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Verb Valency Changes: Theoretical and typological perspectives
Edited by Albert Álvarez González and Ia Navarro
[Typological Studies in Language 120] 2017
► pp. 4–29

Markedness effects in applicative formation

| Institute of Linguistics, St.-Petersburg | Russian Academy of Sciences | University of Mainz

The article discusses different types of applicative polysemy, focusing on cases of voice ambivalence, that is cases when the same valency marker performs different functions, depending on the semantic and syntactic properties of the verb stem to which it applies (in particular whether the verb is intransitive, transitive or ditransitive). The attested patterns of polysemy (applicative-causative, applicative-antipassive, as well as polysemies involving different kinds of applicatives) are explained in terms of the shared syntactic components. These selective similarities between individual voice markers can be captured by a semantic map, as manifestation of local markedness in the domain of voice categories.

Article outline
  • 1.Voice ambivalence: Preliminary illustrations
  • 2.Causative-applicative polysemy
  • 3.Applicative-antipassive polysemy
  • 4.Applicative reversal
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 30 September 2017
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https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.120.01mal
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