Semantic and morphological partitives in the Uralic languages

Semantic and morphological partitives in the Uralic languages Anne Tamm SLE 43 RD ANNUAL MEETING, VILNIUS, 2 - 5 SEPTEMBER 2010 SLE workshop Partitives, Vilnius, September 4 th, 2010

What is special about the Uralic partitives? �Having many languages with the partitive: the variation across the Finnic languages in ”what the partitive is used for” – the semantic partitive > partitive TAM semantics distinction �Embeddedness in rich case systems: the multitude of Source (separative) cases and a mismatch between partitive semantics and semantic partitives �The interaction between TAM and the partitive �Aspectual DOM, DSM, DAM �Definiteness effects, telicity, and partitive arguments �Case on non-finites and verb stems

Semantics and morphology: a ”partitive” mismatch �Several Uralic languages have cases that are referred to as ”partitive”. �The semantics of these cases diverges from the generally assumed notion of ”partitive”. Semantic Morphological PTV �It is useful to distinguish between ”semantic partitives” (and cases that express it) and ”morphological partitives” (and the semantics they express).

Sem. P The partitive semantics corresponds to "part/amount-of-N", referring to a part or quantity out of a group or amount of substance.

Language-specific morphological partitives �While the semantic partitive has fixed semantic properties, the morphological partitive cases have developed their own specific semantics and pragmatics in each Uralic language where the case appears. �Karelian: the cause partitive ”infinitives” �Inari Sami: after numbers 7+ �Inari Sami: with comparatives (than someone/something)

Karelian ”partitive infinitives” Keittä-miä pada musten-i. cook-M_NMLZ_PTV pot[NOM] blacken-3 S. PST ’Cooking caused the pot turn black. ’ (Karelian)

Sami comparative constructions (Inari Sami, Toivonen 2003: 65)

Sami number phrases 7+ (Inari Sami, Toivonen 2003: 66)

Rich case systems �Uralic languages are typically characterized by rich case systems with approximately 10 members, and many have case systems of approximately 15 or 20 cases. �According to the WALS map of Iggesen (2008), there are 24 languages with more than 10 cases. �The following languages have more than 10 cases in WALS: Awa Pit, Basque, Brahui, Chukchi, Epena Pedee, Estonian, Evenki, Finnish, Gooniyandi, Hamtai, Hungarian, Hunzib, Ingush, Kayardild, Ket, Lak, Lezgian, Martuthunira, Mordvin (Erzya), Nez Perce, Nunggubuyu, Pitjantjatjara, Toda, Udmurt. �Five of those listed are Uralic (Erzya Mordvin, Estonian, Finnish, Hungarian, and Udmurt).

Partitive in the case paradigm Morphological partitives: (Baltic)-Finnic Skolt and Inari Sami -----------Semantic partitives: Almost all Uralic cases have one or more cases for ”separation”

Partitive and no source case: Sami (Toivonen 2003: 36)

Partitive and source cases: Est Nominative Genitive Partitive Illative Inessive Elative Allative Adessive Ablative Translative Terminative Essive Abessive Comitative book of a book (of) a book into the book in a book from (inside) a book onto a book on a book from the book in(to), as a book until a book as a book without a book with a book raamatu-t raamatu-sse raamatu-st raamatu-le raamatu-lt raamatu-ks raamatu-ni raamatu-na raamatu-ta raamatu-ga

No partitive, Source cases (U) 1. Nominative 2. Genitive 3. Accusative 4. Ablative 5. Dative 6. Adessive 7. Instrumental 8. Abessive 9. Inessive 10. Illative 11. Elative 12. Terminative 13. Egressive 14. Prolative 15. Approximative s’ik-len s’ik/s’ik-ez s’ik-les’ s’ik-ly s’ik-len s’ik-tek s’ik-yn s’ik-e s’ik-ys’(t) s’ik-oz’ s’ik-ys’en s’ik-eti s’ik-lan’ Source: Svetlana Edygarova, p. c.

