Stanford University

Andrew Koontz-Garboden
Tongan and the typology of change of state predicates

Abstract

This paper examines the morphological and lexical semantic typology of the relationship between property concept states (states lexicalized as adjectives in languages that have them; Dixon 1982) and their associated changes of state. The principle empirical finding is that there exist two types of languages: (a) languages like English, Ulwa, Quechua, and Spanish where there is a morpholexical process relating these two meanings, and (b) languages like Tongan (Polynesian) where there is no such morpholexical process. A detailed analysis of data from Tongan shows that the process by which changes of state are derived from their associated property concept states is one of aspectual coercion (Pustejovsky & Bouillon 1995; de Swart 1998; Zucchi98). Change of state meanings arise in this language when words denoting property concept states appear in aspectual contexts inconsistent with their stative meaning. It is further shown that there are rigid constraints on this process: (a) it is monotonic (the Principle of Monotonic Composition) and (b) only available in cases where the state is lexicalized as a verb (the Principle of Change to Morphosyntax Mapping). Languages, unlike Tongan, in which property concepts are not lexicalized as verbs do not have this kind of aspectual coercion. Areas for further research and implications for syntacticized theories of event structure are discussed.

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