[Lingtyp] Double marking of the goal argument

Thu Aug 26 08:44:11 UTC 2021

I agree with Irina here, I think this example is of only restricted relevance for “double marking” of goals, though it is undoubtedly relevant for other considerations of event structure.

In fact I think RA has the entire phrase ta xune ‘until the house’ in its scope, rather than marking the goal xune ‘house’.

So a more insightful translation might be something like:

(the distance) until the house – I ran in 20 minutes.

I suspect RA is only actually licensed in this sentence by the phrase tu 20 dæqiqe ‘in 20 minutes’ – which is really the focal assertion; if you dropped it, I think RA would no longer be felicitous, but native Persian speakers might want to comment on that.

Taking up Peter Bakker’s earlier comment on contact and double marking: This is absolutely true for related Iranian languages such as Vafsi and Kurdish, where combinations of pre- and postpositions are regularly employed to indicate a variety of spatial relations; this strategy is most widespread in those dialects in areal overlap zones at the intersection of areas dominated by postpositional languages such as Turkish, and regions influenced by prepositional Semitic languages. Similar things have been noted for Kholosi, an isolated Indo-Aryan language of Iran, where inherited Indo-Aryan postpositions can combine with borrowed Iranian prepositions (ongoing documentary work by Maryam Nourzaei). I can supply references if anyone is interested,

Best
G

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Von: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> Im Auftrag von Irina Nikolaeva
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 25. August 2021 10:43
An: Juergen Bohnemeyer <jb77 at buffalo.edu>
Cc: LINGTYP <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Betreff: Re: [Lingtyp] Double marking of the goal argument

Dear Juergen,

Yes, this is my point. RA doesn’t express a path. As I mentioned, there is a lot of literature on it; it has been described as the marker of topicality (Windfuhr 1979), specificity (Karimi 1989, 1990), secondary topicality (Dabir-Moghaddam 1990, 1992), combination of definiteness, animacy and affectedness (Lazard 1992, 2003), definiteness (Mahootian 1997), 'high transitivity' (Ghomeshi 1997), identifiability (Shokouhi & Kipka 2003), combination of topicality and definiteness (Darlymple & Nikolaeva 2011), etc.

And yes, there is a well-known relation between definiteness and boundedness, but for RA it is only manifested in some cases (which, as you said, are worth researching). However, there are many other cases, including those where the presence of RA does not appear to make an identifiable semantic contribution but rather has to do with the pragmatic presupposition of saliency.

Irina

Prof. Irina Nikolaeva, FBA, MAE

https://www.soas.ac.uk/staff/staff31522.php

On Wed, 25 Aug 2021 at 04:04, Juergen Bohnemeyer <jb77 at buffalo.edu<mailto:jb77 at buffalo.edu>> wrote:
Dear Farhad and Irina — The nexus among definiteness, quantization, and boundedness has been well established since the dissertations of Verkuyl and Krifka, respectively. In that respect, what the two of you are saying does not seem at odds with one another. Except that, if the postposition is more broadly associated with definiteness, quantization, and/or boundedness, then it presumably doesn’t actually express a path function (at least on the most parsimonious analysis, which of course isn’t necessarily the correct one), and so this isn’t really a case of double marking in a narrow sense - I think that’s Irina’s point?

Be that as it may, from my point of view, what’s at least as remarkable about this phenomenon is that, assuming the boundedness of the path is contributed by the postposition, the preposition seems to be either polysemous or vague/underspecified regarding the distinction between direction and bounded path, or perhaps all it actually expresses is direction, at least etymologically. This reminds me of Miriam van Staden’s (2000) description of Tidore (North Halmahera), where it appears to be the case that all that is actually ever expressed in the way of path meanings, at least at the morphological level, is directional path (i.e., vectors). Simplifying drastically, it seems as though all you ever say at that level is in which direction somebody or something is moving - whether they actually get there (or where they came from) is left to implicature or possibly expressed compositionally.

I would definitely encourage you to investigate this phenomenon further, Farhad!

