transitivity, locative prefixes & the pronomin. argument hypothesis.

[Koontz John E]

On Fri, 27 Sep 2002, R. Rankin wrote:
> I'm currently working with Carolyn Quintero and her
> Osage lexical materials and we have a question or two.
>
> 1.  What is your judgment of the transitivity of a sentence like "John
> is standing on the floor" in a typical Siouan language?  Something
> like "John floor-the anazhiN."

I think David Rood has pointed out that such constructions are somewhat
ambiguously transitive in Dakotan.  At least some locatives can add an
additional argument to a verb already transitive, though I think this
additional argument is always third person, which is highly suggestive.  A
first or second person object has to be the only one.  I do not know the
specific examples, off hand, though this may have been mentioned on the
list (check the archives).  I hope I am remembering this correctly.

It seems to me that the basic test to apply is whether the locative can
govern a first or second person object.  If it can, then the verb is
transitive.  My impression is that forms like the one you cite meet this
test of transitivity in Dhegiha.  More difficult cases would occur with
verbs already transitive.  I would suspect that such verbs would only
permit either the locative or the underlying stem to govern an object,
probably only the locative with a-.

But think about forms with instruments governed by i-.  My guess is that
in this case i- would have to be third person, and the verb might permit
an object for the basic stem.  Examples, like 'I cut you with the knife'
and so on.

Whether a verb with a locative can govern a nominal argument, and which
argument this would be functionally, or whether ditransitives can govern
two arguments, would also be worth considering, though I suspect they
would be less diagnostic.  Compare cases like dhiNge' 'to lack', which
agrees with the lacker using stative (object) pronominals, but still
permits a nominal reference to the lacked.

> 2.  Likewise the reciprocal prefix *hki(k)-.  Is it the direct object
> of the verb in, for example, a-hkih-toMpe 'they look after each other,
> where atoMpe is 'look after'.  Even if you believe in the pronominal
> argument hypothesis, is -hkih- the pronominal here or is it a voice
> marker?

I'd say not.  I think it's essentially a derivational prefix, though it
does go inside the locative.  The fact that hki-k- goes inside the
locative, but (sometimes) outside an outer instrumental, is one of the
ordering conundrums in Omaha-Ponca:  a little detail that taken with
various others makes it difficult to justify an account of OP morphology
that relies on a strict position class approach to OP morphosyntax.
Basically you need some account equivalent to a series of rules that
determine the position of *hki from the form of the underlying stem.

You might want to look at the number of *hki-k- forms that have a
reflexive benefactive sense, e.g., akkikkaghe 'I made it for myself'.  I
don't think you can say something like 'I made you for myself', but I'm
not sure.  As David Rood pointed out to me once, the somewhat comparable
reflexive possessive (suus) stems are definitely transitive.  'I saw you
(my relative)' is quite possible in OP.

JEK