Re: Old Albic update: Syntax of the verbal noun

Hello!

--- Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...> wrote:

> Hallo!
>
> This time I wish to present you some brief notes on
> the syntax of the
> Old Albic verbal noun.
Excellent!

> The Old Albic verb has only one infinite form, the
> verbal noun (VN),
> which is of great importance in the syntax of the
> language.  The VN
> is formed with the suffix -°nth, e.g. _hatanth_
> 'biting'.  It is
> an inanimate noun which has no plural, but is
> inflected normally
> for case.
Is it at all related to, or inspired by, Indo-European
type participles or gerunds such as Latin (-nd- or
-nt-), Germanic (-nd), etc?  That is, do you think
that such a morpheme is not only Indo-European, but
also Proto-Europic in general?


> The VN is used whenever a clause functions as an
> object (or subject)
> of another verb.  In such an infinite clause, the
> arguments of the
> VN are coded as possessors, with the agent appearing
> in the genitive
> case and the patient in the partitive case if
> animate and in the
> locative case if inanimate:
>
> (1)  Asalama hatanth as chvanas ol ndarol.
>      AOR-see-3SG:P-1SG:A bite-VN the:C-GEN dog-GEN
> the:M-PRT man-PRT
>      'I saw the dog bite the man.'
>
> Such sentences can also be constructed differently,
> namely by
> coding the subject of the embedded clause as the
> object of the
> matrix clause and linking the embedded clause with
> the conjunction
> _a_ 'and' to it:
>
> (2)  Asalama om ndarom a hatanth sol as chvanas.
>      AOR-see-3SG:P-1SG:A the:M-OBJ man-OBJ and
> bite-VN he-PRT
>      the:C-GEN dog-GEN
>      'I saw the man and his biting by the dog.'
Is there any difference in the encoding of the
argument of intransitive verbs?  For example, in Old
Irish, intransitive verbs could have a genitive
subject, whereas transitive verbs could only have an
agentive oblique subject with the preposition 'do':

  -  is maith lim        a   thuidecht    "I prefer
that he come"
      is good with.me his coming

  -  ni       a/il lim           mo marbad duit   "I
don't want you to kill me"
      not.is good with.me my killing   to.you

Later on, when the accusative verbal noun construction
was replaced (in some instances) by the dative verbal
noun with 'do', the situation changed. There were two
options: a) the object was expressed in the accusative
before the verbal noun and the subject in an agentive
oblique phrase after. Alternatively, the subject could
precede, in the accusative and the object could follow
in the genitive. With intransitive verbs, option a)
was taken (although obviously, the argument in the
front of the verbal noun was the subject not the
object).


   - is maith lim Craiptine do dul
      is good with.me Craiptine to go
  "I prefer that Craiptine goes"

   - roscnai                   a n-echu           do
marbad don rig
    prf.3pl.bothered.3s their horses.acc to kill
to-the king
  "It bothered them that the king killed their horses"

  - roscnai                   Craiptine        do
seinm suantraige
     prf.3pl.bothered.3s Craiptine.acc to sing
sleepmusic.gen
  "It bothered them that Craiptine sang sleepmusic"

(note, these are all made up examples, but created by
analogy with the patterns in a corpus I've built)

 Anyways, I'm interested if you've thought about how
the various case markings developed and if they'll be
differentiated according to verb type, basically?


> The verbal noun is also used in three periphrastic
> stative verb
> aspects: the progressive, the perfect and the
> prospective.
>
> The progressive aspect expresses that the subject is
> in a state
> of doing (or undergoing) something.  It is formed
> with the verb
> _b-_ 'to be (temporary, cf. Spanish _estar_)' and
> the locative
> of the verbal noun:
> (3)  Baha matanthal bradal.
>      be-PRS-1SG:P eat-VN-LOC bread-LOC
>      'I am eating bread.'
>      (lit. 'I am in the eating of bread.')
>
> The perfect aspect expresses that the subject is in
> a state
> resulting from a past action or event.  It is formed
> similarly,
> but with the ablative of the VN:
>
> (4)  Baha matanthad bradal.
>      be-PRS-1SG:P eat-VN-ABL bread-LOC
>      'I have eaten bread.'
>      (lit. 'I am from the eating of bread.';
>       cf. Irish English 'I am after eating bread.')
>
> The prospective aspect expresses a state of being
> about to do
> something; it is formed with the allative case of
> the VN:
>
> (5)  Baha matanthan bradal.
>      be-PRS-1S:P eat-VN-ALL bread-LOC
>      'I am about to eat bread.'
>      (lit. 'I am to the eating of bread.')

These strike me as being vaguelly Finnishlike - that
is, similar to the usage of the various cases of the
infinitive in Finnish. What about a gerundive "X to be
done"? In Silindion, this is formed by declining the
gerund in the dative case:

   miossi       i     siri              fantanu
   this/these the things.nom  do.gerund.dative
   "these are the things to be done..."

> Case forms of the verbal noun also take the role of
> participles:
>
> (6)  a chvana hatanthala (sas)
>      the:C-AGT dog-AGT bite-VN-LOC-AGT (it-GEN)
>      'the biting dog'
>
> (7)  a chvana hatanthada (sas)
>      the:C-AGT dog-AGT bite-VN-ABL-AGT (it-GEN)
>      'the dog that has bitten'
>
> (8)  a chvana hatanthana (sas)
>      the:C-AGT dog-AGT bite-VN-ALL-AGT (it-GEN)
>      'the dog that is about to bite'
>
> (9)  o ndaro hatanthala sol
>      the:M-AGT man-AGT bite-VN-LOC-AGT he-PRT
>      'the man that is bitten'
>
> (10) o ndaro hatanthada sol
>      the:M-AGT man-AGT bite-VN-ABL-AGT he-PRT
>      'the man that has been betten'
>
> (11) o ndaro hatanthana sol
>      the:M-AGT man-AGT bite-VN-ALL-AGT he-PRT
>      'the man about to be bitten'
If I'm reading these right, the passive is expressed
by declining the agreeing resumptive pronoun as if it
were an object?

> The locative case of the verbal noun is also used in
> a
> converbial construction, expressing that something
> happened
> while something else was happening.
>
> (12) Matanthal mas bradal, lingena am dvarling.
>      eat-VN-LOC 1SG-GEN bread-LOC ring-IPF-3SG:P
> the:I-OBJ doorbell
>      'As I ate bread, the doorbell rang.'
>      (lit. 'In my eating of bread, the dorbell was
> rung.')
>
> Similarly:
>
> (13) Matanthad mas bradal, lingena am dvarling.
>      eat-VN-ABL 1SG-GEN bread-LOC ring-IPF-3SG:P
> the:I-OBJ doorbell
>      'After I ate bread, the doorbell rang.'
>
> And also:
>
> (14) Matanthan mas bradal, lingena am dvarling.
>      eat-VN-ALL 1SG-GEN bread-LOC ring-IPF-3SG:P
> the:I-OBJ doorbell
>      'As I was about to eat bread, the doorbell
> rang.'
>
How about the conjunctive passive?    "As he was about
to be beaten...", etc.


-Elliott





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