive; and III-secundative and III-indirective ditransitive – which are mainly established by verb-coded or -uncoded alternations, with case framing being of little relevance to the classification of their valency patterns. CAY is relatively rich in valency-increasing operations, given in particular (i) applicative and adversative extensions and (ii) what I label complex transitives (Type 1 and 2), which include six upper-layer clauses (like two-event causative verbs). The two kinds of extensions in (i), which partly behave the same way, are noteworthy in that they are both intrinsically related to the valency-decreasing mechanism of antipassives in the language. Another unique feature in CAY valency patterns is in the four-way relational verbs and their related constructions, which uniquely embroider the language’s morphosyntax as a whole.
Abbreviations ABM ADV APAS APP CNN DES EQL EV EX IGN IMP ITS MOD NEC OPT PPAS p.n.
ablative-modalis adversative antipassive appositional mood connective mood desiderative equalitive epenthetic vowel root expander ignorative impersonal intensifier modal necessitative optative pseudo-passive proper name
1204 PRL PRV PTP REL RLVZ 3r 3PL.1SG 3PL.SG
Osahito Miyaoka
perlative privative participle relative (case) relativizer reflexive third third person plural subject – first person singular object third person plural possessor, singular possessed
References Bloomfield, Leonard. 1928. The Plains Cree languages. Atti del XXII Congresso Internazionale degli Americanisti (Rome, September 1926) 2 [Annual Report of Bureau of American Ethnology], 427–431. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution. Dixon, R. M. W. 2002. Copula clauses in Australian languages: a typological perspective. Anthropological Linguistics 44(1). 1–36. Fortescue, Michael. 1984. West Greenlandic (Croom Helm Descriptive Grammars). London: Croom Helm. Jacobson, Steven A. 1984. Yup’ik Eskimo Dictionary. Fairbanks: Alaska Native Language Center, University of Alaska. Jacobsen, Steven A. 1995. A Practical Grammar of the Central Alaskan Yup’ik Eskimo Language. Fairbanks: Alaska Native Language Center, University of Alaska. Mithun, Marianne. 2000. Valency-changing derivation in Central Alaskan Yupik. In R. M. W. Dixon & Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald (eds.), Changing Valency, 84–114. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Miyaoka, Osahito. 2009. Comparative constructions in Central Alaskan Yup’ik. In Marc-Antoine Mahieu & Nicole Tersis (eds.), Variations on Polysynthesis, 81–93. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Miyaoka, Osahito 2010. Ditransitives in Central Alaskan Yupik. In Andrej Malchukov, Martin Haspelmath & Bernard Comrie (eds.), Studies in Ditransitive Constructions. A Comparative Handbook, 529–562. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Miyaoka, Osahito. 2011. Impersonal verbs in Central Alaskan Yupik. In Andrej Malchukov & Anna Siewierska (eds.), Impersonal Constructions: A Cross-linguistic Perspective (Studies in Language Companion Series 124), 459–488. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Miyaoka, Osahito 2012. A Grammar of Central Alaskan Yupik: An Eskimoan Language. (Mouton Grammar Library 58). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Woodbury, Anthony C. 1984. Eskimo and Aleut languages. In David Damas (ed.), Handbook of American Indians Vol. 5, 49–63. Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution. Woodbury, Anthony C. 1985. Marginal agent clauses in Central Alaskan Yupik Eskimo internal and external syntax (CLS 21, part 2). Papers from the Parasession on Causatives and Agentivity at the Twenty-First Regional Meeting, Chicago Linguistic Society, 271–292.
Richard Rhodes and Rand Valentine
29 Transitivity in Ojibwe 1 Introduction Ojibwe is an Algonquian language spoken in, around, and to the north and west of the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada, mostly in Canada. Ojibwe has eight dialects (Rhodes & Todd 1981); some of them are named.1 This paper examines the valency properties of verbs and the syntax of transitivity in the Ottawa dialect, spoken in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan and the adjacent regions of southern Ontario. Data is drawn from an extensive dictionary (Rhodes 1985), a grammar (Valentine 2001), and fieldwork.
2 Basic overview of Ojibwe valence Ojibwe is a radically head marking language. All inflection for grammatical relations is realized on the verb. Verbs inflect for person, number, and obviation for subjects and objects, in an inverse system. Verb stems also inflect for gender of the notional absolutive of the clause. The genders are animate and inanimate.2 Number is singular and plural. The person inflection includes a distinction between inclusive and exclusive first person plural. Verbs inflect for subordination by means of two distinct sets of subject markers. The subordinate inflection called conjunct by Algonquianists, is entirely suffixal, while the main clause inflection, called independent by Algonquianists, uses a combination of prefixes and suffixes. Inversion works differently and is much more limited in conjunct inflection than in independent inflection. In addition to subjects, Ojibwe verbs, like verbs in all Algonquian languages, license two distinct kinds of objects, primary and secondary, and they license a third typologically rare type of grammatical relation which Algonquianists call relative root complements (see Rhodes 2010c). There are significant limitations on 1 Ojibwe has several spellings and variants. The spelling Oijbwa is common. The official Canadian spelling is Ojibway. The language is commonly known as Chippewa, especially in the US. The named dialects are: Algonquin, Ottawa, and Saulteau(x). The group’s self-appellation is Anishinaabe or Nishnaabe in vowel deleting dialects, such as the one being described here. The language name is productively derived from the group name, Nishnaabemwin. 2 Animacy in Algonquian does not entirely align with notional animacy. While all notional animates are grammatically animate, some notional inanimates are grammatically animate: some plants (trees, blackberries, etc.), a few body parts (knees, eyebrows, etc.), and many artifacts of cultural significance (kettles, pipes, etc.). Notional animacy is calculated on whether an object is, or appears to be, able to move of its own volition.
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Tab. 1 clause with inanimate absolutive
clause with animate absolutive
clause with secondary object of either gender
clause with no primary object
Inanimate Intransitive (II)
Animate Intransitive (AI)
Animate Intransitive + Object4 (AI+O)
clause with primary object
Transitive Inanimate (TI)
Transitive Animate (TA)
Transitive Animate + Object (TA+O)
clause types (and hence verb inflection types) based on animacy. No transitive clause can have a surface subject that is not notionally animate.3 Because all inflection for core grammatical relations is realized on the verb, the basic clause types correspond with distinct verb inflection types, which Algonquianists name. The system is outlined in Table 1. The three types of non-subjects licensed by Ojibwe verbs, primary objects, secondary objects, and relative root complements are largely independent of one another. (There are no verb stems attested that license both secondary objects and relative root complements, unless the relative root is a preverb.) There are no standardized terms for the attested valence types: simple intransitive, simple primary transitive, simple secondary transitive, simple ditransitive, intransitive with relative root, and primary transitive with relative root. However, Haspelmath (2006) has proposed terms that are readily adaptable. In particular, the terms semitransitive, for intransitive with obligatory oblique, and sesquitransitive, transitive with obligatory oblique, seem appropriate for relative root types of valence, since relative root constructions fill the role of clause level obliques in Algonquian (Rhodes 2010b). We will refer to the valency property of licensing a relative root complement as semitransitivity. The possibilities are summarized in Table 2 and Table 3 with example verbs supplemented by example sentences in (1). 3 The reader should be aware that the analysis that this statement presupposes is controversial among Algonquianists. It assumes that inverse clauses have surface subjecthood and (primary) objecthood inverted from notional subjecthood and (primary) objecthood. Such an analysis makes the verb morphology easy, but has some syntactic complications. The case for an inversion analysis for Ottawa is laid out originally in Rhodes (1976) and in a more sophisticated form in Rhodes (1994) and in Rhodes (2010c). The other position is that inversion is simply part of the morphology and so the generalization expressed here is that no notional inanimate may be the subject of a direct form. The present authors disagree on whether inversion is syntactic (and hence a kind of valence adjustment) or only morphological and thus irrelevant with respect to valence. See Valentine (2001). A brief overview of the basic facts is given in Appendix II. 4 Dryer (1986) claimed that this class of clauses did not exist. To be clear, this is not a verb+oblique construction like German helfen + dative. The object in secondary transitive clauses shares the syntactic properties of the secondary object in ditransitive clauses (Rhodes 1990). In Algonquian morphosyntax, secondary objects do not count as absolutives.
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Tab. 2: Possibilities without relative root complement. secondary object
primary object –
+
–
intransitive dbaajmod ‘tell a story’
primary transitive gnoonaad ‘talk to him’
+
secondary transitive bwed ‘roast it’
ditransitive mnahaad ‘give it to him to drink’
Tab. 3: Possibilities with relative root complement. secondary object
primary object –
+
–
semi-transitive (intransitive with relative root) njigaabwid ‘stand [back] from there’
sesquitransitive (primary transitive with relative root) naabmaad ‘see him looking like it’
+
secondary transitive with relative root [unattested]
ditransitive with relative root [unattested]
(1) a. intransitive Mii gii-dbaajmod pii ge-maajaayaan. mii gii= dibaajimo -d apii ge= maajaa -d emph pst= tell.a.story -3.sbj when fut= go -3.sbj subject ‘Then he explained when he would come.’ b. primary transitive Gye go maaba shkiniikwe wgii-gnoonaan. gaye go maaba oshkiniikwe ogii= ganoon and emph this.an young.woman 3.sbj- pst= talk.to.an subject -an -aa -3.an.obj -obv primary object ‘And the young woman talked to him.’
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c. secondary transitive Ngii-bwen wiiyaas. nigii= abwe -n wiiyaas 1sbj pst= roast -n meat subject secondary object ‘I roasted the meat.’ d. ditransitive Nbiish mnahshin. nbiish minahishi -n water give.to.drink- 1.obj -imp secondary object primary object ‘Give me some water [to drink].’ e. semitransitive Gego gnage waasa waya da-wnjigaabwisii! gego ganage waasa waya da= onj-igaabawi neg. imp at.all far someone modal= from-stand relative root comp subject -sii -w -neg -3.sbj ‘Don’t anyone stand too far away.’ f. sesquitransitive Niniing-sh go naa wgii-naabmaan niwi mnidoon. aniniw -ing -sh go naa ogii= in-aabam man -loc -emph emph emph 3.sbjpst= like-see relative root comp subject -an aniwi manidoo -an -aa -3.an.obj -obv that.obv spirit -obv primary object ‘He saw the spirit in the form of a man.’
2.2 Basics of Ojibwe morphosyntax Ojibwe verbs are inflected in a complex system that involves distinct inflectional subsystems in main (independent) and subordinate (conjunct) clauses. Part of this complexity is that the system shows inversion, primarily in independent inflection. The full system is laid out in Rhodes (1976) and in a less technical form in Valentine (2001). In this discussion we will only address those inflections that are crucial to the analysis of the syntax of transitivity.
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2.2.1 Person/number agreement Ojibwe has two sets of partially overlapping person/number agreement inflection. One set is used in simple main clauses and is called independent. The other is used in subordinate clauses and when triggered by certain particles and is called conjunct. Some examples are given in (2). (2) a. (i) independent Gwaabam. giwaabam -i 2.sbj- see -1.obj ‘You (sg.) see me.’ (ii) conjunct waabmiyan waabam -i -yan see -1.obj -2.sbj ‘if you (sg.) see me’ b. (i) independent Gwaabamin. giwaabam -ini 2.sbj- see -inv ‘I see you (sg.).’ (ii) conjunct waabminaanh waabam -in -yaan see -2.obj -1.sbj ‘if I see you (sg.)’ c. (i) independent Ngii-waabndaanaa. ni- gii= waabam-d -am -naan 1.sbj pst= see-inan -inan.obj -1pl ‘We (excl.) saw it.’ (ii) conjunct Mii dash gii-waabndamaang. mii dash gii= waabam-d -am -yaang emph emph pst= see-inan -inan.obj -1pl.sbj ‘And then we (excl.) saw it.’
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2.2.2 Obviation Algonquian languages have, in addition to person and number, a third category of nominal and agreement inflection called obviative. The obviative marking is triggered when two third persons are in sufficiently close construction, always intraclausally and in certain cross-clausal configurations. In such configurations, one third person participant is proximate and the others obviative. In some Ojibwe dialects number and obviation inflection are combined as a portmanteau. In others, including the Ottawa dialect under study here, obviative inflection appears in the plural slot leaving overtly obviative forms unmarked for number. On nominals obviation is overtly marked only on grammatically animate nominals, but syntactically obviated nominals, both animate and inanimate trigger obviative agreement in verbs.
2.2.3 Agreement and transitivity As mentioned above Ojibwe is a primary-secondary object language. Examples of the three types of transitive clauses, primary object transitive, secondary object transitive, or ditransitive, are given in (3). (3) a. intransitive Gnoozi aw nini. ginoozi -w aw aniniw be.tall -3.sbj that [a.sg] man ‘That fellow is tall.’ b. primary object transitive Ngii-giizzaan wiiyaas. nigii= giiziz- am -n(aa) wiiyaas 1.sbj- pst= cook- inan.obj -n meat ‘I cooked the meat.’ c. secondary object transitive Ngii-daawenan ndoodaabaan. ni- gii= adaawe -nan ni(d)- odaabaan 1.sbj pst= sell -n.an 1.poss- car ‘I sold my car.’ d. ditransitive Ngii-miinaa ndoodaabaanan ngwis. ni- gii= miiN- aa ni(d)- odaabaan -an nigwis 1.sbj pst= give- 3.an.obj 1.poss- car -obv 1.poss- son ‘I gave my car to my son.’
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2.2.4 Object agreement Primary objects trigger person, number, obviative, and gender agreement, as shown in (4). (4) a. person i. Gwaabmim. giwaabam -i -m 2.sbj- see -1.obj -2pl ‘You (pl.) see me.’ (ii) Gwaabmaawaa. giwaabam -aa -waa 2.sbj- see -3.obj -2pl ‘You (pl.) see him.’ b. gender (i) Nwaabndaan. niwaabam-d -am -n(aa) 1.sbj- see-inan -inan.obj5 -n ‘I see it.’ (ii) Nwaabmaa. niwaabam -aa 1.sbj- see -3obj ‘I see him.’ c. number and obviation (i) Nwaabndaanan. niwaabam-d -am -n(aa) -an 1.sbj- see.inan -inan.obj -n -inan.pl ‘I see them (inan).’
5 The treatment of the -am- and -oo- as an object marker is controversial. In brief the issue is that there is a class of verbs, known to Algonquianists as pseudo-transitives (Bloomfield 1958), that contain these morphemes. Under our analysis pseudo-transitives are treated as having dummy it objects. But pseudo-transitives take the suffixal form of the third person agreement in independent inflection rather than the prefixal form. Requiring the prefixal form is usually considered a test for transitivity. However, there are Eastern Algonquian languages with similar morphologically intransitive treatments of transitive verbs in semantically transitive clauses when those clauses contain non-specific objects. In other words, the presence of a third person prefix is only a sufficient condition test for transitivity, not a necessary condition test.
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(ii) Nwaabmaag. niwaabam -aa -ag 1.- see -3. -. ‘I see them (an).’ (iii) Wwaabmaan. owaabam -aa -an 3.- see -3. - ‘He sees him/them (an).’ Secondary objects trigger only number/obviative and gender agreement, as shown in (5).6 A key part of these agreements is a morpheme -n(aa-), glossed as N in the examples, which marks agreement with objects in an indirect way. -n(aa-) is triggered if there is an object in the clause, but only in independent inflection, as illustrated in (I). (I) a. independent (i) primary object Mookmaan ngii-giishpnadoon. mookomaan nigii= giishpina -d oo -n knife 1.- = buy - . - ‘I bought a knife.’ (ii) secondary object Mookmaan ngii-daawen. mookomaan nigii= adaawe -n knife 1.- = sell - ‘I sold a knife.’ b. conjunct (i) primary object Mii dash mookmaan gii-daaweyaanh. mii dash mookomaan gii= giishpina -d oo yaan knife = buy - . 1. ‘And then I bought a knife.’ (ii) secondary object Mii dash mookmaan gii-daaweyaanh. mii dash mookomaan gii= adaawe -yaan knife = sell -1. ‘And then I sold a knife.’ The main restriction on the appearance of -n(aa-) is that it cannot co-occur with a grammatically animate primary object. Hence it never appears in ditransitive clauses, which in Algonquian languages only ever have an animate primary object. It does not appear even if the notional primary object is the surface subject of a passive. A fuller discussion can be found in Rhodes (1991). (The other trigger for -n(aa-) is that it must appear in independent inflection immediately before certain modal inflections, regardless of transitivity, subject to the same limitations on co-occurrence with respect to animate notional objects.)
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(5) a. number and obviation (i) Mookmaan ’gii-gmoodin. mookomaan ogii= gimoodi -n(aa) knife 3.erg- pst = steal -n ‘He stole a knife.’ (ii) Niizh ngii-bwenag waaboozoonyag. niizh nigii= abwe -n -ag waaboozoony -ag two 1.sbj- pst= roast -n -an.pl rabbit -an.pl ‘I roasted two rabbits.’ (iii) ’Gii-daawenan kikoon. ogii= adaawe -n -an akikw -an 3erg- pst = sell -n -obv kettle -obv ‘He sold the kettle.’ Secondary objects behave like primary objects, in that they trigger the ergative form of third person agreement as in (6b) and (6c) compared to (6a). ((6) is parallel to (3) above). (6) a. intransitive Gnoozwag giw ninwag. ginoozi -w -ag giw aniniw -ag be.tall -3.sbj -3pl those [a.pl] man -a.pl ‘Those men are tall.’ b. primary object transitive Wgii-giizzaanaawaan wiiyaasan. ogii= giiziz- am -naa -waa -an wiiyaas -an 3.erg- pst= cook- inan.obj -n -3pl -in.pl meat -in.pl ‘They cooked the pieces of meat.’ c. secondary object transitive Wgii-daawenaawaan ndoodaabaanan. ogii= adaawe -naa -waa -an ni(nd)- odaabaan an 3.erg- pst= sell -n -3pl -obv 1.poss- car obv ‘They sold my car.’ But they differ in that they do not trigger animacy agreement in the stem, nor can they be anything but syntactic third persons. (For full discussion of the morphology and syntax of secondary objects in Ottawa, see Rhodes (1990).)
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2.2.5 Semitransitivity Semitransitivity shows no agreement marking in the verb stem, but is solely a valency property. This is shown in the examples in (7), where the semitransitive verb naabminaagod ‘it looks like X’ is identical whether the relative root complement is animate (pwaagan ‘pipe’) or inanimate (doopwin ‘table’). (7) a. inanimate relative root complement Doopwining naabminaagod. odoopiwin -ing inaabaminaagwad- -w table -loc look.like.inan -3.sbj relative root comp ‘It looks like a table.’ b. animate relative root complement Pwaagning naabminaagod. opwaagan -ing inaabaminaagwad- -w pipe -loc look.like.inan -3.sbj relative root comp ‘It looks like a pipe.’
3 Overview of Ojibwe verb stem structure Most Ojibwe verbs stems consist of two parts. The first part carries some significant portion of the meaning of the whole verb and the second part reflects agreement with the notional absolutive licensed by the verb.7 (8) a. intransitive (i) Aakzi. [aakw -izi] -w [be.sick -an.intr] -3.sbj ‘He’s sick.’ (ii) Mskwaa. [miskw -yaa] -w [be.red - inan.intr] -3.sbj ‘It’s red.’
7 Secondary objects differ from primary objects in that they do not count as absolutives, i.e., they do not trigger stem agreement.
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b. primary transitive (i) Ngii-naanaa nigii = [naa -N] -aa 1.sbj- pst= [fetch -tr.an] -3.an.obj ‘I fetched him.’ (ii) Wgii-toon. ogii= [ab -d] -oo -n 3.erg- pst= [be.at -tr.inan] -inan.obj -n ‘He put it there.’ In Algonquian terms the first part of the verb stems in (8) are called initials and the second part are called finals. The finals exemplified in (8) have no significant lexical content,8 and hence are called abstract finals. More commonly, however, finals have a more complex structure. In addition to the abstract final, they also contain a part that bears significant lexical content. The part that bears the lexical content is called the concrete final. Examples are given in (9). (9) a. intransitive (i) Gii-bngishin. gii= [[banginitial] -[is -infinal]] -w pst= [[fall] -[fall -an.intr]] -3.sbj ‘He fell.’ (ii) Shpadnaa. -yaafinal]] -w [[ishpinitial]- [adin [[high][be.a.ridge -inan.intr]] -3.sbj ‘It’s a high ridge.’ b. primary transitive (i) Wgii-dkondaan. -dfinal]] -am -n ogii= [[dakwinitial] -[am3.erg- pst= [[ hold] -[act.w/mouth -tr.inan]] -inan.obj -n ‘He bit it.’ (ii) Ngii-gwagwaa. -wfinal]] -aa nigii= [[gawinitial] -[agah 1.sbj- pst= [[toppled] -[act.w/ax -tr.an]] -3.an.obj ‘I chopped it (anim) down.’9
8 In a series of papers (Denny 1977, 1978, 1984) J. Peter Denny claims that Algonquian intransitive agreement markers have some semantic content, a point on which one of the present authors (Rhodes 1997) agrees. But for the purposes of this paper the very abstract meanings posited under that kind of analysis can be safely ignored. 9 As mentioned before, trees are grammatically animate in Algonquian languages.
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The relevance of internal verb structure to the question of valence is this. The primary transitivity of a verb stem is normally a property of the morpheme that immediately precedes the abstract final, either the concrete final (as in the examples in (8)) or the initial if there is only an abstract final (as in the examples in (9)).10 This is discussed further in § 5.1. For completeness sake, we note here that nominal material can appear between the initial and the final. Those nominal morphemes can reduce the valence of the verb or adjust its semantics, but do not necessarily have to. Those that change the valence or thematic alignment of the verb are nominal medials. They are exemplified in (10a(i)) and (10b(i)). Those do not change the valence or adjust the verbal semantics are called classificatory medials, and are exemplified in (10a(ii)) and (10b(ii)). (10) a. intransitive (i) Gii-booknikeshin. gii= [[bookwinitial] -[inik -emedial]- [is- infinal]] -w [fall- -an.intr]] -3.sbj pst= [[broken] -[arm -e11]‘He fell and broke his arm.’ (ii) Bzaanaakwaa. [[bazaaninitial]- [aakwmedial]- [yaafinal]] -w [[quiet][wood][inan.intr]] -3.sbj ‘It’s quiet in the forest.’ b. primary transitive (i) Ngii-bookwaabdegnaamaa. nigii= [[bookwinitial]- [aabid- emedial]- [aganaamfinal]]- aa 1.sbj- pst= [[broken][tooth- e][hit.hard.tr.an]]- 3.an.obj ‘I punched him and broke his tooth.’ (ii) Ngii-mbaabiigbinaa. nigii= [[ombiinitial]- [aaby- agmedial] -[ibi -Nfinal]] -aa -[pull- -tr.an]] -3.an.obj 1.sbj- pst= [[up(wards)]- [string- ag12] ‘I pulled him up on a rope.’
10 There are some minor complications with a class of verbs that have transitive morphology but are used intransitively. They are known to Algonquianists as pseudo-intransitives. The analysis of pseudo-intransitives compatible with our overall approach is that they have dummy objects. See footnote 5. 11 The analysis of the morphemes that end finals is controversial. We will treat the e that appears at the end of many finals as an abstract final, making examples like the present one secondary derivations in Goddard’s (1990) analysis. 12 Some classificatory medials take an ag augment when they precede a final in primary derivation.
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3.1 Lack of optionality in Ojibwe morphosyntax One of the more frustrating features of studying Algonquian syntax and morphosyntax is that it is hard to make classical types of syntactic arguments because there are very, very few optional variants. This is particularly true of thematic assignments. There are no semantically equivalent clauses in which the same verb has different alignments. For example, all applicatives assign the applicative argument as a primary object, as in (11). (11) a. simple transitive Ngii-biidoon mnikwewin. nigii= biidoon minikwewin 1.sbj- pst= bring- tr.inan- inan.obj- n drink ‘I brought the drinks.’ b. benefactive (only form) Ngii-biidmawaa mnikwewin. nigii= biidam- awaa mnikwewin 1.sbj- pst = bring- stem- appl- tr.an- 3.an.obj drink ‘I brought the drinks for him.’ The closest one comes to syntactic variants arise in the very few cases where there are differing constructions based on the animacy of arguments. For example, the bipartite verb stem izhaa- ‘go to’ (< iN-yaa-) licenses a relative root complement expressing the goal, but when the goal is notionally animate, then it can only appear as a primary object with the necessary additional verbal morphology, as illustrated in (12). (12) a. Eyaayin da-zhaa. [change- ayaa -yinrrc ] [rel be.at.an.intr -2sg.sbj.conj rrc] -w da= [iNrr]- yaa fut= [to rr]- go.an.intr -3.sbj ‘He will come to you.’ (lit. ‘… where you are’) b. *Giin da-zhaa. [giinrrc ] da= [iNrr]- yaa -w fut= [torr]- go.an.intr -3.sbj [2rrc] ‘He will come to you.’ c. Ga-zhaamig. -igo gi- ga= [iNrr] -yaa -m 2.sbj fut= [torr] -go -tr.an -inv ‘He will come to you.’
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The verb zhaad is the only verb that behaves this way. This treatment of zhaad is unique to Ottawa. The cognate of this stem in other dialects, izhaa-, takes a notionally animate goal as a secondary object, rather than a primary object. Other verbs in Ottawa ban notionally animate relative root complements and require them to appear as secondary objects. The phenomenon of relative roots licensing secondary objects instead of relative root complements will be discussed in section § 5.
4 Valency as a property of verb stems Ojibwe verb stems have valency properties that are partially independent of their semantics. Thus there are verbs which focus the agency on one or another of the participants in otherwise parallel semantic frames. That is to say, Ojibwe shares the valency problems associated with ‘buy’/‘sell’ as in (13) and ‘fear’/‘scare’, as in (14) that many languages have. (13) a. recipient agent Semaan ngii-giishpnadmawaa. asemaa -an nigii= giishpinad -am -aw -aa tobacco -obv 1.sbj- pst= buy -appl -tr.an -3.obj ‘I bought tobacco from him.’ b. recipient patient 13 Semaan ngii-daawmig. asemaa -an nigii= adaawe -m -igo tobacco obv 1.sbj- pst= sell -tr.an -inv ‘He sold me some tobacco.’ (14) a. stimulus agent Ngii-zeghaa. nigii= zeg -ih -aa 1.sbj- pst= scared -caus.tr.an -3.obj ‘I scared him.’ b. non-agentive stimulus Ngosig. nigos -igo 1.sbj- fear.tr.an -inv ‘He is afraid of me.’
13 This usage is archaic, but recognizable. In contemporary Ottawa it generally means ‘He borrowed some tobacco from me.’ Both usages are attested since the 1800’s.
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But the clearest evidence that valence properties reside in the morphemes comes from the verbs for ‘eat’, which have suppletive forms for transitivity and animacy agreement, as shown in (15). (15) a. intransitive Wiisni. wiisini -w eat -3.sbj ‘He is eating.’ b. simple transitive with inanimate primary object 14 Ngii-miijin wiiyaas. nigii= miij -i -n wiiyaas 1.sbj- pst= eat -inan.obj -n meat ‘I ate the meat.’ c. simple transitive with animate primary object Ngii-mwaa moos. nigii= am -w -aa moosw 1.sbj- pst= eat -tr.an -3.obj- moose ‘I ate moose.’ Nonetheless there are some semantically based generalizations possible. Two deserve special attention in a survey of valency properties. First, most stimulus-expeTab. 4 by sight
by sound
by taste
by smell
a.
nda-mnotaan ‘It sounds good to me.
nda-mnopdaan ‘It tastes good to me.’
nda-mnomaandaan ‘It smells good to me.
b. nda-nsidnawaa ‘I recognize him by the way he looks.’
nda-nsidtawaa nda-nsidpwaa ‘I recognize him by the ‘I recognize it an by way he sounds.’ the way it tastes.’
c. nda-msawnawaa ‘He turns me on by the way he looks.’
nda-msawtawaa ‘He turns me on by the way he sounds.’
d.
Nmaamiiktawaa ‘He sounds amazing to me.’
nda-nsidmaamaa ‘I recognize him by the way he smells.’
14 There is an equally good, but highly controversial, analysis of this form as having a secondary object, rather than a primary object, which resolves the oddity of having i be an object marker. There are two such ti verbs, the other being naadid ‘fetch’.
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riencer verbs assign the experiencer as subject and the stimulus as primary object, as exemplified in Table 4. As a consequence intransitive verbs referring to the perception of properties of entities are passive in form.
(16) a. Shkinaagwad. oshk- -inaw -igw -ad -w new -appear -pass -inan.intr -3.sbj ‘It looks new.’ b. Ggiibaaztaagzi. gigiibaad -itaw -igw -izi -w foolish -sound -pass -an.intr -3.sbj ‘He’s saying silly things.’ (lit. ‘he is heard being foolish’) c. Ziitaagnipgwad. ziitaagan -ipw -igw -ad -w salt -taste -pass -inan.intr -3.sbj ‘It’s salty.’ d. Ziiwmaagwad. ziiw -imaa -igw -ad -w sour -smell -pass -inan.intr -3.sbj ‘It smells sour.’
The second significant semantically based valence generalization involves the class of verbs that refer to, for want of a better description, stories. Such verbs in English take an optional about phrase oblique, but in Ojibwe the basic verbs are transitive with the topic of the story as the primary object. Some examples are given in (17).
(17) a. Ngii-bwaanaa. nigii= bwaa -N -aa 1.sbj- pst= dream -tr.an -3.obj ‘I had a dream about him.’ (cf. Ngii-bwaajige. ‘I had a dream.’) b. Ngii-bshigmaa. nigii= bashig -im -aa 1.sbj- pst= lose.control -use.words.tr.an -3.obj ‘I let slip a secret about him.’ (cf. Ngii-bshignjige. ‘I let something slip.’)
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c. Wgii-aandaaddaan. ogii= aand- aado -d -am -n(aa) 3.erg- pst= change- tell.story -tr.inan -inan.obj -n ‘He changed his story about it.’ (cf. Gii-aandaajmo. ‘He changed his tune.’) d. Nbibaamenmaa. nibibaamenim-aa 1.sbj- (go).around- act.in.the.mind.tr.an 3.obj ‘I’m worried about him.’ (cf. Nbibaamendam. ‘I’m worried.’)
5 Valence properties of complex verb stems The valence properties of any complex verb stem may be at least partially idiosyncratic, as argued in Rhodes (2010a). Nonetheless, there are two significant valency generalizations for verb stems based on the properties of the parts of their derivational morphology. In brief, they are 1. that semi-tranisitivity is licensed by a small class of initials, and 2. that primary transitivity is licensed by the morpheme that selects the abstract final, regardless of whether that morpheme is an initial or a concrete final. Secondary transitivity is generally a property of whole stems.
5.1 Primary transitivity as a property of initials and concrete finals When an initial selects the abstract final, then the verb regularly inherits its primary transitivity properties from the initial. If, on the other hand, a concrete final selects the abstract final, then the verb stem regularly inherits the primary transitivity properties from the concrete final. Verbal morphemes have three different inherent transitivity properties. They can be marked as intransitive; they can be marked as primary transitive; or they can be unmarked for transitivity. Examples of the three possible kinds of initials and concrete finals are given in Table 5. The examples in Table 6 give fully inflected citation forms of one of each of the transitivity types of initials from Table 5. The abstract finals are underlined. The examples in Table 7 give fully inflected citation forms of sample bipartite verbs containing one of each of the transitivity types of concrete finals from Table 5. Again the abstract finals are underlined. Note that some of the abstract finals
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Tab. 5 intransitive
primary transitive
unmarked
initials
naang- ‘be light (weight)’ gopy- ‘go inland’ nagam- ‘sing’
naga- ‘leave behind, abandon’ naa- ‘go get’ aawa- ‘haul’
ab- ‘be (at)’ nib- ‘die’
concrete finals
-ad- ‘(ambient) cold acts’ -igaabaw- ‘stand’ -os- ‘walk’
-ah- ‘act with instrument’ -in- ‘grasp, manipulate’ -pah- ‘run from’
-is- ‘fall, lie; drop, place’ -ishk- ‘act with the body’
Tab. 6
AI II TA TI
naang- ‘be light’
naga- ‘abandon’
nib- ‘die’
naangizid ‘be light’ naangang ‘be light’ — —
— — nganaad ‘abandon him’ ngadang ‘abandon it’
nibod ‘die’ — nisaad ‘kill him’ nitood ‘kill it’
Tab. 7 -ad- ‘cold acts’
-ah- ‘act with instrument’
-is- ‘lie, place’
AI
biingejid ‘feel cold’
—
II
gbading ‘freeze over’
—
TA
—
gbahwaad‘cover it an’
TI
—
gbahang ‘cover it inan’
aazwaakshing ‘lean against something wooden’ aazwaaksing ‘lean against something wooden’ aazwaakshimaad ‘lean it an against something wooden’ aazwaaksidood ‘lean it inan against something wooden’
start with palatalizing i15. For example, the -in- that marks ‘animate’ after -is-has a palatalizing i and the -in- that marks ‘inanimate’ does not.
5.2 Semi-transitivity as a property of initials While there are a few dozen concrete finals, initials number in the thousands. A small number of initials have the property of licensing semitransitivity. In tradition15 As the result of an old merger of short *e and short *i to i, there are two different kinds of i morphophonemically. One triggers palatalization and the other does not.
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al Algonquianist terminology these initials are called relative roots. The construction is very old, dating to pre-Proto-Algonquian times. It is discussed at length in Rhodes (2010c). The list of relative root initials in Ottawa is given in (18), along with example showing them with relative root complements. (18) a. iN- ‘to; like’ (i) Oodenaang ngii-zhaa. oodenaw -ing nigii= iN- -y -aa town -loc 1.sbj- pst = to- -go -an.intr ‘I went to town.’ (ii) nJohn zhinkaazo. nJohn iN- inikaa -zo -w town like- name -an.intr -3.sbj ‘His name is John.’ b. ond- ‘from; because of’ (i) Wiikwemkong ndoonjibaa. Wiikwemikw-ing ni(d)- ond- iby -aa Wikwemikong, Ont. -loc 1.sbj- from- come -an.intran ‘I come from Wikemikong.’ (ii) Mii wi e-ndademod. Mii wi eondadem -o -d cleft that rel- because_of- cry -an.intr -3.sbj ‘That’s why he’s crying.’ c. daN- ‘at, in, on’ Oodenaang dnakii. oodenaw -ing daN- -aky -e -w town -loc at- -land -an.intr -3.sbj ‘He lives in town.’ d. apiit- ‘extending to’ Nsing ekoozdeng gii-piitaagnagaa. nis- -ing ekoozide -ing gii= apiit- aagon -aa -w three -loc foot (measure) -loc pst= extent- snow -inan.intr -3.sbj ‘The snow was three feet deep.’ e. akw- ‘at the extent of’ Mii sa ekoozid ndaadsookaan. mii sa change akw-izi -d emph emph rel extended.to -an.intr -3.sbj ni(d)- aadasookaan 1.poss- story ‘That’s as far as my story goes.’
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f. daS- ‘in the amount of’ Zhaangsimdana shi niiwin gii-dsobboon’gizi aw nookmis pii nembod. zhaangisimidana ashi niiwin gii= dasobiboonag -izi ninety and four pst= so.many- be.years.old -an.intr -w aw nookimis apii change nib -o -d -3.sbj that 1.poss grandmother when rel die -an.intr -3.sbj ‘My grandmother was 94 when she died.’ There are two common lexical roots that are also relative roots. They license relative root complements referring to locations. The various animacy agreement forms, intransitive and primary transitive are given in citation form in (19). (19) a. ab- ‘sit, be in [a location]’ abid ab -i -d be. at -an.intr -3.sbj ‘sit [there]; be at home16’ ateg abde-g be. at- in.intr 3.sbj ‘be [there]’ asaad ab -N -aa -d be. at -tr.an -3.obj -3.sbj ‘put [it an] [there]’ atood ab -d -o -d be. at -tr.inan -inan.obj -3.sbj ‘put [it inan] [there]’ b. ayaa-17 ‘be in [a location]’ yaad ayaa -d be.at.intr -3.sbj ‘be [there]’
16 In the meaning ‘be at home’, ab- is not a relative root. 17 The transitive forms of this root, yaawaad (TA), yaang (TI), mean ‘have s.o./s.t.’, and are not relative roots.
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yaag ayaa -g be.at.intr -in.sbj ‘be [there].’
5.3 Secondary transitivity as a property of whole stems Secondary transitivity is not, in general, associated with any particular part of a verb stem. There are clear cases of simplex roots in which the initial governing the abstract final assigns secondary transitivity, as in (20). (20) a. agw- ‘wear [something wrapped around oneself]’ (esp. a blanket) Waabooyaan ’gii-gwin. waabooyaan ogii= agw -i -n(aa) blanket 3.erg- pst= wear -an.intr -n ‘He was wearing a blanket.’ b. abw- ‘roast’ ’Gii-bwen iw wiiyaas. ogii= abw- e-n(aa) iw wiiyaas 3.erg- pst= roast- an.intr- -n that meat ‘He roasted the meat.’ c. odamin- ‘play’ ’Gii-damnon iw damnowaagan. ogii= odamin- -o-n(aa) iw odaminowaagan18 3.erg- pst= play.with -an.intr -n that doll ‘She was playing with the doll.’ In a few cases there are simplex roots assigning secondary transitivity that refer to notionally ditransitive situations. To express both ditranisitive terms these roots must be derived, as in the (21a(ii)) and (21b(ii)). (21) a. gimood- ‘steal’ (i) Mookmaan ’gii-gmoodin. mookomaan ogii= gimood -i -n(aa) knife 3.erg- pst= steal -an.intr -n ‘He stole a knife.’
18 In some varieties of Ottawa, damnowaagan ‘doll’ is animate.
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(ii) Mookmaan ’gii-gmoodmaan. mookomaan ogii= gimood- im-aa -an knife 3.erg- pst= steal tr.an -3.obj -obv ‘He stole a knife from him.’ b. adaaw- ‘sell’ (i) Mookmaan ’gii-daawen. mookomaan ogii= adaaw -e -n(aa) knife 3.erg- pst= sell -an.intr -n ‘He sold a knife.’ (ii) Mookmaan ’gii-daawmaan. -m -aa -an mookomaan ogii= adaaw -a-19 knife 3.erg- pst= steal -an.intr -tr.an -3.obj -obv ‘He sold him a knife.’ There are a few bipartite verb stems that license secondary transitivity where neither the initial nor the concrete final or medial is responsible for the secondary transitivity. (22) a. jaagise- ‘run out’ (i) Wiiyaas gii-jaagse. wiiyaas gii= jaag- is -e -w meat pst= all- fly -inan.intr -3.sbj ‘The meat ran out.’ (ii) Wiiyaas ngii-jaagsen. wiiyaas nigii= jaag- is -e -n(aa) meat 1.sbj- pst= all- fly -an.intr -n ‘I ran out of meat.’ b. jaagaakiz- ‘burn up’ (i) Gii-jaagaakde. gii= jaag- aakiz -de -w pst= all- act.with.flame -inan.intr -3.sbj ‘It burned up.’ (ii) Ngii-jaagaakzaan. nigii= jaag- aakiz -am -n(aa) 1.sbj- pst= all- act.w.flame.tr.inan -inan.obj -n ‘I burned it up.’
19 The irregular shortening of e to a in derived transitives is widely attested. See also footnote 14 above on the question of the meaning of the ta form.
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c. debise- ‘be enough’ (i) Wiiyaas gii-debse. wiiyaas gii= debis -e -w meat pst= sufficient- fly -inan.intr -3.sbj ‘There is enough meat.’ (ii) no transitive form But most verb stems that license a secondary object are ditransitive, whether the licensing is a property of the root itself as in (23a), or arises as a by-product of derivation, as in the applicative in (23b). (23) a. Ngii-miinaa aw kiwenziinh semaan. ngii= miiN -aa aw akiwenziiny asemaa -an 1sbj- pst= give.tr.an -3.obj that old.man tobacco -obv ‘I gave the old man tobacco.’ b. Jiimaan ndoo-gzhaadmawaa nzhishenh. jiimaan nindoo= gizhaad -amaw-aa nizhisheny boat 1.sbj= take.care.of -appl.tr.an -3.obj 1.poss- cross.uncle ‘I’m taking care of a boat for my uncle.’ A fuller discussion of ditransitivity in Ojibwe can be found in Rhodes (2010d).
5.3.1 Secondary transitivity in intransitivized ditransitives There are five kinds of lexical processes that reduce the transitivity of verb. All generate secondary transitives from ditransitives, anticausativization, antipassivization, reflexivization, reciprocalization, and external incorporation. These lexical processes are discussed more fully in § 6. Examples of secondary transitives from ditransitives are given in (24). (24) a. anticausative from minah- ‘give to drink’ ’Gii-mnikwen iw nbiish. -gwe -n(aa) iw nibiish ogii= minih20 3.erg- pst= give.to.drink -anti.pass.an.intr -n that water ‘He drank the water.’
20 The allomorph minah- is irregular. The expected form is *minih-, which appears in the anticausative minikwed ‘drink’
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b. anti-passive of miiN- ‘give’ Zhoon’yaa ’gii-miigwen. zhooniyaa ogii= mii -gwe -n(aa) money 3.sbj- pst= give.tr -anti.pass.an.intr -n ‘He gave away money.’ c. reflexive of miiN- ‘give’ Mookmaan ngii-miindizon. mookomaan nigii= miiN-idizo -n(aa) knife 1.sbj- pst= give.tr.an- refl.an.intr -n ‘I gave myself a knife.’ d. reciprocal of miiN- ‘give’ Mookmaan ’gii-miindinaawaa. mookomaan ogii= miiN -idi -naa -waa knife 3.erg- pst= give.tr.an -recp.an.intr -n -3pl ‘They gave each other a knife.’ e. non-medial incorporation with asham- ‘feed’ Miinan ’gii-shamaawson. miin -an ogii= asham -aawaso -n(aa) -an blueberry -pl 3.erg- pst= feed.an.intr -child -n -inan.pl ‘She fed her children blueberries.’
5.3.2 Secondary transitivity in possessor verbs Ojibwe has a class of verbs that indicate possession. They are built on forms that look like nouns with a third person possessor o(d)- prefix and verbalized with an abstract final -i. Forms that require the possessive suffix -im also require it in this construction. Some examples are given in (25). (25) a. (< noun root -aky- ‘earth, land’, cf. ndakiim ‘my land’) dakiimid od- aky -im -i -d poss- land -poss -verbalizer -3.sbj ‘have land’ b. (< noun root -oos- ‘father’, cf. noos ‘my father’) woosid woos -i -d poss- father -verbalizer -3.sbj ‘have a father’
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c. (< noun root -ay- ‘pet’, cf. nday ‘my pet, my dog’) dayid od- ay -i-d poss- pet -verbalizer -3.sbj ‘have a dog’ d. (< noun root -ikw- ‘louse’, cf. ndikom ‘my louse’) dikmid od- ikw -im -i -d poss- louse -poss -verbalizer -3.sbj ‘have lice’ e. (< noun stem -dibahagiiziswaan- ‘clock’, cf ndibhagiiswaan ‘my watch, my clock’) dibhagiiswaanid odib -ah -agiizisw -aa -n -i -d poss- measure -w/instr -sun -an.intr -nom -verbalizer -3.sbj ‘have a clock’ These verbs can be used either intransitively, or as secondary transitives with the entity possessed as the object, as the examples in (26) show. (26) Mii dash naa niw gaazhgensan gaa-wdibhagiiswaanwaajin. mii dash naa niw gaazhagens -an change gii= ocleft emph emph those.obv cat -obv rel pst= havedibahagiisiwaan -i -waa -d -in clock -an.intr -3pl -3.sbj -obv.ppl ‘Cats were what they used for clocks.’21 A special case of a secondary transitive possessor verb is dnid ‘have s.t.’. Etymologically, the initial is daN- ‘at’ (27) Adaawen minik endaniyan, getimaagizijig dash miizh, giga-gichi-danin wakwiing.22 adaawe -n minik change dani -yan change gitimaagizi -d dash sell -imp enough rel have -2.sbj rel be.poor -3.sbj emph
21 This is from a humorous text about how Indians could tell time by looking at the pupils of cats’ eyes. the syntax of this sentence has the verb as a relative clause with gaazhgensan, the secondary object, as its head. 22 From a 19th century Bible translation. The whole quote is: Jesus dash odinaan : Giishpin inendaman, ji-apiichi-mino‑izhiwebiziyan. adaawen minik endaniyan, getimaagizijig dash miizh, giga-gichidanin wakwiing. “Jesus said unto him: “If thou wilt be perfect, [go and] sell that that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven.” (KJV, Matt. 19:21)
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miiN- -i gi- ga= gichi- dani- -n(aa) wakwii give 3.an.obj.imp 2.sbj fut big have n heaven ‘Sell whatever you have and give it to the poor, and you will have much in heaven.’
5.4 Initials with valence irregularities A number of initials always license objects. The two most common are given in (28). The form in (28a) licenses secondary objects. The form in (28b) licenses primary objects and therefore requires secondary derivation of AI stems to make them TA stems by the addition of an m. (28) a. ap- ‘on’ (i) Sin ’gii-pabin. asiny ogii= ap- ab -i -n(aa) rock 3.erg- pst= on- sit -an.intr -n ‘He sat down on a rock.’ (ii) ’Gii-pishmon iw nbaagan. ogii= ap- ishim -o -n(aa) iw nibaagan 3.erg- pst= on- lie -an.intr -n that bed ‘He lay down on the bed.’ b. wiid- ‘with (comitative)’ (i) ’Gii-wiidbimaan. ogii= wiid- abi- -m -aa -an 3.erg- pst= with- sit.ai- tr.an 3.obj obv ‘He sat with him.’ (ii) Nwiidgemaa. ni- gii= wiid- ige-m -aa 1.sbj pst= with house.ai tr.an 3.obj ‘I live with her.’ Some relative roots, i.e., initials which normally license semitransitivity, in particular verb forms, idiomatically license secondary or primary objects. Examples are given in (29). (29) a. ond- ‘from; for a reason’ (i) semitransitive Namhewning ’gii-wnjinnaawaan. anamihewin -ing ogii= ond- inaN -aa -waa -an Christianity -loc 3.erg- pst= from- kill.tr.an -3.obj -3pl -obv ‘They killed him for being a Christian.’
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(ii) secondary object Kwezens ngii-njin’zonaa. akwezens ni- gii= ond- -inaN -zo -naan girl 1sbj- pst= from- -kill -pass.an.intr -n.1pl ‘We fought over a girl.’ b. iN- ‘to; like’ (i) semitransitive Oodenaang ngii-zhaa. oodenaw -ing nigii= iN- y- -aa town -loc 1.sbj- pst= to- go- -an.intr ‘I went to town.’ (ii) primary object Ngii-zhaamaa. nigii= iN- -yaa -m -aa 3.erg pst= with -go.ai -tr.an -3.obj ‘I went to him.’
6 Valence adjustment The basic valence of a stem can be adjusted by secondary derivation. Processes reducing transitivity are passivization and middle formation, reflexivization and reciprocal formation, antipassivization, and external incorporation. Processes increasing transitivity are applicativization and causativization.
6.1 Valence reduction There are five kinds of lexical processes that reduce the transitivity of verb. They are passives and middles, antipassives and anticausatives, reflexives, reciprocals, and external incorporation.
6.1.1 Passives and middles Ojibwe has a very elaborate system of passivization described in detail in Rhodes (1990). It is limited to the passivization of primary objects, and is agentless. The system consists of two fully productive but morphologically distinct passives for notional primary objects of animate gender, one passive for notional primary objects of inanimate gender, and there is a lexically restricted middle (called a mediopassive in Rhodes 1991). Examples are given in (30).
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(30) a. animate notional object (i) passive I Mii gii-miin’gooyaang rooms waa-dnizyaang. mii gii= miiNigoo- yaang rooms emph pst= give.tr.an- pass.i- 1pl.ex.sbj rooms change wii= danizi -yaang rel.cl fut= live.in.an.intr -1pl.ex.sbj ‘Then we were given rooms to live in.’ (ii) passive ii Shanjigaazo. asham -d -igaazo -w feed -tr.inan -pass.ii.an -3.sbj ‘He’s on welfare.’ (lit. ‘he is being fed’) b. inanimate notional object (i) passive ii only Mii dash wmoodensing da-chigaadeg. mii dash omoodens -ing emph emph 3.poss- bottle -loc da= ab -d -igaade -g fut- be.at -inan.intr -pass.ii.inan -3.sbj ‘Then it [medicine] will be put on his handkerchief.’
There is a class of verbs which have a lexical passive formed with -igwad/-igozi, in place of passive II (which is formed with -igaade/-igaazo). The verbs involved all contain the concrete finals pertaining to thought and perception. Examples are given in (31).
(31) lexical passive – -igozi (AI) / -igwad (II) a. kendaagwad gikendaw -igw- -ad -w know- think.appl.tr.an -pass -inan.intr -3.sbj ‘it is known’ (not *kenjigaadeg) b. mnopgwad minw- ipw -igw- -ad -w good- taste.tr.an -pass -inan.intr -3.sbj ‘it tastes good’ (not ?*mnopjigaadeg)
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Middles are lexically limited in formation. Examples are given in (32). (32) middle a. -o (AI) zhiho, cf. zhichgaazo (same meaning) iN -ih -o -w vs. like -caus -middle.an.intr -3.sbj iN- ihd-igaa -zo -w like- caus- inan.intr- -pass.ii -an.intr -3.sbj ‘it is made that way’, b. -zo (AI) / -de (II) gkizo, cf. gkijgaazo (same meaning) giki- -zo -w vs. hide middle.an.intr 3.sbj giki- d-igaa- -zo -w hide inan.intr pass.ii an.intr 3.sbj ‘it(animate) is hidden’ As discussed in Rhodes (1991), both forms of true passive are fully productive. To the best of our knowledge the productive passives are fully synonymous and completely interchangeable.
6.1.2 Antipassives and anticausatives Both primary and secondary objects can be antipassivized, including both objects of ditransitives. Stems licensing primary objects register the reduction of valence with a suffix. The choice of allomorph is sensitive both to grammatical animacy and to phonological shape, as shown in the examples in (33). (33) a. inanimate primary object (-ige) (i) simple transitive ‘Zagkinaan iw mnoomin. ozagakin -am -n(aa) iw manoomin 3.erg- store.up.tr -inan.obj -n that.in rice ‘He stores up (wild) rice.’ (ii) antipassive Zgaknige. zagakin -ige -w store.up.tr -inan.indef -3.sbj ‘He stores things up.’
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b. animate primary object (-ge after m, -ige after w [with contraction], -iwe elsewhere) (i) simple transitive ’Bimdaabaanaan. obimidaabaaN -aa -an 3.erg- drive.around.tr.an -3.obj -obv ‘He drives him around.’ (ii) antipassive Bmidaabaazhwe. bimidaabaaN -iwe -w drive.around. tr.an -an.indef -3.sbj ‘He drives a taxi.’ (lit. ‘he drives people around’) Antipassives of secondary transitives have no morphological concomitants aside from the lack of agreement, as can be seen in (34). (34) a. secondary transitive ’Gii-mnikwen iw nbiish. ogii= minikwe -n iw nibiish 3erg- pst= drink -n that.in water ‘He drank the water.’ b. antipassive Gii-mnikwe. gii= minikwe -w pst= drink -3.sbj ‘He was drinking.’ One inherently ditransitive verb forms an anticausative rather than an antipassive. It is minah- ‘give to drink’. The morphology associated with detransitivizing minahis the same as one of the antipassive allomorphs. The data are given in (35). (35) a. ditransitive Nbiish ’gii-mnahaan. nibiish ogii= minah -aa -an water 3erg- pst= give.to.drink -3.an.obj -obv ‘He gave him some water to drink.’
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b. anticausative ’Gii-mnikwen iw nbiish. ogii= minih23 -gwe -n(aa) iw nibiish 3.erg pst= give.to.drink -anti.pass.an.intr -n that water ‘He drank the water.’ (= [28a])
6.1.3 Reflexivization Reflexives are derived from stems licensing primary transitive by the addition of -idizo. This lexical process reduces the transitivity of the stem, creating intransitives stems from primary transitive stems, as in (36a) and secondary transitives from ditransitives, as in (36b). (36) a. primary transitive stem (i) simple transitive ’Gii-bengzhehaan. ogii= bengwazheh -aa -an 1.erg- pst= dry.off.tr.an -3.an.obj -obv ‘He toweled him off.’ (ii) intransitive reflexive of simple transitive Gii-bengzhehdizo. gii= bengwazheh -idizo -w pst= dry.off.tr.an -refl -3.sbj ‘He toweled himself off.’ b. ditransitive stem (i) ditransitive Mookmaan ngii-miinaa. mookomaan nigii= miiN -aa knife 1.sbj- pst= give.tr.an -3.obj ‘I gave him a knife.’ (ii) semitransitive reflexive of ditransitive Mookmaan ngii-miindizon. mookomaan nigii= miiN -idizo -n knife 1.sbj- pst= give -refl -n ‘I gave myself a knife.’
23 The allomorph minah- is irregular. The expected form is *minih-, which appears in the anticausative minikwed ‘drink’.
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6.1.4 Reciprocalization Reciprocals are derived from primary transitive stems by the addition of -idi. The construction is parallel to the reciprocal, as shown in the examples in (37) which parallel the examples in (36). (37) a. primary transitive stem (i) simple transitive ’Gii-bengzhehaawaan. ogii= bengwazheh -aa -waa -an 1.erg- pst= dry.off.tr.an -3an.obj -3pl -obv ‘They toweled him off.’ (ii) intransitive reflexive of simple transitive Gii-bengzhehdiwag. gii= bengwazheh -idi -w -ag pst= dry.off.tr.an -recp -3.sbj -3pl ‘They toweled each other off.’ b. ditransitive stem (i) ditransitive Mookmaanan ngii-miinaa. mookomaan -an nigii= miiN -aa knife -in.pl 1.sbj- pst= give.tr.an -3.obj ‘I gave him some knives.’ (ii) semitransitive reflexive of ditransitive Mookmaanan ngii-miindinaanin. mookomaan -an nigii= miiN -idi- -naan -in knife -in.pl 1.sbj- pst= give -refl -1pl -in.pl ‘We gave each other knives.’
6.1.5 Incorporation Ojibwe has two distinct processes of noun incorporation, internal incorporation and external incorporation (Rhodes 2003). Internal incorporation places the incorporated nominal between the two parts of a bipartite verb, but does not change the valence. There are three kinds of internal incorporation semantically, in the first type, the incorporated nominal is understood as an oblique, often an instrument, as in (38a). In the second type the incorporated nominal is understood as a classifier for the object, as in (38b) and (38c), and in the third type the incorporated
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nominal is a body part and the stranded object is understood as the possessor of the incorporated body part, as exemplified in (38c).24 (38) internal incorporation a. incorporated oblique (i) ’Gii-mbibdoon. ogii= [omb - ibid] -oo -n(aa) 3.erg- pst= [up - pull.tr.inan] -inan.obj -n ‘He pulled it up.’ (ii) ’Gii-mbaabiigbidoon. ogii= [omb - aabiig - ibid] -oo -n(aa) 3.erg- pst= [up - rope - pull.tr.inan] -inan.obj -n ‘He pulled it up with a rope.’ b. incorporated classifier – intransitive (i) Ziiwan. [ziiw - an] -w [sour - inan.intr] -3.sbj ‘It is sour.’ (ii) Ziiwaagmi. [ziiw - aagam - i] -w [sour - liquid - inan.intr] -3.sbj ‘It is sour liquid.’ c. incorporated classifier – primary transitive (i) ’Gii-gdandaan. ogii= [god - and] -am -n(aa) 3.erg- pst= [try - use.mouth.tr.inan] -inan.obj -n ‘He tasted it [food].’ (ii) ’Gii-gdaagmandaan. ogii= [god - aagam - and] -am -n(aa) 3.erg- pst= [try - liquid - use.mouth.tr.inan] -inan.obj -n ‘He tasted it [liquid].’
24 The class of morphemes that realize internal incorporation are called medials by Algonquianists. In many cases medials bear no phonological resemblance to the semantically corresponding nominal root.
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Richard Rhodes and Rand Valentine
d. incorporated body part (i) Ngii-zginaa. nigii = [zag - in] -aa 1.sbj- pst= [hold.lightly - grasp] -3.obj ‘I grasped him.’ (ii) Ngii- zginnjiinaa. nigii = [zag - ininjii - in] -aa 1.sbj- pst= [hold.lightly - hand - grasp] -3.obj ‘I shook his hand.’ External incorporation places the incorporated nominal at the end of a primary transitive verb stem, as in (39), and always reduces the transitivity of the stem. (39) a. ngii-bmoomaa nigii = [bim - oom] -aa 1.sbj- pst= [along - carry.on.back] -3.obj ‘I carried him on my back.’ b. ngii- bmoomaawas nigii = [bim - oom - aawaso] 1.sbj- pst= [along - carry.on.back - child] ‘I carried a child on my back.’ Ojibwe ditransitives only incorporate primary objects and only do so with external incorporation. Again the n-registration of secondary object appears because the incorporation of the primary object lowers the transitivity of the clause, as in (40). (40) a. unincorporated Miinan wgii-shamaan wniijaansan. miin -an ogii= [asham] -aa -an oniijaanis -an blueberry -pl 3.erg- pst= [feed] -3.obj -obv 3.poss- child -obv ‘She fed her children blueberries.’ b. incorporated Miinan wgii-shamaawsonan. miin -an ogii= [asham - aawaso] -n(aa) -an blueberry -pl 3.erg- pst= [feed - child] -n -inan.pl ‘She fed her children blueberries.’
6.2 Valence increase There are two secondary derivational processes that increase the transitivity in Ojibwe verbs. One is applicativization, the other is causativization.
Transitivity in Ojibwe
1239
6.2.1 Applicatives Applicativization is fully productive in Ojibwe, but the single morphological process covers a wide semantic range, including benefactive, malefactive, recipient, addressee, affectee/possessor, and source. Examples are given in (41). (41) a. benefactive (i) simple transitive ’Gii-gnoonaan. ogii= ganooN -aa -an 3.erg- pst= speak.to.tr.inan -3.obj -obv ‘He spoke to him.’ (ii) applicative ’Gii-gnoodmawaan. ogii= ganood -amaw -aa -an 3.erg- pst= speak.to..tr.inan -appl.tr.an -3.obj -obv ‘He interceded on his behalf.’ b. malefactive (i) simple intransitive Gii-giimoodzi. gii= giimood -izi -w pst= sneaky -an.intr -3.sbj ‘He was sneaky.’ (ii) applicative ’Gii-giimoojiikwaan. ogii= giimood -ikaw -aa -an 3.erg- pst= sneaky -appl.tr.an -3.obj -obv ‘He snuck up on him.’ (lit. ‘He was sneaky on him.’) c. recipient (i) simple transitive ’Gii-biidoon. ogii= biid-oo -n(aa) 3.erg- pst= bring.tr.inan- -inan.obj -n ‘He brought it.’ (ii) applicative ’Gii-biidmawaan. ogii= biid -amaw -aa -an 3.erg- pst= bring.tr.inan -appl.tr.an -3.obj -obv ‘He brought it to him.’ (also ‘He brought it for him.’)
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Richard Rhodes and Rand Valentine
d. addressee (i) simple intransitive Gii-mnwaajmo. gii= minwaajim -o -w pst= good.report -an.intr -3.sbj ‘He reported that things are good.’ (ii) applicative ’Gii-mnwaajmotwaan. ogii= minwaajimo -ih -d -aw -aa 3.erg- pst= good.report.an.intr -caus -tr.inan -appl.tr.an -3.obj -an -obv ‘He reported to him that things are good.’ e. affectee/possessor25 (i) simple transitive ’Gii-dkokaadaan. ogii= dakokaad -am -n(aa) 3.erg- pst= bring.tr.inan -inan.obj -n ‘He stepped on it.’ (ii) applicative ’Gii-dkokaadmawaan. ogii= dakokaad -amaw -aa -an 3.erg- pst= bring tr.inan -appl.tr.an -3.obj -obv ‘He stepped on his [possession].’ f. source (i) simple transitive ’Gii-giishpnadoon. ogii= giishpinad -oo -n(aa) 3.erg- pst= buy.tr.inan -inan.obj -n ‘He bought it.’ (ii) applicative ’Gii-giishpnadwaan. ogii= giishpnad -aw -aa -an 3.erg- pst= buy.tr.inan -appl.tr.an -3.obj -obv ‘He bought it from him.’ (also ‘He bought it for him.’)
25 Some dialects have a special applicative construction for possessors, of the form -amow, or just w when preceded by a vowel.
Transitivity in Ojibwe
1241
However, only the applicatives of transitive verbs are formed completely regularly. If a verb stem licenses primary transitivity, the form of the applicative is determined by whether the TI stem takes -oo as the object marker or -am. If the TI takes -am, then the applicative marker is -amaw added to the TI stem. If the TI takes -oo, then the applicative can be formed either by adding -amaw or simply -aw to the TI stem.
(42) a. TI in -am (i) simple transitive ’Gii-gindaan. ogii= agind -am -n(aa) 3erg- pst= read.tr.inan inan.obj -n ‘He read it.’ (ii) applicative ’Gii-gindmawaan. ogii= agind -amaw -aa -an 3erg- pst= read.tr.inan -appl.tr.an -3obj -obv ‘He read it to him.’ b. TI in -oo (i) simple transitive ’Gii-giishpnadoon. ogii= giishpinad -oo -n(aa) 3.erg- pst= buy.tr.inan -inan.obj -n ‘He bought it.’ (ii) short applicative ’Gii-giishpnadwaan. ogii= giishpinad -aw -aa -an 3.erg- pst= buy.tr.inan -appl.tr.an -3.obj -obv ‘He bought it for him/from him.’ (iii) long applicative ’Gii-giishpnadmawaan. ogii= giishpinad -amaw -aa -an 3erg- pst= buy.tr.inan -appl.tr.an -3.obj -obv ‘He bought it for him/from him.’
Applicatives of intransitive stems are formed regularly in one of three ways (Valentine 2001: 467). The most productive way is to form a TI of a simple causative. (See § 6.2.2)
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Richard Rhodes and Rand Valentine
(43) a. simple intransitive Gii-gkizo. gii= giki -zo -w pst= hide -an.intr -3.sbj ‘He hid.’ b. causative ’Gii-gkizoohaan. ogii= giki -zo -ih -aa -an 3.erg- pst= hide -an.intr -caus.tr.an -3.obj -obv ‘He made him hide.’ c. applicative ’Gii-gkizootwaan. ogii= giki -zo -ih-d -aw -aa -an 3.erg- pst= hide -an.intr -caus.tr.inan -appl.tr.an -inan.obj -obv ‘He hid from him.’ Applicatives of intransitive stems can also be formed by replacing the abstract final with either -aw or -amaw, as in (42b(i)) and (42b(ii)). All three variants are found for many AI verb stems. An example is given in (44). (44) a. simple intransitive Gii-mnise. gii= minis -e -w pst= gather.firewood -an.intr -3.sbj ‘He gathered firewood.’ b. applicative variants (i) ’Gii-mniswaan. ogii= minis -aw -aa -an 3.erg- pst= gather.firewood -appl.tr.an -3.obj -obv ‘He gathered firewood for him.’ (ii) ’Gii-mnismawaan. ogii= minis -amaw -aa -an 3.erg- pst= gather.firewood -appl.tr.an -3.obj -obv ‘He gathered firewood for him.’ (iii) ’Gii-mnisetwaan. ogii= minise -ih.d-aw -aa 3.erg- pst= gather.firewood.an.intr -caus.tr.inan appl.tr.an 3.obj -an obv ‘He gathered firewood for him.’
Transitivity in Ojibwe
1243
A few applicatives of intransitive stems are formed irregularly. The two most common are -nodam-/-nodaw- added to full intransitive stems and -(i)ikam-/-(i)ikawreplacing the abstract final. (45) a. -nodam-, -nodaw(i) simple intransitive Nese. nes -e -w breathe -an.intr -3.sbj ‘He is breathing.’ (ii) ti applicative ’Gii-nesendaan. ogii= nese -nod -am -n(aa) 3.erg- pst= breathe.an.intr -appl.tr.inan -inan.obj -n ‘He breathed on it.’ (iii) ta applicative ’Gii-nesendawaan. ogii= nese -nodaw -aa -an 3.erg- pst= breathe. an.intr -appl.tr.an -3.obj -obv ‘He breathed on him.’ b. -(i)ikam-, -(i)ikaw(i) simple intransitive Giimoodzi. giimood -izi -w sneaky -an.intr -3.sbj ‘He is sneaky.’ (ii) ti applicative ’Gii-giimoojiikaan. ogii= giimood -iik -am -n(aa) 3.erg- pst= sneaky -appl.tr.inan -inan.obj -n ‘He snuck up on it.’ (iii) ta applicative ’Gii-giimoojiikwaan. ogii= giimood -iikaw -aa -an 3.erg- pst= sneaky -appl.tr.an -3.obj -obv ‘He snuck up on him.’
6.2.2 Causatives Causativization is a complex problem in Ojibwe, as in all of Algonquian. The morphemes involved are all concrete finals. The problem is semantic in nature. There
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Richard Rhodes and Rand Valentine
are a relatively large number of morphemes that have the property of adding a primary transitive valence to inherent intransitives. The most semantically neutral pattern uses the morpheme -ih-/-itoo-. It can be used in both primary and secondary derivation as shown in (46). The examples in (46) are effectively a minimal pair showing that the choice between the use of causative as primary or secondary derivation is lexically determined. (46) a. primary derivation (i) simple intransitive Gii-zegzi. gii= zeg-izi -w pst= scared- -an.intr -3.sbj ‘He was scared.’ (ii) causative Ngii-zeghaa. nigii= zeg -ih -aa 1.sbj- pst= hide -caus.tr.an -3.obj ‘I scared him.’ b. secondary derivation (i) simple intransitive Gii-bnizi. gii= ban -izi -w pst= miss -an.intr -3.sbj ‘He missed out [on an event].’ (ii) causative Ngii-bniz’haa. nigii= ban -izi -ih -aa 1.sbj- pst= miss -an.intr -caus.tr.an -3.obj ‘I made him miss out [on an event].’ The -ih- causative can be applied to transitives to yield ditransitive valence, with the causee as the primary object. The causative can also be applied to secondary derivations. Examples built on the verb stem baakin- ‘open [it]’ are given in (47). (47) a. multiple secondary derivation (i) simple transitive ’Gii-baaknaan. ogii= baakin -am -n(aa) 3.erg- pst= open.tr.inan -inan.obj -n ‘He opened it.’
Transitivity in Ojibwe
1245
(ii) antipassive Gii-baaknige. gii= baakin -ige -w pst= open.tr.inan -inan.indef -3.sbj ‘He opened things.’ b. causatives (i) causative of transitive Ngii-baaknamoohaa. nigii= baakin-amo26 1.sbj- pst= open.tr ‘I got him to open it.’
-ih -aa -caus.tr.an -3.obj
(ii) causative of antipassive Ngii-baaknigehaa. nigii= baakin -ige -ih -aa 1.sbj- pst= open.tr.inan -inan.indef -caus.tr.an -3.obj ‘I got him to open things.’ There is also a rarer augmented version of -ih-, -isah-, as exemplified in (48). (48) a
simple intransitive Gii-nnangshkaa. gii= red.nang -ishk -aa -w pst= shake -act.with.body -an.intr -3.sbj ‘He was trembling.’
b. causative Ngii-nnangskhaas’haa. nigii= nanangishkaa -isah -aa 1.sbj- pst= tremble.an.intr -caus.tr.an -3.obj ‘I made him tremble.’ There is a third general causative that expresses indirect causation, -shkooN-/ -shkoodoo-. Examples are given in (49).
26 The inanimate object marker -am takes an epenthetic o in particular morphemic combinations. Causative of transitives are built as if the object of the downstairs clause were grammatically inanimate regardless of the actual gender of the object.
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Richard Rhodes and Rand Valentine
(49) a. baashk- ‘burst’ (i) simple transitive Ngii-baashkhaan mbaasjigan. nigii= [baashk − ah] -am -n(aa) 1.sbj- pst= [burst − use.instrument.tr.inan] -inan.obj -n ombaasijigan balloon ‘I broke the balloon [with an instrument].’ (ii) indirect causative Ngii-baashkshkoodoon mbaasjigan. nigii= [baashk – I shkoo − d] -oo -n(aa) 1.sbj- pst= [burst − indirect.cause − tr.inan] -inan.obj -n ombaasijigan balloon ‘I did something that broke the balloon.’ b. bkwen- ‘choke’ (i) simple transitive Ngii-bkwen’shkawaa. nigii= [bakwen -ishk -aw] -aa 1.sbj- pst= [choke -use.iboody/foot -tr.an] -3.obj ‘I choked him.’ (ii) causative Ngii-bkwen’shkoonaa. nigii= [bakwen -ishkoo -N] -aa 1.sbj- pst= [choke -indirect.cause -tr.an] -3.obj ‘I made him choke on something.’
6.2.2.1 Causation and the mode of action problem But causativization in Ojibwe is not limited to the concrete finals -ih-/-itoo-, -isah-/ -isatoo-, and -shkooN-/-ishkoodoo-. There is a very long list of concrete finals that function effectively as causatives some of the time. For a fuller discussion see Valentine (2001: 433 ff.) and Rhodes (1980).27 Some examples are given in (50). (50) a. -ishk- ‘act with or on the body; act with the foot’ (i) simple intransitive Gii-giiwshkwebii. gii= giiwashkwebii -w pst= drunk.an.intr -3.sbj ‘He got drunk.’ 27 One could argue that the perception verbs, which are also concrete finals, are causatives, but the semantic argument that there is any causation associated with perception is hard to make.
Transitivity in Ojibwe
1247
(ii) causative ’Gii-giiwashkwebiishkaagon Thunderbird. ogii= giiwashkwebii -ishkaw -igo -n(aa) 3.erg- pst= drunk.an.intr -caus.tr.an -inv -n ‘He got drunk on Thunderbird.’ b. -ik- ‘act with or on the body; act with the foot’ (i) simple intransitive Aakzi. aakw -izi -w sick -an.intr -3.sbj ‘He’s sick.’ (ii) causative ’Daakziiwkawaan. odaakoziiw -ikaw -aa -an 3.erg- be.sick -caus.tr.an -3.obj -obv ‘He makes him sick.’ (figurative) c. -in- ‘act with the hand; grasp’ (i) simple intransitive Gnaabiigad. gan- aabiig -ad -w long- string -inan.intr -3.sbj ‘It (string-like) is long.’ (ii) causative ’Gii-gnaabiignaan. ogii= ganaabiig -in -am -n(aa) 3.erg- pst= be/long/string -caus.tr.inan -inan.obj -n ‘He made it (string-like) longer.’ (figurative) But in the vast majority of uses the concrete finals in (50) assert their lexical content and do not have clear causative readings, as shown in (51). (51) a. -ishk- ‘act with or on the body; act with the foot’ ’Gii-daangshkawaan. ogii= daang -ishkaw -aa -an 3.erg- pst= touch -act.with.foot.tr.an -3.obj -obv ‘He kicked him.’ b. -ik- ‘act with or on the body; act with the foot’ ’Gii-bsikwaan. ogii= bitikaw -aa -an 3.erg- pst= accidental(ly)- act.with.body.tr.an -3.obj -obv ‘He bumped into him.’
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Richard Rhodes and Rand Valentine
c. -in- ‘act with the hand; grasp’ ’Gii-bshignaan. ogii= bashigw -in -am -n(aa) 3.erg- pst= lose.control -grasp.tr.inan -inan.obj -n ‘It slipped from his grasp.’ The list of concrete finals that have causative readings in some verbs is given in Appendix III. Rhodes (to appear) explains the underlying semantic conditions that give rise to the large number of transitivizing morphemes.
7 Conclusion Ojibwe provides an unusual case for the typology of valence. Algonquian verbs in general and Ojibwe in specific license four kinds of arguments, subjects, primary objects, secondary objects, and relative root complements. Algonquian in general and Ojibwe in specific also has a wide variety of detransitivizing morphological processes including two distinct passives, a middle, a reflexive, a reciprocal, and an antipassive, all of which affect primary transitivity. There is also an antipassive of secondary transitives. Because so much of the valence of Ojibwe verbs is overtly marked by or implicit in the morphology of the verb, there are no Ojibwe verb stems that have more than one valence option, with the sole exception of secondary transitives, most of which form antipassives. However a few verbs have closely related stems with significantly different valences depending on the animacy of the argument involved.
Meaning label
BE A HUNTER
RAIN
BE A HUNTER
BE A HUNTER
BE DRY
BE DRY
BE HUNGRY
BE SAD
BLINK
BOIL
BOIL
BURN
BURN
BURN
#
70
69
70
70
68
68
64
63
46
80
80
67
67
67
zkizad
zkideg
jaagzo
nzo
nde
pasknaabid
maanaadendang
bkaded
baateg
baasad
giiwseniniiwi
aawang
gmiwang
giiwse-nini aawid
Verb form
1 V.subjS[1]
1 V.subjS[1]
1 V.subjS[1]
1 V.subjS[1]
1 V.subjS[1]
1 V.subjS[1]
1 V.subjS[1]
1 V.subjS[1]
1 V.subjS[1]
1 V.subjS[1]
1 V.subjS[1]
1 V.subjS[1]
V.subjS[1]
V.subjS[1]
Coding frame schema
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Antipassive -ige
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Antipassive -iwe
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Applicative
The following is a table of verbs realizing the meanings given in the questionnaire list.
Appendix I
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Body Part Incorporation
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Causative − Instrumental
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
+
m
–
–
m
Causative Simple
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Lexical passive
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Recip- Rerocal flexive
Transitivity in Ojibwe
1249
Meaning label
COUGH
DIE
FEEL COLD
JUMP
JUMP
LAUGH
PLAY
ROLL
ROLL
RUN
SCREAM
SCREAM
SHAVE
SING
SINK
SINK
SIT
#
47
61
60
52
52
57
62
65
65
49
58
58
14
53
66
66
50
nmadbid
gzaabiig
gzaabiid
n’gamod
gaashkbaazod
noondaagzi
mbiigzid
bmibtood
gtigseg
gtigsed
damnod
baapid
mbigwaashknid
gwaashknid
biingejid
nbod
zosdang
Verb form
1 V.subjS[1]
1 V.subjS[1]
1 V.subjS[1]
1 V.subjS[1]
1 V.subjS[1]
1 V.subjS[1]
1 V.subjS[1]
1 V.subjS[1]
1 V.subjS[1]
1 V.subjS[1]
1 V.subjS[1]
1 V.subjS[1]
1 V.subjS[1]
1 V.subjS[1]
1 V.subjS[1]
1 V.subjS[1]
1 V.subjS[1]
Coding frame schema
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Antipassive -ige
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Antipassive -iwe
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Applicative
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Body Part Incorporation
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Causative − Instrumental
+
–
m
–
–
–
–
m
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
Causative Simple
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Lexical passive
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Recip- Rerocal flexive
1250 Richard Rhodes and Rand Valentine
SIT DOWN
SIT DOWN
FEEL PAIN
SAY
GO
LIVE
LIVE
CLIMB
FEAR
SMELL
ASK FOR
ASK FOR
BEAT
BEAT
BREAK
BREAK
BRING
BRING
BUILD
BUILD
CARRY
51
51
59
22
54
56
56
48
6
5
19
19
27
27
25
25
75
75
24
24
38
bmiwdood
zhitood
zhihaad
biinaad
biidood
bookbinaad
bookbidood
bkitewaad
bkitehang
ndodmawaad
ndodang
biijmaamaad
gsaad
bmaandwaanaad
dnakiid
daad
zhaad
kidod
giigiijniked
wenbi
nmadbid
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 V.objI[2] 2
1 V.objI[2] 2
1 V.objI[2] 2
1 V.subjS[1] 2-loc
1 V.subjS[1] 2-loc
1 V.subjS[1] 2-loc
1 V.subjS[1] UTT2
1 V.subjS[1]
1 V.subjS[1]
1 V.subjS[1]
–
–
+
–
–
+
–
+
–
+
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
–
–
+
+
–
+
–
+
–
+
–
+
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
+
–
+
–
m
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Transitivity in Ojibwe
1251
Meaning label
CARRY
CLIMB
COOK
COOK
COVER
COVER
CUT
DIG
DIG
DRESS
EAT
EAT
FEAR
FILL
FILL
FILL
FILL
#
38
48
79
79
43
43
30
73
73
13
1
1
6
44
44
44
44
mooshknebnaad
mooshknebdood
mooshknanaad
mooshknadood
gtang
mwaad
miijid
biiskon’yehaad
moon’hwaad
moon’ang
giishkkonaad
gbawaad
gbahang
mnzang
mnozwaad
bmaandwaadang
bmiwnaad
Verb form
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
Coding frame schema
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
–
–
+
–
–
Antipassive -ige
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
Antipassive -iwe
+
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
+
–
–
–
+
–
+
Applicative
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
Body Part Incorporation
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Causative − Instrumental
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Causative Simple
+
–
–
–
–
+
–
+
+
–
+
+
–
–
+
–
+
Lexical passive
+
–
+
–
–
+
–
+
–
–
+
+
–
–
+
–
–
+
–
+
–
–
+
–
+
–
–
+
+
–
–
+
–
–
Recip- Rerocal flexive
1252 Richard Rhodes and Rand Valentine
FOLLOW
FRIGHTEN
GRIND
GRIND
HEAR
HEAR
HELP
HIDE
HIDE
HIT
HIT
HUG
KILL
KILL
KNOW
KNOW
LEAVE
LEAVE
LIKE
LIKE
LIKE
16
7
71
71
78
78
15
34
34
28
28
2
26
26
9
9
55
55
8
8
8
mdaagwendang
bshigendang
bgishgenmaad
n’ganaad
n’gadang
gkenmaad
gkendang
ntood
nsaad
aabtoojiinaad
bkitewaad
bkitehang
gkinaad
gkidood
naadmawaad
noondwaad
noondang
biisboonaad
biisboodood
zeghaad
noopnanaad
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
–
–
–
+
–
+
–
–
–
+
+
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
+
+
–
–
+
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
+
–
–
+
+
+
–
+
–
+
–
–
+
–
+
–
–
–
+
–
–
+
–
–
+
+
–
+
–
+
+
–
+
–
+
–
–
–
+
–
–
+
–
–
+
+
–
–
+
–
+
+
–
+
–
–
+
Transitivity in Ojibwe
1253
Meaning label
LOAD
LOOK AT
LOOK AT
MEET
MEET
NAME
NAME
PEEL
PEEL
PEEL
PEEL
PUSH
PUSH
SEARCH FOR
SEARCH FOR
SEE
SEE
#
45
3
3
17
17
23
23
33
33
33
33
74
74
11
11
4
4
waabndang
waabmaad
ndanewaad
ndanehang
gaandnang
gaandnaad
bnagjiiknaad
bnagjiikdang
bnagjiibinaad
bnagjiibdood
waawiindang
waawiinaad
nkweshkwaad
nkweshkang
gnawaabndang
gnawaabmaad
boozdood
Verb form
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
Coding frame schema
–
+
+
–
–
+
+
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
Antipassive -ige
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
Antipassive -iwe
–
+
+
–
–
+
+
–
+
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
Applicative
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Body Part Incorporation
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Causative − Instrumental
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Causative Simple
–
+
+
–
–
+
+
–
+
–
–
+
–
–
–
+
–
Lexical passive
–
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
+
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
+
–
Recip- Rerocal flexive
1254 Richard Rhodes and Rand Valentine
SHAVE
SHOUT AT
SHOUT AT
SHOW
SHOW
SMELL
TAKE
TAKE
TALK
TALK
TEACH
TEAR
TEAR
THINK
THINK
THINK
THINK
THINK
THROW
THROW
TIE
14
20
20
35
35
5
31
31
18
18
77
32
32
10
10
10
10
10
39
39
40
dkobidood
pagnaad
pagdang
tanenmaad
tanendang
nenmaad
nendang
mdaagwenmaad
gaakbinaad
gaakbidood
gkinoo’mawaad
gnoonaad
gnoodang
daapnang
daapnaad
biijmaandang
zhinoohmawaad
waabndahaad
biibaagndang
biibaagmaad
gaashkibaanaad
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
–
+
–
–
–
m
–
–
+
–
+
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
+
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
+
–
–
+
–
+
+
–
–
+
–
+
+
–
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
+
+
–
–
–
–
+
+
–
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
+
+
–
–
–
–
+
+
–
–
+
Transitivity in Ojibwe
1255
Meaning label
TOUCH
TOUCH
WANT
WANT
WASH
WASH
ASK FOR
FEEL PAIN
SAY
TELL
LOAD
POUR
POUR
PUT
PUT
CUT
GIVE
#
29
29
87
87
12
12
19
59
22
21
45
42
42
41
41
30
36
miinaad
giishkkodang
tood
saad
ziignang
ziignaad
booz’haad
wiindmawaad
naad
aakzid
ndodmaaged
gziibiignang
gziibiignaad
ndawenmaad
ndawendang
daangnang
daangnaad
Verb form
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2 (3)
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2 (3)
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2 3-loc
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2 3-loc
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2 3-loc
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2 3-loc
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2 3-loc
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2 UTT3
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2 UTT3
1 subjS[1].V.objII[2] 2
1 subjS[1].V.objII[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2
Coding frame schema
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
+
–
–
–
–
+
+
–
–
+
Antipassive -ige
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Antipassive -iwe
–
–
–
+
–
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
+
m
–
–
–
Applicative
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
+
Body Part Incorporation
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Causative − Instrumental
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Causative Simple
–
–
–
+
–
–
+
–
+
–
–
–
+
+
–
–
+
Lexical passive
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
m
m
–
–
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
+
Recip- Rerocal flexive
1256 Richard Rhodes and Rand Valentine
NAME
SEND
STEAL
TIE
23
37
76
40
dkobinaad
gmoodmaad
niindaahaad
zhinkaanaad
zhinkaadang
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2 (3)
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2 (3)
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2 (3)
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2 (3)
1 subjA[1].V.objI[2] 2 (3)
Legend: + = occurs regularly; m = occurs marginally; − = occurs never; _ no data
NAME
23
+
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
+
+
–
+
+
+
+
–
+
–
+
–
–
Transitivity in Ojibwe
1257
1258
Richard Rhodes and Rand Valentine
Appendix II Ojibwe transitive verbs with animate primary objects have inversion as a crucial part of their person marking inflection. In (52) we see a straightforward example. These forms differ only in the theme sign (here given in boldface). (52) a. nwaabmaanaanig ni- waabam -aa -naan -ig 1sbj- see -direct -1pl -3pl ‘we[excl] see them’ b. nwaabmignaanig ni- waabam -igo -naan -ig 1sbj- see -inverse -1pl -3pl ‘they see us[excl]’ In (52) we have glossed the theme signs as they would be glossed in a morphological analysis. If inversion were purely morphological, there would be no issue with valence. But there is a substantial literature arguing that inversion in Ojibwe is syntactic. Therefore we will give a brief overview of inversion, assuming a syntactic analysis, as in Rhodes (1976, 1994, 2010c) and discuss the valence implications. In a syntactic analysis, the direct theme signs are object markers, so (52) would be glossed as in (52′). (52′) a. nwaabmaanaanig ni- waabam -aa -naan -ig 1sbj- see -3an.obj -1pl -3pl ‘we excl see them’ b. nwaabmignaanig ni- waabam -igo -naan -ig 1sbj- see -inverse -1pl -3pl ‘they see us excl’ Theme signs indicate both direct and inverse and whether third person is involved or not. There are four theme signs, and they are shown in Table 8 in boldface with their syntactic gloss. The triggering of inversion is based on a series of conditions. These are traditionally expressed as some version of the hierarchy in (53) (cf. Valentine, 2001: 268). (53) 2nd person > 1st person > 3rd person > 3rd person obviative > inanimate
Transitivity in Ojibwe
1259
Tab. 8 2obj
1obj
3obj
2sbj
—
gwaabam gi-waabam-i 2sbj-see-1obj
gwaabmaa gi-waabam-aa 2sbj-see-3an.obj
1sbj
gwaabmin gi-waabam-ini 2sbj-see-2obj
—
nwaabmaa ni-waabam-aa 1sbj-see-3an.obj
3sbj
gwaabmig gi-waabam-igo 2sbj-see-inverse
nwaabmig ni-waabam-igo 1sbj-see-inverse
’waabmaan o-waabam-aa-an 3sbj-see-3an.obj-obv ’waabmigoon o-waabam-igo-an 3sbj-see-inverse-obv
Tab. 9 independent
conjunct
(1)
1st, 2 nd person involved 2 nd acts on 1 st 1 st acts on 2nd 1 st or 2 nd acts on 3rd 3 rd acts on 1 st or 2nd
obligatory direct inverse direct inverse
obligatory direct direct direct direct
(2)
only 3 rd person animates involved determined by relative discourse rank
optional direct or inverse
optional direct or inverse
(3)
with inanimate involved animate acts on inanimate (TI) inanimate acts on animate (TA) inanimate acts on inanimate
obligatory direct inverse ungrammatical
obligatory direct inverse ungrammatical
It is, however, a mistake to try to conflate the conditions, especially under a syntactic analysis. There are three subcases of inversion as shown by differences in where in the paradigm the conditions apply. The facts are summarized in Table 9. Because it has long been assumed that the basic facts of inversion were understood, most analysts fail to notice the three things that are distinguished in Table 9: 1. that with 1st and 2nd person, inversion only applies in the independent, 2. it is not obviation that drives inversion, rather both are sensitive to discourse ranking, and 3. that TI’s are the directs for which TA’s with inanimate subjects are the inverses (even in languages where the TA inanimate subject marking is not the same variant as the normal inverse marker).
1260
Richard Rhodes and Rand Valentine
Tab. 10 independent
conjunct
gwaabam gi-waabam-i 2sbj-see- 1obj
waabmiyan waabam-i-yan see-1obj-2sbj
‘you sg see me’
gwaabmin gi-waabam-iNi 2sbj-see-2obj
waabminaanh waabam-iN-aanh see-1obj-1sbj
‘I see you sg’
gwaabmaa gi-waabam-aa 2sbj-see-3obj
waabmad waabm-0̸-ad see-3obj-2sbj
‘you sg see him’
gwaabmig gi-waabam-igo 2sbj-see-inverse
waabmik waabam-iN-g see-2obj-3sbj
‘he sees you sg’
nwaabmaa ni-waabam-aa 1sbj-see-3obj
waabmag waabam-0̸-ag see-3obj-1sbj
‘I see him’
nwaabmig ni-waabam-igo 1sbj-see-inverse
waabmid waabam-i-d see-1obj-3sbj
‘he sees me’
Let us start with the fact that speech act participant inversion only applies in the independent and cannot apply in the conjunct. This is exemplified in Table 10. All the allomorphy in the conjunct is independently motivated, except those allomorphs in 2 > 3 and 1 > 3. Because the hierarchical conditions on speech act participants apply only in independent, they cannot be part of a single hierarchy that governs third person only cases which apply equally in independent and conjunct. With respect to the question of vlence, since the choice of direct or inverse is completely automatic where speech act participants are concerned, the adjustment to valence that inverse represents is at best uninteresting because it has no semantic or lexical component. Now let us turn to the second case. This is perhaps the most misunderstood part of Algonquian inversion. The common misapprehension is that first obviation is assigned and then inversion is assigned based on obviation. Outside of the special case involving possessed nominals, that’s completely false.28 Both obviation and inversion are determined by discourse conditions. Both direct and inverse
28 Unfortunately, the special case is regularly cited as if it were the general case. Special restrictions apply when one argument is coreferent with the possessor of the other. See Rhodes (1993).
Transitivity in Ojibwe
1261
forms can be used with two obviative arguments, as the sentence in (54) shows. Incidentally, sentences of this sort, having embedded clauses with all obviative arguments, are not uncommon. (54) direct and inverse verbs with two obviative arguments Wgii-gnahmawaan niw wgwisan gaa wii nkwetwaasig niw bi-ggwejmigod mandaagninwan iw ji-zhwenmigod. ogii= ganahamaw -aa -an niw ogwis -an -3an.objj -obvj thatj.obv 3possi -sonj -obv 3ergi- pst= warn gaa_wii nakwetaw -aa -siw -g niw neg answer -3an.objk -neg -3sbjj thatk-obv bi= gagwejim -igo -d mandaagw -aniniw -an -mank- -obv coming= ask -inverse -3sbjk fancy iw ji= zhawenim -igo -d comp fut= bless -inverse -3sbjk ‘Hei (prox) warneddirect hisi sonj (obv) not to answerdirect the fancy mank (obv) when hek (obv) asksinverse to blessinverse himj (obv).’ (B T31: 6 p. 213)29 Again there are no particular implications for valence because direct and inverse forms are triggered by discourse level considerations. Lastly we turn to the conditions on inversion based on animacy. The relevant generalization in a syntactic analysis of inversion inanimates cannot be the surface subject of a transative clause. The effect is that the analogue of (52) for an animate/ inanimate pair is (55), with a TI and a TA inverse. (55) a. ngii-bsikaanaanin ngii= basik -am -naan -in 1sbj- pst= strike -inan.obj -1pl -inan.pl ‘we knocked them (inan.)’ b. ngii-bsikaagnaanin ni- gii= basikaw -igo -naan -in 1sbj- pst= strike.an -inverse -1pl -inan.pl ‘they (inan.) knocked us excl’ The relevance to valence is that there are a small number of transitive verbs which select for underlying inanimate subjects, and therefore only appear in inverse. Some examples are given in (56).
29 This example comes from Bloomfield (1958). Text 31, sentence 6.
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(56) a. Ngii-giiwshkwebiishkaagon iw shkodewaaboo ni- gii= giiwashkwebii -shkaw -igo -n iw ishkodewaaboo 1sbj- pst= be.drunk -cause -inverse -n that whiskey ‘The whiskey made me drunk’ b. Ngii-aakziishkaagon ni- gii= aakoziiw -ishkaw -igo -n 1sbj- pst= be.sick -cause -inverse -n ‘It made me sick’ c. Nzosnaamshkaagon ni- zosanaam -ishkaw -igo -n 1sbj- cough -cause -inverse -n ‘It makes me cough’ Although it is of some interest for valence that there is a small class of verbs with inanimate stimuli, the inversion is completely predicable. Let us conclude by giving the more nuanced version of the Algonquian hierarchy governing inversion in Table 11. Tab. 11: Algonquian Agency Scale. Part I (58c): Part II (58a): Part III (58b):
Animates > inanimates Second person > first person > third person (in independent only) Higher discourse rank animates > lower discourse rank animates
There is one subclause of Part III that we will not discuss here because it is completely irrelevant to valence, but we include it for completeness sake. It is called the possessor constraint (Rhodes 1993; for a similar constraint in a language without overt obviation, see Aissen 1997). In short a possessee cannot govern obviation in a coreferent of its possessor. This is a much easier constraint to formulate in a syntactic analysis of inversion.
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Appendix III The following is a table of concrete finals that have causative readings in some verbs.
a)
class
root
agreement forms
body
-ishk-ik-
(TA -ishkaw- TI -ishkam-) ‘act with the body; act with the foot’ (AI/II -ishkaa) (TA -ikaw- TI -ikam-) (AI/II -ikaa) (TA -in- TI -inam-) ‘act with the hand; grasp’ (TA -am- TI -andam-) ‘act with the mouth’ (TA -im- TI -odam-/-indam-) ‘speak’ (AI (agent) -imo)
-in-am-im-
b)
instrument -iz-izh-ah-
c)
action (i) motion
(ii)
(TA -izw- TI -izam-) ‘apply heat’ (AI -izo II -ide; AI (agent) -izekwe) (TA -izhw- TI -izham-) ‘use a blade’ (TA -aw- TI -aham-) ‘use an instrument’ (AI -aho II -awaa; AI (agent) -aham)
-ibi-
(TA -ibiN- TI -ibidoo-) ‘pull; tie’ (AI -ibizo II -ibide) -iboo(TA -ibooN- TI -iboodoo-) ‘act in a back and forth manner; saw’ -iwi(TA -iwiN- TI -iwidoo-) ‘transport’ -is(TA -ishim- TI -isidoo-) ‘place’ (AI -ishin II -isin) -aha(TA -ahaN- TI -ahadoo-) ‘follow’ -iko(TA -ikoN- TI -ikodam-) ‘cut’ -aganaam- (TA -aganaam- TI -aganaandam-) ‘beat’ -ina(TA -inaN- TI -inadam-) ‘pursue; kill’ -idaabii(TA -idaabaaN- TI -idaabaadam-) ‘drag’ (AI (agent) -idaabii) -oom(TA -oom- TI -oondam-) ‘carry on the back’ -inigaa(TA -inigaaN- TI -inigaadam-) ‘carry on the shoulder’
Abbreviations AN INAN N OBV P.OBJ this/that [A SG] this/that [INAN SG]
animate inanimate n registration obviative primary object animate singular deictic inanimate singular deictic
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References Aissen, Judith. 1997. On the syntax of obviation. Language 73. 705–750. Bloomfield, Leonard. 1958. Eastern Ojibwa: Grammar, Texts, and Word List. Edited by Charles Hockett. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Denny, J. Peter. 1977. Semantics of abstract finals in inanimate intransitive verbs. In William Cowan (ed.), Actes du 8 e Congrès des Algonquinistes. Ottawa: Carleton University. 124–142. Denny, J. Peter. 1978. Verb class meanings of the abstract finals in Ojibway inanimate intransitive verbs. International Journal of American Linguistics 44. 294–322. Denny, J. Peter. 1984. Semantic verb classes and abstract finals. In William Cowan (ed.), Papers of the 15 th Algonquian Conference. Ottawa: Carleton University. 241–271. Dryer, Matthew. 1986. Primary and secondary objects, and antidative. Language 62. 808–845. Goddard, Ives. 1990. Primary and secondary stem derivation in Algonquian. International Journal of American Linguistics 56(4). 449–483. Haspelmath, Martin. 2006. Ditransitive constructions in the world’s languages. http:// email.eva.npg.de/~haspelmt/DitrLSSLD.pdf (last access 25 February 2015). Rhodes, Richard A. 1976. The morphosyntax of the Central Ojibwa verb. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Michigan. Rhodes, Richard A. 1980. On the semantics of the instrumental finals of Ojibwa. In William Cowan (ed.), Papers of the Eleventh Algonquian Conference. Ottawa: Carleton University. 183–197. Rhodes, Richard A. 1985. Eastern Ojibwa-Chippewa-Ottawa Dictionary. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Rhodes, Richard A. 1990. Ojibwa secondary objects. In Katarzyna Dziwirek, Patrick Farrell & Errapel Mejías-Bikandi (eds.), Grammatical Relations: A Cross Theoretical Perspective. Palo Alto: CSLI Stanford. 401–414. Rhodes, Richard A. 1991. On the passive in Ojibwa. In William Cowan (ed.), Papers of the Twentysecond Algonquian Conference. Ottawa: Carleton University. 307–319. Rhodes, Richard A. 1993. The Possessor Constraint. Paper presented to the 25 th Algonquian Conference, Ottawa, October 26. Rhodes, Richard A. 1994. Agency, inversion, and thematic alignment in Ojibwe. In Susanne Gahl, Andy Dolby & Christopher Johnson (eds.), Proceedings of the Berkeley Linguistic Society 20 th Annual Meeting. Berkeley: BLS. 431–446. Rhodes, Richard A. 1997. Ojibwe abstract finals revisited. Keynote address to the Michigan Linguistics Society, Mt. Pleasant, October 18. Rhodes, Richard A. 2010a. The bipartite verb in Algonquian and its implications for syntax and morphology. Linguistics colloquium presentation, University of Alberta, Edmonton, March 26. Rhodes, Richard A. 2010b. Missing obliques: some anomalies in Ojibwe syntax. In Donna B. Gerdts, John C. Moore & Maria Polinsky (eds.), Hypothesis A/Hypothesis B: Linguistic Explorations in Honor of David M. Perlmutter. Current Studies in Linguistics 49. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. 427–456. Rhodes, Richard A. 2010c. Relative root complement: a unique grammatical relation in Algonquian syntax. In Jan Wohlgemuth & Michael Cysouw (eds.), Rara & Rarissima. Collecting and Interpreting Unusual Characteristics of Human Languages. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter (= Empirical Approaches to Linguistic Typology; n.n.). 305–324. Rhodes, Richard A. 2010d. Ditransitive constructions in Ojibwe. In Andrej Malchukov, Martin Haspelmath & Bernard Comrie (eds.), Studies in Ditransitive Constructions: A Comparative Handbook. Berlin: de Gruyter. 626–650. Rhodes, Richard A. to appear. Instrumentality and frames in Ojibwe. Papers of the Forthy-Third Algonquian Conference. (Presented to the 43 nd Algonquian Conference, Ann Arbor, Michigan, Oct. 22, 2011). Rhodes, Richard A. & Evelyn Todd. 1981. Subarctic Algonquian languages. In J. Helm (ed.), Handbook of North American Indians vol. 6. Washington: The Smithsonian Institution, DC. 52–66. Valentine, J. Randolph (2001) Nishnaabemwin Reference Grammar. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Iren Hartmann
30 Valency Classes in Hoocąk (Ho-Chunk) 1 Introduction Hoocąk (a.k.a. Winnebago, or Ho-Chunk) is an endangered and understudied Siouan language of the Mississippi Valley branch. It is still spoken today in the United States of America, more precisely in Wisconsin (approx. 150 speakers out of around 7,000 tribal members) and Nebraska (approx. 5 (? unconfirmed) speakers out of around 4,000 tribal members). Hoocąk’s closest relative is Ioway-Otoe (Chiwere), and it is also related to Lakhota, which is probably the best documented of the Siouan languages. There is currently no reference grammar of Hoocąk available. The data for this stuy comes from two sources, it is (i) based on a glossed textcorpus (Hartmann et al. 2009 ff.), whose data has largely been supplemented by (ii) additional fieldwork conducted by the author in 2010, 2011 and 2012 in Wisconsin. Since valency and verb classes in Hoocąk had previously never been systematically studied or described, the collection of more detailed data was crucial. The data used for this study has been carefully and systematically collected. Every example sentence has been checked with at least two native speakers independently from one another.1
2 Some Hoocąk morpho-syntax basics Hoocąk is a highly synthetic active-stative (or split-S) language. Its basic word order is SOV. We are dealing with a head-marking language here, so there are essentially no flagging resources available in the language, neither case markers nor adpositions. An exception to this may be the adverbial eeja which is used either to mark or to substitute locational NPs, so it may in fact well be on its way to become the first flagging device of the language.2 More on this will follow later. All other arguments in Hoocąk are obligatorily indexed on the verb by means of one of the
1 I am most grateful for all the help, insights, kindness and patience I received in particular from the following Hoocąk speakers: Cecil Garvin, Elliott Garvin, Carolyn WhiteEagle, Corina Lonetree and Maxine Kolner. I am also very grateful to Bernard Comrie and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology for all the support and the generous funding I have received to conduct my 2010–2012 fieldwork trips. My sincere thanks also go to Martin Haspelmath, Andrej Malchukov and Bernard Comrie for their helpful comments and advice. For turning the Valency database into the great research tool it is now, I am also indebted to Bradley Taylor. 2 The adverbial eeja ‘there, not near the speaker’ has a counterpart eegi ‘here, near the speaker’.
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v.intr.
v.act. (A)
v.tr.
v.ditr.
v.stat. (U cross-indexes)
Fig. 1: Basic verb types in Hoocąk.
two cross-index3 series (indexes from the Actor series for more agent-like arguments and indexes from the Undergoer series for patient-, instrument-, and location-like arguments). There are no obligatory free-standing personal pronouns (only emphatic ones, which can be used in combination with the obligatory crossindexes on the verb, but can never replace them). Also, overt NPs (or: conominals) are not obligatory either. They can be and are frequently dropped if the context permits it.4 The indexing on the verb, on the other hand, can never be omitted. NPs receive relatively little to no marking at all in Hoocąk. There is for example no nominal number marker. Number is only marked on the verb. There are four basic verb valency classes in Hoocąk (see Figure 1): intransitive stative verbs, intransitive active verbs, transitive (active) verbs and ditransitive (active) verbs. While intransitive and transitive verbs are equally frequent in the verbal lexicon, ditransitive verbs are almost always derived forms of otherwise transitive verbs (more information can be found in § 5.1 on valency increasing morphology). There is only one exception to this, namely the verb hok’ų ‘give’, which is ditransitive without being synchronically derived. However, looking at it diachronically reveals that it is clearly also originally a derived verb, though its underived counterpart is no longer in use in the current stage of the language (*k’ųu5̨ ). Hoocąk is a split-S (but unlike Lakhota not a fluid-S) language. At least this is true if one looks at all verb forms inflected for speech-act-participants (SAP). However, there is no difference in the inflectional forms of the 3rd person. The Actor and Undergoer inflectional paradigms listed below in Table 1 and 2 illustrate this fact. What can also be observed is that 3rd person singular forms are zero marked, which sometimes makes it hard or even impossible to tell whether certain kinds of arguments generally occurring only as 3rd person singular forms (like instruments
3 The terms “cross-index” and “conominal” follow the definitions provided in Haspelmath (2013). 4 A recent pilot study as well as an ongoing investigation by the author shows that the occurrence of conominals is around 40–60 % for 3rd person arguments and maximally 3 % for 1 st and 2 nd person arguments. 5 Rood at al.’s (ND) comment on the Proto-Siouan word form *kʔuu̴ kʔųų in the Comparative Siouan Dictionary also hints at the transitive nature of the underlying verb form: “This is a transitive verb with only two arguments across Siouan, with the recipient marked as direct object.”
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Tab. 1: Actor cross-indexes.6 SA
SG
PL
1excl 1du/incl 2
ha-V hi-̨ V ra- V
ha-V-wi hi-̨ V -wi ra- V-wi
3
0̸ -V
V-ire
Tab. 2: Undergoer cross-indexes. SP
SG
PL
1excl 1du/incl 2
hi-V ̨ wąag̨ a- V ni-̨ V
hi-V-wi ̨ wąag̨ a- V-wi ̨ -wi ni-V
3
0̸- V
V-ire
or locations) really are indexed on the verb or not. Of course one can always try to check for plural instruments (as in ‘She hit the dog with the sticks.’ or plural locations ‘She spilled the milk over all the tables.’), but these sentences are so unnatural that speakers will not feel comfortable translating them, as they find them awkward. An additional complication is that non-specific referents are in most cases not indexed on the verb either. (1) a. (v.act.) ha-nąą ‘I slept’ b. nąa-̨ ire ‘they slept’ (2) a. (v.stat.) hi ̨-š jųuw ̨ ą ‘I was sleepy’ b. š jųuw ̨ ą-ire ‘they were sleepy’ In transitive constructions, cross-indexes of both series are used on the verb, the Actor index then indexing the agent and the Undergoer index likewise the patient
6 There are verbs which have different sets of Actor cross-indexes, but the one given here is the most regular pattern and should suffice as an example for this study.
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(or any non-agent argument). Examples (3) and (4) are an illustration of the use of both indexes7 on transitive verbs. (3) Hi ̨i ̨raperes?8 hiperes know ‘Do you know me?’ (4) Hoci ̨ci ̨ra hanąac̨ ni ̨ruž icire? hoci ̨ci ̨=ra hanąac̨ ni ̨-ruž ic-ire boy=def all 2.u-tease-sbj.3pl ‘Did all the boys tease you?’ The 3rd person plural suffix -ire is only used in the Undergoer (or better: S/P function) on monovalent verbs as already shown in (2b), viz. when the Undergoer is the subject of the verb. On bivalent (or transitive) verbs, 3rd person Undergoers are indexed by means of the prefix wa-. Examples (5) and (6) illustrate the use of this prefix, which always indexes objects. We can thus observe that Hoocąk has split-alignment. In the 1st and 2nd person, Hoocąk displays a split-S pattern, but in the 3rd person it shows accusative alignment, as illustrated in Figure 2. Table 3 below summarizes the use of the Hoocąk cross-indexes.
Fig. 2: Alignment types in Hoocąk.
7 These indexes can occur as prefixes or infixes depending on the verb, for more information on this, consult Helmbrecht & Lehmann (2008). 8 Most examples provided in this paper include the surface forms (first line) as well as an abstract representation (second line), as Hoocąk has a rich inventory of fusional morphology and other morphophonemic processes.
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Tab. 3: Summary of Hoocąk cross-indexes. SA
A
SP
1excl (PL)
ha-V(-wi)
hi-V(-wi) ̨
du/1incl (PL)
̨ hi-V(-wi)
wąag̨ a-V(-wi)
2 (PL)
ra-V(-wi)
ni-V(-wi) ̨
3SG
0̸
3PL
V-ire
P
wa-V
(5) Wawiaperes wa-hiperes obj.3pl-know ‘I know them.’ (6) Hoci ̨ci ̨ra hinųki ̨kra waruž icire. hoci ̨ci ̨=ra hinųk-i ̨k=ra wa-ruž ic-ire boy=def woman-dim=def obj.3pl-tease-sbj.3pl ‘The boys teased the girls.’ Up to three arguments can be indexed on the verb (one Actor and two Undergoers), but morphological restrictions apply, so that for example no 1st and 2nd person Undergoers can be marked at the same time, as they occupy the same slot in the morphological template of the Hoocąk verb (the full pre-verbal template is provided in Appendix A). Two 3rd person plural object Undergoers can only be indexed on the verb in the Black River Falls variety of Wisconsin Hoocąk, as this variety allows the linearization of two wa- morphemes. All other varieties allow only one wa- index, thus the second 3rd person PL argument remains unmarked on the verb, may however occur as an overt NP in the phrase. It then remains unclear whether this participant’s number is singular or plural, but the context will usually clarify this. An example of a verb with three indexed arguments is shown in example (7): (7) Jaagu’ų nąak̨ siknąak̨ re woi ̨rak’ų? jaagu’ų nąak̨ sik=nąak̨ re wa-hok’ų why stick=pos.ntl.pl:prox obj.3pl-give ‘Why did you give me these sticks?’
3 More on valency patterns and verb types This section will give a more detailed overview of valency patterns and verb types in Hoocąk. The main verb types have already been listed and exemplified in the
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previous section, so we will now look at their valency patterns in more detail, as well as at some more marginal verb types.
3.1 Avalent verbs Most weather verbs in Hoocąk are avalent in the sense that they can never occur with a conominal. The verbs belonging to this verb class make up only a small portion of the verbal lexicon of Hoocąk. (8a) illustrates the use of the avalent verb ni ̨i ̨ž u ’rain’. (8) a. Xjąnąre hąap ̨ serec ni ̨i ̨ž u. xjąnąre hąap ̨ -serec ni ̨i ̨ž u yesterday day-be.long rain ‘Yesterday it rained all day long.’ In this case it is not possible to include a conominal in the sentence, so (8b) would be ungrammatical (and also questionable in English). (8) b. *Xjąan ̨ ąre mąax̨ i ̨ra ni ̨i ̨ž u. xjąan ̨ ąre mąax̨ i ̨=ra ni ̨i ̨ž u yesterday cloud=def rain ‘Yesterday the cloud rained.’ However, occasionally these verbs are observed to inflect for 3rd person plural, as in example (9), which might make one think that a plural conominal could possibly occur, but this is never the case and verbs like jąaj̨ ąp ‘lightning’ can still be considered to be avalent. If an avalent verb occurs with a 3rd person plural cross-index, then it is a frozen form, and these verbs tend to only occur in this form. (9) Hąah ̨ ere k’oire nąga jąaj̨ ąpire. hąah k’oo-ire nąga jąaj̨ ąp-ire ̨ e-re night-dem:prox thunder-sbj.3pl and lightning-sbj.3pl ‘Last night there was thunder and lightning.’
3.2 Monovalent verbs 3.2.1 Monovalent verbs with no additional arguments As has already been described in the previous section, Hoocąk is inter alia a splitS language that distinguishes between active and stative intransitive verbs. These verbs can only take one argument, a subject. Its encoding as Undergoers or as
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Actors depends on the sub-type of verb. The distinction between the two verb classes seems to be a mostly semantic one, by which more volitional actions are expressed through active verbs, and less volitional actions or states are expressed through stative verbs. Examples were already given in (1) and (2). A look at the verbal lexicon of Hoocąk and in particular at intransitive verbs reveals that both types of verbs make up equally large portions of the set of intransitive verbs in the overall verbal lexicon. There is also a fair number of intransitive verbs which never inflect for 1st or 2nd person, as they cannot take animate or human referents as their arguments. These are semantically stative verbs, expressing states of objects. Examples are verbs like xere ’boil (intr.)’, ž aaž ap ’be slippery’, or sguu ’be sweet’.
3.2.2 Monovalent verbs with obligatory locational arguments There are some intransitive active verbs in Hoocąk which obligatorily occur with a locational argument. This argument slot can be filled with anything from an adverbial to a full NP, but the location can never be left unexpressed. Examples (10a) and (10b) illustrate this. Example (11) on the other hand is ungrammatical. (10) a. Ciinąkeja haciaje. ciinąk=eeja ha-cii-ha-jee town=there 1e.a-live-1e.a-pos.vert ‘I live in town.’ b. Eeja haciaje. eeja ha-cii-ha-jee there 1e.a-live-1e.a-pos.vert ‘I live there.’ (11) *Haciaje. ‘I live.’ Intransitive verbs with obligatory locational arguments are relatively rare in Hoocąk. They include verbs like cii ‘live’, mi ̨i ̨nąk ‘sit’, mi ̨i ̨k ‘lie down’, or nąaz̨ ̌ i ̨ ‘stand’.9
9 An exception to the obligatoriness of the locational argument is the use of these verbs in the imperative (where semantically possible). One can tell a person to stand up or sit down respectively by using nąaz̨ ̌ i/mi ̨i ̨nąk plus the imperative suffix -re. A location can then be expressed but it need not be.
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Another note on locational arguments in Hoocąk is due here. Locational expressions are always marked with either =eeja ‘there’, =eegi ‘here’, or =regi ‘right here’, these are not really case markers, but adverbials, which can and frequently do also occur by themselves (as already shown in (10b)). Locational expressions are thus always adverbial phrases, minimally consisting of an adverb, maximally consisting of a full NP with an adverb. Locational expressions10 may also occur as either optional arguments, or adjuncts with different kinds of verbs, as will be shown in some of the next sections.
3.2.3 Monovalent verbs with optional locational arguments There are many intransitive or monovalent verbs which can also co-occur optionally with a locational argument. These, however, do not really constitute a verb class, as locations may be added wherever the context allows for it. Especially active verbs (such as howąną ‘roll’, t’ąat̨ ’ąp ‘jump’, or nųuw ̨ ąk ‘run’) occur frequently with optional locational arguments. Examples (12) and (13) are examples of this. (12) Waǧ įǧ įra (xeeja) howanąną rahe. waǧ įǧ į=ra (xee=eeja) howaną-ną rahe ball=def (hill-there) roll-iter be.going.there ‘The ball is rolling (down the hill).’ (13) (Nąag̨ ueja) nųaw ̨ ąkš an ̨ ą. (nąag̨ u=eeja) nųu< ha>wą k-š an ̨ ą ̨ (road=there) run-decl ‘I ran (on the road).’ Many verbs which are less canonical transitives and thus often intransitives in other languages (e.g. ‘help’, ‘like’, ‘be angry at’) fall into the class of regular transitive verbs in Hoocąk. Transitive verbs will be described in the next section.
10 Locational expressions can also be used as modifiers of NPs, analogous to e.g. a prepositional attribute in English. Here is an example of such a case: (i)
hoci ̨ci ̨i ̨kjeega waž aį za mąija hajara hiki’o nąa’̨ i ̨ wa’ųjee hoci ̨ci ̨-i ̨k=jeega waž a-̨ iž ą mąa-̨ ija haja=ra hiki’o nąa’̨ i ̨ wa’ų=jee boy-dim=pos.vert:dist something-one earth-there see=def touch try do/be=pos.vert ‘That boy is trying to touch [something on the ground] that he saw.’
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3.3 Bivalent verbs 3.3.1 Transitive verbs Bivalent or transitive verbs in Hoocąk have already been briefly described in § 2. They constitute a very large class of the verbal lexicon (approximately as many transitive verbs as intransitive verbs (active and stative together) have so far been recorded). Typically the two arguments of these verbs correspond to the semantic roles of agent and patient. (14) shows another example of such a verb. (14) Nąak̨ sikra hanąac̨ waraiš iš wi? nąak̨ sik=ra hanąac̨ wa-ra-giš iš -wi stick=def all obj.3pl-2.a-break-pl ‘Did you (PL) break all the sticks?’
3.3.2 Transitive verbs with obligatory locational arguments There are a handful of transitive Hoocąk verbs which always co-occur with a locational argument. These constitute a rather small but important verb class, and mostly express meanings having something to do with ‘put’, i.e. caused motion events. The sentence in (15a) provides a good example of this. With verbs of this class the locational expression may not be dropped (cf. (15b)). (15) a. Wagujera hanąac̨ homi ̨k kųuh ̨ ąija waakąnąkwi. waguje=ra hanąac̨ homi ̨k kųuh ̨ ą=eeja wa-ha-kąnąk-wi shoe=def all bed under=there obj.3pl-1e.a-put-pl ‘We put all the shoes under the bed.’ b. *Wagujera hanąąc waakąnąkwi. ‘?We put all the shoes.’
3.3.3 Transitive verbs with optional locational arguments Locational arguments can also occur optionally with transitive verbs. There is, in fact, what could be considered a “class” of verbs which shows a strong preference for occurring with a locational argument rather than without one. It is, however, not ungrammatical for them to also occur without the locational expression. Verbs of this flavour are, for example, hawają ‘push’, ųur̨ eehi ‘throw’, waxų ‘pour’ and the like. Examples of these are shown in (16) and (17).
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(16) Jaagu’ų waami ̨nąkra guuš igi hašawają? jaagu’ų waami ̨nąk=ra guuš igi hawają why chair=def to.side push ‘Why did you push the chair over to the side?’ (17) Waami ̨nąkra hapają. waami ̨nąk=ra hapają chair=def push\1e.a ‘I pushed the chair.’
3.3.4 Transitive verbs with optional themes There is also a handful of transitive verbs in Hoocąk which can express optional theme arguments. These themes often consist of mass (or non-countable abstract) nouns and it is not clear at all whether they can be indexed on the verb or not (mass nouns are treated like 3rd person singular nouns, so indexing would not be overt). Verbs belonging to this type are for example hoixji ̨hii ‘fill’ and gigųs ‘teach’. The themes these verbs occur with are always optional, but there is a preference to express them. The sentences in (18) and (19) are examples of this.11 (18) (Hoocąk hit’e) nįįgigųsikjene. (Hoocąk hit’e) nįį-gigųs-i-kjene (Hoocąk talk) 1&2-teach-0-fut ‘I will teach you (Hoocąk ).’ (19) Wooracgąra hanąąc (nįį) hoixjį wahaa. wooracgą=ra hanąąc (nįį) hoixjįhaa cup=def all (water) fill\1e.a ‘I filled all the glasses (with water).’
3.4 Ditransitive verbs As has already been mentioned in § 2, there is only one synchronically underived ditransitive verb in Hoocąk: hok’ų ‘give’. An example of this has already been given in (7). None of its three arguments (expressed by cross-indexes) can be omitted.
11 One could debate whether these verbs could in fact be considered ditransitive verbs which differ from ‘give’ in that the expression of the theme is optional. It is at this point unclear on which facts to base this decision.
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4 Uncoded alternations There are generally no uncoded alternations in Hoocąk. Changes of the verb’s valency have to be morphologically marked. Having said this, there are some exceptions to this. There are a few labile verbs in Hoocąk.12 Verbs which can be observed in transitive as well as intransitive use nowadays are ruhas ‘open’, honąse ‘close, shut’ and ruš iš ‘break’. The intransitive usage of these verbs is rather infrequent and does not occur with all speakers. Either way it is a very marginal phenomenon. Then there are also very few verbs which have transitive and intransitive uses and whose meanings are obviously related (e.g. via semantic extension or metaphor), but these would not be considered to be labile verbs in the traditional sense, because there is no regular semantic relation between them. An example of this latter case is the verb hois’i ̨ which means ‘sth. is sticking out; (to) protrude’ when used intransitively, and ‘look in on someone, peek in’ when used transitively.
5 Verb-coded alternations All (other) valency changes in Hoocąk are coded on the verb in one way or another. This section will summarize the valency-changing devices employed in the language. These devices include both valency increasing as well as valency decreasing operations. The valency increasing devices available in the language are four applicatives (benefactive, instrumental and two locatives), and the valency decreasing devices are the reflexive and the reciprocal as well as a facilitative and a resultative. Since causatives (which are also valency increasing) are periphrastic constructions, they will be described separately in § 6.
5.1 Valency increasing morphology (applicatives) 5.1.1 The benefactive applicative giThe benefactive applictive gi- is the most frequent and productive valency increasing device in Hoocąk. By adding this applicative to the verb an additional Undergoer slot is opened up. This newly added Undergoer slot is most commonly filled with a beneficiary-like argument as shown in (20b).
12 This may have been a result of prolonged contact and influence from English. A comparative Siouan study may shed more light on this phenomenon. At this point it is not clear whether labile verbs were present in Proto-Siouan or not.
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(20) a. Waagaxnąąka watugasšąną. waagax=nąąka wa-tuugas-šąną paper=pos.ntl.pl:dist obj.3pl-tear\1e.a-decl ‘I tore those papers.’ b. Waagaxnąąkre wai ̨ragišurugasną? waagax=nąąkre wa-hi ̨-ra-gi-šu-rugas=ną paper=pos.ntl.pl:prox obj.3pl-1e.u.-2.a-appl.ben-2.a-tear=pot ‘Can you tear these papers for me?’ In some cases this slot can also be filled with a maleficiary argument. The use of a single marker in both benefactive and malefactive function is of course not uncommon in the world’s languages. Sentence (21b) provides an example of this. In fact, where the context permits it, sentences such as these can have either of the two readings, a beneficiary or a maleficiary reading. The different interpretations are usually contextual, however, with verbs of dispossession a maleficiary interpretation is the more common or natural one. (21) a. Kšeera hanąac̨ wamąaš̨ ųnų? kšee=ra hanąac̨ wa-mąa< ̨ šų>nų apple=def all obj.3pl-steal ‘Did you steal all the apples?’ b. Kšeera hanąąc wamąįragišųnų? kšee=ra hanąąc wa-mąąnų apple=def all obj.3pl-steal ‘Did you steal all the apples for me/from me?’ or ‘Did you steal all of my apples?’ The benefactive applicative is also one of Hoocąk’s means of expressing the possession of an Undergoer (by someone other than the subject of the verb). This phenomenon is commonly known as external possession and has been described also for numerous other languages (cf. Payne 1999). External possession is generally described as a valency increasing operation, even if the valency is increased only implicitly as in (22c), where the possessor of the car is expressed by it: (22) a. Hi ̨i ̨jaire. haja-ire see-sbj.3pl ‘They saw me.’ b. Hiraatira cąąkeja aakra hajaire. hiraati=ra cąąk=eja aak=ra haja-ire car=def outside=there pos.hor=def see-sbj.3pl ‘They saw the car outside.’
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c. Hiraatira cąąkeja aakra hįįgijaire. hiraati=ra cąąk=eja aak=ra haja-ire car=def outside=there pos.hor=def see-sbj.3pl ‘They saw my car outside.’ (Impossible reading: ‘They saw the car for me.’) As (23) shows, the benefactive and the possessor readings are very closely related. In fact, almost all verb forms with gi- can have the possession of Undergoer reading, therefore (23b) can either be interpreted as ‘Can you cut all of my cheeses?’ or ’Can you cut the cheeses for me?’. (23) a. Ceewasnį wikįnįjara hanąąc wamąąracgis? ceewasnį_wikįnįja=ra hanąąc wa-mąącgis cheese=def all obj.3pl-cut ‘Did you cut all of the cheeses?’ b. Ceewasnį wikįnįjara wamąįragicgisną? ceewasnį_wikįnįja=ra wa-mąącgis=ną cheese=def obj.3pl-cut=pot ‘Can you cut the cheeses for me?’ / ‘Can you cut all of my cheeses?’ All of the above sentences have illustrated the use of gi- with transitive verbs. This operation can be summarized in the following schema: (1) (2) und[2].act[1].V → (1) (2) (3) und[2].und[3].act[1].V’
This is not yet the full story. The benefactive applicative can be applied to verbs of different types, which is not so surprising considering its just illustrated double function as an applicative and as an external possession marker. The following pair of examples show the applicative’s use on an intransitive active verb: (24) a. Xjąnąre haǧ ak. xjąnąre ha-ǧ aak yesterday 1e.a-cry ‘Yesterday I cried.’ b. Kųnųga nįge howarera, hakųnųnįra, hagiǧ ak. Kųnų-ga nįge howare=ra ha-kunųnį=ra ha-gi-ǧ aak Kunu-prop somewhere go.to=def 1e.a-miss=def 1e.a-appl.ben-cry ‘I cried for my Kunu when he went traveling, I missed him.’ The use of gi- with intransitive active verbs can be summarized as follows: (1) act[1].V → (1) (2) und[2].act[1].V’
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In addition to its occurrence with transitive and intransitive active verbs, the benefactive applicative can also be used on intransitive stative verbs. In a way it is even used to increase the valency of these verbs by adding a second Undergoer slot to them. This use of the benefactive is again a means of expressing external possession and it is thus also a valency increasing operation. When taking the indexing on the verb into account, it is clear that two instead of just one participants are now indexed on the verb. The following example pair (25a–b) in particular illustrate this quite well. The problem is that this double indexing is often hard to see (as in (26b)), since 3rd person singular participants are zero marked, and the morphological template is somewhat restrictive when it comes to the co-expression of two Undergoers. (25) a. Wijukra t’aire. wijuk=ra t’ee-ire cat=def die-sbj.3pl ‘The cats died.’ b. Wijukra ni ̨git’aire? wijuk=def ni ̨-gi-t’ee-ire cat=def 2.u-appl.ben-die-sbj.3pl ‘Did your cats die?’ (26) a. Tooni ̨kewehi? tookewehi be.hungry ‘Were you hungry?’ b. Šųuk̨ ra tooni ̨gikewehi? š uu ̨ k̨ =ra tookewehi dog=def be.hungry ‘Was your dog hungry?’ The pattern of the benefactive applicative when applied to intransitive stative verbs can then be summarized as follows: (1) und[1].V → (1) (2) und(2).und[1].V’
Studying this alternation has brought to light that very rarely gi- can also be used with no apparent function, neither expressing that the Undergoer is possessed nor introducing a new Undergoer slot. Thus, example (27) cannot have the reading ‘All the horses can run fast for X.’. In these cases where gi- seems to express nothing it is not obligatory, but frequently used by native speakers. This phenomenon, which might be comparable to what is called “ethical dative” in traditional grammar, remains to be further investigated, but it is very marginal.
