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Antarctican: Difference between revisions
Implicit Topicalisation
(Implicit Topicalisation) |
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biraza /biʁaza/ - brother, absolutive | |||
bibiraza /bibiʁaza/ - brothers (of each other), absolutive | |||
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|} | |} | ||
The general is being hunted by his / her soldiers (not his own). | The general is being hunted by his / her soldiers (not his own). | ||
====Implicit Topicalisation==== | |||
Whenever a noun is the object of a transitive verb or the subject of an intransitive verb, it is, by default, taken up as the topic for any verbs following it e.g. | |||
{| class="wikitable" | |||
|- | |||
| byaenka || damaehlu || sowdla || wáetuow || kaen-guchi || wabiraza | |||
|- | |||
| bʲɛɴka || damɛɬu || sɨudɮ || wɛʔtou || kɛɴguci || wabiʁaza | |||
|- | |||
| banker.ABS || swindle.VFCS || soldier.ABS || occur during.NFCS || be a prisoner.VFCS || TPCPOSS-brother | |||
|} | |||
The banker swindled the soldier while his brother was in prison (the soldier's brother). | |||
While the phrase "his brother" in English translation is ambiguous (since both the banker and the soldier can be male), in Antarctican is not. It can only mean "the soldier's brother" because, by being the object of a transitive verb, the soldier has been implicitly taken up as the topic for the next utterance, which uses the topic possessive prefix wa-. However, if we replace wa- with si- the non-topicalised possessive prefix, then the meaning changes: | |||
{| class="wikitable" | |||
|- | |||
| byaenka || damaehlu || sowdla || wáetuow || kaen-guchi || sibiraza | |||
|- | |||
| bʲɛɴka || damɛɬu || sɨudɮ || wɛʔtou || kɛɴguci || sibiʁaza | |||
|- | |||
| banker.ABS || swindle.VFCS || soldier.ABS || occur during.NFCS || be a prisoner.VFCS || 3POSS-brother | |||
|} | |||
The banker swindled the soldier while his brother was in prison. | |||
In this case, it is not the soldier's brother that is in prison (most likely the banker's brother). | |||