Aratasa and other imaginary places

Home

Yivrian

Grammar

Verbal Syntax

Semantic Classes

The section on verbal morphology simply presented the widest possible range of Yivrian verb forms without reference to the various restrictions that are placed on those forms. In fact, Yivrian verbs are divided into several different semantic classes, and the different semantic classes vary in which forms they can take and in the function of those forms. Since the direct immediate (ending -ya ) form of the verb is the most common form of the verb, most of the following discussion is concerned with that form.

The most important distinction in the Yivríndil verbal system is between stative verbs and eventive verbs:

Stative verbs are those that describe qualities, states of being, or emotions. As analyzed by native grammarians, stative verbs may only take the copular forms, but the copular direct is realized with the ending of the immediate direct. Alternately, we might say that the only morphological forms allowed with stative verbs are the direct immediate and the copular causative. For example, a verb like haraya has only two aspectual forms: haraya "to be beautiful" and harahya "to cause to be beautiful." This generalization holds for all stative verbs. There are no habitual statives. However, stative verbs may take any of the phases--inchoative, continuous, cessative, or perfect. Stative verbs are further subdivided into two classes:

Attributive verbs, which are verbs like haraya "to be beautiful." These describe some quality of their subject and are intransitive in their direct form. Attributive verbs may only take a direct object only in their causative form: harahya , "to cause to be beautiful." Attributive verbs in particular have the progressive phase as their semantically unmarked form, and the inchoative form has a stronger inchoative force which should always be glossed as "to *begin* to be (whatever)." The subject of an attributive verb is the theme, the object that has the attribute.
Emotive verbs, which are verbs like thoyya "to fear." These describe some mental state of their subject, and are transitive in their direct form. The subject of an emotive verb is the experiencer of the emotion, and the object of an emotive verb is the sourceof the emotion. Note that there are some verbs that, because of their transitivity and aspectual characteristics, are classified as stative emotive verbs despite the fact that they do not indicate emotions at all. Most typical of this type of verb are the preposition-derived verbs, such as daya, "to be in." These behave as stative emotive verbs in every way, except for their actual semantics.

Eventive verbs are those that describe actions, happenings, or events. Eventive verbs may take all six aspects (immediate direct, immediate causative, habitual direct, habitual causative, copular direct, copular causative), but eventive verbs usually may not take all of the phases. Eventive verbs generally fall into two categories:

Durative verbs, which are those that semantically describe an action that persists through time, longer than some arbitrarily defined moment. This includes verbs like "run, walk, write, etc." Durative verbs usually (but not always) have their agent as their subject, may be transitive or intransitive, and may have an object in a variety of semantic roles. Durative verbs may also use any of the phases.
Punctiliar verbs, which are those verbs that semantically describe an action that is instantaneous in time, or nearly so. This includes verbs like "sit, kill, find, etc." Punctiliar verbs also take an agent as their subject, may be transitive or intransitive, and may take their object in a variety of semantic roles. Punctiliar verbs, however, may not use all of the phases, but are limited to the inchoative phase, which often takes on a near-future interpretation, and the perfective phase, which often has a near-past reading.

Note that in the eventive verbs, the distinction between durative and punctiliar verbs is not as strong as the distinction between attributive and emotive verbs in the statives. There is a tendency for durative verbs to behave as punctiliars, particularly in the past and future tenses, or whenever you wish to view the action as a whole, without reference to its duration. Likewise, punctiliar verbs may sometimes behave as duratives if they are being used metaphorically or ironically (as in the English phrase "I am finding it difficult . . ."). In general, however, punctiliar verbs behave duratively less often than the reverse. These divisions may also be somewhat arbitrary with respect to particular lexical items. Lestukandya "to celebrate a feast-day," for example, is a punctiliar verb, despite the fact that days do not pass instantaneously. In general, then, the distinction between punctiliar and durative verbs in Yivríndil is rather like the distinction between mass and count nouns in English--useful for many things, but violable and not entirely certain.

