Pernilla Hallonsten Halling

From incorporation to affixation

Another encoding pattern attested in adv is the use of lexical affixes. Lexical affixation and incorporation are discussed in detail by Dahl (2004: 209ff.), who shows that the distinction between the two is in many cases very difficult to draw. In what follows, I focus on languages with adverbial affixes, although I do not assume that they can be

consistently distinguished from incorporated elements. Ainu (isolate) has both simple adverbs (see section 5.2) and derived ones (see section 5.3.1). In addition, both Stative Verbs and simple Adverbs can be incorporated, and Verb prefixes with property-related meanings are attested, as illustrated in (5.22a)⁷ and (5.22b), respectively.

(5.22) Ainu (isolate) (Tamura 2000: 72, Refsing 1986: 178)

1. 
   Ratki
   

hung
apa
door
a-moyre-caka.
1sg-be.slow-open

‘I opened the suspended door slowly.’

2. 
   Wen
   

be.bad
sanpe
temper
kor
have
pe
nmlz
ekuskonna
suddenly
sir-koyki...
suddenly-attack

‘Bad-tempered people may suddenly flare up at you...’
Another example is Sahaptin (Sahaptian), which also has lexical prefixes, e.g. ká- ‘sud- denly, all at once, quickly’ and lá- ‘slowly or leisurely’. These prefixes can add quite subtle meaning, as see in, e.g., káwapaw*^¯xi- ‘spill or drop’ from wapáw*^¯xi- ‘let go’, or lá’ayk- ‘sit around comfortably, leisurely’ from ayík- ‘sit’ (2010: 221).

(5.23) Sahaptin (Sahaptian) (Jansen 2010: 221)

i-lá-wachi-ya
3sg.sbj-leisurely-watch-pst
táakw1n-nan
whatchamacallit-obj
kúsi-nan
horse-obj

‘He casually kept an eye on the - whatchamacallit - horse.’

All sample languages in which adverbial affixation has been attested are listed in table

5.9. For further examples and discussion of the semantics of these affixes, see section 8.5.

Table 5.9. Languages with adverbial affixes

Language
Abau (Sepik) Ainu (isolate) Alamblak (Sepik)

Cavineña (Tacanan) Kalaallisut (Eskimo-Aleut) Nuu-chah-nulth (Wakashan) Sahaptin (Sahaptian) Urarina (isolate)

⁷ This example contains a Stative Verb but also Adverbs can be incorporated (Shibatani 1990: 71–72). The same can be done with Stative Verbs as modifiers in attr (1990: 72–75)

adverbial affixes no adverbial affixes

Figure 5.6. Languages with and without adverbial affixes

6.