Dynamic Verbs Research Articles

Progressive aspect and stative verbs in Outer Circle varieties

ABSTRACTThe extension of the progressive form to stative verbs is a widely discussed feature of Outer Circle varieties of English. This paper examines the semantics of the stative progressive in three corpora, representing spoken and written Indian (IndE), Kenyan (KenE) and Black South African English (BSAfE). The results reveal that the progressive form is used more frequently in spoken than written data, and most frequently in BSAfE, followed by KenE, and then IndE. All three Outer Circle varieties use the progressive form proportionally more often with stative verbs than British English. The main use of the progressive form is to convey a sense of extended duration. This Outer Circle prototype is termed an on‐going state, and clearly differs from the sense of a temporary state, which is prototypical for Inner Circle varieties. There are nevertheless a substantial minority of limited duration (temporary state) uses, especially in the written data, but at the same time, a number of examples where the progressive conveys the sense of states with unlimited duration, especially in BSAfE and the spoken data. The main conclusion is that the progressive is not simply extended to stative verbs, as is argued by many previous researchers, but rather that of a different prototype, of extended duration, sanctions a wider range of uses of the progressive form with dynamic verbs and stative verbs alike.

The inflected/non-inflected infinitive alternation in Portuguese adverbial clauses. A corpus analysis

This paper investigates the alternation between the Portuguese inflected and uninflected infinitive in adverbial contexts on the basis of extensive corpus analyses and from a cognitive-functional perspective. We propose a multifactorial analysis of several variables that could influence the choice between both infinitives. These variables are inscribed within three underlying principles proposed in former literature: higher autonomy of the infinitival clause, lower infinitival subject accessibility and stronger verbality of the infinitive would lead to an increased use of the inflected form. Both a classification tree and a logistic regression analysis offer converging evidence for the validity of autonomy and subject accessibility: infinitival clauses are more prone to the use of an inflected infinitive when they show more semantic–syntactic autonomy and when their subject is less accessible. As for the verbality principle, we found a difference between morphosyntactic and semantic verbality: infinitives that have explicit morphosyntactic marks of their verbal status are indeed more easily inflected. However, contrary to expectations, infinitives that are semantically less prototypical verbs (states and less dynamic verbs), are more easily inflected. We interpret these findings in terms of the “Differential Infinitive Marking” (analogous to differential object/subject marking) and clausality: the inflected infinitive marks the clausal nature of the infinitive construction.

Skidskyttars rörelser ur kognitiv synvinkel: svenska och tyska TV-kommentatorer i jämförelse

Television commentaries on the winter sport of biathlon (comprising both skiing and shooting) show typical traits for sports language in general, but also have their own characteristics, drawn from the two activities that are combined in this sport. In this empirical study, Swedish and German television comments on biathlon are studied with the main attention being given to how motion events are depicted. Differences concerning the focusing on endpoints are observed and discussed, as these relate to, for example, a so-called process-out-of-product perspective, dynamic verbs and silence. The results are discussed in relation to newer theories on the organization of information at the discourse level (von Stutterheim, Carroll & Klein 2009) which indicate that even closely related Germanic languages differ from each other in this respect.

An account of the stative vs. dynamic split in Saamáka

In this paper, I intend to shed light on the stative vs. dynamic distinction in Saamáka. As in many other creoles, utterances containing an unmarked stative verb have a present interpretation, while those containing an unmarked dynamic verb have a past interpretation. Based on detailed fieldwork, I will demonstrate that the discourse contexts in which the bare verb form occurs matches with those in which present perfect is known to occur cross-linguistically. I postulate that the language has a morphological null perfect morpheme in its TAM paradigm. The Perfect Analysis proposed in this paper exploits the independently acknowledged difference between states and events concerning the inability of the latter to co-occur with a point-like present tense. The ‘perfect’ must be inserted in these contexts to create a derived resultant state, creating the illusion of a ‘past tense’ in many interpretational contexts. An advantage of the Perfect Analysis is that it provides a natural account of why the temporal distinction splits along the stative vs. eventive divide without additional stipulations for non-default readings of the bare verb form.

