5.2 Maltese: between (anti)causative and labile verbs
The aim of this section is twofold. First, in Sect. 5.2.1, I consider the applicability of cross-‐linguistic analyses to Maltese templatic and concatenative verbs, arguing that the alternation is undergoing considerable change, as it displays a gradual increase of labile verbs. In Sect. 5.2.2, then, I deal with the correlation between the labile verbs and the lexical semantic nature of verbs entering the causative-‐inchoative alternation. Focusing mainly on the link between the dichotomy of internal and external causation and mor-‐
phological markedness, I present data from a sentence creation task and a corpus study on the transitivity biases of a set of labile verbs in Maltese.
5.2.1 Morphological instability
The main question I raise in this section concerns the historical directionality of mor-‐
phological markedness. The point of departure is Comrie’s (2006) study, which is an elaboration of Haspelmath (1993), in that it extends the analysis of verbal concepts as expressed morphologically to Maltese, Swedish and Tsez. By quantifying the verbal con-‐
cepts for which every language makes use of each of the five formal types discussed above (i.e. causative, anticausative, labile, equipollent, suppletive), he also proposes language profiles that would have Finnish as overwhelmingly causative, French and Russian as predominantly anticausative, English as overwhelmingly labile, showing an areally atypical preference for this non-‐directed type, and so on.
It is argued that, in terms of the contrast between predominance of anticausative and causative pairings, the transitivity profile of a language like Maltese, is diachroni-‐
cally stable (Comrie 2006: 314). In what follows, I analyze a corpus of verbal concepts that enter the causative-‐inchoative alternation in Maltese and argue, contra Comrie, that the alternation is not time stable in Maltese, displaying a shift in morphological
markedness, from anticausative to labile pairs. Let us take a closer look at the analysis.
Comrie (2006), following Haspelmath (1993), proposes a method for investigating the morphological relations that hold between 31 notions in 24 languages, including Maltese. From an analysis of the five formal types that are used to express such verbal concepts as boil, burn, gather, open, split, etc. it turns out that Maltese has an overall preference for anticausative formations, as Table 5.1 shows. This profile is shared with the majority of the European languages under investigation, which also have a propen-‐
sity for anticausative pairings. It is, however, at odds with the global cross-‐linguistic tendency to prefer causative formations (cf. Nichols 1993; Comrie 2006).
Table 5.1 Comrie’s (2006) sample of Maltese causative-‐inchoative pairs 1
Gloss Causative Binyan Inchoative Binyan Type
boil għalla II għala I Causative
freeze reżżaħ II reżaħ I Causative
dry nixxef II nixef I Causative
wake up qajjem II qam I Causative
go/put out tefa I intefa VII Anticausative
sink għerreq II għereq I Causative
learn/teach għallem II tgħallem V Anticausative
melt dewweb II dab I Causative
stop waqqaf II waqaf I Causative
turn dawwar II dar I Causative
dissolve terraħ II teraħ I Causative
burn ħaraq I inħaraq VII Anticausative
destroy qered I inqered VII Anticausative
fill mela I imtela VIII Anticausative
finish temm I intemm VII Anticausative
begin beda I beda I Labile
spread firex I infirex VII Anticausative
roll gerbeb QI tgerbeb QII Anticausative
develop żviluppa żviluppa Labile
1 I suggest some minor changes to Comrie’s analysis of Maltese. I consider break to constitute an equipol-‐
lent pair (kisser–inkiser), cf. the discussion on synonyms in Sect. 4.2.1.4. Alternative lexical choices may be given for connect (equipollent għaqqad–ingħaqad), freeze (labile iffriża), dissolve (anticausative ħall–inħall), split (anticausative qasam–inqasam), and rise/raise (causative għola–għolla).
