12.1460, Sum: Event Structure (Part 2)
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LINGUIST List: Vol-12-1460. Thu May 31 2001. ISSN: 1068-4875.
Subject: 12.1460, Sum: Event Structure (Part 2)
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=================================Directory=================================
1)
Date: Thu, 31 May 2001 12:52:55 +0200
From: Andrea Schalley <andrea at cis.uni-muenchen.de>
Subject: Event Structure (Part 2)
-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------
Date: Thu, 31 May 2001 12:52:55 +0200
From: Andrea Schalley <andrea at cis.uni-muenchen.de>
Subject: Event Structure (Part 2)
(Part 1 is posting 12.1389)
I am really overwhelmed by all the responses to the sum I
posted on the 21st. I got so many replies with very interesting
information. So I thought a second sum would be a good idea. Here it
is, listing the replys that I received up to now in an alphabetical
orders of the contributors. The discussion is still going on but I'd
already like to say a very big thank for the wonderful help I got!
Andrea
--------------------------------------------------
Turkay Bulut:
--------------
I would like to contribute your research from Turkish. Fetch
in means "gidip getirmek which is to go and bring back." If you need
further help from
Turkish, am willing to supply it.Good luck!
Tim Dunnigan:
---------------
Here is how Hmong speakers talk about fetching.
mus nqa ib khob dej rov los
go/take hold/one/cup/water/go~come back/come back.
fetch a cup of water
ib khob dej ('a cup of water') can be understood rather than expressed
rov los can be expanded to rov qab los, where the collocation rov qab
means, 'return' or 'go~come back'
Qian Gao:
----------
I don't know much about this topic. But from what I see in the discussio
n, the English verb 'to fetch' does not seem to be composed of three event.
According to Michael Swan, if it is good to say 'go and fetch' or 'go to
fetch', it may mean that the 'go' event is only conventionally implied,
not semantically included in the super event of 'fetch'. This is just what I
thought. I may be wrong.
In Chinese, the 'go-take-come' has to be expressed in three verbs
(seria verb construction) qu-na-lai.
One more note. In the question, the subevents are said to be: 1) going
to some place, 2) taking something, and 3) coming (to the deictic
center). Does it mean that the English verb 'to fetch' entails that
after taking somethin g, the taker has to go back to the original
place that is nearer to the speaker. For instance, can we say
something like 'come and fetch it (yourself)', meaning someone from a
place away from us to come to us to get something and than return (to
the place he left). I ask this question, because in Chinese, the third
event may be expressed by a different verb 'hui' (meaning 'return to
the original place').
Correct me if I am wrong.
AND IN FURTHER MAILS:
The differene between lai and hui in Chinese is that 'hui' presumes
that there is a 'go/come' event and it means 'come/go back', while
'lai' only means 'come' (from a point further away from the speaker to
the point of (or nearer to) the speaker. For instance, I live in
Columbus, Ohio. I ca ll someone in Boston to go to London to get
something and bring it back to Boston. In this case, I use 'qu-na-hui'
('go-take-return'). If I want someone in Boston to go to London to
take something but bring it to Columbus, I must use 'qu-na-lai'
('go-take-come'). I must point out that in Chinese, this is only a
serial verb constructruction. The 'take' event c an be repaced by
other events like 'buy' (i.e. 'qu-mai-lai': go to London t o buy
something and bring it here) or 'borrow' (i.e. 'qu-jie-lai': go to
London to borrow a book and bring it here).
Viatscheslav Iatsko:
------------------- Concerning your inquiry on the Linguist
List. Russian distinguishes between two verbs: nesti (3Dbring), and
prinesti (3Dfetch). The second verb is derivative with the suffix
'pri', though both verbs have the same root morpheme. The verb 'nesti'
has the meaning 'to move holding something in hands' and it seems that
apart from the three components you mentioned (1) going to some place,
2) taking something, and 3) coming (to the deictic center) there is
one more: holding something, hence the similarity between German
'holen' and English 'hold'. Basing o n your classification I can say
that the prefix in the second verb (prines ti) expresses meanings (2)
and (3). Along with "nesti' and 'prinesti' there is one more verb in
the paradigm -'otnesti', which expresses meanings (2) and (1) (taking
something and going to some place). Being a synthetic language Russian
is inclined to express additional meanings by suffixes.
