[Lingtyp] Question about nominalized verbs

Thu Aug 17 15:46:01 UTC 2023

There is further elaboration of the generalisations Ellison gave that are set out in my forthcoming paper, the draft of which is available on my website:

Austin, Peter K. 2022. Argument coding and clause linkage in Australian Aboriginal languages. To appear in Projecting voices: Studies in language and linguistics in honour of Jane Simpson. Asia-Pacific Linguistics. http://www.peterkaustin.com/docs/Austin_2022_clauselinkage.pdf

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From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of Ellison Luk <ellisonluk at gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, August 17, 2023 3:28:56 PM
To: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Question about nominalized verbs

Hi Keren and everyone,

A number of Australian languages exhibit non-standard case marking in 'nominalised' clauses, as Peter Austin's 2017 paper "Argument coding and clause linkage in Australian Aboriginal languages" illustrates. He particularly singles out strategies with the dative and possessive categories, which seem to parallel the Arabic example. See also Dench's 2006 AJL paper "Case Marking Strategies in Subordinate Clauses in Pilbara Languages—Some Diachronic Speculations". However, some things to note about the Australian languages:

- Elision of nominal arguments is very common in all Australian languages, so dependent clauses with fully specified arguments are generally rare, and generally unnaturalistic.
- Deviant case marking for dependent clauses often involves one case marking pattern on all arguments, rather than one argument being singled out for special treatment. There are probably a few exceptions though, like Warlpiri (ex 1).
- In languages with 'complementising case marking' - where nominal case markers take on clause linkage functions (Dench & Evans 1988, various chapters in Austin 1988) - the arguments of a dependent clause may take on the same case marker as the one marking the verb, in an apparent 'agreement' relationship. Djambarrpuyngu does this (ex 2), but subjects can also be marked with a possessive oblique.
- Some languages also follow Juergen Boehnemeyer's observation, in that dependent clauses must be detransitivised (usually with an antipassive derivation), and so, transitive dependent clauses simply don't exist.

In all, I don't think there are many examples in Australian languages directly akin to what you observe in Arabic (I've mostly seen cases where all arguments get the same dependent clause-specific case marking, or none of them do), but I hope this provides some context to your study.

(1) Warlpiri (Pama-Nyungan (Western) > Ngumpin-Yapa; Simpson 1983: 497)
ngarrka-patu-rlu ka-lu-jana puluku turnu-ma-ni,
man-PL-ERG PRES-3pl-3pl bullock-ABS muster-NPST
karnta-patu-ku miyi purra-nja-puru.
woman-PL-DAT food-ABS cook-INF-CIRC
‘The men are mustering cattle while the women are cooking the food.’

* dependent clause verb is marked with the 'infinitive-circumstantial' (an adverbial clause marker)
* dependent clause subject takes dative case marking
* dependent clause object takes absolutive case marking, as in main clauses

(2) Djambarrpuyŋu (Pama-Nyungan (Western) > Yolŋu; Wilkinson 1991: 634)
ngayi mirithi+na+n ngaramurr+yi+n nhanu+kal gaa+nhara+y mutika+y
3sg INTENS+3rd+SEQ angry+INCH+3rd 3sg+OBL bear("drive")(tr)+4th+ERG car+ERG
‘S/he got very angry by his/her driving the car.’

* dependent clause is marked by the '4th+ERG' inflection; '4th' refers to a non-past-irrealis category that is also specialised for clause linkage; 'ergative' is a complementising case marker that marks clauses of means, causes, circumstances, and reasons.
* dependent clause subject takes possessive 'oblique'.
* dependent clause object takes instrumental 'ergative'.

References
Austin, P.K. 1988. Complex sentence constructions in Australian languages. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Austin, P.K. 2017. "Argument coding and clause linkage in Australian Aboriginal languages." Manuscript. http://www.peterkaustin.com/docs/Austin_2017_Argument.pdf
Dench, A. & Evans, N. 1988. "Multiple case‐marking in Australian languages." Australian Journal of Linguistics 8(1): 1-47. https://doi.org/10.1080/07268608808599390
Simpson, J. 1983. "Aspects of Warlpiri morphology and syntax." PhD Dissertation. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Wilkinson, M., 1991. "Djambarrpuyŋu: A Yolŋu variety of Northern Australia." PhD Dissertation. University of Sydney.

On Wed, 16 Aug 2023 at 16:21, Åshild Næss <ashildn at gmail.com<mailto:ashildn at gmail.com>> wrote:
Hi Keren,

I expect Masha's publications will give you plenty of other examples, but Äiwoo (Austronesian, Oceanic, Solomon Islands) looks a lot like Arabic here, with the A argument of the nominalised verb marked by a possessive form and the O unmarked, as a verbal argument would be:

nyi-wâ-nubo-na nogo-i sii
NMLZ-CAUS-die-NMLZ POSS:TOOL-3AUG fish
'their killing fish'

Best,

Åshild

Åshild Næss

Professor of Linguistics, University of Oslo

Telefon/Phone: (+47) 22844093

Kontor/Office: HW531

On Tue, Aug 15, 2023 at 5:48 PM Keren Ruditsky <krudit at uw.edu<mailto:krudit at uw.edu>> wrote:

Dear everyone,

I am working on a master's thesis and I was wondering about any cases of languages which have nominalized verbs taking two arguments where the argument syntactically closer to the nominalized verb is marked like the argument of a noun, and the one syntactically further is marked like the argument of a verb.

One example of such a language might be Standard Arabic where, as shown below, the subject of a nominalized verb zayd-in ‘Zayd-GEN’ is marked with genitive case (which is the case used to mark a nominal possessor) while the object  camr-an ‘Amr-ACC’ is marked with accusative case (which is the case used for typical verbal objects).

ntiqaad-u                 zayd-in            camr-an

criticizing-NOM     Zayd-GEN       Amr-ACC

“Zayd’s criticizing Amr” (Fassi Fehri 1993: 223f)

Fassi Fehri, Abdelkader. 1993. Issues in the structure of Arabic clauses and

words. Dordrecht: Kluwer

Thank you,
Keren
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