Johnson 2004 - CDLI - UCLA

public does not need to be inalienably possessed; it simply needs to be “secret”, in
some way.
Pylkkänen cites as evidence the following example in which the perceived object is
decidedly alienable.
(28) Gil ra’a le-Rina et ha-mismaxim
PN saw to-Rina Acc the-documents
Gil saw the documents that Rina had
The requirement for non-public objects of direct perception follows directly from the fact
that “source applicatives . . . always involve an implication of loss, but this loss does not
need to be concrete” (Pylkkänen 2002, 48). It should be relatively clear that the model
that underlies low source applicatives is a transfer of possession model: an object of
possession starts out in the possession of one entity and moves into the possession of
another. Although acts of direct perception are quite abstract, Pylkkänen seems to be
arguing that the perception of an entity initially “belongs” to that entity and the act of
perception transfers the perception from the perceived object to its perceiver as if it were
the referent of a concrete noun. At this point, it may be useful to turn to the first
collection of exemplars from Sumerian, since they can be divided two primary groups,
verbs of perception and affect, as well as third group of exceptions (those involving ßu
“hand” are dealt with in chapter 2).
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