Download On `sit`/`stand`/`lie` auxiliation1

On ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ auxiliation1
TANIA A. KUTEVA
Abstract
This study focuses on the structure ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ + and + main verb,
which has come to express the continuative/durative/progressive in
Bulgarian as well as in a number of other languages. It is argued that the
auxiliation of ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’+and+main verb results as the ‘‘sedimentation’’ (i.e. grammaticalization) of all-too-common usage of the bodily
posture verbs in the languages in which we observe it. The main claims
made are that
i. the use of the posture-verb construction as an aspectual marker correlates with the use of the posture verbs as the /
      ;
ii. the tendency for a language to encode the spatial position of an entity
in terms of the notions of sitting, or standing, or lying elevates the corresponding verb structures to the status of basic, most common verb expressions and thus makes them appropriate source structures in auxiliation.
1.
Introduction
The present study focuses on a structure with the bodily posture verbs
‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ expressing the continuative/durative/progressive in
Bulgarian as well as in a number of other languages:
(1)
Bulgarian
Sedi
i
se
oplakva
sit 3SG PRES IMPFV and REFL complain 3SG PRES IMPFV2
vmesto da
se
xvane
za rabota.
instead CONJ PTCL REFL catch 3SG PRES for work
‘He/she has been complaining all the time instead of starting to
work.’
(2) Danish (Braunmüller 1991: 103)
Han sidder
og spekulerer
over fremtiden.
Linguistics 37–2 (1999), 191–213
0024–3949/99/0037–0191
© Walter de Gruyter
192
T. A. Kuteva
he sit 3SG PRES and speculate 3SG PRES over future the
‘He continuously speculates over the future.’
(3) Norwegian (Bokmål; Haugen 1982: 158)
Vi satt
og pratet.
we sit PAST and chat PAST
‘We were chatting.’
While in Bulgarian this structure has remained largely unnoticed by
analysts of the language, in other languages such as North-Germanic it
has been treated by some authors as Aktionsart periphrasis (Braunmüller
1991) and by others as an expression of aspect (Haugen 1982); in the
present study I will regard it as an auxiliation development of ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’
+ and + main verb. In other words, this structure will be treated here
as moving along a grammaticalized aspectual meaning, the
continuative/durative/progressive.
In the present paper I will first describe the grammaticalization of
‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ + and + main verb into a continuative/durative/progressive. I will then argue that the explanation of this development should
be sought in the basicness and the frequency of usage of the bodily
posture verbs, which makes them appropriate sources for auxiliary structures (on the issue of which verb constructions have the propensity to
develop into auxiliary structures across languages, cf. Heine et al. [1991],
Bybee et al. [1994], Kuteva [1995a], among others) in the languages
where they grammaticalize. On the basis of Bulgarian as well as the
other — European and non-European — languages examined here, I will
claim that
i. the use of ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’+and+main verb as an aspectual structure
is related to the use of the bodily posture verbs as the
/       
;
ii. the tendency for a language to encode the spatial position of an
entity in terms of the specific, ‘‘embodied’’ notions of sitting, or standing,
or lying elevates the corresponding verb structures to the status of basic,
most common verb expressions and makes them thus appropriate source
structures in auxiliation.
The paper will be structurally organized as follows. In the next section
the posture-verb structure in Bulgarian will be described. Section 3 will
then present further examples of ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ auxiliation from both
European and non-European languages. In section 4 I will propose an
account of this auxiliation development, and in section 5, a detailed
stage-by-stage description of the grammaticalization of the posture-verb
structure in Bulgarian will be presented. Finally, section 6 will sum up
the conclusions of the present analysis.
On ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ auxiliation 193
2.
‘Sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’+and+main verb in Bulgarian
Bulgarian is a South Slavic language, with the contrast between perfective
and imperfective being an inherent part of the internal organization of
the tense–aspect system. The opposition perfective vs. imperfective has a
regular morphological expression in the language. In every verbal word
form a verbal base can be recognized that is imperfective, perfective, or
biaspectual (biaspectual verb bases take on either an imperfective or a
perfective interpretation depending on context; cf. Kuteva 1995b: 196).
Standard grammars of the language make no mention of the structure
‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’+and+main verb functioning as an aspectuality marker.
One of the reasons behind this is, presumably, the intermediate/‘‘amphibian’’ nature of the structure, which, while having attained some grammaticalized status, has also retained some of its initial, lexical properties (see
the discussion below). Another reason for neglecting it in grammatical
descriptions may well be the fact that Bulgarian is one of those languages
with a highly developed aspectual system in which the imperfective forms
have the continuative/durative/progressive as one of their functions. The
structure ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’+and+main verb thus constitutes a redundant
means for expressing a meaning typically expressed by the imperfective
gram built into the Bulgarian aspectual system anyway. Clearly, neither
of these factors is likely to facilitate the acknowledgement of ‘sit’/
‘stand’/‘lie’ + and + main verb as an aspectuality marker in a language
such as Bulgarian. Acknowledging that an auxiliation process involving
the posture-verb construction is well under way in Bulgarian is my main
concern in the remainder of this section.
A careful investigation reveals that the bodily posture verbs
‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ have come to express continuation/duration/progressive
when joined to a verb of action by the coordinating conjunction ‘and’.
In many cases, the posture-verb construction is employed according to
the bodily position of the subject. Thus in the example below the implication is that the subject ‘she’ is standing while performing the action
denoted by the main verb:
(4)
Bulgarian
a. Moga li da govorja
s
dăšterja ti? Ili tja e
can Q to speak 1SG PRES with daughter your or she is
zaeta v momenta?
busy in moment the
‘Can I speak with your daughter?’ Or is she busy at the
moment?’
b. Ami, zaeta! Ela da ja vidiš
kakvo pravi!
ha, busy come to her see 2SG PRES what do 3SG PRES
194
T. A. Kuteva
Stoi
i
se
stand 3SG PRES IMPFV and REFL
ogležda
v ogledaloto!
look at oneself 3SG PRES IMPFV in mirror the
‘Busy, ha! Come and see what she is doing! She’s been looking
at herself in the mirror all the time!’
In this example, the main verb is marked for imperfectivity : it
is the imperfective (and not the perfective) aspectual base of the verb
that is being used. We can say then that there is no need for imperfectivity
to be marked since even if we remove the postural verb and the conjunction ‘and’ from the above sentences, the interpretation of each of them
will still be imperfective. And yet, the example in (4) above — with the
bodily posture verb construction as a continuative/durative/progressive
marker — is the preferred choice in this context.
From the example in (4) it also becomes clear that both the bodily
posture verb and the main verb have the same morphological marking
for person, number, and tense. A legitimate question that arises at this
point is, what justifies an auxiliation view of the posture-verb structure,
given that the two verbs coordinated by the conjunction ‘and’ are marked
for the same verbal categories? In other words, there is no morphosyntactic difference between the lexical verb coordination structure
‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’+and+V and the continuative/durative/progressive structure ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ + and + main verb; hence, on what grounds can we
treat the posture-verb structure as an auxiliation development? The
answer to this question involves the semantics of the posture-verb construction: the force of the verbs ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ in the complex structure
‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ + and + main verb is to make the latter continuative/
durative/progressive, and the structure is best translated by the English
continuative/progressive form be+V-ing.
A strong argument in favor of an auxiliation view of ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’
+ and+main verb is the fact that it is freely used in contexts where the
agent does not have to necessarily ‘lie’ or ‘sit’ while performing the action
denoted by the main verb:
(5) Bulgarian
Toj leži
i
mărzeluva
he lie 3SG PRES IMPFV and lie on one’s back 3SG PRES IMPFV
cjala godina veče.
whole year already
‘He’s been lying on his back for a whole year now/He’s been idling
around for a whole year now.’
On ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ auxiliation 195
(6)
Bulgarian
Sedi
i
čisti
po
cjal
sit 3SG PRES IMPFV and clean 3SG PRES IMPFV along whole
den v kăšti.
day in home
‘She cleans the house all day long./She habitually cleans the house
all day long.’
To conclude, the sit/stand/lie + and + main verb structure in Bulgarian
has not undergone any formal changes from its lexical source structure;
it is only the semantics of the structure that has changed into the aspectual
meaning of the continuative/durative/progressive. That change in semantics may precede change in morphosyntax, especially in incipient and
intermediate stages of grammaticalization, is not news, however; in fact,
it has been frequently observed in a variety of grammaticalization developments in genetically and geographically remote languages (cf. Heine
et al. 1991).
3.
‘Sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ auxiliation across languages
Bulgarian is neither the only nor the most obvious example of a language
where ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ auxiliation is taking place. The same development
can be observed in a number of both related and unrelated languages.
The following are illustrative examples.
3.1.
North-Germanic languages
Just as in Bulgarian, in the genetically and geographically close languages
Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish, the posture-verb construction is
also undergoing grammaticalization into the continuative/durative/
progressive:
(7)
Norwegian
Jeg sitter
og snakker.
I sit 1SG PRES and talk 1SG PRES
‘I am talking.’
(8) Danish (Braunmüller 1991: 103)
Han ligger
og kører
rundt hele natten.
he lie 3SG PRES and drive 3SG PRES round whole night
‘He has been driving all night long.’
196
T. A. Kuteva
(9)
Swedish
Han sitter och läser.
he sit and read 3SG PRES
‘He is reading.’
3.2.
Mandan (Siouan)
The posture verb construction in Mandan has developed into a marker
of tense–aspect modality: ‘‘The auxiliaries rpk-æ ‘abide:sit’, wpk-æ
‘abide:lie’, hpk-æ ‘abide:stand’ have an imperfective or durative meaning’’
(Mixco 1997: 51):
(10)
Mandan (Mixco 1997: 61)
hı̌
o?- ška ı̌=wi˛k- ša
ra- xtú- xtæ- ri˛ u˛?š
tooth be DSJ PV=not COLL Ipm chew INTS SS thus
wṕ:k-æ
ra- xot- o:wpk- o?š.
abide:lie...
‘though he hardly had any teeth; he was really chewing ...’
3.3.
Kabyle (Berber: spoken in Algeria)
In Kabyle the posture verb construction with qqim ‘sit’/‘sit down’ can be
used as a continuative marker:
(11)
Kabyle (Naı̈t-Zerrad 1996: 69)
Yeqqim
yettru
3SG M- sit/be/remain PRET 3SG M cry AOR INTENS
‘He cries all the time.’
