Re: Strange construction pops out of nowhere

Pablo Flores wrote:
>SYV has several enclitic copulas: one is the plain
>"essive" copula |de|, and then there's the "transformative"
>copula |mo| (I need a better name for it too) and the
>"causative" one |komo|.
>
>Yue leade. "Night is black."
>Yue wo leamo. "This night is becoming black."
I call this "inchoative" in Kash; "inceptive" is also orthodox.

>Ekheba leakomo yiyuech. "Clouds are turning the night black."
>
>The causative copula |komo| is intended to mean
>"cause to become X". I thought it would work with
>the same structure as |de| and |mo|, which just
>attach after the predicate, but of course |komo|
>needs another argument. I figured all three arguments
>should be case-unmarked, since core cases (and
>predicates) always are. I played with word orders
>and everything seemed too ambiguous, or unwieldy
>for more complicated noun phrases.* So I just
>stuck the genitive mark |yi-| on the patient.
>Now, is this natural? How would you classify
>such a construction? How do you handle such
>predicates in your conlangs?
Why the genitive? (Why not, eh?) Is there an accusative case?  That would be
the most usual choice I think.  (What's -ch? definite?)-- Is _komo_
literally "cause-become" or just a more general causative marker? Of course
most adjectives take on a "becoming" sense when they are made causative--
The room is dark. (stative)
The room darkened/became dark.  (inchoative)
The teacher darkened the room (caus., really caus-incho.)

(I.e., can -ko occur alone? Or could you have -kode 'cause to be...'? Though
there isn't a lot of difference between 'cause to be...' and 'cause to
become...')

If word order is fairly fixed SVO, there seems no compelling need to
case-mark the object; position suffices.

Kash has these same derivations--
ondreni yapambara 'the night is black'
ondre-ni  ya-pambara
night(nom)-"def"  3s-(is)black

ondreni yayumbara 'the night is becoming black' (yu- inchoative prfx; irreg.
base  bara < pambara)

kahamaç irumbara ondreni 'clouds darken(ed) the night'
kaham-ç i-ruñ-bara ondre(acc)-def.
cloud-pl. 3pl-CAUS-black night-def. (inanim. nom/acc are identical/zero as
it happens)

With an animate noun:  roçeni yapambara 'the sea is black'...kahamaç
irumbara roceñi (roçe-n(acc)-ni) 'clouds blackened the sea'.

Where you will run into problems is with causatives of normally transitive
verbs, if SYV can do that......

Kash handles this is a somewhat counter-intuitive way:   hari yanunji saliye
'Harry(nom.) met Sally(dat.)'
vs.
amami yarundunji hariye(dat.) salin(acc.) 'my father introduced Harry to
Sally.'
lit., my father caused [Harry met Sally]  where Harry becomes the object of
"cause" and Sally remains the object of nunji but switches to acc. because
two dative DO's in a row are not permitted.

You could say:  amami yarundunji hariye (i) saliye 'my father introduced
Harry and Sally'-- the correct reading is that he introduced them to an
unspecified third person or group; but in colloquial, and frowned-upon,
usage it can also mean he introduced them to each other.

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