helps to-X-constructions

[Alec Coupe]

Dear Wolfgang,

The Mongsen dialect of Ao, a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in Nagaland, NE India has a rarely occurring verbal suffix /-ruk11/ expressing a meaning of 'help, accompany in VERB-ing', as in the following textual example (e = schwa, 11 = low tone etc.):

ni11 ne33 ka?11 tak11-ruk11-ru11 ni55
1SG AGT also weave-RUK-IMMED QPTCL
'Will I also help you to weave?'

This suffix belongs to a category of at least 16 "lexical" suffixes that occur immediately to the right of the root in agglutinative verb stems and express a range of mostly directional and resultative meanings. Many retain synchronic main verb functions, thereby demonstrating their diachronic sources. I suspect that they have grammaticalized via compounding processes. Clark ([1911] 1990: 619) describes a verb "roker" in the Chungli dialect of Ao, which is very likely to be cognate with the lexical suffix /-ruk11/ of Mongsen Ao. He translates this as 'to go as a matter of friendship or as a neighborly act and help another in work and expect no compensation whatever'. Its meaning is therefore very close to that expressed by the Mongsen lexical suffix /-ruk11/. It appears that /ruk/ is not used synchronically as a lexical verb root in the Mongsen dialect.

Reference:
Clark, Edward Winter. 1990. Ao Naga Dictionary. Mokokchung (Nagaland): R. Lisen Ao. [Originally published 1911].

Alec 


Alec Coupe, PhD
Linguistics Program
La Trobe University
Victoria 3086 
Australia
Tel  +61 3 9479-3297
Fax +61 3 9479-1520
web page: http://www.latrobe.edu.au/linguistics/staff/Coupe.html

-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion List for ALT [mailto:LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulze
Sent: Wednesday, 22 August 2007 11:19 PM
To: LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
Subject: helps to-X-constructions

Dear Colleagues,
just a little question: Does anybody has a term for what can be called "helps-to-X"-constructions, as in "Genetic variation *helps to* understand predisposition to schizophrenia"? (horribile dictu: Adjuvative?) And: is there any evidence that this function has become grammaticalized in terms of verbal morphology?
Many thanks in advance and best wishes,
Wolfgang

-- 



Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulze                                                                     

---------------------------------------------------------- 

Primary contact:                                                                                                 

Institut für Allgemeine & Typologische Sprachwissenschaft      

Dept. II / F 13                                                                                                     

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München                                                       

Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1                                                                                 

D-80539 München                                                                                                                  

Tel.: 0049-(0)89-2180-2486 (Secretary)                                                            

         0049-(0)89-2180-5343 (Office)                                            

Fax:  0049-(0)89-2180-5345                                                                               

Email: W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de <mailto:W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de>  /// Wolfgang.Schulze at lmu.de                                                         

Web: http://www.ats.lmu.de/mitarbeiter/index.php                  

----------------------------------------------------------

Second contact:                                                                                                                       

Katedra Germanistiký                                                                                        

Fakulta humanitných vied                                                                                  

Univerzita Mateja Béla / Banská Bystrica                                     

Tajovského 40                                                                                                                         

SK-97401 Banská Bystrica                                                                                  

Tel: (00421)-(0)48-4465108                                                           

Fax: (00421)-(0)48-4465512                                                                              

Email: Schulze at fhv.umb.sk <mailto:Schulze at fhv.umb.sk>                                                                                

Web: http://www.fhv.umb.sk/app/user.php?user=schulze <http://www.fhv.umb.sk/app/user.php?user=schulze>          

----------------------------------------------------------