Re: "Bird in Tree" translation (was: Re: milimpulaktasin)

Matt Pearson wrote:

>Roger Mills wrote:
>
>> >(3) What is the morpheme breakdown for "tingaska"?
>> tingas 'look at, view; examine'  -ka 'imperative' ['ti.Ngas.(@)ka];
tingas
>> of course is related (anciently, by infixed-nasal intensification) to
tikas
>> 'see'.  The homophony of /-ka/ (no stress shift) '1. imperative 2. yes-no
Q
>> marker' was originally an oversight; but I decided it was reasonable.
>
>Cool-ness.  Are questions and imperatives distinguished by intonation?  By
the
>presence/absence of subject agreement?  By context?  Or more than one of
the
>above?

Mainly by intonation:  imperatives have normal, falling intonation; yes-no Q
have rising-- pretty much comparable to English.  One other thing:
 imper. -ka (plural -ki) is appropriate in all situations; -ha/-hi [xa, xi]
is used only with family members and very close friends.  And another:  the
particle -po 'only, just' is frequently tacked on to imperatives; it is held
to soften the command.

Also by subject agreement:  imperatives have no subject marker, whereas in
correct speech, a declarative/interrogative verb does.  tingaska(po) look
(at it)!
hatingaska? are you looking at it? But colloq. tingaska? would have
Q-intonation, so no potential ambiguity.

>Wearing my linguist hat, I would be tempted to analyze /-ka/ as a single
>morpheme rather than homophones, maybe some sort of marker of
non-indicative
>mood.  Or perhaps a kind of speech-act morpheme which signals "the clause
to
>which I am attached is not a statement".

My feeling is that imperatives could originally have been questions:  will
you look at it?    In this case, the familiar -ha shows consonantal
softening and, along with the plural forms in /-i/, could be of later
development.   And I think the familiar form is falling into disuse; it's
been a long time since Kash society was heavily stratified, and /-ha~-hi/ is
one of the few remnants.