Culminating and non-culminating accomplishments in Malagasy

Bibliographic Data

ID3989747
AuthorsIman Paul (0000-0001-7528-0156, Department of French Studies , University of Western Ontario, University College (UC2205) , London , Ontario, N6A 3K7 , Canada, corresponding author), Ileana Paul, Baholisoa Simone Ralalaoherivony (0000-0002-6554-0871, Faculté des Lettres et des Sciences Humaines , Université d’Antananarivo , B.P. 907, 101 , Antananarivo , Madagascar), Henriette De Swart (Utrecht University)
Year2020
Volume58
Issue5
Pages1285-1322
Publication date2020-11-26
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLinguistics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0024-3949 • E-ISSN: 1613-396X
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1515/ling-2020-0184
OpenAlexW2591714696
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited25

Malagasy is a language with non-culminating accomplishments. There is, however, a specific prefix (maha-), which appears to entail culmination. Moreover, verbs prefixed withmaha- display a range of interpretations: causative, abilitive, 'manage to', and unintentionality. This paper accounts for these two aspects of this prefix with a unified semantic analysis. In particular,maha-encodes double prevention. The double prevention configuration is associated with a circumstantial modal base, which leads to culminating readings in the past and future, but not the present tense. The embedding of double prevention in a force-theoretic framework leads to a more fine-grained theory of causation, which the Malagasy data show to have empirical relevance

Causation · Circumstantial evidence · Epistemology · Linguistics · Prefix · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Philosophy · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation

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