Re: Vocab lists

Thomas R. Wier sikyal:

> Quoting JS Bangs <jaspax@...>:
>
> > John Cowan sikyal:
> >
> > > Roger Mills scripsit:
> > >
> > > > Then there's the famous McCawley couplet:
> > > > "They named their child Fafnir"
> > > > "They named their child something strange" (This distinction was also a
> > > > problem in Kash)
> > >
> > > I don't understand this, though it reminds me of:
> >
> > I believe it's meant to illustrate the contrast between "They named the
> > child <name>" and "They named the child <description of name>".
>
> Isn't it supposed to be an example of secondary predication,
> such as "They swept the floor clean" (= They swept the floor
> such that the floor was clean)?  The two sentences clearly
> behave differently:
>
>   "What did they name their child? Fafnir."
>   *"What did they name their child strange? Something."
>   "What did they name their child? Something strange."
Well, that too. I'm not enough of a syntactitian to attempt to address
this question, but I will note that the two are not exactly parallel,
since "sweep" is not normally a transitive verb, while "name" is.

Yivrian uses the quote conjunction "ef" before the name itself. I don't
know exactly how to translate the "something strange" example, but I'm
tempted to use the causative/resultative conjunction "eth," eg:

Ela  sémyal yíra  ef   Fafnir.
they named  child QUOT Fafnir.

Ela  sémyal yíra  eth  séma ondatil.
they named  child CAUS name strange.


Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu
http://students.washington.edu/jaspax/
http://students.washington.edu/jaspax/blog

Jesus asked them, "Who do you say that I am?"

And they answered, "You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground
of our being, the kerygma in which we find the ultimate meaning of our
interpersonal relationship."

And Jesus said, "What?"

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