FreeWordOrder SerialVerb Concordial VerbClass
- eldin raigmore
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FreeWordOrder SerialVerb Concordial VerbClass
@Lao Kou, you may remember something relevant on CONLANG-L from Sep and Oct 2007.
Does anyone know of any natlang(s) that have or had both free word-order and serial verb constructions?
If so, what were these FWO SVC languages?
And what strategies do or did they use to say which participant-nouns go with which verbs?
Or do all real-life SVC natlangs use word-order a lot?
—————
Relatedly;
Does anyone know of any natural language that has concordial verb-classes?
If so, what are they and where can someone find out how they work?
—————
ObConLang:
There seem to be three or four conlangs, like Chris Bates’s ngwaalq’ and Lao Kou’s Gearthnuns and Jesse Bangs’s Yivrian and something by John Vertical, with concordial verb-classes.
Are there more?
And, which and whose conlangs are FWO SVC?
Does anyone know of any natlang(s) that have or had both free word-order and serial verb constructions?
If so, what were these FWO SVC languages?
And what strategies do or did they use to say which participant-nouns go with which verbs?
Or do all real-life SVC natlangs use word-order a lot?
—————
Relatedly;
Does anyone know of any natural language that has concordial verb-classes?
If so, what are they and where can someone find out how they work?
—————
ObConLang:
There seem to be three or four conlangs, like Chris Bates’s ngwaalq’ and Lao Kou’s Gearthnuns and Jesse Bangs’s Yivrian and something by John Vertical, with concordial verb-classes.
Are there more?
And, which and whose conlangs are FWO SVC?
My minicity is http://gonabebig1day.myminicity.com/xml
Re: FreeWordOrder SerialVerb Concordial VerbClass
What do you mean by "concordial verb classes"? I had quick look Lao Kou's Gearthnuns thread and I couldn't identify anything that could be called that. (That thread is very long though, and it's likely it is there somewhere.)
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- eldin raigmore
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Re: FreeWordOrder SerialVerb Concordial VerbClass
See https://listserv.brown.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A ... om&P=11582
Also see https://listserv.brown.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A ... om&P=26520
And https://listserv.brown.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A ... com&P=5396
And look at https://wals.info/chapter/30, https://wals.info/chapter/31, https://wals.info/chapter/32, and https://wals.info/chapter/44.
A concordial verb-class would be a lexically-inherent obligatory (ie every verb has one) feature of the verb, not necessarily marked on the verb itself, with which some other words would be required sometimes to agree, or concord.
The words which would have to be marked to agree with the verb’s class, might include its auxiliaries, and/or its adverbs, and/or pro-verbs that co-refer with it, and/or some or all of its arguments.
The verb-class might be semantically based, like ingestive verbs or venitive verbs or andative verbs.
Class might be morphologically based, like first conjugation or third conjugation or whatever.
Class might be phonologically based, like first or last consonant or vowel of the verb-root.
It might be syntactically based, like intransitive vs monotransitive vs ditransitive, or, can’t have a clause as an argument vs must have a clause as an argument vs may or may not have a clause as an argument.
Or some classes might be pretty arbitrary. Like normal verbs vs differential-object-marked “quirky-cased object” verbs vs “quirky-cased subject” verbs.
—————
Does any of that help?
My minicity is http://gonabebig1day.myminicity.com/xml
Re: FreeWordOrder SerialVerb Concordial VerbClass
VERB CLASSES!
BECAUSE VERBS CAN BE MASCULINE OR FEMININE TOO!
Thank you eldin, yes, that was helpful.
My first thought is that this is kind of attested in Arabic. Verbal nouns (akin to infinitives in European languages) take a gender, quite unpredictably masculine or feminine among basic verbs but more predictably among derived verbs, and when they appear in the "cognate accusative" construction they can be modified by an adjective that agrees in gender.
A couple examples taken from some websites for Arabic learners:
darasa-hu daraasatan Tawiilatan
study.PST.3SG.MASC-3SG.MASC study.VN.ACC.SG.[FEM] long.ACC.SG.FEM
'He studied it for a long time.' (adapted from here)
(VN = "verbal noun". The verbal noun of darasa 'to study', daraasatun, is feminine. The adjective Tawiilun 'long' modifies it agreeing with it, which semantically acts like an adverb: "for a long time".)
iSbir Sabran jamiilan
be.patient.IMPER.2SG.MASC be.patient.VN.ACC.SG.[MASC] beautiful.ACC.SG.MASC
'Be beautifully patient.' (taken from here)
(The verbal noun of Sabara 'to be patient', Sabrun, is masculine. The adjective jamiilun 'beautiful' modifies it agreeing with it, which semantically acts like an adverb: "beautifully".)
