inflected light verb in the psych complement construction

This terrific example from Copala Triqui shows that the light verb ne'en which appears before certain psych complements can even inflect for aspect:

Philemon 1:17

In this example, we get two sequences of uun rá...ne'en 'love, regard ... psych complement'.  The first instance is in the completive, so ne'en is also completive.  But the second instance is guun rá, the potential aspect, so the verb ne'en is in its potential aspect form (quene'en) as well.

Psych complements with ne'e(n) again

Another example of the verb ne'e(n) serving as a marker of a psych complement, from 2 Corinthians 6:11-13

2 Cor 6:13

The literal translation is something like "Thus as one loves one's child, that is how I love you, and that is why I say to you that as we have done to you, you should do also to us, and have confidence in us."

Some interesting points to note -- the typical syntax after the psych complement marker is ne'e(n) SUBJ man OBJ.   The accusative marker is typical because the NP towards which one has an attitude is typically a specific human, and specific human objects are very likely have overt accusative.  But notice that in this passage, the object is a generic 'one's child', and is not preceded by the accusative.

Also interesting that uun rá 'love' triggers the psych complement marker, but nucuaj rá 'have confidence in' doesn't, at least in this passage.

Here is another passage that uses both ne'e(n) and ni'yaj.  I am not sure if there is some difference implied by the choice of psych complement introducer:

Col 1:2

Update on Copala Triqui pysch verbs with ne'e as light verb

We spent some time today working with our Triqui speaker on the psych verbs that use ni'yaj as a light verb to introduce a complement.  (Discussed here, here, here, here, and here).

I was delighted to find out that while our speaker accepts and uses ni'yaj, he more frequently suggests ne'e  as the marker of psych complement.  The connection is that the other sense of ni'yaj is 'look at; mirar', while ne'e also means 'see; ver'.  Thus two different verbs of perception are used to introduce the psych complement.

Here's an example in the entry for the verb 'be jealous':

And here is the entry for one of the verbs that means 'like':

A particularly interesting example is 'I like the music very much'.  This shows the degree to which ne'e  is grammaticized here, since one does not literally see the music.

Here is an example from the New Testament with ne'e(n):

Senses of psychological verbs in Copala Triqui

It is very difficult to accurately translate all the different psychological and emotional verbs into English or Spanish, since Triqui divides the world up somewhat differently.

Case in point is the verb aráya'anj , which has a range of meanings that includes 'be amazed at something; be concerned about someone; be alarmed at something.'   Working through the large corpus with this verb allows us to find examples that show the different shades of meaning.

Here's an example of the 'be concerned' sense:

Here is an example of the 'be amazed' sense

And here is an example of the 'alarmed'  sense

The common semantics of this verb seem to include an aspect of worry/lack of knowledge about the future and concern for people affected in the future.

We also see this verb in combination with the ni'yanj psych marker to show an attitude of amazement toward someone.

Experimenting with semantic domains

I have been playing around a bit with the Semantic Domain feature in FLEx today.  I have mostly found this fairly unwieldy, since the lists of semantic domains are in an elaborate hierarchy and it takes a long time to find the domain you want.

However, if there are only a few domains that you are interested in, you can also just add them as top-level domains (using the Lists  | Semantic Domains menu).  One that I am interested in is the psychological verbs that show up with ni'yaj  after them.

I added psych verbs as a top-level semantic domain, as follows

Then in the entry of a verb that licenses this marker, I select this as "Semantic Domain"  in the entry:

If I want to see all the verbs that have been identified for this semantic domain, I use the "Classified Dictionary"  option in the Lexicon pane, and it shows me the following:

Adjectives with the existential copula

Still wondering about the syntax of a couple of adjectival or verb psychological predicates that must appear with vaa 'exist'  or its potential aspect form gaa.  These seem rather like verbs, and can be transitive, but they don't vary for aspect, which is instead shown by the existential.

Several examples in this subsense of the word vaa:

Interlinear versions of some sample passages:

The 'free'  construction described in the previous blog entry also has the vaa before it.

Thinking in Triqui, continued + ni'yaj puzzles

The following passage shows the funny interaction between the rá 'think' construction and the question particle, namely in a passage 'Do you think this is the man who used to sit and beg...?'  what is really being asked is something like [in your thoughts [is this the man who used to sit and beg?] ].  The Triqui order is
[This is the man who used to sit and beg][you think][question].  The 'thinking' construction is discussed here, here, and here

Another puzzle -- does ni'yaj mean 'look at' in this passage?  The passersby look at the formerly blind man, but when they look at him, they also have a particular thought/attitude of surprise toward him.

Ni'yaj psych complements again

In previous posts, I've discussed the unusual word ni'yaj, which is followed by an NP that has a psychological attitude toward the preceding clause.

The following shows a subtle use of the ni'yaj marker of psychological attitude.  Here there is literal seeing, but I believe the intention of the passive is that witnessing the resurrected Jesus eat caused the disciples to change their psychological state (i.e. believing that it was really him).