get lost/lose tilef I intilef VII Anticausative
rise/raise qajjem II qam I Causative
improve tejjeb II tjieb IX Causative
rock bandal QI tbandal QII Anticausative
connect rabat I irtabat VIII Anticausative
change bidel I inbidel VII Anticausative
gather ġabar I inġabar VII Anticausative
open fetaħ I infetaħ VII Anticausative
break kiser I inkiser VII Anticausative
close għalaq I ingħalaq VII Anticausative
split feraq I inferaq VII Anticausative
die/kill qatel I miet I Suppletive
Note that only one of the 31 items in Comrie’s sample is a concatenative verb pair, namely labile żviluppa ‘develop’. This gives rise to the issue of whether concatenative verbs also show a preference for anticausative pairings or whether they effect the causative-‐inchoative alternation in a different way from templatic verbs. The question that I try to address in this section can be couched in the following way. Has the heavy influence of Romance and, to a certain extent, English on Maltese – including the devel-‐
opment of non-‐templatic processes of verb formation and a reanalysis or simplification of verb inflection – resulted in a change in the formal encoding of the causative-‐
inchoative alternation in the language?
Templatic verbs
To begin with, let us consider the statistical validity of Comrie’s (2006) sample for Mal-‐
tese by looking at the distribution of the causative-‐inchoative alternation in the data-‐
base of tri-‐consonantal roots and the patterns they create. That templatic verbs (at least those derived from tri-‐consonantal roots) have a strong preference for anticausative alternations emerges from Table 4.19, reproduced here with some changes as Table 5.2.
Considering that binyan II is morphologically more marked than I and IX, 26.20%
of templatic verbs mark the alternation causatively. If for the other pairs of binyanim, i.e. II – V, I – VII, I – VIII, and III – VI, we take I, II and III to be morphologically un-‐
marked, then 63.72% of all instances of a causative-‐inchoative contrast express anti-‐
causative alternations. Most of the remaining 10% are cases of labile (e.g., √għmj, għama ‘blind, go blind’) and equipollent (e.g., √ksr, kisser ‘break, v.t’ – inkiser ‘break, v.i’)
pairs. In sum, then, the qualitative analysis carried out in Ch. 4, goes to confirm that Maltese templatic verbs indeed have a propensity for anticausative pairings.
Table 5.2 Morphological marking of templatic causative-‐inchoative verbs
Patterns Type No. roots Percentage Causative Inchoative Gloss
II – V Anticausative 258 44.79 tappan ittappan blur
II – I Causative 97 16.84 saħħan saħan warm up
I – VII Anticausative 74 12.85 qasam inqasam split
II – IX Causative 56 9.72 qassar qsar shorten
I – VIII Anticausative 21 3.65 żied żdied increase
III – VI Anticausative 14 2.43 sieħeb issieħeb associate
Other Varied 56 9.72 kisser inkiser break
The next step is to examine the morphological realization of concatenative verbs that undergo the causative-‐inchoative alternation. Before going into this issue, a word is in order on the differences between anticausative and non-‐active morphology in Mal-‐
tese.
Distinguishing anticausatives from passives
In general, grammars of Maltese do not account for anticausatives, i.e. inchoatives that are morphologically more marked than their causative counterparts. Inchoatives are only discussed when they are morphologically ‘simple’, that is, when they occur in bin-‐
yan I or IX. When inchoatives contain more morphology than their corresponding causatives, i.e. when they occur in binyan V, VI or VII (e.g., issaħħab ‘become cloudy’, tbaċċaċ ‘become chubby’, ittappan ‘blur, v.i’, infetaħ ‘open, v.i’, inqasam ‘split, v.i’), they are treated as “passives and/or reflexives” (cf. Borg 1981; Mifsud 1995a; inter alia). To be fair, Sutcliffe (1936) does have a class of anticausatives, called “effectives”. So does Cremona (1962), who labels them “impersonal passives”, by which he means verbs whose external cause or agent is not relevant (cf. Ch. 3). One reason why several gram-‐
mars set anticausatives aside is the fact that they are very often syncretic with passives.
Even though both passivization and anticausativization entail the advancement of a direct object, passives and anticausatives differ in certain well-‐known ways, as has been shown by Marantz (1984), Comrie (1985), Levin & Rappaport Hovav (1995), Alex-‐
iadou, Anagnostopolou & Schäfer (2006), among others. Some of the tests mentioned in the literature apply to Maltese too. Passive verbs like issawwat ‘be beaten’, inxtara ‘be bought’, inqatel ‘be killed’, can be modified by by-‐phrases (8a), and agent-‐oriented ad-‐
verbs (8b). They can license instruments (8c), and allow control into purpose clauses (8d).
