instruments as verb classifier in Kam(Dong).pdf

《instruments as verb classifier in Kam(Dong).pdf》由会员上传分享，免费在线阅读，更多相关内容在学术论文-天天文库。

1、InstrumentsasverbclassifiersinKam(Dong)*MATTHIASGERNERAbstractThisarticleisacontributiontoanemergingcrosslinguistictypologyofverbclassifiersystems.Itpresentsanin-depthstudyofoneparticulartypepre-dominantinEastAsianandSoutheastAsianlanguagesandepitomizedthro

2、ughKam(Dong),aKam-TailanguagespokeninSouthwestChina.InKamandrelatedlanguagestherearebasicallytwotypesofverbclassifiers:sortalandmensural.Bothkindsareinvolvedwithevent-phasecountingandtemporalmeasuringandhencemirrorthefunctionoftheirtwinsinthenom-inalrealm.S

3、ortalverbclassifierscanbecharacterizedasderivinglexicallyfromnounsthatoccupyaninstrumentalparticipationrole.Kamexhibitsca.40–50ofthem.Althoughthetermofnounandverbclassifierhasbeenaroundformanyyears,itisnoteworthythatalmostnoscholarhasevercomeforwardwithanaut

4、horitativedefinitionofwhatexactlyconstitutesalinguisticclassifica-toryphenomenon.McGregor(2002)isanexceptionandhisdefinitionisbasedondistributional-probabilisticproperties.Iadopt,augmentandpar-tiallyrewritehiscriteriaanddemonstratethatthesystemofsortalverbcla

5、ssifiersinKamconstitutesindeedaphenomenonbywhichverbsarecate-gorized.Thebasicsemanticrequirementforclassifiableverbs(orevents)inKamistoincorporateoneminimalpart.AminimalpartofaneventisdefinedasaTOUCH-typeeventbywhichtwoobjectsmeetinvariousways.Theproto-typica

6、lverbreferringtoaTOUCH-eventis‘hit’.Furthersubdivisionscanbemadeforclassifiableverbs.Verbsarecategorizedintermsoftheinstru-mentsbywhichobjectsarecausedtocollide:byaphysicalinstrument-objectorbyatriggermedium.Linguistics47–3(2009),697–7420024–3949/09/0047–06

7、97DOI10.1515/LING.2009.0236WalterdeGruyter698M.Gerner1.Introduction1.1.VerbclassifiersinKam(Dong)andacrosstheregionKam(Dong)1exhibitsanarrayofmorphemes(ca.40–50)thatselectverbsinsyntacticconstructionssuchasverb-phasecountingorquantify-ing.Incombinationwithn

8、umeralsthemorphemearticulatesthenumberoftimesaneventoccurswithinanimpliedtimeframe.2(1)mau33keu35jau11ja11fflui11.3PSGbeat1PSGNUM:2VCL:fistVerbNumeralVerbclassifier‘Hebeatmetwicewithhisfist(s).’(2)kuÐ323i55so33sou