BECAUSE VERBS CAN BE MASCULINE OR FEMININE TOO!
Thank you eldin, yes, that was helpful.
My first thought is that this is kind of attested in Arabic. Verbal nouns (akin to infinitives in European languages) take a gender, quite unpredictably masculine or feminine among basic verbs but more predictably among derived verbs, and when they appear in the "cognate accusative" construction they can be modified by an adjective that agrees in gender.
A couple examples taken from some websites for Arabic learners:
darasa-hu daraasatan Tawiilatan
study.PST.3SG.MASC-3SG.MASC study.VN.ACC.SG.[FEM] long.ACC.SG.FEM
'He studied it for a long time.' (adapted from here)
(VN = "verbal noun". The verbal noun of darasa 'to study', daraasatun, is feminine. The adjective Tawiilun 'long' modifies it agreeing with it, which semantically acts like an adverb: "for a long time".)
iSbir Sabran jamiilan
be.patient.IMPER.2SG.MASC be.patient.VN.ACC.SG.[MASC] beautiful.ACC.SG.MASC
'Be beautifully patient.' (taken from here)
(The verbal noun of Sabara 'to be patient', Sabrun, is masculine. The adjective jamiilun 'beautiful' modifies it agreeing with it, which semantically acts like an adverb: "beautifully".)
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- eldin raigmore
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Re: FreeWordOrder SerialVerb Concordial VerbClass
Thanks, Ser! That’s very helpful, too!Ser wrote: ↑26 Jul 2019 06:48 VERB CLASSES! BECAUSE VERBS CAN BE MASCULINE OR FEMININE TOO!
Thank you eldin, yes, that was helpful.
My first thought is that this is kind of attested in Arabic. Verbal nouns (akin to infinitives in European languages) take a gender, quite unpredictably masculine or feminine among basic verbs but more predictably among derived verbs, and when they appear in the "cognate accusative" construction they can be modified by an adjective that agrees in gender.
A couple examples taken from some websites for Arabic learners:
....
My minicity is http://gonabebig1day.myminicity.com/xml
Re: FreeWordOrder SerialVerb Concordial VerbClass
Although I should add I failed to mention that a verb can have more than one verbal noun, and it is possible that one is feminine and the other one or two are masculine, say.
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- eldin raigmore
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Re: FreeWordOrder SerialVerb Concordial VerbClass
That might, or might not, be an “oops”.
Isn’t it generally true for nouns that their gender doesn’t change as they decline?
(Well, Bantu noun-classes are paired, a singular one with a plural one; and two different singular classes can be paired with the same plural class; so they might be an exception to that last sentence.)
I think we might want concordial verb-class to be the same for any verb as it conjugates.
I also think we might want the finite versions of the verbs to have class that some of their participants must agree with.
But any correct answer to the opening post will be welcome. I just ask that repliers explicitly mention any caveats or exceptions, as you just did in the post I quoted.
Thanks!
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Re: FreeWordOrder SerialVerb Concordial VerbClass
Yes, in Arabic the gender of nouns is (kind of) retained through inflection, but the thing is, for Arabic basic verbs, the verbal noun is essentially derived in an unpredictable way. The verbal noun "transfix" (or triconsonantal template) used in any given basic verb is unpredictable, and by extension so is the gender (masculine/feminine) of the result. There is no pattern that explains why wajada 'to find' has wujuudun (masculine) while kataba 'to write' has kitaabatun (feminine). However, for most derived verbs, the verbal noun is a predictable inflection that ends up with masculine gender.eldin raigmore wrote: ↑26 Jul 2019 20:43Isn’t it generally true for nouns that their gender doesn’t change as they decline?
(Well, Bantu noun-classes are paired, a singular one with a plural one; and two different singular classes can be paired with the same plural class; so they might be an exception to that last sentence.)
