Inchoative Verbs Research Articles

Inchoative verbs in constructions with infinitives in 16th‒17th century Russian sources: Searching for the difference

The article focuses on the study of differences between phase verbs in constructions with infinitive clause in the 16th‒17th century Russian writing. The verbs under discussion are: načati, počati, jati, učati, and stati, as well as the verb byti, which does not belong to phase ones, but competes with them in the simple future tense form. The study is limited to the constructions with auxiliary verbs in the perfective present tense form, i. e., those that refer to the future. The data was collected from the Middle Russian subcorpus of the Russian National Corpus. Contexts from the corpus are classified according to the following parameters: auxiliariness, infinitive, agency/non-agency and telicity/atelicity/punctivity of the predicate in the infinitive form, aspectual semantics of the construction (phasal, iterative, habitual, general factual, durative-continuative meanings), the type of the clause in question, the date and the title of the source, its register and genre. It was found that each periphrastic construction has a unique set of properties associated with the paradigmatic limitations of the auxiliary verb, tendency to occur in a certain clause type, register and genre. The constructions are sensitive to various semantic features of infinitive and aspectual semantics of the context. It is argued that constructions with the verb učnu are less associated with the expression of inchoativity since they are attested in the contexts uncommon for inchoative verbs. Two distinct clusters of periphrastic constructions are distinguished: older constructions with the verbs načnu, počnu and imu and newer ones with the verbs učnu, stanu and budu.

мантика начала: корпусное исследование глаголов начинательной семантики в истории русского языка

The paper discusses the problem of semantic evolution of the language units. It focuses on the semantics and collocation of the inchoative verbs: nachatisja, pochatisja, zachatisja, nastati, nastupiti, vozniknuti, pojavitisja in the Middle Russian writing. The research is based on the historical modules of the Russian National Corpus, historical dictionaries and card indices of the Dictionary of the Russian Language of the 11 th – 17 th centuries. The primary parameter for comparing inchoative verbs is the taxonomic class of a noun used as the main participant in the situation. The author argues that, in earlier period, the main inchoative verbs were verbs with the root -chn- and the verb nastati; their collocation was much wider than in contemporary Russian (they could collocate with almost any class of a noun). The high-code verb vozniknuti co-occurred with nouns that categorize such types of objects that can "rise", i.e., appear moving from bottom to top. On the contrary, the verb nastupiti co-occurred with nouns denoting entities and phenomena, which cover a large space and move horizontally. The verb pojavitisja collocated with the nouns of various phenomena, which can be perceived by senses. The verbs nastupiti, pojavitisja, vozniknuti are noted to have expanded their collocation gradually, taking over some meanings of the verbs nachatisja and nastati, which tended to narrow their collocation. Other verbs with the root -chn- ceased to be used.

Предикатите за състояние от гледна точка на фазисната деривация: българско-руски паралели

The paper presents a contrastive analysis of the possibilities of forming inchoative verbs from state predicates in Bulgarian and Russian. The derivational patterns under consideration are much more productive in Bulgarian, but the aspectual properties of predicates impose significant constraints on their combinability with inchoative prefixes in both languages. The possibility of forming an inchoative verb can serve as a reliable diagnostic of a predicate’s membership to a particular ontological category within the semantic typology of predicates.

Theme Vowels e and i in Russian: Implementing the Cartographic Approach

The paper deals with the Russian theme vowels that can be regarded as derivational suffixes, in particular, with e- and i-vowels. The former derives emission verbs or inchoative verbs, whereas the latter derives causatives (both dynamic and stative), unergative behaviour-related verbs, and some others. I propose a uniform explanation of the fact that the same theme vowel can give rise to different structural types of verbs. I argue that, semantically, the best way to capture the differences between the two vowels is to implement the Ramchand’s model of predicate decomposition, where e-vowel encodes the process sub-event and i-vowel the initial sub-event.

