lexical class, particle-verbs and telicity Cale Johnson - UCLA

AOS2004 / San Diego, March 13, 2004 / Johnson
[1] Introduction
Decomposing lexical aspect in Sumerian:
BNBV(inalienable) lexical class, particle-verbs and telicity
Cale Johnson (cale@ucla.edu)
(i) In this presentation I redescribe and extend one part of what is, in my view, the most
important ongoing work on Sumerian morphosyntax: the directive case hypothesis
emerging from work by Krecher, Jagersma and Zólyomi (see Zólyomi 1999 for
orientation and background). At the same time, I attempt to bring at least part of the
directive case hypothesis into productive dialogue with the aspectual classes identified by
Yoshikawa (1993).
(ii) In the following I argue that the compound verb is not a homogeneous class and that
distributional tests can be used to identify lexical classes within the set of compound
verbs. One of these classes is defined by the inanimate directive case [bi-√] in
configuration with a bare, inalienable noun (hereafter BNBV inalienable) and the balance of
this paper attempts to characterize the lexical aspectual (Aktionsart) properties of this
distributional class as well as its interaction with certain oblique case-marking patterns
known in the literature as the oblique object. These lexical classes also exhibit distinct
sets of quantificational properties, but these are dealt with in a forthcoming paper (to be
presented at the Sprache-Aegyptologie Roundtable, Basel, April 23-24, 2004; see Borer
2004; Filip 2000, 2004 for background).
[2] Identifying the compound verb
(i) At the most basic level, there is a lexical class whose members do not form compound
verbs: unergative, Activity predicates ([+ agentive, – punctate, + durative]) such as gin /
du / e.re 7 / su 8.b ‘to go’, tuß / dur 2 / durun ‘to sit’ or gub / su 8.g ‘to stand’ do not as a
rule form compound verbs unless they are—in a certain sense—causative such the
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“object-governed” plural verbs (Yoshikawa 1993, 310, cf. Edzard 2003, 74-81 and
references therein).
(ii) This reflects the fact that [+ agentive, – punctate, + durative] verbs lack a direct
object and that, at some level of syntactic representation, the nominal component of the
compound verb is the direct object (hence the exclusion of [+ agentive, – punctate]
verbs).
(iii) Instead of negative evidence (such as [+ agentive, – punctate, + durative] verbs do
not form compounds), one might ask for a positive criterion of compound verb formation.
The best evidence is that possessors of the nominal component of a compound verb
regularly undergo possessor raising (Zólyomi 1999, 231-237), resulting in either a bare
nominal or, at most, a resumptive pronoun and a case-marking postposition following the
noun. Other criteria based, above all, on the degree to which the nominal component of a
compound verb refers to an entity in the world are interesting and valuable, but difficult
to use in evaluating a language with no living speakers (the nominal component is
described as, for example, (semantically) incorporated (Attinger 1993), non-referential
(Zólyomi 1996a: 99-102; 1999: 216, n. 2), or part of an idiomatic construction (Karahashi
2003) in recent work).
[3] The BNBV diagnostic
(i) As an initial distributional test, I propose that the occurrence of a bare nominal
immediately preceding a [bi-√] conjugation prefix constitutes a distinctive lexical class:
the Bare Noun Bi-Verb [BNBV] class.
(1a) lu 2 izi.la 2 igi bi 2.du 8.am 3 (GEN 302; Karahashi 2000: 121, ex. 25)
lu izi-√la-r igi [b] 5/6-[i] 10-√du-am
person fire-hang-DatH eye NH-Dir-hold-Cop
Did you see a man who had burned (to death)?
