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Transitivity in Grammar and Discourse
Abstract
Transitivity involves a number of components, only one of which is the presence of an object of the verb. These components are all concerned with the effectiveness with which an action takes place, e.g., the punctuality and telicity of the verb, the conscious activity of the agent, and the referentiality and degree of affectedness of the object. These components co-vary with one another in language after language, which suggests that Transitivity is a central property of language use. The grammatical and semantic prominence of Transitivity is shown to derive from its characteristic discourse function: high Transitivity is correlated with foregrounding, and low Transitivity with backgrounding.
... Thus, although the verb is transitive and an object that can be considered the patient is present, possessive resultative perfects express a change of state of the subject (agent), while the object (patient) is given a marginal role, whenever present. Such analysis of perfects with transitive verbs is in line with the gradient view of transitivity as a multifaceted phenomenon: formally, transitive verbs are understood as those that require a second argument (object), but semantically there is a continuum from more to less prototypically transitive (in line with Hopper & Thompson 1980). The value of possessive resultatives has been applied to the Lithuanian perfect by Geniušienė & Nedjalkov (1988), as well as by Arkadiev & Daugavet (2021) as a subtype of the subject-oriented resultative. ...
... Transitive resultative perfects are here defined as perfects with verbs that are prototypically transitive (partly in line with Hopper & Thompson 1980) and perfective, i.e., resultative. They convey a past event and a change of state of the object which is indefinite (not anchored in time and space), and whose result is considered relevant at the moment of speech. ...
... Thus, although the verb is transitive and an object that can be considered the patient is present, possessive resultative perfects express a change of state of the subject (agent), while the object (patient) is given a marginal role. Such analysis of perfects with transitive verbs is in line with the gradient view of transitivity as a multifaceted phenomenon: formally, transitive verbs are understood as those that require a second argument (object), but semantically there is a continuum from more to less prototypically transitive verbs (in line with Hopper & Thompson (1980)). ...
This thesis addresses the question of what common features, visible in synchronic data, characterize the diachronic development of three BE (or quasi-BE) perfects in Lithuanian, Bulgarian, and Barese, and how their grammaticalization cline might differ from that of HAVE perfects. The study is based on data from Facebook comments for Lithuanian and Bulgarian, and from written texts in the Barese vernacular. The thesis includes detailed descriptions of the full spectrum of semantic values associated with the Lithuanian, Bulgarian, and Barese perfects, as they are used in the data, along
with a comparative analysis of the three case studies. The outcome of the study is a proposed grammaticalization cline for BE perfects, which is based on conceptual connections between different values, and supported by quantitative data on the BE auxiliary usage.
... Resumo: Esta pesquisa pretende analisar a ocorrência das formas tú e usted no espanhol oral de Valência, via planos discursivos. Ao considerar a língua como um sistema adaptativo, orientada funcionalmente para atender às necessidades comunicativas dos falantes em contextos específicos, este estudo apoiou-se nos pressupostos teóricos do Funcionalismo Linguístico, mais especificamente o de vertente norte-americana (Givón, 1995;Hopper, 1979;Hopper;Thompson, 1980). Procedeu-se uma análise dos dados, os quais foram obtidos a partir de 6 entrevistas do tipo semiestruturada provenientes do corpus Proyecto para el Estudio Sociolingüístico del Español de Valencia (PRESEVAL). ...
... Abstract: This research aims to analyze the occurrence of the forms tú and usted in oral Valencian Spanish, via discourse plans. Considering language as an adaptive system, functionally oriented to meet the communicative needs of speakers in specific contexts, this study was based on the theoretical assumptions of Linguistic Functionalism, more specifically that of the North American strand (Givón, 1995Hopper, 1979;Hopper;Thompson, 1980). We analyzed the data, which was obtained from 6 semi-structured interviews from the Proyecto para el Estudio Sociolingüístico del Español de Valencia (PRESEVAL) corpus. ...
... tendemos a organizar o nosso discurso de modo a dar primazia às informações que consideramos mais importantes, em detrimento daquelas que concebemos como secundárias. Esse modo de organização textual, baseado em nossos propósitos comunicativos e nas necessidades de nossos interlocutores, é chamado de plano discursivo(Hopper;Thompson, 1980).A gramática tradicional define transitividade como a relação que um verbo mantém com outros termos da oração. Um verbo transitivo direto possui um objeto direto como complemento, enquanto um verbo transitivo indireto tem um objeto indireto como complemento. ...
Esta pesquisa pretende analisar a ocorrência das formas tú e usted no espanhol oral de Valência, via planos discursivos. Ao considerar a língua como um sistema adaptativo, orientada funcionalmente para atender às necessidades comunicativas dos falantes em contextos específicos, este estudo apoiou-se nos pressupostos teóricos do Funcionalismo Linguístico, mais especificamente o de vertente norte-americana (Givón, 1995; 2001; Hopper, 1979; Hopper; Thompson, 1980). Procedeu-se uma análise dos dados, os quais foram obtidos a partir de 6 entrevistas do tipo semiestruturada provenientes do corpus Proyecto para el Estudio Sociolingüístico del Español de Valencia (PRESEVAL). As ocorrências analisadas foram codificadas e quantificadas para fins de frequência de uso. No que tange aos resultados, percebeu-se que a forma menos marcada tú foi preponderante em contexto também menos marcado, isto é, figura. Analogamente, esse pronome foi também favorecido no plano discursivo fundo 01, tendo em vista tratar-se de um contexto menos marcado que o fundo 2. Surpreendentemente, a forma usted, ainda que com baixo registro, não foi favorecida no plano discursivo fundo 2, contexto que exige maior processamento cognitivo e em que as informações não fluem com tanta fluidez como no fundo 1. A associação dessas formas com os planos discursivos revela padrões distintos, destacando como elas influenciam a organização do discurso e se adaptam a diferentes contextos comunicativos. Essas observações corroboram a importância do princípio de marcação funcionalista na compreensão do uso dessas formas de tratamento.
... Transitivity in traditional grammar is often understood as the binary ability of a verb to take an object. According to Hopper & Thompson (1980), transitivity is better described as a continuum where the number of participants expressed is only of several features. The transitivity features discussed by Hopper & Thompson (1980) are found in Table 3. Examples from the languages in the survey suggest that the antipassive is associated with atelic aspect, nonpunctual action, non-volitionality of the agent, negation, irrealis mood (in the form of potential meaning) and a non-individuated patient. ...
... According to Hopper & Thompson (1980), transitivity is better described as a continuum where the number of participants expressed is only of several features. The transitivity features discussed by Hopper & Thompson (1980) are found in Table 3. Examples from the languages in the survey suggest that the antipassive is associated with atelic aspect, nonpunctual action, non-volitionality of the agent, negation, irrealis mood (in the form of potential meaning) and a non-individuated patient. At the same time, their transitive counterparts ('hit', 'bite', 'push') are typically transitive verbs, that in the prototypical case are associated with two clearly individuated participants, punctual action, high volitionality of the agent and a highly affected and individuated patient. ...
... In other words, a proposition with several features of low transitivity is more likely to be expressed by a syntactically intransitive construction, such as the antipassive. Hence, in the view of Hopper & Thompson (1980) the antipassive is a strategy to convey semantic features of lower transitivity by detransitivizing the clause syntactically. Accordingly, one important function of the antipassive is to mark fewer transitive situations with otherwise prototypically transitive verbs, by marking the clause intransitive. ...
Several Slavic and Baltic languages have an “aggressive” antipassive construction, where in a reflexive marker is used to mark object omission. The construction often carries habitual or potential aspectual meanings and is restricted to a small group of verbs. This study examines the lexical restrictions of the constructions across a sample of 11 Slavic and Baltic languages, with a special focus on Russian. The results show that across the languages, the construction is used to express a set of concepts, of which ‘hit’ and ‘push’ are the most prototypical. Verbs used in the antipassive express unwanted action on an animate patient, and they also share features of inherent atelicity and potential reciprocality. All languages in the survey display syncretism of reciprocal and antipassive markers, resulting in ambiguous plural subject constructions. Based on this, it is suggested that the “aggressive” antipassive with animate subjects has grammaticalized from the reciprocal function of the reflexive marker. Lexical semantics hence play an important role in the extension of functions of reflexive markers in these languages.
