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Re: THEORY: Can Ditransitive Verbs Agree With More Than Two Core Arguments?

From:tomhchappell <tomhchappell@...>
Date:Friday, May 20, 2005, 16:57
--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Henrik Theiling <theiling@A...> wrote:

<...snip...>

> indirect object agreement. First of all, here's a verb marked for > indirect object: > > Toi, tu m'la dis pas, l'histoire. > SUBJ \__VERB___/ NEG \__OBJECT_/ > > You could probably also say: > > A moi, tu m'la dis pas, l'histoire. > > There you have indirect object agreement. >
<...snip...> Yeah, I thought it might be something like that when I was writing about Cross-Reference vs Agreement. I don't know what the difference between Cross-Referance and Agreement is exactly, but I'm pretty sure someone who does would say "dis" *agrees with* "tu", but "la" *cross- references* "l'histoire". The "m'" also "cross-references" the First Person Singular Indirect Object, which is not explicitly in the clause as it appears on the surface. This is indeed a counter-example, since it cross-references both objects, and I asked for agreement OR cross-reference. I just have trouble remembering things like this "m'la" when thinking of this question; that is to say, when I am the one stuck with coming up with examples, I have an easier time recognizing agreement as agreement than recognizing cross-reference as cross-reference. Thanks. (Thanks also for the rest of your reply, which was informative, interesting, and gave me sources to look further. ---Tom H.C. in MI