Re: question about classifiers

Patrick Dunn wrote:

>> How about this?  Have a classifier/pronoun that refers back to
>> previously mentioned verbs (or, more preciesly, the events to which
>> they refer).  Thus:
>>
>>    give-I-it-you                "I gave it to you"
>>    be:in-event-m.enclosure      "the event is in the house"
>>
>>    give-I-it-you   be:in-event-m.enclosure
>>    "I gave it to you.  That event (= I gave it to you) was in the house"
>>    i.e. "I gave it to you in the house"
>
>Oooh, thanks!  I like that!  It also fixes my because- and when- clause
>problems.
You're welcome!  A couple years ago I sketched out a conlang along
in which 'adverbial' prepositional phrases/clauses where actually
main predicates, which took nominalised clauses as their subjects:

   "I gave it to you in the house" =
   "[My giving it to you] was-in the house"

Where the verb meaning "to be in" had an 'event' agreement marker
on it.  Unfortunately the language never went anywhere, but the
idea has been floating around my brain every since, waiting to be
deployed somewhere.

I thought that I had originated this idea, but then a fellow linguist
told me that Aleut allegedly works this way.  Don't know if it's
true, though...

Matt.