There are 9 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: THEORY: Is Jespersen cycle a cycle?
From: Padraic Brown
1b. Re: THEORY: Is Jespersen cycle a cycle?
From: Padraic Brown
1c. Re: THEORY: Is Jespersen cycle a cycle?
From: Padraic Brown
1d. Re: THEORY: Is Jespersen cycle a cycle?
From: Douglas Koller
1e. Re: THEORY: Is Jespersen cycle a cycle?
From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
1f. Re: THEORY: Is Jespersen cycle a cycle?
From: George Corley
2a. Re: subject and object covered by a single case?
From: Jörg Rhiemeier
2b. Re: subject and object covered by a single case?
From: Jyri Lehtinen
3a. Re: A traveller's report in Buruya Nzaysa
From: Jan Strasser
Messages
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1a. Re: THEORY: Is Jespersen cycle a cycle?
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Wed Aug 14, 2013 7:38 am ((PDT))
>> I know some examples of negation words before the verb becoming weaker
>> and being reinforced by other negation words after the verb, but I
>> don't remember an example of change in the opposite direction to close
>> the cycle.
>
> English did, after a fashion. The Old English _ic ne seah_: "I didn't see"
> got strengthened with _nawiht_: "nothing", leading to Middle English _I ne
> saugh nawiht_. The original negative particle _ne_ was lost, leading to
> Early Modern English _I saw not_. Then suddenly do-support became
> necessary, and In Modern English the negation once again precedes the
> content verb (but follows the auxiliary): _I didn't see_. One could
> envision a further evolution of English where the auxiliary+negation
> combination gets weakened (it's started already, from _do not_ to don't,
> _can not_ to cannot_ to _can't_, etc.), gets deemed insufficient to mark
> negation, leading to something being added again to strengthen the negation
> after the verb, which in turn could once again take over the negation
> entirely.
We're already well along that road my friend! "In't do nothin", "You ain't seen
nothin yet!"
It's like the Wimbledon of negation: every century or two we just bounce the
negatory
particle from one side of the content verbal to the other.
Padraic
> Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
Messages in this topic (8)
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1b. Re: THEORY: Is Jespersen cycle a cycle?
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Wed Aug 14, 2013 3:14 pm ((PDT))
>>> One could envision a further evolution of English where the
>>> auxiliary+negation
>>> combination gets weakened (it's started already, from _do not_ to don't,
>>> _can not_ to cannot_ to _can't_, etc.), gets deemed insufficient to mark
>>> negation, leading to something being added again to strengthen the negation
>>> after the verb, which in turn could once again take over the negation
>>> entirely.
>>
>>We're already well along that road my friend! "In't do nothin", "You ain't
>>seen nothin yet!"
>
> True, but in both cases "nothin'" still has its full meaning.
Indeed. But didn't "pas" and "mie" and "rien" and so forth still have their
"full meaning" back when they
were starting their careers as negatory particles?
> So we're more at a double negation stage
Hm. The term "double negative" is troubling — "double negation" is such a
prescriptive term. This kind
of negation is perfectly normal and everyday English for very many people, and
there's nothing "double"
about it! The more you heap on there, the more intense the negation.
> rather than at the discontinuous negation stage of Jespersen's cycle.
> Although I have no doubt that with time,
> such expressions can turn into real discontinuous negations and could
> eventually lead to a new single postposed
> negation. We're just not there yet. Give it a few generations :P.
Indeed! As I said, we're on the road. We may or may not get there (again), and
we may go some other direction
in stead.
>> It's like the Wimbledon of negation: every century or two we just bounce the
>> negatory
>> particle from one side of the content verbal to the other.
>
>I wonder whether that's true all the time. Spoken French has moved to the
>postposed negation stage and shows absolutely
> no sign of moving away from it.
Perhaps they've just missed the serve...
> At this point, it's even at a stage where two negations equal an affirmation
> in some cases: _c'est pas rien_ in Spoken French
> can only mean "it's something" (i.e. "it's not nothing"), never "it's
> nothing".
Yeah. That sounds like the official line regarding English: double negation
equals a positive. Don't make no sense to me nohow!
> This only works with _pas_, though. Other double negations are ambiguous:
> _j'ai jamais rien_ can be interpreted as both "I've
> never got anything" and as "I've always got something". People disagree on
> which meaning such a construction is supposed to
> have.
The only kind of double negation in English that, for me anyway, would clearly
end up a positive is the weak kind where a
negated adjective or verb is coupled with a negated verb: "I do not disagree";
"Mr Jones was not incompetent". But to me,
these are simply negating whatever the adjective or verb is suggesting. "I do
not agree" = "I disagree"; "I do not disagree" =
"I agree". Depending on intonation, the whole phrase can be suggestive of some
hidden reservation or ulterior motive. In
other words, I may not be expressing open disagreement with whatever he said,
but neither am I fully agreeing with him!
