Re: Unattested... but possible?

> I see a city.
> Thenqol: kewxát tejxít = I-(eye) city-(vision)
> Nenshar: siloper lukesa = city-(state of focus) eye-my(state of activity)
Both of these remind me a bit of the Ch'ol-Tzeltalan languages of
Chiapas.  (Probably the other Mayan languages, too, but I'm not
greatly familiar with those.)  There's a defininte nouniness about
their verbs.

I've heard it argued that roots in Ch'ol, in fact, are neither nouns
nor verbs, and it seems plausible.  In Ch'ol, a root isn't a verb
until it gains voice morphology.  (Although voice morphology can also
appear on some *nouns*)  In Tzeltal, the same root used as a noun must
either be possessed or gain a nominalizing suffix; a bare root, on the
other hand, indicates a third-person perfect intransitive verb, I
think.  But there's a nouniness about 3rd-person perfect
intransitives, as well, although I can't remember precisely what.
Infinitive constructions are handled by "verbal nouns", so are
directional actions iirc.

Another thing: the possessive prefixes are identical to the ergative
pronomial markings.  Not just similar; they're identical.  You
literally say "my kill" or "my buy".  Here's an example:

laj jman te jts'i'e.
finish my-buy the my-dog
"I bought the dog."

la smil sti' te jmute te jjwane
finish his-kill his-eat the my-bird the Juan
"Juan killed my bird in order to eat it."

("The dog" is probably the most appropriate translation here; the "j"
(my) on "ts'i'" is probably just because Tzeltal and its relatives are
possession-crazy.  They're also, you'll notice,
definite-article-crazy.)

The interactions between aspect, ergativity/accusativity, and
noun/verb choices is complex in these languages, and I don't claim to
understand most of it.  For example, in Ch'ol an action in the perfect
is expressed by a verb marked ergatively, but one in the imperfect
takes the nominalizing suffix and is marked nominatively.

Either way, the line between nouns and verbs in these languages is a
lot more complicated than in most languages.  Add that to the fact
that body-part nouns are pretty much always possessed ("eye" is very
rare; it's always "my eye" or "your eye" or "his eye") and you can
probably see why Thenqol and Nenshar remind me so much of them!

--
Patrick Littell
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