Re: (tangent thoughts arising from) Active-Ergative langs (discussion)

On Wed, 20 Sep 2000, Marcus Smith wrote:

> Not at all.  I'm glad to see another conlang using switch-reference.  It's
> one of my favorite linguistic features.
Tepa has had switch reference from the get-go. I know of switch
reference from my work on Shoshoni and other Numic languages, and I
included it in Tepa when drafting the first sketches of the language.
The Tepa system is very simple--it consists of the two clitics below:

      e= same subject (<e> is a high, central, unrounded vowel)
      a= different subject

Here are a couple of examples (taken from the online reference
grammar):

(1)   pitee neqaa teeli apulu humahmanka
      0-    pitee neqaa   teeli a=  0-    pulu humahma    =nka
      3>3'- see:B woman:B Teeli DS= 3>3'- pick fruit:DIST =some
      'Teeli saw the woman as she (the woman) was picking some fruit.'

(2)   0-    pitee neqaa   teeli e=  wa-   pulu humahma    =nka
      3>3'- see:B woman:B Teeli SS= 3>3'- pick fruit:DIST =some
      'Teeli saw the woman as she (Teeli) was picking some fruit.'

In (1) the subject of the subordinate clause is different from the
subject of the main clause so the DS clitic appears on the subordinate
verb. In (2) the subjects are the same, so the SS clitic appears on
the subordinate clause.

In the switch reference systems I've seen, there are usually a handful
each of SS and DS markers indicating various tense/aspect distinctions
and replacing the normal tense/aspect suffixes (there is usually some
homophony between members of the switch reference system and the t/a
system, though). Since aspect in Tepa is marked by altering the stem
shape, I can get away with the simple two-marker system seen here.

Dirk

--
Dirk Elzinga
dirk.elzinga@m.cc.utah.edu