Verbal agreement with NP-internal modifiers

[David Gil]

Rachel,

I think this is what you're looking for ...

In Roon (South-Halmahera-West-New-Guinea, Austronesian), the verbal 
agreement paradigm is used also for attributive nominal modifiers such 
as demonstratives, and even the definite article, as in the following 
example:

Bun=mu-ya mu-ra be pasar
woman=2DU-DEF 2DU-go to market
'You two woman went to the market'

In the above example, the exact same verbal agreement prefix "mu-" (2DU) 
that attaches to the verb "-ra" 'go' also attaches to the definite 
article "-ya", the resulting combination "=mu-ya" subsequently attaching 
as an enlicitc onto the head noun "bun" 'woman'.

In Roon there is complete identity of verbal and NP-internal agreement 
paradigms, involving 1st, 2nd and 3rd person, singular, dual and plural 
number, and, in addition, an animate/inanimate gender distinction within 
the 3rd person.

David

-- 
David Gil

Department of Linguistics
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany

Telephone: 49-341-3550321 Fax: 49-341-3550333
Email: gil at eva.mpg.de
Webpage:  http://www.eva.mpg.de/~gil/