argument structure k'u etc.

Sat Apr 2 01:59:23 UTC 2005

Thanks for playing along with this, David -- I'm very glad to learn
about these verbs.

A modal type of thing like 'necessary' or 'maybe' doesn't really fit
what I'm thinking about, precisely because you want (naturally) to put
"subject" in quotes with that. But the other types are just the kind of
thing I was thinking of. To give you another possibility, how about a
verb that takes a mass inanimate as a subject (e.g. something that might
be true of 'water' or 'sand'...)?

I want to make it ABSOLUTELY clear that I agree with you 100% that it's
odd to say that 'give' takes indirect objects universally. I don't want
you to think at all that this is what I (or, I would guess, John) was
getting at.

What seems to me to be true is that verbs like 'give' in languages like
Lakhota (and a variety of other languages) take two objects, only one of
which may show agreement on the verb -- but that both of them are
syntactically objects. My suggestion that you cannot freely add random
nouns to Lakhota sentences (you cannot randomly have additional things
"hanging around in the vicinity", in your words) was designed to show
that even though the (semantic) patient (the "second object", if you
like that term) does not agree with the verb, it still has a role in the
sentence, and (personally) it makes it sense to me to call it an
argument.  (Though certainly others might define that term differently.)
This seems like pretty strong structural evidence to me. I don't see
anything particularly "indirect" about either of these objects; anyone
who would use this term is simply trying to apply Indo-European style
terminology in a case where it doesn't fit too well. The recipient is
clearly the "first object".

I agree with you about your 'eat' example, too. I'd say that English
'eat' may be either intransitive (as in your example) or transitive.

ROOD DAVID S wrote:

>Pam, I'm not quite sure that this is a very important discussion, even
>though I started it (one of my pet peeves, for years, has been the claim
>that 'give' takes indirect objects universally).  However, it's kind of
>fun.
>	The kind of verb you're asking for (only 3rd person singular
>argument possible, not phonomenological) seems like it'd be hard to come
>by in any language -- can you provide a possible example from English or
>some other language you know?  All I can think of would be the modal-like
>verbs like iyecheca 'necessary' or nachece 'maybe', which take
>propositions as their "subjects". Or maybe an intransitive that cannot
>have an animate argument, so "pi" would be impossible -- e.g. do plants
>'grow' or 'die' with a different verb than do people?  Two minutes of
>research in Ingham gives a verb "uya" for 'to grow (longer), as hair';
>back checking with Buechel indicates that it's used for grain springing
>up, and then the sentence example he gives is "tokiyatanhan uya hwo?"
>which he glosses 'where does the wind come from?' -- so I'm very confused,
>but maybe "uya" is a candidate.  Are there any speakers of Lakhota
>out there who can comment on this word?  Does it ever take a
>plural "subject"?  And if not, what does that tell us?  The morphology of
>third singular won't reveal anything about whether or not that "subject"
>is an argument.
>	More important, perhaps, is some agreement about what we mean by
>"argument".  I intended my "marked on the verb" definition to be
>Lakhota-specific; I think you have to find criteria for grammatical
>argument status one language at a time.  And as John said, (I think), my
>example with three arguments for the causative works only because there
>are two verb stems involved.  I have no objection to claims that the
>logical structure of 'give' universally includes three entities, but I do
>object to the hypothesis that the recipient is in some sense "secondary"
>or "indirect" in all languages.   Given that _k'u_ can take only two
>affixes at most, and that one is the giver and the other the recipient, I
>still claim that the third "entity" involved is not part of the core
>argument structure of this verb in this language.
>	I run into similar problems when people claim that "eat" in "we
>eat every afternoon at 4:00" has an "implied object" because you have to
>eat something.  I think it is purely intransitive in that kind of context,
>and has only one argument, logic or no logic.
>	Maybe my structuralist upbringing is leaking through here (I
>learned lingusitics first from Charles Hockett), but I need concrete
>evidence for grammatical structures before I accept them, and Lakhota
>"k'u" only shows two entities, even if other things are hanging around in
>the vicinity.
>	David
>
>David S. Rood
>Dept. of Linguistics
>Univ. of Colorado
>295 UCB
>Boulder, CO 80309-0295
>USA
>rood at colorado.edu
>
>On Fri, 1 Apr 2005, Pamela Munro wrote:
>
>
>
>>Hm, maybe I have another argument against defining "argument" narrowly
>>as "what can be marked on the verb". My Lakhota isn't ready enough to
>>supply an example, but I would certainly guess that there are some
>>intransitive verbs out there that can take only a singular nominal
>>(third person) subject. (I want one that can take a nominal subject,
>>not, say, a phenomenological verb that takes no subject, but I want one
>>where said subject is incompatible with plurality, so we can't get -pi
>>-- maybe I'm reaching, but I would guess there are such verbs.) In this
>>case (if such a verb exists), we have a verb that I think everyone would
>>want to say has one argument (the subject), but where nothing is marked
>>as subject on the verb. In other words, it seems to me that ability to
>>show marking on the verb need not be directly related to the number of
>>arguments a verb takes. (I think that's a matter of what used to be
>>called subcategorization.)
>>
>>Pam
>>
>>Koontz John E wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>On Fri, 1 Apr 2005, Pamela Munro wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Well, if you define "argument" as "something marked on the verb" (which
>>>>is fine, and I thought might be the case), this seems fine -- but in
>>>>fact, I think there are other ways to go. For instance, you really can't
>>>>freely add random nouns to Lakhota sentences. I think k'u really is
>>>>semantically and syntactically completed with three associated
>>>>"participants" (to choose a different term, which I often use when
>>>>talking with people who will be confused by "argument). I think each of
>>>>the three is fully as much a part of the sentence as, say, the subject
>>>>of an intransitive -- thus, I think this is a structural feature, not
>>>>just a semantic one. (I thought this before, but wondered if you knew
>>>>any obscure syntactic tests I was unaware of.)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>I agree with this.  I'm not really sure how the term argument should be
>>>used, and I don't want to do violence to accepted usage for it.  However,
>>>by restricting themselves historically to seeing only the arguments (or
>>>participants) defined by the canonical property of indexing in the verb
>>>Siouanists have been missing several important categories of verbs. If
>>>non-indexed arguments are considered, then we don't have just actives,
>>>statives, and transitives, we also have ditransitives like k?u and the
>>>"experiencer subject" pattern(s).  (I just slipped a letter or so up and
>>>said "dative subject" where I meant "experiencer subject").
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>--
>>Pamela Munro,
>>Professor, Linguistics, UCLA
>>UCLA Box 951543
>>Los Angeles, CA 90095-1543
>>http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/munro/munro.htm
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>

--
Pamela Munro,
Professor, Linguistics, UCLA
UCLA Box 951543
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1543
http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/munro/munro.htm

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