enaTmecnierebis sakiTxebi ISSUES OF LINGUISTICS - Tbilisi State ...
enaTmecnierebis sakiTxebi ISSUES OF LINGUISTICS - Tbilisi State ... enaTmecnierebis sakiTxebi ISSUES OF LINGUISTICS - Tbilisi State ...
Alice C. Harris SUNY Stony Brook enaTmecnierebis sakiTxebi _ I-II, 2009 Emergence of Morphological Classes 1 1. Introduction Perlmutter (1978) established that unaccusative intransitive verbs are systematically distinguished from unergative intransitive verbs in Italian, where the former group take the auxiliary "be" and the latter take instead "have", as transitive verbs do. Not long after, Harris (1982) showed that the same groups of intransitive verbs are distinguished in Georgian by differential case marking in Series II, by differences of inversion in Series III, and by several morphological criteria. Since then, the three-way classification of verbs into transitives, unergatives, and unaccusatives has been widely accepted (e.g. Burzio 1986, Levin and Rappaport 1995, and Alexiadou et al. 2004), and a wide variety of phenomena have been associated with this classification of verbs in many languages. While Harris (1985) deals in detail with the syntactic changes that led to the syntax that distinguishes among transitive, unergative, and unaccusative verbs, the morphology that distinguishes these classes was not systematically investigated there, and the present article seeks to rectify that omission. Corbett (1991) and Wurzel (1992), in their works on gender, have studied the origins of gender in classification. While differing in many respects, both agree that gender systems are originally semantically determined. As they develop, they often become less semantically defined. In this paper I look at semantic and morphological classes of verbs from the same point of view, and I believe that because the changes involved are relatively recent ones, many aspects of the origins of this system are transparent. I agree with Wurzel that a general problem in morphology is that inflectional classes have no synchronic motivation; they can only be explained historically. The following definition of verb classification is adapted from Wurzel’s definition of noun classification. A system of verb classification is said to be present if the verbs (verbal lexemes) of a language are divided into a limited number of classes, such that the class membership, at least in certain contexts, is indicated formally. If the class to which a verb belongs determines that the verb takes one set of inflectional affixes rather than another set that encodes the same categories and values, the class is an inflectional one. Wurzel argues further that nouns are constantly re-classified according to semantic criteria. Once noun classification is established, it tends toward desemanticization. Membership in a class becomes conventional, arbitrary. Some parallels to these observations can be found in the Georgian verb classification, though I do not dwell here on these similarities. 320
2. Transitive, Unergative, and Unaccusative in Georgian The difference between unergative and unaccusative verbs is very important in the syntax of Georgian (Harris 1981); but this has not always been true, and this syntactic distinction was only nascent in Old Georgian (Harris 1985). In this paper I identify these classes in Modern Georgian in the following way: In Series II, transitives can be identified by their ergative subject and nominative case direct object, unergatives by their ergative case subject, and unaccusatives by their nominative case subject. These facts hold only in Series II paradigms, the aorist, imperative, and optative screeves. 2 There is not a single marker to set apart all the forms of any class - transitive, unergative, unaccusative; but since Old Georgian, several changes have made some forms in each class distinct. Even in Old Georgian some very minor morphological differences of frequency were present, but here I examine only those morphological markings that have changed in historical times. In Georgian, transitive, unergative, and unaccusative are inflectional classes assigned by derivational rule (cf. Aronoff 1994, 131). For example, inchoatives are formed with the derivational suffix -d-, and the rule that assigns this marker also assigns the derived forms to the unaccusative class. The first three changes I discuss distinguish unaccusatives from other classes of verbs; the last distinguishes unergatives from other classes. 2.1. Series Marker -eb in Series I In Old and Modern Georgian alike, verbs of all classes have a series marker (SM) in Series I forms, but not in Series II forms. A variety of SM’s are used for transitive and unergative verbs, including zero, -am, -av, -eb, and -ob. In Old Georgian, a variety of SM’s were also used for unaccusatives; but unaccusatives have systematically replaced other SM’s with -eb, except in statives. (15) illustrates the present paradigm of some unaccusative verbs in -av and -am in Old Georgian, together with the corresponding forms in the modern language. Old Georgian Modern Georgian v-i-xarš-v-i v-i-xarš-eb-i i-xarš-v-i i-xarš-eb-i i-xarš-v-i-s i-xarš-eb-a "it cooks, is cooked" v-i-sx-m-i v-i-sx-m-eb-i i-sx-m-i i-sx-m-eb-i i-sx-m-i-s i-sx-m-eb-a "it pours, is poured" Table 1. Changes in Series Markers in Series I Forms. This is perhaps not a surprising change, since a very large number of unaccusatives already had the SM -eb in Old Georgian. 3 However, substituting - eb in Series I for another SM in all unaccusatives that had previously used another SM did not make this class completely different from transitives and unergatives, 321
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Alice C. Harris<br />
SUNY Stony Brook<br />
<strong>enaTmecnierebis</strong> <strong>sakiTxebi</strong> _ I-II, 2009<br />
Emergence of Morphological Classes 1<br />
1. Introduction<br />
Perlmutter (1978) established that unaccusative intransitive verbs are<br />
systematically distinguished from unergative intransitive verbs in Italian, where the<br />
former group take the auxiliary "be" and the latter take instead "have", as<br />
transitive verbs do. Not long after, Harris (1982) showed that the same groups of<br />
intransitive verbs are distinguished in Georgian by differential case marking in<br />
Series II, by differences of inversion in Series III, and by several morphological<br />
criteria. Since then, the three-way classification of verbs into transitives, unergatives,<br />
and unaccusatives has been widely accepted (e.g. Burzio 1986, Levin and<br />
Rappaport 1995, and Alexiadou et al. 2004), and a wide variety of phenomena have<br />
been associated with this classification of verbs in many languages.<br />
While Harris (1985) deals in detail with the syntactic changes that led to the<br />
syntax that distinguishes among transitive, unergative, and unaccusative verbs, the<br />
morphology that distinguishes these classes was not systematically investigated<br />
there, and the present article seeks to rectify that omission.<br />
Corbett (1991) and Wurzel (1992), in their works on gender, have studied<br />
the origins of gender in classification. While differing in many respects, both agree<br />
that gender systems are originally semantically determined. As they develop, they<br />
often become less semantically defined. In this paper I look at semantic and<br />
morphological classes of verbs from the same point of view, and I believe that<br />
because the changes involved are relatively recent ones, many aspects of the<br />
origins of this system are transparent. I agree with Wurzel that a general problem in<br />
morphology is that inflectional classes have no synchronic motivation; they can<br />
only be explained historically.<br />
The following definition of verb classification is adapted from Wurzel’s<br />
definition of noun classification.<br />
A system of verb classification is said to be present if the verbs (verbal<br />
lexemes) of a language are divided into a limited number of classes, such that the<br />
class membership, at least in certain contexts, is indicated formally.<br />
If the class to which a verb belongs determines that the verb takes one set of<br />
inflectional affixes rather than another set that encodes the same categories and<br />
values, the class is an inflectional one.<br />
Wurzel argues further that nouns are constantly re-classified according to<br />
semantic criteria. Once noun classification is established, it tends toward desemanticization.<br />
Membership in a class becomes conventional, arbitrary. Some<br />
parallels to these observations can be found in the Georgian verb classification,<br />
though I do not dwell here on these similarities.<br />
320