... This semantic and structural definition goes beyond more traditional notions of transitivity that involve only one dimension, namely, whether a verb takes an object. Hopper and Thompson's (1980) composite understanding of transitivity lends itself nicely to quantitative corpus-based analysis. In their model, they describe transitivity as encompassing the following components: number of participants, kinesis, aspect, punctuality, volitionality, affirmation, mood, agency, object affectedness, and object individuation. ...
... to whom it did not touch (to) give it]' (DLNE, doc. 170) (2) a los christianos hechaban en la laguna 'they threw the Christians into the lagoon' (Doc. 1) Moreover, Hopper and Thompson (1980) define individuation as measured by several nominal and referential properties. These are shown in Table 1. ...
... Instead of examining the production of different social groups -most of which are inaccessible or very infrequent in historical data -I look at the implications of the implicit representation of these groups as expressed through grammar. Hopper and Thompson's (1980) model of transitivity, which is both structural and semantic, offers a rich foundation for such analysis. ...
When looking at historical texts, modern-day scholars often lament our inability to access the many voices that seem absent. While we can never fully recover these voices, alternative ways of analyzing these texts can shed new light on how minoritized groups were viewed. This paper uses quantitative patterns of transitivity alongside qualitative analysis to examine the representation of two groups-Spaniards and Indigenous people-in texts from 16th-and 17th-century New Spain (present-day Mexico). Europeans are found to be significantly more likely to act as subjects then their Indigenous counterparts. Moreover, they are more frequent in five measures of high transitivity; Indigenous subjects rank higher only in kinesis. These patterns reflect the dualistic nature of the perception of Indigenous peoples in Mexican colonial society. Despite the overall ineffectualness of the Indigenous referent, there is a space in which the Spanish still portray Indigenous actors as more powerful: in their bodies. The primary contribution of this work is multidisciplinary: Variation within a morphosyntactic phenomenon-transitivity-uncovers patterns of representation that go beyond simple reflection of some external reality. Instead, as meaning is constructed through these often invisible and unintentional patterns, a discourse around race, strength, and fear is revealed.
... We also discuss semantic implications of atypical compound verb constructions that use jānā, 'to go ' and baiṭhnā, 4 'to sit' as intransitive vector verbs when paired with transitive polar verbs. In section three, we briefly review how different points on the transitivity continuum (Hopper, Thompson 1980;Tsunoda 1985;Lazard 2002;Kittilä 2002;Naess 2007) are realized morpho-syntactically in H/U and we discuss the implications atypical compound verb constructions have on the transitivity of the clause. In particular we show that the use of atypical compound verb constructions can change the transitivity parameters for the main verb. ...
... 16 As regards the Indian grammatical tradition see Vākyapadīya by Bhartṛhari (5th century CE) (Bhate, Bronkhorst 1997), while for the Western grammatical tradition see Hopper, Thompson 1980 andLazard 2002. 1. ...
... While in section three above, we looked at how in atypical compound verb constructions the use of the intransitive vector verb draws attention to the fact that the transitivity of the action, from the point of view of the speaker, is reduced, but there are also instances where this may not be the case. 34 To demonstrate this, we will first analyze an example from Drocco (2018, 281) in terms of the 10 well-known parameters related to the "transitive continuum" introduced by Hopper and Thompson (1980 In this sentence as well, we can see that while the crocodile would have, in all probability, acted fully volitionally, the speaker reports the action using khā jānā, thus rendering the sentence intransitive grammatically. As Drocco points out, the use of the atypical compound construction in (18) In (20) we can see that while the event in itself is shocking for most people, the speaker is talking about it in a way where it benefitted the crocodile because he has used the transitive vector verb lenā which is often used when the actions affects or, as in this case, benefits the Agent-like argument. ...
While a lot of research has already been done on defining compound verb constructions and understanding their semantic and pragmatic usages, there is still a gap when it comes to our understanding of atypical compound verb constructions where transitive polar verbs are paired with intransitive vector verbs and vice versa. In this paper we focus on atypical constructions with two intransitive vector verbs: jānā and baiṭhnā. We collate and review the different meanings that scholars have ascribed to these constructions and present our own analysis. We conclude that the main reason behind using an intransitive vector verb with a transitive polar verb is to reduce the transitivity of the action by implying reduced agency on the part of the Agent-like argument of the sentence. In addition to that, the use of an intransitive vector verb with a transitive polar verb also tells us which argument in the sentence is affected by the action from the point of view of the speaker. However, sometimes atypical constructions are also used by the speaker to express his/her shock or astonishment over a particular event, thus imposing his/her own ideas about agency, volitionality, and affectedness on the action being observed.
... Givón, 1985: 90;Jacobsen, 1991: 8;Tsunoda, 1994: 4672). Hopper and Thompson (1980) identified ten parameters of transitivity, including participants, kinesis, aspect, punctuality, volitionality, affirmation, mode, agency, affectedness of O, and individuation of O. In their framework, each parameter constitutes a scale ranging from "high" to "low." ...
... Transitivity discussed in all these studies prototypically involves an agent and a patient, which means stative verbs such as resemble, possess or include are not prototypically transitive by nature, although they take objects virtually all the time. In addition, transitivity has been taken as the nature of the sentence, the structure or the construction, instead of a characteristic of the verb itself (e.g., Hopper and Thompson, 1980), which means that one verb may represent various degrees of transitivity in different contexts. The present study takes a usage-based approach to verbal transitivity, assuming that transitivity is a characteristic of verbs. ...
... Volitionality Volitionality appeared in virtually all previous discussions of transitivity (e.g., Givón, 1985: 90;Hopper and Thompson, 1980;Jacobsen, 1991: 8). It was never doubted that a prototypical transitive clause has a volitional agent. ...
... Típicamente, el imperfecto porta valor durativo por oposición al sentido puntual del pretérito perfecto simple, valor continuo en contraste al carácter delimitativo de este último y valor indefinido en referencia a una situación pasada no específica, a diferencia del pretérito perfecto simple que alude a la totalidad del evento (GARCÍA FERNÁNDEZ, 2008;CIPRIA Y ROBERTS, 2001). Usando como marco de referencia los enfoques teóricos temporal, aspectuales, y con énfasis en el contexto y el discurso (ROJO, 1990(ROJO, , 1999GARCÍA FERNÁNDEZ, 2008;HOPPER Y THOMPSON 1980;FLEISCHMAN, 1990), se examinan usos prototípicos y atípicos del imperfecto. Estos últimos consisten en poner los eventos en primer plano, una función usualmente desempeñada por el pretérito. ...
... Preterit that refers to the entire event (GARCÍA FERNÁNDEZ, 2008;CIPRIA AND ROBERTS, 2001). Using as a frame of reference the theoretical approaches temporal, aspectual, and with emphasis on context and discourse (ROJO, 1990(ROJO, , 1999GARCÍA FERNÁNDEZ, 2008;HOPPER AND THOMPSON 1980;FLEISCHMAN, 1990), prototypical and atypical uses of the Imperfect are examined. These atypical uses consist in putting events in the foreground, a function usually performed by the Preterit. ...
... En esta sección, discutimos los usos del IMPF en los datos analizados, a la luz del marco teórico presentado en las secciones anteriores. Específicamente, el análisis se apoya en el enfoque aspectual y en el de base en el contexto y el discurso (HOPPER, THOMPSON, 1980;FLEISCHMAN, 1990). Partimos del consenso general según el cual el PPS típicamente porta un significado perfectivo; es decir, expresa un evento con límites temporales, como una unidad discreta. ...
