JSALL 2016; 3(1): 43–83

Krishna Boro* The Za constructions: Middle-like constructions in Boro

DOI 10.1515/jsall-2016-0002

Abstract: This paper investigates a set of five related constructions in Boro, called middle-like constructions, following Kemmer’s (1993) semantic analytical frame- work of the middle voice. The paper presents a detailed analysis of these con- structions, which include Spontaneous event constructions, Reciprocal and Collective constructions, Facilitative constructions, Reflexive-causative construc- tions, and Adversative constructions. These constructions share striking structural and functional features, including a morpheme za ‘become, happen, take place’, which is a verb in origin. The morpheme za ‘become, happen, take place’ can be characterized as a ‘middle marker’, which is used as a simple predicator in Spontaneous event constructions and as a serial verb in the other constructions. Functionally, these constructions express events in which there are either no construed agents or the agents are non-topical. Following Kemmer’s semantic map approach, the event types are mapped onto the semantic transitivity con- tinuum. What is notable in the semantic map of the Za constructions is that the area covered by Za constructions is not contiguous, which we would expect following principles like the Semantic Map Connectivity Hypothesis (Croft 2001: 96) and Semantic Map Continuity (Boye 2010).

Keywords: middle voice, spontaneous event construction, reciprocal and collec- tive construction, facilitative construction, adversative construction, semantic map, semantic map connectivity hypothesis

1 Introduction

Very often there exist constructions within a language that share striking structural resemblances. Structural resemblances among constructions within a single lan- guage may not be of great interest, but when we find structural resemblances among functionally equivalent constructions across languages, they become very interesting (Haiman 1974). The topic of this paper is a set of clausal constructions in the Boro language of the Brahmaputra valley, Assam, India. These constructions

*Corresponding author: Krishna Boro, PhD student, Department of Linguistics, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403-1290, USA; Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics, Gauhati University, Guwahati-14, Assam, India, E-mail: [email protected] 44 Krishna Boro share systematic structural resemblances, including the morpheme za ‘to become, happen, take place’. These clausal constructions involve the semantic domains of spontaneous events, reciprocal events, and various passive-like events, among others. Cross-linguistically, constructions that code these semantic events, includ- ing reflexive events, are known to share structural resemblances; this is the case, for example, in Greek (Tsimpli 1989; Manney 2000), the Romance languages (Stefanini 1982), Quechua (Molina-Vital 2012), Icelandic (Svenonius 2006), Hungarian (Hartenstein 2012), and elsewhere. We will call these structurally similar constructions coding spontaneous, reciprocal, passive-like, and other similar event types as middle-like constructions, since they are semantically closely related to the middle voice as described in Kemmer (1993). What is interesting about the middle-like constructions is that they can be unique in languages in various ways, such as (i) the source(s) of the construc- tions, (ii) the range of the event types encoded by the constructions, and (iii) the paths of development. Kemmer (1993: 222) makes some valuable predictions in this regard. According to Kemmer (1993: 151), the most common source for what I am calling middle-like constructions is a reflexive construction. However, the source may also be a non-reflexive construction. The source of the middle-like constructions in Boro is a non-reflexive verbal clause consisting of a nominal participant and a verb za ‘become, happen, take place’, which expresses a change of state. The verb za is a common denominator in all of the middle- like constructions in Boro. Over time this verb seems to have grammaticalized into a marker of facilitative, reciprocal, causative-reflexive and adversative events, and thus synchronically covers all of these event types. The range of event types coded by the middle-like constructions in particular languages is known to be affected by the specific source. One interesting tendency noted by Kemmer (1993: 229) in this regard is that middle-like constructions with a non- reflexive source may tend to not extend to include encoding of reflexive events, although they may encode event types which are very closely related to reflex- ives such as middle situations. Middle-like constructions in Boro seem to have this tendency, in that they do not code reflexive events, although they code events expressing emotions, such as anger, happiness, etc. So far as the path of spread of the use of za in middle-like situations is concerned, the morpheme za seems to have started as a marker of spontaneous events and spread from there towards facilitative, reflexive-causative and adversative events, and towards reciprocal and collective events. This development seems to support the predic- tion that “the semantic development of the MM (middle marker) would skirt the reflexive use altogether” (see Figure 3) (Kemmer 1993: 229). However, this development does not seem to follow the prediction that “the spread of the middle marker would be along the paths connecting contiguous nodes” The Za constructions 45

(Kemmer 1993: 229), which is also what we would expect following principles like Semantic Map Connectivity Hypothesis (Croft 2001: 96) and Semantic Map Continuity (Boye 2010). The semantic domain of reciprocal/collective events is discontiguous if we map the middle-like constructions on the semantic map proposed by Kemmer (1993: 202). This paper describes five major middle-like constructions in Boro which all involve the verb za ‘happen, to take place’; I will call these “Za constructions.”1 I will provide a structural description of the Za constructions and explore the semantic/pragmatic relations among them following Kemmer’s (1993) semantic analytical framework of the middle voice. I will also take Kemmer’s semantic map approach, which provides a means for comparing the semantic/pragmatic features of the middle-like constructions and their coding across languages. This will enable us to easily compare the semantic map of Boro Za constructions to that of middle-like constructions in other languages, say French se construc- tions. The semantic map will also allow us to test some of the predictions and hypotheses put forward by Kemmer (1993) on middle voice and its related constructions. The paper is organized as follows: Section 2 provides information on some basic assumptions behind the analysis of the Za constructions, language back- ground and information on the language database used. Section 3 illustrates some structural properties of Boro relevant for the study of the constructions in question. Section 4 describes the morphosyntax and semantics/pragmatics of the Za constructions. Section 5 provides a discussion on the structural and functional similarities among the Za constructions and maps the various constructions on Kemmer’s semantic map of middle and other related constructions.

2 Basic assumptions, language background, and data

2.1 Basic assumptions

In this work I will follow Kemmer’s (1993) approach to the semantic analysis of various middle and related situations in the study of Za constructions.

1 I will use upper case to indicate a language-specific construction or notion, such as Spontaneous event construction, or Undergoer. 46 Krishna Boro

A fundamental assumption in this approach (see Haiman 1974; Jakobson 1984) is that recurring instances of different meanings expressed by the same struc- tural means indicate that the meanings in question are likely to be related (Kemmer 1993: 4). Another assumption is that the more direct the semantic relationship between two meanings, the more likely they are to be subsumed under a single form of expression, both within and across languages. This further assumes that we can distinguish one meaning from another in lan- guages. This approach follows the methodology of comparative form-function mapping, which involves looking at typological and/or diachronic data to establish that two meanings are indeed distinct (Haiman 1974; Bybee 1985). Using this method whenever we observe that in some languages (or diachronic stages of a single language) morphosyntactic distinctions exist between mean- ings which are not distinguished in some other languages (or diachronic stages), we can conclude that at some level of human cognition a distinction exists between those meanings. The analysis in this work involves observing the patterns of mapping between various semantic/pragmatic categories and the structural properties that code them. The semantic/pragmatic categories are referred to as situation types (Kemmer 1993: 7). Situation types are definable in terms of the semantic properties which the contexts within that type share. The degree of closeness between two situation-types can be inferred from the number of semantic properties those types share. The situation types or event types relevant to our current work are spontaneous events, reciprocal/collective events, facilitative events, and various passive-like events. These situation or event types will be defined under appropriate sections following Kemmer (1993). The semantics I am investigating are (i) the event type or situation type of the constructions involved, (ii) construed participants of the event, and (iii) the construed relation- ship of the participant(s) to the events, i.e. semantic relations. The set of semantic relations (commonly known as “thematic roles”) relevant to this work includes Agent, Patient, Instrument, Location, Possessor, and Comitative (see Velupillai [2012: 230] for standard definitions). The role of Agent includes Force and Experiencer for our present purposes. I will identify two more semantic relations as distinct from patient in Boro: Undergoer and Affected participant. I will use the term Undergoer, as distinct from Patient, for affected participants of events which are construed as autonomous in that no Agent is construed as causing the event to take place. I will use the term Patient for the affected participants of events which are construed to have an Agent involved. Thus, the use of Patient would imply the existence of an Agent participant, whether overtly mentioned or not. I will use the term Affected participant for participants who do not directly take part in the event, instead The Za constructions 47 who are related to one of the participants (Agent or Patient) of the event (through possessor-possessed, kinship, or other relations). Besides these semantic relations, I will also use what are called participant roles (Velupillai 2012: 239). They are the three core semantico-syntactic func- tionsS(forthesinglecoreargumentofanintransitiveverb),A,andP(forthe most agent-like and most patient-like participants of a transitive verb respec- tively). I will refer to these participant roles when I talk about the alignment patterns of arguments, or identify the core participants of a verb. Core partici- pants refer to participants which are necessary to make a sentence grammati- cally acceptable. All other participants, such as locative or instrumental participants in an intransitive or transitive sentence, will be referred to as Oblique participants. For Boro, the structural properties under investigation involve (i) whether or not the participants are overtly mentioned (or mention- able), and (ii) the coding (or possible coding) of the participants with case markers. The hypothesized relations among various situation types and the associated constructions will be represented graphically on a semantic map, following Kemmer (1993). The principles of drawing semantic maps are dis- cussed under the appropriate sections.