>In any case, it shows no sign of moving to a preposed negation. Maybe over a
>few generations...
We shall see!
Padraic
>Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
Messages in this topic (8)
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1c. Re: THEORY: Is Jespersen cycle a cycle?
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Wed Aug 14, 2013 3:33 pm ((PDT))
> So, a way of bringing negation back to the place before the main verb
> is by using auxiliar verbs. Do you see another possible process?
I suppose that's one way. Though to be honest, I think it could be argued that
we really *haven't* placed the negation before the verb. If we look at the
"main verb" as not really the verb at all, but rather some kind of content word
that simply expresses the name of the action, while the "auxiliary verb" is the
actual
verb (because it has all the grammatical function), then the negation is still
following the verb. Perhaps if we look on the English verb as a compounded
inflection, then we could say the negation has been infixed. :S
> In pt-BR, negation seems to be moving to the end of the sentences. My
> 2-years-old daughter learned to speak in this way. I analyse this
> process as a reinterpretation of a following emphatic negative
> single-word clause "não" as the negation of the verb.
>
> 1. Eu não tenho interesse nisso. (I don't have interest in this.)
> 2. Não tenho interesse nisso.
> 3. Não tenho interesse nisso, não.
> 4. Tenho interesse nisso não.
>
> Even if one keeps the 1st-person pronoun "eu", the first
> "não"
> colapses (orally) to "num" or "n":
>
> 2. Eu num tenho interesse nisso, não.
> 3. Eu n'tenho interesse nisso, não.
Interesting indeed!
Padraic
> Leonardo
>
>
> 2013/8/14 Padraic Brown <[email protected]>:
>>>> I know some examples of negation words before the verb becoming
> weaker
>>
>>>> and being reinforced by other negation words after the verb, but I
>>>> don't remember an example of change in the opposite direction
> to close
>>>> the cycle.
>>>
>>> English did, after a fashion. The Old English _ic ne seah_: "I
> didn't see"
>>> got strengthened with _nawiht_: "nothing", leading to Middle
> English _I ne
>>> saugh nawiht_. The original negative particle _ne_ was lost, leading to
>>> Early Modern English _I saw not_. Then suddenly do-support became
>>> necessary, and In Modern English the negation once again precedes the
>>> content verb (but follows the auxiliary): _I didn't see_. One could
>>> envision a further evolution of English where the auxiliary+negation
>>> combination gets weakened (it's started already, from _do not_ to
> don't,
>>> _can not_ to cannot_ to _can't_, etc.), gets deemed insufficient to
> mark
>>> negation, leading to something being added again to strengthen the
> negation
>>> after the verb, which in turn could once again take over the negation
>>> entirely.
>>
>> We're already well along that road my friend! "In't do
> nothin", "You ain't seen nothin yet!"
>> It's like the Wimbledon of negation: every century or two we just
> bounce the negatory
>> particle from one side of the content verbal to the other.
>>
>> Padraic
>>
>>> Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
>
Messages in this topic (8)
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1d. Re: THEORY: Is Jespersen cycle a cycle?
Posted by: "Douglas Koller" [email protected]
Date: Wed Aug 14, 2013 9:24 pm ((PDT))
> Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2013 15:13:58 -0700
> From: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: THEORY: Is Jespersen cycle a cycle?
> To: [email protected]
> The only kind of double negation in English that, for me anyway, would
> clearly end up a positive is the weak kind where a
> negated adjective or verb is coupled with a negated verb: "I do not
> disagree"; "Mr Jones was not incompetent". But to me,
> these are simply negating whatever the adjective or verb is suggesting. "I do
> not agree" = "I disagree"; "I do not disagree" =
> "I agree". Depending on intonation, the whole phrase can be suggestive of
> some hidden reservation or ulterior motive. In
> other words, I may not be expressing open disagreement with whatever he said,
> but neither am I fully agreeing with him!
It's not for nothing they're called litotes.
Kou
Messages in this topic (8)
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1e. Re: THEORY: Is Jespersen cycle a cycle?
Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" [email protected]
Date: Wed Aug 14, 2013 11:28 pm ((PDT))
On 15 August 2013 00:13, Padraic Brown <[email protected]> wrote:
> >>
> >>We're already well along that road my friend! "In't do nothin", "You
> ain't seen nothin yet!"
> >
> > True, but in both cases "nothin'" still has its full meaning.
>
>
> Indeed. But didn't "pas" and "mie" and "rien" and so forth still have
> their "full meaning" back when they
> were starting their careers as negatory particles?