(8a) Ir=raġel is-sawwat mil-l=pulizija.
DEF=man PASS-‐beat.PFV.3SG.M from-‐DEF=police ‘The man was beaten by the police.’
(8b) Ir=raġel is-sawwat apposta.
DEF=man PASS-‐beat.PFV.3SG.M purposely ‘The man was beaten on purpose.’
(8c) Ir=raġel is-sawwat bi frosta.
DEF=man PASS-‐beat.PFV.3SG.M with whip ‘The man was beaten with a whip.’
(8d) Ir=raġel is-sawwat biex
DEF=man PASS-‐beat.PFV.3SG.M in order ma j-ivvuta-x.
NEG IPFV.3SG.M-‐vote-‐NEG ‘The man was beaten to keep him from voting.’
By contrast, anticausatives like issaħħab ‘become cloudy’ and ittappan ‘blur, v.i’ do not generally license external arguments, such as agents and instruments. They do not li-‐
cense causers or causing events introduced by the preposition minn ‘by’, as in (9a).
Some anticausatives, however, do license causers or causing events if these are intro-‐
duced by the preposition bi ‘with’, as in (9b).
(9a) ??Il=ħġieġ it-tappan mi-t=tifel.
DEF=glass INCH-‐blur.PFV.3SG.M from-‐DEF=boy ‘The glass fogged up by the boy.’
(9b) Il=ħġieġ it-tappan bi-l=fwar.
DEF=man INCH-‐blur.PFV.3SG.M from-‐DEF=steam ‘The glass fogged up from the steam.’
The situation is, however, more complicated with verbs such as infetaħ ‘open, v.i’ and
inqasam ‘split, v.i’, which are syncretic between passives and anticausatives. In such
cases, one useful diagnostic to distinguish between the two is the waħ(e)d- ‘by itself, lit.
alone’ modifier. Inchoatives, whether morphologically unmarked (10a) or marked (10b), generally take the waħ(e)d- modification.2 Passives, on the other hand, do not typically license this modifier, as (10c) and (10d) illustrate.
(10a) Id=dgħajsa għerq-et waħed=ha.
DEF=boat sank.PFV.3SG.F alone=her ‘The boat sank by itself.’
(10b) Il=bieb in-fetaħ waħd=u.
DEF=door INCH-‐open.PFV.3SG.M alone=him ‘The door opened by itself.’
(10c) ??Ir=raġel in-qatel waħd=u.
DEF=man PASS-‐kill.PFV.3SG.M alone=him ‘The man killed by himself.’
(10d) ??Il=biljett in-xtara waħd=u.
DEF=ticket PASS-‐buy.PFV.3SG.M alone=him ‘The ticket bought by itself.’
After this brief excursus, let us return to the issue of the formal encoding of con-‐
catenative verbs taking part in the causative-‐inchoative alternation.
Concatenative verbs
In root-‐and-‐pattern morphology, the (consonantal) root is often inserted in more than one binyanim, creating different morphologically related verbs. In concatenative mor-‐
phology, on the contrary, the (syllabic) root takes a single verbal morpheme, thus as-‐
signing only one verbal interpretation to each root. Therefore, while in non-‐
concatenative morphology valency changing alternations are typically mediated through the verbal patterns, by the combination of one root with different binyanim, in concatenative morphology they are not marked morphologically. Rather, argument al-‐
ternations are either expressed periphrastically (e.g., aċċerta ‘(re)assure’ – aċċerta ruħu
‘assure oneself’) or by a single verb, which is used both transitively and intransitively (e.g., skura for both ‘make dark’ and ‘become dark’).
Indeed, concatenative verbs express the causative-‐inchoative contrast with a change in syntactic patterns, but with no formal change in the verb. They are character-‐
2 Note that there are some inchoatives which do not typically take the waħ(e)d- modifier (see footnote 6).
ized by labile pairings, where single verb forms syntactically occur in both transitive origin in Maltese). This is in line with the cross-‐linguistic tendency for anticausativization and reflexiviza-‐
tion to be marked in morphologically identical ways (cf. Koontz-‐Garboden 2009). Worth noting in this re-‐
spect is Haspelmath’s (1990) finding that anticausative markers often develop diachronically from reflex-‐
ive markers via bleaching of agent entailments.
