Re: Attached Verbs

Ed Heil wrote:

> The only really weird thing is, I wouldn't expect that an ergative
> language would use the ergative/absolutive distinction with a linking verb
> like "to be."  It seems to me like that would only be with actions.  Maybe
> someone who knows more about ergativity can enlighten..
I know a bit about ergativity, and it seems weird to me too. In my conlang
Tokana, which is sort of ergative
(cf. the recent thread on active languages), the linking verb, equivalent to "be"
in English, takes two
absolutive arguments.

There are lots of languages in which the copula "be" is a bound morpheme (suffix)
which combines with the noun
denoting the object/category/etc. with which the subject is identified to form a
complex predicate. So you
get languages where "he is a man" comes out something like "he man-be-PRES". I
can't think of any natlang
examples, but Tokana *used* to be like this before I changed things around. In the older
version of Tokana,
you got constructions like this:

  ne      Sakial     pyi-a
  the+Abs Sakial+Abs child-be
  "Sakial is a child"

  ne      Sakial     pyi-un
  the+Abs Sakial+Abs child-be+Pst
  "Sakial was a child"

  ne      Sakial     pyi-a-ma
  the+Abs Sakial+Abs child-be-me+Dat
  "Sakial is my child"
  (lit. "Sakial is-child to-me")

Here, "pyi" means "child", and "pyia" is a derived verb meaning "be a child", which
inflects for tense and
takes pronominal suffixes, just like regular verbs.

Matt.

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