Transitivity and the binyanim1

Øyvind Bjøru, The University of Texas at Austin The system of stem derivation is an intricate piece of the verbal complex in Semitic grammar. In descriptions of the various languages, the verbal stems are often defined by means of lists of functions they can carry out, perhaps individuating one core function on which others are variations, or an original function from which others are derivations. In this paper, I will look at features that might unite disparate functions attributed to a stem by applying insights from transitivity research on the Semitic data. More specifically, I will present a model of semantic transitivity, link it to the Semitic binyanim, and use it to explore the Biblical Hebrew N-stem, the Arabic tD-stem, and the Amharic T-stem. The focus will be on detransitivizing binyanim, as they seem more unified in the stages of Semitic available to us than the transitivizing D- and C-stems, therefore yielding clearer results in an initial investigation like this.

My aim is to show how the binyanim express certain core functions in terms of transitivity, and that the disparate notions they can express are simply nuances within these broader categories. I am not, however, proposing that such core functions are psycholinguistic realities that override other categories in syntax and semantics (like the passive, reflexive etc.), nor that this can inform us of the origin of the binyanim. The approach developed here is simply a tool that may be used to show how the functions of a binyan could be related, regardless of whether one wants to explain the system diachronically or syn-chronically. Each language’s system of verbal derivation is of course unique with its own particular forms, functions, oppositions and quirks, but I believe a general model of semantic transitivity can help us untangle the binyan system in each of them.

1. Transitivity Transitivity is a category operating on two different linguistic levels, syntax and semantics. In the realm of syntax it typically denotes a categorization of the combinational properties of verbs, such as valency – the number and type of 1 I wish to thank Jack Weinbender and Aren Wilson-Wright for reading a draft of this

paper and giving valuable input. All mistakes, of course, remain my own.

Transitivity and the binyanim 49

dependents a verb can take – and by implication, the systems of case marking that encode this. These are the commonly used configurations of syntactic transitivity:2

TRANSITIVITY VALENCY EXAMPLE INTRANSITIVE Univalent Zayd runs. TRANSITIVE Bivalent Zayd kills ʿAmr. BITRANSITIVE Trivalent Zayd gives ʿAmr a book. AMBITRANSITIVE - Zayd eats (an apple).

Table 1

The problem with syntactic transitivity is that it has been regarded as inherent to the verb, but we often find clauses that subvert the assumed default structure that goes with a verb, for instance “Zayd runs a marathon”, “Zayd kills for money” and “Zayd gives to charity”. This shows the instability of syntactic transitivity as a lexical property, and we either have to develop theo-ries of how other parts of a clause can force a reading and override the lexically encoded valency, or look for other tools to employ in our linguistic descrip-tions.

Semantics of transitivity has been developed as a prototype definition where certain parameters can be invoked to describe relative transitivity. Such a model was presented by Paul J. Hopper and Sandra A. Thompson in their semi-nal paper “Transitivity in Grammar and Discourse” (1980). Semantic transiti-vity is intuitively defined as the notion of effective “transfer” of an action from an agent to a patient. Hopper and Thompson systematized this in ten para-meters of transitivity (1980: 252): 2 See Matthews 2007. Univalent also appears as monovalent, bivalent as divalent, and bi-

transitive as ditransitive, but it would perhaps be better to avoid such classical chimeras and use Latin prefixes since the stems are Latin.

50 Øyvind Bjøru

HIGH TRANSITIVITY LOW TRANSITIVITY A. PARTICIPANTS 2 or more participants,

A and O3 1 participant

B. KINESIS action non-action C. ASPECT telic atelic D. PUNCTUALITY punctual non-punctual E. VOLITIONALITY volitional non-volitional F. AFFIRMATION affirmative negative G. MODE realis irrealis H. AGENCY A high in potency A low in potency I. AFFECTEDNESS OF O O totally affected O not affected J. INDIVIDUATION OF O O highly individuated O non-individuated