John Koontz:
--------------
By way of a preliminary response, Siouan languages tend to handle this
sort of thing with serial verbs. I am interested in this family
especially in connection with Omaha-Ponca, but also comparatively.
There's a general, but somewhat out of date discussion of Siouan
motion verbs by Allan Taylor in the International Journal of American
Linguisti cs c. 1976 or so. It just summarizes the basic system, with
some very incomplete mention of compounds of the strictly motional
sort.
The basic system in Mississippi Valley and Mandan (together, Central
Siouan) distinguishes eight stems representing the combinations of
factors here/there, travelling/arriving, non-vertitive/vertitive. The
other branches have fewer distinctions under arriving, or make them
with a different set of stems.
The feature vertitive is referred to materials on other families as
ventive or versive, and refers to travel homeward or to another
starting point. In Omaha-Ponca the homeward sense is dominant. Some
of the languages have developed ways to offer finer gradations in the
here/there or travelling/arriving domains, e.g., here/to you/yonder or
setting out/travelling/arriving.
Typical motion only compounds use combinations of arriving
here/setting out or travelling there to indicate 'pass by here'.
Other patterns of compounds combine motion + posture into forms like
'arrive and stand'.
In the Dhegiha and Chiwere languages there are an elaborate series of
aorist (start/suddenly/repeatedly) auxiliaries that combine positional
and motion roots (not quite the full set) with optional reduplication
and causative. These are moribund in the more familiar Dakotan
language.
Getting more into the area of your interest, senses like 'pursue' or
'bring' are generally compounded of 'having' or 'taking' + motion
verbs. I do not specifically recall 'fetch' in Omaha-Ponca, but I
know that some Siouan languages have 'fetchitive' formations involving
transitivizing prefixes or proclitics (morphologized serial
constructions).
AND IN A FURTHER MAILS:
So, I need to send you citations for:
Allan Taylor's IJAL article on Siouan motion verbs.
Boas & Deloria's 1941 Academy of Science grammar of Dakota.
Randy Graczyk's dissertation on Crow.
---
> Allan Taylor's IJAL article on Siouan motion verbs.
Taylor, Allan R. 1976. On verbs f motion in Siouan languages. IJAL
42.4:287-296.
> Boas & Deloria's 1941 Academy of Science grammar of Dakota.
Boas, Franz; Deloria, Ella. 1941. Dakota Grammar. Memoirs of the
National Academy of Sciences 23 (Pt. 2), Washington, DC: GPO.
There are several reprint editions. Try Amazon.com.
See, e.g., pp. 84, 85, 86, 92-97, 101.
You'd probably also want to consult: 1971/1983. A dictionary ... of
Teton Sioux ..., compiled by Rev. Eudgene Buechel, S.J., and edited by
Rev. Paul Manhart, S.J., ... Institute of Indian Studies, U of SD,
Vermillion, SD, and the Red Cloud Indian School, Inc., Holy Rosay
Mission, Pine Ridge, SD.
> Randy Graczyk's dissertation on Crow.
Try the list of Americanist dissertations at http://www.ssila.org.
---
Here is a Web reference to a summary on compound
non-transitive motion verbs in Omaha-Ponca:
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A23Dind9904&L3Dsiouan&P3DR583
Note that dh in this is edh, and VN is nasalized V. The transcription
is defined in the FAQ at http://spot.colorado.edu/~koontz.
