statives

Wed Jan 16 15:13:40 UTC 2013

I think that one must analyze any meaning/use of a verb with a specific
context of utterance (both the words surrounding it and the actual
situation in which something is said). For me, certain verbs can be used in
the present indicative to indicate an ongoing action:

cho:ka mokone:w   'Your child is crying' (said by one person to another
upon hearing a child cry in the other room; I would find it unusual, though
not wrong, to say cho:katok mokone:w, at least in Balsas and Sierra
Nororiental)

?miki mokone:w  ? for me not a felicitous statement. I would say, in Balsas
i (or ye) miktok mokone:w 'Your child is dying'

o:mik mokone:w  'Your child is dead', 'Your child has died'

koto:ntok mola:soh  'Your rope is snapped' (i.e., is in the state that
results from it having snapped in two, cut in two)

i koto:ntok mola:soh 'Your rope is on the verge of snapping'  (i.e., it is
being frayed against something as it about to snap apart)

It is a matter for empirical analysis to determine which verbs belong in
which paradigm (frame, or whatever). The process of research should be
similar to that undertaken by Beth Levin for English verb classes. The
result would be a sort of cline in which certain verbs ("cho:ka" verbs)
would use the present indicative as a progressive and the durative (-tok,
-tikah) would be a sort of more emphatic statement of progressivity.  A
second set of verbs (e.g. "miki" verbs) would use the perfective as a
stative/resultative.  Finally, a third set would use the durative marker
(-tok, -tikah) as a resultative and would mark the progressive with "ye".
The last two categories come somewhat together with some internal
variation, e.g., miki. Cf. also poliwi.  I would find it more usual to say
'o:poliw X' than 'poliwtok X' to indicate 'X is lost'  'o:poliw notomi:n'
'My money is lost' 'My money got lost' And cf. 'i polihtok' 'It is starting
to get out of sight'. But with wa:htlapolihtok there is a progressive sense
that doesn't require "ye"  and with the sense of a countryside becoming
obscured as a rain and mist are approaching.

Note that in N. Veracruz, and somewhat in N. Puebla (though less so) -tok
can have a sort of perfect meaning

nitakwahtok a  in N. Puebla   'I've already eaten'.

Basically, then, verb classes are a matter for empirical investigation in
the context of use and, significantly, can be used as diagnostics for
classes of verbs.

On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 12:43 PM, Magnus Pharao Hansen <
magnuspharao at gmail.com> wrote:

> But Joost and John
>
> That definition of "stative" is semantic, and it defines "statives" as a
> semantically defined subclass of intransitive verbs. IN contrast, several
> Mesoamerican languages including Maya, Totonacan and Otomian have been
> analyzed as having a *syntactic *class of stative verbs that behave
> morphosyntactically different from other verbs and which also tend to
> include semantic content about properties or states. That is what my
> analysis of Nahuatl wordclass suggests is a useful way of understanding and
> describing the morphological and syntactic behavior of words like "kwalli",
> "weyi" and "yolik", "chichiltik".
>
> Lots of verbs have a stative meaning, but as long as they behave the same
> as all other verbs there is no reason to set them apart as a wordclass. The
> specific reason the verb *nehnemi *has a stative like meaning (actually I
> would consider it progressive and not stative) is that it is a reduplicated
> form that has been lexicalized, and reduplication was historically used to
> form the frequentative aspect.
>
> best,
> M
>
>
>
> On 15 January 2013 13:00, <nahuatl-request at lists.famsi.org> wrote:
>
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> > Today's Topics:
> >
> >    1. Re: Nahuatl word classes (John Sullivan)
> >
> >
> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > From: John Sullivan <idiez at me.com>
> > To: Joost Kremers <joostkremers at fastmail.fm>
> > Cc: nahuatl discussion list <nahuatl at lists.famsi.org>
> > Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2013 13:10:58 -0600
> > Subject: Re: [Nahuat-l] Nahuatl word classes
> > Piyali Joost,
> >         But if this is the case, then, at least in Modern Huastecan
> > Nahuatl, the present tense is inherently stative. "ninehnemi", for
> example
> > doesn't mean "I walk", it means "I am walking". To get it to mean "I
> walk"
> > you have to add an adverb. For example, "Mohmoztlah ninehnemi", "I walk
> > everyday". I still don't understand the difference between, "ninehnemi"
> and
> > ninehnenticah". I'll have to run this by the macehualmeh here at IDIEZ.
> > Best,
> > John
> >
> > On Jan 6, 2013, at 6:16 AM, Joost Kremers <joostkremers at fastmail.fm>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Hi John,
> > >
> > > Though I can't comment on your Nahuatl examples in particular, there is
> > > a working definition of statives that might help. In general, a verb is
> > > stative if it describes a situation or property without specific
> > > duration. That is, if you can split up the event being described into
> > > smaller subevents and these subevents can still be described by the
> same
> > > verb form, then the verb form is stative.
> > >
> > > So "He is sleeping" is stative because if the sleeping lasts for say
> > > eight hours, and you consider any subinterval of those eight hours, you
> > > can describe each correctly with "he is sleeping". On the other hand,
> > > "he fell asleep" is not stative, because if the falling asleep takes 10
> > > minutes, then any subinterval does not constitute a falling asleep
> > > event.
> > >
> > > HTH
> > >
> > > Joost
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On Fri, Jan 04 2013, John Sullivan <idiez at me.com> wrote:
> > >> Piyali listeros,
> > >>      I'm a little confused with how the word stative is used (in
> > linguistics?). Would all of these words be considered stative?
> > >> 1. Cuaciyah tlachihchihualli. "It's a hand-made chair".
> > Tlachihchihualli is a noun formed from the passive form of a verb, and
> > refers to the result of an action.
> > >> 2. Cuaciyah chichiltic. "It's a red chair". Chichiltic literally means
> > "it has become a very red chilli". This seems to me to be the
> relationship
> > of a metaphor, in other words, chair is identified with a chilli, it is
> not
> > in a certain state.
> > >> 3. Eliazar ihcatoc. "Eliazar is standing". Ihcatoc is literally "he
> > stands up and has rested in that state."
> > >> 4. Eliazar mocehuihtoc. "Eliazar is seated." Mocehuihtoc is literally
> > "He sits down and has rested in that state."
> > >> John
> > >>
> > >> _______________________________________________
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> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Joost Kremers
> > > Life has its moments
> >
> >
> >
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> >
>
>
> --
> Magnus Pharao Hansen
> PhD. student
> Department of Anthropology
>
> Brown University
> 128 Hope St.
> Providence, RI 02906
>
> *magnus_pharao_hansen at brown.edu*
> US: 001 401 651 8413
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