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(27) Šųuk̨ xetera hanąac̨ saagre nųu(̨ gi)wąkiraną. š uu ̨ k̨ xete=ra hanąac̨ saagre nųu-̨ (gi-)wąk-ire=ną horse=def all be.fast run-(appl.ben?-)sbj.3pl=pot ‘All the horses can run fast.’
5.1.2 The two locative applicatives ha- and hoThere are two locative applicatives in Hoocąk. Since they occupy the same slot in the verbal template and show the same morphological and syntactic behaviour they will be described together in this section. Each of the two applicatives has a very specific meaning: ha- expresses a superessive meaning ‘on’, ‘onto’ or ‘over’ and ho- an inessive meaning ‘in’ or ‘into’. The locative applicatives are often used as valency-increasing operations. When added to a verb, they open up an Undergoer slot for a locational (mostly a goal-like) argument. For example the verb waxų ‘pour sth.’ can become hawaxų ‘pour sth. on(to) somewhere’, or howaxų ‘pour sth. in(to) somewhere’. In cases where verbs already possess an obligatory locational argument (see § 3.2.2 and § 3.3.2) the meaning of this location is merely modified semantically and the valency of the verb is not increased. An example of this would be kere ‘put sth. somewhere’ becoming hakere ‘put sth. on(to) somewhere’ or hokere ‘put sth. in(to) somewhere’. The two locative applicatives can be applied to different types of verbs. Most commonly though they are applied to transitive verbs, as shown in (28): (28) a. Ceewasnįra hikinų paaxų. ceewasnį=ra hikinų paaxų milk=def by.accident pour\1e.a ‘I accidentally spilled milk.’ b. Ceewasnįra waaruceja hikinų hapaxų. ceewasnį=ra waaruc-eeja hikinų ha-paaxų milk=def table-there by.accident appl.supess-pour\1e.a ‘I accidentally spilled milk over the table.’ c. Waarucra ceewasnįra hikinų hapaxų. waaruc=ra ceewasnį=ra hikinų ha-paaxų table=def milk=def by.accident appl.supess-pour\1e.a ‘I accidentally spilled milk over the table.’ The newly introduced locational argument is generally marked with the locational adverb -eeja (as in (28b), see also § 3.2.2), though as can be seen in (28c) it may also take the definite article for specific referents =ra, thus, marking the location more like a prototypical core argument rather than a location.
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The following examples show the use of the inessive applicative. As can be seen, it functions analogously to the just described superessive. (29) a. Wikįnį paaxų. wikįnį paaxų gas pour\1e.a ‘I poured gas.’ b. Mąąskook šuucxetera wikįnį hopaxų. mąąs-kook šuuc-xete=ra wikįnį ho-paaxų metal-box be.red-be.big=def gas appl.iness-pour\1e.a ‘I poured gas into the big red can.’ (30) a. Wanįra wamącgisre. wanį=ra wa-mąącgis-re meat=def obj.3pl-cut-imp ‘Cut the meats.’ b. Wanįra reexeja woomącgisre. wanį=ra reex-eeja wa-ho-mąącgis-re meat=def pail-there obj.3pl-appl.iness-cut-imp ‘Cut the meats into the pail.’ The use of the inessive and superessive applicatives on transitive verbs can be summarized in the following schema: (1) (2) und[2].act[1].V → (1) (2) (3)-eeja und[2].und[3].act[1].V’
The use of the locative applicatives is not restricted to transitive verbs. They can also modify intransitive active verbs, as shown in the sentence (31b). It should be noted though that these are often verbs which also take optional locational arguments, as described in § 3.2.3. However, once a locative applicative has been applied to these verbs the locational argument is no longer optional and has to be expressed at least via an adverbial (i.e. mostly by eeja). (31) a. Hat’ąt’ąpš an ̨ ą. ha-t’ąat̨ ’ąp-š an ̨ ą 1e.a-jump-decl ‘I jumped.’ b. Nąąwacakra haat’ąpšąną. nąąwacak=ra ha-ha-t’ąąp-šąną fence=def appl.supess-1e.a-jump-decl ‘I jumped over the fence.’
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Schematically the use of the locative applicatives on intransitive active verbs can be represented like this: (1) act[1].V → (1) (2)-eeja und[2].act[1].V’
Very rarely and only where it makes sense semantically, the locative applicatives can even be applied to intransitive stative verbs, as shown in (32a) and (32b). (32) a. Nąąwatigają, hįšiipre. nąą-hoti-gają hį-šiipre tree-climb-seq 1e.u-fall ‘When I climbed a tree, I fell.’ b. Hoš oroš eja hoi ̨š ipre. hoš oroš =eeja ho-hi ̨-š iipre ditch=there appl.iness-1e.u-fall ‘I fell into the ditch.’ The newly added locational argument in these constructions has so far been illustrated only by inanimate NPs. However, the locational argument can also be animate and even human, if this makes sense in the given context, as illustrated by the next sentence pair (33). This same pair of examples also serves another purpose, viz. to show that these applicatives can even be applied to the class of avalent weather verbs as described in § 3.1. (33) a. Ni ̨i ̨ž ujee. ni ̨i ̨ž u-jee rain-pos.vert ‘It is raining.’ b. Xjąnąre hi ̨i ̨ni ̨i ̨ž u. xjąnąre ha-hi ̨-ni ̨i ̨ž u yesterday appl.supess-1e.u-rain ‘It rained on me yesterday.’ Analogous to the use of the applicatives on intransitive active verbs the schematic representation of this alternation looks like this: (1) und[1].V → (1) (2)-eeja und[2].und[1].V’
As has been mentioned at the beginning of this section, verbs which already include an obligatory locational argument do not increase their valency when the applicatives are added. Only the semantics of the relation towards the location is changed (‘in somewhere, on somewhere’ vs. ‘other’). This is true for both transitive
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and intransitive verbs. The sentences in (34) provide an illustration of this for the intransitive verb mi ̨i ̨nąk ‘sit (down) somewhere’, which always has to occur with a locational expression.
(34) a. Mąija mįanąknąkšąną. mąą=eeja mįįnąk=nąk-šąną earth=there sit=pos.ntl\1e.a-decl ‘I’m sitting on the floor/ground.’ b. Waamįnąkra hamįanąkšąną. (/ Waami ̨nąkeja hami ̨ąnąkš an ̨ ą.) waamįnąk=ra ha-mįįnąk=šąną chair=def appl.supess-sit=decl ‘I sat on the chair.’ c. Waact’ąija homįanąknąk. waact’ą=eeja ho-mįįnąk=nąk airplane=there appl.iness-sit=pos.ntl\1e.a ‘I’m sitting in the plane.’
5.1.3 The instrumental applicative hiThe fourth Hoocąk applicative is the instrumental applicative hi-. It is treated here last because it is the least productive applicative out of the four. The addition of the applicative hi- to a Hoocąk verb allows for the additional expression of an instrument-like argument. It is therefore a valency-increasing operation. This is shown in (35) below for the transitive verb mąac̨ gis ‘cut’.
(35) a. Kutei, mąįracgisšąną! kutei mąącgis-šąną INTJ(male) cut-decl ‘Hey, you cut me!’ b. Wanįra hanąąc mąąhįpahi te’e wawiimąracgisną. wanį=ra hanąąc mąąhį-paahi te’e wa-hi-mąącgis=ną. meat=def all knife-be.sharp this obj.3pl-appl.inst-cut=pot ‘You can cut all the meats with this sharp knife.’
The use of the instrumental applicative can be illustrated schematically as follows (note that the marking of the instrument on the verb will only become visible if the instrument argument is in the plural, which is rarely the case):
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(1) (2) und[2].act[1].V → (1) (2) 3 und [2].und[3].act[1].V’
This derivation, however, seems to no longer be productive in the language. Younger speakers (around age 70) consider the use of it as “old-fashioned”. The modern way of introducing instruments is by means of a coordinated clause meaning ‘X used Y and ...’ This is illustrated in (36), where (36a) shows the old-fashioned and (36b) the modern way of introducing instruments. (36) a. Jaagu’ų waipereci hiraįšurukąwi? jaagu’ų waipereci hi-haruką-wi why canvas appl.inst-cover-pl ‘Why did you (PL) cover me with canvas?’ b. Jaagu’ų waipereci hiš’ųwianąga, hįįšurukąwi? jaagu’ų waipereci hi’ų-wi=anąga haruką-wi why canvas use-pl=and cover-pl ‘Why did (pl) you cover me with canvas?’ (Lit. ‘Why did you (pl) use the canvas and covered me?’) The instrumental applicative is mostly applied to transitive verbs, as has just been shown, but it may also in rare cases be applied to intransitive active and intransitive stative verbs. Examples of this are shown below in (37) and (38). Their schematic summaries are provided below each sentence pair. As can be seen, the instruments here are not prototypical ones. They could rather be categorized as “afflictions” or causes and are applied only to what could also be considered experiencer type verbs. (37) a. Hopaža hanįhe. hopaža ha-nįhe be.sick\1e.a 1e.a-be/prog ‘I’ve been sick for a while.’ b. Ceewasnį nąąš taacgąra, žee hiropaža. ceewasnį nąąš taacgą=ra žee hi-hopaža milk be.sour drink\1e.a=def that appl.inst-be.sick\1e.a ‘I drank sour milk and I got sick from it.’ (1) act[1].V → (1) (2) und[2].act[1].V’
(38) a. Hinįk haara t’ee. hinįk haa=ra t’ee son have.kin\1e.a=def die(sbj.3sg) ‘My son died.’
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b. Hinįk haara howaža šiišik hit’ee. hinįk haa=ra howaža šiišik hi-t’ee son have.kin\1e.a=def be.sick be.bad appl.inst-die(sbj.3sg) ‘My son died of the disease.’ (1) und[1].V → (1) (2) und[2].und[1].V’
This concludes the description of the valency increasing derivations in Hoocąk. Next the valency decreasing derivations of the language will be described.
5.2 Valency decreasing morphology (reflexive and reciprocal) 5.2.1 The reflexive kiiThe reflexive is a valency decreasing operation. When the morpheme kii- is added to a transitive verb the Undergoer slot can no longer be filled with an Undergoer cross-index. (39) provides a good example of this. (39) a. Wažątirera hanąąc watuža. wažątire=ra hanąąc wa-tuuža car=def all obj.3pl-wash\1e.a ‘I washed all the cars.’ b. Hąįnįte’e hakituža. hąįnį-te’e ha-kii-tuuža morning-this 1E.a-rfl-wash\1e.a ‘I washed myself this morning.’ Note that depending on the verb class, some verbs derived with the reflexive inflect twice for the same Actor (as in (39b)), but this does not mean that the former Undergoer cross-index slot is now filled with an additional Actor cross-index. This can be proven by the fact that the same thing happens when the benefactive applicative is applied to verbs of the same class, and the Undergoer slot there stays intact while the same Actor is encoded twice (cf. example 20b). This has nothing to do with valency and is just a morphological artefact of the diachronic source of the verb formation. It would not serve the purpose of this present paper to further elaborate on this, as verbs in this paper are classed by their valency and not by all of their morphological properties, but the interested reader can find more information on this topic in Helmbrecht & Lehmann (2008). The use of the reflexive kii- on transitive verbs can be schematized as follows: (1) (2) und[2].act[1].V →(1/2) act[1/2].V’
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In some cases this operation can also (or solely) be used to express an auto-beneficiary meaning. In these cases the valency of the verb remains unchanged. So, a verb like ruxoro meaning ‘peel sth.’ would become kiiruxoro ‘peel sth. for oneself’. Another example of this is shown in (40): (40) a. Šįįǧ opra waraicop? šįįǧ op=ra wa-ra-gicop onion=def obj.3pl-2.a-chop ‘Did you chop up the onions?’ b. Šįįǧ opra warakiicop? šįįǧ op=ra wa-ra-kii-gicop onion=def obj.3pl-2.a-rfl-chop ‘Did you chop up the onions for yourself?’ In the function of expressing an auto-benefactive meaning, kii- may also very rarely be employed with intransitive active verbs. An example of this is shown in (41). (41) a. Hirokikjąpeja hotoǧ ocanąga yaakša. hirokikjąp=eeja hotoǧ oc=anąga hikša mirror=there look.at\1e.a=and laugh/smile ‘I looked in the mirror and smiled.’ b. Hirokikjąpeja hotoǧ ocanąga yaakikša. hirokikjąp=eeja hotoǧ oc-anąga hikša mirror=there look.at\1e.a-and laugh/smile ‘I looked in the mirror and smiled at myself.’ The reflexive has not been recorded to ever be used with intransitive stative verbs.
5.2.2 The reciprocal kikiAnalogous to the reflexive the reciprocal is also a valency decreasing operation. When the morpheme ki(ki)- is added to a transitive verb, the Undergoer slot can no longer be filled with an Undergoer cross-index. It occupies the same slot in the verbal template as the reflexive and it is, in fact, no accident that the reflexive and the reciprocal are so similar in their forms. Originally there was most likely just the form kii- expressing both a reflexive and a reciprocal meaning. To disambiguate between the two of them, the reduplicated form kiki- began being used to express the reciprocal meaning. Even today if the context is clear kii- may still be used to express both a reciprocal and a reflexive meaning. As expected, the reciprocal can only be used with plural subjects/agents. An example is shown in (42).
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(42) Mąąhį hišgaacnąąk’ų, mąąkikicgisire. mąąhį hi-šgaac-nąąk=ų mąącgis-ire knife appl.inst-play-pos.ntl.pl=sim cut-sbj.3pl ‘While they were playing with knives they cut each other.’ Since the schematic representation of the reciprocal alternation would look exactly like the one representing the reflexive in the previous section, it will not be repeated here. Again, analogous to the reflexive, this derivation can also be used to express a reciprocal-beneficiary meaning. In these cases the valency of the verb remains unchanged. An example of this is shown in (43). (43) a. Hopoxra wak’eire. hopox=ra wak’ee-ire hole=def obj.3pldig-sbj.3pl ‘They dug the holes.’ b. Hopoxra waki(ki)k’eire. hopox=ra wa-kiki-k’ee-ire hole=def obj.3pl-rcp-dig-sbj.3pl ‘They dug holes for each other.’ In the verb sample used for this study, also one intransitive active verb has been recorded to occur in combination with the reciprocal. This is to be seen as a very marginal phenomenon, but the example is included here for the sake of completeness. (44) a. Nįįkjąkra hanąąc hąąpserec šgaacire. nįįkjąk=ra hanąąc hąąp-serec šgaac-ire child=def all day-be.long play-sbj.3pl ‘All the children played all day long.’ b. Xjąnąre Hinųga hireanąga Kųnųga hąąpserec kikiišgacire. xjąnąre Hinų-ga hireanąga Kųnų-ga hąąp-serec kiki-šgaac-ire yesterday h.-prop along.with k.-prop day-be.long rcp-play-sbj.3pl ‘Hinu and Kunu played with each other all day long.’ The reciprocal has, just like the reflexive, not been recorded to ever be applied to intransitive stative verbs.
5.3 Complex alternations / Combinations of derivations So far only simple derivations have been described. However, a closer look at the morphological template of Hoocąk will make it obvious that there is also potential
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for complex derivations (i.e. combinations of simple derivations). In the ValPaL database (Hartmann 2013) these have been extensively documented and the interested reader will be able to look at a comprehensive list of examples there. Because of the limited space in this paper this phenomenon will now only be briefly touched upon. The combination of two of the just described derivations has of course a valency changing impact on the base verb’s valency. One of two things might happen: (i) the valency of a verb is increased by two argument slots, e.g. via a combination of the instrumental and the benefactive (as shown in (45)), (45) Wanįra mąąhįpahi himąigicgisre. wanį=ra mąąhį-paahi hi-mąącgis-re meat=def knife-be.sharp appl.inst-cut-imp ‘Cut the meat for me with a sharp knife.’ or (ii) the valency of the verb may be increased and decreased at the same time, e.g. through the application of the reflexive and one of the locative applicatives, as illustrated in (46). (46) Wijukra waaruceja hakiruža. wijuk=ra waaruc-eeja ha-kii-ruža cat=def table-there appl.supess-rfl-wash(sbj.3sg) ‘The cat washed itself on the table.’ All possible combinations of type (i) and (ii) are listed below in Table 4.
Tab. 4: Combinations of valency changing operations. combination valency altering material
type of combined valency change
instrumental + benefactive inessive/superessive + benefactive inessive/superessive + reflexive/reciprocal instrumental + reflexive/reciprocal
(i) (i) (ii) (ii)
doubly increasing doubly increasing decreasing plus increasing decreasing plus increasing
5.4 Two alternations applicable only to a special class of verbs As can be seen from the pre-verbal template (see Appendix A) Hoocąk has two sets of instrumental prefixes, short and long ones, named so for the length of the vowel they contain. Each set occupies a different slot in the morphological template of the verb, but they are still mutually exclusive. These prefixes are no longer a pro-
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Tab. 5: Instrumental prefixes in Hoocąk. short instrumentals
long instrumentals
gi-
‘by striking, with instrument’
boo-
‘with great force, by shooting, by blowing’
ra-
‘by mouth, with teeth’
mąa-̨
‘by cutting, with knife’
ru-
‘by hand, by pulling’
nąa-̨ 1
‘by foot, by kicking’
wa- ‘downward pressure, by pushing’
nąa-̨ 2
‘of own accord, by itself’
taa-
‘extreme temperature’
Tab. 6: Instrumental prefixes with the verb root wax. Vroot waax ’break string’ giwax rawax ruwax wawax
‘break string in two by striking’ ‘bite string in two’ ‘break string in two by pulling’ ‘break string downward pressure’
boowax mąaw ̨ ax nąaw ̨ ax nąaw ̨ ax taawax
‘shoot string in two’ ‘cut string in two’ ‘break string in two by foot’ ‘string breaks of own accord’ ‘string is burned in two’
ductive means of deriving new verbs, but they certainly were so historically. Table 5 provides a full list of both series of instrumental prefixes as well as their meanings. These prefixes once had a transitivizing function when used with intransitive stative verbs. All of these formations, however, have long since been lexicalized. The word pairs in (47) are some examples of this. (47) serec ‘be long’ – raserec ‘stretch sth. with one’s mouth’ seep ‘be black’ – boosep ‘blow out a light (= make black by blowing)’ š ara ‘be bare’ – ruš ara ‘pluck bare (by hand)’ It should be noted that there are two exceptions to the transitivizing function of these prefixes: taa- and nąa-̨ 2 do not increase the base verb’s valency and no new argument slot is opened up. The occurrence of the instrumental prefixes just described is, however, not the most common one. Most of the time these instrumentals are used with a distinct set of verb roots which in turn cannot be used by themselves. The verbs formed in this way usually have a meaning along the line of ‘A manipulates P in a certain way’ (e.g. ‘break’, ‘crack’, ‘cut’ etc.). Table 6 provides an example of this for the verb root waax, which has a general meaning like ‘break string or rope’. Again, it needs to be stressed that the verbs formed in this way have long since been lexicalized. Some (but not all) of the instrumental verbs formed through the processes just described have been observed to undergo two valency altering processes that can-
Valency Classes in Hooca˛k (Ho-Chunk)
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not be applied to verbs of any other kind. These two processes will be described next.
5.4.1 Resultative To form an intransitive (resultative) counterpart of an instrumental verb, two things have to take place. The instrumental prefix is dropped and the de-transitivizing suffix -re13 is added to the verbal root. So, the verbs listed in Table 6 would become waax-re ‘be broken (of string’). Example (48) illustrates this. (48) Waginąra hanąac̨ waaxraire. waginą=ra hanąac̨ waax-re-ire string=def all string.break-result-sbj.3pl ‘All the strings are broken.’ The resultative formation can be schematized like this: (1) (2) und[2].act[1].V →(2) und[2].V’
It should be noted here that the verbs formed in this way can be re-transitivized by use of one of the periphrastic causatives that will be described in § 6. The meaning of the verbs formed through this complex alternation differs from that of the original transitive (base) verb in that it expresses less volition or even an involuntary meaning (‘A tears U’ vs. ‘A (accidentally) causes U to be torn’.) Sentence (49a) and (49b) provide an example of this. (49) a. Waagaxnąąkre watugasš an ̨ ą. waagax=nąąkre wa-tuugas14-šąną paper=pos.ntl.pl:prox obj.3pl-tear\1e.a-decl ‘I tore these papers.’ b. Waagaxnąąkre gaasre wahaa. waagax=nąąkre gaas-re wa-haa paper=pos.ntl.pl:prox tear-result obj.3pl-make/caus\1e.a ‘I’m responsible for these papers being torn (but I didn’t do it on purpose).’
13 -re probably derived from here ‘be, in a state of being’ (Robert L. Rankin, p.c.) 14 tuugas is the 1 st person Actor form of the verb rugas ‘tear’. This verb inflects with one of the conjugational patterns that were not explicitly listed in § 2, but mentioned in footnote 6.
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5.4.2 Facilitative The same set of instrumental verbs may also undergo an even rarer formation. By dropping the instrumental prefix and then reduplicating the verbal root, a facilitative meaning can be expressed. The newly formed intransitive stative verb takes on a meaning like ‘X is easy to (break, crack etc.)’. Examples (50) and (51) provide examples of this. (50) (Waiperera š’aak wa’ųnąkšąną); gaagasxji ̨ wa’ųnąkšąną. … gaagas-xjį wa’ų-nąk-šąną … be.easy.to.tear-ints do/be-pos.ntl-decl ‘(The cloth is old), it tears really easily.’ (51) Nąax̨ awaaka šiišiš wa’ųak̨ šąną. nąąxawa=aaka šiišiš wa’ų-ąk-šąną log=pos.hor:dist be.easy.to.break do/be-pos.hor-decl ‘That log is weak and likely to break.’
5.5 A very rare de-transitivizing operation What is in fact a very productive valency decreasing (or more precisely, de-transitivizing) operation in most other Siouan languages (cf. Boyle 2009) is a rather restricted one in Hoocąk, really just applying these days to one verb regularly and to another handful of verbs marginally. This formation is by means of the 3rd person object prefix wa- used as a dummy argument or slot filler. This alternation is somewhat similar to antipassive alternations of other languages. The one Hoocąk verb which undergoes this formation regularly is ruuc ‘eat’. Adding the prefix wa- can have one of two functions (i) as with all other transitive verbs in indexing a 3rd person plural Undergoer/object (cf. example (52b)), or (ii) in just filling the argument slot without allowing an argument to be expressed as an overt NP. This can be seen in (52c). (52) a. Kšeenąkre raacikjene? kšee=nąkre raac-i-kjene apple=pos.ntl:prox eat\2.a-0-fut ‘Are you going to eat this apple?’ b. Kšeenąąka hanąąc waracikjene? kšee=nąąka hanąąc wa-raac-i-kjene apple=pos.ntl.pl:dist all obj.3pl-eat-0-fut ‘Are you going to eat all those apples?’
Valency Classes in Hooca˛k (Ho-Chunk)
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c. Wahacgįnį. wa-haac=gįnį obj.3pl-eat\1e.a=already ‘I already ate.’ Note that in (52c) the thing that the person making this statement has eaten does not have to be more than one object. This sentence can also for example be used after one has eaten one apple, or one item of something else. In this function wacould probably best be translated as ‘something (unspecified)’ and is thus used as an unspecified object slot filler. A sentence like (53), which neither includes the slot filler wa- nor an overt NP expressing the eaten item, can only have the reading ‘I already ate it’, and assumes that the addressee of this statement can retrieve the referent from the context or speech situation. (53) Haacgįnį. haac=gįnį eat\1e.a=already ‘I already ate it.’ (*‘I already ate.’) An example of a verb which can undergo this formation, but rarely does is wewi ̨ ‘think about, ponder, reflect’, illustrated in (54). Another verb which has been observed to undergo this process is the verb horoǧ oc ‘look at’. (54) Wawewį hįgi(g)ire. wa-wewį hį-gigi-ire obj.3pl-think.about 1e.u-let/cause-sbj.3pl ‘They made me think (about something).’ This concludes the description of all morphologically based or verb-coded alternations. The next section will deal with the Hoocąk causatives, which are periphrastic in nature.
6 Other alternations: Causatives Hoocąk has three main periphrastic causatives. Each of them will be described in more detail in the next two sections. These three causatives are (i) the coercive causative hii ‘make, cause’, (ii) the permissive causative gigi ‘let, cause’, and (iii) the reflexive causative ki ̨i ̨ ‘cause self’.
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There is also a fourth periphrastic causative in Hoocąk, which will not be further described in this paper, viz. karagi ‘to cause one’s relative(s) to do X/to cause one’s own possession to be X’. An example is given in (55) below: (55) Nįįkjąkra waisgap taaxere ųų warakaragi? nįįkjąk=ra waisgap_taaxere ųų wa-ra-karagi child=def frybread do/make obj.3pl-2.a-cause.own ‘Did you make your kids make frybread?’ The interested reader will find more information about it and many more example sentences in ValPaL (Hartmann 2013). It suffices to say here that it works syntactically exactly like hii and gigi, which will be described in more detail next.
6.1 The coercive causative hii and the permissive causative gigi These two causatives will be described in the same section as they show the same syntactic behaviour, differing only in meaning. Whereas hii expresses a more coercive meaning ‘make someone to do X’, gigi expresses a more permissive meaning ‘let someone do X, cause someone to do X’. The coercive causative hii is the most commonly used causative in Hooca˛k. It can be considered somewhat of a neutral causative. This causative verb can be used in combination with ditransitive, transitive and intransitive stative and intransitive active verbs. It is therefore very productive and may not serve as a means of establishing verb classes. Let us first take a look at the use of hii and gigi with intransitive verbs. The causative is used here to introduce a new participant, viz. a causer/ agent. The subject of the intransitive verb becomes the causee (= Undergoer) of the causative verb. The intransitive verb no longer takes any cross-indexes. (56) shows an example of an intransitive stative verb with a causative, where (56b) illustrates the use of hii and (56c) illustrates the use of gigi. As can be seen, the causative verb always occupies the sentence-final position, the position of the finite verb. (56) a. Wakera t’aire. wake=ra t’ee-ire raccoon=def die-sbj.3pl ‘The raccoons died.’ b. Wakera waišgapirera, t’ee wahiire. wake=ra wa-gišgap-ire=ra t’ee wa-hii-ire raccoon=def obj.3pl-run.into-3pl.S=def die ob.3pl-make/caus-sbj.3pl ‘They ran over the raccoons and they killed them.’
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c. Šųųkxetera hanąac̨ t’ee wagigiire. šųųkxete=ra hanąac̨ t’ee wa-gigi-ire horse=def all die obj.3pl-let/cause-sbj.3pl ‘They let all the horses die.’ The formation just described works analogously for intransitive active verbs. Here, also the subject of the intransitive verb becomes the Undergoer of the causative verb, and a causer is added to the situation, marked as Actor on the causative verb. (57) provide good examples of this: (57) a. Saagre nųųrawąkną? saagre nųųwąk=ną be.fast run=pot ‘Can you run fast?’ b. Waǧ įǧ į woošgaceja nee nųųwąk nįįre? waǧ įǧ į wa-ho-šgaac-eja nee nųųwąk ball obj.3pl-appl.iness-play-there 2emph run nįį-ire make/caus\2.u-sbj.3pl ‘In the ball game did they make you run?’ c. Nąąkisikirera, nee nųųwąk hįgigiire. nąąkisik-ire=ra nee nųųwąk hį-gigi-ire footrace-sbj.3pl=def 1emph run 1e.u-let/cause-sbj.3pl ‘In the footrace they let me run.’ The use of the periphrastic causative with intransitive verbs can be schematized thus: (1) und/act[1].V → (2) (1) V und[1].act[2].Vcaus
The coercive causative can also be used with transitive verbs. Here, the Undergoer of the base verb remains indexed on this verb, whereas the Actor of the base verb (=causee) becomes the Undergoer of the causative verb and a new participant (the causer) is added to the situation and marked as Actor on the causative verb. The examples given in (58) illustrate this. (59) shows the use of gigi. (58) a. Waž az̨ iira hanąąc nee watuxoro. waž az̨ ii=ra hanąąc nee wa-tuuxoro orange=def all 1emph obj.3pl-peel\1e.a ‘I (emph.) peeled all the oranges.’
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b. Waž az̨ iira hanąąc nee waruxoro wįįre. waž az̨ ii=ra hanąąc nee wa-ruxoro wįį-ire orange=def all 1emph obj.3pl-peel make/caus\1e.u-sbj.3pl ‘They made me (emph.) peel the oranges.’ (59) Wažątirera waruža hįgigiire. wažątire=ra wa-ruža hį-gigi-ire car=def obj.3pl-wash 1e.u-let/cause-sbj.3pl ‘They let me wash the cars.’ Schematically the use of these causatives with a transitive verb would look like this: (1) (2) und[2].act[1].V → (3) (1) (2) und[2].V und[1].act[3].Vcaus
6.2 The reflexive causative kiį ̨ The reflexive causative ki ̨i ̨ ‘cause oneself to do/be X’ is also quite productive in its use in Hoocąk. Like the two causatives just described it can also be used with ditransitive, transitive and intransitive (active and stative) verbs. In constructions with the reflexive causative causer and causee are identical. They are both expressed through the Actor indexing on the causative verb. It is therefore not a valency increasing operation but should rather be seen as valency re-arranging. (60) provides an example of the reflexive causative used with an intransitive stative verb. (60) Ziikra nąągura haruce nąą’įgają, t’ee kįį. ziik=ra nąągu=ra haruce nąą’į-gają t’ee kįį squirrel=def road=def cross try-seq die make.self(sbj.3sg) ‘When the squirrel tried to cross the road, it killed itself.’ Example (61b) shows the use of ki ̨i ̨ with the intransitive active verb ǧ aak ‘cry’. (61) a. Haǧ akš an ̨ ą. ha-ǧ aak-š an ̨ ą 1e.a-cry-decl ‘I cried.’ b. Hišjasuregi, hikinų haakipara, ǧ aak hakį. hišjasu-regi hikinų hapa=ra ǧ aak ha-kįį eye-sim/loc accidentally hit=def cry 1e.a-make.self ‘When I accidentally poked myself in the eye, I caused myself to cry.’
Valency Classes in Hooca˛k (Ho-Chunk)
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The use of the reflexive causative with intransitive verbs can be schematized as follows: (1) und/act[1].V → (1) V act[1].Vcaus
As already mentioned, this causative can also be used productively with transitive verbs. An example of this is shown in (62). (62) Hąįnįxjį hakikawa’ųanąga wažątirera waruža hakį. hąįnį-xjį ha-kikawa’ų=anąga wažątire=ra wa-ruža morning-ints 1e.a-get.up=and car=def obj.3pl-wash ha-ki ̨į 1e.a-make.self ‘I got up early and made myself wash the cars.’ It can be seen that the Undergoer of the transitive verb is not changed and remains indexed there, but the Actor of the transitive verb now becomes the Actor of the causative verb, expressing causer and causee at the same time. This can be summarized in the following schema: (1) (2) und[2].act[1].V → (1) (2) und[2].V act[1].Vcaus
This concludes the description of the Hoocąk causatives, which are an important valency increasing means. They are however not useful in establishing verb classes, as they can be applied pretty much across the board (this can also be seen in Appendix C).
7 Final Remarks/Conclusions In this paper, I have tried to comprehensively describe the valency properties of Hoocąk verbs. All relevant verb types and valency changing devices have been taken into account. The most important findings can be summarized as follows: – Argument coding in Hoocąk is almost exclusively done by means of indexing on the verb. Only locations are flagged. NPs do not have to occur overtly. – Virtually all valency alternations are coded. While there are very few labile verbs in Hoocąk, they are highly unusual and may be the result of contact with English. – There are both valency increasing as well as valency decreasing devices. For a full distribution of these devices across a sample of 80 Hoocąk verbs, please consult Appendix B and the online ValPaL database (Hartmann 2013).
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Locations can be arguments or adjuncts. They are generally flagged by the adverbial =eeja. When licensed by an applicative, locations always have (core) argument status. This is confirmed by the fact that when applicatives are used, former adjunct locations not only become arguments, but they can be human affectees, which are cross-indexed by 1st or 2nd person Undergoer markers on the verb. The overall argument status of locations, however, requires further work, going beyond the scope of this paper. Causatives are periphrastic in nature, but apply pretty much across the board, so they may not serve as a means of establishing verb classes. Hoocąk verb classes in general can be largely based on argument-coding types. Most alternations do not easily constitute verb classes. Exceptions are the alternations which only apply to the instrumental verbs.
-5
-4a
nįį1&2
mąątaa-
nį2.U
hį1e.u
U
pron II
nąą-
boo-
outer instrumentals
-4b
ra2.A
ha1e.a
A
-3a
kiki- RCP
kii- RFL
gi-APPL.BEN
-3b
kara-/kVPOSS.RFL
benefactive reflexive / reciprocal / possessive reflexive
inner applicatives
Legend: + = alternation occurs regularly; − = alternation never occurs; m = alternation occurs marginally
-6a
-6b
-7b
-7a
haAPPL.SUPESS
locatives
hoAPPL.INESS
wahi3PL.OBJ APPL.INST
instrumental
outer applicatives
wąągá1DI.U/ IPI.U
hį1DI.A/ 1PI.A
pronominals I
Tab. 7: Order of prefixes in Hoocąk (Adapted and enhanced from Helmbrecht & Lehmann 2008).
Appendix A: Preverbal morphological template of Hoocąk
-2
A inflections type II
pronominals III A
-1
wa-
ru-
ra-
gi-
inner instrumentals
0
V root
Valency Classes in Hooca˛k (Ho-Chunk)
1297
Meaning label
RAIN
FEEL PAIN
FEEL COLD
DIE
BE HUNGRY
SINK
BURN
BE DRY
BOIL
FALL
DRESS
SHAVE
SHOUT AT
BLINK
COUGH
RUN
#
69
59
60
61
64
66
67
68
80
84
13
14
20
46
47
49
nųųwąk
hooxiwi
hišjasu(ra) gip’i(p’i)s
wąą (rehii)
iihį(ra) gik’o
hikikoroho
šiipre
xere
wuus
taa’e
hasaware
tookewehi
t’ee
taasak
teek
nįįžu
Verb form
1 act[1].V
1 act[1].V
1 act[1].V
1 act[1].V
1 act[1].V
1 act[1].V
1 und[1].V
1 und[1].V
1 und[1].V
1 und[1].V
1 und[1].V
1 und[1].V
1 und[1].V
1 und[1].V
1 und[1].V
V
Coding frame
m
−
−
+
m
−
m
m
m
m
m
m
m
m
m
−
appl. ben
+
m
−
−
−
−
+
m
m
−
m
−
−
−
−
+
m
−
−
−
−
−
+
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
+
appl. appl. iness supess
−
−
−
m
−
−
m
m
m
m
−
−
+
−
−
−
appl. inst
Appendix B: Occurrence of alternations as described in § 5
−
−
−
−
+
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
rfl
−
−
−
m
m
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
rcp
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
m
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
res
−
−
−
−
−
−
m
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
fac
intransitive active verbs
intransitive stative verbs
avalent verb
Verb type
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JUMP
LAUGH
SCREAM
PLAY
BE SAD
ROLL
APPEAR
BE ILL
CRY
FALL
SIT
SIT DOWN
LIVE
SAY
EAT
HUG
LOOK AT
SEE
52
57
58
62
63
65
81
82
83
84
50
51
56
22
1
2
3
4
haja
horoǧoc
nąąt’ųp
ruuc
ee
cii
mįįnak
mįįnak
bookewe
ǧaak
howaža
haǧep
howaną(ną)
horuš’ak
šgaac
iijanįk
hikša
t’ąą(t’ą)p
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 UTT2 act[1].V
1 LOC2 act[1].V
1 LOC2 act[1].V
1 LOC2 act[1].V
1 act[1].V
1 act[1].V
1 act[1].V
1 act[1].V
1 act[1].V
1 act[1].V
1 act[1].V
1 act[1].V
1 act[1].V
1 act[1].V
m
m
m
+
+
m
−
−
−
+
m
+
m
−
−
m
−
+
−
−
−
+
−
+
+
+
−
m
−
−
−
−
m
m
−
+
−
−
−
+
−
+
+
+
m
−
−
−
+
−
+
−
−
+
−
+
m
+
−
m
−
−
+
−
+
−
m
−
+
−
−
+
+
+
+
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
m
−
−
−
+
−
+
+
+
m
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
m
−
+
m
m
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
transitive verbs
speech verb
intransitive verbs with obligatory location
intransitive active verbs
Valency Classes in Hooca˛k (Ho-Chunk)
1299
Meaning label
SMELL
FEAR
FRIGHTEN
LIKE
KNOW
THINK
WASH
HELP
FOLLOW
MEET
TALK
ASK FOR
TELL
BUILD
BREAK
KILL
BEAT
HIT
TOUCH
#
5
6
7
8
9
10
12
15
16
17
18
19
21
24
25
26
27
28
29
hiki’o
hapa
hojį
t’ee hii
gišiš
ųų
horak
taa
hokit’e
hikipa
ruxe
gijire
ruža
wewį
hiperes
gipį
nąąǧire hii
nąąkewe
horupąną
Verb form
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
Coding frame
m
m
+
−
+
+
+
+
−
−
+
m
+
+
m
m
+
m
m
appl. ben
−
−
−
−
+
+
−
−
−
−
−
−
+
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
m
−
−
−
+
−
−
−
−
−
−
appl. appl. iness supess
−
+
+
−
+
+
m
−
m
−
+
−
+
m
−
−
+
m
−
appl. inst
+
+
+
−
+
m
−
m
+
−
−
+
+
+
−
+
−
+
+
rfl
+
+
+
−
+
m
+
m
+
+
m
+
+
+
+
m
+
+
+
rcp
−
−
−
−
+
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
res
−
−
−
−
+
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
fac
transitive verbs
Verb type
1300 Iren Hartmann
CUT
TAKE
TEAR
PEEL
HIDE
SHOW
TIE
COVER
CLIMB
SING
GRIND
GRIND
WIPE
DIG
BRING
STEAL
HEAR
COOK
MAKE
30
31
32
33
34
35
40
43
48
53
71
71
72
73
75
76
78
79
85
ųų
tuuc hii
nąąxgų
mąąnų
hanį jii
k’ee
waža
mąąxjuk
gicop
nąąwą
hoti
haruką
rusgic
waha
nųųxąwą
ruxoro
rugas
ruus
mąącgis
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
+
−
m
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
m
m
−
−
m
+
m
−
−
−
−
m
−
m
m
+
+
+
−
m
m
−
−
+
+
m
−
m
−
−
−
−
m
m
+
−
m
+
+
+
−
−
+
+
+
−
m
+
+
+
m
m
−
+
m
+
m
−
+
m
m
m
+
m
m
m
−
+
+
+
+
m
m
m
+
m
−
+
m
m
m
+
+
m
m
−
+
+
+
m
m
m
m
+
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
+
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
+
+
−
+
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
+
m
−
−
−
−
−
−
+
+
−
+
transitive verbs
Valency Classes in Hooca˛k (Ho-Chunk)
1301
Meaning label
GET
WANT
SEARCH FOR
CARRY
THROW
POUR
PUSH
PUT
LOAD
NAME
BEAT
THROW
FILL
TEACH
GIVE
BUILD
#
86
87
11
38
39
42
74
41
45
23
27
39
44
77
36
24
no direct counterpart
hok’ų
gigųs
hoixjį hii
hirojį
hirojį
hige
hožu
hožu
hawają
waxų
ųųreehi
ru’ą
honį
roogų
harucap
Verb form
−
−
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
m
appl. ben
N/A
−
1 2 3 und[3].und[2].act[1].V −
1 2 (3) und[2].act[1].V
1 2 (3) und[2].act[1].V
1 2 (3) und[2].act[1].V
1 2 (3) und[2].act[1].V
1 2 (3) und[2].act[1].V
1 2 LOC3 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 LOC3 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 (LOC3) und[2].act[1].V
1 2 (LOC3) und[2].act[1].V
1 2 (LOC3) und[2].act[1].V
1 2 (LOC3) und[2].act[1].V
1 2 (LOC3) und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
Coding frame
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
+
+
−
+
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
+
+
−
+
m
+
−
−
−
appl. appl. iness supess
−
−
m
−
−
−
−
−
−
+
m
m
+
m
−
−
appl. inst
−
+
+
−
+
+
+
+
+
+
−
−
+
m
m
m
rfl
−
+
+
−
+
+
+
+
+
+
m
−
m
+
m
m
rcp
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
+
−
−
−
−
−
res
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
+
−
−
−
−
−
fac
no counterpart
ditransitive verb
transitive verbs with optional theme
transitive verbs with obligatory location
transitive verbs with optional location
Verb type
1302 Iren Hartmann
SEND
GO
LEAVE
BE A HUNTER
37
54
55
70
no verbal counterpart
no direct counterpart
no direct counterpart
no direct counterpart
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
no counterpart
Valency Classes in Hooca˛k (Ho-Chunk)
1303
FEEL COLD
DIE
BE HUNGRY
SINK
BURN
BE DRY
BOIL
FALL
DRESS
SHAVE
SHOUT AT
BLINK
COUGH
60
61
64
66
67
68
80
84
13
14
20
46
47
hooxiwi
hišjasu(ra) gip’i(p’i)s
wąą (rehii)
iihį(ra) gik’o
hikikoroho
šiipre
xere
wuus
taa’e
hasaware
tookewehi
t’ee
taasak
teek
1 act[1].V
1 act[1].V
1 act[1].V
1 act[1].V
1 act[1].V
1 und[1].V
1 und[1].V
1 und[1].V
1 und[1].V
1 und[1].V
1 und[1].V
1 und[1].V
1 und[1].V
1 und[1].V
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
−
m
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
m
+
+
m
m
+
+
m
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
m
+
+
+
−
+
+
+
−
+
+
+
+
m
+
+
+
+
+
−
intransitive active verbs
intransitive stative verbs
avelent verb
FEEL PAIN
V
Verb type
59
nįįžu
Reflex. caus.
RAIN
Possess. reflexive causative
69
Permiss. causative
Meaning
#
Coercive causative
Appendix C: Occurrence of periphrastic causatives (as described in § 6)
Coding frame
Iren Hartmann
Verb form
1304
RUN
JUMP
LAUGH
SCREAM
PLAY
BE SAD
ROLL
APPEAR
BE ILL
CRY
FALL
SIT
SIT DOWN
LIVE
SAY
EAT
HUG
LOOK AT
SEE
49
52
57
58
62
63
65
81
82
83
84
50
51
56
22
1
2
3
4
haja
horoǧoc
nąąt’ųp
ruuc
ee
cii
mįįnak
mįįnak
bookewe
ǧaak
howaža
haǧep
howaną(ną)
horuš’ak
šgaac
iijanįk
hikša
t’ąą(t’ą)p
nųųwąk
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 UTT2 act[1].V
1 LOC2 act[1].V
1 LOC2 act[1].V
1 LOC2 act[1].V
1 act[1].V
1 act[1].V
1 act[1].V
1 act[1].V
1 act[1].V
1 act[1].V
1 act[1].V
1 act[1].V
1 act[1].V
1 act[1].V
1 act[1].V
m
m
+
m
m
m
−
−
+
+
+
m
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
m
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
m
+
+
+
+
m
+
m
m
+
+
m
+
+
+
+
+
m
m
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
m
m
+
+
+
+
+
+
−
m
+
+
+
+
+
m
+
+
+
m
+
+
m
transitive verbs
speech verb
intransitive verbs with obligatory location
intransitive active verbs
Valency Classes in Hooca˛k (Ho-Chunk)
1305
Meaning
SMELL
FEAR
FRIGHTEN
LIKE
KNOW
THINK
WASH
HELP
FOLLOW
MEET
TALK
ASK FOR
TELL
BUILD
BREAK
KILL
BEAT
HIT
TOUCH
#
5
6
7
8
9
10
12
15
16
17
18
19
21
24
25
26
27
28
29
hiki’o
hapa
hojį
t’ee hii
gišiš
ųų
horak
taa
hokit’e
hikipa
ruxe
gijire
ruža
wewį
hiperes
gipį
nąąǧire hii
nąąkewe
horupąną
Verb form
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
Coding frame
+
+
+
m
+
m
+
m
m
m
+
+
+
+
m
+
+
+
+
Coercive causative
+
+
+
m
+
+
+
+
+
m
m
+
+
+
m
+
+
m
+
Permiss. causative
+
+
+
m
+
+
+
+
m
m
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
Possess. reflexive causative
+
m
+
m
+
m
m
m
+
+
+
+
m
+
+
+
−
+
+
Reflex. caus.
transitive verbs
Verb type
1306 Iren Hartmann
CUT
TAKE
TEAR
PEEL
HIDE
SHOW
TIE
COVER
CLIMB
SING
GRIND
GRIND
WIPE
DIG
BRING
STEAL
HEAR
COOK
MAKE
GET
WANT
30
31
32
33
34
35
40
43
48
53
71
71
72
73
75
76
78
79
85
86
87
roogų
harucap
ųų
tuuc hii
nąąxgų
mąąnų
hanį jii
k’ee
waža
mąąxjuk
gicop
nąąwą
hoti
haruką
rusgic
waha
nųųxąwą
ruxoro
rugas
ruus
mąącgis
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 und[2].act[1].V
+
+
m
m
+
+
+
+
m
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
m
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
m
m
+
+
m
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
−
+
+
+
+
+
m
m
m
+
+
m
m
m
+
+
+
+
−
+
+
m
+
m
−
transitive verbs
Valency Classes in Hooca˛k (Ho-Chunk)
1307
Meaning
SEARCH FOR
CARRY
THROW
POUR
PUSH
PUT
LOAD
NAME
BEAT
THROW
#
11
38
39
42
74
41
45
23
27
39
hirojį
hirojį
hige
hožu
hožu
hawają
waxų
ųųreehi
ru’ą
honį
Verb form
1 2 (3) und[2].act[1].V
1 2 (3) und[2].act[1].V
1 2 (3) und[2].act[1].V
1 2 LOC3 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 LOC3 und[2].act[1].V
1 2 (LOC3) und[2].act[1].V
1 2 (LOC3) und[2].act[1].V
1 2 (LOC3) und[2].act[1].V
1 2 (LOC3) und[2].act[1].V
1 2 (LOC3) und[2].act[1].V
Coding frame
+
+
m
+
+
+
+
+
+
−
Coercive causative
+
+
m
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
Permiss. causative
+
+
m
+
+
+
+
+
+
−
Possess. reflexive causative
m
m
m
+
+
+
+
+
+
m
Reflex. caus.
transitive verbs with optional theme
transitive verbs with obligatory location
transitive verbs with optional location
Verb type
1308 Iren Hartmann
TEACH
GIVE
BUILD
SEND
GO
LEAVE
BE A HUNTER
77
36
24
37
54
55
70
no verbal counterpart
no direct counterpart
no direct counterpart
no direct counterpart
no direct counterpart
hok’ų
gigųs
hoixjį hii
+
m
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
−
−
−
−
−
123 + und[3].und[2].act[1].V
1 2 (3) und[2].act[1].V
1 2 (3) und[2].act[1].V
−
−
−
−
−
+
+
+
Legend: + = alternation occurs regularly; − = alternation never occurs; m = alternation occurs marginally
FILL
44
−
−
−
−
−
m
m
+
−
−
−
−
−
+
−
+
no counterpart
ditransitive verb
transitive verbs with optional theme
Valency Classes in Hooca˛k (Ho-Chunk)
1309
1310
Iren Hartmann
Abbreviations A act APPL.BEN DECL DEF DIST E EMPH FIN FUT I IMP IN INESS INTS NEG OBJ PL POS.HOR POS.NTL POS.VERT POSS.RFL POT PROP PROX QUOT RESULT RCP RFL SBJ SEQ SUPESS U und V 1 2 3 0
Actor Actor inflection benefactive applicative declarative definite article distal exclusive emphatic final future time marker inclusive imperative initial inessive intensifier negation object plural horizontal positional neutral/sitting positional vertical positional possessive reflexive potential proper name marker proximal quotative resultative reciprocal reflexive subject sequential superessive Undergoer Undergoer inflection verb 1st person 2nd person 3rd person epenthetic vowel
References Boyle, John P. 2009. The [*wa-] Prefix in the Siouan Languages. Paper presented at the Comparative Siouan Syntax Workshop in Lincoln, Nebraska, June 12–14, 2009. Hartmann, Iren. 2013. Hoocąk Valency Patterns. In Iren Hartmann, Martin Haspelmath & Bradley Taylor (eds.), Valency Patterns Leipzig. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. (Available online at http://valpal.info/languages/hoocak, Accessed on 2014-03-28)
Valency Classes in Hooca˛k (Ho-Chunk)
1311
Hartmann, Iren, Johannes Helmbrecht, Christian Lehmann & Christian Marschke. 2009 ff. Documentation of Hoocąk. Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, DoBeS Archive (http://corpus1.mpi.nl/qfs1/media-archive/dobes_data/Hocank/Corpusstructure/ 1.imdihttp://www.mpi.nl/DOBES/). Haspelmath, Martin. 2013. Argument indexing: a conceptual framework for the syntax of bound person forms. In Dik Bakker & Martin Haspelmath (eds.), Languages Across Boundaries: Studies in Memory of Anna Siewierska, 197–226. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Helmbrecht, Johannes & Christian Lehmann. 2008. Hočank’s challenge to morphological theory. In K. David Harrison, David S. Rood & Arienne Dwyer (eds.), Lessons From Documented Endangered Languages (Typological Studies in Language, 78) 271–315. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Payne, Doris L. 1999. External possession: what, where, how, and why. In Doris Payne & Immanuel Barshi (eds.), External Possession, 3–32. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Rood, David, Robert L. Rankin, A. Wesley Jones & Richard T. Carter (unpubl. manuscript, ND). Comparative Siouan Dictionary.
Honoré Watanabe
31 Valency classes in Sliammon Salish
1
1 Introduction This paper examines valency alternation patterns and verb classes that emerge through patterns in Sliammon Salish (hereafter Sliammon).2 There are some characteristics of Sliammon morphosyntax that set it apart from languages that use overt case markers on NPs to indicate valency alternations. Thus, this study of valency alternation in Sliammon is a contribution to this phenomenon from a language that is radically different from those examined in previous studies (e.g., Tsunoda 1981, 1985; Malchukov 2005). Sliammon is a socalled head-marking and polysynthetic language in which a root can undergo reduplicative processes and receive affixations to comprise a rather complex verb.3 The grammatical processes thus applied indicate different grammatical functions including valency. Noun Phrases (NPs), on the other hand, are not obligatory constituents in a clause. Consequently, valency and valency alternations are basically
1 All the Sliammon data in the present paper are from my own research unless otherwise noted. My deepest gratitude goes to the Sliammon community and to my language consultants: the late Mrs. Mary George, the late Mrs. Agnes McGee, the late Mrs. Annie Dominick, Mrs. Elsie Paul, and Mrs. Marion Harry. An earlier version of the present work was presented at the “Conference on Valency Classes in the World’s Languages,” April 14–17, 2011, at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig. I am grateful to the organizers of the project and the conference: Iren Hartmann, Andrej Malchukov, Bernard Comrie, Martin Haspelmath, Bradley Taylor, and Søren Wichmann. I also thank the audience at the conference for their questions, comments, and discussions. I am grateful to David Beck, Paul Kroeber, and the anonymous reviewers of the project for comments on an earlier version of this paper. Needless to say, I assume full responsibility for my analyses and any errors in the data. My research on Sliammon has been funded by various agencies, most recently by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (2007–2010: grant No. 19320062; 2011–2012 No. 23401024; 2010–2012 No. 22520414, the third awarded to Fumiko Sasama) and also by funding provided to ILCAA, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (2008–2012; “Linguistic Dynamics Science Project”). 2 Sliammon is a Coast Salishan language, which is spoken on the Northwest Coast of North America, in the province of British Columbia, Canada. It is now spoken only by a handful of people as their first language. 3 There has been a long debate about word classes in Salish, more specifically, as to whether or not a distinction can be made between such major word classes as “noun” and “verb”. It is clear that almost all words are predicative in Sliammon, and words that are normally classified as nouns can take on “verbal morphology”; however, I have argued elsewhere that nouns and verbs can be justified on morphosyntactic grounds in Sliammon (Watanabe 2003: 65–78, 2010). At any rate, the issue of identifying word classes in Sliammon does not affect the present paper since I have mostly concerned myself with the “verbs” in the list which was provided by the MPI-EVA Valency Project.
1314
Honoré Watanabe
all coded on the verb, and there is no “uncoded” alternation. In the case of Sliammon, “valency alternation” of a verb is mostly synonymous with “permissible valency-marking suffixes with a (verb) root”. This paper is organized as follows. In section 2, I provide the reader with background information on Sliammon morphosyntax, focusing on aspects that are relevant to valency. In section 3, I describe the valency-marking suffixes in Sliammon; I focus only on those that are most relevant to the goal of this paper, i.e. to classify verbs into different classes according to valency alternation. Consequently, many valency markers and alternations in this language are not dealt with here; I provide brief descriptions of some of them in section 5. Section 3.5 clarifies what is meant by “valency alternations” in Sliammon, and in section 4, I discuss the valency alternations and the verb classes that emerge through the possible alternations verbs allow. Section 6 gives final remarks.
2 Basics of Sliammon morphosyntax 2.1 The internal structure of verbs The following is a simplified schema of a verbal predicate:4 (1) clt=rdpl-ROOT-rdpl -ls-APPL-TR/INTR-OBJ-SBJ/=SBJ=clt The root is the only obligatory component of a verb (or of any word) in Sliammon; roughly, about 1,000 roots have thus far been identified, of which approximately 800 are verb roots.5 About two thirds of all the roots (i.e. ca. 600) are of the phonological shape CVC, and the second largest number is of the root shape CVCC. The root can undergo various types of reduplicative processes (rdpl) – all but one of these types are preposed. The root may be suffixed with “lexical suffixes” (ls), which are bound forms with concrete, i.e. lexical rather than grammatical or functional, meanings like body-part terms (‘face’, ‘nose’, ‘eye’, etc.), man-made objects (‘house’, ‘lid’, ‘clothes’), and natural objects (‘water’, ‘fire’, ‘rock’), etc. There are two productive applicative suffixes (appl; see § 3.4). The markers for valency are suffixes, i.e. transitive and intransitive markers (tr/intr); they are the central issue of the present study (§ 3). These valency-marking suffixes can be stacked one after the other, with combinatorial restrictions, changing valency with each suffix (see § 5.2 for a brief description).6 If the stem is transitive, it is followed
4 Those elements that are not pertinent to the present study are in small capital letters. 5 The roots identified include fossilized forms, which do not appear to be productively used. 6 I discuss only the valency suffixes that are relevant to the classification of verbs in this paper. Although the combinatorial possibilities may reveal fine-grained classifications of verbs, that is
Valency classes in Sliammon Salish
1315
by the object suffix (OBJ). As regards the subject, although the element sbj appears twice in the schema above, only one marker for the subject is ever attached to a predicate. The choice between the suffix subject marker and that of the clitic depends on the syntactic construction. Finally, various clitics (clt, other than the subject clitics) attach in front and/or at the end of the predicate. The participants indexed on the verb are at most two, i.e. one subject and one object. There is no verb form that can be morphologically indexed for three or more participants. Semantically trivalent verbs like ‘give’ (‘A gives X to Y’) are treated morphologically as monotransitive verbs with the option of expressing the third participant (in this case the “gift X”) in an oblique NP (as discussed in § 2.2.2). In order to keep the number of participants indexed on the verb to two (or one), various valency markers are employed in combinations; such combinatory possibilities of valency markers are not the central concern of the present study but will be briefly discussed in § 5.2.
2.2 Marking of participants I refer to the participants indexed on the verb, i.e. the subject and the object, as “direct participants” and to all other kinds of participants as “obliques”. There are two types of obliques, depending on their morphosyntax when they are relativized: “core obliques” and “noncore obliques” (Kroeber 1999: 37–42). Noun phrases can overtly express third person participants. Their default position in a clause is post-predicate. They may consist of a demonstrative alone or of a noun preceded by a determiner or a demonstrative. Except for personal names, demonstratives, and the independent pronouns, NPs are always preceded by a determiner or a demonstrative. NPs occur either unmarked or preceded by prepositions. Further details are provided in the following subsections. It is important to point out that NPs are not obligatory constituents of a clause. This means that the valency of the predicate and valency alternations can be reflected in how the NPs appear but they are not manifested through NPs. Neither the presence nor the absence of any kind of NP is relevant to valency.
2.2.1 Direct participants Direct participants are indexed on the verb by means of pronominal clitics and suffixes. Pronominal subject markers and object markers are shown in Table 1 and Table 2, respectively.
beyond the scope of this paper. For a fuller description of valency suffixes not discussed here, see Watanabe (2003: 179–306).
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Tab. 1: Pronominal Subject Markers. Indicative
Ergative
Conjunctive
Possessive
Future7
Non-future full
reduced
1sg
čan
č
tᶿəm
-an
-an
2sg
čaxʷ
čxʷ
čxʷəm
-axʷ
-axʷ
tᶿ ̸ 0
1pl
čat
št
štəm
-at
-at
ms
2pl
čap ̸ 0 (intr.)
čap səm
-ap
-ap
-ap
0̸ səm (intr.)
-as
-as
-s
3
3pl. -it
Tab. 2: Pronominal Object Paradigm. Active Control (ctr) -t
Noncontrol (ntr) -ng
Causative (caus) -stg8
1sg
-θ
-nu-mš
-stu-mš
2sg
-θi
-nu-mi
-stu-mi
1pl
-t-umuɬ
-n-umuɬ
-st-umuɬ
2pl
-n-anapi
3
-t-anapi ̸ -t-0
̸ -(n)əxʷ-0
-st-anapi ̸ ‑sxʷ-09
refl
-θut
-nu-mut
-st-namut
recp
-t-awɬ
-nxʷ-igas
-st-awɬ
The pronominal subject markers are either clitics or suffixes. The indicative subject markers are all clitics; their usual position is post-predicate, i.e. they appear as second-position enclitics. The ergative and conjunctive suffixes are identical in
7 The clitic səm marks the future tense. The forms for first person (sg. and pl.) and second person (pl.) appear to be the result of the fusion of this clitic and the pronominal markers. 8 The phonemic realizations of the noncontrol -ng and the causative -stg depend on the following suffixes and are irregular. Since their last consonant shows alternations between xʷ, g, and u, the underlying morphophonemic form is posited as g (see Davis 1978; Blake 2000). It is, however, realized as g only before the subordinate passive -it and when the passive patient is third person (see Watanabe 2003: 280). 9 The causative suffix is sometimes realized simply as ‑s.
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shape; however, they differ in their morphosyntactic positions and constructions in which they occur, and hence they need to be treated as distinct series of suffixes (see also Kroeber 1999). The indicative set is used in indicative clauses, in both intransitives and transitives, except for the fact that the third person marker, which is zero (0̸), is only used in intransitives. A third person transitive subject is marked by the ergative -as. The entire ergative set of suffixes is used in object extraction clauses.10 The conjunctive series is used in conjunctive (subjunctive) clauses, and the possessive markers are used to mark the possessor in noun phrases and the subject in nominalized clauses. The pronominal object paradigm (Table 2) provides the pronominal object suffixes together with the three “transitivizing” suffixes (-t control transitive, -ng noncontrol transitive, and -stg causative; there is an additional suffix, -Vš, which attaches to a limited number of roots and which is mostly in complementary distribution with the control transitive -t; see § 3.3.). There are some fused forms (1sg and 2sg in the control transitive paradigm), and there is considerable allomorphy of the transitivizing suffixes, depending on the following object suffixes. Included in the object paradigm are the forms for the reflexive and reciprocal; they occupy the same position as the object suffixes do. These pronominal markers do not stack on one another; that is, even in predications that involve more than two participants, only one marker from each of the two paradigms can attach to the verb. (2) hu=tᶿəm. go=1sg.ind.sbj+fut ‘I will go.’ (3) θu=0̸ =kʷa. go=3ind.sbj =clt ‘He went’ ̸ čan =səm. (4) məkʷ-t-0= eat-ctr-3obj = 1sg.ind.sbj =fut ‘I will eat it.’ (5) məkʷ-t-0-̸ as-uɬ. eat-ctr-3obj-3erg-pst ‘He ate it.’
10 The ergative subject suffixes are sometimes used in noncontrol transitive stems (§ 3.3.1) in contexts where the indicative clitic series is expected. I do not have an explanation for this phenomenon; however, there appears to be no semantic difference between the two possibilities.
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(6) x̣ənat-t-umuɬ =čxʷ. give-ctr-1pl.obj =2sg.ind.sbj ‘You give (it) to us.’ Third person direct participants, which are indexed on the verb, can be overtly expressed by unmarked NPs, i.e. those without any prepositions. I refer to such NPs as direct NPs. Direct NPs are coreferential with the subject of intransitive predicates (S) and the object of transitive predicates (O).
Direct NPs Subjects of intransitive verbs (7) qʼaqʼa = 0̸ tə= čuyʼ. hungry =3ind.sbj det= child ‘The child is hungry.’ Objects of transitive verbs (8) tuyʔap-t-0-̸ as tə= saɬtxʷ. follow-ctr-3obj-3erg det= woman ‘He followed the woman.’ Note that when there is one direct NP in a transitive clause with two third person participants, as in (8), it is always understood as coreferential with the object and not with the subject (i.e. Ex. (8) cannot be interpreted as *‘the woman followed him/her/it/them’).11 The subjects of transitive predicates are rarely, if at all, expressed by NPs. The only exception appears to be the case in which the object is the first or second person. For overtly expressing the logical agent NP, the passive construction is usually used, where the agent can be expressed by an oblique NP. (This is the preferred strategy even when the object is the first or second person. See (71).) (9) qəy-t-0-̸ əm =səm ʔə= tə= mix̣aɬ tə= čʼanʼu. die-ctr-3obj-pass =fut obl= det= bear det= dog ‘The bear is going to kill the dog.’ (lit. ‘The dog will be killed by the bear.’)
11 This phenomenon is often referred to as the “one nominal constraint” in studies of Salish, following Gerdts (1988).
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(10) yaʔpʼ-əxʷ-0-̸ əm ʔə= tom tə= ƛas. break-ntr-3obj-pass obl= psn det= glass ‘Tom broke the glass.’ (lit. ‘The glass was broken by Tom.’)
2.2.2 Obliques Non-direct participants, i.e. those that are not indexed on the verb, are obliques. Obliques can be expressed by NPs preceded by the all-purpose oblique clitic ʔə= ‘Oblique (obl)’.12 Although the same preposition ʔə= is used, there are two kinds of obliques: core and noncore obliques. Core obliques include logical patients of “active-intransitives” (antipassives) (11), applicative constructions (derived ditransitives) (12), and lexically ditransitive verbs (like (13) ‘give’) and also agents in passive constructions (see 9 and 10). The patients of active-intransitives and ditransitives are referred to as “oblique objects” (Hukari 1979; Kroeber 1999: 42). All other obliques are noncore obliques.
Oblique NPs: core obliques (oblique objects) (11) 0i̸ q-ʔəm =tᶿəm ʔə= tə= qawθ. dig-a.intr =1sg.ind.sbj+fut obl= det= potato ‘I am going to dig some potatoes.’ (12) həy-ʔəm-0i̸ =tᶿəm ʔə= kʷ= kʼʷaxʷa. make-appl-ctr+2sg.obj =1sg.ind.sbj+fut obl= det= box ‘I will make a box for you.’ (13) x̣əna-0i̸ =tᶿəm ʔə= kʷ= ǰanxʷ. give-ctr+2sg.obj =1sg.ind.sbj+fut obl= det= fish ‘I will give you a fish.’ Noncore obliques express instrument (14), locative or directional (15), or temporal notions (16):13
12 It should be pointed out that the sole case marker, the oblique ʔə, is often omitted in natural discourse and even in slow speech for some speakers. This is not an alternation in the case of NPs since (i) it does not change the index of participants on the verb, and (ii) speakers are able to place the oblique marker back when prompted. 13 There are some temporal adverbs that appear without any prepositions, e.g., sǰasuɬ ‘yesterday’ in (15).
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Oblique NPs: noncore obliques (14) yaʔpʼ-əxʷ-0-̸ as tə= məmkʼayustən ʔə= tə= x̣aǰʼays. break-ntr-3obj-3erg det= window obl= det= rock ‘He broke the window with the stone.’ (15) hu-h-uɬ =č ʔə= kʷ= tiyskʷat sǰasuɬ. go-epen-pst =1sg.ind.sbj obl= det= place.name yesterday ‘I went to Powell River yesterday.’ ̸ kʼʷa =səm (16) qʷəl =0= təs ʔə= kʷ= čalas kʷətayitən. come =3ind.sbj =quot =fut reach obl= det= three afternoon ‘It will get here at three o’clock [today].’ The distinction between oblique objects and noncore obliques is not merely semantic. The difference is manifested in the morphosyntactic constructions when they are the target of relativization. The relative clause constructions in which the targets are obliques take the form of nominalized clauses in the sense that the subject is marked by possessive markers; those in which the target is a noncore oblique are preceded by a special nominalizer (ʔə)xʷ=, whereas those of oblique objects are not preceded by any nominalizer. Hence, relativization can be used as a morphosyntactic test to determine whether or not an oblique NP is an oblique object or a noncore oblique. Examples of the relativization of oblique objects are shown in (17) and (18), and those of noncore obliques in (19) and (20)14: Relativization of oblique objects (17) ʔəy-sxʷ-0-̸ mut =č [tə= pəču good-caus-3obj-very =1sg.ind.sbj det= basket [həy-ʔəm-0-̸ ʔu-s]rc]np . make-appl-ctr+1sg.obj-pst-3poss ‘I like the basket she made for me.’ (18) ʔəy-sxʷ-0-̸ mut =č [šə= [x̣əna-θ-ʔuw-ap]rc]np . good-caus-3obj-very =1sg.ind.sbj det= give-ctr+1sg.obj-pst-2pl.poss ‘I really like the one you (pl.) gave me.’ Relativization of noncore obliques (19) ʔəy-sxʷ-0-̸ mut-as [šə= ʔayaʔ [ʔəxʷ= θu-ʔu-s]rc]np . good-caus-3obj-very-3erg det=house nmlz=go-pst-3poss ‘He likes the house to which he went.’
14 This is a very simplified description of the relativization of oblique arguments in Sliammon. For details, see Watanabe (2003: 134–145). For expository purposes, the relative clauses and NPs are bracketed with the labels RC and NP, respectively.
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(20) təx̣ʷ-n[i]xʷ-0̸ =č [kʷə= [xʷ= niʔ-ig-it]rc]np . find.out-ntr[stv]-3obj=1sg.ind.sbj det= nmlz=be.there-pl-3pl.poss ‘I know where they are.’ Note that the presence or absence of the target noun of relativization does not affect the difference between these two kinds of relative clause constructions. In sum, all oblique NPs are grammatically optional in a clause, just like direct NPs, and are marked by the same preposition ʔə=; yet oblique objects and noncore obliques are treated differently in relativization. The difference between verbs that take oblique objects and those that do not must be part of the meaning of the verb forms. I presume that oblique objects are subcategorized arguments of the verbs and thus count towards their semantic valency. In contrast, it is difficult to say whether or not all noncore obliques are non-subcategorized arguments; they all show the same relative clause construction. For the purpose of the present study, I treat obliques that show the noncore oblique relativization as not subcategorized in the semantic valency of the verbs in question. Besides the all-purpose oblique marker ʔə=, there are some intransitive verbs that function like prepositions, as (21)–(23), where the verbs in question are in boldface.15 (Note that such verbs can also be used as the main predicate of a clause.) The NPs following these verbs are preceded by the oblique marker ʔə=. (21) nəš-əm =tᶿəm θu ʔ(ə)= tə= kʷəθays. swim-mdl =1sg.ind.sbj+fut go obl= det= island ‘I will swim to the island.’ (22) kʷum-s =čxʷ tuwa ʔə= tə= qʼʷit go-caus =2sg.ind.sbj come.from obl= det= beach ‘Bring it up from the beach!’ (23) məqʼ-it =kʼʷa =ga tə= tʼəl təs ʔə= kʷ= payʼaθut full-stv =quot =clt det= Basket.Ogress reach obl=det=next/again nanat s= qʷəlʼ-s tʼᶿiy-ʔəm kʷ= čəy-čuyʼ. evening nmlz= come-3poss search-a.intr det= pl-child ‘T’el (Basket Ogress) is full until the next night when she comes back and looks for kids.’
2.3 Transitivity and valency Before turning to analysis of valency in Sliammon, we need to clarify what is meant by “transitivity (intransitive/transitive)” and “valency” in this paper. 15 Kuipers (1967) refers to such verbs as “relator-verbs” in his description of a sister language, Squamish.
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Valency can be of two or three different types, depending on different theoretical viewpoints. For the purposes of the present paper, I presume that there are two valency types, “grammatical” and “semantic”. Grammatical valency refers to the number of participants that are overtly indexed on verbs. In the case of Sliammon, the grammatical valency of verbs, defined in this fashion, is either one or two. Although transitivity can be viewed as a gradable continuum (a predicate or a clause is higher or lower in transitivity), as argued by Hopper & Thompson (1980), I use the terms “intransitive” and “transitive” in terms of the grammatical valency of the verb in this paper: “intransitive” if it is one, and “transitive” if it is two. Since the maximum number of participants that can be indexed on the verb is two, “transitive” should be understood to refer to “monotransitive” only. Consequently, there are no “ditransitive” verbs in this sense. Semantic valency, on the other hand, refers to the number of participants that are subcategorized for verbs. For Sliammon, this includes oblique objects in addition to those that are expressed as subjects and objects indexed on the verb. The semantic valency for verbs in Sliammon can be one, two, or three; the terms “mono-/bi-/tri-valent” are used. By applying these notions of transitivity (grammatical valency) and (semantic) valency, we can classify Sliammon verbs into the following types: monovalent intransitive, bivalent intransitive, bivalent transitive, and trivalent transitive.
3 Valency markers Valency is indexed on verbs by various valency-marking suffixes or by combinations of such suffixes, or by the explicit lack of such suffixes. In this section, I will first discuss the “unsuffixed” forms, i.e. those lacking any overt valency markers (§ 3.1), then the intransitive markers (§ 3.2) and the transitive markers (§ 3.3) in turn. Applicative suffixes are discussed in § 3.4. Combinations of these suffixes are briefly discussed in § 5.2.
3.1 Unsuffixed (Bare root) “Unsuffixed” refers to verb forms that are not suffixed with any one of the valency markers. It is equivalent to “bare root”. Of the 800 verb roots identified thus far, about 260 roots are attested as free forms, i.e. they can appear without any morphological operations. Other roots are all bound forms. Unsuffixed verbs are of two types, depending on the role of their subject: agentive and non-agentive. The subject of the former type is the agent of the predication, and that of the latter type is the patient or the experiencer. The distribution is quite uneven; only about thirty unsuffixed forms are agentive, and the rest are non-agentive.
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The distinction between the two types is not only semantic but is reflected morphosyntactically; only the agentive type can be directly suffixed by the desiderative -am or followed by the imperative clitic =ga. The following examples show the unsuffixed forms in (24a) and (25a), and the desiderative forms in (24b) and (25b). The imperative construction is also provided in (24c): (24) a. ǰəƛʼ =čən =səm. run =1sg.ind.sbj =fut ‘I will run.’ ̸ tə= čuyʼ. b. ǰə-yƛʼ-am =016 rdpl-run-dsd =3ind.sbj det= child ‘The child wants to run.’ c. ǰəƛʼ =ga! run =imp ‘Run!’ (25) a. ʔuɬqʷu =tᶿəm kʷəyʼsəm. dig.clams =1sg.ind.sbj+fut tomorrow ‘I will dig clams tomorrow.’ b. ʔu-ʔuɬqʷu-ʔ-am =č. RDPL-dig.clams-epen-DSD =1sg.ind.sbj ‘I want to dig clams.’ Some examples of agentive unsuffixed verbs are listed in (26); they include verbs of “simple” concepts like ‘go’, ‘come’, and ‘run’, but there are also culturally important words like ʔilqʼay ‘barbecue deer’ and ʔuɬqʷu ‘dig clams’. (26) Agentive unsuffixed verbs:17 ʔilqʼay ‘barbecue deer’, kʷum ‘go [in the direction away from beach]’, ʔiɬtən ‘eat (have a meal); food’, kʼʷətʼ ‘go upstream’, ʔuɬqʷu ‘dig clams’, ɬukʼʷ ‘fly’, ʔuɬtxʷ ‘enter’, ƛʼəq ‘go outside’, ʔuwuɬ ‘embark’, niǰi ‘go thither’, han ‘cheer’, qʼatʼᶿ ‘gather’, hu / θu18 ‘go’, qʷay ‘talk’, huǰa ‘pack up [to go, leave]’, qʷəlʼ ‘come’, ǰəƛʼ ‘run’, qʷuʔ ‘get water’, kʷuɬma ‘borrow (sth.)’, tuyʔap ‘follow (sb., sth.)’
16 The desiderative forms are often, but not necessarily, attested with the stem-initial cv reduplication. The semantics of this reduplication is unclear. See Watanabe (2003: 476–479). The alternation between ǰ and y is regular: ǰ is realized as y before another consonant or word-finally. 17 In the appendix, agentive unsuffixed verbs are indicated with the symbol ‘A’ in the “Unsuff(ixed)” column. 18 The roots hu and θu appear to be basically interchangeable, with no discernible difference in the meaning.
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Although I only have a few relevant data, they suggest that these verbs are monovalent intransitives. For example, for the verb kʷuɬma ‘borrow’, the theme (‘thing borrowed’) can be expressed in an oblique NP as in (27a); however, (27b) shows that it is not treated as an oblique object but only as a noncore oblique. See also (28a) in which the oblique NP is a noncore oblique as evidenced by the construction in (28b): (27) a. kʷuɬma =štəm ʔə= šə= θ= siksik. borrow =1pl.ind.sbj+fut obl= det= 2sg.poss= wheelbarrow ‘We will borrow your wheelbarrow.’ b. hiɬ tiʔi kapu ʔə= xʷ= kʷuɬma-ʔu-s. it’s dem coat clf=nmlz= borrow-pst-3poss ‘This is the coat he borrowed.’ (28) a. ʔuwuɬ tə= saɬtxʷ ʔə= tə= tih ʔatnupil. embark det= woman obl= det= big car ‘The woman got on the big car.’ b. hiɬ tiʔi ʔatnupil ʔə= xʷ= ʔuwuɬ-ʔu-s. it’s dem car clf= nmlz= embark-pst-3poss ‘This is the car she got on.’ The majority of unsuffixed verbs (about 230) are non-agentive. (29) səpʼ =čan. club =1sg.ind.sbj ‘I got clubbed.’ (30) yəčʼ =0̸ tə= kʼʷawʔis. full =3ind.sbj det= bucket ‘The bucket is full.’ (31) čʼət =0̸ tə= tᶿ= ʔiyčsən. cut =3ind.sbj det= 1sg.poss= forehead ‘My forehead got cut.’
3.2 Intransitive markers There are two productive intransitive markers: the middle -Vm and the active-intransitive -ʔəm.
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3.2.1 Middle -Vm The middle suffix -Vm forms verbs that express events and states in which no energy or immediate effect is exerted on another entity: if there is an entity that is affected in some manner, that would be the subject itself (cf. Kemmer 1993, 1994). The middle verbs do not take oblique objects, and hence they are monovalent intransitives. (32) x̣ʷay-əm =tᶿəm. dive-mdl =1sg.ind.sbj+fut ‘I will dive.’ (33) kʼʷitʼᶿ-im =0̸ tə= mimawʼ. jump-mdl =3ind.sbj det= cat ‘The cat jumped.’ The middle suffix attaches to roots which refer to relative positions such as ‘outside’, ‘behind’, and ‘top’, and forms stems which refer to that location (or stems whose subject is at the location). Such stems can be referred to as “locational middles” (indicated in the appendix as ‘loc’ in the ‘Middle’ column).19
Tab. 3: Locational Middles. Locational Middle
related forms
niš-amʼ šat-əmʼ
niš šaʔt 20
‘be here, exist’ ‘high, up; sky’
θu ʔasƛʼq gəšt-ičin hiwt-aɬ
‘go’ ‘outside’ ‘be right behind’ (-ičən‘back’) ‘first child’ (-aɬ‘child’)
θah-əmʼ ʔasƛʼəq-əmʼ gəšt-əmʼ hiwt-əmʼ
‘(be on) this side’ ‘up above; the top shelf; the upper bed of a bunk bed’ ‘(be on) the other side’ ‘be outside’ ‘(be) far behind, (be) behind’ ‘before, (be) in front (?)’
With some non-agentive unsuffixed verbs, the middle suffix attains the meaning ‘susceptible to ..., V easily’ (indicated as ‘easily’ in the appendix):
19 Note that the final m of the middle suffix is always glottalized in locational middle stems. 20 The loss of ʔ in the related forms regularly occurs, but it needs further investigation as regards its precise conditions.
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Tab. 4 Middle stems with susceptible meanings. Middle qətxʷ-um x ̣ayʼp-əm21 čʼəpx ̣-əm kʷətxʷ-um ƛəpxʷ-um pʼəsxʷ-um təɬqʼʷ-um
Unsuffixed form ‘burn easily, easily catch fire’ ‘get scared easily’ ‘get dirty easily’ ‘catch fire easily’ ‘break [in two] easily; fragile’ ‘flatten, burst easily’ ‘bounce easily; bouncy’
qətxʷ x ̣əyp čʼəpx ̣ kʷətxʷ ƛəpxʷ pʼəsxʷ təɬqʼʷ
‘burn’ ‘get scared’ ‘be dirty’ ‘catch fire’ ‘break’ ‘burst’ ‘bounce’
There are a limited number of roots that take an intransitive suffix -Vš (which is different from the transitive -Vš; cf. § 3.3); the list in (34) is exhaustive. They are mostly, but not exclusively, verbs of motion. These verbs are apparently all monovalent intransitives, and hence for the purpose of the present study, they are treated together with the middle forms.22 (34) Verbs with the intransitive -Vš ʔaqʷ-iš ‘go downriver’, ʔiʔamʼ-aš ‘hunt’, ǰəq-iš ‘crawl’, kʼʷiʔ-iš ‘stand up’, ɬayiš ‘come ashore [also (car) to pull to a certain place, e.g., a store]’, ɬəq-iš ‘cross, go across’, pʼayačʼ‑iš ‘rush (to go, leave)’, pəy-iš ‘descend’, təx̣ʷ‑iš ‘stretch out legs’, θap-iš ‘bathe’, yič-iš ‘go into inlet, narrows’, ʔim-aš ‘walk’
3.2.2 Active-intransitive -ʔəm The active-intransitive suffix -ʔəm (-aʔam after clusters of two or more consonants) forms agentive intransitive verbs. The verbs formed with this suffix take oblique objects, and hence they are bivalent intransitives. Note that in (35), the direct NP can only be interpreted as coreferential with the subject of the predicate and not the object or as a patient:
21 I do not have an explanation for the glottalization on the root resonant and the change of the vowel from the unsuffixed form. 22 Some verbal roots always occur in reduplicated forms; for example, although it is evident that the root for the meaning ‘fear’ is saǰʼ-, the forms attested are səysayʼ ‘get scared’, saysayʼ ‘be scared’, and other forms derived from these reduplicated ones. Another such example from the Leipzig List is ‘FEEL COLD’: čʼaʔčʼəm ‘feel cold’ from the root čʼəmʼ-. Cf. čʼamʼat ‘to make it cold, to cool it’ with the control transitivizer -t. Still others are attested as unsuffixed, but their reduplicated forms correspond to the meanings given in the Leipzig List; for example, šəmʼšəm ‘BE DRY’, šəmʼ ‘get dry’. Since these reduplicated forms are monovalent intransitives, for the purpose of the present paper, I chose to write them in the column for the middle in the appendix.
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(35) θəxʷ-ʔəm =0̸ tə= tumiš. stab-a.intr =3ind.sbj det=man ‘The man stabbed (sth.).’ (*‘Sb. stabbed the man.’ / *‘The man got stabbed.’) The logical patient can be expressed by an oblique NP. (36) tʼᶿəx̣ʷ-ʔəm =čxʷ ʔə= tə= ǰanxʷ! wash-a.intr =2sg.ind.sbj obl= det= fish ‘Wash (Clean) the fish!’ (37) qʼətxʷ-aʔam =č ʔə= tə= pipa. burn-a.intr =1sg.ind.sbj obl= det= paper ‘I burn paper.’ These oblique NPs are oblique objects as evidenced by the lack of the nominalizer xʷ= in the relativized clauses: (38) tə= pən-ʔəm-s det= plant-a.intr =3poss ‘what he planted’ (Kroeber 1999: 316) (39) qʼətxʷ-sxʷ-0-̸ as [tə= [čʼəykʼ-aʔam-s]rc ǰanxʷ]. burn-caus-3obj-3erg det= fry-a.intr-3poss fish ‘He made/let the fish he fried burn.’
3.3 Transitive markers All transitives are morphologically marked by one of the four suffixes: -t “control transitive” (ctr), -ng “noncontrol transitive” (ntr), -stg “causative” (caus), and -Vš. (The last suffix, -Vš, attaches to a limited number of roots, mostly in complementary distribution with the ctr -t.) Here, I briefly describe the contrast between “control” and “noncontrol” transitives, and then the “causative”.23 These suffixes form verb stems that take an object suffix in addition to a subject marker. That is, they increase the semantic and grammatical valency by one.
23 All the transitivizers can be called “causativizers”; however, I will use the terms usually used in Salishan linguistics, reserving the term “causative” as the label for just one of the four suffixes.
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3.3.1 “Control” and “noncontrol” transitives The opposition between the “control transitive” -t and the “noncontrol transitive” -ng can be observed in the next pair of examples (40a, b); note that there are two possible readings of the noncontrol form, (40b): (40) a. tʼutʼᶿ-u-t-0-̸ as. shoot-lv-ctr-3obj-3erg ‘He shot at it.’ b. tʼutʼᶿ-əxʷ-0-̸ as. shoot-ntr-3obj-3erg ‘He accidentally shot it. / He finally managed to shoot it.’ The opposition between the two examples cannot be explained as a contrast between intentional and unintentional acts. In fact, the two possible readings of (40b) encompass the two opposite sides of “intentionality”: “accidentally ...” suggests that the act was carried out unintentionally, whereas “finally managed to ...” suggests that it was quite strongly intentional (see Thompson 1985). It is also important to note that (40b) implies that the end result was actualized; that is, whatever was shot at was actually shot, while there is no such implication in (40a) (which in fact may imply failed attempts). In Watanabe (2003: 204–213), I argued that the primary contrast between these two transitives is aspectual rather than the notion of “control”; the noncontrol transitive denotes the action was actualized and that (usually) there is a result of the action, whereas the control transitive depicts the attempt at the action without implying whether or not the action had a result. As regards the valency of the verb forms, the two suffixes in question have the same effect; moreover, the roots which can occur with either one of these two suffixes can, in most cases, also occur with the other (as shown in the appendix). Thus, the opposition between the two suffixes is not taken into account for the purpose of verb classification in the present study.24
3.3.2 Causative The causative -stg transitivizes the stem and adds a new agent argument. Causativized stems generally have the meaning ‘cause to act / cause to be’ or ‘let someone act / let someone (something) be’; that is, the function of the causative transitivizer covers both causation and permission. The causative suffix can be attached to both agentive unsuffixed intransitive (41a–c) and non-agentive stems (42a–g): 24 There are, however, a few roots that can occur only with one of the two transitive suffixes; e.g., x̣əɬ ‘(S) get angry’ is attested with the noncontrol transitive x̣əɬ-əxʷ ‘(A) got P angry’, but is rejected with the control transitive *x̣əɬ-t.
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Tab. 5: Causatives. Causative (41a) (41b) (41c) (42a) (42b) (42c) (42d) (42e) (42f) (42g)
ʔiɬtən-sxʷ ʔuɬtu-sxʷ ʔuwuɬ-sxʷ ƛʼaqt-sxʷ ƛʼəčʼt-sxʷ ƛʼəp-sxʷ pəɬt-sxʷ qəx ̣-sxʷ qʼətxʷ-sxʷ yəčʼ-sxʷ
Unsuffixed form ‘feed him (make him eat)’ ‘make him enter’ ‘make him embark, load it aboard’ ‘make it long(er)’ ‘put him to sleep’ ‘make it deep(er)’ ‘make it thick’ ‘make it lots, get lots of them’ ‘make/let it burn’ ‘make it full [of water]’
ʔiɬtən ʔuɬtxʷ ʔuwuɬ ƛʼaqt ƛʼəčʼt ƛʼəp pəɬt qəx ̣ qʼətxʷ yəčʼ
‘eat’ (Intr.) ‘enter’ ‘embark’ ‘long’ ‘fall asleep’ ‘deep’ ‘thick’ ‘many’ ‘burn’ (Intr.) ‘(be) full’
With some roots, mostly those with (trans-)locational meaning, the causative renders an associative sense, thus meaning, e.g.,‘take sth./sb.’ (lit. ‘make it go with’), ‘bring sth/sb’ (lit. ‘make it come with’), etc.: Tab. 6: Causative with associative meaning. Causative (43a) (43b) (43c) (43d) (43e) (43f) (43g)
hu-sxʷ ǰəƛʼ-sxʷ niš-sxʷ niʔ-sxʷ ƛʼəq-sxʷ qʷəl-sxʷ qaqs-imʼ-sxʷ
Unsuffixed form ‘take it’ ‘run away with him’ ‘have it (with)’ ‘have it (with)’ ‘take it outside’ ‘bring it’ ‘play with him’
hu ǰəƛʼ niš niʔ ƛʼəq qʷəlʼ qaqs-imʼ
‘go’ ‘run’ ‘be here’ ‘be there, exist’ ‘go outside’ ‘come’ ‘play’
Some causatives are built on middle stems: Tab. 7: Causatives built on middles. Causative (44a) (44b) (44c) (44d) (44e) (44f) (44g) (44h)
kʼʷitʼᶿ-im-sxʷ wuw-um-sxʷ tuqʼʷ-um-sxʷ čiɬ-im-sxʷ kʷət-am-sxʷ pəč-əm-sxʷ qəkʷ-əm-sxʷ tiwš-am-sxʷ
(44i)
x ̣ʷay-əm-sxʷ
Middle ‘make him jump’ ‘make him sing’ ‘make him cough’ ‘make him dance’ ‘pass it over (sth.)’ ‘wake him up’ ‘stop it’ ‘teach him, make him learn’ ‘make him dive’
kʼʷitʼᶿ-im wuw-um tuqʼʷ-um čiɬ-im kʷət-am pəč-əm qəkʷ-əm tiwš-am
‘jump’ ‘sing’ ‘cough’ ‘dance’ ‘go over (sth.)’ ‘wake up’ ‘stop’ (Intr.) ‘learn’ (Intr.)
x ̣ʷay-əm
‘dive’
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The causative suffix can be attached to other intransitive stems, for example, the active-intransitive, reflexive, and passive. These combinations are briefly described in § 5.2.
3.4 Applicatives There are two productive applicative suffixes in Sliammon: the indirective -ʔəm (-aʔam) 25 and the relational -mi.26 The indirective suffix -ʔəm followed immediately by the control or the noncontrol transitivizer creates transitive stems in which the object refers to a noncore participant in the corresponding form without the indirective suffix. The sequence of the applicative suffix and the transitivizer increases the semantic valency of the corresponding non-applicative base forms; more precisely, it creates bivalent transitives from monovalent intransitives, and trivalent transitives from bivalent transitives. The participant indexed as the object is often benefactive, but it can also be malefactive.27 Tab. 8: Indirective applicatives. Indirective applicative
Corresponding non-applicative
Bivalent transitive
Monovalent intransitive
ǰəƛʼ-ʔəm-t čiɬ-im-ʔəm-t čʼah-am-ʔəm-t
‘run for him’ ‘dance for him’ ‘pray for him’
Trivalent transitive θap‑ʔəm-t qʼətxʷ-aʔam-t yəčʼ-ʔəm-t θəy-ʔəm-t
ǰəƛʼ čiɬ-im čʼah-am
‘run’ ‘dance’ ‘pray’
Bivalent transitive ‘bathe (sb.) for him’ ‘burn (sth.) for him’ ‘fill (sth.) for him’ ‘sink (sth.) for him’
θap-a-t qʼətxʷ-a-t yaʔčʼ-aš θayʼ-aš
‘bathe him’ ‘burn it’ ‘fill it’ ‘sink it’
If the corresponding non-applicative form is a bivalent transitive, a noncore (peripheral) participant is marked by the object suffix in the indirective applicative 25 The indirective -ʔəm, together with its allomorph -aʔam, is in the same shape as the activeintransitive -ʔəm (§ 3.2.2). Whether or not to treat these two morphemes as the same or two distinct ones is not a simple question; I will treat them as two distinct morphemes in this paper. For more detail and a discussion, see Watanabe (2003: 253–256). 26 For an extensive study on applicatives in Salish, see Kiyosawa & Gerdts (2010). 27 For the sake of simplicity and space, I translate the indirective forms with benefactive meaning. See Watanabe (2003: 251–252) for examples and discussion of readings other than benefactive. See also Kiyosawa and Gerdts (2010: 131–173) for discussions on the range of meanings of the applied object in indirective (“redirective”) applicative constructions in Salish.
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stem. The participant that is marked by the object suffix in the non-applicative form has the status of oblique object and can be expressed by an oblique NP: (45) a. qʼətxʷ-əxʷ-0̸ =č šə= θ= pipa-h-uɬ. burn-ntr-3obj =1sg.ind.sbj det= 2sg.poss= paper-epen-pst ‘I burned your paper.’ b. qʼətxʷ-aʔam-θi =tᶿəm ʔə= tə= pəp-pipa. burn-appl-ctr+2sg.obj =1sg.ind.sbj+fut obl= det= pl-paper ‘I will burn the paper for you.’ The relational suffix (rel) -mi attaches to monovalent intransitive stems. Such intransitive stems include unsuffixed intransitives and the middle stems. The suffix is in turn followed by the control transitivizer. The transitive stems thus formed with this suffix express that the act denoted by the root is performed in some sort of relation to the participant indexed by the object suffix on the stem. With motion verbs, the object is the goal, and with psych verbs, the object is the entity towards which the act is performed or the emotion is felt:
Tab. 9: Relational applicatives. Relational applicatives
Intransitive
ǰəƛʼ-mi-t kʼʷitʼᶿ-im-(m)i-t kʷanač-əm-(m)i-t qas-mi-t saysayʼ-mi-t yəčʼ-mi-t
ǰəƛʼ kʼʷitʼᶿ-im kʷanač-əm qəs-əm saysayʼ yəčʼ
‘run towards him’ ‘jump for / towards it’ ‘sit on it’ ‘laugh at him’ ‘be scared of him’ ‘fill (sth.) which bears a relation to him’
‘run’ ‘jump’ ‘sit down’ ‘laugh’ ‘be scared’ ‘be full, be filled up’
3.5 Valency alternations Before turning to classifying verbs into valency classes in § 4, this section clarifies what is meant by “valency alternation” in Sliammon. First, transitivity (grammatical valency) is indexed with the subject marker and, for transitives, also with the object suffixes on the verb in Sliammon; there are no “uncoded alternations” (or “case alternations”) in which the same verb form can show different grammatical valency. Second, since NPs are grammatically optional elements in a clause, the presence or absence of NPs does not alter the valency of the verb. For example, the verb in (46a) and (46b) has the same valency even though there is an NP which is coreferential with the third person object suffix, in (46b):
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(46) a. məkʷ-t-0̸ =čan =səm. eat-ctr-3obj =1sg.ind.sbj =fut ‘I will eat it.’ b. məkʷ-t-0̸ =čan =səm tə= ǰanxʷ. eat-ctr-3obj =1sg.ind.sbj =fut det= fish ‘I will eat the fish.’ Similarly, for verb forms that can take an oblique object NP, it is not the presence or absence of the oblique NP which determines the semantic valency; thus, the predicates in (47a) and (47b) are both trivalent transitives: (47) a. tʼᶿəkʼʷ-ʔəm-θ =čxʷ! wipe-appl-ctr+1sg.obj =2sg.ind.sbj ‘You wipe (it) for me!’ b. tʼᶿəkʼʷ-ʔəm-θ =čxʷ ʔə= tə= θiwuθitən! wipe-appl-ctr+1sg.obj =2sg.ind.sbj obl= det= table ‘You wipe the table for me!’ Thus, the question we are dealing with in Sliammon (and with other similar headmarking languages) is which verb forms contain which valency-marking suffixes. This turns out to be basically equivalent to saying which root can or cannot occur with which suffix. As shown in (48b–h), for example, the root qʼətxʷ ‘burn’ can take various valency-marking suffixes (in boldface). Examples (48a, b) are monovalent intransitives with the subject being the patient. Example (48c) is bivalent intransitive with the subject being the agent. Examples (48d–f) are bivalent transitives, where the agent role fills the subject and the patient fills the object. Examples (48g, h) are trivalent transitives with the object suffix referring to the beneficiary.28 (48) a. Unsuffixed intransitive qʼətxʷ =sbj ‘sbj(=P) burns’ b. Middle qʼətxʷ-um =sbj ‘sbj(=P) easily burns’ c. Active-intransitive qʼətxʷ-aʔam =sbj ‘sbj(=A) burns (sth.)’
28 As can be seen in Table 1, the subject marker is not always a clitic, and hence the notation here is a simplification for expository purpose.
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d. Control transitive qʼətxʷ-a-t-obj =sbj ‘sbj(=A) burns obj(=P)’ e. Noncontrol transitive qʼətxʷ-əxʷ-obj =sbj ‘sbj(=A) has burnt obj(=P)’ f. Causative qʼətxʷ-sxʷ-obj =sbj ‘sbj(=A) made/let obj(=P) burn’ g. Indirective (-ctr) qʼətxʷ-aʔam-t-obj =sbj ‘sbj(=A) burns (it) for obj’ h. Indirective (-ntr) qʼətxʷ-aʔam-əxʷ-obj =sbj ‘sbj(=A) has burnt (it) for obj’ As can be expected, not all roots occur with all of the valency-marking suffixes described thus far; certain roots can occur with certain suffixes but not with others. I use such combinatory possibilities to classify verbs in the next section. However, not all of these suffixes are useful in this endeavor. Most of the roots that occur with the control or the noncontrol transitivizer can occur with the active-intransitive, and I chose to use the transitivizers and not the latter. Also, the reflexive, reciprocal, and passive suffixes all attach after one of the transitivizers; hence, though they are important valency-changing devices in Sliammon, they are not used in verb classification.
4 Valency classes Although there are gaps and deviations, different alternation possibilities yield four primary classes of verbs (labeled as Class I, II, III, and IV) and subclasses within them. For the purpose of a primary classification, it is convenient to lump together the unsuffixed and the middle as “monovalent intransitive”, and control and noncontrol transitive together as “transitive”. The four classes each have the following characteristics as shown in Table 10, where the check mark (✓) indicates that the forms are attested and the asterisk (∗) indicates that the forms are ungrammatical. In this section, I will discuss each of the four classes and subclasses within them in turn, with examples. The verbs from the list provided by the valency
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Tab. 10: The four primary valency classes.
Class I Class II Class III Class IV
Mono.intr.
Transitive
Causative
✓ ✓ ✓ ∗
∗ ✓ ✓ ✓
✓ ✓ ∗ ∗
project are listed as the “Leipzig List”. The classification is summarized in the appendix. Note that for the purposes of this paper, the verbs corresponding to different verb meanings on the Leipzig List are taken to represent different items, even if they involve the same verb root. For example, the root for ‘die/kill’ is the same, qəyʼ. I placed the forms that have the meaning ‘die’ under the label ‘DIE’ and those with the meaning ‘kill’ under ‘KILL’ (and indicated with an arrow (→) that they are related in the appendix). Another similar case is kʷanač ‘sit’ and kʷanač-əm ‘sit down’: the latter is the former verb with the middle suffix attached, but they are given under the labels ‘SIT’ and ‘SIT DOWN’ respectively.
4.1 Class I Alternation: Mono.intr.–causative Class I is characterized by the alternation between the mono.intr. and the causative forms but does not allow the transitive forms.
4.1.1 Subclass Ia Subclass Ia shows non-agentive unsuffixed forms and causative forms. (Leipzig List: DIE, FEEL PAIN) (49) a. ʔah =0̸ tə= tᶿ= čayiš. sore =3ind.sbj det= 1sg.poss= hand ‘My hand is sore/in pain.’ b. ʔah-sxʷ-0-̸ as tə= ǰišən-s. sore-caus-3obj-3erg det= foot-3poss ‘His foot is hurting.’ (lit. ‘He/It causes his foot to hurt/be sore.’) Some weather verbs belong to this class as well, e.g., čʼəɬ ‘rain’, ʔaxʷ ‘snow’ (Leipzig List: RAIN).29 They may appear to be semantically avalent in that they never 29 Weather verbs are, however, not homogeneous in their forms: some are formed with the middle, e.g., tʼix̣-im ‘sunshine’, x̣ʷatʼqʼʷ-um ‘thunder’, while some show regular alternation between the
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take an NP as their subject. However, they are treated in the same way morphologically as other intransitive verbs whose subject is a third person – for example, when they occur in nominalized clauses as complements to expressions of desire. Note that both ‘snow’ (50) and ‘eat (intr.)’ (51) in the complement clauses are marked with the third person possessive suffix: (50) ʔətᶿ= x̣aƛʼ kʷ= s= ʔaxʷ-s. 1sg.poss= want det= nmlz= snow-3poss ‘I’d like it to snow.’ (51) x̣aƛʼ =kʼʷa s= ʔiɬtən-s kʷ= ǰanxʷ. want =quot nmlz= eat-3poss det= fish ‘He wants to eat fish.’
4.1.2 Subclass Ib Subclass Ib shows agentive unsuffixed forms and causative forms. Finer classification may be possible in this subclass; for example, verbs depicting motion (‘go’, ‘run’) and location (‘exist’, ‘climb (up)’) render associative meaning with the causative. See (53a, b). (Leipzig List: SIT, SCREAM, EAT, GO, RUN, LIVE (‘exist’) CLIMB, LOAD, COUGH, BLINK, TALK) (52) a. ʔiɬtən =tᶿəm. eat =1sg.ind.sbj+fut ‘I will eat [lit. have a meal].’ b. ʔiɬtən-stu-mi =tᶿəm. eat-caus-2sg.obj =1sg.ind.sbj+fut ‘I will feed you.’ (lit. ‘I will make you eat.’) (53) a. hu =tᶿəm. go =1sg.ind.sbj+fut ‘I will go.’ b. hu-st-anapi =tᶿəm ʔə= kʷ= tiyskʷat. go-caus-2pl.obj =1sg.ind.sbj+fut obl= det= place.name ‘I will take you (pl.) to Powell River.’
unsuffixed and the middle forms, e.g., niʔayitən ‘cloudy’, niʔayitən-əm ‘it becomes cloudy’, hawp ‘a gust of wind blows’, hawp-im ‘a gust of wind is blowing/swirling around’.
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4.1.3 Subclass Ic Subclass Ic shows the middle and the causative built on the middle stems. (Leipzig List: JUMP, SING, LAUGH, PLAY, FEAR) (54) a. kʼʷitʼᶿ-im =0̸ tə= mimawʼ. jump-mdl =3ind.sbj det= cat ‘The cat jumped.’ b. kʼʷitʼᶿ-im-sxʷ-0-̸ as (tə= tutamʼiš). jump-mdl-caus-3obj-3erg (det= boy) ‘He made him jump. / He jumped with it.’ (‘He made the boy jump. / He jumped with the boy.’)
4.2 Class II Alternation: Mono.intr.–transitive–causative Class II is characterized by the alternation between mono.intr., transitive, and causative.
4.2.1 Subclass IIa This subclass shows non-agentive unsuffixed–transitive–causative alternations. (Leipzig List: BURN, FILL) (55) a. qʼətxʷ =0̸ =kʷa šə= ʔayaʔ. burn =3ind.sbj =clt det= house ‘The house burned down.’ b. qʼətxʷ-a-t-0̸ =tᶿəm tə= tᶿ= ɬəx̣gəmin. burn-lv-ctr-3obj =1sg.ind.sbj+fut det= 1sg.poss= scraps ‘I will burn my scraps.’ c. qʼətxʷ-sxʷ-0-̸ as [tə= čʼəykʼ-aʔam-s ǰanxʷ]. burn-caus-3obj-3erg det= fry-a.intr-3poss fish ‘He made/let the fish he fried burn.’
4.2.2 Subclass IIb This subclass shows middle–transitive–causative alternations. Note that the causative is formed based on the middle form. (Leipzig List: FEEL COLD, BE HUNGRY, SIT DOWN, WASH (‘bathe’))
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(56) a. θap-iš =0̸ tə= tan. bathe-intr =3ind.sbj det= mother ‘The mother bathed.’ b. θap-a-t-0-̸ as tə= čuyʼ. bathe-lv-ctr-3obj-3erg det= child ‘She bathed the baby.’ c. θap-iš-sxʷ-0-̸ as. bathe-intr-caus-3obj-3erg ‘She let him take a bath.’
4.2.3 Subclass IIc This subclass shows the agentive unsuffixed–transitive–causative alternation. In this subclass, the alternation between the unsuffixed form and the transitive form has the agent rather than the patient as its constant factor. The number of verbs that belong here is small; less than ten are attested – for example, ʔilqʼay ‘barbecue deer’, kʷuɬma ‘borrow’, qʷuʔ ‘get water/drink(?)’, han ‘cheer, praise, applaud’, čəwʼuɬ ‘steal’, tuyʔap ‘follow’, ʔinat ‘say what’. (Leipzig List: FOLLOW) (57) a. tuyʔap =ga follow =imp ‘Follow!’ b. tuyʔap-t-0-̸ as tə= saɬtxʷ follow-ctr-3obj-3erg det= woman ‘He followed the woman.’ c. tuyʔap-sxʷ-0-̸ as follow-caus-3obj-3erg ‘He made him follow.’
4.3 Class III Alternation: Mono.intr.–transitive Class III is characterized by the alternation between mono.intr. and transitive, but it does not allow causative.
4.3.1 Subclass IIIa The verbs in Subclass IIIa show the non-agentive unsuffixed–middle–transitive alternation. Note that this alternation shows that the non-agentive unsuffixed–tran-
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sitive alternation, which is equivalent to the so-called “inchoative-causative” alternation (cf. Haspelmath 1993), and the “middle” alternation are possible with the same verb in Sliammon.30 (Leipzig List: FRIGHTEN, BREAK, TEAR) (58) a. x̣əyp =č. startle =1sg.ind.sbj ‘I got startled.’ b. x̣ayʼp-əm =0̸ kitlin. startle-mdl =3ind.sbj per.name ‘Catherine gets scared easily.’ c. x̣əyp-a-θi =č. startle-lv-ctr+2sg.obj =1sg.ind.sbj ‘I scared you.’
4.3.2 Subclass IIIb The verbs in Subclass IIIb show the non-agentive unsuffixed–transitive alternation. Interestingly, verbs like ‘WASH’, ‘CUT’, and ‘HIT/BEAT’, which usually imply an external agent, belong here (e.g., sb. needs to do the ‘washing’). The fact that they cannot occur in the causative form, unlike those in Subclass IIa (e.g., ‘BURN’), may be revealing. An act like ‘washing’ still implies an external agent, so that the causative form ‘let it get washed (by itself)’ may be semantically odd (in contrast to ‘let it burn, let it get burned’; cf. 55c). (Leipzig List: WASH, BE DRY, ROLL, HIT/BEAT, CUT, POUR, NAME) (59) a. səpʼ =čan. club =1sg.ind.sbj ‘I got clubbed.’ b. səpʼ-t-0-̸ as tə= ʔuɬqay. club-ctr-3obj-3erg det= snake ‘He hit the snake.’
4.3.3 Subclass IIIc The verbs in Subclass IIIc show the middle–transitive alternation. (Leipzig List: SHAVE, SINK, COVER, SHOUT AT, TELL, THINK)
30 See Levin (1993: 26) for discussion on the middle alternation and the causative/ inchoative alternation.
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(60) a. θayʼ-əm =0̸ tə= nəxʷiɬ. sink-mdl =3ind.sbj det= canoe ‘The boat sank.’ b. θayʼ-aš-0̸ =tᶿəm tə= nəxʷiɬ. sink-tr-3obj =1sg.ind.sbj det= canoe ‘I will sink the boat.’
4.4 Class IV Alternation: Transitive Class IV is characterized by not allowing the mono.intr. forms but allowing the transitive; the verbs in this class do not have causative forms either. Characteristically, the meanings are those that imply an external agent, in contrast to verbs in Class III (at least those with non-agentive unsuffixed forms); that is, for verbs like ‘eat’, ‘carry’, or ‘help’, something cannot simply get ‘eaten’, ‘carried’, or ‘helped’ without an agent. It seems reasonable to consider this class as semantically transitive.31
4.4.1 Subclass IVa The verbs in this subclass show the transitive forms but not the unsuffixed or the middle forms. The following (a) examples in (61), (62), and (63) are the control transitive forms, and the (b) forms are the constructed examples of the corresponding causative, which were all rejected by the speakers. (Leipzig List: ASK FOR, SAY,
31 There is a controversy as to whether roots in Salish are all basically intransitive (cf. Davis 1997, 2000, Davis & Demirdache 2000) or whether there are intransitive and transitive ones (cf. Gerdts 2006, Gerdts & Hukari 2006, in prep.). Davis (1997, 2000) and Davis & Demirdache (2000) argue that all roots, including bound roots, in the sister Salishan language Lillooet (St’át’imcets) are intransitive. (They take it even further and argue that all roots are unaccusatives.) As evidence they show that bound roots in Lillooet can occur with just one lexical suffix or the intransitive suffix -ləx/-ílx ‘autonomous’; these suffixes do not alter valency, and hence are valency neutral. The resultant forms are intransitive verbs, which suggests that these bound roots are intransitive. The same scenario seems to apply to at least some bound roots in Sliammon that are in Class IV, with lexical suffixes and the Sliammon cognate suffix -iyiš ‘autonomous’ yielding intransitives. However, not all bound roots are compatible with lexical suffixes or –iyiš; for example, x̣ənat- ‘give’, ɬag- ‘leave’, and ƛəkʷ- ‘catch’ have not been recorded with a lexical suffix alone and are rejected with the autonomous -iyiš. Regrettably, my data are not sufficient to pursue this matter further. However, this does not affect the classification of verbs explored in the present paper; the fact still remains true that the bound roots in Class IV do not have the unsuffixed or the middle or the causative forms but do have the transitive forms.
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PEEL, SEARCH FOR, HIDE, TOUCH, TAKE, KILL, BUILD, SMELL, DRESS, EAT, LOOK AT, HUG, CARRY, THROW, TIE, PUT, LEAVE, HELP, COVER, SEE, KNOW) (61) a. qəp-t-0-̸ uɬ =čən tə= ǰanxʷ sǰasuɬ touch-ctr-3obj-pst =1sg.ind.sbj det= fish yesterday ‘I touched the fish yesterday.’ b. *qəp-sxʷ-0-̸ as. touch-caus-3obj-3erg (62) a. həy-t-0-̸ as-uɬ tə= ʔayaʔ make-ctr-3obj-3erg-pst det= house ‘He built the house.’ b. *həy-sxʷ-0-̸ as. make-caus-3obj-3erg (63) a. səytʼ-a-t-0̸ =tᶿəm tə= ləstəpuwl throw-lv-ctr-3obj =1sg.ind.sbj+fut det= ball ‘I will throw the ball.’ b. *səytʼ-sxʷ-0-̸ as. throw-caus-3obj-3erg
4.4.2 Subclass IVb The verbs in this subclass take the oblique object; that is, they are trivalent transitive verbs. Only x̣ənat- ‘give’ and tag- ‘tell’ clearly belong to this subclass; however, this is likely due to the lack of sufficient data on relativization. (Recall that it is only in relativization that the two kinds of oblique arguments are distinguished. Cf. § 2.2.2) I suspect that some verbs in Subclass IVa will turn out to belong to this subclass. (Leipzig List: GIVE, TELL) The root tag- ‘tell’ actually has the middle form tagʼ-am ‘S tells’; hence, it could be classified with Subclass IIIc (where the alternations middle and transitive but not causative were found). I have tentatively classified this verb here in Subclass IVb, taking into account that it takes the oblique object: (64) taw-t-0-̸ as tə= saɬtxʷ ʔə= kʷ= qʼʷaqʼʷθəmʼ. tell-ctr-3obj-3erg det= woman obl= det= story ‘He told the woman a story.’
Valency classes in Sliammon Salish
1341
The following example shows a cleft construction with the same verb; the third participant, ‘what was told’, is the fronted constituent (kʷanʼ demonstrative). Note that the construction following the cleft marker is not preceded by the nominalizer xʷ=, which indicates that the target of the relativization is an oblique object: (65) hi kʷanʼ ʔə= taw-θ-ʔu-s. it’s dem clf= tell-ctr+1sg.obj-pst-3poss ‘That is what he told me.’ See also (13) and (18) for examples involving x̣ənat- ‘give’.
5 Other alternations Other alternations that are not discussed in the present paper include “detransitivizing” alternations: reflexive, reciprocal, and passive. Also not discussed are different combinations of valency-alternating suffixes. These alternation possibilities may reveal further subdivisions among the verb classes proposed in the last section.
5.1 Detransitivization Transitive stems can be detransitivized by the reflexive suffix, the reciprocal suffix, or the passive suffix. None of these suffixes attaches directly to roots but follows one of the transitive suffixes (i.e. those described in § 3.3). There are distinct suffixes for marking the reflexive and the reciprocal for the control, noncontrol, and causative stems (for which see Table 2). The reflexive and reciprocal suffixes are in bold face in the following examples: Reflexive: (66) pəqʷs-a-θut. fall.into.water-lv-ctr+refl ‘He throws himself into the water.’ (67) qə-qkʼʷ-a-θut =č ʔə= tə= tʼayš. ipfv-cover-lv-ctr+refl =1sg.ind.sbj obl= det= blanket ‘I am covering myself with a blanket.’
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Honoré Watanabe
Reciprocal: (68) čʼag-a-t-awɬ. help-lv-ctr-recp ‘They help each other.’ (69) x̣əyp-ə-nxʷ-igas =št. startle-ev-ntr-recp =1pl.ind.sbj ‘We scared each other.’ (70) ʔiɬtən-st-awɬ =štəm. eat-caus-recp =1pl.ind.sbj+fut ‘We will feed each other.’ The passive patient is marked by the object suffixes.32 The logical agent is demoted and expressed, if at all, by an oblique NP. Passive: (71) čʼag-a-θiy-əm =kʼʷa =səm ʔə= tom. help-lv-ctr+1sg.obj-pass =quot =fut obl= psn ‘Tom will help me.’ (lit. ‘I will be helped by Tom.’) (72) ʔuwuɬ-stu-0-̸ m tə= nəxʷiɬ.33 embark-caus-3obj-pass det= canoe ‘They put him on the boat.’ (lit. ‘He was loaded onto the boat.’) (73) kʼʷən-stu-mi-m niʔ-i-t-0-̸ as-uɬ. see-caus-2sg.obj-pass say-lv-ctr-3obj-3erg-pst ‘“They come to show you,” he said.’
5.2 Combinations of valency suffixes Most of the valency-marking suffixes discussed in this paper can be followed by further valency-marking suffixes. The forms in which the active-intransitive -ʔəm is followed by the causative -stg demonstrates the characteristics of Sliammon well. Recall that only two arguments can be indexed on the verb. Hence, “X causes Y to Vi”, where Vi stands for 32 There are, however, some deviations in terms of the shapes of the suffixes. For details, see Watanabe (2003: 280–283). 33 I suspect that the oblique marker was omitted before ‘the boat/canoe’; it cannot be the passive patient, since the direct object of the corresponding active form is the entity ‘loaded’. For example ʔuwuɬ-sxw-0-̸ as tə= ʔasxw ‘he loaded the seal (tə= ʔasxw)’.
Valency classes in Sliammon Salish
1343
an intransitive verb, can be expressed in a verb straightforwardly; the causative suffix is attached to a monovalent verb stem (e.g., 54b, 55c, 56c, 57c). On the other hand, the three participants in “X causes Y to Vt P”, where Vt stands for a transitive verb, cannot all be indexed on a verb in Sliammon. In order to express this sort of causative construction, the verb must first be intransitive; the device for detransitivization in this case is the active-intransitive -ʔəm, as in (74a). The participants indexed are the causer and the causee; note that the direct NP in (74b) is coreferential with the third person object (-0̸) coded on the verb. The third participant, i.e. the logical patient, can only be expressed in an oblique NP, as in (74c). (74) a. qəp-ʔəm-sxʷ-0-̸ as. touch-a.intr-caus-3obj-3erg ‘He made/let him touch (it).’ Cf. (61a) b. həy-ʔəm-sxʷ-0-̸ an tə= tumiš. make-a.intr-caus-3obj-1sg.erg det= man ‘I made the man make (it).’ Cf. (62a) c. səytʼ-aʔam-stu-mš-as ʔə= tə= qʼʷayʼx̣. throw-a.intr-caus-1sg.obj-3erg obl= det= wood ‘He made me throw the wood [into fire].’ Cf. (63a) The reverse order of these suffixes is also possible, i.e. the causative suffix followed by the active-intransitive, in which case, the causativized stem is detransitivized by the latter. For example: (75) hu-st-aʔam =čxʷ ʔə= kʷə= θ= nəgin. go-caus-a.intr =2sg.ind.sbj obl= det= 2sg.poss= packed.lunch ‘Take some for your lunch.’ (Cf. Ex. 43a) (76) ƛʼəq-st-aʔam =ga ʔə= kʷ= tala. go.outside-caus-a.intr =imp obl= det= money ‘Take out money [from the bank]!’ (Cf. Ex. 43e) Some other possibilities include: the reflexive and the reciprocal followed by the causative (77, 78), the reflexive followed by the causative which in turn is followed by the passive (79), and the passive followed by the causative (80): (77) qʼatʼᶿ-a-θut-st-umuɬ-as. gather-lv-ctr+refl-caus-1pl.obj-3erg ‘He made us gather.’ (78) tʼanʼ-ə-nxʷ-igas-(s)tu-0-̸ m. line.up-ev-ntr-recp-caus-3obj-pass ‘They were lined up [side by side].’
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(79) ɬag-a-θut-st-uw-əm. leave-lv-ctr+refl-caus-1pl.obj-pass ‘They made us run away.’ (lit. ‘We were made to run away.’) (80) gəqʼ-t-0-̸ əm-sxʷ =ga. tə= ʔimin! open-ctr-3obj-pass-caus =imp det= door ‘Let the door be opened!’
6 Final remarks In this paper, I have given a description of how valency is manifested and altered in Sliammon. Then, I have shown how different alternation possibilities lead to classifications of verbs. First, valency is indicated on the verb in Sliammon by means of valency-marking suffixes, or by the lack of such suffixes in the case of free-standing bare roots. NPs can explicitly express third person participants; however, they are grammatically optional constituents in a clause and their occurrence does not affect the valency of the verb. In order to better account for oblique objects, which are not indexed on the verbs but are nonetheless treated differently from noncore obliques, grammatical and semantic valency are distinguished. Grammatical valency is the number of participants explicitly indexed on the verb by pronominal markers. For verbs that can take an oblique object NP, the NP is counted towards the number of arguments in semantic valency. Second, by investigating possible combinations of roots and valency-marking suffixes, verbs in Sliammon can be roughly classified into four primary classes, with finer subclasses within them. The resultant four classes show an increase in transitivity (in the gradable sense) from Class I to IV. Class I characteristically does not allow the transitive forms but does allow the causatives. In contrast, Class IV allows the transitive forms but not the unsuffixed or the middle forms and also not the causative. Although the manifestation and alternation of valency in Sliammon are radically different from languages that code valency by case markers on NPs, the semantics of verbs distributed across the four classes are quite compatible with claims made by previous studies, such as Tsunoda (1981, 1985) and Malchukov (2005).
Appendix: Valency alternations in Sliammon Salish Abbreviations and symbols used in the table − + indicates that the form (the Unsuffixed root form or in other columns, the form with the root and the suffix) is attested. (in the database as “occurs regularly”)
Valency classes in Sliammon Salish
− − − − − −
−
1345
(→) indicates that the form in question is under another “meaning label”; e.g., the form qəy-t (die-ctr) is found under the label ‘KILL’. (_) indicates that the (unsuffixed) form is a noun. (w/mdl) and (w/stv) indicate that the forms are built on the Middle form and the Stative form, respectively. indicates that the form was rejected by the language consultants (in the databas as “occurs never”) _ indicates that the form has not been attested (in the database as “no data”) The forms in the “Verb form” column correspond to the shaded boxes on the same row (e.g., (1) čʼəɬ ‘rain’ is an Unsuffixed form, while (11) ʔuwuɬ-sxʷ ‘load’ is a Causative form). (RDPL) indicates that the form is without the suffix of that column but a reduplicated form of the root fits in that column; (w/RDPL) indicates that the suffix in question attaches to the reduplicated form.
DIE
FEEL PAIN
BE SAD
SIT
SCREAM
EAT
GO
61
59
63
50
58
1
54
V.sbj[1] 1 V.sbj[1] 1 obl-2 V.sbj[1] 1
ʔiɬtən42
hu43
V.sbj[1] 1 obl-2
tʼᶿikʼt
kʷanač
V.sbj[1] 1
V.sbj[1] 1
ʔah38
ʔah qʷayigən-s
V.sbj[1] 1
V
Coding frame schema34
qəyʼ
čʼəɬ
Verb form
– (A)
– (A)
– (A)
– (A)
–
– (E)
– (P)
–
Unsuffixed
–
–
–
(→40)
+
Middle
–
–
(→41)
–
–
+
+
(w/mdl)
(→37)
(→36) –
–
+(assoc)
+
–
+
m39
+
m35
Noncontrol Causative transitive
–
Control transitive
_
–
(→)
–
Indirective applicative
+
–
+
+
–
Relational applicative
Note that arguments expressed by NPs are not obligatory constituents in Sliammon. Special context is necessary; it is believed among the Sliammon people that certain birds can call for rain, i.e. ‘(birds) cause it to rain’. The Control transitive form qəy-t means ‘(A) to kill P’. The Noncontrol transitive form qayʼ-əxʷ means ‘(A) to have killed P’. ‘sore, hurt’ For example, ʔah-sxʷ-0-̸ as tə=ǰišin-s ‘his feet are hurting’ (sore-cau-3obj-3erg det=foot-3poss), lit. ‘he causes his foot to hurt’. The Middle form kʷanač-əm means ‘(S) to sit down’. See ‘SIT DOWN’. The Control transitive form kʷanač-t means ‘(A) to sit P down, to make P sit down’. See ‘SIT DOWN’. ‘eat, dine, have meal; food (n.)’ hu and θu are used interchangeably
RAIN
69
34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43
Meaning label
#
Ib
Ia
1346 Honoré Watanabe
CLIMB
DIG
COUGH
BLINK
LIKE
TALK
48
73
47
46
8
18
V.sbj[1] 1 V.sbj[1] 1 V.sbj[1] 1
ʔuɬqʷu48
tuqʼʷt 49
tʼᶿipʼnəxʷ51
qʷi-qʷaysxʷ
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1 niniǰi+3
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
V.sbj[1] 1 obl-2
šaʔ46
ʔəy-sxʷ
V.sbj[1] 1
ǰəƛʼ
+ (A)
+52
– (A?)
+ (A?)
