Terminology for verbal derivation

[Louis Wei-lun Lu]

Dear John,

Interesting phenomenon. What's interesting here is -kindya adds an  
argument to a verb that would not be allowed to take one, according to  
the grammar of Bari. So it is in this sense that the combination of  
-kindya and the verb constitutes something not strictly predictable  
from its component parts and thus fits well the definition of a  
"construction", according to Adele Goldberg (2006:5).

The second question of whether to call it a benefactive really has to  
depend on the entire repetoire of its use. We would need to know all  
the possible types of usages and their frequencies so that we can  
judge, among these categories, which one seems to be the prototype. So  
we really cannot say, from the limited description you've given here.  
It'd be more interesting if you could tell us more about -kindya  
datawise.

Hope this helps.

Best,
Louis


引述 john <john at research.haifa.ac.il>:

>
>
> Dear Funknetters,
>
> I'm looking for a term to use to refer to a form
> for deriving verbs in Bari (-kindya) which seems to
>
> generally add an
> argument to the verb, but the argument can be any one of a variety of
> types--it can be
>
> an indirect object, a directional particle, just
> about anything it seems (for example, when added to the
>
> root meaning
> 'old age', it can take as an argument a place, with the meaning 'to live
> to an old age while
>
> living continuously at that place', or a
> nominalized form of a verb referring to an occupation, with the
>
>
> meaning 'to live to an old age while continuing to work at that
> occupation'). Do you have any ideas what
>
> term I might use to refer to
> this form of the verb? I was initially going to call it the
> 'Benefactive' because
>
> it's often used to add an indirect object (e.g.
> 'close a door for someone') but when I looked at all of the
>
> usages of
> this form it became clear that this is really a pretty small minority of
> its uses.
>
> Any ideas?
>
> Thanks,
>
> John
>
>



-- 
Louis Wei-lun Lu (呂維倫)
Leiden University Center for Linguistics