reflexive verb marking (current: ergative subjects in Hindi)
reflexive verb marking (current: ergative subjects in Hindi)
I read on Wals (and I think other places) that reflexive pronouns can have a number of origins, such as body parts (body, head, bone, heart, skin), precise values (very, exact), or "alone". However, I haven't found anything for languages where the verb receives reflexive marking, as in Spanish -se and Russina -sja. What are some lexical or morphosyntactic sources for reflexive verb inflections?
Last edited by Vardelm on Fri Jul 11, 2014 9:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Tibetan Dwarvish - My own ergative "dwarf-lang"
Quasi-Khuzdul - An expansion of J.R.R. Tolkien's Dwarvish language from The Lord of the Rings
Quasi-Khuzdul - An expansion of J.R.R. Tolkien's Dwarvish language from The Lord of the Rings
Re: reflexive verb marking origins
IIRC, the reflexive ending for verbs in Russian derives from a reflexive pronoun (in the accusative I think) but I'm not sure where that came from.
You can tell the same lie a thousand times,
But it never gets any more true,
So close your eyes once more and once more believe
That they all still believe in you.
Just one time.
But it never gets any more true,
So close your eyes once more and once more believe
That they all still believe in you.
Just one time.
Re: reflexive verb marking origins
It comes from PIE reflexive *se.sangi39 wrote:IIRC, the reflexive ending for verbs in Russian derives from a reflexive pronoun (in the accusative I think) but I'm not sure where that came from.
The conlanger formerly known as “the conlanger formerly known as Pole, the”.
If we don't study the mistakes of the future we're doomed to repeat them for the first time.
If we don't study the mistakes of the future we're doomed to repeat them for the first time.
Re: reflexive verb marking origins
Well now that makes sensePole, the wrote:It comes from PIE reflexive *se.sangi39 wrote:IIRC, the reflexive ending for verbs in Russian derives from a reflexive pronoun (in the accusative I think) but I'm not sure where that came from.
You can tell the same lie a thousand times,
But it never gets any more true,
So close your eyes once more and once more believe
That they all still believe in you.
Just one time.
But it never gets any more true,
So close your eyes once more and once more believe
That they all still believe in you.
Just one time.
Re: reflexive verb marking origins
At this point, I'm assuming that many, if not all, reflexive markers on verbs arise from reflexive pronouns becoming attached to the verb. At least, it looks that way for I.E. languages.
For the Semitic languages I've seen, reflexive forms are apparently more of a derivation than inflection. I've seen that T- and N- prefix forms are common, but I haven't found where those come from, and I doubt that I will.
I haven't found non-I.E. or non-Semitic languages yet that mark the verb for reflexivity, so if anyone knows of some I'd like to take a look at them.
For the Semitic languages I've seen, reflexive forms are apparently more of a derivation than inflection. I've seen that T- and N- prefix forms are common, but I haven't found where those come from, and I doubt that I will.
I haven't found non-I.E. or non-Semitic languages yet that mark the verb for reflexivity, so if anyone knows of some I'd like to take a look at them.
Tibetan Dwarvish - My own ergative "dwarf-lang"
Quasi-Khuzdul - An expansion of J.R.R. Tolkien's Dwarvish language from The Lord of the Rings
Quasi-Khuzdul - An expansion of J.R.R. Tolkien's Dwarvish language from The Lord of the Rings
Re: reflexive verb marking origins
Bantu languages have a reflexive object marker (-zi- in Zulu). It is in the same position as other object markers and there is some additional evidence for it being an object marker synchronically. For instance, the presence of an object marker has influence over the form of the imperative, if there is no object marker the form of the imperative (for most verbs) is STEM-a, but if there is an object marker it is OM-STEM-e. Thus if you say "hit a man" you say shay-a indoda, but if you say "hit him"(with the 3rd person noun class one object marker m-) it is m-shay-e. If you say "hit yourself" you say zi-shay-e. I don't think anybody has any idea what the source of the reflexive is, but object markers in general are thought to derive from pronouns. Interestingly, the reciprocal marker behaves in many ways like a derivational morpheme, and not like an object marker at all.
++++++++
Isn't my/you/his/her ass a new reflexive pronoun in the making?
++++++++
Isn't my/you/his/her ass a new reflexive pronoun in the making?
Re: reflexive verb marking origins
In Quechua the reflexive is a suffix -ku, one of a largish set of verbal suffixes, quite distinct from the personal endings (which include the subject-object markers).
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Re: reflexive verb marking origins
But what is the origin of the -ku suffix?
A friend of mine has a theory that I am inclined to accept that the Nahuatl reflexive prefix mo- is derived from a PUA root *mo'o meaning "head", and originated as an incorporated noun. The same apparently happened in Basque.
