double inflection

Koontz John E John.Koontz at colorado.edu
Sun Aug 3 22:32:23 UTC 2003


> On Sun, 3 Aug 2003, ROOD DAVID S wrote:
> > The same -ya- shows up with the a- prefix that marks
> > collective subject for motion verbs: 'they started for home here' is
> > agliyaku.  This could be double inflection with epenthetic /y/, of
> > course, and may be the source of the analogy for the other forms, but
> > I'm not sure I want to advocate that analysis.
>
> This looks like a fossil remnant of the a-prefix on the third person,
> maybe wagliwaku/yagliyaku/agli(y)aku resulted in the first person changing
> to match the second and third person.

I slipped up on editing this.  I meant to say that I was here agreeing
with David that -ya- could be a reflex of the collective subject a-.  A
cognate appears in OP in plural verbs of motion and with proximate verbs.
The fact that this independent form of pluralization - hey another case of
two plurals - also occurs with proximates is one of the things that
convinced me that proximate marking doesn't originate with an independent
marker, but asa specialziation of the plural marker.

JEK



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