The Gothic Resultative

Non-Agentive Verbs and Perfect Expression in Early Germanic
Erscheinungsjahr 2021
ISBN: 978-90-04-44812-4
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 22, 386 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 791 g

Reihe: Brill's Studies in Indo-European Languages & Linguistics

Gothic is unique among Germanic languages in regards to the ways it expresses non-agentive actions. It both retains a formal passive and has two periphrastic passives. In addition it presents an intransitive verb class with generally inchoative meaning. R. Moses Katz examines the semantics of these categories and shows how they provide a robust non-agentive paradigm in Gothic, including a functional, result-state perfect in the passive. In two parts, he examines first the inchoative verb and then the periphrastic passive. He proposes that the development of both types is underpinned by a single argument structure based on the resultative, a coordinated event type that links a transition with a resulting state.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Katz, R Moses

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Historische & Vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft, Sprachtypologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Tables

Notations

Part 1 Preliminaries

1 Introduction

1.1 Objective and Scope

1.2 Overview of the Gothic Corpus

1.3 The Gothic Translation Process

1.4 Translation and the Gothic Vorlage

2 Grammatical Theories and Constructs

2.1 Voice

2.2 Unaccusativity

2.3 Tense, Mood and Aspect

2.4 Telicity

2.5 Event-Boundedness

2.6 The Vendler Taxonomy of Verbal Types

2.7 The Copula and the Auxiliary

2.8 Resultativity and Its Types

2.9 Resultativity in Distributed Morphology

3 The Perfect

3.1 Characteristics of the Perfect

3.2 Construction and Readings of the Perfect

3.3 The Indefinite Past Theory of the Perfect

3.4 Semantics of the Perfect via the Indefinite Past Theory

4 Language-Specific Verbal Systems

4.1 The TMA System of Koine Greek

4.2 The TMA System of Gothic

Part 2 The -nan Verb in Gothic

5 Historical Development of Nasal Verb Classes

6 Descriptive Approaches to the -nan Verb

6.1 The Passive Approach

6.2 The Intransitive-Inchoative Approach

6.3 Non-inchoative Approaches

7 Positioning -nan Verbs in Developmental Systems

7.1 System of Valence: -nan as Detransitivized Predicates

7.2 System of Diathesis: -nan as Middle Voice

7.3 System of Causation: -nan as Anticausative

7.4 System of Argument Structure: -nan as Resultative

8 Toward a Semantic Description of -nan Verbs

8.1 -nan Verbs and Adjectives

8.2 -nan verbs and Passive Participles

8.3 Section Summary: Destatal and Deadjectival

8.4 Statal Semantics: The aukan System

8.5 End-Point Semantics

8.6 Examples of Seemingly Non-fientive Semantics in -nan Verbs

8.7 Summary

9 Toward a Syntactic Description of -nan Verbs

9.1 Structural Model of Resultative Constructions

9.2 A Semantic Characterization of Deadjectival Fientives and -nan Verbs

9.3 Implications

9.4 Summary: Perfectivization as a Constraint on Aspect

Part 3 The Periphrastic Passive in Gothic

10 Views of the Periphrastic Passive

10.1 Periphrasis as “False” Passive

10.2 Periphrasis as Passive and Resultative

10.3 Lexical Aspect as an Interpretive Means of Choosing a Periphrasis

10.4 Lexical Aspect as a Systematic Means of Choosing a Periphrastic

10.5 Consensus Concerning Lexical Aspect in Gothic

11 Periphrasis as a Method for Translation

11.1 Proposal

11.2 Previous Analyses

11.3 Methodology

11.4 The wisan Periphrasis: Overview

11.5 The wairþan Periphrasis: Overview

12 Past-Time Periphrases and Greek Predicates

12.1 Past-Time Periphrases and the Greek Aorist

12.2 Past-Time Periphrases and the Greek Perfect

12.3 Past-Time Periphrases and the Greek Supplementary Perfect Participle

12.4 Past-Time Periphrases and the Greek Imperfect

12.5 Comparison of the Gothic Periphrases in the Past Tense

13 Present-Time Periphrases and Greek Predicates

13.1 Present-Time Periphrases and the Greek Perfect

13.2 Present-Time Periphrases and the Greek Supplementary Perfect Participle

13.3 Present-Time Periphrases and the Greek Present

13.4 Present-Time Periphrases and the Greek Aorist

14 Statistical Analysis of Periphrastic Passives

14.1 Distribution of Features: Greek Aorist to Gothic Past and Non-past

14.2 Distribution of Features: Greek Aorist to Gothic was + PP vs. warþ + PP

15 Comparison of Periphrastic Passives

16 Resultativity as a Means to a Full Passive Paradigm

17 Proposing a Perfect Passive Semantics

18 Toward a Syntactic Description of Gothic Periphrases

19 Diachronic Implications

19.1 The State of the ‘Be’ Passive in Gothic

19.2 The State of the ‘Become’ Passive in Gothic

Appendix 1: Gothic Periphrases

Appendix 2: Clausal Features of Gothic Periphrases

References

Index

Über Autor(innen)

R. Moses Katz, Ph.D. (2016), University of Georgia, is Instructor of English at Yeshiva Ohr Yisrael, Atlanta. He has presented at the Universities of Georgia and North Carolina and was invited to speak on the Germanic perfect at Kentucky University.