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(1b)
d en.lil2.le igi.ni ki kur 2.ra ba.ab.œar.ra.a.ba (LSU 23; Karahashi 2000: 124)
enlil-e igi-ni ki kur-a [b] 5/6-[a] 7-[b] 11-√œar-a-bi-a
PN-Erg eye-3Poss place oppose-Loc NH-Dat-ProNH-place-Nmz-DistAdv-Loc
When Enlil looked at the enemy land, …
(2a) a.ra 2 na.me.ka ka.tar.ra.a.du 11.du 11 œiß li.bi 2.tuku.am 3
(EdB 117; Karahashi 2000: 87, ex. 8)
ara name-k-a katara-du-du œiß li [b] 5/6-[i] 10-tuku-am
time any-Gen-Loc praise-say-Redup “ear” Neg NH-Dir-“have”-Cop
I have never heard any praise
(2b) mußen.e œeßtu 2 mu.un.ßi.in.ak / mu.un.ßi.in.œa 2.ar (L2 160; PSD A/3: 85)
mußen-e œeßtu [mu] 2-[n] 5/6-[ßi] 9-[n] 11-√ak/œar
bird-Erg ear Vent-ProH-All-ProH-do/place
The bird listened to him
(ii) Whereas Examples (1a) and (1b) obviously differ according to the basic BNBV
criteria, so in (1b) the nominal component of the compound verb bears a possessive
pronoun and does not immediately precede the verb. Example (2b) differs from example
(2a) in that an allative (terminative) directional element [ßi] 9 occurs in the verbal prefix,
moving the perceived entity from an allative case to a zero-marked case
(absolutive/nominative) so that it can be pronominalized and subsequently deleted under
relevance. As a rule, the [bi-√] verbal prefix excludes such directional elements—this is
in fact the intuition behind the most widely accepted reconstruction of the verbal prefix
under the directive case hypothesis: the [bi-√] prefix is made up of [b] 5/6 and [i] 10,
excluding the directional elements in slots [ ] 7, [ ] 8 and [ ] 9 (see Zólyomi 1999 and
references therein).
(iii) Based on Karahashi’s work on compound verbs in which the nominal component is a
part of the body (Karahashi 2000) and assuming that parts of the body form the core of
any (in)alienability opposition in Sumerian, the set of compound verb lexemes defined by
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the BNBV diagnostic can be further subdivided into two distinct sets on the basis of the
(in)alienability of the nominal component of the compound verb: where the nominal
component of a BNBV lexeme is inalienable, the ergative-case marked nominal can be
classified as a perceptual Experiencer or positively affected participant (as opposed to a
dative perceived object or negatively affected entity), but when the nominal component
of the BNBV is alienable, the ergative-case marked nominal is a Causer (as opposed to a
dative Causee). This conforms to both the description of the inchoative/causative nature
of verbs bearing the directive case in the theory of Krecher, Jagersma and Zólyomi
(Zólyomi 1999) as well as the description of inchoative/causative alternation and its
correlation with Experiencer and Causer thematic roles as described by Pesetsky (1995).
The following is a small, contrastive sample of verbal lexemes and their meaning in
BNBV constructions (verba dicendi and denominative verbs in œar are excluded):
BNBV inalienable
BNBV alienable
ßu-√dag “to abandon” ˙i-li-√ak “to make attractive”
a2-√dar “to cheat someone” eß 3-√du 3 “to have a shrine built”
gu2-√du3 “to neglect” pa-√e3 “to make something extend, ramify”
igi-√du8 “to see” kiœ 2-√gi 4 “to send a message”
ni2-√te “to fear” ni2-√gur3 “to imbue with fear”
[4] Low source applicative
(i) The (de)privative semantics of the BNBV inalienable set in conjunction with a bare
nominal whose syntactic role is filled by an oblique, postpositional phrase (the Oblique
Object of the Krecher, Jagersma, and Zólyomi school) is strongly reminiscent of what has
recently been described as a low source applicative [LoAppl] (Pylkkänen 2002). In
general terms, an applicative morpheme allows an nominal phrase that would otherwise
have appeared in an adpositional phrase to appear in a syntactic position that is more
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closely related to the verbal predicate: the double object construction in English is a good
example:
(3a) Julien bought a cake for Billy.
(3b) Julien bought Billy a cake.
(ii) In the example, (3a) is an ordinary ditransitive clause with the Recipient in a
prepositional phrase that is equivalent to an oblique case, for Billy, but in (3b) the
Recipient appears immediately after the verb and is no longer in an oblique case or its
equivalent. Besides applicatives that involve a Goal or Recipient argument such as (3b),
there are also applicatives that involve a Source such as the following Korean examples
((4a) from Pylkkänen 2002, 21; (4b) provided by Grace Park):
(4a) totuk-i Mary-hanthey panci-lul humchi-ess-ta
thief-Nom Mary-Dat ring-Acc steal-Past-Plain
The thief stole a ring from Mary (and it was in her possession when he stole it)
(4b) totuk-i Mary-ui panci-lul humchi-ess-ta
thief-Nom Mary-Gen ring-Acc steal-Past-Plain
The thief stole Mary’s ring (with no implication as to the presence of Mary at the theft)
(iii) In (4a) the dative postposition following Mary shows that Mary was the possessor of
the ring, but the possessive relation is coded at the clausal level by an independent
postpositional phrase rather than the ordinary genitive construction in (4b). This
phenomenon is known as possessor raising and the resulting construction is often termed
a possessor dative construction. Pylkkänen names several criteria useful in identifying a
low source applicative that are also true of the BNBV class: (a) low applicatives do not
combine with unergative verbs, (b) they cannot appear in a structure that lacks a direct
object, (c) they cannot appear with verbs that are completely static since they imply a
transfer of possession (Pylkkänen 2002, 23; on Japanese gapped adversity passives and
their similarity to (4a), see Kubo 1992 and Pylkkänen 2002, 59-68).
