27.4340, Review: General Ling; Historical Ling; Typology: Whitt, Kotin (2015)
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Subject: 27.4340, Review: General Ling; Historical Ling; Typology: Whitt, Kotin (2015)
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Date: Thu, 27 Oct 2016 09:30:54
From: Maria Stambolieva [mstambolieva at nbu.bg]
Subject: To be or not to be? The Verbum Substantivum from Synchronic, Diachronic and Typological Perspectives
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EDITOR: Michail L. Kotin
EDITOR: Richard Jason Whitt
TITLE: To be or not to be? The Verbum Substantivum from Synchronic, Diachronic and Typological Perspectives
PUBLISHER: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
YEAR: 2015
REVIEWER: Maria Stambolieva, New Bulgarian University
Reviews Editor: Helen Aristar-Dry
SUMMARY
The papers in To be or not to be? The Verbum Substantivum from Synchronic,
Diachronic and Typological Perspectives,’ edited by Michail L. Kotin and
Richard J. Whitt, address problems related to the semantics, function and
status of the specific class of so-called “substantive” or “existential” verbs
– from a diachronic and diatopic perspective, combining theoretical approaches
and case-studies, corpus-based and contrastive methods, traditional and
generative frameworks. The major problems posed and discussed relate to
suppletiveness of the conjugational forms, semantic and functional ambiguity,
syntactic functions and positions. The conceptual consistency of the separate
contributions within the volume is based, as stated in the Preface, on six
methodological principles, namely:
1. morphological, semantic and syntactic properties of “be”-verbs have to be
compared in their total complexity in many languages, with reference to their
universal characteristics;
2. synchronic approaches must be combined with diachronic ones;
3. analyses should cover the totality of verbal and non-verbal complements;
4. semantic autonomy of “be”-verbs in the verb phrase is assumed;
5. the totality of the semantic potential (aspectual, modal, and categorial
signals) is to be presented;
6. cases of omission of the copular verb are to be analysed against the
background of basic properties of languages and against the background of
other languages where the omission is impossible.
The volume includes fourteen articles (seven in English, seven – in German),
grouped in four sections, or parts: Part I: Basics, Part II: Diachronic and
Genetic Morphology, Part III: Syntax and Semantics from a Diachronic, Diatopic
and Typological Perspective, Part IV: Status and Function: Synchronic,
Contrastive and Corpus-Oriented Approaches.
Part I contains one contribution, by Michail L. Kotin: “Das Verbum
substantivum aus synchroner, diachroner und typologischer Sicht”. The paper
draws attention to the morphological suppletivism and polyfunctionality of
“be”-verbs and outlines the major points to be discussed in the volume: the
specifics of the paradigm, the status of the verb as existential, copular,
auxiliary or modal, the possibility for copular “be”-omissions. The
possibility for a typological classification of languages based on the
semantic variation, functional specifics and grammaticalisation paths of the
verbum substantivum, put forward by the author, is undoubtedly a path worth
pursuing.
The only contribution in Part II, “Das Verb sein: Eine besondere Form von
Suppletivismus in indogermanischen Sprachen” by Rosemarie Lühr is a
cross-language diachronic study of the development of the initially regular
paradigm into a more recent suppletive one, with data from Indo-European, Old
Indian, Hittite, Greek, Latin, Gothic, Old Norse, Old English and Old High
German. Irregularity of form is related to prominence and high frequency;
suppletiveness and elimination are thus viewed as motivated language
strategies.
Part III includes eight chapters.
Werner Abraham’s paper “Predicative copula+Infinitive forms and their diverse
functions in German” (Chapter One) offers an in-depth analysis of the
Absentive in German – which, it is demonstrated, has no paradigmatic backup.
It is formed, rather, by speaker deixis, i.e. speech act proximity of the
speaker is presupposed – as in telephone or doorstep conversations, to which
its use is restricted. W. Abrahams’ analysis of the Absentive demonstrates
that it has no property reading, that it is linked to agentive predicates and
that it requires an agentive intentional external argument/subject. Following
a presentation and discussion of two stage-predicate classes, the author
argues in favour of a lexical classification of “event-sein” and
“property-sein.”
“The construction ‘sein’ (‘be’) + Infinitive from Old High German to New High
German” by Elisabeth Leiss (Chapter Two) begins by stating acceptance of the
treatment of the copular verb by the Modistae – as, in its finite forms, a
central building block of each and every predication, to which all predicates
are decomposable -- then, surprisingly, goes on to define the copula as an
auxiliary devoid of any additional grammatical and lexical components,
signaling nothing more than finiteness and indistinguishable from the true
auxiliary. The paper also offers a discussion of the Absentive in the
context of the so-called “perfective aspect”, a diachronic note on the stages
in the grammaticalisation of the progressive and a relation of the copula in
two different functions to two different kinds of experience and to episodic
or semantic memory.
“The auxiliation of the verbum substantivum in German (plu)perfect
constructions ” by Sonja Zeman (Chapter Three) is an analysis of instances of
war gewesen (a preterite of sein plus a past participle of sein) in the
colloquial register of Modern High German. The author argues that the
participle functions as an extension mechanism and denotes the existence of a
state of being.; that the construction is neither, simply, a pluperfect, nor a
new stage of grammaticalisation, but rather a hybridization, being composed of
two meaningful constituents: ‘the preterite of the auxiliary which establishes
a reference point that is distant from the time of speech, and the past
participle which adds the meaning of aspectual closure.’ In this
construction, “the participle of sein displays a high degree of
grammaticalisation but nevertheless preserves its core meaning of existence.”
In his paper “Competing forms of copulative wesan in Old High German” (Chapter
Four) Susumu Kuroda analyses the “verbum substantivum” wesan as primarily
copulative, as distinguished from the auxiliary forming constructions with a
past participle: “The OHG passive construction with wesan is highly
grammaticalised and works as a grammatical unit with a unique decomposable
function. This construction should be distinguished from the copular
structure.” As to the copular verb itself, based on corpus-derived frequency
it is defined as the typical “usage of wesan” without clear semantic content
and “only serv[ing] the primary act of identification.”
Piotr Bartelik’s contribution “Das Verb bëc ‘sein’ und seine Funktionen im
kaschubischen Tempus und Genussystem” (Chapter Five) is a corpus-based study
offering a presentation and discussion of different copulative, tense and
passive voice functions of the verbum substantivum bëc (to be) in modern
Kashubian. Bëc displays a number of specific features: a suppletive present
tense conjugation, an analytical past tense form and (Slavonic-Germanic)
contact-induced forms. Features marking the Kashubian verbal system are: 1)
Slavonic regularities in the copulative bëc -periphrasis; 2) preservation of
the Slavonic analytical perfect (+bëc past participle); 3) the structure of
the passive voice system; 4) bëc copulative constructions – conditioned by
long contact; 4) bëc +passive participles.
Monika Schönherr’s “Die koverte ist-Prädikation im Deutschen, Gotischen und
Polnischen aus diachroner und typologischer Sicht” (Chapter Six) focuses on
covert predications: “be”-omission in copula-predicative constructions and
existential clauses in the present tense in Germanic and Slavonic languages.
The author analyses and groups overt “be”-structures in Old High German,
Gothic and Polish, describes the syntactic properties and semantic components
of covert be-structures and offers a discussion of the reasons and
consequences of the omission.
“Zur syntaktischen Rolle von sein im deustschen sein-Modalpassiv” by Igor
Trost (Chapter Seven) is a discussion of the debatable status of the
sein+zu+Infinitive modal-passive construction in German from a synchronic and
diachronic perspective. Following a presentation of existing analyses of the
construction and of the status of sein in it (viewed as an auxiliary by some,
as a modal or copula by others), I. Trost proceeds to discuss the semantics
and form of the construction, the status of zu in it, the syntactic status of
the elements of the construction “modal passive + gerundives” – before
concluding that the construction under investigation is made up of a copular
verb and a verbal adjective.
C. Jac Conradie’s contribution “The loss of BE as mutative marker in
Afrikaans” (Chapter Eight) relates the story of the development of Afrikaans
and of the substitution of het for is/was in the formation of the perfect of
mutative verbs. This substitution is viewed in the context of the complex
context of changes in the system of the language, above all: the loss of the
preterite and the regularisation of the past participle (both related,
according to the author, to imperfect learning). The loss of the mutative in
Afrikaans is viewed as a change in the system directed towards the formal
restoration of two important oppositions: Present-Past and Active-Passive.
Part IV contains four chapters.
Chapter One, “Expressing possession with HAVE and BE” by Liisa Buelens is a
presentation and formal syntactic analysis of affected possession structures
in Flemish (e.g. We hebben het nog gehad dat onze valiezen plots
openscheurden/ We zijn nog geweest dat onze valiezen plots openscheurden –
We’ve had it happen to us that our suitcases suddenly ripped open), which she
calls Flemish Event Possessives (FEVP). While cross-linguistically possession
is marked either with “have”-verbs and a Nominative subject or by “be”-verbs
and a Dative subject, Flemish is an exception in that the subject of the
“be”-possessive is nominative. L. Buelens proposes 1) that the Possessor in
the FEVP structure moves to the Specifier position of light verbs higher up in
the syntactic structure, where it receives Nominative case, and 2) that
“have” and “be” in the structure are “dummy” verbs, related to copulas.
Ana-Maria Barbu’s “A fi ‘be’ as a modal verb in Romanian” (Chapter Two) is a
discussion of Romanian fi as a deontic modal expressing obligatory volition,
in patterns in which fi appears as either a raising or a control verb with a
small clause complement. The author observes that fi, like other modals in
Romanian, can be either a raising or a control verb and, further, that the
raising pattern is also appropriate for existential fi, for the copula and,
she claims, the auxiliary. Barbu goes on to assert that the raising status is
best foregrounded by the structures in which “be” is omitted – they highlight
that the predication itself can be a stand-alone meaningful clause and does
not depend on fi. This in turn should prove that fi/be has no semantic
content, but has a functional role similar to raising verbs – which fact could
open the possibility for a unified approach to different types of be.
