[Lingtyp] Lingtyp Digest, Vol 104, Issue 16

[Michael Daniel]

Hi all,

interesting! I already answered to Tom privately, but this last remark
takes it to another level.

In various East Caucasian (Nakh-Daghestanian) languages, there is a
construction that has been dubbed Unintentional Agent construction (briefly
referred to in some intragenealogical studies but also, I think, in several
Seppo Kittilä's cross-linguistic surveys. The construction in question
covers a range of functions that share the notion of decreased control.
These include unintentional action (like "I broke a vase (unintentionally,
because made it fall)"), capability in modal constructions (like "I am
capable of lifting this heavy stone"), and also, I think the construction
that Tom was referring to ("I managed to lift this heavy stone (which was
unobvious)"). This construction is not available with all verbs (may be
limited to labile verbs) and uses a special spatial marking on this
non-canonical  Agent (usually one of the elatives).

What just caught my eye in Maria's comment is that, the little I know of
the construction, I have a feeling that this unintentional agent
construction refers more if not exclusively to internal possibility -
'being capable of doing something'. At least, this is the first reading
that comes under duress elicitation. This is unlike what Maria describes,
and I just wondered whether you can think of this in terms of iconicity.

I am almost serious. In this comparison, internal possibility, describing
the properties of the subject, is coded on the noun that refers to the
subject; but external possibility, related to the properties of the
situation, is encoded on the predicate. I think there are reports of
languages that convey internal possibility as a verbal mood (I saw
references but did not look into the grammars), but are they many? and how
their number relates to the number of languages that have grammaticalized a
verbal mood for external possibility?


Michael Daniel

сб, 13 мая 2023 г. в 10:39, <mbardaj1 at uni-koeln.de>:

>
> Dear Tom, dear Voltaire,
>
> Sonja Riesberg, Nikolaus Himmelmann and myself recently wrote about
> limited-control predicates in western Austronesian languages (which
> include the "manage to" meaning that you mention) in the following
> paper:
>
> Bardají, M., Riesberg, S., & Himmelmann, N.P. (2022). Limited-Control
> Predicates in Western Austronesia: Stative, Dynamic, or None of the
> Above? Oceanic Linguistics 61(1), 118-165.
> (https://muse.jhu.edu/article/858601)
>
> Maybe what could be relevant to the constructions that you encountered
> is section 4.2., where we distinguish between internal abilities
> (inherent skills of the individual) and external abilities
> (possibilities determined by external factors such as luck, fate or
> other outer circumstances). We argue that only external abilities are
> expressed by limited-control morphology (i.e. potentive), whereas
> internal abilities are expressed in a different way.
>
> I hope this can be useful!
>
> Best,
> Maria Bardají
>
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