person indexing (was: Information)

[David Kaufman]

Hi Brad,

Do you feel that Whorf adequately portrayed the Hopi language as having a
different thought process than SAE (Standard Average European [Whorf's
term])?  I know one of his famous examples was "rehpi" in that it would be
translated simply as "flashed" (referring I imagine to lightning) without
specifying any subject or actor.  It sounds like you've confirmed this with
what you say about verbs of natural phenomena having no actor or subject
prefix.  I wonder though if Hopi has a separate noun form for "lightning
flash" or simply any kind of "flash" (i.e., camera flash).  I wonder if one
would say "I see a lightning flash" or "I see (something) flashed" without
specifying *what* flashed.  I wonder how Siouan and other Native American
languages compare in this regard dealing with weather or otherwise.

Regards,
Dave








>From: "Coon, Brad" <bcoon at montana.edu>
>Reply-To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>To: "'siouan at lists.colorado.edu'" <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
>Subject: RE: person indexing (was: Information)
>Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 09:47:12 -0700
>
>Hopi was the first American Indian lg I studied so its been a while, but
>yes, Hopi definitely inflects verbs for person and number.  3rdSg is a zero
>form morpheme.  I don't recall an impersonal form but I will check my
>materials.
>
>Whorf's work on Hopi seems to be generally ignored by people working on the
>lg
>today but I found his insights very helpful when I was studying the
>language.
>Brad Coon
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Heike Bödeker [mailto:heike.boedeker at netcologne.de]
>Sent: Sunday, December 15, 2002 12:56 PM
>To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>Subject: person indexing (was: Information)
>
>
>At 10:31 15.12.02 -0800, David Kaufman wrote:
> >In the Hopi example Whorf gave, there appears to be no subject at
> >all--just the verb form
>
>Anyone on this list happening to be knowledgeable about Hopi morphosyntax?
>Is the Hopi verb never inflected for person, as say the verb in Yuki,
>Japanese, Korean, Manju or Mongolian? Is there profanely just some "zero
>marking" for non-speechact-participants (3rd persons)? Does Hopi have some
>formally distinguished category of impersonalization (equivalent to, in
>case of actors French on, German man, in case of undergoers Nahuatl tla-,
>Chukchi (i)ne-)?
>
> >--which, when one thinks about it, when speaking of natural phenomena
>like
> >a lightning flash, why do we need a subject?
>
>Apart from the fact we have lots of things we could question whether we
>really need them ;-) Should it be really such a surprise that there is no
>1:1 r'ship between form and (main) function? And there's really extremely
>queer uses of pronouns, e.g. in German Es tanzt sich gut auf dem neuen
>Parkett. "One can dance well on the new parquet floor", lit: it dances
>itself well... <g>
>
> >There really is no subject (no actor per se unless one wants to say God
>or
> >Nature is doing it).
>
>This was indeed the explanation I was given why Sanskrit var.sati "it
>rains" is active (parasmaipadam), the Gods are doing it. But then, this is
>a widespread idea, too, just to mention another case from the Old World,
>the /Xam associated rain with water-loving animals such as the
>hippopotamus. Now imagine magical practics involving the invocation of
>so-called rain-animals so they may bring the rain along with them. We even
>might naively have expected end up with a causative (which, may I say
>luckily, is not attested). But then, influence of supernatural beings on
>climate, and weathermaking are likewise attested in the New World...
>
>Best,
>
>Heike


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