Verbal aspect in the acquisition of Latvian as a foreign language

The article addresses verbal aspect in the acquisition of Latvian as a foreign language. Latvian textbooks both in Latvian and in other languages, as well as Japanese learners’ writings are analysed to explore this topic. The main issue is the use of verbs expressing the aspectual opposition perfective / imperfective, as well as the opposition inchoative / stative, and other Aktionsart prefixed verbs. Verbal aspect in Latvian is an implicit category. It is one of the few categories described in Latvian grammars but less frequently addressed in the textbooks of Latvian as a foreign language. The analysis shows that in the initial stage learners may use mostly imperfective non-prefixed verbs when denoting habitual situations in the present tense. The necessity of perfective prefixed verbs arises in the preterit, when learners describe a concrete, single situation that has taken place in the past. Without knowing the notion of aspectual opposition and corresponding perfective prefixed verbs, learners often use imperfective verbs. A similar situation is observed for the inchoative prefixed verbs, which learners replace with the imperfective stative verbs that they have already acquired. The use of other Aktionsart prefixed verbs seems difficult for learners and requires a higher, “native-like” level of proficiency.

De Spaanse inchoatiefconstructie in beeld. Clusteranalyse als antwoord op het quasi-synonymie vraagstuk

This study about the productivity and the near-synonymy of the inchoative construction in Peninsular Spanish reveals that at least 25 verbs can enter the auxiliary slot. These auxiliaries are recruited from six semantic domains: (1) superlexical inherent inchoative verbs, (2) put verbs, (3) throw verbs, (4) movement verbs, (5) manual manipulation verbs and (6) verbs of destruction. This study confirms that a hierarchical cluster analysis is suited to investigate the near-synonymy of semantically related verbs as it unfolds interesting clusters for the inchoative auxiliaries. Concretely, the hierarchical cluster analysis divides the auxiliaries into three clusters. A first one with the superlexical auxiliaries (comenzar, empezar and iniciar), a second cluster with the put verbs (meter and poner) and a third cluster with the less grammaticalized and more lexicalized auxiliaries echarse and romper.

Notes on actionality in two Nguni languages of South Africa

This paper presents some key findings of studies of actionality and the verbal grammar–lexicon interface in two Nguni Bantu languages of South Africa, Xhosa and Southern Ndebele. We describe interactions between grammatical tense marking (and other sentential bounding elements) and lexical verb types, arguing for the salience of inchoative verbs, which lexically encode a resultant state, and, in particular, a sub-class of inchoative verbs, biphasal verbs, which encode both a resultant state and the “coming-to-be” phase leading up to that state. We further discuss other important features of actional classes in Xhosa and Southern Ndebele, including topics such as the role of participant structure and the relative importance of cross-linguistically prominent distinctions such as that between Vendlerian activities and accomplishments. Although differences between Xhosa and Southern Ndebele are evident both in the behaviour of individual tense-aspect forms and in the interpretive possibilities of specific verbs, the general patterns are quite similar. This similarity suggests that the patterns are likely to extend to other Nguni languages, as well, and that cross-linguistic comparison of particular lexical items across these languages are both feasible and likely to bear fruit.

SELECTIONAL PREFERENCES OF THE SUFFIX -IFY IN NAMES OF SOME MOBILE APPS IN ENGLISH

We are witnessing an increase in the number of formations with the verb-forming suffix -ify, the majority of which are names of websites, mobile apps or internet-based services, e.g. Androidify, Connectify or Fatify. The aim of this paper is to provide insight into the selectional behaviour of -ify in these new formations and determine whether there are any indications of some new trends. The suffix -ify typically occurs with Latinate bases to form causative or inchoative verbs such as intensify or mummify (Bauer, Huddleston 2002; Plag 1999). The rivalry with -ize is mainly resolved by phonological constraints: -ize occurs after one or more unstressed syllables, while -ify is always preceded by a stressed syllable. This means that -ify attaches to either monosyllabic bases or polysyllabic bases stressed on the ultimate (Plag 1999, 2003). It is uncommon for neologisms with -ify to show stress shift (Plag 2003: 93). While some of the new formations are clearly compliant with these rules and tendencies, some are not. For example, there are some formations with non-Latinate bases (Dollify), some that require a shift of stress (Androidify) and some that attach to verbal bases (Distractify). By combining corpus search results (Corpus of Contemporary American English (Davies 2008-), Corpus of Global Web-Based English (Davies 2013), iWeb Corpus (Davies 2018-)), Google Play Store data and other sources (in particular Johnson 2014a), we investigate a list of 442 new words with -ify in order to ascertain whether the suffix -ify is changing as regards its selectional preferences described above.