>
>
Well, I guess it depends on when you consider that their "career as
negatory particles" actually starts. It's true that they originally had
their full meaning (which is why, for instance, "pas": step was originally
limited to verbs of motion, as it still does in my conlang Narbonese), but
at that stage I don't think they were negatory particles yet. They were
just nouns used for emphasis, and the seat of negation was still only the
preposed particle. Personally, I think we can start calling them part of
the negation only by the time they lost their status as noun and became
mandatory postposed particles. And by that time they had already lost at
least part of their semantic contents.
But then this is more a question of terminology than a disagreement on how
they came to be.
Another difference from the "You ain't seen nothin' yet" example is that
"pas", "mie" and "rien" were all *affirmative* before becoming associated
with negation, meaning respectively "step", "crumb, morsel" and "thing",
while "nothin'" is negative even when used alone.
>
> > So we're more at a double negation stage
>
>
> Hm. The term "double negative" is troubling — "double negation" is such a
> prescriptive term. This kind
> of negation is perfectly normal and everyday English for very many people,
> and there's nothing "double"
> about it! The more you heap on there, the more intense the negation.
>
>
I mean it purely in a descriptive way: both "ain't" and "nothin'" are
negative in their own right, and can appear alone and still make the full
sentence negative. So when both appear in the same sentence, we have a
double negative *by literal definition* of the term. Using the term "double
negative" doesn't imply anything about what the double negative *means*.
And that prescriptivists have hijacked the phrase doesn't mean we should
stop using it descriptively. That would mean they'd won! ;)
>
> > rather than at the discontinuous negation stage of Jespersen's cycle.
> Although I have no doubt that with time,
>
> > such expressions can turn into real discontinuous negations and could
> eventually lead to a new single postposed
> > negation. We're just not there yet. Give it a few generations :P.
>
> Indeed! As I said, we're on the road. We may or may not get there (again),
> and we may go some other direction
> in stead.
>
>
True: past performance is in no way indicative of the future :P.
>
> >> It's like the Wimbledon of negation: every century or two we just
> bounce the negatory
> >> particle from one side of the content verbal to the other.
> >
> >I wonder whether that's true all the time. Spoken French has moved to the
> postposed negation stage and shows absolutely
> > no sign of moving away from it.
>
>
> Perhaps they've just missed the serve...
>
>
Yeah, not all serves can be aces :).
>
> > At this point, it's even at a stage where two negations equal an
> affirmation in some cases: _c'est pas rien_ in Spoken French
> > can only mean "it's something" (i.e. "it's not nothing"), never "it's
> nothing".
>
>
> Yeah. That sounds like the official line regarding English: double
> negation equals a positive. Don't make no sense to me nohow!
>
>
It does to me. As Kou wrote, it's called a litote :) (indeed, "c'est pas
rien" will often be used in a sense of "it's *quite* something" :P). And
it's simply how people understand and use it in France: there's no
prescriptivist influence at work here.
>
> > This only works with _pas_, though. Other double negations are
> ambiguous: _j'ai jamais rien_ can be interpreted as both "I've
> > never got anything" and as "I've always got something". People disagree
> on which meaning such a construction is supposed to
> > have.
>
> The only kind of double negation in English that, for me anyway, would
> clearly end up a positive is the weak kind where a
> negated adjective or verb is coupled with a negated verb: "I do not
> disagree"; "Mr Jones was not incompetent". But to me,
> these are simply negating whatever the adjective or verb is suggesting. "I
> do not agree" = "I disagree"; "I do not disagree" =
> "I agree".
Agreed. I don't consider those double negations either, at least
syntactically speaking. "I disagree" is an affirmative sentence, not a
negative one. It's just an accident of etymology that English derives
"disagreeing" from "agreeing" rather than the other way around (in my
Moten, the translations of "to agree" and "to disagree" are completely
unrelated: "to disagree" is a verb, while "to agree" is an idiom based on a
noun. Neither is considered "negative", they're just opposites).
> Depending on intonation, the whole phrase can be suggestive of some hidden
> reservation or ulterior motive. In
> other words, I may not be expressing open disagreement with whatever he
> said, but neither am I fully agreeing with him!
>
>
Yes, a litote indeed :) .
>
> >In any case, it shows no sign of moving to a preposed negation. Maybe
> over a few generations...
>
>
> We shall see!
>
>
*We*? Unless advances in medicine change things a lot, I doubt we'll be
around to see it with our own eyes and hear it with our own ears. Unless
you believe in reincarnation :P.
--
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (8)
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1f. Re: THEORY: Is Jespersen cycle a cycle?
