Re: attributive predicates in rinya

Marcus wrote:

> > "The book that John gave to me was red." is ungrammatical
> > in Rinya. This must become:
> >
> > (3)  riw      le           mestau    imenya  Jonumbe    le  timie.
> >      book:PAT REL:PAT:SAME give:PASS 1SG:DAT John:INSTR 3SG red:PST
> >      'The book that was given to me by John was red.'
> Sounds good. But that makes me curious about the other object.
>
> "The man who John gave a book was ugly."
>
> Does passivization apply in these cases too? I ask since in some
> languages this argument cannot be promoted to subject.
Ah, I knew I'd forgotten something. Perhaps "dative shift" which
is a kind of applicative if I understand correctly. Or at least
some kind of applicative which makes the indirect object into a
PAT or direct object. The other object could still be a PAT or
turn into some oblique case like ablative.

This makes we wonder about another thing. The "Agent" of the
relative clause. I'm not sure if it should be marked as INSTR
or AGT. It *is* semantically still the Agent, but not the
subject. I suppose marking it as Agent would be confusing if
the new subject would be an Agent as well. Well, it would be
confusing in any case. IIRC, passives demotes the subject and
the other core role becomes the subject in all possible ways,
plus the verb becomes intransitive. This should point in the
"mark the old subject as INSTR" direction, but somehow this
feels wrong from an active (or semantically based case marking)
POV. But I begin to realize that Rinya doesn't have semantically
based marking. Oh well.

I suppose the "transitive becomes intransitive" thingy isn't
an issue thanks to the active alignment.

Anyway. What would the phrase above be in Rinya? I suppose you
could do something like the following:

i) teno    lönya        mestau    riw      jonumbe    le  norea
   man:PAT REL:DIFF:DAT give:PASS book:PAT John:INSTR 3SG boring:PST
   'The man who was given a book by John was boring.'

where _lönya_ says that the relativized subject of the rel.clause
has a different case than the main clause subject, but still
refers to the same thing.

lönya  <-  le + umlaut + DAT -nya

This feels a bit ad hoc. Anyone has a better idea?

> >So far everything seems to work out fine. It's when it comes to
> >the genitive that problems arise.
> >
> >Consider the sentence "The book whose writer was eloquent was red".
> >"The book's writer" is rendered in Rinya (The genitive is marked
> >by the dative):
> >
> >eriwil     riwenya
> >writer:PAT book:DAT
> >'A writer of a book' Lit. 'A writer is to the book.'
> >
> >(4)  *riw      lenya   eriwil     edrinie      le  timea
> >       book:PAT REL:DAT writer:PAT eloquent:PST 3SG red:PRES
> >      'The book whose writer is eloquent is red.'
> >
> >The problem is that the relative pronoun _lenya_ refers to the
> >book, but it is _eriwil_ 'the writer' which is marked as PAT.
> >Somehow this seems wrong. I thought maybe this then would always
> >be ungrammatical in Rinya and one had to paraphrase this somehow.
> >Examples:
> >
> >(5)  "The book who had an eloquent writer was red."
> >(6)  "The book which was red had an eloquent writer."
> >
> >The problem here is that there is no word "to have" in Rinya.
> >
> >"I have a book" = "A book is to me" = _riw imenya_ 'book 1SG:DAT'
> >
> >The dative is used for have-phrases as well. Example (5) would
> >then look like:
> >
> >(7)  riw      le           eriwilenya edrinie      le  timie.
> >      book:PAT REL:PAT:SAME writer:DAT eloquent:PST 3SG red:PST
> >      'The book who had an eloquent writer was red.'
> I'm confused. Are you saying that the simple sentence "The book had an
> eloquent writer" would be:
>
> riw      eriwilenya edrinie.
> book:PAT writer:DAT eloquent:PST
>
> It looks to me like "eloquent" is acting as the predicate of the sentence,
> since it takes the tense marking. I would have guessed it meant something
> like "The book is eloquent to the writer", or something like that.
Well, I told you it was confusing. :) I interpret it as "The writer
of the book was eloquent". The problem is that "have" constructions
are done the same way as genitive relations.

