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Mirative Meanings of Predicative Constructions in Latvian

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Mirative Meanings of Predicative Constructions in Latvian MIRATIVE MEANINGS OF PREDICATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS IN LATVIAN Andra Kalnača, Ilze Lokmane Department of Latvian and Baltic Studies University of Latvia, Riga 53rd Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea 26 August – 1 September 2020 The structure of presentation: 1) Introduction 2) Evidential constructions 3) Modal infinitive constructions 4) To sum up Language material The examples used in this study come from a variety of sources – the Balanced Corpus of Modern Latvian (LVK2018) (available at: http://www.korpuss.lv/id/LVK2018), the parliamentary session transcript corpus (Saeima)(available at: http://www.korpuss.lv/id/Saeima), fiction, and the media. 1. Introduction Mirativity is a semantic category employed to mark the fact that some information is new and surprising for the speaker. As Aikhenvald (2004, 2012) states, mirativity subsumes sudden discovery, surprise, and unpreparedness of the mind of the speaker (or the addressee), or, to put it in other words, a sudden transition of one information stage to another (Lau, Rooryck 2017). Thus, mirativity as a semantic category expresses the speaker’s attitude toward the proposition, not some objectively perceivable aspect of it (DeLancey 2001, 2012). Languages employ various grammatical and lexical means for expression of mirative meanings. While in speech mirativity is expressed mainly through a specific intonation contour with the rising tone of the voice, in writing there are a number of ways for expressing the construal of surprise (Mocini 2014, 136–137). Among them are: • Explicit mirative lexemes – surprise, amazing, stunning, unexpected etc. (Mocini 2014) • Lexical expressions – I can’t believe …! (Simeonova 2015) • Complex predicates (Aikhenvald 2012) • Interjections • Pronouns (Aikhenvald 2012) • Dedicated and non-dedicated particles, e.g., sentence-final evaluative particles (DeLancey 2012, Simeonova 2015) • Exclamatory sentences • Conventionalized grammatical constructions – (It) turns out (that) S (DeLancey 2012) • Numerous verbal categories can acquire overtones of surprise and unexpectedness (tense, aspect, manner, mood, person) (Aikhenvald 2012) Thus, besides explicit lexicalization, mirativity can also be parasitic of other linguistic resources (Mocini 2014, 147). It has been argued that mirativity has close links with other semantic categories, namely, modality and evidentiality (on mirativity and its interaction with evidential and modal meanings see, mentioning just a few, Lazard 1999; DeLancey 2001; Aikhenvald 2012; Rett, Murray 2013; Simeonova 2015). Unexpectedness characteristic to mirativity may be associated with both positive and negative evaluation as well. While Latvian does not mark mirativity morphologically, there are several syntactic constructions where mirative meanings are present as either primary or secondary meanings and where the link between mirativity and modality becomes apparent. As DeLancey (2012) states, we also see it [mirativity] manifested in certain uses of other grammatical constructions. The question for typologists is, to what extent do we find this semantic category expressed in languages by dedicated grammatical constructions? (DeLancey 2012, 534) In this presentation we will consider two types of predicative syntactic constructions which express mirativity in Latvian (in this study, a predicative construction means a clause expressing primary predicativity): 1) evidential constructions, example (1), 2) modal infinitive constructions, example (2). (1) Un tās esot draudzenes… and that.NOM.PL be.COP.OBL.PRS friend.NOM.PL [Kuras izsaka dažādas aizskarošas piezīmes.] Pati brīnos, kā tik garus gadus esmu spējusi viņas izturēt. ‘Are those friends? [Who make various insulting remarks.] I myself wonder how I could stand them for so many years.’ (M. Zīle) (2) Viss ir normāli, tā bija [vīriešu mode 20. gs. 70. gados]!! Un kas tur ko smieties? and what.NOM there what.ACC laugh.INF ‘It’s alright, that how it was [men’s fashion in the 1970ies!! No laughing matter!’ (www.nra.lv) These constructions are partly lexicalized in that they involve specific grammatical forms of the verb and specific lexemes, mostly, pronouns and adverbs: 1) demonstrative pronouns tas ‘this/that’, tāds ‘such’, 2) indefinite / interrogative pronoun kas ‘who/what’, 3) deictic adverbs tur ‘there’, kur ‘where’ (etymologically related to pronouns tas ‘this/that’, kas ‘who/what’). While these constructions have been discussed in Latvian grammars before (e.g., Nītiņa, Grigorjevs 2013) they have never been analyzed as a complex of mirative meanings with its own place in the universal typological system of mirativity. 