prefixing verbal template and OV

Sun Sep 15 20:15:21 UTC 2013

Dear Guillaume,

I have one question and one comment.

I would be interested to know why exactly you believe that the prefixing 
character or Athabaskan is counter to expectations, given the V-final 
word order. I have some guesses why you say that, but please clarify. 
For example, Indo-Europeanists apply special efforts to explain why IE 
has suffixal personal inflection, going back to subject pronouns, in 
spite of the SV order in the known IE languages.

Also, modern Athabaskan have variable verb stem finals that is mostly 
reconstructed as going back to suffixes and, actually, series of 
suffixes. Most of the Athabaskan prefixes are relatively recent, and 
there is a reconstructable stage at which prefixes (conjunct) were 
combined with a number of suffixes.

Best --

Andrej Kibrik

15.09.2013 23:49, Guillaume Jacques пишет:
> Beste Willem,
>
> Thank you for your message!
> Siouan languages are indeed verb final and have verb template that 
> allow several prefixal slots. However, my statement was not specific 
> enough, and did not clearly convey my meaning. In terms of the 
> proportion of prefixes vs. suffixes, Siouan languages differ from 
> Athabaskan and Rgyalrong, as they also have many suffixal slots; for 
> instance the negation -/šni/, the irrealis -/kte /etc, and Rood and 
> Taylor in their sketch of Lakhota list more than ten suffixal slots.
> Of course, there are "sentence final particles" in Athabascan and 
> Rgyalrong too (for instance the negation /da /in Navajo). However, in 
> Siouan, there are morphological reasons to argue that the suffixal 
> elements are indeed suffixes (the -a / -e / -ĩ vowel alternation for 
> instance), whereas I am not sure whether the same could be argued of 
> the sentence final particles in Athabaskan (feedback from specialists 
> would be welcome).
> In any case, in any typological survey of OV+prefixing languages, I 
> fully agree with you that Siouan languages have to be included.
>
> Guillaume
>
>
>
> 2013/9/15 De Reuse, Willem <WillemDeReuse at my.unt.edu 
> <mailto:WillemDeReuse at my.unt.edu>>
>
>     Dear Guillaume, bonjour!
>
>     Thank you for sharing this.  I will definitely send you comments. 
>     One comment on your statement that "there are very few strict OV
>     languages with mainly prefixing verbal templates (as far as I know
>     only Na-Dene, Ienissean and Rgyalrong)".  I can think of one other
>     language family, Siouan, which would also conform to this
>     description.   So you might want to write to the Siouanist
>     language discussion group as well. They are a pretty lively bunch.
>
>     Best,
>
>     Willem de Reuse
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     *From:* ATHAPBASCKAN-L [ATHAPBASCKAN-L at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
>     <mailto:ATHAPBASCKAN-L at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>] on behalf of
>     Guillaume Jacques [rgyalrongskad at GMAIL.COM
>     <mailto:rgyalrongskad at GMAIL.COM>]
>     *Sent:* Sunday, September 15, 2013 6:28 AM
>     *To:* ATHAPBASCKAN-L at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
>     <mailto:ATHAPBASCKAN-L at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>
>     *Subject:* prefixing verbal template and OV
>
>     Dear Athabaskanists, yaě'aět'eěeěh !
>
>     I have just published an article (in Linguistic Typology) on the
>     issue of disharmony between affix ordering and basic word order.
>     Here is an offprint:
>
>     http://www.academia.edu/2008163/Harmonization_and_disharmonization_of_affix_ordering_and_basic_word_order
>
>     The article mainly discusses the verbal template of Japhug
>     Rgyalrong, a polysynthetic Sino-Tibetan language spoken in Eastern
>     Tibet  (which, like Athabaskan languages, has strict verb final
>     order with overwhelmingly prefixing verbal morphology) in a
>     historical perspective (how particular morphemes were
>     grammaticalized as prefixes rather than suffixes, despites the
>     fact that the basic corresponding construction should have led to
>     the grammaticalization as suffixes).
>
>     I did not really discuss Athabaskan in detail due to my
>     insufficient knowledge of this field. However, I think that
>     typologically similar phenomena are probably attested in Athabaskan.
>
>     I would be much interested to have feedback from Athabaskanists on
>     this particular topic (in particular, concerning the idea proposed
>     by Givoěn 2000 on the origin of some prefixes in Tolowa); there
>     are very few strict OV languages with mainly prefixing verbal
>     templates (as far as I know only Na-Dene, Ienissean and
>     Rgyalrong), and typological comparison of the morphosyntax of
>     these languages could be interesting, but it is not a one-man project.
>
>     Best wishes to all of you,
>
>     Guillaume Jacques
>
>     -- 
>     Guillaume Jacques
>     CNRS (CRLAO) - INALCO
>     http://cnrs.academia.edu/GuillaumeJacques
>     http://himalco.hypotheses.org/
>     http://panchr.hypotheses.org/
>
>
>
>
> -- 
> Guillaume Jacques
> CNRS (CRLAO) - INALCO
> http://cnrs.academia.edu/GuillaumeJacques
> http://himalco.hypotheses.org/
> http://panchr.hypotheses.org/

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