2.2 Language background and data

Boro is spoken mainly in the Brahmaputra valley of the State of Assam, India. It is also spoken in the Jhapa District of Nepal, where the language is known as Meche (Kiryu 2008). It is spoken by approximately 1,330,000 speakers in India and 3,300 in Nepal (Lewis et al. 2013). Boro is a member of the Bodo-Konyak-Jinghpaw sub- branch of the Tibeto-Burman branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family (Bradley 1997; Burling 2003). The primary descriptive work on Boro is Pramod Chandra Bhattacharya’s A Descriptive Analysis of the Boro Language (1977). This study includes the varieties spoken in Kokrajhar, Kamrup and Udalguri districts in India, shown with red circles on the map in Figure 1. The database mostly consists of folk tales, personal accounts, procedural narratives, and some conversations. Examples drawn from this database are identified with the name of the location – data from Kokrajhar as [KOK], data from Kamrup as [KAM], and data from Udalguri as [UDL]. Certain constructed examples are provided by the author in cases where there is a gap in the database for a certain construction and where negative examples are deemed essential for the discussion of certain issues. The spontaneous data are coded with source tags such as (BG-011, 1.3), where BG-011 identifies a text in my database and 1.3 identifies a specific line in the text; constructed examples do not have such tags. 48 Krishna Boro

Figure 1: Map of Assam showing all the districts. The circled districts are the locations where the varieties under investigation are spoken. (Source of the map: d-maps.com; http://d-maps.com/carte.php?&num_car=31173&lang=en. The map has been modified to incorporate the newly formed districts.)

3 Syntactic overview of basic clause structure in Boro

Boro is a verb final language with a clause chaining discourse pattern. The basic word order is Subject-Object-Verb (or APV), although there is a high degree of variability within clauses, as shown below.

(1) A P V dáu-sokʰa-ja mai-kʰɯ zá-dɯ.2 bird-bird.kind-NOM rice-ACC eat-RLS ‘The birds are eating the rice.’ [KAM]

2 Boro is a tonal language with two tone heights – high and low. I am marking tones only on lexemes with high tone and lexemes which have a contrastive low tone counterpart. Thus, the unmarked forms are either low tone or do not contrast in pitch with another form. Affixes are generally toneless. The Za constructions 49

(2) AVP ɯmpʰraitʰo dáu-sokʰa birat zá-dɯŋ mai-kʰɯ. then bird-bird.kind lot eat-RLS rice-ACC ‘The birds are eating the rice a lot.’ (BG-011, 1.3) [UDAL]

(3) V A P raga zɯ́ŋ-bai bi bɯtʰɯr-kʰou anger light-PRF 3SG weather-ACC ‘He got angry at the weather.’ (BG-028, 1.3) [KOK]

As Boro is a so-called ‘pro-drop’ language, any core argument can be dropped from overt expression provided the arguments are recoverable either from the previous discourse or from the context.

(4) a. dasɯɯrɯitʰáŋ-bai bi-jɯ. (Speaker A) just.now this.way go-PRF 3SG-NOM ‘He left this way just now.’

b. Ønoŋ-tʰar-mar-gou-na (Speaker B) Ø true-COMPLETELY-FOR.SURE-AFF-Q ‘Is (this) really true?’

c. Ø noŋ-gou-lɯi. (Speaker A) Ø true-AFF-POLITE ‘(This) is true.’

d. Ø bi-zɯŋ tʰáŋ-dɯŋ. (Speaker A) Ø this-INST go-RLS ‘(The weather) went this way.’ (BG-029, 1.37) [KOK]

(5) dana bi-bɯ Øtʰogai-bai-sɯ za-hɯi-dɯŋ. now 3SG-also Ø trick-PRF-FOC happen-DIST-RLS ‘Now he has also tricked (the old man). That is how the story went.’ (BG-029, 1.31)

Example (4) contains a sequence of exchanges between two speakers in a narrative. Only (4a) has an overt mention of the core participant S, bi ‘he’. The other three utterances consist of just the predicate. However, it is clear from the context what the participants of those clauses are. Thus, the null instantiated argument in (4b) refers to what is said in (4a), since (4b) is used by the Speaker B to confirm what is said in (4a) by Speaker A. In (4c) Speaker 50 Krishna Boro

A confirms his statement, which is referred to by the null-instantiated argu- ment. The speakers could use a demonstrative pronoun be ‘this’ in (4b) and (4c) instead of a null, but it was not necessary. In (4d) Speaker A repeats what he said in (4a), but with a null-instantiated argument this time, which refers to the S-argument bi of (4a). Similarly, we have a null-instantiated P-argument in (5). The null-instantiated arguments are anaphoric in the above examples. The listener can reconstruct the identity of the null-instantiated participants from the previous discourse. Arguments are optionally case marked. The S- and A-arguments of basic active clauses (except in a few special constructions) are marked with an -a/-ɯ suffix (-a on nouns and -ɯ on pronouns). The P-argument in a basic active clause is marked with a -kʰou/-kʰɯ suffix (-kʰou in the Standard variety and -kʰɯ in other varieties of Boro). I will call the former Nominative and the latter Accusative case markers, since they align S- and A-arguments together, differ- ently from P. I will also refer to S- and A- arguments as Subjects, and P- arguments as Objects in Boro. It should be noted that the suffix -a is also found as some kind of topic marker, which accounts for its occurrence even on P-arguments. However, this use of -a (i.e. its occurrence on either participant) is limited to clauses like imperative clauses. The overt marking of case is conditioned by some semantic-pragmatic factors. Case marking on nouns is overt mostly when the arguments are definite, identifiable, and/or animate. Indefinite, unspecified nominal arguments tend to have zero case marking. While overt case marking on Object pronouns is obligatory, case marking on Subject pronouns is quite unpredictable. Boro tends toward a clause chaining discourse structure, where several clauses are chained together with only one finite verb at the end of the chain. The chained clauses are marked with non-final markers -na or -nanɯi. Only the final clause is marked with TAM morphology. Chained clauses mostly express a sequence of events. Boro also has around a dozen verbs which can occur immediately following a bare lexical verb. When two verbs occur next to each other, the initial verb adds a lexical meaning and the subsequent verb adds abstract or grammatical meaning. This structure, unlike clause chaining, does not express a sequence of events. Rather, it expresses a single event. This kind of structure has been called serial verb constructions, verb serialization,orverb concatenation in the literature (see Foley and Olson 1985; Matisoff 1969; DeLancey 1991). In the following example, the first three clauses illustrate chained clauses marked with the morpheme -na or -nanɯi, and the final clause illustrates a serial verb construction in which the verbs okʰar ‘come out’ and laŋ ‘take away’ occur next to each other without any morphology on the first verb. The Za constructions 51

(6) [i pʰai-na] [dose zirai-nanɯi] 3SG come-NF a.while rest-NF [ɡoi kʰan-se zá-na] [okʰar laŋ-bai]. betel.nut CLF-one eat-NF come.out take.away-PRF ‘He came, then rested a while, then ate a betel nut, and then went out.’ (Lit. ‘He came, rested a while, ate a betel nut, came out and took (himself) away.’)[KAM]

There are four different clauses chained together with only one finite clause at the end of the sentence. The non-final marker -na indicates a closer event integration with the event of the following clause, while -nanɯi indicates a less integrated event with the event of the following clause. The lexical verbs of chained clauses cannot be bare stems: the non-final markers on the above chained clause verbs are obligatory. However, a bare lexical verb stem can occur in front of a small set of grammaticalized verbs, such as laŋ ‘take away’ in (6). I will call these verbs versatile verbs following Matisoff (1969), and DeLancey (1991), as these verbs can also have lexical meaning in a non-serializing structure. These versatile verbs are phonologically dependent on the lexical verb, and have a rather grammatical meaning which is distinct from the lexical meaning of the root. Among the versatile verbs are zɯb ‘finish’, kʰaŋ ‘put down’, laŋ ‘take away’, hɯi ‘go and give’, bɯ ‘pull’, hɯ ‘give’, etc. The verb za ‘become, happen’ is one of these verbs. Some of the versatile verbs are illustrated below in bold (see Boro 2012 for a fuller discussion).

(7) zɯŋha zá-kʰaŋ-bai lɯŋ-kʰaŋ-bai. 1PL.family eat-put.down-PRF drink-put.down-PRF ‘We (our family) have taken food.’ (BG-017, 1.81)

(8) boibɯ mansɯi-pʰɯr-a gami-ou tʰáŋ-zub-dɯ na hom-nɯ. all man-PL-NOM village-LOC go-finish-RLS fish catch-INF ‘All the people in the village went fishing.’ (BG-016, 1.15)

(9) ua bari-ou tʰáŋ-nanɯipʰutʰi-kʰɯ nai-hɯi-bai. bamboo garden-LOC go-NF sacred.book-ACC look-go.give-PRF ‘Having gone to the bamboo garden, (he) looked at the sacred book.’ (BG-017, 1.40)

The verbs kʰaŋ, zub, and hɯi mean ‘put a cooking pot down when the food is cooked’, ‘finish’,and‘go and give something to somebody’ respectively when they are used as lexical predicators all by themselves, i.e. without another verb preced- ing them. However, when they are used immediately following another bare verb (i.e. in a serial verb construction), they acquire a more grammatical meaning: in (7) 52 Krishna Boro kʰaŋ means that the event of ‘eating and drinking’ is over. In (8) zub means that all participants referred to by the S-argument took part in the event of ‘going fishing’.In (9) hɯi indicates there is a movement away from the deictic center, a certain location either in space or time, and the event of ‘looking’ takes place at the end of that movement. So, the movement indicated by hɯi in (9) is the movement from a house to the bamboo garden, and the event of ‘looking’ took place at the end of that movement, i.e. at the bamboo garden, as opposed to at the house.

