Re: Nouns with arguments, verbs without arguments

Herman Miller wrote:

>
> The first hint I had was when I found out how the word {tlazi} "flat piece
> of something" works.
>
> tlazi riacha         tlazi sirrek
> sheet paper          pane  glass
> "a sheet of paper"   "a pane of glass"
Looking at this, and taking Mathias' reply into account, it looks like tlazi
might be considered a "classifier", as used in Indo., Chinese etc...but we
have them too in Engl., just not as obligatorily.  "200 head of cattle" etc.
If used alone, "200 head" could only be used if "cattle" were already
presupposed in the discussion.

Most of the Indo. classifiers have independent meaning of their own, but
figurative at best in the counting system--
ekor 'tail' but dua ekor ayam / anjing '2 chickens / dogs'
batang 'stick', but dua batang rokok '2 cigarettes'
In context you could omit ayam etc-- "How many chickens do you want?  Reply:
dua ekor."  Otherwise you'd be talking about actual 'tails'-- "That's a
strange dog; it has dua ekor (it has two tails)"

Perhaps _tlazi_ then, had independent meanng in the past, but came to be
restricted to counting/specifiying things of a certain shape???

>
> Note that the English word "of" is untranslated. In itself, this isn't
> necessarily unexpected; Dutch for instance has "vele soorten gerbils",
> where English speakers would say "many kinds _of_ gerbils". But in
Lindiga,
> with ordinary nouns, "of" would be translated by putting the following
noun
> in the genitive case.
>
> vesetl michi nako  -t
> side   east  forest-GEN
> "the eastern side of the forest"
Presumably because the "side" of X is a more inherent part of X?  Whereas
"...kinds of X" is simply descriptive?

Kash would probably say:  vorani añange 'side-of-it forest', but likely vora
angeyi 'the side of the tree'(gen.) (the side of a tree being somehow more
inherent to it than the "side" of a forest??  Actually in prep.phrases we
could distinguish "ri vorani ange" 'beside the tree(nom.)" and "ri vora
angeyi "on the side of the tree(gen.)"), and  naya-naya "gerbil" 'different
kinds gerbils' (no -ni, no genitive).

Kash speakers argue a lot about whether it's proper to use a genitive (ace
lacayi 'leg of the table(gen)') vs. aceni laca  the same, lit. leg-of-it
table, esp. when inanimate nouns are involved.....

>
> iønz-u          iønz-a            *iønz-a   lyriva-k
> rain-PF         rain-IPF           rain-IPF violet-PL
> "It rained."    "It's raining."    "It's raining violets."
>
> Instead of "iønza lyrivak", you have to say "iønza rse lyrivaka" ("it's
> raining _as_ violets"). The verb "iønz-" can only take oblique arguments.
>
> So I'm wondering if there are any other langs that work like this.
This is the flexibility of English.  I suspect lots of languages would
behave more like Lindiga.  Indonesian would, I'm fairly sure (actually,
since heavy rains are such a commonplace there, I'm not sure they have
expressions like "raining cats and dogs".  Likewise Kash-- ripa 'rain', yale
ripa 'it's raining' lit. there is rain.

Maybe:  Indo. (ada) hujan seperti bunga-bunga 'it's raining like flowers'
lit. (there is) rain like flower(s)
Kash?? yale ripa orandi aveç the same.  or
yarundipa aveç "it's raining down flowers"with a causative /run-ripa/.

Maybe someone else remembers:
  "It's raining memories/ and it's also raining rain / just look at my hat"
(New Faces of 1952)

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