–
– (A)
– (A)
–
+
–
m
(loc)47
–
–
–
–
–
(w/mdl)
+44
m53
–
+
+50
+
+
+(assoc)45
+
+
–
+
m
+
+
+
Ib
44 The Noncontrol transitive form ǰəƛʼ-nxʷ means ‘(A) to make P run’. The Noncontrol Reflexive form ǰəƛʼ-nu-mut is attested with the meaning ‘(S) managed to run’. 45 The Causative from ǰəƛʼ-sxʷ means ‘(A) to run (away) with P’. 46 √šəʔ ‘up, climb’ 47 The form of the root is √šəʔ; however, t attaches in some forms derived from this root. For example, šaʔt ‘high’. The Locational Middle form is šat-əmʼ. 48 ‘dig clams’ 49 √tuqʼʷ- ; the t of tuqʼʷt is unexplained extension. The Middle form tuqʼʷ-um means ‘to have a cold (with coughs)’. 50 The Causative forms tuqʼʷt-sxʷ and tuqʼʷ-um-sxʷ have both been attested with the meaning ‘(A) make P cough’; the latter is formed on the Middle form tuqʼʷ-um. 51 √tʼᶿipʼnxʷ ‘close eyes, blink’ 52 ‘be good’ 53 The (simple) Causative form qʷay-sxʷ means ‘(A) to make P talk’. The meaning ‘A to talk to P’ is expressed by the Causative form but with an idiosyncratic CV- reduplication, qʷi-qʷay-sxʷ (also recorded as qʷiqʷ-qʷay-sxʷ).
RUN
49
Valency classes in Sliammon Salish
1347
JUMP
SING
SING
LAUGH
PLAY
BE ILL
TEACH
FEAR
52
53
53
57
62
82
77
6
Coding frame schema
V.sbj[1] 1
V.sbj[1] 1
saysaǰʼmi-t58
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
tiwš-am-sxʷ V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1 (obl-3)
kʷə-kʷt-əm
qaqs-imʼ
V.sbj[1] 1
V.sbj[1] 1
wuw-um56
qəs-əm
V.sbj[1] 1
V.sbj[1] 1
qaqsamʼuθinʼəm55
kʼʷitʼᶿ-im
ʔuwuɬ-sxʷ54 V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
Verb form
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+ (A)
Unsuffixed
(w/stv)
(w/mdl) (assoc)57
(w/mdl& RDPL)
(w/mdl)
(w/mdl)
(w/mdl)
–
(RDPL59)
(w/RDPL)
(w/mdl)
(w/mdl)
–
Noncontrol Causative transitive
(w/mdl)
–
–
–
–
–
Control transitive
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Middle
√ʔuwuɬ ‘embark’ prob. √qaqs- ‘play’, -Vm mdl, -uθin ‘mouth’ ‘sing, hum’ The Causative form means ‘to play with O’ (O = person, in all attested examples.) √saǰʼTwo different types of reduplication apply to this root: səy-sayʼ ‘get scared’ and say-sayʼ ‘be scared’.
LOAD
45
54 55 56 57 58 59
Meaning label
#
+
+
Indirective applicative
–
+
Relational applicative
Ic
1348 Honoré Watanabe
BURN
FEEL COLD
BE HUNGRY
SIT DOWN
APPEAR
COOK
WASH
FOLLOW
FRIGHTEN
BREAK
67
60
64
51
81
79
12
16
7
25
V.sbj[1] 1
qʼa-qʼa62
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1 V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
x ̣əyp-a-t 67
yəpʼ-t 69
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
θap-a-t 65 V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
čʼəx ̣-a-t
tuyʔap-t
V.sbj[1] 1
ših-imut
V.sbj[1] 1
V.sbj[1] 1
čʼaʔ-čʼəm61
kʷanač-əm
V.sbj[1] 1
V.sbj[1] 1
ƛʼux ̣ʷt
qʼətxʷ
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
yaʔčʼ-aš60
+ (P)
+(P)
+(A)
–
+
(P; easily)70
+ (P; easily)
_
+66
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
-64
–
+
–
(→)63
+
+
+
–
– (RDPL)
+(RDPL)
+ (P; easily)
_
–
–
– (P)
– (P)
+ (P)
√yəčʼ ‘full’; takes -Vš Trans. √čʼəmʼ√q’aʔThe Unsuffixed form kʷanač means ‘(S) to sit, be sitting’. See ‘SIT’. -imut is an irregular form ‘bathe’ Takes the Intransitive suffix -Vš, rather than the Middle -Vm: θap-iš ‘(S) to bathe, take a bath’. ‘startle’ The Relational Applicative form x̣əyp-mi-t means ‘sbj (P) got startled/frightened at OBJ (T)’. ‘(glass) break, shatter’ Does not take the -Vm Middle suffix, but -gəm ‘Susceptible’: yəpʼ-gəm ‘it breaks easily, fragile’
CRY
83
60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70
FILL
44
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
–
+
(w/mdl)
+
(w/mdl)
+
(w/RDPL)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+68
_
+
+
+
IIIa
IIc
IIb
IIa
Valency classes in Sliammon Salish
1349
BE DRY
ROLL
FALL
HIT
CUT
POUR
BEAT
WIPE
STEAL
NAME
68
65
84
28
30
42
27
72
76
23
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
sapʼ-a-t 75
nan-a-t
čəwʼu-ni-t
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1 (obl-3)
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
kʼʷəɬ-aš74
tʼᶿəkʷ-t
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
səpʼ-t 73
čʼət-t
V.sbj[1] 1
V.sbj[1] 1
ǰaqʼ
V.sbj[1] 1
pəlʼkʷ72
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
pəx ̣-t
šəmʼ
Coding frame schema
Verb form
(_)
+
+
–
+ (P)
+ (P)
+ (P)
– (P)
– (P)
– (P)
+ (P)
Unsuffixed
–
–
(RDPL)
– (P; easily)71
Middle
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
+
–
Control transitive
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Noncontrol Causative transitive
Does not take the -Vm Middle suffix, but -ǰim ‘Susceptible’: pʼəx̣-ǰim ‘it is easy to tear, it rips easily’ ‘S(Ag) rolls’ is expressed with the ctr+rfl ‘club, hit’ √kʼʷəɬ ‘spill’, takes -Vš Trans. Plural ablaut form of √səpʼ ‘hit’
TEAR
32
71 72 73 74 75
Meaning label
#
+
–
+
+
+
+
+
Indirective applicative
Relational applicative
IIIb
IIIa
1350 Honoré Watanabe
SINK
BOIL
COVER
SHOUT AT
TELL
THINK
66
80
43
20
21
10
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1 V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
tʼayš-a-t 79
qʼiya-t 80
(_)
–
–
–
nu-npV.obj[1].sbj[2] 1 igan-mi-t 84
–
qʼʷaqʼʷθus- V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1 (obl- – t81 3)
V.sbj[1] 1
V.sbj[1] 1
θayʼ-əm77
paɬuqʼʷ-um
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
sax ̣ʷ-a-t 76
(w/ RDPL)
-83
+82
+(w/LS)
–
–
+
+78
–
+
+
– (easily)
–
+ (w/LS)
+
(w/mdl)
–
–
+
+
+
+
–
IIIc
76 ‘scrape, shave’ 77 √θəyʼ78 Both -t and -Vš transitivizers have been attested; differences, if any, between the two are unclear. 79 tʼayš ‘blanket’ (n.) 80 √qʼaya ‘holler, yell, shout’ 81 √qʼʷaqʼʷθ- ‘tell stories’ 82 The Y can be overtly expressed in an Oblique NP. However, evidence is lacking whether or not this Oblique NP is treated as Oblique Object in relativization. 83 The root qʼʷəqʼʷs- is expanded by -us before taking the Control transitivizer -t. Cf. qʼʷəqʼʷs-əm’ ‘(S) tell stories’, with the -Vm Middle. The element -us functions as an applicative suffix with a few roots. See Gerdts and Hinkson (2004) for discussions on the lexical suffix -as ‘face’ that grammaticalized into a dative applicative suffix in a sister language Halkomelem. The Sliammon lexical suffix for ‘face’ is apparently a cognate form, -us, and the situation seems to be comparable. 84 √nup-
SHAVE
14
Valency classes in Sliammon Salish
1351
SEE
LOOK AT
SHOW
ASK FOR
SAY
PEEL
SEARCH FOR
HIDE
4
3
35
19
22
33
11
34
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1 V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
tʼᶿiy-i-t
kʷay-iš95
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
na-t 93
ɬupʼ-u-t
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
gay-a-t
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1 (obl-3)
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
kʼʷən-t 88
kʼʷən-sxʷ
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
təx ̣ʷ-nixʷ85
kʼʷən-t
Coding frame schema
Verb form
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Unsuffixed
–
–
–
–
94
–
–
+
_
+
(→91)
(→90)
–
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
m92
–
(→89)
(→87)
(w/stv)
Noncontrol Causative transitive
–
–
+86
Control transitive
–
_
–
–
–
–
–
Middle
√təx̣ʷ- ‘find out’ ‘to find out about it’; however, this form is not well attested. The Causative form kʼʷən-sxʷ means ‘(A) to show P / to cause P to see’. See ‘SHOW’. ‘look, see, stare, sense(?)’ The Causative form kʼʷən-sxʷ means ‘(A) to show P / to cause P to see’. See ‘SHOW’. See ‘LOOK AT’ See ‘LOOK AT’ The Causative form gay-sxʷ has the lexicalized meaning ‘to get jealous of s.o.’ √nəʔThe Middle form tʼᶿiy-əm is recorded, but it could be a fast speech variant of the Active-intransitive tʼᶿiy-ʔəm. takes -Vš Trans.; stv ‘X is hiding, X hides’
KNOW
9
85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95
Meaning label
#
+
+
–
Indirective applicative
–
Relational applicative IVa
1352 Honoré Watanabe
TAKE
KILL
BUILD
SMELL
DRESS
EAT
HUG
THROW
CARRY
TIE
31
26
24
5
13
1
2
39
38
40
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1 (obl-3)
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
qʼis-i-t
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
kʷinat-t 103
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
x ̣ʷuǰ-u-t 102
səytʼ-a-t
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
məkʷ-t
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
həy-t 100
niʔ-i-t 101
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
qəyʼ-t 97
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
ma(ʔ)-t 96
həqʷ-t
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
qəp-t
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
(→98)
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
96 √maʔ- ‘obtain, take, get’ 97 √qəyʼ ‘die’ 98 The unsuffixed form qəyʼ means ‘(S) die’. See ‘DIE’. 99 The Causative form qəyʼ-sxʷ means ‘(A) to let P die’. See ‘DIE’. 100 √həǰ- ‘make, build’ 101 ‘dress, put clothes on’; ctr ‘put clothes on one’s self’, appl ‘A dresses P’ 102 ‘put arms around’ 103 √kʷinat- ‘carry, pack (on back)’ 104 The Indirective Applicative form is possible only with the Stative -i-: kʷinat-ʔəm-i-t ‘A carry for P’.
TOUCH
29
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
(→99)
–
–
+
-104
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
IVa
Valency classes in Sliammon Salish
1353
PUT
LEAVE
DIG
PUSH
BRING
HEAR
MAKE
GET
WANT
HELP
41
55
73
74
75
78
85
86
87
15
105 √kʷaʔ- ‘put down’ 106 takes -Vš Trans. 107 takes -Vš Trans.
Meaning label
#
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
ɬaw-š106
čʼag-a-t
x ̣aƛʼ
ma(ʔ)-t
həy-t
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
–
–
–
–
–
–
tʼaʔqʼ-aš107 V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
čʼiy-i-t
–
–
–
–
Unsuffixed
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
ǰuθ-u-t
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1 (obl-3)
kʷa(ʔ)-t 105
θiq-i-t
Coding frame schema
Verb form
–
–
–
Middle
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Control transitive
+
m
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
Noncontrol Causative transitive
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
Indirective applicative
–
Relational applicative IVa
1354 Honoré Watanabe
GIVE
TELL
MEET
SEND
LIVE
BE A HUNTER
GRIND
36
21
17
37
56
70
71
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1 (obl-3)
V.obj[1].sbj[2] 1 (obl-3)
no verbal N/A counterpart
no verbal N/A counterpart
no verbal N/A counterpart
no verbal N/A counterpart
no verbal N/A counterpart
taw-t
x ̣ənat-t
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+(A)
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
IVb
Valency classes in Sliammon Salish
1355
1356
Honoré Watanabe
Abbreviations In the English translations of Sliammon examples, arguments that are not morphologically indexed on the predicate but without which the translation would be awkward in English are placed within parentheses (...); explanatory words and remarks are bracketed [...]. APPL A.INTR CLF CLT CTR DSD EPEN EV IND LS LV MDL NTR PSN RC RDPL STV
Indirective (applicative) Active-intranstive Cleft Clitic Control transitive Desiderative Epenthetic h and G Epenthetic vowel Indicative Lexical suffix Link vowel Middle Noncontrol transitive Personal name Relative clause Reduplication Stative
References Beck, David. 2009. A taxonomy and typology of Lushootseed valency-increasing suffixes. International Journal of American Linguistics 75 (4). 533–569. Blake, Susan J. 2000. On the distribution and representation of Schwa in Sliammon (Salish): Descriptive and theoretical perspectives. Ph.D. dissertation. The University of British Columbia. Davis, Henry. 1997. Deep unaccusativity and zero syntax in St’át’imcets. In Amaya Mendikoetxea & Myriam Uribe-Etxebarria (eds.), Theoretical Issues at the Morphology-Syntax Interface, 55–96. Supplements of the International Journal of Basque Linguistics and Philology. Davis, Henry. 2000. Salish evidence on the causative-inchoative alternation. In Wolfgang U. Dressler, Oskar E. Pfeiffer, Markus Pöchtrager & John R. Rennison, (eds.), Morphological Analysis in Comparison (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 201), 25–60. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Davis, Henry & Hamida Demirdache. 2000. On lexical verb meanings: Evidence from Salish. In Carol Tenny & James Pustejovski (eds.), Events as Grammatical Objects: The Converging Perspectives of Lexical Semantics and Syntax, 97–142. CSLI: Stanford University Press. Davis, John. 1978. Pronominal paradigms in Sliammon. Handout at the 13 th International Conference on Salish Languages. Gerdts, Donna B. 1988. Object and Absolutive in Halkomelem Salish. New York/London: Garland Publishing. Gerdts, Donna B. 2006. Argument realization in Halkomelem: A study in verb classification. In Atsushi Fujimori & Maria Silva (eds.), Proceedings of The Workshop on Structure and
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Constituency in the Languages of the Americas XI (Working Papers in Linguistics 19), 61–81. University of British Columbia. Gerdts, Donna B. & Mercedes Q. Hinkson. 2004. The grammaticalization of Halkomelem ‘FACE’ into a dative applicative suffix. International Journal of American Linguistics 70(3). 227–250. Gerdts, Donna B. & Thomas E. Hukari. 2006. The argument structure of Halkomelem verb roots: Evidence from intransitive/transitive alternations. Proceedings of the Eighth Workshop on American Indigenous Languages. Santa Barbara Papers in Linguistics 18. Gerdts, Donna B. & Thomas E. Hukari. In prep. A closer look at Salish intransitive/transitive alternations. Proceedings of the 32 nd Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (2006). University of California, Berkeley. Haspelmath, Martin. 1993. More on the typology of inchoative/causative verb alternations. In Bernard Comrie & Maria Polinsky (eds.), Causatives and Transitivity, 87–120. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Hopper, Paul J., & Sandra A. Thompson. 1980. Transitivity in grammar and discourse. Language 56. 251–299. Hukari, Thomas E. 1979. Oblique objects in Halkomelem. International Conference on Salish Languages 14, 158–172. Bellingham, Washington. Kemmer, Suzanne. 1993. The Middle Voice. Amsterdam: Benjamins Kemmer, Suzanne. 1994. Middle voice, transitivity, and the elaboration of events. In Barbara Fox & Paul J. Hopper (eds.), Voice: Form and Function. Typological Studies in Language 27, 179–230. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Kiyosawa, Kaoru & Donna B. Gerdts. 2010. Salish Applicatives. Leiden: Brill. Kroeber, Paul D. 1999. The Salish Language Family: Reconstructing Syntax. Lincoln/London: University of Nebraska Press. Kuipers, Aert H. 1967. The Squamish Language: Grammar, Texts, Dictionary (Janua Linguarum, Series Practica 73). The Hague/Paris: Mouton. Levin, Beth. 1993. English Verb Classes and Alternations. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Malchukov, Andrej. 2005. Case pattern splits, verb types, and construction competition. In Mengistu Amberber & Helen de Hoop (eds.), Competition and Variation in Natural Languages: the Case for Case, 73–117. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Thompson, Laurence C.1985. Control in Salish grammar. In Frans Plank (ed.), Relational Typology (Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs 28), 391–428. Berlin/New York/Amsterdam: Mouton. Tsunoda, Tasaku. 1981. Split case-marking in verb types and tense/aspect/mood. Linguistics 19. 389–438. Tsunoda, Tasaku. 1985. Remarks on transitivity. Journal of Linguistics 21. 385–396. Watanabe, Honoré. 2003. A Morphological Description of Sliammon, Mainland Comox Salish, with a Sketch of Syntax (Endangered Languages of the Pacific Rim Publication Series A2–040). Osaka: Osaka Gakuin University. Watanabe, Honoré. 2010. A look at noun and verb in Sliammon. In David Beck (ed.), A Festschrift for Thomas M. Hess: On the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday, 179–196. Whatcom Museum Publications No. 21.
Zarina Estrada-Fernández, Mercedes Tubino and Jesús Villalpando
32 Valency classes in Yaqui 1 Introduction 1.1 General characteristics of Yaqui 1.1.1 General characteristics and case marking morphology Yaqui is a Uto-Aztecan language spoken in Sonora (northwestern Mexico) and parts of Arizona (USA). Like other Uto-Aztecan languages, Yaqui is an agglutinating SOV language exhibiting rich verbal morphology by means of suffixation.1 The alignment system in Yaqui is nominative-accusative, with zero marking for nominative nouns and a suffix -ta for accusative singular nouns only since plural nouns are case-neutral. Examples of prototypical intransitive and transitive clauses are shown in (1–3). The example in (1) shows nominative subjects (zero marked) in intransitive clauses and (2) transitive clauses where the contrast between zero marked nominative subjects and accusative objects marked with -ta is observed. The examples in (3) illustrate case-neutral plural subjects and objects. (1) a. U-Ø(S) tabu-Ø(S) muuku-k.(V) det.sg-nom rabbit-nom die-pfv ‘The rabbit died.’ b. U-Ø(S) uusi-Ø(S) bwaana.(V) det.sg-nom child-nom cry.prs ‘The child cries.’ (2) a. U-Ø(S) yoeme-Ø(S) tabu-ta(O) bwise-k.(V) det.sg-nom man-nom rabbit-acc catch-pfv ‘The man caught the rabbit.’ b. U-Ø(S) uusi-Ø(S) sakusi-ta(O) bwa’e.(V) det.sg-nom child-nom pinole-acc eat.prs ‘The child is eating pinole.’
1 See, for instance, Escalante (1990), Dedrick & Casad (1999), and Guerrero (2004) for further general characteristics of the Yaqui language, both of Sonora and Arizona.
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Zarina Estrada-Fernández, Mercedes Tubino and Jesús Villalpando
(3) a. U-me yoeme-m(S) tabu-m(O) bwise-k.(V) det.nom-pl man-pl rabbit-pl catch.pfv ‘The men caught the rabbits.’ b. U-me uusi-m(S) muunim(O) bwa’e.(V) det.nom-pl child-pl beans.pl eat.prs ‘The children are eating beans.’2 Adjectives in Yaqui may also be case marked: zero marking when the adjective is part of the nominative noun phrase, or accusative, marked with the suffix -k, if the adjective is within the object noun phrase. Observe that the determiner u also alternates its form from nominative or zero marking, to accusative, marked with the suffix -ka. (4) a. U-Ø(S) tosai-Ø kaba’i-Ø(S) u’ute bwite.(V) det.sg-nom white-nom horse-nom fast run.prs ‘The white horse runs fast.’ b. U-Ø(S) yoeme-Ø(S) u-ka(O) tosai-k(O) kaba’i-ta(O) nu’upa-k.(V) det.sg-nom man-nom det-acc white-acc horse-acc bring-pfv ‘The man brought the white horse.’ Basic ditransitive verbs like those listed in (5) are all double object/accusative constructions – that is, each object is marked with the accusative suffix -ta, as in the examples in (6).3 (5) majta maka miika reuwa u’ura
‘teach’ ‘give’ ‘gift’ ‘lend’ ‘remove’
(6) a. Joan(S) soto’i-ta(O) Maria-ta(O) maka-k. Juan.nom pot-acc Maria-acc give-pfv ‘Juan gave Maria the pot.’
2 Mass nouns in Yaqui are inherently plural (e.g., beans, etc.), i.e. overtly marked with a final consonant m. Many loanwords from Spanish are also marked with a plural ending, e.g., yaabem ‘keys’. Such non-individualized entities cannot be marked with the accusative case suffix -ta. 3 Part of this verb list is also considered in Guerrero & Van Valin (2004). For other analyses of ditransitive verbs in Yaqui, see Larios & Estrada-Fernández (2011), as well as Estrada-Fernández (2008).
Valency classes in Yaqui
1361
b. U yoeme jamut-ta kaba’i-ta miika-k. det.nom.sg man woman-acc horse-acc give-pfv ‘The man gave the woman the horse.’ (as a gift) Another group of verbs often considered ditransitive cross-linguistically corresponds to prototypical transitive verbs with a valency of only two core arguments. This group of verbs can be divided into two new groups: (i) those in which the oblique argument is marked with the suffix -ta followed by the directive oblique case marker -u, in (7a); and (ii) those in which the oblique argument must only be marked with either the locative marker -po, or the instrument suffix -ae, in (7b). The examples in (8a–b) illustrate these groups: (7) a. bittua bwise etejo jima mabeta mana nattemae nenka teuwa toja b. benta chijakta jissa seaji’iki
‘send’ ‘touch’, ‘catch’ ‘tell’ ‘throw’ ‘receive’ ‘offer’, ‘serve’ ‘ask’ ‘sell’ ‘tell to’ ‘carry’, ‘take’ ‘put’, ‘spread’ ‘sprinkle’, ‘spray’ ‘pulverize’ ‘embroider’
(8) a. Maria-ta-u=ne soto’i-ta bittua-k. Maria-acc-dir=1sg.nom pot-acc send-pfv ‘I sent the pot to Maria. ’ b. Inepo techoa-ta e-t benta-k pujba-chi. 1sg.nom mud-acc 2sg-loc smear-pfv face-loc ‘I smeared mud on your face.’ Moreover, oblique case markers or postpositions can be divided into two groups: (a) those that require a suffix -ta to precede them, listed in (9),4 and (b) those that do not, i.e. oblique case markers or postpositions that occur by themselves with no need for the suffix -ta to precede them; examples are provided in (10).5 4 However, such a requirement is not obligatory for all the oblique case markers or postpositions. 5 Postpositions in several Sonoran Uto-Aztecan languages (e.g., Yaqui and Pima Bajo) are half grammaticalized, either as suffixes or as postpositions. If the marker is one syllable long it will appear as a suffix on the preceding noun, but if it is two or three syllables long it will occur as an
1362 (9)
Zarina Estrada-Fernández, Mercedes Tubino and Jesús Villalpando
– – – – – –
Genitive: -ta, Directive (Goal): -(ta)-u, -wi Comitative: -(ta)-mak Instrumental: -(ta)-mea, -ta-e Directional 1 (from): -ta betana Directional 2 or benefactive (to, for): -(ta) betchi’ibo
(10) – Locative 1 (in, at): -po – Locative 2 (on, over):-(e)t – Locative 3 (on, over): bepa Discourse contexts will determine the occurrence of a Yaqui verb with a particular oblique case marker or postposition. Constructions that illustrate attached oblique case markers and postpositions are provided in (11): (11) a. Joan jamut-ta paskola-u nu’upa-k. Juan.nom woman-acc dancer-dir bring-pfv ‘Juan brought the woman to the dancer.’ b. U yoeme juya_kowi-ta in-sai-ta-mak aamu-k. det.sg.nom man wild_boar-acc 1sg.poss-brother-acc-com hunt-pfv ‘The man hunted a wild boar with my brother.’ c. U jamut teta-m-mea wakas-ta tu’use-k. det.sg.nom woman stone-lig-ins meat-acc crush-pfv ‘The woman crushed the meat with a stone.’ d. Joan Peo-ta betchi’ibo Pessio-u siika-k. Juan.nom Pedro-acc for Hermosillo-dir go-pfv ‘Juan went to Hermosillo for Pedro.’ e. In-sai ejkuela betana yepsa-k. 1sg.poss-brother school from come-pfv ‘My brother came from school.’ f. U kaba’i yoem-ta-t weche-k. det.sg.nom horse man-acc-loc fall-pfv ‘The horse fell over the man.’
independent postposition. The list of oblique case markers and postpositions provided in (9) and (10) are taken from Estrada-Fernández et al. (2004).
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Valency classes in Yaqui
1.1.2 Pronouns Yaqui exhibits a pronominal system that includes both independent pronouns and clitics. Unlike nouns and adjectives, pronouns in Yaqui have richer morphological contrasts in terms of case, as observed in Table 1. Tab. 1: Yaqui pronominal system (based on Estrada-Fernández et al. 2004: 397). Singular
Plural
1
2
3
1
2
3
Indep.
inepo
empo
aapo
itepo
eme’e
bempo
Clitic
=ne
=’e
–
=te
=’em
–
Indep.
nee
enchi
aapo’ik
itom
enchim
bempo’im
Clitic
ne=
e=
a=
te=
’em=
am=
Oblique case
neu
eu
au
itou
emou
ameu
Possessive case
in
em
aapo’ik/a
itom
enchim
bem
Reflexives/reciprocal
ino
emo
au/emo
ito
emo
emo
Nominative case
Accusative case
Along with the independent pronouns, Table 1 also shows both subject and object clitics. Yaqui subject clitics occur in second position, but object clitics are always preverbal. Although some of the clitics are similar in their phonological form, subject and object clitics may be distinguished by their position within the clause, as clauses in (12) show: (12) Position of Yaqui subject and object clitics: a. Subject clitic Ino=ne aman esso-k. 1sg.refl=1sg.nom loc hide-pfv ‘I hid myself.’ b. Object clitic Ili uusi aman ne=esso-k. little child loc 1sg.acc=hide-pfv ‘The little child hid me.’
1.1.3 Verbal agreement In general, Yaqui verbs do not show morphological number agreement with their subjects or objects. Nevertheless, there are a handful of Yaqui verbs with suppletive
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Zarina Estrada-Fernández, Mercedes Tubino and Jesús Villalpando
forms depending on the number of their subject (one argument verbs), or object (two argument verbs). Examples in (13a–b) illustrate the contrast between a singular subject verb and a plural subject one. Meanwhile, examples in (14) show the contrast between singular object verbs, (in 14a–b), and plural object verbs, in (14a′–b′): (13) a. U uusi aman buite. det.sg.nom child loc run.s.sg ‘The child is running (over there).’ b. U-me uusi-m aman tenne. det.nom-pl child-pl loc run.s.pl ‘The children are running (over there).’ (14) a. U yoeme tabu-ta me’a-k. det.sg.nom man.nom rabbit-acc kill.o.sg-pfv ‘The man killed the rabbit.’ a′. U yoeme jaleki tabu-m sua-k. det.sg.nom man.nom several rabbit-pl kill.o.pl-pfv ‘The man killed many rabbits.’ b. Aapo wakas-ta kora-u kibacha-k. 3sg.nom cow-acc corral-dir take_in.sg.o-pfv ‘He took the cow into the corral.’ b′. Aapo wok wakas-ta kora-u kiima-k. 3sg.nom two cow-acc corral-dir take_in.pl.o-pfv ‘He took the cows into the corral.’
2 Case frames of Yaqui predicates The information provided in section 1 is basic for handling the case frames that are needed in Yaqui. Case frames must be considered as alternative representations of basic valency schemas that are useful for representing the number of arguments associated with a verb, i.e. the valency of a verb. The relevant case frames that will be used throughout this article are provided in Table 2. The following two sections discuss the different valency alternations available in Yaqui. First, we discuss those alternations that increase the valency of a verb, § 3; in § 4 we discuss the alternations that decrease the valency of a verb; and finally § 5 focuses on uncoded alternations.
Valency classes in Yaqui
1365
Tab. 2: Case frames, valency schemas, and verb classes. Case frames
Valency schemas
Verb classes
X-loc V
1-dir V
Weather verb
A-nom V
1V
Prototypical intransitive verbs
A-nom B-acc V
12V
Prototypical transitive verbs
A-nom (B-loc)
1 (2) V
Intransitive verbs with an optional locative
A-nom B+V
1V
Verbs with object incorporation
A-nom B-dir V
12V
Intransitive verbs with an optional directive
A-nom B-acc C-acc V
123V
Basic ditransitive verbs
A-nom B-acc C-acc-dir V
123V
Non-basic ditransitive verbs
A-nom REFL V
12V
Reflexive use of a transitive verb
A-nom B-acc (X-instr) V
1 2 (3) V
Transitive verbs with an optional instrument
A-nom B-acc X-loc V
123V
Transitive verbs with a locative
A-nom B-acc (C-dir) V
1 2 (3) V
Transitive verbs with an optional directive
3 Valency-increasing alternations 3.1 Non-productive alternations 3.1.1 Suppletive intransitive-transitive alternation An intransitive-transitive alternation may be marked by suppletion or stem-internal changes. The alternation schema is represented as A-nom V1 → A-nom B-acc V2. It describes a V1 verb associated with a single nominative argument which alternates with a V2 verb with two arguments, a nominative and an accusative argument. Only two verb stems exhibiting this alternation have been documented. One of them is the verb uba ‘bathe’ (intransitive), with the suppletive form ubba ‘bathe’ (transitive): (15) a. U ili uusi uba-k. det.sg.nom small child.nom bathe.intr-pfv ‘The child took a bath.’
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Zarina Estrada-Fernández, Mercedes Tubino and Jesús Villalpando
b. Ania u-ka ili uusi-ta ubba-k. Ania.nom det.sg-acc small child-acc bathe.tr-pfv ‘Ania bathed the child.’ The second verb is euse ‘hide’ (intransitive), with the suppletive form esso ‘hide’ (transitive): (16) a. U ili uusi euse-k. det.sg.nom small child.nom hide.intr-pfv ‘The child hid.’ (himself) b. Maria tomi-ta esso-k. Maria.nom money-acc hide.tr-pfv ‘Maria hid the money.’
3.1.2 Equipollent intransitive-transitive alternations Traditionally, an equipollent alternation is one in which the direction of the derivation cannot be predicted, i.e. it is not possible to ascertain which form is basic and which one is derived. However, for the purposes of this paper, the equipollent alternations are described in line with the methodology of Valency Classes in the World’s Languages (Malchukov et al. 2010), i.e. the form that conveys the meaning of the verb class is taken as the basic form.
3.1.2.1 Equipollent intransitive-transitive alternation The presence of the suffix -(t)e indicates a verb with a valency of one argument (i.e. intransitive), and the presence of the suffix -(t)a indicates that the verb requires two arguments (i.e. transitive). Such valency change corresponds to the classic equipollent intransitive > transitive alternation. In the literature, this phenomenon has been claimed to be strictly lexical since only a small number of verbs have been reported to exhibit this alternation (Lindenfeld 1973; Jelinek 1998; Jelinek & Escalante 2000). Table 3 shows some of the verbs included in Jelinek & Escalante (2000: 179) which exhibit this alternation. The equipollent intransitive > transitive alternation is associated with the following case frame: A-nom V-(t)e → B-nom A-acc V-(t)a. This valency change must be read as ‘B causes A to verb’ – that is, the suffix -(t)a increases the valency of the verb by adding an agent argument. We show an example in (17): (17) a. U ili uusi wom-te-k. det.sg.nom small child.nom fear- intr-pfv ‘The child is afraid.’
Valency classes in Yaqui
1367
Tab. 3: Verbs that alternate their forms from intransitive -(t)e to transitive -(t)a. Intransitive
gloss
Transitive
gloss
chepte kuakte lotte noite omte pomte repikte waakte womte
‘jump’ ‘return’ ‘be tired’ ‘go/come’ ‘be angry’ ‘drink’ ‘open eyes’ ‘yawn’ ‘fear’
chepta kuakta lotta noita omta pomta repikta waakta womta
‘step over’ ‘turn’ ‘tire ‘take/bring’ ‘be angry at’ ‘drink’ ‘blink eyes’ ‘step over’ ‘scare’
b. U miisi ili uusi-ta wom-ta-k. det.sg.nom cat.nom small child-acc scare-tr-pfv ‘The cat scared the child.’ Not all alternating pairs exhibiting the equipollent intransitive-transitive alternation involve causation as seen in (17). With specific alternating verbs of this kind, the transitive form may involve an agent plus an oblique, either a comitative oblique argument (cf. §3.1.2.2) or a locative one (cf. §3.1.2.3). Once -(t)a is suffixed onto the verb, the resulting case frame shows that a second argument has been added. The representation of this alternation is the following: A-nom V-(t)e → Anom B-acc V-(t)a. (18) a. U yoeme chep-te-k. det.sg.nom man.nom jump-intr-pfv ‘The man jumped.’ b. U yoeme kora-ta chep-ta-k. det.sg.nom man.nom fence-acc jump-tr-pfv ‘The man stepped over the fence.’
3.1.2.2 Equipollent psychological stimulus intransitive-transitive alternation A group of intransitive psychological verbs in Yaqui may accept the stimulus as an accusative object, (19b). Many of these verbs exhibit the equipollent intransitivetransitivity alternation seen in the example in (17), as well as in (18). The case frame corresponding to this alternation is A-nom (B-com) V-(t)e → A-nom B-acc V-(t)a, which represents a valency change of the verb in which the comitative object argument is added as a core argument, as seen in (19b) below.
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(19) a. Peo o’~om-te. Pedro.nom hab~be.angry-intr ‘Pedro is angry.’ b. Peo Joan-ta o’~om-ta. Pedro.nom Juan-acc hab~angry-tr ‘Pedro is angry at Juan.’ What characterizes this alternation is that it is also possible to express (19b) by means of a comitative complement, in which case only the intransitive verb o’omte ‘be.angry(intr)’ is used. Compare the example in (20) with (19b): (20) Peo Joan-ta-mak o’~om-te-k. Pedro.nom Juan-acc-com hab~angry-intr-pfv ‘Pedro is angry at Juan.’ Other verbs like this are majae ‘fear’ and aache/atbwa ‘laugh’.
3.1.2.3 Equipollent locative intransitive-transitive alternation This type of alternation has been observed in the verb yeewe ‘play’. The intransitive verb yeewe ‘play’, marked with the suffix -e, may be used by itself, as in (21a), or with an oblique argument involving a locative postposition, as in (21b). In some situations this verb may appear with a semi-cognate object (e.g., a game, something that is playable), as in (22). When this happens, the verb stem takes the transitive form (the -a suffix). The case frame corresponding to this alternation is represented as A-nom (B-loc) V-e → A-nom B-acc V-a, in which a second argument is added: (21) a. Joan yeew-e. Juan.nom play-intr ‘Juan is playing.’ b. Joan pelootam-po yeew-e. Juan.nom ball-loc play-intr ‘Juan is playing soccer.’ (22) Joan kartam yeew-a. Juan.nom card.pl play-tr ‘Juan is playing cards.’ This particular equipollent alternation is not very common in Yaqui verbs. A valency change of verbs resulting from the addition of a semi-cognate direct object, as just seen in (22), is not attested in any other of the verbs examined for this project.
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3.1.2.4 Equipollent adversative intransitive-transitive alternation This alternation is not very common in Yaqui. It has been documented for one verb only, muuke ‘die(s.sg)’, but it is worth discussing since it also appears in other languages such as Japanese. In this alternation, the intransitive use shows the marker -e on the verb (muuke), whereas the verb appears as muucha ‘die.tr’ in its transitive counterpart. This contrasts with the causative use of the verb, me’a ‘kill’. When used transitively and non-causatively, muucha takes an experiencer as a subject and a possessed object as the affected entity of the event denoted by the verb. The construction has an adversative reading (see for instance Shibatani 1973; Oehrle & Nishio 1981; and Pylkkänen 2008, for similar phenomena in Japanese). The case frame of the equipollent adversative intransitive-transitive alternation is the following: A-nom V-e → B-nom A-acc V-a. This indicates that the valency of a verb has changed as a result of an affected argument (i.e. the subject). (23) a. U chu’u muuke-k. det.sg.nom dog.nom die.s.sg-pfv ‘The dog died.’ b. Mercedes chu’u-ta muuch-a-k. Mercedes.nom dog-acc die-tr-pfv ‘Mercedes upset the dog.’
3.1.3 Equipollent intransitive-causative alternation A different equipollent alternation is the one that turns an intransitive verb into a causative one. In this kind of alternation, the intransitive verb shows the suffix -(t)e, whereas its causative counterpart bears the causative suffix -tua. The case frame associated with this alternation is: A-nom V-(t)e → B-nom A-acc V-tua. (24) a. Intransitive Maria jin-te-k. Maria.nom cover-intr-pfv ‘Maria got covered (with a coat).’ b. Causative Joan Maria-ta jin-tua-k. Juan.nom Maria-acc cover-caus-pfv ‘Juan covered Maria.’ Haspelmath (1993) shows that the intransitive-causative alternation may be coded differently cross-linguistically, depending on, among other things, transitivity, i.e.
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the valency intrinsically exhibited by the basic verb form. For instance, some languages like Spanish or Russian mostly exhibit transitive (causative) base forms, forming their intransitive (inchoative) counterpart via detransitivization (e.g., anticausative) mechanisms, such as the use of reflexive pronouns. Other languages like English exhibit labile alternations whereby an identical verb form is used in transitive and intransitive contexts. Up to this point we have discussed valency alternations which are mostly restricted to particular lexical verbs, that is, non-productive alternations. The rest of this section will focus on productive valency alternations that add an argument to the verb.
3.2 Productive valency alternations We can distinguish between two kinds of productive valency changing suffixes in Yaqui: (a) those that add a new argument, and (b) those that suppress an argument. This section focuses on the alternations that add a new argument. This group is associated with five valency increasing suffixes: causative -tua, desiderative -’ii’aa, directive -sae, indirect causative -tebo, and applicative -ria. Examples are shown from (25) to (33).
3.2.1 Direct causative alternation The most productive alternation in Yaqui is the direct causative alternation. This alternation may apply to any type of basic intransitive or transitive verb. The case frame proposed for this alternation is A-nom (B-acc) V → C-nom A-acc (B-acc) V-tua. It represents a valency change in which an agent or causer argument is added. This results in a modification of the case marking of the arguments: the nominative argument of the intransitive construction becomes accusative in the transitive one. The sentences in (25a–b) illustrate the alternation based on the intransitive verb bwite ‘run’; the sentences in (26a–b) illustrate the alternation with ebwa ‘sow’; and the sentences in (27a–b) show the alternation with jinte ‘cover self’: (25) a. U ili uusi bwite-k. det.sg.nom small child run-pfv ‘The child ran.’ b. In-achai ili uusi-ta bwiti-tua. 1sg.poss-father small child run-caus ‘My father made the child run.’
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(26) a. Maria bachi-ta ebwa-k. Maria.nom corn-acc sow-pfv ‘Maria sowed corn.’ b. Santos Maria-ta bachi-ta ebwa-tua. Santos.nom Maria-acc corn-acc sow-caus ‘Santos made Maria sow corn.’ An interesting situation exists in Yaqui regarding one particular verbal form, the causative verb bit-tua ‘see-cause’. This form can receive two different meanings, each one associated with a different valency case frame. Thus, when this valency3 verb (ditransitive verb) appears with two accusative arguments, it is interpreted as ‘show’, as in (27a). In contrast, when its valency case exhibits nominative, accusative, and a directional argument (marked with the postposition -u), it is interpreted as ‘send’ (27b). Since the contrasted frames go along with a semantic change of the verb, two different verbs are proposed for such cases: the causativized form of bicha ‘see’, and the verb bittua ‘send’: (27) a. bit-tua ‘see-cause’ (double accusative case frame) Maria u-ka kaba’i-ta Joan-ta bit-tua-k. Maria.nom det.sg-acc horse-acc Juan-acc see-caus-pfv ‘Maria showed Juan a horse.’ b. bittua ‘send’ (accusative plus directive case frame) Maria-ta-u=ne u-ka kaba’i-ta bittua-k. Maria-acc-dir=1sg det.sg-acc horse-acc send-pfv ‘I sent Maria a horse (lit. I sent a horse to Maria).’
3.2.2 Desiderative alternation Yaqui has three different desiderative suffixes, -pea ‘des1’, the prospective suffix, -bae ‘pros’, and -’ii’aa ‘des2’. Only -’ii’aa has an impact on the verb valency. This alternation is represented as follows: A-nom B-acc V → C-nom A-acc B-acc V-’ii’aa. It indicates that the suffix -’ii’aa adds a nominative subject experiencer to a transitive structure: (28) a. U jamut bachi-ta chi~chijta. det.sg.nom woman.nom corn-acc hab~grind ‘The woman grinds corn.’ b. U yoeme jamut-ta bachi-ta chijta-’ii’aa. det.sg.nom man.nom woman-acc corn-acc grind-des ‘The man wants the woman to grind corn.’
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As it is observed in (28), the desiderative suffix -’ii’aa impacts the valency of verbs by adding a subject argument. Because the underived verb in (28a) is transitive, the derived construction exhibits two arguments, jamut ‘woman’ and bachi ‘corn’, with accusative marking -ta.
3.2.3 Directive alternation The directive alternation also increases the valency of a verb by adding an argument. Although the added argument is not a prototypical agent, it shows some of the semantic properties that are associated with agents, e.g. volition. It nonetheless does not show complete control over the patient (i.e. the patient argument may undergo the event denoted by the agent, or he/she may not). The patient, then, retains a certain degree of control over the event. The coding frame representing the directive valency alternation is as follows: A-nom B-acc V → C-nom A-acc B-dir V-sae. (29) a. Santos Maria-ta u-ka ili uusi-ta-u nok-sae. Santos.nom Maria-acc det.sg-acc small child-acc-dir talk-dir ‘Santos asked Maria to speak to the child.’ b. U jamut u-ka ili uusi-ta-u nee det.sg.nom woman.nom det.sg-acc small child-acc-dir 1sg.acc remua-sae. help-dir ‘The woman asked me to help/substitute the child.’
3.2.4 Indirect causative alternation The indirect causative alternation adds a new agent and suppresses the original agent. The sentences involving the suffix -tebo have a different semantic content than the sentences involving the direct causative suffix -tua. The difference has to do with the control of the agent argument over the expressed patient. In the indirect causative construction, the agent argument which is added via the suffix -tebo, does not have direct control over the patient. This is a consequence of the fact that the causee argument is not coded. The alternation is represented as A-nom B-acc V → C-nom A-acc B-acc V-tebo. (30) a. Santos bachi-ta bwasa-k. Santos.nom corn-acc cook-pfv ‘Santos cooked corn.’
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b. Santos bachi-ta bwas-a’a-tebo. Santos.nom corn-acc cook-lig-ind.caus ‘Santos had corn cooked.’ (= Santos made someone cook corn)
3.2.5 Benefactive/malefactive applicative alternation The suffixes illustrated in examples (25) to (30) add an agent, which increases the valency of the resulting clause. These valency-changing suffixes are very productive in the Yaqui language. One more productive verbal suffix that also increases the valency of a verb is the applicative -ria. The alternation, represented as A-nom B+betchi’ibo V → A-nom B-acc V-ria, describes the following: a verb with a benefactive or malefactive argument may be encoded by means of either an argument with the postposition betchi’ibo, as in (31), or a valency-changing operation in which the morpheme -ria is suffixed to the verb, as in (32–33): (31) a. betchi’ibo ‘for’ Joan Maria-ta betchi’ibo kikte-k. Juan.nom Maria-acc for stop-pfv ‘Juan stopped (doing something) for Maria.’ b. Ne librom Joan-ta maka-k Maria-ta betchi’ibo. 1sg.nom book.pl Juan-acc give-pfv Maria-acc for ‘I gave Juan the book for Maria.’ In (32), the Yaqui suffix -ria adds a beneficiary argument to the clause, or a maleficiary argument, as in (33): (32) a. Maria u-ka ili uusi-ta na’aso-ta besuma-ria. Maria.nom det.sg-acc small child-acc orange-acc peel-appl ‘Maria peels the orange for the child.’ b. Joan kari-ta nee=ya-ria-k. Juan.nom house-acc 1sg.acc=make-appl-pfv ‘Juan made me a house.’ (33) a. Joan Maria-ta tomi-ta etbwa-ria-k. Juan.nom Maria-acc money-acc steal-appl-pfv ‘Juan stole money from Maria.’ b. Librom=ne nim mala-ta esso-ria-k. book.pl=1sg.nom 1sg.poss mother-acc hide-appl-pfv ‘I hid the book from my mother.’
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Among the suffixes shown in (25)–(33), the causative -tua is the one that most productively changes the valency of Yaqui verbs, although the indirect causative -tebo, the desiderative2 -’ii’ia, the directive -sae, and the applicative -ria are also productive. Some of these suffixes may be subject to limitations that have to do with the type of verbs and arguments they appear with. For instance, -ria has been argued to be restricted to agentive verbs (Harley et al. 2009), and -tebo does not easily appear with non-agentive change-of-state verbs (Tubino Blanco 2010).
4 Valency decreasing alternations 4.1 Non-productive valency decreasing alternations The morphosyntactic coding of non-productive valency decreasing alternations appears to be lexically determined (i.e. it depends on the verb); this is especially so for the alternations shown in (34) and (35). Whereas only a few verbs allow the equipollent alternation in (34), the suppression of an argument is also possible via a reflexive pronoun. Such a change may be subject to compatibility with the semantics of specific verbs, as is shown in (34–36) (see Alvarez-Gonzalez 2008, for an extensive discussion on this issue).
4.1.1 Equipollent middle alternation The middle alternation shows a mirror pattern with respect to the equipollent intransitive-transitive alternation §3.1.2.1. The middle alternation takes as its basic form a verb with a valency of two arguments marked with the suffix -(t)a, and yields an intransitive valency of only one argument, changing the suffix on the verb to -(t)e. The case frame is represented as A-nom B-acc V-ta → B-nom V-te. (34) a. jamta ‘crack’ (two arguments) Ili uusi u-me kabam jam-ta-k. small child det-pl egg.pl crack-tr-pfv ‘The child cracked the eggs.’ b. jamte ‘crack’ (one argument) U-me kabam kaa tuisi jam~jam-te. det.pl.nom egg.pl neg well hab~crack-intr ‘These eggs don’t crack well.’
4.1.2 Object incorporation alternation Object incorporation is usually considered a syntactic process that decreases the valency of a verb by mostly suppressing its object argument. This alternation can
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sometimes be morphologically indicated by means of the change in the verbal suffix from V-(t)a to V-(t)e, typical of the equipollent alternation: A-nom B-acc V-(t)a → A-nom B+V-(t)e. An example involving the verb chukta ‘cut’ is provided in (35): (35) a. transitive verb form Kutam chuk-ta! Wood.pl cut-tr ‘Chop wood!’ b. intransitive verb form Kuta-chuk-te! wood-cut-intr ‘Chop wood!’ (lit. Do some wood-chopping!) The equipollent root chuk- ‘cut’ appears in its transitive form in (35a), where it takes the direct object kutam ‘wood’. However, after the object is incorporated into the root (35b), the intransitive verb form kuta-chukte is used. Although incorporation is a well known process in Yaqui, it is not very productive as it is permitted only in pragmatic (cultural) contexts. For instance, the verb beakte ‘slice’ may incorporate the object waakas ‘meat’, in (36a), but not kuchum ‘fish’, in (36b): (36) a. wakas ‘meat’ Waka-beak-te! meat- slice-intr ‘Slice some meat!’ b. kuchum ‘fish’ *Kuchu-beak-te! fish-slice-intr ‘Slice some fish!’
4.1.3 The accusative suppression alternation (indefinite object marker incorporation) A few transitive Yaqui verbs accept the incorporation of the indefinite object ji’i‘thing’. The alternation changes the valency of the verb from transitive to intransitive: A-nom B-acc V → A-nom ji’i-V. Although most verbs exhibiting this alternation cannot be used with only one argument without the encoding of the indefinite object marker, the incorporated indefinite object is semantically empty: (37) a. Juan mansana-ta bwa’e. Juan.nom apple-acc eat.prs ‘Juan is eating an apple.’
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b. Juan ji’i-bwa. Juan.nom thing-eat.prs ‘Juan is eating.’
4.1.4 The equipollent causative-inchoative alternation A number of change-of-state verbs in Yaqui exhibit the equipollent causative-inchoative alternation (see, for instance, Alvarez-Gonzalez 2007; Tubino Blanco 2010, for extensive discussion and examples on this alternation). This alternation type involves verbs with a valency of one argument (i.e. intransitive) and verbs with a valency of two arguments (i.e. transitive). The intransitive use denotes a change of state undergone by some entity, and the transitive use denotes, in addition, the cause or causer of the change of state (see Haspelmath 1993; Levin & Rappaport Hovav 1995; Schäfer 2009 for detailed discussions on this alternation type). The causative-inchoative alternation is represented as follows: A-nom B-acc V-(t)a → B-nom V-(t)e. Alvarez-Gonzalez (2007) shows that the Yaqui causative-inchoative alternation undergoes a wide range of variation, depending on the verb root. Thus, while some Yaqui verbs exhibit an anti-causative pattern -(t)a > -(t)e, some other verbs participate in the equipollent -(t)e > -(t)a alternation, cf. § 1.3.4. (38) a. Joan kari-ta bee-ta. Juan.nom house-acc burn-tr ‘Juan is burning the house.’ b. U kari bee-te. det.sg.nom house.nom burn-intr ‘The house is burning.’ In other instances, verbs that do allow the alternation in other languages (e.g., English open, close) are not a causative-inchoative pair in Yaqui. In such cases, productive alternations of valency suppression are necessary.
4.2 Productive valency-decreasing alternations Only three suffixes productively change the valency of verbs by suppressing one of the arguments: passive -wa, resultative -ri, and inchoative -tu. The last two suffixes are conditioned by certain semantic properties of the verb; passive -wa occurs with practically any type of verb.
4.2.1 The passive alternation The passive suffix -wa suppresses the subject, normally agentive, although this is not a requisite in Yaqui. The coding frame is A-nom B-acc V → B-nom V:
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(39) a. U-me supem yaa-wa. det.nom-pl shirt.pl made-pass ‘The shirt was made.’ b. Ringo_nok-ta=ne majta-wa. American_language-acc=1sg.nom teach-pass ‘I am being taught English.’ Yaqui passives are not limited to transitive verbs. Intransitive verbs may also undergo passivization. The sentence in (40) exhibits the passivization of the intransitive verb ji’ibwa ‘eat’: (40) In kantina-po kia si ji-ji’bwa-wa. here cantina-loc good very hab~eat.intr-pass ‘This cantina serves very good food.’ (lit. Here in the bar (one) eats very well)
4.2.2 The resultative alternation The resultative suffix -ri changes the valency of a verb by eliminating its agent argument. The code frame associated with this alternation is A-nom B-acc V → Bnom V. The resulting event always presupposes an agent, but it is never coded. The suffix -ri has been argued to be restricted to change-of-state verbs (AlvarezGonzalez 2008). (41) a. Kubaji po~pon-ri. drum.nom iter~pound-res ‘The drum is pounded.’ b. U kuta kotta-ri. det.nom.sg stick break-res ‘The stick is broken.’ (42) a. Maria mansana-ta bwa’a-ka. Maria.nom apple-acc eat-pfv ‘Maria ate the apple.’ b. U mansana bwa’a-ri. det.sg.nom apple.nom eat-res ‘The apple is eaten.’ The suffix -ri is compatible with a few intransitive verbs as well. See Harley et al. (2009) and Alvarez-Gonzalez (2008) for a detailed discussion and examples involving this suffix.
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4.2.3 The inchoative (middle) alternation This alternation, like the one just shown, also involves a valency change in the verb whereby the transitive subject (normally agentive) is suppressed in its intransitive (middle) use. The most common coding of this alternation in Yaqui is by means of the inchoative suffix -tu ‘become’. The representation of this alternation, A-nom B-acc V → B-nom V-tu, shows that the verb reduces its valency to only one argument when the suffix -tu is added to it. This alternation is not restricted to changeof-state verbs. The inchoative (middle) alternation typically involves a generic meaning, and this is precisely what we find in Yaqui, as shown in Alvarez-Gonzalez (2007). (43) a. Two arguments Pelikulam=ne bit-bae. movie.pl=1sg.nom see-prosp ‘I’m going to see a movie.’ b. One argument U kawi kaa tuisi bit-tu. det.sg.nom mountain.nom neg well see-inch ‘The mountain isn’t easy to see.’ (lit. doesn’t see easily)
4.3 Semi-productive valency-decreasing alternations One alternation has been documented as representing this type: the instrument subject alternation, which is a morphological alternation encoded by means of the suffix -la.
4.1.5 The instrument subject alternation Instruments may be expressed in Yaqui via an oblique (39a), or they may become subjects (39b). This valency alternation is possible by means of the suffixation of -la on the verb. The alternation is represented as A-nom B-acc C-instr V → C-nom B-acc V-la. Verbs such as chukta ‘cut’ allow this alternation, but in general this alternation is not very productive. (44) a. U-ka mesa-ta=ne tajo’ori-mea patta. det.sg-acc table-acc=1sg.nom sheet-ins cover ‘I’m covering the table with a sheet.’ b. U tajo’ori mesa-ta patta-la. det.sg.nom sheet table-acc cover-res ‘The sheet is covering the table.’
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5 Uncoded valency alternations Yaqui exhibits a few alternations of this kind. Three of them are very productive, and one is restricted to a limited set of lexical elements.
5.1 Valency increasing uncoded alternations There are only two alternations within this type.
5.1.1 Labile inchoative-causative alternation A small group of typically inchoative/intransitive verbs in Yaqui, such as machia ‘appear’, may exhibit a change in their case frames from a valency of one argument to a valency of two arguments. The sentences in (45–46) illustrate this alternation: (45) shows the contrast between the verb machia ‘appear’, a valency-1 verb, and (46), a causative valency-2 verb. The case frame of this labile verb is represented as A-nom (B-loc) V → B-nom A-acc (B-loc) V. (45) machia ‘appear’ (one argument) U-me yaabem mesa-po yeu machia-k. det.nom-pl key.pl table-loc out appear-pfv ‘The keys appeared on the table.’ (46) machia ‘appear’ (two arguments) Inepo u-me yaabem mesa-po yeu machia-k. 1sg.nom det.nom-pl key.pl table-loc out appear-pfv ‘I made the keys appear on the table.’ (lit. I appeared the keys on the table.) The sentences in (47–48) are further examples of this alternation: (47) U-me kauwam biika-k. det.nom-pl milk.pl spoil-pfv ‘The milk got spoiled.’ (48) U tataria u-me kauwam biika-k. det.sg.nom heat det.nom-pl milk.pl spoil-pfv ‘The heat spoiled the milk.’ (Alvarez-Gonzalez 2008: 11[6])
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5.1.2 The labile inchoative-oblique/locative alternation The inchoative-oblique/locative alternation is not productive. It is also uncoded and is represented as A-nom V → A-nom B-acc-loc V. This alternation involves a labile verb with a valency of one (nominative) argument which increases its valency to a nominative argument plus a locative. The sentences in (49–50) illustrate a labile verb that changes its valency by adding an accusative-locative argument: (49) Ta~tase-k=ne. iter~cough-pfv=1sg.nom ‘I coughed.’ (50) Joan ne-t ta~tase-k. Juan.nom 1sg.acc-loc iter~cough-pfv ‘Juan coughed on me.’
5.2 Valency-decreasing uncoded alternations This group includes only two productive alternations.
5.2.1 The reflexive-anticausative alternation In Yaqui, reflexive pronouns are sometimes required if the semantic interpretation of a verb changes from a valency of two arguments to a valency of one. The reflexive-anticausative alternation indicates the suppression of one argument, but only semantically: A-nom B-acc V → B-nom refl V. The reflexive pronoun is semantically co-indexed with the unique argument of an otherwise valency-2 verb. The examples in (51) show the verb a’ana ‘dress’, which in other languages such as English does not need a pronoun in its reflexive use (i.e. it is inherently reflexive). In Yaqui, the reflexive pronoun is obligatory. Other verbs exhibiting this alternation are bekta ‘shave’ and baksia ‘wash’ (cf. Estrada-Fernández & Félix (2009)): (51) a. Two arguments U jamut uusi-ta a’ana. det.sg.nom woman child-acc dress ‘The woman is dressing the child.’ b. One argument Aapo emo a’ana. 3sg.nom refl dress ‘He is getting dressed.’ (lit. dressing himself)
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Some causative verbs, such as eta ‘close’ in Yaqui, also undergo a valency decreasing process by means of the reflexive-anticausative alternation. The examples in (52) show a reflexive pronoun, such as emo in (52b), or au in (52c). (52) a. Maria pueta-ta eta. María.nom door-acc close.prs ‘María closes the door.’ b. U pueta emo eta-k. det.sg.nom door refl close-pfv ‘The door closed.’ (lit. it closed itself) (Estrada-Fernández 2009: 118 [390, 391]) c. U pueta kaa tuisi au eta. det.sg.nom door.nom neg well 3sg.refl close.prs ‘This door doesn’t close easily.’
5.2.2 The reflexive-comitative alternation In Levin (1993), this alternation involves verbs such as meet in which the object may be expressed via an accusative with a comitative preposition or an accusative object with no preposition. In Yaqui this is also possible, with a variation – when the structure takes a postpositional object involving the comitative postposition -mak, in (53), the transitivity of the construction is maintained via the addition of a reflexive pronoun: A-nom B-acc-com refl V → A-nom B-acc-com refl V. This is also true of languages such as Spanish. (53) a. Joan Maria-ta tea-k. Juan.nom Maria-acc meet-pfv ‘Juan met Maria.’ b. Joan Maria-ta-mak emo tea-k. Juan.nom Maria-acc-com refl meet-pfv ‘Juan met with Maria.’
6 Conclusions In this study, we have provided an analysis of the valency alternations that are observed in Yaqui. Valency alternations in Yaqui may be classified in four classes: those that are highly productive, those that are quite productive, those that are semi-productive, and those that are rather idiosyncratic. Highly productive alterna-
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tions typically involve some verbal suffix, such as the causative -tua or the passive -wa. Alternations that are quite productive also involve verbal suffixes, but they are subject to restrictions associated with verb meaning as well as the nature of event participants. Examples of this type are the applicative suffix -ria and the resultative suffix -ri. Semi-productive alternations may also involve affixation of elements to the verb, such as object incorporation and the indefinite object alternation. The causative-inchoative alternation is also an example of this type of alternation. Idiosyncratic alternations in Yaqui are unpredictable as they are associated with particular verbs and depend on language use. Such is the case for the adversative construction and the accusative suppression alternations seen here. Despite their idiosyncrasy, these valency changing processes should not be ignored as they enrich the array of valency options exhibited by this language. It may be possible to find further instances of these processes of valency changes in other verbs that do not form part of this study, so their inclusion here may set the basis for future research on alternation patterns in Yaqui. This contribution further shows that Yaqui verbs can be organized into different morphological classes. Such classes are differentiated by the way in which they formally express their valency. Whereas a few valency classes are expressed via the suffix markers -(t)a/-(t)e, other verb classes are not. The distinctions seen throughout this paper regarding verb alternations are crucial in determining valency classes in Yaqui.
Meaning label
TALK
BLINK
COUGH
RUN
JUMP
LAUGH
SCREAM
FEEL COLD
DIE
PLAY
BE SAD
BE HUNGRY
ROLL
SINK
BURN
#
18
46
47
49
52
57
58
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
beete
go’okte
ro’akte
tebaure
rojikte
yeewe
muuke
chubakte
chaae (2)
aache
chepte
buite
tase
kupikte
etejo (2)
Verb form
1-nom V
1-nom V
1-nom V
1-nom V
1-nom V
1-nom V
1-nom V
1-nom V
1-nom V
1-nom V
1-nom V
1-nom V
1-nom V
1-nom V
1-nom V
Coding frame schema
+
+
+
–
–
+
+
–
m
+
m
+
Applicative
Appendix: Valency classes: summary
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
m
Causative
–
–
–
–
+
m
–
–
+
–
–
+
Equipollent Appl.
+
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Equipollent Causal
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Equipollent Nonc.
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Intr. incorp: ji’i
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
+
+
+
+
–
Middle
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Object incorp.
m
+
+
+
+
+
–
+
–
–
m
m
m
–
m
–
+
+
m
–
–
m
m
m
m
Passive Resultative
Valency classes in Yaqui
1383
Meaning label
BE DRY
BE A HUNTER
BOIL
SAY
SIT
SIT DOWN
LIVE
FEEL PAIN
TELL
SEND
TIE
BRING
SHOUT AT
EAT
HUG
LOOK AT
SEE
SMELL
#
68
70
80
22
50
51
56
59
21
37
40
75
20
1
2
3
4
5
jukta
bitcha
bitchu
ibakta
bwa’e
chaae (1)
nu’upa
suma
bittua (1)
etejo (1)
wante
jo’a
yejte
yejte
tejwa
pojte
amureo
waake
Verb form
–
m
Applicative
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc-dir V
1-nom 2-dir 3-acc V
1-nom 2-dir 3-acc V
1-nom 2-dir 3-acc V
1-nom 2-dir 3-acc V
1-nom 2-loc V
1-nom 2-loc V
1-nom 2-loc V
1-nom 2-loc V
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
–
+
+
1-nom UTT2 (3-acc) V +
1-nom V
1-nom V
1-nom V
Coding frame schema
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
m
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
+
Causative
–
–
–
–
m
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Equipollent Appl.
–
–
–
–
m
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
–
–
+
Equipollent Causal
–
–
–
–
m
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Equipollent Nonc.
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Intr. incorp: ji’i
m
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
+
Middle
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
m
–
Object incorp.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
–
+
–
+
+
+
+
+
+
m
+
+
–
+
+
+
+
–
m
Passive Resultative
1384 Zarina Estrada-Fernández, Mercedes Tubino and Jesús Villalpando
FEAR
FRIGHTEN
LIKE
KNOW
THINK
SEARCH FOR
WASH
DRESS
SHAVE
HELP
FOLLOW
MEET
ASK FOR
BUILD
BEAT
HIT
TOUCH
CUT
TAKE
TEAR
PEEL
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
19
24
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
besuma
siuta
nu’e
chukta
bwibwise
tasta
tasta
yaa
a’awa
tea (2)
jajase
ania
bekta
a’ana
baksia
jariwa
ea
ta’a
tu’ure
gomta
majae
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
m
m
+
–
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
+
–
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
m
+
+
–
+
+
m
m
+
m
m
m
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
m
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
m
m
m
+
m
m
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
m
+
+
Valency classes in Yaqui
1385
Meaning label
HIDE
THROW
SING
GRIND
WIPE
DIG
STEAL
HEAR
COOK
PUT
PUT
POUR
LOAD
TELL
CARRY
PUSH
SHOW
GIVE
#
34
39
53
71
72
73
76
78
79
41
41
42
45
21
38
74
35
36
maka
bittua (2)
yu’a
toja
teuwa
pu’akta
to’a
joa
mana
bwasa
jikkaja
etbwa
bweje
tu’ute
tuuse
bwiika
watta
esso
Verb form
1-nom 2-acc 3-acc V
1-nom 2-acc 3-acc V
1-nom 2-acc 3-dir V
1-nom 2-acc 3-dir V
1-nom 2-acc 3-dir V
1-nom 2-acc 3-loc V
1-nom 2-acc 3-loc V
1-nom 2-acc loc3 V
1-nom 2-acc loc3 V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
Coding frame schema
+
–
+
m
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
Applicative
+
–
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
Causative
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Equipollent Appl.
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Equipollent Causal
–
–
–
–
+
m
–
–
+
–
–
+
+
Equipollent Nonc.
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
Intr. incorp: ji’i
+
–
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
Middle
–
–
–
–
m
–
m
–
Object incorp.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
m
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
Passive Resultative
1386 Zarina Estrada-Fernández, Mercedes Tubino and Jesús Villalpando
BREAK
KILL
HIT
COVER
FILL
BE NAMED
CLIMB
GO
LEAVE
RAIN
25
26
28
43
44
140
48
54
55
69
yuke
watakte
siika
ja’amu
tea (1)
tapunia
patta
beeba
me’a
jamta
majta
(1-dir) V
1-nom (2-dir) V
1-nom (2-dir) V
1-nom (2-loc) V
1-nom 2 V
1-nom 2-acc (3-instr) V
1-nom 2-acc (3-instr) V
1-nom 2-acc (3-instr) V
1-nom 2-acc (3-instr) V
1-nom 2-acc (3-instr) V
1-nom 2-acc 3 V
m
+
–
+
+
+
+
+
+
m
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
Legend: + occurs regularly; m occurs marginally; − occurs never; _ no data
TEACH
77
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
+
+
+
m
–
–
–
m
+
+
–
m
–
m
–
+
–
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
+
–
+
+
+
+
+
+
Valency classes in Yaqui
1387
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Zarina Estrada-Fernández, Mercedes Tubino and Jesús Villalpando
Acknowledgements We would like to thank our consultants, Melquiades Bejípone Cruz and Crescencio Buitimea for their invaluable help and assistance with the Yaqui data.
Abbreviations DES DIR HAB INCH ITER LIG O PROSP RDP ST V
desiderative directional habitual inchoative iterative ligature object prospective reduplication stative verb
References Alvarez-Gonzalez, Albert. 2007. Eventos no-agentivos, alternancia causativo-incoativo y gramaticalización en lengua yaqui. Lingüística mexicana IV(1). 5–29. Alvarez-Gonzalez, Albert. 2008. Participios estativos en yaqui y mecanismos de detransitivización. In Zarina Estrada-Fernández, Søren Wichmann, Claudine Chamoreau & Albert Alvarez Gonzalez (eds.). Studies in Voice and Transitivity (Estudios de voz y transitividad), 53–82. Munich: Lincom. Dedrick, John M. & Eugene H. Casad. 1999. Sonora Yaqui Language Structures. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press. Escalante, Fernando. 1990. Voice and argument structure in Yaqui. Ph.D. thesis, The University of Arizona. Estrada-Fernández, Zarina. 2008. Yaqui ditransitive constructions. Annual Meeting of The Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas, Chicago, IL, January 3rd–6th. Estrada-Fernández, Zarina. 2009. Yaqui de Sonora. México: El Colegio de México. Estrada-Fernández, Zarina, Crescencio Buitimea Valenzuela, Adriana Elizabeth Gurrola Camacho, María Elena Castillo Celaya & Anabela Carlón Flores. 2004. Diccionario yaqui-español y textos: Obra de preservación lingüística. México: Plaza y Valdés. Estrada-Fernández, Zarina & Rolando Félix Armandáriz. 2009. Typological differences among middle constructions in some Uto-Aztecan languages. In Claudine Chamoreau, Zarina Estrada-Fernández & Yolanda Lastra (eds.). A New Look at Language Contact in Amerindian Languages, 89–118. München: Lincom-EUROPA. Guerrero, Lilián. 2004. The syntax-semantic interface in Yaqui complex sentences: A role and reference grammar analysis. Ph.D. thesis. University of New York at Buffalo. Guerrero, Lilián & Robert D. Van Valin, Jr. 2004. Yaqui and the analysis of primary object languages. International Journal of American Linguistics 70(3). 290–319.
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Harley, Heidi, Mercedes Tubino Blanco & Jason Haugen. 2009. Applicative constructions and suppletive verbs in Yaqui. Rice Working Papers in Linguistics 1. 42–51. Haspelmath, Martin. 1993. More on the typology of inchoative/causative verb alternations. In Bernard Comrie & Maria Polinsky (eds.), Causatives and Transitivity (Studies in Language Companion Series 23), 87–120. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Jelinek, Eloise. 1998. Voice and transitivity as functional projections in Yaqui. In Miriam Butt & Wilhem Geuder (eds.), The Projection of Arguments: Lexical and Compositional Factors, 195– 224. Stanford: Stanford University. Jelinek, Eloise, & Fernando Escalante. 2000. Unaccusative and unergative verbs in Yaqui. In Eugene H. Casad & Thomas L. Willett (eds.), Uto-Aztecan: Structural, Temporal and Geographic Perspectives, Papers in Memory of Wick R. Miller by the friends of Uto-Aztecan, 171–182. Hermosillo: Universidad de Sonora. Larios Santacruz, Maria & Zarina Estrada-Fernández. 2011. Perspectiva tipológica de las construcciones bitransitivas en yaqui y seri. In Ana Lidia Munguía Duarte (ed.), Fonología, morfología y tipología semántico-sintáctica. Estudios lingüísticos 1, 215–241. Hermosillo: Universidad de Sonora. Levin, Beth. 1993. English Verb Classes and Alternations: A Preliminary Investigation. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Levin, Beth & Malka Rappaport-Hovav. 1995. Unaccusativity. At the Syntax-Lexical Semantics Interface. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Lindenfeld, Jacqueline. 1973. Yaqui Syntax. University of California Publications in Linguistics 76. Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press. Malchukov, Andrej, Iren Hartmann, Martin Haspelmath, Bernard Comrie & Søren Wichmann. 2010. The Leipzig Valency Classes Project. http://www.eva.mpg.de/lingua/valency/index.php Oehrle, Richard T. & Hiroko Nishio. 1981. Adversity. In Ann K. Farmer & Chisato Kitagawa (eds.), Coyote Papers 2: Proceedings of the Arizona Conference on Japanese Linguistics, 163–187. Tucson: University of Arizona Linguistic Circle. Pylkkänen, Liina. 2008. Introducing Arguments. Cambridge: The MIT Press. Schäfer, Florian. 2009. The causative alternation. Language and Linguistics Compass 3(2). 641– 681. Shibatani, Masayoshi. 1973. A linguistic study of causative constructions. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley. Tubino Blanco, Mercedes. 2010. Las causativas léxicas del yaqui. In Zarina Estrada-Fernández & Ramón Arzápalo Marín (eds.), Estudios de Lenguas Amerindias 2: Contribuciones al estudio de lenguas originarias de América, 241–256. Hermosillo: Universidad de Sonora.
Eric Campbell
33 Valency classes in Zenzontepec Chatino 1 Introduction This chapter outlines the basic valency patterns of Zenzontepec Chatino (ZEN). Chatino is a cluster of speech varieties in the Sierra Madre Mountains of southwestern Oaxaca State, Mexico. There are three principal varieties: Zenzontepec; Tataltepec; and the Eastern Chatino group (Boas 1913; Campbell 2013). Chatino is coordinate with Zapotec in the Zapotecan language family of the Otomanguean stock (Boas 1913; Kaufman 1987). ZEN is phonologically conservative and appears to be fairly representative of other varieties in terms of valency patterns, particularly the conservative Eastern Chatino variety of San Marcos Zacatepec. Innovative Eastern Chatino varieties like Yaitepec and San Juan Quiahije have lost non-prominent vowels, eroding some of the valency related morphology. No previous work on Chatino has systematically explored semantically based valency classes, but morphosyntax is treated in depth in Rasch (2002) and (less extensively) in Pride (2004). There have been several recent classifications of verbs based on the aspect prefix allomorphs that they select (Campbell 2011; followed by Villard 2010; Sullivant 2011), which is determined in part by broad valency patterns but also by phonological factors. § 2 outlines basic ZEN morphosyntax and the structure of verbs. § 3 presents the major valency patterns (coding frames), and § 4 treats valency alternations. Finally, § 5 gives a summary and conclusions. The table in the appendix lists the 70 core meaning labels selected for comparison and their ZEN counterpart verbs, coding frames, and the main alternations.1
1 The practical orthography here differs from the IPA as follows: kw = [kʷ], tz = [ʦ], r = [ɾ], ty = [tʲ], ly = [lʲ], ny = [nʲ], ch = [ʧ], x = [ʃ], y = [j], ky = [kʲ], j = [h], V̨ = nasalized vowel, VV = long vowel, = mid tone, and v́ = high tone. Unaccented vowels carry no lexical tone. The frequently occurring enclitics =VɁ and =V́ contain a vowel mora that is underlyingly unspecified for quality. They take on the quality of the preceding vowel, even if a glottal stop intervenes. Where no glottal stop intervenes, the host vowel is lengthened. Prefixes are set off by a hypen (-), enclitics are preceded by an equals sign (=), and component stems of compounds are separated by a plus sign (+). Vowel hiatus is only tolerated across clitic boundaries, and elsewhere one vowel is deleted in hiatus. Underlying vowels that end up deleted are enclosed in parentheses in the examples and tables.
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Eric Campbell
2 Basic morphosyntax of Zenzontepec Chatino 2.1 Clause structure and grammatical relations ZEN basic constituent order is VSO, and it is a strongly head-marking language. Basic intransitive, transitive, and ditransitive clauses are shown in (1), (2), and (3), respectively. (1) nku-laɁa na yaka=VɁ. cpl-get.broken def wood=dem ‘The stick split.’ (elicited) (2) nka-(u-)laɁa na nkwítzą=V́ jiʔī ̨ na wentanā=V.́ cpl-(caus-)get.broken def child=dem rn def window=dem ‘The child broke the window.’ (elicited) (3) nka-(u-)tēję́=ą̄Ɂ tzaka wurū jiʔī ̨ kwitiɁ=ą̄Ɂ. cpl-(caus-)pass=1sg one donkey rn brother=1sg ‘I sent a donkey to my brother.’ (offered) Pronouns have independent and dependent forms. As for the dependent forms, the 2nd person singular is marked by tone change on the verb (4a), and the 3rd singular (and plural) may be zero-marked, as in nakwę ‘he said’ in (4b). All other dependent pronouns are enclitics, like the 1 st person singular in (4b). (4) a. ta y-āā? already cpl-go.2sg ‘You went already?’ b. ta y-aa=ą̄ʔ nakwę. already cpl-go=1sg cpl.say[.3] ‘I already went, he said.’ (text) Pronominal enclitics cannot occur if a coreferential NP is present post-verbally (5). (5) *ta y-aa= ą̄ʔ nāáʔ. already cpl-go=1sg 1sg sought reading: ‘I already went.’ (elicited)
Valency classes in Zenzontepec Chatino
1393
If the coreferential NP is fronted, the person enclitics do occur on the verb (6). These facts suggest that fronted NPs are extra-clausal and pronominal enclitics are full pronouns and not indices.2 Since they are not indices, they are not represented in the coding frames of verbs in the appendix or elsewhere. (6) kwaʔą ki-(a)kwiʔ=wą lo kiʔyā. 2pl pot speak=2pl in market ‘You (pl.), you (pl.) will speak in the market.’ (elicited) P arguments are flagged by the relational noun jiʔī ̨ if they are pronominal (7) or topical (8) (Dalrymple & Nikolaeva 2011: 155–159). (7) k(i)-u-t-ūʔú+leta= ą̄ʔ jiʔī ̨=wą jā ná ki-liji=wą. pot-caus-trn-be.inside+path=1sg rn=2pl conj neg pot-get.lost=2pl ‘I am going to guide you (pl.) so that you (pl.) don’t get lost.’ (offered) (8) ta nka-(u-)xūʔú=ūʔ jiʔī ̨ [na ya nkítā=Vʔ] tī already cpl-(caus-)get.cut=3pl rn def clf Enterolobium.sp.=dem tplz niī. now ‘They have cut (down) the elephant’s ear tree now.’ (text) If a P argument is not pronominal or topical, it is not flagged (9). Therefore, ZEN has differential object marking. When the P argument is unflagged, grammatical relations are determined by context and/or constituent order. (9) nkā-naɁa jwaā=V́ jakwa kinī. cpl-see Juan=dem four bird ‘Juan saw four birds.’ (elicited) Only A and S arguments may encliticize to verbs, and only other arguments (P, T, R, etc.) may be flagged by jiʔī ̨. Therefore, ZEN shows nominative-accusative alignment, and we can speak of a subject in ZEN as being the argument that can encliticize to the verb if pronominal.
2 Enclitics take other hosts as well: intimately (inalienably) possessed nouns, relational nouns, adjectives (used predicatively), numerals, and other quantifiers.
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Eric Campbell
Finally, like pronominal 3rd person subjects, pronominal 3rd person object arguments may be omitted, along with the relational noun, as in (10), where the causative prefix tells us that the verb is bivalent. ̸ (10) k(i)-u-kitę̄ʔ. (0) pot-caus-get.snapped[.3] (rn[.3]) ‘S/he snapped it.’ (elicited)
2.2 More on flagging: relational nouns As ZEN is a head-marking language, there is not much elaboration in flagging of NPs. However, a few further details should be mentioned before moving on to coding and valency patterns.
2.2.1 The relational noun jiʔī ̨ In ditransitive constructions T arguments are flagged the same as P, by jiʔī ̨ if pronominal or topical. R arguments are always flagged by jiʔī ̨. If both are flagged, word order distinguishes them, and T precedes R, as in (11).3 Therefore, the language has indirective alignment with respect to ditransitives in terms of Malchukov et al. (2010). (11) k(i)-u-suʔū=ą̄ʔ jiʔī ̨ na nkwítzą kūnáʔa jiʔī ̨ jniʔ kíʔyū=ą̄ʔ. pot-caus-show=1sg rn def child female rn offspring male=1sg ‘I will show the girls to my son.’ (elicited) The relational noun may also flag locational arguments (if topical or pronominal), as exemplified for the verbs ‘put’ (12) and ‘go’ (13). Therefore, locational NPs may be flagged the same as P and T. (12) nka-(u-)tūkwá tejeʔ jiʔī ̨ na kantū=Vʔ. cpl-(caus-)be.inside[.3] salt rn def soup=dem ‘She put salt in the soup.’ (elicited)
3 Flagging in ZEN ditransitive constructions differs from that in Eastern Chatino, where inanimate P and T arguments are reportedly never flagged by cognates of jiʔi ̨ (Cruz et al. 2010).
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(13) nt(i)-utzę kwaa maxi nu tz-aa=ya jiʔī ̨. hab-fear 1pl.excl even.if nmlz pot-go=1pl.excl rn[.3] ‘We would be afraid to even go by there.’ (text) It may also flag a beneficiary (14), or maleficiary, participant. (14) liwrū k(i)-u-jnyā=yu jiʔī ̨ kitzę. book pot-caus-make=3sg.m rn village ‘He is going to make a book for the village.’ (text) The relational noun jiʔī ̨ also flags the possessor NP in non-intimate (alienable) possession constructions (15). (15) nka-(u-)lōó kuchilū jiʔī ̨. cpl-(caus-)take.out[.3] knife rn[.3] ‘He took out his knife.’ (text)
2.2.2 The relational noun lóʔō The relational noun lóʔō serves as a coordinator and also flags instrument (16) and comitative (17) NPs. (16) nku-tyejnā nt(i)-u-laʔa=ūʔ jiʔī ̨ na kee=Vʔ lóʔō cpl-begin[.3] hab-caus-get.broken=3pl rn def rock=dem rn.with kwi-tīʔyú. clf.anim-lightning ‘They began to break the rock with lightning.’ (text) (17) k(i)-u-s-ukwaʔ=na jnuʔ neyā lóʔō=ūʔ. pot-caus-trn-shell=1pl.incl eight fanega rn.with=3pl ‘We are going to shell eight fanegas (of corn) with them.’ (text)
2.3 Devices that encode or change valency Most valency encoding occurs on the verb. The majority of verb roots are monovalent, a smaller number are polyvalent, and a limited set of roots are unspecified
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for valency, requiring equipollent derivation. ZEN is a transitivizing language in terms of Nichols et al. (2004). Transitivity in ZEN involves not only the number of arguments a given verb takes, but also the agency or animacy of the subject (Campbell 2011a). Therefore, in dealing with valency patterns and alternations it is useful to talk about verb alternants as being more transitive or less transitive, in the sense of Hopper & Thompson (1980). The minimal verb consists of a root with aspect/mood inflection, and only a few irregular verbs have no overt marking for one aspect/mood category or other. The verbal template is given in (18). Its core includes the head root and three prefix positions, which all together make up a single phonological word. Verbal lexemes may consist of the main root compounded with other stems, which are separate phonological words. One or more adverbial enclitics may follow the simple or compound stem, and the subject enclitic pronoun (if present) occurs in final position. Auxiliaries precede the core and form a compound with it (and a separate phonological word). Auxiliaries have their own aspect prefix slot. (18) ZEN verbal template Pos 3 Pos 2 Pos 1 Root (asp- aux)+ asp- (caus/iter-) (derv-) root (+stem)* (=adv)* (=sbj) The three morphological slots preceding the main verb root in the core are numbered beginning with the position closest to the root (following Kaufman 1987). Position 1, if filled, is occupied by derivational valency prefixes (19). (19) Position 1 prefixes t-/s- transitivizer y- intransitivizer Position 2, if filled, may contain the iterative prefix i- or the causative derivational prefix u-, the latter of which is most relevant for valency (20). (20) Position 2 valency changing devices u- causative prefix Aspect/mood inflection is obligatory and verb initial (position 3 for verbs with no auxiliary). There are six categories, each having considerable allomorphy: the Potential and Imperative moods, and the Progressive, Habitual, Completive, and Stative Aspects. Following Kaufman’s (1987, 1993) treatment of Zapotec, Campbell (2011) classifies ZEN verbs based on which allomorphs of the Potential, Progressive, Habitual, and Completive prefixes they select. The selection of allomorphs is based both on valency and the phonological shape of the stem, which in turn relate to the valency changing devices in positions 1 and 2. Therefore, aspect prefixes are
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Tab. 1: ZEN Aspect prefix (sub-)classes (Campbell 2011). Class A
pot hab prog cpl
Class B
Class C
Au, Ac
A2
Bc
Bt
By
Ca
C2
kintintenka-
kintintenkwi-
kintintenku-
(t → ty) n- (t → ty) ntenku-
(y → ch) n- (y → ch) ntenk(u)-
kntinchnku-
kntinch-/nteyy-/nkay-
part of the coding frames of verbs, and any account of verb classes and valency must include the aspect prefix (sub‑)classes, summarized in Table 1. A rough characterization of the valency and phonological features of verbs of the various aspect prefix sub-classes is given in (21), and a more detailed description of them will be given in § 3. The majority patterns are sub-classes Au, Bc, and By, and it is clear from the summary in (21) that there is some overlap since the aspect prefix classes are not based solely on valency. (21) Sub-class Au Sub-class Ac Sub-class A2 Sub-class Bc Sub-class Bt Sub-class By Sub-class Ca Sub-class C2
derived u- causative verbs unergative or transitive transitive and all i or e initial verbs (tr. or itrn.) unaccusative motion and posture verbs y- initial verbs, mostly derived unaccusative unaccusative, a- initial unergative or transitive, begin in a-, o‑, or u‑
One auxiliary is particularly relevant for valency: the causative auxiliary ē+, which is described in detail in § 4.2.4. Like the position 2 causative prefix u- (discussed in § 4.2.3), the causative auxiliary adds an external causer participant to an event. Which of the two causatives a given verb takes, if any, is largely determined by the lexical semantics of the underived verb and its typical arguments. A handful of verbs may take either one of the causatives, but the resulting derived verbs differ in their semantics. The difference between the two causative alternations is the highlight of ZEN valency alternations and is treated in § 4.2.5. In auxiliary constructions, the aspect/mood inflection of the auxiliary has scope over the entire verb. The prefix positions preceding the main verb root may or may not be filled, but any such morphology is semantically vacuous. Aside from a few exceptions, the extra prefixes are predictable by the particular auxiliary and the aspect-prefix subclass of the main verb. The main verb root with any superfluous morphology in an auxiliary construction is referred to as a dependent form of the verb. To provide an example, (22a) shows the basic verb ‘eat’ in the Completive aspect. In the auxiliary construction in (22b) ‘go to eat’, the dependent form of the
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main verb includes the Completive Aspect prefix y- even though the entire compound verb is inflected for Potential Mood. Finally, in the ē+ causative auxiliary construction in (22c) ‘feed him/her’, the dependent form of the main verb ‘eat’ includes the superfluous Potential Mood prefix k-, even though the entire verb is in the Completive Aspect. (22) a. y-aku. cpl-eat[.3] ‘S/he ate.’ b. tz-a+y-aku. pot-go+cpl-eat[.3] ‘S/he will go eat.’ c. nkw-ē+k-aku. cpl-caus+pot-eat[.3] ‘S/he fed him/her.’ When certain verbs undergo the ē+ causative auxiliary alternation their dependent form includes a superfluous causative prefix u-. However, these are not examples of the u- causative alternation, and crucially, this is not what is meant by certain verbs being able to undergo both causative alternations, nor are they cases of double causativization in which two layers of causers are added to the event. For example, the basic verb ‘boil’ is given in the Completive Aspect in (23a). With the auxiliary ‘finish’ in (23b) the dependent form of ‘boil’ is just the bare verb root. In the ē+ causative auxiliary construction (23c) the dependent form of ‘boil’ includes both the position 3 Potential Aspect prefix k(i)- and the position 2 causative prefix u-, which are semantically vacuous. (23) a. nku-lákwi. cpl-boil[.3] ‘It boiled.’ b. nkwi-ta+lákwi. cpl-finish+boil[.3] ‘It finished boiling.’ c. nkw(i)-ē+k-u-lákwi. cpl-caus+pot-caus-boil[.3] ‘S/he boiled it.’
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3 Valency patterns 3.1 Aspect prefix subclasses 3.1.1 Aspect prefix sub-class Bc The largest set of underived verbs of low transitivity are the consonant-initial, aspect prefix sub-class Bc verbs. They inflect for aspect as in Table 2. Tab. 2: Aspect prefix sub-class Bc verbs.
‘sink (itrn.)’ ‘break (itrn.)
Stem
pot
prog
hab
cpl
-lítiɁ -laʔa
kiki-lítiɁ ki-laʔa
ntente‑lítiɁ nte-laʔa
ntinti‑lítiɁ nti-laʔa
nkunku‑lítiɁ nku-laʔa
Most sub-class Bc verbs are monovalent change of state verbs, but a few are activities, such as nku‑jnyá ‘quake’ and nku‑lákwi ‘boil (itrn.)’. They have either nonvolitional subjects as in nku‑su ‘come off’ (24) or volitional subjects that do not actively participate in the event, as in some uses of ‘get cut’ (25). (24) lēʔ tza-jnyāʔá ná wala nku-su tī ntaʔą wiʔ. then word-true neg where cpl-come.off tplz fresh.corn there ‘Then it’s true that no fresh corn was picked anywhere there.’ (text) (25) nku-xūʔú túkwa seʔę yaāʔ. cpl-get.cut two place hand[.3] ‘He got cut (or cut himself accidentally) in two places on his hand.’ (offered) Most of these verbs denote events that can be brought about by an external agent, and they can be causativized. However, some take the derivational u- causative, others take the auxiliary ē+ causative, and some take neither or both (see § 4.2.3 and § 4.2.4). In the 70‑verb-meaning list, those that are sub-class Bc verbs in ZEN are nku‑lítiɁ ‘sink’, and nku-lā+misę̄ ‘roll’ (a compound based on the verb ‑láā ‘come loose’).
3.1.2 Aspect prefix sub-class Ca verbs A smaller but significant set of underived intransitive verbs make up aspect prefix sub-class Ca, labeled as such since all but one begin in /a/. Their aspect inflection is exemplified in Table 3.
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Tab. 3: Aspect prefix sub-class Ca verbs.
‘get cooked’ ‘die’
Stem
pot
prog
hab
cpl
-ākéʔ -aji
kk-ākéʔ k-aja
nch- ~ nteynch-akēʔ ntey-aja
ntintī-(a)kéʔ nti-(a)ji
nkunkū-(a)kéʔ nku-(a)jwi
The sub-class Ca verbs that are in the 70-meaning list are nk‑ā+tāká ‘live/inhabit’ and nku‑(a)jwi ‘die’. The first is a compound based on the verb n-kā ‘become’, ‘happen’. Aside from these, a nearly exhaustive list of the non-compound verbs in this aspect prefix sub-class are: ‑akā ‘become’, ‑akwaʔ ‘leak’, ‑ala ‘be born’, ‑ālú ‘get fat’, ‑asiya ‘be lying (thrown) down’, ‑ātę́ ‘crumble’, ‑ākwí ‘rot’, ‑anaʔ ‘thicken’, ‑āsúʔ ‘get old’, ‑atzu ‘pop (itrn.)’, ‑atzaʔ ‘get wet’, ‑ajī ‘be gotten’, ‑ātzúʔ ‘spoil’, and ‑uʔwe ‘dry up’. Like those of sub-class Bc, the sub-class Ca verbs (26) are of low transitivity. They are mostly monovalent, inactive, change of state verbs. (26) nteē nku-(a)la=kāʔá nāáʔ nakwę n-tzaʔą=kāʔá nāáʔ. here cpl-be.born=also 1sg say[.3] stat-be.attached=also 1sg ‘I was also born here, he said. I have an animal spirit companion too.’ (text)
3.1.3 Aspect prefix sub-class Bt verbs Most aspect prefix sub-class Bt verbs are underived and begin in /t/. They can be subdivided into (non-deictic) motion verbs, positional verbs, and a few unaccusatives. Their aspect inflection is shown in Table 4. Tab. 4: Aspect prefix sub-class Bt verbs.
‘be inside’ ‘leave’
Stem
pot
prog
hab
cpl
-tūkwá -túʔu
(t → ty) tyūkwá tyúʔu
ntente-tūkwá nte-túʔu
n- (t → ty) n-tyūkwá n-tyúʔu
nkunku-tūkwá nku-túʔu
3.1.3.1 Motion verbs The majority of the non-deictic motion verbs (27) fall into this class. (27) ná ki-(a)kwiʔ jiʔī ̨=na maxi kākwá=ri nku-teję̄. neg pot-speak[.3] rn=1pl.incl even.if close.by=only cpl-pass[.3] ‘They don’t speak to us even if they pass close by.’ (text)
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The sub-class Bt motion verbs that are found in the 70-meaning list are nku‑túʔu ‘leave’ and nku‑túʔu+jnyá ‘run’, a compound based on ‘leave’. Other stems include: ‑taʔą ‘walk/go around’, -teję̄ ‘pass’, ‑tákwi ‘fly’, ‑tásū ‘fall to the ground’, and ‑túʔu sateʔ ‘undress’ (lit. ‘his/her clothes leave’). Like the sub-class Bc and Ca verbs, the Bt motion verbs may differ on which causative alternation they undergo (see § 4.2.3 and § 4.2.4), if any, and a few undergo both.
3.1.3.2 Positional/existential verbs The positional/existential verbs mostly begin in /t/. They show some degree of polysemy, and their meanings tend to overlap. One corresponds to a meaning in the 70-meaning list: n-tyukwā ‘be sitting (relaxed)’ (SIT). Other stems include: ‑teʔę ‘be located’; ‑tēyá ‘be standing’; ‑toǫ ‘be standing’; ‑to+nēʔé ‘be gathered together’; ‑t‑uʔu ‘be inside’, ‘(crop or fruit) be yielded’; ‑tákwī ‘be up above/suspended/hanging’; ‑tūkwá ‘be inside’; ‑saʔą ‘be attached/written’; ‑sukwā ‘be lying down’; and ‑y‑uʔu (sub-class By) ‘be put inside’, ‘live’. The positional verbs are glossed as statives because the non-stative aspect/ mood forms typically refer to the overall states or positions and not the transitions to or from them. In order to refer to the transitions, they are combined with auxiliaries, for example ‑ya+toǫ ‘stand up’ (literally ‘go+be.standing’). They have several behavioral properties that set them apart as a distinct class. They are used as: existential predicates (28); verbs meaning ‘have’ (29), which are like existentials (‘there is an X of Y’s in such position’); and secondary predicates, in Stative Aspect, denoting position (30). (28) wiʔ nku-tūkwá tzaka kétū nakwę kétū kyaʔā. there cpl-be.inside one opening say[.3] hole mountain ‘There was an opening there, they say, a tunnel.’ (text) (29) n-teʔę líjyā jiʔī ̨ nka-(u-)jnyā tzaka ya kūtę́ʔ. stat-be.located cane rn[.3] cpl-(caus-)make[.3] one clf spinner ‘He had sugar cane, and he built a sugar mill.’ (text) (30) n-tákwī nijyaą nto kweʔę nti-sesu. stat-be.suspended[.3] prog.come[.3] face air hab.flip.over[.3] ‘When he came through the air up above, he flipped over.’ (text)
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3.1.4 Aspect prefix sub-class Ac verbs Aspect prefix sub-class Ac is a fairly small set of consonant-initial, underived verbs. Unlike verbs of sub-classes Bc and Ca, they are unergative, or active, monovalent verbs and a few bivalent verbs (31). (31) la wiʔ y-a+tēyá luwiʔ lēʔ nka-xáʔā. up.to there cpl-go+be.standing[.3] then then cpl-scream[.3] ‘She went to stand there then, and then she screamed.’ (text) Their aspect inflection is shown in Table 5.
Tab. 5: Aspect prefix sub-class Ac verbs.
‘cough’ ‘play’
Stem
pot
prog
hab
cpl
-tuuʔ -jya
ki- / [pal] tyuuʔ ki-jya
ntente-tuuʔ nte-jyā
nti / n- [pal] n-tyuuʔ nti-jya
nkanka-tuuʔ nka-jyā
The aspect prefix sub-class Ac verbs that are in the 70-meaning list are: nka‑xáʔā ‘scream’ (31); nka‑xiti ‘laugh’; nka-jyā ‘play’; nka‑tuuɁ ‘cough’; nkā‑naɁa ‘see’, ‘look at’; nka‑xáʔā+lóɁō ‘shout at’; and nka‑ʔni ‘beat’. Other stems include: ‑jnaʔ ‘defecate’; ‑júʔū ‘be bloated’, ‘be embarrassed’; -júų̄ ‘spin (thread)’; ‑lyaʔā ‘smell’; ‑nyaʔ ‘wash hands’; ‑suuʔ ‘urinate’; ‑lya ‘fart’; ‑lālá ‘scold’; ‑sǫ́ ‘fight’; and ‑sesu ‘turn over’. These verbs take only volitional subjects and therefore are higher in transitivity than verbs of sub-classes Bc and Ca. This higher transitivity is reflected in their aspect inflection, particularly the Completive prefix nka-, which is the allomorph selected by the great majority of bivalent verbs (sub-classes Au and C2). None of the aspect prefix sub-class Ac verbs participate in the u‑ causative derivation, about half take the ē+ causative, and the remainder are only causativized periphrastically.
3.1.5 Aspect prefix sub-class A2 verbs Aspect prefix sub-class A2 is unique in that it is the only one that selects the Completive prefix nkwi-. It contains several consonant-initial bivalent verbs and all verbs whose stems begin in /i/ or /e/, whether monovalent or polyvalent, including verbs with the ē+ causative auxiliary. Their aspect inflection is given in Table 6.
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Tab. 6: Aspect prefix sub-class A2 verbs.
‘rain’ ‘search for’
Stem
pot
prog
hab
cpl
-eʔe choo -tyána
̸ ki- / 0 k-eʔe choo tyána
ntente-k-eʔe choo nte-tyána
ntinti-ʔe choo n-tyána
nkwinkw(i)-eʔe choo nkwi-tyána
Most underived bivalent verbs of sub-class A2 may also occur with the Completive prefix nka-, and therefore also fall into sub-class Ac. The verbs in the 70-meaning list that belong to sub-class A2 are: nkw(i)‑eʔe (choo) ‘rain’, tiʔi nkw(i)-ii ‘feel pain’, nkw(i)-é+kwaą̄ ‘jump’, nkw(i)-ē+tyukwā ‘sit down’, nkw(i)‑ē+saʔą ‘sit down’, nkw(i)-ē+k-ata ‘wash/bathe (trn.)’, nkwi-tyā+tyūkwá ‘help’, nkwi-tyána ‘look for’, and nkw(i)-ē+k-utzę ‘frighten (trn.)’. This is not a coherent class of verbs in terms of valency since some are unergative, others are transitive roots, and still others are derived causatives.
3.1.6 Aspect prefix sub-class C2 verbs Aspect prefix sub-class C2 consists of vowel-initial verbs. Though a few are inactive monotransitives, the majority are higher transitivity unergatives, underived bivalent verbs, and a few derived u‑ causatives. Their aspect marking is shown in Table 7.
Tab. 7: Aspect prefix sub-class C2 verbs.
‘eat’ ‘kill’
Stem
pot
prog
hab
cpl
-aku -u-jwi
kk-aku k-u-jwi
nch- ~ nteynch-aku nch-u-jwi
ntint-aku nt(i)-u-jwi
(nka)y(nka)y-aku (nka)y-u-jwi
The sub-class C2 verbs in the 70-meaning list are: y-uwe=tīʔ ‘be sad’, y-ulaʔ ‘feel cold’, y-aa ‘go’, y‑ūlá ‘sing’, y‑aku ‘eat’, y-utzę ‘fear’, y‑ukwęʔ ‘smell’, y‑akwiʔ ‘speak/talk’, y-u-(a)jwi ‘kill’, y‑alaʔ ‘touch’, y‑a+la‑saʔą ‘follow’, and y-a+toǫ=tīʔ ‘like’. The last two are compounds based on the verb ‘go’. Other unergative verb stems that belong to this sub-class include: ‑útī ‘bark’, ‑ūná ‘cry’, ‑ulaʔ ‘be cold’, ‑ākwę́ ‘vomit’, ‑atiʔ ‘nurse’, and the unaccusative ‑uwe ‘get ground’ (32). (32) k-uwe=ri tzoʔō tzoʔō lēʔ k-ōʔó=ą jiʔī ̨ tza pot-get.ground=only[.3] good good then pot-drink=1pl.incl rn[.3] one
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tasā xīyáʔ=ri. cup small=only ‘It gets ground very well, and then one drinks it, just a small cup.’ (text) Other bivalent aspect sub-class C2 verbs are: ‑oʔō ‘drink’ (also in (32)), ‑aʔna ‘clear (fields)’, ‑ujwīʔ ‘sell’, ‑una ‘twist into rope’, ‑uʔų̄ ‘strike’, ‑oō ‘grind’, ‑una ‘hear/ understand’, ‑ātáʔ ‘chew’, and -ukwą̄ ‘pull’. Other derived u- causative verb stems of aspect sub-class C2 are: ‑ū-(a)kéʔ ‘cook’, ‑ū-(a)tę́ ‘take apart’, and ‑u‑(a)tzaʔ ‘make wet’.
3.1.7 Aspect prefix sub-class By verbs All verbs that begin in /y/ belong to aspect prefix sub-class By. Though a few are underived monovalent or bivalent verbs, the majority are monovalent verbs derived by the intransitivizer prefix y-. Their aspect inflection is demonstrated in Table 8.
Tab. 8: Aspect prefix sub-class By verbs.
‘get burned’ ‘climb’
Stem
pot
prog
hab
cpl
-y-akę̄ -yó+saɁą
(y → ch) ch-akę̄ chó+saɁą
nte- (y → ch) nte-y-akę̄ nte‑yó+saɁą
n- (y → ch) n-ch-akę̄ n-chó+saɁą
nk(u)nk-y-akę̄ nk-yó+saɁą
The ZEN sub-class By verbs found in the 70-meaning list are: nk‑y‑akę̄ ‘get burned’; nk‑y-uteʔ ‘be hungry’; nk‑yó+saʔą ‘climb’; nk-y-uwi+ntoo ‘blink’; nk‑y‑uʔu+ntoo ‘meet’; n‑tz‑uʔu+ntoo ‘know’, a phonologically irregular stative form of the verb ‘meet’; and nk‑y‑uʔu+xiiʔ ‘hug’. Some underived non-compound monovalent subclass By verb stems are: -yākwá ‘warm up in sun’, ‑yala ‘burp, get full (from eating)’, ‑yatę ‘sleep’, ‑yúkwą̄ ‘get a sprain’, ‑yūkwą́ ‘shiver’, ‑yuʔū ‘take root’, ‑yāáʔ ‘be built’, ‑yāchíʔ ‘shrink’, and ‑yáʔnē ‘abound’. Some underived bivalent verbs are: ‑yakwa ‘weave’, ‑yata ‘plant’, ‑yáʔą̄ ‘wash’, and ‑yáʔą ‘adapt’. The valency of subclass By is mixed, but it is primarily intransitive with many derived unaccusatives.
3.1.8 Aspect prefix sub-class Au verbs Aspect prefix sub-class Au verbs are derived causative verbs that contain the u‑ causative prefix in position 2 of the verbal template (see § 4.2.3). This is a very
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large class. Those that are in the 70-meaning list are: nka-(u-)téēʔ ‘shave’, nka‑(u‑)tūkwá+xiiɁ ‘hug’, nka‑(u-)nána ‘ask for’, nka-(u-)lōó+naa ‘name’, nka‑(u‑) jnyā ‘build’, nka‑(u‑)laʔa ‘break (trn.)’, nka-(ū)rá ‘hit’, nka‑(u-)xūʔú ‘cut’, nka‑(u‑)láā ‘take (away)’, nka-(u-)s-āáʔ ‘tear (trn.)’, nka‑(u‑)s‑atą ‘peel (trn.)’, nka(u-)to+kāchíʔ ‘hide’, nka-(u-)suʔū ‘show’, nka‑(u‑)tēję́ ‘send’, nka-(u-)teę ‘carry’, nka‑(u‑)nēʔé ‘throw’, nka-(u-)x-īką́ʔ ‘tie’, nka-(u-)t-ūʔú ‘put/pour’, nka‑(u‑)tūkwá ‘pour/load’, and nka-(u-)t-ākǫ́ʔ ‘cover/close’. They take the same aspect prefixes as sub-class Ac.
3.2 Verbs of emotion and cognition Verbs of emotion and cognition have a special coding pattern in which the subject of the verb is an encliticized intimately possessed body part, either =tīʔ ‘living core’ or =rīké ‘chest, heart’. The two are largely interchangeable. The possessor of the body part is the experiencer of the emotion or thought. ZEN =tīʔ is a reduced form of latīʔ ‘living core’, cognate to Proto-Zapotec *laʔtyiʔ ‘center of emotions’ (Kaufman 1993). Cognates in other Chatino varieties are glossed as ‘essence’ (Cruz de Abeles 2009), ‘heart’ (Pride 2004), and ‘one’s nature’ (Rasch 2002). These enclitics combine with various basic verbs to create complex idiomatic lexemes, as in (33) and (34). (33) jwaā=V́ ná y-a+toǫ=tīʔ jiʔī ̨ na lúkwī=V.́ Juan=dem neg cpl-go+be.standing=living.core[.3] rn def mezcal=dem ‘Juan did not like the mezcal (liquor made from century plant).’ (offered) (34) tala n-tāá=tīʔ jiʔí ̨. always hab-give=living.core[.3] rn.2sg ‘He’s always thinking of you.’ (elicited) The ZEN verbs with this coding pattern that are found in the 70-meaning list are: y‑uwe=tīʔ ‘be sad’, nka‑tāá=tīʔ ‘think’, and y-a+toǫ=tīʔ ‘like’. A selection of other stems is given in (35): (35) ‑ā+jnyá=tīʔ ‑ā+tzoʔō=tīʔ ‑eya=tīʔ ‑líjī=tīʔ ‑ise+toǫ=tīʔ ‑taa=tīʔ
‘care about’ ‘be convinced’ ‘believe’ ‘be amazed’ ‘regret’ ‘get fed up’
(lit. become+work=living.core) (lit. become+good=living.core) (lit. X=living.core) (lit. get.lost=living.core) (lit. turn+be.standing=living.core) (lit. finish=living.core)
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4 Valency alternations In this section, uncoded valency alternations (§ 4.1) and verb-coded alternations (§ 4.2) are presented. The latter play a significantly larger role than the former in ZEN.
4.1 Uncoded alternations 4.1.1 Object omission alternation In the object omission alternation, an underived polyvalent verb has an unexpressed, but generally understood, object. The role of the subject of the less transitive verb is the same as that of the basic verb, as in English (Levin 1993). This alternation (36) must be distinguished from cases where a pronominal object is dropped (10). (36) a. y-utzę na nkwítzą kíʔyū=V́ jiʔī ̨ niʔ kíʔyū=V.́ cpl-fear def child male=dem rn 3sg.rsp male=dem ‘The boy feared the man.’ (elicited) b. kwi-naʔa=tzoʔō=wą nakwę ná k(i)-utzę=wą nakwę. imp-see=well=2pl say[.3] neg pot-fear=2pl say[.3] ‘“Look here”, he said. “Do not be afraid”, he said.’ (text) The ZEN verbs in the 70-meaning list that undergo this alternation are: y‑aku ‘eat’; y‑akwiʔ ‘speak’, ‘talk’; y‑ūlá ‘sing’; y‑utzę ‘fear’; nkā‑naʔa ‘see’, ‘look at’; nka‑(u‑)suʔū ‘show’, which means ‘teach’ with omitted object; nka-nána ‘ask for’, and nka‑tāá=tīʔ ‘think’. Some others are: ‑u‑saʔą ‘write’, ‑una ‘hear’, ‑ikwą ‘sew’, and ‑ʔne+tzáʔą̄ ‘study/read’. The verbs that undergo this alternation in ZEN are similar to those of English. A few differences like ‘show’ and ‘give’ stand out, but note that they also cover the meanings ‘teach’ and ‘provide sustenance’, which are covered by separate verbs in English. Spanish enseñar means both ‘show’ and ‘teach’, which is like ZEN nka‑(u‑)suʔū.
4.1.2 Ambitransitive alternation The ambitransitive alternation involves polyvalent and monovalent uses of a verb with no overt coding difference. Unlike in the object omission alternation, the subject of the less transitive alternant corresponds to the object of the more transitive
Valency classes in Zenzontepec Chatino
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verb. The verb ‘get’ is shown in (37a) and (37b) in its bivalent and monovalent uses, respectively. (37) a. wala nku-(a)jwī tī kwaʔą jiʔī ̨ nu=węʔ. where cpl-get tplz 2pl rn nmlz=dem ‘Where did you (pl.) get that?’ (text) b. nku-(a)jwī tzáʔ kwēyáʔ tínī jā tz-aa=ą tínī. cpl-get word measure now conj pot-go=1pl.incl now ‘Permission is gotten now, so let’s go now.’ (text) The only other verb yet known to undergo the ambitransitive alternation is ‑naʔa ‘see’, whose less-transitive alternant means ‘look like’, as in stimulus subject perception verbs (Levin 1993). This is a marginal alternation in ZEN.
4.2 Verb-coded alternations 4.2.1 The active/inactive alternation This alternation only applies to a few verb roots, but it deserves mention since it is based on whether or not the event is conceived of as being internally or externally oriented, a semantic distinction relevant for determining which causative alternation a verb undergoes (see § 4.2.3 and § 4.2.4). The alternation is equipollent, since both alternants are derived from a root that is unspecified for valency and cannot occur on its own. The active member of the pair is coded by the transitivizer prefix, t- or s‑, and the inactive member is derived by the intransitivizer prefix y‑. In (38), the root -akę̄ ‘burn’ carries the intransitivizer prefix y-, and the subject is ‘the books’. (38) nyáją̄ nu nee nkā nu kusōǫ́ nk-y-akę̄ na liwrū=Vʔ. year nmlz say[.3] cpl.be nmlz war cpl-itrn-burn def book=dem ‘The year they say was the Revolution, the books were burnt.’ (text) The active form of the verb takes the transitivizer prefix t‑, as in (39). Note that to add an external causer, as in ‘he burnt the books’, the verb would further require the u- causative prefix (see § 4.2.2 below). (39) nte-t-ákę̄ na kiiʔ. prog-trn-burn def fire ‘The fire is burning.’ (elicited)
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Both alternants are monovalent, but the subject of the active verb is the source of the burning, ‘the fire’ in (39), while the subject of the inactive form is what gets burned by fire, ‘the books’ in (38). The alternation therefore reflects the orientation of the argument in the event. If it is conceived as being propelled or oriented internally, the active form is used. If the orientation is external, the inactive alternant is used. Only one other verb has been found to undergo this alternation (40). (40) ‑uʔu ‑y‑uʔu ‑t-uʔu
‘be put inside’ ‘be inside’
(root) (inactive) (active)
4.2.2 The equipollent causative/intransitive alternation In this alternation, the more transitive form is derived by the transitivizer prefix, t‑ or s-, along with the u- causative prefix, while the less transitive form is derived by the intransitivizer prefix y‑. The less transitive verb is typically monovalent with a patient-like argument, and the more transitive verb is usually bivalent with a patient object and an external causer subject. The verb -akę̄ ‘burn’ exemplified for the active/inactive alternation in (38) and (39) also undergoes the equipollent alternation, and it is the only one from the 70-meaning list that does. Compare the intransitive verb ‘get burned’ in (38) with its causative counterpart in (41), from the same conversation. (41) nka-(u-)kų́=jnáʔ tī na santarū=Vʔ luwiʔ cpl-caus-shoot=throw tplz def soldier=dem then nka- (u-)t-ākę́=ų̄ʔ jiʔī ̨ na liwrū=Vʔ. cpl- (caus)-trn-burn=3pl rn def book=dem ‘The soldiers shot him up, and then they burnt the books.’ (text) The full documented inventory of other verbs that undergo the equipollent causative/intransitive alternation is given in (42). (42) ‑atą ‑ātę́ -ākwę́ ‑Vlú ‑atiʔ ‑áta ‑Vnē
‑y‑atą ‑y‑ātę́ ‑y-ākwę́ ‑y‑ālú ‑y‑atiʔ ‑y‑áta ‑y‑anē
‘get peeled’ ‘enter, get put in’ ‘come up’ ‘get spilled’ ‘get untied’ ‘be crushed’ ‘(seeds, dust) be spread’
‑u‑s‑atą ‑u‑s‑atę̄ ‑u‑s‑akwę̄ ‑u‑s‑ēlú ‑u‑s‑atiʔ ‑u‑s‑áta ‑u‑s‑enē
‘peel’ ‘put in’ ‘agitate’ ‘spill’ ‘untie’ ‘crush’ ‘spread’
Valency classes in Zenzontepec Chatino
‑āʔwé ‑ūkwá ‑úkwāʔ ‑uweʔ
‑y‑āʔwé ‑y‑ūkwá ‑y‑úkwāʔ ‑y‑uweʔ
‘be split’ ‘get sprayed’ ‘get shelled’ ‘get scraped, leveled’
‑u‑s‑āʔwé ‑u‑s‑ūkwá ‑u‑s‑úkwāʔ ‑u‑s‑uweʔ
-ką́ʔ ‑ākǫ́ʔ
‑y-āką́ʔ ‑y‑ākǫ́ʔ
‘get tied up’ ‘get closed, covered’
-u‑x‑īką́ʔ ‑u‑t‑ākǫ́ʔ
-alaʔ ‑ánō ‑uʔu ‑ūkų́ʔ ‑ūwíʔ
‑y-alaʔ ‑y‑ánō ‑y‑uʔu ‑y‑ūkų́ʔ ‑y‑ūwíʔ
‘be woven’ ‘be left, stay’ ‘be put inside’ ‘get folded’ ‘go out, get turned off’
‑u‑t‑alaʔ ‑u‑t‑ano ‑u‑t‑ūʔú ‑i-tz-ūkų́ʔ ‑i‑s‑uwīʔ
‑ālá ‑āáʔ
‑y‑ālá -t-āáʔ
‘melt (itrn.)’ ‘get torn’
‑i-t-alā ‑u‑s‑āáʔ
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‘split’ ‘spray’ ‘shell’ ‘scrape, level’ ‘tie up’ ‘close (trn.), cover’ ‘weave’ ‘leave (trn.)’ ‘put in’ ‘fold’ ‘put out/ turn off’ ‘melt (trn.)’ ‘tear (trn.)’
Some apparent irregularities in the coding of the causative/intransitive alternation are explainable. First of all, the causative -u‑x‑īką́ʔ ‘tie up’ has /x/, instead of /s/ or /t/, in position 1. However, pCh *s > x / __ i in ZEN (Campbell 2013). Three of the causatives, ‑i-tz-ūkų́ʔ ‘fold’, ‑i‑s‑uwīʔ ‘put out, turn off’, and ‑i‑t-alā ‘melt (trn.)’ have lexicalized with the iterative prefix i- in position 2, which replaces the causative u‑.
4.2.3 The u- causative alternation The most widespread alternation in ZEN is the u‑ causative derivation, illustrated in (43). (43) a. nku-xūʔú na chajlyā=V́ lóʔō na kuchilyū=V.́ cpl-get.cut def bread=dem rn.with def knife=dem ‘The bread was cut with the knife.’ (elicited) b. nkā-(u-)xūʔú na nkwítzą=V́ jiʔī ̨ na chajlyā=V́ lóʔō cpl-caus-get.cut def child=dem rn def bread=dem rn.with kuchilyū=V.́ knife=dem ‘The child cut the bread with a knife.’ (elicited)
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The prefix u‑ (deleted in hiatus in (43b)) adds an external causer argument to verbs of low transitivity, mostly monovalent inactive verbs from aspect prefix sub-classes Bc, Bt, and Ca. The derived causatives mostly pertain to aspect prefix sub-class Au. Some aspect prefix sub-class Bc verbs that take the u‑ causative are listed in (44). (44) -jlyā -jnyá -jnii -jnyāʔ -kalaʔ -kīí ̨ -kili -kītę́ʔ -kiʔi -kūnáʔ -lúū -láā -laja -lakwā ‑lítiʔ -laʔa -lūkwá -nakwą̄ -su -tikąʔ -wíī -xę́
‘be spread, slip’ ‘shake/quake/move’ ‘grow’ ‘liquefy’ ‘cool off’ ‘open up’ ‘become slimy/slippery’ ‘snap (itrn.)’ ‘get toasted’ ‘get thrown out’ ‘get dug’ ‘get set free, get taken’ ‘get cleaned out’ ‘get counted’ ‘sink (itrn.)’ ‘break (itrn.)’ ‘get swept out’ ‘get blessed’ ‘come off’ ‘swing (itrn.)’ ‘get cleaned off/sifted’ ‘get wrung out’
-ū‑jlyá ‑u‑jnyā -ū‑jní -u‑jnyāʔ -u‑kalaʔ -u‑kīí ̨ -u‑kili -u‑kītę́ʔ -u‑kiʔi -ū‑jnáʔ -u‑lúū -u‑láā -u‑lājá -u‑lakwā -u-lītíʔ -u‑laʔa -u‑lukwā -u‑nakwą̄ -u‑su -u‑tikąʔ -u‑wíī -u‑xę́
‘spread/smear (trn.)’ ‘make/move (trn.)’ ‘lengthen (trn.)’ ‘liquefy (trn.)’ ‘cool off (trn.)’ ‘open (trn.)’ ‘lubricate’ ‘snap (trn.)’ ‘toast’ ‘throw out’ ‘dig’ ‘free/take’ ‘clean out’ ‘count’ ‘sink (trn.)’ ‘break (trn.)’ ‘sweep out’ ‘bless’ ‘pick/remove’ ‘swing (trn.)’ ‘sift/clean off’ ‘wring out’
A few sub-class Ca verbs undergo the u‑ causative derivation, and the u‑ deletes the /a/ of the root. These derived causatives (45) fall into aspect prefix sub-class C2, except for -ú‑(a)tzū ‘pop/burst (trn.)’, which ends up in sub-class Au. (45) -aji -ākéʔ -ātę́ -atzu
‘die’ ‘get cooked’ ‘crumble (itrn.)’ ‘pop/burst (itrn.)’
-u‑(a)jwi -u-(ā)kéʔ -u‑(ā)tę́ -ú‑(a)tzū
‘kill’ ‘cook (trn.)’ ‘take apart’ ‘pop/burst (trn.)’
Finally, some sub-class Bt verbs undergo the u‑ causative derivation (46). (46) -taʔą -teję̄
‘walk/go around’ ‘pass’
-u‑tāʔą́ ‑u‑tēję́
‘move (trn.)’ ‘pass (trn.), send’
Valency classes in Zenzontepec Chatino
‑teʔę ‑tūkwá ‑to‑nēʔé ‑t‑uʔu ‑túwe ‑tájā ‑téēʔ
‘be located’ ‘be sitting firmly’, ‘be inside’ ‘be gathered’ ‘be inside’ ‘get sliced’ ‘get punctured’ ‘get peeled/whittled’
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‑u‑tēʔę́ ‑u‑tūkwá
‘take/place’ ‘load/pour’
‑u‑to+nēʔé ‑u‑t‑ūʔú ‑u‑túwe ‑u‑tájā ‑u‑téēʔ
‘gather (trn.)’ ‘put/pour’ ‘slice’ ‘puncture’ ‘peel (trn.)’, ‘whittle’, ‘shave oneself’
As these lists show, many prototypically transitive verbs are formally derived causatives in ZEN, which is fairly uncommon cross-linguistically (Haspelmath 1993), for example: ‘toast’, ‘throw out’, ‘count’, ‘break’, ‘sweep’, ‘bless’, ‘clean off/ sift’, ‘cut’, and many others.
4.2.4 The causative of active verb (ē+ causative) alternation Like the u‑ causative alternation, the ē+ causative auxiliary adds an external causer to an event. However, unlike the u‑ causative it applies to verbs of higher transitivity, such as unergative monovalent verbs (47) and transitive verbs (48). Note that when some consonant initial stems, like ‑xiti ‘laugh’ (47b), have the ē+ causative auxiliary, a superfluous causative u‑ is also present in the dependent form of the verb, as discussed in § 2.3. (47) a. tzáʔ=wiʔ niī lēʔ nka-xiti tī jniʔ kūnáʔa na reē=Vʔ. word=dem now then cpl-laugh tplz offspring female def king=dem ‘That is why the king’s daughter laughed.’ (text) b. tukwi nu chu k-e+k-u-xiti jiʔī ̨ jniʔ who nmlz nmlz.hum pot-caus+pot-caus-laugh[.3] rn offspring kūnáʔa=ą̄ʔ nakwę lēʔ yu=wiʔ saʔą=yu lóʔō. female=1sg say[.3] then 3sg.m=dem pot.attach=3sg.m rn.with[.3] ‘“Whoever makes my daughter laugh”, he said, “he will marry her.”’ (text) (48) a. ná y-aku=ą̄ʔ suwe=Vʔ lāká. neg cpl-eat=1sg egg=dem yesterday ‘I did not eat the eggs yesterday.’ (elicited)
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b. na nkwítzą=V́ nte-k-ē+k-aku chaja jiʔī ̨ na jnēʔ=V.́ def child=dem prog-pot-caus+pot-eat[.3] tortilla rn def dog=dem ‘The kids are feeding tortillas to the dogs.’ (elicited) The ē+ causative applies to some verbs from most of the aspect prefix sub-classes. Beginning with the sub-classes of lower transitivity, we see that quite a few subclass Bc verbs undergo the alternation (49), though less than the number that take the u‑ causative (44). (49) -jnyá -kanā ‑keję -lákwi ‑líjī ‑lítiʔ -lalā -la+misę̄ -láʔwa -nyaxęʔ -sāą́ -tíkwī -tiyaʔ -tzá -tzāʔą́ -wīʔí
‘shake/quake/move’ ‘(wood) split apart’
‑ē+k‑u‑jnyá -ē+k‑u‑kanā
‘get an itch’ ‘boil (itrn.)’ ‘get lost’ ‘sink (itrn.)’ ‘be early’, ‘have time’ ‘roll’ ‘be carried off by current’ ‘get angry’ ‘fall over’ ‘landslide’ ‘be late’, ‘get behind’ ‘be mistaken’ ‘change (itrn.)’ ‘become skinny’
‑ē+k‑u‑keję -ē+k‑u-lákwi -ē+k‑u-líjī -ē+k‑u-lítiʔ -ē+k‑u-lalā -ē+la+t‑ísę -ē+k‑u-láʔwa
‘shake (up)’ ‘split apart (trn.) (especially wood)’ ‘make itch by irritating’ ‘boil (trn.)’ ‘lose (trn.)’ ‘drown (trn.)’ ‘hurry (trn.)’ ‘roll (trn.)’ ‘send in current’
-ē+k‑u-nyaxęʔ -ē+k‑u-sāą́ -ē+k‑u-tíkwī -ē+k‑u-tiyaʔ -ē+k‑u-tzá -ē+k‑u-tzāʔą́ -ē+k‑u-wīʔí
‘anger’ ‘trip (trn.)’ ‘cause landslide’ ‘delay (trn.)’ ‘influence in bad way’ ‘exchange/trade’ ‘cause to become skinny’
Some aspect prefix sub-class Ca verbs that take the ē+ causative are given in (50), about as many as take the u‑ causative (45). (50) -ālú -ākwí ‑āsúʔ ‑ātzúʔ ‑uʔwe ‑ala
‘get fat’ ‘(wood) rot’ ‘age’ ‘(fruit) spoil’ ‘(water) dry up’ ‘be born’
-ē+k‑ālú ‑ē+k‑ākwí ‑ē+k‑asūʔ ‑ē+k‑atzūʔ ‑ē+k‑uʔwe ‑ē+k‑ala
‘fatten up (trn.)’ ‘make rot’ ‘cause to age’ ‘make spoil’ ‘dry up (trn.)’ ‘induce childbirth’
The same is true for the motion and positional verbs of aspect prefix sub-class Bt. Compare (51) with (46). A few verbs undergo both alternations (see § 4.2.5).
