22 Pluractionality and distributivity
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Robert Henderson
Abstract
Verbs are the canonical way that languages allow speakers to talk about events, but events are hard to pin down. Imagine how hard it would be, for instance, to watch a short video of an action scene and try to decide how many distinct events took place. Languages often circumvent this problem by having morphological marking on verbs that makes clear the structure of the events being discussed. In particular, languages often have pluractionality marking that makes clear that a plurality of events are being discussed, and this marking often makes clear how this plurality of events is being individuated for counting (e. g., by taking place in different locations, or with different participants, etc.). Languages also often mark distributivity on verbs, which is a category that disambiguates how events are related to participants. This chapter provides a crosslinguistic typology of pluractionality and distributivity, focusing especially on Native North American languages. It also presents strategies for determining the types of pluractionality and distributivity available in languages for which those categories have not been extensively documented.
Abstract
Verbs are the canonical way that languages allow speakers to talk about events, but events are hard to pin down. Imagine how hard it would be, for instance, to watch a short video of an action scene and try to decide how many distinct events took place. Languages often circumvent this problem by having morphological marking on verbs that makes clear the structure of the events being discussed. In particular, languages often have pluractionality marking that makes clear that a plurality of events are being discussed, and this marking often makes clear how this plurality of events is being individuated for counting (e. g., by taking place in different locations, or with different participants, etc.). Languages also often mark distributivity on verbs, which is a category that disambiguates how events are related to participants. This chapter provides a crosslinguistic typology of pluractionality and distributivity, focusing especially on Native North American languages. It also presents strategies for determining the types of pluractionality and distributivity available in languages for which those categories have not been extensively documented.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Preface V
- Table of contents VII
- List of North American families, languages, and dialects XIII
- Maps XLI
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I Sounds and sound structure
- 1 Acoustic phonetics 1
- 2 Articulatory phonetics 39
- 3 Tone 63
- 4 Segmental phonology 89
- 5 Prosodic morphology 109
- 6 Word prosody 135
- 7 Prosody beyond the word 155
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II Words
- 8 What is a word? 183
- 9 Word classes 205
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III Sentences
- 10 Syntax within the clause 247
- 11 Negatives 267
- 12 Questions and requests in North American languages 283
- 13 Information structure 305
- 14 Clause-combining: Relative clauses 323
- 15 Clause combining: Syntax of subordination and complementation 345
- 16 Switch-reference and event cohesion 363
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IV Discourse
- 17 Verbal art 385
- 18 Conversation structure 421
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V Meaning
- 19 Lexicalization and lexical meaning 453
- 20 Lexicography 479
- 21 Evidentiality 497
- 22 Pluractionality and distributivity 511
- 23 Mass and count nouns 527
- 24 Sense of place: Space, landscape, and orientation 547
- 25 A sense of time and world 577
- 26 Pragmatics 599
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VI Languages over space and time
- 27 Languages as dynamic systems: How grammar can emerge 619
- 28 Language contact and linguistic areas 647
- 29 Language classification 669
- 30 Archival-based sociolinguistic variation 689
- 31 Community-based sociolinguistic variation 701
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Preface V
- Table of contents VII
- List of North American families, languages, and dialects XIII
- Maps XLI
-
I Sounds and sound structure
- 1 Acoustic phonetics 1
- 2 Articulatory phonetics 39
- 3 Tone 63
- 4 Segmental phonology 89
- 5 Prosodic morphology 109
- 6 Word prosody 135
- 7 Prosody beyond the word 155
-
II Words
- 8 What is a word? 183
- 9 Word classes 205
-
III Sentences
- 10 Syntax within the clause 247
- 11 Negatives 267
- 12 Questions and requests in North American languages 283
- 13 Information structure 305
- 14 Clause-combining: Relative clauses 323
- 15 Clause combining: Syntax of subordination and complementation 345
- 16 Switch-reference and event cohesion 363
-
IV Discourse
- 17 Verbal art 385
- 18 Conversation structure 421
-
V Meaning
- 19 Lexicalization and lexical meaning 453
- 20 Lexicography 479
- 21 Evidentiality 497
- 22 Pluractionality and distributivity 511
- 23 Mass and count nouns 527
- 24 Sense of place: Space, landscape, and orientation 547
- 25 A sense of time and world 577
- 26 Pragmatics 599
-
VI Languages over space and time
- 27 Languages as dynamic systems: How grammar can emerge 619
- 28 Language contact and linguistic areas 647
- 29 Language classification 669
- 30 Archival-based sociolinguistic variation 689
- 31 Community-based sociolinguistic variation 701
