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Mark,<br>
<br>
I agree with your comment. When I wrote that "the form in question,
"be", expresses 'give', 'make'/'do', 'become' and causation", I was
using the kind of loose language that we adopt in our everyday
discourse as linguists in order to communicate effectively with each
other, and in this particular case, in order to fish for prima facie
similar examples in other languages that LINGTYP readers might be
familiar with. Whether such a form "really" means things like
'give', 'make'/'do', 'become', etc., can only be resolved though
deeper linguistic analysis, and my own leanings are definitely
towards the kind of negative answer that you suggest, ie. towards a
unified analysis in terms of a single perhaps underspecified
function.<br>
<br>
Really nice Skou examples; I'll have some followup questions on the
data in a separate message soon.<br>
<br>
David<br>
<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 07/07/2015 10:13, Mark Donohue
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAKyRuzR6Y_1FuGEmN=awRZUBhPDVP+zMjmno=_gCCcU4peeWVw@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
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<div>Following from Eva's
point:<br>
</div>
one problem is, I think,
assuming that "the verb that
means 'do' ", and "the verb
that means 'become' " are part
of this system.<br>
</div>
We know that verbs can be
underspecified semantically (a
point Eva raises); we know that
many auxiliary constructions
employ semantically empty
inflectional entities, 'light
verbs'.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>The following Skou examples
show the verb li, and its
inflectional variants, being
used with a generic 'do' sense,
as the inflectional member of a
N+V complex predicate. Any
attempt to associate semantic
content with the verb li beyond
'verb' will fail; it simply
inflects, and has no inherently
specified valency, semantics, or
restrictions. One way to
characterise 'polysemies' is to
think not of the extension of a
meaning, but the accretion of
constructions to a semantically
'light' inflecting element.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>Skou examples:<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Ya mè=pi?<br>
</div>
<div>thing 2SG=2SG."do"<br>
</div>
<div>'What are you doing?'<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>'Auxiliary':<br>
</div>
<div>Pí nì=li mè.<br>
</div>
<div>speech 1SG=do 2SG<br>
</div>
<div>'I spoke to you.'<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Naké boeboe ke=li<br>
</div>
<div>dog growl <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://3SG.NF"
target="_blank">3SG.NF</a>="do"<br>
</div>
<div>'The dog growled.'<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>Inchoative:<br>
</div>
<div>Ke kurù ke=li.<br>
</div>
<div><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://3SG.NF"
target="_blank">3SG.NF</a>
teacher <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://3SG.NF"
target="_blank">3SG.NF</a>="do"<br>
</div>
<div>'He became a teacher.'<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
Nì pá-nì=ne fèng li.<br>
</div>
1SG house-1SG.GEN=1SG.DAT bad "do"<br>
</div>
'My house became bad.'<br>
<br>
</div>
Mè=angku-mè=me bápáli pe=li.<br>
</div>
2SG=child-2SG.GEN=2SG.DAT big 3SG.F="do"<br>
</div>
'Your daughter has grown up.'<br>
<br>
</div>
Causative:<br>
</div>
Ke=li=ko pe=fu.<br>
</div>
3SG.NF-"do"=OBJ 3SG.F=scared<br>
</div>
'He frightened her.'<br>
<br>
</div>
Pe nì=li pe pá hápa pe=tue-tue<br>
3SG.F 1SG="do" 3SG.F house small 3SG.F=RED-3SG.F."do"<br>
</div>
'I made her build a small house.'<br>
<br>
</div>
Desiderative/Irrealis:<br>
</div>
<div>Ne móe ne=yú ne ti-ti.<br>
</div>
<div>1PL fish 1PL=search.for 1PL RED-1PL."do"</div>
<div>'We're going to look for fish.'<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>Kóe=ing a te=rá-r-á ti.<br>
</div>
<div>sago=the 3PL-RED-3PL-roast 3PL."do"<br>
</div>
<div>'They want to roast the sago.'<br>
</div>
<div><br>
í bápáli nì=fue=ko nì=li-li ka.<br>
</div>
snake big 1SG=see=OBJ 1SG-RED-do NEG<br>
</div>
'I don't like seeing large snakes.' (= 'When I see large
snakes, I don't want (it).'<br>
<br>
</div>
-Mark<br>
<div>
<div>
<div><br>
<br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On 6 July 2015 at 23:43, David Gil <span
dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:gil@eva.mpg.de" target="_blank">gil@eva.mpg.de</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000"> Dear Eva,<br>
<br>
Thanks for this valuable contribution.<br>
<br>
I suspect that languages of the small Biakic subgroup of
Austronesian (Biak, Roon and Dusner) might provide a
counterexample to your proposed generalization, but I'm
not entirely sure of this. What is clear is that the form
in question, "be", expresses 'give', 'make'/'do', 'become'
and causation, without any valency-changing marking. (One
qualification: in Biak but not Roon or Dusner, the
