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Two approaches to destinative in North Samoyedic A comparative evaluation
Two approaches to destinative in North Samoyedic
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
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
Prospective possessor perspective
give / make
ThemeRecipient / Beneficiary
Typical ‘give’ situation
Prospective possessor perspective
give
T
R
Syntactic variation: competition for P
(mo
rph
o)s
ynta
cti
c s
tatu
s
+
-
give
T R
give
T
R
Indirect object Double object Secondary object
Dryer 1986, Haspelmath 2009
Prospective possessor perspective
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?
Prospective possessor perspective
predicate
human object
bene
fact
ive
prospective possessive
Situation of transfer / creation
patientive
Prospective possessor perspective
predicate
human object
expe
rienc
ive
possessive
A parallel: external possession
patientive
Prospective possessor perspective
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
Prospective possessor perspective
give
T
R
syn
tac
tic
sta
tus
+
-
give
T R
give
T
R
give
T
R
Syntactic variation: placing Nganasan
Tensed noun perspective
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…
Tensed noun perspective
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’
Tensed noun perspective
Pst anterior
Fut destinative
Irr counterfactual destinative
The paradigm of nominal tense in Nganasan (Leisiö)
marker
Tensed noun perspective
Pst anterior
Prs possessed or unmarked?
Fut destinative
Irr counterfactual destinative
The paradigm of nominal tense in Nganasan
Tensed noun perspective
The paradigm of nominal tense in Nganasan
Pst nominal past -pst
Irr counterfactual destinative -?-[irr]-pst-[poss]
Fut destinative -dest-[poss]
Prs ?
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
or
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
past
Nominal tense?
Possessive tense?
Possessive tense?
Nominal tense?
Usage
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’
Usage
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
