Grammaticalization of the Verb tək ‘scatter’ in Poshkart Chuvash: Semantics and Selectional Restrictions
Grammaticalization of the Verb tək ‘scatter’ in Poshkart Chuvash: Semantics and Selectional Restrictions

Summary/Abstract: The paper is dedicated to the semantics and the distribution of the light verb tək in Poshkart Chuvash. In its lexical usage, the verb tək means ‘scatter’, i. e., denotes a series of throwing events distributed over time. This verb is grammaticalized into an aspectual modifier (light verb) that forms telic pluractional complex predicates in combination with lexical verbs with an external argument. Any event denoted by a complex predicate with tək should consist of a number of subevents that is larger than the contextually relevant standard. Besides that, the light verb tək shows controversial behavior with respect to the well-known opposition between event-internal and eventexternal pluractionals. According to the tests provided in [Henderson 2012], the light verb tək shows split behavior and cannot be assigned to one of the classes. Namely, complex predicates with tək pattern with event-external pluractional predicates in that they can be formed from lexical verbs of various actional classes, can denote events with large breaks between their subevents and have the extension which is a subset of the extension of their base predicate. On the other hand, complex predicates with tək pattern with event-internal pluractionals in that they do not denote habitual events and require the denoted subevents to be of a large number and have a shared endpoint. It will be shown, however, that despite the similarity observed with the event-internal pluractionals, the light verb tək can still be analyzed as an event-external pluractional — and such an analysis is presented in the paper.

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