<p>I think that the term <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_verb" rel="nofollow noreferrer">light verb</a> captures the point of this question. Specially, Iranian languages are infamous for their use of Light Verb Constructions, an <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268813336_A_Review_of_Light_Verb_Constructions_in_English_and_Persian_Complex_Predicates" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this is a recent research paper on Light Verb Constructions in Iranian</a> where you may find more inspiration for your conlang. Example 8a of that paper even includes a possessor as an agent.</p>
<p>Thanks to <a href="https://nfdi.social/@PetraSteiner/113384633047097471" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Petra Steiner for giving some useful hints here</a>.</p>

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2024-10-28T22:33:36.740Z
2024-10-28T22:33:36.740Z
Sir Cornflakes
<p>There is a construction I would like to formally incorporate into one of my language's verb system, which involves rendering the main verb as a noun, which is then possessed by the participant that was previously the agent, and then re-incorporating it into a verb phrase as the complement of an auxiliary.</p>
<p>e.g. &quot;He sleeps&quot; -&gt; &quot;his sleeping is&quot; or &quot;I'm gardening&quot; -&gt; &quot;my gardening is&quot; or &quot;you're getting dressed&quot; -&gt; &quot;your dressing goes-along&quot;.</p>
<p>With &quot;do&quot; as the auxiliary I intuitively feel like you could derive a causative from this, if the possessed noun is made the object of the auxiliary instead of the subject: &quot;he does my washing [of clothes/dishes/car etc.]&quot; &gt; &quot;I make him wash/launder&quot;. As sort of an extension of the phrase &quot;to do one's bidding&quot;.</p>
<p>What I like about this possessed nominalization strategy is that it causes the subject to be rendered as an oblique (genitive) argument, and I'm a sucker for quirky subject. You can even imagine how this could give rise to a change in morphosyntactic alignment (and I'm also a sucker for wacky morphosyntactic alignment), e.g. if this genitive subject becomes the norm for intransitives, you could see an erg/abs parent language give rise to a tripartite child language. Or if the ergative morpho-phonologically resembles the genitive, you could get a pattern that looks a lot more nom/acc, yielding split ergativity.</p>
<p>What I'm not sure of is what this sort of construction would probably be used for. I kind of want to make it the norm for specific tenses for specific verb classes so I can wring some ridiculous TAM-class-based split ergativity à la Georgian out of it. But I don't know <em>which</em> tenses/aspects or <em>which</em> specific verb classes because I don't quite grasp what pragmatic goal would motivate the nominalization step to begin with.</p>
<p>The only thing I know for sure is that it's a known antipassive construction (Andrea Sansò, <em>Where do antipasssive constructions come from?</em>, 2017), so maybe a voice thing? Mood? Focus?</p>
<p><strong>What would this nominalizing pathway realistically get used to encode?</strong></p>

<morphology><naturalism><diachronics><verbs><language-change>
Split condition for nominalization pathway used only in certain verbs
# Split condition for nominalization pathway used only in certain verbs

(Asked by: username_0 on 2024-10-24)

There is a construction I would like to formally incorporate into one of my language's verb system, which involves rendering the main verb as a noun, which is then possessed by the participant that was previously the agent, and then re-incorporating it into a verb phrase as the complement of an auxiliary.

e.g. "He sleeps" -> "his sleeping is" or "I'm gardening" -> "my gardening is" or "you're getting dressed" -> "your dressing goes-along".

With "do" as the auxiliary I intuitively feel like you could derive a causative from this, if the possessed noun is made the object of the auxiliary instead of the subject: "he does my washing [of clothes/dishes/car etc.]" > "I make him wash/launder". As sort of an extension of the phrase "to do one's bidding".

What I like about this possessed nominalization strategy is that it causes the subject to be rendered as an oblique (genitive) argument, and I'm a sucker for quirky subject. You can even imagine how this could give rise to a change in morphosyntactic alignment (and I'm also a sucker for wacky morphosyntactic alignment), e.g. if this genitive subject becomes the norm for intransitives, you could see an erg/abs parent language give rise to a tripartite child language. Or if the ergative morpho-phonologically resembles the genitive, you could get a pattern that looks a lot more nom/acc, yielding split ergativity.

What I'm not sure of is what this sort of construction would probably be used for. I kind of want to make it the norm for specific tenses for specific verb classes so I can wring some ridiculous TAM-class-based split ergativity à la Georgian out of it. But I don't know *which* tenses/aspects or *which* specific verb classes because I don't quite grasp what pragmatic goal would motivate the nominalization step to begin with.

The only thing I know for sure is that it's a known antipassive construction (Andrea Sansò, *Where do antipasssive constructions come from?*, 2017), so maybe a voice thing? Mood? Focus?

**What would this nominalizing pathway realistically get used to encode?**

**Tags:** morphology, naturalism, diachronics, verbs, language-change


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2024-10-28. Score: 0

I think that the term [light verb](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_verb) captures the point of this question. Specially, Iranian languages are infamous for their use of Light Verb Constructions, an [this is a recent research paper on Light Verb Constructions in Iranian](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268813336_A_Review_of_Light_Verb_Constructions_in_English_and_Persian_Complex_Predicates) where you may find more inspiration for your conlang. Example 8a of that paper even includes a possessor as an agent.

Thanks to [Petra Steiner for giving some useful hints here](https://nfdi.social/@PetraSteiner/113384633047097471).


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