verificative

[Claude Hagége]

Dear Michael and Timur,

 

               The Lezgic verificative you mention is fairly particular, since it illustrates a clear grammaticalisation process, as shown 1) by the attrition of Archi ak:u ”see” into -k:u-  in your first example; 2) by the insertion of -k:u-  and Agul –čuk’- into the verbal complex, which can be considered as a proof of their treatment as parts of the morphology of these Lezgic languages.

               This the reason why I am not sure that French voir cited by Alec and Mandarin 看 kàn cited by André correspond to the same phenomenon, let alone that 看 does not mean “see” but “look at”; it takes the resultative meaning  “see” only when suffixed by 见 jiàn, yielding 看见 kànjiàn, just as another perception verb, 听 tīng “listen to”,  yields, when suffixed by the same  见 jiàn element, a compound verb 听见 tīngjiàn “hear”. Muhammad’s Pashto example exhibits a verb gorəm ”I see” (by the way, Osmanli and Azeri Turkish, another family, have gör(mek) and gör(mək) respectively “to see”!), which is simply the normal lexical use of a verb, in a special meaning.

The Vanuatu Oceanic examples cited by Alec seem closer to the Lezgic phenomena, since one of them represents the last step of a grammaticalisation process.

One can also mention a certain use of Japanese miru “to see” in such sentences as行ってみましよう i(k)-tte mi-ma(s)-yoo  (go-CONVERB  see-POLITENESS-EXHORTATIVE) “let’s go” (with an implication that there is something to be seen). The use of the -te  converbal form here in association with the verb mi(ru) “see” may be considered as a syntactic, rather than morphological, phenomenon. But what it expresses is in fact a tentative meaning. I would therefore characterize these uses of Chinese kàn, French voir or Japanese mi(ru) as tentative uses. I propose calling tentative this kind of expression. However, this is not exactly the same as the Lezgic morphemes cited by Michael and Timur, because they don’t have a tentative, but a verificative meaning. To that extent, these Lezgig facts remain particular.

 

All best.

 

Claude Hagège

 

 

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