Lakota wa- 'variety object'

[REGINA PUSTET]

> > 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.



No, we're left with a zero valence. The first wa deletes the 'my name'
slot from 'ask me my name'; the second wa deletes the 'me' slot from the
same verb; the third wa- deletes the 'about him' which is contributed by
the i- prefix. As with Bob's theory, I think the result in Lakhota is
very hard to express in English, so the speaker has to add in objects that
are not actually referenced by the Lak. grammar.


=====


This time I disagree. We forgot that one of the PAT slots in iyuNg^a is filled by a zero for ‘(about) him’, rather than by one of the wa-s. So what we get is, roughly,



Ø-             w-                         i-       wa-  w-   iyuNg^a-pi

about him-in various places-LOC-WA-WA-ask-        PL

‘they ask about him in various places’



I’m actually not sure what entity or entities the third w- refers to. At any rate, if the base verb is i’iyuNg^a ‘to ask someone about something/someone in some place’ (i.e. three PAT slots), then the ‘about something/someone’ slot is taken by Ø- ‘about him’. So we have two PAT slots left, ‘someone’ and ‘in some place’. But we have three wa-s. So the end result indeed is a [-1] valence for PAT.



Regina



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