Anne Tamm anne.tamm AT unifi.it University of Florence Research Institute of Linguistics ,Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest S emantic roles and cross-categorial case in Uralic International Workshop on Semantic Roles Pavia, 19-20 May 2010 - Aula Scarpa
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S emantic roles and cross- categorial case in Uralic
S emantic roles and cross- categorial case in Uralic. Anne Tamm anne.tamm AT unifi.it University of Florence Research Institute of Linguistics , Hungarian Academy of Sciences , Budapest. International Workshop on Semantic Roles Pavia, 19-20 May 2010 - Aula Scarpa. - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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Anne Tammanne.tamm AT unifi.it
University of Florence Research Institute of Linguistics ,Hungarian Academy of
What is the relationship between semantic roles and grammatical categories such as aspect, evidentiality, or modality?
Questions and puzzles
Semantic role is a relation between a predicate and an argument.
The relationship is encoded by a form with semantic and categorially specified content.
The encoding may be done by case.The category that ”has” case may be a predicate.Many Uralic categories are between nouns and
verbs.These mostly infinitival case forms are arguments
of predicates that are itself predicates.So verbs can instantiate a semantic role, but how?
Reasoning for YES
Ma lähe-n Pavia-sse/Tallinna. I[nom] go-1sg P-illative T.illative‘I am going to Pavia/Tallinn.’
Verb of motion - Goal
Ma lähe-n uju-ma. I[nom] go-1sg swim-m_illative‘I am going swimming, I am going to swim.’
(# I’m gonna swim.)
Verb of motion - Goal
Ma olen Pavia-s. I[nom] be-1sg P-inessive‘I am in Pavia.’
Copula - Location
Ma olen uju-mas. I[nom] be-1s swim-m_inessive‘I am off swimming.’(# I am swimming – progressive)
Copula - Location
Ma tule-n Pavia-st. I[nom] come-1s P-elative‘I am coming from Pavia.’
Verb of motion - Source
Ma tule-n uju-mast. I[nom] come-1s swim-m_elative‘I am coming from swimming.’(# Je viens de nager – I have just swum.)
Verb of motion - Source
Ma ole-n pileti-ta. I[nom] be-1s ticket-abessive‘I don’t have a/the ticket, I am without a/the ticket.’
One example about other relations
Ma ole-n uju-mata. I[nom] be-1s swim-m_abessive‘I have not swum.’
Other relations, abessive, ‘without’
The Uralic languagesThe role of caseCross-categorial caseNon-finites as arguments and as predicates
The transfer of the meaning of semantic roles of non-finites as arguments > TAM categories
The roadmap to the solution
Uralic languages are typically characterized by rich case systems with approximately 10 members, and many have case systems of approximately 15 or 20 cases.
In WALS, there are 24 languages with more than 10 cases. The following languages have more than 10 cases in WALS:
Five of those listed are Uralic (Erzya Mordvin, Estonian, Finnish, Hungarian, and Udmurt).
Rich case systems > poor case systems
Languages with many non-finite forms tend to have rich case systems.
The regularity can only partly be attributed to areal linguistic contacts, since it is observable, for instance, in the geographically distant Caucasian and Australian languages. There is no reason to assume a generalization with the strength of a language universal.
Non-finite forms frequently originate from case-marked non-finite verb forms, which are complements originally but develop further into base predicates of larger predicate complexes.
These complexes develop case-related semantics and modal meanings.
Case-marked non-finite verb forms
Attaches to nouns, and in languages with adjective-noun agreement, to adjectives
Attaches to verbsAttaches to verbs with a nominalizing suffix
Attaches to verbs with a nominalizing suffix, forming infinitives and in-between forms
Uralic case is cross-categorial
Verb stems (Udmurt V+abessive)
Nominalizations (Udmurt cases V+m+case, V+n+case)
Parts of non-finites (Finnic, the case formants are part of a morpheme of a non-finite verb)
1. Nominative book raamat2. Genitive of a book raamatu3. Partitive (of) a book raamatu-t4. Illative into the book
raamatu-sse5. Inessive in a book raamatu-s6. Elative from (inside) a book
raamatu-st7. Allative onto a book raamatu-le8. Adessive on a book raamatu-l9. Ablative from the book raamatu-lt10. Translative in(to), as a book raamatu-ks11. Terminative until a book raamatu-ni12. Essive as a book raamatu-na13. Abessive without a book