Posted by: "George Corley" [email protected]
Date: Thu Aug 15, 2013 5:24 am ((PDT))
On Thu, Aug 15, 2013 at 1:28 AM, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <
[email protected]> wrote:
> On 15 August 2013 00:13, Padraic Brown <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > Indeed. But didn't "pas" and "mie" and "rien" and so forth still have
> > their "full meaning" back when they
> > were starting their careers as negatory particles?
> >
> >
> Well, I guess it depends on when you consider that their "career as
> negatory particles" actually starts. It's true that they originally had
> their full meaning (which is why, for instance, "pas": step was originally
> limited to verbs of motion, as it still does in my conlang Narbonese), but
> at that stage I don't think they were negatory particles yet. They were
> just nouns used for emphasis, and the seat of negation was still only the
> preposed particle. Personally, I think we can start calling them part of
> the negation only by the time they lost their status as noun and became
> mandatory postposed particles. And by that time they had already lost at
> least part of their semantic contents.
>
> But then this is more a question of terminology than a disagreement on how
> they came to be.
>
Yes, that seems more like a trick of definitions than any kind of
reasoning. Essentially, they moved from one thing to the other -- I doubt
there is any bright line we can draw to say precisely when this happened,
and I'm doubly sure that not all the consequences of shifting from noun to
particle were realized at once.
> Another difference from the "You ain't seen nothin' yet" example is that
> "pas", "mie" and "rien" were all *affirmative* before becoming associated
> with negation, meaning respectively "step", "crumb, morsel" and "thing",
> while "nothin'" is negative even when used alone.
That is quite interesting.
> >
> > > So we're more at a double negation stage
> >
> >
> > Hm. The term "double negative" is troubling � "double negation" is such a
> > prescriptive term. This kind
> > of negation is perfectly normal and everyday English for very many
> people,
> > and there's nothing "double"
> > about it! The more you heap on there, the more intense the negation.
> >
> >
> I mean it purely in a descriptive way: both "ain't" and "nothin'" are
> negative in their own right, and can appear alone and still make the full
> sentence negative. So when both appear in the same sentence, we have a
> double negative *by literal definition* of the term. Using the term "double
> negative" doesn't imply anything about what the double negative *means*.
> And that prescriptivists have hijacked the phrase doesn't mean we should
> stop using it descriptively. That would mean they'd won! ;)
Many linguists refer to the phenomenon being discussed here as "negative
concord" or "negative agreement". I personally prefer these terms, as they
essentially tell us what's actually going on here: different parts of the
sentence are "agreeing" with the polarity of the sentence. Also, you can
have more than just two negative morphemes in such a sentence, as in "Ain't
nobody gettin' nothin' from me nohow." And, of course, there's a need to
distinguish it from true multiple-negation that actually does flip signs
when applied, as in "He didn't NOT go." (caps mark a word with heavy
stress).
Messages in this topic (8)
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2a. Re: subject and object covered by a single case?
Posted by: "Jörg Rhiemeier" [email protected]
Date: Wed Aug 14, 2013 8:33 am ((PDT))
Hallo conlangers!
On Wednesday 14 August 2013 10:30:35 Alex Fink wrote:
> On Tue, 13 Aug 2013 00:02:48 -0500, Matthew Boutilier
<[email protected]> wrote:
> >ONE case for subject and object, that is still a case (contrasting with
> >GEN and VOC)? there have got to be natlang (or even conlang) precedents
> >for something like this, yes?
>
> Yeah, it can't be all that uncommon, can it? I was hoping WALS would have
> a feature more to the point on this than it does, but
> http://wals.info/chapter/49 incidentally gives Mapudungun and Khanty as
> languages which seem to have this, one case for direct arguments and one
> or two others.
You need not venture that far from Central Europe to find
examples: Romanian is like that, too. It has a nominative-
accusative and a genitive-dative case, and a vocative.
--
... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html
"Bêsel asa Éam, a Éam atha cvanthal a cvanth atha Éamal." - SiM 1:1
Messages in this topic (6)
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2b. Re: subject and object covered by a single case?
Posted by: "Jyri Lehtinen" [email protected]
Date: Wed Aug 14, 2013 11:33 am ((PDT))
2013/8/14 Alex Fink <[email protected]>
> Yeah, it can't be all that uncommon, can it? I was hoping WALS would have
> a feature more to the point on this than it does, but
> http://wals.info/chapter/49 incidentally gives Mapudungun and Khanty as
> languages which seem to have this, one case for direct arguments and one or
> two others.
>
> Blake, in _Case_ from the Cambridge series, seems aware of the existence
> of examples as well, having things to say like
> | One might consider that a peripheral case like ablative is not likely to
> | be found in an accusative language unless a core case like accusative is
> | also found, but this will not hold in a language where the object is
> | represented pronominally in the verb or only by position after the verb.