Table 2

To stick with the transitive example from above, and in keeping with the amusing tradition of using violent verbs as examples in Semitic grammar, we can check “Zayd killed ʿAmr” for HIGH TRANSITIVITY. The clause has two par-ticipants (A.) and denotes an action (B.). The verb is telic when used without modifiers like ‘trying to’, as the inherent goal is the death of the patient (C.). There is nothing to indicate a non-punctual reading, for instance amount of time spent, repeated action etc. (D.) Whether Zayd intentionally murders ʿAmr or it is an accident is not indicated, so the clause is not marked for volition (E.). It is affirmative (F.) and indicative (realis, G.). The agent is a sentient being capable of volition so it has high potency (H.). The patient is completely affect-ed, changing his state fundamentally (I.), and ʿAmr is highly individuated, not denoting a vague, composite or indefinite patient (J.). The clause therefore turns out to be highly transitive, and only by explicitly marking for volition can we make it relatively more transitive, e.g. “Zayd murdered ʿAmr”. From this list of features Hopper and Thompson derive a hypothesis of transitivity (1980: 255):

3 The A(gent) and O(bject) are the terms used by Hopper and Thompson, following Dixon

1979, denoting the participants in two-participant clauses. This appears to be a mismatch between syntactic labels (subject and object) and semantic labels (agent and patient), but O is taken to be a broader category that can also be used with effective verbs, i.e. verbs that produce an object rather than subject it to something, thus transcending the patient label. I will not be dealing with the particulars of effective verbs, so I will use the terms agent and patient in this paper. When discussing the main or sole participant of low transitivity clauses, I will use the term subject.

Transitivity and the binyanim 51

If two clauses (a) and (b) in a language differ in that (a) is higher in Transitivity ac-cording to any of the features, then, if a concomitant grammatical or semantic diffe-rence appears elsewhere in the clause, that difference will also show (a) to be higher in Transitivity.

It is their assumption that if grammar makes formal distinctions when these semantic properties are altered, it will do so consistently. In other words, formal distinctions may be governed by different configurations of these para-meters, but the same morphological device will never mark both increase and decrease in transitivity. Hopper and Thompson do not, however, posit a com-mon semantic denominator that would unite the various parameters in the table, and without that we run the risk of deriving semantic distinctions from morpho-logical marking, essentially arguing in a circle. A further step in theorizing semantic transitivity was presented in Åshild Næss’ dissertation “Prototypical Transitivity” (2007). She looks at the partici-pants in a clause and assigns them binary values for three parameters: volition, instigation and affectedness. A prototypically transitive clause within her framework has two clearly distinct participants, the agent volitionally instigates the action, and the patient is affected by the action. That gives us the following configuration as the transitive prototype (Næss 2007: 44-46):4

AGENT PATIENT VOLITION + - INSTIGATION + - AFFECTEDNESS - +

Table 3

Using the highly transitive clause identified above as an example, we can see that Zayd volitionally instigates the action of murder, but is not affected by it. ʿAmr neither wills nor carries out the action, but is completely affected:

Zayd [+Vol, +Inst, -Aff] killed ʿAmr [-Vol, -Inst, +Aff].5

Prototypical transitivity is, as the term indicates, a prototype definition of transitivity, and a given clause will therefore be more or less transitive in rela-tion to the prototype. Transitivity becomes a continuum, and there is no one

4 These parameters relate to Hopper and Thompson’s list in the following manner:

volition: E; instigation: F, G, H; affectedness: A, B, C, D, F, G, I, J. 5 I will be giving the configurations of these parameters in this format: [±Vol], [±Inst],

[±Aff].

52 Øyvind Bjøru

central characteristic of it. Næss, like Hopper and Thompson, assumes that if a grammar marks deviations from this prototype, its categories will be contigu-ous on the continuum of transitivity.

Næss goes further than Hopper and Thompson and proposes that a principle of maximal distinctness of participants unifies the various parameters on their list (Næss 2007: 30).6 The fact that exactly these three features (volition, insti-gation and affectedness) give diametrically opposite values for the agent and the patient in a clause aligned with the prototype, with no conflation or overlap between the participants, make them the defining properties of transitivity. Table 2 would therefore be a list of symptoms of transitivity, the HIGH TRANS-ITIVITY column aligning with the prototype, and the LOW TRANSITIVITY column with deviations from it. Some, if not most, of the parameters on Hopper and Thompson’s list should be seen as continuums, rather than as binary properties. This is most pertinent to the AFFECTEDNESS OF O, and although Næss uses +/- configurations in her framework, she takes these to merely indicate high and low degree of the property in question, and affectedness in particular must be conceived of as a continuum with a range of degrees. To deal with this scalar nature of affected-ness John Beavers has discussed the feature independently (Beavers 2011), and he suggests that a scalar entity, separate from the patient, can be seen to operate within a clause. It subsumes the various scalar changes of motion (walk), state (clean), creation (build), and consumption (eat). Clauses with such changes are claimed to have identical event structures, the only difference being the type of scale that a predicate selects, i.e. a scale of location, property or extent, thus unifying the concept of affectedness (Beavers 2011: 350-352). Having shown that all degrees of change in predicates can be related to a single scalar element in a clause, Beavers goes on to formulate an Affectedness Hierarchy that runs from high to low affectedness: Quantized change > Non-quantized change > Potential change > Unspecified change (Beavers 2011: 358-359):7