4 The Za constructions

In this section I will provide a morphosyntactic and semantic/pragmatic descrip- tion of the various Za constructions in Boro. I will deal with five major construc- tions, all of which involve the verb za ‘happen, take place’. They are Spontaneous event constructions, Reciprocal/Collective event constructions, Facilitative con- structions, Reflexive-Causative constructions, and Adversative constructions. Within each major construction type, there are certain variant constructions which are somewhat structurally distinct, yet code very similar functions.3 For example, there are three distinct constructions that code spontaneous events. There are minor differences among them, both structural and functional. For instance, the Spontaneous event construction in Section 4.1.1 has specific Undergoers mentioned as the Subject argument, while the spontaneous events in Section 4.1.3 do not have any specific Undergoers, and thus lack a nominal participant in the clause. Similarly, there are two Reciprocal/Collective construc- tions. In one of them (see Section 4.2), the participants are coded by two separate NPs (one is Subject and the other Comitative), and this construction is used solely for reciprocal situations. In the other Reciprocal/Collective construction, the parti- cipants of a reciprocal/collective event are coded by a single NP, and this con- struction may be used for either reciprocal or collective events. Similarly, there are two Facilitative constructions – one in which there is no overt mention of an Agent (called Agentless), and another in which the Agent participant is overtly mentioned (called Agentive). Nevertheless, both these constructions code an event which is facilitated by the Patient or some other Non-Agent participant. Moreover, structural variations occur in constructions, like the Facilitative (both Agentive and Agentless) and Adversative constructions, due to the fact that the predicator

3 The classification of a construction into sub-constructions is done for ease of discussion of certain semantically and syntactically relevant variations within the construction. Note that even much finer distinctions within a category are possible, but I think such detailed distinc- tions are not of much relevance for the current work. The Za constructions 53 may consist of an intransitive or transitive verb. We will see how the transitivity of the verbs affects the structure of the various construction types later on. Among the five major Za construction types, there is a major structural divide between Spontaneous event constructions on the one hand, and the rest of the Za constructions on the other hand. The Spontaneous event constructions consist of a predicator which consists of a single verb, namely za ‘become, happen, take place’. All other Za constructions (Facilitative, Reciprocal/Collective, Reflexive- Causative, and Adversative) consist of a predicator that consists of a serial verb construction, i.e. the verb za occurs following another lexical verb in its bare form. Thus, the verb za ‘become, happen, take place’ has different morpho-syntactic status in Spontaneous event constructions compared with the rest of the Za constructions. It is an independent verb form in the former and a dependent serial verb in the latter as it requires another verb in front of it. Nevertheless, the relatedness of the two types of Za constructions (ones with main verb za and the others with serial verb za) is very obvious and a discussion of the two types of constructions together will be useful both from a typological and a diachronic perspective. For a typologist, the diversity of constructions that code a particular semantic domain, such as middle, is of great interest. Coding of some middle-like events with simple verb structure and others with serial verb construction may be of interest to typologists. For a historical linguist, understanding the diachronic relations among the Za constructions, i.e. how one construction evolved into so many constructions over time, would be interesting. We will next look at the morphosyntactic and semantic/pragmatic features of the five major Za constructions in the following sub-sections. Section 4.1 describes the Spontaneous event constructions (three constructions), abbreviated as SEC. Section 4.2 describes the Reciprocal/Collective event constructions (two construc- tions), abbreviated as RCEC. Section 4.3 describes the Facilitative constructions (four constructions), abbreviated as FC. Section 4.4 describes the Reflexive- Causative construction (one construction) abbreviated as RCC, and Section 4.5 describes the Adversative constructions (2 constructions) abbreviated as AC.

4.1 Spontaneous event constructions

There are three Za constructions that express some kind of spontaneous events. We will call these Spontaneous event constructions (SEC). Spontaneous events or situation types can be described as situations which designate changes of state of an entity, but no readily identifiable participants can be ascribed a causal role (Kemmer 1993: 142). The entity undergoing the change is the chief nominal partici- pant. The spontaneous events form a continuum in terms of how likely it is for the 54 Krishna Boro events to be construed as having an Agent. While some of the spontaneous events are extremely unlikely to be associated with a human Agent, others are extremely likely to have such an Agent. Nevertheless, they may have the same construal and are expressed by the same construction. Events that are considered spontaneous under this definition are: physiological processes, such as ‘dying’, ‘growing’,etc. change in physical properties, such as change in size, color, etc. existential changes, such as ‘originate’, ‘develop’, etc. non-volitional movements, such as ‘start’, ‘move away’, etc. changes of state without specific patient, such as ‘happen’, and so on. Boro codes some of these spontaneous events with the Spontaneous event constructions (but certainly not all, see below). The three Spontaneous event constructions correspond to three different types of spontaneous events: (i) spontaneous events expressing a change of state that involve an Undergoer, (ii) spontaneous events which do not express any obvious change of state, but express change in shared knowledge among the interlocutors, and (iii) spontaneous events expressing a change of state that do not involve an Undergoer. They are discussed in the following sub-sections.

4.1.1 Spontaneous events with an Undergoer

Most spontaneous events involve an Undergoer which undergoes a process and changes its state. Such events include physical processes like growing, ripening; change in physical properties, like shape, size, color, taste, and other physical properties; change in mental/emotional state, like states of anger, sadness, happiness, etc.; change in socio-cultural status, such as change in social status, wealth, marital status, position (as in job), and others. Such spontaneous events are expressed by the following structure.

Spontaneous events with an Undergoer (SEC-1):

[NP [NOM]] [NP [UNMARKED] /AP/Finite-clause] [za]

The above notation consists of (a) the name of the construction (such as Spontaneous events with an Undergoer) and (b) the syntactic structure of the construction. I will give an abbreviation, such as SEC-1, to each construction for ease of reference. SEC-1 indicates that it is the first of the Spontaneous event constructions (SEC). The syntactic structure represents three different morpho- syntactic properties. First, it represents the phrasal/clausal constituents of the construction, put in brackets (such as [NP]). Second, it represents what case marker or postposition the nominal constituents take, such as [NOM] for Nominative case marker, or if it is unmarked. Finally, it represents the basic The Za constructions 55 order of the constituents. Remember that case marking and constituent order are variable, unless specified otherwise. In SEC-1, the first NP, which is usually marked with Nominative case markers, codes the Undergoer of the spontaneous event. The second constituent, which can be an unmarked NP, an AP, or even a finite clause, codes the resultant state in which the Undergoer ends up at the end of the process denoted by the construction. SEC-1 can be illustrated by the following examples.

(10) [NP [NOM] NP [UNMARKED] za] ram-a bipʰa za-bai. Ram-NOM father za-PRF ‘Ram has become a father.’ [KAM]

(11) [AP za NP [NOM]] gɯran-ɯihɯ-ba, sabsin za-jɯ onla-ja.’ dry-ADVZ put-if better za-HAB Onla-NOM ‘If (we) put (it) dry, the Onla curry gets better.’ (BG-007, 4.16) [KOK]

(12) [NP [UNMARKED] NP [UNMARKED] za] bi-ni un-ou zɯŋ sinta za-bai. that-GEN back-LOC 1PL worry za-PRF ‘Then we got worried.’ (BG-010, 1.70) [UDL]

In examples (10) and (11), the Nominative marked NPs are the Undergoers of the process or event of becoming a father and the process/event of getting better, and the unmarked NP or AP are the resultant states in which the Undergoers end up. In (12), although both NPs are unmarked, it is obvious from their semantics which one is the Undergoer (‘we’) and which one is a state (‘worry’). Also note that the constituent orders in (10) and (12) are different from that of (11) (it has nothing to do with the fact that (10) and (12) have two NPs and (11) has one NP and one AP). The following example illustrates an SEC-1 with a clausal constituent coding the resultant state. When there is a clausal constituent, the Nominative-marked NP tends to occur clause-finally.

(13) [[dinɯi be-kʰou lanzai-ou hom-nanɯikʰupʰloŋ-nɯ today this-ACC tail-LOC hold-NF stab-INF há-ja-ba] can-NEG-if [Finite-clause ] za 56 Krishna Boro

[nɯi be-bɯ mansɯinoŋ-a]] za-lai-kʰa-bai here 3SG-also man COP-NEG za-again-sure-PRF

[NP [NOM]] [bi-ɯ]. 3SG-NOM ‘“If I cannot stab this (an animal) grabbing at its tail today, he (referring to himself) is not a man”, he said/thought/decided.’ (BRX1-2011.199) [KOK]

In (13) an individual is talking about undergoing a change of self-image, based on whether or not he can stab an animal. In this sentence, the Undergoer is bi ‘he’ expressed in the final word of the sentence. The End-State is ‘the mental state in which he is not a man’, coded by the finite clause nɯi bebɯ mansɯi noŋa ‘he is not a man’. The meaning of the verb za in the above example is realized as ‘said/thought/decided’ in the free translation.