Note that it is only the verb qqim ‘sit’/‘sit down’, but not the other
postural verbs, ‘stand’ and ‘lie’, that have developed the copula and the
continuative meaning. The causes of why it should only be the verb
‘sit’/‘sit down’ that is involved in the aspectual construction are not well
understood at the present stage of research.
3.4.
Imonda (Papuan)
The construction with the posture verb lõh ‘stand’ has also come to
function as a durative, as in (12), and a habitual marker, as in (13):
On ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ auxiliation 197
(12)
(13)
3.5.
Imonda (Seiler 1985: 105)
po
feha- lõh- õub
water fall stand LNK PAST DUR
‘It was raining for a long time.’
Imonda (Seiler 1985: 105)
ed- ia
ka nòn li- lõh- f
PX LOC I sleep lie stand PRES
‘I (habitually) sleep over there.’
Kxoe (Khoisan: spoken in Namibia)
Like all the other languages examined here, the bodily posture verb
constructions in Kxoe can also be used as markers of the
continuative/durative/progressive (Christa Kilian-Hatz, personal
communication):
(14)
(15)
(16)
4.
Kxoe
ti
Nún- à- nNùè
1SG eat I sit
‘I am eating (while sitting)’
Kxoe
tı́
Nún- à- tè
1SG eat I suffix derived from te ‘stand’
‘I am eating (while standing).’
Kxoe
tı́
Nún- à- dòè
1SG eat I lie
‘I am eating (while lying).’
Toward an account of ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ auxiliation
On the basis of the languages examined here, in this section I will argue
that the explanation of the auxiliation development ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’+and
+ main verbcontinuative/durative/progressive is to be sought in the
following correlation: the languages that employ a ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ aspectual structure also have the verbs ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ as unmarked/canonical
encodings of the spatial position of physical objects. I will propose that
the ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ + and + main verb structure is the ‘‘sedimentation’’
(i.e. the grammaticalization) of the all-too-common usage of the three
bodily posture verbs in the languages in which it appears (cf. Haiman
[1998] on how repeated usage brings about grammaticalization).
198
T. A. Kuteva
4.1.
Encoding spatial position of objects across languages
The encoding of the spatial position of objects is part of the encoding of
the relationship between objects in space. A real-world spatial scene
typically involves a figure object and a ground object. In the English
sentence ‘‘The picture is on the wall,’’ for instance, ‘‘the picture’’ is the
figure and ‘‘the wall’’ the ground. The linguistic expression of spatial
configurations across languages involves a varying degree of precision
regarding the information about the figure and the ground. In many
languages the expression of the relation between objects in space specifies
the geometrical nature of the ground, not the figure. Ewe, for instance,
is one of the languages that provide precise information about the nature
and the dimension of the ground rather than the figure. The language
typically employs seven spatial predicates (one of them, le ‘be at’, being
the most common choice) and a number of postpositions attached to the
ground NP. The spatial predicate gives no clue about the position, or
dimension, or directionality of extension of the figure; however, the
various postpositions attached to the ground make subtle semantic distinctions in the description of the spatial configuration. Thus while in
English one typically says, ‘‘The picture is on the wall,’’ a speaker of
Ewe can choose one of the following ways to say this, depending on
where on the wall the picture is:
(17)
(18)
(19)
Ewe (Ameka 1995: 171)
Fóto lá
le
gli lá
nú
picture DEF be at wall DEF side
[the picture is on the side (surface) of the wall ]
‘The picture is on the wall.’
Ewe (Ameka 1995: 172)
Fóto lá
le
gli lá
ta-me
picture DEF be at wall DEF head-counting region of
[the picture is on the apex of the wall ]
‘The picture is on (the higher part of ) the wall.’
Ewe (Ameka 1995: 172)
Fóto lá
le
gli lá
dzı́
picture DEF be at wall DEF upper surface
[the picture is on the upper surface of the wall ]
‘The picture is on (top of ) the wall.’
There are, however, languages where the structure of the ground is
presupposed and the structure of the figure is specified instead. Such
languages often use bodily posture verbs to specify the position, dimensionality, etc., of the figure:
On ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ auxiliation 199
(20)
Russian
Kniga ležit
na stole.
book lie 3SG PRES on table
‘The book is on the table.’
To the speakers of a number of European languages it may seem only
natural that a vase typically ‘‘stands’’ on the cupboard or that a book
typically ‘‘lies’’ on the table. This may well have to do with the fact that
uses of bodily posture verbs with physical objects have been traced back
to the most ancient Indo-European languages. The examples in (21) and
(22) below illustrate the verb ki- ‘lie’, ‘exist’ with inanimates in an Old
Hittite text:
(21)
(22)
Old Hittite (Gamkrelidze and Ivanov 1995: 256, note)
KÙ.BABBAR GUŠKIN NA ZI.GI
4
NA KÁ.DINGIR.RA NA pa-ra-aš-ha-aš
4
4
NA DU.ŠI NA lu-ul-lu-ri NAGGA
4
4
URUDU ki-it-ta
‘there is ( lies) (i.e. is present) silver, gold, lapis lazuli, Babylonian
stone, parašha-, mountain crystal, lullur, tin, and copper’
Old Hittite (Gamkrelidze and Ivanov 1995: 256, fn)
še-er-še-me-ta [G ]ÌR ZABAR ki-it-ta
‘and over them (above them) a bronze knife lies’
Crucial to the present discussion, however, is that the above situation
is far from holding true for all natural languages. Cross-linguistic observations show that there exist genetically and geographically unrelated languages in which bodily posture verbs are  used to encode the spatial
position of objects, not because there are no bodily posture verbs in those
languages but simply because there are other ways of canonical encoding
of the spatial relationship between two objects.
