Open AccessThe Latvian continuative construction runāt vienā runāšanā ‘talk in one talking’ = ‘keep talking’
Author(s) -
Nicole Nau
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
baltic linguistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.106
H-Index - 1
ISSN - 2081-7533
DOI - 10.32798/bl.360
Subject(s) - locative case , linguistics , cognate , implicature , variety (cybernetics) , action (physics) , phrase , verb , meaning (existential) , salient , verb phrase , computer science , noun phrase , noun , psychology , artificial intelligence , pragmatics , philosophy , physics , quantum mechanics , psychotherapist
Latvian may express continuative aspect by means of a complex construction which consists of a verb and a locative phrase headed by an action noun from the same verb. The construction is productive and attested with a variety of durative verbs. Salient exemplars are some verbs of talking and crying. In a clause the construction most often is treated in the same way as simple verb forms. Formally and functionally the construction is related to three other cognate constructions in Latvian as well as to iteration of the type talk and talk. However, in these other constructions continuative meaning arises only as an implicature or contains more specific nuances. It is proposed that cognate constructions may form a link between morphological reduplication and syntactic iteration.