Vern M. Lindblad:
-------------------
My feeling is that _fetch_ is almost always used paired with another
word that can be analyzed as encoding one of the three subcomponents
that you describe. The first pair that I am thinking of is _go fetch_
where go3D1 and fetch3D2,3. The second pair that I am thinking of is
_fetch me_ where fetch3D1,2 and me3D3. I am not denying that _fetch_
includes all three subcomponents, but I have a hunch that a corpus
investigation would reveal that a very high percentage of occurrences
include overt expression of either 1 or 3.
Zouhair Maalej:
-----------------
Sorry I haven't seen your post before, and I hope you don't mind my late
commenting on the event structure of "fetch" in three languages I know.
I have always had to grapple with this and other verbs in my translation
studies courses with my students.
I have no references to give, but it seems to me that "fetch" is a
complex event verb made up of three sub-events: (i) going, (ii)
searching, (iii) bringing back. In English, "fetch" is packaged with
all of them in spite of the existence of "go and fetch," in which "go"
expresses a sort of redundancy or overlap with sub-event (i). As a
confirmation, The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary gives the
following metalinguistic explanation for "fetch": "go in search of and
bring back." In French, the concept does not exist as such, i.e. not
in the way it is packaged in English, and two sub-events are
explicitly stated while (iii) is logically presupposed. As
Prof. Khalifa rightly said, the French say "va chercher" (literally,
go to search). In Arabic (MSA and Tunisian Arabic), however, it is
(iii) that is packaged with (i) and (ii). We say ?aati (MSA) jiib (TA)
(bring), which presupposes going and searching, and, of course,
bringing back, but it is (iii) which serves as an umbrella concept for
fetching. This is an instance of how languages conceptualise events by
choosing which sub-events to foreground and background.
AND IN FURTHER MAILS:
>Am I correct in assuming that in Arabic you literally say BRING, thus
>explicitly stating (iii) but intending more than that by presupposing
(i) and (ii)?
[ZM] I am definitely positive about this. The verbs "?aati" and "jiib"
(bring) are deictically further from the centre (i.e. the speaker),
which assumes moving away from the deictic centre in search of sth,
then back again to the deictic centre. So both verbs have a trajectory
as a centre-periphery image-schema (i.e. where moving away from and to
the deictic centre are obligatory). However, verbs like "?i?Tini"
(give me, in MSA) and "?a?Tiini" (give me, TA) presuppose proximity to
the deictic centre, and no such image-schematic structure is possible.
John Mackin:
-------------
A few additional comments:
In my kind of English (Midwest American), "fetch" is a word with
restricted usage
1) used a command for dogs: Fetch!
2) dialectical usage: [Go] fetch me a cold beer from the fridge,
will ya!
I would usually say:
3) Go get the book on the top shelf, will you please
4) Get me the book on the top shelf, please
5) Bring me the book on the top shelf, please
(1), (2 without "go"), (4) and (5) have three subevents with the
emphasis on the bringing event.
(2 with "go") and (3) have have two equal main events, with fetch/get
having an implicit subevent.
Japanese has a different slant:
Sono hon wo totte kite kudasai
that book (obj) take (up) (and) come (polite command)
This covers the last two subevents and assumes the first.
I assume that Korean would have a similar grammatic construction.
Bart Mathias:
-------------
It's a little odd, to my mind, that no one has given Japanese, Korean,
Chinese, Polynesian, etc., etc., examples.
It would be nice if a native speaker would respond to your query, but
for what it's worth, the notion would likely be expressed in Japanese
as "tot-te k(uru)," where "tot-" 3D "tor(u)" 3D "take possession of,"
"-te" is a derivational suffix adding a meaning like "and
(temporal/logical) then" and "k(uru)" is any appropriate form of the
verb "kuru" 3D "(will) come." There is also "mot-te k-" 3D "bring"
with "mot-" 3D "hold" It works the sa me way: "glom and come," but to
my non-native intuition, there's less "go" implication.