A friend of mine has a theory that I am inclined to accept that the Nahuatl reflexive prefix mo- is derived from a PUA root *mo'o meaning "head", and originated as an incorporated noun. The same apparently happened in Basque.
Re: reflexive verb marking origins
Haven't the slightest idea. Our time depth with Quechua is very short, so we usually don't have information on where the particles came from. For what it's worth, -ku varies in meaning across dialects, sometimes being used as a mediopassive, and in Ecuador as a durative.Radagast revived wrote:But what is the origin of the -ku suffix?
Re: reflexive verb marking origins
how do the Quechua dialects where -ku isn't a reflexive do reflexives?
Re: reflexive verb marking origins
By using other suffixes. Ancash, for instance, uses -kaa, which Gary Parker identifies with the root ka- 'be'.
(As a disclaimer, though, I haven't closely studied the morphology of the dialects. I looked it up in the Ancash grammar because Ancash is the most different from Cuzqueño, and in Cerrón-Palomino's overview, Lingüística Quechua.)
(As a disclaimer, though, I haven't closely studied the morphology of the dialects. I looked it up in the Ancash grammar because Ancash is the most different from Cuzqueño, and in Cerrón-Palomino's overview, Lingüística Quechua.)
Re: reflexive verb marking origins
Reflexives are a kind of intranstive verb. Japanese has many fossilized patterns for making transitive and intransitive pairs. There's 2 main kinds: vowel change and adding -su.
Examples:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Japanese/G ... ansitivity
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/ti_list.html
Maybe the vowel change comes from some kind of suffix that umlauted the preceding vowel, and maybe the -su comes from 'suru' ('do'). I'm not sure about either of these though.
Examples:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Japanese/G ... ansitivity
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/ti_list.html
Maybe the vowel change comes from some kind of suffix that umlauted the preceding vowel, and maybe the -su comes from 'suru' ('do'). I'm not sure about either of these though.
Re: reflexive verb marking origins
I'm more familiar with the reconstruction being *swe.Pole, the wrote:It comes from PIE reflexive *se.sangi39 wrote:IIRC, the reflexive ending for verbs in Russian derives from a reflexive pronoun (in the accusative I think) but I'm not sure where that came from.
If you want some more speculation, some IEanists assume that *swe goes back to a word meaning "family, clan", and that the development went from "(own) clan" > "own" and "self".sangi39 wrote:Well now that makes sense
Re: reflexive verb marking origins
Siouan has the verbal prefix *-ixki- which doesn't bear any resemblance to any pronouns (or anything else that I can think of except the dative infix *-ki- and suus *-kik-).
Re: reflexive verb marking origins
Thanks for the info so far. Seems like there's a lot of reflexive markers where the origin is murky at best.
The most interesting article I've read so far is Reflexives and Middle in some Polynesian and New Caledonian Languages. It details how those languages have no specifically reflexive pronouns per se or reflexive verbal inflections. A bunch of different strategies are used to indicate reflexivity. This is good to know since I was looking at not using reflexive pronouns for my conlang.
The most interesting article I've read so far is Reflexives and Middle in some Polynesian and New Caledonian Languages. It details how those languages have no specifically reflexive pronouns per se or reflexive verbal inflections. A bunch of different strategies are used to indicate reflexivity. This is good to know since I was looking at not using reflexive pronouns for my conlang.
This made me laugh out loud at work. Got a few raised eyebrows.merijn wrote:Isn't my/you/his/her ass a new reflexive pronoun in the making?
Tibetan Dwarvish - My own ergative "dwarf-lang"
Quasi-Khuzdul - An expansion of J.R.R. Tolkien's Dwarvish language from The Lord of the Rings
Quasi-Khuzdul - An expansion of J.R.R. Tolkien's Dwarvish language from The Lord of the Rings
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Re: reflexive verb marking origins
Objective pronoun, at any rate. I've heard some non-reflexive uses, e.g. "That'll kill your ass."Vardelm wrote:This made me laugh out loud at work. Got a few raised eyebrows.merijn wrote:Isn't my/you/his/her ass a new reflexive pronoun in the making?
[ʈʂʰɤŋtɕjɑŋ], or whatever you can comfortably pronounce that's close to that
Formerly known as Primordial Soup
Supporter of use of [ȶ ȡ ȵ ȴ] in transcription
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a 青.
Formerly known as Primordial Soup
Supporter of use of [ȶ ȡ ȵ ȴ] in transcription
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a 青.
Re: reflexive verb marking origins
A New Yorker wrote:Isn't it sort of a relief to talk about the English Premier League instead of the sad state of publishing?
Shtåså, Empotle7á, Neire WippwoAbi wrote:At this point it seems pretty apparent that PIE was simply an ancient esperanto gone awry.
