Development of verb-verb complexes in Indo-Aryan

This chapter discusses the historical development and properties of verb-verb compounds in Indo-Aryan, with reference to verb-verb compounds in Dravidian. The history of modern Indo-Aryan verb-verb compounds is explored, including an examination of the precursors of such constructions in early Indo-Aryan, as well as the apparent earliest examples in late Middle and early modern Indo-Aryan. A number of morphosyntactic and lexical differences between verb-verb structures in different modern Indo-Aryan languages are examined, focusing particularly on differences between Hindi and Nepali. The larger picture of South Asian verb-verb compounds is examined through comparison of lexical inventories of Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages, with some evidence pointing to independent developments within South Asia, with some later partial convergence.

Syntactic verb-verb compounds in Japanese

This chapter discusses the syntactic behavior and some notable properties of syntactic V-V compounds in Japanese (Type 3 in the classification of Chapter 2), providing some fresh empirical data. In this chapter, syntactic V-V compounds are seen to be divided into raising and control types. Syntactic V-V compound verbs take distinct embedded structures, depending on whether V2 is classified as a raising or a control verb. V-V compounds allow some, but not all, V2s to undergo long-distance passivization. It is suggested that the difference in applicability of long-distance passivization between raising and control V-V compounds is determined according to whether V2 has an accusative-case feature to license an object, and also that control V-V compounds are not passivizable if they denote an uncontrollable event (even if V2 has an accusative-case feature). Furthermore, syntactic V-V compounds taking sugiru ‘exceed’ as V2 are shown to display a number of unique properties that are not shared with other syntactic compound verbs.

The semantic differentiation of verb-te verb complexes and verb-verb compounds in Japanese

Japanese has two different formal types of complex predicates involving two verbs: V-te V complex predicates and V-V compound verbs. This chapter discusses the nature of the former in comparison to the latter. The examination reveals that the two kinds of multiverbal complexes similarly have two subtypes, one monoclausal and the other biclausal, but that they are different morphologically, syntactically, and semantically. The most interesting finding is that the two crucially differ in whether deictic and honorific verbs, which encode perspectival and interactional meanings, can participate in the complexes. Morphologically tighter V-V compounds require a same-subject relation between the two verbs and exclude perspectival or interactional meanings (except V1 in syntactic compounds). Loosely concatenated V-te V complexes allow different subjects, typically have perfective/resultative V1, and have V2 as a preferred slot for perspectival/interactional meanings. These observations suggest that Japanese does not have these two options meaninglessly; the different multiverbal complexes serve different purposes.

Verb-verb complexes in Central and Eastern Turkic languages

This chapter discusses Verb-Verb complexes in Central Turkic, which includes Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Uzbek, and Uyghur, and in Eastern Turkic, which includes Sakha, Tuvan, and Khakas. To provide a descriptive overview of Verb-Verb complexes in Turkic, we first examine linguistic materials from Sakha and Tuvan, most of which are examples containing delexicalized verbs that supply meaning such as aspectual, manner, modal, and benefactive, uncovering what they have in common and how they differ. We then examine the constructional status of some of the complex verb predicates that may lie on the dividing line of converb constructions and Verb-Verb complexes, as well as the status of some reduced forms to ascertain whether they are Verb-Verb complexes. In addition, some Turkic Verb-Verb complexes are examined to determine whether they are morphological compounds. Our findings revealed that Central and Eastern Turkic seem to have no verb-verb compounds, and solely employ syntactic strategies to form Verb-Verb complexes.

Structural Semantic Patterns with Negative Prefixes: A Case Study in English and Armenian

The aim of this article is to provide a general overview of the unique architecture of verb compounds in English and Armenian.It is well acknowledged that contrastive study can be used to get new insights into this or that linguistic phenomenon and the findings can prove to be useful both for the source and the target language. What is needed for cross-lingual comparison is structure perspectively, i.e., taking the meaning not the form as the starting point.Our research question is two-fold: How are semantically structured verb compounds in negative prefixes and How are these patternings rendered from English into Armenian.

Causer and causee as two higher-ranked thematic roles

On the basis of the argument realization of Mandarin resultative verb compounds, this paper argues that the Proto-Agent properties as well as the Proto-Patient properties proposed by Dowty (1991) are not equal in status. Specifically, the Proto-Agent property corresponding to the Causer and the Proto-Patient property corresponding to the Causee are two higher-ranked properties. In a non-prototype approach to thematic roles, this means that the Causer and the Causee are two higher-ranked thematic roles that are immediately relevant to the argument realization of monotransitive causative predicates. The paper shows that, compared with Dowty’s equal-weight approach, the alternative approach recognizing the Causer and the Causee as two higher-ranked properties or roles can give a simpler, more effective, and more straightforward account of the argument realization associated with monotransitive causative predicates, including lexical causatives, morphological causatives, and resultatives. This study has implications for research in the argument realization of causatives involving three (or more) arguments as well. Meanwhile, it has implications for any theory utilizing thematic hierarchy because (i) none of the thematic hierarchies proposed in the literature includes both the Causer and the Causee and (ii) a complete theory of thematic roles needs to take these two higher-ranked roles into consideration.

Macro-events in Verb–verb Compounds from the Perspective of Baseline and Elaboration: Iconicity in Typology and Grammaticalization

In Talmy’s typology of event integration, macro-events are classified into five types (motion, temporal contouring, state change, action correlating, and realization) by the framing event. Examining compound verbs representing macro-events cross-linguistically, this paper argues that macro-events can be classified into two types from the viewpoint of “elaboration” (Langacker 2016): augmentation (motion, state change, and realization) and adaptation (temporal contouring and action correlating). Based on iconicity, compound verbs can be said to be the best candidates for encoding conceptually integrated complex events considering their high lexical integrity. This paper shows that the two types of macro-events in compound verbs are distinct in the order of the framing event and the co-event, the representation of the framing event, and their lexical integrity. These results suggest that the differences in baseline/elaboration organization iconically emerge as explicit differences in linguistic forms, indicating the validity of the “iconicity of structured mapping in compounds”.