This set of ideas were inspired by discussions with the author of Ayeri.
Let's have a look at deictic marking in the verb complex. We can consider some obvious things - deictic marking can sort of be dependent on person – one could have here unmarked on first person verbs, there unmarked on third person verbs, and maybe put second person in a situation where here is unmarked in the present, but there is unmarked in the past.
Now, since some are marked and some are unmarked, we could go for a direct-inverse kind of situation here:
unmarked marked 1 here there 2 present here there past there here 3 there here
Certain third person NPs could of course doubly inverse this: the demonstrative 'this' itself, as well as a third person listener pronoun.
Now, with verbs of movement, there may be two slots, although both are not necessarily filled. If both are empty in a verb meaning 'depart', a first person subject in the present would be parsed as 'I am leaving (from here to there)'.
Here and there are obviously distinguished, but movements can also happen between two distinct theres, or even from or to an indefinite place - which have their own morphemes, cognate to indefinite pronouns. For verbs of movement, the deictic markers also become more complicated, interacting with aspect in various ways. Perfective movements towards will by default be oriented herewards, so direction towards there is marked by a distinct morpheme, movement towards anywhere is marked by the same indefinite morpheme previously mentioned. Perfective verbs of departure will by default be parsed the opposite way to the table given above, and likewise perfectie verbs of movement along. Imperfective verbs of movement depend on the person in the same way as given in the table above.
The indefinite morpheme previously mentioned is also used when interrogative pronouns are used.
No comments:
Post a Comment