I can't imagine "go" ("it-te" with "it-" 3D "ik[u]" 3D "go") being
included in the expression unless it was necessary to specify the
location of the it em (reezooko-ni it-te biiru totte/motte kite kure
"Go to the refrigerator and fetch/bring me a beer").
On the other hand, "go to get/go fetch" can be "tori-ni ik(u)," with
assumption of intent to return but not actual return. That is, in the
past tense, it would mean that the fetcher has gone and isn't back
yet.
The equivalent with the verb "mot(u)" (pronounced approximately [motsu])
doesn't seem to work that way; "moti [motSi]-ni ik-..." makes as
much/little sense as "go to hold."
Korean will work the same way; perhaps "kaci-ko o-," but I'm out of
practice. For some reason, I have apparently completely forgotten how to
say such things in Mandarin and Hawaiian.
AND IN FURTHER MAILS:
(hon-o) tot-te k-uru
(book-acc) take-and come-will (3D "[I?] will fetch [the book]"?)
Expressed events are of someone (the speaker or someone else--should be
clear in context) taking hold of the book and coming to speaker's arena,
both future.
Actual events include going (*probably* from speaker's arena) to where
the book is, taking hold of it, and coming to speaker's current arena,
expressed as intent or prediction of the future.
(hon-o) tot-te k-ita
(book-acc) take-and come-did (3D "[I?] fetched [the book]"?)
Same events, expressed and actual, but already realized.
(hon-o) mot-te k-uru
(book-acc) hold-and come-will (3D "[I?] will bring [the book]"?)
This time, the going-from-where-the-speaker-is-to-where-the-book-is is
left out of the actual events; otherwise, it's the same as with
"tot-te k-uru."
Ditto the "k-ita" version. I am not 100% sure that native speakers
feel this as clearly as I do, though (I have just recently retired
from 30 years of teaching Japanese, but I never attained native
competence).
(hon-o) tor-i-ni ik-u
(book-acc) take--to go-will (3D "[I?] will go fetch [the book]"?)
Expressed event, future: someone, perhaps the speaker, going towards
the location of the book, with taking hold of the book not exactly
stated, but given as the purpose of the going.
The understood/expected events include taking and maintaining hold of
the book and returning to the speaker's locale. None of it has
happened yet 2E
(hon-o) tor-i-ni it-ta
(book-acc) take--to go-did (3D "[I?] will go fetch [the book]"?)
Expressed event: someone headed for the location of the book. Already
happened.
Expected events are taking and maintaining hold of the book and
returning to the speaker's locale, sooner or later.
By the way, my hypenation of the Japanese is not standard; I did it so I
could do a morpheme-by-morpheme gloss.
---
I don't know where my Korean-English dictionary is right now. I
checked my Hawaiian-English:
fetch--ki`i, lawe. Also ho`oki`iki`i, hali, hiki, hikihiki, ukiki`i;
pukupuku mai (slang).
bring--lawe mai, hoo (properly "ho" with a macron on the "o") mai,
pane`e.
"Lawe" (and "mai") are the only words I remember learning (I took 2nd
through 4th semester of Hawaiian in 1979-80). According to the H-E
part of the same dictionary, it means "To take, accept, carry, bring;
portable; bearer" (notice no "fetch"). "Mai" means roughly "hither,"
so "lawe mai" may be like the Japanese "motte k-."
Under "ki`i," it gives "To fetch, procure, send for, go after, attack;
to seek for sexual ends." Sounds more like the Japanese "tori ni
ik-," but it will be hard to find a native speaker to verify any of my
guesses. (Of course, sometimes when you list such things in a
summary, someone who knows better will come back with a "that's all
wrong--it really works like this.")
---
One day I said I couldn't find my English-Korean dictionary. Then
later, I found out the one I thought was E-K, but when I looked at
it,it seemed to be K-E, was E-K after all! Well, if you can't follow
that wild ride, it doesn't matter; what does is that I looked up
"fetch" and "bring" in it, with interesting results.