Este artículo analiza los usos del Imperfecto del indicativo en el español peruano amazónico, una variedad formada en situación de intenso contacto lingüístico. Típicamente el Imperfecto porta valor durativo por oposición al sentido puntual del pretérito, valor continuo en contraste al carácter delimitativo del segundo y valor indefinido en referencia a una situación pasada no específica, a diferencia del Pretérito que alude a la totalidad del evento (García Fernández, 2008; Cipria y Roberts, 2001, p. 300). Usando como marco de referencia los enfoques teóricos temporal, aspectuales, y con énfasis en el contexto y el discurso (Rojo, 1990, 1999; García Fernández, 2008; Hopper y Thompson 1980, p. 251; Fleischman, 1990, p.168), se examinan usos prototípicos y atípicos del Imperfecto. Estos últimos consisten en poner los eventos en primer plano, una función usualmente desempeñada por el Pretérito. El examen de los datos muestra que los valores del Imperfecto están constreñidos por el aspecto léxico del verbo, los modificadores adverbiales temporales, el tipo de estructura narrativa en el que aparecen (Labov y Waletzky, 1997[1967], p. 3). Estos son empleados con propósitos pragmáticos que manifiestan la subjetividad del narrador. Los datos consisten en narraciones de experiencias personales a hablantes monolingües recogidas a través de entrevistas sociolingüísticas conducidas en la ciudad de Iquitos, Perú.
... This paper applies Hopper and Thompson's (1980) multifaceted definition of transitivity to examine representations of men and women in 16th-century New Spain (modern-day Mexico). Here, transitivity is understood, in basic terms, as "a matter of carrying-over or transferring an action from one participant to another" (Hopper & Thompson, 1980:253). ...
... This scale has been taken up by many researchers interested in usage-based models of language (García-Miguel, 2023). One testament to the centrality and utility of this model for Spanish is its prominence in the studies gathered in Clements and Thompson's (1980) model has yet to be applied quantitatively to studies of sociolinguistic variation. ...
... (1) Using Hopper and Thompson's (1980) definition of transitivity, are hightransitivity contexts associated with female or male participants in 16thcentury texts from New Spain? (a) How often does each gender appear as an A or S, and how often as an O? (b) To what extent do A and S of each gender occur in constructions of high transitivity? ...
Transitivity has come to be recognized as a promising heuristic tool for uncovering implicit ideologies in a wide range of areas. Though it has been used to explore worldviews in several kinds of discourse, nearly all have relied solely on qualitative analyses. Statistical analysis can offer a fuller understanding of past societies. This study applies a gradient, discourse-based understanding of transitivity, which lends itself nicely to corpus-based analysis, to data from 16th-century New Spain. In colonial Mexico, female behaviors were often strictly circumscribed. This paper uses a quantitative, corpus-based framework to examine how gender inequality is reflected in patterns of transitivity. It is found that female subjects are significantly associated with imperfective contexts, nonfinite constructions, akinesis, and low affectedness of the object—all markers of lower transitivity. Thus, for the most part, in these data, women are represented as inactive, inert, and powerless.
... We explore the effect of discourse genre seeking to provide a detailed analysis of the role of the speaker's stance, understood as the manifestation of attitudes, 209 feelings, judgment or commitment to their speech (Biber & Finegan 1988). In so doing, we analyzed the impact of various discursive modes to measure the effect of realis and irrealis events -one of Hopper & Thompson's (1980) transitivity components -on the uno/yo alternation in terms of the following three factors: ...
... TMA contributes to test whether the use of uno is linked to less definite or punctual temporal reference, which could promote a generic reading (De Cock 2014: 203, Hernanz 1990, whereas perfective actions do not promote generic readings (Monge 2002: 355). Moreover, analyzing the distinction between perfective and imperfective actions -one of Hopper & Thompson's (1980) transitivity components -will also provide information about the effect of the focus of attention on the subject. ...
... These findings clearly indicate that the link between yo and the most personal discursive types, on the one hand, and uno with argumentative discourse, on the other, is maintained. Because narrations mainly consisted of reporting events that happened in the past or were currently happening at data collection time, those actions are considered realis forms, high in transitivity (Hopper & Thompson 1980). As irrealis forms are low in transitivity, attention is focused on the subject, in this case, expressed by uno. ...
... It typically occurs after the verb in Arabic and it carries the semantic role THEME. The NP that represents the canonical object is characterized by a number of individuation properties namely that the NP is countable, singular, definite and referential (see for instance [9]). An example of an obligatorily transitive verb and its canonical object is given in (1). ...
... 8) ?inna il-kurat-a illatī rakala=hā/_ fahad EMPH.PRT the-ball-ACC which kick=3SG Fahad hiya kurat=ī 3SG ball=my 'The ball which Fahad kicked is my ball.' The canonical object can be an answer to a question with māḏā 'what' when it is a [-human] noun as can be seen in (9). However, when it is [+human] it can be questioned with man 'who' as in (10). ...
... Since Bossong's seminal work (1985), the linguistic phenomenon of employing different markers for direct objects (henceforth DO) within a single language has been referred to as Differential Object Marking (henceforth DOM). DOM is a typological common phenomenon that has been studied from various perspectives, including traditions focusing on properties of the object, e.g., animacy, specificity, and definiteness (Aissen 2003;Kagan 2020), as well as factors like transitivity (Hopper, Thompson 1980), discourse prominence (García García 2014), and sociolinguistic typology (Sinnemäki 2014). Definiteness and animacy are the primary predictors that trigger DOM in certain languages (see Sinnemäki 2014). ...
... For these reasons, in this research I will investigate Aymara object marking, focusing on the properties of animacy and definiteness of DOs. Additionally, I will analyse Aymara object marking system from a transitive perspective (Hopper, Thompson 1980), that is, I will investigate whether animate DOs of transitive verbs are more likely to take DOM compared to their inanimate counterparts. To support the hypothesis of an ongoing replication process from Spanish to Aymara, it is pertinent to acknowledge that previous research on Spanish in contact 1 has already documented cases of Spanish DOM replication. ...
In today’s global society, an increasing number of people speak a few widely spoken languages enjoying high standardisation and official recognition. Meanwhile, minority and local languages are gaining interest from specialists and society. This volume explores the rich topic of bi(dia)lectal repertoires, focusing on their grammatical as well as attitudinal, social and political dimension. With contributions from the international conference ‘Language Attitudes and Bi(dia)lectal Competence (LABiC)’, held at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice in September 2022, the volume is suited for linguists, educators, policymakers, and language enthusiasts who strive to support minority languages in a globalised world.
... Since Bossong's seminal work (1985), the linguistic phenomenon of employing different markers for direct objects (henceforth DO) within a single language has been referred to as Differential Object Marking (henceforth DOM). DOM is a typological common phenomenon that has been studied from various perspectives, including traditions focusing on properties of the object, e.g., animacy, specificity, and definiteness (Aissen 2003;Kagan 2020), as well as factors like transitivity (Hopper, Thompson 1980), discourse prominence (García García 2014), and sociolinguistic typology (Sinnemäki 2014). Definiteness and animacy are the primary predictors that trigger DOM in certain languages (see Sinnemäki 2014). ...
... For these reasons, in this research I will investigate Aymara object marking, focusing on the properties of animacy and definiteness of DOs. Additionally, I will analyse Aymara object marking system from a transitive perspective (Hopper, Thompson 1980), that is, I will investigate whether animate DOs of transitive verbs are more likely to take DOM compared to their inanimate counterparts. To support the hypothesis of an ongoing replication process from Spanish to Aymara, it is pertinent to acknowledge that previous research on Spanish in contact 1 has already documented cases of Spanish DOM replication. ...