> >Compare this to (4). Either you get _lenya eriwil_ or you get
> >_le eriwilenya_. This leads to confusion. I'm not sure if
> >either of these sentences will be understood. Try looking at
> >the morpheme-by-morpheme translation gloss only and I think
> >you'll see what I mean.
> >
> >What should I do?
> Well, some languages don't allow relativization of possessors, so
> you could include Rinya in their ranks. That isn't a very helpful
> suggestion, is it? :)
:)

> Seriously, how about possessor raising of some sort? When you raise the
> possessor to be an argument of the verb, the former-possessor and
> possessed have distinct roles, so could be treated accordingly. I'm going
> to take a guess at the proper Rinya for my examples, but if I'm wrong,
> just follow the glosses.
>
> The sentence:
> erivil     riwenya  edrinie
> writer:PAT book:DAT eloquent:PST
> 'The book's writer was eloquent.'
>
> Becomes:
> riw      erivil     edrinie
> book:PAT writer:PAT eloquent:PST
> 'The book's writer was eloquent' = 'The book has an eloquent writer'
>
> The possessor has become the subject of the sentence. If there is any way
> to be sure of the subject of the sentence (other than semantics), such
> tests will point to "book" in cases like this. Some languages that do this
> (such as Chickasaw and Mohawk) insert some kind of "benefactive" marking
> that agrees with the raised possessor to show what happened.
>
> Since the possessor is now the subject of the sentence, you can treat it
> like one.
>
> riw      le           erivil     edrinie      le  timie
> book:PAT REL:PAT:SAME writer:PAT eloquent:PST 3SG red:PST
> 'The book which has an eloquent writer is red.'
I like this very much! It has a kind of inherent simplicity to
it, yet it's very elegant. I mean, it looks simple, but it's
actually more complicated "behind the curtains". :)

I haven't really been all clear what possessor raising is, but
now I think I am. "Describing Morphosyntax" is an unbelievably
useful book. And it had examples from Chickasaw! :)

I think I'll go with the "book:PAT writer:PAT eloquent:PAST"
version. If it turns out that it becomes blurry semantically
and I need need a benefactive marker, I'll introduce one later.
But I think context and semantics will make it clear anyway.

> My suggestion would be to add a morpheme that changes a verb into
> an adverbial. This could apply to simple words or to entire phrases.
> Take, for example, a suffix like -ig (borrowed from a Pima morpheme
> that appears in adverbs based on predicates).
>
> I walked to school tired-ig.
> 'I walked to school tiredly.'
>
> I walked to school sing-ig.
> 'I walked to school singing.'
>
> I walked to schoool sing-ig a song.
> 'I walked to school singing a song.'
>
> Or to appply it to your example:
>
> the dog:PAT [which:PAT:SAME browns] falls quick-ig.
It feels so easy, too easy, to just make up yet another morpheme
(YAM) :) but is probably what I have to do. Incidentally, _-ig_
is a very common adjective forming suffix in Swedish. Take any
noun, put _-ig_ to it and you have an adjective.

Do you notice how Rinya gradually turns into a North American
language? :P I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes noun-incorporating
in a near future. ;)

> Suppose that the case marking is a postpositional clitic, like in Japanese
> or Chickasaw. It therefore attaches to the last element of a noun phrase,
> not onto the head noun itself. You would get something like
>
> [The dog]:PAT falls.
>
> A relative clause is part of the noun phrase, so the case marker would
> occur following the relative clause:
>
> [The dog [that I saw]]:PAT falls.
>
> You can place the head of the relative clause inside the clause itself,
> rather than having a relative pronoun. To return to your example:
>
> [The dog:PAT browns]:PAT falls.
>
> "The dog" is the subject of "browns" and so is marked as PAT. "The dog
> browns" is the subject of "falls" so the whole phrase is marked as PAT.
>
> One serious draw back to this approach is that you would have to abandon
> or seriously modify your relativizer system, because there is no longer
> any room for "lyn", "le", etc. I don't recommend this, because I really
> like the system you invented. I just mention this as a possibility that
> could be considered.
Very neat way of doing it, but as you say, I think I'll stick to the
way I already do it. Very interesting to read about internally
headed clauses in any case.

> > > > 8.  main=PAT rel=AGT -> _lyn_
> > > > 9.  main=PAT rel=PAT -> _le_     [ unmarked ]
> > > > 10. main=AGT rel=AGT -> _lin_    [ most marked ]
> > > > 11. main=AGT rel=PAT -> _ly_
> One further comment on this system that hadn't occurred to me before. This
> is conceptually very similar to switch-reference marking, like is found in
> Chickasaw.
Yes, I've had a similar thought in the back of my mind, though
I don't really remember it all that well. I'll have to reread
what I have on Chickasaw switch-reference marking.

> Switch-reference is a property of the complementizer system (at
> least in Muskogean languages). In GB syntax, relative pronouns are in that
> system, so having switch-reference on the relativizer like you do seems a
> very natural possibility.
Oh no! Have I unconsciously supported GB syntax?!?! ;) Oh well. I'm
sure there is an even better way of explaining this functionalistically.

> Nice Work.
Thanks.

> > > I like the system. Only additional suggestion: could we see the
> > > Rinya next time? :)
> > Happy now? :)
> Grinning like a possum. :)
:)

||| daniel

--
<> Kattawiknik pimaktasal! <> daniel.andreasson@telia.com <>
<>      Katsayuknik pimak! <> www.geocities.com/conlangus <>

Reply