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Minhast/Noun Incorporation: Difference between revisions
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The pattern of truncation is unpredictable; syllable loss may occur in initial, medial, or final positions, although noun roots with more than two syllables tend to lose either their medial or final syllables and retain the initial syllable, but exceptions abound, such as ''allāga'' > ''-lgagg-'' (conch) . | The pattern of truncation is unpredictable; syllable loss may occur in initial, medial, or final positions, although noun roots with more than two syllables tend to lose either their medial or final syllables and retain the initial syllable, but exceptions abound, such as ''allāga'' > ''-lgagg-'' (conch) . | ||
== Noun Incorporation of Oblique Arguments== | |||
n many languages which exhibit noun incorporation, the type of noun that can be incorporated into the verb is often restricted. Some languages incorporate body parts only, others are restricted to inalienable nouns or some other semantic category. Other languages that exhibit extensive noun incorporation, of which Mohawk and its relatives in the Iroquoian language family are the most studied, while having much fewer semantic restrictions, still limit the syntactic or thematic role of the noun that can be incorporated: these are that of the Patient argument, and in some cases the Instrument argument. Other arguments serving in a different thematic/theta role are barred from incorporation. Other noun incorporating languages, such as Chukchi, appear to have no restrictions on the theta role of the incorporated noun (IN); but when these oblique nouns are incorporated, the only way to recover their thematic role is by context alone. | |||
Minhast is one of those languages that can incorporate oblique arguments. However, the oblique arguments that can be incorporated are constrained by the semantic characteristics of the verb. Some transitive verbs which require a third argument, which is always an oblique noun, can optionally incorporate the oblique noun. The verb wasaskiyu is such an example: | |||
wasaskiyu - “to put something on an object” (E.g. “Please put it on the chair”) | |||
Verb takes 3 arguments, v(Agt, Pt, Obl.LOC) | |||
Agent is typically ERG | |||
Pt is typically Abs | |||
Obl.LOC can be incorporated. | |||
Surma dūy wasaskizekyašennaru. | |||
Surma dūy wasaski-zekyaš-enn-ar-u | |||
PN salmon put-table-3S.ANIM.ACC+3MS.ERG-PST-TRN | |||
“He put the salmon on the table.” | |||
If this were Ainu, the incorporated Locative noun would license an Applicative affix; in Mohawk (and presumably its closely related Northern Iroquoian relatives), I haven’t seen incorporation of an oblique, only Patients. An exception is found in Tuscarora (Mithun p. 201 “Word Orders”, example 12a, contrasting non-incorporated 12b) in which we see a Locative arg incorporated in the stative verb | |||
Chukchi incorporates obliques, but often the theta role must be inferred by context. See A Lexical Account of Noun Incorporation in Chukchi (Silke Lambert, p.56). Minhast, as demonstrated in this article, incorporates obliques like Chukchi, but is much more restricted based on the semantic characteristics of the verb, i.e. verbs that incorporate obliques are restricted to a limited set of theta roles, and often the number of roles is restricted to one. | |||
The semantic properties of a verb, namely the type of semantic/thematic role of an NP it can accept as an argument, influence what nouns may be incorporated. This semantic property limits the scope of which oblique nouns can incorporate, a limitation not exhibited in Chukchi. Motion verbs typically incorporate Goal or Origin nouns; Positional verbs typically incorporate Locative nouns. Otherwise, transitive verbs may incorporate either Patient or Instrument nouns; this sort of incorporation may seem to create ambiguities, but such is not the case, as both the polypersonal agreement pronominal affixes, and the presence or absence of an Instrumental Applicative make clear whether the Absolutive is a Patient or is an Instrument that has been promoted to the Absolutive argument. A few examples: | |||
Example of a Goal argument: | |||
Iknatumankaran. | |||
Ikna-tūman-ek-ar-an | |||
go-house-1S.NOM-PST-INTR | |||
“I went to/towards the house.” | |||
Example of an Origin argument: | |||
Hahurtaħran. | |||
ha-hūr-tah-ar-an | |||
come-mountain-2S.NOM-PST-INTR | |||
“You came from the mountain.” | |||
Example of a Locative argument: | |||
Sap puħtabanakkaran. | |||
Sap puħta-banak-ek-ar-an | |||
This stand-rock-1S.NOM-PST-INTR | |||
“I stood on this rock.” | |||
Example of a Patient ABS with incorporated Instrumental argument: | |||
Redadesap ušnišuhapnekarun. | |||
Redad=sap ušn-šuhapna-ek-ar-un | |||
Man this strike-sword-3MS.ACC+1S.NOM-PST-TRNS | |||
“I struck the man with this sword.” | |||
Example of an Instrument ABS with incorporated Patient argument: | |||
Sapim šuhapna matušnerdattirkarun. | |||
Sap min šuhapna mat-ušn-redad-tirk-ar-un | |||
This CONN sword INST.APPL-strike-3NS.ACC+1S.NOM-PST-TRNS | |||
“With this sword I struck the man.” | |||
Noun incorporation is often associated with clauses that are structurally transitive, regardless of whether or not an oblique argument has been promoted to a core argument. However, in Minhast some stative verbs can noun incorporate. In other words, under certain circumstances, a clause that is structurally intransitive may also undergo noun incorporation. Such intransitive clauses tend to be nouns whose single core argument’s theta-role is that of Experiencer, e.g. | |||
6) Kuldantuhamaran. | |||
kuldan-tuham-ar-an | |||
sick-fever-3S.NOM.PST-INTR | |||
“He is sick with fever/He is sick and feverish.” | |||
7) šuhapna wastanxundēban. | |||
šuhapna wastan-xunde-ab-an | |||
Sword bleed-wound-3S.NOM.IMPF-INTR | |||
“He is bleeding from his sword-wounds/He is bleeding and wounded by sword/Because of that sword he was bleeding and wounded.” | |||
8) Saxtisuspaħtayattaran. | |||
saxt-suspaħ-tayatta-ar-an | |||
INCH-be.blind-poison-3S.NOM.PST-INTR | |||
“He became blind because of the poison.” | |||
As an additional observation, those stative verbs that can incorporate tend to indicate sickness, injury, or congenital or other physical defects (as in Ex. #8 above). When the Inchoative prefix -saxt- occurs with the incorporated noun, native speakers tend to indicate the IN is the direct cause of the Experiencer’s state (Ex. #8). Otherwise the IN provides further details of or delimits the Experiencer’s current state (Examples #6 & #7), hence the alternative translations using the conjunction “and”. But this is not always so, as illustrated in the case of Ex. #7 which lacks the Inchoative. Here the sentence without -saxt- would seem to suggest that something else may have caused the bleeding, but there were other wounds that resulted from a sword. However, context and general knowledge that swords tend to cause bleeding would make that interpretation dubious. The use of the Inchoative -saxt- would definitely dispel that ambiguity, but is not necessary if context is sufficient to disambiguate between the two possible interpretations. | |||
Also note in Ex. #7 the stranded NP “šuhapna” (sword): this stranded NP is the modifier of the incorporated noun “xunde”; the equivalent non-noun incorporated sentence would be “šuhapna min xundeyār wastanaban” (lit: From sword-wounds, he was bleeding), where the Ablative clitic =yār indicates the cause of the subject’s bleeding. The polypersonal agreement affix in Ex. #7 indicates there is only one core argument only, which would be the logical subject. This clearly demonstrates that “šuhapna” is a stranded NP. | |||
= Noun Incorporation in Intransitive Verbs = | = Noun Incorporation in Intransitive Verbs = | ||