PREDICTING SYNTAX FROM SEMANTICS 531- Blake (1987:145) identifies structures of this sort as cases of center-embedding in
Arandic (i.e. one clause is surrounded by the other). Note that the purposive
clause could also follow the verb in e.g. (lb), and could precede the verb in e.g.
(lc). As Blake notes "the purposive clause occupies the same place as a nominal
in the dative or other oblique case would have occupied." - Note however that (6b) can also have the interpretation: "The man watched while
the kangaroo drank the water." - In Warlpiri (Central Australia) langa 'ear' also has a figurative use which is
described in the Warlpiri Dictionary (Warlpiri Dictionary Project, ms. fascicle on
body parts) as designating "the 'rational' cognitive faculty", and the entry also lists
the following as possible English equivalents: "intelligence, understanding, mind,
memory, reason, head, brain(s)". The Warlpiri form langa-ngku ma-ni (lit. ear-
ERGATIVE get) means 'to call to mind, recall, remember'. Similarly, in Yir-
Yoront (southwestern Cape York Peninsula), pin 'ear' has the further meaning of
"[t]he ear as the seat of intelligence and attention" (Alpher, ms.: 287) and this
form is used as a prefix to verbs "to form verbs of intelligence and attention"
(Alpher, ms.: 289). Both the verb meaning 'to remember' (pin-pinVlt yam) and
the verb meaning 'to forget' (pin=porng+m) in Yir Yoront contain pin 'ear' as a
prefix. - One is tempted to note at this point the view held in certain areas of philosophy
and psychology (and attributed to Vygotsky) that active problem solving and con
scious thinking involve subvocalization.
References
Alpher, Barry, ms. Yir-Yoront Lexicon (May 1989).
Ameka, Felix. 1986. The Syntax and Semantics of Particles in Ewe. Unpublished M.A.
thesis Australian National Univ.
Bach, Emmon. 1979. "Control in Montague Grammar". Linguistic Inquiry 10.515-71.
Blake, Barry. 1987. Australian Aboriginal Grammar. London: Croom Helm.
Boas, Franz & Ella Deloria. 1941. Dakota Grammar. (Memoirs of the National
Academy of Sciences, v. 23.) Washington, D.C.: US Government Printing Office.
Bolinger, Dwight L. 1971. "Semantic Overloading: A Restudy of the Verb Remind".
Language 47'.522-547'.
Bresnan, Joan. 1972. Theory of Complementation in English Syntax. MIT dissertation.
, ed. 1982. The Mental Representation of Grammatical Relations. Cambridge,
Mass.: MIT Press.
Centineo, Giulia. 1986. "A Lexical Theory of Auxiliary Selection in Italian". Davis
Working Papers in Linguistics 1.1-35.
Chomsky, Noam. 1981. Lectures on Government and Binding. Dordrecht: Foris.. 1986. Knowledge of Language. New York: Praeger.