Converb


In theoretical linguistics, a converb is a nonfinite verb form that serves to express adverbial subordination: notions like 'when', 'because', 'after' and 'while'.
Examples:
Converbs are differentiated from coverbs, verbs in complex predicates in languages that have the serial verb construction.
Converbs can be observed in Turkic languages, Mongolian languages, and Tungusic languages.

Etymology

The term was coined for Mongolian by Ramstedt and until recently, it was used mostly by specialists of Mongolic and Turkic languages to describe non-finite verbs that could be used for both coordination and subordination. Nedjalkov & Nedjalkov first adopted the term for general typological use, followed by Haspelmath & König. Other terms that have been used to refer to converbs include adverbial participle, conjunctive participle, gerund, gerundive and verbal adverb.

Description

A converb depends syntactically on another verb form, but is not its argument. It can be an adjunct, an adverbial, but it cannot be the only predicate of a simple sentence or clausal argument. It cannot depend on predicates such as 'order'.

Examples

Khalkh Mongolian:
The converb -megc denotes that as soon as the first action has been begun/completed, the second action begins. Thus, the subordinate sentence can be understood as a temporal adverbial. There is no context in which the argument structure of another verb or construction would require -megc to appear, and there is no way in which a -megc-clause could come sentence-final. Thus, -megc qualifies as a converb in the general linguistic sense.
However, from the viewpoint of Mongolian philology, there is a second converb in this sentence: -ž. At its first occurrence, it is modified by the coverb ehel- ‘to begin’ and this coverb determines that the modified verb has to take the suffix. Yet, the same verbal suffix is used after the verb ‘to beat’ which ends an independent non-finite clause that temporally precedes the following clause but without modifying it in any way that would be fit for an adverbial. It would be possible for -ž to mark an adverbial:
Such "polyfunctionality" is common. Japanese and Korean could provide similar examples, and the definition of subordination poses further problems. There are linguists who suggest that a reduction of the domain of the term converb to adverbials does not fit language reality.