A number of these labile verbs (e.g., issoda, żviluppa) hark back to Romance anticausa-‐
tive formations (assodare–assodarsi, sviluppare–svilupparsi). In such cases, Maltese does not borrow or calque the Romance pattern, neutralizing the anticausative formation and marking the causative-‐inchoative contrast as a labile alternation.
Summing up this section, then, evidence has been provided that the causative-‐
inchoative alternation in Maltese is undergoing change, which goes parallel to the di-‐
chotomy in verb formation, templatic and concatenative. The alternation starts off with a strong preference for anticausatives in templatic verbs. Maltese is to a certain extent losing its morphology in expressing the alternation, and is developing an overwhelm-‐
ingly non-‐directional profile, with a strong increase of labile verbs. Maltese is extending the set of labile verbs to express the causative-‐inchoative contrast quite generally. The class of labile verbs is, in fact, constantly increasing, just like in English, Greek and some Daghestan languages, and unlike Sanskrit where it is decreasing (cf. Lavidas forthcom-‐
ing).
Considering that few other languages appear to have developed this means of marking the contrast (cf. Comrie 2006), one may well wonder about the factors in-‐
volved in this development. Language contact and other external factors must be part of the diachronic explanation of this labilization process.5 The large number of loan verbs from English (e.g., iffriża ‘freeze’, impruvja ‘improve’, ittowja ‘thaw’), a language with a predominantly labile profile, must have had a part in the emergence and expansion of labile verbs in Maltese. Even though verbs in Italian, like templatic verbs in Maltese, show a preference for anticausative formations (e.g., sciogliere (v.t) – scioglier-si (v.i)
‘melt’), the causative-‐inchoative alternation is also commonly expressed by labile verbs, e.g., affondare ‘sink’, diminuire ‘reduce’, guarire ‘heal’ (for in-‐depth analyses of the phe-‐
nomenon in Italian, see Burzio 1986; Montemagni 1994; Centineo 1995; Montemagni, Pirelli & Riumy 1995; Folli 2001). The rise of a concatenative verb formation strategy along the templatic one has therefore had a significant impact on the encoding of the alternation in Maltese.
Other than language contact, internal mechanisms such as analogy and reanalysis could have speeded up the revision of the alternation in Maltese. For templatic verbs, the alternation exhibits a large degree of freedom in morphological marking (cf. Ch. 4).
Inchoative verbs may, for instance, belong to binyan I (nixef ‘dry’), IX (krieh ‘become
5 Following McMillion (2006), the term labilization is here used to refer to language change that involves an increase in labile verb types to the extent that it becomes a conventional means for effecting argument al-‐
ternations.
ugly’), V (tgħawweġ ‘bend’), VII (inkiser ‘break’), etc. This could have been a catalyst for the change to different means for expressing the causative-‐inchoative contrast. Still, further diachronic research needs to be undertaken to determine which external and internal factors are crucial for the process of labilization.
5.2.2 Labile verbs
So far in this chapter, we have seen that there is a great deal of variation in the formal encoding of the causative-‐inchoative alternation both across and within languages.
Haspelmath (1993) argues that verbal concepts may be conceptualized as occurring spontaneously (melt, dry) or as being instigated by an external agent (break, gather).
This conceptual difference, which is represented as a spontaneity scale, is then assumed to be reflected in the morphological marking of verbs. The prediction is that spontane-‐
ous events are more likely to have the inchoative alternant morphologically unmarked.
The reverse, i.e. that the inchoative is the more marked form, is expected when the event in question typically requires an external agent that is responsible for bringing about the change of state.
In the rest of this section, I give an overview of what may be regarded as a re-‐
statement of Hasplemath’s spontaneity scale, namely Levin & Rappaport Hovav’s (1995) distinction between internally and externally caused verbs. Following that, I discuss the role verbs that lack overt morphological marking, i.e. labile verbs, play in the relationship between the formal encoding of verbs and their lexical semantics.
