The Grammaticization of Number as a Verbal Category

Abstract

Proceedings of the Twelfth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (1986), pp. 355-368

Pluractional Verbs: An Overview

“…The classic volume that delves into the subject of verbal plurality is Dressler (1968). The modern linguistic appreciation of the significance of these earlier works and the recognition of verbal plurality as a rich and complex area of study can be said to have begun in the early to mid 1980s with the appearance of an oft-cited Ph.D. dissertation (Cusic 1981) and the publication of a series of influential papers by Bybee (1984Bybee ( , 1985, Frajzyngier (1985), Durie (1986), and Mithun (1988), in all of which disparate examples of verbal plurality were regarded as manifestations of a common phenomenon. More recently, pluractionality has been treated in depth in a still unpublished, firstrate Ph.D. dissertation (Wood 2007).…”

“…Following up on observations by Durie (1986) and Mithun (1988), Corbett (1998: 3) notes that, "genuine verbal number [by which he means 'pluractionality'] (rather than nominal number found on verbs by agreement) is typically derivational". This being the case, one would expect that pluractional verb stems should serve naturally as the input to other derivations and inflections.…”

“…The seminal studies of Cusic (1981) and Durie (1986) Unlike noun plurality, which is, or at least which we tend to think is, semantically fairly straightforward in that it connotes number and not much else, pluractional verbs have a rich and varied semantics. Pluractionals indicate multiplicity of action or event in some manner or other but with a wide variety of manifestations.…”

The interaction of morphology and syntax in affix order

“…In other words, if both types of markers derive from the same sources and their position is determined by their syntactic origins, they should have the same positional properties. However, there might be different historical sources for number agreement markers, such as plural words (Dryer 1989), verbal pluractionality markers (Durie 1986, Corbett 2000, distributivity and collective markers or numerals (especially in the case of dual markers).…”

The Limits of Deponency: A Chukotko-centric Perspective*

“…On the other hand, we might suspect verbal number (pluractionality) here. As noted by Corbett (2000: 253) (see also Durie 1985), it is not uncommon for verbal number to pick out absolutives regardless of what agreement morphology may be doing.…”