Re: Anadewism questions 2: Linking particles

Carsten Becker wrote at 2005-05-06 15:36:30 (+0200)
 >
 > Some mails later, Tim May gives some examples from other
 > authors:
 >
 >  > | Another key property of the Topic is that it is the
 >  > | only position that can be relativized on. This is
 >  > | illustrated in (10) where active voice and objective
 >  > | voice are used when relativizing the actor and patient
 >  > | respectively. (11) shows that it is not possible to
 >  > | form relative clauses unless the gap representing the
 >  > | relativized NP is in the Topic slot.
 >  > |
 >  > | (10) a. Iyon ang=babae=ng  b-um-ili    ng=baro
 >  > |         that nom=woman=lnk perf.av-buy gen=dress
 >  > |
 >  > |    `That's the woman who bought a dress.'
 >  > |
 >  > |      b. Iyon ang=baro=ng   b-in-ili    ng=babae
 >  > |         that nom=dress=lnk perf-buy.ov gen=woman
 >  > |
 >  > |    `That's the dress that a/the woman bought.'
 >  > |
 >  > | (11) *Iyon ang=baro=ng   b-um-ili    ang=babae
 >  > |       that nom=dress=lnk perf.av-buy nom=woman
 >
 > What is that linking "ng" [nAN] for? Does 10a literally mean
 > "_This is the woman_ a dress was bought by"? And what do
 > "av" and "ov" mean in the interlinear?
 >


Now please bear in mind that I don't speak Tagalog, and haven't
studied its grammar half as much as I'd like.  So this is just my
amateur understanding.

To answer your last question first, "av" and "ov" are "active voice"
and "objective voice" as mentioned in the paragraph above.  Everyone
seems to have a different terminology, but it should be clear enough
what they're talking about if you've been reading those threads.

I think, when you say 'that linking "ng" [nAN]', you're confusing two
seperate particles.  One is the genitive particle, pronounced [naN]
but written <ng>.  It's a proclitic and you can see it attached to
"baro" in 10a and "babae" in 10b.

The other is the "linker" or "ligature", which marks the first element
in all non-genitive modifying constructions.  This has two allomorphs
- "-ng" /N/, which occurs as an enclitic after vowels, /n/ and /?/ (I
imagine replacing the consonants), and "na" in all other cases
(written as a seperate word).

Here are some examples of use of the linker.*

_matanda'_ "old" _babae_ "woman"
_matandang babae_ = _babaing matanda'_ "old woman" **
_bahay_ "house" _malaki_ big
_bahay na malaki_ = _malaking bahay_ "big house"

In the examples quoted above, I believe 10a would be written as
"Iyon ang babaeng bumili ng baro".  The linker attaches to "babae"
because "babae" is modified by "bumili ng baro".

As to what it literally says, that's a difficult question.  I don't
see any reason for preferring the passive translation.

According to Himmelmann, there isn't any syntactic distinction between
nouns and verbs in Tagalog.  Verb forms are more like nominalizations.
So it could be argued that the most "literal" translation would be
something like "That's the woman, the buyer of a dress" (but "buyer"
loses the modal/aspectual information in "bumili").

If I've been unclear, please ask further questions and I'll do my best
to answer.  If anyone with a better knowledge of Tagalog can correct
me, please do so.


* I've ignored the stress accents and represented a final /?/ with <'>
  as it's slightly easier to type than the acute/grave/circumflex
  notation, which I'd need to explain anyway.

**Tagalog's pretty free with regard to the order of these phrases.
  I'm not sure why it's _babaing_ rather than _babaeng_ - I find both
  online, but more of the latter.