[Lingtyp] agent nominalization

[Eitan Grossman]

Dear all,

I am writing to ask a question about 'agent'* nominalizations across
languages. I am interested in agent nominalizers that do or don't have
known diachronic sources, in the attempt to understand which diachronic
pathways are attested (and hopefully, their relative frequency/rarity). For
example, some languages have:

(a) bound morphemes whose diachronic source is clearly identifiable,
whether lexical (Japanese -nin or -sya 'person; Khwe and Meskwaki are
similar, or Japanese -te 'hand') or grammatical (Serbo-Croatian -l(o) from
an original instrumental meaning, perhaps similarly for Afroasiatic m-).
(b) bound morphemes whose diachronic source may be mysterious or
reconstructible as such to the proto-language (Quechuan -q?,
Malay-Indonesian peng-/pe-?).
(c) free morphemes whose diachronic source is clearly identifiable
(Ponoapean olen ''man of')
(d) more complex constructions involving the reduction of modifier clauses
of some sort (Coptic ref- < ultimately from 'person who verbs')
(e) rarer morphosyntactic alternations, like reduplication of the initial
syllable (Hadze, Serer), vowel length (Akan), vowel raising (+breathiness)
(Nuer)
(f) no such nominalizer mentioned, or explicitly mentioned that there is no
dedicated agent noun construction. In some languages, ad hoc formation via
relatives is the only (Tlapanec), main, or a supplementary strategy (e.g.,
Indonesian relativizer yang).
(g) zero conversion

There is nice paper by Luschuetzky & Rainer in STUF 2011, but it deals
almost exclusively with affixes and only rarely mentions diachronic
information.

>From a *very* preliminary survey of grammars, it looks like the origin of
agent nominalizers is often pretty obscure, and the shortest and most bound
morphemes look to be very old, quite expectedly. Identifiable lexical
sources seem to converge around 'person, thing' or body parts. Reduction of
complex constructions to an affix seems to be rare but attested.

*So, here's the question: in your languages, is the diachronic source of
agent nominalizers identifiable? * I'd be grateful for any information you
might be willing to share!

Best,
Eitan

*Disclaimer: even though this is a common term, most languages I've seen
don't single out the semantic role of agent, and this is often noted in
theoretical discussions. Also, such nominalizations don't have to be
derivational or even 'morphological.'



Eitan Grossman
Lecturer, Department of Linguistics/School of Language Sciences
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Tel: +972 2 588 3809
Fax: +972 2 588 1224
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