Cover not available

In:Theoretical Issues in the Languages of the Caucasus
Edited by Ümit Atlamaz, Ömer Demirok and Balkız Öztürk
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 294] 2026
► pp. 68–94

Chapter 2
Där c’ik’iw teqa retiχ ‘I want to understand everything’

Tsez verbs of perception and cognition

This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
This chapter investigates verbs of perception and cognition — so-called psych-verbs — in Tsez (Dido), a morphologically ergative Nakh-Dagestanian language spoken in southwestern Dagestan. Building on Belletti and Rizzi’s (1988) influential typology of psychological predicates, which distinguishes Experiencer-Subject, Experiencer-Object, and Experiencer-oblique constructions, this study extends their analytical framework to a non-accusative language with a distinct case system and rich agglutinative morphology. The paper demonstrates that Tsez employs a specialized affective construction to encode perceptual and cognitive states, which on the surface appears homogeneous but in fact reflects two distinct underlying syntactic structures. Experiencer-Subject perception and cognition verbs in Tsez pattern similarly to regular transitive and intransitive verbs, paralleling Italian. The findings contribute to ongoing debates about the universality of psych-verb typologies, the syntax of experiencer constructions in ergative languages, and the fine structure of the verb phrase across typologically diverse languages.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Tsez basics
  • 3.The affective construction
    • 3.1Causative formation
    • 3.2Binding
    • 3.3Masdar clauses
      • 3.3.1Basic generalizations concerning masdar relative clauses
      • 3.3.2Masdar relative clauses and the affective construction
  • 4.Not all affective constructions are built the same
  • 5.Outside the affective construction
  • 6.Taking stock
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
References (39)
References
Abdulaev, A. K., and Abdullaev, I. K. 2010. Cezyas folklor/Dido (Tsez) folklore/Didojskij (cezskij) fol´klor. Leipzig–Makhachkala: Lotos.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baker, M. C. 2014. On dependent ergative case (in Shipibo) and its derivation by phase. Linguistic Inquiry 45:341–379. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2015. Case: Its principles and its parameters. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Belletti, A., and Rizzi, L. 1988. Psych-verbs and θ-Theory. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 6: 291–352. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bhatt, R. 2006. Covert modality in non-finite contexts. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bokarev, E. A. 1959. Cezskie (didojskie) jazyki Dagestana. Moskva: Izd-vo AN SSSR.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bolinger, D. 1988. The infinitive as complement of nouns in Spanish and English. Studies in Descriptive Linguistics 16: 227–234.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Burukina, I., and Polinsky, M. 2024. On the inventory of v and Voice. Proceedings of NELS 54.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Burukina, I., & Polinsky, M. 2025. The antipassive and verbal projections. Journal of Linguistics 61: 689–722. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Caponigro, I. 2003. Free not to ask: On the semantics of free relatives and Wh-words cross-linguistically. Ph. D. Dissertation, UCLA.
Comrie, B., and M. Polinsky. 1998. The great Dagestanian case hoax. In A. Siewierska, and J. J. Song (eds.) Case, typology, and grammar, 95–114. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Comrie, B., and van den Berg, H. 2006. Experiencer constructions in Daghestanian languages. In I. Bornkessel, M. Schlesewsky, B. Comrie, and A. D. Friederici (eds.) Semantic role universals and argument linking: Theoretical, typological, and psycholinguistic perspectives, 127–154. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Comrie, B., D. Forker, and Khalilova, Z. 2013. Alignment typology, reflexives, and reciprocals in Tsezic languages. In C. Cathcart, S. Kang, and C. S. Sandy (eds.) Proceedings of the thirty-seventh annual meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society. Special session on languages of the Caucasus, 32–51. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cysouw, M., and Forker, D. 2009. Reconstruction of morphosyntactic function: Nonspatial use of spatial case marking in Tsezic. Language 85: 588–617. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Davis, H., and Demirdache, H. 2000. On lexical verb meanings: Evidence from Salish. In C. Tenny and J. Pustejovsky (eds.) Events as grammatical objects. The converging perspectives of lexical semantics and syntax, 97–142. Stanford: CSLI.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Faraci, R. A. 1974. Aspects of the grammar of infinitives and for-phrases. Ph. D. Dissertation, MIT.
Fleischer, N. 2008. A crack at a hard nut: Attributive-adjective modality and infinitival relatives. In C. B. Chang and H. Haynie (eds.) Proceedings of the 26th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, 163–171. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gagliardi, A., Goncalves, M., Polinsky, M., and Radkevich, N. 2014. The biabsolutive construction in Lak and Tsez. Lingua 122: 1569–1595. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ganenkov, D., and Maisak, T. 2020. Nakh-Dagestanian languages. In M. Polinsky (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of languages of the Caucasus, 87–146. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Green, G. M. 1973. The derivation of a relative infinitive construction. Studies in the Linguistic Sciences 3: 1–32.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1992. Purpose infinitives and their relatives. In D. Brentari, G. Larson, and L. A. Macleod (eds.) The joy of grammar, 95–130. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hackl, M., and Nissenbaum, J. 2012. A modal ambiguity in for-infinitival relative clauses. Natural Language Semantics 20: 59–81. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Harley, H. 2017. The “bundling” hypothesis and the disparate functions of little v. In R. D’Alessandro, I. Franco, and Á. J. Gallego (eds.) The verbal domain, 3–28. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Helasvuo, M.-L. and Huumo, T. (eds.) 2015. Subjects in constructions — Canonical and non-canonical. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Imnajšvili, D. S. 1963. Didojskij jazyk v sravnenii s ginuxskim i xvaršijskim jazykami. Tbilisi: Izd. AN Gruzinskoj SSR.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kibrik, A. E., and Kodzasov, S. V. 1990. Sopostavitel’noe izučenie dagestanskix jazykov. Imja. Fonetika. Moscow: MGU.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kracht, M. 2020. Spatial Prepositions and Locatives in Formal Semantics. In D. Gutzmann, L. Matthewson, C. Meier, H. Rullmann and T. Zimmermann (eds.) The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Semantics. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Landau, I. 2010. The locative syntax of experiencers. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Myler, N. 2016. Building and interpreting possession sentences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Polinsky, M. 2015. Tsez syntax. Ms., Harvard University. lingbuzz/00231Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2021. Some remarks on the Nakh-Dagestanian affective construction. In T. Maysak et al. (eds.) Durqasi xazna. Festschrift for Rasul Mutalov, 299–323. Moscow: Institute for Linguistics.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Polinsky, M., and Comrie, B. 2003. Constraints on reflexivization in Tsez. In D. A. Holisky and K. Tuite (eds.) Current Trends in Caucasian, East European and Inner Asian Linguistics: Papers in Honor of Howard I. Aronson, 265–289. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Polinsky, M., and Potsdam, E. 2001. Long-distance agreement and topic in Tsez. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 19: 583–646. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2002. Backward control. Linguistic Inquiry 33, 245–282. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Režać, M. 2008. The syntax of eccentric agreement: The Person Case Constraint and absolutive displacement in Basque. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 26: 61–106. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Šimik, R. 2011. Modal existential wh-constructions. PhD. Diss., University of Groningen.
2013a. Modal existential wh-constructions as affordance descriptions. In E. Chemla, V. Homer, and G. Winterstein (eds.) Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 17, 563–580. Amherst: GSLA.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2013b. The PRO-wh connection in modal existential wh-constructions. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 31: 1163–1205. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wood, J., and Marantz, A. 2017. The interpretation of external arguments. In R. D’Alessandro, I. Franco, and Á. J. Gallego (eds.) The verbal domain, 255–278. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue