bradrn’s scratchpad

[bradrn]

Why the term Adnominal rather than Determiner for that particular series? Just curious

‘Determiner‘ in IE grammar generally refers to a syntactic slot which can be filled by a whole range of different items: articles, demonstratives, possessives, quantifiers, etc. Eŋes doesn’t have any single slot like that, so the term wouldn’t be accurate. ‘Adnominal’ is more precise.

I always interpreted "determiners" as being a figment of certain linguists' attempts to treat all languages as being dialects of English.

Yep, precisely! It’s a meaningful category in some languages (as in English), but not in most.

[quinterbeck]

Why the term Adnominal rather than Determiner for that particular series? Just curious

‘Determiner‘ in IE grammar generally refers to a syntactic slot which can be filled by a whole range of different items: articles, demonstratives, possessives, quantifiers, etc. Eŋes doesn’t have any single slot like that, so the term wouldn’t be accurate. ‘Adnominal’ is more precise.

Ah! Somehow I never clocked that. I might steal the term, as Ineru has a set of adnominal demonstratives and quantifiers that pattern with corresponding pronominal and adverbial ones. Up to now they've been labelled determiners.

[bradrn]

Nominalisations, participles and passives

This is a rather small part of the verbal system, but an important one. This is mostly due to derivation: Eŋes makes very extensive use of nominalisations and participles for word-formation. Even quite basic vocabulary can be derived via nominalisation, as with e.g. naŋfŋiŋ ‘sand’ (←fŋiŋ ‘be broken’) .

Indeed, this extensive use of nominalisations is one of the most distinctive features of the Sprachbund to which Eŋes belongs. It’s aided by a notable preference towards calques rather than borrowings: e.g. anumŋun ‘Monstera deliciosa’ (← mŋun ‘with holes’) is parallel to Wēchizaŋkəŋ thēchepkɨ ‘ident.’. On the other hand, Eŋes tends not to use nominalisations for grammatical purposes to the same extent as other languages in the area.

There are three basic nominalisation strategies:

• an- forms action nouns from verbs: anwle ‘going’, anlisŋumŋun ‘seeing’, etc.
• naŋ- forms agent nouns from verbs: naŋfeys ‘one who climbs = climber’, nampasinsef ‘one which shines = light’, etc.
• anu- forms concrete nouns from adjectives: anumŋun ‘one with holes = M. deliciosa’, anusim ‘small one’, etc. (This seems transparently derived from anu ‘thing’.)

Beyond these three, there is the passive participle lse-, which applies only to underived (i.e. non-causative) transitive verbs, yielding adjectives: lsewserfin ‘built’, lselisŋumŋun ‘seen’. Several constructions are built on this:

• The passive walse- is the stative auxiliary of the participle: walsewserfin ‘be built’, etc.
• The dynamic passive malse- is the inchoative auxiliary of the participle: malselisŋumŋun ‘got seen’, etc.
• The patient noun anse- (from older anulse-) is the nominalisation of the participle: ansewserfin ‘something built = building’.

Finally, there are two less common nominalising forms, both ambiguous between an agent and patient interpretation:

• Some verbs correspond irregularly to a noun formed through vowel change, consonant addition and other internal modifications. Particularly common is a form like -eʔ placed within the verbal root: feʔ ‘place’ vs √f- ‘be located’, rweʔ ‘possession’ vs √rw- ‘have’.
• A circumfix maʔ--to gives a slightly more formal and less lexicalised noun: maʔpasinsefto ‘something which shines’, maʔwamŋunto ‘something with holes’.

The status of verbal arguments varies between constructions. Action nominals can take a subject as inalienable possessor, and be immediately followed by an object [though this will depend on me working out the possessive system, of course]. Agent nouns can on occasion take a following object, but obviously cannot take any subject. The rest of the nominalisers cannot take any arguments at all.

I haven’t yet talked about the verb core or serial verb constructions, but they also interact with these constructions in different ways. Action and agent nominalisations seem to be positioned outside the verb core: anwgiwle ‘seeming to go’ is an-[wgi-wle] ‘NMLZ-[seem-go]’, etc. On the other hand, the participle is more ambiguous, since a passive can definitely be used as a single component in an SVC: to construct an example, wasoŋwalsewserfin ‘build pile by throwing sth. down’ is [w-asoŋ]-[walse-wserfin] ‘[AUX-fall]-[PASS-build]’. Of the last two forms, irregular derivation applies only to invididual verb stems, while the circumfix can surround any verb core — making it the only way to build negated nominalisations.

To show the whole verbal system in context, here’s a non-exhaustive list of the most common stems derived from the single transitive verb root √ndiʔs-ʔmum ‘related to writing, drawing’:

• Iterative verb: ndiʔssiʔmum ‘write. handwrite’
  • With auxiliary: wandiʔssiʔmum ‘write with, dictate’
    • Agent noun: naŋwandiʔssiʔmum ‘orator’
    • Participle: *lsewandiʔssiʔmum ‘dictated-to’ (rare)
      • Patient noun: ansewandiʔssiʔmum ‘transcriber’
  • Action noun: anndiʔssiʔmum ‘action of writing’
  • Agent noun: naŋndiʔssiʔmum ‘writer, scribe’
  • Participle: lsendiʔssiʔmum ‘written, handwritten’
    • Dynamic passive: malsendiʔssiʔmum ‘get written’
    • Patient noun: ansendiʔssiʔmum ‘writing, handwriting’
• Atelic verb: ndiʔsoʔmum ‘draft, plan’
  • Action noun: anndiʔsoʔmum ‘planning’’
  • Agent noun: naŋndiʔsoʔmum ‘planner’
  • Participle: lsendiʔsoʔmum ‘drafted, unfinished’
    • Patient noun: ansendiʔsoʔmum ‘a draft, plan’
• Stative verb: *ndiʔsŋuʔmum (not attested)
• Intensive verb: ndiʔsniʔmum ‘engrave’
  • With auxiliary: wandiʔsniʔmum ‘engrave using’
    • Participle: lsewandiʔsniʔmum ‘for engraving’
      • Patient noun: ansewandiʔsniʔmum ‘engraving chisel’
  • Agent noun: naŋndiʔsniʔmum ‘engraver’
  • Participle: lsendiʔsniʔmum ‘engraved’
    • Passive: walsendiʔsniʔmum ‘be engraved’
    • Dynamic passive: malsendiʔsniʔmum ‘get engraved’
    • Patient noun: ansendiʔsniʔmum ‘engraving’
• Punctual: *ndiʔsmoʔmum (not attested)
• Irregular noun: ndiʔsiʔmiʔm ‘pen, writing implement’

[Man in Space]

Can maʔ--to be used for abstract nouns or is it more strictly for concrete objects/persons?

[bradrn]

Can maʔ--to be used for abstract nouns or is it more strictly for concrete objects/persons?

It simply means ‘one which verbs’ / ‘one which is verbed’. So it’s usually concrete, but with the right verb it could be more abstract.