The following table summarizes these distinctions:

Stative	Attributive	Two aspects: direct (with ending -ya ) and causative (with ending -hya )	All phases (inchoative, continuous, cessative, perfect)	Intransitive	Subject is the thing with the attribute
	Emotive			Transitive	Subject is experiencer, object is source
Eventive	Durative	All aspects (immediate direct, immediate causative, habitual direct, habitual causative, copular direct, copular causative)	All phases (inchoative, continuous, cessative, perfect)	Transitive or intransitive	Subject is usually agent, but semantics can vary
	Punctiliar		Only inchoative and perfect phases

Aspect Semantics

The previous discussion of the semantics of the verb classes is mostly applicable to the direct immediate form (or whichever form ends in -ya). However the semantic properties of verbs may change in the other aspects. This section discusses both these changes and the semantic significance of the verbal aspects themselves.

The direct immediate aspect generally need no explanation--the entry given in dictionaries is the direct immediate form, and the previous discussion on verb classes all refers to the direct aspects of verbs. It is generally the direct immediate form of the verb that serves as the reference point for the other aspects, so this aspect itself may be taken at face value. However, the immediate aspects always refer to a specific instance of an action, regardless of other factors. Thus, Kírith fa senya can only be understood as "Kírith is standing here (right now)," as opposed to "Kírith stands here (every Tuesday/after work/when he's bored/etc)." To accomplish this, immediate verbs must often be glossed with the English progressive even when they are inchoative in phase (as in this example).
The causative immediate describes the case where one agent acts upon another to cause an action. The exact semantics of this is discussed below--but here let's simply consider how the causative aspect affects verb class. Because a causative verb ultimately refers to an act of causation, verbs in the causative immediate are always treated as eventive verbs, and usually as an eventive punctiliar verb. Thus, whereas peratya "to speak" is an eventive durative verb, peranya "to cause to speak" is a punctiliar verb. As with the direct immediate, causative immediate verbs only refer to a particular instance of the action/causation.
The direct habitual aspect is like the direct immediate aspect, except that it always refers to multiple instances of a recurring action, common action, or general condition. Thus, Kírith fa senavvaa can only mean "Kírith stands here (every Tuesday/after work/when he's bored/etc)," but does not indicate "Kírith is standing here (right now)." It doesn't preclude the possibility that Kírith is currently standing here, but it doesn't express it. Habitual verbs are not statements about the actual present, but about the way things usually are or tend to be. Because of this, verbs in the habitual aspect are always treated as durative verbs, and so may take any of the phases and share in the other properties of durative verbs.
The causative habitual is the causative equivalent of the direct habitual aspect, but it is relevant to ask whether the causation is habitual or the resulting action. The best answer is "both," but in many usages the causation is habitual instead of the action. For example, Al fa senakyaa Kírith is understood as "I keep making Kiríth stand here," wherein both the causation and the result are habitual. However, adding the adverb kéyanda "every day" creates a sentence Al fa senakyaa Kírith kéyanda, which could be understood as "Every day I keep making Kírith stand here" or as "I make Kírith keep standing here every day." Apparently because of this ambiguity, native speakers are somewhat uncomfortable with the grammaticality of such sentences, but when pressed usually agree that the preferred paraphrase is Al kéyanda navvaa Kírith eth senya, "Every day I keep making Kírith stand here."
The direct copular is always intransitive and always indicates some quality about the subject. The most common use of the direct copular is to form attributive sentences of the form "X has property Y," in which X is the subject and the noun root of Y is put into the direct copular aspect of the verb. For example, the most natural way to say "Kírith is cunning" is Kírith rakínyaa, where rakínya is the direct copular form from rok "falcon," the root of the adjective rokil "cunning, treacherous." This sentence can be paraphrased by Kírith rokil eyi, although this construction is considered marked and emphasizes the attribute. The second, rarer use of the direct copular is to form equative sentences "X equals Y." This is most often used when Y is a generic noun, as in Kírith yísainyaa "Kírith is a man." The boundary between these two usages is often blurry. Because they all indicate qualities of the subject, all verbs in the direct copular behave as stative attributive verbs with respect to their phases and transitivity. It is also because of this that the "true" stative attributive verbs like haraya "to be beautiful" are analyzed as direct copular verbs with the -ya ending.
The causative copular is always transitive and is the causative equivalent of the direct copular. Its semantics are fairly straightforward--Al rokahya Kírith means "I make Kírith cunning," and Al harahya Kírith means "I make Kírith beautiful." Like other causative verbs, verbs in the causative copular aspect behave as eventive punctiliar verbs with respect to their phases.