In today’s global society, an increasing number of people speak a few widely spoken languages enjoying high standardisation and official recognition. Meanwhile, minority and local languages are gaining interest from specialists and society. This volume explores the rich topic of bi(dia)lectal repertoires, focusing on their grammatical as well as attitudinal, social and political dimension. With contributions from the international conference ‘Language Attitudes and Bi(dia)lectal Competence (LABiC)’, held at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice in September 2022, the volume is suited for linguists, educators, policymakers, and language enthusiasts who strive to support minority languages in a globalised world.
... Гоппер та С.А. Томпсон семантичні та формальні ознаки, які визначають ступінь перехідності [8]. Так вищу перехідність матимуть структури, в яких наявні два або більше учасників, дієслова є кінетичнимипередають дії, а не стани, наявні аспектуальні характеристики завершеності або моментальності дії, наявна волітивність, ствердження, дійсний спосіб, висока агентивність, об'єкт зазнав повного впливу, об'єкт є персоналізованим. ...
... I hugged Sally, I like Sally. У першому випадку Селлі зазнала впливу дії, у другомуні [8]. ...
... As with all semantic spaces, semantic transitivity is continuously variable. This characterization of semantic transitivity is informed by recent and not-so-recent linguistic research, principally Hopper and Thompson (1980), DeLancey (1981), Naess (2007), LaPolla, Kratochvíl and Coupe (2011), and Nolasco (2018. Grammatical structures, however, are more categorial. ...
... In Table 1, we list ten components of semantic (i.e., image schematic) transitivity that we see as motivating one or more grammatical distinctions in Waray. As mentioned in the introduction, we view these components as empirically represented in specific constructions in Waray, though the list as a whole builds on previous work such as Hopper and Thompson (1980), Naess (2007), and others. As is common in complex semantic spaces, semantic transitivity varies in multiple dimensions. ...
Abstract: Waray (Austronesian, Philippine) exhibits a binary Transitive versus Intransitive distinction in inflectional verbal morphology. In addition, there are several constructions that function to mitigate or augment the semantic transitivity of situations, as conceptualized and communicated by language users. We explain this system in terms of a unified cognitive image schema consisting of a starting point, a path and an end point. This system provides speakers with powerful means of expressing nuanced variation in control and effect. We argue that this approach describes the famous “Philippine voice system” in a way that is simpler and more consistent with what is known about the typology of voice in other languages of the world than do previous approaches.
Keywords: Austronesian, Philippine languages, Waray, Bisayan, voice, transitivity, applicative, inflection
... De esta manera, proponemos considerar tres tipos de procesos en el modelo accional: 'materiales', 'semióticos' y 'mentales'. Cada uno de estos procesos pueden ser 'transactivos' o 'no transactivos', según el grado de afectación establecido entre les participantes involucrades en la cláusula (Hopper & Thompson, 1980). En el primer caso, el proceso incluye dos participantes, de los cuales uno es el que realiza la acción, el 'agente', y el otro, quien se ve afectado por las consecuencias de esta acción, el 'paciente'. ...
En este artículo, indagamos desde el enfoque del Análisis Crítico Feminista del Discurso en las representaciones sobre el lenguaje y el género que circulan en los posicionamientos manifestados por estudiantes del nivel superior que, a partir de una encuesta realizada en el año 2021, reportaron no usar lenguaje inclusivo de género (LIG). El análisis de los datos nos permitió identificar tres argumentos principales sobre los que erigen sus posturas: 1) ‘El lenguaje es un instrumento de comunicación’; 2) ‘El LIG dificulta la comunicación’, y 3) ‘El LIG es una moda’. Estas representaciones están estrechamente vinculadas entre sí y se sustentan en otras representaciones sobre el lenguaje que, a su vez, propician: como que la lengua es homogénea, transparente y democrática. El rechazo al uso del LIG se fundamenta principalmente en que atenta contra esta supuesta homogeneidad de la lengua, por lo que perturbaría su funcionamiento como herramienta de comunicación entre las personas. Por otro lado, resulta interesante que se descalifica el LIG por no poder generar cambios materiales en la vida de los grupos minorizados, pero también se le atribuye la responsabilidad de excluir y discriminar a quienes no lo utilizan, efectos que trascienden el orden simbólico. Esta contradicción abre un hiato que refuerza la idea de que las ideologías lingüísticas no solo constituyen representaciones sobre las lenguas o variedades sino también sobre sus hablantes. Esta problematización de las relaciones entre el lenguaje y la sociedad ha estado ausente en la enseñanza formal de la lengua en el ámbito educativo en la Argentina, omisión que tuvo su impacto en el sentido común. En consecuencia, consideramos que resulta necesario promover una educación lingüística crítica en la escuela, que indague en las estrechas relaciones que mantienen el lenguaje, la sociedad y la ideología.
... The construction of argument hierarchy can be affected by different cues related to telicity, agency, and individuation via notion transitivity (Hopper and Thompson, 1980;De Mattia-Viviès, 2009;Virtanen, 2015). For example, a cue emphasizing the agentive property of NP1 (e.g., by adding the adverbial volitionally) increases the probability of NP1 being viewed as an agent (Cruse, 1973), making BA more natural than BEI. ...
... Contrarily, the subject of a perfective transitive clause, which typically denotes the agent of an action that completes an event, is often viewed as strongly agentive (Dowty, 1991). This situation aligns with a high degree of transitivity (Hopper & Thompson, 1980), which challenges Aissen's prediction of a weak agent. ...
This paper explores the role of irony as a powerful mechanism for critiquing key pragmatic theories, including Austin’s Speech Act Theory, Grice’s Cooperative Principle, Leech’s Politeness Principle, and Wilson and Sperber’s Relevance Theory. While these theories provide robust frameworks for understanding the dynamics of language use, they often assume a level of straightforwardness and sincerity in communication that irony subverts. Through an analysis of literary quotations, this study demonstrates how irony disrupts the expected norms of speech acts, cooperative communication, politeness, and relevance, revealing the limitations and oversights inherent in these pragmatic models.
... La agentividad se entiende como la «relación causal entre una entidad agente, una acción intencionada y el estado de quien sufre los efectos de la acción» (De Cock y Michaud Maturana, 2014: 126). Asimismo, es gradual y se conceptualiza como una escala que modula la presencia del agente (Ariño-Bizarro, 2023;De Cock y Michaud Maturana, 2014;Delancey, 1984;Hopper y Thompson, 1980;Pizarro Pedraza y De Cock, 2018). Varios aspectos intervienen en la representación de estos grados de agentividad. ...
Este artículo se centra en el análisis discursivo de interacciones conflictivas en Twitter sobre la atribución de responsabilidad por abusos de derechos humanos. Esta investigación se enfoca en un estudio de caso, a saber, la muerte de un hombre después de haber sido atropellado por Carabineros el 29 de enero de 2020, que provocó interacciones conflictivas en Twitter alrededor de la conceptualización de la responsabilidad. En consecuencia, el corpus está compuesto por tuits publicados por canales/programas televisivos en este contexto, y sus respuestas. A fin de comprender cómo los usuarios reaccionan ante estos tuits e interactúan para defender su punto de vista y gestionar el conflicto, el análisis se fija en la responsabilidad y la agentividad, la representación de los actores sociales, y los mecanismos lingüísticos utilizados para atenuar o intensificar la responsabilidad. El análisis muestra que los usuarios suelen conceptualizar la responsabilidad de distintas maneras, que recurren a intensificadores o atenuadores para logarlo y que estos varían según reaccionan al titular o a la intervención de otro usuario.
