31.1836, Review: Malayalam; Morphology; Semantics; Syntax: Swenson (2019)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-31-1836. Wed Jun 03 2020. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 31.1836, Review: Malayalam; Morphology; Semantics; Syntax: Swenson (2019)

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Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2020 09:43:20
From: Sanford Steever [sbsteever at yahoo.com]
Subject: Malayalam Verbs

 
Discuss this message:
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/30/30-4139.html

AUTHOR: Amanda  Swenson
TITLE: Malayalam Verbs
SUBTITLE: Functional Structure and Morphosemantics
SERIES TITLE: Studies in Generative Grammar [SGG]
PUBLISHER: De Gruyter Mouton
YEAR: 2019

REVIEWER: Sanford B Steever,  

SUMMARY

Malayalam Verbs (henceforth, MV), a revision of the author’s dissertation,
studies tense, aspect and copulas in Malayāḷam in the framework of Universal
Grammar (UG). Chapter 1 introduces notions of tense and aspect used in the
author’s analysis of the Malayāḷam verb. Examples from English, standing in
for UG, take up the lion’s share of Chapter 1; the first Malayāḷam example
appears only on page 35. Chapters 2 and 3 serve as correctives to earlier,
questionable analyses of verb forms and categories in Malayāḷam. Chapters 4
and 5 undertake the analysis of common auxiliary compound verb constructions,
focused on two progressive and two perfect tense forms, respectively. Chapter
6 discusses copulas.

Discussing tense from a cross-linguistic perspective, Chapter 2 argues against
Jayaseelan and Amritavalli’s (2017) claims that Malayāḷam in particular, and
Dravidian in general, lacks tense marking, but has aspect marking. This
complements Steever’s (2018) arguments against their proposals. In her
rebuttal, Swenson ascribes to JA a paradigm of Malayāḷam verbs in Table 2.2
(pp. 62, 76, 78, 133, 242) which, to the detriment of her own analysis, the
author uncritically accepts. The core problem is that this paradigm asserts
that the present tense form of a simple verb, e.g. ceyy-unnu ‘does, is doing’
[do-PRES], belongs to the same paradigm as, and is an optional variant of, the
compound verb ceyy-unnu uṇṭǝ ‘is doing’ [do-PRES be-PRS]. Instead of treating
–unnu as a present tense marker, Swenson treats it a marker of pluractionality
and iterativity so that the present tense is represented by a zero morph, with
ceyy-unnu segmented as /#ceyu-unnu-φ#/. However, ceyy-unnu directly and
minimally contrasts with the past /cey-tu/ ‘did, was doing’ and future
/ceyy-um/ ‘will do’ forms of the simple verb while the present compound verb
ceyy-unnu uṇṭǝ ‘is doing’ contrasts with the past ceyy-unnu uṇṭāyirunnu ‘was
doing’ and the future ceyy-unnu uṇṭāyirikkum ‘will be doing; the latter three
are auxiliary compound verbs (ACVs). There is thus no need to posit a zero
marker for the present tense. The misconstrual of these forms unnecessarily
complicates the author’s analyses in Chapter 4.

Chapter 3 contains MV’s strongest contributions. It discusses two nonfinite
verb forms, the so-called conjunctive participle (CP, Mal. vinayeccam) and the
verbal noun in –atǝ (VN, Mal. kriyanāmam), traditionally and persistently
(mis)represented as a gerund.  Swenson insightfully characterizes CP clauses
as “syntactically small,” at or below the level of vP. It will be interesting
to see whether this intuition satisfies all the contexts in which the CP is
used, e.g., clause-chaining, descriptive compound verbs and AVCs with such
auxiliaries as varuka ‘come’ (durative), taruka ‘give to you or me’
(benefactive) and kaḷayuka ‘throw’ (completive). Swenson treats verbal nouns
as a combination of an “adjectival participle” (adnominal form, Mal. pēreccam)
and a number-gender marker. However, they are more transparently treated as
relative clauses with a pronominal head, which may then mark number and
gender.