Valency and Thematic Roles

This section will examine the syntax and semantics of verb valency and the assignment of semantic roles to verb arguments in Yivrian. The semantic issue must be addressed first, because a proper understanding of the semantics will greatly aid in the comprehension of the syntax. Consider a simple intransitive sentence and a simple transitive sentence. In Yivrian these will have the form:

X verb
X verb Y

Being a nominative-accusative language, X is termed the "subject" in both of these cases. and in the transitive case X always has the higher (more agent-like) semantic role in an active sentence. Yivrian, like English, allows wide variation in the exact roles of the subject and object in most cases. For example, lupya "to fight" specifies an Agent subject and a Participant object, while otaméthya "to amaze" has a Source subject and Theme object. The exception to this is the stative emotive verbs, which always designate their subject as the experiencer of the emotion and their object as the source. Thus, in Kírith thoyyaa wel, Kírith experiences the fear while the wolf (wel) is the source of the fear. There are no true ditransitive root verbs in Yivrian--no verb requires more than two arguments, and verbs that accept more than two arguments always put one of them into a marked, oblique case rather than the unmarked subjective/objective case. Within this vague framework, there are two important operations on Yivrian verbs that change their valency.

Causatives

A verb in the causative aspect increases its valency by one, introducing the causative agent as another argument. Here's a simplified schema of what the semantics of such a causative verb look like:

Z cause(X verb)
Z cause(X verb Y)

English causatives behave almost exactly like this simple schema, with separate verb of causation: "I make John stand; John makes Joe kiss Mary." The Yivrian morphological causatives, however, work differently. There is no separate verb of causation, but rather a single causative verb which indicates both the causation and the event caused. In Yivrian, the causative verbs always occur at the position of the "cause" in the schema given above. A simple, intransitive verb has its number of arguments increased from one to two:

Direct: Kírith senyaa "Kírith is standing."
Causative: Al seyanyaa Kírith "I am making Kírith stand."

A transitive verb in the causative likewise becomes ditransitive. The argument that would be the object of the direct verb is preceded by eth. There are multiple possible syntactic analyses of eth, but the most straightforward one for these purposes is to consider it a causative preposition that marks the second object of a ditransitive causative verb. Additional arguments to the verb in oblique cases are not affected. A simple example:

Direct: Kírith kéhyaa gev "Kírith is holding the book."
Causative: Al kéhanyaa Kírith eth gev "I am making Kírith hold the book."

Passives and Reflexives

The Yivrian passive does not change the number of arguments of the verb, but merely their arrangement. Whatever the original thematic roles of the subject and object, a verb in the passive reverses those. This is similar in effect to the passive found in European languages, but unlike the familiar European passives the semantic subject is not put into a prepositional phrase and the verb's overall valency is not reduced. It is true that the semantic subject may be dropped, but this is true of the object in active sentences as well. As such, the proper term for this construction is an inverse, according to Payne in Describing Morphosyntax. Nonetheless, the older term "passive" remains in use, primarily because it's the term most familiar to Westerners and non-linguists. As with causatives, only the core arguments are affected by passivization, and oblique arguments are unaffected. For example:

Active: Kírith kéhyaa gev "Kírith is holding the book."
Passive: Gev kéhyoa Kírith "The book is held by Kírith."

The passive morphology is also used with intransitive verbs, in which case the verb's argument must follow the verb itself. In this case, the passive is used only to emphasize the verb and de-emphasize or eliminate the subject. For example:

Active: Kírith harayaa "Kírith is beautiful."
Passive: Harayoa Kírith "Beautiful is Kírith."

The reflexive is used in Yivrian when the subject and object are identical--which effectively means that the valency is reduced by one, since the subject is not repeated as the object. Reflexive verbs necessarily have only one argument, and logically only transitive verbs may be put into the reflexive. Causative reflexive verbs are often used to indicate "to become X." For example, Kírith harahyu "Kírith became beautiful," lit. "Kírith made himself beautiful."

