[Lingtyp] Query: Habitual serial verb constructions
Isabelle BRIL
isabelle.bril at cnrs.fr
Tue Apr 18 08:26:53 UTC 2023
Dear all,
In that line of thought, you might also be interested by a book edited
by Bril & Ozanne-Rivierre on Oceanic languages.
2004,Bril I. et F. Ozanne-Rivierre (éditeurs), /Complex predicates in
Oceanic languages: Studies in the dynamics of binding and boundness/.
[Collection EALT 29]. Mouton de Gruyter
Best
Isabelle
Le 18/04/2023 à 05:47, Daniel Ross a écrit :
> Dear Sune and others,
>
> In Ross & Lovestrand (2018) and Ross (2021, ch.4) SVCs with posture
> verbs are surveyed, and they were found in around 40% of languages
> with SVCs. "Posture SVCs" (especially with SIT and STAND, also LIE,
> and rarely others) were defined to include both literal posture
> constructions ("sit and read") and also grammaticalized, especially
> aspectual functions (e.g. "sit read" as progressive or similar).
> Development of a progressive or similar function was very common in
> the sample, while other functions of posture verbs were rarer. In
> general, although I did not specifically look for this in the survey,
> my impression is that habitual is not a typical function of posture
> verbs in SVCs, and also overall I do not think that habitual is a
> particularly common function of SVCs in general. On the other hand,
> descriptive work on SVCs is generally biased toward "famous" types
> like SIT as progressive, so it's possible this is underreported.
> Regardless, given the examples so far this appears to be especially
> frequent in ([Mainland?] Southeast) Asian languages, so it seems
> possible to me that it might be a regional feature rather than a
> typical pathway for SVCs in general. Already in these few messages we
> have examples from elsewhere, so I don't mean it would be a unique
> development, but just that it's not the kind of extremely common
> development that would be hard to attribute as a regional feature like
> some other types of SVCs, such as SIT progressives or TAKE
> instrumentals. I imagine that sometimes progressive could further
> grammaticalize as habitual, but that doesn't seem to be typical
> (although this may also be under-reported).
>
> There is also a murky question for SVCs regarding at which point we
> would consider them to be auxiliaries. One overly strict criterion
> would be to require a lack of homophony to a lexical verb, which would
> count English HAVE perfectives as some kind of lexical construction
> (not SVC due to form, but that's beside the point: Anderson 2006 is a
> relevant survey of auxiliaries, finding that 'Auxiliary Verb
> Constructions' can be of essentially any form, including all of those
> commonly associated with "SVCs"). In this case, my instinct would be
> to say that this is a relatively grammaticalized function, although
> again that's just my impression from general familiarity with SVCs,
> not too much with this specific type. We could similarly consider SIT
> progressives to be auxiliary constructions, except that there seems to
> be a continuum from literal to grammaticalized usage (see Lødrup 2019
> for a detailed analysis of a similar construction where it isn't clear
> how bleached it really is). With KNOW (for example), I don't see a
> possible continuum via SVCs: in fact, this seems to be some kind of
> complementation (paraphrased as "know how to V", or maybe "be familiar
> with Ving", later grammaticalizing as habitual). This
> complement-taking function of KNOW is explicitly excluded by
> Haspelmath (2016: 305). Whether or not we accept that particular
> argument, this seems to violate the single-event criterion (however
> that should be interpreted), because /knowing how to do something/ and
> /doing that action/ are not co-extensive, so they don't form a
> macro-event. I can know how to do something without actually doing it:
> "I know how to speak Spanish" does not entail that I am currently
> speaking Spanish. Interestingly, habitual aspect similarly actually
> does not entail that the predicate holds at the current moment: "I
> speak Spanish" does not entail "I am speaking Spanish". Overall, this
> seems removed from prototypical SVCs and suggests complementation as a
> more likely source. I realize that some authors prefer to use "SVC"
> for anything that looks like SVCs, especially in languages with many
> SVCs, but that is a somewhat loose classification focusing only on
> form (vs. function: see Ross 2021 about this specific issue for
> defining SVCs).
>
> Anderson, Gregory D. S. 2006. Auxiliary verb constructions. Oxford:
> Oxford University Press.
> https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199280315.001.0001
> Lødrup, Helge. 2019. Pseudocoordination with posture verbs in Mainland
> Scandinavian: A grammaticalized progressive construction? Nordic
> Journal of Linguistics 42(1). 87–110.
> https://doi.org/10.1017/S0332586519000027
> Ross, Daniel & Joseph Lovestrand. 2018. What Do Serial Verbs Mean? A
> Worldwide Survey. Presented at Syntax of the World’s Languages (SWL)
> 8, INALCO, Paris, September 3, 2018.
> https://swl8.sciencesconf.org/data/pages/Ross_Lovestrand_SWL8.pdf
> Ross, Daniel. 2021. Pseudocoordination, Serial Verb Constructions and
> Multi-Verb Predicates: The relationship between form and structure.
> University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Ph.D. dissertation.