In Chapter 4 Swenson focuses on two compound verbs she claims signal
imperfective (viewpoint) aspect, var-unnu + uṇṭǝ [come-PRES be-PRES] and
var-uka.y + āṇǝ [come-INF become-PRES], both roughly translated as ‘be
coming’. As noted above, -unnu marks a general present tense minimally
contrasting with the past tense marker –Cu/-i and the future tense marker –um.
Due to mis-segementation, implying that ceyy-unnu is just a stylistic variant
of the AVC cey-unnu-uṇṭǝ (see above), Swenson claims that –unnu marks
[+pluractional, +iterative]. The present tense form ceyyunnu ‘does, is doing’
is consistent with such features as pluractional, iterative, habitual,
generic, durative, continuous, but also appears in contexts without any of
these readings, signaling simply that the time reference of the narrated event
coincides with that of the speech event (where it is unmarked for the present
tense to be evaluated over an interval, not at a point, of time). Specific
ACVs may select a positive value for one of these features, e.g. the
continuous ACV #ceyy-unnu##uṇṭǝ# ‘is doing’ [do-PRES be-PRES] is marked
[+interval] and so, unlike the simple present, always has a continuous
meaning. The var-uka.y + āṇǝ ACV ‘is coming’ appears to focus attention of the
event/activity denoted by the main verb. The author’s claim that –uka is a
progressive morpheme faces an uphill battle against the other contexts in
which –uka appears but for which progressive aspect is irrelevant, e.g. the
infinitive reading, the ability to take case morphology, e.g. varuka.y-āl ‘due
to coming’ [come-uka-INSTRUMENTAL]. To say that –uka’s use as an imperative is
“borrowed” (p. 137) is to say that the author has not yet found the form’s
invariant meaning. At best, [progressive] is a circumstantial meaning of –uka:
some mechanism is needed to filter out the other meanings when combined with
larger structures.

Chapter 5 explores cross-linguistic variation in perfect (tense) forms,
attempting to situate various Malayāḷam constructions in a taxonomy whose
major values include existential perfects and universal perfects,  the labels
referring to quantifiers that range over temporal intervals prior to speech
time. While the Malayāḷam simple verb, unlike Latin, lacks a dedicated perfect
(tense) morpheme, readings of perfect tense are derived through combinations
of event type, form of the main verb and choice of auxiliary in ACVs. Two
varieties of the perfect are formally identified:  ñān kaṇṭǝ irikkunnu ‘I have
seen’ [I see-CP sit-PRES] and sārinǝ nēriṭeṅkilum anubhavam uṇṭāy(i) iṭṭǝ
uṇṭō? ‘Have you ever had any direct experience?’ [sir-DAT direct=any
experience be-CP put-CP be-PRES=INT]. With the first of these two forms, the
perfect is often ambiguous between a progressive and a perfect meaning. In
such instances, the compound ACV koṇṭ(ǝ)-irikkuka ‘be V-ing’ [hold-CP be-INF]
is used to disambiguate in favor of a progressive reading. Chapters 4 and 5
assume a model that would allow us to calculate the characteristic meanings of
the progressive and perfect tense ACVs from their constituent elements. The
author persuasively argues that such calculations require access to
morphological, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic (particularly implicatures)
facets of language. This raises a risk: given the principle of
compositionality, any problem in the treatment of such basic morphemes as
–unnu and –uka is automatically projected to subsequent stages of these
analyses.

Chapter 6 investigates copulas in Malayāḷam and compares them with other
languages. It contrasts uṇṭǝ ‘be (present)’ with āṇǝ ‘be, become’. While the
author claims copulas are obligatory, they are not obligatory, but normative:
copula-less sentences are well attested, particularly in the spoken language. 
Though both copulas are components of progressive ACVs discussed in Chapter 4,
Swenson misses the opportunity to test out her hypotheses by combining the
meanings she ascribes to the two copulas with the –unnu and –uka verb forms in
Chapter 4. It remains unclear, for example, how the analysis of uṇṭǝ as a
locative, existential marker contributes to the meaning of the progressive
ACV. 

EVALUATION

MV is the first major study of the Malayāḷam verbal system since McAlpin
(1973) and, as such, fills in a gap in the literature on Dravidian verbal
systems to advance our understanding of what factors are involved in the
analysis of the Malayāḷam verb. Particularly attractive is the author’s
decision to use pragmatics as well as morphosemantics to calculate the meaning
of various verb forms. My remarks here include comments and course
corrections, some stylistic, others more substantive. These may be useful for
future projects based on the material in MV. 

