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Minhast/Noun Incorporation: Difference between revisions
→Type IV Noun Incorporation
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== Type IV Noun Incorporation == | == Type IV Noun Incorporation == | ||
Some languages have expanded the range of functions that NI can perform beyond valence operations and discourse pragmatics. These languages take NI to an advanced level, whereby a generalized noun is incorporated to classify or categorize the Patient, which has more specific meaning. Again, Mohawk is an exemplary language that exploits this form of NI pervasively, called Classificatory NI (Mithun's Type IV category). The following passage from Mithun (1984) illustrates this NI function type: | |||
14a) Tohka niyohserd:ke tsi nahe' sha'te:ku niku':ti rabahbot wahu-tsy-ahni:nu ki rake'niha. → several so.it.year.numbers so it.goes eight of.them bullhead he-fish-bought this my.father. | |||
“Several years ago, my father bought eight bullheads.” | |||
In this example, the incorporated noun (i)tsy (“fish”) is co-referrent with the Patient rabahbot (“bullhead fish”); (i)tsy serves as a general modifier to classify the more specific rabahbot. As the narration continues, rabahbot is subsequently referred to by the incorporated noun (i)tsy: | |||
14b) Saháhkete' ki:kv rakenuhá:'a s-a-h-vtsy-ahsheruny-à:na-'. Yusa :rawe ki': óksa'k wa-h-vtsy- ahserul:ni tanu wa-h-vtsy-akeri:tahw-e. Tsi n-a-ho-tsy-ari-hs-e ki' ki:kv wahv:ru, “Tho yukyatv:ro rinu-tsy-anut-v-:ra.” | |||
back.he.turned this my.uncle back-PAST-he-fish-fix-go.to-PUNC back-he-arrived just quick PAST-he-fish-fix(PUNC) and PAST-he-fish-fry-PUNC as as-PAST-him-fish-fry-finish-PUNC just this he.said there we.two.friends.are I/him-fish-feed-for-go.to | |||
“My uncle then returned to fix them (the fish). At home, he cleaned and fried them (the fish), and when they (the fish) were ready, he decided to take them (the fish) over to his friend as a special treat.” | |||
The Mohawk examples show how the generic IN, (i)tsy, is used like an agreement marker throughout the entire discourse. Although it is generic, it is used to refer back repeatedly to the more specific rabahbot (bullheads), which is mentioned only once, at the beginning of the narrative. | |||
Minhast, like Mohawk, uses Classificatory NI, but once again, the factors motivating Minhast NI to | |||
implement Classificatory NI are different. As mentioned earlier, certain noun classes are resistant to NI or forbidden. Nouns that are resistant to NI or forbid it are typically located in the high end of the animacy scale. Nouns that fall under this portion of the animacy hierarchy are kinship nouns and proper nouns. | |||
As in Mohawk, for Classificatory NI Minhast incorporates a generic noun. This incorporated argument is then used as an agreement marker to the NI-resistant noun, which is always in the Absolutive. A requirement for Classificatory NI in Minhast is that the noun which the IN is corefererent with cannot be a semantic Agent, and for this reason, once again Antipassivation is blocked by NI. | |||
The NI-resistant noun and the generic IN that serves as its agreement marker are highlighted in bold underlined font: | |||
15a) Supnar min anxekte Keyyis min niħkašektaran duntittarraru duntittarumā, anxēa indintanuskikirimredadnnarumā. | |||
Supnar min anxē=ek=de Keyyis min niħkaš-ek=de=aran dut-nittam-ar-u=mā, anxēa nd-inta- nusk-kirim-redad-nn-ar-u=mā... (PROP.NOUN CONN brother=3MS.ABS+1S.ERG=ERG PROP.NOUN CONN friend-3S.ABS+1S.ERG=ERG=DAT DAT.APPL-shout-PST- TRANS=SUBORD, brother.ABS INCEP-INTENS-ADVER.APPL-speak-man- 1P.EXCL.ERG-PST-TRANS=SUBORD) | |||
“My brother Supnar shouted at my friend Keyyis and we started to argue against my brother...” | |||
The narrative continues. The narrator decides to cast himself as the Absolutive argument to feed the S/ O pivots in the succeeding clauses. When he needs to mention his brother as the Patient, he chooses not to use the Antipassive in order to cast his brother as a Dative oblique; to do so would imply the brother is incidental information, which is not the case in this passage. Instead, he applies NI on redad, which coindexes his brother as the logical Patient. Redad then serves as a proxy for his brother for NI operations: | |||
15b) ...kūdāš segwekarammā, (kūde) yummatekarumā, rabbaddadekarammā, karyaħtendepār kaħmadekarampamā šarrataran ušniddadekarammā, nittarredadekarannamā: “Bakran wattaħte ušnktahuš? Hatā anxēšattarakš? Ta'astakkemarunaft wastānešattarakte hittastānehakkemaruš?” | |||
