Lecture | Descriptive Linguistics Seminars
Iamitives in the Caucasus: The grammaticalisation of ‘already’
- Date
- Friday 11 April 2025
- Time
- Series
- Descriptive Linguistics Seminars
- Location
-
Lipsius
Cleveringaplaats 1
2311 BD Leiden - Room
- 1.21
Abstract
Recent years have seen a renewed research interest in expressions from the domain of “phasal polarity” (van Baar 1997), which includes items for the notion of ‘already’; see, for instance, the contributions in Kramer (2021). The term “iamitive”, in particular has sparked discussion: Olsson (2013) argues that iamitive is a good fit for markers denote events that share characteristics of ‘already’ and of perfects. The coinage of the term has been criticised, however, on the grounds of it being superfluous (Krajinović et al. 2023). Discussions on the degree of morphologisation of markers denoting ‘already’ are rare. Most described items in European languages are analysed as independent words, but several languages show clitics (i.e. in Yurakaré (van Gijn 2006: 258)), or affixes (i.e. Luganda, (Comrie 1985:54)).
In the Caucasus, most languages express the notion ‘already’ either through an independent adverb as in English, or through a contextual usage of a TAM form usually labelled Perfect. Three Caucasian languages, however, show a degree of morphologisation of ‘already’: Tsova-Tush (East Caucasian), and the West Caucasian languages Abkhaz and Kabardian. Using data from these languages, this talk aims to give a typology of iamitives, i.e. morphologised forms of ‘already’ in languages of the Caucasus and beyond, focussing mainly on two parameters (Kramer 2017):
- Morphologisation/Wordhood: Its place on the clitic-affix scale. In all three languages, the suffix ‘already’ is a fully morphologised affix, but in Tsova-Tush, this seems to have developed only recently.
- Paradigmaticity: It’s participation in the TAM system of a given language. It seems that, depending on the researcher, the West-Caucasian morpheme -x̂a- can be analysed as an incorporated adverb, an extended use of the perfect, or a morpheme signaling a dedicated TAM form called ‘iamitive’. Tsova-Tush -ge on the other hand, can be added to virtually any TAM form (Wichers Schreur, in press).
In this talk, I propose a relatedness between the above parameters, at least for the Caucasian data: The more morphologised the iamitive marker is, the more likely it is to be in opposition with other TAM values.
References
Comrie, B. (1985) Tense. Cambridge University Press.
Krajinović, A.; Vander Klok, J.; von Prince, K. (2023) When (not) to establish a new category: The case of perfect, 'already', and iamitives. Unpublished manuscript.
Kramer, R. 2017. Position paper on Phasal Polarity expressions. Hamburg: University of Hamburg. https://www.aai.uni-hamburg.de/afrika/php2018/medien/position-paper-on-php.pdf
Kramer, R. (ed). (2021) The expression of phasal polarity in African languages. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Olson, B. (2013) Iamitives. Perfects in Southeast Asia and Beyond. MA thesis, Stockholm university.
van Baar, T. M. (1997). Phasal polarity. Dordrecht: Foris Publications.
van Gijn, E. (2006) A grammar of Yurakaré. PhD thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen.
Wichers Schreur, J. (in press) Intensive language contact in the Caucasus: The case of Tsova-Tush. Berlin: Language Science Press.