[Lingtyp] base valency classes of verb roots
Randy J. LaPolla
randy.lapolla at gmail.com
Thu Dec 28 14:54:09 UTC 2023
Thanks very much, Christian!
I am only familiar with Tagalog and Singapore Malay (which has to some extent converged with Hokkien and Singlish in terms of structure and world view), but I do think in trying to understand linguistic phenomena we need to take diachrony into account, as all phenomena are the result of historical development, and language is always emerging out of discourse, i.e. always changing, so there is no clear distinction between “synchronic” vs. “diachronic”. If it can be shown that the PAN roots were verbal, and then nominalized by the affixes, that would be important to understanding the current situation. The question then would then be how the verbal roots became “nominal”, and the use of the affixes spread to object words (assuming they were originally nominals). Currently in Tagalog you can use the affixes with any word, even brand names, e.g. Mag-She-Shell ako [Actor_orientation:Irrealis-REDUP:imperfective-Shell_gasoline 1sg:TOPIC] 'I will use Shell gasoline’.
All the best,
Randy
> On 28 Dec 2023, at 9:52 PM, Christian Lehmann <christian.lehmann at uni-erfurt.de> wrote:
>
> Thanks, Randy, for the correction. Diachronically, many conjugated forms stem from nominalized forms, whether or not this is synchronically yet verifiable/relevant. Maybe one should say that (this concept of) orientation presupposes the nominal categorization of a verbal base. For some Austronesian languages, this, of course, concerns the dispute over the categorization of major word classes, which I am unprepared to join.
>
> Best, Christian
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Am 28.12.2023 um 14:44 schrieb Randy J. LaPolla:
>> Wow, Thanks very much, Christian! What goes around comes around!
>>
>> For the record, in the 2004 article (sorry I forgot to give the reference last time), p. 1481, Himmelmann says
>> " … Note, however, that Tagalog voice affixes are not nominalising in a morphosyntactic sense, since they do not change the syntactic category of the base . . .”
>>
>> It is tricky to talk about nominal vs. verbal in Tagalog. It is true, though, that the unmarked clause is an equative clause, with the two parts of the equation having the same reference, but whether you use the affixes or not, it is the same. That is, the bare root (action or object) is “nominal” in this sense, and so adding the orientation affixes adds an orientation, but does not change the syntactic category.
>>
>> Himmelmann, Nikolaus P. 2004. Tagalog (Austronesian). In Geert Booij, Christian Lehmann, Joachim Mugdan & Stavros Skopeteas (eds.), Morphology. An International Handbook on Inflection and Word Formation, 1473-1490. Berlin: de Gruyter.
>>
>> All the best,
>> Randy
>> ——
>> Professor Randy J. LaPolla（罗仁地), PhD FAHA
>> Center for Language Sciences
>> Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences
>> Beijing Normal University at Zhuhai
>> A302, Muduo Building, #18 Jinfeng Road, Zhuhai City, Guangdong, China
>>
>> https://randylapolla.info <https://randylapolla.info/>
>> ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6100-6196
>>
>> 邮编：519087
>> 广东省珠海市唐家湾镇金凤路18号木铎楼A302
>> 北京师范大学珠海校区
>> 人文和社会科学高等研究院
>> 语言科学研究中心
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> On 28 Dec 2023, at 9:29 PM, Christian Lehmann <christian.lehmann at uni-erfurt.de> <mailto:christian.lehmann at uni-erfurt.de> wrote:
>>>
>>> Dear Randy, dear Alex (and whoever may be interested in this topical area),
>>>
>>> the following may seem (justifiably) an attempt at safeguarding original authorship and grinding my axe. However, more importantly, I would like to use the occasion to lend additional weight to a linguistic concept which I have found very useful and generally applicable and which I think deserves to be known widely.
>>>
>>> The concept of orientation was defined, under its German term 'Ausrichtung', in:
>>>
>>> Lehmann, Christian 1984, Der Relativsatz. Typologie seiner Strukturen - Theorie seiner Funktionen - Kompendium seiner Grammatik. Tübingen: G. Narr (Language Universals Series, 2); pp. 151-153.
>>>
>>> It was taken up in:
>>>
>>> Himmelmann, Nikolaus 1987, Morphosyntax und Morphologie - Die Ausrichtungsaffixe im Tagalog. München: Fink (Studien zur Theoretischen Linguistik, 8).
>>>
>>> And either Himmelmann or myself soon translated the German term into 'orientation'. It seems quite possible that Lemaréchal got it from Himmelmann.
>>>
>>> Adding to the definition from Lemaréchal, it may be worthwhile to clarify that the term applies to nominalized verbal constructions. These are either non-oriented or oriented. The non-oriented ones have the same meaning as the verb stem itself, viz. the situation core (some call it event type) in question, like (Y's) employment or that X employs Y. The oriented ones designate a participant in that situation type, like employer/who employs or employee/whom X employs. On the one hand, it is profitable to analyze nominalized constructions with respect to how their orientation is coded or left to inference. On the other hand, one may ask whether orientation does presuppose nominalization (in the widest, syntactic and morphological sense). Himmelmann at least argues that the Tagalog verb forms are actually nominalized; they are comparable to participles like employing and employed.