Re: reflexive verb marking origins
Are there any languages that use a genitive case on pronouns to indicate reflexivity, rather than having a separate set of reflexive pronouns? So, you would have something like this:
he.NOM hit.PERF he.ACC = "He hit him (someone else)."
he.NOM hit.PERF he.GEN = "He hit himself."
he.NOM hit.PERF he.ACC = "He hit him (someone else)."
he.NOM hit.PERF he.GEN = "He hit himself."
Tibetan Dwarvish - My own ergative "dwarf-lang"
Quasi-Khuzdul - An expansion of J.R.R. Tolkien's Dwarvish language from The Lord of the Rings
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Re: reflexive verb marking origins
With reflexive possession, something a bit like this happens in Finnish:Vardelm wrote:Are there any languages that use a genitive case on pronouns to indicate reflexivity, rather than having a separate set of reflexive pronouns? So, you would have something like this:
he.NOM hit.PERF he.ACC = "He hit him (someone else)."
he.NOM hit.PERF he.GEN = "He hit himself."
hän romutti autonsa = 3sg trash.past3sg car.his = he trashed his (own) car.3sgposs
hän romutti hänen autonsa = 3sg.nom trash.past.3sg 3sg.gen car.poss = he trashed his car (where his refers to some other third person)
< Cev> My people we use cars. I come from a very proud car culture-- every part of the car is used, nothing goes to waste. When my people first saw the car, generations ago, we called it šuŋka wakaŋ-- meaning "automated mobile".
Re: reflexive verb marking origins
Do people actually use grammar like that in any part of the country? In the Finnish varieties I'm familiar with the 3rd person possessive suffix isn't used for reflexive possession. According to my instinct the comparable sentences would beMiekko wrote:hän romutti hänen autonsa = 3sg.nom trash.past.3sg 3sg.gen car.poss = he trashed his car (where his refers to some other third person)
Hän romutt-i auto-nsa.
SG3 scrap-PST car-3.POSS
"He scrapped his car."
Hän romutt-i naapuri-n auto-n.
SG3 scrap-PST neighbour-GEN car-ACC
"He scrapped the neighbour's car."
Possessive suffixes aren't available for possession even in reciprocal actions,
He romutt-i-vat oma-t auto-nsa.
PL3 scrap-PST-PL3 own-PL car-3.POSS
"They scrapped their own cars."
but
He romutt-i-vat toiste-nsa auto-t.
PL3 scrap-PST-PL3 RECIP-3.POSS car-PL
"They scrapped each other's cars."
I could also mention the something about the Finnish reflexive pronoun itse. It has distant cognates with meanings "shadow" or "soul" which are likely much closer to the original meaning of the word. It's an independent word which doesn't attach to the verb but is still a nice etymology.
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Re: reflexive verb marking origins
Yeah, they're probably not widely applied, and it seems in non-object positions not even the standard form really does that. However, I do think autonsa would be more likely to be reflexive, and "hänen auto" more likely not to be reflexive in many colloquial forms, esp. if "hänen" is given some audible emphasis?gach wrote:Do people actually use grammar like that in any part of the country? In the Finnish varieties I'm familiar with the 3rd person possessive suffix isn't used for reflexive possession. According to my instinct the comparable sentences would beMiekko wrote:hän romutti hänen autonsa = 3sg.nom trash.past.3sg 3sg.gen car.poss = he trashed his car (where his refers to some other third person)
Hän romutt-i auto-nsa.
SG3 scrap-PST car-3.POSS
"He scrapped his car."
Hän romutt-i naapuri-n auto-n.
SG3 scrap-PST neighbour-GEN car-ACC
"He scrapped the neighbour's car."
Possessive suffixes aren't available for possession even in reciprocal actions,
He romutt-i-vat oma-t auto-nsa.
PL3 scrap-PST-PL3 own-PL car-3.POSS
"They scrapped their own cars."
but
He romutt-i-vat toiste-nsa auto-t.
PL3 scrap-PST-PL3 RECIP-3.POSS car-PL
"They scrapped each other's cars."
I could also mention the something about the Finnish reflexive pronoun itse. It has distant cognates with meanings "shadow" or "soul" which are likely much closer to the original meaning of the word. It's an independent word which doesn't attach to the verb but is still a nice etymology.
< Cev> My people we use cars. I come from a very proud car culture-- every part of the car is used, nothing goes to waste. When my people first saw the car, generations ago, we called it šuŋka wakaŋ-- meaning "automated mobile".
