Helmbrecht Paper: Terminology 'modal prefix'

[Koontz John E]

Note:  I've been carefully restoring the -m in Helmbrecht as penance for
omitting it originally.

On Mon, 8 Jul 2002, Ardis R Eschenberg wrote:
> ... I think of wa and non-wa marked verbs (in Omaha anyway) as
> activity versus accomplishment (or active-accomplishment)  ...  Many
> accomplishment verbs (no wa added) become activities when the wa is
> added.  There are also verbs which are basic activites which don't
> need the wa added to make them so. ...

I'm sorry the example of the verb unexpectedly not taking wa- to form an
activity verb is misplaced (activity).  I hope it turns up again
(accomplishment)... I seem to recall that Carolyn Quintero has examples of
verbs that take both wa- and an explicit nominal object in Osage.

I've done les reading of Van Valin and LaPolla than perhaps I should have
- none in fact - and I'm not in a position to quickly remedy that.  I'm
wondering if activity verbs are inherently intransitive or accomplishment
verbs inherently transitive?

Speaking in a non-technical sense, I can see, for example, where wa- =
activity would work to explain the class of wa-statives, e.g., washushe
'be brave', wakHega 'be sick', etc.  At least the latter is also nicely
handled by treating wa- as a stand in for thing in which the illness
resides, taking the approach that most of the wa-statives are experiencer
verbs, agreeing with the experiencer as a patient.  I'll admit that that
approach doesn't seem to jive with washushe.  (We discussed these
experiencer verbs extensive about a year ago, and the discussion can be
retrieved from the archives.)

JEK