The text struggles with some aspects of morphology. The author wonders on p.
67 why the past is represented by a -Cu/-i morpheme: simply, both are
allomorphs of the past tense morpheme. The –um in the gloss on p. 70
represents the future adnominal form, an allomorph of the adnominal marker,
whose other (affirmative) allomorph is –a. In particular, the distinctions
between morpheme (-), clitic (=) and word (#) boundaries are not observed.
This makes it hard to tell whether Malayalam is agglutinating or
polysynthetic, and leaves murky the internal structure of Malayāḷam verbs. It
also obscures intermediate levels of structure, e.g. ACVs, between terminal
nodes and the sentential spine that may be useful in analyzing verb forms. The
hyphens in two Telugu durative forms on page 186 represent each string as a
simple verb form, when both are actually compound verbs, e.g. #caduwutu#
#unnaanu#  ‘I am reading” [read-DUR be-PST/PRES-1S] (cf. Krishnamurti and
Gwynn 1985; 170).

As noted above, Swenson aptly points out the pitfalls of accepting unanalyzed
labels in her able critique of the use of ‘gerund’ for verbal noun: on p. 134
she warns against “…using terms without carefully defining them.” Her future
work will wish to define such central terms as copula, mood and finiteness.
Though the text talks about an “unspecified finiteness element” on p. 46, the
discussion seems not to appreciate just how central this concept is to
Dravidian verbal morphology and syntax; descriptions of the languages
routinely categorize verbs as finite or not. Application of Steever’s (1988)
characterization of finiteness to the Malayāḷam promises to yield some
interesting results, viz. the past negative ceyt(u) illa ‘did not do’ [do-PST
be.NEG], the present negative ceyyunn(u) illa ‘does not do’ [do-PRES be.NEG]
and the durative ACV ceyyunn(u) uṇṭǝ ‘is doing’ are all serial verb
formations.

In the spirit of UG, MV introduces examples from a number of other languages,
e.g.  Kalaallisut, St’át’mcets, Korean and Bulgarian; however, it misses the
opportunity to compare and contrast Malayāḷam with its closest relative Tamil,
whose verbal system has been extensively analyzed, e.g. in Steever (2005). For
example, Tamil lacks copular constructions, an interesting point of comparison
between the two. Though the author states on p. 59 that predicate nominals are
often indicative of a tenseless language, Tamil, Kannada and Telugu all have
tense as well as predicate nominals without copulas.

If each natural language instantiates UG, researchers should be able to
discover facts about UG by intensive analysis of a single language, without
constant reference to others. The citation of examples and analyses from other
languages may offer some insights, but it also creates the opportunity for
errors and garden-path effects. Fewer citations of other language examples
would also free up room for the introduction of more pertinent Malayāḷam
examples to help triangulate the meaning of the various verb forms. For
example, the meaning of simple verb forms and the two progressive ACVs
contrast with the habitual form in -āṟǝ, e.g. paṇṭǝ mutal nammuṭe nāṭṭil
strīkaḷ allō tiruvātirakkaḷi kaḷikkāṟ(u) āyirunnatǝ. ‘In former times, wasn’t
it women who used to dance the Tiruvatirakkali in our country? [former.times
from we-GEN country-LOC woman-PL be-NEG=INT tiruvatirakkali.dance dance-HAB
be-PST-VN]. Similarly, to tease out their meanings, such constructions as
eŋŋane pōkān āṇǝ ‘how am I do go’ [how go-INF be-PRES] may be profitably
opposed to and compared with the progressive in –uka + āṇǝ.

The attempt to conform Malayāḷam to a particular model of UG leads to some
questionable claims, e.g., “Malayalam is …underlyingly basically English [p.
43].” (Perhaps, both English and Malayāḷam are underlyingly UG.) The auxiliary
irikkuka ‘sit, be’ is said to appear to the “left” of the progressive (p.
187), when in actual linear order it occurs to the right. The term preposition
is used multiple times in Chapter 6, but Malayāḷam has only postpositions (p.
227,ff). If linear order is irrelevant (thanks to antisymmetry), then there
seems little point in labeling Malayāḷam as an SOV language and contrasting it
with other word orders, as done on page 218. 

MV offers no list of abbreviations used in interlinear glosses, e.g. LAM for
lexical aspect modifier. It often places unanalyzed Malayāḷam morphemes or
strings of question marks in interlinear glosses, e.g. –um for what is the
future adnominal marker. Page 112 repeats a hackneyed claim that the adnominal
form (Mal. pēreccam) –a is related to the demonstrative marker ā- ‘that’:
apart from the different vowel lengths and meanings, the former is a suffix,
the latter a lexical base. The References section contains a number of
inadequately filled-in citations; it lacks McAlpin’s (1973) dissertation on
the Malayāḷam verb.