4.1.2 Spontaneous events without any obvious change of state

While it is obvious what kind of change might have occurred in the observable outside world, as in (10) and (11), or in one’s mental world, as in (12) and (13), it is not obvious at all what changes may have occurred in the outside world or in one’s mental world in the following example.

(14) [NP [NOM] ] za [NUMP] [mein no-a] za-hɯi-bai [mɯn-nɯi]. main house-NOM za-DIST-PRF CLF-two ‘The main houses are two.’ KAM

Example (14) implies that the main houses have always been two; it did not change from one to two or none to two. Thus, (14) does not indicate any change in the outside world. Moreover, it also does not indicate that the speaker did not realize that the houses were two, and now s/he has realized it. In fact, it indicates that s/he already has the knowledge. Therefore, one may argue that (14) does not express a spontaneous event at all, since there is no change of state. Nevertheless, it is arguable that we can treat it as involving a spontaneous event on the following grounds. Not all spontaneous events express equally observable changes of state. For instance, a person becoming a father is more observable than a person changing his self-image. Here I will propose that although the sentence in (14) does not express an observable change of state in the outside world, it still involves a certain type of change of state, namely The Za constructions 57 change in the amount of information about the referent of the Nominative-marked NP in the hearer’s mind. I will elaborate on this below. The sentence in (14) is also structurally distinct from sentences like those in (10–13) in two ways. First, there is a difference in terms of constituent order. The constituent order in (14) is verb-medial and it is fixed in that if the order of the constituents is changed, it won’t any longer mean what (14) means. In particu- lar, it will be interpreted as a spontaneous event with an Undergoer, as in (15) (see Section 4.1.1 above). Note the free translations of (14) and (15) for difference in interpretation.

(15) [NP [NOM] ] [NUMP] za [mein no-a] [mɯn-nɯi] za-hɯi-bai. main house-NOM CLF-two za-DIST-PRF ‘The main houses have become two.’ [KAM]

The second structural difference is in intonation pattern. While (15) tends to be spoken with a single intonation contour (i.e. in a single intonation phrase), (14) tends to be spoken with two intonation contours (two intonation phrases): the Nominative marked NP and the verb za form one intonation phrase, and the numeral phrase forms anther intonation phrase. The following is the structure of the Za construction in (14).

SEC without obvious change of state (SEC-2):

[NP [NOM]] [za] [NP [UNMARKED]/AP]

If we look at the free translations of SEC-2, as in (14) above, or (16) and (17) below, they look like equative/proper inclusion clauses or predicative adjective clauses.

(16) [NP [NOM] za AP] [NP [NOM] za AP] ram-a za-bai gidir, lokʰmon-a za-bai undɯi. PN-NOM za-PRF elder PN-NOM za-PRF younger ‘Ram is the elder one, (and) Loksman is the younger one.’ [KAM]

(17) [NP [NOM] za NP] [NP [NOM] za NP] ram-a za-bai bipʰa, kʰita-ja za-bai bima. PN-NOM za-PRF father PN-NOM za-PRF mother ‘Ram is the father, (and) Sita is the mother.’ [KAM] 58 Krishna Boro

However, there is a crucial difference between non-verbal equative clauses or predicative adjective clauses and the Za construction SEC-2. This difference will be helpful in understanding the function of SEC-2. I will try to illustrate the difference between equative/predicative adjective clauses and the Za construc- tion in SEC-2 with the help of examples (18) and (19). Note that both are translated the same way in English. The difference between (18) and (19) will hopefully help us understand the function of the Za construction SEC-2.

(18) bɯi-jɯ mɯsa. that-NOM tiger ‘That is a tiger.’

(19) bɯi-jɯ za-bai mɯsa. that-NOM za-PRF tiger ‘That is a tiger.’

SEC-2 cannot be used unless the entity about which the predication is being made is expected in the discourse, such that its existence in the discourse is taken for granted. But, this is not necessarily the case for equative/proper inclusion clauses. We will take two different situations to illustrate this differ- ence: a hiking situation and a national park situation. Suppose we are on a mountain hike and we come across a tiger out of the blue. In this situation, we were not expecting any tigers (otherwise we would probably not go there for a hike). This is an appropriate context for a proper inclusion clause like (18) as an expression for pointing at the tiger. However, this is not an appropriate context for SEC-2, since we were not expecting any tigers. They did not exist in this discourse, until one appeared. Therefore, we would not use (19) in this situation. Now consider a different situation: suppose we are in some national park like the Kaziranga National Park in Assam with children, and we are showing them the animals that live in the park. In this context, it is already established that there are animals in the park and we will be looking at them. This situation allows us to use SEC-2, since we are expecting animals like tigers, elephants, and others. So, when we come across a tiger in a big compound, we can point to the tiger and use the SEC-2 as in (19) to say ‘That is a tiger’ in this situation. The difference between (18) and (19) will become clear when we think about the situations in which we use them. In the hiking situation, a good use of (18) would be to make ourselves aware of the presence of a tiger so that we do not get killed. In other words, the tiger did not exist in the discourse prior to its appearance. On the other hand, in the national park situation, we use (19) to identify x animal is a tiger, y animal is an elephant, and so on, but not to make The Za constructions 59 ourselves aware of their presence. In this situation, we are already aware that x and y animals exist and we are expecting them in the park. All we are doing is connecting animal x with the name tiger, animal y with elephant, and so on. It is noteworthy that SEC-2 is often used in introducing someone to new people in social occasions. In such occasions, it is understood that there will be new people, and SEC-2 will help us identify x as Ram and y as John, etc. Now we can explore the nature of the function of SEC-2. SEC-2 involves a situation type in which there is already partial information about the entity being predicated by za, namely that it exists, and what the za predicator does is identify further what that entity is or what its qualities/quantities are. It is reasonable to suggest, although it is somewhat more abstract than the semantics of the rest of the Za constructions, that the entity being predicated about becomes more vivid or specified when we use a sentence with SEC-2. For instance, in the context of the national park, it was shared information that there were animals. But after statements like (19), the items pointed out by ‘that’ are now more than just animals – they are tigers, they are elephants, and so on. From this point of view there is a change of state, at least in the mind of the hearer, with respect to the amount of information about the entity named by the Nominative-marked NP. In other words, we know more about the main houses in (14) than we used to before the utterance of the sentence in (14).

4.1.3 Spontaneous events without specific undergoer

In examples (10) to (12) it is obvious that there are entities, such as the individual ‘Ram’, ‘onla curry’, and ‘we’, which undergo certain processes/events and undergo changes of state. However, there are certain other types of sponta- neous events which do not involve any identifiable Undergoer, such as change in time and other existential changes. Consider the following examples.

(20) NP [UNMARKED] za [Change in time] pʰuŋ za-bai. morning za-PRF ‘It is morning.’ [KAM]

(21) NP [UNMARKED] za [Change in time] hor za-bai. night za-PRF ‘It is night.’ [KAM] 60 Krishna Boro

The unmarked NPs, ‘morning’ and ‘night’, are resultant states and the only nominal constituents of the construction. There is no construed Undergoer. The structure of the Spontaneous event constructions without specific undergoer is given below.

SEC without specific Undergoer (SEC-3):

[NP [UNMARKED]/Nominalized-clause/Infinitival-clause] [za]

In SEC-3, the NPs are unmarked, just like the NPs demoting resultant states in SEC-1 and SEC-2. Nominalized clauses marked with -nai and infinitival clauses marked with -nɯ can function as nominal constituents of the construction. The nominal constituents express a resultant state. The following examples illustrate infinitival and nominalized constituents in SEC-3.

(22) [Infinitival-clause] za [Change in time] [apʰa-ja pʰai-nɯ] za-dɯ. father-NOM come-INF za-RLS ‘It is time for father to come.’ [KAM]

(23) [Nominalized-clause ] [bi-ni muŋ-ɯi-nɯ bi pʰoraisali-kʰou banai-nai] 3SG-GEN name-ADVZ-FOC this school-ACC build-NMLZ

[za] [Existential change] za-dɯŋ. za-RLS ‘The school has been built in his name.’ (Lit. ‘The building of the school in his name has happened.’) (BG-038, 1.3) [KOK]

SEC-3 lacks not only an Agent, but also an expressed Undergoer. In the above examples the NPs pʰuŋ ‘morning’ in (20), hor ‘night’ in (21), the bracketed infinitival clause in (22), and the bracketed nominalized clause in (23) are the only nominal elements in the clause. These nominal expressions refer to the resultant state of some kind of process- temporal change in (20) and (22), increase in number in (21), and the action of building a house in (23). Note that we have a wide range of event types expressed by SEC-3. On the one hand, we have spontaneous events in which it is very unlikely that speakers would construe any causal force at all, such as change in time in (20) through (22). On the other hand, we have events like ‘building a house’ in (23) which are more likely to be construed as having a human agent. Nevertheless, no agents are overtly mentioned in these sentences. The event type, however, does have an effect on the interpreta- tion of SEC-3. For instance, events which have a construable agent participant The Za constructions 61 which is not overtly mentioned and not relevant, as in (23), can have a passive interpretation. In fact, SEC-3 is used as the functional equivalent of a passive in European languages like English if the event is not construed as having any negative effect on the Patient participant (see Section 4.5 on the Adversative con- struction for a discussion of a passive interpretation with negative effect). In sum, there are three different Za constructions that code spontaneous events, events which express a change of state, either in the physical observable world or in the mental world, and are construed as “autonomous” in that no Agent participant is construed as initiating the events or the changes.

