Usitative

[Mia Kalish]

Hi, Scott, thanks. :-)

I wonder what we make of the difference between 'usta' being (kinda)
optional, and the grammar-dependence of the Usitative?

What I mean is that there is no usitative rule in English, but there is a
formal position for it in Diné Bizaad. I think the psychology of this is
intriguing. 

Mia

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU]
On Behalf Of Scott DeLancey
Sent: Tuesday, May 16, 2006 12:58 PM
To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
Subject: Re: [ILAT] Usitative

On Tue, 16 May 2006, Mia Kalish wrote:

> I am about to say that the usitative is a semantic function in English –
as
> opposed to a grammatical function in Diné Bizaad. In Diné Bizaad, the
> usitative is very Bayesian, while in English, people specify with
particular
> words such as usual, customary. (Regularly is repetitive rather than
> usitative).

English has it as a semi-grammatical category in the past tense:

	We used to [usta] go there all the time.

Scott DeLancey
Department of Linguistics
1290 University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403-1290, USA

delancey at darkwing.uoregon.edu
http://www.uoregon.edu/~delancey/prohp.html