The affective construction in Yoron Ryukyuan

• Tohru Seraku ^[1] ; Nana Tohyama ^[2]
  1. [1] Hankuk University of Foreign Studies

     Hankuk University of Foreign Studies

     Corea del Sur

     
  2. [2] Okinawa International University

     Okinawa International University

     Japón

     
• Localización: Studies in language: International Journal Sponsored by The Foundation "Foundations of Language", ISSN 0378-4177, Vol. 42, Nº 2, 2018, págs. 418-454
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • In Yoron Ryukyuan, passives are formed through the verbal suffix ‘-ari’. In this article, we observe that the suffix is used to form a construction distinguished from the standard passives in several respects: (i) attachment of ‘-ari’ to a wide range of predicates, (ii) ‘-ari’ obligatorily coexisting with the clause-linking suffix ‘-ti’, (iii) the case-marking pattern identical to that of active sentences, among other properties. Semantically, this construction expresses that the speaker is affected (typically, in an adversative fashion) by the situation denoted by the ‘-ari’-attached predicate. We call this linguistic unit "Affective Construction" (AC), revealing its unique syntactic and semantic properties. Furthermore, we suggest that the development of ‘-ari’ into ‘-ari-ti’ to constitute the AC may be viewed as an instance of grammaticalisation, with remarks on its generality in line with Unidirectionality and on the licensing conditions on the AC which seem to be uncommon cross-linguistically.