6 The Maximal Distinctness of Participants Hypothesis as an underlying definition of the

transitive prototype is Næss’ fusion of two concepts developed in Kemmer 1993, i.e. the distinguishability of participants from each other, and their individuation from the gene-ral background, see Næss 2007: 23.

7 These examples are adapted from Beaver’s presentation.

Transitivity and the binyanim 53

Jack drank a pint of ale. (Quantized) The soup cooled. (Non-quantized) John wiped the car. (Potential) Tony pondered life. (Unspecified)

This entire hierarchy must then be assumed within Næss’ [±Aff] and Hopper and Thompson’s AFFECTEDNESS OF O.

Transitivity is seen as a property of the clause, and this affects how these parameters can be used to investigate the binyanim. The problem lies in the dual function of the binyan system, as being presumably both derivational and inflectional. The distinction is not perfectly clear, but this is perhaps not sur-prising if we take Joan L. Bybee’s formulation of a lexical/derivational/ inflec-tional continuum into account (Bybee 1985: 81-109). She shows that mor-phemes involved in these processes move across the spectrum diachronically, but at a given stage of language they can be involved in both derivation and inflection. A possible distinction for Bybee is that inflection is transparent in the sense that it produces predictable meaning, while derivation is more opa-que, and meaning cannot be predicted precisely (Bybee 1985: 99). This always seems to be the case with the binyanim. The morphemes involved produce so many predictable words as to reach the status of label for an entire category, e.g. causative, passive, reflexive, thus resembling inflection, but then there are virtually always a certain number of words in the same binyanim that have unpredictable meanings, not unlike derivation, and the relation to the alleged core function is sometimes obscure. I will discuss verbs as examples of the binyan functions in isolation, and only give full clauses when the point could otherwise not be clearly made, but the caveat should hold throughout, that the verbs never appear in isolation, and transitivity is a property of the clause arising from more components than the verb alone.

2. The binyanim There is no consensus on the proper label for the phenomenon I am dealing with in this paper. In an attempt to avoid stem, which would in the Semitic context be a somewhat different entity than what is designated by this term in for example Indo-European linguistics, various scholars apply all kinds of ter-minology. The term used in Hebrew grammar, binyan (plural binyanim) ‘build-ing’ has a certain currency. Verbal theme, modification, conjugation, form, pattern, degree, class have all been proposed, but I think they are even more

54 Øyvind Bjøru

misleading than stem.8 Kees Versteegh uses the designation measure (Ver-steegh 1997: 87), presumably translating the term wazn used in traditional Arabic linguistics, and Igor M. Diakonoff employs the term stirps (plural stirpes) evoking the relatedness of the various manifestations of a common root (Diakonoff 1988: 104). Jan Retsö calls the phenomenon diathesis based on its function: [...] a type of construction involving the relations between the verbal kernel of a sen-tence and its nominal elements. These relations may be analyzed both in semantic and morpho-syntactic terms. A covering term for the semantic relations and their morpho-syntactic representation is diathesis. (Retsö 1989: 1)

I think we have come full circle, and the term stem seems as appropriate as any. The biological origin that makes this term inadequate in the opinion of Wilhelm Gesenius and Emil Kautzsch is a rather interesting starting point when one accepts the relevance of the root in Semitic: [The root] represents the common foundation of the verbal and nominal stems developed from it, just as in the vegetable world, from which the figure is borrowed, stems grow from the hidden root [...] 9 (GKC: 100)

Some stems are morphologically derived from other stems, but such “off-shoots” are not really contradicted merely by the term stem. I will use the terms stem and binyan interchangeably to denote each separate consonantal makeup of a root that can be used to form verbal predicates. There are also binyanim formed merely by vocalic patterns, but such ablaut morphology and their func-tions will not be discussed in this paper.

I am not looking at the morphology of the binyanim in this paper, and for the purpose of this study, they will be taken to be morphologically unified and unambiguous. A firm understanding of how the semantics work could in any case help point us in the right direction when it comes to identifying the exact morphological development of the system, but there is still much comparative and reconstructive work, not least in the wider field of Afro-Asiatic linguistics, to be done to uncover how the binyanim formed morphologically. Table 4 presents an overview of the morphological material in the binyan systems.

8 For an overview of which scholar has introduced or used which term see Kouwenberg

2010: 246. 9 Note that this view is refuted by Gesenius and Kautzsch.

Transitivity and the binyanim 55

Table 4 These binyan materials combine in different ways, and each language or branch of Semitic uses a selection of these morphological devices to build their binyan systems. In the remainder of this paper, I will look at the Biblical Hebrew N-stem, showing that it consistently takes a [+Aff] subject. Furthermore, I will demonstrate that the Arabic tD-stem marks various deviations from the transi-tive prototype. Finally, I will explore the Amharic T-stem, which is employed in an even wider array of detransitivized clauses. 3. The N-stem in Biblical Hebrew The Biblical Hebrew N-stem has traditionally been seen as an original reflexive that has increasingly taken on a passive meaning (GKC 1910: 138), possibly in tandem with the disappearance of a passive ablaut G-stem (Williams 1970: 45 ff). This would follow one of several typologically established paths that can produce a new passive.11 I will look at the functions that the stem expresses synchronically in Biblical Hebrew,12 and see how this relates to the model of transitivity discussed above. This is a summary of the functions of the N-stem as reported in the literature:13

10 G(rundstamm), D(oppelungsstamm), C(ausative stem), L(angstamm), Red(uplicated

middle syllable stem), R(eduplicated last radical stem). 11 See the so-called grammaticization of passive morphology in Haspelmath 1990: 42-46. 12 I treat Biblical Hebrew as a unified language here, not distinguishing internal diachronic

layers. 13 This is drawn from Waltke and O’Connor 1990: 378-395, GKC 1910: 137-139, Nyberg

1952: 218-220, Joüon and Muraoka 2008: 139-140. I adopt the system of transcription employed in EHLL. In the two columns to the right the G-stem is presented for refer-ence. If there is no G-stem, or the verb seems to correspond more closely to another verbal form or a noun, this will be given instead.

STEM LABEL10 EXAMPLE G-STEM the root HEBREW qåṭal D-STEM double R2 ARABIC qattala C-STEM š-/s-/ʾ-/h-/y-prefix AKKADIAN šuprus N-STEM n-prefix HEBREW niqṭāl T-STEM t-prefix or -infix ARABIC iftaʿala L-STEM long vowel after R1 ARABIC qātala TN-STEM tan-infix AKKADIAN imtanaqqut RED-STEM the syllable of R2

is reduplicated AMHARIC säbabbärä

R-STEM double R3 ARABIC iḥmarra

56 Øyvind Bjøru

PASSIVE niḇqaʿ ‘to be divided’ båqaʿ ‘to divide’ REFLEXIVE nistar ‘to hide oneself’ såtar ‘to hide’ RECIPROCAL niḏbår ‘to converse’ dibbεr ‘to speak’

nišbar ‘to break (intr.)’ šåḇar ‘to break’ MIDDLE nišʾal ‘to ask something

for oneself’ šåɔ al ‘to ask’

SIMPLE ADJECTIVAL/STATIVE

niptaḥ ‘to be open’ påtaḥ ‘to open’

INGRESSIVE-STATIVE niḇhal ‘to become terrified’

– –

POTENTIAL14 nεʾεḵal ‘to be edible’ ʾåḵal ‘to eat’ TOLERATIVE nimṣå(ʾ) ‘to let oneself be

found’ måṣå(ʾ) ‘to find’

nimlaṭ ‘to fly’ – – INTRANSITIVE nirdam ‘to fall asleep’ – – nεʾεlam ‘to be(come)

mute’ ʾillem ‘mute’ DENOMINATIVE

nōsaḏ ‘to consult secretly’

sōḏ ‘secret (council)’

