The Slavonic Languages and the Development of the Antipassive Marker
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Katarzyna Janic
Abstract
This article deals with the development of dedicated antipassive markers in a crosslinguistic perspective, with a special attention given to Slavonic languages. Initially, this marker was associated exclusively with ergative languages in which it was treated as a valence reducing operator. Attached to the verbal form, it ditransitives a transitive construction without affecting the semantic content of a sentence. This led many scholars to insist on a simple dichotomy according to which ergative languages possess antipassive constructions due to the presence of a dedicated antipassive marker, whereas languages of accusative alignment are said implicitly to be deprived of this type of operation and this is because of the lack of a specialized antipassive marker. Thus, the presence of a dedicated antipassive marker was treated as one of decisive criteria in the recognition of the antipassive in accusative languages. The recent and expanded crosslinguistic investigations reveal, however, that ergative languages present a whole range of variations concerning the antipassive marker. Among those ergative languages which developed a dedicated antipassive marker, i.e. a marker specialized in the antipassive function, in some of them this marker is also used in a middle domain. This means that in these languages the antipassive marker is polyfunctional, being related diachronically to other grammatical categories, mostly reflexivity. This article shows that a similar morphological correlation also exists in accusative languages, in particular in Russian. We argue that all Slavonic languages attest a dedicated antipassive marker that evolved from reflexivity by hand of middle domain. Keywords: antipassive; reflexive; polysemy; valence change
Abstract
This article deals with the development of dedicated antipassive markers in a crosslinguistic perspective, with a special attention given to Slavonic languages. Initially, this marker was associated exclusively with ergative languages in which it was treated as a valence reducing operator. Attached to the verbal form, it ditransitives a transitive construction without affecting the semantic content of a sentence. This led many scholars to insist on a simple dichotomy according to which ergative languages possess antipassive constructions due to the presence of a dedicated antipassive marker, whereas languages of accusative alignment are said implicitly to be deprived of this type of operation and this is because of the lack of a specialized antipassive marker. Thus, the presence of a dedicated antipassive marker was treated as one of decisive criteria in the recognition of the antipassive in accusative languages. The recent and expanded crosslinguistic investigations reveal, however, that ergative languages present a whole range of variations concerning the antipassive marker. Among those ergative languages which developed a dedicated antipassive marker, i.e. a marker specialized in the antipassive function, in some of them this marker is also used in a middle domain. This means that in these languages the antipassive marker is polyfunctional, being related diachronically to other grammatical categories, mostly reflexivity. This article shows that a similar morphological correlation also exists in accusative languages, in particular in Russian. We argue that all Slavonic languages attest a dedicated antipassive marker that evolved from reflexivity by hand of middle domain. Keywords: antipassive; reflexive; polysemy; valence change
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of contributors vii
- Abbreviations xi
- Impersonals and Beyond in Slavic 1
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Section I: Morphosyntax
- Binding and Morphology Revisited 25
- Possessor Raising and Slavic clitics 43
- The Slavonic Languages and the Development of the Antipassive Marker 61
- Clitic SE in Romance and Slavonic revisited 75
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Section II: Syntactical relations
- The Lazy Speaker and the Fascination of Emptiness 91
- Is the Polish Verb iść an Auxiliary to be? 123
- Towards Evidentiality Markers in Albanian and Macedonian Bilingual Political Discourse 139
- A strange variant of Russian ctoby -construction 149
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Section III: Impersonal constructions
- Impersonal Constructions in Serbian 169
- Interpretation and voice in Polish SIĘ and –NO/–TO constructions 185
- Dative-infinitive constructions in Russian 199
- On the Nature of Dative Arguments in Russian Constructions with «Predicatives» 225
- Russian Adversity Impersonals and Split Ergativity 247
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Section IV: Lexical semantics
- Morphological and lexical aspect in Russian deverbal nominalizations 267
- Lexical synonymy within the semantic field POWER 281
- Collocations with nominal quantifiers 297
- Polysemy Patterns in Russian Adjectives and Adverbs 313
- Language index 323
- Name index 325
- Subject index 329
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of contributors vii
- Abbreviations xi
- Impersonals and Beyond in Slavic 1
-
Section I: Morphosyntax
- Binding and Morphology Revisited 25
- Possessor Raising and Slavic clitics 43
- The Slavonic Languages and the Development of the Antipassive Marker 61
- Clitic SE in Romance and Slavonic revisited 75
-
Section II: Syntactical relations
- The Lazy Speaker and the Fascination of Emptiness 91
- Is the Polish Verb iść an Auxiliary to be? 123
- Towards Evidentiality Markers in Albanian and Macedonian Bilingual Political Discourse 139
- A strange variant of Russian ctoby -construction 149
-
Section III: Impersonal constructions
- Impersonal Constructions in Serbian 169
- Interpretation and voice in Polish SIĘ and –NO/–TO constructions 185
- Dative-infinitive constructions in Russian 199
- On the Nature of Dative Arguments in Russian Constructions with «Predicatives» 225
- Russian Adversity Impersonals and Split Ergativity 247
-
Section IV: Lexical semantics
- Morphological and lexical aspect in Russian deverbal nominalizations 267
- Lexical synonymy within the semantic field POWER 281
- Collocations with nominal quantifiers 297
- Polysemy Patterns in Russian Adjectives and Adverbs 313
- Language index 323
- Name index 325
- Subject index 329
