[Lingtyp] Questionnaire on weather verbs

Thu Oct 10 17:45:14 UTC 2024

Dear Peter,

yes, Basque uses the transitive auxiliary with many or even most
unergative verbs (not only complex ones built with the light verb
/egin/, but also monomorphemic ones like /iraun/ 'to persist'), because
those verbs have an ergative S argument and there is no possibility for
indexing ergative arguments in the intransitive paradigm. Analysing
weather expressions in the form of /euria, elurra, hotza, beroa ...
egin/ 'to rain, to snow, to be cold, to be warm' as intransitive noun +
verb compounds instead of transitive constructions meaning 'to make
rain, snow, cold, heat ...' does not seem very appropriate to me because
the nouns in these expressions always bear a determiner, but even with
this analysis there would still be an ergative argument indexed in the
auxiliary.

Or did I miss your point?

Best,

Silvie Strauß

/
/

10.10.2024 12:37(e)an, Peter Bakker via Lingtyp igorleak idatzi zuen:
> Dear Carla,
>
> I am not sure your point of departure is correct. You are right that
> the auxiliary suggests ergativity because it is transitive. But Basque
> has a range of expressions with the verb egin 'to do' which makes the
> expression grammatically transitive but they are intransitive,
> sometimes called unergative, like barre egin ' to laugh', lo egin 'to
> sleep'.
>
> Beth Levin was the first who pointed this out for Basque in 1983.
>
> https://scholarworks.umass.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/44897a9b-d727-491c-9b98-984dfc919527/content
>
> Weather expressions in Basque, as you mention, tend to be
> intransitives, like euria da ' it is raining', hotz(a) da 'it is cold.
>
> Viveka Velupillai in her typology textbook, section 9.2, discusses
> cross-linguistic expressions for weather, with a map. There are no
> ergative expressions for weather there, I think. I doubt whether there
> are; I have used this exercise of 'it is raining' with several
> generations of students, but no one ever found an ergative-type
> construction in any language.
>
> Peter Bakker
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *Fra:* Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> på vegne af
> Kittilä, Seppo via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> *Sendt:* 10. oktober 2024 10:47
> *Til:* lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> *Emne:* [Lingtyp] Questionnaire on weather verbs
> Dear all,
>
> (I tried to send this message to the list yesterday, but I think I
> failed, if I did not, I sincerely apologize for a multiple posting)
>
> I am sending the message/questionnaire below on behalf of a student. I
> hope that some of you will find the topic interesting enough for
> helping her 🙂 If you have any questions, you should send them
> directly to Carla.
>
> All the best,
> Seppo
>
> ---
> Hello ergative language speakers/researchers!
> I am making my Bachelor thesis about transitive weather expressions. I
> have studied Basque and noticed some transitive weather expressions
> using ergativity that raised my interest. No one, at least according
> to my knowledge, has ever done research on weather expressions in
> ergative languages so I decided to do it myself. I would be very
> thankful if you could find time to answer my short questionnaire about
> certain weather expressions. In order to keep the questionnaire short,
> the questions have been formulated from the basis of Basque weather
> expressions showing ergativity. There is probably no other language in
> which this would work exactly like in Basque and that is why it is
> important that you mention if there are any other weather expressions
> that would be transitive/show ergativity.
> In short, in Basque these expressions have the respective weather
> phenomenon (e.g. rain or temperature) as an absolutive object and no
> explicit subject (it is shown only in the ergative agreement of the
> auxiliary). I would be especially interested in similar expressions in
> other ergative languages if there are any. However, if your language
> has other types of ergative weather expressions (e.g. rain as subject)
> or even if there were no ergative weather expressions at all (or if
> they would be somehow marked or used in specific situations), that
> would be valuable information for me as well and I hope that you could
> still answer the questionnaire. I am not really looking for
> expressions of the type “rain ruined the crop” but of course you can
> mention those as well.
> Hotz      handia          egiten             du
> cold  big.ABS.DET  make.IPFV  AUX (ERG3SG>ABS3SG)
> 'It is very cold' (lit. 'It makes big cold')
> If your language shows split-ergativity that influences on the use of
> ergativity in weather expressions, please bring that up in the
> questionnaire.
> Questionnaire:
> 1. The name of the language, where is it spoken, what is its
> classification?
> Weather expressions:
> 2. “Sun is shining”
> 3. “It rains”
> 4. “Some other precipitation expression like “it snows” or “it hails”
> 5. “It is hot” / “it is cold”
> If the language has means to encode temperature degrees, answer the
> following question. If it does not, mention that as well.
> 6. “Temperature is one degree” / “temperature is 20 degrees”
> 7. “It starts to rain” / you can mention some other expression related
> to the change of weather if you find it interesting
> If there are interesting alternations e.g. in expressing tense, please
> mention those expressions in the respective question. For example, if
> the language uses ergativity to encode past but not present, mention
> the expression in the past tense in addition to the present tense.
> 8. If you come up with an expression that shows ergativity but is not
> included in this questionnaire, you can mention it here (e.g.
> expressions related to wind, storm...), especially if expressions
> above do not show ergativity but this does.
> 9. Shortly explain the nature of ergativity in your language, e.g. if
> it shows split-ergativity and how animate and non-animate
> subjects/objects are encoded.
> Thank you for your contribution! Be prepared that I may want to
> contact you and get additional information about the language if it
> shows behaviour that is interesting from the viewpoint of my thesis.
> And finally, if you happen to know an article that studies ergative
> weather expressions in a language other than Basque, I would be happy
> to receive it.
> Please send your response to my e-mail: carla.olander at helsinki.fi
> <mailto:carla.olander at helsinki.fi>
> Thank you and have a great day!
> Carla Olander
> University of Helsinki
>
>
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