Fwd: relative roots

Wed Apr 19 22:58:11 UTC 2006

Monica,
	There are a couple of considerations with relative roots. As 
I have been arguing for about ten years now (and no one seems to 
notice), relative roots have properties that suggest they are 
analogous to head marking. What I mean is the following.

	We translate simple transitive verb forms with something that 
suggests the object slot which must be filled.

	waabamaad	vta	'see s.o./s.t. (an.)'

Since relative roots analogously license clausal complements, we 
should gloss them analogously with appropriate indefinites:

	inaabid		vai	'look in a certain direction'
	inaabamaad	vta	'see s.o./s.t. (an.) looking like s.t.'
	apatood		vai	'run along a certain route'
	onjinawaad	vta	'kill s.o. for a certain reason'

But with 20/20 hindsight, because the head markings all have null 
definite readings, it would probably be more accurate to gloss them 
with definites.

	waabamaad	vta	'see him/her/it (an.)'

and

	inaabid		vai	'look in that direction'
	inaabamaad	vta	'see him/her/it (an.) looking like that'
	apatood		vai	'run along that route'
	onjinawaad	vta	'kill him/her/it for that reason'

I used the indefinite option in my dictionary, but I'm thinking that 
if I had it to do over again, I'd go with definites.

Rich

At 6:42 PM -0500 4/18/06, Monica Macaulay wrote:
>I got this very helpful message from David Costa and since it just 
>came to me am taking the liberty of forwarding it to the list.  I 
>think the list is set up so that replies just go to the sender and 
>not the list, which is silly.  I'll check into changing that.
>
>- Monica
>
>
>Begin forwarded message:
>
>>From: David Costa 
>><<mailto:pankihtamwa at earthlink.net>pankihtamwa at earthlink.net>
>>Date: April 18, 2006 3:06:48 PM CDT
>>To: Monica Macaulay <<mailto:mmacaula at WISC.EDU>mmacaula at WISC.EDU>
>>Cc: Daryl Baldwin <<mailto:baldwidw at muohio.edu>baldwidw at muohio.edu>
>>Subject: Re: relative roots
>>
>>Monica:
>>
>>>We're currently going through the archaic English words that 
>>>Bloomfield used
>>>in his Menominee lexicon and trying to come up with  more colloquial
>>>defintions.  While thinking about 'thus' and what we  could 
>>>replace it with, I
>>>realized that there's an intersecting  problem, which is due to 
>>>the fact that
>>>all of the verbs that have  'thus' in their definition - not surprisingly -
>>>have the relative  root aeN- in them.  We were going to change 'thus' to 'in
>>>that  manner' but it occurs to me that that might be interpreted as a
>>>complete definition.  So, take the verb that Bloomfield translates as  'it
>>>glows thus' - we could change it to 'it glows in that manner' but  a
>>>dictionary user might not realize that it's a verb that needs a 
>>>manner adverb
>>>- and that using it without one would actually be  ungrammatical to a native
>>>speaker.  Conversely they might not realize  how to translate it in a
>>>sentence; i.e. if you used this verb with  'brightly' the meaning 
>>>would be 'it
>>>glows brightly' - NOT 'it glows  brightly in that manner' or something like
>>>that.  Have any of you  wrestled with this one and come up with a good
>>>solution?
>>>
>>Well, it seems to me that the 'thus'/'in that manner' dilemma and the worry
>>about people thinking the gloss is a complete definition are separate
>>issues. In our Miami dictionary, we used 'thus' a lot, but I think that was
>>just because it's all over the Algonquian literature that way and we're so
>>used to it. Perhaps in retrospect '(in) that way' or 'so' might have been a
>>bit more user-friendly since 'thus' is such a marginal word in modern spoken
>>English.
>>
>>>A related issue of course is how much info one puts into a 
>>>dictionary  without
>>>crossing over the line into being a grammar.  I think we  probably are all
>>>making somewhat different decisions about where to  draw that line, and I
>>>haven't decided yet where it would be drawn in  a case like this.
>>>
>>And this is the second issue! I think the problem of speakers not knowing
>>exactly how to use a word grammatically just based on its dictionary
>>definition is just unavoidable. In my opinion, at the most one could write
>>'relative root' in the gloss along with the form class, then in the intro
>>refer the user to a grammatical sketch somewhere; or one could explain in
>>the intro that when a word has that prefix and 'thus' (or 'in that manner',
>>or whatever) in its gloss, here's what it means, and see the grammatical
>>sketch. Explaining the details of how to use a relative root ninety
>>different times in a dictionary would just drive people crazy, and they'd
>>just have to refer to the grammar anyway.
>>
>>I've encountered people (not Miamis!) who want Native American languages to
>>be spelled just like English, so that they supposedly won't have to learn
>>any pronunciation rules. When one learns any new language, one has to master
>>that language's spelling and pronunciation idiosyncracies, and one does not
>>have the right to expect the rules to be the same as English. Grammar is
>>the same way -- I've also had people (again, not Miamis) ask "can't we learn
>>this language without any grammar?" The answer is no, of course --
>>Algonquian grammar is SO different from English grammar, anyone who wants to
>>make meaningful use of an Algonquian dictionary is going to have to
>>familiarize themselves with a certain amount of grammar. Using a dictionary
>>of Spanish or Polish or Swahili would be the same way. And you can't
>>make grammar totally transparent in a dictionary.
>>
>>Anyway, I hope these comments are useful.
>>
>>Dave
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>Monica Macaulay
>Department of Linguistics
>University of Wisconsin
>1168 Van Hise Hall; 1220 Linden Drive
>Madison, WI  53706
>phone (608) 262-2292; fax (608) 265-3193
><http://ling.wisc.edu/~macaulay/monica.html>http://ling.wisc.edu/~macaulay/monica.html

-- 
******************************************************************

  Richard A. Rhodes
  Department of Linguistics
  University of California
  Berkeley, CA 94720-2650
  Voice (510) 643-7325
  FAX (510) 643-5688

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