Chapter 82: Transitive motion verbs: ‘push’

Feature information for this chapter can be found in feature 82.

1. Introduction

Chapters 79 and 80 dealt with intransitive motion-to and motion-from constructions (e.g. 'I go to Leipzig', 'I come from Leipzig'). The present and the following chapters parallel these two chapters in that they also analyze motion-to and motion-from constructions, but this time transitive motion constructions with 'push' and 'pull'.

In this chapter, we investigate constructions with the verb 'push' (or semantically very similar transitive motion verbs), as in Lea pushed Maria into the hole. We are especially interested in how orientation or motion-to in this transitive motion verb is expressed in comparison to the corresponding at-rest situation (’to be at a place’). Do we find a special motion-to preposition, such as into in the English example cited above, which cannot be used in at-rest contexts (*Lea is into the hole)? Or does the language use the at-rest preposition also for motion-to, which is for instance the case in Seychelles Creole?

Throughout this chapter, the (a) examples show transitive motion-to constructions, whereas the (b) examples show at-rest constructions.

(1)
a.
transitive motion-to
Lea
Lea
ti
pst
pus
push
Mari
Mari
dan
in
trou
hole
Lea pushed Maria into the hole.
b.
at-rest
Lea
Lea
ti
pst
dan
in
trou
hole
Lea was in the hole.

Some languages may use serial verb constructions (with or without a preposition) to express the transitive motion construction in question, as in examples (8-10).

2. The values

In this feature we distinguish six values:

exclshrdall
Special motion-to preposition2911
At-rest marking is used to express motion-to321850
Serial verb construction448
Serial verb construction plus preposition6915
Circumposition011
Allative case101
Representation:65

In eleven APiCS languages, a special motion-to preposition is available to express a transitive 'push' construction (value 1), comparable to the English example cited in the introduction.

(2)
Lea
Lea
pintca
push
Maria
Maria
pa
to
dentru
inside
di
of
kasa.
house
Lea pushed Maria into the house.

For the overwhelming majority of APiCS languages, at-rest marking is used to express transitive motion-to (value 2; see ex. 1 above). By "at-rest" we mean the two basic local regions containment ('in') and attachment ('at'), as in 'I am in the hole' and 'she is at the tree'. In languages with value 2, the transitive motion-to construction uses the same marking as the corresponding at-rest construction. In examples (3)-(5), there is the same prepositional marking (bini, , in):

(3)
a.
Ham
3sg
a
pst
pus
push
di
det
klēn
small
hon
dog
bini
inside
shi
3sg.poss
sak.
pocket
He pushed the small dog inside his pocket.
b.
Dzhanwus
Dzhanwus
a
pst
bli
stay
bini
inside
di
det
gat.
hole
Dzhanwus stayed inside the hole.
(4)
a.
Tud
all
atər-a
throw-inf
loc
mar.
sea
Throw everything into the sea.
b.
Nɔs
1pl
t-iŋ
ipfv-pst
nad-a
swim-inf
loc
mar.
sea
We were swimming in the sea.
(5)
a.
Bruce push(ed) Marie in the hole.
Bruce pushed Marie into the hole.
b.
He in the kitchen.
He is in the kitchen.

Other languages with this value have the same postposition or case marker to mark at-rest and transitive motion-to constructions. Two examples are Berbice Dutch and Sri Lankan Malay:

(6)
a.
Pompang-kutti
female-girl
poðiyen-yang
boy-acc.def
loobang-ka
hole-in
e-tolak-lupa
asp-push-leave
aða.
aux
The girl pushed the boy into the hole.
b.
Karang
now
jo
foc
kutti
girl
sini-ka
there-in
a-duuduk
prs-stay
Now she is (in) there.

There is also the possibility that both situations are not overtly marked at all. This is the case in Chinese Pidgin Russian, where the goal butyka 'bottle' in (7a) and the locus sopəka 'mountain' in (7b) show no marking:

(7)
a.
Курица яйцы купила, бутыка апускайла.
Kuriʧa
chicken
jajʧy
egg
kupi-la,
buy-pfv
butyka
bottle
apuskaj-la.
put.into-pfv
He bought chicken eggs and put them into a bottle.
b.
Моя постоянно сопка живи.
Moja
1sg
pastajana
always
sopəka
mountain
ʒiwi.
live
I permanently live in mountains.

There are 23 languages which feature serial verb constructions either without (value 3; 8 languages) or with a preposition (value 4; 15 languages). The four languages that have only simple serial verb constructions at their disposal are the four Gulf of Guinea creoles Principense, Santome, Angolar, and Fa d'Ambô.

(8)
M'
1sg
piza-l
push-3sg
ba
go
omal.
sea
I pushed him into the sea.

The languages which have serial verb constructions with a preposition show a certain concentration in the Caribbean, the Guianas, West Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific.

(9)
A
3sg
tuusi
push
di
def.sg
tatai
thread
go
go
a
loc
di
def.sg
aguja
needle
baaku.
hole
She pushed the thread through the needle's eye.
(10)
Em
3sg
pusim
push
han
hand
i
pm
go
go
insait
inside
long
prep
bilum.
string.bag
She pushed her hand into the bilum (a string bag).

Only one language is attested as having circumpositional motion-to marking (value 5):

(11)
Leah
Leah
stoot
pushes
Marie
Mary
by
by
die
the
gat
hole
in.
in
Leah pushes Mary into the hole.

Den Besten & Biberauer (2013) note that this construction belongs to colloquial varieties of Afrikaans.

The last type of coding is only represented by the mixed language Gurindji Kriol, which exclusively uses the allative case -ngkirri (value 6) to express transitive motion-to:

(12)
Dat
the
jangkarni
big
ngakparn-tu-ma
frog-erg-top
i
3sg.sbj
bin
pst
puj-im
push-tr
im
3sg.obj
na
seq
ngawa-ngkirri.
water-all
The big frog pushed him into the water then.

For 11 languages there is no information about this feature.

3. Discussion

The overwhelming majority of APiCS languages use at-rest marking to express motion-to (value 2). This pattern is also widespread in the European base languages. French, for instance, uses dans in both contexts: Je suis dans la cuisine 'I am in the kitchen', Je la pousse dans la cuisine 'I push her into the kitchen.' In some varieties of English, too, causative motion verbs like put and push may show the preposition in, as in She put her gloves in the pocket, where the more standard variety would have the motion-to preposition into (She put her gloves into the pocket). Portuguese and Spanish do not seem to have these constructions. Therefore, this marking pattern in French- and English-based creoles may well be inherited from the European lexifier languages. But there are numerous Portuguese- and Spanish-based creoles which also show at-rest marking to express motion-to, e.g. Diu Indo-Portuguese in (4). Here, a different explanation must be sought. Maybe the relevant substrates show the same pattern.

The use of serial verb constructions in transitive motion verbs, however, has clear substrate sources. Lawal (1989: 10) cites parallel examples from Yoruba, where the serial verbs 'go', 'reach', 'come' are used in transitive motion-to constructions, as in (8) from Fa d'Ambô. Unfortunately, there is currently little cross-linguistic data on transitive motion constructions as outlined in this chapter.