Inesyvo ir adesyvo formų kilmės ir raidos klausimu

ON THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF INESSIVE AND ADESSIVE FORMSSummaryOn the basis of the data collected from Lithuanian old manuscripts and the method of internal reconstruction the article presents a new interpretation of the origin and evolution of inessive and adessive forms:1. The adessive singular developed not from the syntactic construction locative + pi, as was main­tained earlier, but from the syntactic construction SV(stative verb) + dative + *prei which was a position­al variant of the adessive construction SV + *prei + dative and met all the requirements of symmetry, cf. the allative constructions DV (dynamic verb) + *prei + genitive and DV + genitive + *prei.2. The inessive singular derived from locatives + *en as a necessity to polarize the dative singular and the locative singular. As the dative plural and the locative plural were sufficiently polarized (cf. dat. *mōs (>-mus) and loc. -su), the old locative in -su was not replaced by any innovation, which is evident from the textual data of Mažvydas, Vilentas, Bretkūnas and other authors.3. With the formation of the adessive singular from the construction dative + *prei and the inessive singular from locative + *en, the basis chosen for the adessive plural was not the dative plural (as is re­quired by the principle of symmetry), but the old locative in -su; its choice was caused by the use of phonetically coincident dative and locative forms in inessive singular and adessive singular constructions.4. The inessive plural forms in -sę (>-se, -si) are but transforms of the old locative in -su on the model of the inessive singular in -ę<*en, whereas the adessive plural form in -semp is a transform of an older adessive form in -su(m)p on the *-sen >sę model. It is a natural process of the morphemic levelling of inflections which took place in all the dialects at different times. The data drawn from the old man­uscripts and the dialect sources attest to the following: 1) the inessive plural in -sę (>-se, -si) and the adessive plural in -semp are innovations; 2) the inessive plural in -sę (>-se, -si) did not develop from accusativeplural + *en, and the adessive plural was not formed from the new inessive in *en + pi.

From indirect to direct object

This article provides an account of the shift in the expression of the internal argument of a small class of dynamic two-place verbs best represented by aider “help” from ‘dative’, i.e., as an indirect object with the preposition à, to ‘accusative’, i.e., as a direct object with no preposition. This change is not correlated with a change in the meaning of the verbs or with any obvious change in the selectional restrictions imposed on the internal argument. One of the central results of this study is to demonstrate that the shift in argument realization was systematic and part of a broader change involving the loss of directionality as a property of prepositions in French, explaining its correlation with several other related changes in verbal complementation that also occurred in the 15th century.

Teaching English tense and aspect with the help of cognitive grammar: An empirical study

Form-focused instruction is usually based on traditional practical/pedagogical grammar descriptions of grammatical features. The comparison of such traditional accounts with cognitive grammar (CG) descriptions seems to favor CG as a basis of pedagogical rules. This is due to the insistence of CG on the meaningfulness of grammar and its detailed analyses of the meanings of particular grammatical features. The differences between traditional and CG rules/descriptions are exemplified by juxtaposing the two kinds of principles concerning the use of the present simple and present progressive to refer to situations happening or existing at speech time. The descriptions provided the bases for the instructional treatment in a quasi-experimental study exploring the effectiveness of using CG descriptions of the two tenses, and of their interplay with stative (imperfective) and dynamic (perfective) verbs, and comparing this effectiveness with the value of grammar teaching relying on traditional accounts found in standard pedagogical grammars. The study involved 50 participants divided into three groups, with one of them constituting the control group and the other two being experimental ones. One of the latter received treatment based on CG descriptions and the other on traditional accounts. CG-based instruction was found to be at least moderately effective in terms of fostering mostly explicit grammatical knowledge and its effectiveness turned out be comparable to that of teaching based on traditional descriptions.