'make'/'do' function of "be" has been largely but
apparently not entirely replaced by another lexical item,
"frur".) What I am not yet clear about is whether the
causative function of "be" in these languages is limited
to what you refer to internal causation. I suspect that it
is not, but will need to double-check this; I'm grateful
to you for driving home the importance of this
distinction.<br>
<br>
For some more information on the causative function of
"be" in Biak, I would recommend a look at pp. 392-396 of:<br>
<br>
Heuvel, Wilco van den (2006) Biak, Description of an
Austronesian Language of Papua, LOT, Utrecht.<br>
<br>
Best,<br>
<br>
David
<div>
<div class="h5"><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<div>On 06/07/2015 04:46, Eva Schultze-Berndt wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div
style="direction:ltr;font-family:Tahoma;color:#000000;font-size:14pt"><br>
<div>
<p
style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px;font-size:14px;font-family:Arial">
Dear David and all,</p>
<p
style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px;font-size:14px;font-family:Arial;min-height:16px">
<br>
</p>
<p
style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px;font-size:14px;font-family:Arial">
A do/become polysemy (even without
detransitivisation operations of any sort) is
attested in various languages – I have
described it for the Australian (W. Mirndi)
language Jaminjung (Schultze-Berndt 2000: Ch
5) and more generally in (Schultze-Berndt
2008), where I also mention Samoan (Mosel
& Hovdhaugen 1992: 113) and Yimas (Foley
1991: 293-300). </p>
<p
style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px;font-size:14px;font-family:Arial;min-height:16px">
<br>
</p>
<p
style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px;font-size:14px;font-family:Arial">
In the 2008 paper I argue that the notion of
‘internal causation’, as per Levin &
Rappaport Hovav (1994, 1995), can account for
these diverse uses of ‘do’ verbs as well as
additional uses attested cross-linguistically,
e.g. with translation equivalents of ‘happen’,
‘feel’, and ‘exhibit property’. That is, verbs
like these do not have the semantic component
of agentivity and control associated with ‘do’
verbs in an SAE perspective (and consequently
with a primitive predicate ‘DO’ in various
decompositional semantic frameworks!) but
rather encode that a participant manifests an
event, a state change, a quality or a
condition which corresponds to an inherent
property of this participant. (Cf. Levin &
Rappaport Hovav’s (1995: 91) definition of
internally caused eventualities as
“conceptualised as arising from inherent
properties of their arguments”, applied by
them to English verbs like <i>tremble</i> or
<i>glitter</i>).</p>
<p
style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px;font-size:14px;font-family:Arial;min-height:16px">
<br>
</p>
<p
style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px;font-size:14px;font-family:Arial">
In Jaminjung, the inchoative use of the verb
is indeed restricted to internally caused
state changes, e.g. ‘become big’ = ‘grow’,
‘become night’, or ‘turn into a devil’ (see
ex. below). State changes like ‘break’ or
‘open’ – corresponding to what Levin &
Rappaport Hovav (1995) term ‘externally caused
state changes’ – are encoded in Jaminjung by
complex verbs which are formed with a
different verb, ‑<i>ijga</i> ‘go’. This is the
pattern I would predict for other languages
with a ‘do’ / ‘become’ “polysemy” (without
valency change), but I would be interested to
learn otherwise.</p>
<p
style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px;font-size:14px;font-family:Arial;min-height:16px">
<br>
</p>
<p
style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px;text-align:justify;font-size:14px;font-family:Arial">
Examples from Jaminjung are below. The same
verb functions as a generalised action verb
and a speech framing verb with quotations (a
polysemy widespread in Australian languages),
an inchoative verb which encodes the
transition into a state or class, as well as a
light verb with predicates of internal motion,
light/sound emission, and physical or
emotional condition. (It does not function as
a verb of creation (‘make’) though):</p>
<ol>
<li style="margin:4px 0px
0px;font-size:14px;font-family:Arial;min-height:16px">
<i><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"></span></i><br>
</li>
<li style="margin:4px 0px
0px;font-size:14px;font-family:Arial"><i>
yurru-wu-</i><b><i>yu</i></b> </li>
</ol>
<p
style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:36px;font-size:14px;font-family:Arial">
do.what=now? <span
style="white-space:pre-wrap"></span>1PL.INCL>3SG-POT-do</p>
<p
style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:36px;font-size:14px;font-family:Arial">
‘what are we going to do?’</p>
<p
style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px;text-align:justify;font-size:14px;font-family:Arial;min-height:16px">
<br>
</p>
<p
style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px;text-align:justify;font-size:14px;font-family:Arial">
<span style="white-space:pre-wrap"></span><i>wurrguru<span
style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>nganthu-wu-</i><b><i>yu</i></b></p>
<p
style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:36px;font-size:14px;font-family:Arial">
devil <span style="white-space:pre-wrap"></span>2SG>3SG-POT-do</p>
<p
style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:36px;font-size:14px;font-family:Arial">
‘you will turn into a devil’ </p>
<p
style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:36px;font-size:14px;font-family:Arial;min-height:16px">
<br>
</p>
<ol>
<li style="margin:4px 0px
0px;font-size:14px;font-family:Arial"><i>nga</i><b><i>-yunggu</i></b><i>-m</i>
</li>
</ol>
<p
style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:36px;font-size:14px;font-family:Arial">
itchy / sad<span style="white-space:pre-wrap">
</span>1SG>3SG-do-PRS</p>
<p
style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:36px;font-size:14px;font-family:Arial">
‘I am/feel itchy/sad’ (lit.: ‘I do itchy /
sad’)</p>
<p
style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:36px;font-size:14px;font-family:Arial;min-height:16px">
<br>
</p>
<p
style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:36px;font-size:14px;font-family:Arial;min-height:16px">
<br>
</p>
<p
style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:36px;font-size:14px;font-family:Arial">
Jaminjung also uses the ‘give’ verb to form
the reflexive/reciprocal of ‘say’ since the
‘say/do’ verb is defective in this respect
(details also in Schultze-Berndt 2000).</p>
<p
style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px;text-align:justify;font-size:14px;font-family:Arial;min-height:16px">
<br>
</p>
<p
style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px;text-align:justify;font-size:14px;font-family:Arial;min-height:16px">
<br>
</p>
<p
style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px;font-size:14px;font-family:Arial">
Foley, William A. (1991). <i>The Yimas
language of New Guinea</i>. Stanford:
Stanford University Press.</p>
<p
style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:36px;font-size:14px;font-family:Helvetica">
Levin, Beth, and Malka Rappaport Hovav (1994).
'A preliminary analysis of causative verbs in
English'. <i>Lingua, 92</i>, 35-77.</p>
<p
style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:36px;font-size:14px;font-family:Helvetica">
Levin, Beth and Malka Rappaport Hovav (1995).
<i>Unaccusativity: at the syntax-lexical
semantics interface</i>. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press.</p>
<p
style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:22.7px;font-size:14px;font-family:Arial">
Mosel, Ulrike & Even Hovdhaugen (1992). <i>Samoan
Reference Grammar. </i>Oslo: Scandinavian
University Press.</p>
<p
style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:36px;font-size:14px;font-family:Arial">
Schultze-Berndt, Eva (2000). <i>Simple and
complex verbs in Jaminjung: A study of event
categorisation in an Australian language.</i>
(PhD), University of Nijmegen, Nijmegen. </p>
<p
style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:36px;font-size:14px;font-family:Arial">
Schultze-Berndt, Eva (2008). 'What do “do”
verbs do? The semantic diversity of
generalised action verbs', in Elisabeth
Verhoeven, Stavros Skopeteas, Yong-Min Shin,
Yoko Nishina and Johannes Helmbrecht (eds.), <i>Studies
on Grammaticalization</i>. Berlin: Mouton de
Gruyter, 185-208. </p>
<p
style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:36px;font-size:14px;font-family:Arial;min-height:16px">
<br>
</p>
<p
style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px;font-size:14px;font-family:Arial">
Best,</p>
<p
style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px;font-size:14px;font-family:Arial;min-height:16px">
<br>
</p>
<p
style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px;font-size:14px;font-family:Arial">
Eva</p>
<p
style="margin-right:0px;margin-left:36px;font-size:14px;font-family:Arial;min-height:16px">
<br>
</p>
<div style="font-family:Tahoma;font-size:13px">
<div style="font-family:Tahoma;font-size:13px">
<div
style="font-family:Tahoma;font-size:13px">
<div
style="font-family:Tahoma;font-size:13px">
<div
style="font-family:Tahoma;font-size:13px">
<div style="font-family:Tahoma">
<div style="font-family:Tahoma">
<div style="font-family:Tahoma">
<div
style="font-size:13px;font-family:Tahoma"><span
style="font-size:medium"><br>
</span></div>
<div
style="font-size:13px;font-family:Tahoma"><span
style="font-size:medium"><br>
</span></div>
<div
style="font-size:13px;font-family:Tahoma"><span
style="font-size:medium"><br>
</span></div>
<div
style="font-size:13px;font-family:Tahoma"><span
style="font-size:medium">-------------------------------------------------------
