"control" of a different type

[Peter Jacobs]

Hi all,

I'm writing to you all about a different type of "control"  which I am researching for my dissertation.

I'm writing to you all to see if there are other language families or individual languages that have the "control" phenomena as is found in Salish languages of the Pacific Northwest of North America.  The standard description of this distinction, which takes place in the (in)transitivizing system, is as follows:

 

1)       chen kwelash-t ta mixalh

I       shoot-ctr  det bear                                      (ctr = control transitivizer, det= determiner)

"I shot the bear (intentionally)"

 

2)       chen kwelash-nexw ta mixalh

I       shoot-lctr        det bear                               (lctr = limited control transitivizer)

"I shot bear, I managed to shoot the bear, I accidentally shot the bear."

 

The term "control" is used instead of "volitionality" because in (2) the agent­/subject could well intend and carry out the action of shooting, but just have more than usual difficulty in completing it.  They had "limited control" in completing the action.  The context for the "accidental" reading, with this sentence at least, could be where someone was intending to shoot to scare the bear away but not to hit it, but then they accidentally shot it.  The "accidental" meaning occurs more naturally with some predicates than with others (e.g. xewtl'-nexw break, mu-nexw drop, etc.).

One further wrinkle is that the "control" sentences can felicitously be cancelled, while the "limited control" ones can't.  So if we add a clause saying "but I missed it" we obtain two different readings:

 

3)       chen kwelash-t ta mixalh, welh chen t'emt'am

I       shoot-ctr  det bear     but  I        missed

"I shot (at) the bear, but I missed."

 

4)       *chen kwelash-nexw ta mixalh, welh chen t'emt'am

I       shoot-lctr        det bear    but   I       missed                         

"I shot the bear, but I missed."

 

All the various "control" forms (transitive, intransitive, reflexive, reciprocal) can be cancelled felicitously, but the "limited control" can't.

So, I am writing you all to see if such a system exists elsewhere, and if it's documented and even better, analyzed.  I am aware of something similar in Austronesian, and I have seen something which looks to be similar in Hindi.  

Any help would be greatly appreciated.  I will post a summary.

 

 

Chen kw'enmantumiyap (thank you all),

Peter Jacobs

Skwxwú7mesh Uxwumixw

(Squamish Nation)

Ns7eyxnitm ta Snew'éyelh

(Department of Education)

peter_jacobs at squamish.net

 

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