Helmbrecht Paper: Terminology 'modal prefix'

[voorhis at westman.wave.ca]

Koontz John E wrote:
> In glossing transitive verbs, e.g., 'eat', I tend to write something like:
>
> ruu'c^ vt.  'to eat something' (Bob's 'eat SOMEthing')
>
> The subject argument is implicit, the 'something' indicates that this verb
> has/makes/requires an object reference.
>
> An actual sentence like ruu'c^-s^aNnaN would be 'he ate it'.
>
> On the other hand, with a detransitivized verb I'd write:
>
> waru'c^ va.  'to eat'
>
> In other words, I'd use just 'eat' to suggest use without an implicit
> object.
>
> And, an actual sentence like waru'c^-s^aNnaN would be glossed 'he ate' or
> 'he ate something', with the something intended to emphasize the lack of
> an explicit argument.
>
> The weirdness is that including 'something' in the gloss in the lexicon
> emphasizes transitivity, while including 'something' in the gloss in a
> text or interlinear situation emphasizes detransitivization.  This bothers
> me a bit, but I think we're doomed to things like this when dealing with
> incommensurate systems.

I think of wa- as (usually) just expressing an indefinite
object/goal/patient 'something, things (object)', as several people have
pointed out including John just above.  But it is surely no more
intransitivizing than any other object a transitive verb may take; all
objects with transitive verbs yield verb phrases that take no (further)
object, just like an intransitive verb.

When a Siouan transitive verb (at least in those languages I'm familiar
with) has no explicit object, a third person singular personal-pronoun
object is implicit 'him, her, it'  When an Indo-European transitive verb
has no explicit object, an indefinite object is typically implicit.  So
'eat' in English means 'eat something', but ruuc in Winnebago means 'eat
him, her, or it'.  (And in fact, a subject 'he' or 'she' is also
implicit unless the verb is imperative in which case subject 'you' is
implicit, the latter situation like English, of course.)

While glossing ruuc 'eat something' to signal transitivity will work,
'eat it' is more accurate and would not make -s^aNnaN in ruucs^aNnaN 'he
ate it' look like it means 'it (past-tense object)' when it is actually
indicative affirmative.  (And ruuc is actually interrogative in
Winnebago, still more accurately to be glossed 'ate it?').

Paul