Stative by construction

Fundamental to narrative is the ability to indicate what events overlapped what other events. Crucial to this ability is stativization: only stative situations can include (as opposed to being included within) reference time. But how exactly are stative type-shifts effected, and what does it mean for an event to be “turned into” a state? There are two purported paths to stativity: use of a compositional type-shifting device, as exemplified by (i), and coercion, the creation of resolvable semantic conflict between a combinatoric pattern and an openclass word, as exemplified by (ii):The House is voting on the legislation.We talk on the phone every SundayWhat is the trigger for stative coercion in (ii)? According to de Swart (Natural language and linguistic theory 16: 347–385, 1998, Coercion in a cross-linguistic theory of aspect, CSLI Publications, 2003) and others, it would be the iterative adverbial every Saturday. But iteration is insufficient to secure stativity, as, e.g., activity verbs, which also consist of repeated actions, denote events rather than states. The stativity of progressive sentences is likewise mysterious under the standard analysis: while the progressive is typically said to highlight the pre-culmination portion of an event representation (Parsons, Events in the semantics of English, MIT Press, 1990; Langacker, Foundations of cognitive grammar, Stanford University Press, 1987; Smith, The parameter of aspect, Kluwer, 1997), that portion is presumably an activity rather than a state. To resolve these paradoxes, I propose a selection-based model of two kinds of stative type-shifts: those effected by derivational means (e.g., the progressive construction) and those effected by inflectional means (e.g., the English present tense). I then provide a formal representation of the relevant constructions using conventions of Sign Based Construction Grammar (SBCG) (Sag, Language 6: 486–545, 2010, Michaelis forthcoming). According to this model, stativizing constructions both denote states and select states in the Aktionsart representations of verbs with which they combine. This model relies on the existence of rests, periods of stasis entailed by the Aktionsart representations of dynamic verbs. I argue that by viewing stative typeshifts as the products of construction-verb combination, we can explain: (i) the relationship between a verb's input and output representations, (ii) how tense inflections affect the Aktionsart representations of verbs with which they combine and (iii) the functions of the so-called relative past tense. In addition, I argue, that if we view stative type shifts as functions of constructions, rather than, say, the products of semantic rules, we can better understand differences in the combinatoric potential of a given tense inflection both across languages and over historic time.

Expressions of causation in Danish Sign Language

The paper presents lexical and syntactic means of expressing causation in Danish Sign Language (DTS). Labile verbs are verbs that can be used both intransitively with an inchoative meaning and transitively with a causative meaning without a change in form and irrespective of the type of classifier predicate that they may relate to. Labile verbs in DTS denote common, well-known types of events, often of direct causation. DTS also has a syntactic causative construction with a general causative verb arbejde ‘make, do’ followed by a stative verb denoting the resulting state. forandre ‘change’ can also be used to express causation, but with a more specific meaning than arbejde and also followed by dynamic verbs. In narrative style signers describe sequences of events without explicitly coding any causal relation between the events. The causal relation is left to pragmatic inference in accordance with the narrative style’s emphasis on vivid representation rather than explanation.

Present and perfect in Bantu: The case of Lingála

In the study of tense-aspect systems in the Bantu languages, there appears to be a lack of agreement over basic issues in analyzing different inflectional classes. In this paper, we address forms of temporal predication in Lingála's present-time verbal paradigm. Presenting an analysis along the lines of Cognitive Grammar, we challenge the received interpretation of a verb form with -í in Lingála, as well as of its cognates in other Bantu languages, traditionally taken to mark past tense, notably with dynamic verbs. We claim that the perfect/anterior meaning of this -í form with dynamic verbs should be treated in terms of the cognitive strategies speakers have available for dealing with the “epistemic problem” inherent in observing and reporting nonstative events simultaneously. Accordingly, dynamic verbs taking the -í form should be analyzed together with its use with statives, instead of seeing both types as semantically unrelated. We therefore argue for, and develop, an integrated analysis, which can single-handedly account for both dynamic verbs and stative ones. In schematic terms, we propose that the temporal reference of the -í form, whose aspect is perfect, is present rather than past, even if notions of pastness may be involved in the background conceptualization.

