Bivalent Verb Classes in the Languages of Europe
A Quantitative Typological Study
In: Language Dynamics and ChangeSearch for other papers by Sergey Say in
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The aims of this study are twofold: to propose methods for measuring (dis)similarities in the organization of valency class systems across languages, and to test them on a sample of European languages in order to reveal areal and genetic patterns. The data were gathered for 29 languages using a questionnaire containing 130 contextualized uses of bivalent predicates. The properties under study include (i) lexical range of transitives, (ii) lexical range of valency frames defined in terms of the “locus” of non-transitivity (whether A or P arguments are encoded by oblique devices), (iii) overall complexity of valency class systems, and (iv) lexical distribution of verbs among valency classes. In case of the simpler properties (i)–(iii), maps with quantified isoglosses and pairwise comparison of languages based on Hamming distance are used. For (iv) these methods are inapplicable (valency classes cannot be equated across languages), and I propose a distance metric based on entropy and pairwise mutual information between distributions. The distance matrices are analyzed using the NeighborNet algorithm as implemented in SplitsTree. I argue that more holistic properties of valency class systems are indicative of large areal effects: e.g., many western European languages (Germanic, Romance, Basque and some Balkan languages) are lexically “most transitive” in Europe. Low-level areal signal is clearly discernible in the data on more subtle aspects of the organization of valency classes. The findings imply that distributions of verbs into valency classes can develop quickly and are transferable in contact situations, despite drastic dissimilarities in argument-coding devices.
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For example, in Dowty’s (1991) seminal study on proto-roles and argument selection, it is noticed in passing that “the selection principles apparently only govern argument selection for two-place predicates having a subject and a true direct object” (ibid.: 576), whereas principles that are operational when assigning arguments to other positions remain uncommented upon. Another example is Tsunoda’s (1981) idea that the occurrence of the transitive valency frame is related to what he calls “the effectiveness condition.” One of Tsunoda’s conclusions is that, when this condition is not met, the transitive valency frame may fail to occur and “we will have some other case frames” (ibid.: 393). Whether semantic conditions for these “other case frames” can be described positively is not discussed. See Malchukov (2005: 77) on problems triggered by non-differentiation of various non-transitive patterns in the literature.
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Tsunoda (1981) puts forward the “Unmarked case constraint” that captures the dispreference against patterns with A&P locus, almost to the point of ruling them out altogether.
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Bivalent Verb Classes in the Languages of Europe
A Quantitative Typological Study
In: Language Dynamics and ChangeSearch for other papers by Sergey Say in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
The aims of this study are twofold: to propose methods for measuring (dis)similarities in the organization of valency class systems across languages, and to test them on a sample of European languages in order to reveal areal and genetic patterns. The data were gathered for 29 languages using a questionnaire containing 130 contextualized uses of bivalent predicates. The properties under study include (i) lexical range of transitives, (ii) lexical range of valency frames defined in terms of the “locus” of non-transitivity (whether A or P arguments are encoded by oblique devices), (iii) overall complexity of valency class systems, and (iv) lexical distribution of verbs among valency classes. In case of the simpler properties (i)–(iii), maps with quantified isoglosses and pairwise comparison of languages based on Hamming distance are used. For (iv) these methods are inapplicable (valency classes cannot be equated across languages), and I propose a distance metric based on entropy and pairwise mutual information between distributions. The distance matrices are analyzed using the NeighborNet algorithm as implemented in SplitsTree. I argue that more holistic properties of valency class systems are indicative of large areal effects: e.g., many western European languages (Germanic, Romance, Basque and some Balkan languages) are lexically “most transitive” in Europe. Low-level areal signal is clearly discernible in the data on more subtle aspects of the organization of valency classes. The findings imply that distributions of verbs into valency classes can develop quickly and are transferable in contact situations, despite drastic dissimilarities in argument-coding devices.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 836 | 116 | 12 |
| Full Text Views | 235 | 2 | 1 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 73 | 7 | 0 |