A pertinent example here is Ewe, where the spatial configurations
between two objects are encoded by means of a small class of v-particle
(prepositional ) items (the most established of which is the locative copula
le ‘be at’, as mentioned above) and a group of nominally derived postpositions such as dzı́ ‘upper surface’, nu ‘mouth/entrance, end point’, nú
‘skin/outer surface’, tó ‘ear/edge’; compare
(23)
Ewe (Ameka 1995: 156)
Awu
lá
le ka- a
dzı́
garment DEF le rope DEF upper surface
‘The garment is on the line.’
200
T. A. Kuteva
Heine et al. (1991: 123–147) discuss a large number of African languages
that encode spatial relationships between objects in a similar way. There
is a number of other languages that behave likewise. Thus, in Samoan,
as well as Burmese, Siamese, and other Asian languages, we have one
generalized adposition indicating location, and nouns attached to the
ground NP. These nouns mean, again, things like ‘the space below’, ‘the
space surrounding’, ‘the interior’, ‘the upper surface’ for ‘under’, ‘near’,
‘inside’, ‘on’, respectively; as in (24):
(24)
Burmese (Lehman and Bennardo 1992: 33)
Sa-ok Thitta- (a)hte:
hma (hyi.thi).
book box
(its)inside at (existential verb)
‘The book is in the box.’
In languages like English the unmarked way to express the spatial
relation between two objects involves the use of an adposition. A
co-occurring use of a bodily posture verb and ‘be’ is also possible, but it
often makes the expression marked or in some cases even odd:
(25)
(26)
English
? The poster is sitting stuck to/on the wall.
English
? The nail sits/is sitting in the board.
In the latter example, to be able to use ‘‘sitting,’’ one would want a
preexisting hole in the wood, in which the nail would somehow be able
to be ‘‘sitting’’ loosely (i.e. not pounded in and positioned in a ‘‘sitting’’
position; normal would be ‘‘the nail is sticking out of the board,’’ but
not ‘‘the nail is sitting in the board’’).
By contrast, this same referential situation is unproblematically
encoded by means of the verb ‘sit’ in languages like Danish, for instance:
(27)
Danish
Sømmet sidder
i brættet.
nail the sit 3SG PRES in board the
‘The nail is in the board.’
In summation, the use of bodily posture verbs to canonically encode
the spatial position of objects is typical of some languages but untypical
of others.
4.2.
Correlation between ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ auxiliation and ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’
encoding of spatial position
The ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ aspectual structure was described above for some
European languages (Bulgarian, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish) as well as
On ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ auxiliation 201
for some non-European ones (Mandan, Kabyle, Imonda, Kxoe). In what
follows I will show that the presence of this structure correlates with
extensive use of the postural verbs in the canonical encoding of the spatial
position of objects in the above languages. More precisely, I will illustrate
that in all these languages, using ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ with physical objects is
a canonical way of encoding their position in space. Canonical encodings
or uses are meant here to be those that are most frequently encountered
in everyday language and are more salient than others.
4.2.1. European languages. The canonical encoding of a chair being in
the corner of the room or a Christmas tree being in the living room
involves the verb ‘stand’ in the European languages examined here:
(28)
(29)
(30)
Bulgarian
a. Stolăt
stoi
v ăgăla
na stajata.
chair the stand 3SG PRES in corner the of room the
‘The chair is in the corner of the room.’
b. Kolednoto
dărvo stoi
văv vsekidnevnata.
Christmas the tree stand 3SG PRES in living room the
‘The Christmas tree is in the living room.’
Swedish
a. Stolen står
i hørnet av rummet.
chair the stand 3SG PRES in corner of room the
‘The chair is in the corner of the room.’
b. Julgranen
står
i vardagsrummet.
Christmas.tree stand 3SG PRES in living room the
‘The Christmas tree is in the living room.’
Danish
a. Stolen står
i hjørnet af rummet.
chair stand 3SG PRES in corner of room the
‘The chair is in the corner of the room.’
b. Juletræet
står
i dagligstuen.
Christmas.tree stand 3SG PRES in living room the
‘The Christmas tree is in the living room.’
Likewise, in languages such as Norwegian or Swedish, the verb ‘lie’ is
a canonical choice to encode the position of physical objects that can be
conceptualized as situated horizontally in space:
(31)
Norwegian
Spikeren ligger
på plankan.
nail the lie 3SG PRES on board the
‘The nail is on the board.’
202
(32)
T. A. Kuteva
Swedish
Spiken ligger
på plankan.
nail the lie 3SG PRES on board the
‘The nail is on the board.’
In some Germanic languages, ‘lie’ can be used as a first choice even
with physical objects whose canonical shape (if it is possible to speak of
canonicality in this case at all ) leaves indeterminate any directionality of
position in space. What is the canonical position of cheese under a cheese
cover, for instance? Does it ‘‘sit,’’ or ‘‘stand,’’ or ‘‘lie’’? The following
example from Norwegian shows that cheese canonically ‘‘lies’’ under a
cheese cover:
(33)
Norwegian
Osten ligger
i osteklokken.
cheese lie 3SG PRES in cheese cover
‘The cheese is under the cheese cover.’