... Building on the theoretical foundations of Cognitive Construction Grammar (Goldberg, 1995) and Radical Construction Grammar (Croft, 2001), this paper examines the similarities and differences in English causative constructions, contributing to understanding how language represents connections between actions and state changes. Beyond these foundational works, other scholars have made significant contributions to this area: Talmy (2000) explored cognitive semantics and force dynamics; Shibatani (1976Shibatani ( , 2002 provided insights into direct and indirect causation across languages; Comrie (1974) offered a typological perspective on causative patterns; Hopper and Thompson (1980) analyzed the relationship between transitivity and causativity; Song (1996) conducted a cross-linguistic survey of causative expressions; Rappaport Hovav (1995, 2005) studied argument structure and verb classification; and Givón (2001) examined causation's role in discourse. Building on the principles of Construction Grammar, the study of spatial prepositions like "towards" illustrates how constructions maintain their inherent meanings while also developing a diverse set of interpretations, both spatial and non-spatial, through polysemy; this reflects the complex cognitive processes by which individuals construct and re-evaluate conceptual frameworks within linguistic expressions, highlighting the dynamic interplay between form, meaning, and context in language use, which is essential for applications in translation, artificial intelligence, and specialized language contexts . ...
This research aims to explore how English causative constructions convey changes in state, using the frameworks of Construction Grammar and Radical Construction Grammar. The 310 English language samples were selected based on their relevance to illustrating transitions caused by internal or external factors, sourced from reliable texts, diverse contexts, varied grammatical constructions, and common usage patterns. Through a thorough examination of syntax and semantics, the study aims to illustrate how causative constructions effectively capture dynamic processes and cognitive perceptions. Emphasis is placed on the roles of the agent and patient, with the analysis seeking to uncover how these structures deal with causality and, crucially, changes in state. The findings show that causative structures in English mainly depict physical changes, although there is still a significant representation of emotional and mental changes. This analysis reveals the universal and language-specific aspects of causative constructions and provides insights into how they are used in everyday conversations and cognitive activities.
... The present study therefore seeks to provide new elements to assess the current state of the three aforementioned transitivization processes, taking the variety of MP as a starting point. Our analysis, based on data extracted from the Corpus do Português (Davies 2016) and taking a cognitive view on transitivity, conceived as a prototypical category inherently gradient and flexible (Hopper & Thompson 1980), reveals that (i) these transitivization processes occur with varying degrees of productivity; (ii) the innovative Recipient passive construction typical of MP (see example (3)) emerges as the most stable and productive linguistic change; and (iii) language contact enters in complex interaction with conceptual and discursive factors to drive linguistic variation and change. Overall, it will be shown how the prototype of transitivity, as a conceptual archetype corresponding to basic human experience , can be used as a useful structuring device for exploring diverse constructional changes in argument structure occurring in emerging varieties of pluricentric languages. ...
En virtud de nuestra tesis, que explora el beneficio de los enfoques mencionados como causales de la modificación de creencias gramaticales aspectuales de maestros colombianos en formación, presentamos las trazas teórico-metodológicas del estado de la cuestión. Este cúmulo al unísono invita a la continuidad de aplicación de tratamientos vertidos en diseños metodológicos mixtos para la enseñanza explícita y deductiva. Con ello, pretendemos informar sobre el efecto potencial de las ventajas de la IC + EBC con el ánimo de ofrecer enfoques educativos reflexivos que permitan el desarrollo de la competencia gramatical, tal como se ha venido fructificando con creces en aprendices de ELE (Negueruela-Azarola et al, 2024).
... The degree of transitivity can be measured on the basis of certain properties of the core arguments and the semantics of the verb. Table 1 summarizes the basic idea of prototypical transitivity according to Hopper & Thompson (1980). Table 1: Parameters of transitivity according to Hopper & Thompson (1980: 252 Prototypical transitive clauses exhibit an object which shows a high degree of individuation and affectedness due to the action executed by the agent which is prototypically a deliberately acting agent. ...
The relevant literature reports differences in the use of clitic doubling in Albanian dialects. Quantitative corpus studies show that all dialects spoken outside of the Republic of Albania show a more frequent use of clitic doubling. The data of this corpus prove that the less restrictive use of clitic doubling is not accompanied by increasing transparency of its usage. In contrast to Standard Albanian, where the usage of clitic doubling is not optional and can almost without exception be explained by topic and focus marking, in the peripheral Albanian dialects outside of the Republic of Albania numerous exceptions from the general tendency can be detected. In order to explain these exceptions, a wide variety of factors must be taken into account and, in certain contexts, point to the optional use of clitic doubling. From a descriptive point of view, these exceptions suggest an increasing degree of functional opaqueness.
... As topics are usually given information, they tend to precede new information in discourse (cf. Clark & Haviland, 1977). 1 A high frequency of SVO surface orders despite a structural V-initial makeup could therefore be explained on the one hand by the fact that topic-comment configurations are more frequent in natural discourse than all-new configurations and on the other hand by argument asymmetries in topicalization, i. e. because subjects are more likely than non-subjects to occur as topics (e.g., Hopper, 1979;Hopper & Thompson, 1980;DuBois, 1987). ...
Mayan languages, mainly V-initial languages allowing both VSO and VOS orders in (syntactically and pragmatically) most unmarked contexts (England 1991), use preverbal positions for information structural purposes such as topic and focus, yet in Yucatec Maya there is evidence that preverbal constituents are not necessarily associated with discourse features. We therefore conducted a forced choice experiment to review these claims and determine syntactic effects at play in preverbal constituent structures.
... Linguistics studies on number of languages suggest that causality is an essential part of our cognition [12,14]. Causal relationships in the real world are complex, involving both necessary conditions and sufficient conditions within a cause-and-effect episode. ...
This research presents a computational framework for describing and recognizing episodes and for logical reasoning. This framework, named cognitive-logs, consists of a set of relational and graph databases. Cognitive-logs record knowledge, particularly in episodes that consist of "actions" represented by verbs in natural languages and "participants" who perform the actions. These objects are connected by arrows (morphisms) that link each action to its participant and link cause to effect. Operations based on category theory enable comparisons between episodes and deductive inferences, including abstractions of stories. One of the goals of this study is to develop a database-driven artificial intelligence. This artificial intelligence thinks like a human but possesses the accuracy and rigour of a machine. The vast capacities of databases (up to petabyte scales in current technologies) enable the artificial intelligence to store a greater volume of knowledge than neural-network based artificial intelligences. Cognitive-logs serve as a model of human cognition and designed with references to cognitive linguistics. Cognitive-logs also have the potential to model various human mind activities.
... Example (9) shows the applicative version of example (8), where the oblique denoting instrument is promoted to indirect object of the verb tuhseka 'to kick' -the promotion is marked by the applicative e-. (Murasaki 1979, 32) Dal Corso (2021b) proposes a unitary explanation for both the applicative and non-applicative functions of the prefixes e-and ko-, under Hopper and Thompson's (1980) theory of semantic transitivity and defines e-and ko-as morphological markers of high transitivity. However, upon a closer look at the data, Dal Corso (2021b) reports this non-applicative use of the two prefixes as too common a feature of e-and ko-than it actually is. ...
Japan’s ecological variety seems to parallel the multitude of different languages and dialects attested in the Japanese archipelago. In addition to standard Japanese and its dialects, there exist other Japonic languages such as Ryūkyūan and Hachijō, as well as non-Japonic varieties like Ainu. In this volume, four articles explore the importance of a philological approach to sources for historical linguistics: “Adopting a Philological Approach Toward Chishi ” by Étienne Baudel; “Elements of Sakhalin Ainu Phonetics, Phonology, and Morphosyntax in Bronisław Piłsudski’s Corpus of Ainu Folklore” by Elia Dal Corso; “The Language of Miyako Oral Traditions” by Aleksandra Jarosz; “Reflexes of Proto-Ryukyuan Mid Vowels in Haedong Chegukki ” by Marc Miyake.
... Example (9) shows the applica tive version of example (8), where the oblique denoting instrument is promoted to indirect object of the verb tuhseka 'to kick' -the promo tion is marked by the applicative e-. (Murasaki 1979, 32) Dal Corso (2021b) proposes a unitary explanation for both the appli cative and non-applicative functions of the prefixes e-and ko-, under Hopper and Thompson's (1980) theory of semantic transitivity and de fines e-and ko-as morphological markers of high transitivity. How ever, upon a closer look at the data, Dal Corso (2021b) reports this non-applicative use of the two prefixes as too common a feature of e-and ko-than it actually is. ...
