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Something's gotta go , something's gotta give : completion, mirativity and transitivity in odia light verb constructions

2016; Wiley; Volume: 71; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/stul.12046

1467-9582

Maarten Lemmens, Kalyanamalini Sahoo,

Historical Linguistics and Language Studies

Abstract This paper deals with asymmetric complex predicates (combining a main verb and a ‘light’ verb) in Odia, an Indo‐Aryan language. The main focus is on the two most common light verbs ‐ jaa ‘go’ and ‐ de ‘give’. We argue that these light verbs are constructions in their own right affecting the interpretation of the event in two ways: (i) they necessarily refer to the completion of the event (as opposed to the single verb construction) and (ii) they typically express unexpectedness or abruptness and can as such be considered a mirative construction as defined by Delancey (2012). Transitivity plays a major role not only in the distinction between ‐ jaa ‘go’ and ‐ de ‘give’ but also in differences of degree of completion and unexpectedness.