Complementizers

Complement clauses in Yivrian are usually introduced by the complementizers em or ef, or occasionally eth. All of these have essentially the same syntax, although their semantics vary and they each are constrained according to the sorts of verbs they complement. Em is called the volitive complementizer because it follows verbs like manya "to want" or nartya "to expect" and introduces the clause of what is desired or anticipated. Ef is the verbal complementizer because it follows verbs like peyya "to say" or pauratya "to send a message" and introduces a clause indicating what is said or communicated. There is some overlap between these two--for example, almoya "to think" may occur with either em or ef with little change in meaning.

The most straightforward use of the complementizers is after an appropriate verb with no other direct object. The clause following the complementizer is not marked in any particular way:

Al manyala em Kírith fayya "I wanted Kírith to go" (lit. "I wanted that Kírith goes")
Al peyyala ef Kírith fayya "I said, 'Kírith goes.'"

As you can see from the above examples, what follows ef is interpreted as a direct quote, and so retains the tense and phase that it had at the time of the utterance. Yivrian does not have anything much indirect discourse for reported speech, as English does in sentences like "I said that Kírith came." All clauses following ef are interpreted as direct quotes. Likewise, the tense and phase of the clause following em is interpreted relative to the main verb--in this example, sometime in the past I wanted Kírith to come right then. (This feature, called relative tense, is discussed in more detail elsewhere.)

The subject of the complement clause can also be moved to the main clause as the object. This is more common with em:

Al manyal Kírith em fayya "I wanted Kírith to go" (lit. "I wanted Kírith that he goes")

When this occurs with ef, the interpretation is slightly different. Normally, the object of a verb of speaking is the person addressed, so the quote following ef is what was said to that person. For example:

Al peyyal Kírith ef ol fayya "I told Kírith that he was going" (lit. "I told Kírith that he goes.")
Al peyyal Kírith ef tofayya "I told Kírith to go" (lit. "I told Kírith, 'Go!'")
Al peyyal Kírith ef fayya "I told Kírith, 'He(?) goes.'"

This last example is the most difficult, because it's superficially identical to the example given previously with em. The difference arises because Kírith is the person addressed and the clause following ef is what was said to him. Under these circumstances, it's highly unlikely that Kírith is the subject of the complement clause (even though that interpretation is required in the equivalent em construction), so the subject must be some unnamed third party that's topical enough that it needs no overt pronoun.

Alongside these common constructions is a less common but equivalent construction with eth. As mentioned above, the most common use of eth is to indicate the object of a transitive verb in the causative. However, eth is also used in a less common periphrastic causative construction. This is usually with the verb nayya "to make," but it may be used with other verbs such as akanya, "to order." Its syntax is essentially the same as that for em:

Al nayyal eth Kírith fayya "I made Kírith go" (lit. "I made that Kírith goes"; equivalent to Al fanyal Kírith.)
Al nayyal Kírith eth fayya "I made Kírith go" (lit. "I made Kírith that he goes.")

With a verb like akanya "to order", either ef or eth may be used, with a subtle difference in meaning:

Al akanyal ef Kírith fayya "I ordered that Kírith go"
Al akanyal eth Kírith fayya "I ordered that Kírith go (and he did).

In the first example, the verbal complementizer ef merely indicates the contents of the command. In the second example, the causative complementizer eth indicates that the command was actually carried out. This can also be used to form an indirect but forceful commands with peyya or other verbs of saying:

Al peyya ol eth fayyan "I say that you will go (and you will)."

Such commands are common in official proclamations where both tact and definitiveness are needed.

Pro-verbs eya and atya

The verbs eya and atya are termed pro-verbs because they have a function analogous to the function of pronouns. When a lexical verb might be repeated several times in the same context, some occurences of that verb may be replaced by one of the pro-verbs, to reduce redundancy and hasten speech. As with pronouns, there are general principles which govern when these verbs may be used and their terms of use.

The first instance of any verb in a given context must occur in full. You cannot use eya or atya as the first verb in any context, except for when eya is functioning as the existential or equative verb--but in that case eya is a full, lexical verb and not a pro-verb. There are no exceptions for atya; when a generic verb like "do" is required as the first verb in a context, the full verb nayya is used instead.
Verbs are not generally topicalized; as a corrolary any pro-verb is assumed to refer to the most recent lexical verb. (This contrasts with pronouns, which may have topicalized antecedents other than the most recent noun phrase.)
As an exception to the previous rule, verbs in subordinate clauses are not generally pro-verbalized, so a pro-verb may have an antecedent in a preceding main clause even if a full verb in a subordinate clause has intervened.