Among the 120+ misspellings in Malayāḷam examples, the following should be
noted (correct spellings are in parentheses): anweeshanam (anvēṣaṇam);
tamasikka (tāmasikka); kalikk- (kaḷikk-); kuɲ- (kuɲɲ-), undu (uṇṭǝ);
school-ilekku (skūḷ-ilēkkǝ); turakunna (tuṟakunna); cheyyum (ceyyum); offis-il
(āphisil); asha (aṣa); jeevikkunnu (jīvikkunnu); pattiyilla (paṟṟiyilla);
poyate (pōyate); vegam (vēgam); ariyum (aṟiyum); sigarettǝ (sigareṯṯǝ);
veeṇappooḷ (vīṇappōḷ); naŋgaḷ (naŋŋaḷ); avaɽ (avar); malayalam (malayāḷam);
veendum (vīṇṭum); maṇikkoor (maṇikkūr); raṇṭāyirati (raṇṭāyiratti); muttam
(muṟṟam); pole (pōle); sankeertanam (saŋkīrtanam); vāyicch- (vāyicc-);
randamooẓam (raṇṭāmūẓam); iiṭṭɘ (iṭṭɘ); acan-um (acchan=um); veliyil
(veḷiyil), “aanu or undu” (āṇɘ or uṇṭɘ); kondu  (koṇṭɘ ); scooter (skūṭar);
caaru (kāru); nirabandham (nirbandham); aẓmkhatɘ (aẓimukhattɘ). Further
misspellings in Tamil, Kurux, English and Spanish suggest a distracted
copy-editor, e.g. the use of ‘&’ for ‘and’ in running text. While Malayalis
can be prodigious code-mixers, the frequent use of the English words in
examples rather than their common Malayāḷam counterparts is surprising: paper
(prabandham), newspaper (patram, patrikai), bathroom (kuḷimuṟi, kakkhūs), zoo
(mɹgaśāla), history (caritram). The lack of care over examples and their
transcription may lead readers to wonder about their authenticity and question
whether they may be cited. Nonetheless, at this stage of research it is easy
enough to set these stylistic problems right; none seriously detracts from the
issues the author has identified for study.

MV remains a work in progress to judge by some disagreements with the author’s
own contemporaneous articles (pp. 87, 183) and the 15+ calls for future
research at various junctures in the text (pp. 63,78, 86, 123, 129, 193, 194,
202, 207, 209-11, 222, 228, 241, 252). Nonetheless, MV sets the stage for a
variety of follow-on studies in many areas of Malayāḷam verbal morphosyntax,
aspect and tense. It identifies areas of morphology and syntax that may be
profitably mined, and whose results will benefit Dravidianists and generalists
alike. Such areas may include the dozen or more aspectual auxiliaries in the
language, as well as a greater variety of ACVs. Swenson’s willingness to
challenge existing analyses and to reframe them in terms of compositionality
is a decided strength of MV, and she deserves full credit for identifying a
series of linguistic puzzles in Malayāḷam as well as proposing the means to
solve them. I look forward to continued work on this fascinating language

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to thank Dr. P. Sreekumar for discussing some of the Malayāḷam examples
with me. Any errors in their interpretation are mine.

REFERENCES

McAlpin, David. 1973. The Malayalam Verb Phrase in a generative matrical
framework. International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics 2:252-273, 348-397.

Jayaseelan, K.A. and R Amritavalli. 2017. Dravidian syntax and Universal
Grammar. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

Krishnamurti, Bh. And J.P.L. Gwynn. 1985. A grammar of modern Telugu. Dehli:
Oxford University Press.

Steever, Sanford. 1988. The serial verb formation in the Dravidian languages.
Delhi: Motitlal Banarsidass.

Steever, Sanford. 2005. The Tamil Auxiliary Verb System. London: Routledge.

Steever, Sanford. 2018. Review of ‘Dravidian syntax and universal grammar’.
LinguistList 29.3959


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Sanford Steever is an independent scholar specializing in the morphology,
syntax and history of the Dravidian languages. His latest book is the second
edition of The Dravidian Languages (Routledge).





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