This morning I was reading a bit of
Bybee, Joan, Revere Perkins, and William Pagliuca (1994). The Evolution of Grammar. Tense,
Aspect, and Modality in the Languages of the World, Chicago: The University of Chicago.
where she discusses the evolution of progressive aspect in languages around the world. In many languages, it originates in some construction that involves a locative expression, either with a verb of position or something like 'be in X'.
This got me to wondering about the Continuous aspect in modern Valley Zapotec languages. This is not a well-attested aspect in Colonial Valley Zapotec, but I find some examples of incipient grammaticalization, all in the construction 'I say', where the verb nni is used with a preceding ca- prefix that looks very much like the continuous aspect ca- found in modern Valley Zapotec.
A possible connection to a verb of position is the word cáá 'hang, be located (in a high place)'. The lexical entry for this word in San Dionisio Ocotepec Zapotec in the current draft of my own dictionary looks like the following:
In the Colonial Valley Zapotec examples that I have, only 'I speak' is used with a preceding ca:
Bybee, Joan, Revere Perkins, and William Pagliuca (1994). The Evolution of Grammar. Tense,
Aspect, and Modality in the Languages of the World, Chicago: The University of Chicago.
where she discusses the evolution of progressive aspect in languages around the world. In many languages, it originates in some construction that involves a locative expression, either with a verb of position or something like 'be in X'.
This got me to wondering about the Continuous aspect in modern Valley Zapotec languages. This is not a well-attested aspect in Colonial Valley Zapotec, but I find some examples of incipient grammaticalization, all in the construction 'I say', where the verb nni is used with a preceding ca- prefix that looks very much like the continuous aspect ca- found in modern Valley Zapotec.
A possible connection to a verb of position is the word cáá 'hang, be located (in a high place)'. The lexical entry for this word in San Dionisio Ocotepec Zapotec in the current draft of my own dictionary looks like the following:
In the Colonial Valley Zapotec examples that I have, only 'I speak' is used with a preceding ca:
It is probably also significant that both of these examples are accompanied by the adverb anna 'now', as would be appropriate for a continous aspect marker.
But I do want to emphasize that continous aspect marking is incipient in Colonial Valley Zapotec, and I haven't identified any other examples in the texts. In modern Valley Zapotec languages, you can use continous for a wide range of verbs; in CVZ only the verb 'say' is attested so far.
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