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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 verbcontinuative/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’copulaauxiliary 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. 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