argument structure k'u etc.

[Koontz John E]

On Thu, 31 Mar 2005, David Costa wrote:
> If you want to force a meaning like 'I give him to you', with an overt
> animate object, you have to mark the animate entity being given by using an
> inalienably-possessed noun that means 'body, self'. Thus, 'I give him to
> you' would literally be 'I give you his body/himself'. You can see how
> semantically this wouldn't be common.

Exactly.  This is where I'd expect one of the Omaha speakers I worked with
to start hemming and hawing and regretfully offering rephrasings like "I
caused him to have you" or "I said you should marry him," explaining
"that's the way we would say it."

In Omaha-Ponca (and I think in MVS generally) the patient of 'give' has to
be a third person.  It's OK to have a nominal element in the clause for a
third person "argument" that the verb doesn't agree with (or, better,
doesn't represent with a prefix), but that class of "argument" cannot be a
non-third person.  I'd better say also that I think that having this sort
of non-concordial or non-represented "argument" is restricted to
particular verbs.  There are at least these kinds of verbs that allow (or
imply) an additional non-concordial or non-represented "argument":

1) ditransitive verbs like ?i (< *k?u) (not many)

2) dativized verbs (with gi- < *ki) (maybe not all of these)

3) what I've been calling dative subject verbs with stative concord, like
dhiNge 'to lack'

4) what I've been calling dative subject verbs with dative concord, like
git?e 'one's own to die'

I have no idea whether it's reasonable to call these non-represented
"arguments" arguments in particular approaches to grammatical theory.
Descriptively it makes sense to call them arguments, but they are not
arguments in the canonical Siouan sense of being potentially represented
as pronominal prefixes.  Of course, only certain plural third persons
normally produce a representation in the verb, and except perhaps for
Dakotan wic^ha- most of these representations of third person plural act
more like marking of plurality or indefiniteness than marking of person.

I'm trying to avoid saying "govern agreement," because I think agreement
implies some sort of secondariness, whereas Siouan personal prefixes seem
to be the main pronominal reference, not agreement with an independent
pronominal.  Independent pronominals, when they occur, are emphatic or
contrastive or deictic (in non-personal terms).