...kū=dāš segw-ek-ar-an=mā, (kua=de) yummat-ek-ar-u=mā, rabba-redad-ek-ar-an=mā, karyaħt-enn=de=pār kaħmad-ek-ar-an-pi=mā šarrat=aran ušn-redad-ek-ar-an=mā, nittam- redad-ek-ar-an=namā: “Bakran wa=tah=de ušn-ktah-u=š? Hatā anxēa-šattar-hak=š? Ta=ast-hakkem-ar-u=naft wastāne-šattar-hak=de hitt-wastāne-hakkem-ar-u=š?” | |||
3S.OBL=MAL make.fist-1S.ABS-PST-INTRANS=SUBORD, (3S=ERG) swing.fist- 1S.ABS+3S.ERG-PST-TRANS=SUBORD, grab-man-1S.ABS-PST-INTRANS=SUBORD, arm-3S.NEUT.ANIM.ABS+3S.ERG=ERG=INSTR twist-1S.ABS-PST-INTRANS- ANTI=SUBORD earth=DAT hit-man-1S.ABS-PST-INTRANS =SUBORD, shout.at-man- 1S.ABS-PST-INTRANS=DIR.QUOT: why CONN=2S=ERG hit-1S.ABS+2S.ERG- TRANS=IRREAL? NEG brother-RECIP-1P.INCL.ABS=IRREAL? NEG= beget- 1P.INCL.ABS+3P.COMMON.ERG-PST-TRANS=NMLZ blood-RECIP - 3S.NEUT.ANIM.ABS+1P.INCL.ERG=ERG give-blood-1P.INCL.ABS+3P.COMMON.ERG- | |||
PST-TRANS=IRREAL | |||
“...[and] we started to fight, my brother and I. He swung at me (but missed), and I grabbed my brother, then I twisted his arm and struck him to the ground. I yelled at my brother, 'Why do you strike at me? Am I not your brother? Are we not of the same blood? (lit. Our mutually- shared blood, did not those that begat us give us blood?)'” | |||
While these passages demonstrate that Minhast does employ Classificatory NI, it does not do so as extensively as in Mohawk. In Minhast, Classificatory NI is employed to get around the obstacles presented by NI-resistant nouns, which by their nature, rank high in the animacy hierarchy. Thus, Classificatory NI is rarely, if ever, encountered in passages with low-animacy entities. | |||
Most important, though, is whether Classificatory NI is required to maintain the S/O pivot. If not, Classificatory NI is not employed. Thus, one is not likely to see a sentence like in 16a. In fact, a native speaker would find it quite odd, and most likely ungrammatical: | |||
16a) Dūy zaydakkī sarekaru, (dūy) rimar-sankūy-ekarumā, (dūy) niyyet-sankuy-ekaru. | |||
“I saw the salmon in the river, I fish-speared it, then I fish-pulled it out of the water.” | |||
The sentence does not require Classificatory NI because dūy (“salmon”) is incorporatable and no advantage is gained by using the generic noun sankūy (“fish”) to co-index dūy. While both nouns are animate, they are also neuter in gender, which when compared to nouns that have masculine and feminine nouns, both of these nouns lie lower in the animacy spectrum; Classificatory NI is typically employed with highly animate nouns, which include proper nouns and kinship terms. However, dūy is low in the animacy scale, so the incorporation of the more generic term sankūy for Classificatory NI is unnecessary. | |||
Compare this with the previous Mohawk example of Classificatory NI: | |||
16a) Tohka niyohserd:ke tsi nahe' sha'te:ku niku':ti rabahbot wahu-tsy-ahni:nu ki rake'niha. several so.it.year.numbers so it.goes eight of.them bullhead he-fish-bought this my.father. | |||
Here rabahbot (the bullhead fish) and generic, incorporated noun tsy (fish) lie in the same level on the animacy hierarchy, but Mohawk utilizes Classificatory NI so that tsy can function as an agreement marker for rabahbot later discourse. | |||
In the case of Minhast, the application of Classificatory NI background dūy conveys no observable benefits, as both dūy and sankūy are at the same animacy level. Minhast uses Classificatory NI when the target noun is unincorporatable, as in the case of proper nouns and kinship nouns. However, neither dūy nor sankūy are considered ineligible for incorporation. | |||
If dūy is the topic of interest, it must be cast as the Pivot, which requires that it assume the role as an Absolutive argument: | |||
16b) Dūy zaydakkī sarekaru, [PRO] rimarekarumā, [PRO] niyyetekaru. | |||
“I saw the salmon in the river, speared it, and pulled it out of the water.” | |||
Or if the pronoun yak/-ek- were the topic of interest, it would be the S/O pivot, and then dūy can become the incorporated Patient: | |||
16c) Dūy=aran zaydakkī sarekarampi, rimar-dūy-ekammā, [PRO] niyyet-dūy-ekan. | |||
“I saw some salmon in the river, I salmon-speared, then salmon-pulled-out-of-the-water. | |||
...or dūy can be nominalized, in which it would again serve as the S/O pivot: 16d) Dūy zaydakkī sarekarunaft rimarekarumā [PRO] niyyetekaru. | |||
“The salmon that I saw, I speared and pulled it out of the water.” | |||
However, the incorporation of dūy would make it ineligible to function as the Pivot. The following | |||
