Inchoatiewe niehoofwerkwoordkonstruksies in Afrikaans : 'n korpusondersoek

Abstract

Inchoativity is a well researched topic within typological literature but seldom discussed in Afrikaans publications. Although various publications outlining the function and usage of inchoatives have taken a typological approach, very few of these publications clearly outline the theoretical and functional differences between the inchoative, ingressive and inceptive. Furthermore no clear theoretical definition has been established to distinguish inchoativity from anticausativity and passivity. The intermingling of these terms is underpinned by the ambiguity between actionsart, grammatical aspect and lexical aspect. The same ambiguity is also prevalent in Afrikaans due to the lack of morphological indicators marking verbs for tense, aspect and modality. Whilst various language specific publications define aspect in Afrikaans, very few of these publications address inchoativity. Those that do address inchoativity focus solely on main verbs expressing inchoative meanings. This study aims to establish a clear and concise definition for inchoativity. The definition proposed in this study does not only accommodate inchoative meaning as an indication that an action or change of state is about to begin, is beginning, or has just begun, but also establishes inchoative meaning as an aspectual form by situating it within the broader aspectual context of lexicality, grammaticality and actionsart. A review of all available literature on inchoativity, typological and specifically in Afrikaans, forms the foundation for the establishment of a clear theoretical definition for inchoativity. Since no outline for the auxiliary verbs expressing inchoative meaning in Afrikaans exists, a grammaticalisation and construction grammar approach has been followed to establish a list of possible auxiliary inchoative constructions in Afrikaans. This list of inchoative constructions along with the definition for inchoativity established in the first part of this study, is put to test in a corpus-based analysis. Two corpora, namely a stratified corpus of standard Afrikaans (The

Language Commission Corpus (Taalkommissiekorpus (TK-korpus)), and the NWU Commentary Corpus (Kommentaarkorpus) which consists of informal unedited Afrikaans posted as commentary on a popular online newspaper’s social media platforms, are used to establish the syntactic structures, usage parameters and aspectual character of auxiliary inchoative constructions in Afrikaans.