Two approaches to destinative in North Samoyedic

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A comparative evaluation

Data background

The presentation would be impossible without Valentin Goussev and Maria Brykina, who provided access to the Electronic Corpus of Nganasan, helped with the morphological analysis and corrected mistakes

Language background

The construction in question is attested in North Samoyedic languages: Enets, Nenets and Nganasan (but not in South Samoyedic language Selkup)

A functionally similar construction is also attested in some Tungusic languages

As we will see, more distant typological parallels depend on the interpretation of the construction

Terminological background

The marker is called “предназначительный” in Russian and has been translated alternatively as destinative, predestinative or designative in English

Disambiguation: “предназначительный” is functionally different from the Samoyedic / Tungusic category

Note however some functional overlap

Typical contexts

‘Give me some food’ (=‘Give food-for-my’)

‘I will make you a house’ (=‘I will make a house-for-your’)

Problem setting

Two approaches to destinative

Prospective Possessor perspective Tensed noun perspective

This paper is an attempt of a comparative evaluation of the two approaches…

Prospective possessor perspective

Recipient / Beneficiary marking‘give food-for-me’

Typological parallels: monotransitive give constructions

Creissels 1979; Croft 1985; Margetts 2002

Typological parallels: possessive ~ benefactive connection

Oceanic languages: Song 1997, 2002; Lichtenberk 2002

Application to Samoyedic: Creissels 1979, Daniel 2005, Creissels, Daniel 2006

give / make

ThemeRecipient / Beneficiary

Typical ‘give’ situation

Syntactic variation: competition for P

Indirect object Double object Secondary object

Dryer 1986, Haspelmath 2009

In most ditransitive contexts, the R/B is expressed as a possessive suffix

More rarely, it is expressed as a genitive noun

The single-NP status is contestable, but it certainly is structurally similar to a possessive expression

How does Nganasan fit?

predicate

human object

prospective possessive

Situation of transfer / creation

patientive

predicate

human object

possessive

A parallel: external possession

patientive

Why external Possessors are frequent, and internal Recipients so rare?

Actual possession is stronger than prospective possession, while Experiencer vs. Beneficiary roles are comparably strong

Syntactic variation: placing Nganasan

Tensed noun perspective

Future temporal reference‘give what-is-going-to-be-my-food’

Typological parallels: Nordlinger, Sadler 2004

Application to Samoyedic: Helimski 1994, Leisiö 2009

Tense noun perspective

Nordlinger and Sadler’s survey centers on meanings ‘what is going / used to be ice’

However, it also includes possessive contexts

According to them, nominal tense primarily distinguishes past vs. non-past

This seems to be in contradiction with Nganasan data, but…

Counterfactual (irreal) destinative:‘what could have been my food’

(finds a parallel in nominal tense typology in Jate, Macro-Je – Nordlinger, Sadler 2004)

Counterfactual destinative optionally includes a true verbal suffix of irrealis (Goussev 2005)

Past nominals:‘what used to be a sledge’

Pst anterior

Fut destinative

Irr counterfactual destinative

The paradigm of nominal tense in Nganasan (Leisiö)

marker

Pst anterior

Prs possessed or unmarked?

Fut destinative

Irr counterfactual destinative

The paradigm of nominal tense in Nganasan

Pst nominal past -pst

Irr counterfactual destinative -?-[irr]-pst-[poss]

Fut destinative -dest-[poss]

Tensed noun prespective

Advantages Explains elements of verbal

morphology Builds a full paradigm

Disadvantages The resulting paradigm is

asymmetrical in various ways

A comparison

Do nominal past and destinatives form one paradigm?

Can destinatives be treated as instances of nominal tense?

What is tensed?

what is going to be my house

What is tensed?

IF the destinative is about nominal tense: it means ‘what used to/could/will be an X’ possessive relation is a colateral

THEN there should be many examples of

unpossessed tensed nouns

What is tensed?

IF the destinative is about prospective possession:

it means ‘what used to/could/will be Y’s X’

THEN all destinatives should be somehow

possessed

What is tensed?

If the nominal past is also connected to possession:

that would keep the paradigm intact – it would be tensed possession instead of tensed nouns

THEN all nouns marked as ‘pst’ should be somehow

possessed

What is tensed?

IF the category is about nominal tense, then it is about future objects (objects which do not exist yet)

If the category is about prospective possession, it is about future relations (relations that do not yet hold)

Paradigmatic structure

future

irreal

Nominal tense?

Possessive tense?

Nominal tense?

Statistically, nominal past is independent from possessiveness, although often co-occurs with it

Destinative (both actual and counterfactual) is bound with possessiveness and only rarely occurs without Possessors

The two categories thus do not form an obvious paradigm

Typology

Nordlinger and Sadler 2004’s nominal tense is sometimes combined with possessiveness (e.g. Carib languages)

Even more often, it is ambiguous between tensed possession and ‘absolute’ nominal tense

Discussion of Nordlinger and Sadler 2004

If possible, it would be preferable to treat possessive TAM and absolute nominal TAM separately

As Nordlinger and Sadler mention, however, the form often has both interpretations; so that these two categories may be conceptually correlated

It remains to be seen whether it would be viable, typologically, to keep them as separate categories

Similarly to how Nordlinger and Sadler themselves distinguish between independent nominal tense and propositional nominal tense – different elements are being tensed…

When considering absolute nominal tense, we should pay attention to relational and inalienably possessed nouns with covert possessive relations: ‘house’, ‘wife’, ‘skin’

future relation

DESTINATIVES

very few nonpossessed future objects, if any

NOMINAL PAST

attested unpossessed past objects

future object past relation past object

But, statistics apart, note that the destinative construction is the basic ‘give’ construction in the language

It seems that both categories oscillate between tensing nouns and relations (to different extents), thus supporting the typological vagueness of the distinction

Conclusions

Samoyedic destinative is not incompatible with the typology of nominal tense proposed in Nordlinger / Sadler 2004

But maybe this typology has to be reconsidered? It is not the noun but the possessive relation which is tensed

Or it may be that the category is vague in the end, similarly to the impression one gets from Nodlinger / Sadler…

Conclusions

Destinative fits at least equally well into prospective possessor discussion, and should be a topic in a typology of beneficiaries

It is unclear whether we should really choose – maybe destinative lies at the intersection of the prospective Possessor typology and nominal tense

Conclusions

To support Leisiö’s interpretation and put the destinatives and anterior forms together, we need to disregard their heterogeneity both in terms of Nordlinger/Sadler’s nominal tense typology (but consider the probable ambiguity) and in terms of formal morphology

Hommage to speakers

Two approaches to destinative in North Samoyedic

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