I would like to point out that Romanian has a very large subcategory of nouns that are masculine in the singular but feminine in the plural, the so called "neuter" gender nouns, which contrast with whole-masculine and whole-feminine nouns. French and Spanish have a few similar nouns (Sp. arte 'art' is masculine in the singular but feminine in the plural*), and Italian has some nouns that may or may not change gender in the plural depending on the meaning (braccio becomes feminine in the plural when it means '(body) arm; nautical fathom', but stays masculine when it means 'candleholder arm, mechanical/robotic arm').
* For those who know some Spanish, no, this is not me getting confused by whole-feminine nouns like el águila ~ las águilas. The case of arte is different.
hīc sunt linguificēs. hēr bēoþ tungemakeras.
Re: FreeWordOrder SerialVerb Concordial VerbClass
re: arteSer wrote: ↑26 Jul 2019 22:12Yes, in Arabic the gender of nouns is (kind of) retained through inflection, but the thing is, for Arabic basic verbs, the verbal noun is essentially derived in an unpredictable way. The verbal noun "transfix" (or triconsonantal template) used in any given basic verb is unpredictable, and by extension so is the gender (masculine/feminine) of the result. There is no pattern that explains why wajada 'to find' has wujuudun (masculine) while kataba 'to write' has kitaabatun (feminine). However, for most derived verbs, the verbal noun is a predictable inflection that ends up with masculine gender.eldin raigmore wrote: ↑26 Jul 2019 20:43Isn’t it generally true for nouns that their gender doesn’t change as they decline?
(Well, Bantu noun-classes are paired, a singular one with a plural one; and two different singular classes can be paired with the same plural class; so they might be an exception to that last sentence.)
I would like to point out that Romanian has a very large subcategory of nouns that are masculine in the singular but feminine in the plural, the so called "neuter" gender nouns, which contrast with whole-masculine and whole-feminine nouns. French and Spanish have a few similar nouns (Sp. arte 'art' is masculine in the singular but feminine in the plural*), and Italian has some nouns that may or may not change gender in the plural depending on the meaning (braccio becomes feminine in the plural when it means '(body) arm; nautical fathom', but stays masculine when it means 'candleholder arm, mechanical/robotic arm').
* For those who know some Spanish, no, this is not me getting confused by whole-feminine nouns like el águila ~ las águilas. The case of arte is different.
arte poética and arte abstracto are both singular, yet use different genders. Romanian's 'neuter gender' comes from -um/a 2nd declension neuters in Latin, like ovum/ova > ou/ ouă, which can mean both eggs and testes according to wikipedia
Spoiler:
- eldin raigmore
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Re: FreeWordOrder SerialVerb Concordial VerbClass
akam chinjir on the ZBB recommended we google the search string “nonconfigurational serial verb”. Doing so they (and I) found references to a language called Wambaya.
I haven’t read about it yet but it looks pretty relevant.
I haven’t read about it yet but it looks pretty relevant.
My minicity is http://gonabebig1day.myminicity.com/xml
Re: FreeWordOrder SerialVerb Concordial VerbClass
Oh, right. I would say there are exceptional lexicalized phrases where arte is feminine, the three main ones being arte poética and the poetic (metrical) terms arte mayor and arte menor, but generally (as in 98% of the time) singular arte is masculine while the plural is feminine. It is the only one of its kind, I'd say.
I suppose you can compare it with mar. Technically either masculine or feminine, but I estimate it's masculine 98% of the time (in both singular and plural).
