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<div>Dear all,</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>I also was interested in this question for the purposes of my
study on lexico-semantic universals, which was published in
2001.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Goddard, Cliff. 2001. Lexico-semantic universals: A critical
overview.<i> Linguistic Typology</i> 5-1, 1-66.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>I append the relevant paragraphs from that article.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>best regards,</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Cliff.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>==</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><font face="Times" size="+1">Almost all languages appear to have
separate words for 'someone' and 'something' (cf. Haspelmath
1997). Sometimes the same words are used as interrogatives or as
so-called "knowledge complements", i.e. in constructions like<i> I
don't know who did it</i> or<i> I know what happened</i>, as with
Acehnese<i> soe</i> 'who/someone' and<i> peue</i>
'what/something' (Durie et al. 1994). More commonly, one set of
forms will be morphologically basic and the other(s) will be built
upon it. Occasionally the expressions for 'someone' and
'something' are phrasemes, as with Kayardild<i> ngaaka dangkaa</i>
'someone' and<i> ngaaka thungalda</i> 'something' (Evans 1994).
In some polysynthetic languages, the equivalents of 'something'
and 'someone' are bound morphemes. For example, in Koasati
(Louisiana)<i> na:si-</i> 'something' and<i> a:ti-</i> 'someone'
are normally bound morphemes appearing as the first element of a
verbal word (Kimball 1985: 106, 135-9).</font></div>
<div><font face="Times" size="+1"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Times" size="+1">Very occasionally, it may appear
that the same expression is used to cover both 'someone' (who) and
'something' (what). This is the case in Lithuanian where the
relevant form is<i> kas</i>. But Tatjana Bulygina (Anna Wierzbicka,
pc) argues that<i> kas</i> is polysemous:<i> kas1</i> =
'someone',<i> kas2</i> = 'something'. Her arguments include the
fact that<i> kas1</i> and<i> kas2</i> have different agreement
patterns; for example,<i> Kas linksmas, tas mielas</i> 'who(ever) is
cheerful is nice' (adjectives with masculine agreement) does not
equal<i> Kas linksma, tai miela '</i>what(ever) is cheerful is nice'
(adjectives with feminine/neuter agreement). The two meanings also
exhibit different behaviour in the genitive case.<i> Kas2</i>
'something' has a single genitive form<i> ko,</i> which is used for
the full range of functions of genitive case.<i> Kas1</i>
'someone', however, also has a special genitive form<i> kieno</i>
'whose, by whom', which is used to denote possession and to mark the
subject of a passive verbal construction, with<i> ko</i> being used
for other genitive functions (cf. Dambri</font><font face="IPARoman"
size="+1">u@</font><font face="Times" size="+1">nas et al 1966:
285).</font></div>
<div><font face="Times" size="+1"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Times" size="+1">Another language which at first
seems to lack a lexical distinction between 'someone' and
'something' is Wambaya (Australia). The same stem<i> gayini</i> is
used for both, but the distinction is made by choice of different
gender suffixes (Nordlinger 1998: 120-122): with the inanimate gender
suffix<i> gayini</i> means 'something', with an animate gender
suffix it means 'someone' (the masculine animate being used when
the actual gender of the referent is unknown).</font></div>
<div><font face="Times" size="+1"><br>
</font></div>
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