2. Evidential constructions Aikhenvald (2012, 436): “In many languages, expressions of mirativity have no grammatical connection to evidential systems. Markers with “mirative” meanings co-occur with evidentials, they occupy different positions in verb structure, and differ in their interrelations with other categories (such as negation, or counterexpectation). In other languages, evidentials may acquire mirative meanings in some contexts, and thus can be considered “mirative strategies ”. This is also the case in Latvian. Latvian has a special reportive evidential marker – the oblique form of the verb (e.g., Nītiņa, Grigorjevs 2013). In Latvian, oblique forms are marked by means of the suffix -ot (non- reflexive verbs), or -oties (reflexive verbs), expressing either present or future tense meanings depending on the kind of verbal stem (present or future) they are added to (e.g., Nītiņa, Grigorjevs 2013, 483–484; Kalnača 2013, 84; 2014, 123–124). They can be synthetic or analytical (periphrastic). The compound oblique forms are formed by combing auxiliary es-ot ‘reportedly am/is/are’ vai būš-ot ‘reportedly will be’ with the past active participle (op. cit.). Since the oblique mood lacks person forms, person meanings are derived from clause subjects. Tense Synthetic form Analytical (periphrastic) form PRS las-ot es-ot lasījis,-usi, -uši, -ušas ‘I, you, he/she, etc. ‘I, you, he, she etc. reportedly read’ reportedly had read’ FUT lasīš-ot būš-ot lasījis,-usi, -uši, -ušas ‘I, you, he/she, etc. ‘I, you, he, she, etc. reportedly will read’ reportedly will have read’ Table 1. The paradigm of oblique forms (adapted from Kalnača 2013, 84) Oblique forms are used to indicate that the author of a text is not the source of the information contained in that text (e.g., Endzelīns 1951, 902; Holvoet 2007, 81–82; Nītiņa, Grigorjevs 2013, 495; Kalnača 2014, 122). Oblique is used whenever the speaker wants to refer to an utterance of another person, i.e., to express reportive evidentiality. (3) Viens no kandidātiem premjera one.NOM.SG of candidate.DAT.PL prime_minister.GEN.SG biroja vadītāja postenim office.GEN.SGhead.GEN.SG position.DAT.SG esot bijušais veselības ministrs. be.OBL.PRS fomer.PTCP.NOM.SG health.GEN.SG minister.NOM.SG ‘Reportedly, one of the candidates for the position of the head of the prime minister’s office is the ex-minister for health.’ (LVK2018) Example (3) states that the speaker has obtained information from someone else, although no specific source has been identified. Thus the oblique form is undoubtedly an evidential, as it can be the only marker of the source of information, and evidentials have the indication of evidence as their core meaning rather than pragmatic inference. Evidential markers can develop epistemic overtones. As Holvoet (2018) states, “[i]t is well known that the use of an evidential marker may be a device allowing the speaker to distance her/himself from a claim and thus indirectly to express an epistemic stance”. Epistemic overtones occur mainly when the content of the reported utterance is likely to be questionable. Thus, a speaker can use the oblique mood to express doubts about the truthfulness of the narrated content, to voice his or her disbelief in it, and also to distance him-/ herself from any credibility assessment. The choice of the oblique form in indirect speech may be a signal of certain doubt about the veracity of the utterance, often combined with critical examination and irony. This mainly depends on discourse factors – shared knowledge, type of discourse, the topic discussed etc. For instance, weather forecasts are often not taken at their face value, especially if the weather forecast refers to a more remote future, because such forecasts often fail to be true (example (4)). (4) Šogad būšot ļoti silta vasara, this_year be.OBL.FUT very warm.NOM.SG summer.NOM.SG prognozē sinoptiķi. say.PRS.3 meteorologist.NOM.PL ‘This year a very warm summer is to be expected, the meteorologists say.’ (Kas Jauns) Evidential markers may develop an epistemic overtone ‘contrary to what somebody has said’ (see Holvoet 2018 about Lithuanian hearsay marker esą ‘as if’). In this case, a negative opinion of another person or their utterance is expressed, namely, the content of the reported information is clearly not to be believed. The negation of the content is usually due to pragmatic factors – to the context or to general knowledge, such as the fact that the much predicted end of the world does not come, see example (5). (5) Pareģo kārtējo pasaules galu – prophesy.PRS.3 another.ACC.SG world.GEN.SG end.ACC.SG tas būšot klāt jau rīt. it.NOM.SG be.OBL.FUT present already tomorrow ‘Yet another end of the world is being foretold, it would, they say, arrive tomorrow.’ (www.tvnet.lv) With regard to Latvian, the view that evidentiality and epistemic modality are distinct but overlapping categories (cf. among others van der Auwera,
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