Language Typology and Syntactic Description, Volume I: Clause Structure, Second edition
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Lgg Typology, Synt Description v. I - Clause structure
Avery D. Andrews
deictics inflect like common nominals, except that for some there is an optional accusative. Some examples illustrating case marking for personal pronouns and common nouns are the following: (98) a. ŋ ayu ma ŋ ga:- I(nom) laugh-past ‘I laughed’ b. bu a ma ŋ ga:- woman(abs) laugh-past ‘The woman laughed’ c. ŋ a a- bu a:- ŋ wu ɹ a:- I-acc woman-erg slap-past ‘The woman slapped me’ d. ŋ ayu bu a wu ɹ a:- I(nom) woman(abs) slap-past ‘I slapped the woman’ e. Wagu a- ŋ gu guda:ga wawa:-l man-erg dog(abs) see-past ‘The man saw the dog’ The evidence for syntactic ergativity in Yidi comes from the subordinate clause constructions of the language. These are similar in function to the rel- ative clauses of Diyari – see (67), (68) – having what from the English point of view are a variety of relative and adverbial interpretations. There are four morphological types of subordinate clauses, ‘dative’, ‘causal’, ‘purposive’ and ‘apprehensional’, each with a different ending on the subordinate verb. The first three types are quite similar in their behaviour, while the apprehensional clauses are somewhat different. There is no switch-reference system in Yidi . But there is in the dative, purposive and causal subordinate clauses a near requirement that if the matrix and subordinate clauses contain coreferential nps (about 85 per cent do in Dixon’s texts (Dixon (1977a:323))), this np should have p/s function in both clauses. This requirement is absolute for clauses with a relative interpretation, that is, for those in which the coreferentiality is essential to the function of the clause, though it is occasionally violated by those with adverbial interpretations (Dixon (1977a:323–49)). Furthermore, the coreferential np in the subordinate clause may only be ellipsed if it is in p/s function (Dixon (1977a:332–3)). Thus we can use the dative subordinate clause construction DATSUB, sig- naled by the verbal suffix - unda, which expresses simultaneous action, to combine (98a) and (98c) to yield either (a) or (b) below: The major functions of the noun phrase 195 (99) a. ŋ ayu manga:- ( ŋ a a- ) bu a:-n wu ɹ a:- unda I(nom) laugh-past I-acc woman-erg slap-datsub ‘I, who was slapped by the woman, laughed’ b. ŋ a a- bu a:- ŋ wu ɹ a- / ( ŋ ayu) ma ŋ ga- unda I-acc woman-erg slap-past I(nom) laugh-datsub ‘I, who was laughing, was slapped by the woman’ In (99a) the matrix coreferential np is s, and the subordinate is p; in (99b), the matrix coreferential np is p and the subordinate one is s. s-s and p-p combinations are also possible. In these examples the matrix and subordinate coreferential np s differ in their case form, since the shared np is a personal pronoun, and therefore has a nominative form in s function and accusative in p. But the same coreference possibilities would exist if the nps in both clauses were common nominals, with the same case forms in both clauses. The examples of (99) also illustrate optional omission of the subordinate clause np: it is also possible to omit the main clause np, or, rarely, both. If one of the coreferential nps is a, the clauses cannot normally be combined as they are. Rather, a rule that is both similar to and different from the passive of languages like English must be used to convert the a to s function, except, very rarely, when the clause is adverbial in sense, and the coreferentiality is ‘accidental’ (not essential to the function of the clause). All transitive verbs have a so-called ‘antipassive’ form, derived by adding the suffix designated - Download 1.59 Mb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
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