Relativism and Universalism in Linguistics - Fachbereich 10 ...

Workshop 1 – Abr 141
The Lakota aspect/modality marker TKH
Pustet, Regina
LMU Munich
pustetrm@yahoo.com
Lakota (Siouan, Central North America) is moderately rich in both aspectual and modal
categories. The diachronic sources of many of the grammatical elements in question are still
transparent. Lakota is equipped with one grammeme that covers both aspectual and modal
meanings, namely, the postverbal marker tkhá, which can (roughly) be glossed as follows:
a. 'almost'
b. 'used to but no more' (PERFECTIVE ANTERIOR)
c. 'would have' (PERFECTIVE IRREALIS)
d. 'assertion of fact which runs counter to what is generally believed or what the speaker
previously believed' (COUNTERFACTUAL)
Example:
yá tkhá
go.3SG ASP/MOD
's/he almost went, s/he used to go (but no more), s/he would have gone, I thought s/he went
but s/he didn't'
What makes tkhá an interesting object of study with respect to the general topic of the
interaction of aspect and modality is that this element shows a mingling of perfective and
epistemic meanings. It thus potentially challenges one of the initial hypotheses to be
investigated in this workshop.
The diachronic source of all meanings of aspectual/modal tkhá is the conjunction tkhá 'but'. In
addition to the obvious criterion of homonymy, there are both structural and semantic criteria
by means of which the aspect/modality marker tkhá can be linked to the conjunction tkhá
'but'. The aspect/modality marker tkhá arose via ellipsis of the clause which follows the
conjunction tkhá 'but'.
The common semantic denominator for all meanings of aspectual/modal tkhá is that the state
of affairs modified by this element is not instantiated in reality at the moment of utterance,
either because it never reached the point of actualization ('almost', 'would have',
COUNTERFACTUAL), or because the actualization has been terminated prior to the moment
of utterance ('used to but no more'). In those cases in which an aspectual meaning can be
clearly assigned to tkhá, that meaning is always perfective. This is self-evident for 'would
have' and 'used to but no more', and also true for 'almost': this particular meaning of tkhá
features states of affairs that came near actualization at some point in time. However, the
opportunity for actualization does not exist any more at the moment of utterance.
Counterfactual tkhá is to be classed as conveying an epistemic meaning since it asserts that
the opposite of the assumed state of affairs holds.
Thus, the marker tkhá can be characterized as a multifunctional aspectual-modal hybrid that
combines perfective with epistemic concepts.
Reference
Pustet, R. in prep. Lakota grammar.