Symposium B3: Etymology and the diachrony of valency change in Uralic

Organizers: Riho Grünthal and Johanna Nichols

Monday, August 22 – Tuesday, August 23, Department of Slavic Studies (Slawistik), room 1

(Original symposium call)

15:30–16:00

Jeremy Bradley, András Czentnár & Nikolett F. Gulyás:

Valence changing strategies in the Volga-Kama linguistic area

The paper at hand represents a survey of contact linguistically motivated convergence and divergence within the Volga-Kama Sprachbund. The Turkic and Uralic languages of this region (Tatar, Bashkir, Chuvash; Mari, Udmurt, peripherally Mordvin, Komi-Permyak, and Komi-Zyrian) all make extensive use of both valence-increasing (i.e. transitivizing, causative, etc.) and valence-decreasing (i.e. reflexive, passive, etc.) derivational suffixes. In all languages there is a strong preference for valence-increasing operations, but Russian with its strong preference for valence-decreasing operations might be strengthening the position of reflexive/passive suffixes in the region. The specific valence-changing suffixes used in these languages are not generally borrowings; their cognate forms are widely used throughout their respective language families. Our focus will thus lie on their function rather than on their form: we will survey the typological microvariation that can be attested in the region in the domain of valence-changing operations. The research questions we have investigated (by consulting reference materials, corpora, and native speakers) include:

i) Can more than one causative suffix attached to a verbal stem in a variety (1)?
ii) Does a variety allow for double accusative marking in a causative construction (2)?
iii) Does a variety allow for quasi-causatives (3)?
iv) Does a variety allow for impersonal (subjectless) passives that can have a direct object marked with the accusative case (4)?
v) Does the variety allow for a canonical passive construction with an overt Agent (5)?
vi) Does a variety allow for a valence-decreasing suffix to be used to indicate the non-volitional nature of an activity (6)?

Our talk will examine these questions within the languages of the region, focussing on convergence across genealogical boundaries and divergence within genealogical groupings. Special attention will be given to closely related languages or varieties that have been subject to different contact situations (Meadow Mari ↔ Hill Mari, Moksha Mordvin ↔ Erzya Mordvin, Komi-Zyrian ↔ Komi-Permyak, Tatar ↔ Bashkir), and indeed exhibit both structural and functional differences in this domain. We will examine how these differences correlate to their different historical contact situations.

(1) Tudo vaty-ž-lan vüd-ym yry-kt-ykt-en.
3sg wife-px3sg-dat water-acc heat-caus-caus-3sg.pst2
‘He made his wife heat water.’ (Meadow Mari)

(2) Vospitaťeľńica nylaš-ez iźy-t-e.
kindergarten_teacher girl-acc sleep-caus-prs.3sg
‘The kindergarten teacher makes the girl sleep.’ (Udmurt)

(3) Min-e qaltıra-t-a.
1sg-acc tremble-caus-prs.3sg
‘I’m trembling.’ (Tatar)

(4) Ala-kunam ožno suas jylmy-m=at tunem-alt-yn.
sometime earlier Tatar language-acc=and study-refl-pst2.3sg
‘Sometime in the past, Tatar was studied as well.’ (Meadow Mari)

(5) ?Tyn-eš pur-ty-maš [...] akušerka dene yšt-alt-yn.
faith-lat enter-caus-nmlz [...] midwife with do-refl-pst2.3sg
‘The baptism was done by a midwife.’ (Meadow Mari)

(6) Menam onmöśśi-ś-öma.
1sg.gen fall_asleep-refl-ptcp.pst
‘I fell asleep (unintentionally).’ (Komi-Permyak)

16:00–16:30

Juha Kuokkala:

The Uralic passive-automative *-w : Reflexes and reconstructions reconsidered 

In the established Proto-Uralic reconstruction, a detransitivizing verbal suffix *-w is reconstructed on the basis of the Saami -ōj ~ -uvv- (SaaN oidnot ‘to be seen’, čoalbmaduvvat ‘to get entangled’), Finnic -u/-ü (Fi. kuulua ‘to be heard’), Mordvin -v (Erza nejavoms ‘to be seen’) automative/passive suffixes and the Mansi passive marker -w (Middle Konda teewø ‘he gets eaten’). In Finnic languages, the suffix has a variant -pu/-pü, usually occurring after a long stressed root syllable as in Fi. juopua ‘to get drunk’, but in Livonian also after bisyllabic roots, e.g. rikābõ ‘to get broken, spoiled’. This variant has sometimes been addressed in the literature as a “strong grade” form of -u/-ü, though more often as prothesized or based on the -pa/-pä participle. As more substantive evidence in favor of the “strong grade variant” hypothesis has apparently not been presented before, a survey is conducted in the current presentation to find out whether there are grounds for reconstructing a detransitivizing Uralic *-p(V) suffix and what relationship this kind of a suffix may have to the traditional set of *-w suffixes. In particular, possible unnoticed cases of ancient consonant-stem derivatives are scrutinized, such as SaaS gåarpodh ‘to get ice crust (of water)’ ~ SaaL goarre ‘hoarfrost’ (< PU *kari ‘skin, bark’) and Liv. kuorbõ, Est. kõrbeda, Erza kurvams ‘to burn (intr.)’ ~ SaaN goardit ‘to heat, roast’. Finally, the implications of reconstructing *-p instead of or in parallel with *-w are discussed, considering the overall picture of Proto-Uralic morphology as well as the possible solutions offered to the problem of divergent reflexes of inherited labial vowel suffixes in Saami and Finnic.

