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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. 194–225

A panorama of valency changing operations in Seri

| SIL International | University of North Dakota

The Seri language displays several valency changing operations, most of which are robustly attested and used. This paper presents a panorama of these operations. Evidence from the morphology, sensitive as it is to transitivity, helps in the consideration of possible analyses. Some of the operations, such as passive, unspecified subject, antipassive (implicit argument type) and causative, are straightforward in their respective analyses, as well as being common cross-linguistically. Other operations, including the impersonal passive of transitive verbs, the age construction, the times construction and the Experiencer subject construction, do not have counterparts in many other languages.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Robust valency decreasing operations
    • 2.1Passive (short)
      • 2.1.1Morphology
      • 2.1.2Syntax
      • 2.1.3Semantics
    • 2.2Unspecified subject
    • 2.3Antipassive (implicit argument type)
      • 2.3.1Morphology
      • 2.3.2Syntax
      • 2.3.3Semantics
  • 3.Robust valency increasing operations
    • 3.1Causative
      • 3.1.1Morphology
      • 3.1.2Syntax and semantics
    • 3.2Assistive
      • 3.2.1Morphology
      • 3.2.2Syntax
  • 4.Less robust valency increasing operations
    • 4.1Experiencer subject
      • 4.1.1Morphology
      • 4.1.2Syntax
      • 4.1.3Semantics
    • 4.2A few benefactive verbs
    • 4.3A few more unusual verbs
  • 5.Less robust valency decreasing operations
    • 5.1Sensory verbs without Experiencers
  • 6.Two constructions using number predicates
    • 6.1Age construction (transitive)
    • 6.2Times construction (intransitive)
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 30 September 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.120.08mar
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