Valency classes in Zenzontepec Chatino
(51) ‑taʔą ‑teję̄ -túʔu+jnyá -tāką́ʔ ‑toǫ ‑tákwi
‘walk/go around’ ‘pass’ ‘run’ ‘suffer’ ‘be standing’ ‘fly’
-ē+k‑u‑taʔą -ē+k‑u‑teję̄ ‑ē+k‑u‑túʔu+jnyá ‑ē+k‑u‑tāką́ʔ ‑ē+k‑u‑toǫ ‑ē+k‑u‑tákwi
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‘move around (trn.)’ ‘(tree) sway’ ‘make run’ ‘cause to suffer’ ‘support’ ‘make fly’
Some unergative and bivalent verbs of aspect prefix sub-class C2 undergo the ē+ causative derivation (52), while none take the u‑ causative. (52) -akwiʔ -ata -ākwę́ ‑útī ‑uwe=tīʔ ‑ūlá ‑ulaʔ ‑ūná -una ‑aku ‑utzę ‑oʔō
‘speak’ ‘bathe oneself’ ‘vomit’ ‘bark’ ‘be sad’ ‘sing/make music’ ‘be cold’ ‘cry’ ‘twist into rope’ ‘eat’ ‘fear’ ‘drink’
-ē+k‑akwiʔ ‑ē+k‑ata ‑ē+k‑ākwę́ ‑ē+k‑uti ‑ē+k‑uwe=tīʔ ‑ē+k‑ūlá ‑ē+k‑ulaʔ ‑ē+k‑ūná ‑ē+k‑una ‑ē+k‑aku ‑ē+k‑utzę ‑ē+k‑oʔō
‘make one speak’ ‘bathe (trn.)’ ‘make one vomit’ ‘cause to bark’ ‘cause to be sad’ ‘get one to dance’ ‘threaten’ ‘make cry’ ‘(tree) twist in wind’ ‘feed (trn.)’ ‘frighten (trn.)’ ‘give to drink’
Likewise, none of the unergative or transitive verbs of aspect prefix sub-classes Ac or A2 undergo the u‑ causative alternation, but several take the ē+ causative (53). (53) -jyā -lyaʔā -xáʔā ‑sōǫ́ ‑xiti ‑lyēʔé ‑i‑t-uʔu (sateʔ)
‘play’ ‘smell (trn.)’ ‘scream’ ‘fight’ ‘laugh’ ‘lick’ ‘get dressed’
-ē+k‑u‑jyā -ē+k‑u‑lyaʔā ‑ē+k‑u‑xáʔā ‑ē+k‑u‑sōǫ́ ‑ē+k‑u‑xiti ‑ē+k‑u‑lyēʔé ‑ē+k‑u‑t-ūʔú
‘make play’ ‘make smell (trn.)’ ‘cause to scream’ ‘make fight’ ‘cause to laugh’ ‘make lick’ ‘dress (trn.)’
4.2.5 The u- causative versus the ē+ causative alternation From the data in § 4.2.3 and § 4.2.4, it is possible to predict to some extent which causative alternation a verb will undergo. To begin in broad terms, monovalent verbs with non-active subjects tend to take the u‑ causative, while unergative or bivalent verbs tend to undergo the ē+ causative alternation. In Dixon’s (2002) typology of causatives, the semantic parameter that comes closest to capturing the patterns of causative selection in ZEN is that of causee control. People generally do
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not control whether they die or not (u- causative), but they have some control over fighting, laughing, speaking, or eating (ē+ causative). However, causee control doesn’t fit all of the data. Land does not control when it landslides; things carried off by a current generally have no control; trees can’t prevent being twisted in the wind, splitting, or rotting; and water does not volitionally boil, dry up, or carry something off in its current. Nevertheless, all of these verbs take the ē+ causative. As was common in pre-Colombian Mesoamerica, Chatino culture is traditionally animist, and this is reflected in the lexicon. The animacy classifier prefix, ZEN kwi‑, cognate to Proto-Zapotec *kwe= (Kaufman 1993), occurs on many human nouns and most animal names, such as ZEN kw-ēlá ‘dancer’, kwi‑tzāʔą́ ‘sorcerer’, kwi‑tiʔ ‘brother (of male)’, kwi-naʔ ‘deer’, kw-īchí ‘jaguar’, kw-eę̄ ‘bat’, kwi-teeʔ ‘ant’, kw-iyuʔ ‘spider’, among many others. Natural forces and heavenly bodies also take the animacy classifier prefix: kw-ēló ‘current/flow’, kw‑eʔę ‘air’, kwi‑tīʔyú ‘lightning’, kw-ewīʔ ‘plague’, kwi-se ‘evil spirit’, kwi‑tijyuū ‘comet’, kw‑ela ‘star’, kwityusūʔ ‘Pleiades’, and joʔō kwi-tzaā ‘sun’. Particularly relevant for the verbs under consideration that take the ē+ causative is the fact that ‘wind’ (‘(tree) twist in wind’) and ‘current’ (i.e. ‘moving water’) are classed as animate nouns. Elsewhere in the lexicon we see that certain natural forces or bodies have latīʔ ‘living core’, the source of the subject enclitic =tīʔ that occurs on emotion and cognition verbs (§ 3.2). Things that have latīʔ are limited to people, flowers, the earth (‘quake’), mountains (‘landslide’), trees (the verbs where wood rots, splits, or twists in the wind), eyes, heads, oceans (water, current), air, banana plants (‘spoil’), and corn plants. Therefore, considering how animacy is coded in ZEN, it becomes evident that the verbs that participate in the ē+ causative alternation in (49) through (53) are those whose typical subject either has some control in the event or is classed as animate, with the force that drives the event being conceived as coming from within the subject. Verbs that undergo the u‑ causative alternation typically have subjects classed as inanimate, and in cases where the subject is animate, the force that propels the action is conceived of as coming from outside the affected subject (inactive). For example, trees and branches are animate and can be cut, sliced, or snapped, but since the force of these actions is conceived of as being external, these verbs take the u‑ causative. These generalizations are supported by the limited cases where verbs participate in both causative alternations (54). (54) a. ‑t-uʔu ‑u‑t‑ūʔú ‑ē+k‑u‑t‑ūʔú (sateʔ) ‑i‑t‑uʔu (sateʔ) b. ‑jnyá ‑u‑jnyā ‑ē+k‑u‑jnyá
‘be inside’ ‘put/pour’ (lit. ‘cause to be inside’) ‘dress (trn.)’ (lit. ‘cause to be inside (clothes)’) ‘get dressed’ (lit. ‘be inside (clothes) again’) ‘shake/quake/move’ ‘make/build’ ‘shake (up) (trn.)’
Valency classes in Zenzontepec Chatino
c. ‑lítiʔ -u-lītíʔ ‑ē+k‑u‑lítiʔ
‘sink (itrn.)’ ‘sink (trn.)’ ‘drown (trn.)’
d. ‑teję̄ ‑u‑tēję́ -ē+k‑u‑teję̄
‘pass (itrn.)’ ‘pass/send (trn.)’ ‘sway (tree in wind)’
e. -taʔą -u‑tāʔą́ -ē+k‑u‑taʔą
‘walk/go around’ ‘move around (trn.)’ ‘move back and forth (trn.) (so it frees)’
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A particularly interesting example is the verb ‘cut’ (55), which semantically requires an external agent wielding an instrument. It can occur in the ē+ causative alternation, and the event is interpreted as being inchoative, or rather that the force of the action is not external but internal. Therefore, instead of adding a causer as expected, the reverse happens, removing any possibility of there being any unexpressed agent. (55) ‑xūʔú ‑u‑xūʔú ‑ē+k‑u‑xūʔú
‘get cut’ ‘cut (trn.)’ ‘snap/cut by itself’
4.2.6 The intransitive alternation The intransitive alternation derives a less transitive verb by adding the intransitivizer prefix y‑ to a simplex root of higher transitivity. The effects of the alternation on a verb’s meaning and argument structure are idiosyncratic, and there are only six verbs yet identified that undergo it (one from the 70-meaning list: ‘eat’). Therefore, it is not very useful for dividing the verbal lexicon into classes, and it is not included in the appendix. For a few verbs, like ‘eat’, the basic verb is bivalent (56a), and the derived verb (56b) is monovalent with the subject corresponding to the P of the basic verb. (56) a. ná y-aku jiɁī ̨ na chaja=V.́ neg cpl-eat[.3] rn def tortilla=dem ‘She did not eat the tortilla.’ (elicited) b. jwaā=V́ ná nka-s-atą jiʔī ̨ na kwichī=V́ jā ch-áku Juan=dem neg cpl-trn-peel[.3] rn def rabbit=dem conj pot.itrn-eat nu=wá. nmlz=dem ‘Juan did not skin the rabbit for it to be eaten.’ (offered)
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The verb ‘pay for’ behaves similarly (57). (57) -isu
‘pay for’
-y-asu
‘be paid for’
The bivalent, agentive verb ukwą̄ ‘grab’ (58a) behaves differently in the intransitive alternation. The less transitive alternant remains bivalent but is less agentive, meaning ‘receive’ (58b). (58) a. jwaā nkay-ukwą̄ jiʔī ̨ keʔnā. Juan cpl-grab[.3] rn plate ‘Juan grabbed the plate.’ (elicited) b. jwaā=V́ nk-y-ukwą̄ jiʔī ̨ na keʔnā. Juan=dem cpl-itrn-grab[.3] rn def plate ‘Juan received the plate.’ (elicited) Another verb that participates in the intransitive alternation is the ambitransitive ‑ajī ‘get’ (see also § 4.1.2). Its bivalent usage is illustrated in (59a), and the derived less-transitive alternant, also bivalent, means ‘find’ (59b). In the latter, the subject and object are less affected since no possession is necessarily taken of the object. (59) a. wala nku-(a)jwī tī kwaʔą jiʔī ̨ nu=węʔ? where cpl-get tplz 2pl rn nmlz=dem ‘Where did you get that?’ (text) b. wiʔ niī lē ʔ nu nk-y-ajā tī nu=węʔ jiʔī ̨=yu. there now then nmlz cpl-itrn-get tplz nmlz=dem rn=3sg.m ‘Then there it was that she found him.’ (text) Another case is ‘vomit’, a verb of the higher transitivity sub-class C2 (60a). The derived less transitive verb (60b) refers to when food or liquid comes back up on someone (reflux), an event less complete than vomiting. (60) a. nti-(ā)kwę́=ą̄ʔ kosā nt-aku=ą̄ʔ. hab-vomit=1sg thing hab-eat=1sg ‘I throw up things that I eat.’ (elicited) b. nu=węʔ nte-y-ākwę́ jiʔī ̨ ike=ūʔ. nmlz=dem prog-itrn-vomit[.3] rn head=3pl ‘This (poison) is going up into their heads.’ (text)
Valency classes in Zenzontepec Chatino
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A verb pair with a similar pattern is the verb ‑atzu ‘pop/burst (itrn.)’, which in the intransitive alternation means ‘unwind/unravel’ (61). The subject that undergoes the change is less affected since its physical integrity is only partly disrupted. (61) -atzu ‘pop/burst’
-y‑atzu ‘unwind/unravel’
Therefore, the results of the intransitive alternation include: removal of agents, lower agency, less affected arguments, and/or less completed events. The verbs presented here are the only documented cases that undergo the alternation. Due to the rarity of the alternation and its varied effects, it is hard to isolate a single parameter that would determine which verbs undergo it. However, all of the changes align with Hopper & Thompson’s (1980) notion of lower versus higher transitivity.
4.2.7 The applicative alternation The applicative is coded on the verb by the incorporation of the relational noun lóʔō ‘with’, which otherwise typically flags comitative and instrument NPs (§ 2.2.2). With intransitive motion verbs such as ‘go’ (62a), the applicative adds a patientive object, and the verb becomes ‘take’ (i.e. ‘go with’) (62b). (62) a. tz-aa=na nakwę=ūʔ. pot-go=1pl.incl say=3pl ‘“Let’s go”, they said.’ (text) b. tz-a+lóʔō nāáʔ kichi. pot-go+rn.with 1sg quern ‘I will take a quern.’ (text) Other intransitive verbs with which the applicative acts the same are in (63). They are also motion verbs. (63) -taʔą -jná
‘walk/go around’ ‘flee’
-taʔą+lóʔō -u‑jná+lóʔō
‘carry’ ‘take away’
For a few unergative verbs and one transitive verb, the applicative adds a malefactive argument, as for ‑xiti ‘laugh’ (64). (64) nyāʔā jā tāká=ūʔ nti-xiti nti-xiti+lóʔō=ūʔ jiʔī ̨=wą. see.2sg conj exist=3pl hab-laugh[.3] hab-laugh+rn.with=3pl rn=2pl ‘You see, there are those who laugh. They laugh at you (pl.).’ (text)
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Other verbs with malefactive applicatives are listed in (65). In the case of ‘play’, the malefactive interpretation only holds for volitional objects. With inanimate objects, it means ‘play with’, as a toy. (65) -jyā -xáʔā -ʔne
‘play’ ‘scream’ ‘do’
-jyā+lóʔō -xáʔā+lóʔō -ʔne+lóʔō
‘mess with’ ‘scream at’ ‘mistreat/punish’
For a couple of verbs, the applicative adds a beneficiary object (66). These are stative, including the copula ‘be’ and the positional ‘be standing’. (66) -ā -toǫ
‘be done’, ‘be’ ‘be standing’
-ā+lóʔō -toǫ+lóʔō
‘help/accompany’ ‘support/defend’
It should be noted that the ZEN applicative is not used to promote instruments. However, with verbs of hitting, the instrument itself can be incorporated into the verb, as will be discussed next.
4.2.8 The instrument incorporation alternation In ZEN, the instrument of a transitive verb of hitting (67a) may be incorporated into the verb when it is a likely instrument for the action, like a stick (67b) or a body part. (67) a. nkā-rá na nkwítzą=V́ jiʔī ̨ na kwénā=V́ lóʔō na ya cpl-hit def child=dem rn def snake=dem rn.with def clf.wood látī=V.́ thin=dem ‘The child hit the snake with the stick.’ (elicited) b. nte-k-ē+k-utzę x-ālá=ą̄ʔ jiʔī ̨=ą̄ʔ nu prog-pot-caus+pot-fear poss-dream=1sg rn=1sg nmlz nte-rá+yaka=ūʔ jiʔī ̨=ą̄ʔ. prog-hit+wood=3pl rn=1sg ‘My dreams about people hitting me with a stick are frightening me.’ (offered) Aside from verbs of hitting, actions which involve the use of body parts as instruments may undergo instrument incorporation (68). The body parts are as follows: yaāʔ ‘hand’, kiyaʔ ‘foot’, xetąʔ ‘fingernail’, jne ‘finger’, and tuʔwa ‘mouth’.
Valency classes in Zenzontepec Chatino
(68) ‑u‑s‑uweʔ ‘scrape/smooth out’
‑ojoʔ ‑u‑suʔū -ū‑jlyá
‘sting/poke’ ‘show/teach’ ‘spread/smear (trn.)’
‑ūlá
‘make music/sing’
‑u‑s‑uweʔ+yaāʔ ‑u‑s‑uweʔ+kiyaʔ ‑u‑s‑uweʔ+xetąʔ ‑ojoʔ+jne ‑u‑suʔū+jne -ū‑jlyá+yaāʔ ‑ūlá+tuʔwa ‑ūlá+kiyaʔ
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‘knead/rub’ ‘stomp on’ ‘scratch’ ‘finger poke’ ‘point at’ ‘spread by hand/ massage’ ‘sing’ ‘dance’
ZEN verbs from the 70-meaning list that undergo the instrument incorporation alternation are: y‑ūlá ‘sing/make music’, nka‑(ū)rá ‘hit’, nka‑ʔni ‘beat’, and nka‑(u‑)suʔū ‘show/teach’. Since the incorporated objects are body parts or sticks, high frequency of a particular verb/instrument pair may favor incorporation. Other instrument incorporations are more idiomatic than those presented here, so they are better treated as lexicalizations and not discussed here.
5 Conclusions The ZEN aspect prefix sub-classes of verbs can be roughly ordered according to increasing transitivity, characterized by polyvalence and/or higher agentivity/animacy of their typical subject (Figure 1). Verbs further split into two large classes depending on whether they undergo the u- causative or the e+ causative alternation. The former is restricted to verbs of sub-classes Bc, Ca, and Bt. They are verbs of lower transitivity whose subject has little control, or the energy that brings about the event is conceived of as external. On the other hand, some verbs from almost all of the aspect prefix sub-classes participate in the causative of active verb (ē+ causative) alternation. In those cases, the energy behind the event is conceived of as coming from within the subject or the typical subject is animate in ZEN terms. The same distinction of external versus internal perspective is reflected in the fairly rare active/inactive alternation, coded by the transitivizer t‑/s‑ versus the
Fig. 1
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intransitivizer y‑. It is possible that this pattern was previously more productive and the initial t- of the sub-class Bt verbs may have come from the transitivizer prefix since verbs of motion and position are internally driven or oriented. Many canonically transitive verbs, like ‘kill’, ‘break’, ‘cut’, ‘open’, and ‘cook’, and some canonical ditransitives, like ‘show’, ‘take away’, and ‘send’ are u- causatives, surprisingly derived from less transitive simplex roots of sub-classes Bc, Ca, or Bt. Other transitives and ditransitives, like ‘give’, ‘look for’, and ‘sell’, are underived and belong to the smaller, more transitive, sub-classes Ac, A2, and C2. A few verbs of higher transitivity undergo the intransitive alternation. The effects of the alternation are varied, so it is not evident that any particular semantic parameter is responsible for it. The verbs that undergo the equipollent causative/intransitive alternation can best be described as those that have an agent that physically manipulates a typically non-volitional object, such as ‘peel’, ‘shell’, ‘cover’, ‘crush’, ‘spill’, ‘tie’, ‘untie’, ‘melt’, ‘burn’, ‘split’, ‘scrape’, ‘spread (seeds)’, and ‘tear’. Verbs of motion and position group together in aspect prefix sub-class Bt, and verbs of emotion and cognition share the coding pattern of having the possessed body part clitics =tīʔ ‘living core’ or =rīké ‘heart’ as subject. Verbs that have body parts as instruments group together with the verbs of hitting in undergoing the instrument incorporation alternation. The applicative alternation occurs with some motion verbs, some unergative verbs of expression (‘play’, ‘laugh’, and ‘scream’), and a couple of stative verbs. In general, motion verbs that take the applicative add a patient argument, the unergatives of expression add a maleficiary, and stative verbs add a beneficiary. There is little in the way of valency reducing mechanisms in ZEN. There is no passive voice or anticausative derivation aside from the few verbs in the intransitive alternation. ZEN lacks the spray and wipe locative alternations (Levin 1993), using different verbs to express those alternants. There is also no dative alternation. However, one could argue that Chatino has an uncoded possessor/recipient alternation in ditransitives due to the ambiguity that arises there from the multiple functions of jiɁī ̨. Most verbs only participate in one alternation, and aside from the two causatives and perhaps the equipollent causative/intransitive alternation, most alternations apply to quite limited sets of verbs. The semantic parameter most relevant for valency alternations in ZEN is the internal versus external perspective on the event or action, which corresponds roughly to the unaccusative/unergative or inactive/active distinction (see Shibatani & Pardeshi 2002 for discussion).
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Valency classes in Zenzontepec Chatino
Appendix: Summary of counterpart verbs and alternations #
Meaning label
Verb form
69
RAIN
46
Coding
Selected Alternations
Coding frame schema
Aspect prefix subclass
Appli- Causa- u-Caucative4 tive of sative active alternaverb tion
nkw-eʔe (choo)5
V
A2
–
–
–
BLINK
nk-y-uwi+ntoo
V1
By
–
–
–
47
COUGH
nka-tuuʔ
V1
Ac
–
–
–
49
RUN
nkū-túʔu+jná
V1
Bt
m
+
–
52
JUMP
nkw-é+kwaą̄
V1
A2
–
+
–
57
LAUGH
nka-xiti
V1
Ac
+
+
–
58
SCREAM
nka-xáʔā
V1
Ac
+
+
–
59
FEEL PAIN
tiʔi
V1
(Adj)
–
–
–
59
FEEL PAIN
tiʔi nkw-ii
V1
A2
–
–
– –
60
FEEL COLD
nkay-ulaʔ
V1
C2
–
+6
61
DIE
nku-jwi (1)
V1
Ca
–
–
+
62
PLAY
nka-jyā
V1
Ac
+
+
–
63
BE SAD
nkay-uwe=tīʔ
V1
C2
–
–
–
64
BE HUNGRY
nk-y-uteʔ
V1
By
–
+
–
65
ROLL
nku-lā+misę̄
V1
Bc
–
+
–
67
BURN
nk-y-akę̄
V1
By
–
–
–
68
BE DRY
witi
V1
(Adj)
–
–
+7
80
BOIL
nkū-lákwi
V1
Bc
–
+
–
82
BE ILL
n-kā+kitza
V1
Ca
–
–
–
83
CRY
y-ūná
V1
C2
–
+
–
48
CLIMB
nk-yó+saʔą
V 1 (LOC2)
By
–
–
–
4 The applicative alternation adds an object that may be malefactive (malef.), benefactive, or patientive (pat.), depending on the verb. 5 All verb forms in Table 1 are inflected for completive aspect. 6 The causative form means ‘threaten’ and is thus idiosyncratic. 7 A verb ‘dry (itrn.)’ may be zero-derived from the adjective.
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Meaning label
Verb form
50
SIT
51
Coding
Selected Alternations
Coding frame schema
Aspect prefix subclass
Applicative
Causative of active verb
u-Causative alternation
n-tyukwā
V 1 (LOC2)
Bt
–
–
–
SIT DOWN
nkw-ē+saʔą
V 1 (LOC2)
A2
–
–
–
51
SIT DOWN
nkw-ē+tyukwā
V 1 (LOC2)
A2
–
–
–
54
GO
y-aa
V 1 (LOC2)
C2
+
–
–
56
LIVE
n-kā+tāká
V 1 (LOC2)
Ca
–
–
–
1
EAT
y-aku
̨ V 1 jiʔī+2
C2
–
+
–
2
HUG
nk-y-uʔu+xiiʔ
̨ V 1 jiʔī+2
By
–
–
–
2
HUG
nkā-tūkwá+xiiʔ
̨ V 1 jiʔī+2
Au
–
–
–
3
LOOK AT
nkā-naʔa
̨ V 1 jiʔī+2
Ac
–
–
–
4
SEE
nkā-naʔa
̨ V 1 jiʔī+2
Ac
–
–
–
5
SMELL
y-ukwęʔ
̨ V 1 jiʔī+2
C2
–
+
–
6
FEAR
y-utzę
̨ V 1 jiʔī+2
C2
–
+
–
7
FRIGHTEN
nkw-ē+k-utzę
̨ V 1 jiʔī+2
A2
–
●
–
8
LIKE
y-a+toǫ=tīʔ
̨ V 1 jiʔī+2
C2
–
–
–
9
KNOW
n-tzuʔu+ntoo
̨ V 1 jiʔī+2
By
–
–
–
10
THINK
nkā-tāá=tīʔ
̨ V 1 jiʔī+2
A irr.
–
–
–
11
SEARCH FOR nkwī-tyána
̨ V 1 jiʔī+2
A2
–
–
–
12
WASH
nkw-ē+k-ata
̨ V 1 jiʔī+2
A2
–
●
–
14
SHAVE
nka-téēʔ
̨ V 1 jiʔī+2
Au
–
–
●
15
HELP
nkwi-tyā+tyūkwá
̨ V 1 jiʔī+2
A2
–
–
–
16
FOLLOW
y-a+la-saʔą
̨ V 1 jiʔī+2
C2
–
–
–
17
MEET
nk-y-uʔu+ntoo
̨ V 1 jiʔī+2
By
–
–
–
20
SHOUT AT
nka-xáʔā+lóʔō
̨ V 1 jiʔī+2
Ac
●
–
–
32
TEAR
nkā-s-āáʔ
̨ V 1 jiʔī+2
Au
–
–
–
53
SING
(nka-)y-ūlá
̨ V 1 jiʔī+2
C2
–
+
–
55
LEAVE
nkū-túʔu
̨ V 1 jiʔī+2
Bt
–
–
–
–
m8
+
66
SINK
nkū-lítiʔ
̨ V 1 jiʔī+2
8 The causative form means ‘drown (trn.)’.
Bc
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Valency classes in Zenzontepec Chatino
#
Meaning label
Verb form
73
DIG
78
Coding
Selected Alternations
Coding frame schema
Aspect prefix subclass
Applicative
Causative of active verb
u-Causative alternation
nkā-lúū
V 1 jiʔī+2 ̨
Au
–
–
●
HEAR
y-una (2)
V 1 jiʔī+2 ̨
C2
–
–
–
86
GET
nk-y-ukwą̄
V 1 jiʔī+2 ̨
By
–
–
–
87
WANT
nkw-ii
V 1 jiʔī+2 ̨
A2
–
–
–
21
TELL
nakwę
UTT1 V 2 jiʔī+3 ̨
irr.
–
–
–
22
SAY
nakwę
UTT1 V 2 jiʔī+3 ̨
irr.
–
–
–
24
BUILD
nka-jnyā
V 1 jiʔī+2 ̨ (lóʔō+3)
Au
–
–
●
25
BREAK
nka-laʔa
V 1 jiʔī+2 ̨ (lóʔō+3)
Au
–
–
●
26
KILL
nkay-u-jwi
V 1 jiʔī+2 ̨ (lóʔō+3)
C2
–
–
●
28
HIT
nkā-rá
V 1 jiʔī+2 ̨ (lóʔō+3)
Au
–
–
–
29
TOUCH
y-alaʔ
V 1 jiʔī+2 ̨ (lóʔō+3)
C2
–
–
–
30
CUT
nkā-xūʔú
V 1 jiʔī+2 ̨ (lóʔō+3)
Au
–
–
●
33
PEEL
nka-s-atą
V 1 jiʔī+2 ̨ (lóʔō+3)
Au
–
–
–
38
CARRY
nka-teę
̨ (lóʔō+3) V 1 jiʔī+2
Au
–
–
●
43
COVER
nka-t-ākǫ́ʔ
V 1 jiʔī+2 ̨ (lóʔō+3)
Au
–
–
–
44
FILL
nka-ʔne+chá+tzaʔą
V 1 jiʔī+2 ̨ (lóʔō+3)
A irr.
–
–
–
71
GRIND
nkay-oō
̨ (lóʔō+3) V 1 jiʔī+2
C2
–
–
–
79
COOK
nkay-ū-kéʔ
V 1 jiʔī+2 ̨ (lóʔō+3)
C2
–
–
●
85
MAKE
nka-jnyā
V 1 jiʔī+2 ̨ (lóʔō+3)
Au
–
–
●
86
GET
nku-jwī (2)
̨ (lóʔō+3) V 1 jiʔī+2
Ca
–
–
–
88
CLOSE
nka-t-ākǫ́ʔ
V 1 jiʔī+2 ̨ (lóʔō+3)
Au
–
–
–
13
DRESS
nkw-ē+k-u-tūʔú (s-ateʔ)
V 1 jiʔī+2 ̨ 3
A2
–
●
–
18
TALK
y-akwiʔ
V 1 jiʔī+2 ̨
C2
–
–
–
23
NAME
nka-lōó+naa
V 1 jiʔī+2 ̨ 3
Au
–
–
–
19
ASK FOR
nkā-nána
̨ jiʔī+3 ̨ V 1 jiʔī+2
Au
–
–
( ●)
27
BEAT
nka-ʔni
V 1 jiʔī+2 ̨ jiʔī+3 ̨
Ac
–
–
–
31
TAKE
nkā-láā
V 1 jiʔī+2 ̨ jiʔī+3 ̨
Au
–
–
●
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Eric Campbell
Meaning label
Verb form
34
HIDE
35
Coding
Selected Alternations
Coding frame schema
Aspect prefix subclass
Applicative
Causative of active verb
u-Causative alternation
nka-to+kāchíʔ
̨ jiʔī+3 ̨ V 1 jiʔī+2
Au
–
–
–
SHOW
nka-suʔū
̨ jiʔī+3 ̨ V 1 jiʔī+2
Au
–
–
( ●)
36
GIVE
nkā-tāá
̨ jiʔī+3 ̨ V 1 jiʔī+2
A irr.
–
–
–
37
SEND
nkā-tēję́
̨ jiʔī+3 ̨ V 1 jiʔī+2
Au
–
–
●
39
THROW
nkā-nēʔé
̨ jiʔī+3 ̨ V 1 jiʔī+2
Au
–
–
( ●)
41
PUT
nkā-t-ūʔú
̨ jiʔī+3 ̨ V 1 jiʔī+2
Au
–
m9
●
42
POUR
nkā-t-ūʔú
̨ jiʔī+3 ̨ V 1 jiʔī+2
Au
–
m
●
42
POUR
nkā-tūkwá
̨ jiʔī+3 ̨ V 1 jiʔī+2
Au
–
–
●
45
LOAD
nkā-tūkwá
̨ jiʔī+3 ̨ V 1 jiʔī+2
Au
–
–
●
75
BRING
y-aa+lóʔō
̨ jiʔī+3 ̨ V 1 jiʔī+2
C2
●
–
–
76
STEAL
nka-wanā
̨ jiʔī+3 ̨ V 1 jiʔī+2
Au
–
–
( ●)
77
TEACH
nka-suʔū
̨ jiʔī+3 ̨ V 1 jiʔī+2
Au
–
–
( ●)
40
TIE
nkā-x-īką́ʔ
̨ jiʔī+3 ̨ V 1 jiʔī+2 lóʔō+4
Au
–
–
–
70
BE A HUNTER
no verbal counterpart
N/A
(Noun)
–
–
–
Legend: + occurs regularly, − does not occur, m marginally, ● verb form is the result of the alternation, (●) the verb form appears to be the result of the alternation but the more basic verb from which it would have been derived is no longer in the lexicon, Morpheme boundaries: − prefix-stem; = host=enclitic; + stem+stem (i.e. compound).
9 The ē- causative derived form is idiosyncratic and means ‘put the blame on’.
Valency classes in Zenzontepec Chatino
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Acknowledgments This work was supported in part by grants MDP0153 and IGS0080 from the Hans Rausing Endangered Language Programme (ELDP) to the University of Texas at Austin. Sincerest thanks to Bernard Comrie, Andrej Malchukov, Tony Woodbury, and an anonymous ValPaL reviewer for helpful comments on this chapter. Any remaining errors are my responsibility.
Abbreviations anim asp conj cpl derv hab hum iter itrn pot rn rsp stat tplz trn
animate aspect conjunction Completive Aspect derivation Habitual Aspect human iterative intransitivizer Potential Mood relational noun respectful Stative Aspect topicalizer transitivizer
References Boas, Franz. 1913. Notes on the Chatino language of Mexico. American Anthropologist, New Series 15. 78–86. Campbell, Eric. 2011. Zenzontepec Chatino aspect morphology and Zapotecan verb classes. International Journal of American Linguistics 77(2). 219–246. Campbell, Eric. 2013. The internal diversification and subgrouping of Chatino. International Journal of American Linguistics 79(3). 395–420. Cruz, Emiliana, Hilaria Cruz, Reginaldo Figueroa, Justin McIntosh, Camille Woodbury & Tony Woodbury. 2010. Ditransitivos en el chatino oriental. Paper presented at the Taller de las Construcciones Ditransitivas en Lenguas de Mesoamérica, CIESAS-Sureste, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, México. Cruz de Abeles, Hilaria. 2009. A comprehensive analysis of poetic, rhetorical, and linguistic structure of traditional Chatino oratory. M.A. thesis, University of Texas at Austin. Dalrymple, Mary & Irina Nikolaeva. 2011. Objects and Information Structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dixon, R. M. W. 2002. A typology of causatives: form, syntax, and meaning. In R. M. W. Dixon & Alexandra Aikhenvald (eds.), Changing Valency, 30–83. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Haspelmath, Martin. 1993. More on the typology of inchoative/causative verb alternations. In Bernard Comrie & Maria Polinsky (eds.), Causation and Transitivity, 87–111. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Hopper, Paul J. & Sandra A. Thompson. 1980. Transitivity in grammar and discourse. Language 56. 251–299. Kaufman, Terrence. 1987. Otomanguean tense/aspect/mood, voice, and nominalization markers. Unpublished monograph. Kaufman, Terrence. 1993. Proto-Zapotec(an) reconstructions. Ms., University of Pittsburgh. Levin, Beth. 1993. English Verb Classes and Alternations. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Malchukov, Andrej, Martin Haspelmath & Bernard Comrie. 2010. Ditransitive constructions: A typological overview. In Andrej Malchukov, Martin Haspelmath & Bernard Comrie (eds.), Studies in Ditransitive Constructions: A Comparative Handbook, 1–64. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Nichols, Johanna, David Peterson & Jonathan Barnes. 2004. Transitivizing and detransitivizing languages. Linguistic Typology 8. 149–211. Pride, Kitty. 2004. Gramática chatina de la zona alta. In Kitty Pride & Leslie Pride, Diccionario chatino de la zona alta, 343–418. México: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano. Rasch, Jeffrey. 2002. The basic morpho-syntax of Yaitepec Chatino. Ph.D. dissertation, Rice University. Shibatani, Masayoshi & Prashant Pardeshi. 2002. The causative continuum. In Masayoshi Shibatani (ed.), The Grammar of Causation and Interpersonal Manipulation, 85–126. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Sullivant, John Ryan. 2011. Tataltepec Chatino verb classification and aspect morphology. M.A. Thesis, University of Texas at Austin. Villard, Stéphanie. 2010. Zacatepec Chatino verb classification and aspect morphology. Proceedings of the Conference on Indigenous Languages of Latin America 4. Austin: Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America.
Christian Lehmann
34 Valency classes in Yucatec Maya 1 Introduction Yucatec Maya, called Maya by its speakers, is the Mayan language spoken on the peninsula of Yucatan, in the east of Mexico. Together with Lacandón, Mopán, and Itzá, it constitutes the Yucatecan branch of the Mayan languages. There are some 850,000 ethnic Mayas, more than half of whom have Maya as their first language and use it for daily communication. Some people over 70 years of age are still monolingual. The rest of the population speak Spanish as their first language, and this percentage is rapidly increasing. The language can be used, and is occasionally used, for written communication by a small fraction of the population, but in general written communication takes place in Spanish. The language has been described in grammars and dictionaries since the 16th century. However, no syntactic description is available. Most of the data of the present study were gathered during two field-trips in 2011 and 2012. Examples lacking a source indication stem from these two field trips.1 The source is identified for examples drawn from published texts.
2 Some elements of Yucatec grammar Yucatec possesses the following major word classes: substantive noun, adjective, verb, verboid, adverb, preposition. Minor word classes include auxiliary, numeral, numeral classifier, possessive classifier, quantifier, pronoun, determiner, particle, and conjunction. Adjectives are noun-like. There is little nominal and much verbal morphology. Yucatec morphology comprises compounding, incorporation, derivation, and inflection and is mildly synthetic. Word order is essentially right-branching, with the exception of determiners and adjective attributes, which obligatorily and optionally, respectively, precede the nominal head.
2.1 Verbal clauses The clause core starts with the predicate. If it is verbal, it may be followed by complements; then comes the subject, and adjuncts tend to follow the subject. A 1 I thank Henrike Frye for doing part of the fieldwork in 2011, and Gaspar Maglah Canul from Kantunilkin and Ernesto May Balam and Ramón May Cupul from Yaxley, Quintana Roo, for contributing data and insights on Yucatec.
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simple verbal sentence (S) is introduced by a (non-inflecting) auxiliary (Aux) or a modal verboid (see § 4.4) which fixes the aspectual or modal category of the sentence. Some auxiliaries trigger a deictic clitic (DC) at the end of the clause. Its structure is, thus, as shown in S1 and illustrated by (1). S1. Verbal clause [ [ X ]Aux[ Y ]VCC ( [ -e’ ]DC ) ]S
(1) Ts’o’k u beet-ik u kool in taatah. [ [ term ]Aux [ sbj.3i do-incmpl poss.3i milpa poss.1.sg fatheri ]vcc ]vc ‘My father already did his cornfield.’ Topicalization and focusing allow verbal dependents to be placed in front of the clause. Since many of the example sentences are elicited translations, topicalization by left-dislocation is omnipresent in them, starting with (9). The topic is not a constituent of the clause following it and may be omitted without harm to its grammatical structure. The auxiliary is the structural head of the autonomous verbal clause (VC); the rest is the verbal clause core (VCC), which suffices for many subordinate constructions. The verbal clause core consists of the verbal complex (VC) and its dependents. All of the latter are syntactically optional under all circumstances.2 The verbal complex, in turn, centers around the finite verb (V.fin). It is introduced by the pronominal clitic (PC) Pn under conditions to be specified presently, as shown in S2 and illustrated by (2). S2. Verbal complex [ [ Pn ]PC [ W ]V.fin]VC
(2) u y-ah-s-ik-ech [ [ sbj.3 ]pc [ 0-wake-caus-incmpl-abs.2.sg ]V.fin ]vcp ‘(that) he wakes you up’ The finite verb, shown in S3 and illustrated by (3), contains a status suffix which codes modal and aspectual categories and is conditioned syntactically – by the auxiliary in autonomous verbal clauses and by the matrix construction in subordinate clauses.
2 The experiential construction with óol (S6 as instantiated by (8) and analogous constructions) is probably an exception to this as relevant predicates do not occur without this inner dependent. Given this, they might be analyzed as phrasal predicates.
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S3. Finite verb [ [ W ]verb_stem-Status-Abs ]V.fin
(3) ah-s -ik -ech [ [ wake-caus ]verb_stem [ -incmpl ]status [ -2.sg ]Abs ]V.fin ‘wake you up’ Apart from personal pronouns, there are two series of bound pronominal elements: − Pronominal clitics (PC) cross-reference the subject (Sbj) of the transitive verb, the subject of the intransitive verb in incompletive status, and, on the possessed nominal, its possessor (Poss; shown twice in (1)). − Absolutive suffixes (Abs) cross-reference the direct object of the transitive verb, the subject of the intransitive verb in completive and subjunctive status, and the subject of a non-verbal predicate. Both of these sets have a pronominal function. However, their referents may be represented, in addition, by personal pronouns or noun phrases in the same clause; and in that case, the pronominal elements agree with them in person and number. Yet, the absolutive suffix is mostly zero for third person singular, and agreement with a third-person plural subject is optional, with the consequence that these suffixes are seldom seen as agreeing with nominal dependents in their clause. If one formulates the distribution of the pronominal elements from the perspective of the finite verb, this is preceded by a pronominal clitic and/or followed by a pronominal suffix according to the following rules: − With transitive verbs, the pronominal clitic cross-references the subject, while the suffix cross-references the direct object. − With intransitive verbs, the pronominal element cross-references the subject. The syntagmatic slot chosen, with its paradigm, depends on the verb’s status, viz.: in completive and subjunctive status, it is the suffix, in incompletive status, it is the clitic. The alternation in the syntagmatic position of the Pn with intransitive verbs is hard to abstract over in the construction formulas. In such constructions, the Pn will not be subscripted (implying that it may alternatively be a suffix), while with transitive verbs, it will be subscripted by PC. In accord with the syntactic functions that they correspond to, the pronominal clitics are called subject or possessive clitics, while the pronominal suffixes are called absolutive suffixes. (In traditional Mayan linguistics, they are called “Set A” and “Set B”, resp.) However, these names are just mnemonic for the set of syntactic
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functions that these morphemes cross-reference. Syntactically, the language has pure accusative alignment. The status suffixes display rich sets of allomorphs, chiefly conditioned by the transitivity of the verb stem. Together with the two sets of pronominal elements, this guarantees that every verb form occurring in a text is marked as either transitive or intransitive, with very few ambiguous cases. Moreover, both of these principal valency classes are subdivided into conjugation classes, which, again, take the form of status-suffix allomorphy. Most of these conjugation classes are productive. To the extent that they are the goal of derivational operations, some of the exponents of conjugation classes allow an alternate analysis as derivational operators. One is familiar with such a situation from SAE languages. In Latin, for example, the a-conjugation is the goal of the verbalization that converts a noun such as cumulus ‘pile’ into a verb such as cumulare ‘pile up’, so that ‑a may be regarded as a derivational operator. Two Yucatec cases will be discussed in § 5.2.1 and § 5.3.2.1
2.2 Possessive constructions The nominal possessive construction is as shown in S4 (see Lehmann 2002 for details). Its core is the combination of the pronominal clitic (Pn = Poss) with the possessed nominal (Pd). While there is no possessive construction without the Pn, the possessor (Pr) is optionally represented by a lexical NP. If the Pn and the Pr are co-present, they agree in person and number (i). This is illustrated by (4). S4. Nominal possessive construction [ [ [ Pn ]PCi [ Pd ]Nom ] ([ Pri ]NP) ]NP
(4) u maamah le chaan xibpaal-o’ [ [ [poss.3]pci [mother]Nom] [ dem little man:child-d2 ]np ]np ‘the little boy’s mother’ As already stated in § 2.1, there is only one paradigm of pronominal clitics (PC). For the reader’s convenience, the Pn of the construction formulas is glossed as Sbj if they introduce a verbal construction and as Poss if they introduce a nominal construction.
2.3 Further remarks The strategy of signaling syntactic relations is, thus, exclusively head-marking. There are no cases; there are only prepositions. Apart from specific prepositions
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for local and other concrete functions, there is an all-purpose preposition ti’, glossed Loc, which marks a generic local relation as well as the indirect object. The construction formulas which describe verbal valency frames and alternations represent verbal clause cores and are therefore indexed with VCC. Since the auxiliary which lifts them to the clause level does not matter for the analysis, it has been omitted. Furthermore, in all construction formulas, it is understood that all main constituents except the predicate are optional. In order not to clutter the formulas, the corresponding parentheses have been omitted. Constituents are represented by capital letters serving as variables, which are kept constant across formulas as far as possible.
3 Nominal clauses 3.1 Basic structure The nominal predicate (W in S5) is a nominal or adjectival group. Just as the verbal predicate, it precedes all other main constituents in its clause. It bears an absolutive suffix (-Abs) by which it agrees with any lexical or pronominal subject constituent (S) in person and number (i). However, the agreement is seldom visible: If i = 3rd ps.sg., the absolutive suffix is zero; if i = 1st or 2nd ps., S only appears if it is emphatic. Only if i = 3rd ps.pl. is the agreement regularly visible. (5) illustrates a substantival predicate, and (6) and (7) illustrate an adjectival predicate. S5. Basic nominal predicate construction [ [ W ]N/Adj-Absi [ S ]NP.i ]S
(5) h-koolnáal-o’n m-farmer-abs.1.pl ‘we are farmers’ (6) tikin le lu’m-o’ dry dem earth-d2 ‘the ground is dry’ S of S5 may be expanded into the possessive construction of S4. The resulting S6 is a subtype of S5, where S is some body part sensu lato and E is an experiencer, as illustrated by (7). The index i is necessarily third person (commonly singular), while E may vary through the persons and numbers.
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S6. Adjectival experiential construction [ [ W ]Adj-Absi [ PossE Si [ E ]NP ]NP ]S
(7) yah in k’ab painful poss.1.sg hand ‘my hand hurts’ A couple of experiential predicates, including sahak ‘afraid’ (9), are ascribed to living beings themselves. Most of them are, though, ascribed to their óol, instantiating S in S6 and rendered by “mind” in the interlinear gloss for want of a closer English counterpart.3 Yah of (7) is, in fact, the only predicate that may be ascribed both to óol and to other body parts. Óol is an inalienable noun and takes the experiencer of an experiential construction as its possessor.4 The construction is exemplified by (8). Note that ok’om le chaan xch’úuppalo’ would be ungrammatical. (8) ok’om u y-óol le chaan x-ch’úuppal-o’ sad poss3 0-mind dem little f-girl-d2 ‘the little girl is sad’ Another example of S6 is (50) below.
3.2 Relational adjective construction Some adjectives have valency, taking a complement via the preposition ti’. This construction is formalized in S7 and illustrated in (9). S7 is an extension of S5 by the PrepP containing L. S7. Relational adjectival predicate construction [ [ W ]Adj-Absi [ ti’ [ L ]NP ]PrepP [ S ]NP.i ]S
(9) le wíinik-o’ sahak ti’ le báalam-o’ dem man-d2 afraid loc dem jaguar-d2 ‘the man is/was afraid of the jaguar’
3 It has a close semantic counterpart in the original [!] sense of German Mut as it appears in Großmut ‘magnanimity’, Sanftmut ‘placidity’, or mir ist unbehaglich zumute ‘I feel uncomfortable’. However, even mosquitoes have an óol, so there is little room for psychological speculation on the Yucatec construction. 4 Details in Verhoeven (2007), Ch. 8.1.1.
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While the S in (9) is an experiencer and L the stimulus, there is no fixed association of semantic roles with the constituents of S7. As an alternative, the stimulus may take the place of S, while L is expanded into a possessive construction whose head (L) is some body part and whose possessor is the experiencer (E). This expansion of S7 takes the form of S8 and is illustrated by (10). S8. Relational adjectival experiential construction [ [ W ]Adj-Absi [ ti’[ PossE Li [ E ]NP ]NP]PrepP [ S ]NP.i ]S
(10) le xibpal-o’ uts t-u y-ich u tumben baaxal dem boy-d2 good loc-poss.3 0-eye poss.3 new toy ‘the boy likes his new toy’ In analogy to the specification of S6, the body part noun L in S8 may be óol, as illustrated by (11). (11) yah t-in w-óol painful loc-poss.1.sg 0-mind u loobil-t-a’l le mehen paal-al-o’b-o’ sbj.3 harm-trr-pass.incmpl dem small child-coll-pl-d2 ‘I feel sorry that the little children are maltreated’
4 Verbal valency patterns In terms of quantitative valency, Yucatec possesses monovalent, bivalent and trivalent verbs. The latter are relatively few in number. There are no avalent verbs. The actant 5 of a monovalent verb is its subject. Many monovalent verbs are impersonal, i.e. they take exclusively clausal subjects. Bivalent verbs are overwhelmingly transitive. There are, however, some intransitive bivalent verbs which take a complement that may be represented by an adverbial or be introduced by a preposition. Trivalent verbs take such a complement in addition to a subject and direct object.
5 The term actant will denote a nominal expression comprised by a verb’s structural valency, while the term argument will denote a participant inherent in a verb’s meaning. The distinction will prove relevant, i.a. in § 6.1.
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4.1 Intransitive verbs 4.1.1 Basic construction The construction formula for all intransitive verbs is S9. Pn represents the pronominal element cross-referencing the subject (S). It may be a pronominal clitic or an absolutive suffix as explained in § 2.1 There may be other verbal dependents in the construction, especially local complements or adjuncts, as in (14). S9. Basic intransitive verb construction [ [ Pn ]i [ W ]V.intr [ S ]NP.i ]VCC
As said in § 2.1, intransitive verbs differ from transitive ones by their conjugation classes. There are three conjugation classes of intransitive verbs, which are rather closely associated with semantic verb classes: active, inactive, and fientive6 intransitive verbs. Active and inactive verb stems differ in the control of their subject. The three verb classes are, in turn, illustrated by (12), (13) and (14). (12) le xch’úupal-o’ h síit’-nah-ih dem girl-d2 pfv jump-cmpl-abs.3.sg ‘the girl jumped’ (13) h lúub le che’o’ pfv fall(CMPL) dem wood-d2 ‘the tree fell’ (14) le paal-al-o’b-o’ h kul-chah-o’b ti’ le k’áanche’-o’ dem child-coll-pl-d2 pfv sit-fient.cmpl-pl loc dem chair-d2 ‘the children sat down on the chair’ The three verb classes generate subtypes of S9, which contain V.intr_act, V.intr_ inact, and V.intr_pos instead of the mere V.intr as the category label of W. These subtypes differ in their derivational potential, as will be seen in § 5. Meteorological predicates like ‘rain’ are monovalent, as shown in (15): (15) táan u k’áax-al ha’/chaak prog sbj.3 rain-incmpl water/rain ‘it is raining’
6 In general, a fientive verb (Lat. fieri ‘become’) is a verb derived from an adjective and designates a change of state, like Engl. to cool (down). Traditionally, such verbs were (somewhat inappropriately) called inchoative.
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4.1.2 Intransitive experiential construction The experiential construction with an inactive intransitive verb as predicate is shown in S10. E represents the experiencer, L, the stimulus. S10. Intransitive experiential verb construction [ [ Pn ]i [ W ]V.intr_inact [ PossY Si [ E ]NP ]NP [ ti’ [ L ]NP ]PrepP ]VCC
Example (16) illustrates its most common appearance, with óol instantiating S. Just as experiential adjectives do, most experiential verbs only allow óol as their subject. (16) háak’ in w-óol ti’ hun-túul ch’o’ scare(cmpl.abs.3.sg) poss.1.sg 0-mind loc one-cl.an mouse ‘I got a fright because of a mouse’ S10 may be composed as follows: Take S7 as a point of departure; substitute an intransitive verb for W; substitute the possessive phrase appearing in S6 for the S of S7.
4.1.3 Directed motion verbs Verbs of directed motion form a subclass of inactive verbs, although they do allow for a controlling subject. These are such verbs as bin ‘go’, taal ‘come’, máan ‘pass’, ook ‘enter’, hóok’ ‘exit’, eem ‘get down’, na’k ‘get up’, and a few more. They differ from other motion verbs (essentially manner of motion verbs like xik’nal ‘fly’) by allowing a local complement (L).7 The category of this latter is adverbial; and it may appear in the form of a prepositional phrase, introduced, more often than not, by ti’. The overall construction is as shown in S11. It is similar to the relational adjectival predicate construction (S7) and an expansion of the basic intransitive verb construction S9. (17) is an example. S11. Construction of intransitive verbs with a complement [ [ Pn ]i [ W ]V.intr [ S ]NP.i [ L ]Advl ]VCC
7 There are examples featuring the active intransitive manner-of-motion verb áalkab ‘run’ with a local dependent, which may not be exceptional if the latter can be analyzed as an adjunct.
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(17) le xibpal-o’ h hóok’ ti’ u kaahal dem boy-d2 pfv exit(cmpl) loc poss.3 village ‘the boy left his village’ Directed motion verbs are central to the verbal lexicon and important for the syntax. The first two enumerated above have grammaticalized variants as well as an irregular conjugation. Incidentally, as a comparison among (14), (17), (22), (24), and (54) shows, prepositions do not distinguish among local relations (essive, allative, ablative, perlative); these are coded as part of the verb meaning (cf. Lehmann 1992).
4.1.4 Positionals In terms of verb derivational morphology, a fientive verb is an intransitive verb stem derived from a non-verbal (generally, nominal) base, as schematized in S18 below. However, the suffix -tal, which does this in Yucatec, is, at the same time, the exponent of one of the three intransitive conjugation classes. That is, there is a class of verb roots that conjugate in that class; moreover, different verb statuses, aspects, and moods amalgamate in that suffix, which phenomenon is more typical of an inflection stem exponent than of a derivational operator. We will see a similar systematic ambiguity in the extraversive suffix -t (§ 5.3.2.1). The fientive conjugation class thus comprises roots and derived stems. Fientive verb roots are comprised of positionals and a couple of other roots with related meanings. The set of positionals comprises at least two dozen roots such as wa’l ‘stand’, chil ‘lie’, xol ‘kneel’, t’uch ‘squat’, etc. Their construction is the same as for directed motion verbs, viz. S11. Two positionals are illustrated in (14) and (18). (18) káa chil-lah-o’b wen-el hun-súutuk conj lie-fient.cmpl-3.pl sleep-incmpl one-moment ‘and they lay down to sleep a bit’ (ka’tuul_15) The derivational potential of this verb class is further discussed in § 5.2.1.
4.2 Transitive verbs 4.2.1 Basic construction The construction of a transitive verb is as formalized in S12 and illustrated by (19). A is the subject and P is the direct object. Adjuncts are not shown.
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S12. Basic transitive construction [ [ Pn ]PC.i [ W ]V.tr-Absj [ P ]NP.j [ A ]NP.i ]VCC
(19) t-u méek’-ah u chaan xibpal le maamah-o’ pfv-sbj.3 hug-cmpl poss.3 little boy dem mother-d2 ‘the mother hugged her little boy’ In synchronic grammar, S12 is a basic construction. Diachronically, it may be composed as follows: Start from the basic nominal predicate construction S5. Expand its W to the possessive construction S4. Replace the Pd nominal by a nominalized transitive verb. Thereby, its Pr is interpreted as a transitive subject, with its Pn functioning as a subject clitic. The result is the transitive VCC S12. Given the default-template character of S12 for two-participant situations, the semantic roles of P and A are as variable as they are for the transitive verb in many SAE languages. For a transitive verb, the direct object is obligatory. That does not mean that P must be overt. It means that j is referential, i.e. it is identifiable in the linguistic or extralinguistic context. If that condition is not fulfilled, the verb must be detransitivized by introversion; see § 5.2.2.1. There are two transitive conjugation classes which differ by having or lacking an exponent, viz. a conjugation suffix directly after the stem, thus preceding the status suffix. Verb stems are assigned to the two conjugation classes according to the classification of Table 1, to be read from left to right: Tab. 1: Transitive conjugation classes. provenience
complexity
basicness
phonotactics
native
root
basic transitive root primitive transitive root non-primitive transitive root
0 0
marked transitive root
-t
complex stem (other than causative) loan
exponent
-t -t
Examples of these categories are: − primitive transitive root: pix ‘cover’, as in example (20) − non-primitive transitive root: méek’ ‘hug’, as in example (19) − marked transitive root: báats’ ‘smooth’ (not illustrated)8 8 A marked transitive root is one that lacks a more basic intransitive counterpart but nevertheless requires the -t suffix for inflection as if it were derived. This class is exceptional and has very few members.
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complex stem: háakchek’ ‘slide stepping on something’, as in ex. (46) loan: formar ‘form’.
The -t suffix is identical to the extraversive operator, illustrated by tsikbal-t ‘tell’ in example (23) and to be discussed in § 5.3.2.1. The subdivision of the basic transitive root is irrelevant for the conjugation class exponent, but the phonotactics underlying this subdivision conditions allomorphy in some verbal categories to be discussed in § 5.3.
4.2.2 More complex constructions A semantically suitable subset of transitive verbs takes an instrumental adjunct. These include beet ‘make’, pa’ ‘break, smash’, kíins ‘kill’, hats’ ‘hit [with tool]’, xot ‘cut [with tool]’, pix ‘cover’, chup ‘fill’, huch’ ‘grind’, and koh ‘toss, touch’. The construction is represented as S13, which is an expansion of the basic transitive construction S12 by the instrumental adjunct I. It is illustrated by (20). S13. Transitive verb with instrumental adjunct [ [ Pn ]PC.i [ W ]V.tr-Absj [ P ]NP.j [ A ]NP.i [ yéetel [ I ]NP ]PrepP ]VCC
(20) le x-ch’úup-o’ t-u pix-ah le xibpal yéetel teep’el-o’ dem f-woman-d2 pfv-sbj.3 cover-cmpl dem boy with blanket-d2 ‘the woman covered the boy with a blanket’ For a better understanding of the derived experiential constructions to be discussed in § 5.3.2.2 f., a curious gap in the grammar should be mentioned: Although there are experiential constructions involving óol on the basis of adjectives and intransitive and transitive verbs, and although there are derived transitive verbs taking that noun as their object for which actor and experiencer are distinct, there is no base transitive verb of the latter kind; all the transitive roots taking óol as their object require a semantically reflexive constellation, as in (21). (21) yéetel hun-p’éel libro u_ti’a’l a nay-ik a w-óol and one-cl.inan book in.order sbj.2 entertain-incmpl poss.2 0-mind ‘and a book to entertain yourself’ (hnazario_104) The expected variant with u nayik a wóol ‘which [book] may entertain you’ does not exist.
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4.3 Trivalent verbs Trivalent verbs take a subject, a direct object, and another complement which may be represented by an adverbial or be introduced by a preposition. The animacy of the indirect complement conditions the major subdivision here.
4.3.1 Trivalent verbs with an inanimate indirect complement If the indirect complement is inanimate, it may appear in the form of an adverbial or of a prepositional phrase introduced by a suitable preposition. The core of these trivalent verbs is formed by directed transport verbs,9 the transitive (semantically causative) counterpart to the directed motion verbs seen in § 4.1. The indirect complement then bears some local relation to the verb. Directed transport verbs include ts’a’ ‘put’ and its local reverse ch’a’ ‘take [for oneself]’, the two opposite deictic transport verbs bis ‘carry, take [to]’ and taas ‘bring’, and additionally tul ‘push’, túuxt ‘send’, pul ‘throw’, t’oh ‘pour’, láal ‘pour’, and but’ ‘fill’. The construction of these verbs is shown in S14, where L is the indirect complement. (22) is an example. S14. Construction of ditransitive verb with inanimate indirect complement [ [ Pn ]PC.i [ W ]V.tr-Absj [ P ]NP.j [ A ]NP.i [ L ]Advl ]VCC
(22) le xibpal-o’ t-u pul-ah le boolah dem boy-D3 pfv-sbj3 throw-cmpl dem ball teh béentaanah-o’ loc:dem window-d2 ‘the boy threw the ball into the window’ S14 is the semantically causative counterpart to the construction of intransitive verbs with a complement (S11) and may therefore be composed by extending the basic transitive construction (S12) by the same complement. Causative derivation of bivalent intransitive verbs is treated in § 5.3.2.2 f.10 With some of the above verbs, the indirect complement may also be animate, and then the construction is as in § 4.3.2. The most important one among these is the basic trivalent verb ts’a’ ‘put, give’. It has two constructions corresponding to its meanings: With the meaning ‘put’, it belongs in the present class of directed
9 An example of a non-directed transport verb is kuch ‘load [on oneself]’. 10 The two verbs bis and taas mentioned before are, in fact, causative derivations of bin ‘go’ and taal ‘come’, resp.; but they are totally lexicalized and part of the basic vocabulary.
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transport verbs. With the meaning ‘give’, it belongs in the class of verbs with an animate indirect complement.
4.3.2 Trivalent verbs with an animate indirect complement The indirect complement of a trivalent verb may be typically or exclusively animate. The construction is then a subtype of the generic construction of S14, formed by specifying the adverbial L as a prepositional phrase and instantiating its preposition by ti’. The prepositional phrase may then be categorized as an indirect object. The set of relevant verbs includes, first of all, ts’a’ ‘give’ (the same verb that figures in § 4.3.1. with the meaning ‘put’), then communication verbs such as a’l ‘say’, k’áat ‘ask’, and tsikbat ‘tell’ as well as e’s ‘show’, ta’k ‘hide’, k’am ‘get’, and ookol ‘steal’. The pattern is shown in S15 and illustrated by (23). S15. Construction of ditransitive verb with animate indirect complement [ [ Pn ]PC.i [ W ]V.tr-Absj [ P ]NP.j [ A ]NP.i [ ti’ [ L ]NP ]PrepP ]VCC
(23) le xch’úupal-o’ t-u tsikbal-t-ah dem girl-d2 pfv-sbj.3 talk-trr-cmpl hun-p’éel che’h-bil tsikbal ti’ le xibpal-o’ one-cl.inan laugh-ger story loc dem boy-d2 ‘the girl told the boy a funny story’ The position of L depends on its lexical status: If it is a lexical NP, it takes the position indicated. If it is a pronoun, the preposition is optional; and if it is missing, the indirect object immediately follows the verb. As indicated, the verb k’am ‘get’, with the goal of the transport in the subject function, follows the same pattern: (24) t-in k’am-ah hun-p’éel kaartah ti’ in maamah pfv-sbj.1sg receive-cmpl one-cl.inan letter loc poss.1sg mother ‘I received a letter from my mother’ Cf. the remarks of § 4.1.3 on the indifference of prepositions to local relations.
4.4 Verboids Verboids share their valency frames with verbs, differing from these only by failing to inflect for status and to combine with the initial auxiliary of S1. Intransitive
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verboids include yaan ‘exist’, k’abéet ‘necessary’, taak ‘want’, and a few others. Transitive verboids include k’ahóol ‘know’, yáamah ‘love’, p’éek ‘hate’, k’áat ‘want’, and a few others. Verboids differ from most verbs by their stative meaning. Intransitive verboids take absolutive suffixes (if they are personal at all) like intransitive (completive or subjunctive) verbs; transitive verboids take pronominal clitics and absolutive suffixes as transitive verbs do. Verboids follow the same construction patterns as verbs; for instance, the construction of k’abéet in (25) (from (31b) below) is a variant of the intransitive verb construction with a complement (S11); the construction of k’ahóol in (26) is the basic transitive verb construction (S12). (25) k’abéet-ech teen necessary-abs.2.sg me ‘I need you’ (hk’an_452.1) (26) le xibpal-o’ u k’ahóol le xch’úupal-o’ dem boy-d2 sbj.3 know dem girl-d2 ‘the boy knows/knew the girl’ Intransitive verboids are verbalized by the fientive derivation (§ 5.2.1); transitive verboids are verbalized by extraversive verbalization (§ 5.3.2.1).
5 Verb-coded alternations Yucatec has a number of derivational operations that change the category of the base, transferring it into a different word class or just changing its relationality. These operations will be described not as undirected alternations between two constructions of the same level but as derivations or transformations that derive a target construction from a base construction. The criterion of the directionality is formal complexity: If constructions A and B are paradigmatically related and share a common base, but B comprises an additional formative, then B is based on A rather than vice-versa. This section is not an exhaustive survey of Yucatec verb derivation (see Lehmann 1993 for a more comprehensive account). With a few exceptions, only those operations will be considered that change the relationality of the base. § 5.1 briefly considers the deverbal derivation of adjectives, which, for transitive bases, amounts to a valency reduction. §§ 5.2 and 5.3 treat the formation of intransitive and transitive verbs in parallel fashion to the extent appropriate.
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5.1 Formation of adjectives Here, only deverbal adjectives will be considered. There is, in fact, a rich set of deverbal adjective derivations, only the two most productive and regular of which will be reviewed.
5.1.1 Resultative adjectives S16 is a subtype of the adjectival predicate construction formalized in S5. S16. Resultative adjective construction [ [ [ W ]V-a’n ]Adj-Absi [ S ]NP.i ]S
All transitive stems, as in (27a), and all positional stems, as in (27b), undergo the process. Resultatives from other intransitive verbs occur sporadically. (27) a. ts’ik-a’n Peedroh shave-res Peter ‘Peter is shaved (i.e. in the state resulting from shaving)’ b. kul-a’n Hwaan sit-res John ‘John is at home (lit. seated)’ While S16 embeds the derived adjective into a clause structure, such adjectives may also be used attributively. For transitive bases, the resultative derivation involves functional passivization since such an adjective modifies the undergoer, while the underlying actor is demoted to the typical adjunct function associated with the passive (§ 5.2.2.4). (28) illustrates a resultative adjective with such an adjunct. (28) chéen méek’-a’n bin tuméen h-p’óokinah tsuuk just hug-res quot by m-hat:usat:introv paunch ‘embraced, however, by Paunchhat’ (hk’an_302)
5.1.2 Stative positionals Given a positional base as illustrated in (14), a stative positional may be derived. It has the structure shown in S17 and illustrated by (29).
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S17. Stative positional derivation [ [ [ W ]V.intr-Vkbal ]N/Adj-Absi [ S ]NP.i ]S
(29) le paal-al-o’b-o’ kul-ukbal-o’b ti’ lu’m dem child-coll-pl-d2 sit-pos-pl loc earth ‘the children are/were sitting on the floor’ The suffix (glossed by -Pos ‘position’) starts with a vowel (V) that is subject to full harmony with the root vowel. Describing this adjectival derivation in a clause formula such as S17, an instantiation of S5, is appropriate as these adjectives are not used in an attributive function. For a positional base, there is no difference in meaning between the two adjectival derivations in -a’n and -Vkbal.
5.2 Formation of intransitive verbs A couple of derivations of intransitive verbs from intransitive bases will not be considered as they do not affect valency. Instead, this section is subdivided as follows: After the formation of intransitive verbs on nominal bases, which does not alter the valency, their formation from transitive bases, i.e. by valency reduction, will be considered. This, in turn, is subdivided according to the actant whose slot is blocked: First operations blocking the direct object slot, then operations blocking or demoting the subject slot are considered. All of the derived constructions introduced in this section are subtypes of the basic intransitive verb construction S9 or some extension of it.
5.2.1 Intransitive verbs from nominal bases: fientive verbs Given the basic nominal predicate construction of S5, one may verbalize the nominal predicate by applying the fientive derivation, schematized in S18, a subtype of S9. The base may be an adjective, as in (30b), or a noun of suitable meaning, as in #a. The operation transfers the stem into the fientive conjugation class of intransitive verbs (see § 4.1). S18. Fientive derivation [ [ Pn ]i [ [ W ]N/Adj-tal ]V.intr [ S ]NP.i ]VCC
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(30) a. ts’o’k u hach y-áak’ab-tal term sbj.3 really 0-night-fient.incmpl ‘it has become night/ is already night’ b. táan u tikin-tal le lu’m-o’ prog sbj.3 dry-fient.incmpl dem earth-d2 ‘the ground is getting dry’ Example (30b) is the fientive counterpart to the basic basic nominal predicate construction in (6). The derivation does not affect the valency but only verbalizes the base, which may become necessary if the clause is to be marked for aspect or mood. Depending on the aspect chosen, the aktionsart may also be more dynamic than with the stative base, as shown by (30b). This operation applies in a completely regular fashion to all adjectival bases and conserves their valency. Thus, among others, all the adjectives treated in § 3 form a fientive so that their nominal experiential constructions have a verbal counterpart. Thus, beside yah ‘painful’, we find yahtal ‘hurt, ache’, and beside sahak ‘afraid’, there is sahaktal ‘fear, get frightened’. Likewise, the operation applies to intransitive verboids like k’abéet ‘necessary’. Example (31b) shows the base form, and (31a) shows the verbalized form of this lexeme. The sentences are, in the order (a)–(b), utterances of the two main characters of the tale. They show that the verboid and its verbalization may be synonymous. (31) a. le k’iin k-in k’abéet-tal ti’ teech-e’ káa dem sun/day ipfv-sbj.1.sg necessary-fient.incmpl loc you-top conj taal-ak-ech a ch’a’-en come-subj-abs.2.sg sbj.2 take(subj)-abs.2 ‘the day that you need me, you come to fetch me’ (HK’an_198) b. a w-a’l-mah teen-e’ le k’iin k’abéet-ech teen-e’ sbj.2 0-say-perf me-top dem sun/day necessary-abs.2.sg me-top káa taal-ak-en in w-il-ech conj come-subj-abs.1.sg sbj.1.sg 0-see(subj)-abs.2.sg ‘you told me that when I need you I should come to see you’ (HK’an_452) The set of fientive verbs is very homogeneous in terms of the derivational operations applicable to them: To every fientive, a factitive (see § 5.3.2.2), stative (§ 5.1.2), and resultative (§ 5.1.1) derivation corresponds.
5.2.2 Intransitive verbs from transitive bases Since there are no verb stems that may be used alternately in transitive and intransitive frames, for any given root, one of the two valencies is basic, and the other
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one is derived.11 Transitive roots thus undergo introversion in order to get their intransitive counterpart, while intransitive roots undergo extraversion (§ 5.3.2.1) in order to get their transitive counterpart.12 There are basically two ways of detransitivizing a transitive verb – by blocking its undergoer (or direct object) slot and by blocking its actor (or subject) slot. These operations and their variants will be considered in turn.
5.2.2.1 Introversion Both basic and derived transitive stems may be introverted. This amounts to transforming the transitive verb construction of S12, illustrated by (32a), into the intransitive verb construction of S9, more specifically, its subtype S19, whose S corresponds to the A of S12 and whose X is anything but a direct object. The construction is illustrated by (32b). S19. Introversion [ [ Pn ]i [ [ W ]V.tr-Introv ]V.intr_act (X) [ S ]NP.i ]VCC
(32) a. Hwaan-e’ t-u ts’ik-ah Peedroh John-top pfv-sbj.3 shave-cmpl Peter ‘John shaved Peter’ b. le máak-o’ k-u ts’iik dem person-d2 ipfv-sbj3 shave\introv ‘that person shaves (people)’ The derivational operator represented by Introv in S19 converts its base into an intransitive verb of the active subclass. It has a number of allomorphs which are essentially conditioned by the basic vs. derived character of W. If W is a primitive transitive root, then the derivational operator is mostly low tone on the root syllable, as it appears in (32b). If W is derived, the introversive operator is a suffix, chiefly -ah, as in (33) (see (72) below for the transitive stem of that verb).
11 Currently, four exceptions are known to this generalization. All of them concern transitive verbs whose introversive derivation is not recognizable for phonological reasons. 12 The terms and concepts of introversion and extraversion are introduced in Paris (1985). There are, to the best of my knowledge, no better terms available (terms like ‘direct object deletion’ being woefully inadequate). However, since Paris (1985) is not written in English, the terms have not made their way into mainstream typology. Introversion has been called antipassive in Mayan linguistics. That, however, is a concept proper for an ergative system as it exists in other Mayan languages but not in Yucatec.
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(33) Máax le k-u ka’n-s-ah way-e’? who dem ipfv-sbj.3 learn\pass-caus-introv(incmpl) here-d3 ‘Who (is the one that) teaches here?’ As anticipated in § 4.2.1, the direct object of a transitive verb can always be omitted. Apart from not mentioning its referent, this has no semantic effect. But introversion is not object omission. The syntactic effect of the operation is that the verb becomes intransitive, so no direct object can be combined with it. The semantic effect is that no undergoer is identifiable, which may imply that there is none. Though introversion is formally always applicable to a transitive stem, including ditransitive stems, there are many with which it does not make much sense. For instance, with mach ‘seize, touch’, thinking up situations where somebody seizes without there being a referent that he seizes is somewhat artificial. Nevertheless, in the Mayan lexicographic tradition, all transitive verbs are lemmatized in their introversive form.
5.2.2.2 Reflexive construction of transitive verbs All transitive verbs for which it makes sense enter the reflexive construction. It may be derived from the basic transitive construction S12 by replacing its direct object P by the possessive construction shown in S20 (see § 5.3.3.1 for indirect reflexivity). (34) is an example. S20. Reflexive construction [ [ Pn ]PC.i [ W ]V.tr [ Possi báah ]NP.j [ A ]NP.i ]VCC
(34) a. Hwaan-e’ t-u ts’ik-ah Peedroh John-top pfv-sbj.3 shave-cmpl Peter ‘John shaved Peter’ b. le wíinik-o’ t-u ts’ik-ah u báah dem man-d2 pfv-sbj.3 shave-cmpl poss.3 self ‘the man shaved (himself)’ Báah is an inalienable noun meaning ‘self’. Just like English myself etc., it combines with the possessive clitics (Poss), cross-referencing the subject A and coding its person and number. The binary combination forms a possessive NP (S4 without the Pr NP) that constitutes the direct object of the transitive verb. There is no absolutive suffix on W (cross-referencing j) because that object is grammatically third person singular even if A is plural. Although there are shortened forms of this construction, it still exhibits a rather low degree of grammaticalization. S20 therefore instantiates the transitive
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schema S12 rather than the intransitive schema S9. Likewise, it is always fully compositional; there are no formally reflexive verbs devoid of a coreference relation such as German sich schämen ‘feel ashamed’. On the other hand, there is no simpler way of expressing the meaning of (34b), no middle voice or the like comparable to English the man shaved. In particular, the introversive does not code this meaning.
5.2.2.3 Reciprocal construction of transitive verbs All transitive verbs for which it makes sense enter a reciprocal construction. Like the reflexive construction S20, it is a subtype of the transitive construction S12. S21 formalizes its full form as illustrated by (35); see § 5.3.3.2 for indirect reciprocity. S21. Reciprocal construction [ [ Pn ]PC.i [ (paaklan) W ]V.tr ( [ Possibáah ]NP.j ) [ A ]NP.i ]VCC
(35) le máak-o’b-o’ k-u paaklan méek’-ik u báah-o’b dem person-pl-d2 ipfv-sbj.3 each.other hug-incmpl poss.3 self-3.pl ‘those men hug each other’ Paaklan is an adverb meaning ‘together, each other’. In the first meaning, it may also accompany intransitive verbs, of course, with no reciprocal effect. It normally takes the position immediately preceding W indicated in S21, but is susceptible to focusing, so that it precedes Pn, as in (61) and (62) below. On the other hand, like other adverbs in preverbal position, paaklan optionally forms a compound with the verb. This may be diagnosed with certainty under the condition that the verb’s stem is a basic transitive one (see § 4.2.1). As such, it belongs to the conjugation class which lacks a stem-forming suffix, while as a compound verb, it conjugates via the -t suffix (cf. § 4.3.2.1). The other component of S21 that signals reciprocity is the reflexive phrase already seen in S20. Just as it does there, it takes the place of W’s direct object. Now either of these two markers is optional in the reciprocal construction. (36) designates a reciprocal situation merely by means of the reciprocal adverb. In this case, the reciprocal construction is an interpretation of a ‘together’ construction. (36) k-u paaklan púus-t-ik y-ich-o’b ipfv-sbj.3 each.other remove.dust-trr-incmpl poss.3-eye-pl ‘they clean each other’s face’ And (37) shows a reciprocal situation (or rather, two of them), signaled exclusively by the reflexive pronoun.
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(37) t-u méek’-ah u báah-o’b pfv-sbj.3 hug-cmpl poss.3 self-pl úuchik u y-il-ik u báah-o’b obl.sr sbj.3 0-see-incmpl poss.3 self-pl ‘they hugged each other when they met’ This is, thus, formally a reflexive construction which is interpreted as reciprocal, as in many other languages, including Spanish.
5.2.2.4 Passive constructions Coming now to detransitivization operations which demote the underlying subject, we start with the passive. Yucatec has a passive of the garden variety, schematized by S22, where P is the underlying object and A the underlying subject. It is illustrated by (38), which is the passive of (19). S22. Passive construction [ [ Pn ]i [ [ W ]V.tr-Pass ]V.intr_inact [ P ]NP.i [ tuméen [ A ]NP ]PrepP ]VCC
(38) h méek’-ab le chaan xibpal tuméen u maamah-o’ pfv hug-cmpl.pass dem little boy by poss.3 mother-d2 ‘the little boy was hugged by his mother’ The passivized verb joins the inactive subclass of intransitive verbs. The operation is fully productive; W may be any basic or derived transitive stem; and passive constructions are, in fact, quite frequent in the texts. The passive operator has a couple of allomorphs. It is chiefly a glottal stop which is infixed into the host. If the verb stem is a primitive transitive root (see § 4.2.1), the infix goes into it, as in (33). Otherwise, it goes into the status suffix, as in (57). This is, thus, the only infix on record which may be inserted into an affix. The agent phrase is optional and occurs with some frequency in the texts.
5.2.2.5 Deagentive constructions The other operation which affects the actor of the transitive verb is deagentivization.13 It applies an operator (Deag) to S12 which blocks its A position and converts its P into the subject. The underlying subject A cannot be accommodated in a dea-
13 The deagentive is called middle in Bricker et al. (1998: 346) and Martínez Corripio & Maldonado (2010). It is widely called “anticausative” in linguistic typology.
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gentive construction. The construction is represented by S23, a subtype of S9, and is illustrated by (39b), based on a transitive version similar to (39a). S23. Deagentive construction [ [ Pn ]i [ [ W ]V.tr-Deag ]V.intr_inact [ P ]NP.i ]VCC
(39) a. le xch’úupal-o’ tu hat-ah hun-waal le analte’-o’ dem girl-d2 pfv-sbj.3 tear-cmpl one-cl.flat dem book-d2 ‘the girl tore a page from the book’ b. h háat in nook’ pfv tear\deag poss.1.sg cloth ‘my clothes got torn’ W must be a primitive transitive root. The deagentive operator in S23 (Deag) materializes as a high tone on the root. The root phonotactics of the language are such that core transitive roots are toneless but phonologically compatible with a high tone. Those transitive roots that already have a high tone allow no deagentivization. The derived stem joins the inactive subclass of intransitive verbs. The meaning of this derivation is that the process in question happens and there is no agent to which reference could be made; thus, it may happen by itself.14 However, there is no emphasis on the fact that it happens by itself; emphasis on this is the function of the spontaneous derivation to be discussed below. The deagentive construction also applies to some transitive verbs that involve an instrument. The latter is left intact by the transformation, as may be seen by comparing (40) with the transitive (20). (40) k-u píix-il in nal yéetel k’áax ipfv-sbj.3 cover\deag-incmpl poss.1.sg corncob with jungle Lit. ‘my corn plants cover with brush’ The transitive verb stems that do not undergo deagentivization fall into two main formal classes, roots with a long vowel and derived stems. Both of these contain items and subclasses for which a deagentive derivation would not make much sense simply because the situations in question are inconceivable without an actor. The former class includes verbs such as méek’ ‘hug’. The latter includes, importantly, extraversive bases. For instance, tukult ‘think about’ is the extraversive of intransitive tuukul ‘think’. The deagentive of tuukul would have to mean ‘get thought (of) by oneself, [for some proposition] to think itself’. Since extraversion presup-
14 See Martínez Corripio & Maldonado (2010) for some semantic analysis.
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poses an action and signals that it extends to an undergoer, deagentivization would, in fact, make little sense with most extraversive verbs. On the other hand, there is a class of derived transitive stems for which no deagentive is possible although it would make sense. These are transitive stems involving factitive or causative derivation. However, the constraint does no harm since, for these, the bases themselves fulfill the function of the deagentive form. All transitive verb stems, no matter whether they allow the deagentive derivation (like primitive transitive roots) or not (like other transitive roots and derived transitive stems), may undergo a spontaneous derivation (see Lehmann 1993, § 6.3.2). This is carried out by a variety of suffixes (see Bricker et al. 1998: 346–349) which are available to transitive stems irrespectively of their form. The derivation means ‘W happens by itself (spontaneously and unexpectedly)’, as illustrated by (41). It thus contrasts with the deagentive construction and emphasizes the spontaneous character of the deagentive process. (41) a. t-in tóok-ah in kool pfv-sbj.1.sg burn-cmpl poss.1.sg milpa ‘I burnt my cornfield’ b. h tóok-k’ah in kool pfv burn-spont(cmpl) poss.1.sg milpa ‘my cornfield burnt (unexpectedly) by itself’
5.3 Formation of transitive verbs All of the derived constructions introduced in this section are subtypes of the basic transitive verb construction S12.
5.3.1 Transitive verbs from nominal bases: usative verbs Besides the main process for the verbalization of nominal bases, viz. the fientive analyzed in § 5.2.1, there is one other such process, which yields transitive verbs from nominal bases. Starting from the possessive construction S4, one substitutes A for its Pr, and W for its Pd, so it reads ‘A’s W’. Next W becomes the operand of the usative suffix ‑int (Bricker 1970). This actually consists of two operators: -inverbalizes W, so that A becomes its subject; and -t extraverts it (§ 5.3.2.1), so it takes an undergoer P.15 In this way, one obtains the usative construction of S24, which
15 Apart from exceptional contexts such as (28), the -in- formative does not occur without a following -t; but several usative verbs, esp. ones based on kinship terms, dispense with the -in-, which is morphologically possible because extraversion also applies to nominal bases.
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may be paraphrased as ‘A’s W is P = A has/uses P as (his) W’ and, with dynamic aspectuality, ‘A converts P into (his) W’. (42) is a perfectly compositional illustration of this operation. S24. Usative construction [ [ Pn ]PC.i [ [ W ]N-int ]V.tr-Absj [ P ]NP.j [ A ]NP.i ]VCC
(42) a. Ba’n a k’aan? what poss.2 hammock ‘What is your hammock?’ b. Ba’n ken a k’áan-int-eh? what sr.fut sbj.2 hammock-usat-subj ‘What are you going to use as a hammock (= where are you going to sleep)?’ (RMC_2248) (43) a. le he’l-a’ u búuk le ko’lel-o’ dem prsv-d1 poss.3 dress dem adult.woman-d2 ‘this is that woman’s dress’ b. le ko’lel-o’ t-u búuk-int-ah dem woman-d2 pfv-sbj.3 dress-usat-cmpl u nook’ u paal poss.3 clothing poss.3 child ‘(lit.) that woman used her child’s clothing as a dress = that woman put on her child’s clothing’ (44) ko’ne’x si’-int-ik hun-kúul che’ go.hort:aug firewood-usat-incmpl one-cl.plant tree ‘let’s get firewood from a tree’ (EMB_0497) The derivation applies productively both to alienable (42a, 44) and to inalienable (43a) bases (the latter including, importantly, kinship terms). Nevertheless, some usative verbs such as the one in (43b) are lexicalized.
5.3.2 Transitive verbs from verbal bases The derivation of transitive verbs from verbal bases may be subdivided according to the valency of the base. However, derivation of transitive verbs from transitive bases will not be considered as it does not affect valency. Moreover, there is no
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productive grammatical process to obtain a transitive construction by valency reduction of a ditransitive base. A few cases that come close to this construct will be discussed in § 5.3.3. Thus, the bulk of this section is concerned with the derivation of transitive stems from intransitive bases. The subdivision (§§ 5.3.2.1–5.3.2.3) is according to the actant whose slot is added: first, operations adding an undergoer (direct object) slot, then, operations adding an actor (transitive subject) slot are treated.
5.3.2.1 Extraversion Given a base of the active intransitive subclass, an extraversive stem may be formed by appending the suffix -t (glossed Trr ‘transitivizer’) to it. The operation transforms the intransitive construction of S9, illustrated by (12), into the extraversive construction of S25, illustrated by (45). S25 is a subtype of the basic transitive construction S12 and a mirror-image to introversion (S19). S25. Extraversion of a verbal base [ [ Pn ]PC.i [ [ W ]V.intr_act-t ]V.tr-Absj [ P ]NP.j [ A ]NP.i ]VCC
(45) le x-ch’úuppal-o’ k-u síit’-t-ik le koot-o’ dem f-girl-d2 ipfv-sbj.3 jump-trr-incmpl dem wall-d2 ‘the girl jumps (over) that wall’ As discussed more fully in 5.3.2.4, the same derivation, formally, applies to bases of other word classes, too. Verbal bases, however, obey the constraint that they must be active without exception. This includes compound verb stems, especially incorporative verbs, all of which belong to the active conjugation class irrespectively of the class of their verbal core. For instance, the stem háak ‘slide’ is inactive. The incorporative stem háakchek’ ‘slide stepping on something’, illustrated in (46), is active and thus allows the extraversion of (46b) (see § 6.2 on retransitivization of incorporative verbs). (46) a. háak-chek’-nah-en slide-with.foot-cmpl-abs.1.sg ‘I slipped (by stepping on something)’ b. t-in háak-chek’-t-ah le ha’s-o’ pfv-sbj.1.sg slide-by.foot-trr-cmpl dem banana-d2 ‘I slipped on that banana’ Extraversion may be conceived of as a lexicalized variant of the applicative operation. However, it differs in a variety of respects from the canonical applicative (Lehmann & Verhoeven 2006):
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It is a lexical rather than syntactic operation, which entails that it is neither compositional nor fully productive. It only applies to intransitive bases, while an applicative may freely apply to transitive bases. Consequently, extraversion is always valency-increasing, while the applicative is sometimes only valency-rearranging. The applicative promotes a clause component low on the hierarchy of syntactic functions to the direct object function. Extraversion does not promote anything, since the resulting direct object typically cannot even be accommodated in the underlying intransitive construction. The specific role of the undergoer exteriorized from the verb depends essentially on the latter’s lexical meaning.
Thus, in the intransitive construction of (47a), there is no way of accommodating an addressee, which is, however, the role of the direct object in the extraversive construction of (47b). (47) a. le xibpal-o’ túun xóob (*ti’ le x-ch’úuppal-o’) dem boy-d2 prog\sbj.3 whistle loc dem f-girl-d2 ‘the boy is whistling (at the girl)’ b. le xibpal-o’ túun xóob-t-ik le x-ch’úuppal-o’ dem boy-d2 prog:sbj.3 whistle-trr-incmpl dem f-girl-d2 ‘the boy is whistling at the girl’ On the other hand, extraversion is completely regular formally and highly productive for active intransitive bases, elementary or complex. For these, there is an alternative to its conception as a derivational process. Instead, one might abide by the two conjugation classes of transitive verbs explained in Table 1, the first without a stem-forming exponent, only for transitive roots (such as méek’ ‘hug’ in (19)), and another with the stem-forming suffix -t. This holds for both derived transitive stems (such as háakchek’ ‘slide stepping on something’ in (46)) and such roots that have an intransitive active use (such as xóob ‘whistle’ in (47)). Then there would be no process of extraversion, and instead verbs like xóob and háakchek’ would be ambitransitive, i.e. alternating between transitive and active-intransitive valency. While this might be sufficient for verbal bases, there is still the verbalization of nominal bases such as cha’n ‘spectacle [n.]’ – cha’nt ‘watch’, which, under this alternative account, would have to be conceived of as a conversion (a zero-operator recategorization) with transfer into the second conjugation class. However, conversions normally only change the category without affecting the meaning, while extraversion may yield unforeseeable semantic results, as in (47). Another argument in favor of the extraversion analysis is the alternation between the ‑t and the ‑s suffix (see § 5.3.2.2), the latter of which is an unequivocal derivational operator. On the other hand, the same morphological process of extraversion also applies to transitive verboids in order to verbalize them. To formalize that, it suffices
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to replace the category subscript of W in S25 with ‘transitive verboid’. This process is illustrated by (48). (48) a. le xibpal-o’ u k’ahóol le xch’úupal-o’ dem boy-d2 sbj.3 know dem girl-d2 ‘the boy knows/knew the girl’ b. le xibpal-o’ k-u k’ahóol-t-ik le xch’úupal-o’ dem boy-d2 ipfv-sbj3 know-trr-cmpl dem girl-d2 ‘the boy knows/knew the girl’ Just as in the case of the fientive verb (§ 5.2.1), the primary purpose of this operation is to make the concept available in the verbal category. In the present case, the base already has the same valency as the derived verb. The verbalization of transitive verboids is, therefore, another argument in favor of the alternative analysis of the -t suffix as a conjugation class suffix instead of an operator of extraversive derivation. The indeterminacy of this analysis is due to the fact that languages may use the same formative both as a derivational operator and as an inflection-class exponent.
5.3.2.2 Factitive verbs For every deadjectival fientive verb (§ 5.2.1) there is a corresponding factitive verb. It is constructed as schematized in S26, a subtype of the basic transitive construction S12, and illustrated in (49). S26. Factitive derivation [ [ Pn ]PC.i [ [ W ]N/Adj-ki/unt ]V.tr-Absj [ P ]NP.j [ A ]NP.i ]VCC
(49) t-in tikin-kunt-ah le sikil-a’ pfv-sbj.1.sg dry-fact-cmpl dem pumpkin.seed-d1 ‘I dried this pumpkin seed’ (49) is based on a sentence like (6) and is the factitive counterpart to the fientive (30b). The factitive is that variant of the causative whose base is adjectival. The suffix is morphologically complex as it consists of the factitive suffix proper, -kin/ kun, plus the extraversive suffix -t. The first component -kin/-kun does not occur alone in intransitive use, but it does occur in the citation form of these verbs and in their nominalization. Depending on lectal variation, the causative suffix -s appears instead of the -t, yielding the variant ‑kins/kuns, as in (51). Just as any adjective, the adjectival experiential construction of S6 may be factitivized. Thus, (50b) is a factitive construction on the basis of (50a).
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(50) a. ki’mak in w-óol happy poss.1.sg 0-mind ‘I am happy’ b. le paax-o’ k-u ki’mak-kuns-ik in w-óol dem music-d2 ipfv-sbj.3 happy-fact-incmpl poss.1.sg 0-mind ‘that music delights me’ Furthermore, factitives are regularly formed from positional bases. (51) is the factitive counterpart to fientive (14). (51) Kul-kins y-óok’ol le k’áan-che’-o’! sit-fact(imp) 0-over dem hammock-wood-d2 ‘Make him sit (down) on the stool!’ (51) follows the factitive pattern of S26 and the ditransitive pattern of transport verbs formalized as S15. It is, however, noteworthy that the factitive rather than the causative operator should be used with positional bases. Positional roots are clearly verbal rather than adjectival, as proved both by their conjugation and by the necessity of applying derivational operators such as the stative and resultative if one needs them in the adjectival category (§ 5.1). Positional concepts are notoriously ambivalent as to the alternative of ‘stative (and uncontrolled)’ vs. ‘dynamic (and controlled)’. If we assume a scale of dynamicity as set out in Lehmann (1993), § 3.1, then positionals may be allocated a point between state and process. The factitive derivation operates on bases which designate properties and states (adjectival bases) and bases which designate positions, and would thus be operating on a set of bases which together cover a continuous segment of the dynamicity scale.
5.3.2.3 Causatives of inactive intransitive verbs Given a base of the inactive intransitive subclass, a causative stem may be formed. The operation transforms the intransitive construction of S9, illustrated by (13), into the causative construction of S27, illustrated by (52). S27 is a subtype of the basic transitive construction S12. S27. Causative construction [ [ Pn ]PC.i [ [ W ]V.intr_inact -Caus ]V.tr-Absj [ P ]NP.j [ A ]NP.i ]VCC
(52) t-in lúub-s-ah le nuxib che’-o’ pfv-sbj.1 fall-caus-cmpl dem old wood-d2 ‘I felled that old tree’
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A is the causer, P is the causee. The causative suffix has a set of allomorphs, the basic one of which is the ‑s appearing in (52). With very few exceptions, W must be inactive. Consequently, intransitive verbs of the active subclass, e.g. meyah ‘work’, cannot be causativized. Fientive stems cannot be causativized either; but that is not necessary since the corresponding function is fulfilled by applying the factitive derivation to their base. Finally, transitive stems cannot be causativized. This constraint may be circumvented by first passivizing them, thus creating an inactive derived stem. However, only one causative verb, ka’ns ‘teach’, discussed in § 6.1, is known to be formed by such a procedure. There are periphrastic constructions which apply to such bases which are not amenable to the causative derivation. Two intransitive constructions should be singled out as undergoing causativization. The first is the experiential construction sketched in § 4.1.2. In causativizing S10, óol ‘mind’ with its possessor becomes the direct object, and L of S10 disappears. (53) illustrates the causativization of the verb appearing in (16). (53) he’l a háak’-s-ik in w-óol-e’ def.fut sbj.2 scared-caus-incmpl poss.1.sg 0-mind-d3 ‘you will scare me’ (kuruch_021) The other intransitive construction whose causativization is worth mentioning is the directed motion verb construction briefly described in § 4.1.3. In causativizing it, the verb of motion becomes a verb of transport, and S of S11 becomes P of S27. (54) is a rather close causative counterpart to the intransitive (17). (54) Hóok’-es le peek’ ich nah-o’! leave-caus dem dog in house-d2 ‘Get (chase) the dog out of the house!’ Remember that verbs of oriented motion are inactive; their causativization is thus completely regular. And in fact, the entire set can be causativized. The causatives of the two most basic ones, bin ‘go’ and taal ‘come’, are bis ‘transport, take to’ and taas ‘bring’. Their lexicalization goes hand in hand with phonological erosion (from *bin-s and *taal-s). In general, the verb of transport inherits the local complement from the underlying verb of motion. Two exceptions are known to the rule that causatives are only formed from inactive intransitive bases: active intransitive áalkab ‘run’ and balak’ ‘roll’ form the causatives áalkabans and balak’es. These are, at the same time, the only verbs that allow both causative and extraversive transitivization: áalkabt ‘run with respect to’, balak’t ‘roll [sth.]’. Since this coexistence is not provided for by the system, it leads to problems of usage in both cases: speakers constantly confuse áalkabt and áalkabans (cf. § 5.3.2.4); and balak’es and balak’t are synonymous, while in general the suffix -t does not have causative value.
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Given the constraints on factitive and on causative derivation, this pair of derivations together covers a continuous segment, viz. the lowest segment, of the implicational hierarchy of causativization proposed in Lehmann (to appear).
5.3.2.4 Functional ambiguity of transitivizers In terms of verbal morphology, there are three kinds of transitive verb stems: 1. transitive roots, e.g. kach ‘break’ 2. causativized verb stems, derived by one of the allomorphs of the causative suffix -s, e.g. na’k-s ‘make get up, lift’ 3. other derived verb stems, derived by the suffix -t, e.g. ts’alk’ab-t ‘stamp [sth.] with the hand’. Since both (1) and (2) are closed classes, the vast majority of transitive verbs in the language bear the suffix -t. Its functions may be classified as follows: a) It derives extraversives from active intransitive roots, as in áakan ‘moan’ – áakant ‘bemoan’, che’h ‘laugh’ – che’ht ‘laugh at’, ts’iib ‘write’ – ts’iibt ‘write [sth.]’, etc. See § 5.3.2.1. b) It derives transitive verbs from non-verbal roots, as in muuk’ ‘force’ – muuk’t ‘force [sth.]’, cha’n ‘spectacle [n.]’ – cha’nt ‘look at’. c) It “retransitivizes” incorporative verbs, as in ts’al-k’ab ‘stamp with hand’ – ts’alk’abt ‘stamp [sth.] with one’s hand’. See § 6.2. d) Finally, -t is a morphological component of the usative suffix -int (§ 5.3.1) and the factitive suffix -kint/-kunt (§ 5.3.2.2). This plurifunctionality of the -t suffix leads to the consequence that it sometimes takes the place of the causative suffix. The intransitive use of áalkab ‘run’ is illustrated by (55a). Example (55b) illustrates a regular extraversive, and (55c) a regular causative derivation. (55) a. le tsíimin-o’ áalkab-nah ti’ le beh-o’ dem horse-d2 run-cmpl loc dem path-d2 ‘the horse ran along the path’ b. le tsíimin-o’ t-u y-áalkab-t-ah le beh-o’ dem horse-d2 pfv-sbj.3 0-run-trr-cmpl dem way ‘that horse ran the path’ c. t-in w-áalkab-ans-ah le tsíimin-o’ pfv-sbj.1sg 0-run-caus-cmpl dem horse-d2 ‘I raced the horse’ In certain contexts, the extraversive and the causative derivation of áalkab are not too different semantically. Examples like (56) might therefore provide the context
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for reinterpretation of the extraversive suffix. Here the causative and the extraversive suffix alternate in the causative function. (56) le peek’-o’b-o’ k-u y-áalkab-t-ik-o’b le k’éek’en-o’b-o’ dem dog-pl-d2 ipfv-sbj.3 0-run-trr-incmpl-3.pl dem pig-pl-d2 ‘the dogs run behind the pigs / make the pigs run’ To complete this picture, the factitive suffix -kint/-kunt has a variant -kins/-kuns, containing the causative instead of the extraversive morpheme. On the basis of the construction of the adjectival experiential predicate illustrated by (8), the transitive verb stem ok’om-óolt is formed. In (57a), it is used with an extraversive argument structure; in (57b), it has a causative argument structure. (57) a. h ok’om-óol-t-a’b úuchik u kíim-il pfv sad-mind-trr-pass.cmpl obl.sr sbj.3 die-incmpl ‘he was mourned when he died’ b. le ba’l-o’ k-u ok’om-óol-t-ik-en dem thing-d2 ipfv-sbj.3 sad-mind-trr-incmpl-abs.1.sg ‘that thing makes me sad’ In the latter case, a factitive derivation would be expected, which is, however, inexistent for this verb. Thus, the extraversive suffix takes on the function of the causative suffix, developing into a generic transitivizer.
5.3.3 Transitive verbs from ditransitive bases Just as intransitive verbs may be derived from transitives by valency reduction, so, in principle, might transitive verbs be derivable from ditransitive verbs by valency reduction. However, the only available processes in that domain, viz. reflexivization and reciprocization, do not, in Yucatec, actually reduce the valency of the verb but rather occupy the respective actant position with a reflexive phrase. They will nevertheless briefly be illustrated here.
5.3.3.1 Indirect reflexivity In a way analogous to the reflexive construction of a transitive verb (§ 5.2.2.3), the indirect object position of a ditransitive verb (S15) may be occupied by the reflexive phrase Possx báah ‘X’s self’. (58) is such a sentence, where the indirect object position would normally be occupied by an NP of disjunct reference.
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(58) k-u ch’a’-ik sahak-il ti’ u báah ipfv-sbj.3 take-incmpl afraid-abstr loc poss.3 self ‘he is afraid of himself’
5.3.3.2 Indirect reciprocity In a way analogous to the reciprocal construction of a transitive verb (§ 5.2.2.3), the indirect object position of a ditransitive verb (S15) may be occupied by the reflexive phrase Poss báah in a reciprocal construction. (59) is such a sentence, where the indirect object position would normally be occupied by an NP of disjunct reference. (59) t-u paaklan túuxt-ah lool-o’b ti’ u báah-o’b pfv-sbj.3 each.other send-cmpl flower-pl loc poss.3 self-pl ‘they sent each other flowers’ (60) le paal-o’b-e’ k-u ta’k-ik u báah-o’b ti’ u dem child-pl-d3 ipfv-sbj.3 hide-incmpl poss.3 self-pl loc poss.3 báahtsil-o’b self:absol-pl ‘the children hide from each other’ A variant of this is illustrated by (60). It features báahtsil instead of báah, whose formation and function remain obscure.16 Alternatively and just as in the reciprocal construction of transitive verbs, the reflexive phrase may be omitted. For instance, (61) may be formed on the basis of a sentence like (23). (61) ichil to’n-e’ paaklan k tsikbal-t-ik úuchben tsikbal-o’b inside us-top each.other sbj.1.pl talk-trr-incmpl old story-pl ‘in our group we tell each other old stories’ This then does appear to reduce the valency of the ditransitive verb by suppressing the indirect object. However, the indirect object is optional, anyway, and not marked on the verb either. Consequently, (61) is just a variant of the ditransitive verb construction S15.
16 The derivation in -tsil from a relational base normally forms a non-relational counterpart to it (cf. Lehmann 2002, ch. 3.2.2.2.3.2). This is, however, obviously not what happens in the case of báahtsil.
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Finally, with the communication verbs a’l ‘say’ and k’áat ‘ask’, the preposition of the indirect object may be omitted under reciprocity, so that it appears as a direct object, as in (62). (62) in taatah-o’b-e’ paaklan u k’áat-ik u báah-o’b poss.1.sg father-pl-top each.other sbj.3 ask-incmpl poss.3 self-pl taak’in money ‘my parents ask each other for money’ These data show, if anything, that reciprocity of non-direct objects is not wellestablished in the grammar.
6 Other alternations This section brings together a set of valency-related alternations which are not coded on the verb. The actant shift to be discussed in § 6.1 is hardly coded at all. The other two subsections deal with two argument-structure alternations, viz. indirect participation and incorporation, the first of which is nominally coded, while the latter appears to escape such a classification. In quite general terms, it may be anticipated here that there are very few uncoded alternations in Yucatec, and they are unsystematic. This fits in with the earlier observation that in this language valency is a property which is firmly associated with a verb stem and whose change requires a morphological operation.
6.1 Shifts in three-argument verbs There is a set of verbs whose meaning involves three arguments of which normally no more than two surface in the form of actants. The question then arises as to how the non-initial arguments are mapped onto non-subject functions. There is no general strategy for this problem, but there are two partial ones. The first of them, called indirect participation, maps the second argument onto the direct object and accommodates the third argument, not as an actant of the verb, but as a dependent of the second actant. Under semantic conditions to be specified in § 6.1.1, it works in a relatively regular way. The other strategy, called direct object shift, maps either of the non-first arguments onto the direct object function, while the other is preferably omitted or, at most, adjoined in a prepositional phrase. This strategy is applicable to a small set of verbs to be reviewed in § 6.1.2 and takes rather idiosyncratic shapes for each of them.
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6.1.1 Indirect participation The nominal possessive construction S4 is much more central to Yucatec syntax than the trivalent verb construction S14. Given a three-participant situation with a lexically coded (rather than pronominal or implicit) undergoer, if a participant bears a relation to this undergoer which can be construed as possessive in some sense, then a construction in which that participant functions as possessor of the undergoer is often preferred to a construction in which it is the third verbal actant. That amounts to using S28 as a variant of S14 (with identity of all variables). S28. Indirect participation [ [ Pn ]PC.i [ W ]V.tr-Absj [ Possk P [ L ]NP.k ]NP.j [ A ]NP.i ]VCC
This construction is called indirect participation because although L is a participant in the situation whose core is coded by W, L is not coded as a dependent of W, and instead its relation to W is mediated by its possessee P.17 In (63) and (64), the (a) versions are constructed trivalent versions of the (b) versions, which are attested in the corpus. The brackets enclose an NP where the (a) versions show an NP and a PrepP which each depend on the verb directly. (63) a. máantats’ táan u t’ab-ik kib ti’ kili’ch Anton constantly prog sbj.3 lighten-incmpl candle loc saint Anton b. máantats’ táan u t’ab-ik u kib kili’ch Anton constantly prog sbj.3 lighten-incmpl [poss.3 candle saint Anton] ‘regularly he lights candles for St. Anthony’ (64) a. káa t-u máan-s-ah u éerensyah conj pfv-sbj.3 pass-caus-cmpl poss.3j heritage t-u ìihoh-e’ loc-poss.3i sonj-d3 b. káa t-u máan-s-ah u éerensyah u ìihoh-e’ conj pfv-sbj.3 pass-caus-cmpl [poss.3j heritage poss.3i sonj]-d3 ‘and hei handed hisj heritage to hisi sonj’ Indirect participation, as in the (b) versions, is the traditional construction both for benefactive and similar adjuncts, as in (63b), and for third arguments, as in (64).
17 This is also true of the experiential construction schematized by S8 above. See the account in Lehmann et al. (2000) and Malchukov et al. (2010), § 3.2.3.
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Increasing contact with Spanish has meanwhile established the (a) versions as alternatives. This is, thus, a valency alternation in which a verbal dependent alternates with a nominal dependent. Another two-place verb which accepts a beneficiary in indirect participation in a similar manner as t’ab in (63) is huch’ ‘grind’. Other three-argument verbs which show the same alternation as máans in (64) include ts’a’ ‘put, give’, taas ‘bring’, okol ‘steal’, and but’ ‘stuff’. The fact that even the central three-place verb of the language, viz. ts’a’, is frequently found in the indirect participation construction deserves particular attention. (65) is a representative example from a tale.
(65) yuum ahaw-e’ káa bin t-u ts’a’-ah master/father chief-top conj quot pfv-sbj.3 put/give-cmpl u y-otoch x-t’uup [poss.3 0-home f-youngest.sibling] ‘the chief gave a house to the youngest daughter’ (HK’an_309)
Moreover, there is a set of three-argument verbs for which no trivalent construction is possible, indirect participation being the only construction allowing the simultaneous coding of all three arguments. This set includes lak ‘detach’, luk’s ‘take away (from)’ (causative of luk’ ‘depart, go off’), hat ‘tear (off)’ (illustrated by (39a)), tix ‘rinse (off)’, tíit ‘shake (off)’, púus-t ‘remove dust’, and ts’íil ‘peel’. As may be seen, this set is semantically homogeneous as they all mean ‘A affects an object L in the role of source in such a way that another object P in the role of moved undergoer gets detached from it’ (variables as in S28). In the indirect participation construction, L appears as the possessor of P, as shown in S28. For the verbs lak and luk’s, P is the only possible direct object. The other verbs in the set show direct object shift with respect to P and L, i.e. they allow an alternative construction in which L is the direct object, while P cannot be accommodated. (66) and (67) illustrate this alternation for púus-t ‘remove dust’ and ts’íil ‘peel’: The (a) version has indirect participation with P in the direct object function, while the (b) version has L in the direct object function.
(66) a. le xibpal-o’ t-u ts’íil-ah u sóol le che’-o’ dem boy-d2 pfv-sbj.3 peel-cmpl [poss.3 shell dem tree-d2] ‘the boy peeled the bark off the tree’ b. ts’íil-a’b tuláakal le che’-o’b-o’ peel-pass.cmpl all dem wood-pl-d2 ‘all the trees were peeled’
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(67) a. le xch’úup-o’b-o’ t-u púust-ah-o’b dem woman-pl-d2 pfv-sbj3 wipe-cmpl-pl u luuk’-il le meesah-o’ [poss3 mud-rel dem table-d2] ‘the women wiped the dirt off the table’ b. le xch’úup-o’b-o’ t-u púust-ah-o’b le meesah-o’ dem woman-pl-d2 pfv-sbj.3 wipe-cmpl-pl dem table-d2 ‘the women wiped (dirt off) the table’ While the independent existence in the universe of discourse of a possessive semantic relation between P and L favors indirect participation, there are many examples where a possessive syntactic relation owes its entire raison d’être to this construction. For instance, in (67a), the table in no sense possesses the dirt. Instead, the syntactic possessor function exclusively serves the coding of a verb argument role.
6.1.2 Direct object shift With a set of Yucatec three-argument verbs, either of the non-first arguments may be direct object, while the other non-first argument is preferably omitted. This alternation is called direct object shift. The set may be further subdivided as follows (with variables as in (14)): 1. only bivalent (monotransitive) construction possible: hat ‘tear P off L’, tix ‘rinse P off L’, tíit ‘shake P off L’, púus-t ‘remove P (dust) from L’, ts’ik ‘shave L’s P’ and ts’íil ‘peel P off L’; 2. trivalent construction possible: a) with locative shift: but’ ‘stuff P into L, fill L with P’, bak’ ‘wind P around L, wrap L in P’, b) with irregular valency alternation: okol ‘steal P from L’, ka’ns ‘teach L P’. The subset #1 is the same mentioned in the preceding section as the set of verbs allowing indirect participation of L if P is direct object; s. (66) f. With verbs of subset #2, the third argument is introduced by a preposition. With subset #2a, S14 (V P ti’ L) alternates with S13 (V L yéetel P). That is: if P is the direct object, as in (68a) and (69a), then L is coded in a local prepositional phrase. If, however, L is the direct object, as in the #b versions, then P appears as an instrumental adjunct. This pattern defines locative shift. (68) a. le koolnáal-o’ t-u but’-ah ixi’m ti’ le kaamion-o’ dem farmer-d2 pfv-sbj.3 fill-cmpl corn loc dem truck-d2 ‘the farmer loaded corn onto the truck’
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b. le xch’úupal-o’ t-u but’-ah le luuch yéetel ha’-o’ dem girl-d2 pfv-sbj.3 fill-cmpl dem cup with water-d2 ‘the girl filled the cup with water’ (69) a. k-in bak’-ik su’m t-in k’ab ipfv-sbj.1.sg wind-incmpl rope loc-poss.1.sg hand ‘I wind a rope around my hand/arm’ b. k-in bak’-ik in k’ab yéetel su’m ipfv-sbj.1.sg wind-incmpl poss.1.sg hand with rope ‘I wrap my hand/arm with a rope’ (FEE_0131) These are, then, the only Yucatec verbs on record displaying locative shift. The (b) examples were elicited; these constructions do not occur in the corpus. The verb okol ‘steal’ may be used in intransitive, monotransitive, and ditransitive constructions. Although there are, in fact, two variant transitive stems of this base (with or without the -t suffix), neither of them is firmly associated with either the stolen thing or the deprived person as the direct object. (70) illustrates the variation, with (a) having the stolen thing, and (b), the deprived person, in the direct object function. (70) a. t-in w-okl-ah hun-p’éel bisikleetah pfv-sbj.1.sg 0-steal-cmpl one-cl.inan bicycle ‘I stole a bike’ b. ko’x okl-ik le máak-o’ go.hort steal-incmpl dem person-d2 ‘let’s rob that person’ In the ditransitive construction illustrated by (71), the stolen thing is the direct object, and the victim is the indirect object. This construction, an instantiation of S15, exhibits no syntactic variation. (71) k-in w-okol-ik teech le ba’l-o’ ipfv-sbj.1.sg 0-steal-incmpl you dem thing-d2 ‘I steal that thing from you’ The most complicated verb in this respect is ka’ns ‘teach’. Its stem is ultimately based on the transitive root kan ‘learn’. This is first passivized, yielding ka’n ‘be learned’. This stem is then causativized, yielding ka’ns ‘cause to be learned’. By its formation, this verb should take the matter learned as its direct object. This does happen in (72a), where the pupil appears as the indirect object. In (b), these two
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participants swap their syntactic functions, something that happens with no other ditransitive verb. And in (c), the pupil is the direct object, while the matter learned is apparently the secondary object, a function otherwise unknown in Yucatec. (72) a. t-in ka’ns-ah xokp’éelil-o’b t-in paal pfv-sbj.1.sg teach-cmpl number-pl loc-poss.1.sg child ‘I taught my child numbers’ b. le ko’lel-o’ t-u ka’ns-ah le xch’úupal dem woman-d2 pfv-sbj3 teach-cmpl dem girl ti’ hum-p’éel k’aay-o’ loc one-cl.inan song-d2 ‘the lady taught the girl a song’ c. ka’ns-a’b-en utsil t’aan maaya teach-pass.cmpl-abs.1.sg well speak maya tumen in kaanbesah by poss.1.sg teacher ‘I was taught to speak Maya well by my teacher’ Finally, this verb may also be used monotransitively, with either the matter learned or the pupil as the direct object. All of this allows no generalization and instead points to the peculiar idiosyncratic nature of this verb.
6.2 Incorporation The incorporative construction must be seen in the context of the formation of complex verb stems. There are essentially two processes of forming compound verb stems – by combining a verb stem with a preverbal adverb and by combining it with a post-verbal noun. The latter is traditionally called incorporation and may be schematized as in S29. S29. Incorporative construction [ [ Pn ]PC.i [ [ W ]V.tr – [ P ]N ]V.intr [ A ]NP.i ]VCC
Although P is not necessarily the underlying direct object, as we shall see in a moment, W must be transitive. Moreover, it must be a transitive root. The only morphological complexity allowed for W is reduplication (as in ch’a’-ch’a’-book RED-take-odor ‘sniff’) and the distributive suffix -lan (as in chuk-lan-paach catchDistr-back ‘hunt down separately’). Many incorporative constructions bear close paradigmatic correspondence with a syntactic construction that has P as a dependent NP or PrepP. To that extent, it seems justified to treat incorporation not only as a process of verbal compounding, but also as a syntactic process.
1466
Christian Lehmann
The syntactic function of P in the corresponding verbal dependency construction is either as the direct object or as the instrumental adjunct (see Lehmann (2006) for details). In the former case, S29 corresponds paradigmatically to S12 (with identity of all variables). (73) shows P first in the direct object function, then incorporated. (73) a. t-in ch’ak-ah xa’n behela’-ak-e’ PFV-sbj.1.sg cut-cmpl palm today-past-d3 ‘I cut palm fronds today’ b. h bin-en ch’ak-xa’n behela’-ak-e’ pfv go(cmpl)-abs.1.sg cut-palm today-past-d3 ‘I went palmcutting today’ If the incorporated noun has the semantic role of an instrument, the incorporative construction corresponds to S13 (with “I” in S13 mapping onto P in S29). This is illustrated by (74). (74) a. táan u páan-ik hun-p’éel ba’l yéetel u k’ab prog sbj.3 dig-incmpl one-cl.inan thing with poss.3 hand le tsíimin-o’ dem horse-d2 ‘that horse is digging something out with his hoof’ b. táan u páan-k’ab le tsíimin-o’ prog sbj.3 dig-hand dem horse-d2 ‘that horse is pawing at the ground’ (Bricker et al. 1998 s.v. páan) c. táan u páan-k’ab-t-ik hun-p’éel ba’l le tsíimin-o’ prog sbj.3 dig-hand-trr-incmpl one-cl.inan thing dem horse-d2 ‘that horse is digging something out (with his hoof)’ No matter what the role of the incorporated noun is, the incorporative verb joins the active subclass of intransitive verbs, illustrated by (73b) and (74b). However, many of these verbs are not generally used intransitively and instead are extraverted in order to take a direct object. That is shown by (74c) (cf. also (46) above). If the incorporated noun is an instrument, then the direct object of the incorporative verb may be the same as with the simple verb, as is the case in (74). To that extent, extraversion of the incorporative stem amounts to its retransitivization (Sullivan 1984). (75) is another example of this. (75) a. k-u lom-ik yéetel u k’ab ipfv-sbj.3 stab-incmpl with poss.3 hand ‘he pricks it with his finger’
Valency classes in Yucatec Maya
1467
b. k-u lom-k’ab-t-ik ipfv-sbj.3 prick-hand-trr-incmpl ‘he pricks it with his finger’ If, however, the incorporated noun functions as the undergoer of the base verb, then retransitivization of the incorporative verb allows for its combination with a new kind of direct object. In (76), this is the same participant that was a prepositional adjunct in the base version. (76) a. t-u t’in-ah u y-ich ti’ teen pfv-sbj.3 extend-cmpl poss.3 0-eye loc me ‘he greeted me opening his eyes’ b. t-u t’in-ich-t-ah-en pfrv-sbj.3 extend-eye-trr-cmpl-abs.1.sg ‘he winked at me’ On the one hand, not all incorporative verbs have a natural free syntactic counterpart; the (a) versions of (74)–(76) are not very idiomatic. On the other hand, incorporative constructions are not fully productive in the syntactic sense. Only such instruments and such undergoers are incorporated which typically figure in the action described by the verb. Thus, for a verb to “regularly” incorporate its instrument does not mean that any instrumental adjunct may be incorporated, but rather that the incorporative constructions of the verb are morphologically and semantically regular (compositional).
7 Conclusion Contrary to nominal valency, which is quite intricate in Yucatec, verbal valency is typologically unremarkable in many respects: The verb finds its place in a part-ofspeech system which is not essentially different from an SAE system, including the conversion operations between the categories. The alignment of syntactic functions is accusative without any split; it is only the morphology of the cross-reference markers on intransitive verbs which displays an ergativity split depending on certain conjugation categories. There is an indirect object, although somewhat underdeveloped in comparison with SAE languages. There are valency alternations between transitive and intransitive frames, including a completely regular passive. The typologically noteworthy features are the following: 1. The transitivity system is extremely rigid in the following sense: Every verb form that occurs in a text is formally either transitive or intransitive, and its syntac-
1468
Christian Lehmann
tic construction coincides with this. There is no way of using a given verb form in the other function. 2. As a corollary to observation #1, the language has no regular or productive uncoded valency alternations. 3. Conjugation classes reflect relationality and control rather faithfully and are correspondingly productive as targets of derivational operations. 4. The language has an aversion to multivalent constructions and, in fact, to accumulating dependents on a single verb. On the one hand, it has strategies of avoiding this. One of these is indirect participation, which employs the nominal possessive construction instead of verbal dependency. Another strategy with similar effect is the incorporation of non-referential dependents in the verb. On the other hand, there is not a single productive operation that produces a ditransitive construction.