Topological Modelling of Grammatical and Lexical Aspect in English

This paper stems from a broader research project entitled Analog-based Modelling of Meaning Representations in English (Skrzypczak 2006), and aims to present grammatical aspect and lexical aspect as two modes of encoding the temporal profiles within the conceptualisation of processes (terminologically, in Langackerian sense, imperfective and perfective processes, otherwise, variously labelled as stative and dynamic verbs, i. e. states vs. discrete ‘unitary’ events and nondiscrete ‘unbounded’ processes). It is assumed that aspect in both cases – as a process-profiling category – is analogous to the profiling of things and atemporal relations (in the sense of Langacker 1987, 1990, 2000), given the maximisation of the temporal domain in the characterisation of processes (perfective and imperfective, hence: dynamic and stative), and minimalisation of the temporal domain during the conceptualisation of things (conceptually independent entities) and atemporal relations (conceptually dependent atemporal configurations). The analogy between nouns and verbs in terms of ‘granularity’ has been so far variously addressed by Langacker (1990), Jackendoff (1991) and Talmy (2001), and also constitutes the core assumption in my research on topological modelling.

Tobelo (review)

Reviewed by: Tobelo by Gary Holton Leonid Kulikov Tobelo. By Gary Holton. (Languages of the world/materials 328.) Munich: LIN-COM Europa, 2003. Pp. vi, 99. ISBN 3895867063. €29.80. This book is a short grammatical sketch of Tobelo, a language spoken on the Moluccan islands in Indonesia, mainly in the northeastern part of the island Halmahera. Together with a dozen languages, including Ternate/Tidore, Galela, Tabaru, Modole, Loloda, Pagu, Sahu, West Makian, and Ibu (nearly extinct), it forms the North Halmaheran language family, genetically related to West Papuan, not to Austronesian. Until the 1930s, these languages were studied by Dutch linguists and missionaries; then there came a break in North Halmaheran linguistics. Fortunately, a number of studies on some of the North Halmaheran languages have recently appeared, in particular, grammars of Ternate and Tidore by F. S. Watuseke (‘The Ternate language’, Papers in Papuan linguistics 1, ed. by Tom Dutton, 223–44, Canberra: Australian National University, 1991) and Miriam van Staden (Leiden University dissertation, 2000). The grammar under review follows the traditional scheme adopted in the LINCOM series. The short introductory chapter (1–4) is followed by four descriptive chapters, beginning with ‘Phonology’ (4–12). Ch. 2, ‘Lexical categories’ (12–30), opens with a detailed classification of nouns, which include, apart from nouns proper, pronouns, personal and place names, vocatives, and the category the author calls ‘relational nouns’ (which consists mainly of kinship terms and nouns referring to body parts). Two other major categories are verbs and ‘property concept words’. The latter class roughly corresponds to adjectives in other languages; in Tobelo, they ‘may be expressed as either nouns or verbs depending on the discourse context’ (22). Ch. 3, ‘Morphology’ (30–48), deals with the inventory of morphemes used with nouns and verbs. The nominal morphemes include, in particular, two prefixal ‘noun markers’ (roughly corresponding to articles), possessive prefixes, and several spatial suffixes (locative, ablative, allative, and four directional suffixes). There is also a discussion of nominalizing morphemes (reduplication, prefix hi-, and voicing of the initial consonant), which, in fact, should be placed in the next section, dealing with verbal morphology. The inventory of verbal morphemes (mostly prefixes) includes, in particular, personal agreement markers for subject and object, aspects and actionalities (intensifier, distributive, etc.), and prefixes of three valency-changing categories: reflexive (ma-), reciprocal (maka-), and causative-applicative (hi-). Another function of this latter morpheme, which the author quite infelicitously terms ‘instrumental nominalization’, is ‘to derive a verb [from a noun] which refers to the action carried out using that noun or an action which results in the creation of that noun’ (34). Among the syntactic issues dealt with in Ch. 4, ‘Syntax’ (48–71), is the elaborate system of expressing spatial relations—probably one of the most interesting peculiarities of Tobelo; unfortunately, the presentation lacks clarity in some respects. The author further discusses the distinction between two types of constructions with intransitive verbs: (i) constructions with subject person marking (attested mainly with dynamic verbs) vs. (ii) constructions with object person marking and the third person ‘dummy’ subject prefix i-, as in i-mi-gogama ‘she is shivering’ (lit. ‘it-her-shivers’). The interpretation of this distinction as an instance of split intransitivity does not seem convincing, however; rather it appears [End Page 462] we are dealing in the latter case with noncanonical subject marking. The concluding chapter (Ch. 5, 71–97) contains Tobelo texts with interlinear glossing, followed by a bibliography. The book marks another contribution to the welcome renewal of interest in one of the relatively little-studied languages of Indonesia. It will be of great interest to scholars of Papuan linguistics, to general linguists, and to typologists. Leonid Kulikov Leiden University Copyright © 2007 Linguistic Society of America

