Johnson 2004 - CDLI - UCLA

The change in word-order (the inversion of the *bi-√ prefix and du 8/gu 7) and the change
in the scope of the existential quantification as represented in (104) would reasonably
follow from the reinterpretation of *-e as an ergative postposition and the consequent
“verbalization” of the adjectival and secondary predicate that originally modified the
absolutive noun.
In my view, this is due to the fact that the ergative noun phrase is topical and,
therefore, presupposed relative to the existentially quantified complex including the noun
followed by the locative-terminative postposition, the bare noun and the *bi-√ prefix. In
other words, the older structure in (104a) is thetic (a predication of an event such that the
participants in the event are not differentiated from the event itself), whereas the later
structure in (104b) is categorical (a predication where a “subject” is identified and a state
of affairs of predicated of that particular participant in the event). The BNBV inal class is
distinguished by the fact that the ergative case-marked noun and one component of the
compound verb, namely the bare inalienable noun, are not referentially discrete and it is
likely that this indiscretion prevented the conversion of the originally thetic predicate into
a categorical one and preserved the original semantics of the construction. At some later
point in the language, the particular configuration of the *bi-√ prefix and the lexical verb
in (104a) was apparently brought into harmony with the other, non-BNBV inal predicates
through an inversion of prefix and verbal root, but the semantics of the original
construction remained intact (For additional discussion of the thetic/categorical
opposition and its relation to head-internal relative clauses and verbs of perception, see
below, section 3.5).
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