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[5] LoAppl with inalienable bare nominal
(i) One the most well-known semantic effects of the constructions such as (4a) and the
corresponding form in Japanese (gapped adversity passives) is that the event described by
the predicate affects the dative possessor in a negative way: this clearly results from the
Source argument implicit in LoAppl constructions and is apparent in examples of the
BNBV inalienable class.
(5) gu 4.da.ni gu 4.œu 10.da ≠lirum± im.da.ab.zi gu 4 unug ki .ga.ke 4 a 2 bi 2.ib.œar
(Enmerkar and Ensu˙girana: 123 and 125; Karahashi 2000, 77)
gud unug-ak-e a bi-b-œar
ox GN-Gen-Dat2 arm LoAppl-ProNH-put
His ox fought with my ox and the ox of Uruk was defeated
(6) niœ 2.bun 2.na saœ.ki.œu 10 umbin bi 2.in.la 2 (Heron and Turtle 104; Karahashi 2000, 174)
niœbuna saœki-œu-e/ø ?
6
umbin bi-n-la
turtle forehead-1Poss-Dat2 claw LoAppl-ProH-hang
The turtle scratched my forehead with its claw
(7) en aratta ki .ke 4 gig.e igi bi 2.in.du 8
(Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta 554; Karahashi 2000, 119)
en aratta-k-e gig-e igi bi-n-dur
lord GN-Gen-Erg wheat-Dat2 eye LoAppl-ProH-hold
The lord of Aratta saw the grain
(8) [mußen.e an].ta igi mi.ni.in.il 2 erin 2.e igi bi 2.in.du 8.ru
(Lugalbanda II 207; Karahashi 2000, 119)
mußen-e an-ta mini-n-il erin-e igi bi-n-dur-eß
bird-Erg above-Abl MINI-ProH-lift troops-Dat2 eye LoAppl-ProH-hold-Pl
The bird looked (down) from above and saw the troops

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(ii) In the four preceding examples, the Dat2 argument (this is equivalent to the non-
human dative proposed by Zólyomi, traditionally the locative-terminative case) refers to a
entity that is a Source (as opposed to a Goal) in spite of the fact that it bears a dative, or
more generally Goal-oriented, postposition. The Dat2 argument in (5) and (6) is also
negatively affected, but as in the case of the adversity passives dealt with above, this is a
secondary semantic effect of the Source argument involved in the construction. Although
alienable BNBV constructions are not dealt with herein, one might imagine that the
semantics of the Causee argument in LoAppl constructions with alienable bare noun,
likewise, derive from the negative affect of a Source argument, but this is probably not
the case: the Source thematic role implicit in the LoAppl construction seems to serve as
an Instrument in certain kinds of causative constructions (BNBV alienable) just like the
instrumental use of the ablative postposition (On the privative semantics of verbs of
perception and its relation to the choice of instrumental—instead of agentive—case-
marking for a Causee argument, see Pylkkänen 2002, 47-50, for the most part a
commentary on data presented in Landau 1999).
[6] LoAppl constituent as particle in particle-verb construction
(i) At this point someone might reasonably ask what any of this has to do with telicity. It
has long been recognized that in English, for example, particles—prepositions that lack a
nominal complement—are often used to control the telicity of verbs.
(9) He hammered it ø for three hours / *in three hours.
(10) He hammered it out for three hours / in three hours.
