Verbal categories in the Transeurasian languages

Abstract

The aims of this chapter are twofold. On the one hand, an analytic survey of the verbal categories across the Transeurasian language families, coached in general typological terms for better comparison. On the other hand, a selective discussion of the verbal domain, focusing on convergent developments across the individual families. Most of these similarities are clearly due to independent developments reflecting shared diachronic scenarios rooted in common typology, but some other are arguably due to areal influence. We examine in more detail two examples of such convergent developments, one pertaining to the development of adversative passives, and the other to the renewal of finite forms (and tense and mood categories) through nominalizations. The latter development, discussed in typological literature under the label of “insubordination,” “desubordination,” or “verbalization,” is shown to be an areal feature of Northeast Asian languages.