THEORY: Can Ditransitive Verbs Agree With More Than Two Core A...

In a message dated 5/18/2005 6:07:21 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
tomhchappell@YAHOO.COM writes:

>Question:
>(1) Does anyone know of an attested NatLang with a productive system of
agreement or
>cross-reference on the verb in which some ditransitive verbs can, or
sometimes must,
>agree with each of both objects, in one or more of person, number, gender or
noun-class,
>and/or definiteness or specificity?
>I read a comment in somebody's article to the effect that it is an absolute
universal that no verb is ever marked for >agreement with more than two of its
core arguments/actants/participants.  Is this really true?  If it isn't,
what's a >counter-example?

I'm almost certain that I read somewhere that in some languages, a verb can
agree with up to four arguments. The example sentence given was a causative of
a ditransitive, and the translation was something like "The old man couldn't
make the boys give the girl her dog back."

The language might have been Georgian, or something else in the Caucasian
area.
I cannot find the reference just now  Perhaps this will jog someone else's
memory.

Doug

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