> -- this from his discussion of case hierarchies in section 5.8. But it
> seems that he takes word order to lie outside his remit, so I wasn't able
> to find him giving actual examples.
>
> Alex
>
Khanty nearly counts as an example here. It has a distinct accusative for
its personal pronouns but for other nominals the object form if unmarked
and merged with the nominative. The number of oblique cases varies a lot
between the dialects and the Tremjugan dialect for example has seven.
Partial polypersonal agreement comes indeed to the rescue as the verbs have
a definite conjugation where they agree with the number of a definite
object as well as the person and number of the subject. However, the
language has also coined clause types where the subject is marked by the
locative case (functioning as an ergative) restoring the morphological
distinction between the subject and object. The choice of these clause
types correlates with the flow of discourse and the definiteness of the
subject.
Optionality of accusative marking is a theme that's shared also by the
Permic languages just west from the Urals. These languages have very
healthy case paradigms, Komi Permyak having a total of 22 distinct forms.
Still, they all have a tendency to mark only the definite objects with an
overt accusative suffix. Indefinite objects receive nominative marking
exactly like the subjects do. Keeping the word order stricter when
indefinite objects occur helps to disambiguate the argument identification,
but as the choice of accusative marking is again discourse driven you will
often have enough information to identify the object anyhow leaving more
chances for a flexible word order. And to be clear, this happens without
any object marking on the verbs.
An example of a language with a two way distinction between a direct
unmarked case and a marked oblique case and also an extremely free word
order is Yimas. The identification of the core arguments, including
indirect objects, is all done on the verb. The language also a rich system
of 10 or 11 noun classes which have distinct agreement patterns on the verb.
-Jyri
Messages in this topic (6)
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3a. Re: A traveller's report in Buruya Nzaysa
Posted by: "Jan Strasser" [email protected]
Date: Wed Aug 14, 2013 10:18 am ((PDT))
Here's the third part of the traveller's report:
Sah nzɔ ɛma ɔ marob mvomu ri rabɛ lu amɔ’a ayru ogu rɛ saxa ɔ sudusa ga
sɔmɛ mɛsu dəsmoh, rɔmaxa desuga rabɛ lu mɔromə nzɛ, tsonaxa lo ntəwa
ayru ɔ tewalu ñavra ni lu buli tsugə, ño ri pexa ɔ raxolbo yɛni tətsɔ
mvəbo tselu ɔdɛ.
Ɛ’i’ɔxa rumɛ rɛ rolah ewitsa nzo ɛma xo’a. Pɔwaxa lo maldɔ ɔ tewalu ŋkə
olna’a, ni wəyaxa o tselu ɔ esevo mvoñu ogu rɛ esaxa lu ɛma same mpu wə
mvəbo xa nolɔ ŋkə nzɔ oskə bu. Saxa lo xo’avo ɔ ɛde ɔpsoga ni lu buli
ñawe, on o lu əmo ah tsa ɔ ñəbo nanɔvo tsiba, o saxa ntɛga ɛxɛ ntɛ u
pɛlbɛ ntaskɔda xutsɔ ɔdɔwə lo ɛma rugɛ o maña tsa ena. Rabɛ rɛ sə ada
tselu oskə bu wə wa lu ñəbo otɛ ntɛ u ñalɔ́nzi mvomu ri ɔdɔwa tsa leda lu
mvusmo ayru nanɔ, owa lu mɔdɛ ada lu ntəwa ayru, o ri ɔdɔwə ntise nzɔ
ɛma no. O ntɛga ta lo adavo nzəxrə, o wəyaxa lo xo’avo rumɛ rɛ ɔdɔwə lo
ɛma ɔ omva, o wəya ada tsa oskə o lɛysa.
The weight of these serpents is so great that when they travel in search
of food or drink, as they do by night, the tail makes a great furrow in
the soil as if a full ton of liquor had been dragged along.
Now the way in which they are caught is this: The huntsmen take them by
certain traps which they set in the track over which the serpent has
passed, knowing that the beast will come back the same way. They plant a
stake deep in the ground and fix on the head of this a sharp blade made
like a razor, and then they cover the whole with sand so that the
serpent cannot see it. On coming to the spot, the beast strikes against
the blade with such force that it enters his breast and rives him up to
the navel, so that he dies on the spot. And the crows on seeing the
brute dead begin to caw, and then the huntsmen know that the serpent is
dead and come in search of him.