10:00–10:30

Juho Pystynen:

A Proto-Uralic causative derivation pattern redefended 

According to the standard model of root structure in Proto-Uralic (PU), nominal and verbal basic roots were bisyllabic and ended in a vowel. Only two types of root-final ("stem") vowels have been generally accepted: the *A-stems, ending in open *a/*ä, and the *ә-stems, ending in a more closed vowel (notated also *i, *ii, *e). As a part of the lexical root, stem vowels are usually not considered to carry any specific meaning.

Katz (1996), however, has proposed a causativizing "stem ablaut" pattern *-ә- → *-A-. Some of the Samoyedic data Katz takes as a starting point is by now reconstructed differently: as a primary transitive *A-stem verb and a derived reflexive verb in *-O- < PU *-A-w- (cf. Salminen 2012: 340). However, other parts of his data seem to remain viable. My talk will build further on evidence especially from Samic and Finnic, where the distinction between PU *-A-, *-ә- and *-V-w- remains clearly observable. Numerous new doublets can be added beside the previously known cases, most often between a nominal in *-ә- and a verb in *-A-. Examples include:

*ipsә 'smell' ~ *ipsä- 'to smell' (> e.g. Northern Sami haksa ~ haksit)
*künčә 'nail' ~ *künčä- 'to plough' (> e.g. Finnish kynsi ~ kyntää)
*kajә 'dawn' > *kaja- 'to dawn' (> e.g. Finnish koi ~ kajastaa)
*je̮kә 'divide' ~ *je̮ka- 'to divide' (> e.g. Erzya jav ~ javoms)

Instead of the pre-Uralic vowel contraction scenario sketched by Katz, I however propose a link to the known process of consonant-stem alternants of PU *ә-stems, allowing a simple agglutinative analysis of *A-causatives, e.g. *ips- → *ips-ä-. This derivation pattern has particularly interesting implications for Mari. It has long been known that the two verb conjugations in the language correlate with transitivity: em-verbs tend to be transitive, am-verbs intransitive. Ravila (1939) has however proposed the contrast to originally derive from the PU stem vowel contrast: *A-stem verbs > em-verbs, *ә-stem verbs > am-verbs. The transitivity correlation Ravila attributes in part to the PU transitivity-increasing suffixes *-ta-, *-tta-, *-kta-, and the denominal intransitive verb suffix *-mә-; he is more skeptical of the proposal by Budenz to treat am-verbs as continuing PU reflexive derivatives in *-w-. The current proposal now allows additionally treating seemingly unsuffixed em-verbs as continuing PU *A-causatives, and a few cases can be indeed identified where a transitive em-verb corresponds to cognates otherwise pointing to a PU *ә-stem, e.g. Mari kuškems 'to churn butter' ~ Finnish koskea 'to touch'.

Katz, Hartmut. 1996. Eine ururalische Kausativbildung. – Mészáros, Edit (ed.): Ünnepi könyv Mikola Tibor tiszteletére, 156–164. Szeged.
Ravila, Paavo. 1938. Über die entstehung des tscheremissischen Konjugationssystems. – FUF 25, 1–25.
Salminen, Tapani. 2012. Traces of Proto-Samoyed vowel contrasts in Nenets. – Per Urales ad Orientem. Iter polyphonicum multilingue (SUST 264), 339–358.

10:30–11:00

Heini Arjava & Riho Grünthal:

Valence-changing morpheme stacking in Finnic and other Uralic languages: The diachrony of fused stems 

Typologists have long been aware of the close diachronic relationship between causativizing and intransitivizing morphology, and causatives are typical diachronic sources of passives and reflexives (see Haspelmath 1990, Zúñiga & Kittilä 2019: 226 and passim). This connection can also be observed in the history of verb derivation in many Finnic languages, where verbs with valence-changing morphology have served as stems for new valence-changing derivations, frequently resulting in stacked morpheme chains, as in (1) below.

