[Lingtyp] Locative-comitative homophony
Alexandre Arkhipov
sarkipo at yandex.ru
Wed Feb 23 22:43:57 UTC 2022
Dear Yi-Yang,
It looks like I misunderstood a passage in your last message (what was
recruited where), sorry about that!
And yes, I would be interested to know what grows from it.
All best,
Sasha
23/02/2022 21:52, Yi-Yang Cheng пишет:
> Thanks so much for following up and for your paper, Sasha!
>
> As Michael pointed out I wasn't thinking in terms of diachrony. In
> terms of the original question I had in mind, I think the fact that
> the "comitative" function is so restricted to the inclusory
> construction would suggest against establishing a comitative case
> category in the language.
>
> I am very inclined to explore what you were considering, though, which
> is that diachronically the locative functions may have come first. In
> fact, the Matu'uwal locatives have a lot of non-locative functions.
> The patterns are a bit messy, but some are used to mark the "E"
> argument (in what Dixon calls the extended intransitive clause), and
> others are used to mark temporal expressions.
>
> These "extended" functions are very tricky in terms of how to organize
> them into paradigms, compared to both the spatial locative functions
> and core case markers (which may suggest a relatively short period of
> development?).
>
> In any case, I think a local typology project would be a natural first
> step for investigating this more!
>
> Best,
> Yi-Yang
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Feb 23, 2022 at 2:06 AM Alexandre Arkhipov <sarkipo at yandex.ru>
> wrote:
>
> Dear Yi-Yang,
>
> I would suggest a correction: I think Michael meant (and I second
> that completely) that *inclusory* should not be equated with
> *comitative* (accompaniment), this is indeed a separate function.
> In many languages that do have inclusory constructions, they use
> the same marker as comitative, but there are various alternatives
> as well (e.g. juxtaposition, coordination or dedicated marking).
> See my paper (Arkhipov 2009) for some discussion and references.
>
> So what you have is probably locative-inclusory syncretism and not
> locative-comitative.
>
> But this does not mean that inclusory comes first -- especially
> given the wide range of locative "flavours" that your markers
> cover, I would rather expect the inclusory function to have
> developed from (some) locative, but that's just a guess. A local
> typology would be indeed fairly interesting!
>
> Arkhipov, Alexander. 2009. Comitative as a cross-linguistically
> valid category. In: P. Epps, A. Arkhipov (eds.) New Challenges in
> Typology 2: Transcending the Borders and Refining the Distinctions.
> (available on academia.edu <http://academia.edu>:
> https://www.academia.edu/15009713/_2009_Comitative_as_a_cross_linguistically_valid_category)
>
> All best,
> Alexandre
>
> 22/02/2022 20:54, Yi-Yang Cheng пишет:
>> Dear Michael,
>>
>> I see! If I understand correctly: the starting point would be the
>> inclusory construction, which could be exploiting other
>> grammatical phenomena in the language.
>>
>> Based on this, then, it looks like in Matu'uwal spatial locative
>> markers are recruited in the inclusory construction, which is a
>> very restricted environment in which these markers would be
>> interpreted as indicating accompaniment.
>>
>> Going back to the original question/problem I had in mind, this
>> would weaken any argument for establishing comitative as a case
>> category in the language.
>>
>> It's still interesting how it's spatial locatives that are
>> recruited here. I will need to check, but I think in other
>> closely related (Atayal) languages, it might be the general
>> coordinator (in the form /ru/) that serves a similar function in
>> inclusory construction. This could lead to a nice typology
>> project on inclusory constructions across these languages!
>>
>> Thanks a lot!
>>
>> Yi-Yang
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Feb 22, 2022 at 11:36 AM Michael Daniel
>> <misha.daniel at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Let me be more specific - my hunch is that you do not
>> necessarily have to talk about locative - comitative
>> homophony in case of accompaniment that is limited to
>> inclusory construction. Think of this - in some languages
>> inclusory constructions exploit juxtaposition and in some
>> others, i think, coordination. I am not sure these are solid
>> grounds for talking about homophony between whatever other
>> functions of juxtaposition or.coordination and accompaniment.
>>
>> In other words, to my eyes, inclusory constructions represent
>> a function apart, even if they have conceptually something in
>> common with accompaniment and sometimes even originate from
>> comitatives.
>>
>> Michael Daniel
>>
>> вт, 22 февр. 2022 г., 22:19 Yi-Yang Cheng <ycheng at ucsb.edu>:
>>
>> Dear Michael,
>>
>> Thanks so much for following up!
>>
>> Yes, it appears that this is a case of inclusory
>> pronominal construction.
>>
>> We may need to do a dedicated elicitation session to find
>> out more, but based on my impression and experience with
>> the language this is only found in the first person.
>>
>> So the markers /ki/ and /cku/ always have locative usages
>> unless they appear in a sentence with a 1PL agent/actor,
>> in which case they would be interpreted as indicating
>> accompaniment "with".
>>
>> Best,
>> Yi-Yang
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Feb 22, 2022 at 11:05 AM Michael Daniel
>> <misha.daniel at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Dear Yi-Yang,
>>
>> judging from your examples, this may be much more
>> specific than comitative / locative homophony. If I
>> understood well, is this not a case of not just
>> accompaniment but more specificall an inclusory
>> pronominal construction (we X = 'X and I'), somehow
>> restricted to the first person? Are inclusory
>> constructions attested elsewhere in the language,
>> with the second and the third person, and if yes, how
>> do they look?
>>
>> Michael Daniel
>>
>> вт, 22 февр. 2022 г., 20:21 Yi-Yang Cheng
>> <ycheng at ucsb.edu>:
>>
>> Dear colleagues,
>>
>> I am working with a colleague of mine on
>> Matu'uwal (Mayrinax Atayal), a Formosan language
>> showing a lot of case homophony. When looking at
>> spatial locatives, we noticed an interesting case
>> of homophony where markers that indicate
>> *location* are formally identical to what can be
>> analyzed as *comitatives*.
>>
>> This is specifically seen in the markers */ki/
>> (proper noun)* and */cku/ (referential common
>> noun)*. In the following sentences, they indicate
>> participants construed as goals/recipients. To
>> save space, I will not include more examples, but
>> the two markers can indicate location and source
>> as well.
>>
>> * /Muway kuing cu gaghap _*ki* Hayung_/. 'I
>> gave some seeds *to Hayung.*'
>> * /Pabuway kuing cu gaghap _*cku* ulaqi'
>> hani_/. 'I will give some seeds *to this child*.'
>>
>> The two markers can also be used to indicate
>> accompaniment, but this is possible only when the
>> agent/actor is a first-person plural pronoun.
>> Notice that the proper noun vs. common noun
>> distinction is maintained, although the latter
>> allows still another marker /kinku/ as well. (It
>> looks like /kinku/ only has the comitative
>> function. It is still unclear whether there is
>> any semantic or functional difference between
>> /kinku/ and /cku/, though.)
>>
>> * /Mitaal cami _*ki* Lawsing_ cu sinku'/. 'We
>> checked on the hunting traps *with Lawsing*.'
>> (We = me and Lawsing)
>> * /Maglu cami _*cku//_*kinku*_/ * xuil_ musa' i
>> ragiyax/. 'We went into the forest *with the
>> dog*.' (We = me and the dog)
>>
>> We have been wondering whether we should posit
>> two separate case categories here --- spatial
>> locative vs. comitative --- and were wondering if
>> anyone can offer us some suggestions or directions.
>>
>> Is it common for spatial locatives and
>> comitatives to be formally identical? Is this an
>> unusual case of case homophony?
>>
>> Also, if anyone can recommend any readings
>> pertaining to whether a morpheme should be
>> analyzed as a case marker instead of a
>> preposition, it would be very helpful as well!
>>
>> Thank you all very much in advance for this!
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Yi-Yang
>>
>>
>> --
>> Yi-Yang Cheng (he/him)
>> Ph.D. Candidate in Linguistics| University of
>> California, Santa Barbara
>> Visiting Scholar| Fairbank Center for Chinese
>> Studies, Harvard University
>> Graduate Student Affiliate | Center for Taiwan
>> Studies, UC Santa Barbara
>> http://cheng-yiyang.org
>>
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>>
>>
>> --
>> Yi-Yang Cheng (he/him)
>> Ph.D. Candidate in Linguistics| University of California,
>> Santa Barbara
>> Visiting Scholar| Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies,
>> Harvard University
>> Graduate Student Affiliate | Center for Taiwan Studies,
>> UC Santa Barbara
>> http://cheng-yiyang.org
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Yi-Yang Cheng (he/him)
>> Ph.D. Candidate in Linguistics| University of California, Santa
>> Barbara
>> Visiting Scholar| Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard
>> University
>> Graduate Student Affiliate | Center for Taiwan Studies, UC Santa
>> Barbara
>> http://cheng-yiyang.org
>>
>>
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>
>
> --
> Yi-Yang Cheng (he/him)
> Ph.D. Candidate in Linguistics| University of California, Santa Barbara
> Visiting Scholar| Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University
> Graduate Student Affiliate | Center for Taiwan Studies, UC Santa Barbara
> http://cheng-yiyang.org
>
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