Meaning label
EAT
SMELL
THINK
WASH
NAME
COUGH
COUGH
RUN
JUMP
LAUGH
SCREAM
FEEL PAIN
FEEL PAIN
FEEL COLD
DIE
PLAY
#
1
5
10
12
23
47
47
49
52
57
58
59
59
60
61
62
Appendix
báaxal
kíim
ke’l
k’i’nam
yah
awat (1)
che’h
síit’
áalkab
sa’sa’kaal
se’n
k’aaba’
ichkíil
tuukul
ch’a’bok
haan
Verb form
sbj[1].V 1
sbj[1].V 1
sbj[1].V 1
sbj[1].V 1
sbj[1].V 1
sbj[1].V 1
sbj[1].V 1
sbj[1].V 1
sbj[1].V 1
sbj[1].V 1
sbj[1].V 1
sbj[1].V 1
sbj[1].V 1
sbj[1].V 1
sbj[1].V 1
sbj[1].V 1
Coding frame schema
–
+
+
–
+
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Causa- Dea- Direct tive gent- object ive shift
+
–
–
–
–
+
+
+
+
–
+
–
+
+
+
+
Extraversive
–
–
+
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
(m)
–
–
–
–
Fientive
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Incorporative
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Indirect Intro- Pasparticipa- versive sive tion
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
(m)
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Recip- Reflexrocal ive
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
Usative
Valency classes in Yucatec Maya
1469
BE HUNGRY wi’h
ROLL
BURN
BE DRY
RAIN
BE A HUNTER
WIPE
BOIL
APPEAR
BE ILL
CRY
FALL
BE A DRESS
TALK
64
65
67
68
69
70
72
80
81
82
83
84
113
18
t’aan
búuk
lúub
ook’ol
k’oha’n
chíikpah
look
púus
hts’oon
k’áax
tikin
éel
balak’
ok’om
BE SAD
63
Verb form
Meaning label
#
sbj[1].V 1 yéetel+2 yóok’ol+3
sbj[1].V 1
sbj[1].V 1
sbj[1].V 1
sbj[1].V 1
sbj[1].V 1
sbj[1].V 1
sbj[1].V 1
sbj[1].V 1
sbj[1].V 1
sbj[1].V 1
sbj[1].V 1
sbj[1].V 1
sbj[1].V 1
sbj[1].V 1
Coding frame schema
–
–
+
–
+
(m)
+
–
–
–
+
(m)
+
+
(m)
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Causa- Deative gentive
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Direct object shift
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
+
–
+
Extraversive
–
(m)
–
–
+
–
–
–
(m)
–
+
–
–
+
+
Fientive
(m)
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
Incorporative
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
+
–
Indirect Intro- Pasparticipa- versive sive tion
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
(m)
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
(m)
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
Recip- Reflexrocal ive
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Usative
1470 Christian Lehmann
TALK
CLIMB
SIT
SIT DOWN
GO
LEAVE
LIVE
COME (2)
FEAR
BLINK
BLINK
TIE
EAT
HUG
LOOK AT
SEE
SMELL
18
48
50
51
54
55
56
112
6
46
46
40
1
2
3
4
5
u’y
il
pakat
méek’
haant
k’ax
chak’ich
chak’
sahak
taal
kah
hóok’
bin
kul
kul
na’k
tsikbal
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 (ti’+3) (yéetel+4) 1
sbj[1].V ti’+2 1
sbj[1].V ti’+2 1
sbj[1].V ti’+2 1
sbj[1].V LOC2 1
sbj[1].V LOC2 1
sbj[1].V LOC2 1
sbj[1].V LOC2 1
sbj[1].V LOC2 1
sbj[1].V LOC2 1
sbj[1].V LOC2 1
sbj[1].V 1 yéetel+2 yóok’ol+3
–
(m)
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
(m)
–
–
(m)
–
(m)
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
(m)
–
+
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
+
+
(m)
+
–
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
+
(m)
(m)
+
–
–
(m)
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Valency classes in Yucatec Maya
1471
Meaning label
SMELL
FEAR
FRIGHTEN
FRIGHTEN
LIKE
KNOW
KNOW
THINK
SEARCH FOR
WASH
WASH
DRESS
SHAVE
HELP
FOLLOW
FOLLOW
FOLLOW
#
5
6
7
7
8
9
9
10
11
12
12
13
14
15
16
16
16
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
Coding frame schema
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
ch’a’ paach sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
tsaypacht
ch’a’paacht sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
áant
ts’ik
búukint
ichíint
isíins
kax(an)t
tukult
k’ahóolt
k’ahóol
uts ti’ ich
sahakkuns
sahbes
ch’a’ sahakil
ch’a’bokt
Verb form
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Causa- Deative gentive
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Direct object shift
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
Extraversive
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
Fientive
+
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
N
–
–
–
(m)
–
–
–
–
Incorporative
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
N
–
–
–
–
+
+
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
–
+
+
+
+
Indirect Intro- Pasparticipa- versive sive tion
(m)
+
+
+
(m)
–
–
+
+
+
+
+
(m)
+
+
+
+
–
–
–
(m)
+
–
–
–
(m)
+
+
+
–
(m)
–
+
(m)
Recip- Reflexrocal ive
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Usative
1472 Christian Lehmann
MEET
MEET
SHOUT AT
BREAK
TEAR
PEEL
PEEL
PEEL
PEEL
THROW
LOAD
BLINK
RUN
SING
PLAY
WIPE
WIPE
DIG
DIG
PUSH
STEAL
17
17
20
25
32
33
33
33
33
39
45
46
49
53
62
72
72
73
73
74
76
ookolt
tul
páan
háal
púust
cho’
báaxt
k’ay
áalkabt
chak’icht
kuch
ch’in
lak
cheppóolt
ts’íil
sóolt
hat
kach
awat (2)
nuptáant
naktáant
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
+
(m)
N
–
–
–
+
+
–
–
+
–
(m)
+
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
+
(m)
–
(m)
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
+
(m)
–
–
–
–
–
(m)
–
+
(m)
–
+
–
–
(m)
(m)
–
(m)
–
(m)
(m)
–
–
–
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
–
(m)
(m)
–
(m)
–
+
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
+
(m)
–
–
–
(m)
(m)
–
–
–
–
–
(m)
–
–
–
(m)
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Valency classes in Yucatec Maya
1473
Meaning label
HEAR
COOK
WANT
MARRY
LEARN
CALL
BURN (tr)
MAKE HUNGRY
MAKE SICK
DRY
MAKE APPEAR
FELL
MAKE RUN
SINK (tr)
BOIL (tr)
HURT
BE NAMED
#
78
79
87
96
110
111
116
117
118
119
120
121
124
125
126
138
140
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
Coding frame schema
k’aaba’int
yahkunt
lookans
bul
áalkabans
lúubs
chíikbes
tikinkunt
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
k’oha’nkunt sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
wi’hkunt
tóok
t’an
kan
kahkunt
k’áat (1)
chak
u’y
Verb form
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Causa- Deative gentive
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Direct object shift
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
Extraversive
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Fientive
–
–
–
N
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
N
–
–
+
(m)
Incorporative
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
(m)
N
–
(m)
–
(m)
(m)
–
–
–
+
–
–
+
(m)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
+
+
Indirect Intro- Pasparticipa- versive sive tion
–
(m)
–
(m)
(m)
+
+
+
N
–
–
N
–
–
–
–
+
–
(m)
–
+
–
+
+
+
(m)
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
+
Recip- Reflexrocal ive
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Usative
1474 Christian Lehmann
LAUGH ABOUT
BE SAD ABOUT
CRY ABOUT
COUGH AT
JUMP OVER
BUILD
BREAK
KILL
BEAT
HIT
HIT
TOUCH
CUT
COVER
141
142
143
144
145
24
25
26
27
28
28
29
30
43
pix
xot
mach
koh
hats’
p’uch
kíins
pa’
beet
síit’t
se’nt
ook’olt
ok’om-óolt
che’ht
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1 (yéetel+3)
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1 (yéetel+3)
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1 (yéetel+3)
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1 (yéetel+3)
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1 (yéetel+3)
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1 (yéetel+3)
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1 (yéetel+3)
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1 (yéetel+3)
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1 (yéetel+3)
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
(m)
+
N
+
+
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
(m)
+
(m)
(m)
(m)
(m)
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
(m)
–
+
+
+
+
+
–
–
(m)
+
+
–
+
+
+
(m)
N
+
–
+
–
(m)
–
–
+
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Valency classes in Yucatec Maya
1475
Meaning label
FILL
GRIND
MAKE
GIVE
SEND
CARRY
THROW
PUT
POUR
POUR
FILL
#
44
71
85
36
37
38
39
41
42
42
44
but’
láal
t’oh
ts’a’
pul
bis
túuxt
ts’a’
beet
huch’
chup
Verb form
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1 LOC3
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1 LOC3
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1 LOC3
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1 LOC3
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1 LOC3
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1 LOC3
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1 LOC3
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1 LOC3
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1 (yéetel+3)
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1 (yéetel+3)
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1 (yéetel+3)
Coding frame schema
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
N
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
Causa- Deative gentive
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Direct object shift
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Extraversive
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Fientive
(m)
+
+
+
+
–
(m)
+
–
+
N
Incorporative
+
–
–
+
–
–
(m)
+
–
(m)
(m)
–
–
–
(m)
+
–
–
(m)
–
+
–
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
Indirect Intro- Pasparticipa- versive sive tion
–
+
–
+
–
(m)
+
+
–
–
–
–
(m)
–
(m)
+
–
+
(m)
(m)
–
–
Recip- Reflexrocal ive
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Usative
1476 Christian Lehmann
LOAD
LOAD
PUSH
BRING
CHASE
SEAT
ROLL (tr)
ROLL (tr)
MAKE CLIMB
ASK FOR
TELL
SAY
TAKE
45
45
74
75
94
123
128
128
137
19
21
22
31
ch’a’
a’l
tsikbat
k’áat (2)
na’ks
balak’t
balak’es
kulkint
hóok’s
taas
léench’int
na’ks
but’
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 ti’+3 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 ti’+3 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 ti’+3 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 ti’+3 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1 LOC3
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1 LOC3
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1 LOC3
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1 LOC3
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1 LOC3
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1 LOC3
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1 LOC3
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1 LOC3
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 1 LOC3
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
N
–
(m)
–
–
–
–
–
–
(m)
+
–
–
N
+
–
–
–
+
+
–
+
+
–
–
–
+
(m)
–
–
(m)
–
–
–
(m)
–
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
(m)
+
+
+
+
(m)
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
–
+
+
+
+
–
–
+
N
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Valency classes in Yucatec Maya
1477
HIDE
SHOW
STEAL
TEACH
GET
34
35
76
77
86
k’am
ka’ns
ookol
e’s
ta’k
Verb form
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 ti’+3 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 ti’+3 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 ti’+3 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 ti’+3 1
sbj[1].V.obj[2] 2 ti’+3 1
Coding frame schema
–
–
–
–
(m)
–
–
–
–
–
Causa- Deative gentive
–
(m)
(m)
–
–
Direct object shift
Legend: + occurs regularly; m occurs marginally; − occurs never; _ no data
Meaning label
#
–
–
(m)
–
–
Extraversive
–
–
–
–
–
Fientive
+
–
(m)
–
–
Incorporative
–
–
+
–
–
(m)
+
(m)
+
–
+
+
+
+
+
Indirect Intro- Pasparticipa- versive sive tion
N
(m)
N
+
(m)
–
–
–
+
+
Recip- Reflexrocal ive
–
–
–
–
–
Usative
1478 Christian Lehmann
Valency classes in Yucatec Maya
Abbreviations a. In construction formulas A Adj Advl Aux DC E I L N Nom NP P PC Pd Pn Pr PrepP S V VC VCC
actor adjective adverbial (phrase) auxiliary deictic clitic experiencer instrument local and other complement noun nominal noun phrase undergoer pronominal clitic possessed pronominal element possessor prepositional phrase intransitive subject verb verbal complex verbal clause core
b. In interlinear glosses 0 ABS ABSOL ABSTR AN AUG CL CMPL COLL CONJ D1/2/3 DEAG FACT FIENT GER HORT INAN INCMPL INTROV POS POSS PRSV REL SBJ
[no meaning] absolutive cross-reference absolutive abstract animate augmented number classifier completive collective conjunction proximal/distal/anaphoric-deictic deagentive factitive fientive gerund hortative inanimate incompletive introversive position possessive cross-reference presentative relational subject cross-reference
1479
1480 SPONT SR SUBJ TERM TRR USAT
Christian Lehmann
spontaneous subordinator subjunctive terminative transitivizer usative
References Bricker, Victoria R. 1970. Relationship terms with the usative suffix in Tzotzil and Yucatec Maya. Papers from the Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society 6. 75–86. Bricker, Victoria R. et al. 1998. A Dictionary of the Maya Language as Spoken in Hocabá, Yucatán. With a Botanical Index by Anne S. Bradburn. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press. Lehmann, Christian. 1992. Yukatekische lokale Relatoren in typologischer Perspektive. Zeitschrift für Phonetik, Sprachwissenschaft und Kommunikationsforschung 45. 626–641. Lehmann, Christian. 1993. Predicate classes in Yucatec Maya. Función 13/14. 195–272. Lehmann, Christian. 2002. Possession in Yucatec Maya. Second, revised edition. Erfurt: Seminar für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität (ASSidUE, 10). Lehmann, Christian. 2006. Incorporación nominal, posesión y participación en el maya yucateco. Península 1(2). 129–141. Lehmann, Christian. to appear. Latin causativization in typological perspective. In Muriel Lenoble & Dominique Longrée (eds.), Actes du 13ème Colloque International de Linguistique Latine. Louvain: Peeters. Lehmann, Christian, Yong-Min Shin & Elisabeth Verhoeven. 2000. Direkte und indirekte Partizipation. Zur Typologie der sprachlichen Repräsentation konzeptueller Relationen. München: LINCOM Europa (LINCOM Studies in Language Typology, 4). Lehmann, Christian & Elisabeth Verhoeven. 2006. Extraversive transitivization in Yucatec Maya and the nature of the applicative. In Leonid Kulikov, Andrej Malchukov & Peter de Swart (eds.), Case, Valency and Transitivity, 465–493. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: J. Benjamins (Studies in Language Cmpanion Series, 77). Martínez Corripio, Israel & Ricardo Maldonado. 2010. Middles and reflexives in Yucatec Maya. Trusting speaker intuition. In Andrea L. Berez, Jean Mulder & Daisy Rosenblum (eds.), Fieldwork and Linguistic Analysis in Indigenous Languages of the Americas (Language Documentation and Conservation, Special Publication, 2), 147–171. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press. Paris, Cathérine. 1985. Relations actancielles et valence verbale en avar: effacement de l’actant et mise au jour du sens. Actances 1. 135–153. Sullivan, Paul R. 1984. Noun incorporation in Yucatec Maya. Anthropological Linguistics 26(2). 138–160. Verhoeven, Elisabeth. 2007. Experiential Constructions in Yucatec Maya. A Typologically Based Analysis of a Functional Domain in a Mayan Language (Studies in Language Companion Series, 88). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: J. Benjamins.
Frank Seifart
35 Valency classes in Bora 1 Introduction This chapter describes how the verbal lexicon of Bora is divided by formal criteria into classes that display different properties related to valency. Two characteristics of Bora are particularly noteworthy and will receive special attention. First, there is a three-way lexical split in ditransitive verbs, where some follow an indirective pattern, others a secundative pattern (in which interestingly the theme is marked with allative case) and yet others a neutral pattern. This is exceptional within Bora also, where cases are otherwise used according to their semantics in a straightforward way. Second, Bora has complex verbal morphology that includes two separate derivational systems involved in valency changes. One of these combines verbal number marking with the marking of transitivity and the other marks causative, reflexive, and reciprocal. Like in other American languages, valency properties in Bora are thus very often expressed by explicit morphological marking on the verb, whereas valency is considerably less relevant to Bora. The analysis presented here builds on Seifart (2005: 31–71), Thiesen (1996), Thiesen & Weber (2012) and the author’s field work in 2010 and 2011. Valency properties have also been checked in a corpus of Bora texts (Seifart 2009). For examples from that corpus session names are indicated in brackets, which allow identifying these examples in that collection and accessing them online. Further examples are from the dictionary entries in Thiesen & Thiesen (1998). Examples with no indication of source are from the author’s fieldwork in Peru in 2010 and via telephone in 2011. These examples are mostly taken from the Bora section in the Valency Database, which contains many more examples. After an introduction to some basics of Bora and its morphosyntax (§ 2), three criteria for establishing valency classes in Bora will be discussed: case frames (§ 3), (morphologically unmarked) valency alternations (§ 4), and two types of morphologically marked valency-changing derivational processes (§ 5).
2 Basics of Bora and its morphosyntax 2.1 Bora and its speakers Bora is spoken in the Colombian and Peruvian Amazon by about 2,500 speakers. A close dialectal variety of Bora is Miraña, which is spoken in Colombia only (Seifart 2005). Bora is closely related to Muinane. A possible genealogical link to the
1482
Frank Seifart
Witotoan languages Witoto, Ocaina, and Nonuya (Aschmann 1993) now seems less likely (Echeverri & Seifart 2011). Bora is an endangered language since local Spanish is gaining ground in almost all Bora communities. In many communities the younger generations do not speak it anymore.
2.2 Typological profile Bora has a complex tone system which is mainly used to mark grammatical categories such as subordination and genitive phrases, and which involves massive tone sandhi, i.e. the tonal pattern of a given form may vary according to context. Bora morphology is fairly synthetic and agglutinating. Verbal morphology is particularly rich and includes multiple transitivizing as well as detransitivizing morphemes. Overall, however, Bora treats intransitives far more often as basic and transitives as derived than vice versa, i.e. it is a transitivizing language in terms of Nichols et al. (2004).1 Bora is mostly dependent marking at the clause level with heavy case marking and limited cross-reference on verbs. At the phrase level, genitive marking is a tonal pattern, which is realized on the head and dependent. Bora has a rich case marking system, which is consistently nominative-accusative. Case marking is discussed in the following section (§ 2.3), followed by some remarks on subject cross-reference and word order (§ 2.4) and argumenthood and transitivity (§ 2.5).
2.3 Case markers The Bora case marking system is summarized in Table 1. These case markers apply to full lexical noun phrases in the same way as to personal pronouns, with the variants according to animacy noted in Table 1. Bora has a nominative-accusative system for monotransitives. For ditransitives there is a three-way lexical split. Some verbs follow an indirective system, where the recipient is marked with the allative, others follow a secundative system, where the theme is marked with allative, and for yet others, both objects are marked with accusative, i.e. they follow a neutral system, as further discussed in § 3.4. The allative, the ablative, and the locative cases have clearly identifiable spatial meanings: Allative case is used for goal locations, ablative case for source locations, and locative case for static location. The ablative case is also used for static locations that involves protrusion, i.e. in situations where the Figure markedly sticks out from the Ground location (example 1). Other cases for adjuncts are the benefactive and the sociative cases.
1 In Bora about 60 % of the verb pairs from Nichols et al.’s (2004) list are intransitive in their basic form with transitives as derived, i.e. far more than the cross-linguistic average of about 40 %.
Valency classes in Bora
1483
Tab. 1: Case markers. case
markers
functions
nominative
unmarked
– the only argument of intransitive predicates – the most agent-like argument of transitive predicates
accusative (acc)
-ke (anim.) unmarked for inanimates
– the less agent-like argument of monotransitive predicates – the recipient of some ditransitive predicates – the theme argument of some ditransitive predicates
allative (all)
-divu (anim.) -vu, -u (inanim.)
– the goal or recipient of some ditransitive predicates – the theme argument of some ditransitive predicates
ablative (abl)
-dityu (anim.) -tu (inanim.)
– the source of an action or event – static location that involves protrusion
locative/ -ri instrumental (loc/ins)
– static location without protrusion – instrument
benefactive (ben)
-lliihye
– beneficiary
sociative (soc)
-ma
– a participant that accompanies the action or event
(1) wajpi chí-acó í̵íj̵ u-ke úméhe-tu. man tie-sng.trans horse-acc tree-abl ‘The man tied the horse to the tree.’ The case system is sensitive to animacy in two respects. Firstly, accusative case is only marked on animate noun phrases. This can be related to the higher need to differentiate agent vs. patient roles when both noun phrases are animate, rather then if one is inanimate, which is then bound to be the patient. Secondly, allative and ablative case involve an additional element -di- for animates.
2.4 Subject cross-reference and word order One form of verbal predicates includes a noun class or gender suffix that crossreferences the subject, of transitive as well as intransitive verbs (examples 2a–b). The realization of an overt subject noun phrase is optional when such subject cross-reference is present on the verb (examples (2) vs. (3)). (2) a. S V-s wajpi dsí̵ín̵ eé-be. man run-m.sg ‘The man ran.’
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Frank Seifart
b. A P-acc V-a wajpi wálle-ke wátá-jcoó-be. man woman-acc cover-mult.trans-m.sg ‘The man covered the woman.’ (3) a. V-s dsí̵ín̵ eé-be. run-m.sg ‘He ran.’ b. P-acc V-a ̵ éne-ke wátá-jcoó-be. tsí̵ím child-acc cover-mult.trans-m.sg ‘He covered the child.’ In another form of verbal predicates, the verb is marked by a ‘predicate marker’ (example 4a), which involves an optional suffix and an obligatory low tone on the verb stem’s penultimate syllable. With these verbal predicates, an overt subject noun phrase is obligatory (examples (4a) vs. (4b)) and the subject noun phrase must precede the verb (examples (4a) vs. (4c)). (4) a. S V-pred wajpi dsɨɨné(-hi). man run(-pred) ‘The man ran.’ b. V-pred *dsɨɨné(-hi). run(-pred) Intended reading: ‘He/She/It ran.’ c. V-pred s *dsɨɨné(-hi) wajpi. run(-pred) man Intended reading: ‘The man ran.’ Other than that subjects must precede verbs in these predicate constructions, there are no word order restrictions in Bora main clauses. Subordinate clauses are verbfinal, but this is unimportant for argument structure. Thus word order plays a very minor role in the expression of argument structure in Bora.
2.5 Argumenthood and the identification of transitive verbs Subjects with the kind of verbal predicates just mentioned are the only obligatory noun phrases in Bora. Any other noun phrase, including any object noun phrase,
Valency classes in Bora
1485
is always syntactically optional. Therefore obligatory object noun phrase realization is not a valid criterion for the distinction between arguments and adjuncts in Bora. One reason to treat noun phrases marked with accusative case as arguments is that they are centrally involved in valency-changing operations. For the same reason, one might also consider allative-marked noun phrases as arguments when they represent theme arguments and possibly also when they represent recipients (see §§ 3.5.2–3.5.4). All other noun phrases are probably best treated as adjuncts. Since all object noun phrases are optional, transitive verbs cannot be defined as verbs that must take objects. However, transitive verbs can be defined as verbs that can (but never must) take an object. The significance of this criterion is apparent from a pair of verbs that both translate as ‘hunt’, where one can take an object (example 5), but the other cannot (example 6). The first is thus a bivalent, i.e. transitive verb, the second one a monovalent, intransitive verb. (5) a. wajpi taavá. man hunt ‘The man hunted.’ b. wajpi taavá níívúwa-ke. man hunt deer-acc ‘The man hunted a deer.’ (6) a. wajpi lliiñájá. man hunt ‘The man hunted.’ b. *wajpi lliiñájá niivúwa-ke. man hunt deer-acc Intended meaning: ‘The man hunted a deer.’
3 Valency patterns 3.1 Summary of valency patterns The table in appendix 1 summarizes the main valency patterns of Bora and the criteria that distinguish them. These criteria will be discussed in the following sections. Sections 3.2–3.5 comment on the case frames and how they define major valency classes, as indicated in the leftmost column.2 These sections include exem2 Following the Valency Database Questionnaire Manual, coding frames are described with letters that can be thought of as standing mnemonically for particular roles (A: agent, P: patient, S: single central argument of intransitive verb, T: theme (of ditransitive verb), R: recipient (of ditransitive verb), L: location (including goal), I: instrument, E: experiencer, M: stimulus, X, Y, Z: other). No
1486
Frank Seifart
plification of some of the more interesting patterns, which deserve special explanation, especially the ditransitive verbs in section 3.5. Exemplification for other verbs is available in the database contribution. Section 4 elaborates on the uncoded alternations, of which the instr(ument) alternation is mentioned in appendix 1. Section 5 discusses the verb-coded alternations that are also summarized in appendix 1, namely caus(ative), reci(procal), and refl(exive). That section also discusses the derivational suffixes in the basic verb forms that the antepenultimate column of the table in appendix 1 summarizes, e.g. the singular verbal number intransitive (sng.intr) vs. singular verbal number transitive (sng.trans) marking. Forms whose status as segmentable morphemes in a given verb form is uncertain are given in brackets in that column. Finally, the penultimate column of the table in appendix 1 indicates whether an instrument prefix (discussed in section 5.4) is present in the verb form. For some cells, there is no data (indicated by an empty cell) and some criteria apply only marginally (indicated by “m”). Note that the classification of Bora verbs into valency classes in the rightmost column is almost exclusively based on the case frame they take and that coded and uncoded alternations only vaguely correlate with this classification.
3.2 Avalent verbs There are no verbs in Bora that could be considered avalent. Even meteorological verbs can take a subject noun phrase (example 7a), although they usually include just an inanimate gender suffix which stands in for a not further specified subject (example 7b) (7) a. nííjyaba allé-hi. thunderstorm rain-pred ‘The thunderstorm rained.’ b. allé-ne. rain-inan ‘It rained.’
3.3 Monovalent (intransitive) verbs The only argument of all monovalent verbs is in the nominative, i.e. an unmarked noun phrase, if it is not just represented by subject cross-reference. This argument may represent an agent-like role, as with the verbs llííñájá ‘hunt’, dsɨɨné ‘run’, and
claims are associated with the use of these letters, and they could be replaced by other arbitrary variable symbols.
Valency classes in Bora
1487
cátsíñiivye ‘jump’. It may also represent a less clearly agent-like role, as with áákityé ‘fall’ or éjéhtsó ‘cough’. It may also represent an experiencer, as with ajyábáávaté ‘be hungry’ or í̵dáátsové ‘be sad’ (see the database for more examples).
3.4 Bivalent verbs 3.4.1 Extended intransitives A set of verbs takes an agent-like argument in the nominative and a locative noun phrase or instrument. This noun phrase is probably best treated as an adjunct, and therefore these verbs are called extended intransitives here. This locative noun phrase may be in one of the three spatial cases: (i) allative, as in ácuuvé ‘sit down’ and pee ‘go’, (ii) ablative, as in ijchívye ‘leave’, and (iii) (stative) locative case, as in ácuúcunú ‘sit, be sitting’ and ícyahíjcyá ‘live’. The (stative) locative case is polyfunctional and also covers instrumental, as in example 8. It appears that all extended intransitives take a locative or instrumental as an additional participant, while all social interaction and mental predicates are transitives in Bora, i.e. they take an accusative-marked object (see following section). (8) a. llihpye caanúco-ri. mouse mortar-loc ‘The mouse is in the mortar.’ b. ováhtsa dómajcó ííñíme-ke úméhéco-ri. boy touch snake-acc stick-ins ‘The boy touched the snake with the stick.’
3.4.2 Monotransitive verbs This case frame is the default one for prototypical transitive verbs, with an agentlike participant (unmarked nominative case) and a patient-like participant, which is marked for accusative case if it is animate and unmarked if inanimate (see Table 1). Verbs taking this case frame include wáájacú ‘know’ (example 9), ɨɨté ‘look at’, íllívyeebó ‘frighten’, táábavá ‘marry’, majchó ‘eat (non-meat)’, do ‘eat (meat)’, ámabúcu ‘hug’, nɨí̵tsu ‘shave’, ɨhtu ‘peel’, tuu ‘cook’, and taavá ‘hunt for’. Other verbs taking this case frame, whose second argument represents participant roles that are not clearly identifiable as patients, are úraavyé ‘follow’ (example 10), pí̵aabó ‘help’, í̵tsaave ‘think’, and nehco ‘search for’. For tsɨjpáju ‘shout at’, ihjyúcunu ‘shout at’, and néé ‘say’ the accusative-marked object represents the addressee.
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A know P-acc wajpi waajácú ováhtsa-ke. man know boy-acc ‘The man knew the boy.’
(10) A follow wajpi úra-avyé man follow-sng.intr ‘The man followed the
P-acc bádsí̵jcája-ke. girl-acc girl.’
At least one verb taking this case frame, nériivyé ‘climb’, takes a locative participant in the accusative, which is unmarked when it is inanimate. Another pattern of participant roles in this case frame involves an experiencer in the nominative (unmarked) and a stimulus in the accusative, as with ájtyumí̵ ‘see, meet’, illí ‘fear’, ímille ‘like’, árahjúcu ‘smell’, and lleebo ‘hear’.
3.5 Trivalent verbs 3.5.1 Extended monotransitives Many trivalent verbs involve one object noun phrase in the accusative and another participant in a spatial relation, marked with spatial cases, which is probably best treated as an adjunct (as with extended intransitives, see section 3.4.1). In extended monotransitives, these spatial cases are used on the adjuncts according to their basic spatial meanings (unlike the use of allative for theme marking, see section 3.5.3). Example (11a) illustrates such a use of the ablative case, example (11b) of the instrumental case. (11) a. ováhtsa tsá-haamɨ tá-ba-hjyúcú wajácuháámɨ-tu. boy one-leaf ins:foot-tear-sng.trans book-abl ‘The boy tore the page from the book.’ b. ó caanú dɨɨ caanúco-ri. 1.sg grind peppers mortar-ins ‘I grind peppers with the mortar.’
3.5.2 Indirective ditransitives with allative-marked recipients The allative case is not only used for goals, but also for recipients with some verbs of transfer, a semantically straightforward extension. This pattern is instantiated
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by the verbs wallóó ‘send’ (example 12) and tsiivá ‘bring’ (example 13) and a few others (see appendix 1). With these verbs, the theme is marked for accusative case and the recipient is marked for allative case, like an indirect object. Note that in example (12a) the recipient is the dependent of a genitive phrase headed by the locative noun which translates as ‘there’, and which receives the inanimate allative case form (without -di-). (12) a. A send T-acc R-all ó wallóó waajácuháámí̵ tá-ñáhbe éélle-vu. 1.sg send book 1.sg-brother there-all ‘I am sending a book to my brother.’ (Thiesen & Thiesen 1998: 325) b. T-acc A send múhtsi-kye tehdújuco táhdi llíhi wallóó-hi. 1.dl.excl-acc well grandfather father send-pred ‘Grandfather, father, send us (*to us).’ (meevamm06_3 39) (13) A bring T-acc R-all ováhtsa tsiivá wajácuháámɨ uwáábóóbe-dívu. boy bring book teacher-all ‘The boy brought the book to the teacher.’
3.5.3 Secundative ditransitives with allative-marked themes Another set of Bora verbs displays almost a mirror image in terms of the case marking of the objects when compared to the one just discussed. With these verbs, the recipient is marked for accusative case and the theme argument for allative, like a secondary object. This pattern is instantiated in Bora by three verbs out of the 80 verbs included in the extended list (see appendix 1). These verbs are the most frequent trivalent verb, ájcu ‘give’ (example 14), úwaabó ‘teach’ (example 15), and úúje-tsó ‘show (make see)’ (example 16). (14) a. T-all R-acc A give téwaahyé-vú o-ke ú ájcuú. leftovers-all 1.sg-acc 2.sg give ‘You give me the leftovers.’ (llijchuri_1: 685)
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b.
R-acc A give T-all Tsá muurá éhne me-ke ditye ájcu-tú mééme-u. no well that 1.pl-acc 3.pl give-neg palm_fruit-all ‘Well, they did not give us palm fruits.’ (niivuwa 083)
(15) a teach R-acc T-all mé úwaabó tsɨɨmé-ké wákimyéi-vu. 1.pl teach children-acc work-all ‘We teach the children the work.’ (Thiesen & Thiesen 1998: 476) (16) a. r/causee-acc T-all táj-tsɨɨméne-ke tsúúca í-tyujpácyo-vu 1.sg-child-acc already 3-blood-all ‘You have already shown my child his (nEjke_kuriota 174)
A show ú úúje-tsó. 2.sg see-caus blood.’
b. r/causee-acc A show T-all o-ke mé úúje-tsó-vá ámúhpí̵ tájɨ-dívú! 1.sg-acc imp.pl see-caus-dir:come 2.dl.f husband-all ‘Come and show me your husband!’ (lijchu_ine_ii1 154) A few other Bora verbs, which are not included in the 80-meanings list also follow this pattern, among them taúhba ‘order’ (example 17). (17) P-acc A order A-all ájyúwa-ke ó táuhbá wájyamúúne níjtyu-vu. daughter-acc 1.sg order clothes wash-all ‘I ordered my daughter to wash clothes.’ (Thiesen & Thiesen 1998: 258) While ájcu ‘give’, úwaabó ‘teach’, and taúhba ‘order’ are unanalyzable, úúje-tsó ‘show (make see)’ is a causativized transitive verb, and all other causativized transitive verbs behave like it (see section 5.3.2). The fact that causativized verbs are involved in this pattern suggests that the allative case is used to mark an argument here, namely the demoted object of the underlying, non-derived monotransitive verb, rather than a spatial adjunct, like a goal, as it does with other verbs (see example 11a).3 Note that the label “allative” is justified by the vast majority of uses 3 In the relatively closely related Muinane, the cognate of ájcu ‘give’, the translation equivalent of ‘teach’, and causativized verbs take two accusative-marked objects (Walton el al. 1997: 9, 64, 76; Walton el al. 2000: 262). Unlike in Bora, accusative is also marked on inanimate noun phrases in
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of this case marker for goals and − by extension − recipients. Note that verbs for ‘give’ seem to behave unlike other ditransitive verbs in many languages (Malchukov et al. 2010: 48).
3.5.4 Ditransitive with neutral alignment: double object ditransitives
Finally, there is another case frame for trivalent verbs in Bora which is represented by the three verbs táúmeí ‘ask for’ (example 18), dilló ‘name’ (example 19), and uubálle ‘tell’ from the 80-meanings list. With these verbs, both objects are in the accusative case, i.e. unmarked if inanimate. The semantics of these verbs leaves little room for ambiguities between the two identically marked objects, e.g. who is asked for vs. what is being asked for. (18) a.
P-acc A ask T-acc botsíi píívyéébe-ke ú táúmeí-hí mé-májchotá dooráábe-ke. finally creator-acc 2.sg ask-pred 1.pl-nutrition fish-acc ‘Finally you ask the creator for fish of our nutrition.’ (VerbaDicendi 043)
b. ask-a T-acc táúmeí-jyúcoo-be májchota. ask-prf-m.sg food ‘He already asked for nutrition.’ (nEjke_kuriota 083) c. A ask P-acc T-acc mé táúmeíí táhdí-kye ájɨ-jé ɨhdééjpi-kye piivyé 1.pl ask grandfather-acc palm-people forefather-acc creation ají̵-júúho. palm-leaf ‘We ask the grandfather, the forefather of palm people, for palm leaves of the creation.’ (origen_maloka 27) (19) A name P-acc wajpi dilló ováhtsa-ke man name boy-acc ‘The man called the boy
T-acc cuhjúba-ke. slow-acc a fool.’
Muinane. The cognate form of the allative case does not seem to be used for any non-locative participants in Muinane.
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4 Uncoded alternations Uncoded alternations in Bora follow directly from the semantics of verbs and cases and do not play a major role in establishing valency patterns in Bora. The first kind of alternation that can be considered here is the deletion of objects. As mentioned earlier, this is possible for all objects, therefore this alternation is not interesting for setting up valency classes in Bora. Another kind of alternation involves rearrangement of arguments. Such an alternation is the instrument-subject alternation (examples 20–21), which is possible for every verb that can take an instrument. (20) a. A cut ó wá-hdahí̵-nú-hi. 1.sg ins:hit-cut-mult.trans-pred ‘I cut.’ b. ins cut pɨdójowa wá-hdahí̵-nú-hi. knife ins:hit-cut-mult.trans-pred ‘The knife cuts.’ (21) a. A cut ó vííú-ve-tsó-hi. 1.sg cut-sng.intr-caus-pred ‘I cut.’ b. ins cut pɨdójowa vííú-ve-tsó-hi. knife cut-sng.intr-caus-pred ‘The knife cuts.’ Another alternation is applied to T arguments of transfer verbs and to P arguments of monotransitive verbs in order to express a partitive meaning. Example (22) illustrates that the ablative case can be used for theme arguments of ájcu ‘give’ to express a partitive meaning (compare with example (14), where the theme argument of ‘give’ is marked with allative case). Example (23) shows that this alternation applies similarly to the P argument of monotransitive verbs such as majchó ‘eat’. These examples show that the case marking system of Bora is heavily semantically based. (22) R-acc a o-ke semi éhne 1.sg-acc proper_name that ‘Give me of that little string, (inf_josrob_etc2 18)
T-abl give móóhóúwúu-tu d-aácu. string-dim-abl imp.sg-give Semi.’
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(23) a. T-abl eat-a mááhó-tu i-tyávári-ácó-ne májcho-lle. casabe-abl 3-break-sng.trans-inan eat-f.sg ‘She ate the casabe (manioc flour bread) that she had broken.’ (piivyeebe_ajyu 117) b. a eat T(-acc) naaníyó majchó mááhoó. uncle eat casabe ‘My uncle eats casabe (manioc flour bread).’ (Thiesen & Thiesen 1998: 176)
5 Verb-coded voice alternations and valency change 5.1 Two kinds of valency-changing operations morphologically marked on the verb This section discusses alternations that are morphologically encoded in the verb. There are two distinct derivational systems that are involved in valency marking in Bora (Table 2). One set of valency-changing morphemes occurs right after the verbal root and also marks verbal number (section 5.2). This system is distinct from (and can be combined with) causative, reflexive, and reciprocal markers (section 5.3), which occur in a different position in the verbal template. There are also instrument prefixes, which do not, however, influence valency (section 5.4)
Tab. 2: Template for derivational verb stem formation. instrument
do- ‘hand’, ki- ‘knife’, dɨ- ‘teeth’, etc.
root
verbal number and transitivity
other derivation
causative
reflexive, reciprocal
directional
-jcáro ‘sng.trans’, -Vve ‘sng.intr’, -jco ‘mult.trans’, etc.
-lle ‘consider’ -tujkénu ‘incipient’, etc.
-tso ‘caus’
-mei ‘refl’, -jcatsi ‘recp’
-va ‘come’, -te ‘go’, -je ‘return’, etc.
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5.2 Verbal number and transitivity markers 5.2.1 Overview of forms The system of verbal number and transitivity markers is morphologically complex and involves various irregularities. The full set of forms is given in Table 3, which will be explained in the following sections. The functions of these forms are explained in section 5.2.2. How these forms divide the verbal lexicon is treated in section 5.2.3.
Tab. 3: Verbal number and transitivity markers. verb stem class
singular multiple verbal verbal number number affix affix
number of verbs in allomorph/ stem class
examples verb stem class
transitive (> 6 pairs of allomorphs) I
-áco -áco -áco
-jco -jcu -nu
103 13 2
tállíyiáco − tállíyijcyo ‘turn’ míbyeáco − míbyejcu ‘wrap’ wájɨáco − wájɨnu ‘line up’
II
-hjáco -hjáco -hjáco
-hco -hcu -jco
79 36 2
ávohjáco − ávohco ‘turn around’ íllímútuhjáco − íllímútuhcu ‘vomit’ vóihjyáco − vóijcyu ‘blow’
III
-hjúcu -hjúcu
-hco -hcu
14 27
árahjúcu − árahco ‘smell’ bócáyihjyúcu − bócáyihcyu ‘scrape’
IV
-úcu -úcu -úcu
-jco -jcu -nu
19 15 4
bóllíyiúcu − bóllíyijcyo ‘drill’ déiúcu − déijcyu ‘chew’ pihjyúcu − pihñu ‘gather’
V
-jcáro -jcáro
-jco -jcu
47 6
í ̵vóhojcáro − í ̵vóhojco ‘turn around’ dóvíujcáro − dóvíujcu ‘break’
VI
-ro
-nu
82
bɨɨjí ̵ro − bí ̵í ̵jɨnu ‘wrap’
minor classes
-cu -hcáo -hcáo -húcu -jcaáyo -jcho
-nu -hco -hcu -hcu -jco -ñu
11 2 2 2 2 2
wáyuhtsí ̵cu − wáyúhtsɨnu ‘raise’ wátsohcáo − wátsohco ‘break’ wátsuhcáo − watsúhcu ‘smash’ dótsuuhúcu − dótsuhcu ‘squeeze’ llíñémújcaáyo − llíñémujco ‘listen’ mávárijcho − mávaaríñu ‘bother’
V-ve
h-ba
205
cávyaave − cáhvyaba ‘fall down’
-úcunu
-jcatye
70
tódsɨúcunu − tódsí ̵jcatye ‘be lying’
intransitive
stative
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5.2.2 Functions The verbal number distinction marked by the forms from Table 3 (horizontal dimension in Table 3) has to do with plurality of events, sometimes involving plurality of participants also, and possibly also with iterativity and distributivity. For instance, tállíyiáco (first row in Table 3) refers to a single turning event, while tállíyijcyo refers to multiple turning events. The transitive-intransitive distinction marked by forms from this system (vertical dimension in Table 3) usually corresponds to a causative or anticausative alternation, as illustrated in examples (24–26) with singular verbal number forms. However, usually both categories are marked and neither of the two forms can be considered basic. ̵ éne-ke. (24) a. wajpi ácu-jcáró tsí̵ím man sit-sng.trans child-acc ‘The man is seating the child.’ b. wajpi ácu-uvé. man sit-sng.intr ‘The man is sitting down.’ (25) a. í̵veekí íñe mútsí̵tsɨ-bájú ú ái-úcú? why this pear-plantation 2.sg burn-sng.trans ‘Why did you burn this pear plantation?’ (bora_chac_1 119) b. ta-hjya ái-ivyé-hi. 1.sg-house burn-sng.intr-pred ‘My house is burning.’ (VerbaDicendi 098) (26) a. ú ácádsí̵-jcaayó dí-waajácuháámɨ. 2.sg loose-sng.trans 2.sg-book ‘You let your book fall down.’ b. dí-waajácuháámí̵ ácádsɨ-ɨvé. 2.sg-book loose-sng.intr ‘Your book fell down.’ Although the basic meaning of the derivational morphemes can be identified as transitive and intransitive from examples like (24–26), this is not necessarily reflected in the syntactic behavior of these verbs. On the one hand, verbs marked overtly as transitive can be used without objects. This is expected since all objects
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are optional. Surprisingly, however, verbs marked overtly as intransitive can sometimes be used with objects, as in example (27). (27) a. diityépí̵ méwa-múpí̵ í̵tsa-avé dííbye-ke. 3.dl.f wife- dl.f think-sng.intr 3.m-acc ‘They, the two wives, thought of him.’ (llijchuri_1 527) b. oohííbyé úra-avyé bɨɨrúmújɨ-ke. dog follow-sng.intr agouti-acc ‘The dog followed the agouti.’ (Thiesen & Thiesen 1998: 300) The system includes a third category on the vertical dimension in Table 3, which is labeled “stative”, following Thiesen & Weber (2012: 136–144), i.e. a subtype of intransitive. The difference between intransitive and stative is often hard to discern. For the verbs derived from ácu- ‘sit’, the stative form in example (28a) corresponds to the meaning SIT from the 80-meanings list and may take a stative locative adjunct. The intransitive form in example (28b) corresponds to SIT DOWN from the 80-meanings list and may take an adjunct expressing the goal. (28) a. wajpi ácu-úcunú cúúmú hallú-ri. man sit-sng.stat signal_drum top-loc ‘The man is sitting on the signal drum.’ b. wajpi ácu-uvé baa-vu. man sit-sng.intr below-all ‘The man is sitting down below.’
5.2.3 Division of verbal lexicon Roughly 50 % of Bora verbs combine with forms from this derivational system. Basic vocabulary tends not to combine with these forms. Therefore less than half of the verbs from the Valency Questionnaire (see appendix 1) combine with these. Interestingly, verb meanings that are cross-linguistically typically expressed by labile verbs, such as OPEN, BREAK, SINK, BURN, discussed by Haspelmath (1993) and others, are mostly expressed by verbs that take both transitive and intransitive forms from Table 3. This system divides the Bora verbal lexicon into formal classes of two kinds. Of the verbs that do combine with forms from this system, hardly any can combine with all six categories. Therefore, the verbal lexicon is divided into sets of verb
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stems that combine with different forms from this system, e.g. only with transitive markers. About 25 % of Bora verbs that can combine with at least one of the forms from Table 3 combine with intransitive and transitive verbal number markers. Thus this system has a valency-changing function, as illustrated in examples (24–26), above, for about one eighth of Bora verbs (25 % of 50 %). About another 25 % of the verbs that can combine with at least one of the forms from Table 3 combine only with intransitive forms, i.e. they cannot take transitive suffixes (examples 29a–d). These verbs thus do not display valency changes marked by forms from this system, although they are overtly marked as intransitive. (29) a. uméneba búni-ivyé. log slip-sng.intr ‘The log slipped off.’ b. uménebáá-ne búhni-bá. log-pl slip-mult.intr ‘The logs slipped off.’ c. *búni-jcáro/-hjáco/-ro/-úcu/-áco/-hjúcu. slip-sng.trans Intended meaning: ‘Someone made something slip.’ d. *búni-jco/-hco/-nu/-jcu/-jco/-cyo/-hcyo. slip-mult.trans Intended meaning: ‘Someone made something slip.’ About another 45 % of the verbs that can combine with at least one of the forms from Table 3 combine only with transitive forms, i.e. they cannot take intransitive verbal number suffixes (examples 30a–d). These verbs are overtly marked as transitive, but they do not display valency change marked by forms from this system. (30) a. wajpi bójórɨ-áco. man scrape-sng.trans ‘The man scraped something.’ b. wajpi bójórɨ-jco. man scrape-mult.trans ‘The man scraped something repeatedly.’ c. *bójórɨ-ɨve. scrape-sng.intr Intended meaning: ‘Something was scraped.’
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d. *bóhjórɨ-ba. scrape-mult.intr Intended meaning: ‘Something was scraped repeatedly.’ A second kind of division is imposed by the forms given in Table 3 on the subset of verbs that combine with transitive markers. These are divided into allomorph classes, comparable to inflectional classes. Table 3 indicates six sizable classes of verb stems that share pairs of allomorphs for transitive singular verbal number vs. transitive plural verbal number. Table 3 also indicates the total number of verbs for each allomorph class out of the approximately 866 verb stems in Thiesen & Thiesen’s (1998) Bora dictionary that do combine with at least one of these forms. As can be seen from Table 3, there remains morphological irregularity in that there is no one-to-one mapping of singular and plural allomorphs and many pairs of allomorphs occur only once or twice. No semantic or phonological basis can be discerned for this grouping into allomorph classes. This lack is illustrated in the Appendix with complete lists of verbs from two stem classes (I and VI) taken from Thiesen & Thiesen’s (1998) Bora dictionary. As can be seen, these classes include semantically as well as phonologically similar sets of verbs, and the picture does not change if any other allomorph classes are compared. In sum, the system of verbal number marking involves explicit marking of transitivity on many Bora verbs. This system is overall complex and irregular, and the marking of transitivity does not always lead to object realization.
5.3 Causative, reflexive, and reciprocal markers 5.3.1 Productive and transparent markers Unlike the markers discussed in the previous sections, the causative, reflexive, and reciprocal markers in Bora are very productive, morphologically regular, and semantically transparent. This indicates that they are probably a much newer system in the language.
5.3.2 The causative marker -tso The Bora causative marker can be used with almost every Bora verb (see appendix 1), increasing its valency by introducing a causer in subject function and demoting the subject of the underived verb to an accusative-marked object and the object of the underived verb (if there is one) to an allative-marked object. Causativized verbs
Valency classes in Bora
1499
thus display a secundative case-marking pattern, as mentioned in section 3.5.3, above. The Bora causative marker combines with intransitive (example 31) and transitive (example 32) verbs. (31) a. S V ó dsɨɨné‑hi. 1.sg run-pred ‘I ran.’ b. a P-acc V-caus wajpi o-ke dsí̵ín̵ e‑tsó‑hi. man 1.sg-acc run-caus-pred ‘The man made me run.’ (32) a. a v P-acc ó ɨɨté‑hi okáji-ke. 1.sg see-pred tapir-acc ‘I saw a tapir.’ b. a P-acc V-caus T-all wajpi o-ke í̵ít̵ e‑tsó‑hi okáji-dívu. man 1.sg-acc see-caus-pred tapir-all ‘The man made me see a tapir.’ The only verb from the 80-meanings list that does not regularly combine with the causative marker -tso is ícyahíjcyá ‘live’. This verb is incompatibe with causative marking probably because it is an idiomatized combination of the copula and a habitual marker (ícya-híjcyá), which comes after the causative marker in the verbal template. It is possible to form ícya-tsó-híjcyá ‘cause to habitually be’, but this is not a causativized form of ícyahíjcyá ‘live’.
5.3.3 The reflexive marker -mei The reflexive marker -mei has the function of deleting the object, thus reducing the valency by one, and conflating the agent and patient roles (example (33a) vs. (33b)). In this function, it can be used with almost any transitive verb (see appendix 1). In addition, transitive verbs marked with the reflexive marker -mei can be used with an object (example 33c), i.e. without a valency reduction. In this case, the verbs are consistently translated by Bora speakers independently as ‘do x poorly’ (Spanish ‘hacer x pobremente’). They may be translated into idiomatic English as ‘try to do x’, bearing in mind that the action expressed by the verb may well succeed.
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(33) a. a v P-acc wajpi tsájtyé-hi wajácuháámɨ. man carry-pred book ‘The man carried the book.’ b. A=P V-refl wajpi tsájtyé-meí-hi. man carry-refl-pred ‘The man carried himself.’ c. A(downgr.) V-refl P-acc wajpi tsájtyé-meí-hi wajácuháámɨ. man carry-refl-pred book ‘The man tried to carry the book.’ With the same semantic effect the reflexive marker can also be used on intransitive verbs, i.e. verbs that cannot take objects at all and for which consequently a valency-rearranging reflexive operation would not make sense (example 34). (34) a. wajpi dsɨɨné-meí-hi. man run-refl-pred ‘The man tried to run.’ b. wajpi éjéhtsó-meí-hi. man cough-refl-pred ‘The man tried to cough.’ The reflexive marker can also have a passive function with transitive verbs, as in example (35). It seems that it can have this function with any transitive verb. (35) a. wajpi píchóu-jcá-hi íjyawa. man wipe-mult.trns.pred bench ‘The man wiped the bench.’ b. íjyawa píchóú-jcá-meí-hi. bench wipe-mult.trns.pred-refl-pred ‘The bench was wiped.’
5.3.4 The reciprocal marker -jcátsi Only transitive verbs combine with the reciprocal marker -jcátsi, which detransitivizes the verb and expresses that the referents of the object and subject act upon
Valency classes in Bora
1501
each other (example 36). Intransitive verbs cannot combine with the reciprocal marker (example 37). Combinability with the reciprocal marker is thus a criterion to distinguish transitive from intransitive verbs (see appendix 1). (36) a. a P-acc v tá‑ñahbe nááni‑kye wá-dí̵rɨ-hcó‑hi. 1.sg-brother my_uncle-acc ins:hit-beat-mult.trans-pred ‘My brother beat my uncle.’ b. A=P V-recp tá‑ñahbé ‑mu wá-dí̵rɨ-hcó‑jcatsí‑hi. 1.sg-brother-pl ins:hit-beat-mult.trans-recp-pred ‘My brothers beat each other.’ (37) a. *ováhtsa tsá‑jcatsí‑hi cóomi-tu. boy come-recp-pred village-abl Intended meaning: ‘The boy came himself (?) from the village.’ b. *ováhtsa áákityé‑jcatsí‑hi. boy fall-recp-pred Intended meaning: ‘The boy fell himself (?)’
It is always possible to reference accusative-marked primary or direct objects with reciprocals, i.e. these objects are suppressed to express that their referents and those of the subject act upon each other (example 38a). Semantically appropriate allative-marked indirect objects can also be referenced by reciprocals to express that their referents and those of the subject act upon each other (example 38b). (38) a. A send T-acc R-all ̵ ene-ke wálle-dívu. wajpi wallóó tsí̵ím man send child-acc woman-all ‘The man send the child to the woman.’ b. diitye wálló-jcatsí-hi wálle-dívu. 3.pl send-recp-prd woman-all ‘They send each other to the woman.’ (e.g., the man sends the child to the woman and the child sends the man to the woman) c. ditye wálló-jcatsí-hi wajácuháámɨ-ne. 3.pl send-recp-prd book-pl ‘They send books to each other.’
1502
Frank Seifart
5.3.5 Combinations of valency-changing suffixes The causative marker can combine with either the reflexive marker or the reciprocal marker (examples 39–40). Note that KILL in Bora is typically expressed with the causativized verb DIE (example 40), although a non-derived, roughly synonymous verb also exists (lliihyánu). (39) a. mé-uácó-tsá-meí-i-yá átérée-jú-vu. 1.pl-enter-caus-refl-fut-frus bad-word-pl ‘We would let ourselves enter bad words.’ (iamehe_prep_1 127) b. núcójpí̵ve-tsá-meí-íbye. feel_ashamed-caus-refl-m.sg ‘He made himself feel ashamed.’ (llijchu_ine_ii2 166) (40) a. ditye dsí̵jí̵vé-tsó-jcatsí-ñé. they die-caus-recp-inan ‘They killed each other.’ (apajyune_naave 19) b. me-í̵hvé-jtsó-jcatsí-tyu-ki. 1.pl-be_alone-caus-recp-neg-purp ‘So we do not abandon each other.’ (AmpRepPop 481) c. cúwá-tsó-jcatsí-múpɨ. sleep-caus-recp-f.dl ‘They made each other sleep.’ (kuwatso_1 030) Causative, reflexive, and reciprocal markers can also combine with the verbal number and transitivity markers discussed in section 5.2, above, like in example 41. This results in a huge range of combinability of valency-changing morphology of up to 18 forms or more for each verb, combining the forms discussed in section 4.1 and those discussed in this section. (41) a. imíllé-mé díílle-ke i-tyúrú-úve-tsó-ne. want-3.pl 3.sg.f-acc 3-fall_down-sng.intr-caus-inan ‘They wanted to make her fall down.’ (piivyeeba_ajyu 187) b. aa-bé-vá-a [...] í̵-mɨɨcúmɨ-ri ɨɨté-cunú-meí. con-m.sg-quot-rem 3-mirror-ins look-mult.intr-refl ‘And he looked at himself in the mirror.’ (piivyeeba_ajyu 25)
Valency classes in Bora
1503
5.4 Non-valency-changing instrument prefixes A number of transitive verbs, especially those denoting physical actions, take instrument prefixes, of which there are six (example 42). It is relevant to discuss these here because instrument affixes, or incorporated instruments, reduce the valency of verbs in some other languages, but not so in Bora. The Bora system is not very productive, i.e. only a limited number of verbs combine with instrument prefixes and some of these only combine with some. (42) a. dí̵-váa-jcáro ins:tooth-break-sng.trans ‘break with teeth’ b. cá-váa-jcáro ins:pointed-break-sng.trans ‘break with pointed object’ c. dó-váa-jcáro ins:hand-break-sng.trans ‘break with hand’ d. kí-váa-jcáro ins:knife-break-sng.trans ‘cut’ e. pí̵-váa-jcáro ins:saw-break-sng.trans ‘cut by sawing’ f. wá-váa-jcáro ins:hit-break-sng.trans ‘break by hitting’ Verbs that take these prefixes must usually include one, i.e. they cannot occur without any of them. In a few cases, the verb can be used without a prefix, but this underived form is then usually also transitive. The forms including instrument prefixes can be used with and without an overt instrument noun phrase (example 43). Therefore it is clear that these prefixes do not change the valency of Bora verbs. (43) a. kí-ba-hjyúcu-úbe. ins:knife-pull_out-sng.trans-m.sg ‘He pulled out (something) (with a knife-like instrument).’ b. kí-ba-hjyúcu-úbe ní̵ít̵ sí̵wa-ri. ins:knife-pull_out-sng.trans-m.sg machete-ins ‘He pulled out (something) with a machete.’
1504
Frank Seifart
6 Summary and conclusions The realization of participants as overt noun phrases is often optional in Bora and word order is mostly free, so neither of these two characteristics has any significant influence on valency in Bora. Bora verbs fall into different valency classes according to which case frames they take. The choice for cases is largely semantically determined in Bora, and sometimes variation is allowed, such as the use of ablative case to express a partitive meaning. However, for ditransitive verbs, there are unexpectedly three different case frames for semantically relatively similar verbs (e.g. transfer verbs, including give vs. send), clearly setting up three valency classes. One of these case frames, which the verbs give and teach as well as all causativized verbs take, follows a secundative alignment system, in that recipients are marked by accusative case. Surprisingly, themes are marked by allative case for these verbs. Transitive and intransitive verbs are distinguished in Bora by case frames and by the compatibility with the reciprocal marker. With respect to uncoded alternations, there is very little in Bora that would help to set up further valency classes. Verbal morphology is very rich in Bora, and various morphological subsystems explicitly mark valency properties. However, none of them divides the lexicon neatly into formal classes. One derivational system combines transitivity marking with verbal number marking. It displays a lot of irregularities and only applies to a subset of verbs, mostly non-basic vocabulary. Overall, this system is not productive and the formal subclasses set up by this system (through combinability with allomorphs) have no discernable semantic or phonological basis. Also, the transitivity value marked by forms from this system is not always reflected in the syntax, e.g. verbs marked as intransitive can take objects. On the other hand, instrument prefixes do not interact with the valency of verbs at all. Unlike these two types of derivational markers, a third set of derivational forms, namely causatives, reflexive, and reciprocal markers, are highly productive with Bora verbs. They appear to be used whenever it is semantically appropriate and therefore hardly impose divisions on the verbal lexicon. In sum, although valency seems to play a major role in Bora verb morphology, morphosyntactically-based valency classes are far from clear-cut. Bora has one class of cross-linguistically highly unusual ditransitives with allative-marked theme arguments, which is hitherto undocumented in the typology of valency classes.
Meaning label
BLINK
COUGH
RUN
JUMP
SING
FEEL COLD
DIE
BE SAD
BE HUNGRY
SINK
BURN
BE DRY
RAIN
BOIL
FALL
HUNT (FOR)
#
46
47
49
52
53
60
61
63
64
66
67
68
69
80
84
93
llííñájá
áákityé
waáne
allé
daarɨ
áiivye
pámaave
ajyábáávaté
í ̵dáátsové
dsí ̵jívé
tsuucó
májtsivá
cátsíñiivyé
dsɨɨné
éjéhtsó
támihjyáco
Verb form
1-nom V
1-nom V
1-nom V
1-nom V
1-nom V
1-nom V
1-nom V
1-nom V
1-nom V
1-nom V
1-nom V
1-nom V
1-nom V
1-nom V
1-nom V
1-nom V
Coding frame schema
+
–
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
Causative derivation
Appendix 1: Summary of Bora valency patterns
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Instrument alternation
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
m
–
–
–
–
m
–
m
Reciprocal derivation
–
–
–
–
–
m
–
–
m
–
–
–
–
–
–
Reflexive derivation
sng.intr
(caus-) (sng.intr)
(sng.intr)
sng.intr
sng.trans
derivational suffix in basic verb form
instr. prefix
Intransitive
Valency classes in Bora
1505
Meaning label
SIT
LIVE
LAUGH
PLAY
APPEAR
SIT DOWN
GO
ROLL
LEAVE
LEAVE
EAT
EAT
HUG
LOOK AT
SEE
SMELL
#
50
56
57
62
81
51
54
65
55
55
1
1
2
3
4
5
árahjúcu
ájtyumí ̵
ɨɨté
ámabúcu
do
majchó
ijchívye
tsáá
víyiivye
pee
ácuuvé
bóhowaavé
ɨɨcú
gooco
ícyahíjcá
ácuúcunú
Verb form
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-abl V
1-nom 2-abl V
1-nom (2-all) V
1-nom (2-all) V
1-nom (2-all) V
1-nom (2-loc/instr) V
1-nom (2-loc/instr) V
1-nom (2-loc/instr) V
1-nom (2-loc/instr) V
1-nom (2-loc/instr) V
Coding frame schema
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
+
Causative derivation
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Instrument alternation
+
+
+
+
+
–
–
–
–
m
–
–
m
+
–
–
Reciprocal derivation
+
+
+
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Reflexive derivation
sng.trans
sng.trans
(sng.intr)
sng.intr
sng.intr
hab
sng.stat
derivational suffix in basic verb form
instr. prefix
tives
transi-
mono-
tives
transi-
ed in-
extend-
1506 Frank Seifart
FEAR
FRIGHTEN
LIKE
KNOW
THINK
SEARCH FOR
WASH
SHAVE
HELP
FOLLOW
MEET
SHOUT AT
SHOUT AT
PEEL
CLIMB
FEEL PAIN
HEAR
COOK
HUNT (FOR)
MARRY
SAY
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
14
15
16
17
20
20
33
48
59
78
79
93
96
22
néé
táábavá
taavá
tuu
lleebo
avyé
nériivyé
ɨhtu
ihjyúcunu
tsɨjpáju
ájtyumí ̵
úraavyé
pí ̵aabó
nɨí ̵tsu
nijtyú
nehco
í ̵tsaave
wáájacú
ímillé
íllívyeebó
illí
1-nom 2-acc UTT3
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
1-nom 2-acc V
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
m
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
–
–
+
–
+
–
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
–
m
+
–
–
+
+
–
+
–
–
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
(sng.intr)
sng.intr
mult.intr
sng.intr
sng.intr
(sng.trans)
monotransitives
Valency classes in Bora
1507
Meaning label
BUILD
TAKE
TEAR
HIDE
TIE
FILL
WIPE
STEAL
BREAK
KILL
BEAT
HIT
TOUCH
CUT
#
24
31
32
34
40
44
72
76
25
26
27
28
29
30
kídyahí ̵nú
dómajcó
wádí ̵rɨhcó
wádí ̵rɨhcó
dsí ̵jí ̵vetsó
cápujuhjácó
naní
píchóuáco
wahpétsó
chijchú
páátanú
dóbahjyúcú
ujcú
meenú
Verb form
1-nom 2-acc (3-loc/instr) V
1-nom 2-acc (3-loc/instr) V
1-nom 2-acc (3-loc/instr) V
1-nom 2-acc (3-loc/instr) V
1-nom 2-acc (3-loc/instr) V
1-nom 2-acc (3-loc/instr) V
1-nom 2-acc 3-abl V
1-nom 2-acc 3-abl V
1-nom 2-acc 3-abl V
1-nom 2-acc 3-abl V
1-nom 2-acc 3-abl V
1-nom 2-acc 3-abl V
1-nom 2-acc 3-abl V
1-nom 2-acc 3-abl V
Coding frame schema
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
Causative derivation
+
–
+
+
+
m
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
Instrument alternation
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
m
Reciprocal derivation
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
+
+
+
–
+
+
m
Reflexive derivation
mult.trans
mult.trans
mult.trans
mult.trans
caus
sng.trans
sng.trans
caus
mult.trans
sng.trans
derivational suffix in basic verb form
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
instr. prefix
extended monotransitives
1508 Frank Seifart
GRIND
DIG
TALK
SEND
CARRY
THROW
PUT
POUR
COVER
LOAD
PUSH
BRING
DRESS
DRESS
SHOW
GIVE
TEACH
71
73
18
37
38
39
41
42
43
45
74
75
13
13
35
36
77
úwááboó
ajcú
úúje-tsó
uácó
babyáro
tsiivá
waaó
picyo
wátájcó
cáhpiñú
picyo
waaó
tsajtyé
walló
ihjyúvá
tsehdi
caanú
1-nom 2-acc (3-all) V
1-nom 2-acc (3-all) V
1-nom 2-acc (3-all) V
1-nom 2-acc (3-all) V
1-nom 2-acc (3-all) V
1-nom 2-acc (3-all) V
1-nom 2-acc (3-all) V
1-nom 2-acc (3-all) V
1-nom 2-acc (3-all) V
1-nom 2-acc (3-all) V
1-nom 2-acc (3-all) V
1-nom 2-acc (3-all) V
1-nom 2-acc (3-all) V
1-nom 2-acc (3-all) V
1-nom 2-soc 3-loc/instr V
1-nom 2-acc (3-loc/instr) V
1-nom 2-acc (3-loc/instr) V
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
m
+
+
m
+
–
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
–
caus
mult.trans
mult.trans
ditr. II: secundative
ditransitive I: indirective
extended monotransitives
Valency classes in Bora
1509
TELL
ASK FOR
NAME
BE A HUNTER
21
19
23
70
no verbal counterpart
dilló
táuméí
uubálle
Verb form
N/A
1-nom 2-acc 3-acc V
1-nom 2-acc 3-acc V
1-nom 2-acc 3-nom V
Coding frame schema
–
+
+
+
Causative derivation
Legend: + occurs regularly; m occurs marginally; − occurs never; _ no data Note: meaning number 70 ‘be a hunter’ does not have a verbal counterpart in Bora.
Meaning label
#
–
–
–
–
Instrument alternation
–
+
+
+
Reciprocal derivation
–
+
+
+
Reflexive derivation
derivational suffix in basic verb form
instr. prefix
ditr. III: neutral
1510 Frank Seifart
Valency classes in Bora
1511
Appendix 2: Two verb stem classes defined by verbal number allomorphs Verb forms taken from Thiesen & Thiesen (1998) verb stem class I: singular/multiple verbal number allomorphs -aco/{-jcu, -jco, -nu} wátaaháco ‘cover, thatch; close’; cánoáco ‘dig’; cápáyoáco ‘change, put sth. in sth.’; wápí̵raáco ‘hang’; mívíyiáco ‘tie, bind’; cáwayáco ‘stretch’; chávíyiáco ‘coil’; dótsóuáco ‘shell, peel off’; cávúdoáco ‘meet, take shortcut’; dódiáco ‘delouse’; dóllíyiáco ‘roll with hand’; tállúriáco ‘spread out’; wáváraáco ‘spill’; cácúruáco ‘put’; dócháchaáco ‘shred, crumble’; dótsúriáco ‘strip with hand’; píviyoáco ‘roll sth. with hands’; tállíyiáco ‘turn’; támúriáco ‘immerse’; wámóiáco ‘thin, dissolve’; wátsátsaáco ‘crush’; wátsúriáco ‘crack’; wádiáco ‘crack, chop’; bóboáco ‘hit with sth. pointed’; bójórɨáco ‘scrape’; bóriáco ‘stir, whip’; bótoáco ‘harrow’; cábiáco ‘put a stick in the fire’; chíjyoáco ‘blacken, mark careless’; chíjyuáco ‘to blow one’s nose’; chíyoáco ‘play flute’; dénoáco ‘nibble’; diáco ‘open guaba fruit’; dí̵bórɨáco ‘nibble’; dí̵jórɨáco ‘nibble’; dɨtsátsaáco ‘crumble’; dí̵tsúriáco ‘cut sth. up with teeth’; dí̵vúdoáco ‘cut into pieces with teeth’; dóbórɨáco ‘scratch’; dóchéreáco ‘tear’; dónoáco ‘dig’; dópáyoáco ‘clean the face with hand’; dópoáco ‘shell’; dótsátsaáco ‘tear to pieces’; dóváriáco ‘tear sth. violently’; dóvúdoáco ‘break sth. in two pieces’; dóvúruáco ‘pull off the petals’; dówáyoáco ‘scrape’; dsɨáco ‘sew’; iáco ‘string’; ílloáco ‘wash face with hands’; í̵rí̵pɨáco ‘spit’; kíchéreáco ‘cut sth. into pieces’; kídyoáco ‘cut the surface of sth. with a knife’; kíjíyiáco ‘wash, rub’; kítsúriáco ‘cut sth. in strings’; kívúdoácó ‘cut sth. soft into pieces’; núbɨáco ‘kick’; píchóuáco ‘clean sth. by rubbing it with hands’; píllíyiáco ‘plait’; pítyúruáco ‘push and pull with finger; play strings’; píwáváraáco ‘feel with hand’; pí̵diáco ‘slice’; pí̵doáco ‘quarter’; pí̵tsúriáco ‘scratch, making superficial cuts’; tábúniáco ‘shoot’; tábúruáco ‘stamp, kick’; táchéreáco ‘cut sth. with the foot’; tálloáco ‘get dirty’; tátsaáco ‘knead, mix’; tátsóuáco ‘thresh’; táválloáco ‘kick, stamp’; távúdoáco ‘break sth. in two pieces’; táwúwuáco ‘stamp loudly’; tsípoáco ‘open a fruit by wringing it’; tsótsoáco ‘pour’; uáco ‘insert’; vúvuáco ‘shake sth. to take sth. out’; wábéreáco ‘make sb./sth. vibrate; electrify’; wábúniáco ‘knock down’; wábúruáco ‘sieve’; wácháchaáco ‘cut sth. in little pieces’; wáchéreáco ‘crack, chop’; wáchíyoáco ‘shake one’s hand violently’; wáchóbuáco ‘shake sth. liquid’; wácóroáco ‘shake the content of sth. violently’; wádórɨáco ‘splinter’; wáiáco ‘mow’; wálláriáco ‘pull strongly’; wállúriáco ‘hang the clothes up/out’; wámaáco ‘dig a hole for the stake’; wánoáco ‘dig the earth with sth. pointed’; wánóraáco ‘bore, make holes’; wápɨáco ‘dirty with mud’; wáraáco ‘sift, sieve; polish’; wátéreáco ‘pat on the back to make him/her sleep’; wátsóuáco ‘shake off’; wátúnuáco ‘play the signal drum’; wáváiáco ‘cut quickly’; wáváriáco ‘uproot’; wávíyiáco ‘chop’; wávúdoáco ‘chop, cut’; wávyúruáco ‘shake sth. hanging off’; tíñíboácó ‘tap with fingers’; míbyeáco ‘wrap, to wind sth. into a
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Frank Seifart
ball’; cápátyuáco ‘go through with sth. pointed’; wátyuáco ‘put across’; wábyeáco ‘get tangled’; bóiáco ‘discourage’; núbiáco ‘peel manioc’; dí̵guáco ‘nibble’; dí̵pátyuáco ‘eat fruit, spitting out the seeds’; dóbiáco ‘peel, pluck’; dópátyuáco ‘take the pulp out’; íbúnuácó ‘scrub’; tácáyuáco ‘kick, moving the feet backwards’; wábeáco ‘bend the ends of manioc and press’; wáhyoáco ‘put things next to others’; wájɨáco ‘put sth./sb. next to others’; páchíchaáco/páchihcháco ‘cross’; cácóroáco ‘loosen’; cáchíyoáco ‘injure with sth. pointed’; bí̵jɨáco ‘wrap’; tádiáco ‘crack sth. with axe’; támótoáco ‘tear out’; tsoáco ‘spill’. verb stem class VI: singular/multiple verbal number allomorphs -ro/-nu tsíñaáyo ‘untie, undo’; pajtsí̵ro ‘roll up’; dóhdahí̵ro ‘divide, break sth. with the hand’; cádúdaro ‘take down’; cátsoohóro ‘put away’; cállaajáro ‘pile, bath’; cátí̵ít̵ ɨjí̵ro ‘even up’; bɨɨjí̵ro ‘wrap’; pítyaaháro ‘move up against’; baahyáro ‘pile up’; wájpolláro ‘turn sth. over’; ɨnáro ‘hang’; wáchajáro ‘knock down’; cápaatsí̵ro ‘form a bowl’; dí̵tahjí̵ro ‘press sth.’; tárohjí̵ro ‘bend’; cájɨhtáro ‘peel’; dí̵hdahí̵ro ‘cut sth. up with teeth’; kíhdyahí̵ro ‘cut sth. into pieces’; pí̵hdahí̵ro ‘quarter’; tácajyáro ‘rub’; wabéro ‘fold’; wáhdahí̵ro ‘cut, chop’; wáhejúro ‘drive sth. into sth.’; wáriihyóro ‘separate’; bóhejúro ‘make holes in’; cáhejúro ‘gouge’; cáriihyóro ‘distance’; cávɨáro ‘perforate’; dí̵hejúro ‘drill with teeth’; dóhejúro ‘drill with hand’; dóllujáro ‘crumble with hand’; dóvɨáro ‘make holes with hand’; tájɨɨháro ‘open sth., by separating edge’; táriihyóro ‘push sth. to move it’; wátsujáro ‘open up’; átyahjí̵ro ‘warm up’; bewáro ‘fold’; cáhdahí̵ro ‘divide, find’; dí̵heecóro ‘pull off’; dí̵vɨáro ‘drill’; dóchaajáro ‘destroy’; dódsaahí̵ro ‘pull sb’s hair’; dóheecóro ‘pull off, out’; dórihjyáro ‘separate the ends of sth.’; dóriihyóro ‘separate sth. from sth. with hand’; dótseejéro ‘deflate’; dótsujáro ‘disperse’; guhñáro ‘draw a line in zigzag’; kíjyuwáro ‘sharpen’; kí̵jɨhtáro ‘peel, skin’; páchihcháro ‘cross’; tácóójuúro ‘baby kicking its mother’; táhdahí̵ro ‘break sth. long with the foot’; wábaaháro ‘put sth. away’; wácajyáro ‘make sth. slip’; wácyóócojáro ‘rock/push sb. In a hammock violently’; wáhyeecóro ‘cut deeper than wanted’; wáyuuháro ‘twist;’; táiháyo ‘break’; dóvihyíyo ‘roll up’; wájtyuhíyo ‘tie’; ijcháyo ‘assemble trap or weapon’; píumíyo ‘bend’; babyáro ‘wrap, dress’; cáhjɨháyo ‘peel off’; dóiháyo ‘break with hand’; wáñaahíyo ‘dent, crush’; wáruhíyo ‘hurt foot or arm by hitting it’; dóuháyo ‘break’; wáumíyo ‘bend sth.’; wáihyáyo ‘break sth. by banging it’; dóñaahíyo ‘bend and close the mouth of sth.’; támootáro ‘step on sb.’s foot’; táuháyo ‘break’; wámooháyo ‘get into line’; wáuháyo ‘break sth. hard and plane’; cúhviyo ‘design curved pattern’; dómɨɨháyo ‘pinch’; dóruhíyo ‘bend sth. metallic’; óónaíyo ‘roll up’; táñaahíyo ‘dent, bend’; dócajyáro ‘let sth. fall’; wátyahjí̵ro ‘applaud’; cátsɨhí̵ro ‘get together’; eeníyo ‘submerge’; dóhɨɨwáro ‘push sth. with hand’
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Acknowledgements I am grateful to Andrej Malchukov, Eric Campbell and Iren Hartmann for detailed and very useful comments, which helped improve this chapter. Many thanks also to Agustina Carrizo for building a databases of Bora verbs with verbal number suffixes from Thiesen & Thiesen’s (1998) Bora dictionary and to David Weber for sharing a draft of Thiesen & Weber (2012), which was particularly useful for its description of the verbal number marking system. All errors and shortcomings are my responsibility.
Abbreviations anim dim dir dl frus hab imp inan mult r rem sng soc sp stat t trans v vblz
animate diminutive directional dual nominal number frustrative habitual imperative inanimate plural verbal number recipient-like argument remote past singular verbal number sociative Spanish loan stative theme role transitive verb verbalizer
Bora data are represented orthographically in this paper. The unusual correspondences of this orthography with IPA symbols, in part following Spanish orthographic conventions, are: 〈c, k〉 − [k], 〈ch〉 − [tʃ] , 〈h〉 − [ʔ], 〈j〉 − [h], 〈ll〉 − [dʒ], 〈v〉 − [ß], 〈w〉 − [gw], 〈y〉 − [j], and 〈u〉 − [ɯ]. Long vowels are represented by two identical vowel symbols, e.g. 〈aa〉.
References Aschmann, Richard P. 1993. Proto Witotoan (Publications in Linguistics 114). Arlington, TX: The Summer Institute of Linguistics & the University of Texas at Arlington. Echeverri, Juan Alvaro & Frank Seifart. 2011. Una re-evaluación de las familias lingüísticas Bora y Witoto. Paper presented at “Arqueología y Lingüística Histórica de las Lenguas Indígenas Sudamericanas”, University of Brasília, 24–28 October 2011. Haspelmath, Martin. 1993. More on the typology of inchoative/causative verb alternations. In Bernard Comrie & Maria Polinsky (eds.), Causatives and Transitivity, 87–120. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
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Malchukov, Andrej, Martin Haspelmath & Bernard Comrie. 2010. Ditransitive constructions: a typological overview. In Andrej Malchukov, Martin Haspelmath & Bernard Comrie (eds.), Studies in Ditransitive Constructions: A Comparative Handbook, 1–64. Berlin & New York: De Gruyter Mouton. Nichols, Johanna, David A. Peterson & Jonathan Barnes. 2004. Transitivizing and detransitivizing languages. Linguistic Typology 8. 149–211. doi:10.1515/lity.2004.005. Seifart, Frank. 2005. The Structure and Use of Shape-Based Noun Classes in Miraña (North West Amazon) (MPI Series in Psycholinguistics 33). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. Seifart, Frank. 2009. Bora documentation. In Frank Seifart, Doris Fagua, Jürg Gasché & Juan Alvaro Echeverri (eds.), A multimedia documentation of the languages of the People of the Center. Online publication of transcribed and translated Bora, Ocaina, Nonuya, Resígaro, and Witoto audio and video recordings with linguistic and ethnographic annotations and descriptions. Nijmegen: DOBES-MPI. http://corpus1.mpi.nl/qfs1/media-archive/dobes_data/ Center/Info/WelcomeToCenterPeople.html (last access 16 February 2015) Thiesen, Wesley. 1996. Gramática del idioma Bora (Serie Lingüística Peruana 38). Yarinacocha: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano. Thiesen, Wesley & Eva Thiesen. 1998. Diccionario Bora − Castellano, Castellano − Bora (Serie Lingüística Peruana 46). Yarinacocha: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano. Thiesen, Wesley & David Weber. 2012. A Grammar of Bora, with Special Attention to Tone. Dallas: SIL International. Walton, James W., Janice P. Walton & Clementina Pakky de Buenaventura. 1997. Diccionario bilingüe muinane-español, español-muinane. Santafé de Bogotá: Editorial Alberto Lleras Camargo. Walton, James W., Grace Hensarling & Michael R. Maxwell. 2000. El muinane. In Maria Stella González de Pérez & María Luisa Rodríguez de Montes (eds.), Lenguas indígenas de Colombia. Una visión descriptiva, 255–273. Bogotá: Instituto Caro y Cuervo.
Fernando Zúñiga
36 Valency classes in Mapudungun 1 Introduction Mapudungun is an isolate currently spoken by approximately 250,000 people in southern Chile and south-central Argentina. A number of dialects can be distinguished, mainly on lexical and phonetic/phonological grounds; the present paper focuses on the Chilean variety called Central Mapudungun. Unless otherwise specified, the data presented here come from my own field notes taken during work sessions with several Chilean speakers in and around Villarrica (Cautín Province, Araucanía Region). I checked most data with different speakers, but my year-long collaborator Leonel Lienlaf deserves special mention because we went through the Valency Classes questionnaire (cf. Appendix) in great detail. The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 summarizes the basic aspects of Mapudungun morphosyntax. Section 3 gives in tabular format a sample of Mapudungun verbs with their valency patterns based on the updated version of the questionnaire submitted to the contributors of the Valency Classes Project, with some additional comments. Section 4 deals with the morphologically unmarked valency alternations, whose importance in the language is rather modest. Section 5 describes coded valency alternations, which are not only frequently found but also of paramount importance for the description of lexical and grammatical patterns of Mapudungun. Section 6 summarizes the results.
2 Basics of Mapudungun morphosyntax The language has a fairly simple phonology and shows a rather simple nominal morphology on the one hand and a rich polysynthetic concatenative (predominantly suffixing) verbal morphology on the other.1 Nonverbal equational clauses consist of two juxtaposed NPs (frequently supplemented by one out of a series of discourse
1 All textual examples are given in their underlying form in the present article; surface forms differ from these representations in that some elision, epenthesis, resyllabification and assimilation rules apply. The orthographic convention employed in here is the Chilean version of the Alfabeto Mapuche Unificado. (In Argentina, the same convention is utilized, with the proviso that ï is used instead of ü to represent the vowel [ɨ]~[ə].) The usual citation form of Mapudungun verbs is the so-called infinitive characterized by the suffix ‑n, and I have followed the widespread practice of giving its surface form when mentioning verbs almost without exception; in most cases, the ü preceding this suffix is epenthetic (an exception being e.g. lladkü-n ‘be sad’, where ü is the stem-final vowel).
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particles whose exact pragmatic yield is still not fully understood). Verbal clauses, by contrast, minimally consist of a finite verb form and often include NPs corresponding to core syntactic arguments and adpositional phrases corresponding to different kinds of peripheral arguments or adjuncts. Complex clauses can include several verb forms, either coordinated or subordinated, some of which may be nonfinite. As to clause relations, Mapudungun can be classified as consistently head-marking. The verb found in simple matrix clauses minimally consists of a root, a mood marker (indicative ‑i, subjunctive ‑l or imperative ‑0̸), a person marker (‑i ‘1’, ‑m ‘2’ or ‑0̸ ‘3’), and a number marker (‑i ‘sg’, ‑u ‘du’ or ‑n ‘pl’). (There are few portmanteau markers encoding both person and number, and sometimes also mood, e.g. ‑n ‘1sg.ind’ instead of expected *‑i-i-i.) The participant thus cross-referenced will be termed primary argument (PA) here and can be thought of as a kind of subject. On the inflectional side, it is also possible to mark a second participant on the verb (labeled secondary argument (SA) here; this is possibly a kind of primary object), albeit in a less detailed fashion: sometimes the second participant is understood as 2sg by default, and on occasion only its person, but not its number, is explicitly marked via suffixation.2 There is one suffix that encodes transitivity inversion (‑e) and another that cross-references a differentially marked object (‑fi), and other formatives express future tense (‑a), habitual aspect (‑ke), ruptured implicature (‑fu), and hearsay evidentiality (‑rke), among other categories. On the derivational side, a number of morphological processes correspond to valency-changing operations: passive ‑nge, causative ‑l or ‑m, applicative suffixation of ‑l or ‑ñma, applicative serialization with tu‑ ‘take’ or ye- ‘carry’ (i.e. the serialization of a main root and either tu- or ye- as grammaticalized roots in a single predicate, cf. § 5.4), reflexive ‑w, and nominal incorporation. Other morphological processes express spacerelated values (cislocative ‑pa, translocative ‑pu, andative ‑me, serialization with püra- ‘ascend’ or nag- ‘descend’, etc.).3 Clauses with bivalent and trivalent verbs come in two guises, viz. direct and inverse. Roughly, interactions with S[peech] A[ct] P[articipant] A (agentive) arguments and 3 rd person P/R (patientive/recipient-like) arguments are invariably direct while those with SAP P/R arguments and 3 rd person A arguments are obligatorily inverse. Direct verb forms are morphologically unmarked, have A primary arguments and P/R secondary arguments, and show D[ifferential] O[object] M[arking] under complex conditions related to the animacy, definiteness and discourse prom-
2 Number of primary arguments is invariably distinguished for 1 st and 2 nd persons; 3 rd persons are typically unmarked if there is an overt coreferential NP in the clause but distinguish singular, dual, and plural if the argument is covert. 3 Nonfinite verb forms invariably replace the morphology corresponding to mood and the primary argument by a specific ending (‑n, ‑el, and ‑lu, among others); the primary argument is expressed via a verb-external possessive or personal pronoun. In addition, their aspecto-temporal inflectional potential is restricted when compared with matrix verbs.
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inence of the secondary argument (Zúñiga 2010b). Inverse verb forms take the inverse suffix ‑e, have A secondary arguments and P/R primary arguments, and never take the DOMr ‑fi. In addition, 3 ↔ 3 interactions can be expressed by either direct or inverse verb forms, depending on the animacy and discourse prominence of the P/R argument; the “higher” argument will be called proximate and the “lower” obviative here. Lastly, SAP ↔ SAP interactions are expressed by morphologically complex verb forms, most of which are inverse or inverse-like (see Golluscio (2010) for a brief summary of the system, Zúñiga (2006a, 2006b) for a detailed account, and Arnold (1996) for an earlier version of the inverse analysis and some remarks as to its possible evolution). Core syntactic argument NPs (i.e. subjects or primary arguments, as well as primary and secondary objects or indexed and nonindexed secondary arguments) are typically unmarked. In addition to a number of adpositions expressing mainly spatial notions (preposed pu ‘in’, ina ‘near’, miñche ‘beneath’, wente ‘above’, furitu ‘behind’, puñma ‘in front of’, ngeno ‘without’; postposed püle ‘towards, by’, kütu ‘since’), there is a semantically unspecified postposition mew – it can also appear as suffixed/encliticized mu ~ mo – that licenses further participants, e.g. locations, sources, goals, instruments, and recipients.4 Its exact interpretation relies on the lexical content of predicate and arguments, but also on context. Examples follow (note that independent pronouns are usually only used for focusing/disambiguating purposes): (1) a. (Iñche) pe-fi-n chi machi. 1sg see-3P-1sg.ind art shaman ‘I saw the shaman.’ b. (Iñche) pe-e-n-mew chi machi. 1sg see-inv-1sg.ind-3A art shaman ‘The shaman saw me.’ (2) a. Elu-fi-i-0̸ kiñe manshun. give-3P-ind-3 one ox ‘S/he (prox) gave her/him (obv) an ox.’ b. Elu-e-i-0-̸ mew kiñe manshun. give-inv-ind-3-3A one ox ‘S/he (obv) gave her/him (prox) an ox.’ (3) a. Amu-a-n Troltren mew. go-fut-1sg.ind T. postp ‘I will go to Toltén.’ (Augusta 1903: 128) 4 In Examples (1)–(2) and later on in the paper, a 3 rd person marker ‑mew appears at the end of inverse verb forms. Even though this morpheme and the postposition mew may have the same origin, they are clearly distinct synchronically.
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b. Küpa-n Troltren mew. come-1sg.ind T. postp ‘I came from Toltén.’ (Augusta 1903: 128) c. Longko mew nü-e-i-0-̸ mew. head postp take-inv-ind-3-3A ‘S/he (obv) took her/him (prox) by the head.’ (Augusta 1903: 135) d. Mütrongka-pu-fi-i-0̸ kiñe karoti mew. hit-trans-3P-ind-3 one stick postp ‘S/he (prox) hit her/him (obv) with a stick.’ (Augusta 1903: 128)
3 The valency patterns of Mapudungun As noted in Golluscio (2010), most nonderived verbs are syntactically avalent (e.g. mawünün ‘rain’), monovalent (e.g. akun ‘arrive here’), bivalent (e.g. nien ‘have’), or trivalent (e.g. elun ‘give’). There are few labile verbs, notably some ambitransitives (either agentive, like küdawün ‘work (on)’, or patientive, like watron ‘break’) and some ambiditransitives (e.g. pin ‘say’, which optionally expresses the R argument). Even though some avalent/monovalent verbs cannot be causativized or applicativized (e.g. mülen ‘be, exist’), most of them can accommodate additional arguments via those valency-increasing operations. There are different coding frames in which Mapudungun verbs can appear (see Table 1). Tab. 1: Coding frames of Mapudungun predicates.
I. IIa. IIb. IIIa. IIIb. IV.
Avalent Monovalent Extended monovalent Bivalent Extended bivalent Trivalent
Verb inflection
Bare argument NPs
mew-marked argument NPs
dummy 3sg PA PA PA PA (SA) PA (SA) PA (pSA)
none (PA) (PA) (PA (SA) (PA) (SA) (PA) (pSA) (sSA)
none none yes none yes none
The extended versions of the monovalent and bivalent frames are postulated here due to the following fact. Although a mew-marked participant is in principle always
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possible in the clause if the semantics/pragmatics allow for it, not all such participants have the same status; with some monovalent verbs (IIb), as well as with some bivalent verbs (IIIb), they are certainly not obligatory but readily occur in elicitation and are frequently found in texts. Nevertheless, the distinction seems to be gradual rather than binary. With mülen ‘live, be (temporarily)’, a mew-marked participant occurs in most cases, whereas with kachillman ‘touch’ it occurs much less frequently.
3.1 Avalent verbs Verbs used to describe meteorological events appear marked for a 3 rd person singular primary argument but do not appear with overt argument NPs in matrix clauses; they are kürüfün ‘become windy’, mawünün ‘rain’, yain ‘hail’, and piren ‘snow’. (The participle of the latter predicate can appear in NPs, e.g. piren wingkul ‘snowy hill’.) The verbs punün ‘get dark, become night’ and wünün ‘get light, dawn’ behave like the ones mentioned above. All these predicates can take a maleficiary argument when applicativized (cf. § 5.4 below); in such cases, 3 rd person indexing disappears and the primary argument of a formally monovalent verb is the maleficiary. Examples follow: (4) a. Mawün-i-0.̸ rain-ind-3 ‘It rained.’ (p.k.) b. Mawün-ma-r-pa-i-m-i? rain-appl2-inter-cis-ind-2-sg ‘Did you (sg) get rained on while coming here?’ (Augusta 1916: 133) c. Kürüf-tuku-mawün-i-0.̸ wind-put-rain-ind-3 ‘It stormed (lit. rained with wind).’ (Augusta 1916: 107)
3.2 Monovalent verbs Underived monovalent predicates can take a wide variety of arguments: they can be animate or inanimate, volitional or nonvolitional, etc. They index the primary argument, which can be covert or overt. Examples follow: (5) a. Kude-i-0̸ ti pu pichi wentru. play-ind-3 art pl little man ‘The boys played.’
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b. La-i-0̸ ti domo. die-ind-3 art woman ‘The woman died.’ I have been able to find only few verbs that can be used with either a monovalent or a bivalent coding frame. These include some change-of-state verbs like trafon / watron ‘break’ (6a), wikürün ‘break, smash’, wicharün ‘tear’, and wichürün ‘twist’, as well as a small number of verbs of saying like wirarün ‘scream, shout (at)’ (6b–c) and dungun ‘speak (to)’:5 (6) a. Trafo-i-0̸ ti kura. break-ind-3 art stone ‘The stone broke / s/he broke the stone.’ b. Wirar-i-0̸ ti kalku. scream-ind-3 art warlock ‘The warlock screamed.’ c. Ti wentru wirarü-tu-fi-i-0̸ ti pichi domo. art man shout-tel-3P-ind-3 art little woman ‘The man (prox) shouted (angrily) at the girl (obv).’ An overt NP coreferential with the P argument may be absent from the clause (e.g., ti wentru wirarütu-fi-i-0̸ ‘the man shouted angrily at him/her’, parallel to (6c) above); in such cases, only the DOMr ‑fi or the inverse(-like) morphology signals a syntactic valency of two. The addition of an adpositional phrase (e.g. [NP mew]) to a clause based upon a monovalent motion verb is in principle always possible if such a constituent expresses spatial/locative notions (typically, Grounds with respect to which the Figure-primary argument moves). (It is also possible to find verbalized nominals corresponding to place names, e.g. in Temuko-tu-me-pe-n [T.-vblz-and-pfv-1sg.ind] ‘I went to Temuco’, roughly equivalent to amun Temuko mew, as well as unmarked well-known place name NPs, e.g. in Temuko tuw-n [T. come.from-1sg.ind] ‘I come from Temuco’.) Nevertheless, due to the empty quality of mew in particular, most monovalent verbs take such adpositional phrases in order to express nonspatial
5 There is some variation with wirarün ‘scream, shout’. According to Golluscio (2010), this predicate is monovalent and needs to be applicativized in order to take a nonagentive argument, viz. wirar-el-fi-n (shout-appl1-3P-1sg.ind) ‘I shouted at him’. Such a usage was confirmed by some of my Chilean consultants in elicitation, but for most wirarün was labile. Although I have not conducted a systematic search in the written sources, I have found both ambitransitive and strictly intransitive examples in Augusta’s (1910) and Salas’s (2006) texts. Smeets (2008: 577) explicitly notes that it is labile but mentions the applicativized form as meaning ‘shout at (someone far away)’.
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notions only very rarely; either causativization (cf. § 5.3) or applicativization (cf. § 5.4) is used to introduce other participants to the clause, or the speaker relies on context in order to make sure that some relevant detail characterizing the state of affairs is understood. Those predicates that felicitously appear with a mew-phrase in the questionnaire are rakiduamün ‘think’, wechun ‘climb’, anün ‘sit down’, amun ‘go’, püntun ‘leave (lit. become separated)’, mülen ‘be, exist’, and tranün ‘fall’. Example (7) shows both possibilities with rakiduamün, and Example (8) shows two different yields of mew: (7) a. Rakiduam-i-0̸ ñi ñuke mew. think-ind-3 3.psr mother postp ‘S/he thought about her/his mother.’ b. Ti wentru rakiduam-ye-i-0̸ ti wetripantu. art man think-appl4-ind-3 art New.Year ‘The man thought about (the celebration of) New Year.’ (8) a. Tüfa ruka mew müle-i-0̸ che. this house postp be-ind-3 people ‘This house is inhabited.’ (lit. there are people in this house) (Augusta 1916: 136) b. Tuw-n Suiza mapu mew. come.from-1sg.ind S. land postp ‘I come from Switzerland.’ Noncausative motion verbs like konün ‘enter’ and nagün ‘descend’ are monovalent, and a goal participant can be expressed via a mew-phrase or via tu-applicativization (cf. § 5.4): (9) a. Kon-n Pedro mew. enter-1sg.ind P. postp b. Kon-tu-fi-n Pedro. enter-appl3-3P-1sg.ind P. Both: ‘I entered Pedro’s house.’
3.3 Bivalent verbs High-transitivity predicates like underived weñen ‘steal’ and causative langümün ‘kill’ typically occur in the bivalent coding frame:
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(10) a. Weñe-i-0̸ ti pülata ti wentru. steal-ind-3 art money art man ‘The man stole the money.’ ti pichi wentru. b. Langüm-fi-i-0̸ ti filu kill-3P-ind-3 art snake art little man ‘The boy (prox) killed the snake (obv).’ As noted in § 2 above, bivalent clauses can be either direct or inverse; in the former, a comparatively agentive primary argument acts upon a comparatively patientive secondary argument (the former is invariably indexed on the verb while the latter is subject to the conditions governing DOM).6 In inverse clauses, the primary argument is patientive while the secondary argument is agentive. Animate → inanimate interactions are unproblematic for this coding frame. Even though there are examples of inanimate → inanimate interactions expressed by a single simple matrix clause (usually, matrix clauses with monovalent verbs are used instead), inanimate primary arguments with animate secondary arguments seem to be ungrammatical. Clauses with two overt lexical NPs are easily obtainable in elicitation but comparatively less frequent than clauses with one overt lexical NP (usually the secondary argument) in narrative texts. If both NPs are present, the constituent orders [V-SAPA] and [PA-V-SA] seem to be the most frequent ones. The inverse equivalent of (10b) follows: (10) b′. Ti filu langüm-e-i-0-̸ mew ti pichi wentru. art snake kill-inv-ind-3-3A art little man ‘The snake (prox) was killed by the boy (obv).’
3.4 Trivalent verbs Golluscio (2010) documented two underived trivalent verbs, viz. elun ‘give’ and müntun ‘take away, snatch, deprive’. In addition, she mentions labile verbs like ambiditransitives ramtun ‘ask (for), request’, aretun ‘borrow (from)’ and arelün ‘lend’, as well as predicates that can take one, two or three core syntactic arguments, e.g. ngillatun ‘pray, beg, request’.7 Although some bivalent verbs are not applicativizable (e.g. wülün ‘give away, hand’), most of them are, and so most triva-
6 As far as I have been able to determine, the Mapudungun direct/inverse opposition exists for all bivalent and trivalent verbs, i.e., there are no directa tantum or inversa tantum. 7 Golluscio (2010: 727) mentions pin ‘say’ as belonging to the same class as ngillatun, but I have not found any clear examples of that verb used with one core syntactic argument. According to my data, it always takes at least two arguments, of which the T participant can be, and most often is, clausal (or reported speech) instead of an NP; I classify it therefore as ambiditransitive.
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lent predicates of the language are derived. In the results of the Valency Classes questionnaire, underived elun ‘give’, ngillatun ‘ask for’, and pin ‘say’ (usually with a clausal or reported speech complement) are used with unmarked A, T, and R arguments. The derived trivalent verbs in the questionnaire are küpalelün ‘bring (sthg.) to (sbdy.)’ (küpa- ‘come’ + ‑l ‘causative 1’ + ‑el ‘applicative 1’), kimelün ‘teach (sthg.) to (sbdy.)’ (kim‑ ‘know’ + ‑el ‘causative 1’), and pengelün ‘show (sthg.) to (sbdy.)’ (pe‑ ‘see’ + ‑el ‘causative 1’; the apparently empty ng element might be the same as the one present in langümün ‘kill’ and arengelümün ‘borrow’, cf. 4. below).
3.5 Nominal incorporation Mapudungun, as used by fluent older speakers, shows productive lexical-compounding / discourse-manipulating incorporation of nominal elements into the bivalent verbal word.8 Even complex NPs can follow the verb root(s) and reduce the syntactic valency of a bivalent predicate (11a). It is less frequently applied to monovalent predicates, but when it occurs, the incorporated nominal element often corresponds to the notional subject of the verb root and the primary argument is an experiencer (sometimes perhaps a possessor) (11b); it can also occur with dummy 3 rd person marking and a monovalent verb root (11c): (11) a. Katrü-kachu-me-a-n. cut-grass-and-fut-1sg.ind ‘I will go to mow the grass / do some grass-mowing.’ (Harmelink 1992: 129) b. Waw-yuw-küle-i-m-i. leak-nose-prog-ind-2-sg ‘You (sg) have a bloody nose.’ (Smeets 2008: 319) c. Dewma puw-trafiya-le, amu-tu-a-n. finished arrive.there-evening-3.sbjv go-back-fut-1sg.ind ‘When the evening has fallen, I shall go back.’ (Smeets 2008: 319) Incorporation may also apply to trivalent verbs, in which case the T argument is the one customarily incorporated and the resulting verb complex is syntactically bivalent. Especially noteworthy is eludüngun ‘inform, tell (somebody)’ (elu‑ ‘give’ + düngun ‘matter, issue’):
8 The reader is referred to Harmelink (1992), the first in-depth study on the topic, as well as to Smeets (2008: 318 f.), Zúñiga (2006a: 181 f.), Golluscio (1997), and Baker et al. (2005).
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(12) Elu-düngu-a-fi-n. give-matter-fut-3P-1sg.ind ‘I will inform him/her of it.’ (Augusta 1916: 39)
4 Uncoded alternations The ambitransitives trafon/watron ‘break’ and wirarün ‘scream, shout (at)’ were already mentioned above. The verbs of melting strictly distinguish valency following the default Mapudungun pattern (lluwün is patientive monovalent and m-causativized lluwümün is bivalent), and others do so following a pattern possibly calqued from Spanish, e.g. reflexivized ngülawün is patientive monovalent ‘open’ while underived ngülan is either bivalent or agentive monovalent ‘open’. Since Mapudungun has a relatively small number of labile verbs, it is perhaps not surprising that uncoded alternations are comparatively few as well. Golluscio (2010: 727 f.) mentions some verbs that can be used either as bivalent or as trivalent predicates without coded alternations mediating between the two variants. Kullin ‘pay’ is especially interesting in this context, because it can occur either with an unmarked R argument and a [T mew] constituent or with unmarked T and R arguments (in that order): (13) a. Kulli-fi-n chi wentru tañi waka mew. pay-3P-1sg.ind art man 1sg.psr cow postp b. Kulli-fi-n tañi waka chi wentru. pay-3P-1sg.ind 1sg.psr cow art man Both: ‘I paid the man for my cow.’ (Golluscio 2010: 728) Ramtun ‘ask’ appears to be different from kullin, since it can occur with or without an overt T argument, but not with a [T mew] constituent. Ngillatun ‘pray, beg, request’ also differs from these two cases. First, it is derived (cf. ngillan ‘buy’; ramtun might be historically derived, but there is no underived *ramün in the presentday language). Second, Golluscio (2010: 729) provides data showing that it can be monovalent (e.g. ngillatu-n iñche ‘I prayed’), bivalent (ngillatu-a-fi-m-i chaw ‘you (sg) shall pray to your father’), or trivalent (14b). Nevertheless, there seems to be variation here as well; Golluscio cites the sentence in 14b recorded by Augusta (1916) with unmarked T and R arguments, but the same source also mentions a version with [T mew] and the same constituent order alternation we saw for kullin ‘pay’ in (13) above:
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(14) a. Ngillatu-a-n kiñe rosario padre mew. ask-fut-1sg.ind one rosary priest postp ‘I will ask a rosary from the priest.’ (Augusta 1916: 62) b. Ngillatu-fi-n püchi kachilla tañi püñeñ. ask-3P-1sg.ind little wheat 1sg.psr child.of.woman ‘I (f) asked my son for some wheat.’ (Golluscio 2010: 729) c. Ngillatu-ñma-e-n-mew ñi rosario. ask-appl2-inv-1sg.ind-3A 1sg.psr rosary ‘S/he asked me for my rosary.’ (Augusta 1916: 62) Golluscio’s last example, viz. the pair aretun ‘borrow, rent’ and arelün ‘lend’, is more complicated. The underived predicate aren ‘get/be hot’ exists but is an unlikely root for the verbs just mentioned. Augusta (1916) also mentions aretun, which appears to be ambiditransitive, as Golluscio says – but note (15c), where the R participant is integrated into the clause via applicativization instead: (15) a. Aretu-a-n kiñe kareta. borrow-fut-1sg.ind one wagon ‘I’ll borrow a wagon.’ (Augusta 1916: 11) b. Aretu-fi-n kareta tañi chaw. borrow-3P-1sg.ind wagon 1sg.psr father ‘I borrowed a wagon from my father.’ (Golluscio 2010: 729) c. Aretu-ñma-a-fi-n ñi kawell. borrow-appl2-fut-3P-1sg.ind 1sg.psr horse ‘I will ask him/her for his/her horse.’ (Augusta 1916: 300) In addition, Augusta mentions two related verbs meaning ‘lend’, viz. arelün and arengelümün, but he notes that the former means ‘lend (sthg.) to (sbdy.)’ while the latter means ‘lend (sthg.)’: (16) a. Arel-fi-n pülata. lend.1-3P-1sg.ind money ‘I lent him/her money.’ (Augusta 1916: 11)
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b. Arengelüm-ke-la-n pülata mapunche mew. lend.2-hab-neg-1sg.ind money M. postp ‘I do not lend money to the Mapuche.’ (Augusta 1916: 11) Arelün can appear either without the DOMr ‑fi and only with an overt T argument in the clause, in which case it is syntactically monovalent, or with ‑fi, as in (16a) above, in which case it is trivalent. With respect to arengelümün, my consultants rejected attempts to accommodate an unmarked R argument with this verb without applicativization. If all these predicates are built on a root *are- that no longer exists in the language, it is not evident what the meaning of such a root might have been. Assuming arengelümün is not anomalous with respect to the linear order of its elements, *are- should have been monovalent (as it may host the passive marker -nge), then a causative/applicative ‑l and a causative ‑m would have been added, but such a derivational process is clearly unattractive on semantic grounds if the compositionality principle is supposed to hold. Alternatively, we could hypothesize that the transitivizers are suffixed to the stem *areng‑ instead of *are- (analogously to the opposition between underived la- ‘die’ and causative lang-m- ‘kill’, cf. 5.3 below), in which case (i) the underived root *are‑ possibly meant ‘go as a loan’, (ii) the l-causativized stem are-l- originally meant ‘lend’ (lit. ‘cause to go as a loan’), and (iii) the m-causativized stem areng-l-m- originally meant ‘borrow’ (lit. ‘cause to lend’), with the root extension from are to areng perhaps triggered by ‑m.
5 Coded alternations9 5.1 Reflexives and reciprocals There is a morphological reflexive/reciprocal suffix ‑w (‑u(w) after non-vowels) that occurs (i) only marginally with monovalent predicates (possibly a calque of telicizing se in Spanish), (ii) regularly with bivalent verbs of relevant semantics (where the A argument is interpreted as coreferential with the P argument), and (iii) somewhat restrictedly with trivalent verbs (where the A argument is interpreted as coreferential with the R argument). (Reflexive extended monovalent and reflexive extended bivalent verbs are unproblematic whenever the semantics is appropriate.)
9 This section surveys most main productive coded valency alternations in the language. The ones that have not been treated here appear not only to be less productive but also to have an aspectotemporal component as well, viz. serialization with nie- ‘have’ and serialization with künu- ‘leave’, e.g. püntü-fi-n (separate-3P-1sg.ind) ‘I separated it’ vs. püntü-nie-fi-n (separate-have-3P-1sg.ind) ‘I keep it separated’ vs. püntü-künu-fi-n (separate-leave-3P-1sg.ind) ‘I left it separated’ (Smeets 2008: 294). More research is needed here.
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Thus, both leliwün ‘look at oneself, look at each other’ (< lelin ‘look at’) and eluwün ‘give (sthg.) to oneself, give (sthg.) to each other’ (< elun ‘give’) are felicitous, but müntuwün (< müntun ‘take away’) and areluwün (< arelün ‘lend’) only admit the reciprocal interpretations ‘take away from each other’ and ‘lend to each other’ respectively. See Golluscio (2010: 742 f.) for more details. The following examples illustrate the reflexive and reciprocal use respectively: (17) a. Wül-u-i-ng-n ñi pu kayñe mew. hand-refl-ind-3-pl 3psr pl enemy postp ‘They surrendered / turned themselves in to their enemies.’ (Augusta 1903: 67) b. Welukon langüm-u-i-ng-u. each.other kill-refl-ind-3-du ‘They (du) killed each other.’ (Augusta 1903: 67)
5.2 Passives Mapudungun passives are obligatorily agentless. The verb takes the suffix ‑nge and indexes via person-number morphology one participant, which is the P of bivalent and the R of trivalent predicates. Whether the passive is based on a derived or an underived stem, neither DOM nor inverse morphology can appear on the verb form. Examples follow: (18) a. Elu-nge-n epu waka. give-pass-1sg.ind two cow ‘I was given two cows.’ b. Pedro ngilla-l-nge-i-0̸ kiñe kawell. P. buy-appl1-pass-ind-3 one horse ‘Pedro was bought a horse.’ Augusta (1903: 60) mentions infrequent instances of ‑nge applied to monovalent predicates – which would favor Salas’s (2006: 116) characterization of this suffix in terms of ‘indeterminate agentive 3 rd person’ instead of passive marker –, as in kom antü ülkantu-nge-ke-i-0̸ tiechi ruka mew (all day sing-pass-hab-ind-3 that house postp) ‘people sing all day long in that house’. Some of my consultants were indecisive as to the acceptability of such forms while others simply rejected them; more research is needed here.
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5.3 Causatives 10 I follow Golluscio (2007, 2010) here in distinguishing low-control causative ‑m from high-control causative ‑l. Both apply to monovalent verbs, the former usually deriving bivalent change-of-state predicates (e.g. afümün ‘cook (sthg.)’ < afün ‘cook’) and the latter typically – but not invariably – deriving bivalent activities performed by human/animate participants (e.g. küdawelün ‘make (sbdy.) work’ < küdawün ‘work’, ayelen ‘make (sbdy.) laugh’ < ayen ‘laugh’). Despite the analysis discussed at the end of § 4 above (where it is suggested that arengülüm- ‘lend’ might have originated in double causativization), verbs do not normally take two causatives at the same time in Mapudungun. These causatives partition the lexicon in a straightforward way: some verbs are not causativizable (e.g. ngen ‘be’ and mülen ‘live, be (temporarily)’), while some take ‑m (e.g. aren ‘become hot’) and others take ‑l (e.g. watron ‘break’). A handful of verbs can take either causativizer without any difference in meaning (e.g. afün ‘ripen, become cooked’),11 but a non-negligible number of predicates can occur with both ‑m and ‑l with different semantics, e.g. ürkün ‘become tired’, cf. ürkümün ‘tire out (e.g. one’s hand)’ vis-à-vis ürkülün ‘make (sbdy.) tired’; cf. also tranün ‘fall’, tranümün ‘fell (sthg.)’, and tranelün ‘knock (sbdy.) down’. Even though Smeets (2008: 299 f.) says that m-causatives are formed of monovalent verbs while l-causatives can be formed of both monovalent and bivalent verbs, my consultants have consistently rejected my attempts to causativize bivalent verbs. Some of Smeets’s examples, moreover, are not clear cases of bivalent verbs but of ambitransitives instead. The morphology of these two causatives is quite diverse. The suffix ‑m (which expectedly appears with epenthetic ü after nonvowels) triggers fortition in stemfinal /f/ and /g/, e.g. lepümün ‘make run’ < lefün ‘run’, nakümün ‘lower’ < nagün ‘descend’, possibly suggesting old age. By contrast, ‑l habitually appears as ‑el after non-vowels, does not trigger any morphophonemic changes in its environment, and is apparently the same suffix ‑l as one of the applicatives (cf. § 5.4). (Nevertheless, the expected ‑ül does appear with some predicates.) In addition, Golluscio (2010: 717–718) mentions that l-transitivization may have a contextually determined reading – i.e., it is interpreted as either causative or applicative – with monovalent bases, e.g. küdaw-l- ‘make (sbdy.) work / work for (sbdy.)’ and aye-l- ‘laugh at /
10 I am glossing over causativization with ‑fal here. This process differs from the ‑m and ‑l causatives treated in the main body of text in several respects: (i) it is rather infrequent, (ii) one of the participants cannot be explicitly mentioned, and (iii) it is ambiguous as to the reference of the causee and the causer: iñche ngilla-fal-n kamisa (1sg buy-caus-1sg.ind shirt) means either ‘I had a shirt bought’ or ‘someone made me buy a shirt’ (Smeets 2008: 272). 11 Golluscio (2007) presents afün as a verb that only takes ‑m, but Augusta (1916) lists both causative forms, and I have been able to elicit them without any problem from Central Mapudungun speakers.
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make (sbdy.) laugh’. To judge from Augusta’s (1903) presentation and my consultants’ responses, I tend to believe that this dual nature of ‑l is a relatively recent phenomenon and not merely a recently discovered one: fluent older and less educated speakers apparently tend to reject the applicative reading of l-transitivized monovalent verbs significantly more often than younger and educated ones. A few verbs of the questionnaire are m-causatives, viz. llumümün ‘hide (sthg.)’ < llumün ‘hide’, langümün ‘kill’ < lan ‘die’ (with an unexpected, and unexplained, ng segment), and afümün ‘cook (sthg.)’ < afün ‘cook’. The other derived bivalent predicates in the sample are l-causatives: apolün ‘fill (sthg.)’ < apon ‘fill’, küpalün ‘bring’ < küpan ‘come’, amulün ‘send’ < amun ‘go’, and trupefülün ‘frighten’ < trupefün ‘become frightened’.
5.4 Applicatives Four major operations in the language allow a non-agentive participant that is not a base core argument of the predicate to appear as one. Two of them will be analyzed as instances of suffixation here: ‑l (and its allomorphs) and ‑ñma (and its allomorphs). The other two will be analyzed as instances of root serialization: the grammaticalized/lexicalized root following the main root is either tu‑ ‘take, get’ or ye‑ ‘carry, bring’. What I will label applicative 1 here is usually interpreted as having a benefactive yield, or at least as implying that the (base) T argument will approach the (applied) R argument. In (19), however, the applied argument karüpotro is the name given to the base argument keshkesheñ üñüm ‘k. bird’, which is the primary object in the applicativized clause (i.e., it is coreferential with the verbal DOMr ‑fi):12 (19) Pu mapuche üytuntuku-lel-fi-i-0̸ keshkesheñ üñüm karüpotro. pl M. name-appl1-3P-ind-3 k. bird k. ‘The Mapuche call the keshkesheñ bird karüpotro.’ (Augusta 1916: 273) As mentioned in 5.3 above, the use of ‑l to applicativize monovalent bases has been reported in the literature; it is customarily found with bivalent bases, and it is not difficult to find cases of underived trivalent bases applicativized with ‑l (20). Lapplicativization of derived trivalent bases seems to be relatively marked, but it is found as well.
12 The bivalent verb üytuntukun ‘name (sthg.)’ is morphologically complex and consists of üy ‘name’ plus the infinitive tun ‘take’ and the root tüku- ‘put, cover’, but this is irrelevant for the suffixation of applicative ‑lel.
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(20) Elu-l-fi-n sañchu tañi wenüy tañi fotüm. give-appl1-3P-1sg.ind pig 1sg.psr friend 1sg.psr son.of.man ‘I (m) gave my son’s friend a pig.’ (Golluscio 2010: 737) The allomorphy of applicative ‑l is intricate; the suffix can appear as ‑el, -ül, and even as ‑lel, under specific phonological and lexical conditions; see Zúñiga (2009, 2010a, forthc.) for more details. Suffice it to say here that Golluscio (2010) prefers to treat ‑lel as a different applicative altogether; there is indeed some evidence supporting such an analysis, e.g. tuku- ~ tuku-l- ‘put, cover (sthg.)’ (where ‑l is valency-neutral) vs. tuku-lel- ‘put, cover (sthg.) for (sbdy.)’ (where ‑lel is a clear applicative) and küdaw-l- ‘work for (sbdy.) / make work’ (where ‑l is arguably an underspecified transitivizer) vs. küdawl-lel- ‘work for (sbdy.)’ (where ‑lel is a clear applicative). Approximately 33 % of all the 760-odd predicates listed in Augusta (1916) are explicitly said to occur in the applicative 1 form; in many instances, lexicalized – i.e. more or less unpredictable – meanings are given for these applicativized forms. Applicative 2, by contrast, is widely used to applicativize avalent and monovalent bases; its use with bivalent bases is frequent, and both underived and derived trivalent verbs take it as well. When applied to bivalent verbs, its yield can usually be interpreted as malefactive, or at least as separative, especially when it contrasts with applicative 1: (21) a. Ngilla-lel-fi-n Juan ñi kawellu. buy-appl1-3P-1sg.ind J. 3.psr horse ‘I bought a/the horse for/in order to give it to Juan.’ b. Ngilla-ñma-fi-n Juan ñi kawellu. buy-appl2-3P-1sg.ind J. 3.psr horse ‘I bought a/the horse from/ on Juan.’ With derived trivalent verbs, ‑ñma seems to be the preferred applicativizing option and does not seem to have a clearly benefactive or malefactive interpretation: (22) a. Weñe-ñma-ñma-nge-i-m-i waka tami fotüm. steal-appl2-appl2-pass-ind-2-sg cow 2sg.psr son.of.man ‘They stole your (m.sg) son’s cow.’ (Salas 2006: 124) b. Küpa-l-el-ma-nge-i-m-i kuram tami ñuke. come-caus-appl1-appl2-pass-ind-2-sg egg 2sg.psr mother ‘They brought eggs to your (sg) mother.’ (Salas 2006: 124)
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With avalent and monovalent verbs, it has received separate treatment by other authors (e.g. Salas’s (2006) “participative” and Smeets’s (2008) “experience”). Even though the allomorphy conditions are admittedly more complex than with ‑l, I think there is enough evidence to regard ‑ma (~ ‑(ü)ñma) with avalent and monovalent verbs as an allomorph of ‑(ü)ñma (~ ‑ma) with bivalent and trivalent verbs (cf. Zúñiga 2009, 2010b, forthc.). The most important difference between them is that, in many cases, the verb valency is not increased in a straightforward fashion but redirected instead; the applied primary argument is the new participant, and the original (3 rd person) participant can still appear as an overt and unmarked NP in the clause, but without indexing on the verb: (23) a. Iñche aku-ñma-n kiñe küme dungu. 1sg arrive.here-appl2-1sg.ind one good matter ‘I received a nice message.’ (Smeets 2008: 302) b. Iñche af-ma-n kofke. 1sg end-appl2-1sg.ind bread ‘I ran out of bread.’ (Smeets 2008: 302) c. Iñche kon-ma-n trüfür ñi nge mew. 1sg enter-appl2-1sg.ind dust 1sg.psr eye postp ‘I got dust in my eye.’ (Smeets 2008: 302) d. Femngen kon-ma-a-i-i-u ale. thus enter-appl2-fut-ind-1-du moonlight ‘Thus the moon will start shining (before our (du) work is finished).’ (Augusta 1916: 94) With other monovalent verbs, the resulting predicate is a run-of-the-mill derived bivalent verb: (24) a. Chadi-ñma-fi-n ti katrü-n ilo. salt-appl2-3P-1sg.ind art cut-nfin meat ‘I put salt on the piece of meat.’ (Smeets 2008: 303) b. Anü-ñma-e-i-0-̸ mew wekufü. sit.down-appl2-inv-ind-3-3A demon ‘S/he (prox) was possessed by a demon (obv).’ (Smeets 2008: 303)
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Only 20 % of the predicates listed in Augusta (1916) appear with an explicitly acknowledged applicative 2 form. Interestingly enough, lexicalized instances of such forms are more numerous than the applicative 1 forms. The other two applicativizing strategies, viz. those built on tu‑ ‘take’ and ye‑ ‘carry’, differ from ‑l and ‑ñma on both formal and functional grounds. First, they can be meaningfully analyzed as instances of root serialization instead of suffixation; the base verb root forms a complex verb stem together with one of these roots. Second, they have a much more varied syntactic yield. With some verbs, tu‑ and yeare arguably both valency-neutral and meaning-neutral (e.g. kakünu(-tu‑)n ‘change (sthg.)’, dewma(‑ye‑)n ‘make’); sometimes they might show some semantic yield (e.g. ñidüfün ‘sew’ vs. ñidüftun ‘mend’, pen ‘see’ vs. peyen ‘picture’); tu‑ is reported by Augusta (1916) to detransitivize some verbs, but present-day speakers do not seem to consistently interpret such alternations the way he predicts. Third, when they do increase verb valency they have fairly specific (and restricted) semantic effects. Tu‑ basically adds goal secondary arguments to monovalent verbs of motion (e.g. kontun ‘go to (sbdy.)’s place’, from konün ‘enter’) and stimulus secondary arguments to monovalent psych verbs (e.g. illkutun ‘get angry at’, from illun ‘get angry). In turn, ye- typically adds topics of speech/thought to monovalent verbs (e.g. dunguyen ‘speak about’, from dungun ‘speak’). A particularly noteworthy predicate in the context of applicativization – albeit not precisely representative of the trivalent class in general – is ngütramün ‘tell’ and its (lexicalized) continuative counterpart ngütramkan ‘talk’.13 The former is bivalent and takes an agent and the content of speech as A and P arguments respectively, whereas the latter is monovalent and takes an agent as S argument. Ngütramün ‘tell’ must be l-applicativized in order to accommodate both the addressee as core syntactic argument (25a–b), but it can also be ye-applicativized, in which case the secondary argument is the content of speech and the addressee is understood as generic or unspecified (24c); note that it is the content of speech that is unspecified in (25b): (25) a. Fey fey ngütram-el-e-n-mew. 3 3 tell-appl1-inv-1sg.ind-3A ‘S/he told it to me.’ (Augusta 1916: 153) b. Ti wentru ngütram-el-fi-0̸ ti pichi domo. art man tell-appl1-3P-3 art little woman ‘The man told [a story/stories] to the girl.’
13 With most verbs, the result of suffixing ‑ka is predictable, e.g. tiyemew mule-i ‘s/he is there’ vs. tiyemew mule-ka-i ‘s/he is still there’.
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c. Ngütram-ye-i-0̸ chi weychan. tell-appl4-ind-3 art war ‘S/he talked about the war.’ (Augusta 1916: 153) By a similar token, ngütramkan ‘talk’ can express the addressee as core syntactic argument when l-applicativized and the content of speech when ye-applicativized; the other semantic argument, however, is usually expressed overtly as well, via a mew-phrase: (26) a. Ti wentru ngütramka-lel-fi-0̸ ti pichi wentru ti pichi domo art man talk-appl1-3P-3 art little man art little woman mew. postp ‘The man talked to the boy about the girl.’ b. Ti wentru ngütramka-ye-fi-0̸ ti pichi domo ti pichi wentru art man talk-appl4-3P-3 art little woman art little man mew. postp ‘The man talked to the boy about the girl.’
6 Conclusions Like in many other languages, the number of Mapudungun avalent verbs and underived trivalent verbs is relatively small. The language is basically transitivizing (Nichols et al. 2004), with several valency-increasing operations applying to underived verbs in order to accommodate causers, as well as to both underived and derived verbs to accommodate different nonagentive participants. While it is apparent that the causatives partition the Mapudungun lexicon in a systematic way, it is not yet clear to which extent the applicatives do so as well. Productive alternations between coding frames are typically coded on the verb; applicatives derived via suffixation are more productive – although not necessarily always more semantically regular – than those derived via root serialization and causatives. On the inflectional side, the semantic and pragmatic principles governing the inverse system and differential object marking regulate the way matrix clauses function, without any clear tendencies with respect to skewings related to predicate class, or even to individual predicates. As far as the issue of possible contact phenomena are concerned, it may be interesting to note that Spanish – with which Mapudungun has been in contact for the last four centuries – is markedly different: transitive-ditransitive alignment is
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indirective/neutral in Spanish, whereas it is secundative in Mapudungun. Moreover, Spanish is basically detransitivizing and has an anticausativizing derivation, as well as pervasive use of constructions with datively coded nonbase participants instead of the causative and applicative strategies of Mapudungun. Even though Spanish prepositions like a, de, and en cover a wide range of spatial and nonspatial meanings and can be used to accommodate nonbase participants in three-participant clauses, there is no direct equivalent of the highly unspecified Mapudungun postposition mew in that language. The anticausative use of reflexive morphology is not only limited in Mapudungun but also possibly a comparatively recent calque from Spanish. Interestingly enough, Mapudungun is like Spanish in that labile verbs (especially change-of-state ones like those corresponding to break and melt) are relatively few. Uncoded alternations of the English type load hay onto the wagon vs. load the wagon with hay are present in Spanish if one regards the dative participants as comparable, but they are infrequent in Mapudungun.
Acknowledgments I am grateful to Bernard Comrie and Andrej Malchukov for their numerous and valuable comments on previous versions of this paper. I am indebted to the Swiss National Science Foundation (Grant 10BA13-125811) and the EuroBABEL program of the European Science Foundation for making this research possible.
Meaning label
RAIN
SHAVE
MEET
BLINK
COUGH
RUN
SING
LAUGH
SCREAM
FEEL PAIN
FEEL COLD
DIE
PLAY
BE SAD
BE HUNGRY
#
69
14
17
46
47
49
53
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
ngüñün
lladkün
awkantun
lan ̠
wütren
kutran(-tu)-n
wirarün (2)
ayen
ülkantun
lefün
chafon
llüpifün
trafün
payuntun
mawüṉün
Verb form
V.subj[1] 1
V.subj[1] 1
V.subj[1] 1
V.subj[1] 1
V.subj[1] 1
V.subj[1] 1
V.subj[1] 1
V.subj[1] 1
V.subj[1] 1
V.subj[1] 1
V.subj[1] 1
V.subj[1] 1
V.subj[1] 1
V.subj[1] 1
V.subj[0]
Coding frame schema
Appendix: Valency classes: Summary
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
Applicative 1
–
+
–
+
–
m
–
–
+
m
–
–
+
–
+
Applicative 2
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
+
–
–
+
–
–
Applicative 3
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
Applicative 4
+
+
+
–
+
+
+
+
–
+
+
–
–
Causative1
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
Causative2
–
–
+
–
–
–
+
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
Labile
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
Reflexive
Valency classes in Mapudungun
1535
ROLL
SINK
BURN
BE DRY
BE DRY
BE A HUNTER
DIG
BOIL
APPEAR
BE ILL
CRY
THINK
CLIMB
SIT
SIT DOWN
JUMP
GO
65
66
67
68
68
70
73
80
81
82
83
10
48
50
51
52
54
14 nmlz + cop
Meaning label
#
amun
rüngkün
anün
anün
wechun
rakiduamün
ngüman
kutranün
wefün
afün
V.subj[1] 1 2+mew
V.subj[1] 1 2+mew
V.subj[1] 1 2+mew
V.subj[1] 1 2+mew
V.subj[1] 1 2+mew
V.subj[1] 1 2+mew
V.subj[1] 1
V.subj[1] 1
V.subj[1] 1
V.subj[1] 1
V.subj[1] 1
V.subj[1] 1
rüngan
V.subj[1] 1
tralkatufengen 14
V.subj[1] 1
V.subj[1] 1
V.subj[1] 1
V.subj[1] 1
Coding frame schema
ñifün
angkün
lüfün
lanün
imülün
Verb form
–
–
–
–
+
m
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
Applicative 1
–
–
+
+
–
–
–
m
–
–
–
+
–
Applicative 2
–
–
–
–
–
–
m
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Applicative 3
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Applicative 4
+
+
+
+
–
+
+
–
+
+
–
–
+
Causative1
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
–
+
+
–
Causative2
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Labile
–
–
–
–
–
m
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Reflexive
1536 Fernando Zúñiga
LIVE
FALL
EAT
HUG
LOOK AT
LOOK AT
SEE
SMELL
FEAR
FRIGHTEN
LIKE
LIKE
KNOW
SEARCH FOR
WASH
DRESS
HELP
56
84
1
2
3
3
4
5
6
7
8
8
9
11
12
13
15
kellun
takun
küchan
kintun
kimün
ayün (2)
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1
trupefülün16
kümentun
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1
llükan
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1
ṉümütun15
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1
V.subj[1] 1 2+mew
V.subj[1] 1 2+mew
V.subj[1] 1 2+mew
pen
adkintun
lelin
rofülün
in
tranün
mülen
püntun
15 tu-applicative of nümun ‘smell’ 16 l-causative of trupefün ‘be frightened’
LEAVE
55
+
+
+
+
–
–
–
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
m
–
–
–
+
m
+
–
–
+
–
+
+
+
+
–
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
m
–
–
+
+
–
+
–
–
–
m
–
–
m
m
+
m
m
m
m
+
–
+
m
–
–
–
–
Valency classes in Mapudungun
1537
FOLLOW
TALK
SHOUT AT
TELL
NAME
BUILD
TAKE
TAKE
TEAR
PEEL
HIDE
THROW
TIE
TIE
COVER
GRIND
WIPE
16
18
20
21
23
24
31
31
32
33
34
39
40
40
43
71
72
liftun
müḻan
takun (2)
trapelün
trarün
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1
llumümün17
ütrüfün
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1
Coding frame schema
chafün
kacharnentun
tun
nün
dewman (1)
üytuntukun
ngütramün
wirarün (1)
ngütramkan
inan
Verb form
17 m-causative of llumün ‘hide’
Meaning label
#
+
+
+
+
+
+
m
+
+
+
+
+
+
m
+
+
Applicative 1
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
m
–
–
m
m
+
Applicative 2
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
+
+
+
–
–
–
–
–
Applicative 3
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
+
–
+
–
Applicative 4
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
m
–
–
Causative1
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Causative2
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
–
Labile
–
–
+
m
m
+
–
–
–
+
+
–
m
–
–
–
–
Reflexive
1538 Fernando Zúñiga
STEAL
HEAR
COOK
GET
GET
WANT
BREAK
BREAK
KILL
BEAT
HIT
TOUCH
76
78
79
86
86
87
25
25
26
27
28
29
kachillman
trawawün
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1 3+mew
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1 3+mew
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1 3+mew
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1 3+mew
19 langümün ̠
trawawtrawawtun20
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1 3+mew
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1 3+mew
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1
trafon
watron
ayün (1)
tun (2)
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1
afümün18
llowün
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1
allkün
weñen
pelün
18 m-causative of afün ‘be cooked’ 19 irregular m-causative of lan ‘die’ 20 iterative of trawawün ‘hit’
PUSH
74
+
m
+
–
m
m
–
+
+
m
+
m
+
+
+
+
+
+
–
+
+
m
+
+
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
+
–
–
–
–
+
+
m
m
m
+
–
–
+
–
–
–
m
–
–
Valency classes in Mapudungun
1539
CUT
SEND
CARRY
PUT
POUR
FILL
LOAD
MAKE
ASK FOR
SAY
30
37
38
41
42
44
45
85
19
22
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1 3+mew
apolün23
pin
ngillatun
dewman (2)
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 3 1
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 3 1
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1 3+mew
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1 3+mew
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1 3+mew
wütruntukun22
chechümün
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1 3+mew
elün (2)
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1 3+mew
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1 3+mew
amulün21
yen
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 1 3+mew
Coding frame schema
katrün
Verb form
21 l-causative of amun ‘go’ 22 also wütrun 23 l-causative of apon ‘be filled’
Meaning label
#
+
+
+
+
m
+
+
+
Applicative 1
+
+
m
+
+
m
+
+
m
+
Applicative 2
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
Applicative 3
–
–
+
–
–
–
–
–
–
Applicative 4
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Causative1
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Causative2
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Labile
–
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
m
+
Reflexive
1540 Fernando Zúñiga
GIVE
BRING
TEACH
36
75
77
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 3 1 V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 3 1 V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 3 1
küpalelün25
kimelün26
V.subj[1].obj[2] 2 3 1
elun
pengelün24
+
m
+
24 cf. 5.4 25 l-applicative of l-causative of küpan ‘come’ 26 l-causative of kimün ‘know’
Legend: + occurs regularly; m occurs marginally; − occurs never; _ no data
SHOW
35
+
m
m
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
m
–
–
–
–
–
+
–
Valency classes in Mapudungun
1541
1542
Fernando Zúñiga
Abbreviations and cis DOMr f hab inv inter m nfin obv PA pfv postp prox pSA psr SA SAP sbjv sg sSA tel trans vblz
andative cislocative differential object marker feminine habitual inverse interruptive masculine nonfinite obviative primary argument perfective postposition proximative primary secondary argument possessor secondary argument speech act participant subjunctive singular secondary secondary argument telic translocative verbalizer
References Arnold, Jennifer. 1996. The inverse system in Mapudungun and other languages. Revista de Lingüística Teórica y Aplicada 34. 9–47. de Augusta, Félix José. [1990] 1903. Gramática araucana. Santiago: Séneca. de Augusta, Félix José. [1991] 1910. Lecturas araucanas. Temuco: Editorial Kushe. de Augusta, Félix José. [2007] 1916. Diccionario mapuche. Santiago: Cerro Manquehue. Baker, Mark, Roberto Aranovich & Lucía Golluscio. 2005. Two types of syntactic noun incorporation: noun incorporation in Mapudungun and its typological implications. Language 81(1). 138–176. Golluscio, Lucía. 1997. Notas sobre la incorporación nominal en mapudungun. Actas III Jornadas de Lingüística Aborigen. 155–167. Golluscio, Lucía. 2007. Morphological causatives and split intransitivity in Mapudungun. International Journal of American Linguistics 73(2). 209–238. Golluscio, Lucía. 2010. Ditransitives in Mapudungun. In Andrej Malchukov, Martin Haspelmath & Bernard Comrie (eds.), Studies in Ditransitive Constructions. A Comparative Handbook, 711– 756. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Harmelink, Bryan. 1992. La incorporación nominal en el mapudungun. Lenguas Modernas 19. 129–138. Nichols, Johanna, David Peterson & Jonathan Barnes. 2004. Transitivizing and detransitivizing languages. Linguistic Typology 8(2). 149–211.