5.2.2.1 Internal and external causation
Under Levin & Rappaport Hovav’s (1995) formulation of the Unaccusativity Hypothesis, it comes to light that there is not one, but two semantic classes of inchoative verbs. The basic lexical difference is the source of change: an inchoative verb may denote either an internally caused or an externally caused event. In the context of change of state verbs, the idea is that verbs like bloom, deteriorate, and rust are internally caused because the means of bringing about the change of state event is conceptualized as an inherent property of the entity undergoing the change. Verbs such as break, crumble, and ex-
plode, on the other hand, are conceptualized as coming about due to a force external to the entity undergoing the change of state. Stated another way, an externally caused in-‐
transitive construction such as the glass broke is a derivation of the underlying transi-‐
tive structure, implying that someone or something broke the glass. By contrast, flow-‐
ers bloom and pipes rust because of something internal to them; the change of state
According to the second diagnostic, there are two different interpretations under negation for external causation verbs, as shown in examples (15) and (16), taken from Italian, it is observed that the phrase can be found cross-‐linguistically modifying predicates which arguably do not involve an external causer argument.
In negating the former case, the son denies that the glass has undergone the change of state. It did not break. In the latter example, the glass does break, even though the verb naming the change of state is negated. What the father denies is not that the glass broke, but that the vase was the cause of its own breaking. In other words, negation has scope over a BECOME operator in (15) and over a CAUSE operator in (16), loosely speak-‐
ing. According to Koontz-‐Garboden (2009: 112-‐119), such ambiguity is not found with internally caused verbs, which lack a causative lexical semantic representation.
The ability to take agent-‐oriented adverbial modifiers is another piece of evidence for the internal–external causation dichotomy. Centineo (1995) observes that external but not internal causation verbs in Italian may be modified by the adverb violentemente
‘violently’. Compare externally caused la porta si è chiusa violentemente ‘the door closed violently’ with internally caused *la nave è affondata violentemente ‘the boat sunk vio-‐
lently’. Similar data has been observed for Greek by Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou (2004: 131ff.).
Additional support for Levin & Rappaport Hovav’s dichotomy comes from corpus analysis and psycholinguistic experimentation. McKoon & Macfarland (2000) found out that the range of subjects of transitive patterns for internally caused verbs is restricted to lexically delimited entities: bloom, for instance, is restricted to flowers, plants, trees, and the like. For external causation verbs, by contrast, there is no such restriction. The range of transitive subjects of externally caused events like break is open to animate entities, natural forces, conditions, and instruments.
Similar findings are reported by Wright (2001, 2002). Corpus data indicate that in-‐
ternally caused verbs occur significantly less often in transitive constructions. When they are used transitively, they are more likely (i) to involve a nature-‐related causer as opposed to externally caused verbs, which tend to involve a human causer, and (ii) to have a metaphorical interpretation.
Psycholinguistic evidence supports the view that change of state verbs can gener-‐
ally be divided into two classes. The experiments in McKoon & Macfarland (2000:
847ff.) show processing differences between sentences with internally caused and sen-‐
tences with externally caused verbs. External causation verbs, both transitive and in-‐
transitive, require longer comprehension times than verbs of internal causation. This conclusion follows from the assumption that verbs describing externally caused events are more complex than verbs denoting internally caused events, because the former have two subevents (a causing and a change of state subevent) in their lexical semantic representation while the latter have only one (a change of state subevent).
Wright (2001, 2002) observes another difference between the two main types of change of state verbs with regard to transitivity. Results from survey data show that internally caused verbs are rated less acceptable than externally caused verbs in transi-‐
tive constructions. Internally and externally causation verbs differ in terms of the fre-‐
quency and acceptability with which they are used transitively. She suggests that causer type (human-‐driven vs. non-‐human driven events), controllability (internal vs. external locus of control), and selectional restrictions in relation to subject-‐modification, are three factors that play a role in determining the transitive behavior of change of state
quency and acceptability with which they are used transitively. She suggests that causer type (human-‐driven vs. non-‐human driven events), controllability (internal vs. external locus of control), and selectional restrictions in relation to subject-‐modification, are three factors that play a role in determining the transitive behavior of change of state