</span> </div>
<div
style="font-size:13px;font-family:Tahoma"><span
style="font-size:medium">Eva
Schultze-Berndt</span></div>
<div
style="font-size:13px;font-family:Tahoma"><span
style="font-size:medium">Professor
of Linguistics</span></div>
<div
style="font-size:13px;font-family:Tahoma"><span
style="font-size:medium">Linguistics
and English Language</span></div>
<div
style="font-size:13px;font-family:Tahoma"><span
style="font-size:medium">School
of Arts, Languages and
Cultures</span></div>
<div
style="font-size:13px;font-family:Tahoma"><span
style="font-size:medium">The
University of Manchester</span></div>
<div
style="font-size:13px;font-family:Tahoma"><span
style="font-size:medium">Oxford
Road</span></div>
<div
style="font-size:13px;font-family:Tahoma"><span
style="font-size:medium">M13
9PL</span></div>
<div
style="font-size:13px;font-family:Tahoma"><span
style="font-size:medium">Manchester,
UK</span></div>
<div
style="font-size:13px;font-family:Tahoma"><span
style="font-size:medium">E-mail:
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:eva.schultze-berndt@manchester.ac.uk"
target="_blank">eva.schultze-berndt@manchester.ac.uk</a></span></div>
<div style="font-family:Tahoma"><font
size="3">Office (summer
2015): S1.09b, Samuel
Alexander Building</font></div>
<div style="font-family:Tahoma"><br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Times New
Roman;color:#000000;font-size:16px">
<hr>
<div style="direction:ltr"><font color="#000000"
face="Tahoma" size="2"><b>From:</b> Lingtyp
[<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org"
target="_blank">lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>]
on behalf of Lewis Lawyer [<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:lclawyer@ucdavis.edu"
target="_blank">lclawyer@ucdavis.edu</a>]<br>
<b>Sent:</b> 04 July 2015 00:37<br>
<b>To:</b> LingTyp<br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [Lingtyp] "become"<br>
</font><br>
</div>
<div>
<div dir="ltr">
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div>Dear David,<br>
Another example for you---not a
historical source so much as a
synchronic derivation:<br>
In Patwin (Wintuan family,
Penutian "superfamily", of
California) the verb <i>lelu</i>
'make' can be reflexivized to
express the meaning 'become'.
Similar to Dr. Dryer's Walman
example, but with 'make' rather
than 'do' (<i>lelu</i> never means
'do' in Patwin). Also perhaps
more agentive than prototypical
'become', though sometimes
translated that way.<br>
<br>
(1) ču pi depi no:p
lelu-nana-t'i.<br>
</div>
I DECL also deer
make-REFL-FUT<br>
</div>
'I'm going to turn into a deer
too.' (Whistler 1977:169)<br>
<br>
</div>
(2) k'učiʔa-ro p'o:rma-ro
bo: win
lelu-nan-mu [...]<br>
</div>
small-PTCP bad-PTCP be
person make-REFL-SBJV<br>
</div>
(He) made himself a small and ugly
person. (Radin MS:103)<br>
<div>
<div>
<div><br>
<br>
</div>
Whistler, Kenneth W. 1977. Deer and
Bear Children. Speakers: Nora Lowell
and Harry Lorenzo. In Northern
California Texts, edited by Victor Golla
and Shirley Silver, 158-179.
International Journal of American
Linguistics Native American Texts Series
2(2). Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.<br>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Radin, Paul. MS. Patwin Texts.
Collected 1932, from speaker Anderson
Lowell. In the American Council of
Learned Societies Committee on Native
American Languages, American
Philosophical Society. Call number:
497.3 B63c P4b6-7.<br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div>Cheers,<br>
</div>
<div>-Lewis<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<br clear="all">
<br>
-- <br>
<div>
<div dir="ltr"><br>
Lewis C. Lawyer<br>
PhD Candidate in Linguistics<br>
University of California, Davis<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:lclawyer@ucdavis.edu"
target="_blank">lclawyer@ucdavis.edu</a></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
</div>
</div>
<span class="">
<pre cols="72">--
David Gil
Department of Linguistics
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany
Telephone: 49-341-3550321 Fax: 49-341-3550333
Email: <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:gil@eva.mpg.de" target="_blank">gil@eva.mpg.de</a>
Webpage: <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://www.eva.mpg.de/%7Egil/" target="_blank">http://www.eva.mpg.de/~gil/</a>
</pre>
</span></div>
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</blockquote>
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<br>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
David Gil
Department of Linguistics
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany
Telephone: 49-341-3550321 Fax: 49-341-3550333
Email: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:gil@eva.mpg.de">gil@eva.mpg.de</a>
Webpage: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.eva.mpg.de/~gil/">http://www.eva.mpg.de/~gil/</a>
</pre>
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