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UC Berkeley Dissertations, Department of Linguistics Title Affectedness Constructions: How Languages Indicate Positive and Negative Events Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9fx1c060 Author Smith, Tomoko Publication Date 2005 eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Affectedness Constructions: How languages indicate positive and negative events by Tomoko Yamashita Smith B.S. (Doshisha Women’s College) 1987 M.A. (San Jose State University) 1995 M.A. (University of California, Berkeley) 1997 A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics in the GRADUATE DIVISION of the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY Committee in charge: Professor Eve E. Sweetser Professor Soteria Svorou Professor Charles J. Fillmore Professor Yoko Hasegawa Fall 2005 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Affectedness Constructions: How languages indicate positive and negative events Copyright 2005 by Tomoko Yamashita Smith Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Abstract Affectedness constructions: How languages indicate positive and negative events by Tomoko Yamashita Smith Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics University of California, Berkeley Professor Eve E. Sweetser, Chair This dissertation is a cross-linguistic study of what I call “affectedness constructions” (ACs) that express the notions of benefit and adversity. Since there is little research dealing with both benefactives and adversatives at the same time, the main goal of this dissertation is to establish AC as a grammatical category. First, many instances of ACs in the world are provided to show both the diversity of ACs and the consistent patterns among them. In some languages, a single construction indicates either benefit or adversity, depending on the context, while in others there is one or more individual benefactive and/or adversative construction(s). Since the event types that ACs indicate appear limited, I categorize the constructions by event type and discuss Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the semantics and pragmatics of each type. Moreover, I compare and contrast the semantics and pragmatics of benefactive and adversative constructions in general. In addition to ACs, “secondary affectedness constructions” (SACs) are identified. SACs’ primary functions are not to indicate the notions of affectedness, but they can and do also function to indicate or imply them. I have found that cross-linguistically common SACs are the passive, causative, and middle/reflexive constructions, and I discuss their semantics and pragmatics. Furthermore, some ACs and SACs imply the speaker’s attitude toward the event and/or affectee, and I propose that this is one of their important characteristics. I then hypothesize semantic relations between ACs and SACs in the form of networks. As a detailed case study, I also discuss the semantics and pragmatics of ACs and SACs in Japanese and posit a semantic network to describe their relations. In conclusion, I summarize the findings and make predictions about additional ACs and SACs that might eventually be found in the world’s languages. 2 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. To my late grandparents i Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Table of Contents Chapter 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Main issues 1 1.2 Data 5 1.3 Organization of the dissertation 7 1.4 List of abbreviations 8 Chapter 2 General discussion of affectedness constructions 10 2.1 Introduction 10 2.2 Wierzbicka 1988 10 2.3 Definition of affectedness constructions 15 2.4 Speaker’s attitude 17 2.5 The basic event schema for ACs 20 2.6 Affectedness constructions and secondary affectedness constructions 23 2.7 Dative constructions as ACs 25 2.7.1 Free dative 25 2.7.2 Ethical dative 30 2.7.3 Event schema for free datives 34 Chapter 3 Benefactive constructions 41 3.1 Introduction 41 3.2 Agentive benefactive constructions 42 3.2.1 Unrestricted agentive benefactives: ‘X does something for someone’ 45 3.2.2 Allocentric benefaction: ‘X does something for the benefit of Y’ 47 3.2.3 Egocentric benefaction 51 3.2.4 Shared-benefit construction: -tse?m in Lai 54 3.2.5 Discussion of agentive benefactive constructions 56 3.3 Event benefactive construction 59 3.3.1 Lai piak construction 5 9 3.3.2 Japanese kureru construction 60 3.3.3 Vietnamese and Thai benefactive passives 63 3.3.4 English get to construction 66 3.4 Discussion of benefactive constructions 68 ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3.5 Benefactive constructions