unusual (?) passive/possessive

[Daniel Everett]

This is also common in Arawan languages. Bob Dixon has written on this  
in his grammar of Jarawara and in an article for the Journal of  
Linguistics. I have a chapter on possession and its relation to  
ethical datives in my book, Why there are no clitics.

Dan


On 2 Jul 2009, at 08:00, Paul Hopper wrote:

> Jess,
>
> It looks like the -m- isn't a passive but some kind of applicative,  
> and
> the subject NP got there by "possessor ascension" (you could google  
> this
> to find other examples). In a wider sense ethical datives etc. might
> belong here.
>
> Paul
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, June 28, 2009 3:57 pm, jess tauber wrote:
>> Another long hot day...
>>
>>
>> In Yahgan there is a construction I find a bit unusual, but my lack  
>> of
>> experience with other languages makes me a bit hesitant here, so I'm
>> wondering if list-lurkers can help.
>>
>> Ex.   hame:amana:nude: shuganiki:pa < ha-m-yamana:n-ude: = 1st
>> sbj-pass/refl-live/survive/recover-past;  shugani-ki:pa ?-female/ 
>> woman =
>> daughter 'My daughter is getting better'.
>>
>> This type of construction works for all three bound person pronoun
>> prefixes.
>>
>> Ex.   kvme:ipvnude: bix <  kv-m-yipvn-ude:  =  3rd
>> sbj-pass/refl-catch-past;  bix bird 'His bird was caught/someone  
>> hit is
>> bird'.
>>
>> Possession of the nominal is unexpressed in these sentences, where
>> normally it would have another possessing nominal preceding it, and  
>> in
>> other constructions one can have the expressed possessor.
>>
>> Here the possessed NP seems always to follow the verb, and is zero- 
>> marked
>> for case. With the expressed possessor neither of these conditions  
>> seem
>> to be true.
>>
>> Is this sort of thing normal for some kinds of languages? Thanks.
>>
>>
>> Jess Tauber
>> phonosemantics at earthlink.net
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> -- 
> Prof. Dr. Paul J. Hopper
> Senior Fellow
> Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies
> Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
> Albertstr. 19
> D-79104 Freiburg
> and
> Paul Mellon Distinguished Professor of Humanities
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> Carnegie Mellon University
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>
>