Best — Juergen

Van Staden, M. (2000). Tidore: A Linguistic Description of a language of the North Moluccas. Doctoral dissertation, Leiden University.

> On Aug 24, 2021, at 10:27 PM, Irina Nikolaeva <in3 at soas.ac.uk<mailto:in3 at soas.ac.uk>> wrote:
>
> Dear Farhad,
>
> My point is this: The goal in your example (1) is only marked once, by the preposition ‘until, while RA signals something else. Its general function in Persian has to do with the expression of some sort of topicality/identifiability on various grammatical functions (objects, some obliques, some external possessors and left-dislocated topics including PPs). So (1) is not unlike its English equivalent ‘to the house’, where the preposition ‘to’ marks the goal and ‘the’ marks definiteness.
> How the information structural meaning of RA interacts with boundedness is a separate question, but this does not occur in all cases where RA is used.
>
> Best,
> Irina
>
>
>
> Prof. Irina Nikolaeva, FBA, MAE
> https://www.soas.ac.uk/staff/staff31522.php
>
>
> On Mon, 23 Aug 2021 at 23:29, Farhad Moezzipour <fmp59i at gmail.com<mailto:fmp59i at gmail.com>> wrote:
> Dear Prof. Nikolaeva and Bohnemeyer (and the other members)
>
>
>
> Yes, you are absolutely correct. RA has been said to serve different functions when it appears on direct objects and dislocated NPs. In the given TA-RA example (example 1 in my previous email), the referent of xune ‘house’, I assume, should be ‘identifiable’ for the hearer; hence a topic in the information structure of the sentence. It might be the case that in example (2) where xune ‘house’ appears without RA, it plays a focus role as it is an argument-adjunct (using RRG terminology), bearing in mind adjuncts express foci (If I am correct). But this is pragmatics! I believe, as Prof. Bohnemeyer mentioned, that RA in example (1) contributes somehow to the semantics of the sentence in a way that it signals/indicates/marks (I am not sure) the bounded path, which is missing in example (2). The relation of RA with boundedness can be supported by the fact that it appears on quantized direct objects of consumption verbs, as in (3).
>
> (3) Man sib=o              xord-æm.
>
>       1SG   apple=POSP eat.PST-1SG
>
>       ‘I ate the (whole) apple.’
>
> Intuitively, example (4) is infelicitous because RA entails the entire traversal of the path.
>
> (4) *mæn kuh=o                     bala ræft-am       væli be qolle-eš           næ-res-id-æm.
>
>        1SG  mountain=POSP up  go.PST-1SG but to summit=3SG NEG-reach-PST-1SG
>
>       ‘I climbed the mountain but did not reach the summit.’
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Farhad
>
>
> On Tue, Aug 24, 2021 at 12:59 AM Irina Nikolaeva <in3 at soas.ac.uk<mailto:in3 at soas.ac.uk>> wrote:
> Dear Farhad,
>
> I am not sure the function or RA here is to mark the goal argument per se (hence no double marking). RA can occur on a variety of grammatical functions, and many people have argued that its function is to mark specificity/topicality/identifiability or the like.
>
> Best,
> Irina
>
>
> Prof. Irina Nikolaeva, FBA, MAE
> https://www.soas.ac.uk/staff/staff31522.php
>
>
> On Mon, 23 Aug 2021 at 14:52, Farhad Moezzipour <fmp59i at gmail.com<mailto:fmp59i at gmail.com>> wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> Is anyone aware of a language where the goal in a motion event is doubly marked? This happens in colloquial Persian:
>
> (1) Ta     xune=ro          tu  20  dæqiqe dæv-id-æm.
>       until  house=POSP in  20  minute  run-PST-1SG
>       'I ran the distance to the house in 20 minutes.'
>
> The goal is marked once by the preposition and once with the postposition RA, which is basically an object maker in Modern Persian. The given example is also possible without RA, as in (2).
>
> (2) Ta     xune    20  dæqiqe dæv-id-æm.
>       until  house  20  minute  run-PST-1SG
>       'I ran toward the house for 20 minutes.'
>
> Regards,
> Farhad
>
>
>
>
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