Complementation of i'e

[Rory M Larson]

John wrote:
> Probably you're OK, but notice that the ladies you work with didn't
> correct you from UmaNhaN ie a ga to UmaNhaN ia ga until very recently. I
> think Omaha good manners might sometimes prevents correction of things.

I don't think such misguided good manners are too prevalent
with us.  If they think I'm clearly wrong about something,
they generally shoot me down without mercy, and I encourage
that.


> For what it's worth, I've also noticed that in English I hear people
using
> complementation structures that I wouldn't use myself, and even though
I'm
> a kind of captious, outspoken person I don't necessarily correct them.
> Ex. I hear "rob something from someone" where I'd say "steal something
> from someone" or "rob someone of something."  I think off-kilter
> complementation structures just bother most people less than mangled
> morphology.  For one thing, it's often harder for a non-linguistto
explain
> what bothers them.

I think this opens up the fact that grammatical rules are
sometimes strict, and sometimes pretty fuzzy.  Some native
speakers themselves may not "get" all the rules.  'Rob' and
'steal' mean the same thing, except that the direct object
of 'rob' is the person, and the direct object of 'steal' is
the thing.  But the expression "rob something from someone"
is perfectly comprehensible and unambiguous, and it flies
just fine for purposes of communication.  Somewhere, someone
failed to pick up on the difference between 'rob' and 'steal',
and raised up a nest of kids in their own image; thus the
language evolves.  A usage like this may just not be felt
worth correcting.  One elicitation technique I've learned
from Mark over the years is to ask: "Which sounds better,
[formulation X], or [formulation Y]?"  This method seems
to work pretty well for culling gray-area cases like this.
It makes it easy for the speakers to choose one or the other,
or say they're both okay, or express dissatisfaction with
both formulations and give us one that works.


> And by now, of course, if there were a problem originally, things may
have
> started sounding right that way, another standard elicitation problem.
> Enough repetitions and sometimes even the wrong stuff sounds OK.

Argh!  Yes, I worry about this.


> What I might do in a situation like this - and this is more instinct than
> vast experience - is to ask for unrelated sentences (to try to escape any
> "training" effect) like "I speak Pawnee." or "They were speaking Kiowa,
so
> I didn't understand them." "In Dakota you say it about the same." and so
> on, and work up to "Please say ... in Dakota."  Then, all you have to do
> is substitute Omaha for Dakota.

Good advice!  I'll try this sometime.


> Another thought, in a lot of places in America one talks a language
rather
> than speaking it.  I forget how it works in Nebraska.

I can't speak for Nebraska in general, but either one works
for me.  "Speaking" a language is boringly high-brow; "talking"
it is humorously low-brow.  I think this is possibly a good
example of grammatical fuzzy rules.  To me, 'talk' is more
immediate; 'speak' is more time-general.  I would be inclined
to favor "Do you speak English?" over "Do you talk English?",
because I'm asking about the generality.  But to command
somebody, I might almost prefer "Talk English!" over
"Speak English!", because the latter sounds more preachy--
like I'm commanding them to use English all the time rather
than just on this occasion.  But those are the grammatical
rules of one native speaker.  Another might understand 'speak'
to accept a language name as a direct object, and 'talk' to
be properly intransitive.

Rory