Associated motion, direction and (exchoative) aspect in Ethiopian Komo
Komo (Koman) of Ethiopia has an obligatory paradigm of deictic directional (dd) verb morphology
that, among its functions, indicates direction of motion relative to a deictic reference point, associated
motion and grammatical aspect when collocated with verb roots of different semantic classes. The semantic
components of a motion event underlie the Komo dd system and the grammatical aspect of a predicate can be
directly mapped to the bounded/unbounded
path profile. The Associated Motion function
contains a bounded path which entails arrival at or departure from a reference point and, as a result,
imparts aspectual telicity to the predicate. The Direction function by contrast, contains an unbounded path that expresses motion
towards a reference point and does not impart aspectual telicity. Further, some morphemes express
exchoativity, or the ‘exiting’ of a state, a rare if unattested grammatical category.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 1.1Komo language background
- 1.2Komo verb morphosyntax
- 2.Theories and concepts
- 2.1Motion event and path
- 2.2Associated motion and direction
- 2.3Aspect
- 3.Direction and associated motion in Komo
- 3.1Directional encoding
- 3.1.1Manner of motion verbs
- 3.1.2Non-deictic path verbs
- 3.1.3Deictic path verbs: Come and go
- 3.1.4The =kɛ́ enclitic on intransitive motion verbs
- 3.2Associated motion encoding
- 3.2.1Transitive dynamic (non-motion) verbs
- 3.2.2Intransitive dynamic (non-motion) verbs
- 3.2.3
The =kɛ́ enclitic on dynamic (non-motion) verbs
- 4.Exchoative aspect
- 4.1Intransitive stative verbs
- 4.2Transitive stative verbs
- 4.3The =kɛ́ enclitic on stative verbs
- 5.The problem of alternate construals
- 5.1Static and intransitive motion verbs
- 5.2Caused motion verbs
- 5.3Intransitive stative verbs
- 5.4Sensory perception verbs
- 5.5Body emission verbs
- 5.6Weather verbs
- 6.Conclusion
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
- Abbreviations
-
References
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