In this paper the author focuses on a number of linguistic features of East Sakhalin Ainu dialects. The language data for this study comes from a collection of traditional Ainu folklore elicited in 1903-04 and published as Materials for the Study of the Ainu Language and Folklore by Bronisław Piłsudski in 1912. The observations on phonetics, phonology, and morphosyntax will be discussed in light of more recent data coming from West Sakhalin Ainu dialects collected in the 1960s-1970s. This will allow for a brief consideration of the dialectal differences occurring between the two dialect subgroups as well as of the possible path of language development that took place during the 60-70 years that separate the two sources. The aim of the author is to highlight how a thorough descriptive work on old sources of an indigenous, minority language like Ainu can give to East Asian historical linguistics and to linguistic typology more generally.
... In a case language, one would expect such an object to be marked in the dative, the genitive, or as a prepositional object, due to the low semantic transitivity of the predicates themselves (cf. Hopper & Thompson 1980), which is exactly what one finds here (cf. Table 5 above). ...
The verb 'suffice' in the Germanic languages is of major interest to syntactic reconstruction for several reasons. First, two different, but etymologically related, verbs exist in the early daughter languages with the meaning 'suffice', reconstructable as *ga-nahan and *ga-nōgjan. Second, major inconsistencies are found between the case and argument structure constructions across the two verbs and across the daughter languages, including Nom-Gen, Acc-only, Acc-Nom, Acc-Gen, Dat-Gen and Dat-Nom. These case frames are not particularly compatible with each other, severely limiting the chances of a successful reconstruction. A further scrutiny reveals that the younger verb may also occur as a ditransitive, which complicates matters even further. Here both verbs are reconstructed for Proto-Germanic with different case frames, including how the internal development may, or even must, have been in order for the two verbs and the different case and argument structure constructions to be reconcilable. This study also shows that the lexical semantic meanings range from 'satiate', 'endow' and 'satisfy' to 'be satisfied', 'find sufficient' and 'suffice', all depending on the relevant case and argument structure constructions, calling for a further investigation into the role of argument structure for semantic change with lexical verbs.
... In a typical Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) construction, the Subject (S) denotes a proto-agent, the Verb (V) a transitive predicate, and the Object (O) a proto-patient. However, varying contexts can alter the degree of agentivity, transitivity, and patientivity (Hopper and Thompson, 1980;Dowty, 1991). This dimension targets each usage or scenario of an occurrence, even within the same lexeme. ...
Modern neural networks (NNs), trained on extensive raw sentence data, construct distributed representations by compressing individual words into dense, continuous, high-dimensional vectors. These representations are specifically designed to capture the varied meanings, including ambiguity, of word occurrences within context. In this thesis, our objective is to examine the efficacy of distributed representations from NNs in encoding lexical meaning. Initially, we identify four sources of ambiguity - homonymy, polysemy, semantic roles, and multifunctionality - based on the relatedness and similarity of meanings influenced by context. Subsequently, we aim to evaluate these sources by collecting or constructing multilingual datasets, leveraging various language models, and employing linguistic analysis tools.
... Veremos, a continuación, algunas propuestas. Lakoff (1977), Hopper y Thompson (1980), Givón (1985), DeLancey (1987), Langacker (1999) o Kemmer (2003 son algunos de los teóricos que han tratado la transitividad con mayor profundidad en los últimos decenios. Es ya clásica la caracterización de este fenómeno desarrollada por Hopper y Thompson, quienes consideran la transitividad prototípica una realidad gradual que tenía que ver no tanto con los verbos en sí mismos, como con las oraciones en su conjunto, "que se define por una serie de rasgos de carácter semántico más o menos prototípicos: presencia de un Agente, una entidad humana que, de forma voluntaria e intencionada, controla una acción dinámica o actividad expresada por un predicado en modalidad declarativa y afirmativa, dirigida a un Paciente afectado directamente o resultado de dicha acción, etc.". ...
In this work we make an account of the way in which the concept of transitivity has been understood by traditional grammar and how it is treated by current linguistics, from the notion of transitivity developed by Priscian, a 6th century Grammarian. Our goal is to clearly identify the two conceptions from which the Grammarian understood this syntactic phenomenon: a narrow one (simpler and reduced) and a broad one (with a higher degree of linguistic reflection); and the way in which both have influenced grammatical theory during the history of grammar.
... However, recent approaches give more weight to semantic roles ("semantic transitivity") that are typically found to correlate with the above-mentioned syntactic configuration. Following Hopper & Thompson (1980), this type of conceptualization treats transitivity as a type of "continuum", comprising of different semantic and discourse features argued to be associated with the degree of transitivity. In this view, a given clause should not be characterized as transitive vs. intransitive, but rather as a more or less transitive (see, e.g., Naess 2007). ...
This thesis presents a detailed study of valency classes and alternation in Persian, a South Western Iranian language with more than 110 million speakers worldwide, mostly in Iran. It contributes to a better understanding and description of the Persian verbal system and thereby also to the development of cross-linguistic research on argument structure and valency alternations. For this purpose, a total of 94 verbs were analyzed and described for their valency coding frames and alternations, following the methodological steps developed by the Leipzig Questionnaire on valency classes (Malchukov & team 2015). These coding frames were then grouped into ten different valency classes based on the number and nature of their arguments. With respect to valency alternations, this thesis presents two types of coded alternations, namely the passive and the causative, and three types of uncoded alternations, namely =rā alternations, ezāfe alternations, and other prepositional alternations. In addition to the typological contribution this thesis presents, inspired by the other languages documented in the online database Valency Patterns Leipzig (ValPaL) (Hartmann et al. 2013), the list of predicates investigated in this thesis can be useful for language teaching, lexicography, or other database purposes, databases such as PersPred (Samvelian & Faghiri 2013a).
... Было выявлено, что клаузы, привлекающие наибольшее внимание читателей в качестве ключевых событий повествовательных текстов, обладают «высокой» транзитивностью. Их предикаты обозначают динамические, ограниченные во времени, контролируемые действия, оформленные с помощью личных форм индикатива, приписываемые, в первую очередь, личным агенсам и направленные на индивидуализированные объекты (Hopper, Thompson 1980). Поэтому фразы Германн увидел графиню, Он передал девушке записку, Германн вынул из кармана пистолет, Он показал свою карту -воспринимаются нами как опорные в сюжете «Пиковой дамы», тогда как предложения Графиня была стара или Лизавета Ивановна сидела в своей комнате представляются нам фоном истории. ...
... I take passive to be a multidimensional functional domain in the spirit of Givón (1990). text frequency (about 50% of a discourse sample, far more than the typical 5%~10% for the passive usually reported in the literature; (2) the agent is typically overt and integrated into the syntax of the PV clauses, manifesting core argument properties as opposed to adjuncts; (3) they are semantically highly transitive in the sense of Hopper and Thompson (1980); (4) PV clauses are used as imperatives in ...
Philippine-type languages, including Formosan languages spoken in Taiwan, are known to lack the grammatical category of subject representing convergence of topic, actor and pivot and do not have a pivot system governed by the exigencies of topicality and linkage patterns under coreference. In this study we presented the Formosan solution to 'voice' by undertaking a systematic examination of patient voice constructions in four Formosan languages. Three distinct discourse functions of patient voice constructions were distinguished based on evidence from discourse linkage patterns, namely active transitive, notional passive, and pragmatic inverse. The PV constructions in Formosan languages are not true voice constructions in the traditional sense, since PVs in these languages are neither active, nor inverse, nor passive, precisely because they can be all of them, given appropriate discourse context. These empirical findings pose a challenge to the mainstream views on voice marking and call for a rethinking of the typology of the voice systems in the world' languages.
