The Quechua languages have a construction that is known in the literature as a desiderative; however, it has different properties from typical desideratives found in other languages. For example, in contrast to typical desideratives, the subject of Quechua desideratives is non-volitional and marked with an oblique case, instead of the nominative case that characterizes subjects generally. In addition, the verb does not agree with the subject, as it normally would in desideratives. Because of these differences, this research proposes that the Quechua desiderative is not a desiderative at all, but a previously unrecognized linguistic category, called an "impulsative". This construction shares properties with constructions in other languages, specifically Albanian, South Slavic, and Finnish, which have subjects that lack volition, have oblique case-marking, and do not trigger agreement on the verb. There is one striking difference, however. These languages lack dedicated verbal morphology that indicates the impulsative meaning. The hypothesis of this dissertation research is that the impulsative morpheme in Quechua is an overt instantiation of a covert impulsative element in Albanian, South Slavic, and Finnish. In order to test this hypothesis, the PhD student will make two trips to Cusco, Peru to conduct fieldwork with native speakers of Cusco Quechua. She will collect data and will compare the Quechua impulsative with the impulsatives in the other languages. The goal is to determine whether or not impulsatives should be recognized as a new linguistic category.
The study will benefit both Quechua speakers and the linguistic community. This project will help document Quechua and will employ Quechua speakers in using their native language. The domains of usage of Quechua are limited and Spanish is becoming increasingly dominant in countries where Quechua is spoken. Furthermore, this study will bring Quechua data to a linguistic audience. The Quechua languages are underrepresented in the syntactic literature, where the focus has primarily been on European languages.
The main hypothesis of my research is that the morpheme -naya is the overt instantiation of a new grammatical category; the Impulsative. This hypothesis is two-fold, ?rst that impulsatives di?er from previously recognized category desideratives and secondly that impulsatives in Cusco Quechua is the same phenomena observed in other languages in Bulgarian, Albanian and Finnish.The su?x -naya in Cusco Quechua means something akin to ‘feel like’. (1) Noqa-ta punu-naya-wa-n I-ACC sleep-IMP-1OM-3SG 'I feel like sleeping.' I stated that impulsatives were semantically non-volitional and syntactically the experiencer argument carriedoblique case and the verb did not agree with its subject but instead carried third person agreement. Theseproperties di?erentiate impulsatives from traditional desideratives. Desideratives mean ‘want’, semantically,they are volitional and syntactically have nominative subjects and trigger agreement on the verb. Thishypothesis was borne out.Impulsatives in Bulgarian, Albanian and Finnish lack a dedicated impulsative morpheme, although semantically and syntactically they pattern like the Cusco Quechua impulsative. The following is an example from Bulgarian. (2) Na Ivan mu se pisese kniga. P Ivan DAT REFL write.3SG book. 'Ivan feels like writing a book.' In addition to having properties that distinguish it from a desiderative, impulsatives in Bulgarian, Albanian and Finnish can be accounted for with the same analysis as impulsatives in Cusco Quechua. InCusco Quechua, I found that the experiencer argument is introduced and assigned case by the impulsativeprojection. Furthermore, I found that the impulsative introduces a second event and is responsible for theprimary event denoted by the impulsative expression. These ?ndings are signi?cant because impulsatives in Bulgarian, Albanian and Finnish also have these properties.This is important for two reasons. First, the claim that impulsatives are a new grammatical categorydistinct from the previously recognized category desideratives is motivated. Secondly, impulsatives in CuscoQuechua are the same construction as impulsatives in Bulgarian, Albanian and Finnish and can be accountedfor with a uni?ed analysis. Furthermore, since the latter languages lack a dedicated impulsative morpheme,the overt instantiation in Cusco Quechua motivates the positing of a null impulsative a?x in Bulgarian, Albanian and Finnish.
