[Lingtyp] 'Take' as diachronic source for causative? 'Stand' for ingressive?

Thu Aug 20 12:21:43 UTC 2020

Hi Daniel,

thanks, yes, I am aware of those functions of 'take' SVCs (also 
discussed in Lee (2019), which I'm sure you will know) and Lefebvre's 
work. 'Take' to Inceptive was not so much my interest, but thanks for 
the interesting slides!

The language I'm working on (Savosavo, Non-Austronesian) does use 
transitive 'take' in SVCs as the general marker for causation. The 
subject of 'take' is the causer, and object of 'take' is subject of the 
(necessarily intransitive) verb that follows. It is never used in any 
intransitive form or in any way altered in morphology or phonetic form. 
I agree that the development has to have followed a path from what you 
said below ("The more common pattern seems to me to be 'Take NP (and) V 
(it)', so not causative in terms of alignment but similar in function. 
I'm not sure about whether or how often that pattern might shift 
alignment to 'Make NP V'."), i.e. in symmetrical, sequential serial verb 
constructions first, and then extended to asymmetrical SVCs, with the 
shifted alignment pattern. I do find it a bit puzzling that it seems to 
have happened so rarely in other languages, even though it seems a 
perfectly intuitive development to me :)

Also in light of the other answers I received so far, I guess it is 
quite safe to say then that this development is rather rare...

As for my question about 'stand' -> inchoative/inceptive/ingressive, I 
did mean 'stand' in the sense of 'be standing'; Savosavo does have a 
separate (though related) word for 'stand/get up', which is not used for 
this grammatical function.

Thanks again, best wishes,

Claudia

References

Lee, Taegyeong. 2019. A cross-linguistic typology of ‘take’ serial verb 
constructions. Albuquerque, New Mexico: University of New Mexico MA 
thesis. https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/ling_etds/69.

On 20-Aug-20 01:38, Daniel Ross wrote:
> Hi Claudia,
>
> TAKE is extremely common in transitive functions in serial verb 
> constructions, with a range of meanings including instrumental, 
> comitative and sometimes just accusative. There's no shortage of 
> literature on the topic (including several more papers by Lefebvre), 
> but for a preliminary large-scale survey, see:
> https://swl8.sciencesconf.org/data/pages/Ross_Lovestrand_SWL8.pdf
>
> However, TAKE is rarer as an intransitive auxiliary with inceptive (or 
> similar) semantics. One specific regional exception is "TAKE AND V" 
> pseudocoordination as found in dozens of European languages. The 
> meaning is similar to "GO AND V", in the sense of surprise, 
> unexpectedness, defiance, self-initiative, etc. This has been written 
> about by a number of authors, but I am working on a more comprehensive 
> survey in Eurasia, where I've so far identified this usage in about 60 
> languages:
> http://publish.illinois.edu/djross3/files/2013/11/Ross-tomar-y.pdf
> (Slides in Spanish, but should be easy enough to follow with the maps.)
>
> Aside from pseudocoordination (or rare asyndetic variants) within that 
> geographic area, SVCs (etc.) with "take" are quite rare in that 
> intransitive sense. Something like that is found in Haitian Creole, 
> and there's an auxiliary in Arabic that is similar, but in general 
> this particular semantic configuration seems anomalously common in 
> Europe (suggesting contact effects, but with unclear and possibly many 
> pathways, as discussed in the slides). Another related usage is 
> auto-benefactive "take" (as opposed to "give"), as described by 
> Creissels 2010 for example (cited in the slides).
>
> The meanings I've described above are not causative exactly, but I 
> think somewhat semantically related to that might give you more 
> information to consider. Further grammaticalization into marking a 
> causative seems plausible from TAKE SVCs, for example. The more common 
> pattern seems to me to be "Take NP (and) V (it)", so not causative in 
> terms of alignment but similar in function. I'm not sure about whether 
> or how often that pattern might shift alignment to "Make NP V".
>
> STAND/GET UP is used similarly to the TAKE (AND) construction above, 
> in Arabic and some other languages of the Middle East (presumably also 
> due to contact), sort of blending into the edges of the TAKE AND 
> distribution. For Arabic, search for research on "qam" (and cognates 
> in different varieties), often grammaticalized as an ingressive 
> particle in colloquial varieties.
>
> I'd be happy to discuss this topic more, but that addresses at least 
> the specific questions asked. I'd be interested to hear more about 
> your research on these topics. I can supply additional references if 
> you'd like. (Feel free to write off-list if you prefer.)
>
> Daniel
>
> On Wed, Aug 19, 2020 at 4:03 PM Claudia Wegener 
> <claudia.wegener at uni-koeln.de <mailto:claudia.wegener at uni-koeln.de>> 
> wrote:
>
>     Dear all,
>
>     It was suggested to me that grammaticalization of the verb 'take'
>     to a causative marker is typologically unusual, and indeed, apart
>     from the mention of Twi and Nupe (in Kuteva et al. 2019 and
>     sources cited therein) and Fon (Lefebvre 1991) I have found little
>     to no information on languages where this has happened... Would
>     any of you know any other languages and could point me towards
>     publications I could cite?
>
>     And related to this, I have been even less successful at finding
>     languages where the verb for 'to stand' (as posture verb) has been
>     grammaticalized to function as a marker for ingressive - if you
>     know of any, would you be so kind to point me to any publications?
>
>     Many thanks in advance,
>
>     Claudia
>
>     References:
>
>     Lefebvre, Claire. 1991. /Take/ serial verb constructions in Fon.
>     In Claire Lefebvre (ed.), /Serial Verbs: Grammatical, Comparative/
>     /and Cognitive Approaches/, 37-78. Amsterdam, Philadelphia:
>     Benjamins.
>
>     Kuteva, Tania, Bernd Heine, Bo Hong, Haiping Long, Heiko Narrog &
>     Seongha Rhee (eds.). 2019. /World Lexicon of Grammaticalization/,
>     2nd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
>
>     -- 
>     Claudia Wegener
>     Abteilung Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft
>     Institut für Linguistik
>     Universität zu Köln
>     Albertus-Magnus-Platz
>     50923 Köln
>
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>
-- 
Claudia Wegener
Abteilung Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft
Institut für Linguistik
Universität zu Köln
Albertus-Magnus-Platz
50923 Köln

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