Beyond Time - Linguistics - University of California, Berkeley

for interpretation of -ite. In fact, the requirement that a state be associated with -ite is
unbreakable, as shown by the contrast in (352). The -ite form is only felicitous with -wa
‘fall’ if uttered while the subject is still on the ground (352a). A speaker uttering (352b),
in contrast, may or may not still find herself in the coda phase resulting from the fall (i.e.
being on the ground).
(352) a. tuliwiile
tu-li-u-iile
1pl-pres.stat-fall-stat
‘We have fallen (and are still on the ground)’ (ZT2007Elic123.VK)
b. ndawa
nda-u-a
1sg.cmpl-fall-fv
‘I fell (and possibly got up again)’
Thus, -ite requires that a state hold, while completive -a- has no such requirement and
is instead vague with regard to the coda state. 7
6.3.3 Co-occurrence restrictions with -ite
A final piece of evidence for -ite’s stativity is that it cannot co-occur with completive marker
-a- or non-completive -la-, as discussed in 6.2. These markers are basically punctual, situating
perspective time at a point with respect to a situation’s nucleus. -ite, on the other
hand, requires a non-punctual state. Thus, -ite may co-occur with prehodiernal imperfective
7 Recall from chapter 3, however, that -a- with change-of-state verbs has a cancellable result state impli-
cature.
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