[Lexicog] deciding on the citation form

[Kenneth C. Hill]

I've always thought of Alonso de Molina's solution for the citation forms of Nahuatl verbs to be just about the best solution I've ever seen for a prefixing language. It doesn't just define possible prefixes but it also provides semantic information about what the possible arguments of the verb are. Unfortunately, like many truly excellent solutions in linguistics, Molina's solution is so language-specific that it's hard to extend his model to other languages.

I am reminded of what is probably the best script in the world, that of Korean. It fits Korean perfectly (except for leaving out the vowel length feature) but it is really hard to extend the insights embodied in that script to other language systems.

--Ken Hill

David Tuggy <david_tuggy at sil.org> wrote:                                      Mike Maxwell wrote: 
<snip>   
For verbs, infinitives are the usual choice with many (all?) Romance 
languages, but that is not necessarily a good choice for other 
languages-- and as you remark, many languages do not have an infinitive. 
  A third person singular present tense is often a good choice, since 
again this tends to be the least marked form.  A first person singular, 
even if it were unmarked, would often be a poor choice, because many 
verbs don't have such a form (like the verb 'rain' in most languages).
  
 <snip>
  There is an old (since 1555 at least) tradition in Nahuatl lexicography is (to alphabetize by verb roots but) to give as citation form a first person subject prefix and (if transitive) a third person object. Thus the verb stem cemmana ‘publish, spread (news)’ is represented in Molina’s dictionary by the citation form niccemmana (= ni-k-semmana) ‘I publish it’ or nitlacemmana ‘I publish something/stuff’. Verbs that need a plural subject use a ti- ‘we’ prefix (e.g. ticenuetzi (= tisenwe¢i) ‘we fall together’) and verbs which necessarily take an inanimate subject (like eeca (=eʔeka) ‘it (the wind) blow’) take the (zero) third-person singular subject.  Sometimes a verb is cited with a third person (zero) subject and a first person singular object (nēch-) especially when it involves an inanimate acting on an animate object.
 
 I like this for various reasons. One is just to follow an old and honorable tradition—why not, if it works? Another, perhaps more important, is that you immediately know if a verb can take a human subject, or a singular subject, or not. This may not be obvious from the translation: e.g. if a verb is glossed ‘to blow’, how do you know it can’t be used of a human blowing as well as the wind blowing? Of course careful glossing may clarify this. Another reason is that if you have two third person arguments, it may not be clear which is subject and which is object. If I give you a verb kipaktia, glossed ‘he/she likes it/him/her’ (or worse, ‘to like’), is the subject the person feeling the emotion (subject in English) or the person or thing prompting the emotion (object in English)? It's not easy to tell. But if the form is nikpaktia and is glossed ‘he/she likes me’ (or nēchpaktia [me-like] and glossed ‘I like him/her/it’, the way to use and understand the verb is
 immediately clear (if you know anything at all about Nahuatl verbs, anyway. I don't expect it to necessarily be blindingly obvious to you here on the list, of course ;-) .) There are a surprising number of cases where this turns out to be useful, where Nahuatl's way of assigning subjecthood and objecthood isn't obvious to someone coming from the perspective of another language, and using first-on-third as the default citation form clears things up nicely. Again, careful glossing can help, but many times you will otherwise need an explanatory note to clarify the gloss.
 
 Similar things happen with some possessed forms and pospositions and things. If you put in your dictionary the phrase īwan motta [3PSg-with zero-refl-see] and give its (surprising but correct) gloss as ‘his/her relative’, it is not clear who is marked where. If you have nowan motta [me-with zero-refl-see] ‘one to whom I am related’, or īwan nimotta [3PSg-with I-refl-see]  ‘my relative, one who is related to me’ it becomes (at least a bit!) clearer.
 
 I'm not necessarily recommending this for every other language, but I think it works well for Nahuatl, and might well for at least some other languages. In other words, I wouldn't assume that first person singular forms are necessarily poor choices.
 
 --David Tuggy
   
     
                       

 	 
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