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

[Jess Tauber]

In Yahgan, the root ka:gu: (also used prefixally to mean 'to the top, to
fullness/completion' appears to connote staying in the same state (but
increasingly so). The (perhaps etymologically related) ka:taka is used both
lexically and grammaticalized as a verb suffix meaning 'incremental
progressive' or 'more and more', 'bit by bit', etc.

Jess Tauber

On Mon, Mar 6, 2023 at 4:13 PM Elad Eisen <elad.eisen at mail.huji.ac.il>
wrote:

> Dear Östen, Wesley, and all,
> The development (REMAIN > CHANGE OF STATE) seems to be shared by more than
> one language outside of the Circum-Baltic languages, including not only
> Spanish *quedar (se) *but also Italian *rimanere*, Arabic *baqiya*, and
> Neo-Aramaic *pyāša*.
>
> Some references and examples can be found in the abstract of a talk I
> gave, where I suggested a grammaticalization path for the change REMAIN >
> CHANGE OF STATE:
>
> https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByEYwMlbX_h5ODY5b2o5enlweGRUZFN0bW8xOGpMTjRfQzFj/view?usp=sharing&resourcekey=0-PXh0LtFFyyIXizAWhTywoA
>
> Elad
>
> Eisen, E. (2019, April 8). From remain to become: a static source for
> change of state verbs [Conference presentation abstract]. The International
> Conference for Graduate Students on Diverse Approaches to Linguistics,
> Jerusalem, Israel.
>
> On Mon, 6 Mar 2023 at 14:00, Östen Dahl <oesten at ling.su.se> wrote:
>
>> In many or most Circum-Baltic languages (i.e. languages spoken around the
>> Baltic sea), there has been a development of verbs meaning ‘remain, stay’
>> into verbs meaning ‘become’. Thus, in Swedish, “bli” can have both
>> meanings, although the original one is less often found in contemporary
>> language. Cf.
>>
>> Jag blir här ‘I will stay here’
>>
>> Jag blir så trött ’I am getting so tired’
>>
>> ”Bli” is also used as a passive auxiliary, e.g.
>>
>> Min artikel blev refuserad ‘My paper was rejected’
>>
>> This looks like an areal phenomenon going back to medieval times. “Bli”,
>> which is found in all standard continental Scandinavian languages, comes
>> from Middle Low German “bliwen”, but it is unclear if “bliwen” could have
>> the meaning ‘become’. – Spanish “quedar” seems to be a similar case outside
>> the Circum-Baltic area.
>>
>>
>>
>>    - Östen
>>
>>
>>
>> *Från:* Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> *För *Wesley
>> Jones
>> *Skickat:* den 6 mars 2023 01:38
>> *Till:* lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
>> *Ämne:* [Lingtyp] Grammaticalization of past/resultative meaning from
>> "stay"
>>
>>
>>
>> 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
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