** Sartuyekarammā rimarekaru >> ** sar-duy-ek-ar-an-mā rimar-ek-ar-u | |||
** “I fish-saw then speared it.” | |||
Here the intent of the speaker was to mark duy as a PT in the first clause via NI, then link the first | |||
clause to the second clause via the -mā suffix. The verb in the first clause is intransitive after the | |||
incorporation process, which is why it received intransitive marking with the -an- affix. The second | |||
clause is marked as a transitive verb by the suffix -u. The speaker used the transitive -u suffix thinking | |||
that its PT argument was the incorporated -duy-, however this is ungrammatical. The transitive marker | |||
requires an Absolutive argument, but the incorporation of -duy- removed it from the Absolutive | |||
position, thus there no longer is an Absolutive argument available to rimarekaru to function as the | |||
Pivot. In Minhast, an IN can never serve as a Pivot in clause chains, only an explicit NP in the | |||
Absolutive case frame, or null-marked implicit NP, whose agreement marker is the ABS agreement | |||
marker inside the verb complex. To make this sentence grammatical while retaining the IN, at the | |||
minimum an Applicative affix marking an explicit or implicit NP that has been promoted to core status | |||
26 | |||
The fact that animacy conditions have to be met before Classificatory NI is applied explains a major reason why it is not as extensively used in Minhast as it is in Mohawk. The requirements of the S/O pivot, which is exploited pervasively in Minhast, also has a role in governing whether Classificatory NI is employed. Classificatory NI appears to be a last-resort measure that is used if no other valence operation can feed the S/O pivot with the proper argument; otherwise, it is not employed. That Minhast has other syntactic mechanisms, such as the valence operations of Antipassivation and Applicative Formation, as well as nominalizations and the wa-clause connective and allied structures all contribute to the low frequency of Classificatory NI in Minhast. | |||
The situation for Mohawk is the inverse of the Minhast system: lacking the ancillary syntactic mechanisms for altering argument structure found in Minhast, Mohawk needs Classificatory NI because the language does not employ nominalizations. Mohawk clauses, even when chained together into long clause chains, are still ultimately regarded as truly independent, stand-alone sentences; stripping one of the component clauses from its matrix clause does not change its grammaticality. In | |||
26 The 3S.ABS+1S.ERG agreement marker is -ek-, which is homophonous with 1S.ABS -ek-. The Transitive verb suffix - u disambiguates which -ek- form is being used. | |||
is required. | |||
contrast, nominalizations cannot stand alone, they must be contained within a matrix clause; stripping them from their matrix clause does make them ungrammatical. Minhast has its S/O pivot system available to it, which it exploits aggressively, especially in the case of nominalizations; Mohawk has no such syntactic construct. That Mohawk has the Classificatory NI available to it to handle the narratives in 14a and 14b does not make it superior to Minhast. That Minhast can use nominalizations and its S/O pivot system to handle the same narrative and minimize using Classificatory NI does not make it superior to Mohawk. They are simply different syntactic structures available to their respective languages, and each language maximizes the tools available to solve syntactic problems such as the ones just described. | |||
* This is an example of Mithun's Classificatory NI (Class IV) being exploited by Minhast. Here, it is essentially creating the equivalent of a locative noun in other languages, e.g. English "Within the ''interior of'' the beast..." Here, ''nua'' means "side" has been incorporated into the verb complex. The implicit head is ''suharak'' (deerskin), which was mentioned in a previous line in the passage, referred to by the Locative applicative ''naħk-''. This construction is equivalent to saying "Next to it", "By its side", etc. | * This is an example of Mithun's Classificatory NI (Class IV) being exploited by Minhast. Here, it is essentially creating the equivalent of a locative noun in other languages, e.g. English "Within the ''interior of'' the beast..." Here, ''nua'' means "side" has been incorporated into the verb complex. The implicit head is ''suharak'' (deerskin), which was mentioned in a previous line in the passage, referred to by the Locative applicative ''naħk-''. This construction is equivalent to saying "Next to it", "By its side", etc. | ||