> https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5546425
>
> I hope those notes may be helpful!
> Daniel
>
>
> On Mon, Apr 17, 2023 at 7:33 PM Laura Arnold <Laura.Arnold at ed.ac.uk>
> wrote:
>
> Dear Eva, dear Sune,
>
> Ambel (Austronesian > South Halmahera-West New Guinea) is another
> example—in this case, the SVCs contain the element /hey/ 'good'.
> These are functionally very similar to the Papuan Malay
> /taw/ constructions, and speakers often use the /taw
> /constructions to translate the Ambel /hey/ constructions. There
> are further details in section 13.1.3.2 (especially p550) of the
> Ambel grammar:
> https://laura-arnold.org/documents/Arnold_2018_AGrammarOfAmbel.pdf
>
> Several other nearby languages have similar constructions using
> 'good', which may also be analysable as SVCs. Let me know if you'd
> like further information.
>
> All the best,
> Laura
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on
> behalf of Sune Gregersen <s.gregersen at isfas.uni-kiel.de>
> *Sent:* Monday, April 17, 2023 09:20
> *To:* lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> *Subject:* [Lingtyp] Query: Habitual serial verb constructions
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>
> Dear colleagues,
>
> In connection with an investigation of habitual markers, we are
> looking for information on languages which use serial verb
> constructions (SVCs) to express habitual meaning, i.e. for
> customarily or typically recurring situations. An example of this
> is seen in (1), from Papuan Malay [ISO 639-3: pmy], where the verb
> /taw/ can be combined with another verb to express a habitual
> situation. Outside of this construction, the verb /taw/ means
> 'know', as in (2):
>
> (1) Papuan Malay (Kluge 2023: 8)
> /dong *taw* maing foli/
> 3PL know play volleyball
> 'they habitually play volleyball'
>
> (2) Papuan Malay (Kluge 2023: 7)
> /mama de blum *taw* tempat itu/
> mother 3SG not.yet know place DISTAL.DEM
> 'mother doesn’t yet know that place'
>
> We adhere to the definition of SVC offered by Haspelmath (2016:
> 296): "a monoclausal construction consisting of multiple
> independent verbs with no element linking them and with no
> predicate–argument relation between the verbs".
>
> That the verbs must be "independent" means that they must be able
> to occur on their own in a non-elliptical utterance (see
> Haspelmath [2016: 302–304] for details). This does not exclude the
> possibility that the verbs in a SVC are pronounced as a single
> phonological word. Hence the definition also covers some
> constructions which may be termed differently in grammars, e.g.
> "verb incorporation", "verbal compounds", or "secondary verbs". An
> example of such a SVC is seen in (3) from Northern Paiute [pao].
> The combination of 'kill' with///čakwi/, literally 'carry', gives
> the habitual meaning 'would kill'. However, 'carry' may also be
> used as an independent verb, as shown in (4):
>
> (3) Northern Paiute (Thornes 2003: 266)
> /nɨnmi kammɨ koi-*čakwi */
> 1.EXCL jackrabbit kill.PL-carry
> 'We would kill jackrabbits.'
>
> (4) Northern Paiute (Snapp et al. 1982: 68)
> /baa-huu-na i gunna pa-to-*ǰakwi*-kɨ-kwɨnai-hu/
> water-flow-SUBORD my wood water-shoulder-carry-APPLIC-away-PUNCTUAL
> 'The flood carried away my wood.'
>
> Apart from Papuan Malay and Northern Paiute, we have examples from
> the following languages so far: Anamuxra [imi], Dumo [vam],
> Kwomtari [kwo], Lao [lao], Sezo [sze], Tariana [tae], and Yace
> [ekr]. We would be most grateful for any information on other
> habitual serial verb constructions, including verbal compounds, in
> any language of the world.
>
> With all best wishes,
> Eva van Lier (Amsterdam) and Sune Gregersen (Kiel)
>
>
> REFERENCES
>
> Haspelmath, Martin. 2016. The serial verb construction:
> Comparative concept and cross-linguistic generalizations. Language
> and Linguistics 17(3). 291–319.
> https://doi.org/10.1177/2397002215626895
>
> Kluge, Angela. 2023. Serial verb constructions in Papuan Malay:
> Forms, functions and indeterminacy. Journal of the Southeast Asian
> Linguistics Society 16(1). 1–36. http://hdl.handle.net/10524/52507
>
> Snapp, Allen, John Anderson & Joy Anderson. 1982. Northern Paiute.
> In Ronald W. Langacker (ed.), Studies in Uto-Aztecan grammar 3:
> Uto-Aztecan grammatical sketches, 1-92. Dallas: Summer Institute
> of Linguistics. https://www.sil.org/resources/archives/8593
>
> Thornes, Timothy Jon. 2003. A Northern Paiute grammar and texts.
> Doctoral dissertation, University of Oregon.
>
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--
Isabelle Bril
Directeur de recherches (LACITO-CNRS)
Directeur d'Etudes à l'EPHE (Typologie et Typologie des langues austronésiennes)
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