possessive resultative

[Bjoern Wiemer]

Dear colleagues,

I would like to know if you have come across examples in some language or
other in which there is a resultative construction of the following
Lithuanian kind:

(1) (as') turiu          pasiruos'e's                      savo lagamina'.
     I    HAVE-1.Sg.prs  PREPARE-part:prt:act.nom.sg.masc. REFL suitcase-acc.sg
     'I have prepared (for myself) my suitcase'

In this construction an inflected possessive verb (TURETI 'to have')
combines with a preterite active participle in the NOMINATIVE and a noun (or
pronoun) in the ACCUSATIVE. The meaning is resultative, since (1) indicates
the state which results after having prepared one's suitcase, i.e. the
suitcase (and the person having done it) are ready for leaving, and this
state is clearly linked to the preceding action of preparing the suitcase.
        The point why I am asking is that "normally" the participles which
partake in possessive resultatives agree in their morphological categories
(case, gender, number) with the object of the action. (The decay of object
agreement has been stated to be one of the first symptoms of the transition
of possessive resultatives to perfects, as in the history of Romance and
Germanic languages.) That is, we would expect them to be marked as
accusatives. In the above sentence, however, the participle (PASIRUOS'E'S)
is in the nominative and agrees with the sentence's subject (AS'). Despite
of scarce documented evidence in Lithuanian, we can be quite sure that this
construction did not evolve from another one with object agreement (among
other reason, because the participle is active). It is until nowadays highly
restricted lexically (as are "good" resultatives) and does not figure in
normative grammars of Lithuanian. Besides this, Lithuanian has a
well-established perfect which is clearly distinguished both formally and
functionally from the above construction.
        An analogous construction has been reported to exist in Middle
Greek. What I wonder is whether you know of any other language (beside
Lithuanian and Middle Greek), probably from outside the Indo-European
family, in which such a construction exists (or existed). If so, I would be
very happy to know about it, about its history and about its paradigmatic
and functional relationship to other TMA-categories of the particular language.
        I promise to deliver a digest in case enough pertinent answers and
material will be sent to me.

With best regards,
        Bjoern Wiemer.



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Dr. Bjoern Wiemer
Universitaet Konstanz
Philosophische Fakultaet / FB Sprachwissenschaft - Slavistik
Postfach 55 60 - D 179
D- 78457 Konstanz

e-mail: Bjoern.Wiemer at uni-konstanz.de
tel.: 07531 / 88- 2582
fax:  07531 / 88- 4007
		- 2741

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