Algonquian Parellel? Muskogean Parallel?

[Pamela Munro]

You're not hallucinating, John. Muskogean languages certainly have "a
class of experiencer verbs", by which I assume you might mean dative
subject verbs (if people will allow me that phrasing).

So we have, like Siouan, a typical "active" system with (as I call them)

-- class I subject intransitive verbs (similar to e.g. Lakhota wa- 'I'),
primarily active;
-- class II subject intransitive verbs (similar to e.g. Lakhota ma-
'I'), primarily non-active;
-- class I subject, class II object transitive verbs.

We also have class III "datives", which can be either objects or
subjects.
As objects, they can be the only object (with verbs like Chickasaw
i-hollo 'love' [I am writing nasal vowels as underlined; if this does
not come across in your email let me know and I can send this to you
another way], which takes a I subject, III object [with the dative
prefix im-]) or can be a second object added to an ordinary transitive,
as with im-pilachi 'send to'.
As subjects, they are typically intransitive (e.g. in-takho'bi 'be
lazy').

However, we also have occasional transitive II and III subject verbs,
such as banna 'want' (II subject) and im-alhkaniya 'forget' (III
subject). These, like the 'lack' verbs that have been the subject of
recent discussion, take a subject that may be non-third person, but must
have a third person object:

Ofi' sa-banna. 'I want a dog'
dog 1sII-want

Ofi' am-alhkaniya. 'I forget the dog'
dog 1sIII.dat-forget

Hattak-at ofi' banna. 'The man wants a dog'
man-nom dog want

Hattak-at ofi' im-alhkaniya. 'The man forgets the dog'
man-nom dog dat-forget

Muskogean, unlike Siouan, has nominal case marking, so we know that it
is the wanter or the forgetter who is the subject, despite the verb
agreement. (We could add nominative pronouns to the first two sentences
for emphasis if we wanted. But usually we don't want. There are numerous
other syntactic subject tests, too, all of which agree on what the
subject is here.)

Further: In Chickasaw only one object can agree. So 'send to' for
example cannot have a non-third person patient, even though the simple
transitive pilachi 'send' can. (In some languages, such as Choctaw, this
is not the case, and you can get three agreeing arguments on a verb.)
Moreover, some Choctaw speakers allow a non-third person patient for
'want', so you can have two II markers on the same verb. No Chickasaw
speaker I've worked with allows this, though.

Pam

--
Pamela Munro
Professor
Department of Linguistics
UCLA Box 951543
Los Angeles Ca 90095-1543
http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/linguistics/people/munro/munro.htm

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