[Lingtyp] agent-like entities in anticausative constructions

[Juergen Bohnemeyer]

Dear Sergey – I think that’s hard to answer without knowing more about the semantics of the preposition. The translation [on NP] in your examples does not actually express an accidental/involuntary agent, but merely an affected participant (i.e., a benefactive or malefactive). (1) does not entail any causation on the part of the speaker:


(1)          She walked out on me.

In your translations, unlike in (1), causation would be a conversational implicature. But the question is, what about the MWA preposition? Does it entail causation/agency? Does it entail involuntary action? Does it entail affectedness?

Best – Juergen



Juergen Bohnemeyer (He/Him)
Professor, Department of Linguistics
University at Buffalo

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From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of Sergey Loesov via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Date: Friday, June 28, 2024 at 13:04
To: LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: [Lingtyp] agent-like entities in anticausative constructions
Dear colleagues,

In my field material on Modern Western Aramaic, a moribund language still spoken in the Syrian Antilebanon mountains, I often come across clauses like this one:

Mácana ḥarb̥aṯ ʕimm.
The machine broke down on me

The verb ḥarb̥aṯ is anti-causative, the ʕimm prepositional phrase ‘on me’ (lit. ‘with me’) refers to the participant via whose involuntary involvement the action took place.

 Another similar example:

‘Hanna finžōna ičber!?!’ ‘Iskaṭ ʕimm ana ŭ ʕa-nmažǝlya’.
‘This glass is broken!?’ ‘It fell on me while I was washing it’.

The preposition ʕimm, here ‘on me’, does not imply that the glass fell onto the speaker but rather that it fell through some fault of its own.

Nonetheless, with real passives this ʕimm is purely associative and cannot be used to introduce the agent, as illustrated by the sentence

inəkṭal Žaržūra ʕimməl‿Ḥasan,
 which can only be interpreted as
‘Žaržūra was killed (together) with Ḥasan’ rather than
‘Žaržūra was killed by Ḥasan’.

How do we describe this participant in an anti-causative verb phrase?

Thank you very much!

Sergey


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