Origins of the Verbalizer Affixes in the Japonic Languages
ORIGINS OF THE VERBALIZER AFFIXES IN THE JAPONIC LANGUAGES Tyler Lau Advisors: Claire Bowern and Stephen R. Anderson May 1st, 2012 ABSTRACT The affix that verbalizes adjectives in the Japonic languages is traditionally viewed as deriving from one of two constructions: *ku a(r)-, an adverbializer + existential verb, or *-sa a(r)-, a nominalizer + existential verb (Martin 1987, Bentley 2001, Chamberlain 1895, etc.). However, Izuyama (1997) argues that this view is taken at face value and ignores phonological correspondences with the southern Japonic languages, notably Yaeyama and Yonaguni. She argues instead that the form originates in the completive forms of three or four reconstructed verbs *s(u), *k(u), *i(r ∼s), all meaning ‘to do’. In my work, I gathered comparative morphological and phonological evidence from wordlists, grammars and my own fieldwork with a speaker of Okinawan, to test these hypotheses. However, my findings also lead me to reject Izuyamas reconstruction of *i(r~s) as a valid reconstruction of ‘to do’ or as relevant to the verbalizer affix. Rather, I establish its origins in a Proto-Ryukyuan verb *er- ‘to get,’ descending from Proto-Japanese *e- that grammaticalized to attach to consonant-stem verbs, to create an inchoative or valency-changed class of vowel-stem verbs. I also tentatively reconstruct the verb ‘to do’ as *as-, a transitive form of the verb *ar- ‘to exist.’ In agreement with Izuyama, however, I found that there is ample evidence supporting the hypothesis that the verbalizer affix originates in the completive and/or past form of verbs meaning ‘to do’ and provide both comparative and theoretical evidence for this claim.
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