Re: Colloquial German, experiencers and the construct state

On 8/15/05, Carsten Becker <naranoieati@...> wrote:
> 
> Patrick Littell wrote on 14 Aug 2005 21:09:
> 
> > The specific pattern "construct state" is mostly the
> > preserve of the Afroasiatic languages. I'm going to go
> > along with Henrik and say that unless there's a
> > morphological distinction in the noun, it isn't state.
> > (I suppose we could say that there is so such thing as
> > state even when it's not morphologically marked, like we
> > sometimes talk of "nominative case" in an analytic
> > language that uses word order rather than case marking
> > ... but that would be a very unusual usage. How would
> > you prove it was there?)
> 
> I can't, and you've won.

Haha, it wasn't a contest. "You" didn't mean Carsten Becker there, it meant 
"one". I was just thinking aloud. 

I think I've come up with a way to have state without morphological marking. 
If there's some process that requires a certain state, then you can 
establish the existence of non-morphological state. I think. 

So, we have a language in which there are four state/number combinations:

absolutive singular: -0
absolutive plural: -(V)n
"construct individual": -0 (when the noun is the property of an individual, 
"our first-borns")
"construct collective" -(V)n (when the noun is collectively owned, "our 
hometown")

The construct numbers, on their own, have indeterminite number, but 
construct individual "inherits" the number of its possessor. Construct 
collective is usually assumed to be singular, but this isn't a hard and fast 
rule. (Some speakers will use construct collective to indicate an individual 
owning a collection of things, effectively giving it an "oppositve number" 
inheritance.)

Notice that the existence of state cannot be inferred from morphology. I 
think. A naïve analysis would just say that -(V)n was a 
plurality/collectivity suffix. But this analysis would lead to 
contradiction. 

Now, our language is a VOS accusative language with (to simplify) number 
agreement with the object. -0 for singular, -(V)n for plural. (Moreover, 
certain verbs require plural objects, like "rearrange", "halve", "count", 
"juggle", etc.) Now, some sentences will have "wrong" agreement unless we 
hypothesize the existence of a state.

Rearrangen appointment youn TOP departmental-secretaryn youn.
*Rearrangen appointmenten youn TOP departmental-secretaryn youn.
Y'all's departmental secretary rearranges y'all's (respective) appointments.

Jugglen responsibility In TOP In.
*Jugglen responsibilityn In TOP In.
We juggle our (respective) responsibilities.

(For some speakers): Respect motherlanden youn TOP youn.
Y'all should respect your motherland.

Also, certain verbs ("hold","obtain","bear (children)", "lose", "spend", 
"squander") require that the object be in one of the construct states, 
possessed by the sentence-final subject/topic.

Losen head TOP traitoron.
The traitors lost their heads.

These agreement patterns don't make any sense unless an additional category 
is hypothesized in addition to plurality. This category is clearly state. 

So there we go. State that isn't marked morphologically. At least not 
clearly so.

-- 
Patrick Littell
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