The semantics of auxiliary verbs and affixes

Cette contribution s’attache à présenter la conception des temps verbaux et l’analyse des formes temporelles proposées par Lucien Tesnière dans le cadre de sa syntaxe structurale. L’article dégage les potentialités de son approche, résidant dans les notions de « lien syntaxique » au niveau de la proposition d’une part, et d’« investigation intranucléaire » d’autre part. Il en souligne également les limites, en examinant les deux principes qui gouvernent l’analyse intranucléaire appliquée aux complexes hypotaxiques que sont les formes verbales, à savoir celui de « linéarité » et celui d’« orientation unique ». L’économie hypotaxique de ces formes est revue à la lumière de l’analyse de Jean-Marie Zemb. De même la notion de « lien syntaxique » trouve-t-elle chez Zemb sa pleine exploitation, puisque ce dernier lui réserve un espace autonome (le phème), entre le thème et le rhème, et que cette structure triadique de la proposition permet de repérer exactement toutes les incidences de l’expression du temps dans la proposition.

Der vorliegende Beitrag nimmt sich vor, die Analyse der Zeitformen, die Tesnière im Rahmen seiner strukturalen Syntax aufgebaut hat, darzulegen. In dieser Hinsicht werden die zwei Prinzipien vorgeführt, auf denen die Tesnièresche Analyse fußt : das der « linéarité » der Zeitformen sowie das der « orientation unique » derselben. Dabei wird gezeigt, wie Tesnières Auffassung der « connexion » ihn daran hindert, eine richtige Einsicht in den hypotaktischen Aufbau komplexer Verbalformen zu bekommen. Zu Tesnières falschen Annahme trägt auch seine Auffassung eines fundamentalen Unterschieds zwischen Hilfsverben und Vollverben bei. Tesnière hat dennoch die Grundlagen für eine Zeitanalyse auf Satzebene gelegt. Dabei wird sein Begriff des « lien syntaxique » in den Vordergrund gerückt. Kontrastiv und vergleichend werden Jean-Marie Zembs Ansichten sowohl über die letzt erwähnte Frage der Zeitanalyse auf Satzebene als auch über die Frage der Innenstruktur der Zeitformen dargestellt.

This paper tackles the concepts of ‘Variation’ and ‘Specialization’, frequently
used in grammaticalization theory, within the context of progressive aspectual periphrases and from a comparative perspective French-Dutch. Drawing on historical and contemporary data, it is shown that these periphrases (i) have a disambiguating function, (ii) vary as to the level of Specialization operating on them, and (iii) manifest a relatively high level of formal fusion and semantic uni- formity, due to processes of ‘metaphorization’, ‘reanalysis’ and ‘desemanticization’. The synergy between ‘Variation’ and ‘Specialization’ as proposed in this analysis allows for a comprehensive account of linguistic phenomena which are subject to (especially incipient) grammaticalization.

The paper proposes an analysis of the auxiliary 'will' as a relatively independent syntactic unit at the level of utterance. The functioning of the verb reveals that there are two basic aspects of its grammatical meaning which are realized in utterances: indication of the nature of knowledge a conceptualizer has about the clausal event and indication of the way the event is categorized in discourse.  The first type of indication is shown to be dominating in the structure of the verb's meaning.

Key words: auxiliary, grammatical meaning, discourse categorization, type of knowledge

"The analysis of the literary Tibetan verb system is an object of typological interest for several reasons. Firstly, it allows us to look at the evolution of the verb system notably auxiliary verb constructions and clause linking during a period of more than a thousand years. Classical Tibetan has the advantage of having preserved almost the same orthography during this very long period of time. I decided to focus on the fifteenth century by selecting a well-known book as a main corpus: the Life of Milarepa. I then compared the verb system of this period with contemporary literary Tibetan. The main reason for this study is to better understand the emergence of an auxiliary verb system in middle Tibetan which marks evidentiality, that is to say the grammaticalization of the epistemological source and the access to information. Literary Tibetan is the only language in Asia with an ancient history which has developed a complex evidential verb system. Apart from the analysis of grammatical semantics, the second reason for this study is my interest in the syntax of auxiliary verb constructions and of clause linking in middle Tibetan and their evolution in contemporary Tibetan. My data on literary Tibetan and my synchronic and diachronic analysis may make a significant contribution to the typological studies of evidentiality and epistemic modality as well as of the syntax of auxiliary verb constructions and clause linking.

Keywords : Auxiliary, Evidentiality, Epistemic Modality, Orientation, Clause Linking, Subordination

Morphosyntaxe et sémantique des auxiliaires et des connecteurs du tibétain littéraire. Etude diachronique et synchronique.

