Re: ciska bai tu'a zo bai

[jimc@MATH.UCLA.EDU]

> So I've completely tied myself in knots. Should have gotten more sleep. John,
> I do feel this should be handled in the attitudinal paper. Anyone make any
> sense of this?

(a) yes, in knots.  (b) yes, lots of sense.

To muddy the waters even further, let me float something past.  An
attitudinal is usually "about" some referent, e.g. someone is happy or
someone is humble or someone has high status (relative to some second
argument?)  Let's forget about the long-frozen grammar and interpret
the attitudinal as being attached to a specific sumti in the same
manner that a <BAI> might be, rather than to an arbitrary word.  Then
obviously the attachee is the referent. As a special case, attitudinals
attached to a main or subordinate bridi would refer to the speaker, or
possibly for ga'i it might refer to the listener (addressee).

This way we could say things like:

        (le mlatu (pe lemi mensi ku) .ui) cu pinxe (le ladru)
        The cat of my sister happily drinks the milk
                (cat is happy, not sister or speaker)
vs.
        (le mlatu) cu .ui pinxe (le ladru)
        .ui le mlatu cu pinxe le ladru          (more normal order)
        Good, the cat is drinking the milk (speaker is happy)

Or for honorifics:

        le mlatu ga'inai cu pinxe le ladru
        Honorable cat drinks the milk (cat is honored)
vs.
        le mlatu cu pinxe le ladru ku ga'inai
        The cat drinks a toast in milk
                (default honoree, proposed to be the listener, doesn't
                 actually say who is doing the honoring as the translation
                 implies)

James F. Carter        Voice 310 825 2897       FAX 310 206 6673
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