Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-wxvwp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-14T03:08:01.368Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Transitive and causative in Gorum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Arlene R. K. Zide
Affiliation:
Munda Language Project, University of Chicago

Abstract

This paper takes up various problems of Gorum verb morphology and, more important, of its semantic categories. These relate specifically to the interconnections found between so-called causativization and transitivity. The notion ‘intransitivity’, is shown to be inadequate to characterize the data, and can be replaced by a semantic feature – which we call affectedness – of the subject NP of a primary verb in a tree. Higher sentence construction is not adequately handled by the ambiguous – or various – notions of causativity. What happens in Gorum can be more adequately described in terms of displacement of the head NP in a sentence, and this is shown to be directly related to transitivity, causation and perhaps volition. For, an additional distinction operating in the Gorum verbal system is that of internally motivated action versus the absence of such motivation. This distinction – and its correlation with the feature affected – is also touched on.

Information

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable