13.1616, Qs: Unaccusative Passives, Consonant Harmony/Adults

[LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List:  Vol-13-1616. Thu Jun 6 2002. ISSN: 1068-4875.

Subject: 13.1616, Qs: Unaccusative Passives, Consonant Harmony/Adults

Moderators: Anthony Aristar, Wayne State U.<aristar at linguistlist.org>
            Helen Dry, Eastern Michigan U. <hdry at linguistlist.org>

Reviews (reviews at linguistlist.org):
	Simin Karimi, U. of Arizona
	Terence Langendoen, U. of Arizona

Consulting Editor:
        Andrew Carnie, U. of Arizona <carnie at linguistlist.org>

Editors (linguist at linguistlist.org):
	Karen Milligan, WSU 		Naomi Ogasawara, EMU
	James Yuells, EMU		Marie Klopfenstein, WSU
	Michael Appleby, EMU		Heather Taylor, EMU
	Ljuba Veselinova, Stockholm U.	Richard John Harvey, EMU
	Dina Kapetangianni, EMU		Renee Galvis, WSU
	Karolina Owczarzak, EMU

Software: John Remmers, E. Michigan U. <remmers at emunix.emich.edu>
          Gayathri Sriram, E. Michigan U. <gayatri at linguistlist.org>

Home Page:  http://linguistlist.org/

The LINGUIST List is funded by Eastern Michigan University, Wayne
State University, and donations from subscribers and publishers.



Editor for this issue: Karen Milligan <karen at linguistlist.org>
 ==========================================================================

We'd like to remind readers that the responses to queries are usually
best posted to the individual asking the question. That individual is
then strongly encouraged to post a summary to the list. This policy was
instituted to help control the huge volume of mail on LINGUIST; so we
would appreciate your cooperating with it whenever it seems appropriate.

In addition to posting a summary, we'd like to remind people that it
is usually a good idea to personally thank those individuals who have
taken the trouble to respond to the query.


=================================Directory=================================

1)
Date:  Thu, 06 Jun 2002 17:54:31 +0000
From:  Anja Wanner <awanner at wisc.edu>
Subject:  Unaccusative Passives

2)
Date:  Thu, 6 Jun 2002 15:55:36 -0300
From:  "Dan Everett" <dan_everett at sil.org>
Subject:  Consonant Harmony in Adult Speech

-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------

Date:  Thu, 06 Jun 2002 17:54:31 +0000
From:  Anja Wanner <awanner at wisc.edu>
Subject:  Unaccusative Passives

Dear linguists -

Unaccusative verbs such as happen, disappear etc. cannot normally be
passivized, since they do not have an external argument (Perlmutter
1978 etc.). However, there are sentences like [Thirty thousand people
- a whole generation - were disappeared in seven years of military
rule] in English or [Er ging nicht, er WURDE gegangen] (He didn't go,
he WAS gone - meaning: He didn't quit his job, he was fired) in
German, which are used to imply the existence of a causer. I would
like to find out if this kind of (marked) "implicit agent unaccusative
passive" also exists in other languages.
Thanks for your help!
anja


Anja Wanner
Assistant Professor, Dept. of English
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Helen C. White Hall
600 North Park Street
Madison, WI 53706
http://mendota.english.wisc.edu/~awanner



-------------------------------- Message 2 -------------------------------

Date:  Thu, 6 Jun 2002 15:55:36 -0300
From:  "Dan Everett" <dan_everett at sil.org>
Subject:  Consonant Harmony in Adult Speech

Folks,

Does anyone know of clear cases of Consonant Harmony occurring in
adult speech?

Some researchers have observed CH in L1 acquisition data, but others
have claimed that it cannot appear in adult speech. I reported on an
apparent case in: 1985 'Syllable Weight, Sloppy Phonemes, and Channels
in Pirahã Discourse,' In: Mary Niepokuj et.al. (eds.) Proceedings of
the Berkeley Linguistics Society 11, pp 408-416.

In child language acquisition cases might look like: [mom] for German
/Baum/ or [guk] for /buk/ 'book', etc. In Piraha it looks like ?apapai
'head' ~ ?a?a?ai 'head' (?=glottal); Kohoi 'name' ~ Kokoi, etc.

I will post a summary (if there are any responses!).

Best,

Dan Everett

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-13-1616