Re: reflexive verb marking origins
This seems different than a true reflexive, where the subject is also the object. Here, the car is the object, regardless of who it belongs to. These constructions just disambiguate between anaphoric (his own) and non-anaphoric (his = someone else's) possession.Miekko wrote:With reflexive possession, something a bit like this happens in Finnish:
hän romutti autonsa = 3sg trash.past3sg car.his = he trashed his (own) car.3sgposs
hän romutti hänen autonsa = 3sg.nom trash.past.3sg 3sg.gen car.poss = he trashed his car (where his refers to some other third person)
I read on Wikipedia's reflexive pronoun page that German and Latin do something vaguely similar to "the object in genitive case = reflexive". German uses pronouns in the accusative or dative, and Latin the oblique, but it's only for 1st and 2nd person where a unique reflexive pronoun isn't really required. The 3rd person is where there would be greater need to disambiguate between he/she/it (the subject) and he/she/it (someone besides the subject).
Tibetan Dwarvish - My own ergative "dwarf-lang"
Quasi-Khuzdul - An expansion of J.R.R. Tolkien's Dwarvish language from The Lord of the Rings
Quasi-Khuzdul - An expansion of J.R.R. Tolkien's Dwarvish language from The Lord of the Rings
Re: reflexive verb marking origins
Yes, "hänen auto" is perfectly fine (if a bit odd outside a proper context) for non-reflexive possession and "autonsa" would definitely appear in the case of reflexive possession. I was wondering since your example used the possessive suffix in a sentence with two 3rd person participants while not denoting reflexive possession.Miekko wrote:Yeah, they're probably not widely applied, and it seems in non-object positions not even the standard form really does that. However, I do think autonsa would be more likely to be reflexive, and "hänen auto" more likely not to be reflexive in many colloquial forms, esp. if "hänen" is given some audible emphasis?
In my previous response I meant to write that the 3rd person possessive suffix isn't used for non-reflexive possession when there are more than one 3rd person participants present but somehow the non part got dropped and I didn't really think the conditions all through. That was a thought lapse from me and goes against the examples I gave. It's a typically hairy business since the possessive suffixes have reduced usage in the colloquial varieties and it might not always be clear what's the current normative standard in the literary register.
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Re: reflexive verb marking origins
One can imagine situations where the Finnish system would generalize, though.Vardelm wrote:This seems different than a true reflexive, where the subject is also the object. Here, the car is the object, regardless of who it belongs to. These constructions just disambiguate between anaphoric (his own) and non-anaphoric (his = someone else's) possession.Miekko wrote:With reflexive possession, something a bit like this happens in Finnish:
hän romutti autonsa = 3sg trash.past3sg car.his = he trashed his (own) car.3sgposs
hän romutti hänen autonsa = 3sg.nom trash.past.3sg 3sg.gen car.poss = he trashed his car (where his refers to some other third person)
I read on Wikipedia's reflexive pronoun page that German and Latin do something vaguely similar to "the object in genitive case = reflexive". German uses pronouns in the accusative or dative, and Latin the oblique, but it's only for 1st and 2nd person where a unique reflexive pronoun isn't really required. The 3rd person is where there would be greater need to disambiguate between he/she/it (the subject) and he/she/it (someone besides the subject).
< Cev> My people we use cars. I come from a very proud car culture-- every part of the car is used, nothing goes to waste. When my people first saw the car, generations ago, we called it šuŋka wakaŋ-- meaning "automated mobile".
Re: reflexive verb marking origins
Morphological marking for reflexive possession is a thing that happens and it's worth considering where it has its roots. While it's not truly reflexive (S = O) it gets close (being S = GEN). Evenki has true reflexive possessive suffixes (SG vs. PL) that get used in all persons, not just the third, whenever the S = GEN condition is fulfilled. Compare
Bi oro-r-vi etejet-che-m.
SG1 reindeer-PL-REFL.POSS guard-PRS-SG1
"I guard my reindeer."
Nungan oro-r-vi etejet-chere-n
SG3 reindeer-PL-REFL.POSS guard-PRS-SG3
"He guards his (own) reindeer"
Bi oro-r-in etejet-che-m.
SG1 reindeer-PL-SG3.POSS guard-PRS-SG1
"I guard his reindeer."
Someone who knows more about Tungusic diachronics, or other languages having similar things, might know a bit more about the history of these reflexive possession forms.
This also got me thinking, might languages with an S/O pivot have any different ways of patterning their reflexive possession?
Bi oro-r-vi etejet-che-m.
SG1 reindeer-PL-REFL.POSS guard-PRS-SG1
"I guard my reindeer."
Nungan oro-r-vi etejet-chere-n
SG3 reindeer-PL-REFL.POSS guard-PRS-SG3
"He guards his (own) reindeer"
Bi oro-r-in etejet-che-m.
SG1 reindeer-PL-SG3.POSS guard-PRS-SG1
"I guard his reindeer."
Someone who knows more about Tungusic diachronics, or other languages having similar things, might know a bit more about the history of these reflexive possession forms.
This also got me thinking, might languages with an S/O pivot have any different ways of patterning their reflexive possession?