Lakota wa- 'variety object'

[REGINA PUSTET]

Hi Bob:

You brought up something that I haven't thought of yet
-- explaining the structures I have via the
detransitivizing function of *wa-*. But let's see how
this works in detail in my examples. In

(1)	thi-w-í-wa-'uN
        house-things.PAT-paint-1SG.AG-paint

the starting point is the transitive verb *i'u`N* 'to
paint', which has valence slots for AG and PAT. *wa-*
as a detransitivizer functions to eliminate the PAT.
So *i'u`N* plus *wa-* yields 'to paint' minus PAT,
i.e. detransitivized 'to paint' (or, with incorporated
*thi-*, detransitivized 'house-paint'). But in (1)
there are two *wa-*affixes. Where is the additional
PAT slot that is eliminated by the second *wa-*? In
your equation, we'd get detransitivized 'to paint'
minus PAT, i.e. a verb with a valence of [-1] for PAT.

But we can take it even further. My speaker also gave
me

(2)	w-í-wa-w-iyuNg^a-pi
	WA-LOC-WA-WA-ask-PL
        'they ask around about him'

and this structure contains three *wa-*s. The base
verb *iyúNg^a* 'to ask' is transitive, so that, after
three detransitivizations or PAT-eliminations, we'd
get a valence of [-2] for PAT. So I conclude that
rather than taking away valence slots, *wa-* functions
to add slots, at least in some cases.

Regina






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