Let's analyse this section in detail too:
Sah nzɔ ɛma ɔ marob mvomu
NULL.COP-3PL TOP.NOM serpent INDEF.ACC heavy enough_for.3
These serpents are so heavy
ri rabɛ lu amɔ’a ayru
SUB.NOM during.3 DEF.ACC travel.VN of.3.ANIM
that when they are traveling
ogu rɛ saxa ɔ sudusa ga sɔmɛ mɛsu dəsmoh,
so_as_to.3 SUB.ACC NULL.AUX-3PL>3 INDEF.ACC meat or water near.3
search_for
in order to search for meat or water,
rɔmaxa desuga rabɛ lu mɔromə nzɛ,
REL.AUX-3PL>3 usually during.3 DEF.ACC night do
which they usually do at night,
I have mentioned grouped noun phrases before, both earlier in this text
and in a blogpost from a few months ago (
http://audmanh.wordpress.com/2013/03/24/grouped-noun-phrases-in-buruya-nzaysa/
), but all of the examples discussed there were of the additive type. To
recap: Two or more nouns can be combined into a single noun phrase by
using a single determiner, the conjunction o 'and', and a stranded
comitative preposition kwə at the end of the group, e.g. ɔ kwamɛdi o
nzuma kwə (INDEF.ACC tea and coffee with.3) 'both tea and coffee'. In
this sentence we see that the above pattern can also be used with the
conjunction ga 'or', which however requires a different stranded
preposition, mɛsu 'near, next to': ɔ sudusa ga sɔmɛ mɛsu 'meat or water'
(lit. 'a meat or a water near it'). And there's more: mutually exclusive
alternatives can be grouped with bɔ’a ... rapsə 'either ... or' (lit. 'X
xor Y instead of it'), and counterfactual alternatives can be grouped
with ləh ... ala 'neither ... nor' (lit. 'X nor Y without it').
Another thing to note is the relative clause in the final line, which is
much longer than the one we've seen before, and whose antecedent, the
nominalized verb amɔ’a (ayru) '(their) traveling', appears quite a bit
earlier in the sentence.
tsonaxa lo ntəwa ayru ɔ tewalu ñavra ni lu
buli tsugə,
HAB.AUX-3SG>3 DEF.NOM tail of.3.ANIM INDEF.ACC furrow wide into.3
DEF.ACC soil press
their tail leaves a wide furrow in the soil,
ño ri pexa ɔ raxolbo yɛni tətsɔ mvəbo tselu
ɔdɛ.
as.3 SUB.NOM COND.AUX-1PL>3 INDEF.ACC cask wine big through.3
that_place pull
as if we had pulled a large barrel of wine along that way.
What's most interesting here is Buruya Nzaysa's equivalent of an
as-if-construction, a simile which compares a real event to an unrelated
hypothetical event. The relevant grammatical structure is built with the
preposition ño 'as, like', the complementizer ri, and a subclause
introduced by the conditional auxiliary pɔ-. In the above example, the
result is literally something like 'as that we might pull a barrel of
wine'. (Also note the first person plural subject, which can be
interpreted as an impersonal dummy because the identity of the agent is
completely irrelevant here. The English translation of Marco Polo's
original text, quoted above, contains a passive ['had been dragged
along'], but Buruya Nzaysa tends to avoid a passive wherever possible,
using an expletive plural subject instead. All three persons are
possible; the first person is used here because a third person might be
confused with the actual protagonists of the story, and a second person
would make even less sense because the listener was definitely not
involved in what is being described.)
New words:
tewalu (n.) 'furrow, trench, groove, notch, indentation'. Borrowed from
Delta Naidda tewalo, lit. 'tiller-place'; the locative suffix /-lo/ was
replaced with its native equivalent /-lu/.
Ɛ’i’ɔxa rumɛ rɛ rolah ewitsa nzo ɛma xo’a.
OPT.AUX-2PL>3 know SUB.ACC HAB.PASS.AUX-3PL how TOP.ACC serpent hunt
You will want to know how these serpents are hunted.
This short sentence starts off with the set presentational phrase
ɛ’i’oxa rumɛ rɛ... 'you will want to know that...', which we have
already encountered earlier in the text, and which is a frequent device
in storytelling to start a new chapter of the narrative.
More central to the grammar of the language, however, is what we can
observe in the subordinated clause, namely a passive voice construction.
I have said above that the passive tends to be avoided in Buruya Nzaysa,
and up to now I didn't think there would even be a passive voice, but in
this particular sentence, a circumlocution with a dummy subject simply
didn't feel right. I wanted to focus on the serpents entirely, and after
some debate I decided that a passive voice seems to suit the language
quite well after all. Partly because the parent language Ndak Ta had a
passive, partly because the two most closely related sister languages
Delta Naidda and Ndok Aisô also have a passive (although it's an
innovation in Naidda), and partly because Buruya Nzaysa already had a
class of "ergative verbs" which basically work like passives anyway. It
seemed logical to extend the rules applying to this special class of
verbs to make them usable with regular verbs too.