Cause-and-effect relationships are essential for understanding the world, structuring and managing complex thoughts, and acquiring new knowledge. Yet, the concept of causality remains undefined and unbounded, leaving several key questions open: What role do causal linguistic structures play in cognitive development? How do they influence speakers’ attentional capacities? And what connections exist between cognitive and linguistic abilities? This multidisciplinary review provides answers that converge in a new model of psycholinguistic causality, which not only considers a single perspective but integrates them all. In this way, the study of causality can be seen as a comprehensive framework, one that allows any language, population, culture, or field of knowledge to explore this fundamental relationship in human life. The aim of this monograph is twofold. First, it offers a comprehensive, multidisciplinary theoretical review of what has been established about causality, drawing from linguistic, psychological, philosophical, and social perspectives. Second, it presents a psycholinguistic study protocol for causality that seeks to understand this cognitive tool as a multifaceted whole, yet one that can be analysed through distinct stages that must be considered together. This model is specifically applied to causality in Spanish, a language that has so far received limited attention regarding this cognitive domain.
This chapter describes a group of constructions that are derived from the lexical root ‘refer’ in their use to introduce discursive themes. Analyzing their occurrences in the CREA and CORPES XXI corpora has made it possible to identify the relationships these thematizers establish with previous references or themes. Likewise, their role in the thematic and informative structuring of the text is described and, therefore, how they contribute to textual and discursive cohesion through three functions that have been identified in the corpus: specifying, refocusing, and ordering, all of which are associated with thematic movements.
Bun 「分」is a versatile function word in Hakka which occurs in dative, purposive, causative, and passive constructions. Both causative and passive bun constructions have subtypes. Causative bun constructions can be interpersonal causatives, unwilling permissives, or descriptive causatives. Passive bun constructions can be direct passives, possessive passives, or impersonal passives. Structurally, causative and passive bun constructions are indistinguishable, which gives rise to the potential of ambiguity, caused either by the loss of willingness on the part of the subject NPs, or the ergativity of psych verbs. When a verb with low agentivity appears after bun, the reading tends to be causative rather than passive, even though the grammatical subject is the semantic object of the post-bun transitive verb. All the subtypes of causative and passive constructions with Hakka bun (except for impersonal passives) can be subsumed under an affectedness construction, with the causatives having an affector and an event and the passives having an affectee and an event. The affectedness construction leaves unspecified the semantic role (affector or affectee) of the subject NP. All the subtypes are connected via polysemy links, except for the impersonal passive construction, which is connected to the unwilling permissive via subpart links.
Our aim in this paper is to explain the progressive semantic change of the Spanish verb volver from the 13th century until the 21st. We will show that at the beginning, its unique use is a transitive one, from Latin until the 14th. Then it acquired an intransitive use in the 15th. We will claim that the semantic change meaning of this verb from the transitive use to the intransitive, ending by the grammaticalization of the verb with the creation of a periphrasis (volver a + infinitive), is part of a ‘reanalysis’ process of the semantic relation between both cases the agent and the patient in the eventive structure and, consequently, of the subject and the object complement in the syntactic distribution. The semantic core which conveys a metaphorical or a spatial path toward a goal (“to make a rotary motion, to turn”) is unchanged. We claim that the telic character of the verb allowed it to impose itself and to replace tornar.
This book aims to address a gap in the existing literature on the relationship between vagueness and ambiguity, as well as on their differences and similarities, both in synchrony and diachrony, and taking into consideration their relation to language use. The book is divided into two parts, which address specific and broader research questions from different perspectives. The former part examines the differences between ambiguity and vagueness from a bird-eye perspective, with a particular focus on their respective functions and roles in language change. It also presents innovative linguistic resources and tools for the study of these phenomena. The second part contains case studies on vagueness and ambiguity in language change and use. It considers different strategies and languages, including English, French, German, Italian, Medieval Latin, and Old Italian. The readership for this volume is broad, encompassing scholars in a range of disciplines, including pragmatics, spoken discourse, conversation analysis, discourse genres (political, commercial, notarial discourse), corpus studies, language change, pragmaticalization, and language typology.
We argue that the “Prominence Hierarchy” within linguistics can be subsumed under the “Construal Level Theory” within psychology and that a wide spectrum of grammatical phenomena, ranging from case assignment to number, definiteness, verbal agreement, voice, direct/inverse morphology, and syntactic word-order respond to Prominence Hierarchies (PH), or semantic scales. In fact, the field of prominence hierarchies, as expressed through the languages of the world, continues to be riddled with riddles. We identify a set of conundrums: (A) vantage point and animacy, (B) individuation and narrow reference phenomena, (C) fronting mechanisms, (D) abstraction, and (E) cultural variance and flexibility. We here propose an account for the existence of these hierarchies and their pervasive effects on grammar by relying on psychological Construal Level Theory (CLT). We suggest that both PH and CLT structure the external world according to proximity or distance from the “ Me , Here and Now ” (MHN) perspective. In language, MHN has the effect of structuring grammars; in cognition, it structures our lives, our preferences, and choices.
This study analyzes hitherto neglected uses of a second-person singular (2sg hereafter) pronoun in Japanese: the ‘generic’ and ‘vague’ uses of the 2sg pronoun anata observed in reported speech. The aim of the study is twofold. First, it refutes the broader assumption in typological studies that languages with an open-class pronominal system, such as Japanese and Korean, do not allow generic uses of 2sg (Kitagawa and Lehrer 1990. Impersonal uses of personal pronouns. Journal of Pragmatics 14(5). 739–759). This study demonstrates that the 2sg pronoun anata in Japanese is used to refer to people in general (‘generic’ use) or to human referents who are low in specificity (‘vague’ use). Second, as these uses occur in reported speech, this study sheds light on the various ways in which current speaker attitudes in reported speech may be encoded across different languages (Spronck 2012. Minds divided: Speaker attitudes in quotatives. In Isabelle Buchstaller & Ingrid van Alphen (eds.), Quotatives: Cross-linguistic and cross-disciplinary perspectives , 71–142. Amsterdam: John Benjamins: 87). Drawing on the notion of ‘constructed dialogue’ (e.g., Tannen 1989. Talking voices: Repetition, dialogue, and imagery in conversational discourse . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), the study shows that these uses of anata are most often the quoting speaker’s ‘construction’ rather than ‘report’, reflecting the quoting speaker’s attitude in specifying the referent. Using the data obtained from parliamentary debates, the study demonstrates that politicians draw on these uses of anata as one of their speech strategies for creating generalized narratives.
Este trabajo constituye un análisis preliminar de la expresión variable de sujetos pronominales (ESP) en el corpus PRESEEA-Cali, Colombia. Exploramos los efectos de cinco variables predictoras (2 sociales y 3 lingüísticas) en 4425 muestras. Los resultados revelan la tasa pronominal (29,7%) más alta encontrada en una comunidad de habla latinoamericana continental. El condicionamiento lingüístico indica que persona y número gramatical ejercen el efecto más fuerte entre los predictores explorados; específicamente uno constituye el pronombre que más favorece los sujetos expresos. El condicionamiento social descubre que las mujeres promueven los sujetos expresos, tal como ocurre en la región Caribe, pero contrario a lo encontrado en Medellín. Además, los efectos de la edad revelan que los jóvenes favorecen los sujetos tácitos y los mayores favorecen los sujetos expresos. Este hallazgo puede tener implicaciones cognitivas, puesto que se espera normalmente que los hablantes jóvenes tengan tasas pronominales más altas.
