Language Typology and Syntactic Description, Volume I: Clause Structure, Second edition
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Lgg Typology, Synt Description v. I - Clause structure
Matthew S. Dryer
languages. The first of these is Turkana, in the Nilotic subfamily of Nilo-Saharan and spoken in Kenya (Dimmendaal (1983)). Turkana is VSO, as in (17). (17) ` ε -s`ak- i ` apa` ak` i m u j 3-want-asp father.nom food V S O ‘father wants food’ (Most of the nouns in the Turkana examples cited in this chapter contain gender prefixes that are not indicated in the glosses, since Dimmendaal does not gloss them, and it is not always clear what gender is involved. A number of other affixes in nouns and verbs are not glossed and are treated here as if they were part of the stems. Nominative case, used for subjects, is indicated by tone.) The examples in (18) illustrate how other word order characteristics of Turkana are the same as those in Fijian. (18) a. ` ε -`a-g ` u m- i ` nil`emu 3-past-fire-asp blindly V Adv ‘he fired blindly’ b. ` ε -`a-g ` u m- i ` `a at ɔ m` ε 3-past-fire-asp prep gun Pr NP ‘he fired with a gun’ c. it`o`o ke ŋ ` `a [`edya` lo`] mother his of boy this N G ‘the mother of this boy’ d. l`oger`ı [lo-e-putuk-`ı-o erot`] because rel-3-muddy-asp-verb road.nom Subord Clause ‘because the road is muddy’ The expression involving comparison involves the use of a verb meaning ‘sur- pass’ or ‘supersede’, as in (19). (19) ` ε -j ɔ k` erot` lo` ak-`ıdwa ŋ ŋ ol` 3-good road.nom this infin-supercede that ‘this road is better than that one’ While one might treat the verb ak`ıdwa ŋ ‘supersede’ as a marker, this is really the verb of a separate clause, and hence ak`ıdwa ŋ ŋ ol` is not modifying the adjective in the same way as marker plus standard in true comparative constructions. The Word order 67 expression of equative comparison, however, employs the order AdjMSt, using a construction involving a single clause, as in (20). (20) a-w`os ay` ɔŋ `a ni-kon`ı 1sg-clever 1sg.nom prep loc-your Adj M St ‘I am as clever as you’ Lealao Chinantec, an Oto-Manguean language spoken in Mexico (Rupp (1989)), is also verb-initial, except that it is VOS rather than VSO: (21) ka L -ki´u ʔ M mi VH -zi¨ı L -i [za M n¨ı M ] past -strike.compl.3 clsfr-head-1sg person that V O S ‘that person struck my head’ (The superscript capital letters in (21) indicate tones, which play a major gram- matical role in Chinantec languages. The form of the verb ki´u ʔ M , including its tone, indicates that it is a transitive verb, with an inanimate object, that the aspect is completive and that the subject is third person. The low tone on the noun zi¨ı L (along with the suffix -i) indicates that its possessor is first person singular.) The following examples illustrate how Lealao Chinantec displays the same word order properties we have seen in Fijian and Turkana, and the opposite of what we saw in the three verb-final languages: (22) a. ʔ i H -u : LH -i zi´u L b. he: LH nu: M intentive -wash-1sg well among weeds V Adv Pr NP ‘I will wash it well’ ‘among the weeds’ c. si´a: VH [di´a ʔ L si¨ı M iu : M i] mother.3 pl baby N G ‘the mother of the babies’ d. g´a: M i g¨ı ʔ VH t¨ı: VH i niu M lia ʔ M si¨ı M k´e L hni´a M big.3 more foot.2sg 2sg like as of.1sg 1sg Adj M St ‘your foot is bigger than mine’ e. kia: ʔ VH [ ʔ a L ʔ e M na M f´a ʔ L i h i: LH -a L ] because not significant pay-1sg Subord Clause ‘because my wages aren’t sufficient’ |
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