Teach-Learn Polarity [mostly on causatives]

[Ketumak]

I have a couple of conlangs which are zero marking for inflection, but I'm trying to make them rich in derivational affixes. I working on derivational paradigms like this from Malay-Indonesian:


ajar = teach
ajaran = teachings
belajar = to learn
mengajar = to teach
diajar = being taught (intransitive)
diajarkan = being taught (transitive)
mempelajari = to study
dipelajari = being studied
pelajar = student
pengajar = teacher
pelajaran = subject, education
pengajaran = lesson, moral of story
pembelajaran = learning
terajar = taught (accidentally)
terpelajar = well-educated, literally "been taught"
berpelajaran = is educated, literally "has education"


Only I have it in mind to make the root refer to the whole "teaching-and-learning process" and to need affixes to make it meaningful. This way I can have derivations like:

PLACE.teach-learn

Meaning "school", since both teaching and learning take place there.

Other pairable verbs include: "send-receive" and "go-come"

What do you call this polarity, please, and does my proposed approach to the root-word sound feasible? Thanks.

[Dewrad]

It seems (at a stretch) something like this kind of thing?

[Ketumak]

Ye-ah, that sort of thing (unless something else turns up). I note one of their examples is a Proto-Polynesian, sister to Proto-Malay, the ancestor to the language in my example. So this is promising! I shall research their terms some more.

[Salmoneus]

What kind of thing?

You've suggested three pairs, but I don't see the connexion between them - they all seem very different.

Teach vs Learn
This is just a valency issue. "Teach" is the bivalent suppletion of "learn", with the complication that the pair taken as a whole is ergative. [This can also be seen in some verbs without suppletion. "the boy learns (from a book, about figs)/the alien teaches the boy/the alien teaches the boy physics" is a parallel to "the pig feeds (from the trough, on apples)/the farmer feeds the pig/the farmer feeds the pigs strawberries".] In some dialects, there is no suppletion, and they instead say "the alien learns the boy physics".
In terms of the Indonesian example, the only difference underlyingly I think is that the word you translate 'learn' is agent-emphasising, whereas the word you translate 'teach' is patient-emphasising; that is, 'learn' is in the active and 'teach' is in the symmetrical passive. However, many analyses suggest that in many austronesian languages the active is underlyingly intransitive and more often used in intransitive situations.
I don't speak indonesian, so the connotations in practice may be more complicated. But the thing remains that this opposition is about voice and valency.

Send vs Receive
Very little connexion here. I think these are just pairs on the basis of teleology: we send in order for a thing to be received. An equivalent here would then be "write" vs "read" - I send the message, you receive the message, I write the book, you read the book. I ask, you answer, I beg, you grant. In each case the one verb is something that is performed with a clear (default, not necessarily the case in every instance of course) intention for a second thing to be done in response [unlike the first pair, where there is only one action/event]. This is more a lexical thing than a grammatical one, though - especially as in many cases it will be unclear whether a verb is being used in this sort of 'hanging', 'call-and-response' way or not. Though you could of course have paired and unpaired versions - have 'beg (and expect a response)' distinct from 'express wish for (and not expect response), and 'call (expecting answer)' from 'call (not expecting answer)'. I don't think a language where all these pairs were morphologically linked would be very realistic, but it's not impossible, I don't think.

Come vs Go
This pair is distinguished by deixis. "Come" uses proximal deixis for the end-point, whereas "go" uses proximal deixis for the start-point. Note that the previous two pairs do not have deictic implications in this way. There are many possible deictic implications you can put into verbs (eg 'he comes here from over by you' vs 'he comes here from over yonder' or 'I will go uphill' vs 'I will go downhill', etc) and you can of course use it for any motion verb. English only has come/go, arrive/depart(or leave), and enter/exit(or leave), so far as i can think right now.

There's also a fourth obvious type of pairing: where one verb negates or reverses another. so for instance "open" vs "close", "build" vs "demolish", "soil/stain" vs "clean", etc.

[Terra]

Send vs Receive
Very little connexion here.

