The Meaning of Verbal Roots Across Languages is a multi-year cross-linguistic and typological study in the nature of verb meaning and the universal principles that determine what kinds of verb meanings are possible and impossible in the world’s languages. In this project, we explore the distinction between the general, recurring eventive meanings found in broad classes of verbs such as action, cause, and effect, and the idiosyncratic meaning — the “root” — that distinguishes verbs within a class and makes every verb unique. For example, the transitive verbs break and shatter are both verbs describing caused changes of state (the recurring meaning), but differ in their idiosyncratic root meanings, namely what kind of state results from the event. Much recent theorizing on verb meaning has suggested that the general, recurring eventive components of a verb’s meaning are partly grammaticalized: they are part and parcel of a verb’s syntactic and morphological properties (such as how many arguments the verb takes and what its morphological structure is). Verbs sharing the same broad event types will thus typically have similar grammatical properties. The idiosyncratic meaning of an individual verb simply fills in the real world details about particular actions and states, but is usually assumed not to introduce broad eventive notions like cause or change, and also does not determining much of the verb’s grammatical properties beyond just figuring into the idiosyncratic morphological root of each unique verb.
The goal of this project is to explore the ways in which idiosyncratic roots can introduce broad, general eventive notions, and further how these meanings figure into a verb’s grammatical properties. If the roots of verbs can introduce the same types of grammatical meanings, then this raises significant questions about what kinds of correlations we expect to find between what a verb means and its grammar and also how the various components of a verb’s meaning compose into a single meaning given that there may be redundancy across the parts. Our central case studies are the roots of change-of-state verbs and ditransitive verbs of caused possession. The case study on change-of-state verbs involved as a component a typological study on the the morphological forms of such verbs. The goal of this website is to provide access to these data.
More specifically, we proposed that there are two types of change-of-state verbs across the languages of the world: those that describe outcomes that only arise as a result of some process (e.g. crack) and those that may exist independent of any such process (e.g. redden). Part of the evidence is that the two types of roots tend to show distinct morphological properties. The data that demonstrates this comes from verbal and stative paradigms for the translations of 85 root translations split across the two types in 88 languages in a balanced sample, looking at five overt root forms: the simple stative use of the root (e.g. red), the inchoative (e.g. intransitive redden), the causative (e.g. transitive redden), and the result state use (e.g. reddened), plus any underlying bound root that may exist for languages that rely heavily on such morphological objects. To date the data we have collected show that the distinction between root category (crackvs. redroots) is grammatically significant across languages: the roots of crack-type verbs (which we call “result roots”) tend to lack simple stative forms and show unmarked verbal forms, while the roots of red-type verbs tend to have simple stative forms and shows marked verbal forms.
See the Publications page for further references on our work. Additionally, see the Project Details page for a more technical description of our study and the Data Collection Guide for more information on how we collected these paradigms.
Acknowledgments
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant no. BCS-1451765.
Our group would also like to acknowledge our web designer, Stacy Vlasits, and theLiberal Arts Instructional Technology Services (LAITS) at The University of Texas at Austin. We would not have been able to share our data so easily with the public without such a useful interactive tool.
The website’s data was last updated on October 9, 2020.
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
I am a linguistic expert deeply immersed in the study of cross-linguistic and typological variations in verb meanings. My extensive background in linguistics, particularly in the semantics and syntax of verbs, allows me to engage with complex topics such as the one presented in the article "The Meaning of Verbal Roots Across Languages."
The study delves into the intricate nature of verb meaning, exploring both general eventive meanings shared by broad classes of verbs and the idiosyncratic root meanings that make each verb unique. The distinction between recurring eventive meanings (e.g., action, cause, and effect) and the specific root meanings within a class (e.g., the distinction between "break" and "shatter") is a central focus.
The article suggests that the general, recurring components of verb meaning are grammaticalized, integrated into a verb's syntactic and morphological properties. Commonalities in grammatical properties are expected among verbs sharing broad event types. However, the idiosyncratic meaning of individual verbs, encapsulated in their morphological roots, is considered to provide real-world details without introducing broad eventive notions or significantly influencing grammatical properties.
The project's goal is to explore how idiosyncratic roots can introduce broad, general eventive notions and investigate their impact on a verb's grammatical properties. This exploration raises questions about correlations between verb meaning and grammar and how different components of verb meaning come together.
Two central case studies are highlighted: change-of-state verbs and ditransitive verbs of caused possession. The study on change-of-state verbs involves a typological examination of the morphological forms of such verbs. The article proposes two types of change-of-state verbs: those describing outcomes arising from a process (e.g., "crack") and those existing independently of any process (e.g., "redden"). Morphological properties of these root types are explored across 88 languages, demonstrating grammatical significance.
The website associated with the project aims to provide access to the collected data, including 85 root translations across the two types of change-of-state verbs in 88 languages. The data reveal distinctions in morphological properties, with "crack-type" verbs showing unique characteristics compared to "red-type" verbs.
In summary, this project contributes valuable insights into the relationship between verb meaning, grammar, and the role of idiosyncratic roots across diverse languages. The data collected and analyzed provide a foundation for understanding the universal principles that govern verb meanings in the world's languages.
