LINGUIST List 2.851

Thu 12 Dec 1991

Qs: Washed, Reduplication, Case

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1. , Query: Needs Washed
2. Joe Stemberger, Reduplication
3. Chandrashekar Siddaramaiah, Case Assignment

Over the years I have heard a number of discussions of the "needs
washed" construction found commonly in the south of Ohio, west
Virginia and Kentucky. Yesterday I was talking to a couple from near
Dundee in Scotland who also use this construction. Is it possible
that the form comes from Scottish immigrants to those areas? More
important, is there any evide3nce that it did originate this way?
Laurie Stowe

The query on reduplication reminds me of a question that I've
been meaning to ask. Does anyone know of work in historical linguistics (of
any language or language family) where the source of morphological
reduplication can be established? E.g., did it originally come about from a
prefix of fixed form that underwent assimilation? Or, did it originally
start out as full repetition of the base morpheme (mokile-mokile), which
was later truncated (mo-mokile)? Or is it the case that reduplication has
not arisen recently enough in any language family for the source to be
established beyond doubt?
---joe stemberger

Hi,
I am working on case assignment in Kannada, a Dravidian language. I
am interested in one particular case. In this language, subject NP of
a non-finite embedded clause is maked nominative case.(This language is
rich in agreement). How could we account for this case given the
assumptions with the GB theory? I appreciate if someone out there has any idea
how one could account such cases. Also, has any one come across
similar cases in any other language?