Pro-verbs agree with their antecedents in the distinction between stative and eventive verbs. Eya is the stative pro-verb, and may only be used to refer to another stative verb. Likewise, atya is the eventive pro-verb and only refers to eventive verbs. Neither of these verbs is specified for attributive/emotive or punctiliar/durative characteristics, but they behave as would be appropriate for their antecedents. The following sentences should illustrate this:

Kírith harayaa. Datho keyi?
Kírith is beautiful. Is Datho?

Here, eya must be used as the proverb in the second sentence, to agree with the stative verb haraya in the first sentence. Eya is in the progressive phase, again agreeing with the phase of haraya, and it must be intransitive. Keyi Datho?, with Datho in the object position, would be ungrammatical as the second sentence. (Note, however, that the pro-verb could be passivized to the grammatical Keyo Datho?. See the preceding explanation of passives and intransitive verbs for an explanation of why.)

Kírith thoyyaa wel. Datho keyi el?
Kírith fears wolves. Does Datho [fear them]?

Once again, eya is used to agree with the stative emotive verb thoyya. Here, however, eya is transitive and takes the object ela, agreeing with thoyya in this feature.

Kírith silmyaa. Datho katyi?
Kírith is sleeping. Is Datho?

Here, the verb atya is used to agree with the eventive verb silmya. Once again, atya must be intransitive in this sentence, and takes the progressive phase along with silmya.

Kírith keyya eddaila. Datho katya el?
Kírith hears his father. Does Datho [hear him]?

Again, the eventive verb atya is required, and it is transitive and occurs in the inchoative phase, agreeing with keyya.

These sentences offer simple illustrations of the principles for using pro-verbs in Yivrian. Things become more complicated if you mix eventive and stative verbs in a single context. Speakers are generally uncomfortabale mixing eya and atya into a single sentence, even when no ambiguity results. For example, the second sentence in the following example is judged ungrammatical by most speakers:

Kírith silmyaa ta daroyaa. *Ta Datho atyi ta eyi.
Kírith sleeps and is happy. Datho also does [so] and is [so].

Because silmya is an eventive verb and daroya is a stative verb, there is no ambiguity about the fact that atya must have silmya as its antecedent and eya must have daroya. Nonetheless, this type of sentence does not occur in Yivrian and is not accepted by most speakers. This is probably an extension of the rule that proverbs have the most recent lexical verb as their antecedent. Following that rule, the antecedent of atya must be daroya, which is an illicit use of the eventive pro-verb with a stative referent.

As mentioned above, however, verbs in subordinate clauses are generally invisible to pro-verbalization, allowing for the following:

Kírith daroyaa lai silmyaas. Ta Datho eyi.
Kírith is happy because he has slept. Datho also is.

Here, eya is allowed to refer to daroya because the intervening eventive verb is inside a subordinate clause. However, the following is also allowed:

Kírith daroyaa lai silmyaas. Ta Datho tyaas.
Kírith is happy because he has slept. Datho also has.

In this case the eventive verb atya occurs, which can only refer to the preceding eventive verb silmya. This implies that sleeping is more pertinent than the resulting happiness, and this sentence would probably occur with an intonation pattern marking silmya as more topical than daroya.

A final extension of pro-verbalization is brachylogy, whereby verbs may be omitted altogether. This is a more common feature in speech than in literature, although it is found in all genres to some extent. Usually a pro-verb will occur at least once before a verb is omitted altogether, suggesting a rough hierarchy of full verb > pro-verb > omitted verb. A brief example:

Kírith peyyaa eddéla, ta Datho atyi endailé. Té Malmé al.
Kírith is talking to his mother, and Datho is [talking] to her brother. But Malmé [is talking] to me.

Brachylogy is only permitted when all of the attributes of the omitted verb are the same as those of the preceding verbs or pro-verbs. If I wished to make the last sentence in the previous example "But Malmé isn't talking to anyone," I would have to say Té Malmé tyata kavel, using a negative form of atya.

Last Updated ( Thursday, 07 April 2005 )