GB146 - grambank/grambank GitHub Wiki

Is there a morphosyntactic distinction between predicates expressing controlled versus uncontrolled events or states?

Summary

In a number of languages, predicates referring to uncontrolled events or states happening to animate participants are encoded differently from those that refer to controlled events. Often, such a distinction surfaces in predicates referring to sensations (such as hunger, thirst, pain, cold, cramps, sleepiness, etc.), emotions (anger, happiness), or cognitive states (forgetting, remembering). These uncontrolled predicates may be found in specialized constructions, including different case frames (‘sleep hits me’), special conjugation classes of verbs or adjectives, dedicated (modal) markers for control vs. non-control, etc. Other terms that may be used in the literature are non-volitional, non-agentive, non-volitive or involuntary. Note that we are not interested in how stative events with inanimate experiencers are coded: their coding is irrelevant, whether they show distinctions with controlled events or states or not. The existence of verbal derivations such as passive or causative does not count here. At least three different predicates should show a special kind of construction to code 1 for this feature.

Procedure

  1. Check sections in a grammar on case marking, argument marking in general, simple clauses, verbal morphology, and look for expressions of hunger, thirst, pain, sickness, vomiting, cold, cramps, sleepiness, anger and happiness.
  2. Code 1 if you find at least three examples of non-controlled experiences coded with a specialized construction that is different from the typical way to express (controlled) events or states.
  3. Code 0 if an author explicitly mentions that such constructions do not exist in the language (e.g. they did not find any although they were expected to occur because they are found in neighboring languages).
  4. Code 0 if you find examples of uncontrolled events or states that are expressed like any other (controlled) event or state, but less than three examples of uncontrolled events or states that are coded in a standard way.
  5. Code ? if nothing is said on the topic and there is not enough data to know whether such constructions exist or not.

Examples

Siwai (ISO 639-3: siw, Glottolog: siwa1245)

Siwai is coded 1 for this feature.

Siwai has a lexical split in its alignment system. Intransitive-only verbs can be classified according to the kind of suffixal index they take. There are verbs that take so-called ‘SO’ suffixes, which are made up of an O index + -u. In other words, the single argument of SO-verbs is coded the same as a patient in transitive verbs. In another class of intransitive verbs, which take ‘SA’ suffixes, the single argument is coded the same as an agent in transitive verbs (Onishi 1994: 398, 401–403). This means that experiencers, which have no control over the events that happen to them, are coded differently from agents, which do have control over the action that is performed.

Examples of SO-verbs (uncontrolled states)

haa- ‘to want, to agree’
hunok- ‘to become/be full in stomach’
kamann- ‘to feel cold’
kipi'tak ‘to hiccup’

nii   tuu    haa-mu-u-ng
I     water  want-1SO-PROX.PAST-M
‘I want water’ (Onishi 1994: 401–402)

Examples of SA-verbs (controlled actions)

kumar- ‘to laugh’
mon- ‘to look’
pu'j- ‘to shout’
konn- ‘to walk’
nok- ‘to say’

(Onishi 1994: 403)

Nuu-chah-nulth (ISO 639-3: nuk, Glottolog: nuuc1236)

Nuu-chah-nulth has a specialized future tense clitic ʔaːqtɬ, called ‘intentive’ by Davidson (2002: 305), that implies that the agent of an action has control over the event. Nuu-Chah-nulth is coded 1.

ts'axʷ-ʃitɬ=ʔaːqtɬ=qa'=s
spear-PFV=INTENT=SUBR=1SG
‘And I am going to spear him.’ (Davidson 2002: 305)

Khwarshi-Inkhoqwari (ISO 639-3: khv, Glottolog: khva1239)

In Khwarshi-Inkhoqwari there is an ‘accidental’ marker for verbs, -l, that indicates that an action is not voluntary and not controlled. Involuntary agents are marked with the contessive case. The verb puɬ-a‘to blow’, for example, can be coded as an uncontrolled state puɬ**-l-**a (Khalilova 2009: 267). Kwarshi-Inkhoqwari is coded 1.

Further reading

Comrie, Bernard & Helma E. van den Berg. 2006. Experiencer constructions in Daghestanian languages. In Ina Bornkessel, Matthias Schlesewsky, Bernard Comrie & Angela D. Friederici (eds), Semantic role universals and argument linking: Theoretical, typological, and psycholinguistic perspectives, 127–154. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Note: this source deals with experiencer constructions, which often distinguish uncontrolled from controlled predicates.

Donohue, Mark & Søren Wichmann (eds). 2008. The typology of semantic alignment. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Haspelmath, Martin. 2001. Non-canonical marking of core arguments in European languages. In Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, R. M. W. Dixon, & Masayuki Onishi (eds), Non-canonical marking of subjects and objects (pp. 53–83). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Note: this source deals with unusual case-frames, which may be used in languages to distinguish uncontrolled from controlled predicates.

References

Davidson, Matthew. 2002. Studies in Wakashan (Nootkan) Grammar. Buffalo: State University of New York. (Doctoral dissertation.)

Khalilova, Zaira. 2009. A grammar of Khwarshi. Leiden: Leiden University. (Doctoral dissertation.)

Onishi, Masayuki. 1994. A grammar of Motuna (Bougainville, Papua New Guinea). Canberra: Australian National University.) (Doctoral dissertation.)

Related Features

Patron

Jakob Lesage