Re: Basque Gender Marking (was Re: Further language development Q's)

On 21 Sep 2004 Chris Bates <chris.maths_student@NTL...> wrote:

> basques can use special auxilliary
> verb forms which also reflect the gender of the addressee!
  Basque makes inanimate vs. animate distinction in another
connection.  Before locative suffixes animate noun phrases are
marked by a suffix |ga|,  but |ta| is inserted in case of inanimate
noun phrases that have no singular determiner (inanimate noun
phrases with singular determiner take zero suffix).

  Therefore I think about the gender marking in personal agreement
slots of Basque verbs as subclasses of animate class.  In this
respect, it is not grammatical "gender" but natural "sex".  Sex in
2nd-person utterances is often expressed even in languages which
have no gender marking (in 2nd person or at all) by
supragrammatical means, cf. |Come here, _boy_|, |How are you,
_girls_|.


> the auxilliary verb agrees with the Actor, Patient, Recipient, and
> the Gender of the addressee (if that addressee is familiar or
> intimate)
  AFAIK synthetic verbs (not just auxiliary but a few others also)
have three functional slots for personal agreement marking: "nor"
or absolutive slot, "nori" or dative slot, "nork" or ergative slot.
Patient fills "nor" slot, Actor is ambivalent: it tries first to
connect to "nor" slot;  but if it is already occupied by Patient,
Actor opens and fills "nork" slot. (A similar interesting
precedence rule determines the actual position of "nork" slot in
the suffix chain.)

  Gender (or sex) marking is possible only in "nori" and "nork"
slots, "nor" slot has a single allomorph for both male and female
2nd person morpheme.


> I don't think even Inuit can beat this level of agreement lol...
  I am not aware of Inuit grammar, but polysynthetical languages
may have additional slots for further case agreement.  I have an
example from Sumerian where locative marking is involved in
addition:  |mu-na-ni-n-du-{}| 'he/she has built it there for
him/her'; |mu| ventive modality: Actor is animate; |na| < |ra| -
dative marker: sg3 animate Recipient; |ni| - locative marker; |n| -
ergative and aspect marker: sg3 Actor from perfective (=hamtu)
series; |du| - verbal stem: to build; |{}| (terminal zero morpheme)
- absolutive marker: sg3 inanimate Patient.

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