22.3269, Qs: 'like'/'manner' as Purpose Clause Marker

Tue Aug 16 16:00:42 UTC 2011

LINGUIST List: Vol-22-3269. Tue Aug 16 2011. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 22.3269, Qs: 'like'/'manner' as Purpose Clause Marker

Moderators: Anthony Aristar, Eastern Michigan U <aristar at linguistlist.org>
            Helen Aristar-Dry, Eastern Michigan U <hdry at linguistlist.org>

Reviews: Veronika Drake, U of Wisconsin-Madison  
Monica Macaulay, U of Wisconsin-Madison  
Rajiv Rao, U of Wisconsin-Madison  
Joseph Salmons, U of Wisconsin-Madison  
Anja Wanner, U of Wisconsin-Madison  
       <reviews at linguistlist.org> 

Homepage: http://linguistlist.org/

The LINGUIST List is funded by Eastern Michigan University, 
and donations from subscribers and publishers.

Editor for this issue: Brent Woo <bwoo at linguistlist.org>
================================================================  
Visit LL's Multitree project for over 1000 trees dynamically generated
from scholarly hypotheses about language relationships:
          http://multitree.linguistlist.org/

We'd like to remind readers that the responses to queries are usually
best posted to the individual asking the question. That individual is
then strongly encouraged to post a summary to the list. This policy was
instituted to help control the huge volume of mail on LINGUIST; so we
would appreciate your cooperating with it whenever it seems appropriate.

In addition to posting a summary, we'd like to remind people that it
is usually a good idea to personally thank those individuals who have
taken the trouble to respond to the query.

To post to LINGUIST, use our convenient web form at
http://linguistlist.org/LL/posttolinguist.cfm.

===========================Directory==============================  

1)
Date: 16-Aug-2011
From: Yvonne Treis [yvoennche at gmail.com]
Subject: 'like'/'manner' as Purpose Clause Marker

-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2011 11:59:41
From: Yvonne Treis [yvoennche at gmail.com]
Subject: 'like'/'manner' as Purpose Clause Marker

E-mail this message to a friend:
http://linguistlist.org/issues/emailmessage/verification.cfm?iss=22-3269.html&submissionid=4529542&topicid=8&msgnumber=1

Dear colleagues,

I am looking for languages in which a morpheme meaning 'like' or 
'manner' is used to mark purpose clauses.

Here are some examples from Kambaata (Cushitic, Ethiopia) to clarify 
what I am looking for. In Kambaata, the enclitic morpheme =ga 'like' is 
used, among others, in the following constructions:

Noun='like' means 'like / in the manner of Noun'
(1) 
adanch-o=ga		ga'l-a		agg-oomm
cat.SG-fGEN=LIKE	shard-mOBL	drink-1sPFV
'I drank from a shard LIKE a cat.'	

Relative clause='like' functions as a complement clause e.g. with verbs 
of cognition ('know'), perception ('hear'), utterance ('say'), manipulation 
('tell s.o. to do s.th., cause s.o. to s.o.)
(3)
ayeeti-la		y-itaanti-'e=ga
who.PRED-DISBELIEF	say-2sIPFV-1sO.REL=LIKE	
dag-aamm
know-1sIPFV
'I know THAT (lit. ''like'') you will say to me ''Who is [this]?!''.

Relative clause='like' functions as a purpose clause ('in order to'/'so 
that')
(4)
mann-u	[...] 	hoog-umb-o=ga
people-mNOM	become_tired-3mNEG.REL-mOBL=LIKE
iyy-itaa-s
carry-3fIPFV-3mO
'They [= horses] carry people so that (lit. ''like'') they don't become 
tired.' (A translation that better reflects the Kambaata word order: 'So 
that (lit. ''like'') people do not become tired, they [= horses] carry 
them.')

Cross-linguistically, it is widely attested that 'like' can grammaticalise 
into a complement clause marker (usually via a quotative function) but I 
haven't come across many examples of 'like'/'manner' being used as a 
marker of PURPOSE clauses outside of Ethiopian languages. (In Ethio-
Semitic, North Omotic and East Cushitic languages, however, it is quite 
common to use 'like'/'manner' as a purpose clause marker.) The only 
non-Ethiopian example I could find so far is quoted in Schmidtke-Bode 
(2009: 76).

Supyire (Gur: Mali, Carlson 1994: 586)
Pi	na	wyige		turu
they	PROG	hole.DEF	dig.IMPF
ba	pi	gu	m-pyi
like	they	POT	FP-do
si	lwOhO	ta	mE
SUBJ	water	get	like
'They are digging the hole in order to get water.' (lit. ''They are digging 
a hole as if they were to get some water.'')
(NB: In the example above, tone marking was left out; E = open 'e', O = 
open 'o')

Do you know of other languages in which 'like' or 'manner' is used as a 
marker of purpose clauses? I'd be interested to know about languages 
that 1) use 'like'/'manner' in purpose but NOT in complement clauses, 
2) languages that use 'like'/'manner' in purpose AND complement 
clauses, 3) languages that use 'like'/'manner' as the primary means to 
mark purpose clauses, 4) languages that use 'like'/'manner' as one out 
of several means to mark purpose clauses, etc.

Any comments and references would be much appreciated! I will post a 
summary if there are enough responses.

Regards,
Yvonne Treis

References:
Carlson, Robert 1994. A grammar of Supyire. Berlin, New York: Mouton 
de Gruyter.
Schmidtke-Bode, Karsten 2009. A typology of purpose clauses. 
Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins.

*****************************************************

Dr Yvonne Treis
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
LLACAN - UMR 8135 du CNRS 
Centre Georges Haudricourt, Bat. C 
7, rue Guy Môquet B.P. 8 
94801 Villejuif Cedex
FRANCE

http://cnrs.academia.edu/YvonneTreis 

Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics
                     Historical Linguistics
                     Typology

-----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-22-3269	
----------------------------------------------------------
Visit LL's Multitree project for over 1000 trees dynamically generated
from scholarly hypotheses about language relationships:
          http://multitree.linguistlist.org/