Our study is based on a database of 22 Uralic languages, consisting of 21 verb sets of intransitives and their corresponding semantic causatives (e.g. ‘die’ and ‘kill’) (cf. Nichols, Peterson & Barnes 2004). The pairs of the set are often derived from each other either by causativizing, decausativizing or both, and in Finnic, the typical morphemes used in this valence alternation are the inherited suffixes -tA (Tr), and -u- (Intr). A historical valence-changing chain of four suffixes is illustrated by the verb istuutua 'sit down' in Finnish (1a), and similar chains also feature in Veps (1b) and Votic (1c); note that the same original stem produces more stacking in Veps.

(1a) Finnish: (WU) *isa- ‘sit’ > TR *ista- > INTR istu- ‘sit’ (arch. ‘sit down’) > INTR istu-utu- ’sit down’

(1b) Veps: (F) *süte- ‘strike (flint)’ > TR *sütt- > INTR süttu- > TR sütuta- ‘ignite’

(1c) Votic: (F) *süte- ‘strike (flint)’ > TR süttä- ‘ignite’

In our paper, we will analyze questions and hypotheses including, i) are transitive or intransitive suffixes more prone to fuse into verb stems, and what is the distribution of alternating transitive-intransitive stacking (as in examples above) vs. the rarer Tr-Tr or Intr-Intr stacking; ii) how do verb semantics correlate with the loss of segmentable suffixes; iii) how much do individual verb stems vary in their degree of fusion and semantic fading, and iv) how much of the stacking can be explained by the reanalysis of valence-changing morphemes as telic aspectual markers?

The diachrony of stacking is diverse and transparent in Finnic, but we will also give examples of the other, less studied Uralic branches. More generally speaking, derivation and valence change have gained only little attention in Uralic studies, and hardly any from the viewpoint of contemporary typology.

References

Haspelmath, M. (1990) The grammaticization of passive morphology. Studies in Language. International Journal sponsored by the Foundation “Foundations of Language”, 14(1), 25-72.

Hakulinen, L. (2000) Suomen kielen rakenne ja kehitys.

Nichols, J., Peterson, D. A., & Barnes, J. (2004) Transitivizing and detransitivizing languages.Linguistic typology, 8(2), 149-211.

SSA = Suomen sanojen alkuperä: Etymologinen sanakirja. Eds. Itkonen, E., U.-M. Kulonen et al. (1992) Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura.

Zúñiga, F., & Kittilä, S. (2019). Grammatical Voice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

11:00–11:30

Jack Rueter:

Transitivity morphology in literary corpora of three Uralic languages, tip of the iceberg

This paper makes a quick survey of verbs directly related to an 18-verb list (Nichols et al 2004) and their most frequent corresponding forms in corpora from the three Uralic languages, Erzya, Moksha and Komi-Zyrian. It notes there are numerous verbs that occur before the first representatives of the verb list and seeks to apply their morphological analysis to the understanding of verb list members.

Although some open-source corpora is available through the Universal Dependencies project and the Fennougrica collections at the National Library of Finland, additional corpora used for Erzya and Moksha are from the ERME-corpora, much still to be published, and the Komi-Zyrian corpora developed by FULab in Syktyvkar. The initial method is to find the most frequent representative from each of the verb types and then extract information on what kinds of morphology is encountered. This, of course, is only the first step in developing an understanding of inflectional variation to be found in a transitivity morphology of Uralic languages.

Of the verb types found higher in frequency, it will be noted that modal verbs expressing necessity or possibility appear to be in the present or non-past, as do the copulas. There is a tendency to be in a past tense when the meaning of the verb involves the notion of inchoativity, change of state or completion in Erzya and Moksha.In Komi-Zyrian, however, verbs such as ‘say’ and ‘it appears’, one used with parataxis, tend to be in the present. In Moksha, the verb ‘say’ invokes a subject-object conjugation in this very position, and it is only with the verb ‘ask (someone)’ that the subject-object conjugation occurs in both Erzya and Moksha.

Tense variation can be observed in literary corpora. While all three languages adhere to a third person singular agreement on the verb, there is a disparity with regard to tense. The Komi-Zyrian sample prefers first preterit in 18 verb types, whereas Erzya has two finite verb in non-past, and Moksha four.

Two of the three languages can indicate both the subject and the object in the conjugation, and this is used in four of the verb types. Erzya and Moksha both use a subject-object strategy for the verbs ‘see’ (non-derived transitive), ‘open’ (ambitransitive) and ‘hang’ (augmented transitive), Erzya applies this strategy to the verb ‘straighten’ (augmented transitive), as well.

Etymological, causative marking is not always what it looks like. It is observed in 5 of the Erzya verbs, whereas two are transitive, one is ambitransitive, one is intransitive, and the fifth with a causative + frequentative derivation set is intransitive. Moksha only has two verbs with causative marking, of which one is transitive and the other a (caus. + freq.) intransitive.

The verbs for laughter in all three languages prefers a reductive derivation expressing a sudden eruption of laughter .