[Lingtyp] Verbs of success with dative subject (experiencer) - Some French and Uralic similarities

Sat Jan 5 04:30:22 UTC 2019

Hei kaikki, hi everybody,

French does have 2 types of constructions apparently similar to the 
Finnish and Northern Sami ones:

‘we/Jean succeeded in everything’,

at least as regards the relation between the verb and its 2 agents 
(*experiencer/beneficiary, *distinguished from – underlined - *subject*)

(a)*_nous_**/_Jean_ réussissions/réussissait**(en) tout***

1 PL/Jeansucceed.PST.1PL/3SG(in) all

(b) *à nous/à Jean_tout_ nous/luiréussissait */(spoken language)/

to-him/to Jean_all_ to-us/to-himsucceeded

(b’)*_tout_ nous réussissait / _tout_ réussissait à Jean* /(written 
language)/

all to-us succeeded / all succeeded to Jean

But beyond this syntactic similarity, and besides a difference of word 
order in spoken vs. written register (b’), there is a clear semantic 
difference between the two constructions: in (a) the subject is connoted 
as “clever”, in (b) the beneficiary is connoted as “lucky” – possibly 
implied by the difference of activity of the 2 types of agents.

What about this semantic difference in Finnish and Sami?

MMJFV

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

Hasn't anybody mentioned Finnish?

There are the alternatives with a canonical (a) and a non-canonical (b) 
subject:

'we/Jussi succeeded in everything'

(a) me/Jussi     onnistuimme/onnistui kaike-ssa
      1PL/Jussi    succeed.PST.1PL/3SG all-INES

(b) mei-lle/Jussi-lle   onnistui          kaikki
      1PL/Jussi-ALL succeed.PST.3SG     all

In the correspondingconstruction with a verbal complement the 
non-canonicial subject is in the genitive:

'we succeeded in doing it'

(a) me onnistu-i-mme         teke-mä-än se-n
      1PL succeed-PST-1PL  do-3INF-ILL it-GEN(ACC)

(b) meidä-n  onnistu-i         teh-dä    se
      we-GEN succeed-PST  do-INF   it

Happy new year and success to all,

Hannu

Quoting Jussi Ylikoski <jussi.ylikoski at oulu.fi 
<mailto:jussi.ylikoski at oulu.fi>>:

Dear all,

Here is a non-IE example from North Saami (Uralic), disregarding the 
probable influence from its Scandinavian neighbors. ILL stands for the 
illative, the case for Direction and Recipient, which could be (and 
earlier has been) labeled "dative" as well:

Midjiide/Johaniilihkostuvaibuot.

1PL.ILL/Johan.ILLsucceed.PST.3SG all

'We/Johan succeeded in everything.'

(cf. Norwegian /Alt lykkes for oss/Johan/.)

Unlike in Scandinavian, a dummy subject usually does not occur:

Midjiide/Johaniiiilihkostuvvanoažžutoktavuođaduinna.

1PL.ILL/Johan.ILLNEG.3SG succeed.PST.PTCP get.INF contact.ACC 2SG.ACC

'We/Johan didn't succeed in contacting you.'

(cf. Norwegian /Det lyktes ikke for oss/Johan å ta kontakt med deg/.)

Best regards,

Jussi

Hannu Tommola
Professor emer. of Russian Language (Translation Theory and Practice)
School of Language, Translation and Literary Studies
FIN-33014 University of Tampere, Finland

Hi,