Re: THEORY: Number and animacy
| From: | Paul Bennett <paul-bennett@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Thursday, November 9, 2006, 0:14 |
|---|
On Tue, 07 Nov 2006 15:49:32 -0500, Henrik Theiling <theiling@...>
wrote:
> Hi!
>
> Paul Bennett writes:
>> *If* I recall correctly (and that is not a guarantee), Elamite does
>> exactly that thing,
>>
>> If there's any interest, I'll dig up my notes when I get home.
>
> Please dig! :-)
Digging dug.
From a book with a remarkably long name, published mostly in German in
1969, which AFAIK remains the most complete collection of work on Elamite
(or at least, it was circa ten years ago).
]
Chapter 2 THE ELAMITE LANGUAGE by ERICA REINER
Section 4.2 _Gender suffixes_
The second set of suffixes [as opposed to the verbal inflection]
identifies the word which it accompanies as the speaker, or the person
addressed, or the person or thing about whom or which something is said.
The last mentioned, the so-called "third person", is differentiated
according to whether it is animate singular, animate plural, or
non-animate [sic]. This form-class is difficult to label, since it
comprises the category of gender (animate versus non-animate), number
(animate singular versus animate plural), and person (speaker versus
person addressed versus "third person" [quotes sic]), where the two first
mentioned categories are in binary opposition, but the last in the
relation of a triangle. Mainly to avoid confusion with the category of
person that belongs to the class of verbs, this second form-class will
here be called gender; this name can also be justified by reference to the
languages which have several genders that control concord, such as many
African languages. Elamite genders also control concord, see below § 8.2.2.
The following gender suffixes occur:
locutive¹) (speaker of "first person") /k/
allocutive (person addressed or "second person") /t/
delocutive (person or thing being spoken about) animate sg. /r/
animate pl. /p/
non-animate /∅ : me/ [i.e.
/∅/ ~ /me/]
The two allomorphs of the non-animate gender suffix, /∅/ and /me/, occur
in the following distribution: /me/ occurs (1) in possessive constructions
(see below § 8.3) and (2) if the lexical meaning of the word refers to an
animate being; e.g. _sunki_ "king", but _sunki-me_ "kingship"; for further
references see below § 5.2.6.2 [Scribal Note: I suspect the "and" in this
sentence is a logical .OR. operator, not a logical .AND., but the author
is in my eyes easily forgiven for being no logician]. In other positions
the allomorph /∅/ occurs.
The gender suffixes classify the morphemes with which they occur as
nominals. Nominals followed by a gender suffix will be called nominally
inflected [as opposed to nominals followed by a personal suffix, which are
verbally inflected].
---------
¹The terminology cited is that of DAMOURETTE and PICHON (_Des Mots à la
Pensée_, esp. vol. III §§ 813f.), cited J. FOURQUET, _Les Etudes
Philosophiques_ No. 4 (1958) p. 431
[
If there's an ANADEWism record book, IMO Elamite nouns need at least a
passing mention. All this, and Suffixaufnahme too.
Now my neck and fingers all hate me. It has been an age since I
transcribed anything more significant than a part number. Additional
information, however, is available on request.
Paul
--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.409 / Virus Database: 268.14.0/524 - Release Date: 11/8/2006
Replies