VERBA BERPELENGKAP DALAM BAHASA INDONESIA SUATU KAJIAN STRUKTUR DAN SEMANTIK

This research study attempts to describe morphological forms of verbs withcomplements in Indonesian and their syntactic and semantic characteristics.The method employed in this study was the descriptive one, which wassynchronically applied. The data sources were Indonesian textbooks for elementaryschools, junior high schools, and senior high schools, besides newspapers such asKompas, Republika and Pikiran Rakyat.Morphologically, verbs with complements can be free verb bases, derived verbs,and reduplicated verbs. On the basis of their syntactic characteristics, the verbs canbe those with noun complements (noun phrases), verbals (verbal phrases), adjectives(adjectival phrases), adverbials (adverbial phrases), and numbers (numeral phrases).On the basis of their semantic characteristics, the verbs can be classified into punctualverbs, dynamic verbs, and static verbs.Keywords: argument, complement, constituent

On the early development of aspect in Greek and Russian child language, a comparative analysis

The category of aspect is grammaticized in both Greek and Russian opposing perfective and imperfective verb forms in all inflectional categories except the nonpast (‘present’). Despite these similarities there are important differences in the way the aspectual systems function in the two languages. While in Greek nearly all verbs oppose a perfective to a given imperfective grammatical form, Russian aspect is more strongly lexicalized with pairs of imperfective and perfective lexemes not only differing aspectually, but also as far as their lexical meanings are concerned. This is especially true of perfective verbs formed by prefixes as compared to their imperfective bases. Thus, in pairs of prefixed and unprefixed dynamic verbs, the derived prefixed (perfective) member has a telic meaning while its unprefixed (imperfective) counterpart is atelic (e.g. sjest’ (PFV) ‘to eat up’ vs. jest’ (IPF) ‘to eat’). Such derived perfective verbs may in turn be “secondarily” imperfectivized by suffixation furnishing the only “true” perfective/imperfective pairs of verbs (e.g. sjest’ (PFV) ‘to eat up’ vs. sjedat’ (IPF) ‘to eat up’ (iterative)). “Secondary” imperfectives do not occur in our child data.&#x0D; &#x0D; In this pilot study, we will analyze the tense-aspect-mood forms of the 20 most frequent verbs with equivalent meanings occurring in the longitudinal audiotaped data of a Greek and a Russian boy between 2;1 and 2;3 (their entire lexical inventories comprise approx. 100 verbs each).&#x0D; &#x0D; We adopt a constructivist perspective on the development of aspect in Greek and Russian child language and will show that in spite of a broad inventory of imperfective and perfective verb forms to be found in the speech of both children aspect has not yet developed into a generalized grammatical category, but is strongly dependent on aktionsart (stative/dynamic, telic/atelic) in both languages. While this results in a strong preference for perfective verb forms of telic verbs and of imperfective forms of atelic ones in the speech of the Greek boy, the Russian child tends to use the unmarked members.&#x0D;

A Grammar of Sochiapan Chinantec (review)

