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

From:    Tamas Racsko <tracsko@...>
> Chris Bates wrote:
> > I don't think even Inuit can beat this level of agreement lol...
I assume by agreement you mean TAM markers.

>   I am not aware of Inuit grammar, but polysynthetical languages
> may have additional slots for further case agreement.
If we include all the sorts of specific modal or quasimodal markers
in Inuit, I would say (based on Chris's description, since my knowledge
of Basques is not great) that Inuit far exceeds Basque. The following
is typical:

  Inuttut isikkoqalertarsimasut
  person  appearance-have-begin-HAB-PERF=PART/3p
  'Perhaps, they said, they took on human appearance when they died'

Jerry Sadock tells me that these kinds of constructions are actually
proliferating with modernization in Greenland, since that's how all
the bureaucrats speak!

>  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.
I would be very wary about making any arguments from Sumerian.
Our understanding of its phonology and morphology are based
almost entirely on how Sumerian words borrowed into Akkadian
were pronounced, sometimes centuries after Sumerian ceased to
be spoken as a living language.  It is therefore difficult if
not impossible to know whether these kinds of collocations that
you mention are not just cliticized forms, and we can therefore
not know whether to call Sumerian polysynthetic (to the extent
that that term has any real meaning).

Anyways, I agree with your general contention.  Basque doesn't
seem weird by agreeing with so many arguments.

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Thomas Wier	       "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
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Chicago, IL 60637

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