러시아어 기동 동사의 조어 의미적 구조와 생성 메커니즘

러시아어 기동 동사의 조어 의미적 구조와 생성 메커니즘

Mbyá resultatives and the structure of causation

In Mbyá, target state resultative predicates can only be derived from inchoative verbs. This is in contrast with target state adjectival passives in better studied languages such as English, German and Greek, which can be derived from transitive causatives. I argue that the limited distribution of Mbyá resultatives reveals a point of variation in the association between roots and external-argument introducing Voice heads: while roots of non-agentive transitive causatives need not be lexically associated to agent or causer Voice in English and similar languages, they do in Mbyá. Together with the well documented incompatibility of target state resultatives with agent/causer Voice, this difference explains the restricted distribution of Mbyá resultatives. The proposed analysis stresses the importance of the distinction between target states and resultant states in the structure of adjectival passives and related resultative predicates cross-linguistically.

The gradual acquisition of clitic “se” in Spanish L2

Abstract In this study, we analyse the nature of clitic “se” and low applicatives in Spanish L2 through the study of the non-native acquisition of this clitic by L1 English adult learners. In particular, we are going to discuss the question of how English adults acquire this clitic in the different syntactic configurations where it appears (anticausative inchoative verbs, inherent reflexive verbs, transitive verbs implying an inalienable possession relation, consumption verbs and non-anticausative inchoative verbs). Our main research hypothesis is that the acquisition of clitic “se” with some types of applicatives takes place in the later stages of the learning process, since it requires exposure to certain linguistic evidence to acquire a certain type of argument structure proper to applicatives. This study is going to be based on how our subjects perform using Grammaticality Judgment Tests (GJTs).

The origin of the Baltic inchoative in -sta-

Abstract According to the majority view, the Baltic class of inchoative verbs in -sta- continues, mutatis mutandis, PIE sḱe/o-presents. However, important details remain unclear, which makes the connection a mere hypothesis. The present paper derives all formal and functional properties of the Baltic sta-category from the PIE sḱe/o-(desiderative-)inchoative, formulates a sound law responsible for the phonological shape of the suffix -sta-, and seeks to substantiate the proposed law with independent evidence. A Balto-Slavic change sḱ > st has been surmised before, but it has never been properly demonstrated for Baltic and is falsifiable when it comes to Slavic.

The effectiveness of advance organizers versus textual enhancement on learning inchoatives and unaccusatives

This study was an attempt to investigate the effectiveness of advance organizers and textual Enhancement (TE) on the acquisition of inchoative and unaccusative verbs by EFL learners. A hundred EFL Persian-speaking learners in four intact classes constituted the groups. One of the experimental groups was exposed to Intralingual advance organizers (Intra-AOs). The second group received Interlingual advance organizers (Inter-AOs), and the third one was presented with textually enhanced material. The results of the study indicated that with unaccusative verbs, the TE and Intra-AO groups outperformed the Inter-AO group, with a statistically significant difference. With inchoative verbs, on the other hand, all the experimental groups performed similarly well with no significant difference between and among them. The implications of the results for theory and practice are discussed.

Meaning and translation in linguistic fieldwork

This paper is set within the context of semantic typology, focusing on the collection of semantic data during fieldwork on under-described languages. The study explores central issues of meaning and translation through the example of the investigation of the lexical meaning and part of speech of property-denoting expressions in West Chadic languages, which demonstrated that these expressions are inchoative verbs. It focuses on identifying the various points where the meaning of translation equivalents intruded into the semantic analysis, thus obscuring the meaning of the expressions under investigation. The paper addresses the ambivalent nature of translations, the role of contextual information, and the (dis)advantages of different methods. It shows how the interaction of various sources of information enables us to move beyond translation equivalents towards a semantic analysis, and eventually to semantic comparisons.