Valency classes in Mapudungun
1543
Salas, Adalberto. 2006. El mapuche o araucano. Fonología, gramática y antología de cuentos. 2 nd edn. Santiago: Centro de Estudios Públicos. Smeets, Ineke. 2008. A Grammar of Mapuche. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Zúñiga, Fernando. 2006a. Mapudungun: el habla mapuche. Introducción a la lengua mapuche, con notas comparativas y un CD. Santiago: Centro de Estudios Públicos. Zúñiga, Fernando. 2006b. Deixis and Alignment. Inverse Systems in Indigenous Languages of the Americas. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Zúñiga, Fernando. 2009. The applicatives of Mapudungun. Paper read at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas (SSILA), San Francisco, 8–11 January. Zúñiga, Fernando. 2010a. Benefactive and malefactive applicativization in Mapudungun. In Fernando Zúñiga & Seppo Kittilä (eds.), Benefactives and Malefactives. Typological Perspectives and Case Studies, 203–218. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Zúñiga, Fernando. 2010b. La marca diferencial del objeto en mapudungún. Lingüística 24. 141– 164. Zúñiga, Fernando. Forthcoming. An exploration of the diachrony of Mapudungun valency-changing operations. Paper for a volume on the diachronic typology of voice and valency-changing categories, edited by Leonid Kulikov and Seppo Kittilä and to appear in John Benjamins.
Part III: Theoretical Outlook
Christian Lehmann
37 Situation types, valency frames and operations 1 Introduction 1.1 Semiotic constraints vs. cognitive and communicative functions The language system is a semiotic system. As such, it is the result of the interplay of two essentially independent forces: Structure: formal constraints: The constraints on a semiotic system and on the messages constructed from it are of a different nature. On the one hand, laws of logic, information theory and physics determine the ways in which signs may be selected, combined and transmitted. These are complemented by other laws of nature in the case of semiotic systems used by a particular species, e.g. homo sapiens. Functions: communication and cognition: The world surrounding us which we conceptualize is in many respects the same for every speech community; and the same holds for the tasks of communication in such a community. These two domains provide the total of content and its conveyance in the widest sense. Thus, entities of grammar, including valency classes, have a purely formal side determined by the constraints imposed on any semiotic system. At the same time, this formal side is not empty, but is laden with cognitive and communicative content. In more concrete terms: grammatical categories, relations, constructions and operations are necessary for a semiotic system of some complexity to operate, and they do have some purely formal properties. At the same time, these are categories like tense, relations like the indirect object relation, constructions like the causative construction and operations like causativization; and none of these is purely formal, all of them have their semantic side. Putting it yet another way: in a semiotic system, everything concerning the sign as a whole is significative (meaningbearing). Applied to valency classes, this conception implies: a. On the one hand, verbs form valency classes because these are the systematic aspect of the combinatory potential of verbs. More specifically, valency classes are the logical condition for the semantic compositionality of verbal clauses; and semantic compositionality is a precondition for an analytic approach to linguistic messages. b. On the other hand, verbs form valency classes because the situations that human beings conceptualize have an inherent structure that they react to in their categorization.
1548
Christian Lehmann
The association of form and function in language is not biunique. A classification of semiotic entities, including grammatical ones, by semantic criteria yields different results from a classification based on formal criteria. This is true for valency classes just as for any other grammatical category.1 The double-sidedness of valency classes has many methodological consequences. One is of immediate relevance here: Any analysis of valency classes aiming at understanding their nature has to take a double approach to them, a formal (alias semasiological) and a functional (alias onomasiological) approach. In this article, only the functional approach will be taken. That implies that the approach does not do justice to the functional profile and polysemy of the valency patterns and operations of the individual language. Instead, it provides a conceptual framework that an onomasiological description may be based on and that a semasiological description may refer to.
1.2 Levels of analyzing argument structure A typology of valency confronts its object at three semantic levels, which are represented in Table 1 (cf. Lehmann 2006, § 2): Tab. 1: Levels of representation of valency frames. #
domain
range
semantic level components
roles
examples
3
communication and cognition
extralinguistic
sense construction
participant role
moved entity, instrument …
2
linguistic typology
crosslinguistic
designatum
semantic (macro-)role
undergoer, instrumental …
1
language system
languagespecific
significatum
situation: situation core, participant … proposition: predicate, argument, satellite, relator … clause: verb, actant, adjunct, case …
syntactic func- direct object, tion + signifi- with-phrase … catum of case relator
Level 2 is an abstraction from level 1, generalizing over the latter’s variation. Level 3 comprises what is conveyed in a speech act. Although this happens by means of units of level 1, it is partly extralinguistic, since sense construction involves not
1 Previous research has emphasized either the correlation between form and function in valency (Levin 1993) or its divergence (Faulhaber 2011).
Situation types, valency frames and operations
1549
only the significata and semantic rules of the language system, but crucially also inferencing on the basis of an appraisal of the speech situation and activation of experience and world knowledge. The typology of valency uses concepts of level 2. However, the other two levels are implicated, too. Generalizations at level 2 are operationalized and, thus, falsified at level 1. And on the other hand, linguistic types differ by the strategies they employ at level 2 in order to code the sense conveyed at level 3. In this way, level 3 serves as the tertium comparationis in typological comparison.2 There is much terminological variation in the domain here under study, part of which stems from the fact that the levels of Table 1 are not always distinguished. As the table suggests, distinguishing the levels entails the use of different terms for the entities of the last three columns depending on the level being referred to: – The most generic hyperonym for events, actions, processes, states-of-affairs etc. at level 3 is situation. Situation cores are relational concepts. At the level of cross-linguistic semantics (#2 of Table 1), a situation core may be represented in the form of an open proposition, i.e. a combination of a predicate with unbound argument variables. At level 1, it is typically coded by a verb. – The entities surrounding a situation core are participants. Languages distinguish central participants from peripheral ones. At level 2, the former are called arguments. An argument is what a predicate (representing a concept) opens a position for (as in Van Valin & LaPolla 1997: 90). It is, thus, not a valencydependent clause component, which latter is, instead, an actant 3 (or complement).4 Peripheral participants may be called satellites at level 2; they are typically coded as adjuncts at level 1.5 – A semantic role (variously thematic role, as in Van Valin & LaPolla 1997, or theta role) is a cross-linguistic concept coded in the structure of some languages, but possibly not of others. It is to be distinguished from a participant role, which is situated at level 3 of Table 1, grounded in functions of communication and cognition and, therefore, partly independent of linguistic structure.
2 Entities belonging to level 3 are sometimes considered as “phenomena in the world” (Van Valin & LaPolla 1997: 83). However, phenomena in the (physical, “real”) world are of no relevance to linguistics. – Apart from that, the approach of Van Valin & LaPolla 1997, esp. ch. 3, is an important model for the approach taken here. 3 Apart from being the traditional term for the concept in question, actant has also been used in typology, e.g. in Lazard 1998. 4 What Rappaport et al. 1993 and their followers dub ‘predicate-argument structure’ is actually the (syntactic) valency frame of a verb. And this is not merely a terminological issue; as argued above, the concepts of argument structure and valency need to be distinguished. 5 Again, a peripheral argument is still an argument. Since the centrality of arguments is roughly determined by their sequential order following the predicate, a peripheral argument is essentially one at a position > 2, i.e. one that is neither actor nor undergoer.
1550
Christian Lehmann
1.3 The status of semantic roles The identity of a concept includes its argument structure, i.e. its argument places with their semantic roles. Therefore, P(x) and P(x,y) are not the same concept. The concept of ‘break’ is the same in (1a) and (1b), but different in (1c). (1) a. Linda broke the twig. b. The twig was broken by Linda. c. The twig broke. Semantic role operations operate at the level of the predicate, changing its argument structure. This shapes the meaning of a sentence. For instance, a valencychanging derivation such as the deagentive (e.g. break (tr.) becomes break (itr.), as in (1a) vs. (1c) is described like this: The semantic macro-role of the actor is blocked. Consequently, there remains, at the level of semantic roles, a single argument, viz. the undergoer. The hearer uses this semantic information, as well as inferences on the basis of the speech situation and world knowledge, to construct the sense of the utterance. At this level, a semantic role operation may have different effects. In (1c), the hearer is not asked to believe that the twig broke without the intervention of an acting force. Instead, there is just no particular acting force implied. (2) Yucatec Maya a. k-u haan-t-ik ipfv-sbj.3 eat-trr-incmpl ‛he eats it’ b. k-u haan-al ipfv-sbj.3 eat-incmpl ‛he eats’ In (2a), haant is transitive, reflecting an argument structure with an actor and an undergoer. Example (2b) is intransitive, reflecting an argument structure with an actor, but no undergoer. At the level of the designatum (#2 of Table 1), the actor is busy eating; no eaten object is being represented. At the level of sense construction, the difference between #a and #b is another one. In both cases, there is an eaten object, since eating is inconceivable (in a sense, impossible) without an eaten object. In other words, excising the eaten object from the concept of eating would result in a totally different concept, maybe exercising one’s ingestive organs. Again, the hearer receiving (2b) does not conclude that the actor eats nothing. Instead, he concludes that the actor eats something which is not represented in what is conveyed to him, but which he might try to infer from other evidence, for instance on the basis of world knowledge or by just looking. Similarly, the actor coded in (3a) is absent in (3b).
Situation types, valency frames and operations
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(3) Yucatec Maya a. t-in ch’am-ah u chuun le che’-o’. prfv-sbj.1sg bruise-cmpl poss.3 base def tree-d2 ‘I bruised the trunk of the tree.’ (emb&rmc_0033) b. h ch’áam u chuun le che’-o’. prfv bruise\deag poss.3 base def tree-d2 ‘The trunk of the tree got bruised.’ Nonetheless, this is so only at the level of semantic structure (#1 and 2 of Table 1). At the level of sense construction, the addressee of the utterance conveying (3b) is not asked to believe that trees can get bruised without the intervention of an actor. Quite on the contrary, a complex sentence such as (4) is fully consistent, although the first clause codes an actor, while the second clause does not. (4) Yucatec Maya t-in koh in coche ka h ch’áam-ih. prfv-sbj.1sg hit poss.1sg car conn prfv bruise\deag-cmpl.3sg ‘I hit my car so that it got bruised.’ (EMB&RMC_0032) Finally, the same point can be made in a semasiological perspective. (5) a. Linda peeled the orange with her pocket knife. b. Linda filled the bucket with beer. Both #a and #b of (5) feature the semantic role of the instrumental, which in this language is coded by a prepositional phrase introduced by one of a small set of prepositions like with. However, only the situation coded by #a involves a participant with the participant role of instrument, while what is coded as an instrumental in #b is rather a moved object at the level of sense construction (see § 3.3.5). Thus, semantic roles are schematic; they do not provide direct access to the sense, but are rather a generic means of structuring a situation in terms of a limited number of concepts and relations. A situation type is an abstraction over a set of particular situations. This concept is therefore situated at level #3 of Table 1. Level #2 provides strategies used by languages to convert situation types into each other and to code a situation type by a type of construction.
2 Situations and participants Given the onomasiological approach of this article, we will start by characterizing participants and situations at the language-independent level and then gradually
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pass on to concepts that have some linguistic specificity. Situation types are conceived at level 3 of Table 1. They are converted into types of predicates with their argument frames at level 2. These represent linguistic conceptualizations of situations, and mostly there are variant conceptualizations of a given type of situation. Each of the variants may be useful under different conditions having to do with the particular speech situation. There are therefore, still at the typological level, paradigmatic relationships between predicate-argument constructions which may manifest themselves in individual languages in the form of coded or uncoded alternations among such constructions. We will first consider the problem of representing participants of a situation as arguments of a predicate.
2.1 Mapping participants onto arguments Consider (6) as a simple example to show that a predication represents a selection among the participants involved in a situation: (6) German a. Erna glaubte mir. ‘Erna believed me.’ b. Erna glaubte diese Geschichte. ‘Erna believed that story.’ c. Erna glaubte mir diese Geschichte. ‘*Erna believed me that story.’ There is a situation type which may be represented as Believe (x, y, z), where x is the believer, y the person believed and z the abstract object believed. In English, one selects either y or z for linguistic representation, while in German one may represent all of them in one clause (6c). More generally, there is no biunique mapping between the arguments of a predicate in a semantic representation and the actants of a verb.6 Instead, there are mismatches in both directions: 1. a subset of the actants corresponds to an argument (other actants are semantically empty)
6 Van Valin & LaPolla (1997: 173) postulate the following “Syntactic template selection principle: The number of syntactic slots for arguments and argument-adjuncts within the core is equal to the number of distinct specified argument positions in the semantic representation of the core.” Translating into the terminology used here: the number of actants (at the structural level) is equal to the number of arguments (in the semantic representation). However, in their account, the semantic representation of the lexical meaning of a verb essentially reduces to writing it in bold-face and providing it with some operators and its syntactic argument variables.
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a subset of the participants is mapped onto arguments and, thus, actants (the others are optionally coded by adjuncts or not coded at all).
2.1.1 Actants not mapped onto arguments We will first briefly illustrate the first phenomenon with a few examples of obligatory verb actants that have no semantic counterpart: (7)
Greek opiodípote domátio tha káni any:ever room fut do:3sg ‘any room whatever will do’
(8)
German Jedes Zimmer tut’s. ‘Any room will do.’
(9)
German Dein Rücklicht tut’s nicht. ‛Your backlight is not working.’
(10) German Diese Idee bringt’s auch nicht. ‘That idea is not going to work, either.’ (11) Italian prendersela con qualcuno ‛dump on / wade into / pick on somebody’ The predication intended in (7)–(9) requires a monovalent predicate. The speaker, however, chooses a transitive verb, thus being left with a superfluous valency slot. English and Greek (7) just leave it unoccupied by introversive lability (s. § 3.2.4), so that no mismatch arises. The German counterpart of the verb in question has an obligatory direct object (8)f. It is represented by a third person pronoun which would otherwise be anaphoric or deictic, but here refers to nothing. The same is true for the highlighted pronouns in (10)f. Such semantically empty actants occupy a regular valency position of the verb, i.e. in structural terms, the construction has nothing special to it. However, the clitic pronoun is neither omissible nor substitutable, so there is no way to tell its reference. In other words, in coding the predicate with its arguments, a verb has been chosen which has one valency position too many.
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2.1.2 Participants not mapped onto arguments Such cases as the above are, however, unsystematic, idiomatic and therefore of limited interest to grammar. The converse case of participants that are not reflected in the argument structure is much more important. They are present at the level of sense construction; but the predicate chosen has no argument position for them, and consequently they do not appear as actants in the expression. Consider, as a first example, intermediate relatives in the semantic representation of kin terms, as exemplified in (12). (12) x is y’s uncle: y is child of z1 and z1 is child of z2 and x is child of z2 and x is male Any decomposition of the sense of uncle must mention the intermediate relatives z1 (y’s parent) and z2 (y’s grandparent) in order to account for the relationship of the uncle (x) to his nephew or niece (y). However, the former two have no chance of being coded in an expression of the kind ‘x is y’s uncle’. As has been known since Jespersen (1924: 88 f), adverbs differ from adpositions in lacking a governing slot. At the level of sense construction, however, they have a position for a participant that is occupied deictically. For instance, (13b) is understood as implying a reference object that Linda is in, just as (13a) does. (13) a. Linda is inside the capsule. b. Linda is inside. The same applies to certain German verbs which are compounded with an adverb. For instance, German packen ‘grasp’ (14a) is transitive, the undergoer being coded as direct object. The compound verb zupacken, as in (14b), likewise implies that the actor grasps an object. It is, however, impossible to code that object, as the verb is intransitive. (14) German a. Erna packte den Dieb. ‘Erna seized the thief.’ b. Erna packte kräftig zu. ‘Erna seized vigorously [anaphoric object] / sailed in.’ A given lexeme representing a situation core in a language thus provides an argument frame for a subset of participants to be accommodated as arguments in the construction. There may then be a residue of participants which, although implied in the lexical semantics, cannot surface because no argument position is provided. We may say that they are not exteriorized from the underlying concept (cf. Lehmann 1991, § 3.2 and Van Valin & LaPolla 1997, ch. 3.2.3.1 on verbs of saying).
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2.2 Participant properties Participant roles are defined by heterogeneous criteria, viz. by their function in a situation type, but also by absolute properties of their bearers. The relevant properties reduce to the position of the referent in question on the hierarchy of Table 2 (also known as the animacy hierarchy):
Tab. 2: Empathy hierarchy. position
property
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
speech-act participant other human being animal individual object non-individual object place proposition
For many purposes, it suffices to lump certain levels of the empathy hierarchy together: #1–3 are animate, #1–4 are individuals, #1–6 are concrete as opposed to #7, which is abstract.
2.3 Articulation of situations The situation core is conceptualized as the core of the predication coded by a clause. The lexemes chosen there may belong to any of the major word classes – nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs or language-specific variants thereof. Focusing here on dynamic relational concepts (what typologists sometimes call a ‘verbal concept’), adjectives may be foregone. Even if the word that fulfills the syntactic function of predication is a verb, this does not necessarily convey the bulk of the lexical meaning. Some important types of constructions which go beyond a simple verbal predicate include the following: complex verb, verb series, light verb construction. A few comments on each of these must suffice: a) The situation core may be coded in a complex verb, a compound like Ket at⁷daq⁰ (by.pouring-put) or German wegschütten (away:pour:Inf) or a derivative like German verschütten (Valency.Decreaser:pour:Inf; cf. ex. 37) ‘spill’. These participate in more or less regular alternations to be discussed extensively in § 3.2. b) The situation core may be articulated as a combination of verbs, i.e. a verb series, as in (15):
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(15) Yoruba Ade ju òkúta kan bá mi. Ade throw rock ind meet 1sg.acc ‘Ade threw a rock at me. / Ade struck me with a rock.’ (ValPaL Database Yoruba, (88)) The ways that verb series alternate to change the argument structure of the underlying predicate remain to be investigated. c) The situation core may be categorized in some lexeme class distinct from the verb, which will generally be combined with a verb in order to form a predicate. There are some variants of this strategy: First, categorization of the situation core in terms of a noun may be the primary one. A salient example is provided by weather phenomena like ‘rain’ and ‘hail’, which are primarily nouns in quite a few languages. ‘Blink’, ‘scream’ and ‘cook’ are primarily nouns in Japanese, ‘sing’ is a noun in several languages, and so forth. However, in no language is this the primary categorization strategy used for dynamic relational concepts in general; cases like the ones mentioned obey at best some subregularity (like the weather phenomena) and otherwise remain essentially idiosyncratic. Consequently, the verbs supporting such a noun in a clause predicate are largely determined on a lexical semantic basis, i.e. they will form phraseologisms with it. Alternations of such constructions are largely idiosyncratic, too, and will not be treated in what follows. The regular and compositional variant of the nominal strategy occurs if a predicate is primarily categorized as a verb in the language, but this is nominalized and made dependent on a light verb, as in German etwas zum Abschluss bringen (something to:dat.sg conclusion bring:inf) ‘bring sth. to conclusion’, which alternates with etwas abschließen ‘terminate something’. Finally, the inner dependent of a light verb construction need not be a noun, but may belong to some other appropriate category,7 as in Persian xejālat kešid-an (shame pull-INF) ‘to get ashamed’ (s. Lehmann 2012, § 3.1). This is a basic strategy in languages like Jaminjung which have a closed class of verbs. Here again, a verb combines with an inner dependent of some adverbial class to code a dynamic relational concept. Examples are below in (24) and (28). The inner dependent carries the bulk of the lexical meaning, while the verb serves as little more than a valency and aktionsart operator.
2.4 Basic types of situations The more strictly relational properties of participants are derivative of the configuration of the situation in which they participate. More precisely, they are largely 7 As long as the combination follows the rules of syntax in a compositional manner, that category may have a freer distribution and thus be equatable with the noun, adjective or adverb of the language. To the extent that the combination coalesces, words which may serve as inner dependent form a class of their own, dubbed ‘verb completor’ in Lehmann 2012, § 3.1.
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determined by the situation core, which appears as a predicate at the typological level. In this respect, the conception of participant roles and semantic roles has changed since Fillmore (1968) first proposed case roles: Schank & Abelson 1977, Van Valin & LaPolla 1997; ch. 3 and Fillmore 2003, § 6 suggest that an analytic approach that composes a proposition of a predicate and a couple of dependents each of which contributes its semantic role to the complex is insufficient; and instead a holistic approach must be taken which starts from types of situations (‘types of states of affairs’ in Van Valin & LaPolla 1997; ‘frames’ in Schank & Abelson 1977 and Fillmore 2003) and derives participant roles from these.8 We shall see at the end of this section that, as usual in language, neither of the two perspectives is sufficient in itself, and instead they must be combined. However, in the spirit of the top-down approach taken here, we will start by defining types of situations. As already said, these definitions relate to level #1 of Table 1, although their notation necessarily involves predicates and arguments. Table 3 tabulates a set of basic situation types that underlie many situations and recur in the specialist literature (Van Valin & LaPolla 1997, ch. 3). Some more will be introduced in subsequent sections. Given the focus of the present volume on verbal valency, we limit ourselves to the more dynamic situations; i.e. we exclude class inclusion and properties and start with states. The examples given in the last column are for illustration. They do not represent English verbs, but predicates which in many languages are primarily lexicalized in the argument-frame illustrated. The first column of Table 3 labels the situation types. The participant and control properties of columns 4 and 5 are to be taken as prototypical. The control of column 5 is a relation between participant #1 and s, which extends to the other participants of s. The definition of a type of situation is composed of the cells of columns 2–5. A participant role may be defined by the set of properties of columns 3–5 of a (small) selected set of rows. The set of these definitory features is then labelled in column 6. In other words, a concept like Agent (Ac) is defined as the first argument of a set of predicates which is animate and controls the situations in question. At this level of generality, the argument frame of a predicate comprises all those participants which may be relevant to characterizing the situation in question. Usually only a subset of these will be used when the situation is conceptualized by a (type of) predicate. As a tendency, the order of participants of a given situation (type) roughly reflects their relevance for the predicate: the first participants are the central ones, the further towards the end of the sequence a partici-
8 “The role that an entity plays in a state of affairs is always a function of the nature of the state of affairs, and it is nonsensical to separate participant roles from the states of affairs in which they occur. Thus it is states of affairs which are fundamental (i.e. basic), not participant roles (which are derived).” (Van Valin & LaPolla 1997: 89; cf. also pp. 86 and 113)
Positioned (1, 2) Poss (1, 2)
Undergo (1, s) Change (1) Move (1, 2)
stative/ durative
stative stative
stative
stative
stative stative
stative
dynamic
dynamic dynamic
punctual
ambience
state existence
position (posture) possession
physical state mental state
emotional state
process/ event change of state uncontrolled motion
emotional event
Emotionally_stimulated (1, 2)
Emotionally_disposed (1, 2)
In_Physical_State (1) Mentally_disposed (1, 2)
In_State (1) Exist (1, 2)
Ambient_Condition (1)
Phase (s)
dynamic
phase
constellation
dynamicity
type
Tab 3: Basic types of situation (s).
1: concrete 1: concrete 2: place 1: human 2: –
1: concrete
1: individual 2: place 1: concrete 2: animate 1: concrete 1: human 2: abstract 1: human 2: –
– –
1: place
s: abstract
participant properties
–
–
+/–
– +
+
+/–
–
–
–
control
U.aff 1: U.loc 2: L 1: Exp 2: U.cd
1: O
1: O 1: O 2: L 1: O 2: L 1: O 2: Pr 1: O 1: Ac 2: U.cd 1: Exp 2: U.cd
1: L
roles
frighten
(monovalent) burn, break, melt fall, sink, roll
die, explode
will, want, like, please, fear
dry know, intend, refuse
belong, have
stand, lie, sit
there is, be located
rain, snow
start, end, happen
example predicates
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dynamic
–
experience ~ sensation
interpropositional relation
Nexion (1, 2)
perceive (1, 2)
1: concrete 2: place
Move (1, 2)
1: abstract 2: abstract
1: animate 2: concrete
2: animate
1: animate
Do (1, s)
–
+/–
+
+
1: Ac 2: U.cd 1: E 2: U.cd
1: Ac 2: L
1: Ac
–attentive: see, hear, feel, smell, taste cause, condition, entail, imply, prevent
+attentive: look, listen, sniff
L=Source: come from, leave, go out L=Goal: go to, come to, arrive at, return, enter L=Path: pass meet
run, climb, jump
work, bark
Legend: Ac − actor; Exp − experiencer; L − place; O − object (non–specific central role); Pr − possessor; U.aff − affected undergoer (= patient); U.cd: − considered undergoer; U.loc: − locomoted undergoer (sometimes called ‘theme’)
durative/ punctual dynamic
action/ act controlled motion
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pant is positioned, the more peripheral it is. We will come back to this distinction in a moment. It is clear that the participant features of columns 4 and 5 do not suffice to distinguish semantic roles. For instance, recipient, experiencer and addressee are not distinct by their absolute and their control properties. They can only be distinguished by the situations in which they function, viz. transfer (Table 6), experience and communication (Table 9), or in other words, by the basic predicates Transfer, Perceive and Communicate whose ingredients they are. On the other hand, a difference in the kind of participant may make a difference in the kind of situation. This is importantly the case for human vs. non-human participants, which condition distinct predicates in many cases. For instance, many – though not all – languages distinguish between Give (1, 2, 3) and Put (1, 2, 3) on the sole basis of the feature +/– human of argument 3 (transfer vs. collocation in Table 6). Similarly, a language may have two verbs for ‘wash’ depending on the animacy of the object. Moreover, there are situation types, as in particular process vs. action, which differ exclusively by the control of their first participant. It therefore appears that semantic role and situation type are interdependent and determine each other. We finally come back to the distinction between central and peripheral participant roles. The central ones are constitutive of their situation, while the peripheral ones may freely be added or omitted without affecting the nature of the situation. None of the participants appearing in Table 3 is entirely peripheral. Examples of participants which are peripheral to most situations (although not to their definitory situation types; see below) include the causer, the beneficiary and the instrument. (16) Latin (mare) nunc qua a sole conlucet sea:nom.sg now where from sun:abl.sg shine:prs:3sg albescit. white:inch(prs):3sg ‘The sea now becomes white where the sun makes it glisten.’ (Cic. Luc. 105, 16) (17) Linda sold books for her cousin. (18) Linda solved the problem with a calculator. While the beneficiary in (17) and the instrument in (18) require no explanation, the causer in (16), viz. sol ‘sun’, is coded by the causer adjunct strategy (Lehmann to app., § 3.4), which is less familiar. What is important at the moment is that there is nothing in the process of shining that would imply a causer, nothing in the notion of selling that would entail the presence of a beneficiary in a selling situa-
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tion and nothing in the notion of problem-solving that would require an instrument. The most peripheral semantic roles are independent of the nature of the situation in which they appear. Therefore, the holistic approach which derives semantic roles from situation types cannot mean that all semantic roles are an outgrowth of simple situations only to be grasped holistically. There are composite situations, properly including the agentive situation (s. Table 6 below), the benefactive situation and the situation involving an instrument, which an analytic approach reveals as formed in a compositional way from a basic situation and an additional participant. More precisely, the participants of such a complex situation include a base situation s, as follows: − agentive situation: Cause (1, s), where 1 = causer − benefactive situation: Give (1, 2, s), where 1 = benefactor and 2 = beneficiary − instrumental situation: Use (1, 2, s), where 1 = Ac and 2 = I. Thus, these peripheral semantic roles may, again, be conceived as deriving from the nature of the respective situation type. This, however, does not change the fact that they are not implicit in the base situation s. This consideration, thus, leads to the same conclusion as before: The holistic approach to situations cannot be set as absolute. In particular, central participant roles are substantiated by certain basic situation types; but peripheral participant roles have their own properties which they contribute in a like fashion to many different situations.
2.5 Merger of basic situation types: action-processes Many situations with more than one participant can plausibly be analyzed as combinations of a base situation with an additional participant. These will be treated in § 3.2. There remains one basic situation type which cannot plausibly be analyzed in such a way, and this is the action-process. Table 4 displays its formation and a few important subtypes. The column ‘control’ is omitted, as participant 1 always controls S. As its name indicates (cf. Chafe 1970, ch. 11), the action-process is the fusion of an action with a process, as one of its arguments acts, while the other one undergoes the situation as a process. In the examples adduced in Table 4, the fusion is complete, i.e. the two situations cannot be disentangled in such a way that, for instance, a situation of eating would be composed of an intransitive act of eating and an intransitive process of undergoing ingestion. Instead of an addition of a particular argument to a self-sufficient base situation, such action-processes are more plausibly conceived as the symmetric and irreducible merger of an action and a process.
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Tab. 4: Action-processes. type
dynamicity
constellation
participant properties
roles
subtypes
example predicates
actiondurative/ process/ punctual act-event
Do (1, s) & Undergo (2, s) → affect (1, 2)
1: individual 2: concrete
1: Ac 2: U.aff
U: –animate U: +animate
sew, eat/ beat, grasp
mental action/ act
durative/ punctual
Act_mentally (1, 2)
1: human 2: inanimate
1: Ac 2: U.cd
U: concrete U: abstract
read, count/ think
production
terminative
Do (1, s) Effect (1, 2)
1: animate 2: inanimate
1: Ac 2: U.eff
make, build, write, speak, utter
Legend: U.eff: effected undergoer
The first argument of an action-process is an actor (Ac), the second is an undergoer (U). Mental actions and acts are not among the prototypical action-processes because the undergoer is not affected. This kind of unattained undergoer is categorized as ‘considered undergoer’ (U.cd). Equally non-prototypical are situations of production, since their undergoer is effected rather than affected (U.eff). The taxonomy is as follows: U is a kind of O. U.aff, U.cd and U.eff are specifications of U which prove relevant in some valency patterns. U.aff is the same as patient. Being a basic situation type, the action-process may serve as a model for the productive formation of complex situations on the basis of simpler situations: – On the basis of a process, a derived action-process may be formed by introducing an actor. – On the basis of an action, a derived action-process may be formed by introducing an undergoer. These are two of the operations on semantic roles to be surveyed in § 3.2.
3 Argument-structure operations and alternations 3.1 Two types of argument-structure operations From an onomasiological point of view, we start from a certain situation with its core and its participants and code it in a syntactic construction of a particular language. This may be described as a transition in two steps: 1. From among all the participants and features of the situation, a selection is made which is conceptualized as a predicate or combination of predicates with
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their central and peripheral arguments and the semantic roles of the latter. The predicates are mapped onto a set of lexemes of the language each of which is represented by a stem and which are combined syntagmatically as indicated in § 2.3. The arguments are represented as a set of referential expressions, which will not occupy us further. Each of the stems involved has a certain valency, which is an abstraction of the set of constructions (viz. diatheses) that forms of this stem may be used in. For instance, a stem like eat has the valency of being monotransitive, which includes the possibility of forming a passive.9 Importantly, stems derived from the same root may differ in their valency. Given a certain verbal lexeme with the stem representing it, the latter is inserted in a particular syntactic construction by conjugating it in a particular form and combining it with (a subset of) its dependents in particular syntactic functions. Such a construction is a diathesis of the verb stem.
In both steps, a set of alternative representations is available which bear paradigmatic relations among them. In a dynamic perspective, such paradigmatic relations may be described as alternations of constructions or as (directed or symmetric) operations that transform one construction into another. In step 1, an abstract construction is selected from a set of alternatives each of which involves stems in certain word classes. These stems differ in their valency (and, possibly, their aktionsart). The paradigmatic relations among alternate conceptualizations of a situation involve valency changes. The latter concern, importantly, the semantic roles associated with the predicates, i.e. they change the conceptualization of a situation by representing some participants rather than others in the form of arguments of a predicate, by determining the centrality vs. peripherality of each of the arguments and by changing the first argument’s control feature. The function of these operations is to create and change particular predicates with particular constellations of arguments. An operation fulfilling this function may be called a valency operation (or semantic role operation). Consequently, the variants at that level are not synonymous (just as sit and set are not synonymous); and the semantic differences among them may be peculiar to the particular verb or verb class. In step 2, a particular verb stem is given, and the variants that are in paradigmatic relationship are its diatheses, i.e. the verb forms in the appropriate voice (if any) with their respective complements and adjuncts. These paradigmatic relations may be described by operations that transform one diathesis into another, e.g., an active into a passive construction. They operate on verb forms and syntactic func-
9 Given the tradition of valency grammar, which includes, among other things, the production of valency dictionaries, it is inadvisable to speak of different valencies with respect to diathetic alternants of a verb. See Lehmann 1992.
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tions, i.e. they change the relations of nominal components to the clause core by allowing the speaker to select between a clause that does or does not comprise a certain syntactic component, and by changing the latter’s syntactic relation. This is generally done in order to adapt that syntactic component to the thematicity of its referent. An operation fulfilling this function may be called a diathetic operation (or syntactic function operation). Such changes leave the semantic roles intact. Consequently, the variants at this level (like Linda eats the apple and the apple is eaten by Linda) are either synonymous or, at least, their semantic differences are a compositional consequence of the application of general grammatical rules. Diathesis concerns the coding of arguments of a predicate as complements and adjuncts of a verb, thus, the conversion of semantic roles into syntactic functions.10 It comprises both syntactic operations and inflectional processes. One of the latter is voice, a conjugation category coding diathesis (s. Kulikov 2011, § 1). The distinction between a valency operation and a diathetic operation is best illustrated by an example that is well established in the literature (cf. Kulikov 2011: 392), viz. the contrast between deagentive (alias anticausative) and passive: (19) Yucatec Maya a. Hwaane’ t-u kach-ah le che’-o’ John-top prfv-sbj.3 break-cmpl def wood-d2 ‘John broke the stick’ b. le che’-o’ h káach (*tuméen Hwaan) def wood-d2 prfv break\deag by John ‘the stick broke (*by John)’ c. le che’-o’ h ka’ch (tuméen Hwaan) def wood-d2 prfv break\pass by John ‘the stick was broken (by John)’ The transitive construction in (19a) has two intransitive counterparts, viz. the deagentive construction of (19b), whose verb root has a high tone, and the passive construction of #c, whose verb root bears an infix. The functional difference is that the passive (just like the active of #a) implies the participation of an actor, which in #c is less thematic than the undergoer, but may be coded in an agentive prepositional phrase, while the deagentive excludes the presence of an agent phrase in the clause, thus inviting the inference that the situation happens spontaneously, i.e. without the intervention of an actor. Deagentivization is a valency operation or semantic role operation, passivization is a diathetic or syntactic function operation.
10 “Diathesis is determined as a pattern of mapping of semantic arguments onto syntactic functions (grammatical relations).” (Kulikov 2011: 370)
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These two functional types of argument-structure operations are ultimately subordinate to the cognitive and the communicative functions of language, respectively. They are clearly distinct in principle. However, since coding strategies are typically polyfunctional, a particular argument-structure process may combine a semantic function with a discourse function. And on the basis of some parallelism between the two functions, some of these functional bundles are relatively common, having often made it difficult to disentangle the two types of operations. One case in point, viz. lability, is discussed in § 3.2.2. Moreover, diathetic operations typically involve promotion and demotion; and these are not always easily distinguished from the valency operations of argument introduction and suppression, resp. Specifically, the applicative is not categorially distinct from extraversion (undergoer introduction); and passive and antipassive do not differ sharply from the valency operations of deagentivization and introversion, resp. This problem will be taken up in § 3.3.7. Just as the semantic roles and syntactic functions themselves, linguistic operations on them are conceived at the cross-linguistic semantic level (Table 1, #2). That is, they may be instantiated in several languages in like fashion, but they are typically not instantiated in all languages. It is important to appreciate the trade-off between basic lexicalization of a situation core and the set of operations generating alternants of it (cf. Lehmann 2012): The base verb coding a certain situation core in a language may be an intransitive verb, and this may require an operation of transitivization if more participants of the situation are to be accommodated in central syntactic positions. The basic categorization may appear as firmly given and the operation as a flexible way of getting beyond the default. However, the operations need an operand to operate on; some choice must be made to begin with. What is actually given at a certain stage in the diachrony of a language is a pair of basic lexical categorization and a set of operations to adapt it; and that pair is subject to change. For instance, Latin at some stage antedating the written documentation had an intransitive verb specio ‘look’. It also had the process of preverbation, which had extraversive side effects, thus producing (among other compounds based on this root) aspicio (tr.) ‘look at, see’. Latin itself no longer has the simplex, being left with a set of transitive ‘see’ verbs like aspicio. At this stage, it uses undergoer lability (s. § 3.2.4) in order to get rid of the argument provided in the valency but occasionally not needed. In other words, what is generated by an alternation in one language or at one stage of a language appears as a base form in another language. For the functions of cognition and communication, the choice does not make a big difference. It may, however, be relevant for the linguistic type.
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3.2 Valency operations 3.2.1 Formal relations in alternation Alternations between valency frames may be systematized by a variety of formal criteria. The first criterion concerns the paradigmatic relation between the alternants. The alternation may be 1. symmetric, or undirected 2. asymmetric, i.e. directed in the sense that one alternant is basic, the other is derived from it. The second criterion concerns the coding of the alternation. It may be 1. coded by segmental means a) on the verb b) elsewhere in the clause (i.e., generally on the dependents) 2. not coded by segmental means (i.e. the alternation reduces to presence vs. absence or a different order of constituents). These distinctions will be illustrated by examples in § 3.2.3 ff. First, however, a methodological problem requires some discussion: What is the criterion for directionality of an alternation; in other words, how do we know which of two alternants, if any, is basic and which derived? What we require here are criteria intrinsic to the language system, i.e. we forego both considerations of frequency and customariness and evidence of historical primacy. The general criterion relevant here is markedness of the derived variant. In the clear case, this involves an additional morpheme with an additional semantic (or grammatical) feature as opposed to the base variant. Thus, the German applicative using the be- prefix is a directed coded alternation, where herrschen ‘reign (intr.)’ is the basic, beherrschen ‘dominate (tr.)’ the derived variant, even if the text frequency of the latter is higher than that of the former. Similarly, if an agentive verb displays an alternation between a transitive stem with an undergoer argument and an intransitive stem without it, then this is a case of extraversion if the former is marked (as in 30 below), and one of introversion if the latter is marked (as in 29). No morphological markedness is to be discerned if the alternation is either uncoded or if both alternants are formally equally complex. The following subdivision applies here (cf. Haspelmath 1993, § 2): 1. In both of the alternants, the same verb stem appears; i.e. the alternation is not coded by segmental means on the verb. Depending on the theoretical approach, this is conceived as conversion or category indeterminacy. An important subcase, called lability, is the use of the same verb stem in transitive and intransitive function, as in English break (tr./intr.).11 11 Lability is sometimes called ambitransitivity (e.g. in Mithun 2000). Since lability is the traditional term for use of the same verb stem in both transitive and intransitive constructions, ambitransitiv-
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3.
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Each alternant shows a different verb stem, which are morphologically unrelated. That is a lexical alternation, as in Yucatec Maya took (tr.) ‘burn’ – éel (intr.) ‘burn’. This coding could be called suppletive to the extent that the paradigms in question are productive and regular. In the case at hand, the language has a productive and regular morphological causativization process that could easily apply to éel. Consequently, tóok would be a suppletive agentive (or causative) of éel. Likewise, French montrer ‘show’, a lexical agentive of voir ‘see’, could be called a suppletive agentive since there is a regular process of causativization, so that montrer could be seen as a lexicalization of faire voir ‘make see’. The alternants contain the same verbal base, with each of them bearing some morphological mark. That is an equipollent alternation, as in Jap. atum-aru (intr.) – atum-eru (tr.) ‘gather’.
If none of the alternants bears a morphological mark lacking from the other, it may still be possible to diagnose a directed alternation. Namely, an alternation is directed if one of the alternants is subject to special constraints or carries a certain semantic feature absent from the other; i.e., it is functionally marked. German has some actor-labile verbs (s. § 3.2.3). The criterion just mentioned determines that this alternation is undirected with some verbs, but directed with others. Example (20) illustrates actor lability for rollen ‘roll’. (20) German a. Erna rollte den Reifen auf die Straße. ‘Erna rolled the hoop onto the street.’ b. Der Reifen rollte auf die Straße. ‘The hoop rolled onto the street.’ The difference in the distribution and meaning between the transitive version in #a and the intransitive version in #b reduces to the presence vs. absence of an actor; no constraints on the distribution or other nuances of meaning of either of the versions are involved.12 There does not appear to be a way of determining the direction of the alternation, i.e. to speak of agentivization or deagentivization with respect to German rollen. Example (21a) and (21b) illustrate the same uncoded alternation. The versions #b and #c share the absence of an actor. Here, the version #b without the parenthesized reflexive pronoun carries the semantic nuance of characterizing the subject
ity may be used for a slightly wider concept, viz. use of the same lexeme in both constructions, allowing, thus, for stem alternations (typically appearing as conjugation classes). 12 To be sure, each of the valency alternants of the stem may develop its own polysemy or idiomatic uses. For instance, the intransitive der Verkehr rollt ‘traffic is rolling’ has no transitive counterpart. This would not count as a systematic constraint.
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by a property. The deagentive reflexive construction illustrated by #c does not have this feature and thus relates semantically to #a in the same way as (20b) relates to #a. (21) German a. Erna schloss die Tür. ‘Erna shut the door.’ b. Die Tür schließt (?sich) nicht dicht. ‘The door does not close tightly.’ c. Die Tür schloss ?(sich), und wir waren gefangen. ‘The door closed, and we were caught.’ To the extent that this distributional and semantic difference between the transitive and the intransitive versions of (21a) and (21b) represents a subregularity, the conclusion is that the former is basic, the latter derived. The same criterion would apply in seemingly symmetric diathetic alternations like the English locative shift; s. § 3.3.5. We are not entering into the details of the formal techniques of coding an alternation, or signalling an operation. It suffices to recall that, given that we are talking about the formation of a predicate with its argument frame at the lexical level, relevant structural processes are, in principle, lexical (compounding or derivational) in nature. To the extent that such a process is grammatical (syntactic and/or inflectional) in nature, it comes under diathetic operations (including voice) rather than valency operations.
3.2.2 Types of valency alternations The maximum quantitative valency for which there are dedicated general operations is trivalency. Most plurivalent constructions may be described in terms of three macro-roles, actor, undergoer and indirectus. While the former two have been presupposed throughout (s. Foley & Van Valin 1984), the indirectus needs to be defined (s. Lehmann et al. 2004): It is the macro-role which neutralizes the specific semantic roles of recipient/emitter, addressee, experiencer, beneficiary and sympatheticus and which is typically coded as an indirect object and/or by a case resembling the dative. Since the two most central arguments are mostly coded as actor and undergoer, the indirectus appears typically – although not exclusively – as the third argument of a predicate. The argument in question is prototypically human. If entities lower on the empathy hierarchy take this macro-role, the goal may join the set of semantic roles comprised by it. Typical examples appear below in (38)– (41). While actor and undergoer are universally applicable descriptive concepts, some languages have an indirectus, others do not.
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Tab. 5: Alternations between presence and absence of macro-roles. macro- actor role
undergoer
indirectus
paradigmatic relation
coding on verb
symmetric
none
actor lability
undergoer lability
indirectus lability
lexical
lexical agentive
lexical extraversive
lexical indirectus alternation
equipollent
equipollent agentive
equipollent extraversive
equipollent indirectus alternation
suppression
deagentivization
introversion
indirectus suppression
introduction
agentivization
extraversion
indirectus introduction
asymmetric
Valency operations represent a paradigmatic relationship between two predicate-argument frames which differ in that one comprises a certain argument which the other lacks. The most important of these paradigmatic relations are based on the inclusion of the macro-roles: the frame does or does not involve an actor, an undergoer or an indirectus, resp. Table 5 presents the alternations ordered by the criteria discussed in § 3.2.1. In the first two columns, an intransitive verb alternates with a transitive verb. In the last column, alternation is prototypically between a monotransitive and a ditransitive verb, although exceptions are possible and some will be noted in § 3.2.6.
3.2.3 Actor alternations Most of the situations in Table 3 may be expanded into an agentive situation by an operation that adds an actor, as follows: A complex situation is created whose highest predication is Cause (1, s), where 1 is the actor and s is the base situation. The difference between a basic action-process and an agentive action-process lies in the conceptual separability of the actor and the rest of the situation: While it is not naturally possible to extract the actor from the example predicates given in Table 4, addition of an actor which is separable from the core concept is a natural interpretation of such agentive action-processes as ‘burn’, ‘break’, ‘melt’ (all taken to represent bivalent predicates), shown in Table 6. Nevertheless, the concept of the actor is given with the basic action-process, and it may therefore serve as a model for agentivization. The predicates most amenable to it are probably those that display widespread actor lability, like the ones
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Tab. 6: Types of agentive situation. type
base (Table 3)
constellation
participant properties
roles
example predicates
agentive situation
s
Cause (1, s)
1: individual
1: Ac
cause
agentive change of state
change of state
Cause (1, s) & Change (2) → affect (1, 2)
1: individual 2: concrete
1: Ac 2: U.aff
burn, break, melt (tr.)
transport
uncontrolled motion
Cause (1, Move (2, 3))
1: animate 2: concrete 3: place
1: Ac 2: U.loc 3: L
bring, carry, throw, push
collocation
position
Cause (1, Positioned (2, 3)
1: animate 2: individual 3: place
1: Ac 2: U.loc 3: L
put, seat, lay
transfer
possession
Cause (1, Poss (2, 3))
1: animate 2: concrete 3: animate
1: Ac 2: U.loc 3: R/Em
give, take
manipulation
motion & ac- Cause (1, Move (3, tion-process 2)) & Use (1, 3, s) → Affect (1, 2)
1: human 2: concrete 3: concrete
1: Ac 2: U.aff/ L.Goal 3: I/U.loc
fill, load, sprinkle, stuff; hit (I against U), throw
caused experience
experience
1: human 2: animate 3: concrete
1: Ac 2: Exp 3: U.cd
show, hide
Cause (1, Perceive (2, 3))
Legend: Em – emitter; R – recipient
just mentioned. From there, agentivization may apply to further basic situations to turn them into agentive situations. This generates a large number of additional situation types. Importantly, application of this operation to bivalent situations yields trivalent situations. Table 6 displays some agentive situation types, together with their base as it appears in Table 3. Participants 2 and 3 correspond to #1 and 2, resp., of the base situations. By virtue of the agentivization, the O of the base situation becomes an U, and Pr becomes R/Em. In Table 6, the column ‘control’ is omitted, as participant 1 always controls s. Likewise, the column ‘subtypes’ is unnecessary since these appear in the table lines. Comparison among the situation types reveals the following paradigmatic relations: An agentive change of state differs from a basic action-process (of Table 4) essentially by the separation of the agent from the process. Consequently, the agent may be suppressed from the former, but not from the latter situation type. (The
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agentive change of state is not called causative because it need not be produced by a causative derivation.) Transport is like collocation in requiring U to move with respect to L. It differs minimally from collocation in that the latter involves a resulting position of U at L. Transfer, too, is like collocation in that both require U to move (given that possession requires contact between possessor and possessed, change of possession by default implies locomotion for the possessed). The difference between the two stems from the difference between the respective base situations: the last argument is prototypically a place in position and collocation, but an animate being in possession and transfer. In situations of manipulation, the agent affects (manipulates) one, stationary object by applying another, movable object to it. See § 3.3.5 for alternate conceptions of this constellation. The following alternations relate the situations of Table 6 to those of Table 3: (22) Actor lability (“patientive ambitransitivity” in Mithun (2000)) a. The pot broke. b. Linda broke the pot. (23) Lexical agentive a. Linda died. b. Irvin killed Linda. (24) Jaminjung Equipollent agentive a. ngabulgja=biya yirra-gba=ni wangguwarla-nyunga bathe=seq 1pl.excl-be.pst.pfv=sfoc saltwater-orig ‘we were washing/bathing because of (i.e. to get rid of) the saltwater’ b. ngabulg=gun ba-rra jalig majani hot gan-unggu-m bathe=contr imp-put child maybe hot 3sg.A:3sg.P-say/do-prs ‘bathe her (the child), maybe she is hot (child, in river)’ Example (24) (from ValPaL, Jaminjung, (162) and (23)) shows the adverb carrying the bulk of the meaning of the predicate combined with an intransitive verb in #a, but with a transitive verb in #b, rendering intransitive and transitive ‘bathe’, resp. Given that these verbs are semantically empty like light verbs, they function like valency operators. Deagentivization: This generally involves the anticausative as a morphological operation on a transitive verb, coded by high tone on the root in (3b).
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(3) Yucatec Maya a. t-in ch’am-ah u chuun le che’-o prfv-sbj.1.sg bruise-cmpl poss.3 base def tree-d2 ‘I bruised the trunk of the tree’ (EMB&RMC_0033) b. h ch’áam u chuun le che’-o’ prfv bruise\deag poss.3 base def tree-d2 ‘the trunk of the tree got bruised’ Agentivization: By far the most important subtype of agentivization is causativization, which involves a morphological operation on the base verb, like the suffix in (25b).13 (25) Yucatec Maya a. h he’l-ech prfv rest(cmpl)-abs.2sg ‘you rested’ b. t-in he’-s-ech prfv-sbj.1sg rest-caus(cmpl)-abs.2sg ‘I put you to rest’ However, a hyperonym like agentivization is needed, as there are also nominal strategies thereof, already exemplified by (16) in § 2.4.
3.2.4 Undergoer alternations Some actions and acts are compatible with an undergoer that they extend to. There are, consequently, alternate views of such situations, always with an actor, but with or without an undergoer. For instance, a situation of thinking may primarily be conceived as being based on a solipsistic actor and only secondarily be taken as the basis for an operation of undergoer addition, which in this case may supply Tab. 7: Type of extraversive situation. type
base (Table 3)
constellation
participant properties
roles
example predicates
extraversive action-process
action/act
Do (1, s) & Concern (s, 2)
–
1: Ac 2: U
serve (sb.), sweep (a place)
13 For the sake of simplicity, (25) is presented in a verb status that conditions morphologically ergative alignment.
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the theme that the thinking is devoted to or the proposition effected by it. The semantic operation of adding an undergoer role to an action is called extraversion.14 Like the agentive action-process, it takes the basic action-process as a model and creates derived action-processes. Table 7 shows the internal structure of such situations. The following are examples of the kinds of alternation summarized in the undergoer column of Table 5: (26) Undergoer lability (“agentive ambitransitivity” in Mithun (2000)) a. Linda hunts. b. Linda hunts the bear. (27) Lexical extraversive a. Linda spoke to Irvin. b. Linda said ‘Hello’ to Irvin. (28) Jaminjung Equipollent extraversive a. mayi gambaja ga-yu. man laugh 3sg.s-be.prs ‘The man is laughing.’ b. mayi-ni gambaja gani-mangu janyungbari man-erg laugh 3sg.a:3sg.p-hit.pst.pfv other ‘the man laughed at the other one’ Example (28) (from ValPaL, Jaminjung, (59) and (158)) illustrates the same kind of construction as (24), except that the transitive verb of (28b) does not have a causative, but an extraversive effect. Introversion: In introversion, effectuated in Yucatec Maya by low tone on the root vowel (30b), the undergoer slot is blocked so that there remains no way of mentioning the participant in question in that clause. This distinguishes this alternation from the antipassive, which only demotes the undergoer; s. § 3.3.2. (30) Yucatec Maya a. k-in xok-ik (le analte’-a’) impf-sbj.1sg read-incmpl(abs.3sg) dem book-d1 ‘I read it / this book’
14 In Lehmann & Verhoeven 2006, the term is used as the lexical counterpart to the (supposedly) syntactic operation of the applicative.
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b. k-in xook impf-sbj.1.sg read\introv(incmpl) ‘I read/study’ Extraversion: In extraversion, effectuated in Yucatec Maya by means of an extraversive transitivizing suffix (cf. 30b), a participant of the situation is integrated which is absent from the base predication. This distinguishes extraversion from the applicative, which promotes a clause component to a more central position; s. § 3.3.3. (30) Yucatec Maya a. k-in ts’íib impf-sbj.1.sg write ‘I write’ b. k-in ts’íib-t-ik (le analte’-a’) impf-sbj.1sg write-trr-incmpl(abs.3sg) dem book-d1 ‘I write it/this book’ (31) a. k-in meyah impf-sbj.1sg work ‘I work’ b. k-in meyah-t-ik-ech impf-sbj.1sg work-trr-incmpl-abs.2sg ‘I serve you’ 3.2.5 Relations between actor and undergoer alternations The representation of Table 5 suggests a set of mirror-image relations between the paradigmatic relations and corresponding operations concerning actor and undergoer. One of these may be formulated as follows: Deagentivization undoes the effect of agentivization, just as introversion undoes the effect of extraversion. This symmetry is, in fact, reflected in linguistic structure to a certain extent. For instance, the causative as illustrated in (26) introduces an additional highest agent. This effect is undone by the reflexive appearing in (32b), as this marks coreference of the new argument with the argument already present in the base. The result is near-synonymy of (32a) and (32b). (32) Yucatec Maya a. k’abéet a mas he’l-el necessary sbj.2 more rest-incmpl ‘you must rest more’ b. k’abéet a mas he’-s-ik a báah necessary sbj.2 more rest-caus-incmpl poss.2 self ‘you must get yourself more rest’ (BVS_10.01.09)
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However, this symmetry has limits. The following two subsections deal with the asymmetries between these operations.
3.2.5.1 The agentive – extraversive asymmetry Agentivization and extraversion were introduced in Table 5 as mirror images. Just as agentivization introduces an actor that causes the base situation, so extraversion introduces an undergoer that is concerned by the base situation. This is depicted in Diagram 1: Diagram 1: Agentivization and extraversion. base derived
s / Cause (A, s) agentive
\ Concern (s, U) extraversive
This symmetry extends, to some extent, to the internal composition of s in Diagram 1: Since the causative adds an actor, it applies most easily, and most commonly, to situations which comprise an undergoer, but lack an actor (Lehmann to app., § 2.3). Conversely, since the extraversive adds an undergoer, it applies most easily, and most commonly, to situations which comprise an actor, but lack an undergoer. However, this symmetry concerns only the prototypes. Apart from these, there are essential asymmetries between the two operations as they appear in linguistic structure. What appears, at first sight, as a symmetry, viz. the mirror image relation of the argument structure of the two base situations just mentioned, proves to be an asymmetry on deeper inspection: The presence of an actor presupposes a dynamic situation (with the partial exception of controlled postures), while the presence of an undergoer makes no requirement on the dynamicity of the situation. As a consequence, extraversion of a stative situation is the exception, while agentive alternants may easily be formed from stative situations. Such alternants are, in fact, so basic and widespread that they often differ structurally from causatives based on dynamic situations, a fact which earned them the term ‘factitive’ in descriptive linguistics. While causatives are formed more easily on the basis of situations that lack an actor, nothing in principle excludes agentivization of an active situation. As a result, none of the situation types enumerated in Table 3, Table 4 and Table 6 is in principle immune to agentivization. A productive causativization process may causativize even causative constructions. This is in sharp contrast with the productivity of extraversion: only active situations may be extraverted; and the operation is not recursive.
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The two operations differ also in their structural manifestations: Most languages have a periphrastic causative construction based on a verb which means something like ‘do’ (including ‘make’, ‘cause’ and the like), thus coding pretty much the semantic structure shown on the left-hand side of Diagram 1. Its extraversive mirror image would be a periphrastic applicative construction based on a transitive light verb which means ‘affect’, ‘extend to’, ‘concern’ or the like, thus coding the predicate appearing on the right-hand side of Diagram 1. While such a construction is certainly not unheard of, it is not the default applicative construction; and existent applicative morphology, to the extent that its etymology may be ascertained, is generally not grammaticalized (or lexicalized) from such verbal bases. The semantic role born by the actor introduced by agentivization is essentially unitary: It is the argument that has highest control in the situation; thus, a prototypical agent. This is true whether the base situation already comprises an actor or not. On the other hand, the semantic role born by the undergoer introduced by extraversion varies considerably (Peterson 2007) and depends essentially on the meaning of the predicate and of the undergoer constituent. For instance, in (33b) from Warembori (Lower Mamberamo, Indonesia), the fact that the river serves both as a place and as an instrument in the situation follows exclusively from the meanings of the verb and the undergoer plus world knowledge. The applicative suffix does nothing but transitivize the verb. (33) Warem a. make matin-do (nana ipa-yave). boy wash-ind obl river-def ‘(The) boy is washing (in a/the river).’ b. make matin-na ipa-yave. boy wash-appl river-def ‘(The) boy is washing in the river.’ (Donohue 1999: 9) The picture offered by Diagram 1 thus hides a basic asymmetry: While the additional Ac in a causative construction does bear the prototypical agent role which is appropriately represented by some such predicate as Cause, the role of the additional undergoer in an extraversive construction is not the prototypical patient role (Kittilä 2011: 354) and therefore only characterized rather vaguely by the predicate Concern. Putting it yet another way: agentivization is semantically specific in a way that is compatible with many base situations in essentially the same way, while extraversion is semantically non-specific, gets its specific relational meaning from the context and is yet incompatible with many situation types.
3.2.5.2 The deagentive – introversive asymmetry Again, just as the deagentive blocks the actor argument, the introversive blocks the undergoer argument. And it is true that these two operations are symmetric to
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a certain extent. For instance, quite a few languages use one detransitivizing process to achieve both. The Russian reflexive is a case in point (cf. Kulikov 2011: 376, 382): From the transitive base rugat’ ‘scold’, the reflexive shows an introversive meaning: rugat’sja ‘grumble, curse’; but on the transitive base razrušat’ ‘destroy’, the reflexive razrušat’sja ‘get ruined’ has a deagentive function. Quite generally, given a construction produced by an operation that introduces a certain argument, then that argument cannot be omitted in the construction, since its presence is exactly what that operation conveys. Instead, the obvious way of getting rid of the argument in question is simply not to apply the operation in question. Consequently, there is generally no deagentive of a causative;15 and likewise there is no introversive of an extraversive.16 However, it is not the same transitive verbs that may be deagentivized and introverted. Almost all of the basic action-processes of Table 4 may easily be introverted, but can hardly be deagentivized. Likewise, extraversive action-processes need not be introverted; it suffices to revert to their base; but they cannot easily be deagentivized, either. Conversely, the agentive changes of state of Table 6 are easily deagentivized by reverting to their base, but hardly introverted. In the opposition between agentive and extraversive action-processes, basic action-processes thus side with the extraversive ones. The actor is constitutive for them; if it is eliminated, a different situation (or none at all) results. This may indicate that basic action-processes are not as balanced as assumed in § 2.5 and that instead they are essentially actions that extend to an undergoer.
3.2.6 Indirectus alternations While there are elementary, i.e. undecomposable, monovalent and bivalent predicates, probably all trivalent predications can be decomposed into combinations of bivalent predications. If a non-first argument of a trivalent predicate is high on the empathy hierarchy, it is most probably an indirectus. There are essentially two ways that such a situation may be composed. One is by an expansion of a bivalent situation which demotes one of the basic arguments to indirectus function. For instance, upon agentivization of a possessive situation, we get a transfer situation, whereby the possessor becomes an indirectus. Upon agentivization of an experien-
15 Constructions like (32b) constitute an explicable exception to this, as the actor introduced by causativization is not actually suppressed in the reflexive construction, but rather identified with the undergoer. 16 The latter is, incidentally, the reason why the ‘omission test’ by which Germanists seek to distinguish between complements and adjuncts (hoping that complements are non-omissible) works well for derived transitive verbs such as bearbeiten ‘process’ and the like, but shows nothing for base transitive verbs like jagen ‘hunt’.
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Tab. 8: Indirective situations. type
base (Table 4)
constellation
participant properties
roles
example predicates
indirective situation
s
Do (1, s) & Undergo (2, s) & Indirectly_ Concerned (3, s)
1: animate 2: – 3: animate
1: Ac 2: U 3: Ind
tell, excuse
tial situation, the experiencer remains or becomes an indirectus. Likewise, the goal or recipient of a transport has that macro-role, too. Such cases were subsumed in Table 6 and need not be repeated in Table 8, although some relevant examples will be given below. On the other hand, upon introduction of an undergoer in a bivalent situation that already contains an animate being as second argument, the latter may be demoted to indirectus function. Since these cases involve demotion, they will be reviewed in § 3.3.3 (see 56). One of the most important situations involving an indirectus, viz. communication, will be analyzed separately in § 3.2.7. The other way of expanding a predication by an indirectus is by introducing it without further change, normally in a bivalent situation. This is schematized in Table 8. In what follows, the alternations provided for in the last column of table 5 will be illustrated. Indirectus lability: (34) a. Linda brought the packet. b. Linda brought me the packet. Lexical indirectus alternation: (35) German a. Erna entschuldigte den Lapsus. Erna excused the:acc lapse ‘Erna excused the laps.’ b. Erna verzieh mir den Lapsus. Erna forgave me.dat the:acc lapse ‘Erna forgave me the laps.’ Equipollent indirectus alternation: What is sought here is a pair of derivations of a common base one of which produces a monotransitive stem while the other produces a ditransitive stem, with actor and undergoer kept constant. If the process were anything like regular, the base would probably have to be intransitive. No data corresponding to this construct have been found.
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Indirectus suppression: Most of the processes known in this domain demote rather than suppress the indirectus (see § 3.3.2). However, one of the many functions of the German prefix veris exactly that (although (37) is relatively marginal because the role suppressed is the goal). (36) German a. Erna meldete mir den Erfolg. Erna reported me:dat the:acc success ‘Erna reported the sucess to me.’ b. Erna vermeldete den Erfolg. Erna Valency.Decreaser:reported the:acc success ‘Erna reported the success.’ (37) German a. Erna schüttete die Suppe in die Terrine. Erna poured the soup in the tureen ‘Erna poured the soup in the tureen.’ b. Erna verschüttete die Suppe. Erna Valency.Decreaser:poured the soup ‘Erna spilled the soup.’ Indirectus introduction: In German, one of the functional variants of what is structurally preverbation with zu ‘to’ has this function.17 In the following series, the #a examples contain the base verb, whose valency excludes an indirectus, while the #b examples show the derived verb, whose valency includes an indirectus. (38) German a. dass Erna diese Ausgaben billigte that Erna these expenses approved ‘that Erna approved the expenses’ b. dass Erna mir diese Ausgaben zubilligte that Erna me.dat these expenses conceded ‘that Erna conceded these expenses to me’
17 The same derivational process has several other functions, and even some verbs which show the same valency change as those of the example series may be lexicalized in a completely different meaning, like gestehen ‘confess’ vs. zugestehen ‘concede’.
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(39) German a. dass Erna die Schilder ordnete that Erna the.pl tags ordered ‘that Erna ordered the tags’ b. dass Erna die Schilder den Gästen zuordnete that Erna the.pl tags the:dat.pl guests assigned ‘that Erna assigned the tags to the guests’ (40) German a. dass Erna ‘Hallo’ rief that Erna hello shouted ‘that Erna shouted “hello”’ b. dass Erna mir ‘Hallo’ zurief that Erna me.dat hello to:shouted ‘that Erna shouted “hello” to me’ (41) German a. dass Erna den Ball spielte that Erna the:acc ball played ‘that Erna played the ball’ b. dass Erna mir den Ball zuspielte that Erna me.dat the.acc ball to:played ‘that Erna played the ball to me’ (42) German a. dass Erna arbeitete that Erna worked ‘that Erna worked’ b. dass Erna mir zuarbeitete that Erna me.dat to:worked ‘that Erna did preparatory work for me’ (43) German a. dass Erna blinzelte/zwinkerte that Erna blinked/winked ‘that Erna blinked/winked’ b. dass Erna mir zublinzelte/zuzwinkerte that Erna me.dat winked_at ‘that Erna winked at me’ Indirectus introduction is not to be confused with the applicative derivation: the former creates an actant position for an indirectus, which in several European lan-
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guages including German surfaces as an indirect object, while the latter creates an actant position for an undergoer, which generally amounts to a direct object. The locus of the indirectus is in trivalent verbs, as in (38b)–(41b). In languages which have such a syntactic function and mark it by some dative-like case, an indirectus may even be introduced on an intransitive verb, as shown by (42) and (43). In languages lacking an indirect object, indirectus introduction on intransitive verbs might reduce to an applicative derivation. As implied by its definition (§ 3.2.2), the macro-role of the indirectus is less central in an argument frame than the other two macro-roles, the actor and the undergoer. And since, in the prototypical case, it only appears if these two are already there, it generally corresponds to argument #3 in a frame. A corollary of this is that syntactic functions subsumed under this macro-role are either complements, but less central ones, or they are adjuncts, but the most central ones. Since we are here dealing with valency alternations, the possibility of having adjuncts in one of the indirectus functions (beneficiary or goal) is of little concern here. Suffice it therefore to say that in many languages, the dative (or allative) used to mark the indirect object also marks the beneficiary, as in (44)–(45): (44) German Erna trug mir den Koffer. Erna carried me.dat the:acc suitcase ‘Erna carried the suitcase for me.’ (45) German Erna reparierte mir das Fahrrad. Erna repaired me.dat the bike ‘Erna repaired the bike for me.’ While there is an indirect object in (35b) and (38b)–(43b), there is none in (44)– (45), as proved by the usual tests for actancy: while the adjunct in the latter examples is easily replaced by whatever construction yields the benefactive sense, the complement in the former examples is in the form required by its verb. Moreover, the indirect object in most of (38b)–(43b) is obligatory.
3.2.7 The communication situation The situation of communication has a complicated status in the set of situation types. On the one hand, it is the one situation whose model is omnipresent in language: the speech situation is, of course, the model of this situation type. One might therefore expect it to constitute a basic trivalent situation type. However, as already anticipated, all trivalent situation types can plausibly be generated by
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Tab. 9: Situation of communication. constellation
participant properties
roles
example predicates
Communicate (1, 2,3, 4)
1: human 2: human 3: [ling. object] 4: –
1: 2: 3: 4:
say, tell
Ac (Ad) U.eff (U.cd)
Communicate (1)
1: Ac
talk, sing
Communicate (1, 2)
1: Ac 2: Ad 2: Com
speak to sb. chat with sb.
Communicate (1, 3)
1: Ac 3: U.eff
utter, say sth.
Communicate (1, 2, 3)
shout sth. at sb.; tell sb. sth., order, promise
Communicate (1, 2, 4)
talk with sb. about sth., ask sb. for sth.
expansion of a bivalent situation. This is true for the communication situation, too. And similarly to the manipulative situation type (§ 3.2.3), there is more than one way of composing a situation of communication. A situation of communication may be analyzed as shown in Table 9 (cf. Van Valin & LaPolla 1997, ch. 3.2.3.1). Communicate (1, 2, 3, 4) involves the following participants: 1 is the active communicator, 2 (Ad = addressee, Com = comitative) is the interlocutor, 3 is the message uttered by 1, and 4 is the topic of communication. 1 and 2 are prototypically human beings, 3 is a linguistic object which may either be quoted or characterized, and 4 may be anything. Some of the semantic roles follow from this constellation: 1 = Ac; 2 may be an Ad and, thus, an indirectus; 3 is an effected undergoer; and 4 may get the undergoer macro-role if that has not yet been assigned. All four participants are present in (46). (46) Linda said nothing to Bill about the matter. Now the various predicates of communication differ by the selection they make from among this maximum scenario. Some important constellations are enumerated in Table 9 and illustrated in the last column by English constructions instead of verbs from other languages whose valency is actually confined to the respective frame. For instance, the verbs meaning ‘say’ in Hoocąk, Indonesian and Ojibwe are just bivalent, illustrating the frame Communicate (1, 3). The basic verb rendering ‘talk’ instantiates the pattern Communicate (1, 4) in Ainu, Balinese, Chintang, and Sliammon, but the pattern Communicate (1, 2) in Bezhta, among others.
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Although most predications representing a situation of communication are only partial renditions in that sense, they are often composed from even simpler predications. A few examples from the wide cross-linguistic variation may be mentioned. In (47) (ValPaL Database Ainu, (101)), the predication Communicate (1, 2, 3) is conceptualized as Cause (1, Perceive (2, 3)); thus, like the caused experience of Table 6. (47) Ainu sinrit oruspe an=e=nu-re na ancestor story ind.a=2sg.o=hear-caus fin ‘I will tell you the story of the ancestors’ Similarly in (48) (ValPaL Indonesian, (114)), ‘tell sb. sth.’ is conceptualized as ‘give sb. sth. to know’: (48) Indonesian Erni kasi-tahu Tom rencana outing Erni give-know Tom plan outing ‘Erni told Tom the plan for the outing’ Here the addressee is plainly conceived on the model of the recipient and, thus, an indirectus.
3.3 Diathetic operations Diathetic operations change the functions of the dependents of the verb much like valency operations (or semantic role operations) do. The difference is that valency operations affect the semantic roles carried by these syntactic components, while diathetic operations only change their information status. Their main purpose is to give a certain syntactic component that syntactic function that best suits its information status. By definition, if the members of an argument-structure alternation provide for the syntactic representation of a different number of arguments, it is a valency alternation.
3.3.1 The hierarchy of syntactic functions The paradigmatic relation between two diatheses of a given predication is commonly conceived in terms of operations of promotion and demotion. These refer to a hierarchy of syntactic functions which is displayed in Diagram 2. They involve additional argument functions beyond the actor, undergoer and indirectus which are the object of valency operations. That is because one of these may be demoted
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Diagram 2: Hierarchy of adverbal syntactic functions. subject
absolutive
direct object
| primary object
indirect object
| secondary object
ergative
other complement adjunct
to a lower position on the hierarchy, or may be the goal of a promotion from a lower position on the hierarchy. This concerns, specifically, local, beneficiary and similar adjuncts. The hierarchy of syntactic functions plays an important role in many fields of syntax. In independent declarative sentences, it mainly reflects the thematicity of the nominal expressions occupying its levels.18 The principle is: the more thematic a verbal dependent is, the higher the function assigned to it on Diagram 2. Syntactic functions have little semantic import taken by themselves. The higher up a syntactic function is in the syntactic function hierarchy, the emptier it is semantically. In particular, the subject function by itself in most languages including English does not code the actor role, since there is a subject in the passive construction that is transparent to the undergoer role. The opposition (paradigmatic contrast) among syntactic functions represented by Diagram 2 pertains more to their discourse function. The little semantic potential that is associated with syntactic functions stems from the fact that many verb roots pair the same structural valency frame with the same semantic role frame, so that this set may serve as a model exerting a certain analogical attraction. The semantic role potential of a syntactic function may therefore remain latent and become relevant only in syntagmatic contrast. For instance, although the subject by itself does not code actor function, in the transitivity schema, its referent is ascribed the highest control in a situation (s. Hopper & Thompson 1980), since there the subject contrasts with the direct object. The latter’s semantic potential is itself weak enough, but in the transitivity schema, the direct object is the undergoer, so that the actor role remains for the subject. Similarly the indirect object in languages such as Latin and German by itself means very little. Its semantic potential remains mostly latent even in bivalent frames such as (49a) and (50a).
18 Roughly, a referent is more thematic the shorter the distance from its last mention and the denser the frequency of its mentions in comparison with other referents in the preceding discourse (Givón (ed.) 1983).
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(49) German a. Erna folgte dem Einbrecher. ‘Erna followed the burglar.’ b. Erna verfolgte den Einbrecher. ‘Erna pursued the burglar.’ (50) German a. Erna folgte Erwins Rat. ‘Erna followed Irvin’s advice.’ b. Erna befolgte Erwins Rat. ‘Erna adhered to Irvin’s advice.’ However, in (49b) and (50b), the dependent in question has been promoted to direct object function by a derivational process that marks this promotion (s. § 3.3.3). It is chiefly by the paradigmatic contrast between transitive #b versions and the intransitive #a versions that we perceive a stronger control cline in the former than in the latter, the agent being more exclusively focused on the patient. Just as in the case of valency operations (§ 3.2.1), the direction of an operation of promotion or demotion is determined by markedness. Roughly, the variant that involves more grammatical formatives is the derived one, and it constitutes the target of a promotive or demotive operation. If no difference in markedness is to be discerned, then no directed operation can be diagnosed. (51) a. Linda outwitted Irvin. b. Irvin was outwitted by Linda. (52) a. Linda loaded the wagon with hay. b. Linda loaded hay on the wagon. Thus, in (51), the passive is clearly marked against the active by an additional auxiliary and an additional preposition. Therefore the active is basic and the passive is derived; and consequently we speak of passivization rather than of activization. Conversely in (52), no difference between the two versions in terms of structural complexity can be discerned, and it is therefore not possible to know which of them is basic.19
19 The question of directionality poses itself in a different way for diathetic operations than for valency operations as discussed in § 3.2.1. Since the function of a diathetic operation is getting a certain referent into a certain discourse position, semantic effects such as those mentioned in § 3.2.1 cannot be relied on as a criterion. There may still be distributional differences in the sense that one diathesis has a restricted distribution and can be considered as less basic, as shown in § 3.3.5.
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In English, the passive promotes a nominal constituent from any position on Diagram 2 up to the highest level, at the same time demoting the nominal constituent that was there. Since this is a bipartite operation, its function may be either to get the promoted referent into the position that corresponds to its thematicity or else to move out of the thematic chain the argument that would occupy the subject position in the active version. Similarly, the antipassive promotes the actor to the highest position on Diagram 2 while at the same time demoting the undergoer so that it gets out of the way. Eliminating a referent from the thematic thread is a negative step with two facets: either that referent is not mentioned at all, or else it is mentioned, but in the rhematic part of the sentence. In the first case, we have a passive or antipassive construction with only the subject or absolutive, resp.; in the second case, the passive actor or antipassive undergoer appear in an adjunct. Similarly, applicativization promotes an argument to direct object position, thus allowing it to function as secondary topic. If the base is already transitive, this entails demotion of the less thematic noun phrase occupying the direct object position. Just as in the former case, this is an ambivalent operation, as it may entail either omission of that argument or, on the contrary, its appearance in an adjunct with rhematic function. If an operation of demotion frees a position high on the syntactic function hierarchy, the grammar of the language may require that position to be occupied, so that the demotion triggers a promotion. That is true of the passive in most languages, where demotion of the subject is accompanied by promotion of the erstwhile direct object to subject function. Similarly, if an operation of promotion targets a position on the hierarchy already occupied by another actant, it will normally oust the latter from that position so that it is demoted. That is, for instance, true of the applicative, which may be applicable to transitive bases; but then the erstwhile direct object has to vacate its position and take a lower one. From the point of view of the result, such operations may appear to be operations of rearrangement, which make two verbal dependents swap their places. We will assume, instead, that every diathetic operation has either a promotive or a demotive function, and that any further rearragements are just side effects conditioned by general constraints of the grammar. In what follows, only a few diathetic operations will be briefly illustrated, for the sole purpose of delimiting valency operations against them.
3.3.2 Antipassive The antipassive is the diathetic counterpart to the valency operation of introversion. If the direct object affected by the operation is not suppressed, but demoted, it is antipassivization rather than introversion.
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(53) Waris a. ti he-v tree chop-prs ‘chop down a tree’ b. ti-m he-the-v tree-dat chop-intr-prs ‘chop on a tree’ (Foley 1986: 109) Example (53b) shows antipassivization, with accompanying demotion of the undergoer from direct object to indirect object, indicating lack of a complete change of state.
3.3.3 Applicative The applicative is the diathetic counterpart to the valency operation of extraversion. Whenever the alternation between two syntactic constructions one of which comprises a direct object which the other lacks does not affect the semantic roles and may instead be described by a rule of syntax, it is applicativization rather than extraversion. In that case, any direct object already present in the base version is not suppressed, but demoted. Example (54) illustrates the German be- applicative, (55) the Yucatec -t applicative. (54) German a. Erna denkt (an ihre Aufgabe). Erna thinks at her task ‘Erna thinks at her task.’ b. Erna bedenkt ihre Aufgabe. Erna appl:thinks her task ‘Erna thinks about her task.’ (55) Yucatec Maya a. h áalkab-nah-en t-u beel-il in kool prv run-cmpl-abs.1.sg loc-poss.3 way-rel poss.1.sg milpa ‘I ran on the way to my milpa (field)’ b. t-in wáalkab-t-ah u beel-il in kool prv-sbj.1.sg run-trr-cmpl poss.3 way-rel poss.1.sg milpa ‘I ran the way to my milpa’ (avc_0003/4) As anticipated in § 3.1, a given structural process may have a purely diathetic function in some cases, but may, in addition, change the semantic roles in other cases.
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Thus, the Yucatec -t transitivization is applicativization in (55b), but extraversion in (30)–(31). In some cases, the applicative and the causative are alternative means of expanding a bivalent predicate into a trivalent one. This is shown in (56) (from ValPaL Database Balinese, (75) and (44)): (56) Balinese a. anak=e luh ento ngisin-ang yeh ke lumure=e ento person=def female that fill-caus water to glass=def that lit. ‘the girl filled water into the glass’ b. anak=e luh ento ngisin-in lumure=e ento aji yeh person=def female that fill-appl glass=def that with water ‘the girl filled the glass with water’ Visibly, the causative derivation of the base has the instrument of the manipulation predicate (the liquid, in this case) in direct object function, while the applicative promotes the affected object (the container) to direct object function.
3.3.4 Indirectus demotion The same structural process that was seen in § 3.2.6 to suppress the indirectus with some verbs demotes it with others. This is shown in the series (57)–(59). (57) German a. dass Erna uns die Preise gab that Erna us the awards gave ‘that Erna gave us the awards’ b. dass Erna die Preise (an uns) vergab that Erna the awards at us gave_away ‘that Erna gave the awards to us’ (58) German a. dass Erna uns die Briefe sandte that Erna us the.pl letters sent ‘that Erna sent us the letters’ b. dass Erna die Briefe (an uns) versandte that Erna the.pl letters at us sent_out ‘that Erna sent the letters to us’
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(59) German a. dass Erna uns das Buch lieh that Erna us the book lent ‘that Erna lent us the book’ b. dass Erna das Buch (an uns) verlieh that Erna the book at us lent_out ‘that Erna lent the books to us’ The indirect object is part of the valency of the simplex in the #a versions, but at most adjoinable by a preposition in the derived #b version. The prefix might be glossed as a valency decreaser as before. However, it is not clear that the former indirectus falls out of verbal valency, since the preposition an is not replaceable by any other one and consequently appears to be valency-governed.
3.3.5 Locative shift Manipulation (§ 3.2.3) is a particularly complex situation type. It involves three participants whose mutual relationships allow for two alternate conceptions of this situation type: 1. Manipulate (1, 2, 3) is an action-process in which 1 manipulates 2. The kind of treatment is such that it necessarily involves another object 3 which 1 uses as an instrument and which, by the manipulation, comes into contact with 2. For instance, ‘1 fills 2 with 3’ may be decomposed into s: Cause (1, Become (Full (2))) & Use (1, 3, s). Consequently, 1 = Ac, 2 = U.aff and 3 = I. 2. Manipulate (1, 2, 3) is a kind of transport in which 1 causes 3 to move to 2. This conception is in consonance with the fact that 3 typically (though not in the case of ‘hit’ and ‘throw’) remains with 2. For instance, ‘1 fills 3 into 2’ (as in E56.a) may be decomposed into Cause (1, Move (3, 2) & Become (Full (2))). Consequently, 1 = Ac, 2 = L.Goal and 3 = U.loc. As may be seen, the two conceptions differ in the assignment of argument positions to participants 2 and 3: In the first conception, 2 is U, whereas in the second conception, 3 is U. In either case, U becomes direct object in English, whereas the other argument is demoted to an adjunct function in which its particular role – instrument or goal, resp. – may be coded. In the first conception, the use of an instrument is intrinsic in the concept of the treatment, and often a verb of this semantic class involves a specific kind of instrument as a semantic feature, like sprinkle involves some kind of liquid. On occasions when the nature of the instrument used is not specified beyond what is implied by the lexical meaning, the instrument need not be exteriorized (s. § 2.1), so that a bivalent predication Manipulate (1, 2) results, like sprinkle the lawn. This
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is another example of selection among the participants involved in a situation for representation in an argument frame. Thus, the double nature of manipulation is the precondition for variation concerning predicates of manipulation both across languages and within a language: On the one hand, such situations are converted, in different languages, into bivalent predicates of different argument structure. On the other hand, predicates of this class participate in peculiar valency alternations, among them the English locative shift and the alternation, seen in (56) above, between a causative and an applicative construction of the same base. Example (60) and (61) illustrate locative shift in English and German: (60) a. Linda stuffed the chicken with onions. b. Linda stuffed onions into the chicken. (61) German a. Erna schmierte die Achse mit Fett. Erna smeared the axle with grease ‘Erna smeeared the axle with grease.’ b. Erna schmierte Fett an die Achse. Erna smeared grease at the axle ‘Erna smeared grease on the axle.’ The argument frame of manipulation that allows this alternation was introduced in § 3.2.3: Apart from the actor, there is an affected undergoer which may alternatively be conceived as a goal, and there is an instrument that may also be conceived as a locomoted undergoer. Apparently, these two verbal dependents swap their syntactic functions. However, as said above, the notion of an object that serves as an instrument in the manipulation is intrinsic in the lexical meaning of such verbs. Consequently, it may easily be omitted, as in (62a) and (63a), while omitting the goal in the #b versions leads to unacceptibility.20 (62) a. Linda stuffed the chicken. b. *Linda stuffed onions. (63) German a. Erna schmierte die Achse. ‘Erna smeared the axle.’ b. *Erna schmierte Fett. ‘*Erna smeared grease.’
20 By such omission tests, English verbs undergoing locative shift are assigned to different subclasses in Goldberg 1995: 176–178.
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This is, thus, not a symmetric alternation. Instead, it appears that the instrumental role of the movable participant is basic, so it cannot be rendered as in the #b sentences. By this criterion, the alternants of (60a) and (61a), which code this participant as an instrumental argument, are taken to be basic. The #b versions are derived by applicativization of that instrumental argument. As a side effect, the affected undergoer is demoted and adjoined by a semantically appropriate preposition.
3.3.6 Indirect participation Example (64)–(65) (from ValPaL Database Eastern Armenian, (26), (25), (100), (97)) and (66) display an alternation which has been dubbed ‘indirect participation’ in Lehmann et al. (2004). (64) Armenian a. aʁǯik-ə makʰɾ-ecʰ seʁan-icʰ pʰoši-n girl-def remove-aor.3sg table-abl dirt-def ‘the girl wiped the dirt from the table’ b. aʁǯik-ə makʰɾ-ecʰ seʁan-i pʰoši-n girl-def remove-aor.3sg table-gen dirt-def ‘the girl wiped the dirt from the table’ (65) Armenian a. tʁa-n pʰajt-icʰ keʁev-ə klp-ecʰ boy-def stick-abl crust-def peel-aor.3sg ‘the boy peeled the bark off the stick’ b. tʁa-n klp-ecʰ pʰajt-i keʁev-ə boy-def peel-aor.3sg stick-gen crust-def ‘the boy peeled the bark off the stick’ (66) Yucatec Maya a. ts’a’-b nook’ ti’ give-cmpl.pass dress loc(3.sg) ‘he was given a dress’ b. ts’a’-b u nook’ give-cmpl.pass poss.3 dress ‘he was given a dress’ (HK’AN 0040.1) The alternation concerns situations with three participants, an actor, an undergoer and another participant which may have any semantic role except undergoer. This
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third participant appears in a local role in (64a) and (65a) and in recipient role in (66a). The alternants of the #b versions involve possessive constructions, with the participant in question in syntactic possessor function. This construction is quite natural if the participant in question is, in fact, the possessor of the undergoer. This semantic condition is not fulfilled in (64) and (65). In (66), he will be the possessor of the transferred object. Example (66b) is nevertheless the version that appears in the corpus. The alternation is peculiar in that a verbal construction alternates with a nominal construction.
3.3.7 Valency and diathetic operations Although valency operations and diathetic operations have little in common in functional terms, they both affect the presence and syntactic function of nominal components of a clause. The following parallelisms obtain: Deagentivization suppresses the actor, and passivization demotes it so that it may as well be absent. In an accusative language, both operations tend to entail promotion of the undergoer to subject function. Similarly, introversion suppresses the undergoer, and antipassivization demotes it so that it may as well be absent. In an ergative language, both operations tend to entail promotion of the actor to absolutive function. Finally, both extraversion and applicativization imply introducing a direct object, the sole difference being that in applicativization, that argument is promoted to that position from a lower position on Diagram 2, while in extraversion it comes out of the blue. Again, the latter criterion does not establish a categorial distinction. Because of this parallelism, many languages do not distinguish formally between deagentivization and passivization, or between introversion and antipassivization, or between extraversion and applicativization. For instance, a language may have a single operation of promoting the direct object to subject function while omitting the basic subject, and depending on contextual factors, the construction may sometimes have a passive reading and sometimes a deagentive reading. That is, for instance, the case with the Latin passive. The passive voice appearing in (67) is translated as deagentive. However, if an agent phrase like a deo ‘by god’ were added, (67) could only be a passive construction. (67) Latin et verbum caro factum est and word:nom.sg flesh:nom.sg make:part.perf:nom.sg is ‘and the word became flesh’ (Angelus prayer) By the same token, it is often methodologically not easy to tell valency operations and diathetic operations apart. In particular, if a diathesis leaves the number of
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arguments represented intact, this does not entail that it has a pure discourse function. For instance, applicativization affords higher thematicity for the newly introduced direct object. However, given the control cline regularly associated with the transitive construction, it may also be relevant in applicativization, with the consequence that the argument in question is more intensely affected by the situation. Then the operation is, at the same time, a semantic and a diathetic operation.21
4. Conclusion 1.
The valency of a linguistic sign is the union set of the actant positions that it provides, including the grammatical constraints associated with them. 2. The structural basis of valency is the necessity to provide structural relations among components of a verbal construction. However, such relations may also be provided by adjunction (adverbial modification). 3. Verbal valency has its functional basis in the argument frame rendering a situation core. However, the argument frame of a predicate is not given a priori, but subject to conceptual operations. 4. Participants that are part of the conceptual structure may not be assigned a semantic role and, thus, not be coded. 5. Valency frames have their functional basis in recurrent types of situations. Elementary situations are conceived holistically, and central semantic roles are based on such elementary situations. 6. Valency frames are manipulated not only by valency operations, but also by diathetic operations.
Abbreviations CMPL CONN D1 D2 DEAG INCMPL TRR SEQ SFOC
completive status connective proximal deictic medial deictic deagentive incompletive status transitivizer sequential sentence focus
21 In Yup’ik (Mithun 2000), a benefactive adjunct may be promoted to subject by causativization just in order to guarantee subject continuity, with no causation being involved semantically.
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References Chafe, Wallace L. 1970, Meaning and the Structure of Language. Chicago & London: Chicago University Press. Donohue, Mark. 1999. Warembori. München & Newcastle: Lincom Europa. Faulhaber, Susen. 2011. Verb Valency Patterns. A Challenge for Semantics-Based Accounts (Topics in English Linguistics 71). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Fillmore, Charles J. 1968. The case for case. In Emmon Bach & Robert T. Harms (eds.), Universals in Linguistic Theory, 1–88. New York etc.: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Fillmore, Charles J. 2003. Valency and semantic roles: the concept of deep structure case. In Vilmos Ágel et al. (eds.), Dependenz und Valenz. Ein internationales Handbuch der zeitgenössischen Forschung (Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft 25.1), 457–475. Berlin: W. de Gruyter. Foley, William A. 1986. The Papuan Languages of New Guinea (Cambridge Language Surveys). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Foley, William A. & Robert D. Van Valin, Jr. 1984. Functional Syntax and Universal Grammar (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 38). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Givón, Talmy (ed.). 1983. Topic Continuity in Discourse. A Quantitative Cross-Language Study (Typological Studies in Language 3). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: J. Benjamins. Goldberg, Adele E. 1995. Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Haspelmath, Martin. 1993. More on the typology of inchoative/causative verb alternations. In Bernard Comrie & Maria Polinsky (eds.), Causatives and Transitivity (Studies in Language Companion Series 23), 87–120. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: J. Benjamins. Hopper, Paul J. & Thompson, Sandra A. 1980, Transitivity in grammar and discourse. Language 56. 251–299. Jespersen, Otto. 1924. The Philosophy of Grammar. London: G. Allen & Unwin; New York: H. Holt & Co. Kittilä, Seppo. 2011. Transitivity typology. In Jae Jung Song (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Typology, 346–367. Oxford etc.: Oxford University Press. Kulikov, Leonid. 2011. Voice typology. In Jae Jung Song (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Typology, 368–398. Oxford etc.: Oxford University Press. Lazard, Gilbert. 1998. Actancy (Empirical Approaches to Language Typology 19). Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Lehmann, Christian. 1991. Predicate classes and participation. In H. Seiler & W. Premper (eds.), Partizipation. Das sprachliche Erfassen von Sachverhalten (LUS 6), 183–239. Tübingen: G. Narr. Lehmann, Christian. 1992. Valenz. In Susanne R. Anschütz (ed.), Texte, Sätze, Wörter und Moneme. Festschrift für Klaus Heger zum 65. Geburtstag, 435–454. Heidelberg: Heidelberger Orientverlag. Lehmann, Christian. 2006. Participant roles, thematic roles and syntactic relations. In Tasaku Tsunoda & Taro Kageyama (eds.), Voice and Grammatical Relations. In Honor of Masayoshi Shibatani (Typological Studies in Language 65), 167–190. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: J. Benjamins. Lehmann, Christian. 2012. Converse categorization strategies. In Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm & Martine Vanhove (eds.), New Directions in Lexical Typology, 467–494. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Lehmann, Christian. to appear. Latin causativization in typological perspective. In Muriel Lenoble & Dominique Longrée (eds.), Actes du 13ème Colloque International de Linguistique Latine. Louvain: Peeters.
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Lehmann, Christian, Yong-Min Shin & Elisabeth Verhoeven. 2004. Direkte und indirekte Partizipation. Zur Typologie der sprachlichen Repräsentation konzeptueller Relationen (ASSidUE 13). 2 nd edn. Erfurt: Seminar für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität. Lehmann, Christian & Elisabeth Verhoeven. 2006. Extraversive transitivization in Yucatec Maya and the nature of the applicative. In Leonid Kulikov, Andrej Malchukov & Peter de Swart (eds.), Case, Valency and Transitivity (Studies in Language Companion Series 77), 465–493. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: J. Benjamins. Levin, Beth. 1993. English Verb Classes and Alternations. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Mithun, Marianne. 2000. Valency-changing derivation in Central Alaskan Yup’ik. In Robert M. W. Dixon & Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald (eds.), Changing Valency. Case Studies in Transitivity, 84– 114. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Peterson, David A. 2007. Applicative Constructions (Oxford Studies in Typology and Linguistic Theory). Oxford etc.: Oxford University Press. Rappaport, Malka, Mary Laughren & Beth Levin. 1993. Levels of lexical representation. In James Pustejovsky (ed.), Semantics and the Lexicon, 37–54. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Schank, Roger C. & Robert P. Abelson. 1977. Scripts, Plans, Goals and Understanding. An Inquiry into Human Knowledge Structures. Hillsdale, NJ: L. Erlbaum. Van Valin, Jr., Robert D. & Randy LaPolla. 1997. Syntax. Structure, Meaning, and Function. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tasaku Tsunoda
38 The hierarchy of two-place predicates: its limitations and uses 1 Introduction From the 1970s to the 1980s I proposed a classification of predicates, in various versions. The latest version is shown in Table 1, repeated from Tsunoda (1985: 388). This will be referred to as the hierarchy of two-place predicates (“HTPP”). Very roughly speaking, the HTPP expresses the degree of affectedness of an undergoer (Foley and Van Valin 1984: 28–32) in a broad sense, such as a patient, stimulus, or possessee. Specifically, the undergoer is affected at the left end of the HTPP, but it tends to be less and less affected as we move towards the right end. The HTPP is reflected in various areas of grammar, such as word classes, casemarking, and voice. In retrospect, the HTPP concerns “Affectedness of O [i.e. undergoer ‒ TT]”, i.e. one of the ten parameters of transitivity that Hopper & Thompson (1980: 252) propose. Specifically, the HTPP indicates the cline of transitivity regarding the affectedness of the undergoer. Hopper & Thompson (1980) provide an array of morphosyntactic manifestations of the ten parameters; however, they do not examine various predicate types in relation to transitivity. The HTPP has not been modified since 1985, and as far as the HTPP itself is concerned, the present paper has nothing to add. This paper mainly aims to note the limitations of the HTPP and also to show that, despite the limitations, the HTPP has proven to be useful ‒ though to a limited degree. The present paper is organized as follows. Section 2 outlines the HTPP. Section 3 discusses the limitations of the HTPP and also the modification of the HTPP proposed by Andrej Malchukov. Section 4 illustrates the (limited) uses of the HTPP. Section 5 concludes the paper.
1A Resultative
kill, break, bend
Subtype
Examples
hit, shoot, kick
1B Nonresultative
Direct effect on patient
Meaning
Examples
1
Type
see, hear, find
2A Patient more attained
Perception
2
Tab. 1: Hierarchy of two-place predicates (Tsunoda 1985: 388).
look, listen
2B Patient less attained
search, wait, await
Pursuit
3
know, understand, remember, forget
Knowledge
4
love, like, want, need, fond, fear, afraid, angry, proud, boast
Feeling
5
possess, have, lack, lacking, resemble, similar, correspond, consist
Relationship
6
capable, proficient, good
Ability
7
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2 The hierarchy of two-place predicates 2.1 The development of the hierarchy From 1971 to 1974, I conducted fieldwork on Warrungu (also spelled “Warungu”, and now spelled “Warrongo”), a so-called ergative language of northeast Australia. The main outcome of this fieldwork was my M.A. thesis (Tsunoda 1974) and a newly written Warrongo grammar (Tsunoda 2011). Around 1977, while I was working on Djaru of northwest Australia, another “ergative language”, I realized that “there are certain correlations between the semantic natures of verb (complexe)s [sic] and the case frame(s) they take” (Tsunoda 1978: 101; see 4.1.4 for verb complexes of Djaru.) On the basis of (i) my own data on Warrongo and on Djaru, and (ii) the information that was gleaned from several published sources, I included “Table 4.3 Case Frames in Seven Ergative Languages” in my Ph.D. thesis (Tsunoda 1978: 101), repeated in the present paper as Table 2. It deals with the following languages: Avar, Dargva, Inguš, Eskimo, Basque, Warrungu, and Djaru. Information was not available for every verb under examination. Tsunoda (1981a: 99), the published version of Tsunoda (1978), contains the same table ‒ except that (i) Inguš has been deleted from the table and (ii) more information has been obtained on Avar, Dargva, Eskimo, and Basque. An asterisk indicates that the verb concerned will almost certainly take the case frame indicated, although there is no actual example of this particular verb in the source. In Table 2, the case label of ‘go’ (i.e. ABS) refers to the sole participant of going. In Tables 2 to 6 and in Table 9, in the case labels for two-place predicates, the one on the left refers to an actor (Foley & Van Valin 1984: 28–32) in a broad sense, such as an agent, experiencer, or possessor, while that on the right expresses an undergoer (Foley & Van Valin 1984: 28–32) in a broad sense, such as a patient, stimulus, or possessee. For example, the case frame of a two-place predicate may stand for “agent-patient”, “experiencer-stimulus”, or “possessor-possessee”. Tab. 2: Case frames in seven [sic] ergative languages (Tsunoda 1981a: 99). ‘kill’
‘see’, ‘hear’
‘possess’
‘love’
Avar
ERG-ABS
LOC-ABS
GEN-ABS
DAT-ABS
ABS*
Dargva
ERG-ABS
ERG-ABS
DAT-ABS
ABS*
Eskimo
ERG-ABS
ERG-ABS ALL-ABS (?)
ERG-ABS
ERG-ABS
‘search’, ‘wait’
ERG-ABS
‘go’
ABS*
Basque
ERG-ABS
ERG-ABS
ERG-ABS
ERG-ABS
ERG-ABS
ABS
Warungu
ERG-ABS
ERG-ABS
ERG-ABS
ABS-DAT
ERG-ABS ABS-DAT
ABS
Djaru
ERG-ABS
ERG-ABS
ERG-ABS
ERG-ABS ABS-DAT
ERG-DAT ABS-DAT
ABS
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Tab. 3: Verb-type hierarchy (Tsunoda 1981b: 395). Type
1
2
3
4
Meaning
direct effect
perception
pursuit
knowledge feeling possession
see, look, hear, listen, smell
search
know, understand, remember, forget
Examples kill, break, hit, shoot
Subtype
1a
Examples kill, break
1b
2a
2b
hit, shoot
see
look
5
love, like, want, need
6
possess
The hierarchy was modified and published in Tsunoda (1981b: 395) under the title of the “Verb-type hierarchy”. This is shown in Table 3 (repeated from Tsunoda 1981b: 395). Four years later, the hierarchy was further modified and published in Tsunoda (1985: 388); see Table 1 above. It differs from Table 3 (repeated from Tsunoda 1981b: 395) mainly in that it contains an additional type: Type 7 “Ability”, e.g. ‘capable’, ‘proficient’, ‘good’. The table has not been modified since 1985, and it is the latest version. The table in Tsunoda (1978: 101) and that in Tsunoda (1981a: 99) (i.e. Table 2 above) contain a one-place verb (i.e. ‘go’) as well as two-place verbs. In contrast, the table in Tsunoda (1981b: 395) (i.e. Table 3 above) and that in Tsunoda (1985: 388) (i.e. Table 1 above) deal with two-place verbs, and they do not look at one-place verbs. None of these tables are concerned with three-place verbs. In Table 1 (and also Table 3), Type 1 “Direct effect on patient” (i.e. undergoer) is divided into two subtypes: Subtype 1A “Resultative”, e.g. ‘kill’, ‘break’, ‘bend’, and Subtype 1B “Non-resultative”, e.g. ‘hit’, ‘shoot’, ‘kick’. Similarly, Type 2 “Perception” is divided into two subtypes: Subtype 2a “Patient (i.e. undergoer) more attained”, e.g. ‘see’, ‘hear’, ‘find’, and Subtype 2b “Patient (i.e. undergoer) less attained”, e.g. ‘look’, ‘listen’. A detailed discussion of these subdivisions will be given in 2.2. The HTPP is semantically based. Nonetheless it is reflected in various areas in the grammar of various languages, such as word classes, case-marking, and voice, among other areas. We shall look at the HTPP in some detail: semantics (2.2), prototypical transitive verbs (2.3), word classes (2.4), case-marking (2.5), and voice (2.6). These sections are based on Tsunoda (1981b, 1985).
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2.2 Semantics Very roughly speaking, the HTPP expresses the degree of affectedness of the undergoer. Specifically, the undergoer is affected at the left end of the HTPP, but it tends to be less and less affected as we move towards the right end. Thus, the undergoer is more affected in Type 1 “Direct effect on patient” (i.e. undergoer) (where an action actually impinges on it) than in Type 2 “Perception”. But comparatively speaking, the undergoer in Type 2 (where it is at least perceived) is more affected than that in Type 3 “Pursuit” (where it is never perceived). And so on. Similarly, at the right end of the HTPP, the undergoer in Type 6 “Relationship” can be regarded as more affected than that in Type 7 “Ability”. Type 6 describes actual states, where the undergoer is really involved ‒ though very loosely ‒ whereas Type 7 merely describes possibilities, where the undergoer is only potentially involved. This is similar for the subtypes of a given type. Thus, regarding Type 1, the action necessarily causes a change in the undergoer in Subtype 1A “Resultative”, e.g. ‘kill’, ‘break’, ‘bend’, but this is not the case in Subtype 1B “Non-resultative”, e.g. ‘hit’, ‘shoot’, ‘kick’. (It seems that, very roughly speaking, Subtype 1A “Resultative” corresponds to Fillmore’s (1970: 125) “change-of-state” verbs, and Subtype 1B “Non-resultative” to his “surface-contact” verbs.) Similarly in Type 2 “Perception”, the undergoer of, say, ‘see’, ‘to form a complete visual image’ (Catford 1975: 34) (Subtype 2A “Patient (i.e. undergoer) more attained”) is more affected than that of ‘look’ (Subtype 2B “Patient (i.e. undergoer) less attained”). It is interesting to note that The Australian Pocket Oxford Dictionary (1976) defines the English verb look as follows: “make an effort to see”. Gruber (1967: 942–943) states, “one can look at something without seeing it, just as one can run at something without having run to it”. In English, it is possible to say: (1) I looked, but I could not see. (See Gruber 1967: 943.) What has been stated about the difference between ‘see’ (Subtype 2A) and ‘look’ (Subtype 2B) also applies to the difference between ‘hear’ (Subtype 2A) and ‘listen’ (Subtype 2B).
2.3 Prototypical transitive verbs Tsunoda (1985: 387) defines prototypical transitive verbs as follows: (2) Prototypical transitive verbs (Tsunoda 1985: 387): those verbs which describe an action that not only impinges on the patient (i.e. undergoer) but necessarily creates a change in it, e.g. ‘kill’, ‘destroy’, ‘break’, ‘bend’. Needless to say, these are the verbs of Subtype 1A “Resultative”.
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2.4 Word classes Generally, actions ‒ typically of Type 1 “Direct effect on patient” (i.e. undergoer) ‒ are described by verbs. Both cross-linguistically and intralinguistically, however, as we go down the HTPP (from actions to states), a given situation can be expressed by an adjective (or noun) as well as by a verb; and sometimes it has to be presented by an adjective (or noun) rather than a verb. This is particularly the case in Type 4 “Knowledge” and Type 5 “Feeling”. Near the right end, Type 6 “Relationship” describes possession, among other things. In many languages, possession can be (or has to be) expressed by the possessor NP and the possessee NP alone, without involving any predicate, e.g. Djaru and Russian. Contrary to this, perhaps in no language at all can an action, e.g. hitting, be expressed just by the hitter NP and the victim NP, without using any predicate. The tables in Tsunoda (1978: 101, 1981a: 99, 1981b: 395) (cf. Tables 2 and 3 above) deal with verbs only, while that in Tsunoda (1985: 388) (cf. Table 1 above) deals not only with verbs but also with adjectives (and also nouns in languages such as Warrongo and Djaru, in which adjectives and nouns do not form separate word classes). It is in view of this that I use the term “predicate”, and not “verb”, in the label “hierarchy of two-place predicates”.
2.5 Case-marking As seen in 2.1, it is on the basis of the data on case-marking that the HTPP was originally conceived of. Table 4 shows the situation in some detail, dealing with two selected “accusative languages” (English and Japanese) and ten selected “ergative languages” (Basque, Marathi, Hindi, Tibetan, Avar, Tongan, Samoan, Djaru, Warrongo, and Eskimo). Table 4 is based on Tsunoda (1985: 388), except for the following changes: (i) The information on Marathi and Hindi, supplied by Prashant Pardeshi (p.c.), has been added; (ii) for Type 3 “Pursuit” in Djaru, the table in Tsunoda (1985: 388) lists ERG-ABS and ABS-DAT. However, ERG-ABS is an error on my part. It is ERG-DAT (Tsunoda 1981a: 149–152). This is shown in Table 4. See (36) below for an example. (iii) In Warrongo, ‘good [at]’ (Type 7 “Ability”) takes ABSDAT (Tsunoda 2011: 199), and ABS-DAT has been added to Type 7 of Warrongo.
NOM-ACC
NOM-ACC
ERG-ABS
ERG-ABS
ERG-ABS
English
Japanese
Marathi, Hindi
Basque
Tibetan
Resultative
ERG-DAT
ERG-ABS ERG-DAT
NOM-ACC NOM-DAT
NOM-ACC NOM-at NOM-on NOM-into
hit, shoot, kick
1A
Subtype
kill, break, bend
Nonresultative
Direct effect on patient
Meaning
Examples
1B
1
Type
Tab. 4: HTPP and case frames.
ERG-ABS ERG-DAT
ERG-ABS
ERG-ABS
NOM-ACC
NOM-ACC
see, hear, find
Patient more attained
2A
Perception
2
ERG-ABS ERG-DAT
NOM-at NOM-to
look, listen
Patient less attained
2B
ERG-ABS ERG-DAT
ERG-ABS ERG-DAT ABS-DAT
ERG-ABS
NOM-ACC
NOM-ACC NOM-for
Pursuit
3
ERG-ABS
ERG-ABS ERG-DAT DAT-ABS
DAT-ABS
NOM-ACC DAT-NOM
NOM-ACC NOM-of
Knowledge
4
ERG-ABS ABS-DAT DAT-ABS
ERG-ABS DAT-ABS
DAT-ABS
NOM-ACC NOM-DAT NOM-NOM DAT-NOM
NOM-ACC NOM-of NOM-with
Feeling
5
DAT-ABS
ERG-ABS
DAT-ABS
NOM-ACC NOM-DAT NOM-ABL DAT-NOM
NOM-ACC NOM-in NOM-to NOM-of
Relationship
6
DAT-ABS
NOM-DAT NOM-NOM DAT-NOM
NOM-of NOM-in NOM-at
Ability
7
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1
ERG-ABS
ERG-ABS
ERG-ABS
ERG-ABS
ERG-ABS
ERG-ABS
Type
Avar
Tongan
Samoan
Djaru
Warrongo
Eskimo
ERG-ABS
ERG-ABS
ERG-ABS
ERG-ABS ABS-DAT ABS-LOC
ERG-ABS ABS-DAT ABS-LOC
LOC-ABS
2
ERG-ABS
ERG-ABS ABS-DAT
ERG-DAT ABS-DAT
ERG-ABS
ERG-ABS ABS-DAT
ERG-ABS ABS-APU
3
ERG-ABS
ERG-ABS ABS-DAT
ERG-ABS ABS-DAT
ERG-ABS ABS-DAT LOC-ABS
ERG-ABS ABS-DAT DAT-ABS LOC-ABS
LOC-ABS
4
ERG-ABS
ABS-DAT ABS-LOC
ERG-ABS ABS-DAT ABS-LOC
ERG-ABS ABS-DAT ABS-LOC
ERG-ABS ABS-DAT ABS-LOC
DAT-ABS
5
ERG-ABS
ERG-ABS
ERG-ABS ABS-DAT ABS-ABS
DAT-ABS
ABS-ABS
GEN-ABS
6
ABS-DAT
7
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The HTPP shows the degree of likelihood of the occurrence of transitive case frames, i.e. the scale of transitivity in terms of case frames. (The transitive case frame is, for example, NOM-ACC in a nominative-accusative system, and ERG-ABS in an ergative-absolutive system.) In Type 1 (or in Subtype 1A in the languages in which Subtypes 1A and 1B have different case frames, e.g. English, Japanese, Basque, and Tibetan), the transitive case frame occurs. However, both cross-linguistically and intralinguistically, as we go down the hierarchy, transitive case frames are less likely to occur, and in addition to or in place of transitive frames, we have some non-transitive frame(s), e.g. ABS-OBL and/or OBL-ABS; and NOMOBL and/or OBL-NOM. Sometimes, a given situation has to be expressed, not by the transitive frame, but by some non-transitive frame, e.g. when the predicate is an adjective or noun, and when there is no predicate at all (as in some expressions of possession). At the right end of the HTPP, Type 7 “Ability” lacks the respective transitive frames in the languages that provide relevant data: English, Japanese, and Warrongo. Very roughly speaking, this situation can be shown as in Table 5. Tab. 5: Case frame. Type
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Transitive case frame (e.g. ERG-ABS, NOM-ACC)
#######%# # # # % $ $ $ $ % ! $ $ $ $ $ ! # # # # !###
non-transitive frame(s) (e.g. ABS-OBL, OBLABS, NOM-OBL, OBLNOM)
The division of Type 1 “Direct effect on patient” (i.e., undergoer) into Subtypes 1A “Resultative” and 1B “Non-resultative” is also reflected in case-marking. Subtype 1A has the respective transitive case frames. However, in Subtype 1B, a nontransitive case frame (and not the transitive case frame) occurs, e.g. ERG-DAT in Tibetan. Or, both the transitive case frame and some other case frame(s) occur, e.g. NOM-ACC and NOM-at (X shoots at Y), NOM-on (X treads on Y), NOM-into (X bumps into Y) in English; NOM-ACC and NOM-DAT in Japanese; and ERG-ABS and ERGDAT in Basque. The same applies to the division of Type 2 “Perception” into Subtypes 2A “Patient (i.e. undergoer) more attained” and 2B “Patient (i.e. undergoer) less attained”. Subtype 2A has the respective transitive case frames, e.g. NOM-ACC and ERG-ABS. However, in Subtype 2B, both the transitive case frame and non-transitive case frame(s) occur, e.g. NOM-ACC and NOM-at (X looks at Y), NOM-to (X listens to Y) in English; and ERG-ABS and ERG-DAT in Basque. For more on the manifestations of the HTPP in case marking, see Table 6 on Japanese and Table 9 on Warrongo.
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2.6 Voice Voice constructions, such as passives, antipassives, reflexives, and reciprocals, are easily acceptable in Type 1, but they are less likely to be so as we move towards the right end. At the right end in English and Japanese, Type-7 does not allow these constructions. See Table 7 on Japanese, Table 8 on Thao (of Taiwan), and Table 9 on Warrongo. Having presented the HTPP, we turn now to its limitations.
3 Limitations of the hierarchy of the two-place predicates There are probably many limitations ‒ practical and theoretical ‒ to the HTPP.
3.1 Practical limitation There is at least one practical limitation: the narrowness of its coverage. Unlike Levin’s work (Levin 1993) on English, which examines a truly wide range of types of verbs, the HTPP deals with a very small number of verb/adjective types ‒ only seven types. The reasons for this narrowness are the following two: a) Reason 1: the idea of the HTPP was originally conceived of around 1977, when I was writing my Ph.D. thesis (Tsunoda 1978) (see § 2.1 above). It was based on my work on Warrongo of northeast Australia (Tsunoda 1974) and on Djaru of northwest Australia. I examined closely the two-place verbs and one-place verbs of these two languages, and my conclusion was that the six verb types listed in Table 2 were sufficient as far as their two-place verbs and one-place verbs were concerned. It was not possible to set up any other type for the verbs of Warrongo or Djaru. b) Reason 2: while writing Tsunoda (1981b), I consulted grammars of, and papers on, a fair number of “ergative languages”. Unfortunately, however, the grammars that I consulted do not provide any systematic information on the case frames of individual verbs. I gleaned this information from a very small number of relevant sentential examples that I managed to find in the grammars and papers. For Tsunoda (1985), I was able to add only one predicate type: Type 7 “Ability”; this type was established on the basis of the data from two “accusative languages”: English and Japanese.
3.2 Theoretical limitations Malchukov (2005: 75) ‒ citing comments by Drossard (1991), Lehmann (1991: 186), and Lazard (1998: 61) ‒ describes the HTPP “as a major contribution to the cross-
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linguistic research on the valency patterns for particular verb classes”. Nonetheless, Malchukov (2006: 77) states that it is not free from problems. For example, Lehmann (1991: 234) notes that it conflates several semantic dimensions. Lazard (1998: 60) expresses some doubts as to whether it constitutes a hierarchy, since “the hierarchy is only evident at the two extremes”. Indeed, some of the intermediate types are not strictly ordered. For example, in Djaru, Type 2 “Perception” (ERGABS) outranks Type 3 “Pursuit” (ERG-ABS, ABS-DAT), whereas the reverse is true for Avar: Type 3 (ERG-ABS, ABS-APU) outranks Type 2 (LOC-ABS). Regarding case-marking in general, Malchukov (2006: 335) proposes the Relevance Principle, which may be paraphrased as follows: features pertaining to an actor (e.g. volitionality, agentivity) will be marked on the actor, while those that concern an undergoer will be encoded on the undergoer. In view of this, Malchukov (2005: 80–81) suggests in effect that the HTPP exhibits manifestations of both affectedness of an undergoer and agentivity of an actor. (Malchukov (2005: 81) modifies the HTPP and proposes a semantic map that distinguishes the manifestation of affectedness and that of agentivity.) Pardeshi (2007) provides additional examples concerning the case-marking of an actor. That is, in languages such as Marathi and Hindi (Indo-European languages) and Telugu and Malayalam (Dravidian languages), the marking of an actor by the ERG or the NOM indicates the presence of volition/intention in the actor, while marking with an oblique case indicates its absence.
4 Uses of the hierarchy of two-place predicates As seen above, the HTPP has its limitations. Nonetheless, it has proved to be useful ‒ though to a limited degree. This mainly concerns research into individual languages (4.1). This in turn furnishes supporting evidence for the validity of the HTPP. Furthermore, the HTPP may be useful for future research (§ 4.2).
4.1 Uses (1): for research into individual languages The HTPP has been shown to be reflected in various phenomena in various languages. Selected examples follow.
4.1.1 Japanese Tsunoda (1991: 112–114) lists a few reflections of the HTPP in Japanese. Two examples are given below.
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4.1.1.1 Case frames Tsunoda (1991: 90–91, 95) lists the case frames of predicates (both verbs and adjectives) in Japanese: zero-place, one-place, two-place, and three-place. Table 6 (repeated from Tsunoda 1991: 112) shows the distribution of two-place predicates in terms of the HTPP. (This is also shown in Table 4 above.) NOM-ACC extends from the left end of the hierarchy, while DAT-NOM spreads from the right end. NOMDAT, NOM-NOM, and NOM-ABL mainly occur towards the right end: NOM-DAT in Types 1B, 5 to 7; NOM-NOM in Types 5, 7; NOM-ABL in Type 6. NOM-DAT and NOMNOM each exhibit a discontinuous distribution. NOM-DAT and NOM-NOM are attested in the types indicated with a solid line, not in any other type. The same applies to the two discontinuous distributions shown in Table 9, on Warrongo. These discontinuous distributions deviate from the hierarchical nature of the HTPP.
Tab. 6: Case frames of two-place predicates in Japanese (Tsunoda 1991: 112). 1A NOM-ACC NOM-DAT NOM-NOM NOM-ABL DAT-NOM
1B
2
3
4
5
6
7
##########################% ### ########### ### ### ### !##############
Examples of two-place case frames follow. (3) Akio=ga hako=o kowas-i-ta. Akio=nom box=acc break-link-pst (nom-acc) ‘Akio (a boy’s name) broke a box.’ (Subtype 1A “Resultative”) (4) Akio=ga Hanako=ni butukat-ta. Akio=nom Hanako=dat bump-pst (nom-dat) ‘Akio bumped into Hanako (a girl’s name).’ (Subtype 1B “Non-resultative”) (5) Akio=ga biiru=ga hosi-i. Akio=nom beer=nom want-npst (nom-nom) ‘Akio wants beer.’ (Type 5 “Feeling”) (Despite the gloss ‘want’, hosi- is not a verb, but an adjective. (5) is grammatically correct, but as it stands, it does not sound natural. It becomes perfectly natural if the first =ga ‘NOM’ is replaced with =wa ‘TOP’. The same applies to =ga in (6).)
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(6) Kono iinkai=ga zyuu-nin=no iin=kara nar-u. this committee=nom ten-person=gen member=abl consist-npst ‘This committee consists of ten members.’ (nom-abl) (Type 6 “Relationship”) Kishimoto et al. (this volume) provide a detailed account of the case frames of Japanese verbs, ranging from zero-place to three-place. To their discussion, the verb nar- ‘consist (of)’, which takes the NOM-ABL frame, can be added.
4.1.1.2 Voice As noted in § 2.5, in Japanese, too, voice constructions such as passives (to be precise, so-called “direct passives”), reflexives, and reciprocals are easily acceptable in Type 1, but they are less likely to be so as we move towards the right end. In Japanese, Type 7 at the right end does not allow these constructions. The situation is as shown in Table 7.
Tab. 7: Voice constructions in Japanese. 1 passive reflexive reciprocal
2
3
4
5
6
7
########################% ####################% ####################%
Kishimoto et al. (this volume) provide a detailed account of voice constructions in Japanese, such as causatives, passives, potentials, and reciprocals. In the present paper, I shall merely list the passive form of a verb from each of the six types in which the passive suffix (V-rare-/C-are-) is attested. Type 1: koros-are- ‘kill-pass’; Type 2: mi-rare- ‘see-pass’; Type 3: mat-are- ‘await-pass’; Type 4: wasure-rare- ‘forget-pass’; Type 5: suk-are- ‘like-pass’; Type 6: kakom-are- ‘surround-pass’.
4.1.2 Thao of Taiwan Some of the papers in Tsunoda et al. (eds.) (2007) show that the HTPP is useful for ‒ or at least relevant to ‒ research into certain languages in question. They are Niida (2007b) on Thao of Taiwan (mainly focus affixes and voice), Tsukida (2007) on Sediq of Taiwan (focus affixes), Kitajo (2007) (converbs of 11 th century Russian), Yamada (2007) on Avar (case frames), Kiryu (2007) on Newar (case frames), and Minegishi (2007) on Thai (passive, imperative, etc.). As an example, Niida (2007b) on Thao is shown below. Among the works just cited, Niida’s work shows that the
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Tab. 8: Thao of Taiwan (1) (based on Niida 2007b: 76).
Actor focus affixes
1
2
3
4
5
6
-mm-
-mmmi-
-mmmima-
-mmminma-
-mm-
none
ma-
ma-
Patient focus, locative focus
○
○
Δ
Δ
Δ
X
Causative affixes
pa-
papu-
pa-
pa-
pashi-
X
pinpia-
pinpia-
-i
-i
Imperative affixes
-i
-i
-i
7
X
pia-
X -ia
Meaning/function of actor focus
future
future
Future AF
Future AF
Future AF state
X AF state
Legend: AF: actor focus; ○: ‘occur(s) with many verbs’; Δ: ‘occur(s) with some of the verbs’; X: ‘does not occur’
HTPP is reflected in a wider range of phenomena than in the other languages. (Tsukida deals with phenomena similar to those that Niida deals with. Yamada and Kiryu examine case frames, but a reflection of the HTPP in case frames was already illustrated in Tables 4 to 6. Kitajo’s and Minegishi’s work do show that the HTPP is relevant to the phenomena discussed, but its manifestation is not as clear as the case with Thao.) The table in Niida (2007b: 76) shows (i) the distribution of focus affixes, causative affixes, and imperative affixes, and (ii) the meaning/function of actor focus affixes in Thao. It is shown in Table 8, in a slightly simplified form. (Sumino Niida (p.c.) made one addition, i.e. the addition of the causative affix -pa for Type 3 “Pursuit” and this has been incorporated into Table 8.) The English translation is mine. Niida’s comments on Table 8 and examples follow. Most of the examples are cited from Niida (2007a, 2007b, 2007c, 2010) or provided by Sumino Niida (p.c.). English translations are mine. Additionally, a few examples cited by Niida (2007b, 2007c, 2007d) from Blust (2003) are given. Their English glosses and translations are Blust’s.
