[Lexicog] Invariance and exploitation

[Patrick Hanks]

Thanks for "tmesis", John.  Ah yes, the very word -- it was on the tip of my
tongue...

... and for the examples from Amele. Wow!

The variety of conventions in natural languages is truly amazing. I wonder
if the
variety of exploitations -- that grey area between the normal and the
possible -- 
is equally great in all languages.

On the basis of what you say, I'd like to regard the reciprocal in Amele as
a 'word'
because I think that a space is neither a necessary nor a sufficient
condition for word
boundary. It's just a useful convention, with fuzzy boundaries. Your Amele
example
and (I suppose) many examples from agglutinative languages and indeed from
German
show that it is not a necessary condition-- and as for sufficiency, English
expressions
like "of course" and even perhaps "take place" could be regarded as single
words
spelled with a space in them.

Patrick

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Roberts" <dr_john_roberts at sil.org>
To: <lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, May 28, 2006 6:32 PM
Subject: Re: [Lexicog] Invariance and exploitation


Tmesis (placing a word within a word) is not necessarily against the norm in
a language. In Amele (Papuan) it is part of the grammatical system to place
certain modifiers within verbs. E.g.

bahic hel-eig-a
really throw-3pl.SU-TODP
'they really threw'

hel bahic eiga
'they REALLY threw'

qee hel-el-ein
not throw-NEGP-3pl.SU
'they didn't throw'

hel qee elein
'they did NOT threw'

age dih heleiga
3pl  just
'just they threw'

age hel dih eiga
'they just threw'

Also reduplication as an inflectional process can operate on different parts
of the verb word in Amele. In other words, the syntax has access to the
internal structure of the verb word.

he-hel-egin
SIM-throw-3pl.SU.DS
'as they threw ...'

hel-ad-eig-a
throw-3pl.DO-3pl.SU-TODP

hel-aad-egin
throw-SIM.3pl.DO-3pl.SU.DS
'as they threw them ...'

hel-i-adad-egin
throw-PRED-SIM.3pl.IO-3pl.SU.DS
'as they threw to them ..'

heliheli-eegin
           SIM.3pl.SU.DS
'as they threw repeatedly'

SIM = simultaneous tense and is an inflectional category.
DS = different subject following

Would you call the reciprocal form of the verb in Amele a word or something
else? In the reciprocal example below *helecebheleceb* - an inflected
reduplicated form - functions as the verb stem with the verb agreement
suffixation attached.

hel-ece-b
throw-DS-3sg.SU
'he threw (different subject following) ...'

age heleceb heleceb eig-a
3pl                           3pl.SU-TODP
'they threw to each other'

John Roberts






Yahoo! Groups Links









------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> 
Get to your groups with one click. Know instantly when new email arrives
http://us.click.yahoo.com/.7bhrC/MGxNAA/yQLSAA/HKE4lB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~-> 

 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lexicographylist/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    lexicographylist-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/