This is done by using a special set of auxiliaries, which line up only
partially with the auxiliaries that are available in the active voice.
The semantically most basic one, sp-/spɛ-, is derived from the Ndak Ta
ergative verb ispe 'feel, experience'; most of the others descend from
passive voice forms of the Ndak Ta copula with different mood prefixes.
The habitual passive auxiliary rol- that we see here is a case in point,
it contains a reflex of the habitive mood prefix ru-. There are also
auxiliaries for a resultative passive (ɔdɔl-, derived from Ndak Ta oto
'come' like its active voice counterpart), for a potential passive
(gal-, containing the probabilitive/permissive mood prefix bwa-), for a
conditional passive (pɔl-, containing the conditional mood prefix pâu-),
and for a negative passive (ml-/mal-, containing the negative prefix m-).
Other new words:
ewitsa (pron.) 'how, in what way'. Etymology: Ndak Ta iwa etsn 'which
method'.
Pɔwaxa lo maldɔ ɔ tewalu ŋkə olna’a,
COND.AUX-3PL>3 DEF.NOM person INDEF.ACC furrow same find
If the people find such a furrow,
ni wəyaxa o tselu ɔ esevo mvoñu
if/then FUT.AUX-3PL>3 at.3 that_place INDEF.ACC trap establish
they will set up a trap at that place
ogu rɛ esaxa lu ɛma same
so_as_to SUB.ACC EMPH.AUX-3PL>3 DEF.ACC serpent bring_down
in order to bring down the serpent
mpu wə mvəbo xa nolɔ ŋkə nzɔ oskə bu.
because FUT.AUX-3SG through.3 this.ACC path same TOP.NOM come again
because it will come back along the same path.
There's not too much remarkable stuff going on here, except for the use
of attributive ŋkə 'same, identical, -self' in combination with an
indefinite article to give the meaning 'such a..., one of that kind'.
It's also worth pointing out that the auxiliary in the third line is the
emphatic potential esaxa instead of the null auxiliary saxa; this choice
highlights that the trap provides the hunters with the ability to bring
down the serpent, which they wouldn't have without it.
New words:
esevo (n.) 'trap'. Etymology: Ndak Ta isibu 'that which acts suddenly'.
Saxa lo xo’avo ɔ ɛde ɔpsoga ni lu buli
ñawe,
NULL.AUX-3PL>3 DEF.NOM hunter INDEF.ACC pole deep-ADV in.3 DEF.ACC soil put
The hunters place a pole deep in the ground,
on o lu əmo ah tsa ɔ ñəbo nanɔvo tsiba,
and at.3 DEF.ACC head of.3 that.NOM INDEF.ACC blade sharp attach
and to the head of that they attach a sharp blade,
o saxa ntɛga ɛxɛ ntɛ u pɛlbɛ ntaskɔda
and NULL.AUX-3PL>3 then everything with.3 INDEF.NOM sand wrap
and then they cover everything with sand
xutsɔ ɔdɔwə lo ɛma rugɛ o maña tsa
ena.
therefore RES.AUX-3SG DEF.NOM serpent be_misguided and NEG.AUX-3SG<3
that.NOM see
so that the serpent will be tricked and cannot see it.
In this portion of the text we find two words which are not new, but
semantically interesting. The first of these is ntaskɔda 'wrap', derived
from the Ndak Ta phrase ntatsn kota 'cover all around'. The semantic
range of this verb is a lot broader than what the English gloss
suggests. The core meaning is the same - 'wrap (e.g. in cloth)' -, but
the Buruya Nzaysa word can also be used in other situations where the
object is getting enclosed by something else, for instance 'cover with
sand' as we see in the text, 'pack (into a box, e.g. for storage or
transport)', or 'surround (with military forces)'. When used
reflexively, the verb usually means 'get dressed', but it can also be
used for 'tuck oneself in (under a blanket)'. There's also a
back-derived noun ntaskɔ, motivated by reanalysis of the final /-da/ as
the homophonous inchoative/causative suffix, which takes its meaning
'respectable' from the reflexive sense (via 'dressed').
The second semantically interesting word is rugɛ 'be misguided, get
tricked into sth.', which is a loan of Ndok Aisô rugeu 'be naïve'. In
the source language, this verb implies that it's (at least partly) the
subject's own fault if something goes wrong, because s/he could and
should have known better. The thing that goes wrong can basically be
anything, a malicious action by somebody else, an unfortunate side
effect of another action, or a natural event. In Buruya Nzaysa, the
meaning has shifted slightly but significantly: The Buruya Nzaysa word
implies that something detrimental to the subject must happen, and that
this event is always the purposeful action of a human adversary, and
thus usually outside of the subject's control. It thus fits perfectly
for the serpent running into the hunters' hidden trap.
