[Lingtyp] Grammaticalization of past/resultative meaning from "stay"

Mon Mar 6 11:40:48 UTC 2023

Dear Wesley,

I recognize the grammaticalization of 'stay' as a resultative (perfect)
marker from Hawai'i Creole, as described by Siegel (2012: 48) and
references therein:

a. *The bell stay ring*. ‘The bell has rung.’ (Ferreiro 1937: 62)
b. *Ai ste kuk da stu awredi. *‘I already cooked the stew.’ (Sakoda and
Siegel 2003)

For Iatmul (Ndu), Jendraschek (2009: 1335) describes *li *('stay') as an
imperfective marker. He gives two examples, both with past time reference,
but I suspect the temporal meaning is inferred from the contex and not
expressed by *li* (i.e. this indeed functions as a purely aspectual form
and not as a past imperfective). Also note that in the second example the
lexical meaning is clearly still there:

[image: immagine.png]

*Li *can also express resultative aspect, but only in conjunction with the
'consecutive' marker *-taa*.

References below.

Hope this helps, best wishes,
Riccardo

Jendraschek, Gerd. 2009. Switch-reference constructions in Iatmul: Forms,
functions, and development. *Lingua *119, 1316-1339.
Siegel, Jeff. 2012. Accounting for analyticity in creoles. In Bernd
Kortmann & Benedikt Szmrecsanyi (eds.), *Linguistic Complexity : Second
Language Acquisition, Indigenization, Contact, *35-61*. *Berlin: De Gruyter.

Jess Tauber <tetrahedralpt at gmail.com> escreveu no dia segunda, 6/03/2023
à(s) 11:42:

> In Yaghan (a recently extinct genetic isolate from Tierra del Fuego'), the
> verb mu:tu: (colon marks tenseness of the vowel preceding it)  for 'sit,
> sg.' does double duty to mean 'stay, remain' and has grammaticalized senses
> that could be described as durative. The entire set of simple posture and
> gait verbs in Yahgan has both lexical and grammaticalized readings, with
> the degree of surface contact apparently determining the temporal staying
> power of a state. wI;a (combining form -i:a) 'lie sg.' has the greatest
> surface contact to the substratum and describes, in grammaticalized form,
> extended spatiotemporality, while mvni (v schwa) 'stand sg.' has the least
> contact (feet only) and is used grammaticalized as a habitual, or to mean
> 'on the point of (doing)', where one could easily be distracted by other
> matters arising.
>
> Jess Tauber
>
> On Mon, Mar 6, 2023 at 4:45 AM Mark Donohue <mhdonohue at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I can't be the only one thinking of Western European auxiliaries with
>> unergative verbs, such as
>>
>> Dutch
>> Ik ben aangekomen.
>> 1SG 1SG:be arrived
>> 'I have (in the near past) arrived (and the state continues).'
>>
>> -Mark
>>
>> On Mon, 6 Mar 2023 at 19:04, Wesley Jones <wkj at uoregon.edu> wrote:
>>
>>> Hello all,
>>>
>>> There is a construction in Horokoi (a.k.a. Wasembo, [gsp], part of the
>>> Madang branch of TNG) in which a clause chain with the final verb
>>> "stay/exist" can have various past/resultative-like meanings. I am
>>> wondering where else such a construction has been found.
>>>
>>> The form is: [V-SR stay-TAM], where SR means switch reference marking
>>> (same-subject or different-subject). With same-subject marking, it
>>> literally says "I [V] and I stay"; with different-subject, it says "I [V]
>>> and it (impersonal) stays".
>>>
>>> So far I have found the following meanings for the construction. The
>>> different-subject marking tends to be associated with more distal meanings
>>> (past, far past, anterior).
>>>
>>>    - literal (he *built* a house and it *stayed* [didn't fall down])
>>>    - stative (the food *is dry*, lit. it dries and it stays)
>>>    - copula/stative (you *are* like me, lit. you become and you stay)
>>>       - Note that this meaning only occurs when the first verb is
>>>       "become". It does not mean "you became like me" (eventive).
>>>    - resultative/stative ([you hit it and] it * is broken*, lit. it
>>>    breaks and it stays)
>>>    - past (I *went*, lit. I go and I stay)
>>>    - far past (they [ancestors] *got* salt from trees, lit. they take
>>>    and it stays)
>>>    - anterior (I *had said* it to you, [then something else happened],
>>>    lit. I say and it stays)
>>>
>>> I have been thinking that this is unusual because "stay" as an auxiliary
>>> usually grammaticalizes into continuative rather than past/resultative.
>>> Heine & Kuteva (2002) mention "sit" > copula, but not this path of "become
>>> and stay" > "become-past" > copula, nor any cases of "stay" (or similar) to
>>> these past-like meanings.
>>>
>>> I've been attributing this pathway to the sequential semantics of the
>>> clause chaining construction (Horokoi does not mark simultaneous vs
>>> sequential in medial verbs, as far as I know). Thus, the sequence "I [V]
>>> and (then) I stay" implies that V is no longer happening and I am staying
>>> in whatever state endures at the end of V's action. But perhaps this is not
>>> right, and I received a comment that this implicature need not hold for the
>>> literal meaning.
>>>
>>> I have received comments that similar constructions are found in Dani
>>> languages, Malay, and some others. I found mention of something very
>>> similar in Mian by Fedden (2020). I have found no cognate constructions or
>>> comparative evidence to shed light on this for Horokoi (presumably Mian
>>> constitutes a parallel innovation because of the vast time depth separating
>>> Madang from Ok).
>>>
>>> Please let me know if you have seen something like this or if you know
>>> of references about this grammaticalization pathway, thank you!
>>>
>>> Wesley Kuhron Jones
>>> Ph.D. student, University of Oregon
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Lingtyp mailing list
>>> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
>>> https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>>>
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-- 
Riccardo Giomi, Ph.D.
University of Liège
Département de langues modernes : linguistique, littérature et traduction
Research group *Linguistique contrastive et typologie des langues*
F.R.S.-FNRS Postdoctoral fellow (CR - FC 43095)
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