Ou/ouă is nice but exceptional. Most inherited neuter words actually just get the new *-or-ī > -uri ending (basically the ending of corpus/corpora after grabbing the plural ending -ī/-ēs > -i, an ending that also crept into the 1st declension: lūna lūnae > lună luni) or otherwise the feminine -e plural (which I think comes from nominative -ae).Romanian's 'neuter gender' comes from -um/a 2nd declension neuters in Latin, like ovum/ova > ou/ ouă, which can mean both eggs and testes according to wikipedia
corpus corpora > corp corpuri 'body'
pectus pectora > piept piepturi 'chest'
latus latera > lat laturi 'side'
faenum faena > fân fânuri 'hay'
cor corda > cord corduri 'heart'
vīsum vīsa 'seen thing' > vis visuri/vise 'dream'
peccātum peccāta > păcat păcate 'sin'
bracchium bracchia > braț brațe 'arm'
caput capita > cap capete 'head'
vās vāsa 'bowl, dish; tool' > vas vase 'bowl, dish; boat'
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Re: FreeWordOrder SerialVerb Concordial VerbClass
Well, I'm still not sure how "concordial" necessarily relates to Géarthnuns. Yes, there are a handful (fistful?) of adverbs that "agree" with the auxiliary in tense only, not in voice; I think this speaks more to the nature of such adverbs and not to verb agreement, per se. Verb class has overlapped with noun class back in the hoarfrost of the early language; i.e. early *basic* verbs in "-l" deal with speech acts and sensory verbs; some motion verbs end in "-z". But that's semantic, I guess, and hardly invokes any type of agreement on the verb side. How "quirky" that makes it in terms of agreement (with verbs; nouns are a standard declension system we are all familiar with).eldin raigmore wrote: ↑26 Jul 2019 04:54See https://listserv.brown.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A ... om&P=11582
Also see https://listserv.brown.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A ... om&P=26520
And https://listserv.brown.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A ... com&P=5396
And look at https://wals.info/chapter/30, https://wals.info/chapter/31, https://wals.info/chapter/32, and https://wals.info/chapter/44.
A concordial verb-class would be a lexically-inherent obligatory (ie every verb has one) feature of the verb, not necessarily marked on the verb itself, with which some other words would be required sometimes to agree, or concord.
The words which would have to be marked to agree with the verb’s class, might include its auxiliaries, and/or its adverbs, and/or pro-verbs that co-refer with it, and/or some or all of its arguments.
The verb-class might be semantically based, like ingestive verbs or venitive verbs or andative verbs.
Class might be morphologically based, like first conjugation or third conjugation or whatever.
Class might be phonologically based, like first or last consonant or vowel of the verb-root.
It might be syntactically based, like intransitive vs monotransitive vs ditransitive, or, can’t have a clause as an argument vs must have a clause as an argument vs may or may not have a clause as an argument.
Or some classes might be pretty arbitrary. Like normal verbs vs differential-object-marked “quirky-cased object” verbs vs “quirky-cased subject” verbs.
Does any of that help?
☯ 道可道,非常道
☯ 名可名,非常名
☯ 名可名,非常名
- eldin raigmore
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Re: FreeWordOrder SerialVerb Concordial VerbClass
(That’s not a very good objection to “concordial”, but it’s an excellent objection to “verb-class”!)Lao Kou wrote: ↑30 Jul 2019 18:09 ....
Well, I'm still not sure how "concordial" necessarily relates to Géarthnuns. Yes, there are a handful (fistful?) of adverbs that "agree" with the auxiliary in tense only, not in voice; I think this speaks more to the nature of such adverbs and not to verb agreement, per se. Verb class has overlapped with noun class back in the hoarfrost of the early language; i.e. early *basic* verbs in "-l" deal with speech acts and sensory verbs; some motion verbs end in "-z". But that's semantic, I guess, and hardly invokes any type of agreement on the verb side. How "quirky" that makes it in terms of agreement (with verbs; nouns are a standard declension system we are all familiar with).
Was I wrong in thinking that you were the one who contributed the post about Géarthnuns to that CONLANG LISTSERV thread “THEORY: Gender in Verbs” eleven years and nine or ten months ago?
If you were the submitter*, you might re-read it, and might recall to mind what you were thinking then. It’s more than possible I misunderstood it, but if so, I’d need you to explain it to me, if you won’t mind.
OTOH, if you weren’t the submitter, it’s likely that whoever was*, misunderstood your conlang (or your description thereof) as it was at that time.
Or, maybe, they saw something you haven’t seen yet. Maybe because it’s not there; maybe because you just weren’t thinking along those lines.
*Douglas Koller
—————
In any case; I think you are the world’s expert on Géarthnuns!
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- eldin raigmore
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Re: FreeWordOrder SerialVerb Concordial VerbClass
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... neighbours seems to indicate that in Waanyi:
* verbs in serial-verb constructions can come in any order and
* the verb-phrases within an SVC can be discontinuous.
—————
In https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3d61/f ... 14407e.pdf I see:
So, what is “vectorial configuration”?
* verbs in serial-verb constructions can come in any order and
* the verb-phrases within an SVC can be discontinuous.
