Re: Melville and cases
| From: | John Cowan <jcowan@...> |
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| Date: | Monday, January 10, 2000, 17:40 |
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Patrick Dunn wrote:
> I was just reading Moby Dick (and enjoying it immensely) when I noticed
> something about Queequeg's dialect of English: He marks the accusative
> case almost invariably with "him".
>
> E.g. in chapter 66, Queequeg says, "Queequeg no care what god made him
> shark." I could see how this could become a case marker: shark (nom.)
> imshark (acc.)
IIRC, South Seas pidgins use -im to mark transitivity of verbs, so
the reading is "god make-im shark" (the use of "made" is surely
contamination from Standard English, possibly Queequeg's but
more likely Melville's).
--
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