4.1.2.1 Actor focus Niida (2007b: 69) states that, according to her investigation, for actor focus, the infix -m- and the prefix m- are predominant in Types 1A “Resultative”, 1B “Non-
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resultative” and 2 “Perception”, where transitivity is high. However, as transitivity becomes lower (Types 3 “Pursuit” to 7 “Ability”), the prefixes mi-, ma-, and minare used in addition to -m- and m-. Examples of verbs in an actor focus form include the following (I use a colon for glossing an infix): 1A “Resultative”: k-m-alawa ‘make:af’, m-rubuz ‘af-destroy’, k-m-upit ‘extinguish:af’, e.g. (7) 1B “Non-resultative”: k-m-ay ‘hit:af’, t-m-ipish ‘bump:af’, e.g. (8), k- m-ari ‘dig [the ground]’, k-m-an ‘eat:af’, s-m-apuk ‘catch:af’ 2 “Perception”: m-riqaz ‘af-see’, e.g. (9), t-m-aza ‘hear:af’, sh-m-azik ‘smell:af’ 3 “Pursuit”: k-m-ilhin ‘search.for:af’, e.g. (10), mi-talha ‘af-wait’, q-m-aqutilh ‘chase:af’. 4 “Knowledge”: min-aura ‘af-forget’, e.g. (11), ma-fazaq ‘af-know, learn’ 5 “Feeling”: ma-buqnur ‘af-get angry’, k-m-iru ‘dislike:af’, m-ulau ‘af-respect’. 6 “Relationship”: (No actor focus affix is added to verbs of Type 6, such as yahan ‘have’.) 7 “Ability”: ma-qarman ‘af-bad’, ma-tunaw ‘af-strong’, e.g. (12). Sentential examples follow. (7)
yaku k-m-upit apuy. 1sg.nom extinguish:af fire ‘I extinguish a fire.’ (Niida 2007b: 69)
(8)
yaku t-m-ipish ihu. 1sg.nom bump:af 2sg.acc ‘I bump into you.’ (Sumino Niida, p.c.)
(9)
yaku m-riqaz ihun. 1sg.nom af-see 2sg.acc ‘I see you.’ (Niida 2007b: 69)
(10) ina k-m-ilhim yakin. mother search.for:af 1sg.acc ‘Mother is looking for me.’ (Blust 2003: 467) (11) yaku min-aura mihu a lhanaz. 1sg.nom af-forget 2sg.gen link name ‘I forgot your name.’ (Sumino Niida, p.c.)
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For Type 7 “Ability”, Sumino Niida (p.c.) indicates that it is difficult to find examples of actor focus. Possible examples include ma-qarman ‘af-bad’ and matunaw ‘AF-strong’, listed above. For example, ma-tunaw means ‘strong, as in ability to lift weights; to win (war, contest, money)’ (Blust 2003: 1014), and it may possibly be considered two-place. However, again it is difficult to find examples that show that these words are indeed two-place. One possible example is: (12) yaku sa ma-tunaw. 1sg.nom ptcl af-strong ‘I will win.’ (Blust 2003: 1014) (The English translation is Blust’s.) The particle sa indicates the subject, the object, something that exists, the predicate of a noun-predicate sentence, etc. (Niida 2010: 3, 8–10).)
4.1.2.2 Patient focus Niida (2007b: 70–71) states that the patient focus affix is -n/-in. The allomorph -n is used when the preceding form ends in i or a, and -in is used elsewhere. She then states that patient focus forms are fully acceptable in Types 1 and 2, but they become difficult to form from Type 3, and they are absent in Types 6 and 7. Examples follow. 1A kupit-in ‘extinguish-pf’, e.g. (13). 1B duruk-in ‘stab-pf’, tipish-in ‘bump-pf’, e.g. (14), kan-in ‘eat-pf’. 2 riqaz-in ‘see-pf’, e.g. (15). 3 kilhim-in ‘search.for-pf’, e.g. (16). (13) kupit-in-iza Abish apuy. extinguish-pf-compl Abish fire ‘Abish extinguished a fire.’ (Niida 2007c: 37) (14) yaku tipish-in ihu. 1sg.nom bump-pf 2sg.nom ‘You bumped into me.’ or ‘I was bumped into by you.’ (Niida 2007b: 70) (15) yaku riqaz-in ihu. 1sg.nom see-pf 2sg.nom ‘You see me.’ or ‘I am seen by you.’ (Niida 2007b: 70)
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(16) A kilhim-in yaku ina. irr search.for-pf 1sg.nom mother ‘Mother is looking for me.’ (Sumino Niida, p.c.)
4.1.2.3 Locative focus Niida (2007b: 71) states in effect that the statement on the form and the distribution/use of the patient focus affix applies to the locative focus suffix, except that the form -an (rather than -in) is used when the preceding form ends in a and that -n is used elsewhere. Examples given follow. 1A kalawa-n ‘make-lf’, e.g. (17). 1B kutafalh-an ‘stab-lf’, e.g. (18), flhuq-an ‘wash-lf’. 2 ung-qtu-an ‘find-lf’, e.g. (19). (qtu- means ‘find’. The meaning of ung- is not known (Sumino Niida, p.c.)) 4 aura-n ‘forget-lf’. (17) nak a pruq kalawa-n suma sa taun. 1sg.gen ptcl land make-lf someone ptcl house ‘Someone used my land to build a house.’ (Niida 2007c: 42, cited from Blust 2003: 438) (18) cicu kutafalh-an suma. 3sg.nom stab-lf someone ‘He was stabbed by someone.’ (Niida 2007b: 72, cited from Blust 2003: 502) (19) sa tamalun ya itia ung-qtu-an sa kukulay sas-in pa-kan shmadia ptcl male if exist find-lf ptcl worm take-pf caus-eat owl wa huqi. ptcl child ‘If a male [owl] finds a worm, [it] will take [it] to make [its] owl chick eat [it]’. (Niida 2010: 2) (The particle wa/a connects two words, indicating possession, etc. (Niida 2010: 4– 8).)
4.1.3 Warrongo “Table 4–20 Transitive verbs and voice expressions” in Tsunoda (2011: 460) shows the reflections of the HTPP in Warrongo. It is shown in Table 9, in a slightly modified form. “Instrumental verb” refers to applicative verbs that are based on transi-
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Tab. 9: Warrongo (1) (based on Table 4–20 in Tsunoda 2011: 460). Type
1
2
Meaning
Direct Percepeffect on tion patient
3
4
5
6
Pursuit
Knowledge
Feeling
Relation- Ability ship
Transitive case frame ################## Voice Antipassive ABS-ERG ABS-DAT Reflexive Anticausative Reciprocal Instrumental verb Aspect Iterative Participle Participle-1 Participle-2
######## ###########% #######% ##% #######% #######%
7
##%
##%
###########% #######% ##%
Tab. 10: Warrongo (2) (adapted from Table 4–14 in Tsunoda 2011). actor
undergoer
verb
examples
Transitive
ERG
ABS
Vt
(20), (22)
Antipassive
ABS ABS
ERG DAT
Vt-galiVt-gali-(23)
(21) (23)
tive (and not intransitive) roots/stems. As can be seen, the HTPP is reflected in (i) case frames, (ii) voice, (iii) aspect, and (iii) participles. Examples involving the antipassive construction will be given below. Transitive clauses and their antipassive counterparts exhibit the correspondence shown in Table 10 (adapted from Table 4–14 in Tsunoda 2011). A detailed discussion of the Warrongo antipassive construction can be found in 4.9 in Tsunoda (2011). The case labels used in the present paper are slightly different from those employed in Tsunoda (2011: 158). (20) bama-nggo gamo-0̸ bija-n. (AP) man-erg water-abs drink-nf (ERG-ABS) ‘The man drank/drinks water.’ (Type 1)
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(21) bama-0̸ gamo-nggo bija-gali-n. (ap) man-abs water-erg drink-antip-nf (abs-erg) ‘(As above.)’ (Type 1) (22) bama-nggo gamo-0̸ yangga-n. (ap) man-erg water-abs search.for-nf (erg-abs) ‘The man looked/looks for water.’ (Type 3) (23) bama-0̸ gamo-wo yangga-gali-n. (ap) man-abs water-dat search.for-antip-nf (abs-dat) (As above.) (Type 3) (My earlier writings on Warrongo, e.g. Tsunoda (1988), distinguished the instrumental case from the ergative case and assigned the case frame ABS-INS to sentences such as (21). However, Tsunoda (2011) does not distinguish the instrumental case from the ergative case; on morphological grounds it is difficult to distinguish between the two cases. Consequently, (21) is assigned the case frame ABS-ERG.) The antipassive construction is attested in Type 1 “Direct effect on patient” (i.e. undergoer) to Type 4 “Knowledge”. It is not attested in Type 6 “Relationship” although Type 6 contains at least one transitive verb. (We shall return to this shortly.) Of its two case frames, ABS-ERG is attested in Type 1 (e.g. (21) ‘drink’), Type 2, and Type 4. ABS-DAT is attested in Types 1 to 3; (23) is an example of Type 3 “Pursuit”. Type 3 allows ABS-DAT, and it does not accept ABS-ERG (shown in Table 9) The transitive verb ganyji- exhibits an interesting behaviour. It can mean (i) ‘carry, take, bring’ (Type 1) and (ii) ‘have [a body part]’ (Type 6). When it means ‘carry, bring, take’ (Type 1), it can have an antipassive version. Compare (24) (transitive) and (25) (antipassive). (24) gaya-na-lo ganyji-n gajarra-0̸ ngali-ngo. (ap) father-kin-erg carry-nf possum-abs 1du.gen (erg-abs) ‘[My] father brought a possum for us.’ (Type 1) (25) (‘That man is a good husband. He looks after his family.’) [bama-0̸ tt] gajarra-nggo ganyji-gali-n. (ap) [man-abs] possum-erg carry-antip-nf (abs-erg) ‘[The man] brought a possum [for us].’ (Type 1)
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When ganyji- means ‘have [a body part]’ (Type 6), the transitive clause is attested, e.g. (26). However, the antipassive counterpart is not attested. (Ganyji- ‘have [a body part]’ is the only verb of Type 6.) (26) (Alf Palmer, the last fluent speaker of Warrongo, seemed to believe that there is an inverse correlation between a man’s size and the size of his penis. He made the following comment.) a. jangarago-nggo ganyji-n gagabara-0.̸ small-erg carry-nf big-abs (ERG-ABS) ‘Small [men tend to] have a big [penis].’ (Type 6) b. gagabara-nggo ganyji-n jangarago-0.̸ (ap) big-erg have-nf small-abs (ERG-ABS) ‘Big [men tend to] have a small [penis].’ (Type 6)
4.1.4 Djaru Many languages possess pairs of transitive verbs and their intransitive counterparts. The types of correspondence between transitive and intransitive verbs include the following two (cf. Dixon 1979: 117): (i) A=S, (ii) O=S. In Djaru, the distribution of these two types can be fairly neatly described in terms of the HTPP (data from Tsunoda 1981a: 190–194). Djaru has only forty-odd verb roots (Tsunoda 1981a: 76). Often, those concepts which may be expressed by a verb root, say, in Japanese and English, are expressed by the combination of a “preverb” (a kind of particle) and a verb root. Tsunoda (1981a) refers to a combination of a preverb and a verb root as “verb complex”. The distribution of the correspondence types (A=S, O=S) is as follows: Subtype 1A “Resultative”: O=S Subtype 1B “Non-resultative”: A=S Type 2 “Perception”: O=S, A=S Type 3 “Pursuit”: A=S Type 4 “Knowledge”: A=S That is, O=S occurs in Subtype 1A and Type 2, while A=S occurs in Subtype 1B, Types 2, 3, and 4. No example is attested in other types. As will be seen, it is the preverb, and not the verb, that determines (i) the meaning of a given verb complex, (ii) the type on the HTPP to which a given verb complex belongs to, and (iii) the pattern of correspondence: O=S vs. A=S. When used in a verb complex, a verb often (though not always) lacks a specific, lexical
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Tab. 11: Djaru (1): O=S. Transitive: Subtype 1A “Resultative”
intransitive
examples
preverb
verb
preverb
verb
yud ‘sitting’ ‘put down’
yaan‘put’
yud ‘sitting’ ‘sit down’
nyin-/wandiny‘sit’/‘fall’
jad ‘standing’ ‘stand up’
yaan‘put’
jad ‘standing’ ‘stand up’
nyin-/wandiny‘sit’/‘fall’
darn ‘hanging’ ‘hang’
yaan‘put’
darn ‘hanging’ ‘hang’
nyin‘sit’
buru ‘hiding’ ‘hide’
yaan-/wajbarn‘put’/‘throw’
buru ‘hiding’ ‘hide’
wandiny‘fall’
birrib ‘locked’ ‘lock up’
yaan-/bung‘put’/‘hit’
birrib ‘locked’ ‘get locked up’
wandiny-/nyin‘fall’/‘sit’
jilmung ‘breaking’ ‘break’
bung-/man‘hit’/‘get’
jilmung ‘breaking’ ‘break’
nyin-/wandiny‘sit’/‘fall’
dinggirr ‘tearing’ ‘tear up’
bung-/man-/ luwarn‘hit’/‘get’/‘shoot’
dinggirr ‘tearing’ ‘tear up’
yan‘go’
Transitive: Type 2 “Perception”
intransitive
(27), (28)
examples
preverb
verb
preverb
verb
ngard ‘smelling’ ‘[Someone] smells [something].’
man ‘get’
ngard ‘smelling’ ‘[Something] smells.’
marn ‘talk’
(29) to (31)
meaning. Also, to the best of my knowledge, it is impossible to predict which preverb co-occurs with which verb. Examples of the two types of correspondence follow. [1] O=S: Subtype 1A “Resultative” and Type 2 “Perception”. Those pairs which exhibit this correspondence include those shown in Table 11. Examples of O=S Subtype 1A “Resultative” include the following:
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(27) mawun-du garnrdi-0̸ jilmung man-i. man-erg stick-abs breaking get-pst ‘The man broke a stick.’ (Tsunoda 1981a: 192) (28) garnrdi-0̸ jilmung nyirr-a. stick-abs breaking sit-pst ‘The stick broke.’ (T. Tsunoda 1981a: 192) Examples of O=S Type 2 “Perception” It has not been possible to find suitable examples, except for (30). The examples (29) and (31) were created by me. (29) mawun-du mangarri-0̸ ngard man-an. (TT) man-erg food-abs smelling get-pres ‘The man is smelling the food.’ (30) (An example cited from a text: ‘There was a buffalo over there. My horse started bucking out of fear.’) dimana-lu warri ngard man-inyurra. horse-erg possibly smelling get-pst.narr ‘The horse must have smelt [the buffalo].’ (T. Tsunoda 1981a: 205) (31) mangarri-0̸ ngard marn-an gida-0.̸ (TT) food-abs smelling talk-pres good-abs ‘The food smells good.’ (A sentence like (31) was approved by a Djaru speaker.)
[2] A=S: Subtype 1B “Non-resultative”, Type 2 “Perception”, Type 3 “Pursuit” and Type 4 “Knowledge” Those pairs which exhibit this correspondence include those shown in Table 12. A pair of examples of S=A Subtype 1B “Non-resultative”: (32) mawun-du nga=lu junba-0̸ ruyu wung-an. man-erg c=3pl.nom corroboree-abs playing hit-pres ‘The men are performing a corroboree.’ (Tsunoda 1981a: 108)
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Tab. 12: Djaru (2): A=S. Transitive: Subtype 1B “Non-resultative”
intransitive
examples
preverb
verb
preverb
verb
bilaga ‘riding’ ‘ride [e.g. a horse]’
gang‘carry’
wandiny‘fall’
ruyu ‘playing’ ‘play, perform’
wung‘hit’ (cf. note below)
bilaga ‘riding’ ‘ride [e.g. a horse]’ ruyu ‘playing’ ‘play, perform’
Transitive: Type 2 “Perception”
marn‘talk’
(32), (33)
intransitive
preverb
verb
preverb
verb
guni ‘dreaming’ ‘dream’
man‘get’
guni ‘dreaming’ ‘dream’
marn-/yan‘talk’/‘go’
Transitive: Type 3 “Pursuit”
(34), (35)
intransitive
preverb
verb
preverb
verb
jarra ‘waiting’ ‘wait’ jal ‘stalking’ ‘stalk’
nyang‘see’
jarra ‘waiting’ ‘wait’ jal ‘stalking’ ‘stalk’
nyin‘sit’
man‘get’
Transitive: Type 4 “Knowledge”
(36), (37)
marn‘talk’
intransitive
preverb
verb
preverb
verb
nyirn ‘forgetting’ ‘forget’
man‘get’
nyirn ‘forgetting’ ‘forget’
marn-/nyin-/yan‘talk’/‘sit’/ ‘go’
(38), (39)
(Wung- is a phonological development of bung- ‘hit’. It is used in verb complexes only, together with a preverb. Djaru has enclitic pronouns in addition to free pronouns. Enclitic pronouns are generally attached to the carrier morpheme (‘C’) nga. The case system is, roughly speaking, ergative-absolutive for nouns and free pronouns, and nominative-accusative for enclitic pronouns. The carrier morpheme plus enclitic pronoun(s) do not occur under certain circumstances (Tsunoda 1981a: 126), e.g. (27) to (31).)
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(33) mawun-0̸ nga=lu junba-0̸ ruyu marn-an. man-abs c=3pl.nom corroboree-abs playing talk-pres ‘The men are performing a corroboree.’ (Tsunoda 1981a: 108) (Ruyu marn- is unusual in that it takes what may look like a direct object, despite the fact that its “subject” is in the absolutive case and not the ergative case (Tsunoda 1981a: 108).) A pair of examples of S=A Type 2 “Perception”: (34) ngaju-nggu nga=rna ngama-yi-0̸ guni man-i. 1sg-erg c=1sg.nom mother-kin-abs dreaming go-pst ‘I dreamed about [my] mother.’ (Tsunoda 1981a: 191) (35) ngaju-0̸ nga=rna=la ngama-yi-wu guni yan-i. 1sg-erg c=1sg.nom=3sg.dat mother-kin-dat dreaming go-pst ‘(As above.)’ (Tsunoda 1981a: 190) A pair of examples of A=S Type 3 “Pursuit”: (36) ngaju-nggu nga=rna=nggu nyununga jarra nyang-an. 1sg-erg c=1sg.nom=2sg.dat 2sg.dat waiting see-pres ‘I am waiting for you.’ (Tsunoda 1981a: 149) (37) ngaju-0̸ nga=rna=la jarra nyin-an yambagina-wu. 1sg-abs c=1sg.nom=3sg.dat waiting sit-pres child-dat ‘I am waiting for a child.’ (Tsunoda 1981a: 111) The transitive verbs and verb complexes of Type 3 “Pursuit” are interesting in that they take the ERG-DAT frame and not ERG-ABS (cf. Table 4), despite the fact that the A is marked by the ergative case (Tsunoda 1981a: 149). Verbs of Type 3 include jarra nyang- ‘wait’ and jal man- ‘stalk’ (both shown in Table 12). A pair of examples of A=S Type 4 “Knowledge”: (38) ngaju-nggu nga=rna nyirn man-i. (TT) 1sg-erg c=1sg.nom forgetting get-pst ‘I forgot about the man.’
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(39) ngaju-0̸ nga=rna=la nyirn marn-i mawun-gu. (TT) 1sg-abs c=1sg.nom=3sg.dat forgetting talk-pst man-dat ‘I forgot about the man.’ (These examples were created by me.) To sum up, in Djaru, O=S occurs mainly in Subtype 1A “Resultative” (e.g. ‘break’), while A=S is attested in Subtype 1B “Non-resultative”, Type 3 “Pursuit”, and Type 4 “Knowledge”. Type 2 “Perception” is exceptional. It contains both O=S (i.e. ‘smell’) and A=S (i.e. ‘dream’). Regarding these two types of correspondence, Dixon (1979) proposes the following cross-linguistic generalization: “There is in fact some semantic explanation for which verb behaves in which way. Lexical pairs of type S = O are mostly found among verbs of rest or motion (‘stand’ vs. ‘make stand’, ‘come out’ vs. ‘take out’; …), with S = A pairs being predominantly found in other semantic areas ‒ ‘eat (transitive)’ vs. ‘eat (intransitive)’ etc. (Dixon 1979: 117)”
Dixon’s generalization primarily applies to the verb complexes of Djaru, except for the points which follow. (i) Djaru lacks a pair of verb complexes for ‘eat’. (ii) O=S is attested in Type 2 “Perception”, contrary to Dixon’s prediction. That is, Type 2 exhibits not only A=S (as predicted by Dixon) but also O=S (contrary to Dixon’s prediction). (iii) Subtype 1A “Resultative”, which exhibits O=S only (Table 11), contains not only verb complexes of motion (e.g. ‘put down’ and ‘sit down’) but also those such as the pair ‘break’ (Vt) and ‘break’ (Vi) and the pair ‘tear up’ (Vt) and ‘tear up’ (Vi). Therefore, they are better described as “resultative” (or “change of state”) rather than as rest or motion (cf. Tsunoda 1991: 102).
4.2 Uses (2): for future research Tsunoda (2007: 9) explores possible implications of the HTPP for research in two other fields: cognition (see 4.2.1) and language acquisition (see 4.2.2).
4.2.1 Cognition of events As seen in 2.1, the HTPP was established on the basis of linguistic facts. However, Takashi Murakami, a psychologist, suggested (in the 1980s) that it might also show the degree of “event-ness” or “event-hood” of situations. According to him, there is a possibility that the events towards the left end, e.g. breaking and hitting (Type 1), have a higher degree of “event-ness” or “event-hood” and that they are easy (or easier) to recognize/perceive, while those towards the right end, e.g. possession
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(Type 6) and ability (Type 7), have a lower degree of “event-ness” or “event-hood” and are difficult (or more difficult) to recognize/perceive. It would be interesting to test this suggestion by means of a method which is well-established in the field of psychology.
4.2.2 Language acquisition 4.2.2.1 Order of the acquisition of predicate types In a paper that is contained in a volume titled Studies in transitivity, edited by Paul J. Hopper & Sandra A Thompson, Slobin (1982: 409–410) suggests the following regarding language acquisition. Children first encode “transitive events” or “prototypical events”, which are “highly salient” (cf. 4.2.1 above) and involve “object transfer, physical manipulation, voluntary movement, and the like”. Children encode such events “in a canonical way”, employing means such as the SVO order in English and the accusative case in Turkish. It is clear that Slobin has Hopper & Thompson’s (1980) concept of transitivity in mind. In addition, on the basis of his suggestions, it is tempting to hypothesize that, among the types of two-place predicates, the construction of Subtype 1A “Resultative” is acquired first, followed by those of other types, in the order arranged in the hierarchy, i.e. from Subtype 1A “Resultative” to Type 7 “Ability”. (Recall that verbs of Type 1A are prototypical transitive verbs according to my definition; see 2.3.) It will be fascinating to test this hypothesis.
4.2.2.2 Distinction between Subtypes 1A “Resultative” and 1B “Non-resultative” Melissa Bowerman (p.c.) informed me that the two children whose language acquisition she had observed had produced the following sentences, among others: (40) I’m hitting on something. (Melissa Bowerman, p.c.) (41) My feet don’t touch to the ground. (Melissa Bowerman, p.c.) In adults’ English, (40) and (41) do not involve the preposition on or to. Note that both hit and touch belong to Subtype 1B “Non-resultative”. On the basis of Bowerman’s data, it is possible to hypothesize as follows. The distinction between 1A “Resultative” and 1B is innate in children. (There are languages in which Subtypes 1A and 1B differ in terms of case-marking. See 2.5 and Table 4.) Children (or at least these two children) initially add a preposition to 1B verbs ‒ to maintain this difference ‒ and later abandon these prepositions, in accordance with the grammar of adults’ English. Again, it will be fascinating to test this hypothesis.
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5 Concluding remarks Admittedly, the HTPP has limitations. Nonetheless, it has been shown to be reflected in various areas in the grammar of various languages, such as word classes, case frames, transitive/intransitive alternation, and voice. It has proved to be useful for the study of individual languages. Furthermore, it may be reflected in the human perception of events and language acquisition.
Acknowledgements I wish to thank the following people, who helped with my preparation of this paper in various ways: Bernard Comrie, Wesley Jacobsen, Hideki Kishimoto, Christian Lehmann, Andrej Malchukov, Yo Matsumoto, Prashant Pardeshi, Kan Sasaki, John B. Whitman, and Minoru Yamaizumi. Special words of thanks are due to Sumino Niida for commenting on earlier versions of this paper and providing additional data on Thao.
Abbreviations Abbreviations employed in the present work include the following: A AF AP APU C HTPP KIN LF LINK NARR NF O PF S TT Vi Vt 1,2,3
transitive subject actor focus sentences provided by Alf Palmer or those composed by me and approved by Alf Palmer apudessive carrier hierarchy of two-place predicates kin locative focus linking interfix narrative non-future transitive object patient focus intransitive subject a word supplied by Tasaku Tsunoda or example composed by Tasaku Tsunoda intransitive verb transitive verb person
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References Blust, Robert. 2003. Thao Dictionary. Taipei: Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica. Catford, J. C. 1975. Ergativity in Caucasian languages. (Unpublished paper.) Ann Arbor: University of Michigan. Dixon, Robert M. W. 1979. Ergativity. Language 55(1). 59‒138. Drossard, Werner. 1991. Verbklassen. In Hansjakob Seiler & Waldfried Premper (eds.), Partizipation: Das sprachliche Erfassen von Sachverhalten, 150‒182. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag. Fillmore, Charles J. 1970. The grammar of hitting and breaking. In Roderick A. Jacobs & Peter S. Rosenbaum (eds.), Readings in English Transformational Grammar, 120–133. Waltham, MA: Ginn and Company. Foley, William A. & Robert D. Van Valin, Jr. 1984. Functional Syntax and Universal Grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gruber, Jeffrey S. 1967. Look and see. Language 43(4). 937‒947. Hopper, Paul J. & Sandra A. Thompson. 1980. Transitivity in grammar and discourse. Language 56(2). 251–299. Kiryu, Kazuyuki. 2007. Newaarugo ni okeru kaku to tadoosee [Case and transitivity in Newar]. In Mie Tsunoda, Kan Sasaki & Toru Shionoya (eds.), Tadoosee no tuugengoteki kenkyuu [Crosslinguistic studies in transitivity], 191‒203. Tokyo: Kurosio. Kishimoto, Hideki, Taro Kageyama & Kan Sasaki. This volume. Valency classes in Japanese. Kitajo, Mitsushi. 2007. Tekusuto ni okeru rosiago hukudoosi tadoosee no tokuisee [Peculiarity of the transitivity of Russian converbs in texts]. In Mie Tsunoda, Kan Sasaki & Toru Shionoya (eds.), Tadoosee no tuugengoteki kenkyuu [Crosslinguistic studies in transitivity], 133‒148. Tokyo: Kurosio. Lazard, Gilbert. 1998. Actancy. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Lehmann, Christian. 1991. Predicate classes and PARTICIPATION. In Hansjakob Seiler & Waldfried Premper (eds.), Partizipation: Das sprachliche Erfassen von Sachverhalten, 183‒239. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag. Levin, Beth. 1993. English Verb Classes and Alternations: A Preliminary Investigation. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press. Malchukov, Andrej. 2005. Case pattern splits, verb types and construction competition. In Mengistu Amberber & Helen de Hoop (eds.), Competition and Variation in Natural Languages: The Case for Case, 73‒117. London & New York: Elsevier. Malchukov, Andrej. 2006. Transitivity parameters and transitivity alternations: constraining covariation. In Leonid Kulikov, Andrej Malchukov & Peter de Swart (eds.), Case, Valency and Transitivity, 329‒357. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Minegishi, Makoto. 2007. Koritugo no tadoosee to zuiisee − taigo o ree ni [Transitivity and voluntariness in isolating languages − with Thai as an example]. In Mie Tsunoda, Kan Sasaki & Toru Shionoya (eds.), Tadoosee no tuugengoteki kenkyuu [Crosslinguistic studies in transitivity], 205‒216. Tokyo: Kurosio. Niida, Sumino. 2007a. Saogo (Taiwan Tyuubu) ni okeru syookosee to asupekuto [Evidentiality and aspect in the Thao language of Taiwan]. Da-Yeh Journal of Applied Japanese Language 1. 169‒188. Niida, Sumino. 2007b. Saogo ni okeru syootensetuzi to nikoozyutugo kaisoo [Focus affixes of Thao and the hierarchy of two-place predicates]. In Mie Tsunoda, Kan Sasaki & Toru Shionoya (eds.), Tadoosee no tuugengoteki kenkyuu [Crosslinguistic studies in transitivity], 67‒78. Tokyo: Kurosio. Niida, Sumino. 2007c. Nihongo to no taisyoo ni okeru Saogo no zikanhyoogen [Time expressions in the Thao language in comparison with those in Japanese]. Taishoo Gengo Kenkyuu [Contrastive Studies] 17. 21‒49.
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Niida, Sumino. 2007d. Saogo (Taiwan) ni okeru genbasizi hyoogen − Nihongo tono taisyoo kara [Demonstrative expressions in the Thao language of Taiwan]. Jinbun 6. 213‒231. Niida, Sumino. 2010. Saogo no syoozi ni tuite [Particles in the Thao language (Taiwan)]. Nagasaki Gaikokugo Daigaku Ronsoo [Bulletin of the Nagasaki University of Foreign Studies] 14. 1‒16. Pardeshi, Prashant. 2007. ‘Tadoosee’ no kaiboo: ‘itosee’ to ‘zyueesee’ o koete [Dissection of “transitivity”: beyond “volitionality” and “affectedness”]. In Mie Tsunoda, Kan Sasaki & Toru Shionoya (eds.), Tadoosee no tuugengoteki kenkyuu [Crosslinguistic studies in transitivity], 179‒190. Tokyo: Kurosio. Slobin, Dan I. 1982. The origins of grammatical coding of events. In Paul J. Hopper & Sandra A. Thompson (eds.), Studies in Transitivity, 409‒422. New York: Academic Press. Tsukida, Naomi. 2007. Sedikkugo no doosi no tai to nikoozyutugokaisoo [Voce of Sediq verbs and the hierarchy of two-place predicates]. In Mie Tsunoda, Kan Sasaki & Toru Shionoya (eds.), Tadoosee no tuugengoteki kenkyuu [Crosslinguistic studies in transitivity], 79‒92. Tokyo: Kurosio. Tsunoda, Mie, Kan Sasaki & Toru Shionoya (eds.). 2007. Tadoosee no tuugengotekikenkyuu [Crosslinguistic studies in transitivity]. Tokyo: Kurosio. Tsunoda, Tasaku. 1974. A grammar of the Warungu language, North Queensland. M. A. thesis. Melbourne: Monash University. Tsunoda, Tasaku. 1978. The Djaru language of Kimberley, Western Australia. PhD thesis. Melbourne: Monash University. Tsunoda, Tasaku. 1981a. The Djaru Language of Kimberley, Western Australia. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Tsunoda, Tasaku. 1981b. Split case-marking patterns in verb-types and tense/aspect/mood. Linguistics 19 (5/6). 389‒438. Tsunoda, Tasaku. 1985. Remarks on transitivity. Journal of Linguistics 21(2). 385‒396. Tsunoda, Tasaku. 1988. Antipassives in Warrungu and other Australian languages. In Masayoshi Shibatani (ed.), Passive and Voice, 595‒649. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Tsunoda, Tasaku. 1991. Sekai no gengo to nihongo [The world’s languages and Japanese]. Tokyo: Kurosio. Tsunoda, Tasaku. 2007. Tadoosee no kenkyuu no gairyaku [Outline of research into transitivity]. In Mie Tsunoda, Kan Sasaki & Toru Shionoya (eds.), Tadoosee no tuugengoteki kenkyuu [Crosslinguistic studies in transitivity], 3‒11. Tokyo: Kurosio. Tsunoda, Tasaku. 2011. A Grammar of Warrongo. Berlin & New York: de Gruyter Mouton. Yamada, Hisanari. 2007. Zyutugo no taipu kara mita abaarugo no nikoozyutugo no kakuwakugumi − sessyokudoosi o tyuusin ni [Case frames of two-place predicate types of Avar as seen from the viewpoint of predicates − mainly regarding contact verbs]. In Mie Tsunoda, Kan Sasaki & Toru Shionoya (eds.), Tadoosee no tuugengoteki kenkyuu [Crosslinguistic studies in transitivity], 149‒161. Tokyo: Kurosio.
Beth Levin
39 Verb classes within and across languages Any attempt to characterize valency patterns within and across languages confronts the phenomenon of verb or valency classes: sets of semantically-related verbs sharing a range of linguistic properties, such as the possible realizations of their arguments and the particular interpretation associated with each possible argument realization. The Leipzig Valency Classes Project provides an excellent context for deepening our understanding of verb classes and, specifically, investigating a big question raised by efforts to classify verbs: which facets of verb classification are universal and which language particular? I begin this paper by reviewing the motivations for recognizing verb classes. With this background, I introduce a broad semantic dichotomy that encompasses many existing verb classes and show its grammatical relevance. I then consider its implications for crosslinguistic studies of verb classes, such as the ones that are being carried out by the Valency Classes Project, through a case study of the argument realization options of hitting verbs.
1 Introduction: The appeal of verb- or valency-classes In his paper “The Grammar of Hitting and Breaking” (1970), Fillmore presents a compelling case study that underscores the importance of verb classes. He shows that verb classes provide a device for capturing patterns of shared verb behavior, including possible realizations of arguments and their associated interpretations. Thus, verb classes prove to be both a means of investigating the organization of the verb lexicon and a means of identifying grammatically relevant elements of meaning. Fillmore begins his study by comparing the grammatical behavior of the English verbs break and hit. Both have transitive uses and may optionally be found with an instrumental with phrase, as in (1). (1) a. The boy broke the window (with a ball). b. The boy hit the window (with a ball). However, the similarities between the two verbs end there: they actually show considerable divergences in their argument realization options. As Fillmore notes, break but not hit shows the causative alternation. That is, break has intransitive as well as transitive uses, with the transitive use roughly paraphrasable as ‘cause to break-intransitive’, while hit lacks such an intransitive use.
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(2) a. The boy broke the window. / The window broke. b. The boy hit the window. / *The window hit. The two verbs also differ in the interpretations available to their passive participles: The window was broken allows both a stative and an eventive reading, but The window was hit allows only an eventive reading. Furthermore, hit differs from break in allowing “possessor raising” in those instances where the surface contacted – henceforth simply the surface – is inalienably possessed, giving rise to the alternation in (3). (3) a. I broke his leg. / *I broke him on the leg. b. I hit his leg. / I hit him on the leg. (Fillmore 1970: 126, (23)–(26)) In the first sentence with each verb, the surface – here a body part – is the object, while in the second sentence, the possessor of the body part is the object and the body part is expressed in a PP, instantiating what is often called “external possession”. Less often discussed is that hitting verbs show an object alternation, as in (4), which Levin (1993) labels the with/against alternation (Fillmore 1977: 74–78; see also Fillmore 1970: 133, note 11). In this alternation, the variants are paraphrases, apparently simply providing different realizations of the same arguments. (4) a. Perry hit the fence with the stick. b. Perry hit the stick against/on the fence. Although break can be found in the same syntactic environments, as in (5), such paired sentences are not paraphrases: the fence is understood to break in the (a) sentence, while the stick does in the (b) sentence. (5) a. Perry broke the fence with the stick. b. Perry broke the stick against/on the fence. Stepping back, Fillmore points out that break and hit are each representative of larger classes of verbs (1970: 125, (15)–(16)), whose members share comparable patterns of behavior. (6) a. Breaking verbs: bend, break, crack, fold, shatter, split, snap, ... b. Hitting verbs: bash, beat, bump, hit, kick, pound, punch, slap, strike, tap, thump, whack, ... Furthermore, the members of each class fall under the same broad semantic characterization. Breaking verbs are change of state verbs, describing a change of state
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in an entity. In contrast, hitting verbs are surface contact verbs, describing often forceful contact with an entity, without entailing a change in its state. Evidence that breaking, but not hitting verbs lexicalize a change of state comes from the pair of sentences in (7), which shows that denying the change of state leads to a contradiction with break, but not with hit. (7) a. #The rocks broke the windshield, but luckily it wasn’t damaged. b. The rocks hit the windshield, but luckily it wasn’t damaged. Thus, these distinctive behavioral patterns provide support for recognizing classes of hitting and breaking verbs. More generally, they suggest the descriptive importance of recognizing classes of semantically similar verbs whose members show shared grammatical behavior – what I refer to here for convenience as Fillmorean verb classes in acknowledgement of Fillmore’s seminal work.
2 Moving beyond Fillmore’s “The Grammar of Hitting and Breaking” That members of a Fillmorean verb class show a characteristic argument realization pattern suggests that such patterns follow from facets of meaning common to class members. In fact, many studies – both large- and small-scale – have confirmed and extended Fillmore’s findings (e.g., Apresjan 1967; Dixon 1991; Faber & Mairal Usón 1999; Green 1974; Gruber 1967; Jackendoff 1990; Levin & Rappaport Hovav 1991; Willems 1981; Zwicky 1971). For example, my book English Verb Classes and Alternations (Levin 1993) classifies English verbs that do not (exclusively) take sentential complements in two ways.1 First, verbs are classified according to their semantic content, giving rise to classes such as manner of motion verbs, directed motion verbs, light emission verbs, change of state verbs, perception verbs, verbs of gestures and signs, and weather verbs. Such a classification is fairly fine-grained, with 48 broad classes or 192 smaller classes identified in Levin (1993) according to Kipper et al. (2008). The
1 See Baker & Ruppenhofer (2002) and Faulhaber (2011) for arguments that identifying semantically coherent classes of verbs with similar behavior meets with limited success because there are a variety of idiosyncrasies shown by members of any particular class. Although there may be some differences among class members, I believe that there are still shared properties which make it instructive to investigate such classes to get a sense of which meaning components may be relevant to argument realization. Further, even if some members of such classes apparently show a narrower range of properties than others, they often have the potential to show the full range of properties, as Levin (2010) shows via a closer examination of the subclasses of manner of motion verbs posited by Boas (2006, 2008).
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largest of the broad classes are change of state verbs, manner of motion verbs, sound emission verbs, and experiencer object psych-verbs. Second, each argument alternation, such as the causative alternation, conative alternation, dative alternation, or locative alternation, defines a verb class: the set of verbs participating in that alternation. This classification is coarser-grained, with 79 alternations – and, thus, classes – identified according to Kipper et al. (2008).2 The two dimensions of lexical classification – in terms of semantic similarity and in terms of shared participation in an argument alternation – lead to distinct and different-sized verb classes. The class of verbs showing a certain argument alternation often includes members of several Fillmorean verb classes. For example, the much studied English dative alternation illustrated in (8) encompasses a range of verb classes, including those in (9); for simplicity, this list excludes communication verbs. (8) a. Pat gave Sam a pear. (Double object variant) b. Pat gave a pear to Sam. (to variant) (9) a. give verbs: give, pass, hand, sell, pay, trade, lend, loan b. Verbs of future having: advance, allocate, allot, allow, assign, award, bequeath, forward, grant, guarantee, leave, offer, promise c. send verbs: mail, send, ship d. throw verbs: fling, flip, kick, lob, shoot, slap, throw, toss e. Verbs of continuous causation of accompanied motion in a deictically specified direction: bring, take (Based on Gropen et al. 1989: 243–244) A question that arises for this and other alternations is whether all the verb classes showing a particular alternation have the same status. For instance, there is an intuition that not all the classes listed in (9) have the same status, and specifically that one class – the give verbs in (9a) – represents the “core” dative alternation verbs.3 In fact, in the construction grammar literature the meaning of the verb give
2 Logically, all verbs could be grouped in terms of similar behavior with respect to all of the alternations available to them. (Certain alternations might be precluded for an individual verb due to particular verb-specific properties, such as the number of arguments selected.) Such a classification would give rise to a myriad of very fine-grained verb classes. Such classes might not be useful for crosslinguistic investigations of verb valency in the way that the medium-grained Fillmorean verb classes are, as this paper hopes to show through a case study of hitting verbs. 3 The intuition that not all English dative alternation verbs have the same status also manifests itself in disagreements concerning whether some verbs outside the classes listed in (9) such as continuous transfer verbs like push and pull are found in the double object variant. Work by Bresnan and colleagues has established that continuous transfer verbs are indeed found in this variant (Bresnan & Nikitina 2009), suggesting there may be individual variation; further, Ford & Bresnan (2013) document cross-dialect preferences.
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is said to mirror the meaning of the double object variant (Goldberg 1995). The intuition of a core dative alternation verb class is reflected, for instance, in the observation that the translation equivalents of the members of this class are found in the English double object construction or its analogues across languages, while verbs outside this class need not be (Croft et al. 2001; see also Kittilä 2006). Most important, the observation that the class of verbs showing a particular alternation is not necessarily coextensive with a Fillmorean verb class means that there are generalizations which cannot be stated in terms of notions such as “change of state verb” or “manner of motion verb”. Rather, the generalizations must make reference to elements of meaning that are common across sets of Fillmorean verb classes. Therefore, the Fillmorean verb classes cannot themselves be primitive, and verb class effects must be in some sense derived; see also Levin & Rappaport Hovav (2005: 16–18) for discussion.
3 Hitting and breaking beyond English The notion of verb class receives support from other languages. Semantic classes of verbs, again with distinctive behavioral patterns, often paralleling those of their English counterparts, have been identified in other languages, although such studies have often focused on a few classes rather than confronting the entire verb inventory (e.g., DeLancey 1995, 2000 on Lhasa Tibetan; Guerssel et al. 1985 on Berber, Warlpiri, and Winnebago; Kroeger 2010 on Kimaragang Dusun; Vogel 2005 on Jarawara). Again, such classes of verbs can be identified on the basis of shared morphosyntactic patterning, although the relevant morphosyntactic phenomena may vary somewhat across languages. For example, body-part possessor ascension (or external possession) takes alternate forms in different languages (e.g., Gerdts 1993; König & Haspelmath 1998); further, the English conative alternation lacks a counterpart in many languages (Bohnemeyer 2007), as does the English resultative construction (e.g., Green 1973; Snyder 2001; Son & Svenonius 2008; Washio 1997), while the locative alternation is found with larger groups of verbs in some languages than others (e.g., Hunter 2008; Kim 1999). Such variation is not surprising since these phenomena depend on a language’s morphosyntactic type and, hence, resources (e.g., Gerdts 1993). Precisely what the correlations are between morphosyntactic resources and the availability and form of particular alternations is a subject for further study, but see Beavers et al. (2010) for some discussion with respect to the crosslinguistic encoding of motion events. The presence of Fillmorean verb classes across languages is illustrated by Kroeger’s study of hitting and breaking verbs in Kimaragang Dusun, a language of northern Borneo, which is summarized here. This language, like English, makes a clear distinction between the verbs hit and break, but this distinction manifests
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Tab. 1: Breaking verbs (excerpted from Kroeger 2010: 4, Table 1). Root
Gloss
Intransitive
Transitive
babak kinis lapak lupi putut tipu uyas
‘shatter’ ‘tear (e.g., cloth)’ ‘split’ ‘fold (e.g., cloth)’ ‘break (rope etc.)’ ‘break (stick etc.)’ ‘pull apart’
mabak kuminis lumapak lumupi mutut tumipu muyas
mamabak monginis mangalapak mongolupi momutut monipu monguyas
Tab. 2: Hitting verbs (excerpted from Kroeger 2010: 4, Table 1). Root
Gloss
Intransitive
Transitive
bobog duntuk duntung lapis pasut sudsur
‘beat (w. stick)’ ‘bump, knock’ ‘punch (w. fist)’ ‘slap’ ‘cane’ ‘poke’
*mobog *dumuntuk *dumuntung *lumapis *masut *sumudsur
momobog mongoduntuk mongoduntung mangalapis mamasut monudsur
itself in the context of the type of “voice” system characteristic of Philippine languages. Specifically, as in other such languages, the semantic role of the “nominative” noun phrase in a Kimaragang Dusun sentence – and every sentence has such a noun phrase – is indicated by a voice affix on the verb (root). For a given verb, the arguments that may be chosen as nominative noun phrase, as well as the voice affixes that indicate the argument chosen, depend on the verb’s semantic class. Roots of breaking verbs have both transitive and intransitive forms, paralleling the English causative alternation, although the forms have distinct voice affixes, while roots of hitting verbs generally only have a transitive form. As noted, the choice of nominative noun phrase is indicated by the verb’s voice form. Normally, instruments can be expressed as nominative noun phrases in sentences where the verb consists of the verb root together with the transitive prefix poN- and the zero allomorph of the instrument voice (IV) affix. The poN- + instrument voice form is available to verbs generally, including breaking verbs, as in (10), and hitting verbs, as in (11). (10) Dunsul
ot
pinangababak dilot pampang. 0-poN-babak hammer nom iv-tr-shatter that rock ‘It was a hammer that that rock was broken up/shattered with.’ (Kroeger 2010: 10, (17b))
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(11) Gibang nopo ot
pongoduntung ku dialo, aba no. 0-poN-duntung left only rel iv-tr-punch 1sg.gen 3sg faint prtcl ‘Even if it is only my left (hand) that I hit him with, he will pass out.’ (Kroeger 2010: 10, (20b))
However, some hitting verbs can also express an instrument as nominative noun phrase when the verb consists simply of the root together with the i- allomorph of the instrument voice – a combination that Kroeger refers to as the bare instrument voice form – as in (12). In such instances, there is a change in the realization of the surface argument: it is now marked with dative case. (12) N-i-duntung dialo sid tobon a tonggom yo. pst-iv-punch 3sg dat wall nom fist 3sg.gen ‘He punched his fist against the wall.’ (Kroeger 2010: 10, (20a)) In contrast, breaking verbs lack bare instrument voice forms. (13) *i-babak ‘IV-shatter’, *i-putut ‘IV-break’, *i-lupi ‘IV-fold’, *i-uyas ‘IVpull.apart’, ... (Kroeger 2010: 10, (17a)) Sentences such as (12) with the bare instrument voice form could be viewed as analogues of the against variant of the English with/against alternation illustrated in (4), which has the surface in an oblique form. In fact, Kroeger (2010: 9) analogizes the two instrument voice forms to the English with/against alternation. Kroeger (2010: 5–6) argues that as in English, Kimaragang Dusun breaking verbs entail a result, but hitting verbs do not. He makes this point based on the available interpretations of the volitive form of the verb, which differ for breaking verbs and hitting verbs. The volitive form asserts that an action was intentional, but does not assert that the intended result was achieved, although this is typically implicated, while the nonvolitive form indicates that the result has taken place. As a consequence, a sentence such as (14), where the breaking verb is used to assert an action via its volitive form and deny its result via its nonvolitive form, is not a contradiction; however, the comparable sentence with a hitting verb is impossible because the verb does not lexicalize a result. (14) Minomutut oku do wakaw nga’, amu n-o-putut. pst.av.tr.break 1sg.nom acc rattan but not pst-nvol-break ‘I (tried to) break some rattan, but it didn’t break.’ (Kroeger 2010: 6, (7c))
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(15) *Minamasut oku do karabaw nga’, amu n-a-pasut-0. pst.av.tr.whip 1sg.nom acc buffalo but not pst-nvol-whip-ov ‘I (tried to) whip a buffalo, but it didn’t whip/get whipped.’ (intended meaning; Kroeger 2010: 6, (8c)) Finally, Kroeger (2010: 4) points out that breaking verbs – or more precisely their roots – specify properties of the entity that changes state – the patient; in contrast, hitting verbs – or their roots – specify properties of their instrument. That is, in describing a certain situation, which breaking verb is chosen depends on the change of state, which may be determined by properties of the patient. For example, sticks and ropes break in different ways, so they may require different breaking verbs in a language like Kimaragang Dusun where there are verbs specific to these two ways of breaking. In contrast, which hitting verb is chosen in describing a certain situation of surface contact depends on precisely how the action is carried out and, particularly, on the choice of instrument, with different verbs being required, say, if the instrument is a cane or a hand. Kroeger’s study, then, shows not only that the notion of Fillmorean verb class is useful beyond English, but that the same classes may be both identifiable and relevant across languages. Further, it reveals some similiarity in the properties shown by English and Kimaragang Dusun, such as the availability of alternate realizations of the surface argument of hitting verbs. However, as Kroeger’s study demonstrates, the morphosyntactic character of a language also shapes the properties that its verbs show, giving rise to differences among languages, as in the differential distribution of the bare instrument voice form of the verb across the hitting and breaking verb classes in Kimaragang Dusun. This brief comparative discussion of English and Kimaragang Dusun raises two questions. First, are there expectations about the constellations of properties that members of a particular verb class could in principle show across languages? If there are, are these properties modulated in some way by each language’s morphosyntactic profile? I believe that the answers to both these questions is “yes”, as I strive to show in the remainder of the paper by focusing primarily on hitting verbs and to a lesser extent on breaking verbs. To begin, in § 4 I place the hitting and breaking verb classes within a broader dichotomy applicable to the verb inventory of English and other languages. Next, in § 5 I propose that there are constraints on the realization of the arguments of hitting and breaking verbs in English. Assuming that these constraints are applicable beyond English, then they should delimit the possible argument realization options of these verbs crosslinguistically, as I suggest they do through a case study of hitting verbs in several languages presented in § 6.1. In § 6.2 I suggest that the attested variety in the argument realization options of hitting verbs may be tied to properties of the languages under study.
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4 Behind hitting and breaking: The manner/result verb distinction Nonstative verbs largely fall into two major groups with respect to meaning and behavior, referred to as manner and result verbs by Rappaport Hovav & Levin (1998, 2010). To introduce these two types of verbs and the relation between them, I revisit the verbs hit and break asking why this pair of verbs allowed for an effective case study.
4.1 Hitting and breaking revisited The verbs hit and break jointly make for a compelling case study because certain events involving damage to a physical object could be described by either verb, yet the choice of one verb or the other has significance. For instance, if a vandal throws a rock at a store window and the window breaks, what happens can be described by either of these two verbs, as in (16), although different facets of the event are highlighted. (16) a. The vandal broke the window with a rock. b. The vandal hit the window with a rock. The (a) sentence asserts that the window comes to be no longer intact, but it is silent about how it happened: the window could have been hit, kicked, punched, or pounded and a variety of instruments could have been used, including rocks, hammers, fists, sticks, and balls. The reason is that break is a change of state verb and simply specifies the state change. In contrast, the (b) sentence asserts that something forcefully came into contact with the window, but it is silent as to whether this contact had any effect on the window. It does not entail that the window broke (Fillmore 1970: 125), as (17) shows, although it does not preclude the possibility that the window may have broken. (17) The rock that the vandal threw hit the window, but luckily it wasn’t damaged. The reason is that hit is a surface contact verb and simply specifies the mode of surface contact; however, since the contact may involve the application of force, such an action may result in a change of state to the surface. Generalizing, verbs that can be used in English to describe events in which physical objects are damaged fall into two classes. One class includes crack, shatter, splinter, and split – all verbs which like break describe changes in an object’s “material integrity” (Hale & Keyser 1987). Each of these result verbs describes a specific type of damage that can be inflicted on a physical object which often,
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although not always results from forceful impact with it. The other class includes kick, punch, slap, and whack – all verbs which like hit describe making surface contact with an object in a way that involves the application of a force. Due to the forceful impact, these manner verbs describe ways of potentially damaging physical objects.4 Thus, in English, just as in Kimaragang Dusun, a breaking verb is chosen to describe a situation based on properties of the patient, while a hitting verb is chosen depending on the nature of the contact made with this entity.
4.2 Beyond hitting and breaking: The pervasiveness of the dichotomy The bifurcation in what might be described as a class of “verbs of damaging” comprised of the hitting and breaking verbs is representative of a more pervasive split in the English nonstative verb inventory (Levin & Rappaport Hovav 1991; Rappaport Hovav & Levin 1998, 2010). Other apparently semantically coherent verb classes of English can be similarly subdivided, giving rise to lexical domains with two subclasses of verbs: (1) a set of manner verbs which specify the manner of carrying out an action and (2) a set of result verbs which specify the coming about of a result, as shown in Table 3.5 Thus, just as the verbs of damaging include both manner hit and result break, so too do the verbs of putting include manner smear and pour and result cover and fill. In each domain, the manner verbs describe actions used to bring about the types of results associated with the paired result verbs. The claim, then, is that verbs in the Manner column of the table share meaning components of the same type, as do those in the Result column. That is, the class of verbs defined by the
4 A hitting verb could be used in the description of an event in which damage is inflicted on a physical object (e.g., The vandal hit the window and it broke). In most circumstances, however, such a verb may be dispreferred as the sole verb in such an event description since such a description does not entail that damage necessarily occurred and, thus, omits potentially important information. 5 More precisely, the manner/result distinction applies not to verbs, but to verb “roots” – the semantic core of verbs (Rappaport Hovav & Levin 2010: 26). Given the impoverished morphology of English, most verbs, as they are morphologically simple, consist of nothing more than their roots. (Two sets of apparently morphologically simple verbs that may be the exception are denominal verbs (e.g., staple, butter) and deadjectival verbs (e.g. cool, dim), which require further study.) The manner/result distinction might well also be applicable to stative verbs, especially when it is reformulated as a distinction between verbs that lexicalize a scalar change and those that do not. Scalar change can be defined over a spatial as well as a temporal dimension (Gawron 2009; Koontz-Garboden 2010), with some stative verbs – or verbs in their stative use – instantiating changes in the spatial dimension, as in The river widens as it flows towards the sea, thus qualifying as result verbs. Other stative verbs that do not lexicalize such changes would qualify as manner verbs. I leave this issue aside here.
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Tab. 3: Manner and result verbs across lexical domains.
Verbs of damaging Verbs of putting – 2-dimensional Verbs of putting – 3-dimensional Verbs of removal Verbs of combining Verbs of killing
Manner verbs
Result verbs
hit smear pour scrub shake stab
break cover fill clean combine kill
Manner column is grammatically relevant despite the apparent semantic diversity of its members; the same holds of the class defined by the Result column (Levin 1999). The perceived semantic classes represented by the rows in the table are not grammatically relevant. Such classes arise since certain manner verbs and certain result verbs can sometimes be used to describe the same event in the world, just as break and hit or smear and cover can. Pairs such as these emerge because many result verbs lexicalize results that are conventionally associated with particular manners. For example, clean and clear lexicalize states that may result from removing stuff from a surface, and for many surfaces there is a prototypical manner in which such a state is achieved: floors are cleaned by sweeping or mopping, counters by wiping, carpets by vacuuming. Comparably, many manner verbs lexicalize manners that are conventionally used to bring about particular results (Talmy 2000: 261–268; see also Goddard this volume). Thus, wipe and scrub describe actions involving surface contact and motion which are often used to remove stuff from a surface. However, result verbs do not entail a manner – not even a manner conventionally associated with bringing about that result; further, manner verbs do not entail a result – not even a conventionally associated result – as (18) shows. (18) a. I just wiped the counter, but it’s still dirty/sticky/covered in crumbs. b. I cleaned the silver bracelet by wiping it with a soft cloth/rubbing it with toothpaste/dipping it in a special solution/saying “abracadabra”. The manner/result dichotomy extends to the motion domain, as reflected in Talmy’s classification of motion verbs in terms of what meaning components they “conflate” (1975, 1985, 2000). His motion and path conflating verbs (e.g., arrive, ascend, descend, enter) are result verbs, while his motion and manner conflating verbs (e.g., amble, fly, jog, run, swim) are manner verbs. Thus, ascend specifies a direction of motion, but not the manner in which the motion is effected, while jog specifies a manner of motion, but is neutral as to the specific direction of motion. Furthermore, the notions of manner and result apply to verbs such as those in (19) that do not easily fit into larger lexical domains spanning manner and result verbs of the type illustrated in the table above.
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(19) a. Manner verbs: cry, eat, exercise, flap, honk, mutter, scribble, shout, sleep, smile, squeak, waltz, wave, ... b. Result verbs: dim, dry, faint, gladden, melt, scare, widen, ... This dichotomy also crosscuts the transitive/intransitive verb divide of a language; thus, Levin (1999) shows argument realization properties are shared by both transitive and intransitive manner verbs; see also § 5. § 5.3 considers Fillmorean verb classes in light of the manner/result verb dichotomy. Rappaport Hovav & Levin (2010) propose that the manner/result verb dichotomy arises from a constraint on the meaning that a verb can lexicalize, that is, a constraint on those meaning components that are specified and entailed in all uses of the verb, regardless of context.6 (20) Manner/result complementarity: Manner and result meaning components are in complementary distribution: a verb lexicalizes only one. (Rappaport Hovav & Levin 2010: 22) A verb’s lexicalized meaning, then, is distinct from the meaning elements that can be inferred from its use in a particular context. Rappaport Hovav & Levin further propose that this distinction is rooted in the notion of scalar change (Hay et al. 1999; McClure 1994; Rappaport Hovav 2008), which is a descendant of aspectual notions such as “measure” (Tenny 1994) and “incremental theme” (Dowty 1991). The claim is that result verbs are verbs of scalar change, while manner verbs are not. That is, a result verb describes a change along a scale of change related to its lexicalized result. For instance, the verb brighten describes a change along a scale constituted of degrees of brightness, organized in increasing order.7 In contrast, manner verbs are not inherently associated with a single scale of change.
4.3 Identifying manner and result verbs A critical question is how a verb’s classification as manner or result can be determined. The patterns of linguistic behavior to be presented in § 5.1 and § 5.2 provide a way of determining whether an English verb is a manner verb or a result verb; 6 Following up on note 5, more accurately manner/result complementarity constrains lexicalized material (Rappaport Hovav & Levin 2010: 26). In English, where most words are morphologically simple, complementarity holds of words; however, in so-called bipartite verb languages such as Lakhota (Foley & Van Valin 1984: 40–45) and Washo (Jacobsen 1980: 91), where verbs are constituted of stems and affixes, it holds of the pieces of verbs. 7 Despite what is suggested in Rappaport Hovav & Levin (1998), the manner/result distinction does not map cleanly onto traditional aspectual classes because the notion of scalar change does not, as discussed in Rappaport Hovav (2008, 2014). Manner verbs in their basic uses are atelic: most often they are durative and, thus, activities (e.g., pound, sweep); however, some are unspecified for durativity and may have semelfactive or activity uses (e.g., hit, beep). Result verbs may be basically
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they can also be used in other languages with comparable phenomena. Ultimately, however, a verb’s classification as manner or result should be based on whether it lexicalizes a scalar change – the property underlying this classification. Yet in some instances a verb’s classification may not be obvious. Levin & Rappaport Hovav (2013) elaborate on why deciding whether a verb is a result verb or a manner verb might be difficult. When a verb is used in a sentence to describe an event, inferences that arise from the larger context in which the sentence is uttered may sometimes be mistaken for components of meaning lexicalized by its verb. As noted, many manners are conventionally used to bring about certain results, such as wiping a physical object in order to clean it. As a consequence, often when a wiping event takes place, a cleaning event is also taking place. Especially when associations between certain manners and results are particularly strong, the wrong meaning component could be attributed to a verb. Further insight into how best to determine a verb’s classification can be found in Levin & Rappaport Hovav (2013, 2014). These papers present case studies of three verbs whose classification is problematic: clean, climb, and cut. Beavers & Koontz-Garboden (2012), in presenting a critique of manner/result complementarity, propose a range of diagnostics for manner and result verbs, although these diagnostics are not all equally effective. As with all diagnostics, the most effective diagnostics are those rooted in the nature of the phenomenon under study, in this instance scalar change. A further complication is that the class of scalar change verbs includes durative verbs – those associated with multi-point scales – and punctual verbs – those associated with two-point scales – and these two subclasses might be picked out by distinct diagnostics. Perhaps the best diagnostic for a result verb is that the argument undergoing the change is necessarily different at the end of the event, although even this diagnostic must be used with care to avoid mistaking contextually derived inferences for lexicalized meaning.
5 The grammatical relevance of the manner/result verb dichotomy Not only do manner and result verbs differ systematically in meaning, but they also differ in their argument realization options (Rappaport Hovav & Levin 1998, 2005), as discussed in § 5.1 and § 5.2. This discussion provides necessary background for revisiting the value of Fillmorean verb classes in § 5.3 and then considering the value of verb classes from a crosslinguistic perspective in § 6.
telic or unspecified for telicity (Rappaport Hovav & Levin 2005). Thus, verbs like cool or dim – socalled degree achievements (Dowty 1979) – which lexicalize a multi-valued scale are unspecified for telicity and may show either telic or atelic uses, while verbs like break and arrive which lexicalize a two-valued scale (Beavers 2008) are basically achievements.
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5.1 The basic differences in argument realization Many of the differences in argument realization between the hitting verbs and breaking verbs discussed in § 1 are manifestations of a more fundamental constraint on the argument realization options available to change of state verbs.8 As succinctly stated by Rappaport Hovav & Levin (2005), the primary characteristic of change of state verbs such as break is that they must realize their patient argument, and they must realize it as a direct object in their transitive uses (and as a subject in their intransitive uses; see Levin & Rappaport Hovav 2011). In fact, this generalization can be extended to result verbs in general: the argument that the scalar change they lexicalize is predicated of must be realized as a direct object if the verb is transitive (and as a subject if it is intransitive). Thus, a verb like put or bring must have its theme argument as the object (*put the shelf with the books / *put at the lid on the pot). The surface argument of hitting verbs and the non-agent argument of other two-argument manner verbs are not subject to this restriction. This difference underlies the divergences in argument realization options that manner and result verbs show, such as those noted by Rappaport Hovav & Levin (1998), which are pursued by Levin (1999, 2006); see also the discussion of hitting and breaking verbs in Dowty (1991: 594–597). Consistent with this generalization, not only do hitting verbs show multiple options for realizing their surface arguments, but they show other forms of flexibility in the realization of their arguments. Thus, the surface need not be expressed as an object, as when hit is found in the conative alternation, an alternation that breaking verbs do not display since it precludes the object expression of the patient argument. (21) a. Carla hit the door. / Carla hit at the door. b. Janet broke the vase. / *Janet broke at the vase. More generally, this constraint on argument realization means that manner verbs show considerably more and different argument realization options than result verbs. Manner verbs but not result verbs are found with unspecified objects without recourse to generic or repetitive contexts, as in (22) (Rappaport Hovav & Levin
8 One exception is the causative alternation. Fillmore (1970) takes this alternation to be a key property of breaking verbs, and it is often considered to be a hallmark of change of state verbs in general. However, the set of verbs showing the causative alternation crosscuts the manner/result divide. Although change of state verbs – a prominent subset of result verbs – are considered to be the prototypical causative alternation verbs of English and other languages, some manner verbs, including bounce, roll, and spin, show the alternation and some result verbs, including create, insert, and put, do not. Consistent with this dissociation, the theoretical accounts delineated in this section do not offer insight into the causative alternation, although they explain other important argument realization properties characteristic of manner and result verbs.
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1998; Wright & Levin 2000; notwithstanding potential counterexamples cited by Goldberg 2001, 2005, 2010; Mittwoch 2005; T. Tsunoda p.c.), and manner verbs but not result verbs are found with nonsubcategorized objects, as in (23) and (24).9 (22) a. Leslie swept (the floor) this morning. b. *Kelly broke again tonight when she did the dishes. (23) a. The child rubbed the tiredness out of his eyes. b. Cinderella scrubbed her hands raw. (24) a. *The clumsy child broke the beauty out of the vase. b. *The clumsy child broke his knuckles raw. Rappaport Hovav & Levin (1998) attribute these differences among manner and result verbs to their associated event structures: manner verbs are basically associated with simple event structures as in (25), while result verbs are basically associated with maximally complex, causative event structures as in (26). (The parentheses around “y” in (25) recognize that there are both one-argument manner verbs such as laugh and run and two-argument manner verbs such as hit and wipe; see Levin (1999).) (25) [ x ACT (y) ] (26) [ [ x ACT (y) ] CAUSE [ BECOME [ z ] ] ] The simple event structure of a manner verb can be “augmented” via the addition of a result to give the type of complex event structure basically associated with a result verb. In English, this option is reflected in resultative constructions headed by manner verbs, such as Cinderella scrubbed the floor clean, which has the event structure in (27) – an instantiation of (26), in which “y” and “z” have the same referent. (27) [ [ x ACT y ] CAUSE [ BECOME [ y ] ] ]
9 As with many argument alternations, there are both necessary and sufficient conditions governing the availability of unspecified objects with a given verb. Being a manner verb is necessary for allowing unspecified objects, but not sufficient. Unspecified objects must be recoverable from context (Brisson 1994; Rappaport Hovav & Levin 1998), explaining why some manner verbs require some degree of contextual support with such objects, while others fail to allow them altogether. Thus, in the absence of context, Tracy swept is fine, but Tracy scrubbed/wiped is somewhat odd because the unspecified object is understood to be the floor with sweep, but it is not clear what it should be with scrub or wipe. It is for this reason that the availability of unspecified objects with manner verbs is not illustrated with a hitting verb in (22).
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Furthermore, as Levin (1999) argues, two-argument manner verbs have simple event structures that only require their actor participant (the “x” in (25)) to be expressed. The other participant (the “y” in (25)) need not be realized, if recoverable from context. Thus, manner verbs may be found in resultative constructions which have a result predicated of a nonargument as in (23). Thus in (23b), Cinderella scrubbed her hands raw, what is scrubbed is not Cinderella’s hands, the apparent object of scrub, but some unexpressed entity. Such resultatives have the event structure in (28); this event structure is also an instantiation of (26), but here the “y” and “z” indeed have distinct referents. (28) [ [ x ACT y ] CAUSE [ BECOME [ z ] ] ] Rappaport Hovav & Levin (1998) propose that, in contrast, result verbs require both their agent/causer and patient arguments to be expressed so that there is one argument representing each of the subevents in their basic, complex event structure in (26). This property is reflected in the unacceptability of the resultative constructions headed by result verbs in (24), in which the result phrase is predicated of a non-argument. That is, the result verb break cannot be found in (24b), *The clumsy child broke his knuckles raw, with the intended meaning that the clumsy child broke many things, thus causing injury to his knuckles. Rappaport Hovav & Levin (1998) further posit that a result verb has the maximally complex event structure and, thus, does not allow its event structure to be further augmented. Rappaport Hovav (2008) and Rappaport Hovav & Levin (2010) take a somewhat different perspective on these argument realization facts. They suggest that an argument which has a scalar change predicated of it must be lexically expressed. Since result verbs lexicalize such a scale, their patient argument, as the argument undergoing the scalar change, must be expressed. The unacceptability of unspecified and nonsubcategorized objects with such verbs follows, as in such instances the patient argument is not expressed. Manner verbs have no comparable requirement since they do not lexicalize a scalar change. Thus, they have more argument realization options, including co-ocurrence with nonsubcategorized objects. If a scale is externally introduced with a manner verb, say via a result predicate, then the argument this result is predicated of must be expressed. Compare the optionality of the surface argument in Casey swept (the floor) to its obligatoriness in Casey swept *(the floor) clean, where it has a result predicated of it.
5.2 Further differences: Object alternations The constraint on the object of result verbs has yet another repercussion: object alternations are predicted to be found with manner but not result verbs (Levin 2006). Object alternations are argument alternations involving a verb which has two arguments available within the verb phrase, where either of these arguments
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can be expressed as the object, with the other argument usually expressed as an oblique, but sometimes left unexpressed. (Thus, verbs maintain the same association of argument with subject in both variants of these alternations.) This prediction arises because only manner verbs and not result verbs have flexibility in object choice. Examples of some well-known English object alternations follow together with a selection of verbs attested in each alternation according to Levin (1993).10 (29) Locative alternation – putting subtype: dab, smear, splash, spray, sprinkle, ... a. Jill sprayed paint on the wall. b. Jill sprayed the wall with paint. (30) Locative alternation – removing subtype: rake, scrub, shovel, sweep, wipe, ... a. Jack wiped crumbs off the counter. b. Jack wiped the counter. (31) Material/product alternation: carve, knit, sculpt, sew, weave, whittle, ... a. Martha carved a toy out of the piece of wood. b. Martha carved the piece of wood into a toy. (32) Image impression alternation: emboss, embroider, engrave, paint, ... a. Taylor embroidered peonies on the jacket. b. Taylor embroidered the jacket with peonies. (33) With/against alternation: beat, hit, pound, tap, whack, ... a. Sam hit the fence with a stick. b. Sam hit a stick against the fence. The verbs showing these alternations are indeed manner verbs. They describe actions that involve a variety of changes, none along a single specified dimension, as result verbs do; nor to they entail a particular result. And, as expected given such a classification, they show the relevant argument realization properties, as shown for representative verbs showing each alternation in (34)–(38). For instance, they allow unspecified objects and nonsubcategorized objects, as shown in the (a) and (b) sentences, respectively, in each set. (34) Locative alternation – removing subtype: a. Shelly swept/scrubbed. b. Cinderella swept and scrubbed herself into catatonia.
10 I assume following Rappaport Hovav & Levin (2008) that the dative alternation is not an object alternation in that the first object in the double object construction is not a true “object,” as argued by Baker (1997), Hudson (1992), Maling (2001), Marantz (1993), and Postal (2010). It is possible that further investigation may reveal that there are other purported object alternations that have been misidentified.
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(35) Locative alternation – putting subtype: a. Shelly sprayed/splashed. b. With great difficulty, he and the other two men splashed and forced their way through the rusted, barnacle-encrusted supports of the pier. (A. Lurie. 1998. The Last Resort. New York: Henry Holt, 211) (36) Image impression alternation: a. Shelly embroidered. b. She embroidered her fingers to the bone for the wedding. (mylittlestitches.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/) (37) Material/product alternation: a. Shelly sewed/knit/carved. b. Maybe she wants to sew her fingers numb in a poorly lit basement or wash dishes 16 hours a day. (http://forum.baby-gaga.com/about790609-11.html) (38) With/against alternation: a. Shelly kicked/punched. b. And kicked himself into contention for the league’s Most Valuable Player honor. (J. Duarte. Goal-oriented: Rested Dougherty has hotshots ready for the title run. Sports Section, The Houston Chronicle, 8/8/1997: 6) Absent from the verbs showing these object alternations are verbs from semantic classes whose members are result verbs, including change of state verbs (e.g., break, crack, dim, widen), verbs of putting (e.g., insert, put), and verbs of taking (e.g., take, obtain). These verbs all inherently describe events that involve a scale of change: either a scale with multiple values, as with dim or widen, or a scale with only two values, as with break or take. More specifically, as noted in § 1 change of state verbs do not show the with/against alternation, as in (39), nor do they show the removing form of the locative alternation, as in (40). Further, although verbs of putting and verbs of taking may express their arguments as in one variant of the locative alternation, they do not show the alternation, as in (41) and (42). (39) a. Lee broke the fence with the stick. b. Lee broke the stick against the fence. (does not mean ‘Lee broke the fence.’) (40) a. Corey shortened the dress. b. *Corey shortened the elegance out of the dress. (41) a. Shannon put the groceries into the bag. b. *Shannon put the bag with the groceries.
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(42) a. Alex obtained the rare metal from Transylvania. b. *Alex obtained Transylvania (of the rare metal). Again, these verbs demonstrate other properties of result verbs: they do not allow unspecified objects, as in (43), nor nonsubcategorized objects, as in (44). (43) *Kelly broke/dimmed/covered/inserted/obtained. (44) a. b. c. d.
*My kids broke me into the poorhouse. *The stagehand dimmed the scene dark. *Sam inserted the door open (with a doorstop). *The robber obtained the bank vault empty.
5.3 Fillmorean verb classes revisited A natural question is how Fillmorean verb classes relate to the manner/result dichotomy. Do members of a given Fillmorean class all fall into either the manner class or the result class or do some members of a Fillmorean class fall into the result class and others into the manner class? Studies to date suggest that the members of a given Fillmorean class are either all manner verbs, as the English hitting verbs are, or all result verbs, as the English breaking verbs are. This distribution is not unexpected since the meaning components that bring together the members of a given Fillmorean class are grammatically relevant – that is, they have implications for a verb’s argument realization potential – and as § 5.1 and § 5.2 show the notions of manner and result play an important role in determining argument realization. However, it is still possible that a grammatically relevant meaning component that characterizes a particular Fillmorean class could crosscut the manner/result dichotomy, but I leave this question for further investigation. To the extent that Fillmorean verb classes are subsumed under either the manner class or the result class, a second question arises: Does recognizing the manner/result dichotomy obviate the need to recognize Fillmorean classes in the first place, especially as they pertain to argument realization? The discussion in § 5.1 and § 5.2 bears on this question. As shown, argument realization options can be tied to the manner/result dichotomy: there are argument realization properties that are hallmarks of result verbs and others that are hallmarks of manner verbs, with manner verbs show considerably more flexibility in their argument realization options than result verbs, particularly with respect to object types and object alternations. Membership in a particular Fillmorean class determines more specific argument realization options within those allowed to the manner – or result – verb class that the members of this class belong to, such as participation in specific object alternations for manner verbs. Thus, in order to show an object alternation,
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a verb must be a manner verb, as argued in § 5.2. The actual object alternations that a manner verb shows depends on the specific type of manner it lexicalizes – a property that may place a verb in a particular Fillmorean class. Thus, wring, a verb which lexicalizes a manner of twisting or otherwise manipulating a physical object to remove liquid from it, shows the removing form of the locative alternation but not the with/against alternation, while hit, a verb which lexicalizes forceful contact with a surface, shows the with/against alternation but not the locative alternation.11 Thus, Fillmorean classes, which arise from further specifics of the lexicalized meaning elements, continue to be valuable.
6 Implications of the manner/result dichotomy for crosslinguistic investigations Given that the manner/result dichotomy provides insight into the argument realization options of English verbs, the question arises whether this dichotomy plays a role in understanding the argument alternations and other verb-related phenomena of languages beyond English? Drawing on the observations made for English, several more specific questions can be asked: (1) In other languages are manner and result verbs different in their argument realization patterns? (2) Specifically, in a given language do manner verbs show more flexibility in their object choices than result verbs, as they do in English? (3) Across languages is the flexibility in object choice open to manner verbs manifested in the availability of a variety of argument realization options attested with such manner verbs? That is, even if a given language does not show multiple argument realization options for its manner verbs, is a diverse set of argument realization patterns observed for these verbs across a range of languages, as might be expected given the lack of constraints on object choice? Further, this would be expected to contrast with expected uniformity in the argument realization options available to result verbs. The answer to the three questions above, I believe, is “yes”. Although I cannot present a thorough investigation of all manner verbs, there is suggestive evidence to this effect that comes from examining the argument realization options of the counterparts of hit and related verbs such as beat, kick, punch, slap, tap, and whack within and across several languages. Hitting verbs are a subclass of surface contact verbs, a larger set which also includes verbs like rake, smear, sweep, and wipe; however, hitting verbs lexicalize the application of a force at some point on a surface, rather than contact and motion with respect to a surface as some other surface
11 See Boas (2006, 2008) who questions the value of Fillmorean verb classes by arguing that even finer-grained verb classes need to be recognized, and Levin (2010) for discussion of why Fillmorean classes are still valuable.
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contact verbs such as sweep and wipe do.12 In § 6.1 I show that hitting verbs show a diversity of argument realization options across languages that largely reflects one or more of the options witnessed in English with such verbs. Then in § 6.2 I identify what these options have in common and offer some comments as to why these options might be attested. If the observations made for English do indeed carry over to other languages, then in contrast to manner verbs, result verbs would not only be expected to show similar argument realization options across languages, but to show little flexibility in the options available to them. These predictions for result verbs should be verified too; however, I have chosen to focus on manner verbs – and specifically on hitting verbs – in the remainder of this paper because I know of no systematic study of these verbs and their behavior is predicted to be more varied. I provide a few brief mentions of breaking verbs as representatives of the result verb class where relevant data are available, just to show that they indeed contrast in their behavior with hitting verbs.13
6.1 The data As already discussed, in English hitting verbs are basically transitive verbs, but they allow for alternative realizations of the argument denoting the surface: al-
12 The precise set of verbs that falls under the notion of surface contact needs further investigation. For instance, some studies cited in § 6.1 note that translation equivalents of bite, pat, peck, poke, scratch, shoot, and stab pattern like hitting verbs in some languages, and although I mention such verbs, it is not clear that they all belong to the class of surface contact verbs. In fact, T. Tsunoda (p.c.) informs me that he has considered positing a class of verbs between change of state verbs and surface contact verbs in his transitivity hierarchy (see § 6.2) for verbs such as bite, scratch, shoot, and stab because semantically they seem to involve a notion of change of state, yet they pattern like surface contact verbs in terms of argument realization. Beavers & Koontz-Garboden (2012) characterize stab and shoot as manner of killing verbs, a set of verbs whose members, according to them, show properties of both manner and result verbs. My own initial investigations of some of these verbs with M. Rapapport Hovav suggests that stab and shoot are best classified as manner verbs, but establishing the correct analysis goes beyond the scope of this paper. 13 As discussed in note 8, the causative alternation does not figure among the argument realization properties that follow from the manner/result dichotomy, even if Fillmore (1970) cites it as distinguishing between hitting and breaking verbs. Thus, since this section focuses on implications of the manner/result dichotomy for argument realization beyond English, I do not consider the causative alternation in this section. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that as documented in crosslinguistic studies such as Haspelmath (1993), Nedjalkov (1969), and Nichols et al. (2004), causative alternations are attested across languages, even if the morphological relation between the variants can vary. Further, the sets of verbs showing each language’s instantiation of the alternation overlap significantly and always include the counterpart of the English verb break. In contrast, the counterparts of the English verb hit are not considered in these crosslinguistic studies presumably because they fall outside the potential domain of the alternation. Further, to the extent that this information is available, it appears that the counterparts of hit do not show the causative alternation in the
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though it may be the object, it may also be expressed in a PP. In fact, it is precisely in the realization of this argument that variation is observed across languages. However, as this study is based primarily on secondary sources, the sample of languages considered is opportunistically rather than systematically chosen, and the range of data available for each one varies. Thus, this study can establish an interesting handful of attested strategies for expressing the surface, but given the incomplete nature of the data, it is not able to address conclusively how many of these strategies are found in each of the languages being discussed, nor can it identify the factors that determine the choice among them. Ulwa, a Misumalpan language of Nicaragua, expresses the surface, whether animate or inanimate, in a PP headed by the locative preposition kau, as in (45) and (46) (A. Koontz-Garboden p.c.).14 (45) M raudi L *(kau) bau-t-ida. M subj L at hit-ta-3s ‘M hit L.’ (Koontz-Garboden field notes: 0405-1024) (46) Andrew raudi Ulwa uuka *(kau) bau-t-i tung ka. Andrew subj Ulwa house at hit-ta-prog walk evid-ka ‘Andrew is walking around hitting the Ulwa house.’ (Koontz-Garboden field notes: 0405-1025) This pattern holds of the verb baunaka, which is used to describe a range of surface contact events, including those falling under English hit, kick, and beat, as well as the verb tisnaka ‘slap’. These verbs contrast with change of state verbs such as bahnaka ‘break’, dapinnaka ‘straighten/bend’, and warinnaka ‘bend’ in their transitive uses: their patient argument does not appear with kau. (47) Aaka bakaka ulni-ki panka (*kau) bah-t-ida. this child writing-1s stick at break-ta-3s ‘This kid broke my pen.’ (Koontz-Garboden field notes: 0405-1030) In Hebrew, with some hitting verbs, including those in (48), the surface – whether animate or inanimate – is expressed in a PP headed by the locative preposition be.15 languages cited in § 6.1 (e.g., Hebrew (Halevy 2007: 87), Portuguese, Russian, Ulwa (A. KoontzGarboden p.c.)). 14 Ulwa verbs consist of a root (e.g., bau- ‘hit’, bah- ‘break’) together with a transitive or intransitive class marker (Koontz-Garboden 2009). The examples cited here include the transitive class marker ta, glossed TA. 15 The verb hika ‘beat/hit’ takes the surface in the accusative if animate, but expresses it in a PP if inanimate. The verb dafaq ‘knock (on the door), beat’ takes an accusative noun phrase when it
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(48) ba’at ‘kick’, dafaq ‘knock (on the door), beat’, halam ‘beat/hit’, hitslif ‘whip (a horse)’, naga ‘touch’, paga’ ‘hit/collide’, xavat ‘swat’, ... (Botwinik-Rotem 2003: 10; Halevy 2007: 63, 87) (49) Ha-sus ba’at be Dina/ ba dli. the-horse kick.pst.3sm in Dina/ in.the pail ‘The horse kicked Dina/the pail.’ The verbs hirbits ‘hit’ – perhaps the verb most frequently used to describe hitting in colloquial speech – and satar ‘slap’ take animate surfaces only, and then only if expressed in the dative. In a discussion of hitting and breaking events in Lhasa Tibetan, DeLancey (2000) notes that the counterpart of English hit must use a locative marker to express the surface, as shown in (50) with an animate and in (51) with an inanimate. (50) thub=bstan-gyis blo=bzang-la gzhus-song. Thubten-erg Lobsang-loc hit-perf ‘Thubten hit Lobsang.’ (DeLancey 2000: 6, (18)) (51) shing-la sta=re gzhus-pa tree-loc axe hit ‘hit the tree with an axe’ (DeLancey 2000: 13, (61)) Lhasa Tibetan shows an ergative case marking system, and (51) includes an absolutive – i.e. morphologically unmarked – noun phrase expressing the instrument used; thus, the form of this sentence is reminiscent of the English against construction, i.e. hit the axe against the tree. As in English, the Lhasa Tibetan counterparts of hit and break differ in their argument realization properties. Locative case is not found on the patient argument of change of state verbs, as shown in (52).16 (52) thub=bstan-gyis dkar-yol cig bcag-song. Thubten-erg cup a break-perf ‘Thubten broke a cup.’ (DeLancey 1982: 23, (6))
takes on a change of state meaning, roughly comparable to English dent. The verb hilqa ‘hit with an instrument (usually a lash)’ also takes an accusative complement. 16 The orthography has been modified in (52) to make it consistent with the other Lhasa Tibetan examples.
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There is more to be said about Lhasa Tibetan. Concepts expressed by many English surface contact verbs may be expressed via verb-noun combinations in Lhasa Tibetan (DeLancey 1995, 2000: 13). In these combinations, the verb is fairly unspecific, with the noun used to specify the type of hitting event, for instance, by indicating the instrument or body part used. The surface continues to be expressed in the locative case. (53) nga-s blo=bzang=la rdog=rdyag gzhus-pa yin. I-erg Lobsang-loc kickN hit/throw-perf/conjunct ‘I kicked Lobsang.’ (DeLancey 1995: (20)) (54) thub=bstan-gyis blo=bzang-la mur=rdzog gzhus-song. Thubten-erg Lobsang-loc fist hit-perf ‘Thubten punched Lobsang.’ (DeLancey 2000: 13, (64)) Examples such as (53) might be compared to the English light verb construction give a kick, which roughly paraphrases the verb kick. In fact, Ulwa also uses verbnoun combinations headed by baunaka to express certain more specific manners of contact that might be lexicalized as individual verbs in English (A. Koontz-Garboden p.c.). In Ingush, which also has an ergative case marking system, the surface with a hitting verb is expressed with an oblique case – the dative – and the instrument with the nominative (i.e. absolutive) case (Nichols 1984: 188, 2011: 467–470, 746), as in (55) with an animate surface and (56) with an inanimate surface. (55) Da:s woʕa: bi: bi-ett. father-erg son-dat fist-nom beats ‘(The) father beats (his) son.” (Nichols 1984: 188, (8)) (56) Cuo mashienaa ghadzh tiexar. 3s.erg car-dat stick-nom strike ‘He hit the car with a stick.’ (Nichols 2011: 340, (47)) This case marking pattern is common across Caucasian languages according to Nichols (1984: 188), with languages varying as to whether the oblique case is dative as in Ingush or locative as in some Daghestanian languages.17 17 Nichols (1984: 189) notes that some hitting verbs allow the surface to be in the nominative for certain choices of objects, as in gorgali biettan ‘ring a bell’ and njeʕ jiettan ‘knock at a door’, both based on d-ietta ‘strike (repeatedly), beat’.
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Besides the verb d-ietta ‘strike (repeatedly), beat’ in (55) and tuoxan ‘strike’ in (56), other verbs showing this pattern are ḥaqan ‘cut, slice, rub (and other lateral motions)’ and quossan ‘throw, shoot’ (Nichols 1984: 188–189, 2011: 470). Ingush’s hitting verbs have fairly general meanings, and as in Lhasa Tibetan, particular verb-noun combinations correspond to particular English verbs (Nichols 1982: 447, 1984: 188). Thus, urs tuoxan, literally ‘knife strike’, means ‘stab’, not ‘hit with a knife’ and, similarly, tuop tuoxan, literally ‘rifle strike’, means ‘shoot’, not ‘beat with a rifle’ (Nichols 1984: 189). Other examples include kur tuoxan, literally ‘horn hit’, which means ‘butt’ (Nichols 2011: 341) and cerjg tuoxan ‘tooth strike’, which means ‘bite’ (Nichols 2011: 468). In European Portuguese, happenings described by many English surface contact verbs are only expressible via light verb-noun combinations, with the surface expressed in a PP (Baptista 2004), although in some instances there are verbs corresponding to the light verb-noun combinations.18 The Portuguese light verb-noun examples differ somewhat from the Lhasa Tibetan and Ingush ones. First, the verb used is usually dar ‘give’ rather than a general hitting verb as in Ingush and Lhasa Tibetan.19 Second, although some simple nouns such as pontapé ‘kick’ and murro ‘punch’ can enter into these verb-noun combinations, the noun is often what Baptista (2004) calls a “predicative violent action noun”. Such nouns are formed by adding the suffix -ada to a concrete noun denoting an instrument or body part that can be used to hit or hurt: bengala ‘cane’ + -ada in (57). (57) O João deu uma bengalada ao Pedro. the John give.perfpst3s a caning to.the Peter ‘John gave a cane-ada, i.e., a caning, to Peter.’ (Baptista 2004: 36, (18c)) In (57) the surface is again expressed as an oblique, while the predicative violent action noun is the object of the verb. Once the difference in case marking systems is abstracted away from, this pattern largely parallels those observed in Lhasa Ti-
18 Actual Portuguese hitting verbs show several patterns of argument realization (P. Amaral p.c.). Some verbs, like the denominal verb chicotear ‘whip’, can only take an animate surface, which they express as the object, as in (63). In contrast, bater ‘hit’ expresses the surface as the object of the dative preposition a, if animate, and as the object of the locative preposition em, if inanimate. 19 In some languages, then, the content of English hitting verbs is expressed with light verb-noun combinations headed by verbs like Portuguese dar ‘give’, which as A. Malchukov (p.c.) points out presumably have a complex event structure, yet manner verbs, including hitting verbs, have a simple event structure, as discussed in § 5.1. This mismatch deserves further consideration, but its resolution goes beyond the scope of this paper. A potentially fruitful line of investigation might be the following: the light verb-noun combination may not inherit the verb’s event structure, but rather the verb contributes the grammatical scaffolding needed for argument realization, with the event structure coming from the noun.
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betan and Ingush. The surface is expressed as a noun phrase with dative case, like a recipient, rather than as the object of a locative preposition, most likely, reflecting the use of dar ‘give’ as a light verb. The locative preposition em is found when the surface is an inanimate, as in (58), or a body part, as in (59) and (60). In (59) the locative PP contains a body part with the possessor as part of this noun phrase. In (60) the possessor of the body part is expressed in the dative case external to the body part; thus, it instantiates external possession. (58) O João deu uma bengalada no carro. the John give.perfpst3s a caning in.the car ‘John hit the car.’ (59) O João deu [um pontapé] [na perna do Pedro]. the John give.perfpst3s a kick in.the leg of.the Peter ‘John gave a kick in the leg of Peter.’ (Baptista 2004: 32, (2a)) (60) O João deu [um pontapé] [ao Pedro] [na perna]. the John give.perfpst3s a kick to.the Peter in.the leg ‘John gave a kick to Peter in the leg.’ (Baptista 2004: 32, (2b)) Baptista lists over 40 violent action nouns in -ada, and notes that such nouns are productively formed, with nonce instances being encountered, such as sapatada ‘shoe-ada’ and cadeirada ‘chair-ada’. Further examples of bases that give rise to violent action nouns are given in (61). There are denominal verbs related to a small number of these nouns, as in (62), but apparently the inventory of actual hitting verbs in Portuguese is small compared to English. (61) bastão ‘club, staff’, bengala ‘cane’, bordão ‘staff’, chibata ‘switch, rod’, pau ‘stick’, porra ‘club’, taco ‘club/cue’, tranca ‘bar’, ... (from Baptista 2004: 39–40) (62) chicotear ‘whipV’ (cf. chicote ‘whipN’), martelar ‘hammerV’ (cf. martelo ‘hammerN’), mocar ‘clubV’ (cf. moca ‘clubN’) (from Baptista 2004: 39–40) (63) O João chicoteou o Pedro. the John whip.perfpst3s the Peter ‘John whipped Peter.’ (Baptista 2004: 36, (17b)) Palancar (1999) makes similar points about Spanish, identifying what he calls the “hitting” construction which is the analogue of the Portuguese construction illus-
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trated in (57); it is found not just with the Spanish verb dar ‘give’, but also with other verbs including pegar ‘stick to’ and arrear ‘harness’ (1999: 71). An example is given in (64). (64) Maria le dio a Juan una patada. Mary dat3s give.pst3s to John a kick ‘Mary gave John a kick.’ (Palancar 1999: 68, (32)) As in other Romance languages, in Portuguese and Spanish break and other change of state verbs in their causative uses are clear transitive verbs; their meanings are not expressed with a comparable light verb strategy. Hebrew also can describe hitting events via a light verb strategy by making use of the verbs natan ‘give’ or hevi ‘bring’, as in (65). (65) Sus hevi beita la-oto sěli. horse bring.pst3s kick to.the-car of.1s ‘A horse kicked my car.’ (http://www.elsf.net/showthread.php?t=908903) Vietnamese illustrates yet other options. Hitting verbs may express the surface – whether an animate or inanimate entity – as an object as in English, as in (66); however, they may also take a cognate object, with the surface optionally expressed in a PP, as in (67) and (68).20 (66) Ti đá tôi. Ti kicked me ‘Ti kicked me.’ (Pham 1999: 232, (10a)) (67) Ti đá mộ t đá. Ti kicked a kick ‘Ti kicked a kick.’ (Pham 1999: 233, (10b)) (68) Ti đá [mộ t đá] [vào tôi.] Ti kicked a kick on me ‘Ti kicked me a kick.’ (Pham 1999: 233, (10c))
20 The Vietnamese examples cited in Pham (1999) lack diacritics; these have been added here. I thank B. Comrie for his help with this.
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This data is cited in a paper on cognate objects in Vietnamese, where one of the subclasses of cognate object verbs identified, the class which includes the verbs listed in (69), is described as having members which “usually involve physical movement of instruments, which can be either body parts or physical objects towards someone or something” (Pham 1999: 233). This particular subgroup has thirty-two verbs; sixteen of them are listed here. (69) đá ‘kick’, đâm ˆ ‘beat’, ´ ‘punch’, thụi ‘punch’, cạo ‘scratch’, câu ´ ‘pinch/nip’, nẹn ´ quai ‘beat’, căn ´ ‘bite’, đánh ‘hit’, tát ‘slap’, vuôt ‘stroke/fondle’, liêm ´ ‘lick’, hôn ‘kiss’, cù ‘tickle’, phang ‘strike with a stick’, quât´ ‘strike’, ... (Pham 1999: 233) Even across Germanic languages, there is variation in the argument realization options of surface contact verbs, and in fact, some of these languages instantiate yet another option: a sensitivity to the animacy of the surface. Lundquist & Ramchand (2012) show that in Swedish and German, the surface must be expressed in a PP when inanimate as in (70), but it may be an object when animate, as in (71); the (a) sentences are Swedish, the (b) sentences German.21 (See de Swart (2014) for comparable facts in Dutch.) (70) a. Jag sparkade *(på) bordet (flera gånger). I kicked (on) table.def (many times) ‘I kicked (on) the table many times.’ (Lundquist & Ramchand 2012: 224, (2a)) b. Ich habe *(gegen) den Tisch getreten. I have *(against) the table perf.kick.part ‘I kicked (against) the table.’ (Lundquist & Ramchand 2012: 224, (2b)) c. English I kicked (on/against) the table (many times). (71) a. Jag sparkade (p) honom (flera gånger). I kicked (on) him (many times) ‘I kicked him many times.’ (Lundquist & Ramchand 2012: 224, (1a))
21 Viberg (2004: 337–338) also makes this point about Swedish in a case study of the Swedish verb sla˚, which based on corpus data he finds to be the central member of the set of hitting verbs in Swedish. The study shows the meaning of slå to be broader than that of English hit: its meaning also encompasses ground covered in English by strike, beat and, knock, as well as some other verbs (2004: 329).
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b. Ich habe ihn (oft) getreten. I have him (often) perf.kick.part ‘I kicked him many times.’ (Lundquist & Ramchand 2012: 224, (1b)) c. English I kicked him (many times). (72) sparka ‘kick’, slå ‘hit’, bita ‘bite’, slicka ‘lick’, hugga ‘chop’ (Lundquist & Ramchand 2012: 228) Lundquist & Ramchand point out that with these verbs an inanimate direct object is possible in two instances: if a resultative phrase is predicated of it or if the object is understood as being set in motion due to the force imparted as part of the action denoted by the hitting verb, as in (73).22 (73) Jag sparkade bollen i må. I kicked ball.def in goal ‘I kicked the ball into the goal.’ (Lundquist & Ramchand 2012: 229, (15)) There is a further repercussion of the animacy restriction: although in English the verb scratch can take either animates or their body parts as direct objects, its Swedish counterpart can only felicitously take animates, as in (74). (74) a. Kan inte du klia mig (på ryggen)? can not you scratch me (on back.def) ‘Can’t you scratch me on the back?’ (Lundquist & Ramchand 2012: 228, (12))
22 A similar observation has been made about other languages in which hitting verbs take oblique complements. Thus, in Hebrew the verbs ba’at ‘kick’, shows a transitive use if the surface is a physical object, such as a ball, which is set in motion as a result of having a force exerted on it via the contact. As discussed below, Russian also shows animacy effects, but when an entity is set in motion, as when a ball is kicked, it is expressed via the accusative case rather than as the object of a preposition. A. Anttila (p.c.) tells me that in Finnish too, where hitting verbs generally take partitive rather than accusative nominal complements, the complement can be accusative when it denotes an entity set in motion; in such instances a path phrase is also expressed. Other exceptions to the Swedish pattern are the verbs buckla ‘dent’, repa ‘scratch’, märka ‘mark’, skada ‘injure’ allow an inanimate surface to be the direct object. With these verbs, the contact “entails a visible surface change on the inanimate object” (Lundquist & Ramchand 2012: 229); that is, perhaps they should be analyzed as change of state verbs, with the surface actually being a patient. At the very least, these verbs should probably be subsumed under the problematic set of verbs mentioned in note 12.
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b. ??Kan inte du klia (på) min rygg? can not you scratch (on) my back ‘Can’t you scratch my back? (Lundquist & Ramchand 2012: 228, (13)) Swedish again shows something like the English against construction: the instrument of contact may appear as the object.23 (75) Jag högg kniven i bordet. I stuck knife.def in table.def ‘I stuck the knife into the table.’ (Lundquist & Ramchand 2012: 229, (16)) In Russian, as in Swedish and German, the surface argument of a hitting verb is expressed in a PP when it is inanimate: it is the object of the preposition po; however, these same verbs allow the surface to be expressed as an object, bearing accusative case, when animate. (76) Petja udaril/ stuknul/ šlepnul Kolju. Petja.nom hit/ knocked/ slapped Kolja.acc ‘Petja hit/knocked/slapped Kolja.’ (77) Petja udaril/ stuknul/ šlepnul po stolu. Petja.nom hit/ knocked/ slapped on table.dat ‘Petja hit/knocked/slapped the table.’ Although the nature of the animacy effect in Russian need further investigation,24 what matters is that in Russian, causative uses of change of state verbs, including slomat’ ‘break’, are transitive, as in (78). (78) Petja slomal stol. Petja.nom broke table.acc ‘Petja broke the table.’ The agent and patient are expressed as subject and object, respectively, and these verbs do not allow their patient to be expressed in a prepositional phrase, even when it is inanimate. 23 But see Andersson (1983: 119) for more detail on the options for the with/against alternation in Swedish, including some interactions with animacy of the surface. 24 Preliminary corpus studies by T. Nikitina (p.c.) suggest that animacy is not quite the right way to cut the data since not only can balls – physical objects which can be set in motion – be expressed as objects of hitting verbs, but so can breakable entities, such as vases, and openable entities, such as doors. See also note 22.
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In summary, although small, the sample of languages surveyed demonstrates that hitting verbs show a range of argument realization options both within and across languages, but the repeated attestation of some of the observed options, even in this small sample of languages, suggests that the argument realization patterns available to hitting verbs do not vary wildly. The simplest options include allowing the surface to be expressed as an oblique complement of the hitting verb rather than as its object or only allowing the surface to be the object if it is animate or meets other semantic criteria (see notes 22 and 24). In addition, some languages use verb-noun combinations to express what is lexicalized as a verb in other languages, with the surface expressed as an oblique. The verb in such a combination may be a general hitting verb or a light verb, and in the limiting case, the combination takes the form of a cognate object construction. Hitting verbs are discussed, more often than not briefly, in work on other languages, and these additional discussions generally support the picture emerging here (e.g., Chung 2003 on Korean; Kiyosawa & Gerdts 2010 on Salish; Schaefer & Egbokhare 2004 on Emai; Tsunoda this volume on Djaru; Malchukov 2005: 83–84 on several languages). Furthermore, the survey confirms that the patterns of behavior shown by hitting verbs present a striking contrast to those attested for breaking verbs in their causative use: these appear to have the same transitive argument realization across languages. The variety of argument realization options manifested by hitting verbs conforms to the expectations for manner verbs set out at the beginning of this section: that such verbs should show flexibility in argument realization, as they are not constrained to express a specific argument as object as result verbs are.
6.2 Is there systematicity underlying the attested diversity? Even the small survey just presented reveals a range of argument realization options for hitting verbs across languages, as well as variation in the options observed in a particular language. Still, there are some generalizations that underlie the diversity observed with hitting verbs. This section articulates these and tries to make some sense of them. English hitting verbs can realize the surface as a direct object or in a PP. In the other languages investigated, these two options are also attested, although both are not available in all languages, and in some languages the realization depends on animacy. Generally, across the languages surveyed there seems to be some resistance to expressing the surface as a canonical direct object. This observation is foreshadowed in the placement of surface contact verbs in Tsunoda’s transitivity hierarchy (1981, 1985: 388–389, this volume). Tsunoda introduces an implicational hierarchy of semantic classes of two-argument verbs organized according to how likely their members are to be transitive in a language.25 25 The characterizations of the verb classes in (79) have been slightly modified to align with the terms used in this paper; change of state verbs are Tsunoda’s class 1A, while surface contact verbs
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(79) Tsunoda’s Transitivity Hierarchy (simplified): change of state verbs > surface contact verbs > perception/cognition/ emotion verbs The verb classes are ordered left-to-right from those whose members are most to least likely to be transitive across languages. Thus, the placement of surface contact verbs in this hierarchy recognizes that the surface is not the object in all languages. The transitivity hierarchy might be understood as arising as a consequence of priorities among various semantic determinants of argument realization. Based on an assessment of the semantic components of transitivity suggested by Hopper & Thompson (1980), Tsunoda proposes that verbs are ordered in the hierarchy from those with the most to least “affected” second argument. As § 6.1 shows, in some languages when the surface is not expressed as the object, a third, instrument argument is expressed as the object instead, as in (12) in Kimaragang Dusun, (51) in Lhasa Tibetan, (56) in Ingush, and (75) in Swedish. This argument realization pattern resembles the against variant of the English with/ against alternation.26 (80) a. Sam hit the fence with a stick. b. Sam hit a stick against the fence. As noted by Nichols (1984: 188), this argument realization pattern apparently reflects what is a primary argument realization option for hitting verbs in Caucasian languages. The label “instrument” has been used for the third argument for two reasons: it may be expressed as the object of the preposition with as in the English (80a) and the noun phrase filling this argument position may denote an artifact designed to be an instrument. However, in a hitting event, this artifact moves into contact with the surface and, thus, also qualifies as a theme in the localist sense (Gruber 1965; Jackendoff 1976, 1983) or a figure in the Talmyan sense (1975, 1985). Thus, the against variant in the English with/against alternation illustrated in (80b) provides a realization of a verb’s arguments where the moving argument is given priority over the surface as the object. As discussed in § 5.1 for English, an argument that changes state has priority as object, taking priority over other arguments. However, if an event lacks such an argument, as in hitting events and surface contact events more generally, this
constitute a large part of his class 1B. T. Tsunoda (p.c.) points out that a class intermediate between his 1A and 1B may need to be recognized; see note 12. See also Malchukov (2005) for a refinement of Tsunoda’s hierarchy, which recognizes two dimensions of variation, affectedness and agentivity, which splits the hierarchy into two hierarchies. 26 M. Bowerman (p.c.) points out to me that children learning English make errors that involve this mode of argument realization, as in the following two examples: someone hit a snowball at a policeman or anyone that would, like, try to hit a spear at you would just fall back.
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requirement is irrelevant. The data surveyed in § 6.1 shows that this is no less true in languages other than English; thus, more variation is attested in the expression of non-patient arguments. The observed argument realization patterns show that with hitting verbs either the instrument or surface – a Talmyan ground – can be realized as the object. The question is precisely what factors are involved. An instrument qualifies as an object because it is a moving entity. The surface qualifies as a force recipient – an argument that is impinged upon by a force but does not necessarily change state (Croft 1991; Rappaport Hovav & Levin 2001), and such arguments can also be expressed as objects, as they are in English. However, in some instances the surface may qualify as affected, especially when the surface is animate and, thus, sentient. Thus, Lundquist & Ramchand (2012) propose that animates are necessarily affected in a hitting event because they are sentient or “experientially affected by the event” in their words (2012: 230), while inanimates are not (see also Dowty 1991: 596; Malchukov 2006: 334, 2008: 211, who cites Wierzbicka 1981). According to them, this is why Swedish shows an animacy split in the transitivity of hitting verbs: events with an animate surface are more likely to have a transitive expression than those without because affected entities are expressed as objects; de Swart (2014) makes similar arguments to explain comparable facts in Dutch. Thus, the availability of both object and oblique realizations for the surface could be attributed to conflicting priorities for objecthood that arise in the absence of an argument undergoing a scalar change. Both the surface as a force recipient – or, when animate, an affected entity – and the instrument as a moving entity qualify as objects. Which one is chosen depends on the language, so that the options attested in a particular language reflect its priorities. I do not fully work out the priorities here, but the data suggests they must exist, with some variation across languages. Some languages prefer to express the surface as object when it alone is expressed, as in English; others disallow the expression of the ground as object, either across the board, as apparently in Lhasa Tibetan or Ulwa, or if it is inanimate, as in Russian or Swedish. Although a theory of argument realization could be designed to handle such priorities, it is possible that the priorities in some languages may have a deeper source. Specifically, the data presented in § 6.1 suggest that some languages have a tendency to express at least some part of the manner component in a hitting event – typically, an instrument, but sometimes a more abstract notion – outside the verb. This option is instantiated when the manner is a complement to a fairly nonspecific hitting verb, as in Ingush and Lhasa Tibetan, or a light verb, as in Hebrew, Portuguese, and Spanish. It is also instantiated in Vietnamese, where the manner is not only lexicalized by the verb, but is reiterated as a cognate object. Comments in some of the studies consulted suggest that languages that use the verb-noun combination option have a smaller set of hitting verbs than English. Thus, in Portuguese only 16 of the 47 bases for violent actions nouns listed in
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Baptista (2004) provide bases for denominal verbs. DeLancey (2000: 13) comments that verb-noun combinations express the Lhasa Tibetan counterparts of English hitting verbs, implicitly suggesting that this language lacks corresponding verbs. These observations are noteworthy because reduced manner of motion verb inventories have been documented in a range of languages, including Basque, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish (Baird 2008; Cardini 2008; Cifuentes Férez 2007, 2009; Ibarretxe Antuñano 2004; Shi 2008; Slobin 2000, 2004a, 2004b, 2006; Wienold 1995).27 Further, Wienold (1995: 319–322) suggests that the reduced manner of motion verb inventory in Japanese, Korean, and Thai is reflective of a more general reduction in the size of the manner verb inventory in these languages. Although I am unaware of studies of the manner of motion verb inventory in Portuguese or Lhasa Tibetan, a question for further research is whether the reduced number of hitting verbs in these languages is a reflection of the size of their manner verb inventories in general. What matters here is that the discussions of manner of motion verb inventories provide some insight into the expression of hitting events. They note that verbs specifying major gaits – for instance, the equivalents of English walk and run – tend to be lexicalized across languages, while their hyponyms – notions such as those expressed by English jog, lope, amble, creep, prance, and strut – are not always lexicalized, particularly in so-called verb-framed languages (Malt et al. 2008; Slobin 2000, 2006; Wienold 1995). These hyponyms name more specific gaits, and languages vary as to which gaits they lexicalize, with some even being culturally specific. (Thus, even though English and German have a comparable number of manner of motion verbs (Snell-Hornby 1983), they do not have the same verbs.) Similarly, the discussions of languages that use verb-noun combinations in the expression of hitting events mention the presence of general hitting verbs (A. Koontz-Garboden p.c.; Nichols 1984: 190); the notions expressed by the verb-noun combinations correspond to the hyponyms of English hit.
27 Observations about the size of manner of motion verb inventories have been made in the context of investigations of the lexicalization patterns of motion events. This literature distinguishes verb-framed languages like Japanese or Spanish, which typically express the path of motion in the verb, from satellite-framed languages like English, which typically express the path outside the verb, typically in PPs (Talmy 1975, 1985, 2000). The studies cited in the text note that verb-framed languages – and Portuguese is such a language – tend to have smaller inventories of manner of motion verbs than satellite-framed languages or use fewer different such verbs in the description of the same events; however, more recent studies suggest that these correlations may be more complex (Iacobini 2010; Matsumoto 2003). Thus, Iacobini (2010) shows that Italian, said to be a verb-framed language, has a manner verb inventory that is more comparable in size to that of English (but see Cardini 2008 for an alternative perspective), and also shows other features of satellite-framed languages (Iacobini & Masini 2006: 162–163). I leave an exploration of links between the expression of motion events and hitting events – and, specifically, whether languages which express hitting events with verb-noun combinations are verb-framed languages – for future work.
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Tab. 4: Japanese ideophones used to convey manners of walking. Ideophone
Verb
Gloss
yochiyochi yoboyobo sutasuta burabura tobotobo shanarishanari
aruku ‘walk’ aruku aruku aruku aruku aruku
‘toddle, totter’ ‘totter, stagger’ ‘walk briskly’ ‘stroll’ ‘trudge along, tread on’ ‘walk daintily’
Furthermore, languages with reduced manner of motion verb inventories circumvent the limitations of their verb inventories by expressing manner outside the verb (Slobin 2004b: 232–236; also Ibarretxe-Antuñano 2004 on Basque; Akita 2008 on Japanese). To make up for “missing” manner of motion verbs, languages may use a more general manner verb in combination with an adverbial modifier, as in the English walk on tiptoe instead of the verb tiptoe, although such expressions are often avoided where possible (Slobin 1996, 2006). Languages with ideophones may use these to fulfill the same function (Akita 2008; Ibarretxe-Antuñano 2006, 2009; Matsumoto 2003; Slobin 2004b: 233–235; Stringer 2011; Sugiyama 2005; Wienold 1995: 319–322). This is exemplified with Japanese data from Wienold (1995: 320, Table 8), who makes the same point about Korean and Indonesian. The use of the ideophone strategy in Japanese extends beyond the motion domain. Shibatani (1990: 155) makes the same point about verbs for laughing: the nuances that differentiate English chuckle and giggle are captured through different choices of ideophones combined with the single verb warau ‘laugh’. Further examples involve manners of crying (Shibatani 1990: 155; Wienold 1995: 32) and manners of looking (Tsujimura 2007: 449). This brief discussion of verb inventories and ideophones is intended to demonstrate that manners lexicalized as part of English verb meanings are expressed outside the verb in various semantic domains in Japanese. Thus, verb-ideophone combinations might be expected to provide a way of making finer-grained distinctions within the hitting domain, and, indeed Japanese has ideophones which may be combined with the Japanese counterparts of hitting verbs, such as tataku ‘hit’ and tutuku ‘poke’, to do precisely this (Kageyama 2007: 47), as in (81).28
28 Japanese also allows ideophones to combine directly with the light verb suru ‘do’ to convey hitting events (Kageyama 2007: 47). An example involving the ideophone tonton is kata-o tonton suru ‘tap someone’s shoulder’. Interestingly, in English there are various hitting verbs which are onomotopoeic in that the verb takes its name from a sound produced by surface contact, e.g., bang, clink, clatter, plink, plonk, thud, thump, whack (Richardson 1983; Stringer 2011: 18), so English is using verbs directly where Japanese is using ideophones.
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(81) Yukiko-ga doa-o gongon tatai-ta. Yukiko-nom door-acc ‘bang’ hit-pst ‘Yukiko banged the door.’ Ideophones, then, are another resource for increasing the types of hitting events that can be described in a language, just as verb-noun combinations are. What is interesting about (81) is that the use of the ideophone is not accompanied by a shift in the grammatical relation (or morphological case) associated with the noun phrase expressing the surface: it is still an object marked for the accusative case. This contrasts with Ingush, Lhasa Tibetan, or Portuguese where the use of a noun with the counterpart of the verb hit or a light verb precludes the expression of the surface as an object, or Vietnamese, where the presence of a cognate object leads to the unavailability of this expression. Presumably, Japanese allows the surface to be still expressed as an object because ideophones are adverbial in nature (Kageyama 2007: 37) and, thus, do not occupy a nominal “slot” in a sentence. The realization of the surface as an object, then, is not just a matter of a language’s argument realization priorities, but also of availability. Some of the crosslinguistic diversity in the realization of the arguments of hitting verbs, then, may be traceable to differences in the morphosyntactic resources available to the languages under consideration. Beavers et al. (2010) make precisely this point with respect to the expression of motion events. They argue that the diversity of encoding of motion events that has come under the lexicalization pattern rubric is a reflection of how differences among languages in available morphosyntactic resources are reflected in the encoding options attested for such events. The discussion in this section suggests that there is a still incompletely uncovered logic underlying the attested argument realization options for hitting verbs. There is an abstract behavioral unity across languages despite differences in their argument realization patterns that might stem from facets of a language’s morphosyntactic profile. More careful and extensive study of this and other verb classes across languages is needed to fully isolate the relevant factors and understand their contribution to argument realization. The Valency Classes Project and comparable projects are poised to help us make progress in doing this.
7 Conclusion Verb classes are essential to characterizing regular patterns of verb behavior within and across languages. Verb classes, however, are not primitive, but emerge from more fundamental meaning components such as manner and result (Levin 1993: 18). These components may then contribute to our understanding of patterns of verb behavior across languages, just as the notions of manner and result do.
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Equally important, crosslinguistic studies of verb classes allow us to compare the ways in which languages describe particular types of events. The similarities and differences uncovered can then be investigated to obtain a better understanding of how a language’s morphosyntactic type might play into its patterns of argument realization. These points were illustrated with the case study of hitting verbs. My hope is that even this brief study underscores the importance of the Valency Classes Project and its potential larger contribution to our understanding of languages. The availability of studies of valency in a range of languages will facilitate studies such as the one presented here by providing them with considerable data to drawn on.
Acknowledgments I thank audiences at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics for thought-provoking questions and discussion. This paper has benefited considerably from comments that Bernard Comrie, Scott Grimm, Andrej Malchukov, Tanya Nikitina, Malka Rappaport Hovav, and Tasaku Tsunoda made on earlier drafts. I am grateful to Patrícia Amaral (Portuguese), Roey Gafter and Malka Rappaport Hovav (Hebrew), Andrew Koontz-Garboden (Ulwa), Paul Kroeger (Kimaragang Dusun), Chigusa Kurumada (Japanese), and Tanya Nikitina (Russian) for discussion of hitting and breaking in the languages that they are expert in.
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Slobin, Dan I. 2004a. How people move: Discourse effects of linguistic typology. In: Moder, Carol Lynn & Martinovic-Zic, Aida (eds.), Discourse Across Languages and Cultures, 195–210. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Slobin, Dan I. 2004b. The many ways to search for a frog: Linguistic typology and the expression of motion events. In: Strömqvist, Sven & Verhoeven, Ludo (eds.), Relating Events in Narrative 2: Typological and Contextual Perspectives, 219–257. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Slobin, Dan I. 2006. What makes manner of motion salient? Explorations in linguistic typology, discourse, and cognition. In: Hickmann, Maya & Robert, Stéphane (eds.), Space in Languages: Linguistic Systems and Cognitive Categories, 59–81. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Snell-Hornby, Mary. 1983. Verb Descriptivity in German and English. Heidelberg: Carl Winter. Snyder, William. 2001. On the nature of syntactic variation: Evidence from complex predicates and complex word-formation. Language 77: 324–342. Son, Minjeong & Svenonius, Peter. 2008. Microparameters of cross-linguistic variation: Directed motion and resultatives. Proceedings of the 27 th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, 388–396. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project. Stringer, David. 2011. Phonomimesis and directional predication in the acquisition of L1 Japanese and L2 English. Japanese and Korean Linguistics 18: 16–27. Sugiyama, Yukiko. 2005. Not all verb-framed languages are created equal: The case of Japanese. Proceedings of the 31st Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 299–310. Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Linguistics Society. Talmy, Leonard 1975. Semantics and syntax of motion. In: Kimball, John P. (ed.), Syntax and Semantics 4, 181–238. New York, NY: Academic Press. Talmy, Leonard. 1985. Lexicalization patterns: Semantic structure in lexical forms. In: Shopen, Timothy (ed.), Language Typology and Syntactic Description 3: Grammatical Categories and the Lexicon, 57–149. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Talmy, Leonard. 2000. Towards a Cognitive Semantics II: Typology and Process in Concept Structuring. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Tenny, Carol L. 1994. Aspectual Roles and the Syntax-Semantics Interface. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Tsujimura, Natsuko. 2007. An Introduction to Japanese Linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell. Tsunoda, Tasaku. 1981. Split case-marking patterns in verb-types and tense/aspect/mood. Linguistics 19: 389–438. Tsunoda, Tasaku. 1985. Remarks on transitivity. Journal of Linguistics 21: 385–396. Tsunoda, Tasaku. This volume. The hierarchy of two-place predicates: Its limitations and uses. Viberg, Åke. 2004. Physical contact verbs in English and Swedish from the perspective of crosslinguistic lexicology. In: Aijmer, Karin & Altenberg, Bengt (eds.), Advances in Corpus Linguistics, 327–352. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Vogel, Alan R. 2005. Jarawara verb classes. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA. Washio, Ryuichi. 1997. Resultatives, compositionality and language variation. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 6: 1–49. Wienold, Götz. 1995. Lexical and conceptual stuctures in expressions for movement and space: With reference to Japanese, Korean, Thai, and Indonesian as compared to English and German. In: Egli, Urs & Pause, Peter E. & Schwarze, Christoph & von Stechow, Arnim & Wienold, Götz (eds.), Lexical Knowledge in the Organization of Language, 301–340. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Wierzbicka, Anna. 1981. Case marking and human nature. Australian Journal of Linguistics 1: 43–80. Willems, Dominique. 1981. Syntaxe, lexique et sémantique: Les constructions verbales. Ghent: Publicaties van de Faculteit van de Letteren en Wijsbegeerte.
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Wright, Saundra & Levin, Beth. 2000. Unspecified object contexts with activity and change of state verbs. Presented at the 74th Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Chicago, IL. Zwicky, Arnold M. 1971. In a manner of speaking. Linguistic Inquiry 2: 223–232.
Cliff Goddard
40 Verb classes and valency alternations (NSM approach), with special reference to English physical activity verbs This study examines five English physical activity verbs (eat, pour, dig, carry, cut) from the Verb Meaning List of the Leipzig Valency Patterns project. It proposes detailed semantic explications for the basic activity-in-progress meanings of these verbs and shows how these can be transposed into perfective uses. It examines and explicates 11 alternations (specialized constructions) involving these verbs, showing in each case exactly how these constructions are related to the base semantics of the verb. The general picture is that the specialized constructions are quasi-derivational in nature: the primary or semantically basic sense of the verb is embedded in a more elaborate configuration containing additional semantic material. Often much of this additional material is modeled on the semantics of verbs that belong to different semantic types (lexicosyntactic blending), but it can be partly idiosyncratic or non-predictable. Each specialized construction represents a kind of “word in construction” polysemy.
1 Introduction 1.1 Lexical semantics and alternation phenomena Many linguists see the verbal lexicon as organized into numerous classes and subclasses, each sharing certain more or less distinctive semantic and syntactic properties. To a large extent this outcome can be traced to work begun by Beth Levin (1993) in her book English Verb Classes and Alternations. This is somewhat ironic, because Levin was insistent that “the important theoretical construct is the notion of meaning component, not the notion of verb class” (Levin 1993: 18). The verb class concept, she said, was an “artificial construct” useful only for formulating generalizations at an approximate level. A decade later, with scores of further studies in hand, Levin and Rappaport Hovav (2005) reiterated that alternations cannot be explained in terms of discrete verb classes. There are too many cross-cutting and overlapping alternation patterns for that. Such data lead to the conclusion that is the elements of meaning that define verb classes that are most important, and that verb classes themselves are epiphenomenal … even if they might be useful in the statement of certain generalizations. Therefore, advances in the study of argument realization regularities require isolating those semantic components which ultimate determine them. (Levin & Rappaport Hovav 2005: 16)
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Isolating the relevant semantic components of course requires a “well-motivated theory of lexical semantic representation.” (Levin & Rappaport Hovav 2005: 23)
A sound methodology for lexical semantic analysis is crucial for another reason as well, namely, the connection between alternations and lexical polysemy. As will be shown in the present chapter, valency alternations are properties that belong to lexical units, rather than to whole lexemes. A clear picture of valency phenomena, both within and across languages, therefore requires careful attention to lexical polysemy. Further complications follow from the intimate association between valency and alternation phenomena, on the one hand, and aspect and event composition, on the other. The whole area demonstrates the integration of lexical semantics and grammatical semantics. As Wierzbicka (1988: 8) put it, in a work that anticipated current themes in construction grammar and cognitive linguistics: There is no such thing as ‘grammatical meaning’ or ‘lexical meaning’. There are only grammatical and lexical MEANS of conveying meaning – and even here no sharp line can be drawn between them. (Wierzbicka 1988: 8)
Despite the implications of the term ‘alternation’, the phenomenon is not simply a matter of the arguments of a verb being “realized” differently or assuming different argument roles. As Dowty (2000: 110) put it, the “main linguistic phenomenon that ought to be of interest” is that the alternate forms “serve to convey significantly different meanings”. What we are dealing with under the rubric of valency alternations are lexico-syntactic constructions for expressing specialized meanings – meanings that cannot be captured without semantic analysis at a very finedgrained level of resolution.1
1.2 Semantic approach The current study is conducted within the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach (Wierzbicka 1996; Goddard & Wierzbicka 2002; Goddard 2008, 2011, 2012; Peeters 2006; Ye 2010, in press; Gladkova 2010; Bromhead 2009, 2011; Wong 2005, 2010, 2014; Levisen 2012; and other works). Though still regarded by many as controversial, it is arguably the most highly developed system of lexical semantic
1 The terminology of “alternations” and “argument realization” originated in generative linguistics. Though not necessarily inimical to clear discussion, in my view it is not particularly helpful either. The situation is analogous to that surrounding the term “movement”, which is still used as a handy descriptive label by many linguists who do not accept a transformational account of ordering phenomena. For the purpose of the Leipzig Valency Patterns Project, the key term is “valency alternation” as defined in the project manual.
