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Re: going without "without"

From:JOEL MATTHEW PEARSON <mpearson@...>
Date:Tuesday, August 17, 1999, 19:46
On Tue, 17 Aug 1999, Irina Rempt-Drijfhout wrote:

> > (Note that the instrumental is also used to indicate concepts like > > "through", and "via". In general, it is used to indicate objects > > and locations which act as intermediaries between the actor and > > the goal/patient in an action. E.g., the knife acts as an > > intermediary between John and the bread by actually performing > > the act of cutting, as a result of John's manipulating it.) > > The comitative case (marked by the suffix "-a" or "-ia" on the > > noun) is used to indicate a participant who is accompanying > > another participant in an action, or an instrument which is > > aiding in the performance of an action. For example: > > > > Ma puniei pule inak Tsiona > > I.Erg travelled-the.Dat village-Dat the.Com John-Com > > "I travelled to the village with John" > > > > Na luiha eta ypena > > the.Erg old.woman walk stick-Com > > "The old woman walks with a stick" > > It's clear enough up to the example with John, but why does the old > woman walking with a stick use the comitative and not the > instrumental? Isn't the stick acting as an intermediary between the > woman and her walking? I admit that it's not the stick that does the > actual walking, but she's using it as a tool, not only for company.
You put your finger on the key point when you mention that the stick isn't walking: That's what the distinction is based on. The rule is as follows: If the instrument actually performs the action denoted by the verb, then you use the instrumental. If the instrument merely facilitates the performance of the action, then you use the comitative. For instance, "John cut the meat with the fork" entails "The fork cut the meat", so "fork" would appear in the instrumental. On the other hand, "John ate the meat with the fork" does NOT entail "The fork ate the meat", so "fork" would appear in the comitative. You can think of the difference as being one of 'degree of agency'. In "John cut the meat with the fork", John and the fork are in some sense 'co-agents' in the act of cutting. John is the one who's in control of the event, but the fork can nevertheless be viewed as the actual 'doer' of the action. In "John ate the meat with the fork", however, the fork is playing a more peripheral role. John is the only participant that actually 'does' any eating; the fork merely helps out (a supporting player, if you like). Of course, there are borderline cases: Does "John opened the door with the key" entail "The key opened the door"? Depends on what sense of "open" you have in mind. I think in this case you could use either the instrumental or the comitative, but with slightly different senses. Suppose that John unlocks the door with the key, puts it in his pocket, and then pushes the door open. In that case I would use the comitative, since the key is merely facilitating the opening of the door. However, suppose that John turns the key in the lock and the door immediately swings open. In that case I might use the instrumental instead, since here there is a more direct cause-and-effect relationship between the action of the key and the opening of the door. If the instrumental case had been used instead of the comitative in the sentence you quote, it would probably be interpreted as meaning "The old woman walks along the stick" (e.g. the stick is lying on the ground and the woman is walking along its length) or "The old woman walks across on the stick" (e.g. the stick is a makeshift bridge across a chasm and the woman is using it to cross over). As it stands, the sentence could of course mean that the old woman and the stick are walking side by side, but that alternative interpretation is semantically bizarre, and would probably not occur to the average Tokana-speaker except in the context of a joke. (Tokana is chock full of lexical and structural ambiguity, but just as in natlangs, much of the ambiguity is defused by context...) Matt.