ПРЕДИКАТИТЕ ЗА СЪСТОЯНИЕ В СЪВРЕМЕННИТЕ ЛИНГВИСТИЧНИ ТЕОРИИ (II) / STATIVE PREDICATES IN CONTEMPORARY LINGUISTIC THEORIES (II)

This paper presents a critical overview of thematic classes of stative verbs. To this end, we analyse three well-known thematic classifications of stative verb classes. While the main focus is on the works by Paducheva (1996; 2004), Spencer and Zaretskaya (2003) and Van Valin and LaPolla (1997), where relevant we comment on research by other authors. The goal of the study is to shed light on the different views regarding the properties of stative predicates from an aspectual and semantic perspective and to outline the main thematic classes that fall into the category of statives. Keywords: stative predicates, semantic typology, thematic classes and subclasses

State predicatives: conceptions, classifications, problems

The study aims at presenting the predicatives of state in linguistic research. The existing descriptions of the predicatives expressing state are analyzed in the context of the semantic typology predicatives with a view of their structure and the scope of the semantic field to which they belong. Several classifications are considered that take into account the semantic and syntactic characteristics of state predicatives, outlining achievements and as-yet-unexplored fields.

A semantic typology of location, existence, possession and copular verbs: areal patterns of polysemy in Mainland East and Southeast Asia

This study is based on a sample of 116 languages from the Mainland East and Southeast Asian linguistic area. Its first objective is to examine four distinct synchronic patterns of areal polysemy, created by the semantic domains of copular, locative, existential and possessive verbs and the constructions they form. As a consequence, its second objective is to model the diachronic change underlying four language types identified on this basis from the data. We argue that there are three grammaticalization pathways which motivate the four synchronic patterns: Type III languages are distinguished by the grammaticalization chain: (Postural verb) > (Dwell) > Locative > Existential > Possessive, while the other two types, Type II and Type IV, show an opposing pathway: (Grasp) > Possessive > Existential. Type I and Type II languages additionally reveal a recurrent polysemy between Locative and Copular verbs. On this basis, an implicational universal is adduced to the effect that no diachronic adjacency exists between locative and possessive constructions. Crucially, the intervening stage of an existential construction provides the necessary bridging context for possessive reanalysis in this first pathway, while possessive verbs are formally distinct from locatives in the second, bearing no diachronic relationship to them. The findings on the patterns of polysemy sharing reinforce the notion of a clear typological split between Tibeto-Burman languages on the one hand, and Sinitic, Kra–Dai, Hmong–Mien, and Austroasiatic on the other.

Misvaluation: On the Bulgarian Verbs подценявам ‘Underestimate’ and надценявам ‘Overestimate’, their Semantic Structure and Translation into Russian

The article examines the semantic structure of the two Bulgarian verbs of misvaluation, подценявам ‘underestimate’ and надценявам ‘overestimate’. Attention is drawn to the ambivalence of their position in the semantic typology of predicates, notably their features/traits stemming from the presence of an interpretive component. With reference to the Bulgarian National Corpus, the article outlines the most common options for filling the positions of the participants and the main contexts in which the verbs occur. Some issues in translation into Russian are shown, which exist despite the availability of full equivalents in the target language.

The forms and meanings of grammatical markers support efficient communication

Functionalist accounts of language suggest that forms are paired with meanings in ways that support efficient communication. Previous work on grammatical marking suggests that word forms have lengths that enable efficient production, and work on the semantic typology of the lexicon suggests that word meanings represent efficient partitions of semantic space. Here we establish a theoretical link between these two lines of work and present an information-theoretic analysis that captures how communicative pressures influence both form and meaning. We apply our approach to the grammatical features of number, tense, and evidentiality and show that the approach explains both which systems of feature values are attested across languages and the relative lengths of the forms for those feature values. Our approach shows that general information-theoretic principles can capture variation in both form and meaning across languages.

Of travels and travails: The role of semantic typology, argument structure constructions, and language contact in semantic change

This paper is an investigation into the role of argument structure constructions as catalysts or blockers of lexical semantic change. It presents a case study of the divergent semantic development of French travailler ‘work’ and English travel ‘journey’ from their shared earlier meaning ‘labour, toil’. This divergence is shown to not be random: It can be explained as a product of the different intransitive motion constructions (IMCs) and different communicative habits in these two languages. Consequently, the development of travailler ‘journey’ in the Anglo-Norman dialect of French can be understood as the result of contact influence of Middle English. By pointing to similar instances in which verbs meaning ‘labour, toil’ have acquired a polysemous ‘motion’ sense in languages with an IMC that can coerce non-motion verbs into contextual motion readings, the paper argues that this is most probably a regular semantic trajectory in satellite-framing, manner-conflating languages.

ПРЕДИКАТИТЕ ЗА СЪСТОЯНИЕ В СЪВРЕМЕННИТЕ ЛИНГВИСТИЧНИ ТЕОРИИ (I) / STATIVE PREDICATES IN CONTEMPORARY LINGUISTIC THEORIES (I)

This paper presents a critical overview of thematic classes of stative verbs. To this end, we analyse three well-known thematic classifications of stative verb classes. While the main focus is on the works by Paducheva (1996; 2004), Spencer and Zaretskaya (2003) and Van Valin and LaPolla (1997), where relevant we comment on research by other authors. The goal of the study is to shed light on the different views regarding the properties of stative predicates from an aspectual and semantic perspective and to outline the main thematic classes that fall into the category of statives. Keywords: stative predicates, semantic typology, thematic classes and subclasses