[Lingtyp] non-agentive transitives

Thu Jan 30 16:26:51 UTC 2020

Dear Ferenc,

Cherokee, an Iroquoian language, has agentive marking and some transitive
(or divalent) verbs take the patientive person markers, such as 'know',
'have', 'lose' or even 'throw' or 'buy'. One issue with Cherokee is that it
is hard to find morphosyntactic evidence to distinguish intransitive and
transitive verbs; so far I've only found one, that is whether the verb can
take the object-defocusing marker or not. Thus, one could potentially say
that these verbs are syntactically monovalent (but semantically divalent).

Another example is Teotitlán Zapotec, where agentive verbs undergo stem
alternation in the 1st persons but non-agentive verbs do not (Uchihara &
Gutiérrez in press). The majority of the non-agentive verbs are
intransitive but we have found two transitive verbs, 'miss' and 'need',
which do not undergo stem alternation and thus non-agentive.

There might be controversy over if Georgian has agentive marking, but I
know some divalent verbs take dative subject (such as 'love'), and not
nominative/ergative.

In fact Marianne Mithun states that it is not uncommon for transitive
subjects to show split marking based on agentivity in that Language paper
you cite (Mithun 1991: 517).

Hope this helps,
Hiroto

El jue., 30 de ene. de 2020 a la(s) 09:28, Östen Dahl (oesten at ling.su.se)
escribió:

> But in addition to what Alexander mentions there is also a pattern in
> Russian that corresponds closely to what you can see in the examples from
> Caddoan. You can say for instance “Mne protivno” ‘I am disgusted’ and “Mne
> ėto nravitsja” ‘I like it’, where what corresponds to the English “I” is
> in the dative. It would not be treated as a subject in traditional
> descriptions of Russian, however. I think this pattern is quite common in
> European languages and maybe elsewhere.
>
>    - Östen
>
>
>
> *Från:* Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> *För *Alexander
> Letuchiy
> *Skickat:* den 30 januari 2020 16:13
> *Till:* Havas Ferenc <hfz at iif.hu>; lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> *Ämne:* Re: [Lingtyp] non-agentive transitives
>
>
>
> Dear Ferenc,
>
>
>
> The second phenomenon is a little bit different from what you requested,
> but it may be relevant for you from the point of intransitive vs.
> transitive classification.
>
>
>
> Russian has a polysemous reflexive marker "-sja" that can denote
> anticausative, reflexive, reciprocal, etc. The relevant meaning is what can
> be called 'modal passive'.
>
>
>
> The modal passive meaning is applicable both to transitives and
> intransitives and is only used when the subject of the base construction
> does not have full control over the situation:
>
>
>
> Intransitive (rabotat' "work"):
>
> Mne       ne           rabotaet-sja
>
> I.DAT    NEG         work-MOD.PASS
>
> 'I cannot work', 'I am in a non-working state'
>
>
>
> Transitive (delat' "do, make"):
>
> U   menja    rabota        ne          delaet-sja
>
> at   I.GEN    work           NEG      do-
>
> 'I cannot do my work', 'I am in a state that does not allow me to do my
> work'
>
>
>
> When the base verb is transitive, the base object occupies the subject
> position, and when the base verb is intransitive, the subject position is
> empty.
>
> What is more curious, however, is that the base subject is marked
> differently with intransitives (DAT "mne") and ttransitives (u 'at' + GEN
> "menja").
>
>
> Best regards,
>
>
> Alexander
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> *From:* Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of
> Havas Ferenc <hfz at iif.hu>
> *Sent:* Thursday, January 30, 2020 12:37 PM
> *To:* lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> >
> *Subject:* [Lingtyp] non-agentive transitives
>
>
>
> Dear Colleagues,
>
> My question is about the differential marking of agentive and non-agentive
> subjects in transitive sentences. It is well known that in some languages,
> called active or agentive, the marking of the subject of intransitive verbs
> (whether by a case or by agreement) differs depending on whether the
> subject is agentive or patient-like. As Marianne Mithun puts it: “ln all of
> these languages one case is used for semantic agents of most transitive
> verbs and the single argument of some intransitives while a different case
> is used for the semantic patients of most transitive verbs and the single
> argument of other intransitives. The sets of verbs occurring with each case
> are largely the same from one language to the next. Most verbs in the first
> set denote events performed, effected, instigated and controlled by their
> participants (’jump', 'go', 'catch'). Most verbs in the second set denote
> state significantly affecting their participants ('be sick', 'be tired',
> 'be caught’)”. (Language 1991, 67/3, 523)
>
> So much about subjects of intransitive predicates. Less light seems to
> have been cast on transitive subjects in the dedicated languages, though
> the pattern exists. Consider e.g. these Kaddoan sentences (selected from
> the same paper, 525–528):
>
> 1.       *ci-hahyúnčah*  'I'm going to go home.’
>
> 2.       *ku-táyʡayah* 'I'm tired, disgusted, fed up.'
>
> (3)  *ci-kíʡčah* 'I'm going to kill him.'
>
> 4.       *kú-ʡnutah* ’I like it.’
>
>
>
> (1) and (2) show that agentive and non-agentive subjects of intransitive
> sentences have distinct verbal prefixes: *ci-* versus *ku-.*  (3) and (4)
> in turn illustrate the differential marking of agentive and non-agentive
> subjects in transitive sentences with the very same prefixes as
> in intransitive sentences.
>
> So my questions are
>
> a) WHICH SUBJECTS?
> Which subjects are non-agentively marked in transitive sentences? I would
> expect them to be passive experiencers (of verbs like ’see’, ’hear’ as
> opposed to ‘look at’, ‘listen to’), recipients (’get’, ’inherit’),
> possessors (’have’), undergoers of unintentional mental processes
> (’remember’, ’forget’), emotions (’like’, ’dislike’, ’hate’).
>
> b) UNIFORM MARKING?
> If a language has splits in both transitive and intransitive sentences,
> are the agentive and non-agentive markers of the same form in the two types
> of sentences?
>
> At the end of the day, the central issue is whether the agentive –
> non-agentive split does or does not work the same way in intransitive and
> transitive sentences. If it did, the mere “split intransivity” concept of
> agentive languages would be worth reconsidering.
>
> Thank you for your assistance.
>
> Ferenc Havas
>
> Professor Emeritus of Linguistics
>
> ELTE University, Budapest
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-- 
Dr. Hiroto Uchihara
Seminario de Lenguas Indígenas
Instituto de Investigaciones Filológicas
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Circuito Mario de la Cueva
Ciudad Universitaria, 04510, Ciudad de México.
Tel. Seminario:(+52)-(55)-5622-7489
Office: (+52)-(55)-5622-7250, Ext. 49223
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