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<DIV>Dear Eitan,</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>in addition to the ones mentioned by Giorgio Arcodia, Italian has a typical
suffix indicating not only an agent, but particularly an agent specializing in
poor or mean activities. </DIV>
<DIV>It is the suffix –ino, with a verb-basis.</DIV>
<DIV>Examples:</DIV>
<OL>
<LI>spazz-ino “street-sweeper” (spazzare ‘sweep’)
<LI>imbianch-ino “wall painter” (imbiancare ‘paint [a wall] in white’)
<LI>portant-ino “stretcher porter” (portare ‘take, bring’)
<LI>traffich-ino “shady dealer” (trafficare ‘deal’ [here, in a derogatory
sense]).</LI></OL>
<DIV>etc. </DIV>
<DIV>The suffix is not exclusive for agents, but also works as a general purpose
diminutive. One may suppose that the relative “insignificance” of the job
justifies a diminutive to express it. If agentive, –ino is not productive in
current Italian.</DIV>
<DIV> Best,</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> Raffaele<BR class=Apple-interchange-newline></DIV>
<DIV
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri'; COLOR: #000000">=================<BR>Università
Roma Tre<BR>via Ostiense 236<BR>I-00146 Roma<BR>=================<BR>Attività e
pubblicazioni // Activity and
publications<BR>http://uniroma3.academia.edu/RaffaeleSimone<BR>@raffaelesimone<BR>Volumi
recenti//Recent books: a. Nuovi fondamenti di linguistica, McGraw-Hill Italia,
Milano 2014<BR>b. (con//with Francesca Masini, eds.) Word Classes. John
Benjamins, Amsterdam & Philadelphia 2014<BR>hn Benjamins, Amsterdam &
Philadelphia 2014<BR>c. Come la democrazia fallisce, Garzanti, Milano
2015.</DIV>
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<DIV style="font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=eitan.grossman@mail.huji.ac.il
href="mailto:eitan.grossman@mail.huji.ac.il">Eitan Grossman</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, January 6, 2016 11:07 AM</DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=LINGTYP@listserv.linguistlist.org
href="mailto:LINGTYP@listserv.linguistlist.org">LINGTYP</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> [Lingtyp] agent nominalization</DIV></DIV></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV></DIV>
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<DIV>
<DIV>Dear all,<BR><BR></DIV>I am writing to ask a question about 'agent'*
nominalizations across languages. I am interested in agent nominalizers that do
or don't have known diachronic sources, in the attempt to understand which
diachronic pathways are attested (and hopefully, their relative
frequency/rarity). For example, some languages have:<BR><BR>(a) bound morphemes
whose diachronic source is clearly identifiable, whether lexical (Japanese -nin
or -sya 'person; Khwe and Meskwaki are similar, or Japanese -te 'hand') or
grammatical (Serbo-Croatian -l(o) from an original instrumental meaning, perhaps
similarly for Afroasiatic m-).<BR></DIV>(b) bound morphemes whose diachronic
source may be mysterious or reconstructible as such to the proto-language
(Quechuan -q?, Malay-Indonesian peng-/pe-?).<BR></DIV>
<DIV>(c) free morphemes whose diachronic source is clearly identifiable
(Ponoapean olen ''man of')<BR></DIV>
<DIV>(d) more complex constructions involving the reduction of modifier clauses
of some sort (Coptic ref- < ultimately from 'person who verbs')<BR></DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV>(e) rarer morphosyntactic alternations, like reduplication of the initial
syllable (Hadze, Serer), vowel length (Akan), vowel raising (+breathiness)
(Nuer) <BR></DIV>
<DIV>(f) no such nominalizer mentioned, or explicitly mentioned that there is no
dedicated agent noun construction. In some languages, ad hoc formation via
relatives is the only (Tlapanec), main, or a supplementary strategy (e.g.,
Indonesian relativizer yang).<BR></DIV>
<DIV>(g) zero conversion<BR></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>There is nice paper by Luschuetzky & Rainer in STUF 2011, but it deals
almost exclusively with affixes and only rarely mentions diachronic
information.<BR><BR></DIV>
<DIV>From a <U>very</U> preliminary survey of grammars, it looks like the origin
of agent nominalizers is often pretty obscure, and the shortest and most bound
morphemes look to be very old, quite expectedly. Identifiable lexical sources
seem to converge around 'person, thing' or body parts. Reduction of complex
constructions to an affix seems to be rare but attested. <BR><BR></DIV>
<DIV><B>So, here's the question: in your languages, is the diachronic source of
agent nominalizers identifiable? </B>I'd be grateful for any information you
might be willing to share!<BR></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Best,<BR></DIV>
<DIV>Eitan<BR><BR></DIV>
<DIV>*Disclaimer: even though this is a common term, most languages I've seen
don't single out the semantic role of agent, and this is often noted in
theoretical discussions. Also, such nominalizations don't have to be
derivational or even 'morphological.'<BR clear=all></DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV class=gmail_signature>
<DIV dir=ltr><BR><BR></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr><BR>Eitan Grossman
<DIV>Lecturer, Department of Linguistics/School of Language Sciences<BR></DIV>
<DIV>Hebrew University of Jerusalem</DIV>
<DIV>Tel: +972 2 588 3809</DIV>
<DIV>Fax: +972 2 588
1224</DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV>
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