L’étude du système verbal du tibétain littéraire présente un intérêt typologique à plus d’un titre. D’une part, elle permet d’observer l’évolution du système verbal, notamment les constructions avec un auxiliaire et les connecteurs verbaux, sur une période de plus de mille ans. Cette langue classique a l’avantage d’avoir quasiment préservé la même orthographe au cours de cette très longue période. J’ai choisi de me concentrer sur la période du quinzième siècle en choisissant pour corpus principal une œuvre très célèbre : la biographie de Milarépa. J’ai ensuite comparé le système verbal de cette période avec le tibétain littéraire contemporain. La principale raison qui a motivé cette étude, est l’émergence en tibétain moyen d’un système d’auxiliaires indiquant l’évidentialité, c'est-à-dire la grammaticalisation de la source épistémologique et de l’accès à l’information. Le tibétain est la seule langue littéraire d’Asie ayant une grande ancienneté qui ait développé un système verbal évidentiel complexe. Outre l’étude de la sémantique grammaticale, la deuxième motivation à l’origine de cette étude est la syntaxe des constructions avec un auxiliaire et des connecteurs du tibétain moyen et leur évolution en tibétain littéraire contemporain. Les données du tibétain littéraire et les analyses synchronique et diachronique sont susceptibles d’apporter une contribution à la typologie aussi bien en ce qui concerne l’évidentialité et les modalités épistémiques qu’en ce qui concerne la syntaxe des auxiliaires et des connecteurs.

Mots clés :auxiliaire, évidentialité, modalités épistémiques, orientation, connecteur, subordination"

Copala Triqui has a construction in which predicates of emotion and psychological state appear with one of two special auxiliary verbs, derived historically from verbs meaning 'see' and 'look'.  This paper details the constraints on the syntax of the emotion auxiliary construction and contrasts it with the ordinary verbal syntax of the language. (Ethnologue code TRC)

Gramerleşme dilin evrim süreci içinde bir sözlükbirimin biçimbirime dönüşmesi şeklinde tanımlanabilir. Yalnız kelimelerin ekleşmesi olmayan gramerleşmede, bazı bağımsız kelimeler ek haline gelip sonradan sesbirimleşirken bazıları yardımcı fiil, kip, edat, bağlaç vb. işlevler kazanabilirler. Tur- yardımcı fiili, Aral-Hazar grubu Türk lehçeleri olan Kazakça, Nogayca, Karakalpakça ve Kırgızcada hem yardımcı fiili olarak hem de gramerleşme aşamasını tamamlamış olarak çeşitli yapılarda kullanılır. Sesbirimleşerek oluşturduğu kip ekleri bunların başında gelmektedir. Bu çalışmada tur- yardımcı fiilinin gramatikal olarak kullanılışı Aral-Hazar grubu Türk lehçelerinde incelenmiştir.

Abstract: This paper presents a novel approach on the syntax and semantics
of the two Spanish auxiliary verbs haber and tener and their
distributional properties. It is argued that these verbs share key syntactic
properties, but denote two different types of semantic relations. While
tener denotes a property ascribed to the subject, haber only introduces
the temporal reference of a sentence. This proposal on the semantics of
tener and haber is then inserted in a broader proposal on auxiliary verbs,
copulae and their distribution. It is shown that the current proposal can
correctly account the distribution of tener and haber, and be seamlessly
integrated with standard approaches to ser and estar.

Dilde yeni ihtiyaçları, yeni kavramları karşılamak, söz varlığını geliştirmek ve zenginleştirmek üzere çeşitli unsurlar kullanılır. İşte birleşik fiiller ve onun bir alt grubu olan tasvir fiilleri de bu amaçla kullanılmaktadır. Gramerleşme teorisinin inceleme alanına giren tasvir fiilleri; şekilce zarf-fiil kuruluşundaki bir asıl fiilin, bir yardımcı fiile bağlanması sonucu meydana gelmektedir. Yardımcı fiil, kendisinden önceki asıl fiilin gösterdiği durum veya hareketi tasvir eder, çeşitli bakımlardan onun yapılma şeklini gösterir. Yardımcı fiil tek başına tasvir fiili değildir. Tasvir fiili, yardımcı fiilin zarf-fiille birlikte oluşturduğu yapıdır. Türk lehçeleri tasvir fiilleri bakımından çok zengindir. Tasvir fiilleri her lehçede yapı, anlam ve sayı itibariyle farklı şekillerde sınıflandırılmıştır. Bu kitapta, Kıpçak lehçelerinde tasvir fiillerinin incelenmesi amaçlanmış; bunun için de bu grubu en iyi temsil eden lehçelerden birbirine yakın iki Kıpçak lehçesi olan Kazak ve Nogay Türkçesi yazı dilleri seçilmiştir. Çalışmada tasvir fiilleri tespit edildikten sonra, bunlar kullanılış ve işlev bakımından karşılaştırmalı olarak incelenmiştir.

The proposed paper suggests an analysis of English auxiliaries 'would' and 'used to' that are used in descriptions of habitual past-time events. As evidenced by linguistic data, both verbs evoke the experiential grounding of the clausal event. Alternative uses of the verbs are motivated by contrastive implication of individual knowledge of each particular instantiation of the described habitual event ('would') and generalized knowledge of the whole class of the clausal events ('used to').

Key words: meaning, cognitive factor, type of knowledge, auxiliary verb, experiential connotation, utterance, predication