Source cases in rich paradigms �Komi has 18 cases (Riese 1998: 268), nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, approximative, genitive/ablative, inessive, elative, ablative, terminative, instrumental, egressive, caritive, adverbial, prolative 1 and 2, consecutive, comitative.

Source cases in poor paradigms �Tundra Nenets 7 (Salminen 1998: 537), nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, locative, ablative, prosecutive. (the suggested Proto-Samoyedic inventory, Janhunen 1998: 469) �Kamas 7 (Szimoncsics 1998: 585 -586), nominative, accusative, genitive, lative, locative, ablative, instrumental �Selkup 13 (Helimski 1998: 560 -561), nominative, accusative, genitive, instrumental, co-ordinative, caritive, translative, dative/allative, illative, locative, elative, prolative, vocative �Nganasan 8 -11 (Helimski 1998: 496), nominative (= absolute form), accusative, genitive, lative (= dative, or dative-lative), locative (=locative/instructive), elative (=ablative), prolative (=prosecutive)

No partitive, no separative (Kh) (Ruttkay 2003: 20)

Source cases: ablative, elative, delative, egressive, and exessive �Ablative (Erzya, Estonian, Finnish, Hungarian, Mansi, Vepsian, Votic, etc) denotes movement away from something (e. g. , away from the house) �Elative (Erzya, Estonian, Finnish, Hungarian, Lule Sámi, Pite Sámi, Votic, etc) denotes "out of something" (e. g. , out of the house). �Delative (Hungarian) denotes movement from the surface (e. g. , from (the top of) the house) �Egressive (Veps, Udmurt) marking the beginning of a movement or time (e. g. , beginning from the house) �Exessive (Karelian, Ingrian, Livonian, Votic, Estonian, etc ) transition away from a state (from a house) �Genitive-ablative (Komi) source of information, resource

Uralic semantic partitive: elative, ablative �In the Uralic languages, the semantic partitive is generally expressed by the elative case. �If there is no dedicated elative case, then the semantic partitive is expressed by the ablative. �The morphological partitive is more characteristic of pseudopartitive constructions. �Pseudopartitive constructions are expressed predominantly via juxtaposition. �It is not clear at this stage if all Uralic languages have any partitive constructions with the structure �N-measure – N-substance

Sem. P, elative �Elative denotes movement from a container, ablative movement away from something, delative – movement from a surface. gyerekeimből a legfiatalabb child-PL. 1 PX-ELA the youngest ’the youngest of my children’ (Hungarian)

Juxtaposition (pseudo-partitives) Many Uralic languages express pseudo-partitives with juxtaposition (N and W Sami, Hungarian, Mari, Mordvinian, Komi, Udmurt (Koptjevskaja-Tamm 2001: 555)). egy pohár det/one glass[nom] ’a glass of wine’ (Hungarian) bor wine[nom]

Sem. P: elative, Morph. P: partitive �Estonian semantic partitive is typically realized by elative; only the pseudo-partitive is realized with the partitive case-marking. noorim mu laste-st youngest my child. PL-ELA ’the youngest of my children’ klaas veini glass[NOM] wine. PTV ’a glass of wine’ (Estonian)

True Sem. P and aspect Evett a pizzá-ból. eat. 3 S DEF pizza-ELA ‘She ate some of the pizza. ’ Meg-ette a pizzá-t. TELIC-eat. 3 S DEF pizza-ACC ‘She ate up the pizza. ’ *Meg-ette a pizzá-ból. TELIC-eat. 3 S DEF pizza-ELA (‘She ate up of the pizza. ’) (Hungarian)

Morph. P Mari sõi (seda) pitsa-t. Mari ate this. ptv pizza-PTV ‘Mary was eating (this) pizza. ’ (Est unbounded) Mari sõi pitsa / ? ? pitsa-t (ära). Mari ate pizza. ACC pizza-PTV up ‘Mary ate a pizza (up). ’ (Est bounded) Pizzá-t evett. pizza-ACC eat. 3 S ‘She was eating pizza. ’ (Hu unbounded) The Hungarian elative is a real semantic partitive. Bare nouns compare to other Uralic zero marked bare nouns.

