Helmbrecht Paper - Status of wa-

[Koontz John E]

As usual, Bob has a clarifying influence on things. It's true that we
should be very careful about thinking of wa- detrans./indef. obj as
'stuff' or 'something' if it is detransivizing as opposed to an indefinite
object, though the latter case seems to be essentially a term for 'stuff'
or 'something'.  I hadn't really noticed the inconsistency, perhaps
because I was used to thinking of the detransitivizing as coming from the
incorporation, as it were, of the 'something'.  The issue I thought I was
raising in regard to the idea that the 'something' might be somehow the
head or focus of attention in the construction was whether the 'something;
was specific or non-specific - a certain something or anything at al:  a
something the identity of which was known, or one the identity of which
was irrelevant.

On Sun, 14 Jul 2002, R. Rankin wrote:
> > Each transitive verb in Hocank may take wa-
> indicating a third person plural, ... the P NP is
> optional....
>
> I found this interesting.  I don't remember any cases
> in my Kaw data of the wa- being used with a nominal
> object or patient present in the clause.  If this is
> possible, then the analysis of wa- as an
> intransitivizer is simply wrong, wouldn't you say?

Here I thought I had discerned that Johannes was referring to wa- in its
capacity as a third person object pronominal - what he calls the definite
wa- - and that could naturally occur with a nominal object, whereas the
detransitivizing or indefinite wa- apparently does not.  The first is
found in Winnebago, Chiwere, and Dhegiha, and has a vicar in Dakotan in
the form of wic^ha-, while the second is pan-Siouan.

Bob, are you saying that third person object wa- doesn't co-occur with
objects in Kaw, or that wa- detrans/indef doesn't?

JEK