Native American verbs vs. nouns

[rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu]

>On Mon, 16 Dec 2002 rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote:
>>   ShoN'ge ska u'joN abdhiN' wakhe'ga zhoN't?e khe xta'adhe khe
>>     gini' koNbdhe'goN.
>>   I hope the beautiful white horse that I have which is sick and lying
>>     sound asleep, which I love, will recover.
>>
>> To translate these sentences into English, we have to consider
>> each final verb of the sequence to be equivalent to our finite
>> verb, which forces the rest of the sentence into subordination
>> to the overt predication, with all other attributions covert,
>> and requires us to completely rearrange the English word order.
>> Even with the rearrangement, the English becomes downright impossible
>> toward the end.  Meanwhile, the Omaha flows on unperturbed, and
>> could probably continue lengthening in this manner indefinitely.
>> It has no finite verb with consequent predication to vex it, all
>> attributions are equal and cumulative, and the demand, which is
>> statement by default whenever we hit the period, applies to the
>> whole picture that the foregoing words have painted.

On Thu, 19 Dec 2002 John Koontz wrote back:
> I know what you mean about the embedding thing.  It was and sometimes
> still is difficult for me, too.  It didn't lead me to any new theories,
> but it is a bit disconcerting the way embedding and heads work.  English
> extracts the heads into the context and adjoins the remainder of the
> embedded clause, which may acquire a trace like a relative pronoun, while
> Omaha leaves the head in place and appends the context, roughly speaking.
> The reference to the head in the context clause is precisely the embedded
> clause, with the focussed element determined by the context, though, if
> there's a determiner it may give a hint as to the identity of the head.

Thanks, John!  I was going to be disappointed if nobody jumped on me for
that posting!  Now please bear with me while I try to unravel what you
just said, given that I don't savvy most of your key words!

Definitions needed, preferably with examples:

  Head
    (I found a brief discussion of this concept in an article by Johanna
    Nichols, Language 62:1, to which I was referred by another linguist
    in a private email.  It seems the head is the indispensible part, as
    opposed to other parts that are dependent.  The central noun is the
    head of a noun phrase, with adjectives and possessive nouns dependent.
    A predicate is the head of the sentence, an auxilliary verb is head
    with respect to a lexical verb, an adposition is the head of an
    adpositional phrase, and a main clause is head over a subordinate
    clause.  These different "head" designations, as rankings of relative
    importance, do not seem comparable to me; presented like this, I'm
    not yet convinced of the validity of the concept.)

  Embedding/embedded clause

  Context/context clause

  Trace

  Focussed element

  Determiner
    (Would this be, e.g., the positional/article /khe/ in the example
    above?)


> As far as I can see the Omaha verbs are still perfectly finite.  In fact,
> I'd argue that there are essentially no non-finite verbs in Siouan
> languages.

You'd need to define exactly what your criterion is for "finite verb".
If there are no non-finite verbs in Siouan, then the distinction ceases
to be a factor within the language.  In fact, I think we're actually
saying the same thing here.  Your criterion (perhaps inflectability?)
makes them all finite, while mine (singular, demand-bearing, crux of
sentence) may make none of them finite.  Either way, the distinction
between finite and non-finite verbs is critical in Indo-European, but
meaningless in Siouan.


>  This is entirely consistent with the way nouns and adjectival
> (noun-modifying) forms are derived from verbs by means of un-marked
> nominalization of inflected forms.

Could you illustrate this with an example or two?  I'm not sure I see
the connection.


>  It is possible for a subordination
> marker to develop, but it will be based on an obligatory determiner
and/or
> a postposition or a comparable subordinating verb.

For example?

>  It is possible to
> raise an argument into the context clause, but the only real ways to do
> this are with possession or a transitivizing or dative construction.

And three examples would be?  (Sorry, I'm still lost!)

> There aren't any case forms of independent pronominals.

In OP, there are (functionally) four independent pronominals:

      e'          s/he, it, they
      wi'         I
      dhi'        you
      oNgu'       we

and these do not change according to whether they are subject or object.
Is this what you are referring to here?


Sorry if I'm a bit dense on the terminology, but I did lard the original
post with all due disclamatories!  ;-)

Rory