Channel PERFECTIVE > MIDDLE

[J. Diego Quesada]

I wish to thank you all for your responses and references. I have Suzannes's book with me right here; I must have overlooked the corresponding passus while browsing it.

As for Enrique's comment about the likely development, it seems that as a perfective aspect marker -du was used with both one-argument and two-argument verbs (in the Bocotá dialect, at least this is still so); now, in Buglere there is a strong tendency to one-argument structures (supression of either subjects and objects is common); as a result, there  must have emerged a new stage characterized by the use of -du with one-argument constructions. Interesting is that at present, in Buglere the middle domain is not exclusive of -du;  middle situations are expressed  with the reflexive pronoun mung, and dative subject constructions with verba cogitandi. Verbs that take -du are mostly verbs expressing spontaneous events. The result: perfective spontaneous events were reanalyzed as self-triggered events. It is worth noting, in addition, that the middle voice suffix -du cannot be used with future situations (2), although it is compatible with the past tense markers (recent and remot
 e), as in (1)

(1) Juga  dege-ble-du

     door  open-P.REM-MID

     'The door opened'

but

(2)  *Juga be    dege-du

       door  FUT  open-MID

'      The door will open'

This incompatibility can be taken as evidence of the likely path and shows as well that this is a recent development.

Diego

-- 
Prof. Dr. J. Diego Quesada 
Escuela de Literatura y Ciencias del Lenguaje 
Facultad de Filosofía y Letras 
Universidad Nacional 
3000 Heredia, COSTA RICA

 
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