Reviewed by: A grammar of Sochiapan Chinantec by David Paul Foris Søren Wichmann A grammar of Sochiapan Chinantec. By David Paul Foris. (Studies in Chinantec languages 6..) Dallas: SIL International & The University of Texas at Arlington, 2000. Pp. xiii, 412. $29.00. This book is the best description of an Otomanguean language to date. A revised version of the author’s 1993 Auckland University PhD dissertation, it is based on work carried out from 1970 to 1986 with subsequent field work aiding in the revision. In Sochiapan Chinantec (Oaxaca, Mexico) most words are monosyllabic. Final syllables have seven tonal distinctions and two kinds of stress—ballistic and controlled. Nonfinal syllables do not carry stress distinctions, and only three tones are in play there. Chinantec is head-marking; it marks the categories of animacy, person-of-subject, and transitivity on the verb. Dynamic verbs are inflected for tense, mood, motion, and aspect while state verbs are not. The verb is extraordinarily complex and full of irregularities. While tense-mood and person distinctions are generally expressed by tone and stress, there is also some segmental variation, and some verbs have suppletive forms in the plural. Thirty-one verbal prefixes serve to mark various categories such as hortative, evidential, tense-aspect, motion, etc. The language is morphologically split ergative in the sense that transitive and intransitive subjects share inflexional patterns (accusative alignment) while animate subjects of intransitives as well as direct objects of transitives are marked in the same way (ergative alignment.) The inflexion maximally distinguishes four persons (1sg, 2, 3, 1pl), but a direct vs. inverse marking system serves to disambiguate transitive predicates and is furthermore a mechanism for tracking proximate vs. obviative subjects. Obviation only works where transitive predicates are involved. The basic word order is VSO. A typological rarity is that there is only one complementation strategy. Topicalization involves the uses of two different kinds of markers, one of which encodes contraexpectation. Other pragmatic functions are encoded by a rich set of illocutionary adverbs and particles. Chinantec men make use of whistle speech. According to Foris, virtually anything that can be expressed by speech can be communicated by whistling. He provides some examples and discussion of the phenomenon but not an in-depth analysis. Overall the book sets high standards for a basic [End Page 805] language description. I would like, however, to add a critical remark on the presentation of verbal inflexion. F presents the paradigms organized according to the different tense-aspect categories and each of the different person categories. The information that concerns the way a verb inflects for person within a given tense-aspect category is to be supplied in a dictionary that F is preparing. It would seem, however, that the person category is more fundamental to the organization of paradigms than tense-aspect. First, it is true of any language that in conversational adjacency pairs person is more frequently contrasted than tense-aspect. Second, whenever there are segmental features in Chinantec that frequently mark a particular category in the paradigm (glottal stop, vowel mutations), these will mark person rather than tense-aspect. Third, in the nominal inflexion the person category is the only inflectional parameter. The way the data is presented it is impossible to verify whether or not, as is the case in the Otomanguean language Azoyú Tlapanec (my field notes, 1991–1994), the nominal inflection actually exhibits the same paradigm as one of the many inflectional classes of verbs. This impressive grammar is of particular interest to typologists concerned with any aspect of language structure as well as to students of Otomanguean and other Mesoamerican languages. Søren Wichmann University of Copenhagen Copyright © 2002 Linguistic Society of America

A constructional approach to stativity in Japanese

This paper deals with the relationship between the formal properties and a specific meaning associated with a class of Japanese sentences that have the verbal gerund and iru ‘be’ (i.e., -te iru). These sentences are characterized by the -te iru verbal morphology on a dynamic verb and a non-volitional subject that does not participate in the event denoted by the verb. The particular stative interpretation induced by these sentences cannot be attributed to the meaning of the individual lexical items. The paper argues instead that the source of the stative meaning is better explained by a constructional view, that the meaning is attributed to the construction itself.