Table 5 The passive takes the participant affected by the action as its main argument, and it typically has the configuration [-Vol, -Inst, +Aff]. The reflexive conflates the agent and patient and takes a singular argument [+Vol, +Inst, +Aff]. The reciprocal works like a reflexive with a plural subject, and it would also be [+Vol, +Inst, +Aff]. Waltke and O’Connor use the term middle to cover a range of these functions (Waltke and O’Connor 1990: 381). This term is not uni-formly used in the literature, but a working definition that reflects its use in Greek grammar could be John Lyons’ definition: “the ‘action’ or ‘state’ affects the subject of the verb or his interests” (1968: 363). This broad definition sub-sumes functions like the autobenefactive and the anticausative.15 Casting the

14 Waltke and O’Connor call this function gerundive, and they apply this term from Latin

grammar in order to capture the cases where the adjectival state is expressed as neces-sary, proper, or possible. See Waltke and O'Connor 1990: 387 and also Nyberg 1952: 219.

15 The former denotes an action done for the benefit of the subject, the latter an action happening seemingly without impetus, like a passive with no agent mentioned or im-plied, e.g. the vase broke. See Dixon and Aikhenvald 2000: 10.

Transitivity and the binyanim 57

notion in the terminology used here, we can say that the main or sole partici-pant is [+Inst, +Aff], and volition is not specified.16 The adjectival functions (simple, ingressive-stative, and potential) are very similar. They all take the affected participant as their subject, and volition and instigation is irrelevant as only the state is described. There might be a resul-tative aspect to some of these verbs, and that is perhaps to be expected as “[p]assivization entails predicative stativization […] giv[ing] rise to an affinity of passives with perfective-resultative perspectives on verbs.” (Abraham 2006: 2) The ingressive-stative and the potential are relatively low in transitivity as they denote the entering into a state, which entails a gradual scale. The process may therefore be incomplete, or in the case of potentiality, not actually referred to at all. The main participant is, in any case, still [+Aff]. For the potential function we can also say that the affectedness is unspecified in terms of Beavers’ hierarchy of affectedness. The tolerative is a volitional passive, its subject taking the configuration [+Vol, -Inst, +Aff], by letting the action take place. The intransitive, especially occurring with verbs of movement (Nyberg 1952: 219), can also be seen as taking an affected subject. These intransitives can be either unergative (nimlaṭ ‘to fly’) or unaccusative (nirdam ‘to fall asleep’), so [+Aff] is the relevant property, not volition or instigation. This latter category also includes emittance verbs (nεʾε naḥ ‘to sigh’), and this is not at all strange as emitters relate to the action in much the same way as a recipient does (Lehmann 2006: 159). An emitter is in fact a form of affected participant. Finally, the Biblical Hebrew N-Stem can form verbs from adjectives or nouns. The former are generally cast as stative verbal predicates, while the latter give rise to statives, reflexives, middles, and reciprocals. Several binyanim can form denominal verbs, the D-stem being the most common, but for these verbs the affectedness of the main subject makes the N-stem suitable. We have seen that the Biblical Hebrew N-stem forms low transitivity verbs, always with a subject that is [+Aff], but the various configurations of volition and instigation show that this stem does not mark for these parameters. This basic function is compatible with passive, reflexive and reciprocal verbs, but also a range of other low transitivity verbal nuances. When discussing the N-stem, Ernst Jenni did not believe the distinction reflexive-passive to be relevant to for the Biblical Hebrew N-stem at all. He sums up the N-stem as meaning “show oneself to be something”, that is to say the subject exposes its affected- 16 See also Kemmer 1993: 130, where she claims that a main function of the middle voice

is “to code the affectedness of an initiating entity”.

58 Øyvind Bjøru

ness, and it is of no consequence whether it has brought about this affectedness itself, or it has been imposed on it.17 Pieter A. Siebesma goes further and includes the tolerative in this set of functions that Semitic, or at least Biblical Hebrew, does not really distinguish (Siebesma 1991: 170).18 4. The Arabic tD-stem I will now move on to the Arabic tD-stem. The hypothesis is that the t-element marks deviation from the transitive prototype, and these are the functions reported for the stem:19

REFLEXIVE taṯabbata ‘to assure oneself’

ṯabbata ‘to assure’

ANTICAUSATIVE takassara ‘to break (intr.)’ kassara ‘to break (tr.)’ GRADUAL PROGRESS

taḥassana ‘to become in-creasingly better’

ḥassana ‘to improve’

AFFECTED AGENT

takallama ‘to speak (a language)’

kallama ‘to speak, talk (to someone)’

SIMULATIVE taʾassafa ‘to present oneself as sorry’

ʾasifa ‘to be sorry’