—————
In https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3d61/f ... 14407e.pdf I see:
Spoiler:
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Re: Concordial VerbClass
Can anyone think of a good use for concordial verb-class, other than telling which arguments go with which verbs in serial-verb-constructions, in languages with flexible or pragmatic or “free” word-order?
For instance; maybe a clause has two or more verbs; and some of the clause’s other constituents, “go with” one or some of the verbs but don’t “go with” one or some of the other verbs. Especially if there are other constituents that “go with” a different proper subset of the clause’s verbs.
The constituents in question needn’t be arguments of the verb(s) in question. (They might be auxiliaries or adverbs or something.)
And the verbs needn’t form a serial-verb construction. They might be co-ordinately conjoined; or subordinately conjoined; or something.
—————
Possibly related; maybe a verb’s dependent words are marked to agree with the verb’s modality-or-mode-or-mood. And maybe subordinated verbs (ie verbs of subordinate clauses) are always m/m/m -marked (eg as “subjunctive”) to show that they’re subordinate. Then the words dependent on the main clause’s verb would probably have a different mood-mark than the words dependent on the subordinate clause’s verb.
Something reminiscent of, if not like, this, happens in the prototypical uses of logophoric pronouns.
Logophoric pronouns are prototypically used to co-refer to certain nominals in clauses that contain an indirectly-quoted complement clause. (Such a clause is embedded, but ordinarily not dependent for part of its meaning on the main clause, and so ordinarily not technically a “subordinate” clause.)
A “logophoric first person” pronoun is a third-person pronoun that co-refers with the speaker of the (indirectly?)-quoted clause.
A “logophoric second person” pronoun is a third-person pronoun that co-refers with the addressee of the (indirectly?)-quoted clause.
Possibly if a clause contains an embedded clause, other constituents might be marked to show whether they depend on the verb of the main clause, or instead depend on the verb of the embedded clause.
That might be simpler if the two verbs were of different concordial verb-classes. Or not.
——————
Suppose some NP or other constituent, were an argument both of the main clause and of the embedded clause.
Should it be case-marked to show whether and how it participates in the main clause, and also to show whether and how it participates in the embedded clause?
For instance, some nominal or pronominal thing might be the subject or direct object or indirect object or oblique argument or even an adjunct of the main clause, while also being the subject of a relative subordinate clause which modifies it (as an adjective would).
How should that be shown?
Obviously, the nominal or pronominal modified by a relative clause, must be the topic of the RC; but in some languages it could be the direct or indirect object, or some other argument, of the RC, instead of the subject. Does it need to be marked to show that?
Would concordial verb-class help? At least sometimes?
——————
In conditional statements, how should constituents of the protasis that depend on the protasis’s verb, be marked to show that, in contrast to constituents of the apodisis that depend on the apodosis’s verb? And vice-versa; how should things that go with the apodosis be marked to show they don’t go with the protasis, if they don’t? And how about things that go with both? Especially if they relate to the protasis’s verb different than the apodosis’s verb?
Would concordial verb-classes help?
==============================
OK, I’ve talked about a lot of two-or-more-verb situations that aren’t serial-verb-constructions.
How about dependents of verbs that aren’t its arguments?
Like auxiliaries and adverbs?
I would think even in SVC languages there are likely to be two-or-more-verb clauses in which some auxiliary or adverb goes with just one of the verbs, or doesn’t go with one of the verbs.
How is that shown?
Would concordial verb-class help?
For instance; maybe a clause has two or more verbs; and some of the clause’s other constituents, “go with” one or some of the verbs but don’t “go with” one or some of the other verbs. Especially if there are other constituents that “go with” a different proper subset of the clause’s verbs.
The constituents in question needn’t be arguments of the verb(s) in question. (They might be auxiliaries or adverbs or something.)
And the verbs needn’t form a serial-verb construction. They might be co-ordinately conjoined; or subordinately conjoined; or something.
—————
Possibly related; maybe a verb’s dependent words are marked to agree with the verb’s modality-or-mode-or-mood. And maybe subordinated verbs (ie verbs of subordinate clauses) are always m/m/m -marked (eg as “subjunctive”) to show that they’re subordinate. Then the words dependent on the main clause’s verb would probably have a different mood-mark than the words dependent on the subordinate clause’s verb.
Something reminiscent of, if not like, this, happens in the prototypical uses of logophoric pronouns.
