LINGUIST List 4.579

Wed 28 Jul 1993

Qs: Warlpiri, English 3sg -th, Saami, Pro Expletives

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Directory

1. Allan C. Wechsler, References on Warlpiri phonology
2. Allan C. Wechsler, English 3sg -th vs. -s
3. Richard Ogden, Saami
4. Spencer A J, Small pro expletives in English

I have written a paper on Warlpiri phonology, and I want
to make sure I have considered current work. The paper
is called "An autosegmental account of Warlpiri 'rd'".
The only relevant references I have are:

Hale, K. L. [1973] Person marking in Walbiri

Hale, K. L. [1983] Warlpiri primer (unpublished)

Laughren, M. [1984] Warlpiri "baby talk"

Nash, D. G. [1980] Topics in Warlpiri grammar

Person-marking on the English verb has undergone a couple
of major changes in the "Modern" era. One is the leveling
of 2sg/familiar under 2pl/formal. Another is the loss of
3sg -th, which was replaced with -s. Does anyone know the
whole story of the latter change? When -th was productive,
did it coexist with -s, and if so, what determined which
ending was used? If -th and -s did not coexist, what was
the source of -s?

Can anyone give me some references (if they even exist) for phonetic
desriptions of Saami (Koutokeino or similar dialect) please? They
could be in English, German, Swedish, Norwegian or Finnish; Russian
is beyond me.
Thanks
Richard Ogden
rao1vaxb.york.ac.uk

My colleague, Martin Atkinson, has pointed out to me that the
subject position indicated by ___ in (1) appears to be a case
of an expletive small pro.

(1) As ____ has been pointed out, English lacks null
subjects.

[Interestingly, L2 learners of English often insert 'it' in
the place of the gap.]

Is this the canonical analysis within (some variety of) GB?

Cursory examination suggests that the construction is not
permitted with other types of clause, and only seems possible
in As-clauses with passive or raising predicates, and
extraposition of infinitivals from raising and tough
predicates (depending presumably on semantics; cf (5), (6)):

(2) As ____ seems obvious nowadays, ...

(3) As ____ is clear from the raw data, ...

(4) As ____ is likely to be obvious from the raw data, ...

(5) As ____ is easy to see from the data, ...

(6) *As ____ would be difficult to prove from these data, ...

Extraposition of finite clauses seems to be excluded:

(7) *As ___ seems that everyone now agrees, ...

(8) *As ___ is clear that everyone now agrees, ...

(9) *As ___ has been pointed out, that (it) is the case, ...

Are these data really representative? If so, what governs this
patterning?

Andrew Spencer

 Department of Language and Linguistics University of Essex
Colchester CO4 3SQ U.K.

spenaessex.ac.uk