‘Sit’ also turns out to be a canonical way to encode spatial position of
physical objects:
(34)
Swedish
Affischen sitter
på väggen.
poster the sit 3SG PRES on wall the
‘The poster is on the wall./ The poster is stuck onto the wall.’
The above examples as well as a number of investigations published
recently on lexical encoding of spatial configurations in Germanic languages (cf. Ekberg 1995; Jakobsson 1996; Sinha and Kuteva 1995, among
others) indicate that whenever it is possible to encode the spatial position
of physical objects by means of a bodily positional verb (plus preposition)
in English, it is, as a rule, also possible to use a bodily posture verb to
encode the same referential situation in Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish.
The opposite, however, does not hold true.
4.2.2. Non-European languages. Likewise, in the non-European languages examined here, the bodily posture verbs are canonical encodings
of the position of objects in space.
4.2.2.1. Mandan. Speakers of Mandan conceptualize the position of
entities in space in terms of bodily position. Hence the frequent use of
the postural verbs rpk ‘sit’, rpk-æ ‘abide:sit’, wpk ‘lie’, wpk-æ ‘abide:lie’,
hpk ‘stand’, hpk-æ ‘abide:stand’, tæ/te ‘stand’ with both animate and
inanimate subjects:
On ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ auxiliation 203
(35)
(36)
Mandan (Mixco 1997: 40)
ru˛wp?k rpku šph- ta
wpk- o?š
man
road across LOC sit INDma
‘the man is across the road’
Mandan (Mixco 1997: 64)
wı̌˛=ti xtæ-rp tǽ- ro:wpk- o?š,
wṕ:tahó: wavillage big TOP stand NAR INDma river there UNSP
krax- t
e:ta; wi˛=ti xtæ- rp teak
bend LOC DEM LOC village big TOP stand DS
‘there was a large village at the bend in the river’
The use of the postural verbs has become so ‘‘basic,’’ that is, common,
that ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ are often felt to be necessary as specifying elements
every time a proximal or distal demonstrative is used. As a result,
‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ take on a deictic value when attached to demonstratives:
(37)
Mandan (Mixco 1997: 42)
a?t e: wpk
‘that ( lying) there’
Here a?t is a demonstrative ‘that’, e: deictic position (‘far from speaker’s
and hearer’s positions’), wpk ‘lie’.
4.2.2.2. Kabyle. In Kabyle the posture verb qqim ‘sit’/‘sit down’ is
used so extensively with objects in space that it has practically evolved
into a copula with the meaning ‘be/remain’ that can be used independently
of the dispositional manner of the object. Thus, what in languages such
as Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, and Bulgarian may either ‘‘stand’’ or
‘‘lie,’’ in Kabyle may only ‘‘sit’’:
(38)
(39)
Kabyle ( Kamal Naı̈t-Zerrad, personal communication)
tasarutt teqqim
]ef t1t1abla.
key SG 3SG F sit/be/remain PRET on table
‘The key was on the table.’
(In the following context:
A: Where is the key? Have you seen it?
B: The key was on the table. I saw it there.)
Kabyle
Abuqal yeqqim
deg texzant
vase
3SG M sit/be/remain PRET in cupboard
‘The vase is in the cupboard.’
204
(40)
(41)
T. A. Kuteva
Kabyle
Akersi yeqqim
deg te]mert n texxamt.
chair 3SG M sit/be/remain PRET in corner of room
‘The chair is in the corner of the room.’
Kabyle
Ttejra teqqim
deg tebh1 irt.
tree 3SG F sit/be/remain PRET in garden
‘The tree is in the garden.’
4.2.2.3. Imonda. Thanks to their extensive use in encoding the spatial
position of both animates and inanimates, the three bodily posture verbs
in Imonda, ale ‘sit’, lõh (verb stem) ‘stand’, li ‘lie’, have developed into
copulas (Seiler 1985):
(42)
(43)
(44)
Imonda (Seiler 1985: 158)
Louise kuji- 1
ale- f
Louise long NOMIN sit PRES
‘Louise is tall.’
Imonda (Seiler 1985: 168)
pilin ed- ia
fahõdõ- lõh- f
plate PX LOC CLASS put up stand PRES
‘The plate is up there.’
Imonda (Seiler 1985: 107)
udo
ah- ia
basli- f
netbag which LOC CLASS lie PRES
‘Where is the netbag?’
4.2.2.4. Kxoe. Speakers of Kxoe regularly express the position of
objects in space in terms of the three ‘‘embodied’’ verbs nNùı́n ‘sit’, te/tı̀ı́n
‘stand’, dòé ‘lie’:
(45)
Kxoe ( Heine 1997: 10)
n|ı́’e ngúú-he
déú-d‘òàn áànı́ yı̀ı̀- é dı̀
kı́
tı̀ı̀n
that house 3SG F right
side tree OBJ POSS LOC stand
‘that house is to the right of the tree’
The use of these verbs is so common that nearly all nouns denoting
concrete objects in Kxoe can be subdivided in three groups depending
on whether they typically take the verb ‘sit’, or ‘stand’, or ‘lie’ as what
Heine (1998) terms a postural marker. Thus trees, thorns, baskets (and
some other containers), breasts, tables typically ‘‘stand’’; stones ‘‘sit,’’
and rivers ‘‘lie.’’
On ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ auxiliation 205
It is also possible to use all three verbs with the same noun, but in this
case the particular verb used will specifically define the figure object.
Thus, if a tree in the garden ‘‘stands’’ (tı̀ı́n ‘stand’ being the canonical
postural marker for the noun yı̀ı̀ ‘tree’), then it is an ordinary, ‘‘living’’
tree. If the tree in the garden ‘‘lies,’’ however, then it is a fallen, ‘‘dead’’
tree. If, finally, the tree ‘‘sits’’ in the garden, then it is a stump:
(46)
Kxoe ( Heine 1998)
a. yı̀ı̀ ‘á tı̀ı́n tı́
múùn- à- tè
tree OBJ stand 1SG see
I PRES
‘I see a (standing) tree.’
b. yı̀ı̀ ‘á doe tı́
múùn- à- tè
tree OBJ lie 1SG see
I PRES
‘I see a tree (e.g. cut and lying on the ground).’
c. yı̀ı̀ ‘à nNuin tı́
múùn- à- tè
tree OBJ sit
1SG see
I PRES
‘I see a tree stump.’
One of the bodily posture verbs, tı̀ı́n ‘stand’, is used more frequently
than the other two and has practically developed into a copula ‘be, exist’
(Heine et al. 1991).
Thus, in both the European and the non-European languages examined
above we can see the same correlation between presence of a ‘sit’/
‘stand’/‘lie’ auxiliary expression and employment of the ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’
verbs to encode — canonically — spatial position. Bearing the above
correlation in mind, I propose that the first prerequisite for the postureverb structure to start along the path of auxiliation is the use of the
posture verbs as unmarked/canonical encodings of the spatial position
of physical objects. This is the first stage of desemanticization of
‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ as well as the first step to the establishment of these three
verbs as basic in terms of their commonness and frequency of usage. The
locus-for-change of the lexical verb construction with the posture verbs,
denoting the spatial position of objects, into the continuative/durative/
progressive structure involves, I contend, the use of ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ as
canonical encodings of the spatial position of objects, with the three
postural verbs functioning very much like locative predications.3 Once
the speakers of a language come to canonically express the spatial position
of both animates and inanimates as either ‘‘sitting,’’ or ‘‘standing,’’ or
‘‘lying,’’ these speakers may also easily come to express the subjects in
continuative/durative/progressive predications as either ‘‘sitting,’’ or
‘‘standing,’’ or ‘‘lying,’’ as will be shown in the following section.
206
5.
T. A. Kuteva
‘Sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ auxiliation: how come?
5.1.
The development ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’copulaauxiliary
We can now turn to the question, how could the ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ aspectual
structure have developed?
One possibility is development out of a copula that has in turn derived
from a bodily posture verb. An argument supporting such a scenario
would be the well-documented development of the Latin postural verb
sta: re ‘stand’ into the copula estar, the so-called ‘‘contingency state be’’
in Spanish (Comrie 1976: 102), and subsequently into the progressive
auxiliary structure estar+main verb in Spanish:
(47)
Spanish (Comrie 1976: 102)
Estoy cantando.
‘I am singing.’
While this turns out to be the case with a number of languages, there
exists evidence suggesting that the above scenario cannot be held responsible for the auxiliation of ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ in all languages where these
verbs have been grammaticalized. The Germanic languages examined
here are a pertinent example. While the bodily posture verbs in the
structure ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ + and + main verb have been recognized as
continuative/durative/progressive markers in these languages, none of the
verbs ‘sit’, ‘stand’, or ‘lie’ has been claimed to have developed into a
copula like the Spanish estar ‘to be somewhere, temporarily’.
5.2.
The ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ grammaticalization chain in Bulgarian
Another possibility, I contend, is for the ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ aspectual structure to have arisen as an extended usage of the lexical encoding of spatial
position of physical objects. The auxiliation of the bodily posture verbs
as part of the ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’+and+main verb structure can be seen as
a grammaticalization chain (cf. Heine [1992] on the notion of a grammaticalization chain as a particular kind of family-resemblance category) with
four focal stages of development. In what follows I will illustrate each
of these stages with examples from Bulgarian.
At the first stage, ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ are used with human subjects to
specify the orientation of the human body in space. Note that apart from
this specifying meaning, ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ also involve inherent stative
semantics, or temporal ‘‘unboundedness’’ of the verb situation. At this
stage ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ can also be used in a coordinate biclausal structure
On ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ auxiliation 207
where the second clause denotes a simultaneous verb situation, with a
coreferential subject. The subject is marked only once, with the first verb
occurring in the sequence, that is, with the postural verb. The lack of a
formal expression for the subject in the second clause can be regarded
as a case of zero anaphora, very much like ‘‘We sat and [we] ate’’
in English.
The examples in (48) and (49) illustrate each of these uses:
(48)
(49)
Bulgarian
Vizdaš
li onazi žena
tam, v bjalata roklja?
see 2SG PRES Q that woman there in white the dress
Sedi
na pejkata, ot
ljavo ...
sit 3SG PRES on bench the from left
‘Can you see that woman over there? She is sitting on the bench,
to the left ...’
