<html>
Dear Nick,<br>
<br>
Dialectal Arabic (at least Moroccan, Tunisian, Algerian and some Yemeni
varieties, for those I know of)) have grammaticalized a verb meaning
'see' as a 'deictic presentational' particle, but also often as an
aspectual marker. There is a vast literature on the subject. Here is one
where you'll find other references:<br>
<font face="Courier New, Courier">Caubet, Dominique. 1992. Deixis, aspect
et modalité : les particules hA- et RA- en arabe marocain. in Morel,
M.-A. et Danon-Boileau, L. (éds.), <i>Actes du colloque : La deixis</i>.
Paris: PUF, p. 139-149.</font>A 17:17 30/04/2006 +0200.<br>
<br>
Best<br>
<br>
Martine<br>
<br>
Nick Bailey a écrit :<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>Dear Colleagues,<br>
<br>
I am looking for examples in different languages where a perception
verb,<br>
maybe something like 'see', has been grammaticalized as a 'deictic<br>
presentational' particle, or anything functionally close to that
(for<br>
example, it might also function as a non-deictic presentational particle,
in<br>
an 'existential' construction meaning 'there is a X.').<br>
<br>
Can anyone help me?<br>
<br>
The only two clear examples of deictic presentational particles that I
know <br>
of so far are from French and from Classical and Koine Greek:<br>
<br>
FRENCH:<br>
Voilà mon ami. 'There's my friend'<br>
Voici mon frère, Trey. 'Here's my brother, Trey'<br>
Le voilà. 'There he is' (le is unambiguously the object case, not<br>
subject/nominative)<br>
<br>
CLASSICAL and KOINE GREEK:<br>
idou hudOr 'Here's/There's (some) water!' (idou is unmarked for
near/far<br>
deixis)<br>
idou egO 'Here I am!' (egO is unambiguously nominative case)<br>
<br>
Knud Lambrecht counts voilà as 'a frozen form of the imperative of voir
"to<br>
see" meaning literally "see there".'<br>
<br>
Greek idou derives from the singular imperative of the middle aorist
stem<br>
eidon '(I) saw'. As far as I understand, middle forms were slowly
falling<br>
out of classical Greek, and by Koine times, the middle of eidon is only
used<br>
as this grammaticalized deictic presentational particle. (The active
forms<br>
of eidon, however, continued to be in use, so the real aorist
imperative<br>
'see!' or 'look at!' was ide [singular] or idete [plural].)<br>
<br>
I would be very grateful for any examples people could share with me,
or<br>
references to literature. If possible, please explain what case the<br>
introduced NP is in (object or subject case, etc.), and whether or not
the<br>
construction is neutral for near/far deixis (Greek idou is
neutral).<br>
<br>
Many thanks for your attention.<br>
<br>
Nicholas Bailey<br>
nicholas_bailey@sil.org </blockquote></html>