Table 6 The reflexive merges the participants, resulting in a subject [+Vol, +Inst, +Aff]. The anticausative denotes an action happening by itself, suppressing or not implying a causer, so the subject takes the configuration [-Vol, +Inst, +Aff]. The verb used to exemplify the function of gradual progress here, taḥassana, is first of all low in transitivity as it only takes one participant, namely the affec-ted entity, but the function is more specific than that. The verb would appear in a clause with a scalar element, and be partly affected along that scale. Such a subdivision of the action makes for relatively low transitivity, but it is worth 17 “Das hebräische Nifʿal bezeichnet das ‘Geschehen eines Vorgangs oder einer Handlung

am Subjekt selber ohne Rücksicht auf die Art oder den Grad der Mitwirkung dieses Sub-jekts an diesem Geschehen [...]” Jenni 1973: 63.

18 See also Belinda Bicknell’s dissertation where she claims that reading a particular clause as “passive, reflexive or nonagentful (stative or intransitive)” in Biblical Hebrew is de-pendent on context, Bicknell 1984: 124.

19 These functions and most of the examples are drawn from Wright 1896-98: 36-38, Fischer 2002: 99, and Gaudefroy-Demombynes and Blachère 1937: 58-61. This covers Classical Arabic, but the analysis would be essentially the same for the MSA tD-stem, as the form and function of the ten canonical binyanim do not change between these stages of the written language.

Transitivity and the binyanim 59

noting that this is a kind of transitivity reduction that Arabic does not express by means of the N-stem, but specifically by the tD-stem. Using a graded predi-cate like this is also incompatible with punctuality, which is a HIGH TRANSITI-VITY parameter. The affected agent is a label that Næss develops for agents in clauses that are [+Vol, +Inst, +Aff], but still can take an object, or where a patient is implied. An example would be ingestive verbs, the idea being that when eating something, the agent is more affected by the action than the patient, i.e. the food. The configuration is the same as for reflexive verbs, but the [+Aff] in this case takes on the special meaning of being relatively more affected than the patient. With a verb like takallama we could argue that although it takes an object (a language), the language is not [+Aff], at least not more so than the agent.20 The simulative function of the tD-stem is a particular nuance that has some characteristics in common with the function labeled “gradual progress”. These verbs also appear in one-participant clauses with an affected subject, but they also denote states or actions that somehow do not really apply or are not really carried out, almost a sense of irrealis, and that could reduce both volition and instigation. Again, this kind of deviation from the transitive prototype is never expressed by means of the N-stem. This shows that even though the tD-stem will often mark reduced transitivity in relation to a highly transitive D-stem verb, it can also be used to mark further deviation from the prototype even with verbs of low transitivity as a starting point. In summary, the Arabic tD-stem can be employed to form verbs of reduced transitivity with affected subjects and reduced affectedness. It is not, however, compatible with a subject [-Inst]. 5. The Amharic T-stem Amharic distinguishes a G-, a D-, an L-, and a Red-variant of the basic stem. I treat these verb classes together, so table 7 represents a bundle of Amharic T-stem derivations treated as one stem:21

20 It is interesting that these categories fit perfectly on sets of deponent verbs in Swedish

for instance, where the affected agent applies to kräkas ‘vomit’, andas ‘breathe’, and minnas ‘remember’, all taking passive form.

21 These functions and examples are drawn from Leslau 1995: 462-467, and I use Leslau’s system of transcription.

60 Øyvind Bjøru

PASSIVE tägäddälä ‘to be killed’ gäddälä ‘to kill’ REFLEXIVE taṭṭäbä ‘to wash oneself’ aṭṭäbä ‘to wash s.th.’ RECIPROCAL tänäkakkäsä ‘to bite one

another’ näkkäsä ‘to bite’

INTRANSITIVE tämälläsä ‘to return’ mälläsä ‘to return s.th.’ ANTICAUSATIVE täsäbbärä ‘to break (intr.)’ säbbärä ‘to break (tr.)’

täraqqwätä ‘to be naked’ raqut ‘nakedness’ DENOMINAL täwädaǧǧä ‘to fraternize’ wädaǧ ‘friend’