Send--vs--receive and teach--vs--learn seem alike (but not completely) to me. The only thing that's different is that "learn" marks its nominative argument as an agent, but "receive" does not; "receive" is basically equivalent to the passive "be sent". bequeath--vs--inherit is another pair like this.

Other pairs that work like teach--vs--learn are give--vs--take and sell--vs--buy. Pick-up--vs--load is similar, but "load" uses "onto" instead of "to" as its preposition, and can't be dative shifted. Put-on--vs--dress/clothe is similar, dress/clothe must be dative-shifted, using "with" to mark its object/theme.

Examples:
I learned physics. -- I taught the students physics. -- I taught physics to the students.
I took the book. -- I gave the woman the book. -- I gave the book to the woman.
I bought the car. -- I sold the man the car. -- I sold the car to the man.
I picked up the box. -- *I loaded the truck the box. -- I loaded the box onto the truck.
I put on the shirt. -- I dressed the manikin with the shirt. -- *I dressed the shirt onto the manikin.

What do you call this polarity,

I don't know. Take--vs--give polarity? I've never read a paper about this kind of polarity before, so I don't know the common/official term for it.

please, and does my proposed approach to the root-word sound feasible?

Totally.

[Salmoneus]

Send vs Receive
Very little connexion here.

Send--vs--receive and teach--vs--learn seem alike (but not completely) to me. The only thing that's different is that "learn" marks its nominative argument as an agent, but "receive" does not; "receive" is basically equivalent to the passive "be sent". bequeath--vs--inherit is another pair like this.

Not in my dialect. For me, "teach" and "learn" refer to the same event, but I can send a letter today and you can receive it tomorrow. "Send" has two passive uses - the 'indirect' passive you're talking about to me is not equivalent to 'receive' at all. I can have been sent something last week, but not receive it until today (or not at all!).

But in the case of give/take, sell/buy etc, I think this is a voice/focus/trigger/etc issue. The same action is considered from the perspective of one participant or the other. Austronesian languages, which have symmetrical voices that can deal with this easily, probably make a lot more use of morphology in creating these pairs; English has to mostly use suppletion.

[Pole, the]

In Polish, the equivalent of “to learn” is the reflexive form of “to teach”.

[Valdeut]

I think teach–learn is a causative–anticausative pair.
teach = cause someone to learn (or alternatively, cause someone to know)

I think it's common in languages to have teach be a causative-derivation of either a verb meaning learn or one meaning know. Alternatively, teach may be the primary form and learn an anticausative-derivation from this. The reflexive in Polish mentioned above essentially works this way, I think. Swedish does the same, having lära for ‘teach’ and lära sig for ‘learn’. This is typical of European languages, where the causative tends to be the primary form and the anticausative the derived form.

Proto-Germanic seems to have had a stative *lizaną meaning ‘to know’ from which was derived an inchoative *liznaną ‘to learn (to enter into the state of knowing)’. The latter gave English learn. There was also a causative *laizijaną meaning ‘to teach (to cause someone to know)’, though this is derived from the stative *lizaną and not the inchoative *liznaną. The causative gave German lehren.

Send could be thought of as a causative form of receive, at least some uses of the verb send where there is a recipient. Send someone something = cause someone to receive something.
Come–Go is another type of verb pair, though, which has already been mentioned.

Edit:
See for example here:
http://www.eva.mpg.de/lingua/conference ... atives.pdf

As mentioned in the article, it is perhaps best to talk of the verb pair as plain verbs vs causal verbs. The otherwise ambiguous terms anticausative and causative can be reserved for overtly coded plain and causal.

[Ketumak]

What kind of thing?

I was thinking, pre-theoretically, that the pairs were all to do with the transmission of something to someone/something/ somewhere.

Teach-learn A transmits knowledge to B
Send-receive A transmits a parcel to B
Come-go A "transmits themselves" to location B

In each case the thing transmitted goes away from A towards B, hence the appeal of Dewrad's suggestion: andative-venitive (i.e. go versus come).

I can see from things people have said above that come-go is different - it's intransitive for one, though languages often group things together that linguists would say were separate strictly speaking, reflexives with middle voice, agents with experiencers and so on. I guess I'm looking for a plausible operative concept.

