OP stative verb ablaut?

are2 at buffalo.edu are2 at buffalo.edu
Sun Feb 15 20:38:05 UTC 2004


I have some notes related to the general theme of late:

1. I have only gotten wa for 3plural subject 'they' of statives a few
times & I think these were just errors in my elicitation.

2. The wa of wakHega does not take the place of the thing hurting.
WakHega + a body part that hurts maintains the wa.
Mrs. Marcella Cayou gave an example of this at the UmoNhoN Language
Center which I don't have right now.  Upon further elicitation, it was
shown that long term illnesses use wakHega (niye 'hurts' is used for
short term).  The pattern is ___(body part)__  + wakHega(conjugated)

So,
TethasoNtasi oN-wakHega
kidney       me-sick
'I have kidney disease.'

This supports an analysis of wa- as an activity marker (it removes
telicity, end points) which developed from the plural object but is
now separate.

3. AkHa does indeed occur with many things we consider 'inanimate.'
But they tend to be natural phenomenon similar to what Bob proposed
which are culturally important.  It frequently occurs with 'day,'
weather terms (snow, rain etc.), heavenly bodies (sun, moon etc.)
Interestingly, these also tend to take adjectives (descriptive words,
statives) which are reserved for animates.  That is, trees don't take
tega 'new' but 'young,' and not 'itoNthadi' 'old-inanimate' but
iNsh'age 'old man.'  (This is from my dissertation.)
The horse harness surprises me, but maybe it's because it is so
related to horse (animate).  I've never seen akHa with something
like 'pencil.'

It should be noted that the natural phenomenon noted above often have
animate-like features, too.  The Sun moves, so does wind and snow and
rain.  Also, these change and effect things, too.  So, aside from the
cultural context, there are other reasons to mark them as proximate.

4. THe articles should really not be called 'focus' markers.  They
don't mark the linguistic concept of focus regularly.  Often, they are
marking given material (topic - not focus, which is new material).
Consistently, however, they mark characters (or things, as per 3)
which are of central concern, centerstage in narratives, topic of
conversation.

Well, that's all I remember right now.
-Ardis



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