4.2 Reciprocal and Collective event constructions

There are two Za constructions that code reciprocal and collective events in some dialects of Boro. We will refer to these as Reciprocal and Collective constructions (RCEC). Kemmer (1993: 96), following Lichtenberk (1985), charac- terizes a reciprocal situation as a simple event frame expressing a two-partici- pant event in which there are two relations; each participant serves in the role of Initiator in one of those relations and Endpoint in the other. In other words, the participants play the role of both an Agent and a Patient in the sub-events of a reciprocal event. Collective situations are very similar to reciprocal situations in that both involve more than one participant carrying out the same type of action, each playing two roles in the event. However, prototypical reciprocal events are viewed as involving two participants, while collective events are viewed as involving multiple participants. Moreover, in a collective event, participants perform an action together, but not necessarily on each other. For example, participants can leave a room together. In this case, participants perform the roles of Agent (one who left) and Companion (with whom others left), but none of them perform the role of Endpoint or Patient. One of two RCECs (namely RCEC-1 below) expresses only reciprocal events. When events involve more than two participants, they are divided into two sides. The structure of this construction is given below.

Reciprocal Construction (RCEC-1):

[NP [NOM]] [NP [COM]] [Verb-za-lai]

One of the two participants is coded as the Subject NP (i.e. marked with the Nominative marker), and the other participant(s) is coded as a Comitative NP. The suffix -lai seems to be a collective event marker and it is obligatorily present in both RCEC-1 and RCEC-2 (see the subsequent construction). In Standard Boro, 62 Krishna Boro reciprocal/collective events are marked by just -lai (i.e. without the verb za). It appears that dialects like Kamrupian have grammaticalized the verb za as a marker of a reciprocal/collective event, and use it along with -lai. The Reciprocal and Collective constructions, and all other constructions to follow, involve a serial verb construction (see Section 3). The verb za occurs following a lexical verb in its bare form. The following examples illustrate RCEC-1.

(24) NP [NOM] NP [COM] Verb-za nono-a lalu-dɯ bú-za-lai-dɯ. PN-NOM PN-COM beat-za-LAI-RLS ‘Nono fought with Lalu.’ (Lit. Nono and Lalu beat each other.) [KAM]

(25) NP [NOM] NP [COM] Verb-za hua-ja hinzau-dɯ kʰudum-za-lai-dɯ. man-NOM wife-COM kiss-za-LAI-RLS ‘Husband and wife are kissing each other.’ [KAM]

(26) NP [NOM] [NP [COM] ] Verb-za nono-a lalu-dɯ aro akas-dɯ naŋ-za-lai-dɯ. PN-NOM PN-COM and PN-COM fight-za-LAI-RLS ‘Nono fought with Lalu and Akash.’ [KAM]

In (24) the participants Nono and Lalu are involved in the action of beating and they carried out that action on each other. They are both Agents and Patients. The same thing applies to (25). Although we have three participants in (26), they form two parties: Nono on one side and Lalu and Akash on the other side. Thus, this sentence means Nono fought with both Lalu and Akash, and Lalu and Akash fought with Nono. Thus it is a reciprocal event between two parties. In this context, Lalu and Akash are not fighting with each other. Thus, everyone is not fighting with everyone else, which is how we would interpret a collective event, described in the following paragraph. The other RCEC (namely RCEC-2 below) expresses either reciprocal or col- lective events. The structures of RCEC-2 is given below.

Reciprocal/Collective Construction (RCEC-2):

[NP [PL] [NOM]/NP [COMPOUND] [NOM]/NP [COORDINATED]] [Verb-za-lai]

In RCEC-2, the participants are coded by a single NP, which can be a plural NP, a compound NP, or a coordinated NP. The Za constructions 63

Lichtenberk notes that sentences with plural subjects in general often des- ignate situations in which the action is carried out jointly by the participants involved, in other words, collectively (as cited in Kemmer 1993). This is true of Boro. The most natural interpretation of the following RCEC-2 expressions with plural NPs is a collective interpretation. Everyone is fighting in (27) and conver- sing in (28) with everyone else.

(27) NP [PL] [NOM] Verb-za gotʰo-pʰɯr-a naŋ-za-lai-dɯ. (Plural NP) child-PL-NOM fight-za-LAI-RLS ‘Children are fighting with one another.’ [KAM]

(28) NP [PL] [NOM] Verb-za mansɯi-pʰɯr-a rai-za-lai-dɯ. (Plural NP) person-PL-NOM converse-za-LAI-RLS ‘People are conversing with one another.’ [KAM]

The interpretation of an RCEC-2 expression with Compound NPs depends on the number of participants in the event. A transitive two participant event is typi- cally interpreted as a reciprocal event, while an intransitive or a multi-partici- pant event is interpreted as a collective event.

(29) NP [COMPOUND] [NOM] Verb-za hua-hinzau-a kʰudum-za-lai-dɯ. (Compound NP) man-wife-NOM kiss-za-LAI-RLS ‘The couple are kissing each other.’ [KAM]

A coordinated NP in a RCEC-2 expression typically expresses a reciprocal event. The participants are divided into two parties (containing one or more participants on each side) and the action takes places between those two parties, but not within each party.

(30) NP [COORDINATED] Verb-za nono-dɯ lalu-dɯ bú-za-lai-dɯ. (Coordinated NP) PN-CORD PN-CORD beat-za-LAI-RLS ‘Nono and Lalu are fighting with each other.’ [KAM]

Among the events mentioned above, ‘fight’ and ‘converse’ are inherently reci- procal/collective, while events like ‘beat’ and ‘kiss’ are not. Thus, we may have a 64 Krishna Boro transitive coding of the events like ‘beat’ and ‘kiss’, but not of ‘fight’ and ‘converse’, as shown below.

(31) nono-a lalu-kʰɯ bú-dɯ. [active use of bú ‘beat’] PN-NOM PN-ACC beat-RLS ‘Nono beat Lalu.’ [KAM]

(32) hua-ja hinzau-kʰɯ kʰudum-dɯ. [active use of kʰudum ‘kiss’] man-NOM wife-ACC kiss-RLS ‘The husband kissed his wife.’ [KAM]

(33) *nono-a lalu-kʰɯ naŋ-dɯ [active use of naŋ ‘fight’] PN-NOM PN-ACC fight-RLS ‘Nono fought Lalu.’

(34) *nono-a lalu-kʰɯ rai-dɯ [active use of rai ‘converse’] PN-NOM PN-INST converse-RLS ‘Intended meaning: Nono talked to Lalu.’4

While the two participants of the events of ‘beating’ and ‘kissing’ can be coded as Subjects and Objects, it is not possible to code the two participants of the events of ‘fighting’ and ‘converse’ as such. When the verbs naŋ and rai are used all by themselves, they no longer mean what they mean in RCEC-2. They mean ‘hit’ (an intransitive event in Boro, which explains why (33) is ungrammatical) and ‘scold’ respectively.

4.3 Facilitative constructions

Another Za construction in Boro is what I will call the Facilitative construction (FC). Situation types coded by this construction express ease or difficulty of occurrence of an event, intrinsic ability or availability of an object to undergo a particular process. This construction is highly variable in terms of its argument coding. The A-argument and S-argument are often left out when they are easily reconstructable from the context. When they are overtly mentioned, they are marked with the Nominative marker. The P-argument is marked with the Accusative case marker. However case marking on the P-argument is highly variable when no overt A-argument is mentioned; the P can then be coded either

4 (34) would be acceptable if it meant ‘Nono scolded Lalu’. The Za constructions 65 with the Nominative or the Accusative marker. Two variants of the Facilitative Za construction are described below: the Agentless Facilitative construction and the Agentive Facilitative construction. Both of the Facilitative subtypes may contain an intransitive or a transitive verb. Agentless facilitative constructions consist of a serial verb construction (consist- ing of a lexical verb followed by za) and Core and Oblique participants of the clause except the A- or S-argument. The structures of the Agentless Facilitative construction (intransitive verb in FC-1 and transitive verb in FC-2) are outlined below.

Intransitive Agentless Facilitative Construction (FC-1):

[NP [LOC/INST/etc.]] [Verb [INTR]-za]

Transitive Agentless Facilitative Construction (FC-2):

[NP [NOM]] [NP [LOC/INST/etc.]] [Verb [TR]-za]

FC-1 represents an Agentless Facilitative construction consisting of an intransitive verb and Oblique participants like Location, Instrument, Comitative, and so on. FC- 2 represents an Agentless Facilitative construction consisting of a transitive verb and its P-argument and other Oblique participants. The P-argument in FC-2 is coded with the Nominative case marker. The following examples illustrate FC-1.