Bulgarian
Ana sedi
na divana
i
piše
pismo,
Ana sit 3SG PRES on couch the and write 3SG PRES letter
a
bašta ı́ sviri
na piano.
whereas father her play 3SG PRES on piano
‘Ana is sitting on the couch and is writing a letter whereas her
father is playing the piano.’
At the second stage of the grammaticalization chain proposed here,
the uses from stage I remain. In addition, however, ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ are
extended to express canonically spatial position of physical objects. This
extension is, I propose, the first prerequisite for ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ to start
along the path of auxiliation. The two relevant uses of ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’
at this stage — which, in fact, parallel their uses with human subjects at
stage I — are
i. canonical encodings of spatial position of objects; and
ii. spatial position of objects  another, simultaneous verb
situation.
(50) and (51) illustrate these uses, respectively:
(50)
Bulgarian
Drexite
sedjat
v garderoba.
clothes the sit 3PL PRES in wardrobe
‘The clothes are in the wardrobe.’
(51) Bulgarian
Drexite
sedjat
v koridora i
săbirat
prax.
clothes the sit 3PL PRES in corridor and gather 3PL PRES dust
‘The clothes are in the corridor and gather dust./ The clothes are
gathering dust in the corridor.’
208
T. A. Kuteva
Now, on the present analysis, contexts like (51) are regarded as the
locus-for-change where the biclausal structure [Subject+V1(‘sit’/‘stand’/
‘lie’)+adverbial]+and+[Implicit Coreferential Subject+V2] has fused
into the monoclausal [Subject+AUX(‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’)+adverbial+and
+V]. What facilitates such a reanalysis of the biclausal structure into a
monoclausal structure is, I contend, the loss of the specific ‘‘human body’’
semantics of ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ in contexts like (51). The feature inherent
‘‘unboundedness’’ of verb situation (which is only a secondary, nonfocal
feature of these verbs at stage I ) now becomes a focal feature. It is no
great conceptual-semantic leap for a verb with inherent ‘‘unboundedness’’
as a focal meaning, and a particular postural meaning as a nonfocal one,
to come to be felt as a continuative/durative/progressive marker. Note
that Middle Dutch, which used to have the ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’+and+main
verb structure for the continuative/durative/progressive until the sixteenth
century, before it was replaced by the structure ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ + te
(infinitival particle) +infinitive, presents a very revealing example of the
locus-for-change where the above reanalysis appears to have taken place.
Thus in Middle Dutch, the sequence subject+‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’+adverbial
+ and + V does not have two interpretations (in contradistinction to
Bulgarian, cf. [51] above) but a single one, continuative/durative/
progressive:
(52)
Dutch (Middelnederlands Woordenboek; with thanks to Hubert
Cuyckens, personal communication)
De steden staen dagelicx ende vervallen.
the cities stand daily
and deteriorate to ruin
‘The cities are falling to ruin from day to day.’
In other words, contexts involving the sequence of a ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’
clause with an inanimate subject and an adverbial, plus another, coordinate clause, stand out as a highly plausible locus-for-change where the
new, aspectual meaning of ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ arises.
Once the biclausal structure has been reanalyzed into a monoclausal
structure, we observe a greater cohesion between ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’, the
coordinate conjunction ‘and’, and what has now become the main verb.
Adverbials come to be used peripherally rather than in between the
components of the ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ + and + main verb. This cohesion is
the main characteristic of the next stage, stage III, of the grammaticalization chain. The structure is no longer ambiguous. Its interpretation is
now aspectual, that is, continuative/durative/progressive:
(53)
Bulgarian
Drexite sedjat
i
săbirat prax.
clothes sit 3PL PRES and gather dust
‘The clothes are gathering dust all the time.’
On ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ auxiliation 209
(54)
(55)
Bulgarian
Krepostta stoi
i
se
fortress stand 3SG PRES and REFL
ruši
s
vsjaka izminata godina.
deteriorate to ruin 3SG PRES with each past
year
‘The fortress is falling to ruin from year to year.’
Bulgarian
Trionăt leži
i
răždjasva
v mazeto
saw the lie 3SG PRES and get rusty 3SG PRES in cellar the
‘The saw is getting rusty in the cellar.’
At stage IV the subject can be animate; however, the simultaneity
meaning of stage I (where the subject is also animate) is no longer there.
In other words, the structure has come to function, at this point, as a
marker for the continuative/durative/progressive with both animate and
inanimate subjects. At this stage ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’+and+main verb often
occurs in contexts with temporal adverbial phrases, such as ‘‘all the time,’’
‘‘all day long,’’ etc., which additionally emphasize the continuative/durative/progressive meaning of the utterance:
(56)
(57)
Bulgarian
Bašta mu prez
cjaloto vreme stoi
i
father his through whole the time stand 3SG PRES and
mărmori.
grumble 3SG PRES
‘His father continuously grumbles.’
Bulgarian
Starecăt
sedi
i
si
broi
old man the sit 3SG PRES and REFL count 3SG PRES
parite
s
časove.
money the with hours
‘The old man has been counting his money for hours on end.’
However, the use of temporal adverbials is redundant rather than necessary;
‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’+and+main verb is often used without any adverbials:
(58)
Bulgarian
Sedi
i
se
oplakva
vmesto da se
sit 3SG PRES and REFL complain 3SG PRES instead to REFL
xvane
za rabota.
take 3SG PRES for work
‘S/he is complaining all the time instead of starting to work.’
