Detail #44: Migratory case suffixes

(This feature could arguably be used as evidence that the cases in question are not cases, but rather some kind of adpositional clitics).

In a language with some verbs triggering quirky case on the object, under certain circumstances if the object is missing the case suffix/clitic goes somewhere else in the sentence. The circumstances that trigger this are:

• objects being topicalized
• objects only being present as congruence marking on the noun
• objects having certain determiners on them that prevent the case markers

In these cases, the case marker tends to appear on whichever is the rightmost of:

• adjectival complements (esp. object complements)
• indirect objects
• subjects
• a dummy pronoun

Detail #43: A couple of derivative affixes

An affix applicable to verbs of utterance, which in combination with verbs like say, ask, tell, etc form verbs meaning things along the lines of

• [prefix]-say: to concur, to agree
• [prefix]-ask: to agree with the notion that the asked question deserves an answer
• [prefix]-tell: to concur with a story or longer utterance
• [prefix]-sing: to sing harmony
• [prefix]-laugh: to laugh with someone

Another affix would form a kind of opposing meaning:

• [prefix]-say: to contradict
• [prefix]-ask: to respond by a further question
• [prefix]-tell: to assert that a whole narrative is a lie
• [prefix]-sing: to sing the response part in a call-and-response structure
• [prefix]-laugh: to laugh at someone

Further verbs of speech and discourse could have meanings that somewhat follow these patterns, but on occasion - as with the singing examples deviate a bit more from the pattern of the meanings.

Detail #42: N pieces each

The previous post involving 'each' inspired me to think a bit about the construction used in the topic, the construction used to express giving members of some group a certain amount each.

I came up with a few ideas:

• Use an adverb formed by clustering together a bunch of pronouns: to me-you-him-them (alternatively, with dative or whatever). Simple and has a certain attractiveness to it. There's a kind of obvious way it would have come about and been generalized for each instance of 'N# each'.
• Use a special form on the numbers. Four-distr. pound = four pounds each.
• The previous option could be made interesting - what if the -distr. form then is generalized to other things? Bread-distr. = bread for everyone! Fast-distr. = everyone speed up? Everyone is?|can be?| should be?|may be?  fast.
• And, again, what if it went the other way? In some way, this could be seen as a very special kind of imperative, so an imperative affix on the numeral. The grammaticalization path would go from the very specific context of '(here, take) four' until every context is covered by it, included telling that each person got so and so many or are entitled so and so many somewhere.
• Some kind of fossilized imperative verbs along the lines of 'take an allotment of  N' or 'allot N'. Maybe not even fossilized - they could still be distinguished between when you're the recipient or the distributing part.  
• In a way, a modal verb form expressing permission easily could generalize to this kind of numerals?

Longer term project: a few details

This idea originally was slated to be detail #... but as I kept thinking about it, it occurred to me that it fits with the isolating language I have been slowly compiling ideas for. I will, however, describe the idea as it developed.

each, every: formed as two opposite nouns or adjectives along these lines -

man and woman }
beast and fowl     }   NP
child and adult     }
large and small     }

E.g. every able worker → young and old able worker | big and small able worker
Before it occurred to me that this could work with the isolating language, I considered case marking and how it interacts with this. The following options occurred:

• These phrases, when used as determiners and pronouns, use the same case morphemes - and the same case distinctions - that pronouns normally use? Or alternatively, a simplified case system or one that merges cases in a way that differs from nouns in some other way.
• The case of the embedded noun phrase should be somewhat limited - partitive or genitive or nominative or somesuch, but maybe exceptionally mark accusative case when the phrase is the direct object of a verb?
• When used as a pronoun, the phrase is more often oblique than a direct argument of the verb, thus distinguishing it from sentences where these noun phrases are coordinated due to the speaker actually speaking of such combinations.