(35) [NP [LOC]] Verb [INTR]-za nɯi lama-tʰitʰáŋ-za-ɯ. this road-LOC go-za-HAB ‘One can take this road.’ (Lit. This road is navigable) [KAM]

Example (35) involves an intransitive verb tʰaŋ ‘go’. By the semantic nature of ‘go’, such an event must involve an Agent participant who can take part in the events of ‘going’. However in (35) the event is construed as an impersonal, such that any individual can potentially take the role of Agent in this event because the participant lama ‘road’ has certain characteristics that facilitate the event of ‘going’. For instance, (35) implies that the road is in good enough condition, such that anyone could take that road. So, it is relatively irrelevant who parti- cipates in the event; what is in focus is whether or not the event is possible. The following examples illustrate FC-2.

(36) dana ɯŋkʰam-a = tʰo zá-za-la. now rice-NOM = FOC eat-za-NOT.ANY.MORE ‘The rice is not edible anymore/The rice is no longer edible.’ (BG-031, 1.25) [KOK] 66 Krishna Boro

(37) zeneba zɯsa-ja = bɯ zá-za-jɯ. ??? rice.kind-NOM = ALSO eat-za-HAB ‘It is possible (for one) to eat Zwsa rice (with Onla curry).’ (brx-2012-1.21) [UDAL]

Examples (36) and (37) involve the transitive verb zá ‘eat’. Semantically, an event of ‘eating’ must involve an Agent participant; however these events are construed such that any individual can potentially take the role of Agent because the participants ɯŋkʰam ‘rice’, and zɯsa ‘rice.type’ have certain char- acteristics that facilitate (37), or inhibit (36), the event of ‘eating’. The other variant of the Facilitative construction is the Agentive Facilitative Construction, which encodes all of the Core and Oblique participants which are part of the predication. The structures of the Agentive Facilitative construction (with intransitive verb in FC-3 and transitive verb in FC-4) are:

Intransitive Agentive Facilitative Construction (FC-3):

[NP [NOM]] [NP [LOC/INST/etc]] [Verb [INTR]-za]

Transitive Agentive Facilitative Construction (FC-4):

[NP [NOM]] [NP [ACC]] [Verb [TR]-za]

In FC-3, the S argument is marked with the Nominative marker and the Oblique participants are marked with their respective case markers. In FC-4, the A- argument carries the Nominative marker and the P-argument takes the Accusative marker. Both FC-3 and FC-4 have the argument structure of basic active clauses, except we have the verb za in the verb complex. Consider the following examples.

(38) NP [NOM] NP [LOC] Verb [INTR]-za (Intransitive verb) alasi-a zaha-ni-ou muru-za-gɯn. guest-NOM 1PL.FAMILY-GEN-LOC sleep-za-FUT ‘The guest can sleep at our house.’ [KAM]

(39) NP [NOM] NP [ACC] Verb [TR]-za (Transitive verb) nono-a be sola-kʰɯ gan-za-gɯn. PN-NOM this shirt-ACC wear-za-FUT ‘Nono can wear this shirt.’ [KAM] The Za constructions 67

Example (38) denotes the availability of space such that it will enable the guest to spend the night at our place. Example (39) denotes some inherent characteristic of the object ‘shirt’ such that it would facilitate the event of ‘wearing’. Thus, both Agentless and the Agentive facilitative constructions express the ease/difficulty of the occurrence of an event, or the intrinsic ability or availability of an object such that it facilitates a particular process. The difference between the Agentless and Agentive Facilitative constructions is that in the former we do not have any particular individual in mind who can potentially participate as an Agent in the named event, while in the latter we know who can participate as the Agent in the event. Common to both types of Facilitative constructions are the semantic properties of (i) having a partici- pant that facilitates the event, and (ii) a generic overtone. The expressions are generic in that they do not refer to any specific event in time or space, rather they refer to potential events, ones which can or could have taken place. Thus, theFacilitativeconstructionsarelimited to habitual, future or contra-factual situations. They are not found in realis situations, i.e. ones in which the action is either taking place or took place in the past, marked with the morpheme -dɯ(ŋ).

4.4 The Reflexive-Causative construction

The Reflexive-Causative construction (RCC) is very similar in semantics to the Facilitative construction in that it is the Patient participant which takes a some- what more active role in the initiation or enablement of the event of the sentence. One crucial difference however is that in the Facilitative constructions the Patient participant has an intrinsic capacity or is available to undergo the process coded in the event, whereas in the RCC the Patient participant causes the event to initiate or take place, willingly or otherwise. In the RCC, the Patient argument is coded as the Subject, and the Agent argument is coded as an Instrumental, and then za occurs in the verb complex with the lexical verb. The sentence structure is: Reflexive-Causative construction (RCC):

[NP [NOM]] [NP [INST]] [Verb [TR]-za]

In the RCC, the Nominative marked NP is the semantic P-argument and the Instrument marked NP is the semantic A-argument. Compare the following pair of sentences. 68 Krishna Boro

(40) A [NOM] P [ACC] V-za bima-ja gotʰo-kʰɯ bam-dɯ. (Active construction) mother-NOM child-ACC carry-RLS ‘The mother is carrying the child.’ [KAM]

(41) P [NOM] A [ACC] V-za gotʰo-a bima-dɯ bam-za-dɯ. (RCC) child-NOM mother-INST carry-za-RLS ‘The child allowed itself to be carried by the mother.’ [KAM]

In (40) we have an active sentence in which the Agent bima ‘mother’ is coded as the Subject argument and the Patient gotho ‘child’ is coded as the Object argument. In (41) we have an RCC in which the Patient gotho ‘child’ is coded as the Subject and the Agent bima ‘mother’ is coded as an Instrument. This sentence designates a situation in which the child allowed itself to be carried by the mother (as opposed to a situation where a child resists being carried by the mother). Also note the meaning of the verb bam ‘carry (a child)’ does not have any inherent negative effect on the Patient participant, nor is it likely for one to interpret that a mother’s carrying of its baby has any negative interpretation. Therefore, a typical interpretation of (40) is a willing participation of the Patient participant. A few more examples follow.

(42) mɯi-a aŋ-dɯ nu-za-dɯ. deer-NOM 1SG-INST see-za-RLS ‘The deer appeared to me.’ [KAM]

(43) bima durga-ja nu-za-nanɯi mother Durga-NOM see-za-NF ‘The goddess Durga appears, and…’ (BRX1-2011-168) [UDL]

(42) and (43) involve events of seeing a deer and the goddess Durga respectively. These events took place mainly because the Patient participants ‘deer’ and ‘goddess Durga’ willingly allowed themselves to be seen by the Agent participants. Now consider event types which are typically considered to have an inher- ent negative effect on the patient participant, such as ‘hit’, ‘hate’, ‘cheat’. RCCs with these events are very close to Passive in European languages like English. However, they have an interpretation that the Patient participant is somehow responsible for what happens to itself through its own action or inaction, as illustrated by the following examples. The Za constructions 69

(44) gan-nai zɯm-nai letʰra, mugɯi-za-bai aŋ. wear-NMLZ wear-NMLZ dirty hate-za-PRF 1SG ‘My dress is dirty, (and therefore) I am hated (by people). (BRX1-2011-181) [UDL]

(45) kʰɯibar tʰogai-za-nɯ aŋ-lai nɯŋ-zɯŋ-lai. how.many.times cheat-za-INF 1SG-POLITE 2SG-INST-POLITE ‘How many times will I (get myself) to be cheated by you?’ (BRX1-2011-103) [UDL]

Examples (44) and (45) are clear instances where the Patient argument is directly or indirectly responsible for being hated and cheated respectively. In (44) the patient argument aŋ ‘I’ wears dirty clothes and as a consequence he is hated by people. Similarly, in (45) the patient argument aŋ ‘I’ continues to trust an individual even after being cheated many times. Thus, it is partly his fault that he gets cheated again and again. The fact that the Patient arguments are partly responsible for the event can be seen in the fact that the Patient arguments have to be animate (or an inanimate object which is capable of bringing about a change of state, such as the sun or the moon can appear or disappear), as illustrated by the following unacceptable sentences.

(46) *kitab goŋ-se aŋ-dɯ lir-za-dɯ. book CLF-one 1SG-INST write-za-RLS (Intended meaning: ‘A book has been written (by me).’)

(47) *no-a zɯŋ-dɯ lu-za-bai. house-NOM 1PL-INST build-za-PRF (Intended meaning: The house has been built (by us).’)

(48) * ɯŋkʰam-megoŋ soŋ-za-bai. rice-curry cook-za-PRF (Intended meaning: The meal has been cooked.’)

Their infelicity is due to the fact that the Patient arguments are all inanimate entities, which do not enable the occurrence of the event of the clause. In sum, the Patient participants in these Za constructions, as in Facilitative constructions, are construed as enabling the event. The Agent arguments are either shared knowledge or irrelevant to the discourse and thus often left out 70 Krishna Boro

(even though their identity may not be recoverable from the context; see Section 3 for discussion of omission of arguments).

