Simpson, Jane Helen: Qualitative comparison in Warlpiri: semantic case, adposition and/or derivational affix?
The Central Australian Pama-Nyungan language Warlpiri has a suffix -piya expressing resemblance. Morphologically, it is a semantic case, and not a derivational affix. Semantically it is a two-place predicate. Syntactically, it has a predicate like that of an adposition. As the main predicate of a clause it is subcategorised for subject and object. As the predicate of an adjunct it is subcategorised for an object (at least) and bears a case feature which allows the adjunct to consist of more than one element through agreement. -piya takes additional case marking to indicate which argument or adjunct it is predicated of (‘case stacking’). In main clause and adjunct use it is prototypically used to compare entities, but it can be used to compare events through pragmatic inference. Rarely, it attaches to verbs (nominalised or finite), and compares events directly. In this latter use it is a discourse particle with no syntactic arguments. Its LFG lexical entry allows a simple representation of the relation between its different functions.
December 22, 2022 |