Ni'yaj psych complements continued

In a previous post, I talked about the unusual verb ni'yaj in Copala Triqui, which is used to convey a psychological attitude by some participant in a text toward another participant.

The following example is interesting, since 'illuminate/shine'  isn't a psychological verb.  But in combination with ni'yaj, we get the reading 'It seemed to me as if his face was shining'.  Here the overlap with another sense of ni'yaj 'see'  is fairly clear, but not all psychological uses involve vision.

Thinking in Triqui, part 2

More examples of the thinking construction:

1.) The scope of the [ABC] portion seems to extend from ca'vee nuchruj raa  'it would be possible for them to think about' up to the 'Peter and John' just before rá.

2.) In this example, the [ABC] contains the noun phrase 'fox', and the rá is followed by the animal pronoun xo'.  So if the first clause were subordinate to the 'it thought' portion, then we would have a "Condition D" effect, where a pronoun c-commands a coreferential r-expression below it.  Copala Triqui has plenty of standard Condition C violations (John saw John), but I am not sure that Condition D violations ("He saw John", where he=John) are otherwise allowed.

Thinking in Triqui

Copala Triqui has an unusual syntax for recounting people's thoughts in a text.  Rather than 'X thought [ABC]', the usual Triqui syntax is '[ABC], rá X'.  (I am not completely sure, but I think that other orders with rá are not possible; at least none occur in natural texts.)

Sometimes [ABC] itself maycontain another verb that implies thought, like me rá 'want'.

Questions that I do not know the answer to about this construction:
a.) Logically it seems that [ABC] is subordinate to "X thinks", but is there syntactic evidence for the relationship between the two clauses?
b.) Does it have the same syntax as the similarly reversed causative construction '[ABC] caused X'?
c.) How large is the possible scope of the material before rá? How do I know where the left edge of the [ABC] unit is to be found?
d.) Are there any restrictions on the person/number of the subject?  (I have only seen it for 2nd or 3rd person X, but maybe other uses are possible...)
e.) Is it possible for X to be null? I have transcriptions of some passages that seem to show this pattern, but I am not 100% sure that they are right.
f.) Any restrictions on the aspect or other elements of the [ABC] materials?

Here are some examples:
1.) In this example, the wants/thoughts of public hypocrites are described.  The scope of rá seems to extend back to the me rá 'want' verb, since the two potential aspects on 'speak' and 'see' are triggered by the presence of these verbs in the complement of 'want'.

2.) In this example, it seems like the final question particle ga logically goes with the 'Which woman is my mother?' part of the sentence, not with the 'you think' part. (I.e. the sentence does not mean 'Do you think which woman is my mother?') Also ga typically shows up with wh-questions, not yes-no questions, so it is linked to the 'which woman'...

3.) Here is a case where the 'thinker' is the same as the subject of [ABC], and seems to be null in the syntax.  This passage bears on question (e) above, but I want to have more examples to be sure that this is correctly analysed.

Verbs with and without the marker of psychological attitude in Copala Triqui

In a previous posts here and here, I gave examples of a morpheme ni'yaj (literally 'see') that shows up before the complements of certain psychological attitudes.

These three examples all show the verb chuman rá 'believe'.  When the object is unspecified or inanimate, we do not get the morpheme ni'yaj.

But when the object is human 'Jesus', then the morpheme ni'yaj appears.  This version of 'believe' means something like 'believe in', so it implies a psychological attitude toward someone.

More uses of the ni'yaj psychological attitude marker in Copala Triqui

The following passages from the Triqui new testament show  interesting additional uses of the ni'yaj morpheme in Copala Triqui. (Described in a previous post.)

The syntax is [Spoke Greeks [ni'yaj they ACC Hebrews about ... ]] and the somewhat idiomatic reading seems to be 'the Greeks complained of the Hebrews that they...'.

This seems to show that a word that is not inherently a psychological attitude verb (like 'speak') can be converted to a psychological attitude verb by using the ni'yaj morpheme.

The following passage is similar, this time with 'think well SUBJ ni'yaj (pron) man NP':

The subject here is the indefinite nii, so this phrase means 'those who people speak well of'.  Note another stranded accusative marker!

Strange psych verbs in Copala Triqui

A certain subclass of transitive verbs of psychological attitude appear with a very odd biclausal structure in Copala Triqui, where the object of the verb is syntactically the object of a verb ni'yaj 'see'.  Here are some examples:

We might compare expressions in English like 'they looked with envy on...'

Verbs so far that have this kind of complement structure are niha' rá 'be happy (with)'; aran' rá 'like', uun rá 'think (of)', chumán rá 'believe in', ...

The most frequent structure is EmotionVerb SUBJ1 ni'yaj SUBJ2 man OBJ, where SUBJ2 is a pronoun coreferent with SUBJ1.  If the whole construction appears in a relative, SUBJ1 can be omitted: