zompist bboard

I have "Applicative Constructions" by David Peterson, which discusses this a little: http://www.us.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Linguistics/TheoreticalDescriptiveLinguistic/?view=usa&ci=9780199270927 I'm not sure I'd recommend that you buy it just to read about alignment issues though, since t...

That only follos if PIE actually had aspirates. True. I'm not fully convinced of it myself. In fact I lean towards the Breathy Voice Hypothesis. Surely that's not just a hypothesis, but what "voiced aspirates" actually are . A voiced consonant accompanied by a voiceless release is unattested in PIE...

Amuere wrote: In my dialect that construction is completely ungrammatical, in fact I've never heard "I've" used like that except on TV. My dialect also rarely uses "have got" for the possessive, as far as I know I nearly always use just "have"

Which part of the English speaking world are you in?

However, British English does sometimes allow the contraction of mainverbal "have" as well, though I'm not clear on the specific restrictions. But things like "I've a new cat" are allowed in at least some British dialects. It's grammatical for me, but sounds formal and slightly old fashioned. On th...

A lot of Salishan languages have ejective prevelars, which are pretty close to k_j_>. You could also look at the languages of the Caucasus, which tend to be a hotbed for both secondary articulations and ejective consonants.

I'm not sure about sound changes, but I think it's fairly common for frequent words and constructions to be reduced in irregular ways. Very common morphemes tend to be short, and new function words and constructions which aren't are likely to be worn down by changes which aren't general. I guess a g...

Can you know anything about the diachronic origin of the four stop series? Do they go back to the protolanguage, or have one or more series evolved since then? Presumably, since you remarked on it, other languages in the same family have fewer series.

I just found this while googling:

http://www.cicipu.org/papers/gender_and ... course.pdf

I've not read it yet, so I don't know how good/interesting/reputable it is, but the contents page looks pretty interesting at least.

Viktor77 wrote:Has anyone proposed an ebook version of the LCK? I'd love a version for my iBook app or Kindle app.

Still looking for a use for your iPad?

Now for the Hakha Lai examples of applicatives. Hakha Lai has a number of applicatives: -piak benefactive/malefactive -tse?m benefactive -pii comitative -hno? malefactive -ka?n prioritive -taak relinquitive -naak instrumental The object properties which Peterson talks about are as follows: CASE MARK...

Also, as I said, in some languages the applicative can introduce a new agreement slot, so agreement with base and applicative objects is not either/or. Here is an example from Chichewa:

yohani y-a-yi-mw-oher-ej-e
John HE-past-IT-HER-send(APP)-R-ASP
'John sent it to her'

Tom, following on from your post, I will try to illustrate what I mean. I'm not sure if I explained myself very well, and as I am not an expert when it comes to MAPs I may have misinterpreted something. My point was that there are some applicatives that promote don't always demote the existing objec...

Actually, I'm at the University of Michigan, and want to read this article now that I've come across the thread..so, I would be happy to go scan it in. I won't be able to do it for at least three or so days, so if you're willing to wait and it's really there, sure thing! I'd really appreciate it if...

AFAIK (and I've been meaning to quiz my Fillipino friends on this for a while now), all nouns except for the trigger appear in the genitive, regardless of whether they would be core or not in anotehr language. The trigger noun is marked as trigger, and it's role is marked on the verb. Choice of tri...

Went to the library today; unfortunately, they don't have that volume (though I did make photocopies of Aubin's PROTO-ALGONQUIAN DICTIONARY and some other goodies you--and/or others--may be interested in). I had a librarian do a search for me--the closest place that has a copy of that book is the U...

Tengado wrote:Sthg's wrong with that Miwok link - I tried opening the webpage and downlaoding it; neitehr work. Safari says it's probably a corrupt file.

Works perfectly for me, opened on Linux with Okular.

EDIT: Actually, it opens but the scanned text is too large and overflows the pages.

No double-marking. The possessor is on the verb and the noun is elsewhere; simple as that. (The language permits far worse discontinuous 'phrases' than this, too.) But it's uncommon for a Haida clause to have more than one actual noun anywhere in it, and of course lots of nouns in lots of contexts ...

If it is universal, it means that in every language at least some clauses have at least one core argument, which means that in every language at least some clauses have a subject. Clearly some languages don't have any core arguments besides subjects. Although the definition of subject is itself a b...

What's the name of the Mithun article? I have a huge PDF library (from JSTOR and photocopies made over the years), and may have it. It's "Understanding and Explaining Applicatives", published by the Chicago Linguistic Society, volume 37 in 2002. I'd really appreciate it if you did have it. I'm 99.9...

Even in English various verbs require PP or other positional/directional complements rather than NP ones, or in addition to them. For instance, you cannot merely put a thing; you have to put it somewhere - omitting the destination information usually produces an unacceptable clause. This sort of th...

A lot of linguistic literature seems to take a division between core arguments and obliques for granted. But last night, I stumbled onto wondering about whether the distinction is universal while googling on a topic of recent interest - applicatives. In particular, I am still very interested in lang...

Probably because it's a lot harder to reconstruct them?

I've just been adding a section to my wiki briefly summarising "Predicative Possession" by Stassen. I thought people might be interested so I posted it here. You can also see it on the wiki: http://www.chrisdb.me.uk/wiki/doku.php?id=possession#typological_correlations_of_possession_schemas For some ...

Did she ever think about the fact that if she doesn't have a kid, there potentially won't be anyone to take care of the planet in the future? ...? The planet seemed to take care of itself fine before humans came around and I'm sure it'll be fine when we're gone... :roll: And leaving aside global wa...

I know NY Times is giving up their 'exclusive content' shit, but this login is still annoying. Understandable, but annoying. Oh, sorry, I didn't realize it needed a login. Maybe someone could post a link that doesn't? It didn't ask me to log in, and I don't have an account with the NY Times, so it'...