BASIC täqämmäṭä ‘to sit down’ – – Table 7

We find a wide range of verbs with low transitivity, where the subject is

always affected. It is, in other words, very similar in function to the Biblical Hebrew N-stem discussed above. Again the passive takes a subject [-Vol, -Inst, +Aff], and the reflexive and reciprocal take a subject [+Vol, +Inst, +Aff]. The intransitive derivation reduces the number of participants to one, and they behave like reflexives taking a subject [+Vol, +Inst, +Aff]. The anticausative is a particular type of such intransitives, not marked for volition, but the subject is both instigating and affected. The denominative verbs formed with a t-prefix are stative or reciprocal. Verbs that seem to express their basic meaning in the T-stem, not corresponding to an underived verb, always take subjects that are [+Aff] and mostly [+Inst]. This shows that it is not simply the relationship be-tween stems that determine how they work, but rather, there are intrinsic pro-perties to each binyan, and a certain verbal notion may appear in a binyan that matches its characteristics.

A few verbs of emotion appear in the T-stem, and they are particularly interesting from the perspective of transitivity. A verb like täṭäyyäfä ‘to loathe’ syntactically takes an object, but the subject is arguably the more affected entity, having a state of mind predicated onto it,22 and that makes the T-stem a suitable means to express this verbal notion. The subject would in these cases be [+Vol, +Aff], while instigation doesn’t apply in the case of states. The T-stem is also employed in a range of other clauses of reduced trans-itivity, but to properly demonstrate how they function it is necessary to look at full clauses.

22 Næss controls for this by negation. To negate John loves Mary is to negate the affected-

ness of John, not Mary being the object of his infatuation, see Næss 2007: 116.

Transitivity and the binyanim 61

• Potential statives: andand asawočč yämmibbällu naččäw ‘some fish are edible’.23

As with the potential function in the Biblical Hebrew N-stem, such verbs have an affected subject, but the scale of affectedness in unspecified, and that makes the potential reading possible, maintaining focus on the affected entity without specifying actual affectedness. • Gradual affectedness: sәraw tädarswall ‘the job is almost done’.24 This clause expresses non-quantized change in Beavers’ terms. There is a scale element in the clause, but not complete affectedness. • Habitual action: tənnəšu ləǧ awaqi yəssaddäball ‘the little child has the

habit of insulting adults’.25 When the T-stem is used to express habitual action, the INDIVIDUATION OF O is low, thus reducing transitivity. Repeated action is also not punctual in the sense that it cannot be reduced to one point in time, even though each occurrence of the action can be punctual. A similar notion of habit and low individuation of participants occur with the impersonal construction that the T-stem can also be used for: • Impersonal construction: әngliz bäqäññ ayәnnäddamm ‘in England one

doesn’t drive on the right’.26 Leslau also reports a highly specialized usage of the Amharic T-stem as a sar-castive marker. Together with raised intonation the sarcastive is really a mood as it marks the speaker’s attitude towards what he is saying, and the message conveyed is a form of irrealis in which we are to understand that the state or event described doesn’t hold, shouldn’t hold, or is indeed ridiculous. • Sarcastive statement: suf täläbbäsänna yәkkwärrall ‘(look at him), he puts

on a wool suit and is all vain (arrogant)’.27 Again, as with the potential function, the action is not exactly carried out, at least not in the way that the statement recasts it. It is perhaps not entirely affirmative and in a realis mode. It therefore deviates from the transitive proto-type, and in Amharic comes to be cast in the T-stem.

23 From bälla ‘to eat’, yämmibbällu is a T-stem with an assimilated /t/. 24 From därräsä ‘to arrive’. 25 From säddäbä ‘to insult’, yәssaddäball is a T-stem with an assimilated /t/. 26 From nädda ‘to drive’, ayәnnäddamm is a negated T-stem with an assimilated /t/. 27 From läbbäsä ‘to put on’.

62 Øyvind Bjøru

We have seen that the Amharic T-stem marks a wide array of deviations from Næss’ transitive prototype, and sometimes the adjustments of the verbal notion are very subtle. It is not restricted to only taking affected subject or instigating subjects like the previous stems discussed. 6. Conclusions We have seen how the Biblical Hebrew N-stem, the Arabic tD-stem, and the Amharic T-stem work. The first forms verbal notions that take an affected subject, thus covering the low transitivity categories of passive, reflexive, reciprocal, verbs of movement etc. The second forms low transitivity verbs with instigating subjects. The third expresses a wide range of detransitivizing notions in which the common trait is the deviation from the transitive proto-type, thus covering most of the continuum of transitive, but not the highly tran-sitive end.

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