(ii) In these examples, as is standard practice, a temporal adverb can be used to
differentiate a telic event from an atelic one: in (9), an atelic verb can only occur with an
unbounded temporal adverb, for three hours, whereas the telic verb in (10), which is
followed by the particle out, can also occur with a bounded temporal adverb, in three
hours. Since Sumerian is strictly verb-final, the possibility of a particle-based system for
controlling the telicity of a verb seems out of reach. But recent work on the formation of
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verbal complexes (Kayne 1994; Koopman and Szabolcsi 2000) has argued that they are
regularly derived through movement of phrases that appear to the right of the verb in
languages like English into positions on the left of the verb as in the following three stage
process.
(11a) [ XP Xº [ YP Yº [ ZP ZP]]
(11b) [ XP Xº [ YP [ ZP ZP] Yº t ZP ]
(11c) [ XP [ YP [ ZP ZP] Yº t ZP ] Xº t YP ]
(iii) Where ZP is the Dat2 argument, Yº is the bare nominal and Xº is the LoAppl head,
namely, the [bi-√] prefix. Kayne has argued, in fact, that this process is the primary
reason why so-called agglutinative languages behave the way they do (see Kayne 1994,
53). But more to the point, one of the effects of the formation of a BNBV inalienable
construction with a Dat2 possessor instead of a Gen possessor is that the Dat2 argument
can form a Goal with respect to the bare noun in a possessive construction: this provides
a bounded telic point for the verb along the lines of the verb-particle construction in
English. The primary difference between a low goal applicative as in the English double
object construction (3b) and a low source applicative as in the Korean example (4a) is
that the possessive relation between direct object and dative possessor is the situation at
the beginning of an event described by a low source applicative but the end point of an
event described by a low goal applicative (see Landau 1999; Pylkkänen 2002, Borer 2004
for elaboration).
[7] Restrictions on lexical aspectual class of LoAppl verbs (˙amt¬u-reduplication)
(i) The most peculiar fact about BNBVs—at least in the corpora that I have been able to
examine—is that they do not seem to form the continuative (marû) aspect at all: the vast
majority of the cases show the simple ˙amt¬u verbal root, a small subset show what I take
to be ˙amt¬u-reduplication (of Yoshikawa’s “distributive plurality” type (Yoshikawa
1993, 312)) and an even smaller set are followed by nominal postpositions of one kind or
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another. This seems to conform to the telicity inherent in the low source applicative
construction as well as what Vendler would have called an Achievement verb
([+ punctate, + durative, – segmentable change of state]), a verb that describes an event in
which there is both inherent duration and an inherent telos, but with little or no gradual or
cumulative development of the resultant state. This is why, for example, verbs of
perception such as igi-√du 8 ‘to see’ or œiß-√tug 2 ‘to hear’ do seem to occur in the BNBV
class, but other verbs of looking and hearing without perceiving do not.
(ii) The dative possessor / oblique object (Dat2) can only function as a Source if the
continuative (marû) aspect is blocked and inactive, since if it were to occur with a
continuative (marû) aspect, it would presumably revert to its original function as a Goal
argument as in the cases that are prototypical in the secondary literature in descriptions of
the locative-terminative case: e 2.e (house-Dat2) im.ma.œen (Cyl. A 18: 8-9; Zólyomi
1999, 253) ‘he (= Gudea) went up to the temple’. On the assumption that restriction of
the verbal root to a ˙amt¬u form blocks any aspectual interaction between the Dat2
argument and the verb, it is probably best to think of the possessor raising construction as
a constituent such as [[NP 1-Dat2 Goal NP 2] Source bi]-√ so that with respect to the possessive
relation between the two NPs, NP 1 functions as a Goal/Possessor, but with respect to the
event described by the main verb, the entire constituent [NP 1-Dat2 NP 2] functions as a
Source for a higher Goal/Possessor.
(iii) Due to the peculiar interaction of telicity and oblique case-marking in
BNBV/LoAppl constructions, the BNBV/LoAppl construction must be located very low
on, for example, Cinque’s universal hierarchy of adverbial positions, presumably the
simple ˙amt¬u form at 37 AspSingCompletive2 and the ˙amt¬u-reduplication form at
38 AspFrequentitive2, although I cannot exclude the possibility that they are in fact at a
slightly higher position such as 31 AspSingCompletive1 and 32 AspPlCompletive (Cinque
1999, 100-106). These kinds of issues are at the forefront of ongoing work in syntactic
theory (Cinque 1999) and Yoshikawa’s discussion of verbal reduplication and plural
verbs (1993, 287-322) speaks directly to these questions.
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