There's also a morphosyntactically interesting detail in here: ena 'see,
notice' belongs to the above-mentioned class of "ergative verbs", and
therefore requires the auxiliary to take on a special "inverse"
transitive agreement suffix, which we can see in maña; note that the
arrow in the gloss is reversed in order to indicate that the subject
part of the agreement refers to the experiencer. (The semantics are
notable too: seeing is conceived of as being caused by that which is
visible, and so the "agentive" nominative pronoun tsa 'that' in this
clause refers to the trap, not to the serpent.)
New words:
xo’avo (n.) 'hunter'. Agent nominalization of xo’a 'hunt, chase'.
ɔpsoga (adv.) 'deeply, solidly'. Adverbialization of ɔpso 'deep'.
nanɔvo (n.) 'sharp'. Agent nominalization of nanɔ 'cut', with semantic
drift towards a more attributive meaning.
tsiba (v.) 'attach, fix, put together'. Borrowed from Fáralo čiəba 'tie,
bind'.
Rabɛ rɛ sə ada tselu oskə bu
during.3 SUB.ACC NULL.AUX-3SG to.3 that_place come again
When it comes back to that place,
wə wa lu ñəbo otɛ ntɛ u ñalɔ́nzi
FUT.AUX-3SG against.3 DEF.ACC blade run with.3 INDEF.NOM speed
it will run against the blade with speed
mvomu ri ɔdɔwa tsa leda lu mvusmo
ayru nanɔ,
enough_for.3 SUB.NOM RES.AUX-3SG>3 that.NOM completely DEF.ACC belly
of.3.ANIM cut
such that it will cut open its belly completely,
owa lu mɔdɛ ada lu ntəwa ayru,
from.3 DEF.ACC heart to.3 DEF.ACC tail of.3.ANIM
from the heart to the tail,
o ri ɔdɔwə ntise nzɔ ɛma no.
and SUB.NOM RES.AUX-3SG immediately TOP.NOM serpent die
and the serpent will die immediately.
Most of this part is fairly straightforward, but there's one syntactic
detail that deserves attention. The main clause here is wə wa lu ñəbo
otɛ 'it will run against the blade', extendedy by the prepositional
phrase ntɛ u ñalɔ́nzi 'with speed'. To the object of this preposition,
the noun ñalɔ́nzi 'speed', yet another prepositional phrase is
subordinated, starting with mvomu 'enough for'. This prepositional
phrase contains not just one, but two objects - two complement clauses
that describe two events that are both caused by the content of the main
clause, and also intricately connected (the serpent's death as described
in the second complement clause is of course the result of it cutting
open its belly as described in the first complement clause). Without the
last complementizer ri (i.e. with a subordination structure similar to
that in English, where the last clause is simply coordinated to the rest
of the sentence), the serpent's death would be interpreted as an
independent event that simply occurs on returning to the place, which of
course doesn't fit the intended semantics.
New words:
ñalɔ́nzi (n.) 'speed, velocity, acceleration'. Abstraction of lɔnzi
'quick, fast', itself borrowed from Delta Naidda lånzi.
O ntɛga ta lo adavo nzəxrə,
and then INCH.AUX-3PL DEF.NOM crow shout,
And then the crows will start to shout,
o wəyaxa lo xo’avo rumɛ
and FUT.AUX-3PL>3 DEF.NOM hunter know
and the hunters will know
rɛ ɔdɔwə lo ɛma ɔ omva,
SUB.ACC RES.COP-3SG DEF.NOM serpent INDEF.ACC dead_body
that the serpent is dead
o wəya ada tsa oskə o lɛysa.
and FUT.AUX-3PL to.3 that.NOM come and collect
and come back to collect its body.
This sentence gives an example of how Buruya Nzaysa, which lacks a
formal distinction between nouns and adjectives, uses words with
strongly nominal semantics where English would use an adjectival
predicate. We can see this in the phrasing of 'is dead' as a nominal
predicate 'has become a corpse'. There's a welcome syntactic side effect
to this, because the noun omva can be referenced by the deictic pronoun
tsa in the next line, and it can also be used as the implicit object of
the verb lɛysa 'collect', enabling the latter to appear in an
abbreviated serial verb construction without a separate transitive
auxiliary.
New words:
adavo (n.) 'crow, raven'. Etymology: Ndak Ta adwabu 'the dark one'.
Part Four coming up soon...
Jan
Messages in this topic (3)
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