>>>
>>> Apologies, (and please don't forget my initial question!),
>>>
>>> Christian
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> Am 28.12.2023 um 13:59 schrieb Alex Francois:
>>>> dear Randy, dear Christian,
>>>>
>>>> The term "orientation", in the context of Tagalog, was first proposed by Alain Lemaréchal:
>>>> Lemaréchal, Alain. 1989. Les parties du discours: Sémantique et syntaxe.
>>>> Linguistique Nouvelle. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
>>>> Lemaréchal, Alain. 1991. Dérivation et orientation dans les langues de Philippines (exemples tagalog).
>>>> Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris 86-1, 317-358.
>>>> (Unfortunately, the 1989 monograph is only partially reproduced digitally <https://books.google.fr/books?id=xsGzDwAAQBAJ&lpg=PT195&ots=lyEVZZ_jBQ&dq=tesni%C3%A8re%20orientation%20des%20verbes&lr&pg=PT120#v=onepage&q=orientation&f=false>; nor can I find a Pdf of the 1991 paper.)
>>>>
>>>> Let me copy this passage from my hardcopy of Lemaréchal (1989), p.102:
>>>> “L'orientation d'un verbe est cette caractéristique qui associe aux différents participants en rapport avec lui à la fois un rang dans la hiérarchie et un rôle dans la situation, sachant que cette association est caractéristique de la sous-classe et de la voix de la forme verbale. [...]
>>>> Ainsi l'orientation primaire du verbe transitif actif est une orientation vers un premier actant sujet agent, son orientation secondaire une orientation vers un second actant objet patient. [...]
>>>> L'orientation étant une caractéristique qui relève de la valence des formes concernées, elle est soit stockée dans le lexique, soit marquée par des dérivations régulières — c'est le cas des phénomènes de diathèse.”
>>>>
>>>> The syntax of "orientation" is a major topic of Lemaréchal's research, in various languages (mostly Tagalog, Palauan, Malagasy, Kinyarwanda, etc.). He applies the concept to various parts of speech: orientation of verbs, of nouns, of clauses... (see the “Deuxième partie <https://www.google.com/books/edition/Les_parties_du_discours/xsGzDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=orientation%20tagalog&pg=PT6>” section of his 1989 monograph).
>>>>
>>>> best
>>>> Alex
>>>> Alex François
>>>>
>>>> LaTTiCe <http://www.lattice.cnrs.fr/en/alexandre-francois/> — CNRS– <http://www.cnrs.fr/index.html>ENS <https://www.ens.fr/laboratoire/lattice-langues-textes-traitements-informatiques-et-cognition-umr-8094>–PSL <https://www.psl.eu/en>–Sorbonne nouvelle <http://www.univ-paris3.fr/lattice-langues-textes-traitements-informatiques-cognition-umr-8094-3458.kjsp>
>>>> Australian National University <https://researchprofiles.anu.edu.au/en/persons/alex-francois>
>>>> Personal homepage <http://alex.francois.online.fr/>
>>>> _________________________________________
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
>>>> From: Randy J. LaPolla <randy.lapolla at gmail.com <mailto:randy.lapolla at gmail.com>>
>>>> Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2023 at 02:47
>>>> Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] base valency classes of verb roots
>>>> To: Johanna Nichols <johanna at berkeley.edu <mailto:johanna at berkeley.edu>>
>>>> Cc: <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> 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
>>>> Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences
>>>> Beijing Normal University at Zhuhai
>>>> A302, Muduo Building, #18 Jinfeng Road, Zhuhai City, Guangdong, China
>>>>
>>>> https://randylapolla.info <https://randylapolla.info/>
>>>> ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6100-6196
>>>>
>>>> 邮编：519087
>>>> 广东省珠海市唐家湾镇金凤路18号木铎楼A302
>>>> 北京师范大学珠海校区
>>>> 人文和社会科学高等研究院
>>>> 语言科学研究中心
>>>>
>>>>> On 28 Dec 2023, at 1:52 AM, Johanna B Nichols <johanna at berkeley.edu <mailto: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
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Tel.: +49/361/2113417
>>>>>> E-Post: christianw_lehmann at arcor.de <mailto:christianw_lehmann at arcor.de>
>>>>>> Web: https://www.christianlehmann.eu <https://www.christianlehmann.eu/>_______________________________________________
>>>>>> Lingtyp mailing list
>>>>>> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <mailto:Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
>>>>>> https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Lingtyp mailing list
>>>>> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <mailto:Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
>>>>> https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Lingtyp mailing list
>>>> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <mailto:Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
>>>> https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>>> --
>>> Prof. em. Dr. Christian Lehmann
>>> Rudolfstr. 4
>>> 99092 Erfurt
>>> Deutschland
>>>
>>> Tel.: +49/361/2113417
>>> E-Post: christianw_lehmann at arcor.de <mailto:christianw_lehmann at arcor.de>
>>> Web: https://www.christianlehmann.eu <https://www.christianlehmann.eu/>
> --
> Prof. em. Dr. Christian Lehmann
> Rudolfstr. 4
> 99092 Erfurt
> Deutschland
>
> Tel.: +49/361/2113417
> E-Post: christianw_lehmann at arcor.de <mailto:christianw_lehmann at arcor.de>
> Web: https://www.christianlehmann.eu <https://www.christianlehmann.eu/>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20231228/a7a487c5/attachment.htm>
More information about the Lingtyp
mailing list