When I started to using BLUR

This article introduces BLUR, an electronic corpus of Blues lyrics from the early twentieth century, as a valuable resource for the study of syntactic phenomena in Earlier African American English and investigates the properties and origins of a peculiar construction found in it. The design of the BLUR corpus is presented, and methodological consequences resulting from the nature of the texts are discussed. Subsequently, a few noteworthy syntactic structures documented in it are briefly illustrated. The most challenging of these, a sequence of inchoative verbs (notably begin, start, or commence), the particle to, and a verbal –ing form, as in begin to falling, is then analyzed in some detail, considering syntactic constraints and historical documentation in potentially related varieties, represented by electronic corpora and other sources from Late Middle English to present-day dialects. Based on these findings, a hypothesis on the likely origins and diffusion of this construction is developed.

Konceptualioji metafora vertime

Collocations of thought with a verb viewed from a multilingual perspective, using the translation of one novel into five languages as the basis for the pilot study, demonstrated a variety of ways to render collocational patterns and lexicogrammatical meanings. It can be stated that the original collocational patterns are preserved to a different extent in translations, which reveal systemic means to verbalise the notion of thought. The general meaning of initiation (as in the case of inchoative verbs of appearance) and duration (verbs of motion) of actions and processes of thought combined with the syntactic function of the noun thought is preserved in the translations. Lexical meanings of metaphoric verbs and nouns collocating with thought, as rendered in the translations, range from the more universal to language specific and comprise intermediate cases within the scale. Part of these metaphors (in our case personification of thought with the help of verbs of motion, some metaphors from nominal and prepositional phrases) are rendered by similar metaphors in translation while metaphoricity of others (metaphors denoting the occurance, existance and possesion of thought and the nominal metaphor train of thoughts) is not preserved. The very possibility of rendering metaphors from one language into another allows to talk about language universal and specific metaphors.

On the event structures of -ung nominals in German

This paper deals with one of the most productive word-formation patterns in German: -ung nominals denoting events, such as Entdeckung or Erblindung. They are derived by attaching the suffix -ung to a verb stem. Not all of these derivations are grammatical, a fact that has often been related to the inherent temporal properties (the Aktionsart) of the base verb. It can easily be shown, however, that verbs belonging to one and the same Aktionsart sometimes allow the derivation of an -ung nominal and sometimes do not. For instance, die Erblindung des Mannes the man's becoming blind', corresponding to the sentence der Mann erblindet the man becomes blind', is possible, whereas *die Erbluhung der Rose the blossoming of the rose', corresponding to the sentence die Rose erbluht the rose begins to blossom', is not. But the two verbs, erblinden and erbluhen, belong to the same class of inchoative verbs. In this paper, I will suggest a different analysis of the inherent event structure of verbs, one that allows a more appropriate prediction of grammatical and ungrammatical derivations. Furthermore, it is argued that -ung nominalization preserves the event structure of the underlying verb but makes it accessible for modification on the syntactical level.

Marking of verb transitivity by Hebrew-speaking children

The study examines children's command of transitivity permutations in Hebrew, where a change in verb-argument syntax entails a change in verb-morphology. 30 children aged two, three and eight were required to produce existing and novel Hebrew verbs differing in transitivity. Younger children showed a good grasp of the syntax and semantics, but not the morphological marking of transitivity, three-year-olds did much better, and eight-year-olds produced mainly adult-like responses. Results were higher on existing verbs than on novel forms. Direction of change had little effect with existing verbs, but with novel verbs success was much higher in changing intransitive to transitive forms than the converse. Some alternations proved easier than others, e.g. intransitive activity verbs in the basic pa'al verb-pattern yielded more causative hif'il forms than intransitive inchoative verbs in the nif'al pattern. Findings throw light on the development of derivational morphology, item-based versus class-based learning, and the impact of lexical productivity and language-particular properties on acquisition.

Structure Preservation and Mohawk Inchoative Verbs

Proceedings of the Eighteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: General Session and Parasession on The Place of Morphology in a Grammar (1992), pp. 261-275

The conjugation of inchoative verbs in Shona

The conjugation of inchoative verbs in Shona