extended to ACs 75 3.5.1 Data 75 3.5.2 Discussion of the extensions 81 3.6 Lexical sources of benefactive markers 85 Chapter 4 Adversative constructions 90 4.1 Introduction 90 4.2 Event adversative constructions 90 4.2.1 English orc-affectee construction 91 4.2.2 Adversative constructions in Even 95 4.2.3 Vietnamese and Thai adversative passives 101 4.3 Malefactive construction: Lai -hno?construction 103 4.4 Additional semantics 108 4.4.1 Lahuse construction 108 4.4.2 Burmese hya construction 109 4.4.3 Lai sual construction 110 4.4.4 Mandarin -rang and jiao passives 113 4.4.5 The -bila construction in the Dyirbal language 116 4.5 Event schemas for adversatives 117 4.6 Further remarks 121 4.7 Semantic network of ACs 125 Chapter 5 Secondary affectedness constructions: Passives 127 5.1 Introduction 127 5.2 English passives 128 5.2.1 The get passive 128 5.2.1.1 The get passive as SAC 128 5.2.1.2 Responsibility of the subject referent 134 5.2.1.3 Neutral uses of the get passive 138 5.2.1.4 Speaker’s attitude 142 5.2.2 The be passive as SAC 147 5.3 The Indonesian ke-an passives 150 5.4 Korean irregular passives 154 5.5 Passives and adversity 157 5.5 Diachronic development of the Mandarin passives 161 5.7 Event schemas for passives as SACs 163 iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chapter 6 Causatives and Middle/Reflexives as SACs 169 6.1 Introduction 169 6.2 Causatives as SACs 169 6.2.1 Benefactive causatives 170 6.2.1.1 Causer as the beneficiary 170 6.2.1.2 Causee as the beneficiary 175 6.2.2 Adversative causatives 181 6.2.3 Causative as a passive 185 6.2.4 Event schemas for causatives as SACs 189 6.3 Middle as SAC 192 6.3.1 Benefactive middle 193 6.3.2 Adversative middle 196 6.3.3 Speaker’s disapproval 198 6.3.4 Emotion middle 200 6.4.5 Event schemas for the middle as SAC 201 6.4 The subject referent’s control of the event 204 6.5 Semantic relations between ACs and SACs 208 Chapter 7 Japanese ACs and SACs 210 7.1 Introduction 210 7.2 Benefactive constructions in Japanese 212 7.2.1 Summary of the previous discussions of Japanese 212 7.2.2 Morau as a benefactive causative 214 7.2.2.1 Previous studies 214 122.2 Corpus study of the morau benefactive construction 219 7.3 Secondary adversative constructions in Japanese 223 7.3.1 Passive as adversative 223 7.3.1.1 The notion of involvement 223 7.3.1.2 Adversity and affectivity 229 7.3.1.3 Lack of control of the subject referent 235 7.3.1.4 Adversity vs. benefit 239 7.3.2 The te simau construction as adversative 243 7.3.2.1 Previous studies 243 7.3.2.2 Corpus study of the te simau construction 246 1.323 Cross-linguistic analysis 250 7.4 The te kuru construction as adversative 255 iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7.5 Semantic network of ACs and SACs in Japanese 258 Chapter 8 Conclusion 263 8.1 Summary 263 8.2 Further study 266 V Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. List of Figures Figure 1 The basic event schema for AC 20 Figure 2 AC subtype that always includes the agent 21 Figure 3 Ethical dative 38 Figure 4 Empathic AC 39 Figure 5 Types of benefactives 69 Figure 6 Allocentric benefactive 70 Figure 7 Egocentric benefactive 70 Figure 8 Shared-benefit construction 71 Figure 9 Thekureru benefactive construction 73 Figure 10 Malefactive construction 119 Figure 11 Adversative construction including the speaker’s attitude 120 Figure 12 Semantic network of ACs 126 Figure 13 Passive as an SAC 164 Figure 14 Adversative passive with the speaker’s attitude 165 Figure 15 Inanimate subject passive as SAC 166 Figure 16 Empathetic passive 168 Figure 17 Causer as the beneficiary 190 vi Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 18 Causee as affectee 191 Figure 19 Causative as adversative 192 Figure 20 Tamil reflexive indicating the speaker’s disapproval 204 Figure 21 The semantic space of change of event constructions with prototypes for each construction in place 206 Figure 22 The correlation of the affectedness and subject’s control 207 Figure 23 Passive type 208 Figure 24 Causative type 209 Figure 25 Middle/Reflexive type 210 Figure 26 Semantic network of ACs and SACs in Japanese vii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. List of Tables Table 1 Restrictions on the agent and affectee in benefactives 69 Table 2 Corpus types 130 Table 3 Distribution of get passive uses 130 Table 4 Possible attitudes of speaker in get passives 145 Table 5 The uses of the morau benefactive and their distributions 220 Table 6 The uses of the te simau construction and their distributions 246 viii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.
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