jeff_l
(Jeff_L)
#1
8.5 Participles (subject relatives) 483
8.5.1 Affixes for participles built directly on verb stems
When a verb is participialized, it take the regular 3rd person pronominal-
subject prefixes that occur on the corresponding verb. In participles, the 3rd
person forms are used even when the head is a 1st or 2nd person pronoun, so
they have no actual person-marking value and function simply as number-
gender markers. The prefixes are shown in (498).
(498) Number-Gender Prefixes on Participles
MaSg i- (before C or a), 0- (before full V or ae)
FeSg t-(realized as 0-before CV...)
PI [zero]
The allomorphs of the MaSg, the deletability of /t-/ before a CV..., and the
absence of a prefix for PI subject, show that the prefixes on participles behave
in every way like regular 3rd person subject prefixes on inflected verbs (§7.4).
The adjectival verbs that cannot take any subject prefixes in their
perfective forms (including PerfP and Resit), e.g. PerfP ksewal and Resit
kaewal 'be black', likewise lack prefixes in the corresponding participles,
including MaSg. The zeroing of FeSg t- would happen anyway before a CV...
stem onset (Prefixal t-Deletion, §7.4.1.2), but adjectival verbs also avoid
3MaSg i- prefix (§7.4.2), and this carries through to participles, e.g. the Resit
participles in as-hdbs kaswael-asn 'a black man', and t-a-maett kaewasl-ast 'a
black woman'.
Given the limited set of prefixes in participialized verbs, Participial
suffixes are especially important. They express the same categories as we saw
in the prefixes (MaSg, FeSg, PI), with no gender distinction in the plural.
In (499) I show the Participial suffixes. For morphological comparison, I
add the corresponding nominal gender-number suffixes, and 3rd person verbal
subject suffixes. Overall, the participles are sui generis, but have some
affinities with both nominal and verbal morphology (like participles in many
other languages). The stems to which Participial affixes are added are verb
stems, and the prefixes are those used with inflectable verbs. On the other
hand, the suffixes look more nominal than verbal, participles (as relative
clauses) are part of NP syntax, and the restriction of both prefixes and suffixes
to gender-number marking (with no person marking) is suggestive of nominal
rather than verbal morphology.
