[Lingtyp] Double marking of the goal argument

[Farhad Moezzipour]

Dear Prof. Nikolaeva and Bohnemeyer (and the other members)


Yes, you are absolutely correct. RA has been said to serve different
functions when it appears on direct objects and dislocated NPs. In the
given *TA-RA* example (example 1 in my previous email), the referent of
*xune* ‘house’, I assume, should be ‘identifiable’ for the hearer; hence a
topic in the information structure of the sentence. It might be the case
that in example (2) where *xune *‘house’ appears without RA, it plays a
focus role as it is an argument-adjunct (using RRG terminology), bearing in
mind adjuncts express foci (If I am correct). But this is pragmatics! I
believe, as Prof. Bohnemeyer mentioned, that RA in example (1) contributes
somehow to the semantics of the sentence in a way that it
signals/indicates/marks (I am not sure) the bounded path, which is missing
in example (2). The relation of RA with boundedness can be supported by the
fact that it appears on quantized direct objects of consumption verbs, as
in (3).

(3) *Man sib=o              xord-æm*.

      1SG   apple=POSP eat.PST-1SG

      ‘I ate the (whole) apple.’

Intuitively, example (4) is infelicitous because RA entails the entire
traversal of the path.

(4) **mæn kuh=o                     bala ræft-am       væli be qolle-e**š
          næ-res-id-æm.*

       1SG  mountain=POSP up  go.PST-1SG but to summit=3SG NEG-reach-PST-1SG

      ‘I climbed the mountain but did not reach the summit.’


Regards,

Farhad

On Tue, Aug 24, 2021 at 12:59 AM Irina Nikolaeva <in3 at soas.ac.uk> wrote:

> Dear Farhad,
>
> I am not sure the function or RA here is to mark the goal argument per se
> (hence no double marking). RA can occur on a variety of grammatical
> functions, and many people have argued that its function is to mark
> specificity/topicality/identifiability or the like.
>
> Best,
> Irina
>
>
> Prof. Irina Nikolaeva, FBA, MAE
>
> https://www.soas.ac.uk/staff/staff31522.php
>
>
> On Mon, 23 Aug 2021 at 14:52, Farhad Moezzipour <fmp59i at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> Is anyone aware of a language where the goal in a motion event is doubly
>> marked? This happens in colloquial Persian:
>>
>> (1) *Ta     xune=ro          tu  20  *dæqiqe* dæv-id-æm*.
>>       until  house=POSP in  20  minute  run-PST-1SG
>>       'I ran the distance to the house in 20 minutes.'
>>
>> The goal is marked once by the preposition and once with the postposition
>> RA, which is basically an object maker in Modern Persian. The given example
>> is also possible without RA, as in (2).
>>
>> (2) *Ta     xune    20  *dæqiqe* dæv-id-æm*.
>>       until  house  20  minute  run-PST-1SG
>>       'I ran toward the house for 20 minutes.'
>>
>> Regards,
>> Farhad
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
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