4.5 Adversative construction

A construction very closely related to the Reflexive-Causative construction is the Adversative construction (AC). There are many similarities between the Reflexive-Causative construction and the Adversative construction. For exam- ple, in both the Agent participant is coded as the Instrumental argument, and the verb za occurs in the verb complex. However, they are different in four ways. First, in the Adversative Construction there is an additional participant which is neither the Agent nor the Patient of the event. This participant is an animate entity which is somehow related to the S- or P-argument. The relation may be that of a possessor-possessed, kinship, part-whole, or other similar relations. This additional participant is negatively affected by what the S argument does or by what happens to the P-argument, which is typically an inanimate object. I will call this additional participant the Affected participant (AFP). Second, the Adversative construction may have either an intransitive or transitive verb, but the Reflexive-Causative construc- tion allows only transitive verbs. Third, the Patient participant is not coded as the Subject in the Adversative construction. It is coded as an Object argument. Finally, this construction is inherently adversative, i.e. the affected participant is always negatively affected by what the S argument does or what happens to the P-argument. A similar phenomenon in European languages is the External Possession Construction, which involves some kind of effect, though not necessarily adverse depending on the language, on the Raised Possessor (see Payne and Barshi 1999). A functionally analogous construction in English is the “GET Passive” construction, whose prototypical function is to express an adverse situation (see Givon and Yang 1994). Adversative constructions are also reported in Thai (Sudmuk 2003), Japanese (Wierzbicka 1979), Korean (Vermeulen 2005), and elsewhere. The structure of AC with an intransitive verb is given below.

Intransitive Adversative Construction (AC-1):

[NP [POSR/NOM]] [NP [UNMARKED]] [Verb [INTR]-za]

In AC-1, the Possessor/Nominative marked NP codes the affected participant, which is related to the S argument. The S argument is coded as an unmarked NP. The Za constructions 71

The Possessor case marking -ha5 is found mostly on the pronouns in Udalguri and the standard dialect. A pronominal affected participant in the Kamrup dialect tends to be unmarked. The nominal affected participants are marked with the Nominative -a case marker. Semantically the affected participant has some kind of relation to the S argument of the construction, such as ‘possessor- possessed relation’, ‘kinship’, ‘part-whole’ etc. Compare the following set of examples.

(49) S Verb [i-ni bipʰa] tʰɯi-bai. (Active intransitive construction) 3SG-GEN father die-PRF ‘His/her father died.’ [KAM]

(50) AFP S Verb-za [bi-ha] [bipʰa] tʰɯi-za-bai. (Adversative counterpart) 3SG/3SG-POSR father die-za-PRF ‘His father died on him.’ [UDL]

Example (49) is a basic active intransitive clause consisting of an S argument and an intransitive verb. The S argument consists of an NP headed by bipʰa ‘father’, which is modified by a genitive phrase ì-ni ‘his’. Example (50) is the Adversative counterpart of (49). Note that (50) consists of the same nominal participants as (49) – a possessor and a possessed, but the nominal participants have different grammatical roles in (50). The possessor is coded as a Genitive phrase in (49), but as Possessor NP in (50), an NP found in non-verbal Possessive clauses. Moreover, the possessor in (49) is not a clausal participant, it is a nominal modifier, whereas the possessor in (50) is a clausal participant, which I call the affected participant (AFP). The verb complex in the AC contains the verb za. It is not grammatically acceptable to code the possessor as a Genitive phrase in an AC as shown below.

(51) *[i-ni bipʰa] tʰɯi-za-bai. 3SG-GEN father die-za-PRF ‘His father died on him.’

5 -ha is the case marker found on the possessor argument of a possessive clause, such as ‘I have a pen’. It has additional uses, such as occurring on various sorts of (positively or negatively) affected participants. It is distinct from the genitive marker -ni, which occurs in noun phrases with nominal modifiers. 72 Krishna Boro

The following examples illustrate the AC with a nominal affected participant (as opposed to pronominal affected participant in (50)).

(52) S Verb [robi-ni hinzau] kʰár-bai. (Active intransitive construction) PN-GEN wife run-PRF ‘Robi’s wife ran away.’ [KAM]

(53) AFP S Verb-za [robi-(h)a] [hinzau] kʰár-za-bai. (Adversative counterpart) PN-POSR wife run-za-PRF ‘Robi’s wife ran away and he is affected by it.’ [KAM]

Example (52) is a basic active intransitive clause and (53) is an adversative equivalent of (52). Example (54) illustrates the unacceptability of Genitive mark- ing of the possessor in an Adversative construction.

(54) *[robi-ni hinzau] kʰár-za-bai. PN-GEN wife run-za-PRF ‘Robi’s wife ran away and he is affected by it.’

The affected participants in (50) and (53) are known as external possessors since they have some kind of possessive semantic relation to the S- (or P-) argument of the verb (Payne and Barshi 1999; Vermeulen 2005). However, for Boro we will refer to this kind of argument as the affected participant mainly because it represents a participant who is somehow affected by the event of the verb, rather than (just) having a possessor (or kinship, part-whole, etc.) relationship with another NP. The Adversative construction with a transitive verb has the following structure.

Transitive Adversative Construction (AC-2):

[NP [POSR]] [NP [INST]] [NP [ACC]] [Verb [TR]-za]

In AC-2, the affected participant is marked with Possessive -ha. The semantic A- argument is coded as an Instrumental, and the P-argument is coded as the Object argument marked with Accusative -kʰɯ. The affected participant has a possessor-possessed, kinship, part-whole or similar type of relation to the P- argument. Compare the following set of examples. The Za constructions 73

(55) A [P ] Verb sikʰau-a [aŋ-ni kompitar-kʰɯ]kʰau-bai. (Active transitive) thief-NOM 1SG-GEN computer-ACC steal-PRF ‘The thief has stolen my computer.’ [KAM]

(56) AFP A P Verb-za aŋ-(ha) (sikʰau-dɯ) kompitar-(kʰɯ)kʰau-za-bai (Adversative) 1SG-POSR thief-INST computer-ACC steal-za-PRF ‘I have gotten my computer stolen by a thief.’ [KAM]

We have an active transitive sentence in (55) and an adversative equivalent in (56). In an adversative clause with a transitive verb, the affected participant is construed as being related to the P-argument (i.e. it has a possessor-possessed, kinship, or part-whole relation with the P), and not with the A-argument. The A- argument of the adversative clause is coded as a syntactic Oblique in that it takes Instrumental marking and it is optional. The Agent is either obvious or irrelevant to the discourse. This gives the Transitive Adversative construction a passive-like interpretation. In Adversative constructions, the affected participant has to be animate. Consider the following examples.

(57) *no-a nukʰum sepʰai-za-bai. house-NOM roof break-za-PRF ‘The roof of the house has been broken (by wind).’

(58) *sekʰa-ja nal sokʰo-za-bai. knife-NOM handle detach-za-PRF ‘The handle of the knife has been detached (by somebody).’

In (57–58) we have a part-whole relation between the affected participant and the Patient argument of the clause. We also have verbs with a possible adver- sative denotation, but the sentences are still not grammatical. This is because the affected participants are not animate. Another feature of the Adversative constructions is the sense of adverse effect. The affected participant in an Adversative construction is always nega- tively affected. Compare the following minimal pair.

(59) aŋ (mansɯi-pʰɯr-dɯ)no kʰau-za-dɯŋ. 1SG man-PL-INST house burn-za-RLS ‘My house has been burnt by people.’ [KAM] 74 Krishna Boro

(60) *aŋ mansɯi-pʰɯr-dɯ no lu-za-dɯŋ. 1SG man-PL-INST house build-za-RLS ‘My house has been built by people.’

The only difference between the above two clauses is the lexical verb. Kʰau ‘burn’ is felicitous in the Adversative construction, but lu ‘build’ is generally not. Finally, the Adversative construction is not only about an adverse situation, it is also about responsibility on the part of the affected participant through his action or inaction. This sense of responsibility becomes obvious when we compare the Adversative construction with another construction that expresses effect, namely the Benefactive/Malefactive construction.

(61) AFP A P Verb-za aŋ (mansɯi-pʰɯr-dɯ)no kʰau-za-dɯŋ. 1SG man-PL-INST house burn-za-RLS ‘My house has been burnt by people.’ [KAM]

(62) A Possessor P Verb BEN/MAL mansɯi-pʰɯr-a aŋ-ni nó-kʰɯ kʰau-na hɯ-dɯ. man-PL-NOM 1SG-GEN house-ACC burn-NF give-RLS ‘People burnt my house (to my detriment).’ [KAM]

Example (61) is an instance of AC, and (62) is an instance of a Benefactive/ Malefactive construction. Both (61) and (62) express negative effect on the participant aŋ ‘I’, which is related to the Patient argument no ‘house’. Thus, both are adversative. But, they do not mean the same thing. The difference in meaning between these two sentences lies in who is responsible for the event. Example (62) implies that the Possessor of the Patient participant (i.e. aŋ ‘I’) did nothing that might potentially lead to burning of his house. On the other hand, (61) implies that the affected participant (i.e. ‘I’) is directly or indirectly respon- sible, through his action or inaction, for the event. Like in the FA and the RCC, the identity of the Agent argument in the AC is not very crucial and it can be left out − either because its identity is shared knowledge or its identity is irrelevant to the discourse. To sum up this section on the morphosyntactic and semantic/pragmatic description of the Za constructions, I here list all the five major constructions in the Tables from 1 to 5, which contain the structures and functions of clause types and their sub-types. The Za constructions 75

Table 1: Spontaneous event constructions (SEC).

SEC with Undergoer (SEC-) Expresses a spontaneous event which has an

[NP [NOM]][NP[UNMARKED]/AP/Finite-clause] [za] undergoer. SEC without obvious change of state (SEC-) Expresses a spontaneous event which does

[NP [NOM]] [za] [NP/AP [UNMARKED] not have an obvious change of state. SEC without Undergoer (SEC-) Expresses a spontaneous event which does

[NP[UNMARKED]/Non-finite-clause] [za] not have a specific undergoer.

