Re: Ergativity Reference Done

On Nov 22, 2004, at 7:24 PM, Thomas R. Wier wrote:

> Andreas wrote [concerning A and O marked one way, S another]:
>> I cannot off-hand think of any
>> examples for clairvoyant ones, but they're out there, or so I'm told.
>
> Nahuatl might count as one.  Most nouns in Nahuatl have
> a so-called "absolutive" suffix (occuring in all three Dixonian
> roles), which must be removed to add possessive or plural morphology:
>
>   n-inekwisti-s xonaka-tl
>   1-smell-fut   flower-abs
>   'I will smell the flower'
>
>   n-inekwisti-s xonaka-meh
>   'I will smell the flowers'
>
>   n-inekwisti-s mo-xonaka
>   'I will smell your flower'
>
> The absolutive suffixes (either -tli, -li, or -tl) was IIRC
> originally an article, which over time lost its deictic sense and is
> now just frozen nominal morphology.
Do you have a reference for this? I was not aware that any Uto-Aztecan
language had articles (with the exception of Tepiman), or that anyone
had proposed that the absolutive came from an article. It would had to
have been a Pre-Proto-Uto-Aztecan development, since the absolutive as
such is found in all branches of the family. (BTW, my Nahuatl
dictionary gives _xonoca-tl_ as 'onion' -- _xochi-tl_ is 'flower'; I
once had a student named Xochitl, and so the word has stuck with me.)

> Since it is no longer an article,
> one could just as well call it case -- except that there is no
> opposition
> defining it as such. Such systems are obviously dysfunctional.
One would expect a dysfunctional system to change, but Luiseño, in the
Takic branch of Uto-Aztecan, has absolutives with about the same
distribution as Nahuatl (i.e., deleted in possessive constructions,
with postpositions, and in compounds; though unlike Nahuatl, they are
retained in the plural). If absolutives were feature of PUA, then the
retention of absolutives in Luiseño (and indeed in modern Nahuatl)
would be strange if the feature is dysfunctional. The more so if it
were considered a case, since in Luiseño the absolutive can cooccur
with case inflection:

Mariya ya'a -ch -i toow -q
Maria man -ABS -ACC see -PRES
'Maria sees the man.'

'Alaawaka muu -ta -y neqpi -q
buzzard owl -ABS -ACC fight -PRES
'The buzzard is fighting (with) the owl.'

Dirk
--
Dirk Elzinga
Dirk_Elzinga@byu.edu

"I believe that phonology is superior to music. It is more variable and
its pecuniary possibilities are far greater." - Erik Satie