At this stage, the posture-verb structure occurs easily and freely with
animate nonhuman subjects as well:
210
T. A. Kuteva
(59)
Bulgarian
Vrabčetata
stojat
i
čurulikat
sparrows PL DEF stand 3PL PRES and chirrup 3PL PRES
văn
na ogradata.
outside on fence DEF
‘The sparrows are chirping on the fence outside.’
Finally, the ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ auxiliary structure occasionally appears with
a habitual meaning:
(60)
Bulgarian
Stoi
i
gotvi
po
cjal den v kăšti.
stand 3SG PRES and cook 3SG PRES along whole day in home
‘S/he cooks all day long at home.’
Since a development of a continuative/durative/progressive marker into a
habitual marker is one of the most frequently observed and described
grammaticalization developments in the literature on grammaticalization,
we need not go into the details of this development here.
Table 1 summarizes the focal stages of the semantic transition of ‘sit’/
‘stand’/‘lie’ from bodily posture verbs into auxiliaries.
Table 1. Development of ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ auxiliation
Stage
Characteristics
I.
i.
ii.
II.
i.
ii.
Bodily
[anim.
Bodily
[anim.
posture (monoclausal )
subj.+V (sit/stand/lie)+adv.]
posture  simultaneous verb situation (biclausal )
subj.+V1 (sit/stand/lie)+adv.]+and+[implic. co-ref. subj.+V2]
Spatial position of objects (monoclausal )
[inanim. subj.+V (sit/stand/lie)+adv.]
Ambiguity between:
–spatial position of objects  simultaneous verb situation (biclausal )
[inanim. subj.+V1 (sit/stand/lie)+adv.]+and+[implic. co-ref. subj.+V2]
and
–Continuative/durative/progressive (monoclausal )
[inanim. subj.+AUX (sit/stand/lie)+adv.+and+V]
III.
i.
Continuative/durative/progressive (monoclausal )
[inanim. subj.+AUX (sit/stand/lie)+and+V+(adv.)]
IV.
i.
Continuative/durative/progressive (monoclausal )
[anim. subj./inanim. subj.+AUX (sit/stand/lie)+and+V+(adv.)]
On ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ auxiliation 211
6.
Conclusion
In this paper I have proposed to treat ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ auxiliation as the
natural ‘‘sedimentation’’ (i.e. grammaticalization) of all-too-common language use (cf. also Haiman [1995] on the notion of validating repetition).
A challenge that one may wish to pose to the present account is that
there are a number of languages where ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ are canonical
encodings of the spatial position of objects; however, it is only in some
of these that ‘sit’/‘stand’/‘lie’ develop into aspectual markers. Why? A
reasonable answer to this question would be that a good theory of
grammar illuminates the nature of historical change but one must be
careful not to demand too much. It is true that languages do not change
in arbitrary ways and that a lot of changes and the manner in which
they arise can be explained; however, it is an explanation made a posteriori
rather than a priori. On the basis of the huge quantity of knowledge of
changes that have already taken place in natural languages, linguists can
predict which changes are highly plausible across languages; however,
they cannot guarantee whether, and when, these changes will ‘‘happen.’’
In this sense, the job of a linguist is much harder than doing the weather
forecast.
Received 5 August 1998
Revised version received
17 February 1999
University of Cologne
Notes
1.
2.
I am deeply indebted to Bernd Heine, whose work on the conceptualization of space
and environment in Kxoe gave me the initial inspiration for this paper.
I am also very grateful to Henning Andersen, Knut Brynhildsvoll, Hubert Cuyckens,
Lena Ekberg, Hanna Lehti-Eklund, Jan Terje Faarlund, Orin Gensler, Ulrich Groenke,
John Haiman, Hartmut Krug, Line Olsen-Ring, and Kamal Naı̈t-Zerrad for all the
valuable comments on and contributions to various analyses and examples in this paper.
Finally, I wish to thank the German Research Foundation for the generous financial
support that I have received for this investigation.
Correspondence address: University of Cologne, Institute of Africanistics, Meister
Ekkehart Str. 7, 50923 Cologne, Germany. E-mail: [email protected].
Abbreviations used in this article:
ATT
AUX
CLASS
CONJ PTCL
COLL
attitudinal
auxiliary
classifier
conjunctive particle
collective
212
T. A. Kuteva
DEF
DEM
DS
DSJ
DUR
F
IMPFV
INDF
INDma
INTS
IPm
LOC
LNK
M
NAR
NOMIN
OBJ
PL
POSS
PRES
PRET
PST
PV
PX
Q
REFL
SG
SIM
SS
TOP
UNSP
I
2A
3.
definite
demonstrative
different subject
disjunctive
durative
feminine
imperfective
indefinite
indicative, male addressee
intensive
instrumental, ‘‘by mouth’’
locative
linking vowel
masculine
narrative past
nominalizer
object
plural
possessive
present
preterite
past tense
preverb
proximity marker
question particle
reflexive
singular
simultaneous aspect
same subject
topic
unspecified argument
linking vowel I
second person active (subject agreement)
Cf. also Devitt (1990: 113), who notes that postural verbs often develop into locative
verbs.
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