At this point, it dawned on me that maybe one could use articles to distinguish 'actual' use of nouns and this kind of use - omitting the articles whenever the use is pronoun-/determiner-like. At that point, this makes sense in an isolating language as well. It also dawned on me that the more typical determiner/pronoun 'all' probably also could originate with this construction, and an earlier 'all' could have been grammaticalized into some kind of aspect marker particle, but also still persist in some idioms. 

Thus, the language will have articles - probably using some kind of noun class system (with some overlap between classes), as well as a very free way of forming 'all, each, every'. Finally, fossilized use of an earlier 'all', as well as use of that earlier pronoun as an aspect marker. Oh, and the 'all, each, every'-construction should probably be more likely to occur in somewhat oblique positions than as direct objects.

Detail #41: A lexical item

The verb used to denote smoking tobacco (or other similar things) varies a bit between languages. Swedish uses a verb derived from 'smoke' (rök → röka, but compare the verb used for fires and other things from which smoke is emitted: ryka). Finnish uses the verb for 'to burn' (polttaa), English uses a zero-derived verb smoke. Albanian, apparently, uses a verb that also denotes drinking. 

Considering the importance of the lips in smoking, I figure some kind of detransitivized or dereciprocalized version of kiss reasonably could be used as well in some language - maybe especially so if smoking is a ritualized practice in the culture.

Detail #40: Reflexive possession blocker

As a further idea to add to the stuff in this post, [...]

Assuming that certain classes of nouns when appearing as objects of certain kinds of verbs are implicitly owned by the subject, unless strong contextual reasons exist not to interpret it that way, let's consider some shortcuts to blocking the reflexive possession. This of course gets into something I don't like much, viz. disambiguation, but I'll nevertheless consider it.

An obvious way would be to have something that is simply put an indefinite possessive pronoun:

I washed someone's clothes (implicitly: not mine)

However, that's kind of obvious and kind of boring. Let's try some other approach: we could possibly get the same kind of implication by reducing the transitivity of the verb, by for instance demoting the object to some other type of argument:

I washed at the clothes ← not mine

I washed the clothes ← mine

 Alternatively, we could maybe use some kind of voice-like operation on the verb.

the clothes were being washed by me ← not mine

I was washing the clothes ← mine  

One possibility could also be that reflexive possession requires the object to follow the verb (or the subject, in an SOV languages) immediately, and inserting anything else between will disrupt the possessivity:

I washed the clothes ← mine 

I washed, then, the clothes ← not mine 

An interesting kind of implication of this could be if this gets grammaticalized -  you could suddenly have a situation where some verbs sometimes have a voice-like thing that simply alters whether the object is reflexively possessed or not (if the inserted thing grammaticalizes to the left), or a case prefix  (if the particle grammaticalizes to the right).

If it gets marked on the noun, this could further lead to situations where some nouns also have a generalized form: [nonposs]-brother: any brother, a brother in general, a male sibling; brother: the brother of some relevant NP, usually contextually relevant. If the marking is on the noun, it also, of course, easily can spread to non-object nouns as well.

Detail #39: A pronominal distinction

In some languages, have two sets of third person pronouns. One set starting in one consonant, and the other set in some other. Preferrably, set II would be more "strong"-sounding, if some such sound symbolism is present in the language. These pronouns also serve as definite articles, deictic pronouns and determiners.

Set I appears everywhere else, set II appears when:

• the pronoun refers to the topic of the same sentence
• the pronoun is in apposition with adjectives or another pronoun (serving a similar function as 'the' in the other or the red one in English)
• the pronoun can be construed to answer which one out of several options is specified.
• the pronoun is contrasted with some other NP or pronoun - they arrived, no one else did. If contrasted with another pronoun, the one to whom the contrast is considered a merit will be marked with set II.
• possibly other similar usages, but I am at a loss to come up with anything right now.

Finally, the pronouns of set II also work as relativizers: the man, his wife is beautiful, is worried about her fidelity. (A biblical proverb, iirc).