Two Nominal Clause-Types in Northern Mansi: An Experimental Study of Language Variation

Autor: Csilla Horváth, Nikolett Mus
Jazyk: German<br />English<br />Russian
Rok vydání: 2023
Předmět:
Zdroj: Linguistica Uralica, Vol 59, Iss 4, Pp 272-285 (2023)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 0868-4731
1736-7506
DOI: 10.3176/lu.2023.4.04
Popis: The paper examines the structure and distribution of two types of ­nominal/adjectival predicates in the Northern Mansi language. A nominative noun or adjective serves as the predicate in one construction. The other predicate type contains a predicate noun or adjective that takes translative case marking. In both ­constructions, the stative-like copula Ål- âbe, existâ can also appear, though under ­different ­conditions. In the paper we focus on (a) the licensing conditions of the Ål- copula, (b) the ­predicate-subject agreement morphology, and (c) concord within the predicate phrase in both predicates. Our findings demonstrate that the two types exhibit systematic structural differences: the copula Ål- is utilized in the nominative construction in the past, while it must be omitted in the present. The Ål- copula is always obligatory in the translative predicate. The nominative predicate noun/adjective takes the morpheme of the subject agreement in number, and we attested inter- and intra-speaker variation in Number concord in this construction when there is an overt copula in the predicate phrase. The translative-marked nominal/adjectival predicate does not take any inflectional suffix, and agreement that indicates both the person and the number of the subject is marked on the Ål- copula. ­Additionally, we will show that only the translative-type is acceptable in identificational clauses. As a result, the identificational reading/interpretation is where the ­semantic ­division of labor between the two constructions lies. Our data come from fieldwork where Mansi native ­speakers helped us with survey research. Northern Mansi newspaper texts were also used to clarify certain inconsistencies between our findings and the literature.
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