"Fetch" is given as "ka-se kacye o-ta," where "ka-" is "go," "-se" is
one of several "and"s, maybe one sort of "and then," "kacye" is a form
of "kaci-ta" "to pick up, hold," and "o-" is "come" (let's pass the
"-ta" off as the "dictionary-form" ending).
As you noticed immediately, this has all three events tied together!
I frankly suspect that this is more a dictionary definition of "fetch"
than what people really say, but I could very well be wrong about
that.
"Bring" was defined the same way, without the initial "ka-se" 3D "go
and." There were some one-word glosses the words as well, but I can't
evaluate their event structure. By the way, I'm using Yale
romanization, one of several ways to write Korean with latin letters.
Another taste of data to chew...
Dennis McConville :
-------------------
I thought it might interest you if you had some information from a
different language - in this case Thai - although my knowledge of that
language is not very good. However, good enough to be able to discuss
the matter with my Thai wife.
Holen or fetch is rendered in Thai as (my transcription): /pai lenamah/
literally 'go and bring'. Interestingly though there is also an other
expression: /pai ow/ literally 'go get' and /pai rap/ literally 'go
collect' or 'go pick up'. Interesting since only one requires 'and'
between the events.
I rather suspect that something similar happens in other S.E. Asian
languages but I am not familiar enough with them.
Andrew McIntyre:
----------------
ich habe gerade die Summary B8ber 'fetch' in der Liguistlist
gesehen. Ich wB8rde sehr gerne wissen, was bei der Untersuchung
rauskommt. Ich arbeite an 89hnlichen Problemen, aber mir geht es eher
um die Frage, was fB8r Ereigniskombinationen eine VP (also nicht bloFE
ein Verbstamm) ausdrB8cken kann, und wie sich das in der
Argumentstruktur niederschl89gt. In hoffe ntlich wenigen Tagen werde
ich ein abstract zu dem Thema fertig haben. Ich erlaube mir, ein paar
Gedanken aufzuschreiben zum Thema 'fetch' usw.
(Vielleicht ist manches schon bekannt.)
Neben den von versch. Leuten erw89hnten Konstruktionen vom Typ 'go and
fetch it' bwz. 'go to fetch it' hat English so eine Art serial verb
constructioget it, go find it, go look, go fetch it
M.W. gibt es das nur mit 'go' als linkem Verbstamm. Die Konstruktionen
sind sehr interessant, weil sie in keinen Kontexten vorkommen, wo
(overte) Flexionsmorphologie erforderlich ist. Es gibt keine solchen
Flexionsprobleme im Franz88sichen bei 'aller chercher' und im
Deutschen:
wir sind eine rauchen gegangen.
sie geht arbeiten
Vielleicht sind die englischen Konstruktionen linksk88pfige oder
exozentrische Komposita, aber das ist nocht keine Erkl89rung fB8r die
Flexionsprobleme, weil in parallelen F89llen im nominalen Bereich die
Flexion zul89ssig ist: 'bailouts, sister(s)-in-law(s)'.
Ich hatte mir B8berlegt, ob man das erste Teilereignis bei 'fetch'
(also die Fortbewegung vom Ausgangsort) unbedingt in der lexikalischen
Bedeutung vom Verb festschreiben muFE; vielleicht k88nnte man es als
Implikatur ansehen. Aber das kann bei 'fetch' nicht stimmen
(u.a. weil sich 'bring' und 'fetch' im (Nicht-)Vorhandensein der
vermeintlichen Implikatur eindeutig unterscheiden, und sonst an kaum
etwas); 'holen' ist schwieriger. Man kannz.B. 'etwas aus seiner Tasche
rausholen/hervorholen' usw,, wo kein Fortbewegung des Agens notwendig
ist, aber bei 'fetch' geht das definitiv nicht. 'fetch' kann aus
irgendwelchen GrB8nden keine direktionalen PPen an sich nehmen (*'she
fetched it to/from the office') (wobei 'fetch it back' akzeptabel ist
('back' ist glaub ich daran schuld, weil es sich in anderen
Possessivkonstruktionen ein fB8r Richtungsangaben untypisches
Verhalten aufweist). 'holen' l89FEt die Neutralisierung des
1. Teilereignisses genau dann zu, wenn eine direktionale PP als
Komplement erscheint ('er holte es' ist m.W. genau dasselbe wie 'he
fetched it' (auFEer daFE 'fetch' stilistisch markiert ist: die
H89ufigkeit ist gering, und 'fetch' wirkt
altertB8melnd-gehoben-britisch, auFEer vielleicht wenn man einen Hund
anspricht. Als Muttersprachler des (australischen) English verwende
ich 'fetch' so gut wie nie, ich wB8rde viel eher sagen '(go (and)) get
it'.