Logophoric pronouns are prototypically used to co-refer to certain nominals in clauses that contain an indirectly-quoted complement clause. (Such a clause is embedded, but ordinarily not dependent for part of its meaning on the main clause, and so ordinarily not technically a “subordinate” clause.)
A “logophoric first person” pronoun is a third-person pronoun that co-refers with the speaker of the (indirectly?)-quoted clause.
A “logophoric second person” pronoun is a third-person pronoun that co-refers with the addressee of the (indirectly?)-quoted clause.
Possibly if a clause contains an embedded clause, other constituents might be marked to show whether they depend on the verb of the main clause, or instead depend on the verb of the embedded clause.
That might be simpler if the two verbs were of different concordial verb-classes. Or not.
——————
Suppose some NP or other constituent, were an argument both of the main clause and of the embedded clause.
Should it be case-marked to show whether and how it participates in the main clause, and also to show whether and how it participates in the embedded clause?
For instance, some nominal or pronominal thing might be the subject or direct object or indirect object or oblique argument or even an adjunct of the main clause, while also being the subject of a relative subordinate clause which modifies it (as an adjective would).
How should that be shown?
Obviously, the nominal or pronominal modified by a relative clause, must be the topic of the RC; but in some languages it could be the direct or indirect object, or some other argument, of the RC, instead of the subject. Does it need to be marked to show that?
Would concordial verb-class help? At least sometimes?
——————
In conditional statements, how should constituents of the protasis that depend on the protasis’s verb, be marked to show that, in contrast to constituents of the apodisis that depend on the apodosis’s verb? And vice-versa; how should things that go with the apodosis be marked to show they don’t go with the protasis, if they don’t? And how about things that go with both? Especially if they relate to the protasis’s verb different than the apodosis’s verb?
Would concordial verb-classes help?
==============================
OK, I’ve talked about a lot of two-or-more-verb situations that aren’t serial-verb-constructions.
How about dependents of verbs that aren’t its arguments?
Like auxiliaries and adverbs?
I would think even in SVC languages there are likely to be two-or-more-verb clauses in which some auxiliary or adverb goes with just one of the verbs, or doesn’t go with one of the verbs.
How is that shown?
Would concordial verb-class help?
My minicity is http://gonabebig1day.myminicity.com/xml
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Re: FreeWordOrder SerialVerb Concordial VerbClass
I wrote to Rachel Nordlinger about Wambaya and this is her reply.
I haven’t written to anyone about Waanyi yet.
...".....
Dear Thomas,
Thank you for your email and for your positive comments about my work. I am glad that you have enjoyed reading it and found it useful for your interests. Your question about word order in loose SVCs is an excellent one and one that I didn't think to investigate in detail in my fieldwork unfortunately (and all of the fluent speakers of Wambaya passed away many years ago sadly so we will probably never know). However, my hunch is that verbs and objects can go in either order and that context would mostly help you work out which object goes with which verb. There is also a pause between the two serialised verbal complexes so that separation would also help to indicate when one verbal phrase ends and the next begins.
I'm not totally clear on what you mean by concordial verb classes, but I'm pretty sure Wambaya doesn't have them! __
I hope that helps to answer your question.
All the best,
Rachel
--
Professor Rachel Nordlinger FAHA
Director, Research Unit for Indigenous Language
ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language
School of Languages and Linguistics
University of Melbourne
VIC 3010, Australia
I haven’t written to anyone about Waanyi yet.
...".....
Dear Thomas,
Thank you for your email and for your positive comments about my work. I am glad that you have enjoyed reading it and found it useful for your interests. Your question about word order in loose SVCs is an excellent one and one that I didn't think to investigate in detail in my fieldwork unfortunately (and all of the fluent speakers of Wambaya passed away many years ago sadly so we will probably never know). However, my hunch is that verbs and objects can go in either order and that context would mostly help you work out which object goes with which verb. There is also a pause between the two serialised verbal complexes so that separation would also help to indicate when one verbal phrase ends and the next begins.
I'm not totally clear on what you mean by concordial verb classes, but I'm pretty sure Wambaya doesn't have them! __
I hope that helps to answer your question.
All the best,
Rachel
--
Professor Rachel Nordlinger FAHA
Director, Research Unit for Indigenous Language
ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language
School of Languages and Linguistics
University of Melbourne
VIC 3010, Australia
My minicity is http://gonabebig1day.myminicity.com/xml