[Lingtyp] Question about nominalized verbs

Mon Aug 21 11:22:58 UTC 2023

Hi Jürgen and Maria,
I just noticed how much what Maria described sounds like Tagalog, where one argument is made topic of the clause, and the other direct argument appears in a possessor phrase with the predicate, which is marked to be oriented towards the topic referent. The topic and the possessor phrase are in apposition, both referential (the possessor phrase can be used alone referentially, with the same reference as the topic), with possible translations like the ones Maria mentioned.

All the best,
Randy
——
Professor Randy J. LaPolla（罗仁地), PhD FAHA 
Center for Language Sciences
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Beijing Normal University at Zhuhai
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> On 21 Aug 2023, at 6:17 PM, Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm <tamm at ling.su.se> wrote:
> 
> Dear Juergen and all,
> 
> Quite a number of languages parallel Mayan languages in not allowing action nominals to combine with both arguments of the underlying transitive verbs – in my WALS chapter there are 25 languages with this “restricted type” of action nominals (https://wals.info/feature/62A#2/26.7/149.2). Conspicuously, at least some of them use various valency-lowering strategies for expressing both A and P at the same time without, however, making both of them syntactically dependent on the action nominal, such as “X’s dress-buying” (where the P and the action nominal form a compound), or “the buying of the dress that X did” or “the buying that X bought the dress”. 
> 
> Best,
> Masha
> 
>> On 20 Aug 2023, at 14:29, Yury Lander <yulander at yandex.ru <mailto:yulander at yandex.ru>> wrote:
>> 
>> Dear Juergen and all,
>>  
>> Returning to languages similar to Mayan languages.
>>  
>> Curiously, it is sometimes said that in Russian event nominalizations are derived only from intransitives and passives. See, for example, the data presented in this paper:
>> Rudnev, P., Volkova, A. Case marking in Russian eventive nominalisations revisited. Russian Linguistics 44, 157–175 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11185-020-09228-9
>>  
>> (I don't have any other references in mind but I am not a specialist...)
>>  
>> Best wishes,
>> Yury
>>  
>> 15.08.2023, 23:48, "Juergen Bohnemeyer" <jb77 at buffalo.edu <mailto:jb77 at buffalo.edu>>:
>> Dear Keren and Masha (and everyone) – Only semi-on-topic, but it appears to be an odd and conspicuous quirk of Mayan languages that they disallow nominalization of transitive verbs. That is, verbs have to be detransitivized via antipassivization or object incorporation before they can be nominalized. This factoid appears all the more striking once it’s taken into account that Mayan is among the not so many language families that systematically conflate ergative and possessor marking (via cross–reference morphology).
>>  
>> The constraint against nominalization of transitive verbs certainly holds for the Yucatecan languages, and Robertson (1992) claims that it applies family-wide. Inexplicably, if I understand him correctly, Robertson seems to have assumed that the constraint is in fact a universal. In actual fact, I’m not aware that anybody has been able to offer a plausible explanation for the constraint.
>>  
>> I’m curious whether there are known instances of this phenomenon outside Mayan (and also whether there are truly no counterexamples anywhere in Mayan). Maybe Masha’s typology covers it?
>>  
>> Best – Juergen
>>  
>> Robertson, J. S. (1992). The history of tense/aspect/mood/voice in the Mayan verbal complex. Austin, TX: UT Press.
>>  
>>  
>>  
>> Juergen Bohnemeyer (He/Him)
>> Professor, Department of Linguistics
>> University at Buffalo 
>> 
>> Office: 642 Baldy Hall, UB North Campus
>> Mailing address: 609 Baldy Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260 
>> Phone: (716) 645 0127 
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>> 
>> Office hours Tu/Th 3:30-4:30pm in 642 Baldy or via Zoom (Meeting ID 585 520 2411; Passcode Hoorheh) 
>> 
>> There’s A Crack In Everything - That’s How The Light Gets In 
>> (Leonard Cohen)  
>> -- 
>>  
>>  
>> From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org <mailto:lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org>> on behalf of Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm <tamm at ling.su.se <mailto:tamm at ling.su.se>>
>> Date: Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 20:18
>> To: Keren Ruditsky <krudit at uw.edu <mailto:krudit at uw.edu>>
>> Cc: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>>
>> Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Question about nominalized verbs
>> 
>> Dear Keren,
>>  
>> This is an example of the nominalisation type that I call “Possessive-Accusative” type in my book “Nominalizations” (1993, Routledge) – I can send you a couple of other publications that summarise my typology.
>> All the best,
>> Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm
>>  
>> 
>>  
>> On 15 Aug 2023, at 17:48, 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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>>  
>> Prof. Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm
>> Dept. of linguistics, Stockholm university, 106 91, Stockholm, Sweden
>> tel.: +46-8-16 26 20 (office)
>> www.ling.su.se/tamm <http://www.ling.su.se/tamm>
>> tamm at ling.su.se <mailto:tamm at ling.su.se>
>>  
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> 
> Prof. Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm
> Dept. of linguistics, Stockholm university, 106 91, Stockholm, Sweden
> tel.: +46-8-16 26 20 (office)
> www.ling.su.se/tamm <http://www.ling.su.se/tamm>
> tamm at ling.su.se
> 
> 
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