Man muFE dieses Stilproblem bei der Informantenbefragung in betracht
ziehen, und sichergehen, daFE die Leute die S89tze nicht wegen des
Stils ablehnen.)
Fiona Mc Laughlin:
------------------
The notion of "fetch" in Wolof (Atlantic, Niger-Congo) is expressed
by the verb 'jCEl' to take/get in combination with a distal verbal
suffix '-i' indicating a direction away from the speaker.
Yong-Min Shin:
---------------
im Koreanischen wird die Situation "holen"/"fetch" so wie
"gehen-nehmen-kommen" konzipiert.
In anderen Worten bildet man einen komplexen Satz, um eine solche
Situation auszudrB8cken.
Ein solches Thema wurde in dem Aufsatz von Lehmann & Shin & Verhoeven
2000 "Unfolding of situationperspectives as a typological
characteristic of languages" STUF 53, 1:71-79 behandelt.
Lameen Souag:
----------------
Another language that breaks it up: Japanese uses totte mairu,
(<toru+te mairu) 'tak-ing come/go'. For 'bring', it uses motte kuru
(<motsu+te kuru), 'hold-ing come'. I think Chinese uses a similar
structure, butI can't recall the word for fetch offhand. American
English almost never uses 'fetch', in my experience, preferring just
'get' or 'go get', so that might be an example; similarly, if I were
asked to translate 'fetch' into Algerian Arabic, I would go for ruuH
jiib, 'go bring', although that might be influence from American
English, my main language, so I would check that with another speaker.
All these examples look to me like instances of the proposed event
structure, though focusing on different parts.
Herbert F. W. Stahlke:
-----------------------------
Finding a Yoruba equivalent for "fetch" depends on choosing an argument
structure. For
He fetched me home a book from school.
Yoruba will have a verb for each argument. (Since I can't show tone on
vowels in this editor, I'll put tone marks after vowels, ' for high and
` for low, unmarked for mid.)
o' lO si' ile'iwe' mu' iwe' wa' si' ile' wa'
fun' mi
he go to school pick-up book come to house come give me
There is argument as to whether si' "to" an fun' "give" are verbs or
prepositions, argument that is so far inconclusive. How this breaks
down for event structure is a separate question, but it contains at
least four verbs, six if you count si' and fun'. There's been a lot
of work on verb serialization in Yoruba, and you might look at some of
Mark Baker's for a formal syntactic approach. In the 70s there was
lot of less theoretical descriptive work by people like Bamgbose that
is worth looking at as well.
Jess Tauber:
--------------
Hi. Just saw your post on LINGUIST. I've been working on Yahgan, an
isolate from Tierra del Fuego and the southernmost language of the
world. The dictionary I'm re-editing contains 32000 words, the vast
majority of which n either as such or also
interpretable as nominalizations in the right contexts.
Most of these are multi-root, serial forms. Roots can occur optionally
with valence-shifting prefixes. The language is SVO, as are most
serializing languages. Incipiently, the language (when still robust
during the 19th Century when the dictionary was compiled) was headed
towards what is referred to as "bipartite" stem structure as found in
many North American languages- including Atsugewi as discussed by
Talmy. This includes an instrumental/bodypart prefix complex,
stative/adjectival central root complex, and finally a
locative/pathway complex.