Table 2: Reciprocal and collective event constructions (RCEC).

Reciprocal Construction (RCEC-) Expresses a reciprocal event.

[NP [NOM]] [NP [COM]] [Verb-za-lai] Reciprocal/Collective Construction (RCEC-) Expresses either a reciprocal or a collective

[NP[PL] [NOM]/NP[COMP] [NOM]/NP[CORD]] [Verb-za-lai] event.

Table 3: Facilitative constructions (FC).

Intransitive Agentless FC (FC-) Expresses an event facilitated by a participant.

[NP [LOC/INST/etc.]] [Verb [INTR]-za] This event does not have a specific agent. Transitive Agentless FC (FC-) Same as above.

[NP [NOM]] ([NP [LOC/INST/etc.]]) [Verb [TR]-za] Intransitive Agentive FC (FC-) Expresses an event facilitated by a participant.

[NP [NOM]] [NP [LOC/INST/etc]] [Verb [INTR]-za] This event has a specific agent. Transitive Agentive FC (FC-) Same as above.

[NP [NOM]] [NP [ACC]] [Verb [TR]-za]

Table 4: Reflexive-Causative construction (RCC).

Reflexive-Causative constructions (RCC) Expresses an event initiated or enabled by the

[NP [NOM]] [NP [INST]] [Verb [TR]-za] patient participant

Table 5: Adversative constructions (AC).

Intransitive Adversative Construction (AC-) Expresses an adverse situation brought upon

[NP [POSR/NOM]] [NP [UNMARKED]] [Verb [INTR]-za] by the patient participant. Transitive Adversative Construction (AC-) Same as above.

[NP [POSR/NOM]] [NP [INST]] [NP [ACC]] [Verb [TR]-za] 76 Krishna Boro

5 Conclusions

The relatedness of the Za constructions discussed in Section 4 is very obvious. Beyond the occurrence of the morpheme za, all the Za constructions described share one or more structural and semantic/pragmatic features, some of them more than others. One striking similarity among the Za constructions is that the agent participant either does not exist in the construed discourse world (as in the Spontaneous event constructions) or is irrelevant to the discourse (as in the rest of the constructions, except the RCEC). In general, it is the Undergoer or the Patient participant which is somehow more central in the discourse world. They are the ones which facilitate, enable, and initiate the events. In other words they are more topical than the Agent participants. Structurally, the Agent arguments are either not expressed, or coded as Oblique participants with Instrumental case marker. This bears out our first assumption that formal resemblance is an indication of functional resemblance. Events which do not have any construed Agents are more closely related to each other, semantically and structurally, than to events which have construed Agents albeit non-topical. For example, the former are expressed with a simple verbal predicate consisting of only za, as in the Spontaneous event construc- tions. The latter are expressed with a serial verb construction, as in the rest of the constructions. This bears out our second assumption that the more semantic features the constructions share, the more likely it is that they will be coded by the same kind of structure. The Reciprocal and Collective event construction stands out both structu- rally and semantic/pragmatically from the rest of the Za constructions. First, structurally both Agent and Patient participants are overtly mentioned, some- times within a single NP. Thus, it does not share the structural property of lack of overt mention of the agent participant, which all other Za constructions share. Functionally, the idea of the Patient’s active participation does not apply to the Reciprocal and Collective construction, since every participant plays both roles of Agent and Patient. In other words, it is not possible to separate the Agents from the Patients. Second, although the Reciprocal constructions have a serial verb construction just like the Facilitative, Reflexive-Causative and Adversative constructions, it does not share the property of non-topical Agent. Thus, the structural and functional relation of Reciprocal and Collective constructions with the rest of the Za constructions is not quite apparent. According to Kemmer (1993), the relation between Reciprocals and construc- tions like Spontaneous event constructions has to do with relative elaboration of events. By this term, Kemmer refers to the degree to which the participants and The Za constructions 77 component sub-events in a particular verbal event are distinguished and overtly mentioned (Kemmer 1993: 121). With respect to relative elaboration of events, reciprocal events are low in the degree of elaboration in that, although a reci- procal or collective event consists of two or more separate events with different sets of participant roles, the sub-events and their corresponding participant roles are not overtly coded. Similarly, the rest of the situation types expressed by the Za constructions are also low in the degree of elaboration in that none or only some of the core participants are overtly mentioned, while others are unex- pressed or coded as Oblique participants. Following this account, we can con- clude that all Za constructions are low in the degree of elaboration of events, and this is what the morpheme za partly indicates. Kemmer (1993) represents various situation types in the domain of reflexive, middle, and other related situation types on a “semantic map” based on the shared properties of those types. Some of those semantic domains are repre- sented by the Za constructions, such as the domains of Spontaneous events, Reciprocal events, and Facilitative events. Let us first have a look at the seman- tic domains and their relations from Kemmer (1993). Kemmer (1993: 202) suggests a semantic transitivity continuum in which single participant events (i.e. intransitive events) are at one extreme of the continuum (at the bottom in Figure 2) and the two-participant events are on the other extreme of the continuum (at the top in Figure 2). Between these two extremes fall various reflexive, middle, and passive situation types. In the semantic map in Figure 2, the nodes represent major situation types found cross-linguistically and the solid lines connecting the nodes indicate hypothe- sized direct semantic connections among the situation types represented by the nodes. The connections are defined in terms of shared semantic properties of various types. The relative position of the situation type nodes indicated in the diagram is intended to represent the relative semantic proximity of the nodes to each other. The encircled nodes represent hypothesized prototype categories. We can see how the Za constructions and the situation types coded by them map onto Kemmer’s hypothesized semantic space. We will first need to add a few more situation types to the semantic map above. The semantic map in Figure 3 represents the situation types coded by the Boro Za constructions. In Figure 3, we have added the semantic domains of facilitative, reflexive- causative, and adversative, and removed passive-middle, (since Boro has distinct constructions for these), emotion middle and cognition middle (to keepthediagramsimple)(cf.Figure2).Aswecanseefromtheshadedareain Figure 3, the situation types represented by the Za constructions in Boro are close to each other (except the reciprocal), and are more closely related to the typological prototype of passive in Kemmer’s diagram, than to the typological 78 Krishna Boro

Figure 2: The semantic transitivity continuum. prototype of reflexive. This becomes apparent when we compare Za construc- tions with French se constructions, which represents a case of middle-like constructions with reflexive prototype, shown in Figure 4 (Kemmer 1993: 206). Although we are not much concerned with the diachronic aspect of the za constructions in this paper, it is interesting to note that, as predicted by Kemmer, the morpheme za, which is non-reflexive in origin, has not developed into a reflexive marker, although it has developed into a reciprocal/collective marker. This is of typological interest, considering that in numerous languages reciprocal and reflexive are coded by the same marker. This fact conforms to the prediction that a morpheme which has a non-reflexive source will not (necessa- rily) develop into a marker of reflexive semantics, even though the use of the morpheme extends on both sides of the center of Kemmer’s proposed semantic space (Kemmer 1993: 228–229). The Za constructions 79

Figure 3: The semantic range of Boro Za constructions.

Finally, an interesting thing about the semantic map of the Za constructions is that it is not contiguous, which we would expect following the Semantic Map Connectivity Hypotheses (Croft 2001: 96; Boye 2010). A central governing prin- ciple in representing semantic maps is that the “relevant language specific and construction specific category should map onto a CONNECTED REGION in con- ceptual space” (Croft 2001: 96). The only way to make the map contiguous would be to reorganize Kemmer’s semantic map of the semantic transitivity continuum, given in Figure 2. In sum, I have described a set of five middle-like constructions in Boro, namely Spontaneous event constructions, Reciprocal and Collective event con- structions, Facilitative constructions, The Reflexive-Causative construction, and the Adversative construction. These constructions along with their subtypes 80 Krishna Boro

Figure 4: The semantic range of French se.

have been treated as a family of constructions with structural and functional resemblances among each other. Following Kemmer’s (1993) analytical frame- work of middle voice, I have discussed relevant semantic/pragmatic features and their coding in these constructions, such as construal of participants and their coding. In the concluding section, I have discussed the family resem- blances across the constructions and mapped the constructions in Kemmer’s semantic map of middle and related domains. Finally, we have considered predictions made by Kemmer regarding the source of the middle marker and its development into the semantic domains of middle and related situation types, such as spontaneous event situations, reciprocal situations, passive-like situations, etc. The Za constructions 81

Abbreviations

ACC Accusative case ADVZ Adverbializer AFF Affirmative AP Adjective phrase CLF Classifier COM Comitative COMP Compound COP Copula CORD Coordinator DIST Distal (as opposed to proximal) FOC Focus FUT Future GEN Genitive HAB Habitual INF Infinitive INST Instrumental INTR Intransitive LOC Locative NEG Negative NF Non-final NMLZ Nominalizer NOM Nominative Case NP Noun phrase PL Plural PN Personal Name POSR Possessor PRF Perfect Q Question RLS Realis SG Singular TR Transitive

Acknowledgments: The author is very grateful to Doris Payne and Spike Gildea for constructive suggestions and comments which helped improve the quality of this paper. The author is also thankful to the anonymous reviewers for their constructive suggestions and comments.

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