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Tab. 1: Valency frames for semantic primes happen and do. something HAPPENS something HAPPENS to someone/something something HAPPENS somewhere
[minimal frame] [undergoer frame] [locus frame]
someone DOES something someone DOES something to someone else someone DOES something to something someone DOES something with something someone DOES something with part of the body someone DOES something with someone
[minimal frame] [patient1 frame] [patient2 frame] [instrument frame] [body-part frame] [comitative frame]
analysis on the contemporary scene. For present purposes, it is not possible or necessary to justify its every tenet and claim, but only to delineate its assumptions and operating procedures. The NSM method of meaning description is reductive paraphrase. Its primary tool is a constrained vocabulary of 65 posited universal semantic primes, which have been arrived at after a lengthy program of semantic research that began with Wierzbicka (1972). Semantic primes are defined as the terminal elements of reductive paraphrase analysis, i.e. meanings that cannot be paraphrased in simpler terms. The current inventory of primes is displayed in Appendix 1, in their English versions. Examples include: someone, something~thing, people, do, happen, want, think, know, good, bad, because, can, and like~as. Evidence suggests that semantic primes are likely to be present as the meanings of lexical units, i.e. as discrete meanings of words or word-like elements (bound morphemes or phrasemes), in all or most languages. Semantic primes have certain inherent combinatorial (syntactic) properties that follow from their individual meanings. The syntax of the metalanguage is significantly complex, including clausal operators, such as can and not, and allowing temporal and clausal adjuncts, such as at this time, after this, and because of this. It also recognizes that some primes have valency options and complementation possibilities. The most complex valency properties are found with the predicate primes. There are 17 of these primes, making it impractical to review them here in any detail, but the valency frames available to happen and do are displayed in Table 1. Because they are given in their English versions they of course include certain English-specific features, e.g. the prepositions to, with, and about, but the same frames can be realized in other languages using different linguistic devices, such as case-marking, postpositions, verb serialization, or purely by word-order. Every prime has its specified individual mini-grammar of combinatorial possibilities. It should be noted that exponents of some primes have a narrower range of options in NSM than they have in “full” English. For example, in ordinary Eng-
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lish one can speak of ‘doing something about something’, but this (highly Englishspecific) option with DO ist not available in NSM. Together, the semantic primes and their grammar of combination constitute a mini-language which is an ideal tool for semantic analysis within a single language and across languages: hence the term “natural semantic metalanguage”. Versions of this metalanguage have been documented for French, Spanish, Russian, Polish, Danish, Finnish, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Malay, Lao, Mbula (PNG), Amharic, Arabic, East Cree, and a variety of other languages (see individual chapters in the edited volumes: Goddard & Wierzbicka 2002; Peeters 2006; Goddard 2008; also Gladkova 2010; Habib 2011; Levisen 2012; Vanhatalo et al. 2014). When describing complex meanings in any language, the goal of NSM lexical semantic analysis is to arrive at a well-evidenced reductive paraphrase (an ‘explication’) for each discrete sense of the word (or other expression) under consideration. The explication may be framed exclusively in semantic primes or it may include some ‘semantic molecules’, in addition to semantic primes. The term ‘semantic molecule’ refers to certain non-primitive word-meanings which function as units in the structure of many other concepts from diverse domains across the lexicon (Wierzbicka 2009a; Goddard 2010). Examples of productive molecules of English include: ‘hands [m]’, ‘sharp [m]’, ‘water [m]’, ‘ground [m]’, and ‘hold [m]’. The notation [m] identifies a word as a semantic molecule. Because they are ultimately decomposable into primes (without circularity), there is no violation of the noncircularity principle. Some explications make use of complex terms of a different kind: derivational bases. For example, the explication for a derived word like illness includes the base element ‘ill [d]’, where the notation [d] indicates a derivational base (Goddard & Wierzbicka 2014: 209–210). Unlike semantic molecules, which range widely across many domains of the lexicon, derivational bases have a localized and specialized provenance. In § 2, we develop a quasi-derivational approach to aspectual transposition and to alternations (specialized constructions).
2 Approaching valency and alternation phenomena, NSM style In NSM semantics, explications for words which are semantically and grammatically similar are expected to follow a consistent organizational format or pattern. Such organizational formats are termed semantic templates (Goddard 2012). For verbs, the top-level components of the template constitute the so-called Lexicosyntactic Frame. These components account for much of the morphosyntactic behavior of a given verb, as they identify the core participants and their semantic roles, inherent aspect, and, often, components of volitionality and control. In § 2.1 we review a
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range of Lexicosyntactic Frames for various verb classes. In § 2.2 we outline the remaining parts of the template structure for physical activity verbs in particular.
2.1 Lexicosyntactic Frames Grouping verbs according to shared Lexicosyntactic Frames is one analogue in the NSM framework for the notion of “verb class”. Consider the configuration shown in [a]. The first line (‘someone does something to something for some time’) closely matches the idea of a transitive activity, while the second line depicts a concurrent “ongoing effect” on an object. If the agent exercises significant control over the ongoing effect (as, say, with cut), this can be captured by the additional component ‘as this someone wants’. An instrument can be provided for by adding the line: ‘this someone does it with something’. Variants of the configuration in [a] constitute the Lexicosyntactic Frames for many transitive physical activity verbs, such as eat, drink, cut, peel, and grind. a) someone does something to something for some time because of this, something happens to this something during this time (as this someone wants) (this someone does it with something) Many verbs of locomotion involve an actor undertaking a localized activity (doing something somewhere) with the concurrent result being controlled movement in the place in question, as shown in [b]. This is the Lexicosyntactic Frame for verbs such as walk, run, crawl and climb (Goddard et al. in press). b) someone does something somewhere for some time because of this, this someone is moving in this place during this time as this someone wants The examples so far have involved do in combination with the open-ended durational expression ‘for some time’. It is equally possible for do to appear with the time adjunct ‘at this time’, to which can be added ‘in one moment’ to depict punctuality. Many action verbs involve top-level components like these, followed by one or more components that spell out a subsequent result. This can be an effect on a person, as in [c], for verbs like hit and kill, or an effect on a thing, as in [d], for a verb like break (Goddard & Wierzbicka in press). c) someone does something to someone else at this time because of this, something happens to this someone else at this time (it happens in one moment) d) someone does something to something at this time because of this, something happens to this something at this time (it happens in one moment)
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The result can also be a change in the location of an affected theme, as in [e] or variants thereof, for verbs like put and throw, or a period of ongoing displacement, as in [f], for carry. e) someone does something to something at this time because of this, after this, this something is not in the place where it was before f) someone does something to something for some time because of this, this something is not in one place during this time, it is in many places at many times The top-most predicate in the examples mentioned so far has been do; that is, they have all concerned “verbs of doing”. Needless to say, the other primitive predicates such as happen and say (among others) can also figure in comparable roles. For example, many verbs of “deterioration” begin with the components in [g] (Barrios & Goddard 2013). Many speech-act verbs, such as ask, tell, and promise, begin with the components in [h] (Goddard & Wierzbicka 2014: Ch. 6). g) something bad happens to something for some time because of this, after this, this something is not like it was before h) someone says something to someone else at this time this someone wants something to happen because of it Many other combinations and configurations are possible (Goddard & Wierzbicka in press).
2.2 Semantic templates for physical activity verbs As mentioned, verbs of different kinds can have different template structures. Previous NSM work on physical activity verbs (Goddard & Wierzbicka 2009; Ye 2010: cf. Goddard 2012) has established that these verbs have a four-part template: – lexicosyntactic frame – prototypical scenario (incl. prototypical actor’s motivation) – manner (incl. incremental effect on the object) – potential outcome Little more needs to be said about the Lexicosyntactic Frame for activity verbs. The only thing to be added is a reminder that as an explicatory strategy, NSM analysts begin by identifying a semantically basic frame for verbs of any given type. For physical activity verbs, this basic frame is the progressive: the activity-in-progress. In other words, we begin the process of explication with sentence frames such as: Someone is eating (carrying, cutting, etc.) something. The Prototypical Scenario has the following form. The dashed lines represent a description that typically includes the motivation/intention of the prototypical actor, as well as, in some cases, relevant physical qualities of the object.
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at many times when someone does this (to something), it is like this: ––– – ––– –
Unlike research in extensionalist approaches (e.g. Majid & Bowerman 2007), NSM researchers contend that people conceptualize human activities not solely in terms of their physical characteristics, but partly by reference to the prototypical actor’s motivations. The Prototypical Scenario proposed for English walk, for example, states that a person often does something like this when they want to be somewhere after some time, not far from the place where they are (Goddard et al. in press). Obviously, this does not imply that people only ever walk with this motivation: one can walk for exercise or for pleasure, or for other reasons. Complex physical activity verbs (pour, cut, grind, etc.) have a richer cognitive structure than locomotion and other routine activities, because they prototypically involve something like conscious intention: an actor forming a “preparatory thought” directed towards changing the current state of some object. The Prototypical Scenario for cut, for example, involves wanting something not to be one thing anymore but instead to be two things, and, as well, wanting to control the separation process with some precision (Goddard & Wierzbicka 2009). The next section of the template is Manner. It is introduced by a component that can take either of the two forms below. The second, more complex, form is appropriate for an iterative structure of repeated actions, e.g. for verbs like chop, grind, peel. – when someone does this (to something/somewhere), it happens like this: ––– – ––– – – when someone does this to something, the same thing happens many times it happens like this: ––– – ––– – For bodily physical activities like run, eat and drink, the Manner section describes how the parts of the body are used. For activities like cut, chop, and grind, there is a description of an instrument and how it is used, which can involve several interrelated sub-events. Capping off the Manner section is a component that describes the localized or “incremental” effect as the activity is carried out. For example, the incremental effect of running is that the body moves progressively forwards; the incremental effect of cutting is that the surface of the object is changed by contact with the moving sharp edge of the instrument. The final section of the activity-in-progress template is a Potential Outcome, i.e. an indication of what the final result can be if the activity continues long enough. This component is introduced as follows: – if this someone does this for some time, because of this, after this, ...
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From a logical (or teleological) point of view, the Potential Outcome component completes the explication by linking the projected process with the motivation of a prototypical actor. This is no accident. As Goddard and Wierzbicka (2009: 88) put it: given the purposeful, goal-oriented nature of human action, it is only natural that characteristic activities which are prototypically motivated towards certain ends are potentially effective vis-à -vis those ends. In other words, it is natural that there should be a correspondence between the desideratum in the prototypical motivational scenario and final section of the schema: potential outcome. (Goddard & Wierzbicka 2009: 88)
As we will see in a moment, the Potential Outcome of an imperfective provides the default for an actual outcome when the verb is transposed into a perfective form. Explication [A] below illustrates how the various sections fit together, with a full explication for eat in its activity-in-progress sense. Obviously one could spend a good deal of time discussing and justifying the fine details but this is not necessary for present purposes, and in any case has been done elsewhere (Wierzbicka 2009b; Ye 2010; cf. Goddard 2011: 278–285).
Explication [A]: Someone is eating1 something. someone is doing something to something for some time because of this, something is happening to this something at the same time
lexicosyntactic frame
at many times when someone does this to something, it is like this: – this something is not something like water [m] – this someone wants this something to be inside their body
prototypical scenario
when someone does this to something, the same thing happens many manner + effect times (how it happens) it happens like this: – this someone does something to this something with the hands [m] – because of this, after this, some of this something is for a short time inside this someone’s mouth [m] – after this, this someone does something to it with some parts of the mouth [m] – because of this, something happens to it at this time – after this, this someone does something else to it with the mouth [m] – because of this, after this, it is not inside this someone’s mouth [m] anymore, it is somewhere else inside this someone’s body for some time if this someone does this for some time, after this, all of this something can be somewhere inside this someone’s body for some time
potential outcome
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The level of detail of this, and subsequent, explications (particularly in the Manner+Effect section) may surprise some, and it may be asked: How is the appropriate amount of detail determined? There is no mechanical decision procedure to decide this question. Semantic analysis (see Goddard 2011 for a textbook treatment) is a painstaking process that involves protracted experimentation with successive versions of an explication, having regard to the range of distribution of the word, its implications and entailments, and its relationships with other similar words in the language in question. Valuable semantic clues can also be garnered from comparisons with similar words in other languages. In relation to the Manner + Effect section, it appears to be a semantic characteristic of physical activity verbs that they involve detailed manner specifications. Many other types of verbs, such as verbs for physical acts and for speech-acts, have little or nothing in the way of manner specification (cf. Goddard & Wierzbicka 2009, in press).
2.3 Aspectual transposition: from activity-in-progress to perfective How are perfective (and other tense/aspect) forms for such verbs explicated? This question has relevance for present purposes because many alternations (specialized constructions) for physical activity verbs appear to be found preferentially in perfective contexts. Briefly, the perfective is produced by a process in which the activity-in-progress template is mapped across to a related perfective template by way of three correlated transpositions. First, the initial component of the Lexicosyntactic Frame is presented as a temporally localized act (‘someone X did something to something at this time’), without any reference to its duration. Second, the manner in which the event occurred is described in terms of the activity-in-progress meaning. To put it another way, even a perfective use of an activity verb incorporates a reference to a “process”, and this process is depicted by means of the activity-in-progress meaning, i.e. the already explicated, semantically basic sense of the verb. For example, to say that someone ate something implies that this person was eating it for some time. Third, the perfective construction indicates a result: the achievement of a particular outcome. By default the outcome is based on the Potential Outcome in the activity-in-progress sense. The primary activity-in-progress meaning appears marked with [d] to identify it as a non-primitive term with a role akin to that of a derivational base. This general structure corresponds rather closely to standard descriptions of perfective as representation of an event viewed in its totality, without attention to its “internal temporal constituency” (Comrie 1993), or as a “completed event”. Perfectives of physical activity verbs generally allow an additional resultative expression to expand or further specify the achieved result. For example, perfective
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Explication [B]: Someone ate1 a hamburger. someone did something to something (a hamburger) at this time
lexicosyntactic frame
it happened like this: this someone was eating [d] it for some time
manner
because of this, after this, all of this something was somewhere inside this someone’s body
outcome
cut implies that the thing which has been cut is ‘not one thing anymore’, but this can be augmented with more specific information, e.g. She cut the apple into four pieces. Likewise, perfective carried implies that the thing which has been carried is no longer in the place where it was before, but more information can be added to specify where it wound up, e.g. He carried the boxes to the car. The explications below show how this works semantically. Explication [C]: She cut1 the apple into four pieces. she did something to the apple at this time
lexicosyntactic frame
it happened like this: she was cutting [d] it for some time
manner
because of this, after this, this something was not one thing anymore it was four things
outcome
Explication [D]: He carried1 the box to the car. he did something to the box at this time
lexicosyntactic frame
it happened like this: he was carrying [d] it for some time
manner
because of this, after this, this something was not in the place where it was before, it was in the place where the car was
outcome
Interestingly, the added resultative information can have implications for the event structure being described. For example, cutting does not have to be iterative (one can cut something in a single movement), but to cut something into four pieces requires at least two cutting movements.
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3 Valency alternations of physical activity verbs Various subclasses of physical activity verbs can be identified for English on the basis of their Lexicosyntactic Frames (Goddard & Wierzbicka 2009, 2014, in press; Wierzbicka 2009b, 2010; Ye 2010; Goddard 2012; Goddard et al. in press; Sibly 2010). The main business of this chapter is to develop an account of the alternation behaviors (specialized constructions) found with such verbs, with a particular focus on those that are included in the Leipzig Valency Patterns Project list. For reasons of space, we will not touch locomotion verbs, such as run, or the “bodily care” verbs, such as shave, wash, and dress. The verbs to be treated are: eat, pour, carry, dig and cut. Each belongs to a different subclass in the Levin (1993) classification, and, as we will see, they all have different Lexicosyntactic Frames. In § 3.1–§ 3.5 we work through the selected verbs one at a time, roughly in order of the number and complexity of their alternations (specialized constructions). Except for eat, dealt with above, each subsection begins with the basic activity-inprogress sense, followed by a treatment of one or more alternations. The general picture is that the specialized constructions are quasi-derivational in nature, in the sense that the primary or semantically basic sense of the verb is embedded in a more elaborate configuration containing additional and often non-predictable semantic material.2 Each such construction represents a kind of “word in construction” polysemy.
3.1 Eat (Plus: No eating or drinking and Have you eaten?) The English verb eat is often said to exhibit an alternation termed the Omitted Object or Unspecified Object construction. Actually there are two such constructions, with semantic and grammatical differences between them. The simplest, and more grammatically restricted, construction is manifested also with read, and marginally, with drink. (1) No eating or drinking in class. (2) She was reading. The lack of an overt object implies disinterest in the nature or identity of what is being consumed. Whatever it is, it is normal, typical, expected. As noted by Wierzbicka (1988), one could say of a baby, for example: The baby is eating grass; but the same situation could not be described simply as ?The baby is eating. Likewise,
2 In broad terms this idea is reminiscent of the treatment of the locative and dative alternations in Rappaport & Levin (1988, 1998) and Pinker (1989); cf. Levin & Rappaport (2005: Ch. 3).
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a sentence like She was reading implies that the object was a book, magazine, newspaper or the like. One wouldn’t be likely to use such a sentence about someone reading a notice, a poster, or a product label. The meaning expressed by the omitted object can plausibly be represented as in the two explications below.
Explication [E]: Someone was eating2 (at this time). someone was eating [d] something at this time as people do in many places at many times
Explication [F]: Someone was reading2 (at this time). someone was reading [d] something at this time as people do in many places at many times
The second Omitted Object construction with eat is much more specific semantically, roughly equating with “eat a meal”. Unlike the general Omitted Object construction, it appears readily in the simple past and the perfect. (3) She was eating. (4) Cynthia ate alone. (5) Have you eaten? Explication [G] spells out the semantic content of the “eat a meal” construction (cf. the related expressions eat breakfast, eat lunch, eat dinner; compare: *eat snack). Essentially it represents the idea that someone who is eating (in the intended sense) is doing as people typically do at some times during the day when they spend time ‘eating some things of some kinds’. A feature of this explication is that the top-most component is not about ‘eating’, but rather about ‘doing something for some time’.
Explication [G]: Someone was eating3 (at this time). someone was doing something for some time at this time
lexicosyntactic frame
it happened like this: this someone was eating [d] some things of some kinds as many people do at some times during the day [m]
manner
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Interestingly, this construction is somewhat analogous to the expression ‘eat rice’ (meaning roughly, ‘eat a meal’) 3 in many East Asian languages, even though from a formal point of view the role of the “object” is quite different. In English, there is no explicit object but this gap does not imply that anything at all is consumed. In Chinese, the object appears to be lexically rather specific (namely, rice), but it actually encompasses a broader range of food items.4
3.2 Pour (Plus: He poured me a drink, and Oil was pouring onto the street) Examples of the basic activity-in-progress meaning of pour are shown below. (6) He was pouring it onto the ground. (7) She was pouring it out of (from) a jug. (8) She was pouring the water into a cup. The verb is explicated in [H]. Though water is depicted as the prototype material for pouring, both in the Prototypical Scenario and in characterizing the “flowing” Manner of movement, nothing in the explication restricts the material to water: it could be any other liquid, or indeed, any other substance (such as grain or flour) that is capable of moving ‘like water [m] moves at many times’.5 The distinctive property of water and similar substances is, of course, that one cannot manipulate them directly (Goddard 2010). Instead, one normally has the water or similar substance inside something, i.e. a vessel or container of some kind, and by manipulating this in a specific fashion (specifically, by raising part of it), one manages to control the flow of the water. The Prototypical Scenario for pour is more complex than that for eat. This is largely because the mental state appropriate for pouring is more complex than simple ‘wanting’. To pour something requires forming a conscious intention prior to the act, and, moreover, this intention has considerable internal complexity since
3 In Cantonese, for example, the formula sik6 faan6 [eat rice] is what people generally say at the beginning of a meal. Sik6 zo2 faan6 mei6 aa3? ‘Have you eaten (rice) yet? [eat PFV rice/meal notyet PRT] is often used as a general greeting, and also to ask whether someone has eaten yet. 4 Needless to say, the construction explicated in [G] has no analogue with the verb drink, which instead has its own independent “drink an alcoholic drink” meaning, cf. a drinker, a drinking problem. 5 Interestingly, the nearest Russian translation equivalent lit’ is restricted to liquids, while for grain or flour the appropriate verb is sypat’. Presumably the explication for Russian lit’ would not include the component ‘this something can move like water [m] can move’, but rather a component such as ‘this something is something like water [m]’.
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Explication [H]: Someone is pouring1 something (out of something) (at this time). someone is doing something to something for some time at this time lexicosyntactic because of this, something is happening to this something during this time frame at many times when someone does this to something, it is like this: – this something is inside something else at this time – this something can move like water [m] can move – a short time before, this someone thought like this: “I want this something not to be inside this other thing after a short time, I want it to be somewhere else because of this, I want this something to move for some time as I want it can be like this if I do something to this other thing for some time with my hands [m]”
prototypical scenario
when someone does this to something, it happens like this: – this someone’s hands [m] move for a short time as this someone wants – because of this, some of this something moves at the same time as this someone wants – when it moves, it moves like water [m] moves at many times – because of this, after this, some of this something is not inside this other thing anymore
manner + effect (how it happens)
if this someone does this for some time, after this, all of this something can be somewhere not in the place where it was before
potential outcome
it involves the idea not only of changing the location of the water or similar substance, but also the idea of manipulating the container for this purpose. Although the quantity of material is not mentioned in [H], the verb pour implies a largish quantity (one couldn’t pour a single drop, for example). Hopefully this is sufficiently implied by the durational nature of the meaning as explicated. One of the interesting, and highly English-specific, constructions involving pour is the “production” meaning it has when used as “verb of preparation” (cf. Levin 1993). Examples like these usually have a Benefactive argument as well, and when they don’t (as in the last two examples below), a potential beneficiary is arguably implied. (9)
He poured me a drink.
(10) Pour me a glass of wine (beer, etc.). (11) She taught me how to pour the perfect cup of tea. (12) I got a job pouring drinks in a cheap beachside bar. The presuppositions behind this usage are complex. They include the idea that we are talking about something of a kind that people normally drink in a certain way,
Verb classes and valency alternations (NSM approach)
1685
Explication [I]: Someone poured2 (me) a drink. someone did something somewhere at this time because this someone wanted there to be something of one kind in this place at this time
lexicosyntactic frame
because of this, after this, there was something of this kind in this place because of this, someone in this place could drink [m] this something as people drink [m] something like this at many times
outcome
it happened like this: – a short time before this something was inside something in this place – at this time this someone thought about this something like this: “it will be good for someone in this place if this someone can drink [m] some of this something as people drink [m] something like this at many times because of this, I want some of this something to be inside something else (e.g. a glass) in this place” – because of this, after this, this someone was pouring [d] this something for some time
manner (how it happened)
which includes the liquid in question being in a glass or a cup. The actor’s intention is directed towards achieving a situation in which someone could drink in this way, by pouring some liquid into a glass. The potential to consume the drink can be seen as ‘good for this someone’, hence the commonly associated benefactive. The components in the Lexicosyntactic Frame and Outcome are presumably identical or close to those in semantically similar sentences such as: He made (me) a sandwich; He baked (me) a cake; She knitted (me) a sweater. Roughly, they involve producing something of one kind by some actions or activities. It seems likely that the “pour a drink” construction is modeled on these plainer verbs. The second line of the Lexicosyntactic Frame for pour2 is shared by the verb make (in the relevant sense) and very similar components can be attributed to carve and to build (Goddard & Wierzbicka in press). Explication [I] shows that there is a surprising amount of semantic detail – a kind of social scenario – implicit in the “pour a drink” construction. On many treatments of alternation phenomena, sentences like the following would be counted as examples of an alternation involving pour (for example, as a kind of Ambitransitive or Anticausative alternation). A sample sentence is explicated in [J]. (13) Oil was pouring onto the street. (14) Smoke was pouring out of building.
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Explication [J]: Oil was pouring3 onto the street. something was happening in this place for some time
lexicosyntactic frame
it was happening like this: how it happens – much oil was moving in this place – before this, this oil was inside something – after this, it was somewhere else (on the street) – if people could see this oil when it was moving, they could think like this: “water [m] can move like this when someone is pouring [d] it”
Another use of pour occurs in the expression pour (with rain). We will not explicate this in detail here.6 Essentially, however, It was pouring means that it was raining (in a place) in a particular fashion which involves a great deal of water (very much water) and that this water was falling in a way which is not typical of normal rain, i.e. not in easily perceivable drops. The key component is much like the final component in [J], namely: ‘when people see this, they can think like this: “water [m] can move like this when someone is pouring [d] it”’.
3.3 Dig (Plus: He dug a hole and They were digging for gold) The verb dig has two distinctive properties: first, it is inherently locational in the sense that it always implies action in a place and a concurrent effect in that place; second and more specifically, it implies an effect on the ground in that place. (In some languages, the close connection between ‘digging’ and the ground is manifested grammatically, in the fact that the noun for ‘ground’ appears as the default grammatical object of the verb; as for example, with the Russian imperfective kopat’ (inf.) which takes zemlju (acc.) ‘ground’ as default object.) The basic activity-in-progress meaning is explicated below in [K]. There are two main specialized constructions involving dig, exemplified in the examples that follow. (15) a. He dug a hole (in the ground). b. They dug a well (tunnel, grave, trench). (16) He was digging for potatoes (gold, water, buried treasure).
6 Presumably, one would want to treat to pour (with rain) as a figurative extension of pour, i.e. as a polysemic meaning, rather than as a valency alternation. One of the themes of this chapter, however, is that from a semantic point of view the dividing lines between lexical polysemy, derivation and alternation are not strict (cf. Apresjan 1973).
Verb classes and valency alternations (NSM approach)
1687
Explication [K]: Someone is digging1 somewhere. someone is doing something somewhere for some time because of this, something is happening in this place during this time this someone is doing it with something
lexicosyntactic frame
at many times when someone does this in a place, it is like this: – a short time before, this someone thought like this: “I want some of the ground [m] in this place to be after this time not in the place where it is now”
prototypical scenario
when someone does this in a place, the same thing happens many times it happens like this: – this someone holds [m] something for some time – during this time, this someone does something to this something with parts of this someone’s body – because of this, part of this thing is inside the ground [m] in this place for a short time – during this time, this thing moves as this someone wants – because of this, something happens to some of the ground [m] in this place at this time – because of this, after this, some of the ground [m] is not in the place where it was before
manner + effect (how it happens)
if this someone does this for some time, after this, much of the ground [m] in this place is not in the place where it was before
potential outcome
Digging a hole (well, tunnel, grave, trench, etc.) has a meaning structure much like that of “verbs of production/creation”, such as make and build. The nouns that can function as grammatical object are of course those denoting things that can be created by human activity upon or under the ground. Two slightly different explications are required. [L1] applies to the expression hole (in the ground). In [L1] the ‘digging’ is literal, so to speak, i.e. ‘dig [m]’ appears in the second part of the explication by itself. [L2] applies for other nouns, such as well, tunnel, grave, trench, etc. The final section of this explication makes use of a component type that we have not seen before. It can be termed an “analogy of action” component: ... this someone was doing something in this place for some time like someone does when someone is digging [m] in a place for some time
That is, when describing the manner in which someone digs a well (tunnel, grave, etc.), the activity is not depicted as ordinary digging, but as like ordinary digging. This is because the mechanics of “well digging” (tunnel digging, grave digging, etc.) do not necessarily, or even typically, exactly match ordinary digging, as previ-
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ously explicated in [K]. “Analogy of action” components provide a mechanism for meaning extension.
Explication [L1]: Someone X dug2 a hole (in the ground) in this place. someone X did something in this place at this time because this someone wanted there to be a hole in the ground [m] in this place
lexicosyntactic frame
because of this, after this, there was a hole in the ground [m] in this place
outcome
it happened like this: this someone was digging [d] in this place for some time
how it happened
Explication [L2]: Someone X dug2 a well (tunnel, grave, etc.) in this place. someone X did something in this place at this time because this someone wanted there to be well (tunnel, grave, etc.) in this place
lexicosyntactic frame
because of this, after this, there was a well (tunnel, grave, etc.) in this place
outcome
it happened like this: this someone was doing something in this place for some time like someone does when someone is digging [m] in a place for some time
how it happened
Explication [M]: Someone was digging3 for potatoes (water, gold, etc.) in this place. someone was doing something somewhere for some time because this someone wanted to do something with this something
lexicosyntactic frame
it happened like this: – some time before, this someone thought like this about this place: “maybe there is something good of one kind (potatoes, water, gold) below the ground [m] in this place I want to know if there is something like this below the ground [m] in this place, I want it not be below the ground [m] anymore I want to do something with it” – because of this, this someone wanted to do something to the ground [m] in this place – because of this, this someone was doing something in this place for some time like someone does when someone is digging [m] in a place for some time
how it happened
Verb classes and valency alternations (NSM approach)
1689
Note that this analysis implies (and assumes) that the word hole is polysemous, with one of its meanings being specifically ‘hole in the ground’. The point is that a hole as such (unlike a well, tunnel, or grave), does not necessarily have to be in the ground. Many languages have different lexical forms for similarly different meanings, e.g. Yankunytjatjara piti ‘hole in ground’, ala ‘hole in something, opening’, cf. Spanish hoyo vs. agujero, Russian jama vs. dyra. Coming now to the “digging for” construction, it presupposes knowledge that things of certain kinds that people want to lay their hands on can be found in or under the ground. It seems that an element of uncertainty is part of it; cf. look for, search for. For example, if I have buried some treasure in the back yard for safekeeping and then go to dig it up, I will not be digging for treasure. It seems likely that the “digging for” construction is modeled on expressions such as look for and search for. The verb dig can also participate in “path” constructions, such as the following, but for reasons of space, these will not be explicated here. (17) They dug through the top layer of shale. (18) They dug their way out of the wreckage [Way-construction]
3.4 Carry (Plus: He carried a knife) The activity-in-progress meaning of carry can be explicated as in [N] below. We can quickly note a couple of details. First, the second component in the Lexicosyntactic Frame (‘because of this, this something is not in one place during this time, it is in many places at many times’) conveys the idea of on-going displacement. Second, components in the Prototypical Scenario and Potential Outcome (‘if this someone does this for some time, after this, this something can be somewhere else as this someone wanted before’) convey the idea that the thing being carried can end up in a particular intended destination. Third, components in the Prototypical Scenario and Manner sections capture the fact that carrying involves avoiding contact with the ground. This is necessary to distinguish carrying from dragging, for example. Fourth, the explication provides that contact with part of the agent’s body is an important part of the meaning, but without specifying any particular part. This is compatible with the possibility of adding phrases such as in his arms, on his back, on her head, etc., to identify the relevant body-part. (Many languages lack any verb with a comparably broad meaning, but instead have more specialized verbs distinguished by body-part and associated manner.) With carry, the main alternative construction of interest is illustrated in the sentences below. This can be termed the Quasi-Benefactive Accompaniment alternation.
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Cliff Goddard
Explication [N]: Someone is carrying1 something (e.g. the boxes, a baby). someone is doing something to something for some time because of this, this something is not in one place during this time, it is in many places at many times this someone is doing it with some parts of the body
lexicosyntactic frame
at many times when someone does this to something, it is like this: – some time before, this something was in the place where this someone was – this someone thought like this at this time: “I don’t want this something to be in this place after this I want it to be somewhere else after some time because of this, I want to do something to it for some time after this I don’t want it to touch the ground [m] during this time”
prototypical scenario
when someone does this to something, it happens like this: – for some time parts of this someone’s body touch parts of this thing as this someone wants – at the same time this someone does something with some other parts of the body – because of this, this someone’s body is not in one place during this time, it is in many places at many times
manner + effect (how it happens)
if this someone does this for some time, after this, this something can be somewhere else as this someone wanted before
potential outcome
(19) She carried a notebook/lip balm (with her) at all times. (20) Max carries a knife (with him) everywhere he goes. In this meaning, which I designate carry2 , the verb can optionally occur with a prepositional phrase of the form with + Pronoun, where the pronoun indexes the agent. Semantically and grammatically, the construction is related to have something with (one), e.g. She always has her notebook with her. As noted by Levin (1993: 104), the prepositional phrase has the unusual property that the pronoun cannot appear in reflexive form, despite it being co-referential with the subject, cf. *She carried it with herself.7 Unlike carry1 , the verb carry2 cannot take a goal expression. (21) ?She carried the lip balm (with her) downstairs.
7 Possibly the factor that licenses the non-reflexive pronoun is the implicit reference in explication [O] to the actor’s body, rather than to the actor him or herself. As Beth Levin (p.c.) has observed, similar non-reflexive sentences are found with verbs push and pull, e.g. She pushed the plate away from her. NSM explications for push and pull also involve reference to proximity to the actor’s body. The matter requires further research.
Verb classes and valency alternations (NSM approach)
1691
(22) ?He carried a knife (with him) downstairs. Another distinctive grammatical property of carry2 is that it does not have a past perfective. A sentence like He carried2 a weapon, for example, must have a past habitual interpretation. A notable distributional difference between carry1 and carry2 is that in the case of the latter, the object can be something small, or even very small, such as a pen or lipstick. The carry2 meaning is explicated in [P]. Notice that the Prototypical Scenario is quite different to that of carry1: essentially, the actor is envisaging being “mobile” for some time and considers it potentially beneficial to be able to do something with the item in question during this time; hence, he or she wants to have the item ‘near my body at all times during this time’. This scenario is highly compatible with functional items such as weapons, writing instruments, mobile devices, and the like, but it is sufficiently broad to accommodate sentences such as She carried a Bible at all times and He carried her photo with him at all times. The Manner section shows a new type of analogy component expressing what can be termed “manner of effect”. when someone does this to something, something happens to this something like something happens to something when someone is carrying [d] this something
Rather than the agent’s action being likened to the primary sense of the verb, the analogy concerns the effect on the object: when someone carries2 something, the effect on this object is like what happens to something when someone carries1 something.
Explication [O]: Someone was carrying2 something Y (with him/her). someone was doing something to something for some time (at this time) because of this, this something was not in one place during this time, it was in many places
lexicosyntactic frame
at many times when someone does this to something, it is like this: – a short time before this, this someone thought about this something like this: “for some time after this I won't be in one place, I will be in many places at many times it can be good if at some time during this time I can do something with this something because of this, I want this something to be near my body at all times during this time”
prototypical scenario
when someone does this to something, something happens to this manner something like something happens to something when someone is carrying [d] this something
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Cliff Goddard
The existence of carry2 in itself does not represent a valency alternation of carry. On the other hand, carry2 has a distinct valency alternation associated with it, namely, the option of including the with-phrase.
3.5 Cut (Plus: He cut his face while shaving, He cut his foot on a rock, and The glass cut his hand) The lexical semantics of cut and chop, and their nearest equivalents in Polish and Japanese, have been analyzed in Goddard & Wierzbicka (2009). The present treatment generally follows that analysis with some adjustments and revisions. The activity-in-progress meaning can be explicated as in [P]. (23) She was cutting the bread. (24) He cut the paper with scissors.
Explication [P]: Someone is cutting1 something (e.g. bread, paper). someone is doing something to something for some time because of this, something is happening to this something during this time as this someone wants this someone is doing it with something else
lexicosyntactic frame
at many times when someone does this to something, it is like this: – a short time before, this someone thought like this about this something: “I don’t want this thing to be one thing anymore, I want it to be two things because of this, I want to do something to it for some time after this when I do this, I want something to happen to it all the time as I want”
prototypical scenario
when someone does this to something, it happens like this: – this someone holds [m] part of something else with one hand [m] all the time – some parts of this other something are sharp [m] – this someoneʼs hand [m] moves for some time as this someone wants – because of this, the sharp [m] parts of this other thing touch this thing in some places as this someone wants – because of this, something happens to this thing in these places as this someone wants – because of this, after this, part of this thing is not like it was before
manner + effect (how it happens)
if this someone does this for some time, after this, this thing can be two things as this someone wanted before
potential outcome
Verb classes and valency alternations (NSM approach)
1693
Explication [Q]: He cut2 the string (thread, ribbon). he did something to the string at this time because of this, something happened to the string at this time it happened in one moment
lexicosyntactic frame
because of this, after this, the string was not one thing anymore, it was two things
outcome
it happened like this: – he did something with something sharp [m] – because of this, something happened to this string like something happens to something when someone is cutting [d] it
how it happened
Explication [P] above will not work for uses of cut in which the object is something very thin, such as string, thread or ribbon, because cutting things like these does not involve an activity carried out over a period of time. On the contrary, the agent does something and the effect happens ‘in one moment’. Naturally therefore, when one cuts a string (thread, ribbon, etc.) there is no possibility of exercising sustained ongoing control. Examples of cut with objects like these strongly tend to occur in perfective contexts: (25) He finished off the last stitch, knotted it and cut the thread with her nail scissors. (26) He held the parcel on his knees and cut the string with a clasp knife. Uses like these can be explicated as in [Q], which is given in the past perfective frame. English cut can appear in several specialized constructions connected with the unintended effects of a sharp object on part of a person’s body. We will consider three of these, exemplified in the three sentences below. They can all be termed Accidental Body-Part Damage alternations. On account of these and similar alternations, Levin (1993) cross-listed cut both as a “Verb of Cutting” and as a “Hurt verb” – involving “damage to the body through a process that is not under control of the subject”. The events being described are usually very brief in duration (naturally enough) and consequently these constructions do not normally occur in the progressive. Note that the “damage to the body” events described by these sentences do not imply any actual or potential separation into two parts – another difference from canonical “cutting”. (27) He cut his face while shaving. (cf. *He was cutting his face while shaving.) (28) He cut his foot on a rock. (cf. *He was cutting his foot on a rock.) (29) The glass cut his hand. (cf. *The glass was cutting his hand.)
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Cliff Goddard
Explication [R]: He cut3 his face while shaving. he did something to part of his body (his face) at this time because of this, something happened to his face at this time he didn’t want this to happen it happened in one moment
lexicosyntactic frame
because of this, after this, part of his face was for some time not like it was before
outcome
it happened like this: – he was doing something for some time with something sharp [m] – at some time during this time, this sharp [m] thing touched part of his face not as he wanted – because of this, something happened to this part of his face like something happens to something when someone is cutting [d] this something
how it happened
From an English speaker’s point of view, these constructions shown in (27)–(29) may seem natural enough but for speakers of languages which do not have such constructions,8 they can seem puzzling. What is their semantic rationale? The answer, evidently, lies in the involvement of something sharp, and more specifically, in the fact that contact with something sharp can damage the human body. The way in which damage occurs can be seen as like what happens to something when it is being cut. Both the explications below rely on a “manner of effect” component. The effect of the sharp object on the affected part of the body is characterized as follows: – (because of this,) something happens to this part of his/her body like something happens to something when someone is cutting [d] this something Explication [R] is for He cut his face while shaving. Comparable examples would include: She cut her hand grating the carrots, He cut his hand while slicing bagels, and the like. The Lexicosyntactic Frame and Outcome sections characterize the meaning, at a broad level, as doing something to part of one’s body which causes something unwanted to happen to it which has a resulting localized effect that lasts for some time. The scenario for How it Happened involves the actor doing
8 In Russian, for example, the ‘cut’ verb would normally require a prefix po- in sentences like (27)– (29). In Polish, one would use a verb like ‘injure’ for (27), rather than ‘cut’, while for the others, ‘cut’ could be used but only with a prefix meaning something like ‘through’ (Anna Wierzbicka p.c.). In Chinese, yet another pattern is evident. (27)–(29) could be rendered using the verbal expression gē-pò [cut-broken], either by itself for (27), or in passive or ba-constructions, with (28) and (29), respectively, but this is quite different from the normal ‘cut’ verb qie, which implies deliberate and controlled action (Li Jiongying p.c.; Zhengdao Ye p.c.).
Verb classes and valency alternations (NSM approach)
1695
something for some time with a sharp instrument, during which time a sharp part of this instrument touches part of the actor’s body ‘not as this someone wanted’. This wording is compatible with a situation of shaving, as well as other kinds of activity (such as grating, slicing, etc.). The contact causes something to happen to the body-part in question, and, as just explained, the manner of effect is described as being like what happens to something when someone is cutting it. Finally, the event is characterized as momentary: ‘it happened in one moment’. Not surprisingly, other verbs implying contact with something sharp can also appear in this construction; for example: I scratched my hand while coiling the wire. There is another cut-construction, semantically quite close to that explicated above, exemplified by sentences such as: He cut himself on the face (while shaving). It differs grammatically in employing the reflexive pronoun and an on-phrase indicating the “locus of contact”. This construction will not be discussed here, cf. Goddard & Wierzbicka (2009: 69–70). Explication [S] is for He cut his foot on a sharp rock. This sentence could be used about a situation, for example, in which someone was climbing around barefooted on some rocks. Other comparable examples would be: He cut his hand on the barbed wire, I cut my hand on a piece of broken glass. The construction implies that the actor was doing something in a place where there was something sharp and that during this time part of his or her body came into accidental contact with the sharp thing, with a resulting “cutting-like” effect. As with the previous explication, the final component of the Lexicosyntactic Frame states that this happened in one moment. As before, other verbs implying contact with something sharp can also appear in this construction; for example: I nicked my arm on the edge, I pricked my finger on a thorn. Verbs like burn, hit, and scrape can participate in the same construction, as shown in the examples below. In place of ‘something sharp [m]’, such examples presumably imply, respectively, the presence of ‘something very hard [m]’, ‘something very hot [m]’, ‘and ‘something very rough [m]’. Items with these properties all have the potential to cause harm to the human body upon contact. (30) He hit his head on the roof as he stood up. (31) My four year old son burned his hand on the stove. (32) I scraped my finger on the asphalt. The following examples show the third and final Accidental Body-Part Damage construction with cut to be considered here. The sharp object appears as the grammatical subject. (33) The glass cut her hand.
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Explication [S]: He cut4 his foot on a rock. something happened to part of his body (his foot) at this time it happened because he was doing something somewhere at this time he didn’t want this to happen it happened in one moment
lexicosyntactic frame
because of this, after this, this part of his body was for some time not like it was before
outcome
it happened like this: how it happened – there was something sharp [m] in the place where he was – when he was doing something in this place, part of his body touched this sharp [m] thing not as he wanted – because of this, something happened to this part of his body at this time like something happens to something when someone is cutting [d] this something
(34) As she pushed through the dense bush, the razor-sharp leaves cut her face terribly. (35) I was clearing the pieces away and one of them cut my hand. Such sentences are rather vague as to the nature of the causing situation, i.e. how it comes about that the sharp thing denoted by the subject comes into contact with part of the patient’s body. It is notable, however, that the construction does not extend across the same range as the one explicated in [S]. (36) *The roof hit his head. (37) *The stove burned my son’s hand. (38) *The asphalt scraped my finger. Comparing these unacceptable sentences with more acceptable ones, such as He hit his head on the roof and He burned his hand on the stove, suggests that the crucial requirement for the damaging item to assume the role of grammatical subject is movement. Some sharp items, especially small ones like pieces of glass, thorns, etc., are capable of moving – not of their own volition, of course, but as a result of something that happens in the situation. In many cases, the movement is caused by the person’s own actions, but this is not necessarily the case, as we can see from sentences such as the following. (39) There was an explosion and a piece of flying glass cut her face. (40) Something exploded in the fire and a flying spark burned her face.
Verb classes and valency alternations (NSM approach)
1697
Explication [T]: The glass cut5 her hand. something moved in the place where she was at this time because of this, something happened to part of her body (her hand) at this time she didn’t want this to happen it happened in one moment
lexicosyntactic frame
because of this, after this, this part of her body was for some time not like it was before
outcome
it happened like this: – there was something sharp [m] in the place where she was at this time – this sharp [m] thing moved for a very short time at some time – during this time it touched part of her body – because of this, something happened to this part of her body like something happens to something when someone is cutting [d] this something
how it happened
Explication [T] requires that something sharp in the immediate vicinity of the actor moves very briefly and in so doing comes into contact with part of someone’s body9.
4 Review and discussion Levin and Rappaport Hovav (2005) were right when they asserted that progress towards improved understanding of valency classes and alteration phenomena will depend on detailed lexical semantic analysis. Two questions they left hanging were: How detailed does the analysis have to be? And what is the appropriate methodology for getting to the required level of detail? On the basis of the present study, we can conclude that to get a clear view of valency phenomena what is needed is explication right down to the level of semantic primes and molecules; and (relatedly) that the NSM approach provides a suitable methodology. The task is a formidable one, but in my view the usual strategy of using complex-but-approximate labels for putative “syntactically relevant” meanings has largely ex-
9 In some sentences, such as (34), and the similar The bush scratched my face as I rushed blindly down the path, the actor is also moving and it is this that initiates the causal chain that leads to him or her getting cut. Even so, the construction under discussion seems to imply some movement by the sharp thing, e.g. the razor-sharp leaves, thorns, bush, etc. The construction would not be acceptable about an immobile object, such as a rough wall, for example; *The wall scratched my face as I rushed blindly down the narrow path.
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hausted its usefulness.10 It is time to take the plunge and get to work with detailed lexical semantic analysis. Aside from clarifying the nature of verb classes and alternation phenomena (specialized constructions), detailed lexical semantic analysis is necessary in order to settle confounding issues concerning lexical polysemy. So far as the semantic character of alternations (specialized constructions) is concerned, it has emerged from the present study that syntactic alternations express rich configurations of meaning that combine the lexical semantics of the primary sense of the verb with additional meanings. This makes construction semantics seem analogous to derivation. As Dowty (2000) says (he is writing about the Locative-subject construction, but his points apply more broadly): [C]ontrary to the usual view …, good reasons can be given to view it as a lexical derivation analogous to rules of word formation on the one hand, and to processes of lexical semantic extension … and metaphor on the other. (Dowty 2000: 121; emphasis in original)
The account developed in the present study confirms this view and, moreover, shows the mechanics of this: the derivation-like nature of the specialized constructions is visible in the involvement of the primary meaning as a [d] element in the composite meaning. The idea has also emerged that specialized constructions for a given verb are often modeled on the semantics and constructions of other verbs. For example, we suggested that the “pour a drink” construction is partly modeled on expressions such as make a sandwich and knit a sweater, and that the “digging for gold” construction is partly modeled on expressions such as look for gold and search for water. This is broadly consistent with the proposal by some cognitive linguists and scholars in construction grammar that many constructions can be seen as lexicosyntactic “blends” (Goldberg 1995, 2010; Fauconnier & Turner 1996; Dancygier 2009). Much remains to be done, however, before these processes can be regarded as well understood. On account of its microsemantic nature, the present study has been highly delimited in many ways, restricted to one subdomain in a single language, i.e. English, which uses “phrasal constructions” (lexicosyntactic blending) as its main
10 The present study raises certain problems for Levin and Rappaport Hovav’s proposals about “Manner/Result complementarity” (cf. Levin, this volume; Rappaport Hovav & Levin 2010). For example, it is clear from the present study that the verb cut contains detailed manner components, which runs counter Levin & Rappaport Hovav’s (2013) arguments that cut is “basically a result verb” and that no manner components are lexicalized as part of its meaning. No doubt their key insight could be re-formulated, for example, in terms of “manner orientation” vs. “result orientation”. I remain doubtful, however, about the extent to which simple bifurcations can illuminate the complexities of alternation phenomena. It also seems to me that generalizations at the level of the lexeme are necessarily perilous on account of lexical polysemy and because alternation phenomena are intertwined with grammatical aspect, as well as lexical aspect.
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mode for expressing specialized meaning alternations. As the data being marshalled by the Valency Patterns Project shows, similar effects can be achieved in other languages by very different morphosyntactic means, such as derivational morphology, applicative morphology, or serial verb constructions. It is reasonable to expect that the semantics of these processes is broadly similar to those that we see in English, but “broadly similar” does not mean identical. As richer and more comparable cross-linguistic data comes to hand, the challenge will be to apply detailed semantic analysis to this data using standardized and consistent methods.
Acknowledgements I am very grateful to the organizers and to my fellow participants in the Leipzig Valency Patterns Project both for their direct and indirect contributions. The editors of this volume and reviewers made valuable suggestions and observations. The explications in this chapter have been discussed extensively with Anna Wierzbicka.
References Apresjan, Juri D. 1973. Regular polysemy. Linguistics 124. 5–32. Barrios Rodriguez, María Auxiliadora & Cliff Goddard. 2013. “Degrad verbs” in Spanish and English: Collocations, lexical functions and contrastive NSM semantic analysis. Functions of Language. 20(2). 219–249. Bromhead, Helen. 2009. The Reign of Truth and Faith: Epistemic expressions in 16 th and 17 th century English. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Bromhead, Helen. 2011. Ethnogeographical categories in English and Pitjantjatjara/ Yankunytjatjara. Language Sciences 33(1). 58–75. Comrie, Bernard. 1993. Aspect. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dancygier, Barbara. 2009. Genitives and proper names in construction blends. In Vyvyan Evans & Stéphanie Pourcel (eds.), New Directions in Cognitive Linguistics, 161–184. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Dowty, David. 2000. ‘The garden swarms with bees’ and the fallacy of ‘Argument Alternation’. In Yael Ravin & Claudia Leacock (eds.), Polysemy: Theoretical and Computational Approaches, 111–128. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fauconnier, Gilles & Mark Turner. 1996. Blending as a central process of grammar. In Adele Goldberg (ed.), Conceptual Structure, Discourse and Language, 113–130. Stanford: CSLI. Gladkova, Anna. 2010. Russkaja kul’turnaja semantika: ėmocii, cennosti, žiznennye ustanovki [Russian cultural semantics: Emotions, values, attitudes.] Moscow: Languages of Slavic Cultures. Goddard, Cliff. 2010. Semantic molecules and semantic complexity (with special reference to “environmental” molecules). Review of Cognitive Linguistics 8(1). 123–155. Goddard, Cliff. 2011. Semantic Analysis, rev. 2 nd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Goddard, Cliff. 2012. Semantic primes, semantic molecules, semantic templates: Key concepts in the NSM approach to lexical typology. Linguistics 50(3). 711–743.
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Goddard, Cliff (ed.). 2008. Cross-Linguistic Semantics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Goddard, Cliff & Anna Wierzbicka. 2009. Contrastive semantics of physical activity verbs: ‘cutting’ and ‘chopping’ in English, Polish, and Japanese. Language Sciences 31. 60–96. Goddard, Cliff & Anna Wierzbicka. 2014. Words and Meanings. Lexical Semantics Across Domains, Languages and Cultures. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Goddard, Cliff & Anna Wierzbicka. In press. Exploring the English lexicon of “doing” and “happening”. Goddard, Cliff & Anna Wierzbicka (eds.). 2002. Meaning and Universal Grammar – Theory and Empirical Findings. Vols I and II. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Goddard, Cliff, Anna Wierzbicka & Jock Wong. In press. “Walking” and “running” in English and German: The cross-linguistic semantics of verbs of human locomotion. Review of Cognitive Linguistics. Goldberg, Adele. 1995. Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument-Structure Constructions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Goldberg, Adele. 2010. Verbs, constructions and semantic frames. In Malka Rappaport Hovav, Edit Doran & Ivy Sichel (eds.), Lexical Semantics, Syntax, and Event Structure, 39–58. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Habib, Sandy. 2011. Contrastive lexical conceptual analysis of folk religious concepts in English, Arabic and Hebrew: NSM approach. PhD thesis, University of New England. Levin, Beth. 1993. English Verb Classes and Alternations. University of Chicago Press: Chicago. Levin, Beth. This volume. Verb classes within and across languages. Levin, Beth & Malka Rappaport Hovav. 2005. Argument Realization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Levin, Beth & Malka Rappaport Hovav. 2013. Lexicalized meaning and manner/result complementarity. In B. Arsenijević, B. Gehrke & R. Marín (eds.), Subatomic Semantics of Event Predicates, 49–70. Dordrecht: Klüver. Levisen, Carsten. 2012. Cultural Semantics and Social Cognition: A Case Study on the Danish Universe of Meaning. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Majid, Asifa & Melissa Bowerman (eds.). 2007. “Cutting and breaking events”: a cross-linguistic perspective. [Special Issue] Cognitive Linguistics 18(2). Peeters, Bert (ed.). 2006. Semantic Primes and Universal Grammar: Empirical Evidence from the Romance Languages. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Pinker, Steven. 1989. Learnability and Cognition: The Acquisition of Argument Structure. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Rappaport Hovav, Malka & Beth Levin. 1988. What to do with theta-roles. In Wendy Wilkins (ed.), Syntax and Semantics 21: Thematic Relations, 7–36. New York: Academic Press. Rappaport Hovav, Malka & Beth Levin. 1998. Building verb meanings. In Miriam Butt & Wilhelm Geuder (eds.), The Projection of Arguments: Lexical and Compositional Factors, 97–134. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications. Rappaport Hovav, Malka & Beth Levin. 2010. Reflections on manner/result complementarity. In Malka Rappaport Hovav, Edit Doran & Ivy Sichel (eds.), Lexical Semantics, Syntax, and Event Structure, 21–38. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sibly, Anne. 2010. Harry slapped Hugo, Tracey smacked Ritchie: The semantics of slap and smack. Australian Journal of Linguistics 30(3). 323–348. Vanhatalo, Ulla, Heli Tissari & Anna Idström. 2014. Re-visiting the universality of Natural Semantic Metalanguage: a view through Finnish. SKY Journal of Linguistics 27. 67–94. Wierzbicka, Anna. 1972. Semantic Primitives. Frankfurt: Athenäum. Wierzbicka, Anna. 1988. The Semantics of Grammar. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Wierzbicka, Anna. 1996. Semantics: Primes and Universals. New York: Oxford University Press. Wierzbicka, Anna. 2009a. The theory of the mental lexicon. In Sebastian Kempgen, Peter Kosta, Tilman Berger & Karl Gutschmidt (eds.), The Slavic Languages. An International Handbook of
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their Structure, their History and their Investigation (Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science, HSK 32.1), 848–863. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Wierzbicka, Anna. 2009b. All people eat and drink: Does this mean that ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ are universal human concepts? In John Newman (ed.), The Linguistics of Eating and Drinking, 65–89. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Wong, Jock. 2005. “Why you so Singlish one?” A semantic and cultural interpretation of the Singapore English particle one. Language in Society 34(2). 239–275. Wong, Jock. 2010. The triple articulation of language. Journal of Pragmatics 42(11). 2932–2944. Wong, Jock. 2014. The Culture of Singapore English. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ye, Zhengdao. 2010. Eating and drinking in Mandarin and Shanghainese: A lexical-conceptual analysis. In Wayne Christensen, Elizabeth Schier & John Sutton (eds.), ASCS09: Proceedings of the 9 th Conference of the Australasian Society for Cognitive Science, 375–83. Sydney: Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science. Ye, Zhengdao. (ed.) in press. The Semantics of Nouns. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Language index The index on the following pages is a comprehensive index and includes the contents of both volume 1 and volume 2. Abui 75 Afrikaans 185, 213 Afroasiatic 16, 133 Ainu 16–18, 20, 63, 98, 104, 106, 107, 133, 139, 145, 176–179, 807–838, 904, 1582, 1583 − Chitose dialect 807 − Hokkaido dialect group 807, 810 − Kurile dialect group 807 − Sakhalin dialect group 807 − Saru dialect 807, 820 Akhvakh 545 Albanian 141 Algic 16 Algonquian 133, 145, 1174, 1205, 1210, 1212, 1215–1217, 1243, 1248, 1260, 1262 − Eastern 1211 − Proto- 1223 Altaic 120, 571, 610, 765 Amharic 1674 Arabic 18, 176–179, 327–361, 1674 − Classical 340 − Damascene 332 − Hasaníyya 327 − Modern Standard 84, 104, 115, 133, 139, 144, 327–361, Arammba 1069, 1070, 1102 Araucanian 16 Armenian 87, 91, 92, 95, 483–486, 489, 490, 494, 496, 506, 518 − Araratian dialect 483 − Classical 483–487 − Eastern 17, 56, 57, 82, 133, 139, 144, 176– 179, 483–537, 1591 − Western 483, 485–487, 489 − Yerevan dialect 483 Atlantic 239 Atlantic-Congo 16 Australian 87, 93, 141, 1069, 1117, 1118, 1129 Austronesian 16, 32, 37, 95, 100, 115, 133, 145, 877, 878, 880, 941, 974, 1015, 1069 − Proto- 877 Avar, 1599, 1602, 1604, 1607, 1609
Balinese 16, 63, 84, 85, 100, 101, 115, 116, 119, 133, 139, 141, 145, 176, 179, 877–937, 959, 1582, 1588 − Denpasar dialect 880, 881, 910 Balto-Slavic 141, 407 Bambara 221, 234, 242 Bangla 4 Bantawa 669 Bantu 11, 239, 250, 600 Basque 1599, 1602, 1603, 1605, 1660, 1661 Belhare 670 Benue-Congo 133, 144, 261, 299 Berber 1631 Bezhta 19, 58–62, 79, 80, 87, 97, 98, 104, 115, 118, 119, 122, 123, 133, 139, 140, 145, 176–179, 541–569, 1582 − Proper dialect 541 Bora 17, 61, 62, 87, 118, 132–137, 139, 145, 176–178, 1481–1512 Boran 16, 133, 145 Cantonese 1683 Caucasian 87, 141, 1650, 1658 − East (= Nakh-Daghestanian, = Northeast Caucasian) 16, 133, 141, 541, 547 − Northern 141 Celtic 141 Central Alaskan Yupik see Yupik, Central Alaskan Chamic 877 Chatino 16, 20, 62, 77, 95, 119, 1391, 1405, 1414, 1420 − Eastern group 1391, 1394 − San Juan Quiahije 1391 − San Marcos Zacatepec 1391 − Tataltepec 1391 − Yaltepec 1391 − Zenzontepec 63, 133, 139, 145, 176–178, 180, 1391–1424 Chinese 95, 132, 467, 605, 714, 718, 719, 723, 726, 732, 747, 1674, 1683, 1694 − Beijing dialect 709 − Classical 709, 746, 754 − Mandarin 18, 64, 75, 90, 94, 95, 133, 139, 145, 161, 176, 180, 709–761
1704
Language index
− Modern Standard see Chinese, Mandarin Chintang 17, 20, 21, 41, 50, 51, 66, 76, 77, 79, 87, 93, 112, 113, 133, 139, 140, 145, 176– 179, 669–704, 1582 − Mulgaũ dialect 669, 674 − Sambugaũ dialect 669, 674 Chippewa see Ojibwe Chiwere 1265 Cree, East 1674 Daghestanian 10, 140, 145, 1650 Danish 1674 Dargva 1599 Djaru 87, 1599, 1602, 1604, 1606, 1607, 1616–1619, 1621, 1657 Dravidian 816, 988, 1607 Dre 1069 Drehu 1017, 1047, 1048 Dutch 467, 1654, 1659 Dyirbal 31, 467 Eastern Armenian see Armenian, Eastern Edoid 144, 261 Emai 17, 18, 64, 91, 92, 133, 139, 140, 144, 178, 261–297, 1657 English 4, 6, 8, 11–13, 20, 27, 30–35, 41–53, 56–59, 63–66, 73, 82–84, 87, 90, 91, 93, 94, 105, 108, 110, 117, 131–133, 139–141, 144, 145, 178, 179, 224, 239, 398–400, 410, 467, 600, 662–664, 711, 743, 883, 901–904, 931, 973, 987, 1008, 1025, 1035, 1044, 1220, 1370, 1380, 1406, 1552, 1553, 1586, 1590, 1601–1606, 1616, 1622, 1627– 1663, 1654–1660, 1671, 1673, 1681–1698 Eskimo 1599, 1602, 1604 − CAY see Yupik, Central Alaskan Eskimo-Aleut 16, 1165 Eskimoan 1165 Even 11, 16, 34, 74, 75, 87, 97, 101, 104, 107, 114, 120, 121, 137, 139, 145, 176–179, 571– 624, 814 − Tompo dialect 571 Evenki 74, 87, 139, 145, 177, 179, 594, 595, 603–613, 629 − Polygus dialect 603 Finnish 13, 34, 1655, 1674 Formosan 877, 878 French 41, 132, 227, 239, 467, 1015, 1025, 1035, 1037, 1057, 1103, 1567, 1674
Gbe 302 Georgian 141, 662 German 4, 12, 13, 31, 36, 42–48, 59, 61, 62, 117, 131, 133, 139–141, 144, 161, 176, 178, 179, 407, 1024, 1035, 1085, 1103, 1144, 1206, 1432, 1552–1556, 1566–1568, 1578– 1581, 1584–1590, 1654, 1656, 1660 − Bavarian 406, 407 Germanic 398, 407, 1654 − North 368 Gooniyandi 1130 Greek 32, 1553 Greenlandic, West 100, 1165, 1170 Guntai 1069 Hebrew 1648, 1653, 1655, 1659 Hindi 31, 34, 93, 95, 141, 1602, 1603, 1607 Hinuq 553 Hiri Motu 1071 Ho-Chunk see Hoocąk Hoocąk 17, 36, 54, 55, 61, 62, 75, 83, 102, 106, 109, 133, 136, 139, 145, 176–179, 1265–1309, 1582, 1631 − Wisconsin variety 1269 Hungarian 4, 467 Hunzib 553 Icelandic 17, 54, 60, 61, 94, 102, 133, 135– 137, 139–141, 145, 176–179, 367–413, − Modern 368, 380, 389, 405, 406, 412 − Old (= Old Norse) 368, 389, 405 Idi 1069–1071 Igbo 302, 319 Indo-Aryan 669 Indo-European 16, 133, 140, 144, 145, 368, 411, 412, 483, 1020, 1607 Indonesian 18, 75–77, 90, 132, 941, 943, 962, 988, 1582, 1583, 1661 − Jakarta 18, 19, 21, 56, 76, 133, 139, 145, 178, 179, 941–983, 988 − Riau 76, 941, 942, 949, 953, 954, 959, 961 − Standard 877, 880, 903, 941, 942 Ingush (=Inguš) 1599, 1650–1652, 1658, 1659, 1662 Inuit 1165 Ioway-Otoe 1265 Iranian 75 Italian 17, 55, 82, 106, 107, 109, 133, 139, 145, 176–179, 417–477, 711, 1080, 1102, 1103, 1553, 1660
Language index
1705
− central dialects 434 − Florentine 460 − Lazio varieties 460 − northern dialects 460 − southern dialects 429, 434 − Standard 417, 460 − Tuscan varieties 460 − Umbrian varieties 460 Itzá 1427 Iwaidja 1083
Lacandón 1427 Lakhota 1265, 1266, 1638 Lao 1674 Latin 407, 418, 1430, 1560, 1565, 1584, 1592 − Late 429 Len 1069 Lezgian 13, 88, 141 Lillooet 1339 Lithuanian 406, 407, 1080 Loyalty Islands 1016
Jaminjung 17, 53, 87, 93, 119, 133, 139, 145, 178–180, 1117–1160, 1556, 1571, 1573 Jaminjungan 1117 Japanese 4, 8, 16, 17, 56, 78, 80, 82, 83, 87, 88, 115, 117, 120, 121, 133, 141, 145, 765– 803, 837, 1191, 1369, 1556, 1602–1609, 1660–1662, 1674, 1692 − Hokkaido 133, 139, 145, 176, 177, 180 − Mitsukaido 133, 139, 145, 176, 177, 180, 775 − Standard 54, 56, 133, 139, 145, 177, 180, 765, 775, 786, 793 − Tokyo dialect 765 Japonic 16 Jarawara 4, 1631 Jóola-Banjal 239
Malay 18, 941, 943, 962, 974, 988, 1674 − Ambonese 941 − Betawi 941, 959 − Manado 941 Malayalam 13, 14, 37, 132, 1607 Malayic 877, 941, 987 Malayo-Polynesian, Western 877, 878 Mamberamo, Lower see Warembori Manam 32, 95 Manchu 74, 75, 121, 603–613, 829 Mandarin Chinese see Chinese, Mandarin Mande 16, 133, 144, 221, 242 Manding (dialect cluster) 221, 232–234, 242, 243 Mandinka 19, 52, 58, 59, 64, 66, 67, 90, 94, 110–112, 133, 139, 144, 176–178, 180, 221–257, Maori 4 Mapudungun 20, 66, 99, 120, 133, 139, 145, 176–178, 1515–1541 − Central 1515, 1528 Marathi 988, 1602, 1603, 1607 Marind 1069 Marori 1069 Mawng 1083 Maya see Yucatec Maya Mayan 16, 133, 145, 467, 1427, 1429, 1445, 1446 Mblafe 1069 Mbula 1674 Miraña 1481 Mirndi 16, 133, 145, 1117 − Western 1117 Misumalpan 1648 Mongolic 607, 610, 629, 765 Mopán 1427 Morehead-Maro 1069, 1070, 1071 Morehead-Wasur 16, 133, 145 Muinane 1481, 1490, 1491
Kala Kawaw Ya 1069 Kalam 1071, 1083 Kamnzo see Were Kanak 1015, 1046, 1047 Kancha 1069 Kanum 1069, Ket 19, 56, 80, 83, 87, 93, 119, 133, 139, 145, 161, 176–178, 180, 629–667, 1555 − Central 629 − Modern 635, 637, 650, 651, 661, 664, 666, 667 − Northern 629 − Southern 629, 654 Khakas 120 Khoisan, Southern 185 ǂKhomani see Nǁng Khwarshi 553 Kiche 115 Kimaragang Dusun 1631–1634, 1636, 1658 Kiranti 669, 679, 686, 690 Kiwai 1069 Kómnzo 1102, 1104 Korean 4, 58, 132, 133, 139, 145, 765, 775, 829, 1657, 1660, 1661, 1674
1706
Language index
Nǀhuki see Nǁng Nǀuu see Nǁng Nǁng 19–21, 52, 75, 79, 83, 92, 131, 133, 139, 177, 178, 180, 185–219 Nakh-Daghestanian see Caucasian, East Nama 185, 1069 Nambo 1069, 1071 Nambu 1069, 1070 Namna see Nambo Namo 1069 Nanai 74, 603–607, 609–613 − Naikhin dialect 603, 604 Neme 1069 Nen 21, 80, 83, 87, 92, 102, 133, 139, 145, 1069–1114 Nen Ym see Nen Nen Zi see Nen Nepali 669, 672, 694, 695 New Caledonian 1015, 1016, 1024, 1054, 1059 − Proto- 1016 Newari 31, 32, 95, 1609 Ngaliwurru 1117 Niger-Congo 261 Nonuya 1482 Ocaina 1482 Oceanic 17, 145, 1015–1017, 1020, 1024, 1030, 1039, 1046, 1047, 1054, 1059 − Proto- 1015, 1016, 1023, 1024, 1036, 1045, 1046, 1048, 1053 Ojibway see Ojibwe Ojibwe 20, 89, 92, 99, 133, 139, 145, 177, 178, 180, 1205–1263, 1582 − Algonquin dialect 1205 − Ottawa dialect 1205, 1206, 1210, 1213, 1218, 1223, 1225 − Saulteau(x) dialect 1205 Old Norse see Icelandic, Old Otomanguean 12, 16, 133, 145, 1391 Pama-Nyungan 1069 Papuan 1069–1071 Persian 1556 Pima Bajo 1361 Polish 1674, 1692, 1694 Portuguese 1648, 1651–1653, 1659, 1660, 1662 Renmo see Mblafe Romance 227, 250, 417, 1653
Romanian 141 Russian 12, 13, 27, 33, 36, 53, 57, 62, 87, 90, 91, 101, 102, 107, 113–117, 132, 133, 139– 141, 145, 167, 169, 176–180, 406, 407, 467, 575, 601, 608, 816, 1076, 1080, 1085, 1370, 1577, 1602, 1609, 1648, 1655, 1656, 1659, 1674, 1683, 1686, 1694 Ryukyuan, Kikaijima dialect 769 Salish 36, 109, 122, 1313, 1318, 1330, 1339, 1657 − Sliammon see Sliammon Salishan 12, 16, 133, 145, 1327, 1339 − Coast 1313 Samoan 1602, 1604 Samoyedic, Northern 496 Sasak 877 Sediq 1609 Selkup 629 Sinhala 987, 988, 996, 1001, 1004, 1008 Sinitic 603 Sino-Tibetan 16, 145, 669, 709 Siouan 16, 36, 133, 145, 1265, 1266, 1275, 1290 − Proto- 1266, 1275 Slavic 12 Sliammon 52, 121, 133, 139, 145, 177–180, 832, 1313–1355, 1582 Sliammon Salish see Sliammon Songhai, Gao 32 Soninke 242, 243 Spanish 57, 711, 1080, 1360, 1370, 1381, 1406, 1427, 1482, 1524, 1526, 1533, 1534, 1652, 1653, 1659, 1660, 1674, 1689 Squamish 1321 Sri Lanka Malay 18, 19, 53, 76, 78, 82, 88, 92, 133, 139, 145, 941, 987–1012 Suki 1069 Sumbawa 877 Swedish 400, 1654–1656, 1658, 1659 Tagalog 100 Tamil 987, 1004, 1008 Telugu 1607 Thai 1609, 1660 Thao 1606, 1609, 1610 Tibetan 1602, 1603, 1605 − Lhasa 1631, 1649–1651, 1658–1660, 1662 Tibeto-Burman 41, 51, 133, 145, 669, 816 − Proto- 690
Language index
Tirio 1069 Tlapanec 12, 32, 37, 99 Tok Pisin 1071 Tonda 1069 Tongan 1049, 1602, 1604 Trans-New Guinea 1069, 1077 Tsez 553 Tsezic 541, 542, 553 Tswana 185 Tukang Besi 1026 Tungusic 11, 16, 20, 34, 97, 121, 145, 571, 573, 585, 594, 603–614, 629, 765, 829 − Eastern 74, 577, 603, 605, 606, 612, 613 − Northern 17, 74, 75, 571, 577, 603–606, 609, 612, 613 − Proto- 605 − Southern 17, 74, 75, 577, 603, 605, 606, 613 Turkic 577, 607, 610, 629, 765 − Siberian 120 Turkish 90, 95, 1622 Tuu 16, 133, 144, 185, 208, 213 Tzotzil 37 Tzutujil 467 Udihe 613 !Ui 185 Ulwa 1648, 1650, 1659 Uralic 141, 496, 629 Urdu 141 Uto-Aztecan 16, 133, 145, 1359, 1361 Uvean, East 1049 Vafsi 75 Vietnamese
1653, 1654, 1659, 1662
Wara 1070 Warem see Warembori Warembori 1576 Waris 1587
1707
Warlpiri 467, 1631 Warrongo 98, 1599, 1602, 1604–1606, 1608, 1613–1616 Warrungu see Warrongo Warrwa 1130 Washo 1638 Welsh 141 Were 1069 Winnebago see Hoocąk Witoto 1482 Witotoan 1482 Wolof 239 ǀXam 200 Xârâcùù 17, 63, 111, 133, 145, 177–180, 1015– 1066 Yankunytjatjara 1689 Yaqui 52, 82, 87, 98, 99, 115, 133, 139, 140, 145, 176–178, 180, 1359–1387 Yei 1069, 1104 Yelmek-Maklew 1070 Yeniseian 16, 133, 145, 629, 636, 664, 665, 667 Yorùbá 20, 59, 63, 76, 79, 83, 100, 133, 139, 144, 178, 180, 299–324, 1083, 1556 Yucatec Maya (YM) 19–21, 60, 62, 97, 119, 133, 139, 140, 145, 176–180, 1427–1478, 1550, 1551, 1564, 1567, 1572–1574, 1587, 1588, 1591 Yucatec see Yucatec Maya Yucatecan 1427 Yupik 1165, 1592 − Central Alaskan (CAY) 19, 77, 80, 83, 87, 96, 102, 108, 109, 112, 113, 119, 120, 121, 1165–1203 Zapotec 1391, 1396 − Proto- 1405, 1414 Zapotecan 1391
Subject index The index on the following pages is a comprehensive index and includes the contents of both volume 1 and volume 2. *Because of the large number of page references for these terms, the references here exclude the language-specific chapters, i.e. include only chapters 1–6, 37–40. absolutive 12, 32, 60, 79, 86, 99, 541–543, 546, 547, 550–556, 559, 560, 632, 1071, 1073, 1074, 1078, 1081, 1084, 1102, 1118, 1123–1132, 1143–1147, 1166–1172, 1206, 1429, 1431, 1441, 1584, 1592, 1605, 1619, 1649 − double 1079, 1081, 1090, 1123, 1125 absolutive-ergative see ergative-absolutive accidental (construction) 179, 547, 550, 551, 554, 562, 658, 1186, 1247, 1279, 1294, 1328, 1399, 1693, 1695 accusative subject construction see subject, accusative active-stative language see split intransitive language actor 12, 99, 428, 562, 657, 992–1004, 1035, 1071–1078, 1081–1084, 1266–1269, 1284, 1293–1295, 1442, 1448, 1550, 1551, 1562, 1567–1578, 1583–1586, 1590–1592, 1607, 1675–1678, 1685 actor focus 37, 877, 932, 1610–1612 adjunct, definition of 45–50, 1055–1059 adversative 119–121, 592, 593, 611, 751, 970, 1168–1176, 1181, 1190–1192, 1195–1197, 1369, 1382 adversity passive see passive, adversative affected(ness) 8, 63, 119, 209–213, 246, 290, 332, 343, 383, 393, 405, 429, 434, 464– 466, 516, 578, 589, 592, 601, 602, 611, 678, 690, 710, 747, 748, 776, 837, 885, 895, 924, 945, 970, 991, 1000, 1002, 1008, 1009, 1028, 1039, 1045, 1103, 1125, 1142, 1160, 1192, 1325, 1369, 1417, 1562, 1590, 1597, 1601, 1607, 1658, 1659 affectedness hierarchy 81 agent addition (= causee addition) 11 agent demotion 11, 1197 agenthood 6 agentivity hierarchy 726–729 agentivization 1569, 1570, 1572, 1574–1577 alternation − a(gent)-preserving 110, 838
− accidental-potential 179, 550, 551, 554, 555, 562 − accusative suppression see object deletion − accusative-designative 577, 587, 590, 606 − accusative-reflexive 577, 578, 586, 587, 606 − active-introversive 236, 246 − active-passive 176, 180, 233, 234, 250, 367, 399, 400, 932, 962 − allative-goal 505 − ambitransitive see alternation, labile − anticausative 11, 35, 90, 96, 103, 111, 179, 432, 821, 829, 1495, 1685 − antipassive 551, 562, 821, 825, 1168, 1177, 1183, 1290, 1573 − applicative 84, 106, 180, 234–236, 283, 423, 467, 835, 1144, 1373, 1417, 1420 − argument deletion (see also object deletion, subject deletion) 1041, 1042, 1058 − autobenefactive 1091–1094, 1100, 1103 − auxiliary 430, 694, 696, 1398 − benefactive 197, 199, 200, 211, 599, 901, 1004, 1091, 1097, 1098, 1103, 1275, 1297, 1373 − causative 67, 171, 177, 179, 180, 199–202, 346, 557–562, 829, 835, 1018, 1096, 1099, 1158, 1184, 1186–1188, 1336, 1337, 1370, 1397, 1398, 1401, 1407–1415, 1419, 1495, 1627, 1630, 1632, 1640, 1647 − causative-anticausative see alternation, inchoative-causative − causative-intransitive equipollent see alternation, intransitive-transitive equipollent − coded (= alternation, marked), definition of 18, 65, 66 − conative, 33, 82, 83, 105, 178, 397, 464, 598, 794, 1045, 1100, 1630, 1631, 1640 − dative (see also alternation, ditransitive) 9, 11, 20, 32, 33, 64–66, 73, 84, 90, 91, 580, 599, 773, 794, 1043, 1058, 1630, 1631, 1643 − dative shift (see also alternation, neutral ditransitive) 968, 987, 991
1710 − − − − − −
− − − − − −
− − − − −
− −
−
− − − −
− −
Subject index
delimitative 234, 235 desiderative 1370–1372 direct-inverse 37, 99 directional serial verb 199, 202, 211, 213 directive 96, 1370, 1372 ditransitive (= alternation, transitiveditransitive; see also alternation, dative) 84, 180, 740, 741, 745–747, 754, 889, 917, 1131, 1142 generalized voice 19, 958–965, 969, 973, 974 hierarchy for object-deleting 105 hierarchy for object-demoting 105 impersonal mediopassive 179, 403 impersonal passive 179, 367, 401, 407– 410, 608, 609, 808 inchoative-causative (= alternation, causative-anticausative; = alternation, transitive-inchoative) 11, 13, 33, 34, 65, 90, 91, 103, 110, 179, 180, 231–234, 238, 239, 246–250, 299, 309, 311, 317, 367, 399, 403, 585, 597, 598, 684, 836, 837, 1133, 1135–1139, 1149, 1338, 1376, 1382 inchoative-causative labile 1379 indirect causative 1370, 1372–1374 indirectus 1568, 1569, 1577–1581, 1588 instrument(al) 550, 788, 1378 intransitive-transitive equipollent (= alternation, causative-intransitive equipollent) 180, 598, 783, 786, 1366– 1369, 1374, 1408, 1420 intransitive-transitive suppletive 1365 labile (= alternation, ambitransitive) 94, 95, 116, 179, 180, 193, 198, 199, 269, 277– 283, 383, 388, 404, 405, 549, 709, 713, 714, 722, 733, 734, 742, 754, 1034, 1144, 1370, 1406, 1407 locative 19, 33, 34, 73, 84, 343, 344, 396, 397, 465, 494, 519, 599, 786, 787, 987, 1380, 1630, 1631, 1643, 1644 marked see alternation, coded mediopassive 371, 383, 1183 middle 4, 5, 11, 33, 34, 180, 709, 722, 752– 754, 1036, 1095, 1102, 1338, 1374, 1378 neutral ditransitive (see also alternation, dative shift) 180, 722, 735, 740, 741, 745–747, 754 object 11, 16, 17, 20, 585, 600, 606, 607, 1382, 1628, 1642–1646 object deletion 33, 34, 176, 178, 598, 599, 794
− object incorporation (see also incorporation, object) 34, 165, 178, 561, 562, 1374, 1382 − oblique object 178, 585, 588 − p(atient)-preserving 110 − passive 33, 64, 65, 73, 90, 91, 104, 608, 709, 713, 714, 721, 722, 731, 750–752, 754, 975, 1168, 1376 − possessive flagging (see also possessor raising) 1038 − potential 542, 554–557, 562 − potential transitivizing 179, 556, 562 − proprietive 483, 492, 495, 496, 514, 519 − quantity ratio 90, 710, 722, 742, 743, 754 − recipient-goal-location 547–549 − reciprocal 11, 35, 103, 156, 163, 167–169, 174, 177, 348, 492, 493, 496, 498, 688, 786, 789, 820, 1044 , 1183, 1184, 1284, 1285, 1341, 1493, 1498, 1526 − reflexive, 103, 104, 125, 156, 163, 169, 170, 174, 348, 367, 452, 586, 606, 687, 820, 1044, 1183, 1184, 1284, 1341, 1381, 1493, 1498, 1526 − reflexive anticausative see alternation, reflexive inchoative − reflexive deletion 33, 598, 599, 602, 794 − reflexive inchoative (= alternation, reflexive anticausative; see also reflexive marking of anticausatives) 1038, 1380, 1381 − reflexive reciprocal 177–179, 371, 453, 1044, 1077, 1091–1093, 1103, 1132, 1287, 1341, 1526 − spatial case 588, 606, 786, 1144 − stem 18, 115, 345, 1091, 1567 − subject 17, 179, 585, 600, 786, 1378, 1492 − subject oblique (= locative inversion) 94, 180, 239, 422, 445, 467, 600, 710, 722, 743, 745, 754 − symmetric 34, 100, 1591 − symmetrical verb 309, 310 − telicity (see also alternation, antipassive) 119, 1145, 1146, 1151–1158 − transitive-ditransitive see alternation, ditransitive − transitive-inchoative see alternation, inchoative-causative − transitivity 5, 22, 89, 93, 108, 115, 178, 221, 224, 225, 236, 250, 765, 773, 774, 1140– 1142, 1151–1158
Subject index
− uncoded (= unmarked alternation), definition of 16, 17, 65, 77, 82, 83, 90, 91, 108, 109, 112, 114 − unmarked see alternation, uncoded − unspecified object 11 − verb-coded 30, 91, 113, 125, 345–350, 399– 403, 411, 551–561, 571, 590–597, 608, 807, 820–831, 901, 1087, 1091–1100, 1131–1148, 1171, 1187–1203, 1275–1291, 1406–1419, 1441–1460, 1493–1503 − voice 19, 33, 35–37, 107, 108, 113, 125, 413, 448, 571, 590, 591, 597, 600, 601, 608, 663, 793, 959, 1072, 1101, 1131, 1493 ambiditransitive 179, 1518, 1522, 1525 ambitransitive see labile ambitransitive reciprocal see lability, reciprocal ambitransitivity see lability − S=A see lability, S=A − S=P see lability, S=P analytic ambitransitive construction 93 anticausative (see also mediopassive; decausative; deagentivization) 11, 17, 35, 82, 83, 90, 103, 107, 112–116, 165, 349, 402, 405, 456, 593, 598, 601, 608–611, 634–638, 657–660, 820, 826, 1177, 1233– 1235, 1420, 1448, 1534, 1564, 1571, 1614 antipassive 18, 35, 65, 96, 98, 104–107, 112– 124, 165, 172, 176–180, 240–243, 250, 551–554, 562, 598, 814, 830–832, 908, 1168, 1170, 1176–1178, 1181, 1192–1200, 1233, 1245, 1319, 1445, 1586, 1614–1616 middle see middle, antipassive antipassivization 250, 686, 830, 831, 837, 1170, 1177, 1183, 1185, 1195, 1201, 1227, 1231, 1586, 1587, 1592 antireflexive (see also extraversive) 101, 116 apotaxis 21, 61, 63, 68 applicative 4, 11, 12, 16, 18, 35, 36, 65, 84, 90, 96, 97, 100–103, 107, 120–124, 179, 236, 264, 279–284, 455, 465, 600, 660, 661, 690, 721, 735–737, 821–825, 832, 836–838, 965–969, 1022–1024, 1048– 1050, 1144, 1169–1173, 1189–1192, 1217, 1239–1243, 1275, 1330, 1331, 1417, 1452, 1453, 1529–1533, 1576, 1587 − benefactive 36, 102, 122, 901–904, 1077, 1085, 1097, 1196, 1275–1278, 1284, 1373, 1418, 1529 − instrumental 36, 84, 85, 115, 661, 887, 931, 1282, 1283
1711
− locative 36, 104, 884, 885, 924, 929, 930, 932, 1279–1281, 1287 − malefactive 102, 120, 121, 1373, 1417, 1418 applicativization (see also object addition; object rearrangement) 11, 824, 830, 836, 930, 1231, 1238, 1239, 1521, 1525, 1526, 1529, 1532, 1586–1588, 1591–1593 argument, definition of 18, 42–50 argument hierarchy 1171, 1188, 1190 argument structure 3–5, 7, 10, 16, 20, 22, 73– 75, 186, 367, 541, 552, 716, 1548–1550, 1562–1593 argument-adjunct distinction (see also argumenthood tests) 18, 47, 50, 91, 575, 766, 767, 1552 argumenthood tests (see also argumentadjunct distinction; valency diagnostics) 48, 49, 424, 670, 711, 718, 753, 1484 associational semantics 942, 943, 945, 948 attractor 124 Austronesian focus system 877 autobenefactive (see also indirect reflexivity) 1091, 1092, 1094, 1103 AUTOTYP 22 behavioral properties (of arguments), definition of 11 benefactive 199, 200, 211, 277, 439, 453, 498, 661, 662, 689–691, 780, 781, 895, 901–905, 911, 913, 931, 958, 966–969, 992, 1004–1006, 1024, 1091–1098, 1102, 1103, 1169, 1287, 1482, 1483, 1561, 1684 − applicative see applicative, benefactive blocking 107 case grammar 5, 6 causative* 11, 15, 20, 36, 59, 65, 83, 90, 101, 106–108, 115, 119–124, 156, 163, 169, 173, 1547, 1571–1578, 1610, 1641, 1653, 1657 causative, morphological 176, 177, 487, 489, 490, 502, 503, 507, 517, 518, 582, 598, 599, 636, 659, 660, 886, 926 causative-applicative polysemy 115, 120 causativization 11, 106, 171, 236, 243, 246, 249, 250, 345–347, 436, 451, 458, 487, 503, 518, 773, 781, 793, 886, 924, 1051, 1180, 1231, 1243, 1246, 1456, 1528, 1547, 1567, 1575 causee addition see agent addition
1712
Subject index
clustering techniques 10 coding elements, definition of 53–55 coding frame (= coding pattern), definition of 3, 42–44, 75 coding pattern see coding frame coding properties 5, 7, 11, 13, 15, 29, 30, 31, 42–44, 138, 223, 275, 466, 685 coding-specificity, definition of 47–50 cognitive event predicate see verb, cognition comitative 187, 228, 346, 350, 485, 492, 493, 573, 597, 602, 660, 672, 721, 766, 770, 810, 823, 954, 989, 1081, 1230, 1362, 1367, 1368, 1381, 1395, 1417, 1582, 1673 comitative-instrumental (COM/INS) − addition 195 − deletion 195 competing motivation 76 complement clause (= sentential complement) 56, 305, 335, 346, 546, 581, 1043, 1197, 1335, 1629 complex verbal expression, definition of 59– 61 conominal 1266, 1270 constituent order see word order construction grammar 21, 73, 1630, 1672, 1698 copular frame/construction 530, 682, 694, 730, 738, 817, 1179 core sample see Leipzig Verb List, core sample corpus linguistics 22 coverb (see also preverb; verbal particle; verb, uninflecting) 715, 718, 721, 722, 735– 737, 740, 741, 745–747, 1119, 1131 culture-specificity 18, 1137, 1149 dative addition 1090 dative subject construction see subject, dative dative substitution 391, 411 deagentive construction 117, 178, 180, 970, 1448–1450, 1564, 1576 deagentivization (see also anticausative) 1448–1450, 1564–1574, 1592 decausative (see also anticausative; mediopassive) 114, 115, 179, 489, 490, 1093, 1103 dependent-marking 11, 30, 75, 123, 209, 212, 213, 329, 418, 421, 541, 572, 710, 988, 989, 1482
deponent valency marker − applicative 821, 824, 834 − causative 826, 828, 835 detransitivization (see also introversion) 112, 116, 177, 402, 403, 666, 677, 685–687, 773, 781, 786, 1168, 1183, 1341, 1370, 1448 differential agreement 95, 675, 680, 683 differential case marking 672, 673, 675, 679, 683 differential frequency 949, 953, 968 differential object marking (DOM) 31, 32, 34, 57, 89, 95, 484, 507, 577, 607, 671, 1393, 1522, 1527, 1533 differential subject marking (DSM) 33, 89, 95, 585, 671 direct causation 232, 243, 491, 827, 828, 886, 1188 direct object ditransitive frame see indirective ditransitive construction direct object shift see alternation, locative directive (A-adding derivation) 96, 774, 1169, 1198, 1200, 1201, 1362, 1365 ditransitive recipient-indexing (see also secundative indexing) 1072 double object construction 9, 13, 37, 76, 84, 85, 612, 756, 781, 826, 912–914, 1631, 1643 durative 118, 552, 595, 754, 1035, 1145, 1558, 1562, 1638, 1639 empathy hierarchy 20, 213, 1555, 1568, 1577 equative copula 811, 817, 823, 833, 834 ergative 6, 31–33, 60, 79, 87, 95, 97, 108, 112, 118, 137, 142, 412, 421, 494, 541–543, 552–554, 559–561, 585, 612, 666, 671, 672, 676, 681, 930, 1047, 1073, 1081– 1084, 1092, 1102 , 1118, 1123, 1126–1130, 1146, 1166, 1167, 1316, 1317, 1445, 1584, 1592, 1599, 1602, 1615, 1620, 1649, 1650 ergative-absolutive 6, 81, 86, 87, 1071, 1073, 1102, 1118, 1125, 1126, 1166, 1605, 1619 excorporation 21, 88, 92, 93 expectant (A-adding derivation) 1169, 1198, 1202 explication 1674, 1676, 1678–1697 extended intransitive 77–79, 230, 231, 244, 500, 542, 612, 1487, 1488 extended transitive 77, 78, 231, 245, 500, 542, 1017, 1030, 1037, 1042
Subject index
external possessor/possession 9, 85, 275, 287, 289, 314, 496, 1128, 1276–1278, 1628, 1631, 1652 extraversion (see also applicative; transitivization) 1445, 1449, 1450, 1452, 1453, 1466, 1565, 1569, 1573–1576, 1587, 1592 extraversive (see also antireflexive) 97, 1436, 1449, 1452–1458, 1569, 1572–1577 Figure=Object (FIG=OBJ) alignment 884, 887– 900, 904, 905, 911, 927–931 Figure-oriented 888, 929, 931 flag(s), flagging, definition of 11, 31, 42, 54, 75 FrameNet 4 frequency 19, 21, 79, 206, 380, 489, 496, 685, 825, 949, 950, 958, 960, 969, 972– 975, 1129, 1130, 1419, 1566 functional ambiguity of transitivizers see causative-applicative polysemy generalized voice marker 959–965, 973, 974 − active 959, 962, 964, 965 − applicative 965, 967 − passive 959, 962, 964, 965 generative grammar 5 grammaticalization 17, 124, 200, 721, 767, 810, 976, 1022, 1038, 1059, 1178, 1446 granularity (of valency classification) 5, 8, 17 Ground 883–897, 902–904, 924, 928, 1482, 1520 Ground=Object (GR=OBJ) alignment 884, 887–900, 903, 905, 911, 927- 929 ground-oriented 888, 891, 929, 931 Guttman Coefficient (GC) 157–163, 172–176 Guttman Scale (scaling) 104, 107, 156–159, 163–165, 174, 175, 180 head-marking 11, 17, 32, 37, 75, 123, 405, 421, 572, 630, 710, 808, 832, 988, 989, 1205, 1265, 1313, 1392, 1394, 1430, 1516 hierarchy of two-place predicates (HTPP) see transitivity hierarchy iconicity 8, 10, 74, 76, 85–87, 125, 954 ignorative (A-adding derivation) 1169, 1198, 1202 IMA Language 942–945, 975 − Relative 942, 972, 973
1713
impersonal − construction 102, 239, 246, 250, 410, 576, 609, 1019, 1034, 1035 − patientive (see also transimpersonals) 1167, 1169, 1175, 1178, 1180, 1181, 1196, 1197, 1203 − reflexive 423, 448 implicational hierarchy 155, 156, 158, 164, 173, 208, 1457, 1657 implicational map 10 implicational universal 14 incorporation (= incorporative construction) 88, 100, 178, 243, 638, 648, 653–656, 659, 666, 811–813, 832, 1045, 1165, 1166, 1228, 1236, 1375, 1417– 1420, 1427, 1460, 1465–1468, 1516, 1523 − external 1227, 1231, 1236, 1238 − internal 1236, 1237 − object 34, 98, 165, 178, 243, 637, 655, 666, 1047, 1048, 1365, 1374, 1375, 1382, 1417 − P- (see also incorporation, object) 96, 178, 831, 1465 − S- 833 incorporative construction see incorporation incremental 20, 973, 975, 1638, 1676, 1677 indefinite object deletion/omission (= unspecified object deletion) 4, 11, 467, 598, 794 index, indexing, definition of 11, 32, 54 indirect object lowering (see also indirect participation) 590 indirect participation (see also possessive encoding of arguments; indirect object lowering) 1460–1463, 1468 indirect reciprocity 1447, 1459 indirect reflexivity (see also autobenefactive) 1446, 1458 indirective (alignment) 190, 224, 1031, 1033, 1059, 1182, 1394 indirective ditransitive construction 1189, 1191, 1200, 1203, 1488 information structure 20, 186, 213, 331, 630, 675, 710, 711, 714, 715, 753, 754, 1118 inherent complement 20 instrument(al) prefix 841, 1287–1290, 1486, 1493, 1503, 1504 intransitive experiential frame/ construction 679, 680, 1435 introversion (see also detransitivization) 1437, 1445, 1446, 1452, 1565, 1566, 1569, 1573, 1574, 1586, 1592
1714
Subject index
inverse 37, 96, 99, 206, 558, 715, 1185, 1205, 1206, 1258–1262, 1516, 1517, 1520, 1522, 1527, 1533 inversion (see also direct-inverse system) 99, 100, 1205, 1206, 1208, 1258–1262, 1516 involitive derivation 992–994
lexical typology 3, 12, 14, 16, 21, 81, 667 lexicosyntactic blend 1671, 1698 lexicosyntactic frame 1674–1676, 1679–1682, 1685–1690, 1694–1697 locative inversion see alternation, subject oblique
k-medoids
macrorole (see also semantic roles) 1125, 1548, 1550, 1568, 1569, 1578, 1581, 1582 manner 42, 46, 150, 106, 110, 167, 222, 267, 282, 430, 466, 672, 766, 1017, 1053, 1141, 1147–1149, 1435, 1629–1631 manner-result dichotomy (see also verb, manner; verb, result) 16, 17, 20, 89, 105, 106, 110, 1635–1662 mapping (participants onto arguments) 91, 680, 717, 987, 991–993, 1466, 1552–1554, 1564 markedness effects (in valency alternations) 113 mediopassive (see also anticausative; decausative) 11, 34, 35, 97, 107, 114, 178, 179, 367, 371, 383, 401–403, 483, 486– 493, 500–502, 507–512, 518, 590, 593, 594, 598–601, 609, 1183, 1231 meteorological event 1519 meteoverb see verb, meteorological microroles, definition of 50–53 middle − antipassive 176, 180, 227, 907, 908 − reciprocal 907 − resultative 890, 906, 908, 910–912 middle construction 179, 227, 237, 238, 248– 250, 448, 907–910, 1103, 1104 middle object addition 1090
152
labile (= ambitransitive) 17, 21, 34, 64, 82, 93, 108, 199, 203, 247, 250, 269, 279, 289, 303, 336, 388, 404, 413, 458, 486, 489, 494, 508, 598, 629, 684, 709, 712, 733, 819, 1002, 1019, 1034, 1035, 1047, 1175, 1275, 1379, 1453, 1518 lability (= ambitransitivity) 21, 77, 82, 90, 95, 108, 110, 111, 113, 224, 249, 413, 413, 662, 676, 683–687, 696, 733, 1034, 1038, 1553, 1566, 1567, 1569, 1578 − actor see lability, S=P − reciprocal (= ambitransitive reciprocal) 110, 111, 167, 697 − reflexive 110, 111, 169 − S=A (= undergoer lability; = S=A ambitransitivity) 19, 34, 38, 108, 113, 193, 198, 203, 205, 224–226, 246, 249, 467, 1565, 1569, 1573 − S=P (= actor lability; = S=P ambitransitivity) 17, 19, 33, 38, 94, 95, 107, 108, 110, 179, 225, 246, 249, 250, 467, 549, 1567, 1569, 1571 − undergoer see lability, S=A Leipzig Questionnaire (= Valency Classes Questionnaire) 14, 15, 27–38, 250, 1485, 1515 Leipzig Valency Classes Project 22, 27, 73, 87–92, 108, 1627 Leipzig Verb List 18, 576, 586, 601, 606, 1076, 1079, 1080, 1671 Leipzig Verb List, core sample (= 70 verb meaning list) 3, 15, 18, 27–30, 139, 222, 250, 601, 807, 883, 946, 1055, 1080– 1090, 1094–1096, 1100, 1150, 1165, 1176, 1180, 1181, 1326, 1334–1340, 1391, 1399– 1406, 1415, 1419, 1496 lexical case 14, 988 lexical decomposition 5 Lexical Decomposition Grammar 5 lexical suffix 180, 773, 774, 781, 1054, 1314, 1339
Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) 16, 1672, 1674 NeighborNet 10, 107, 163–171 neutral ditransitive construction (see also double object construction) 720, 721, 734–737, 740, 741, 745–749, 754 non-canonical subject marking see subject, non-canonical noncore obliques 1315, 1319–1321, 1344 object − non-canonical 78, 435, 455, 724, 726, 731– 733, 753, − oblique 78, 79, 144, 195, 201, 455, 574, 576, 578, 588, 595, 612, 1022, 1024–
Subject index
1028, 1042, 1055–1059, 1319–1327, 1340, 1344 − partitive 19, 197, 209, 655 − primary 92, 123, 678, 683, 684, 688, 692, 693, 696, 912, 1131, 1143, 1206–1214, 1217–1220, 1230–1234, 1238, 1248, 1516, 1529, 1584 − secondary 84, 92, 912, 1126, 1206–1214, 1218, 1219, 1227, 1230–1233, 1248, 1465, 1489, 1584 object addition (see also applicativization; object rearrangement) 35, 180, 1368, 1090 object deletion (= accusative suppression alternation) 4, 106, 176, 178, 467, 598, 830, 1375, 1382, 1445 object omission 11, 105, 161, 165, 167, 176, 178, 274, 280, 283, 341, 398, 423, 432, 440–445, 492, 494, 508, 509, 734, 1041, 1042, 1406, 1446 object rearrangement (see also applicativization; object addition) 11, 35, 100, 105 object symmetry 912–914 object topicalization 95, 712–714 object-demoting/deleting 34, 35, 105, 161, 163–165, 167, 172, 173, 178, 598 object-oblique permutation 178, 237, 245 oblique ambitransitives 367, 371, 383, 388, 404, 405, 407, 413 oblique argument 18, 19, 47, 77, 78, 92, 149, 194, 195, 201, 226–229, 422, 446, 583, 788, 794, 1017, 1022, 1028, 1031–1033, 1055–1058, 1129, 1320, 1340, 1361, 1367, 1368 oblique-adding operations (see also valency extension) 92 obviation 1205, 1210, 1211, 1213, 1259, 1260 obviative inflection 1210 Optimality Theory 14 passive*, 11, 15, 21, 30, 35, 36, 44, 90, 91, 96, 97, 99, 103, 104, 107, 108, 113, 115– 124, 165, 172, 1563–1565, 1584–1586, 1592, 1606, 1609, 1628, 1694 − adversative 97, 101, 120, 177, 179, 573, 578, 590–594, 601, 608–610, 614, 751, 773, 776, 1191 − agentless 115, 233, 593, 601 − derivational 348
1715
− inflectional 338 − reflexive 91, 117, 179, 180, 423, 448, 458, 463 − unmarked 112, 233 passivization 11, 89, 180, 338, 349, 431, 432, 463, 507, 517, 693, 766, 772, 773, 776, 782, 785, 793, 909, 912, 914, 932, 987, 991, 1170, 1180, 1196, 1200, 1231, 1377, 1442, 1564, 1585, 1592 patient-focus 877, 932 patienthood 6, 81, 419, 467 plain intransitive 244, 302 polysemy 8, 14, 38, 87–89, 115–117, 120–125, 413, 666, 767, 904, 931, 1121, 1401, 1567, 1671, 1672, 1681, 1686, 1698 polysynthetic 807, 832, 1313, 1515 possession − external 9, 85, 314, 1128, 1276–1278, 1628, 1631, 1658 − permanent 335, 544, 546, 547, 562 − temporary 544, 547, 548, 562 possessive encoding of arguments (see also indirect participation) 549, 572 possessor ascension see possessor raising possessor raising (= possessor ascension) 101, 422, 447, 585, 589, 590, 765, 792–794, 1628, 1631 precategorial 84, 880, 888, 889, 892, 893, 898–901, 905–908, 917, 921–923 precategorial roots 84, 880, 882, 883, 917, 921, 923, 929, 931 precedence relation 266, 272, 273, 277, 279– 282, 287 predicate − four-place see verb, tetravalent − one-place see verb, monovalent − secondary 4, 1082, 1401 − three-place see verb, trivalent − two-place see verb, bivalent − zero-place see verb, avalent preference rules 949, 950, 953, 976 preverb (see also coverb; verbal particle; verb, uninflecting) 1119, 1206, 1616–1619 primary object ditransitive frame see secundative ditransitive construction pro-drop 76, 398, 418, 421, 543, 711, 808, 948 productivity 18, 232, 345, 393, 440, 465, 774, 1132, 1575 prominence-based splits, definition of 57
1716 Questionnaire
Subject index
see Leipzig Questionnaire
randomization 159, 161, 162 recipient-related neutral ditransitive construction see secundative ditransitive construction reciprocal* 35, 36, 66, 101, 111, 113, 116, 161, 167, 172, 173, 1606, 1609, 1614, reciprocalization 11, 1171, 1227, 1236 reflexive* 8, 12, 35, 36, 43, 82, 89, 91, 101, 105, 107, 108, 111–118, 120, 123, 124, 161, 169, 1567, 1568, 1574, 1577, 1606, 1609, 1614, 1690 Reflexive Hierarchy 104, 115, 163, 169, 172 reflexive lability see lability, reflexive reflexive marking of anticausatives (see also alternation, reflexive inchoative) 13, 82, 107, 1380 reflexivization 11, 227, 348, 436, 1171, 1227, 1231, 1235, 1458 relative root 92, 1205–1208, 1214, 1217, 1218, 1223, 1224, 1230, 1248 reportative (A-adding derivation) 96, 531– 534, 1169, 1170, 1198–1202 resultative 104, 106, 179, 180, 413, 462, 573, 579, 583, 594, 595, 601, 602, 612, 637, 664, 773, 780, 793, 794, 824, 1035, 1045, 1046, 1056, 1275, 1289, 1377 resultative compound 716, 717, 733, 734, 754, 1442, 1631, 1641, 1642, 1655, 1679, 1680 resultative middle see middle, resultative Role and Reference Grammar (RRG) 5, 105 role clustering 22, 84 role frame, definition of 28, 29, 42–45 sample see Leipzig Verb List scalogram 157 secundative ditransitive construction 1183, 1191, 1200, 1489 secundative indexing (see also ditransitive recipient-indexing) 1088 semantic alignment see split intransitivity semantic class 4, 17, 27, 73, 74, 76, 81, 89, 103, 317, 345, 380, 386, 395, 562, 585, 614, 811, 1146, 1589, 1631, 1632, 1637, 1644, 1657 semantic map (see also transition network) 7–10, 76, 80–86, 122–125, 601, 602, 1607 semantic prime 1673, 1674, 1697
semantic role (see also macrorole) 5, 16, 20, 47, 63, 65, 74, 86, 91, 125, 132, 188, 195, 208, 212, 225, 231, 234, 236, 242, 317, 348, 351, 484, 485, 497, 596, 613, 822, 958, 965–967, 987, 991–995, 1002, 1018, 1022, 1169, 1273, 1433, 1437, 1466, 1549– 1551, 1557, 1560–1565, 1576, 1582–1584, 1587, 1593, 1632 semantic template 1674, 1676 sentential complement see complement clause serial verb construction (see also verb in series; verb serialization) 18, 200–203, 211, 213, 732, 816, 1015, 1017, 1022, 1025, 1050, 1053, 1054, 1059, 1121, 1699 significance test 156, 159–162, 174 similarity measure 149 situation types 261, 1547–1593 sociative (voice) 11, 35, 573, 597, 601, 613, 811, 926, 1047 source-related neutral ditransitive construction see indirective ditransitive construction speculative (A-adding derivation) 96, 1169, 1198, 1201 split intransitive language (= active-stative language; = split-S language) 11, 14, 83, 412, 418, 1265, 1268, 1270 split intransitivity (= semantic alignment) 11, 109, 412, 631, 649, 666, 769, 915 split-S language see split intransitive language statistical analysis 103, 125, 149, 152, 155, 156, 203 statistical scaling 10 stative 4, 20, 58, 115, 178, 180, 332, 346, 400, 429, 430, 436, 437, 450, 455, 466, 573, 593, 600, 635, 664, 724, 752, 768, 769, 772, 824, 886, 1020, 1035, 1042, 1071, 1072, 1079, 1102, 1103, 1138–1141, 1146, 1170, 1179, 1197, 1265, 1270, 1271, 1278, 1285, 1290, 1396, 1401, 1418, 1441– 1444, 1455, 1487, 1494, 1496, 1558, 1575, 1628, 1636 subcategorization 5, 45, 1003, 1085 subject − accusative 179, 367, 371, 384, 386, 387, 391 − dative 367, 371, 384, 387, 391, 411, 766, 768, 1083
Subject index
− experiencer 100, 448, 1034, 1051 − non-canonical 78, 80, 102 − oblique 79, 179, 367, 369, 370, 380, 382, 384–388, 400, 411, 778 − patientive 103, 310, 311, 317, 653 subject deletion (see also subject-demoting/ deleting) 165, 419, 712, 793, 1041, 1171 subject-demoting/deleting 33, 34, 161, 163, 165, 166, 172, 174, 179, 1171 subjecthood tests 94, 1206 succession relation 266, 267, 271–273, 277– 282, 286, 287 symmetric voice 974 there-insertion 4 topic 95, 100, 418, 430, 675, 710–715, 725, 726, 743, 753, 754, 768, 770, 877, 878, 912, 953, 1220, 1586 topical 368, 395, 399, 485, 714, 989, 1002, 1008, 1022, 1130, 1393, 1394 topicalization 94, 95, 246, 332, 394, 401, 713, 714, 768, 771, 990, 1016, 1428 transimpersonal (see also impersonal patientives) 14, 80, 83, 100, 103, 407, 634, 652, 653, 680, 681 transition network (see also semantic map) 124, 125 transitive extension (on the semantic map) 83 transitive-intransitive distinction, universality of 76 transitive-intransitive ratio 204 transitivity − definition of 8, 76–89, 103–105, 131 − prototypical 250 transitivity hierarchy (= hierarchy of two-place predicates, HTPP) 16, 75, 80, 81, 103– 105, 156, 173, 779, 838, 1150, 1597–1623, 1647, 1657, 1658 transitivity prominence, definition of 131, 149 transitivity scale 17, 83, 172, 371 transitivization (see also extraversion; applicative) 773, 781, 786, 918, 1047, 1184, 1456, 1528, 1565, 1588 translational equivalent 14, 30, 948, 994, 1009 trivalent coding frame 290, 818, 819 Two-dimensional Transitivity Hierarchy 7, 82 uncoded detransitivization see lability uncoded transitivization see lability
1717
undergoer 12, 55, 99, 102, 137, 169, 428, 429, 658, 996–999, 1002, 1019, 1035, 1048– 1052, 1071–1078, 1081–1088, 1091, 1095– 1099, 1102, 1125, 1266–1270, 1275–1279, 1284, 1285, 1290–1296, 1442, 1445, 1446, 1450–1453, 1461, 1462, 1467, 1548, 1554, 1562, 1564–1569, 1572–1578, 1581–1587, 1590–1592, 1597–1602, 1605, 1607, 1614, 1673 unspecified object deletion see indefinite object deletion/omission valency − extended 520 − grammatical see valency, syntactic − semantic 45, 651, 1321, 1322, 1330, 1332, 1344 − syntactic 10, 437, 452, 906, 1322, 1327, 1331, 1344, 1520, 1523, 1549 valency augmentation see valency extension valency classes, universality of 74 Valency Classes Questionnaire see Leipzig Questionnaire valency decreasing (= valency reducing) 19, 35, 96, 97, 101, 109, 113, 117, 118, 121, 345, 347, 351, 440, 448, 452, 456, 487, 492, 585, 590–592, 608, 614, 653, 786, 821, 829, 830, 906–908, 1045, 1046, 1168–1170, 1194, 1275, 1284, 1285, 1290, 1295, 1374, 1376, 1378, 1380, 1381, 1420 valency diagnostics (see also argumenthood tests) 612 valency dictionary 47 valency extension (= valency augmentation; = valency increasing; see also obliqueadding operations) 18, 19, 35, 36, 92, 96, 100, 103, 109, 110, 113, 119–121, 345, 346, 351, 448, 557, 585, 591, 597, 608, 659, 793, 821, 826, 885, 891, 897, 901, 924, 929, 930, 1048, 1291, 1167, 1168, 1170, 1171, 1187, 1188, 1266, 1275–1279, 1282, 1294, 1295, 1365, 1370, 1379, 1453, 1518, 1533 valency frame see coding frame valency increasing see valency extension valency pattern(s), definition of (see also coding frame; verb, avalent, monovalent, bivalent, trivalent, tetravalent) 29–33, 38, 63, 78 Valency Patterns Leipzig Database see ValPaL
1718
Subject index
valency preference class 19, 950, 975, 976 valency reducing see valency decreasing valency-changing operations 11, 34, 65, 91, 96, 1287, 1485, 1493, 1516 − argument-identifying (see also reflexive; reciprocal) 96, 101 − decreasing, object-removing/deleting (see also antipassive; incorporation, P-) 96, 98 − decreasing, subject-removing/demoting (see also passive; anticausative) 96, 97 − increasing, object-adding (see also applicative) 96, 97 − increasing, subject-adding (see also causative) 96, 97 − rearranging, object-object-rearranging (see also applicative) 96, 100 − rearranging, subject-object rearranging (see also inverse) 96, 99 ValPaL (Valency Patterns Leipzig) 3, 15, 22, 41, 49–57, 61, 62, 64, 67, 82, 132, 133, 135, 138–144, 149, 158, 161, 164, 168, 173, 174, 494, 1287 ValPaL database see ValPaL verb cluster 12, 22, 149, 151, 152, 165, 205, 467, 601 verb in series (see also serial verb construction; verb serialization) 262, 263, 265–290 verb list see Leipzig Verb List verb polysemy 13, 20, 38, 87, 88 verb serialization (see also serial verb construction; verb in series) 1017, 1045, 1049, 1054, 1516, 1526, 1529, 1673 verb type 4, 6–14, 17, 27, 32, 75, 77, 81, 85, 87, 90, 95, 103, 106, 109, 116,117, 204, 543, 601, 602, 738, 1266, 1269, 1270, 1302–1309, 1600 verb, formal classes − auxiliary 29, 558, 773, 774, 780, 793, 1020 − classificatory (see also verb, inflecting) 1054, 1120, 1216 − deponent middle (see also verb, inherent middle; verb, intrinsic middle) 1084 − inflecting (see also verb, classificatory) 1119, 1120, 1124, 1126, 1129–1132, 1142, 1145, 1149, 1159 − inherent middle (see also verb, deponent middle; verb, intrinsic middle) 1072, 1078, 1080, 1102, 1104
− inherently reflexive 8, 1060, 1380 − intrinsic middle (see also verb, inherent middle; verb, deponent middle) 1079, 1080 − light (see also verb-noun combination) 93, 542, 544, 555, 558, 561, 812, 1555, 1556, 1571, 1576, 1650–1653, 1657, 1659, 1661 − middle 602, 908, 909, 925, 1075, 1080, 1081, 1090, 1091, 1093, 1097, 1100–1104, 1325 − uninflecting (see also coverb; preverb; verbal particle) 1119, 1131, 1132, 1135, 1145, 1149 verb, semantic classes − active 4, 176, 177, 345, 1041, 1266, 1271, 1272, 1277–1281, 1285, 1286, 1292–1294, 1408, 1411, 1419 − affective 541, 542, 552, 555, 556, 558, 560, 606 − agentive 79, 83, 113, 601, 828, 1183, 1194, 1374, 1416, 1566 − aiming 8 − appearance 812–814, 822, 823, 833, 834, 836, 1127 − application of heat 18, 1137, 1138, 1149 − attaching 381 − bodily processes 80, 385, 429, 813, 823, 824, 833, 834, 836, 838, 1083, 1138, 1677 − breaking 81, 108, 110, 115, 136–138, 149, 151, 152, 1628, 1629, 1631–1634, 1636, 1640, 1645, 1647, 1657 − caused motion 10, 13, 38, 83, 84, 104, 511– 516, 519, 581–584, 599, 600, 741, 811, 893, 893, 894, 929, 931 − change of location and path of motion 1135 − change of state 201, 236, 265, 309, 311, 317, 405, 428, 431, 436, 450, 457, 509, 519, 520, 557, 601, 613, 685, 787, 813, 823, 824, 828, 833, 836–838, 1080, 1127, 1133, 1135, 1374–1377, 1399, 1400, 1434, 1520, 1528, 1558, 1601, 1621, 1628–1631, 1635, 1640, 1644, 1647–1649, 1655–1658 − cognition 7, 8, 82, 83, 132, 142, 313, 385, 400, 542, 579, 581, 601, 602, 831, 1405, 1414, 1658 − communication 195, 396, 505, 790, 822, 1024, 1028, 1033, 1440, 1460, 1630 − comparative 400, 1174, 1179, 1180, 1198 − contact 5, 8, 82, 84, 312, 497, 500, 505, 506, 516–518, 545, 602
Subject index
− corporeal 6 − covering 544 − creation 115, 389, 396, 498, 516, 520, 586, 587, 892 − dative 484, 500, 501, 505, 507, 516, 517 − effect 5, 142 − effective action 6–8, 81–83, 103–106, 165, 816, 823, 828–838 − emotion 5, 7, 8, 13, 75, 80–83, 88, 106, 111, 113, 132, 142, 310, 381–383, 400, 542, 578, 579, 588, 602, 775, 813, 815, 823, 828, 833–836, 1331, 1405, 1414, 1420, 1658 − existential 769, 778, 1401 − experiencer object 100, 1073, 1079, 1083, 1084, 1102, 1630 − experiential 10, 82, 132, 140, 141, 310, 317, 500, 507–510, 518–520, 1432, 1435, 1458 − externally caused change of state 180, 1133, 1135, 1149, 1158 − factitive 423, 448, 591, 774, 827, 1450, 1454–1458 − feeling 6, 81, 384, 435, 1039, 1049, 1598, 1600–1603, 1611, 1614, − fientive 1434, 1436, 1443, 1444, 1454–1456 − filling 494, 515, 516, 519, 544, 787, 788, − fixing 84, 896, 929 − grooming 105, 106, 111, 113, 115, 169, 599, 601, 602, 815, 823, 824, 831–834, 907, 1036, 1037, 1047 − hitting 607, 656, 1418, 1420, 1627–1636, 1640, 1641, 1645–1663 − ingesting 815, 823, 831, 833, 834 − inherent complement 302, 303, 305, 316 − interaction 4, 8, 9, 106, 411, 505–507, 518– 521, 578, 601, 602, 605, 811, 815–817, 822, 823, 831–836 − internal caused change of state 179, 1149, 1158 − knowledge 6, 81, 385, 578, 1079–1081, 1598, 1600–1603, 1611, 1615–1621 − loading 9, 16, 29, 84, 104, 210, 343, 492, 494, 544, 600, 1085, 1086, 1090 − locative 316, 605, 1118, 1175 − manner 16, 105, 106, 110, 167, 1636–1647, 1657, 1660, 1661 − meteorological (= verb, weather, = meteoverb) 97, 300, 334, 387, 398, 425–430, 501, 519, 543, 576, 725, 768, 812, 823, 833–835, 970, 918, 1035, 1172,
−
−
−
− − − − − −
− − − − − −
− −
−
− − − −
1719
1192, 1270, 1281, 1334, 1365, 1434, 1486, 1519, 1629 motion 10, 202, 212, 303, 310, 346, 405, 411, 428, 497, 498, 502, 503, 511–513, 519, 580, 588, 596, 659–661, 691, 766, 770, 786, 814, 1048, 1080, 1121, 1133, 1146, 1174, 1187, 1331, 1400, 1401, 1417, 1420, 1435, 1436, 1456, 1520, 1629–1631, 1637, 1660, 1681 patientive 12, 14, 83, 109, 113, 550, 556, 633, 813, 1167–1170, 1174–1178, 1180– 1184, 1188, 1194–1199, 1518, 1522 perception 13, 81, 88, 304, 313, 335, 384, 386, 391, 510, 542, 578, 579, 601, 814, 1100, 1246, 1407, 1598, 1600, 1601, 1603, 1605, 1607, 1611, 1616–1621, 1629 physical event 275–282, 286–290 posal 1100 positional 657, 1079, 1102, 1105, 1400, 1401, 1412 possessor 10, 400, 1228, 1229 psych 405, 441, 605, 724, 1331, 1532, 1630 pursuit 6–8, 81–83, 86, 87, 132, 140, 142, 600–602, 1598–1603, 1607, 1610, 1614– 1621 relation 6, 81 removal 514–516, 519 result 16, 20, 89, 105, 106, 110, 167, 1635– 1647, reverse transfer 308, 315 spatial configuration 228, 455, 595, 1120, 1138, 1139 speech 304, 305, 443, 517–519, 546, 584, 600, 607, 1081, 1119, 1124, 1129, 1131, 1138, 1146, 1149, 1260, 1266, 1532, 1676 spontaneous 8, 601, 602, 652, 658, 784, 828, 829, 907, 1034 stative 332, 430, 433, 436, 450, 451, 455, 466, 664, 724, 752, 769, 793, 824, 1020, 1266, 1271, 1278, 1281, 1283, 1285–1288, 1290, 1294, 1420, 1636 surface contact 891, 892, 896, 928, 929, 931, 1601, 1628, 1629, 1634–1637, 1646– 1651, 1654, 1657, 1658, 1661 symmetrical 301, 310, 311 tying 544, 1086, 1146 traditional activities 815, 824, 831, 833, 834, 837 transfer 9, 190, 308, 315, 396, 519, 520, 544, 545, 830, 1492, 1504, 1630
1720
Subject index
− transfer of possession 10, 547, 548, 562, 589, 596, 772, 773, 1143 − transformation 339, 340, 599, 634, 815, 816, 823, 831, 833, 835, 837 − vector 1003–1005 − weather see verb, meteorological verb, syntactic classes − antiimpersonal 80 − avalent (see also valency pattern) 334, 425, 576, 647–649, 768, 811, 812, 824, 833, 835, 1019, 1172, 1270, 1334, 1433, 1486, 1518, 1519, 1531 − bivalent (see also valency pattern) 20, 22, 74, 75, 77, 83, 105, 116, 149, 230, 272– 290, 335, 342, 431–437, 576–578, 588, 651, 666, 670, 726, 772, 811, 815–818, 830–837, 900, 918, 919, 1017, 1020–1026, 1038, 1042, 1044, 1051–1055, 1121–1123, 1148, 1167, 1188, 1268, 1273, 1322, 1330, 1402–1404, 1433, 1487, 1518–1532, 1577 − ditransitive 9, 37, 76, 84, 400, 498, 501, 553, 558, 587, 590, 600, 652, 686, 692, 766, 768, 776, 782, 888, 890, 897, 929, 1077, 1092, 1098, 1168, 1172, 1182, 1183, 1234, 1266, 1274, 1322, 1360, 1365, 1439, 1440, 1458, 1459, 1465, 1481, 1485, 1486, 1504, 1569 − ditransitive recipient-indexing (see also verb, secundative indexing) 1072 − ditransitive theme-indexing 1072, 1089 − intransitive animate 20, 578, 595, 633–635, 1036, 1038, 1127, 1172, 1206 − intransitive inanimate 20, 633–635, 1036, 1038, 1172, 1206, 1271 − labile 17, 21, 34, 38, 64, 110, 248, 250, 404, 413, 489, 553, 629, 662, 663, 666, 819, 1002, 1019, 1034, 1035, 1042, 1047, 1060, 1275, 1295, 1379, 1380, 1496, 1518, 1522, 1524, 1534 − monotransitive 83, 559, 676, 677, 680– 685, 692, 1167–1179, 1183, 1185, 1188, 1192–1196, 1315, 1322, 1463, 1464, 1483, 1487, 1492, 1563 − monovalent (see also valency pattern) 76, 79, 83, 105, 120, 165, 169, 223, 229, 271– 283, 290, 334, 335, 348, 427–430, 576, 577, 649, 666, 670, 723, 733, 768, 811, 906, 915, 918, 919, 1019, 1072, 1078– 1080, 1122, 1135–1139, 1167, 1270–1272,
1322–1326, 1330–1333, 1395, 1402, 1407– 1411, 1433, 1486, 1518–1532 − pentavalent 1201 − S=A labile 34, 38, 226, 246, 247, 249, 494, 1567 − S=P labile 17, 33, 34, 38, 179, 246, 247, 249, 494, 549, 559 − secundative indexing (see also verb, ditransitive recipient-indexing) 1088, 1167, 1168, 1182, 1191, 1193, 1194, 1482, 1489 − sesquitransitive 1206–1208 − tetravalent (see also valency pattern) 340, 341, 691 − transitive animate 89, 99, 116, 169, 190, 652, 665, 694, 771, 774, 818, 1036, 1038, 1206, 1219, 1258, 1487, 1528 − transitive inanimate 116, 169, 190, 653, 665, 694, 818, 1036, 1038, 1206, 1219, 1261, 1487 − trivalent (see also valency pattern) 77, 78, 80, 83, 84, 224, 229, 231, 237, 271, 275, 277–290, 339, 343, 438–440, 574, 581– 584, 596, 605, 613, 647, 650, 661, 666, 670, 671, 677, 741, 772, 811, 818, 819, 828, 830, 832–835, 887, 893, 902, 1016– 1018, 1030–1034, 1051, 1072, 1088, 1089, 1142, 1167, 1171, 1189, 1194, 1196, 1315, 1322, 1330, 1340, 1433, 1439, 1440, 1463, 1488, 1489, 1518, 1522–1533, 1577, 1581, − unaccusative 83, 418, 684, 723, 822 − unergative 79, 83, 109, 110, 419, 421, 428– 430, 461, 462, 541–543, 552, 555, 559, 722, 723, 1403, 1420 verb-noun combination (see also light verb) 88, 679, 1650, 1651, 1657–1662 verb-specificity, definition 47 verbal number 1481, 1486, 1493–1498, 1511, 1512 verbal particle (see also verb, uninflecting; coverb; preverb) 1119, 1120 VerbNet 4 voice ambivalence 74, 103, 108, 115–117, 122–125 WATP see World Atlas of Transitivity Pairs word order (= constituent order) 31–33, 44, 63, 64, 93, 186, 262, 263, 270, 276, 299, 300, 331–333, 368, 418, 458, 484, 572, 630, 675, 710, 721–723, 743–745, 766,
Subject index
767, 807, 943, 953, 954, 969, 987–989, 1015, 1016, 1031, 1073, 1117, 1166, 1265, 1392, 1427, 1483, 1484, 1522, 1673
word-and-pattern morphology 327, 351 WordNet 4 World Atlas of Transitivity Pairs (= WATP)
1721
22