Alternations of Bezhta
| Alternation name | Coded? | Description | Examples | Verbs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
U
|
n | The most agent-like argument appears in the Poss-essive case, the P in the Absolutive. The number of arguments of a transitive verb does not change in the Accidental/Potential Transitive Alternation, the accidental/potential agent stands in the Poss-essive case and the P remains in the Absolutive case. | 4 | |
|
U
|
n | The verb agrees either with the Absolutive Instrument or Absolutive Patient. | 1 | |
|
U
|
n | The Recipient is marked either with the Lative or with the Possessive. For permanent transfer, the Lative is used, and for temporal transfer the Possessive is used. | 2 | |
|
C
|
y | The verb is marked with the antipassive suffix. Antipassive is formed from intransitive, transitive, and unergative predicates. The sense of Antipassive is durative. The S, S-a (subject in the ergative), or A appears in the absolutive, the P appears in the instrumental or is lost. | 44 | |
|
U
|
n | This alternation only occurs with the verb helal 'to boil', a labile verb. | 1 | |
|
C
|
y |
The causative suffix -l-/-ll- derives transitive verbs from intransitive or affective verbs, and ditransitive verbs from transitive verbs; in the latter, the causee appears in the Instrumental case. The suffix -k’- derives transitive verbs from intransitive inchoative verbs. Intransitive compound verbs formed with the auxiliary verb yaqal ‘to happen’ derive transitives by changing the auxiliary verb to yowal ‘to do’. Some intransitive verbs do not use derivational suffixes but use morphologically unrelated stems to express transitive meaning. A small group of intransitive verbs form transitives analytically with the verb golal (gulal, gilal) 'put'. |
64 | |
|
U
|
n |
The Accidental/Potential constructions with patientive intransitives require a new argument in the Possessive, while the Absolutive S argument remains unchanged. In the Accidental/Potential construction of an agentive intransitive, the single Absolutive argument of the agentive intransitive verb is put in the Possessive case and the new Absolutive argument is used. When a new Absolutive argument is added to an agentive intransitive, the construction has a transitive meaning. |
9 | |
|
U
|
n |
The recipient/goal/location alternation concerns the following verbs, ‘to give’, ‘to throw’, ‘to bring’, and ‘to send’. With the verb ‘to give’, the recipient is marked either with the Lative (for permanent transfer of possession) or with the Poss-essive (for temporary transfer of possession). Additionally, the recipient can be marked with the Poss-lative for non-permanent transfer, but this version occurs only very occasionally. With the verb ‘to throw’, the goal argument can be marked either with the Apud-essive or the Lative or the Poss-essive. Each encoding has a slightly different meaning. An inanimate location argument is marked with the appropriate Essive. With the verbs ‘to bring’ and ‘to send’, the recipient is either marked with the Lative (for permanent transfer) or with the Apudessive (for temporary transfer). |
4 | |
|
C
|
y | The Potential Alternation is a coded alternation (with the suffix -yɬ, -iyɬ after a consonant). The argument of the potential construction to which ability is assigned (i.e. the X of ‘X can Verb’) stands in the possessive case, corresponding to the ergative in the basic form. | 51 | |
|
|
The suffix -k’- derives transitive verbs from intransitive inchoative verbs.Such inchoative-causative verb pairs are a distinct class of verbs. The inchoative-causative verbs are verbs derived from adjectives and adverbs, expressing a change of state. | 1 | ||
|
|
Intransitive compound verbs formed with the auxiliary verb yaqal ‘to happen’ derive transitives by changing the auxiliary verb to yowal ‘to do’. | 2 | ||
|
C
|
y | A small group of intransitive verbs form transitives analytically with the verb golal (gulal, gilal) 'put'. | 7 | |
|
C
|
y | The Potential Alternation is a coded alternation (with the suffix -yɬ, -iyɬ after a consonant). The argument of the potential construction to which ability is assigned (i.e. the X of ‘X can Verb’) is a newly introduced causer of the action and gets flagged by the possessive case. | 11 | |
|
U
|
n | This alternation is only found with the one verb ‘to run’. This alternation reduces the valency of this verb by one, although this is not visible in this database, since č'an is part of the verb form, not of the coding frame. | 1 | |
|
C
|
y | The antipassive 2 has reflexive meaning. This is only found in the one verb nizaal ‘to wash’. Note that this verb also has a semantically regular antipassive, see Antipassive 1. | 1 |