A Metaphorical Suggestion

[Koontz John E]

On Mon, 18 Mar 2002, Koontz John E wrote:
> It has occurred to me to wonder if the akha : ama distinction might be
> relatable to this metaphor by considering ama as tantamount to a stage
> direction of 'enter X' or 'exit/exeunt X', while akha refers to a
> reference which is currently on stage.

I've started looking at this, though I hope that won't stop anyone else -
especially if they need quick answers, Ardis and/or Kathy!  It's certainly
not as simple as first mention in ama, subsequent mentions in akha -
which, of course, I pretty much took for granted - not even as simple as
first mentions in akha or ama, subsequent mentions in akha or continuing
ama in ama.  At least I don't think so.  In some of the texts I was
considering, the NP changed as well as the article, which could be
relevant, and I was nodding out earlier than usual.

It does seem clear that most plural references are ama, if perhaps not all
- I haven't relocated any akha plural examples.  But, as everybody has
been noticing all along and not pursuing, there's something fishy about
the ama-singular => moving equation, because you can have two closely
positioned cases of NP ama V-MOTION and NP akha V-MOTION.  I thought about
motion verbs implying motion if they were verbs of arrival, but both of
the verbs in question were arrival verbs, I believe.  One case I noticed
introduced Rabbit (ama) living with his grandmother (akha).

The approach that always occurs to me in cases like this is to handle the
text as a series of sentences reduced, say, to the NPs, with identity
tracking numbers attached to the NPs.  The question is how much other
information needs to be included.  In the past I've always ended up
including so much that I decided the project was too much work just now.
This time I've decided to try just the NPs - ignoring even things like
whether the predicate is a verb of motion or there is a pronominal (in
verb) (often a third person nil) reference to the NP in a clause, though I
suspect both of these might be relevant.  The problem is that Omaha piles
up predicates so readily that you can end up with several of these A3
and/or P3 references to an NP in a clause.  You end up spending all your
time locating these "zero references," and none of it looking at NPs.

JEK