Re: I'm back (was: Re: Leaving for three weeks...)

On 8/26/05, Julia Schnecki Simon <helicula@...> wrote:
> 
> 
> On 8/26/05, Patrick Littell <puchitao@...> wrote:
> >
> > I'm not sure how universally this generalization holds, but
> > object-incorporated verb forms seem to tend towards an imperfective, 
> > habitual, or durative interpretation. It makes sense. "He hoes the/some
> > beans" vs. "He bean-hoes", the second meaning something like "He 
> habitually
> > hoes beans" or "He's a bean farmer". 
> 
> What you write about object-incorporated verb forms and their
> interpretation matches my experience, too, but then again, I've only
> looked at two languages with noun incorporation so far (Nahuatl and
> Mohawk). 

I've been doing some more research on it for an upcoming paper on body-part 
incorporation in Tototan/Tepehua, and it appears that object-incorporation 
of the valency-reducing sort -- the above sort -- is often accompanied by a 
habitual or durative interpretation.

This is from Mithun's The Evolution of Noun Incorporation (Language 60, 
1984):

Since [incorporated nouns] do not refer to specific entities, these 
constructions tend to be used in contexts without specific, individuated 
patients. They may be generic statements; or descriptions of on-going 
activities, in which a patient has been incompletely affected; or habitual 
activities, in which the specific patient may change; or projected 
activities, in which the specific patient is not yet identifiable; or joint 
activities, where an individual agent incompletely affects a particular 
patient; or activities directed at an unspecified portion of a mass.
 
On the other hand, the sort of noun-incorporation that doesn't affect the 
verb's valency -- like the sort that I'm studying in Totonac/Tepehua -- has 
no accompanying aspectual or partitive interpretation. Rather, it 
backgrounds one participant in the clause -- the incorporated noun -- in 
order to foreground an oblique participant, such a beneficiary or the 
possessor of the incorporated noun.

Mithun's division of noun incorporation into distinct types -- especially 
her distinction between the valency-reducing (Type I) and 
oblique-argument-promoting (Type II) types -- seems to have gained wide 
currency.

Anyway, it looks like our subjective perceptions are in general 
corroborated. 

--Pat