Verb Classification in Mayrinax Atayal

Verb classes are examined in Mayrinax Atayal, an Austronesian language spoken in Taiwan, based on certain semantic, morphological, and syntactic properties. Focus markers; negative, imperative, and causative constructions; the tense/aspect/mood system of the language; and a dimension of greaterlesser dynamicity (or stativity) are all investigated. The primary distinction between dynamic and stative verbs is supported by the different behaviors of verbs in the various constructions. Because degrees of dynamicity/stativity of Mayrinax verbs are relative rather than absolute, a continuum is proposed with dynamic verbs and stative verbs appearing at the two extremes. 1. INTRODUCTION. Atayal is one of the more widespread of the Formosan languages, ranging from Ban Prefecture in the northeast of Taiwan to Taipei and Taoyuan Prefectures in the north, and southward through Hsinchu, Miaoli, and Taichung Prefectures to Nantou in the central portion of the island. It consists of two major subgroups, namely, Squliq and C?uli?, the latter of which is considered as being more conservative. The dialectal variant examined in this paper is that of Mayrinax, a C?uli? dialect spoken in Chinshui Village, Taian Hsiang, Miaoli Prefecture. Of all Formosan languages and dialects, Mayrinax is one of the only two known dialects that show certain distinctions between the male and female forms of speech; the other dialect is Pa?kuali? (cf. Li 1980). While such distinctions between the male and female speech forms are still preserved in the older generation's speech, younger speakers tend to ignore these differences and mix the two forms in their speech. This paper attempts to examine verb classes in Mayrinax Atayal. To our knowledge, there are four studies [2] that deal primarily with verb classification in certain Formosan languages; namely, Jeng (1981) on Yami, Chen (1987) and Y. Huang (1988) on Amis, and Tseng (1989) on Squliq Atayal. Most of these studies rely heavily on Syntax--case relations, case forms, and distributional properties. In this paper, we attempt to classify Mayrinax verbs on the basis of certain semantic, morphological, and syntactic properties. We first consider how verbs are formed in the language. We then show a primary classification for them, namely, dynamic verbs versus stative verbs. [3] While dynamic verbs designate actions, processes, or situations, stative verbs tend to denote properties, states, or resultant states. We attempt to justify such a classification by examining the semantic dynamicity (or stativity) of Mayrinax verbs, and the morphosyntactic behaviors they exhibit in the focus system, [4] in negative, imperative, a nd causative constructions, and in the tense/aspect/mood system. 2. VERB FORMATION IN MAYRINAX ATAYAL. Languages may have various ways of forming verbs. In this section, we will investigate how verbs are formed in Mayrinax Atayal. The language has words that are inherent verbs. As pointed out by Huang (1995), agent-focus verbs appearing in affirmative imperatives are considered to be basic forms [5] that are also used in agent-focus realis negative declaratives. These verbs can be further affixed with varying focus markers, tense/aspect/mood markers, and/or causative markers, with or without overt affixation, depending on, among other factors, which argument is in focus (e.g., agent, patient, location, instrument; or beneficiary) and what syntactic construction a given verb is being used in (e.g., declarative or imperative, affirmative or negative). In addition to the above-mentioned inherent verbs and their derivatives affixed with different focus, tense/aspect/mood, and/or causative markers, Mayrinax Atayal has verbs whose basic forms are derived from nouns affixed with either a causative marker, a stative marker, a preposition, or a zero-morpheme focus marker, [6] as exemplified in (I-4). [7] (I) Verbs derived from nouns affixed with the causative marker pa-: a. …

