In:Body Part Terms in Conceptualization and Language Usage
Edited by Iwona Kraska-Szlenk
[Cognitive Linguistic Studies in Cultural Contexts 12] 2020
► pp. 117–132
‘Body’ and the relationship between verb and participants
Published online: 23 March 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/clscc.12.c06fra
https://doi.org/10.1075/clscc.12.c06fra
Abstract
Heine and Kuteva (2004) list ‘reflexive’, ‘middle’, and ‘reciprocal’ as functions grammaticalized from the noun ‘body’ across languages. The present study, based on data from Pero (West Chadic), demonstrates the grammaticalization of one additional function, namely that of indicating that the object of the verb does not undergo a change in form, place, existential status (emergence or disappearance), or internal state. Most of the natural data indicates that the object in question is either a human or a story character with human attributes. The existence of this function in turn allows us to explain when third person object pronouns are used in Pero and when they are not used. The use of object pronouns is the outcome of the coding of semantic relations between the verbal predicate and arguments.
Keywords: middle, reflexive, coreference, non-affected object, ‘body’
Article outline
- 1.The aim of the study
- 2.The problem
- 3.Co-referentiality of arguments within the clause in Pero
- 4.Other grammatical function of the noun cíg ‘body’
- 4.1Hypothesis 1: Classes of verbs
- 4.2Contrast between the form cíg, its absence, and other morphemes in the same position
- 4.3Classes of nouns as a factor in the use of cíg?
- 4.4An overarching hypothesis
- 5.Marking the pronominal object as evidence for the non-affectedness function of the form cíg
- 5.1Conclusions about Pero
- 6.Body in Mina and Lele
- 6.1Mina
- 6.2Lele
- 7.Conclusions
List of abbreviations Notes References
References (9)
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