[Lingtyp] base valency classes of verb roots

Thu Dec 28 01:46:57 UTC 2023

Hi Christian,
In talking about what are sometimes discussed as voice or transitivity-marking affixes in Tagalog, Himmelman (2004: 1481) argues that the affixes “change the orientation of a given base in such a way that it may be used to refer to one of the participants involved in the state of affairs denoted by the base … In this view, -um- is an actor orienting infix which derives from a base such as tango ‘nod, nodding in assent’ a word tumango which could be glossed as ‘one who nods, nodder’. This expression no longer directly denotes the action of nodding, but rather the participant who nods. That is, in the Tagalog clause … tumango ang unggo ‘The monkey nodded in assent’, both tumango and unggo refer to the same entity. Imitating the equational structure of this clause it could be rendered as ‘nodd-er in assent (was) the monkey’ … Note, however, that Tagalog voice affixes are not nominalising in a morphosyntactic sense, since they do not change the syntactic category of the base . . .”. He considers them derivational, not inflectional affixes, as they apply equally well to action words and object words: “… there are no productive inflectional paradigms for voice, as suggested by the commonly used ‘paradigmatic’ examples in the literature. Instead, derivations from all kinds of bases are only partially predictable on the basis of their semantics and exhibit a large number of idiosyncrasies, which again suggests derivation rather than inflection.”

So he has used orientation in this way. Not sure if you can see any parallels in the structure and use of the affixes.

All the best,
Randy
——
Professor Randy J. LaPolla（罗仁地), PhD FAHA 
Center for Language Sciences
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> On 28 Dec 2023, at 1:52 AM, Johanna B Nichols <johanna at berkeley.edu> wrote:
> 
> I use "ambitransitive" instead of "ambivalent" -- it's unambiguous.   "Flexible" is also used in this sense, but already has too wide a range of meanings.
> 
> I agree, ±oriented and ±directed aren't great.  A few years ago, searching through a thesaurus for possibilities, I tried out "bearing(s)", which is a good replacement for "direction" or "orientation" but not for directed/undirected, etc. (Well, we have "rudderless", but that's too heavy on the connotations, and anyway no related antonym.)  I think the same problem comes up with anything based on "Janus".  Maybe "steered/unsteered" and "steering"?
> 
> Alternatively, we could probably turn to an Oceanic language for a precise, well-elaborated set of relevant nautical terms.
> 
> Johanna
> 
> On Wed, Dec 27, 2023 at 4:05 AM Christian Lehmann <christian.lehmann at uni-erfurt.de <mailto:christian.lehmann at uni-erfurt.de>> wrote:
>> Dear colleagues,
>> 
>> sorry for my exaggerated preoccupation with adequate terminology. I have to name the Cabecar (Chibchan) verb root classes, but am short of linguistic terms. Verbs form voice stems for conjugation in active and middle voice. Middle voice involves a suffix for all verbs; active voice involves a suffix in one root class.
>> 
>> The criteria of the classification are:
>> - Does the root have an active voice? If not, it is a medial root (a Classicist would call it deponens).
>> - Does the active voice stem involve a suffix (viz. the causativizer)? If not, I call the root preliminarily 'directed'.
>> - Is the root transitive or intransitive in active voice?
>> 
>> These are the classes:
>>     1. Directed roots: these directly conjugate in active voice:
>>         a. intransitive roots: in active voice, the verb is intransitive (e.g. 'laugh');
>>         b. transitive roots: in active voice, the verb is transitive (e.g. 'bend').
>>     2. Undirected roots: these do not directly conjugate in active voice:
>>         a. medial roots: these only conjugate in the middle voice, and the valency of this voice stem is intransitive (e.g. 'stay');
>>         b. ambivalent roots: these alternatively take on the middle voice suffix and then are intransitive, or they take on the causativizer and then are transitive (e.g. 'melt').
>> 
>> These four classes work satisfactorily. What I am unhappy with is the names 'directed', 'undirected' and 'ambivalent'. The idea underlying 'directed - undirected' is that undirected verb roots have no base valency; this is, instead, conferred to them by the voice suffix. The idea behind 'ambivalent' is that these roots have either valency depending on the voice suffix that they are provided with.
>> 
>> I would prefer 'oriented - non-oriented' to 'directed - nondirected'; but this term pair is taken by the contrast between verbal constructions of the sort (English examples:) actor/who acts vs. action/that he acts. And 'ambivalent' is a very ambivalent term; a more specific one (like 'Janus-headed') may be more mnemonic.
>> 
>> Have you seen appropriate term (pair)s in grammars? Or can you think of terms that would fit?
>> 
>> Many thanks in advance,
>> Christian
>> -- 
>> Prof. em. Dr. Christian Lehmann
>> Rudolfstr. 4
>> 99092 Erfurt
>> Deutschland
>> 
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