[Lingtyp] Query: 'Deceased referent' markers

[양재영]

Dear Pattie Epps,

Tübatulabal (Uto-Aztecan, California) uses a nominal ‘past tense’ suffix
-pï- to mark the death of a person (including kins).

The language also has a suffix -bai’i- that is used with a kinship term to
indicate the kin being referred to is the last surviving one, and a few
other interesting phenomena of expressing the death of the ‘connecting
relative’.

Reference:
Voegelin, Charles F. 1935. Tübatulabal Grammar. University of California
Press.

Best regards,
Jaeyeong Yang

2024년 9월 26일 (목) 오후 7:30, Pun Ho Lui via Lingtyp <
lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>님이 작성:

> Dear Pattie Epps,
>
> Narragansett (Algic) is claimed to have a suffix called “absentative”
> which can encode a deceased person or lost possessions, e.g. nókac-i ‘my
> late deceased mother’ (mother-ABSENTATIVE).
>
> Reference:
>
> O’Brien, Frank Waabu. 2009. Grammatical Studies in the Narragansett
> Language (Second Edition). Aquidneck Indian Council.
>
>
> Warmest,
>
> *Pun Ho Lui Joe*
>
> Epps, Patience L via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> 於
> 2024年9月26日 下午6:14 寫道：
>
> Dear all,
>
> I'm writing regarding a phenomenon that appears to be widely attested in
> Amazonian languages, which my project collaborators and I have been calling
> a 'deceased referent marker'. We are wondering about the extent to which a
> comparable phenomenon exists in other languages of the world - from a
> preliminary survey, it appears to have very few close correlates elsewhere.
>
> The Amazonian-type DRM construction involves using a particular linguistic
> marker (which can usually be identified as more grammatical than lexical,
> though it's not always an easy distinction to make) within the noun phrase
> when making direct reference to a deceased referent. This is reminiscent of
> what occurs in some European languages (e.g. English *the late John, *
> Portuguese *o finado João*), but tends to be less lexical and is
> ubiquitous in discourse, rather than being highly optional and/or limited
> to more formal registers. In some languages, the DRM is a distinct etymon
> with no other functions; in others, it overlaps with other functions (most
> frequently that of a nominal past marker). It is always used with humans
> (primarily proper names and kin terms), while some languages also allow use
> with non-human referents. In spite of these variations, there seem to be
> close parallels in how the construction is formulated and how it is used
> discursively across many Amazonian languages.
>
> An example from Nadëb (Naduhup family, NW Brazil):
> *ee           makũuh              ỹ              haw'ëëh              doo
>                        paah*
> father  DRM                       1sg         raise
> NMLZ                    PST
> 'It was my late father who raised me (there).'
>
> In defining the Amazonian 'type' of DRM, we are focusing on resources that
> a) consist of a morphological element (affix or clitic hosted by the noun);
> or b) if arguably more lexical, have a ‘deceased referent’ function that is
> relatively distinct from other meanings/morphosyntactic expressions and/or
> appears ubiquitously in DRM contexts. We are excluding other kinds of
> linguistic strategies for referring to the deceased, including naming
> prohibitions, necronyms (passing on the deceased's name to a child), more
> pragmatically optional periphrastic strategies (e.g. 'my dead relative',
> 'my relative who died recently', etc.). We are also excluding (though we're
> interested, for comparative purposes) other types of nominal morphology
> relating to the deceased, e.g. a marker that occurs with a kin term X to
> mean ‘one whose X has recently died’ in Kayardild (Australia):
> *kangku-kurirr* (father’s.father-DEAD) ‘one whose father’s father has
> recently died’ (Evans 1995: 197).
>
> We'd be very grateful for information about comparable phenomena in
> languages outside South America.
>
> All best,
> Pattie Epps
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20240926/460131c8/attachment-0001.htm>