A partir de un enfoque funcional-cognitivo de la sintaxis, se plantea una investigación sobre la configuración discursiva del iniciador (agente o experimentante) y sus posibles referencias en las construcciones pasivas e impersonales con el reflexivo "se". Estas construcciones conllevan la democión sintáctico-semántica y la desfocalización pragmática de dicho participante; no obstante, en el contexto suelen aparecer elementos que, al construir espacios mentales, condicionan el punto de vista discursivo y orientan la interpretación del referente. Se proponen dos dimensiones referenciales básicas: la especificidad y la accesibilidad, cuya combinación da lugar a cuatro categorías: referencias específicas y accesibles, inespecíficas y accesibles, específicas e inaccesibles, e inespecíficas e inaccesibles. El análisis se basa en un corpus de noticias de sucesos digitales y comentarios a ellas enviados por los lectores. La observación cualitativa desvela los principales recursos para la configuración de cada categoría referencial en los textos y sus respectivas repercusiones pragmáticas. Por otra parte, el análisis cuantitativo permite comprobar que, mientras que en el discurso informativo de las noticias predominan los iniciadores accesibles (específicos o inespecíficos), en los comentarios casi siempre se construyen referentes inespecíficos (accesibles o inaccesibles), en línea con la generalización de experiencias y opiniones de los lectores. Se concluye que las intenciones referenciales constituyen elementos de estilo comunicativo y, por ello, se hallan sujetas a variación sociosituacional.
Starting from a functional-cognitive approach to syntax, I propose investigating the discursive configuration of the initiator—agent or experiencer—and its possible references in passive and impersonal constructions formed with Spanish third-person reflexive "se". These constructions entail the syntactic-semantic demotion and pragmatic defocusing of this participant; however, it is usual for contextual elements to build mental spaces to condition discourse viewpoint and thus guide the interpretation of the referent. I propose two basic referential dimensions, specificity and accessibility, whose combination gives rise to four categories: specific and accessible, non-specific, and accessible, specific, and inaccessible, and non-specific and inaccessible references. The analysis is based on a corpus of digital news items and comments to them submitted by readers. Qualitative observation reveals the primary resources used for configuring each referential category in the texts and their respective pragmatic repercussions. In turn, the quantitative analysis makes it possible to verify that, while accessible initiators—either specific or non-specific—are dominant in the informative discourse of news items, the great majority of referents in comments are non-specific—either accessible or inaccessible—in line with the generalization of readers’ personal experiences and opinions. I conclude that referential intentions constitute communicative style elements and are subject to socio-situational variation.
Este artigo busca investigar a hipótese de estruturas ergativas dispararem implicaturas convencionais, explorando a possibilidade de inferências geradas não apenas por palavras específicas, mas também por estruturas sintáticas. Usando arcabouço teórico funcional-pragmático com autores como Cançado e Ciríaco (2009) e Grice (1975), esta pesquisa qualitativa se vale de dados retirados de reclamações no Reclame Aqui. A metodologia inclui a redução de dados, sua análise e a apresentação de conclusões. Esta investigação pode ter valor para a linguística ao aproximar a sintaxe funcional e a pragmática, numa tentativa de delimitar mais claramente fronteiras entre semântica e pragmática, ampliando o campo de estudo desta última. Ao testar se implicaturas são disparadas por itens lexicais e sintáticos, a pesquisa conclui que (a) estruturas ergativas seguidas de "sozinho(a)" geram implicaturas convencionais; (b) a paráfrase transitiva acarreta – não implica – informação; e (c) atribuir às implicaturas convencionais disparadores sintáticos reconsidera a ideia de que são apenas semânticas.
Este artigo tem como objeto de analisar a anulação da grade temática do verbo dar, no português brasileiro, sob o viés da Construcionalização. Pretendemos verificar as relações semânticas determinantes da perda da grade temática do verbo dar. Tendo em vista a fundamental importância da participação (comunicativa) da sociedade, observaremos ocorrências do verbo dar, na fala e escrita do português brasileiro no corpus do português, por Mark Davies, e o corpus do NURC. Temos como aporte teórico os estudos realizados pelos linguistas Hopper & Traugott (2003); Heine (1991); Furtado da Cunha (2001); Givón (1984), Silva (2012) entre outros pesquisadores da teoria da Construcionalização; nessa teoria, o conhecimento do linguístico dos falantes consiste em uma rede de pares de forma e função, ou construções. Nesses estudos veremos os diferentes usos linguísticos do verbo dar, no português brasileiro. Posteriormente, observaremos se a ausência parcial ou total da grade temática do verbo dar é consequência das peculiaridades semânticas do verbo em estudo, além disso tentaremos encontrar os componentes dessa grade temática dentro do texto e contexto discursivo.
The paper demonstrates that, along with its standard function of linking the relevant utterance to the context, information structure (whose main parameters are assumed to be the theme-rheme division, given-new division, and direct VS inverted word order contrasts) may also fulfil a more intricate role within lyrical texts. The function of information structure may be extended to mark the inner discourse hierarchization of a poem, i.e. its division into the backgrounded part, where some experience open to the lyrical hero is presented, and the foregrounded, ‘wisdom’ part, where the discovery of some important, mostly general truth is made. This is shown with reference to a famous poem by O. Mandelstam. The final conclusion is that in general the true functions of information structure stretch far beyond what is claimed in standard, ‘non-poetically-oriented’ literature on information structure.
El presente trabajo aborda un tema educativo sobre el uso de Quizlet como herramienta didáctica para enseñar verbos transitivos e intransitivos del japonés a estudiantes mexicanos. El objetivo general es encontrar estrategias más efectivas para la enseñanza-aprendizaje de estos verbos, buscando correlaciones entre el nivel léxico y morfosintáctico. Se destaca la importancia de la integralidad lingüística y pedagógica, ya que ningún idioma existe solo en un nivel lingüístico. La metodología combina enfoques cualitativos y cuantitativos, utilizando observaciones en aulas presenciales y encuestas en línea con estudiantes de japonés básico. Los datos obtenidos destacan que el uso de imágenes con vocabulario facilita el aprendizaje, especialmente cuando se combina con Quizlet como herramienta de autoaprendizaje antes de las clases presenciales. El análisis de los datos muestra que el 85.7% de los encuestados mejoraron su aprendizaje al usar imágenes junto con los verbos, y el uso de Quizlet antes de las clases ayudó a comprender la morfosintaxis, significado y uso de los verbos. Se hace énfasis, pues, en la importancia de enseñar los verbos al tomar en consideración su relación sintáctica-pragmática. Finalmente, se concluye que la enseñanza efectiva de estos verbos está ligada tanto al léxico como a la sintaxis, destacando la importancia de integrar la gramática y el vocabulario en el proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje. Se propone un enfoque pedagógico que combina el autoaprendizaje con Quizlet con la participación del profesor en clases presenciales utilizando ejemplos visuales y contrastivos.
In this paper a close look is taken at the object relation in Sesotho. The properties of word order, subjectivization, and cliticization are considered carefully as possible criteria for direct object status. The extreme importance of animacy in determining which argument(s) of a verb will receive direct object properties is demonstrated with respect to utterances with a benefactive and accusative object, as well as sentences with an "affected possessor" and a possessed (body) part. A refinement in the use of cliticization as a direct object criterion is proposed on the basis of the need to distinguish between different means by which a clitic object marker can come into being (pronominalization, left-dislocation, relativization, object-agreement). It is concluded that the direct object is as much a discouse notion as it is a grammatical notion in Sesotho, as it probably is in (Eastern) Bantu as a whole.
We should like to emphasize that in discussing the Shona data we shall not be arguing for any particular (competence) model of grammar. We shall limit our discussion to the motivation of the facts to be presented, i.e. why speakers create the sentences they do in Shona, and to th problems listeners have in interpreting these sentences. Since we were able to work with only one speaker of Shona, we found it most effective to focus on how our informant interpreted sentences which either we or he himself constructed. Thus, although we shall often speak of interpretation and of assigning nouns to underlying case relations, we are not advocating the interpretivist approach to generative grammar. Quite to the contrary, we shall emphasize the role of semantics and pragmatics in syntax.