Re: aspects / nasal consonants / meanings

On Friday 11 March 2005 01:44 +0100, Doug Dee wrote:

> According to RMW Dixon in _Australian Languages_, in some
> languages, manner adverbs agree with the subject of the
> sentence in case (i.e., the adverb is marked as ergative
> or absolutive), and in others, the adverbs agree with the
> verb in transitivity.
And I thought that'd be a unique trait of Ayeri because I've 
always thought it'd be too nonsensical to mark adverbs for 
the case and number of the noun/pronoun their head verb 
refers to:

 | Sira  ming agiaiyâng   nuban  mantingin.
 | TRG:P can  play.3sg.A A.good lute.TRG
 |
 | She can play well the lute.

So it's just another anadewism.

Besides, in the example above it would not be clear whether 
_ban_ is an adjective or an adverb: Either it could mean 
that "she" is good/nice or that she does her job well. If 
you said:

  | Layráng sira  ming agiaiyà  nuban  matingin.
  | girl.A  TRG:P can  play.3sg A.good lute.TRG

it'd be clear that the girl can play the lute well. If you 
meant to say the "nice girl" is able play the lute, you 
would say:

  | Layráng nuban  sira  ming agiaiyà  matingin.
  | girl.A  A.good TRG:P can  play.3sg lute.TRG

Carsten

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