6.574 Qs: Hong Kong Eng, NP/Agreement complementarity, Homophones

Sun Apr 16 23:48:03 UTC 1995

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LINGUIST List:  Vol-6-574. Sun 16 Apr 1995. ISSN: 1068-4875. Lines: 166

Subject: 6.574 Qs: Hong Kong Eng, NP/Agreement complementarity, Homophones

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-------------------------Directory-------------------------------------

1)
Date:    Fri, 14 Apr 95 08:15 CDT
From: TB0EXC1 at MVS.CSO.NIU.EDU
Subject: Hong Kong English

2)
Date: Fri, 14 Apr 1995 21:08:32 -0400 (AST)
From: jalvar at conicit.ve (Jose R. Alvarez (LUZ))
Subject: NP/Agreement Complementarity

3)
Date:         Sat, 15 Apr 95 19:33:14 SST
From: David Gil (ELLGILD%NUSVM.bitnet at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU)
Subject:"SAME", "AND", "WITH" as homophones or the same word

-------------------------Messages--------------------------------------
1)
Date:    Fri, 14 Apr 95 08:15 CDT
From: TB0EXC1 at MVS.CSO.NIU.EDU
Subject: Hong Kong English

I have a graduate student who is interested in the origins and
characteristics of the English of Hong Kong. References seem
hard to come by. Can anyone recommend suitable sources?
Please reply directly; if there is sufficient interest I will
summarize.

Thanks for your help.

Edward Callary
TB0EXC1 at mvs.cso.niu.edu       (TBZero)

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2)
Date: Fri, 14 Apr 1995 21:08:32 -0400 (AST)
From: jalvar at conicit.ve (Jose R. Alvarez (LUZ))
Subject: NP/Agreement Complementarity

  Dear linguists,

  In Anderson's _A-Morphous Morphology_ we read that in some languages the
  occurrence   of  an  overt  agreement  marker  on  a  predicate  is   in
  complementary distribution with the appearance of a phonologically  full
  NP in the agreeing position. He cites four languages and the  literature
  that  deals with the phenomenon in those languages:  Breton  (Anderson),
  Irish (McCloskey & Hale), Chamorro (Chung), and Hebrew (Doron). His idea
  is  that in those cases agreement enters into some sort of  relationship
  of  co-reference with the position it agrees with. Unfortunately,  those
  references  are  not available to me here. I am working  on  a  language
  (Pemon,  Cariban)  that, pending further fieldwork, seems to  show  this
  type  of complementarity (of course, tense is marked on the verb  stem).
  Pemon  transitive verbs agree with both subject and object,  having  the
  ergative  marker  -ya/-da attached to the subject NP or to  the  subject
  affix.    Subjects   of   intransitive   clauses   exhibit   the    same
  complementarity. Could anyone out there be kind enough as to furnish  me
  with  some  data  on those languages, or any other  language  showing  a
  similar pattern, equivalent to the examples that I give below? Note that
  spelling has been simplified. Word order in transitives is OVS (with SVO
  as  variant  only  when  there  is a  full  NP  as  subject),  while  in
  intransitives it is always SV. Thank you in advance.

  (1) Transitive clause with both object and subject as a full NPs:

      kamicha ke   Antonio-da  mure  ponte-'po
      clothes with Antonio-ERG child dress-PAST
      Antonio dressed up the child with clothes

  (2) Transitive clause with object as full NP and subject as a suffix:

      kamicha ke   mure  ponte-'po-i-ya
      clothes with child dress-PAST-3-ERG
      He dressed up the child with clothes

  (3) Transitive clause with object as a prefix and subject as a full NP:

      kamicha ke   i-ponte-'po  Antonio-da
      clothes with 3-dress-PAST Antonio-ERG
      Antonio dressed him up with clothes

  (4) Transitive with both object and subject as affixes:

      kamicha ke   i-ponte-'po-i-ya
      clothes with 3-dress-PAST-3-ERG
      He dressed him up with clothes

  (5) Intransitive clause with the subject as a full NP:

      kamicha ke   Antonio e-ponte-'po
      clothes with Antonio DETRANS-dress-PAST
      Antonio dressed with clothes

  (6) Intransitive with the subject as an affix:

      kamicha ke   iy-e-ponte-'po
      clothes with 3-DETRANS-dress-PAST
      He dressed with clothes

  Disallowed forms, with co-reference signalled with (1) and (2):

      *kamicha ke mure(1) i(1)-ponte-'po-i(2) Antonio(2)-da
      *kamicha ke i-ponte-'po-i(1) Antonio(1)-da
      *kamicha ke mute(1) i(1)-ponte-'po-i-ya
      *kamicha ke Antonio(1) iy(1)-e-ponte-'po

  Jose Alvarez "Pipo" (jalvar at conicit.ve)
  Departamento de Ciencias Humanas
  Facultad Experimental de Ciencias
  Universidad del Zulia
  Maracaibo, Venezuela
  Fax: +58 (061) 515390, 524310, 78246

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3)
Date:         Sat, 15 Apr 95 19:33:14 SST
From: David Gil (ELLGILD%NUSVM.bitnet at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU)
Subject: "SAME", "AND", "WITH" as homophones or the same word

I'm looking for languages in which the word for "same" /
"identical" is [excuse the pun] identical (or otherwise formally
related) to the conjunction "and" and/or a comitative or more
general oblique expression, eg. "with", "accompany", "at", "by" etc.

My reason for asking is as follows:  in some dialects of
Malay/Indonesian, the same form [sama] has both of the above
usages, and I am wondering whether this should be analyzed
as chance homophony, or in terms of a single more general
meaning.  Accordingly, if there turn out to be other, unrelated
languages in which "same" is formally related to "and" / "with" /
"accompany", then this would support the latter, single-meaning
analysis.

(Of course, there are numerous instances of "and" is formally
related to "with" / "accompany"; I am *not* asking for examples of
these.)

Thanks,

David Gil
National University of Singapore
ellgild at nusvm.bitnet

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