Udm. : acc. Sem. P, unmarked/acc n'an' s'i-i bread[ACC] eat-INF ‘to eat (a piece of) bread. ’ (odig (one[ACC] n'an'-ez judes s'i-i bread-ACC piece[ACC] eat-INF ‘to eat a piece of this bread. ’ n'an'-ez s'i-i bread-ACC eat-INF ‘to eat (a piece of) this bread up. ’ (Svetlana Edygarova, p. c. ) judes) piece[ACC])

Komi, elative Sem. P, unmarked/acc Курчч-и нянь-сьыс тор. bite-1 s. past bread-ela piece[acc] ’I have bitten some bread. ’ Нянь сёй-и. bread [acc] eat-1 sg/past ‘I was eating bread, I ate some bread. ’ Сёй-и нянь-сö. eat-1 sg/past bread-acc. def ‘I ate the bread (some of the bread). ’ (Nikolay Kuznetsov, p. c. )

Affectedness of the incremental theme and the object case Incremental theme argument totally affected partially affected Accusative ELATIVE Hu__ PARTITIVE Est Unmarked (Hu, K, U)

Case-marked non-finite verb forms �Partitives and source cases appear on non-finites. �Non-finite forms frequently originate from case-marked non-finite verb forms, which are complements originally but develop further into base predicates of larger predicate complexes. �These complexes develop case-related semantics and TAM meanings.

Udmurt: case on n-nominalizations 1. Nominative 2. Genitive 3. Accusative 4. Ablative 5. Dative 6. Adessive 7. Instrumental 8. Abessive 9. Inessive 10. Illative 11. Elative 12. Terminative 13. Egressive 14. Prolative 15. Approximative s’ik-len s’ik/s’ik-ez s’ik-les’ s’ik-ly s’ik-len s’ik-tek s’ik-yn s’ik-e s’ik-ys’(t) s’ik-oz’ s’ik-ys’en s’ik-eti s’ik-lan’ myn-on (verb+n+case) myn-on-len (verb+n+len) myn-on-ez myn-on-les’ myn-on-ly myn-on-en myn-on-yn myn-on-e myn-on-oz’ Source: Svetlana Edygarova, p. c.

Case on m-nominalizations 1. Nominative 2. Genitive 3. Accusative 4. Ablative 5. Dative 6. Adessive 7. Instrumental 8. Abessive 9. Inessive 10. Illative 11. Elative 12. Terminative 13. Egressive 14. Prolative 15. Approximative s’ik-len s’ik/s’ik-ez s’ik-les’ s’ik-ly s’ik-len s’ik-tek s’ik-yn s’ik-e s’ik-ys’(t) s’ik-oz’ s’ik-ys’en s’ik-eti s’ik-lan’ myn-em (verb+m+case) myn-em-len (verb+m+len) myn-em-ez myn-em-les’ myn-em-ly myn-em-en myn-em-yn myn-em-e myn-em-ys’ myn-em-oz’ Source: Svetlana Edygarova, p. c.

Spatial prepositions+infinitives (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) Je viens de manger. ‘I have just eaten. ’ I go to eat. Jan is aan het eten. ‘John is eating. ’ *I come from eat. Je vais manger. ‘I am going to eat. ’

The participle becomes an object auditory evidence is partial Mari Mary kuulis heard Jürit G. ptv koju tulevat. home come-pers. pres. ptcp. partitive ‘Mary heard George come home. ’ (Est)

Visual evidence is not partial Mari Mary nägi Jürit saw J. part koju tule-mas. home come-m_inessive ‘Mary saw George coming home. ’ (Est)

Epistemic modality and the partiality of evidence FULL EVIDENCE Incomplete EVIDENCE NO PARTITIVE EVIDENTIAL

Summary �There are many Source (separative) cases. �There is a mismatch between semantic and morphological partitives. �The interaction between TAM, definiteness, and the partitive can be observed in many areas. �Aspectual DOM �Definiteness effects, telicity, and partitive arguments �Case on non-finites and verb stems