[Lingtyp] Verbs meaning 'and, with'

[Jose Antonio Jodar Sanchez]

Dear all,

My colleague Andrey Drinfeld and I are looking at a group of verbs meaning
'and, with' in a family of Papuan languages, the Torricelli family. Instead
of using linking devices such as conjunctions (e.g. English 'and') or
affixes/clitics (e.g. Amharic -əm) to join two noun phrases, these
languages use verbs which have pronominal affixes for either subject,
object, or both. Examples from Walman and Yeri can be found in (1) and (2)
respectively, with the 'and' verb in bold:

(1) [Runon      *n-a-Ø*                                            chu]
  y-an                       y-ayako-Ø
 klay-poch ...
      3SG.M     *3SG.M.SUBJ-and-3SG.F.OBJ*     wife       3PL.SUBJ-be.at
 3PL.SUBJ-make-3SG.F.OBJ   taro-porridge ...
      ‘[He and his wife] were making taro porridge ...’ (Brown and Dryer,
2008: 529)

(2) Hem      teipa      dore     m-nobia      [Sila    *w-odɨ-Ø*
           Lagosi].
     1sg        then       get.up  1sg-talk.R    Sila    *3SG.F-and.R-SG.F*
   Lagosi
      ‘I got up and told [Sila and Lagosi].’ (Wilson, 2017: 333)

We have been operating under the assumption that this phenomenon is not
attested outside the Torricelli family and a few Austronesian languages
(such as Lamaholot), but we do not have concrete evidence one way or the
other, and are considering the possibility that there may be other
attestations of such a phenomenon elsewhere that have not gotten into the
literature on this topic. We are wondering if anyone is aware of such a
phenomenon being attested in other language families and parts of the world.

Best,

Jose.
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