For me, "teach" and "learn" refer to the same event, but I can send a letter today and you can receive it tomorrow. "Send" has two passive uses - the 'indirect' passive you're talking about to me is not equivalent to 'receive' at all. I can have been sent something last week, but not receive it until today (or not at all!).

I agree that sending and receiving can take place at different times, or the receiving may not happen at all, but similarly not everything taught is learnt immediately or at all. I think on balance we should put aside the possibility of time delays and failures, as they get in the way of an analysis in terms of actions and arguments.

Austronesian

Absolutely! A neat alignment system that's always attracted me. I'd like to do a trigger language one day, but am just working with accusative-secundative alignment at present. This means that Terra's"Take-give" polarity is an interesting term as that takes us into ditransitive territory. (See me pre-theoretical analysis above). Thanks for the extra examples too, Terra.

Valdeut's Causative v. Anti-Causative analysis sounds promising. I shall have to think about that.

[Valdeut]

There are many semantic triplets where you have:
1. A stative meaning ‘to be X’ or ‘be in the state of Xing’
2. An inchoative meaning ‘to become X’ or ‘to enter into the state of Xing’
3. A causal meaning ‘to cause someone to be X’ (or alternatively ‘to cause someone to become X’)

Triplets include (English and Swedish with the same meaning):
English: know — learn — teach
Swedish: kunna — lära sig — lära
English: be high/risen — rise — raise
Swedish: vara högt — höja sig — höja
English: sit — sit down (intr.) — set/seat
Swedish: sitta — sätta sig (intr.) — sätta (tr.)
English: lie — lay down (intr.) — lay (tr.)
Swedish: ligga — lägga sig — lägga
English: be dead — die — kill
Swedish: vara död — dö — döda
English: be broken — break (intr.) — break (tr.)
Swedish: vara sönder — gå sönder — ha sönder
English: be sunk — sink (intr.) — sink (tr.)
Swedish: vara sjunken — sjunka — sänka

The forms in the triplets don't have to be etymologically related, but they often are. Any part of the triplet may be the most basic form from which one or both of the other forms are derived.

English has many ambitransitive verbs that can express both the inchoative and causal meaning. A common pattern in other European languages is to derive the inchoative from the causal with an anticausative formation, which is often some kind of reflexive (Swedish sig).

Another common pattern outside of Europe is to have the stative or the inchoative be the most basic form and have a derived causal form. English raise and set are historically causative formations, as are Swedish sänka, sätta and lägga. These go back to the common PIE pattern where *–ei is added to the o-grade of the root. In the modern languages, this pattern is of course no longer productive.

Receive–Send is not part of this kind of triplet as receive is usually already transitive. Also, receive is not itself a causal verb as the subject is not a semantic agent. But many languages can use causative formations with transitive verbs, so a language could probably derive send from receive in this way (note that this demotes the subject to indirect object while the direct object is the same).

[zompist]

Sal used the word "perspective", and in fact that's a good linguistic term. We can choose which of a set of objects to focus on– cf. "Darth is Luke's father" vs. "Luke is Darth's son". Or a change in number can be expressed from the POV of the resulting multiple objects ("The two halves broke in two") or the original single one ("The rock broke in half").

That's probably a better way of looking at send/receive, buy/sell, come/go than as causation.

But if you have a lexical causative, no reason you can't stretch it! In my Lexipedia, I found "send" derived as a causative in two languages: Old English ('cause to go') and Quechua ('cause to carry'). I don't see any problem if you want to derive it as "cause to receive". Similarly, "sell" in Old Chinese < 'cause to buy', and Old English "sell" < 'cause to take'.

Not in my dialect. For me, "teach" and "learn" refer to the same event, but I can send a letter today and you can receive it tomorrow. "Send" has two passive uses - the 'indirect' passive you're talking about to me is not equivalent to 'receive' at all. I can have been sent something last week, but not receive it until today (or not at all!).

This happens with causatives too, as Jerry Fodor pointed out. "Kill" is expressed in many languages as "cause to die". But the cause and the death need not happen on the same day. If you give your aunt poison on Tuesday she may die on Thursday. "Cause to die" has two time slots, "kill" has just one. So the judge could say "On Tuesday, you caused your aunt to die on Thursday." However, both "You killed her on Tuesday" and "You killed her on Thursday" sound wrong!