Piotr Krycki’s “Konvergenz der syntaktischen und semantischen Funktionen von
sein, to be und być im Deutschen, Englischen und Polnischen.” (Chapter Three)
is a corpus-based study of German sein and translation equivalents in English
and Polish. The verb is found to have copular, auxiliary, and modal functions
and to be able to appear as a full verb. Sein and its functional equivalents
in the other two languages express existence, position, character, origin,
etc. However, the corpus also demonstrates several asymmetry types. As the
author himself points out, the validation of these results will require
completing the corpus with source English and Polish texts and their
translations in the other two languages.
“Kopulalos und kopulahaft: ein Japanisch-Deutsch-Vergleich” by Akio Ogawa
(Chapter Four) is devoted to the phenomenon of copular “be” omission in
Japanese. For both Japanese and German, the copula is claimed to express
existence (X exists with Y), but the two languages are contrasted along the
lines of topic-prominence (positive for Japanese) and subject-prominence
(characteristic of German). The author observes an interesting relationship
between topic-prominence and the dominance of copula-less clauses, a possible
explanation being that sentences in topic-based languages have more affinity
to express static events than dynamic ones.
EVALUATION
The volume reviewed offers both discussions of basic issues related to the
diachronic and synchronic status, semantics and function of “be”-verbs and
analyses of (language-) specific constructions with “be” in auxiliary, modal
or link verb function. The effort of the editors to compile the volume not as
a collection of separate conference papers but as a methodologically
consistent whole made up of interconnected subparts has, I believe, been
largely successful. As some of the methodological principles and findings are
at variance with my own experience and findings in the field of the
contrastive corpus-based study of English be and have and their functional
equivalents in Bulgarian (Cf. Stambolieva 1987, 1988, 1989, 1998 and others),
I will permit myself a few remarks on the more general issues.
1. No serious attempt has been made, by any of the contributors, to
semantically characterise to be and its functional equivalents in the other
languages of the volume in copular function – they are, simply, classed as
units devoid of any semantic content. My own research has, however, clearly
demonstrated that English to be and Bulgarian sam form clear semantic
oppositions with other link verbs for [+/- Change of State] (get, become,
stana, ostana etc.), for [+/- Subjective State] (seem, appear, look,
izglejdam, etc.) or with have/imam for the opposition centripetal/centrifugal
– in both personal and impersonal sentences. Needless, I hope, to remind that
unmarkedness is not emptiness.
2. The “empty be” thesis dominating in the analysis of the link verb is too
easily extended to align link verbs with auxiliaries. While link verbs can be
analysed as semantically autonomous constituents of the verbs phrase,
auxiliary verbs are elements of analytical grammatical markers of verbs.
Historically, auxiliaries are indeed related to link or full verbs but that
does not determine their function and status in the synchronic state of a
language system. ‘To be + non-finite verbal form’ constructions have
undergone, in many languages, a process of grammaticalisation, as a result of
which word combinations have turned into analytical word forms with
discontinuous markers of grammatical categories.
3. Because Slavonic languages of different groups display considerable
variation in structure, one should be careful with generalisations. Thus, when
speaking of “Slavonic” traits such as copular verb omission or deficiency of
tense/correlation markers, it is not to be forgotten that they only hold for
part of the language family, certainly not for languages of the South Slavonic
group. Within the Slavonic group, the contrast of systems displaying, on the
one hand, a full inventory of verbal categories and the impossibility for
copular verb omission and, on the other, general weakness of the verbal system
and omission of the copular verb, might in fact be indicative of a relation
between these two structural traits.
The volume reviewed is a well-organised and coherent unity of excellent
quality contributions offering a considerable variety of perspectives on
“be”-verbs in a large number of languages. It contains an abundance of data
and valuable analyses and will prove a very useful addition to any book
collection specialising in the field of general and contrastive linguistics.
References:
''Context in Translation''. Proceedings of the Third European Seminar
''Translation Equivalence''. Montecatini Terme, Italy, October 16-18 1997. The
TELRI Association. Institut fur deutsche Sprache, Mannheim & The Tuscan Word
Centre, 1998, pp. 197-204.
''On the Semantics of Empty Verbs''. European Journal of Semiotic Studies 2,
1989.
''English Impersonal Sentences of the IT IS Y and THERE IS X types and their
Bulgarian equivalents''. Yearbook of Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”,
Faculty of Classical and Modern Languages, Sofia,1988 , vol.78, 1984, pp.
117-159.
TO BE and СЪМ in the Structure of English and Bulgarian – PhD thesis,
Department of English Studies, Sofia University “St, Kliment Ohridski” 1987.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Associate Professor Dr. Maria Stambolieva is Head of Studies for the BA, MA
and doctoral programs of the departments of English and American Studies and
Romance and Germanic Languages of New Bulgarian University, Sofia, and Head of
the Laboratory for Language Technologies of the University. Her research is in
the field of general, (corpus-based) contrastive and computational
linguistics. She is the author/editor of five books, over 80 research
articles, self-study coursebooks and textbooks for learners of English and has
directed or been a member of a large number of national and international
research projects.
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