Lakota wa- 'variety object'

REGINA PUSTET pustetrm at yahoo.com
Thu Dec 11 02:08:34 UTC 2003


> >In (1)   thi-w-í-wa-'uN
> >         house-things.PAT-paint-1SG.AG-paint
> >
> > the starting point is the transitive verb *i'u`N*
> 'to
> > paint', which has valence slots for AG and PAT.
> *wa-*
> > as a detransitivizer functions to eliminate the
> PAT.
> > So *i'u`N* plus *wa-* yields 'to paint' minus PAT,
> > i.e. detransitivized 'to paint' (or, with
> incorporated
> > *thi-*, detransitivized 'house-paint'). But in (1)
> > there are two *wa-*affixes. Where is the
> additional
> > PAT slot that is eliminated by the second *wa-*?
> In
> > your equation, we'd get detransitivized 'to paint'
> > minus PAT, i.e. a verb with a valence of [-1] for
> PAT.
>
>
> Sorry -- I only see one WA- prefix here; the other
> one is the first person
> agent.
>

> Sorry -- I only see one WA- prefix here; the other
> one is the first person
> agent.

You're right, David -- I made a mistake here. The
example I actually meant to use here was (5) in my
first post. So how about this:

	itówapi ki  hé   wa-w-í-wa-'uN
	picture the that WA-WA-paint-1SG.AG-paint
	'I am painting that picture with different
  colors'

How do we account for the *wa-*s in here?


> >
> > (2)	w-í-wa-w-iyuNg^a-pi
> > 	WA-LOC-WA-WA-ask-PL
> >         'they ask around about him'
> >
> > and this structure contains three *wa-*s. The base
> > verb *iyúNg^a* 'to ask' is transitive, so that,
> after
> > three detransitivizations or PAT-eliminations,
> we'd
> > get a valence of [-2] for PAT.
> >
> Yes, but one of these wa's goes with the i- prefix
> this time.  iyunga is
> di-transitive, and you can get both wiunga and
> wawiunga.  I don't know a
> verb i'iyunga, but that has to be the base for
> wiwawiyungapi.  The thing
> that's adding the slot is the instrumental prefix.

I agree. So we're left with a [-1] valence for PAT in
this case.

Regina

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