[Salmoneus]

Not in my dialect. For me, "teach" and "learn" refer to the same event, but I can send a letter today and you can receive it tomorrow. "Send" has two passive uses - the 'indirect' passive you're talking about to me is not equivalent to 'receive' at all. I can have been sent something last week, but not receive it until today (or not at all!).

This happens with causatives too, as Jerry Fodor pointed out. "Kill" is expressed in many languages as "cause to die". But the cause and the death need not happen on the same day. If you give your aunt poison on Tuesday she may die on Thursday. "Cause to die" has two time slots, "kill" has just one. So the judge could say "On Tuesday, you caused your aunt to die on Thursday." However, both "You killed her on Tuesday" and "You killed her on Thursday" sound wrong!

Yes, but I was disputing that one was the passive of the other, not that it was the causative. [Though I agree with you that send/receive is not a causative pair. I would agree with the languages in your lexipedia and see 'send' in the broader sense as the causative partner of 'move' - think of "he sent the ball out of the park" in the sense of hitting it into motion - but these days it's mostly used in a more specific sense]

[Ketumak]

The more I read all the above the more I think there might be two things going on here: a valence thing, at the formal level and something else, perhaps at the semantic level: point of view/perspective might well capture that side of things.

I'm quite a valence adjustment fan, I put a lot into my last conlang, Õtari, so all the examples above will come in handy (whatever I do). So thank you all.

[Terra]

Not in my dialect. For me, "teach" and "learn" refer to the same event, but I can send a letter today and you can receive it tomorrow. "Send" has two passive uses - the 'indirect' passive you're talking about to me is not equivalent to 'receive' at all. I can have been sent something last week, but not receive it until today (or not at all!).

Nah, you and Zomp are right. "send" indicates two time slots. "receive" is still like the passive "be given" though.

or 'I will go uphill' vs 'I will go downhill', etc

Isn't English "climb" basically like the former, but at a steeper angle? I suppose "ascend" and "descend" would fit too, but they don't seem as basic as these words are in this Austronesian language. (By basic, I mean that they're not commonly used; They're rare, niche words. People will just use "go (up)" or "come (down)" instead. Zomp's latest build-a-language book talked about basic words/categories iirc. To give another example, people are more likely to call a dog a dog than a mammal (or a beagle), but more more likely to call a robin a bird than a robin. Interestingly, I think an eagle (or a hawk) would be more likely to be called an eagle than just a bird though. ... Btw, does anybody of cross-linguistic studies about basic categories? It seems like an interesting topic to study.)

Triplets include (English and Swedish with the same meaning):
English: know — learn — teach
Swedish: kunna — lära sig — lära

Oh yeah, mentioning statives is good too.

[Vijay]

In Polish, the equivalent of “to learn” is the reflexive form of “to teach”.

That's true in other Slavic languages, too.

[vec]

Own–give are interesting in this regard to, and similar verbs of possession and possession transfer. I created a whole system around it in my conlang Imutan.

[Vijay]

In Malayalam, there are two words for 'to give', depending on whether the indirect object is in third person or not. (So there's one word for 'to give (to) me/you/us/y'all' and another for 'to give (to) him/her/it/them'). I don't think there's a word for 'to own' that's related to either of them.

[Qwynegold]

I created a whole system around it in my conlang Imutan.

Sorry for being outrageously off-topic, but speaking of causatives, imutan means "I make (you) suck (smth)" in Finnish.

[Ketumak]

^ Well, I suppose that is a causative ...

There's an interesting and clear summary of valence changing operations in general here. NB, the site wants you to download some software first to download the pdf. I just read it online myself:

http://www.academia.edu/3015845/Valence_change


It's by Martin Haspelmath and Thomas Müller-Bardey and contains a good section on causatives.

[KathTheDragon]

NB, the site wants you to download some software first to download the pdf.

I managed to download it just now without having to download any software, nor do I recall having to do so in the past. Course, I do have an account so that might be it.