Re: Noun-verb agreement

> Date:         Wed, 10 Nov 1999 11:56:47 -0300
> From: FFlores <fflores@...>
> Because I've discovered, to my dismay, that Nolt Lethris,
> the Old Tongue (ancestor of Drasel=E9q) seems to have this
> kind of agreement; pronouns (maybe clitic ones, but indeed
> free at some point) that include a consonant, as an affix or
> infix, which varies according to the verb. These pronouns
> are also marked for tense, I guess like Teonaht does, and
> in later history their position becomes fixed (postverbal)
> and even later they merge with the verb. For example:
>=20
>         ndar=E1s tuyerhe        (>> modern _drast=FCer_)
>         cross  2p.PST
>         'you crossed'
>=20
> The past tense is here marked by the preffix <-uy->; _t-erhe_
> is the pronoun root. But if the verb is of another declension:
>=20
>         tese buyerhe    (>> modern _tesb=FCer_)
>         lie  2p.PST
>         'you lied'
>=20
> Here the pronoun root is _b-erhe_. It's not just a matter of
> leaving the consonant on the verb, since the phonotactics doesn't
> allow it most times, and the positions could be reversed (tensed
> pronoun first, and then the verb). This characteristic consonant
> doesn't appear (at this stage) in finite forms of the verb (though
> it does appear in the infinitive and participles). It doesn't seem
> to have any semantic meaning (though it could have had one, in
> earlier times). Plus (forgot to mention) it appears not only as
> a prefix to the 'real' pronominal root (here, _erhe_), but also
> as an *infix* sometimes!
It is obvious to me that this state of affairs derives from an even
earlier stage where those pesky consonants did in fact belong to the
end of the verb stems. Because of the phonotactic constraints that you
mention, the consonant---and the tense prefix following it---were
moved into the next phonological word, which was usually a pronoun.
Once it began following the pronoun when it occasionally moved to
other positions, and later sound developments in some cases made the
prefix consonants move inside the pronouns, you have the situation in
Nolt Lethris.

It is then one of the little ironies of which historical linguistics
is so full that the pronouns later come to be fixed in postverbal
position, and cliticized so that the consonant is back more or less
where it started.

Actually, this story is boring. Here is what really happened: The form
now seen as the main verb used to be an infinite form, followed by a
tensed form of a copula. This copula cliticized, and when syncope of
the last syllable of the infinite verb started to violate phonotactic
rules, the combination of final consonant and clitic got attached to
the front of the pronouns.

> What can I do? Help please!
Why do you need help? I think it's neat.

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn@...> (Humour NOT marke=
d)