Concerning ka-, an Overlooked Marker of Verbal Derivation in Formosan Languages

Concerning ka-, an Overlooked Marker of Verbal Derivation in Formosan Languages1 Elizabeth Zeitoun and Lillian M. Huang Abstract Blust (1999) shows that in Pazeh, a moribund Formosan language, causativized dynamic verbs are morphologically marked by pa-, while stative verbs are prefixed by paka-. He argues that this language provides "critical evidence" for distinguishing the two grammatically conditioned variants *pa- and *paka- in PAN. Blust's reconstruction overshadows, however, a morphological pattern found across many Formosan languages. We demonstrate that (i) in many Formosan languages where the causative pa-/paka- alternation is found, paka- is better analyzed as a bimorphemic prefix, whereby pa- indicates causativity and ka- stativity, and that (ii) the reanalysis of *pa-ka- as paka- and/or the replacement of this form in stative verbs must have taken place at a later stage in the history of the Austronesian languages. This analysis accounts for the synchronic variation across the Austronesian languages, and the Formosan languages in particular, with respect to this matter. 1. Introduction. In a recent paper, Blust (1999) shows that, when causativized, dynamic verbs in Pazeh are morphologically marked by pa-, while stative verbs are prefixed by paka-.2 This contrast is illustrated in (1a) and (1b) respectively. (1) Pazeh (Blust 1999:347-348)3 a. mu-dader 'choke on something' pa-dader 'cause to choke' b. ma-ngesen 'afraid' paka-ngesen 'to frighten' [End Page 391] Blust argues that Pazeh provides "critical evidence" for distinguishing the two grammatically conditioned variants *pa- and *paka- in PAN:4 "*pa- formed the causative of dynamic verbs and *paka- the causative of stative verbs" (Blust 1999:356-357). He further supports his claim by showing that these two prefixes are widely distributed across the Austronesian languages. Table 1, taken from Blust (1999:357), gives examples that reflect the *pa-/paka- alternation. In our view, Blust's (1999) reconstruction overshadows a morphological pattern found across many Formosan and extra-Formosan languages, where dynamic and stative verbs differ from one another morphologically, depending on whether they occur in their "finite" forms or "nonfinite" forms. It is the contention of this paper that in most Formosan languages where the causative pa-/paka- alternation is found, there is reason to believe that paka- should be analyzed as a bimorphemic prefix whereby pa- indicates causativity and ka- stativity.5 It is shown that ka- Click for larger view View full resolution Table 1. Sample Reflexes of PAN *Pa- and *Paka- 'Causative' in Austronesian Languages* [End Page 392] represents the counterpart of (stative) ma- (~Ø). Both are stem-forming affixes that appear on stative verbs: ka- occurs exclusively in nonfinite verb stems, ma- (~Ø) in finite verb stems. It is further suggested that (i) *pa- and *ka-,6 along with (stative) *ma-, should be reconstructed as distinct morphemes in PAN, and (ii) the reanalysis of *pa-ka- as paka- and/or the replacement of this form in stative verbs must have taken place at a later stage of the history of the Austronesian languages. This analysis accounts for the synchronic variations across the Austronesian and the Formosan languages in particular. In section 2, we first review the evidence put forward by Blust (1999) for distinguishing two causative forms (cf. pa- vs. paka-) in Pazeh. In section 3, we argue that paka- should be treated as a bimorphemic prefix in Pazeh and provide external evidence to support this claim. The languages7 on which our analysis is founded include Atayal (Mayrinax), Seediq (Paran and Truku), Rukai (Mantauran) and (Southern) Paiwan.8 In the last section, we present data on (extra-) Formosan languages in which pa-ka- has been reanalyzed (Saisiyat), replaced (Bunun and Thao), or neutralized (Yami) or where the dynamic/stative distinction is not overtly marked on the morphological level (Tsou) and we hypothesize that in many such languages, pa-ka- must have later been reanalyzed as paka-. 2. Review of Blust's (1999) Analysis. Blust shows that dynamic verbs are prefixed with different focus AF affixes, mu-, me-, mi-, ma1- and m1-, but that the occurrence of these affixes is conditioned by two factors. The first is phonological; the second, semantic. Phonologically, me- can be treated as an allomorph...

Squib: Dynamic vs. Stative Verbs in Mantauran (Rukai)

Squib: Dynamic vs. Stative Verbs in Mantauran (Rukai)

Dynamic vs. Stative Verbs in Mantauran (Rukai)

L'A. etudie l'alternance morphologique des langues formosanes entre les verbes dynamiques et les verbes statifs dans leurs formes finies et non finies. Il s'interesse aux verbes statifs a la forme non finie marques par le prefixe ka- et presente une liste exhaustive de toutes les constructions qui induisent cette forme verbale afin de montrer que dans la plupart des langues formosanes, et particulierement en mantauran (dialecte rukai), ka- doit etre considere comme un morpheme distinct qui apparait avec les verbes statifs a la forme non finie comme l'equivalent de l'affixe de formation du radical ma-. Enfin, l'A. examine le paradigme qui structure le marquage des verbes dynamiques et statifs