Flanking this central eventive core are on the left, the primary
valence shifting elements (less optional here), and on the right,
aspect/mode/tense suffixes.
The language was actively grammaticalizing presumably from an
isolating/analytical antecedent form (as one finds also in
Tibeto-Burman languages, such as Lahu (see Matisoff))- the valence
shifters appear to be coming directly out of the instrument/bodypart
set (similarly one finds that in Hokan Pomoan, for instance, that
bodypart/instrument terms have causative and other values).
The aspect markers are transparently derived from pathway/locative
elements, including forms for "sit/stand/lie/jump"-as found in many
other serializing languages- the metaphor for continuity of process is
degree of surface contact- the deepest such contact is "lie" (really
"lie within", as in sleeping snugly with your bedclothes- English has
similar ideas in "being wrapped up in" some process, "involved" etc
(lit/fig Latinwise). Sitting involves split attention but more
towards the process in question, standing more vigilant to some other
matter potentially arising, and jumping off equals complete
disengagement from the substratum, and thus sudden end to the
continuity of the process (English "coming to the end of", etc.).
Roots (and thus also the incipiently prefix and suffix elements) come
in several flavors- there is massive split for inherent singularity or
plurality (in other words, etymologically different forms describing
the "same" subevent). As grammaticalization was progressing, something
interesting was happening- some of the singular or plural inherent
forms dropped out, and new affixed forms were taking on generic
plurality or singularity functions- still more or less classificatory
depending on the original semantics of the root, so not generic
plural/singular morphology, at least not yet. In addition, further
developments included duals (mostly with animates), specific trials,
quartals, etc. Each of these forms is transparently related to the
numerals.
In addition, the root set was also divided, in many cases, into forms
describing the "same" subevent when descriptive of participants of
one's own, or belonging to someone else. I've not found this anywhere
in the literature, but suspect its there in other languages- perhaps
related, for instance, to deictic point-of-view. "Same subevent" forms
also split on whether action is done broadly (in time/space) or
narrowly (also interpretable as short/fat or long/thin, etc.). The
system is so predictable, in fact, that it creates a sort of
phonosemantic system, though one completely different from that found
in ideophones or expressives, though ultimately relatable to them.
I don't yet have enough connected discourse available to work out such
things as switch-reference, or other interesting stuff related to
serialization, but nuancing relating to the stringing of valence
shifters on succeeding roots may be part of it.
The overall time-sequence structure of verb stems seems
clear-cut. Only the interpretation is left to tweak- this probably
depends on which root is highlighted- and since accent and other
prosodic structure is unmarked its hard to determine from the data at
hand, except from the phonetics than nothing).
Since the language had to have come through an isolating/analytical
stage at some point in its typological past to get where it is now, it
would be interesting to look the development of such languages from
the other end, to see what kinds of attrition or addition was going on
lexically in order to create such a coherent system dividing up the
eventive universe into such quantized chunks for later
recombination. We know that as productive morphological derivation
breaks down increased lexicalization is the norm (look at English, for
instance, or many other IE languages as compared to the parent
PIE). Could it be, then, that the "stew" of forms is far from
arbitrary as it works out its kinks to become a new, coherent system?
Work on concept hierarchies (Eleanor Rosch, for example) might come in
here, but I don't get the impression folks here are looking at overall
integration, at least not yet).
Niina Zhang:
---------------
Thanks for the interesting summary of your inquiry.
In Chinese (the numerals are tone markers):
/qu4/ means 'go, or move away',
/na2/ means 'take/hold by hand',
/qu3/ means 'take & come',
/lai2/ means 'come'.
So "fetch obj" is either /qu4 na2 obj lai2/ or /qu4 qu3 obj/.
If one says /qu4 na2 obj/, it means to go and hold the obj, without
indicating the resultant direction (come back or go away with the obj).
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