LINGUIST List 14.1689

Sun Jun 15 2003

Qs: Ergative Amazonian Langs; Proto-Altaic Forms

Editor for this issue: Naomi Fox <foxlinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Eva Monr�s, Valence changing and ergativity
2. Anton ANTONOV, (proto-)Altaic (*) -RA/RU

Dear linguists,

I am pursuing my research on ergative Amazonian languages. I would be
very grateful if anybody could give me bibliographical references
dealing with the following topics:

- Morphological and syntactical descriptions of ergative languages of
South America.

- Valence changing in ergative languages of the world.

Thanks in advance,

Eva Monr�s
Universitat de Barcelona 

I am currently working on the grammaticalization of an Old Japanese
suffix -RA, which combines at least five seemingly very different
meanings, i.e., plurality, humility, affection, static adjective stem
suffix, location. It is this last meaning of -RA which is often
(cf. Miller 1976, Tekin 1993, Haguenauer 1951/6, Greenberg 2000, among
others) assumed to be a remnant of a proto-Altaic suffix
*-RA(/RE/RI/RU) which was arguably used as a marker of the
locative/allative cases. Thus, Modern Japanese place pronouns
kotira/sotira/atira/dotira ''here,there,etc.,where'' which can also be
used as direction pronouns ''(come)over here, this way, etc.'' have
been compared to Modern Turkish bura/sura/ora/nere ''here, there,
etc. where''. 

Now I have been able to find out that both the Japanese forms and
their Modern Turkish counterparts are of rather recent coinage, the
latter stemming from a fusion between the demonstratives bu/su/o and
the independent noun ara ''interval, space''. I would therefore like
to know if in the other Turkic languages (or the rest of the so-called
Altaic family) there are forms where a reflex of proto-Altaic *-RA,
etc. appears and which cannot be explained as the result of a similar
''crasis''. 

Thank you all in advance!

Language-Family: Altaic; Code: AT