Yet another areal feature in SA languages?

[jonathan silk]

>Dahl gives the Japanese ``-te shimaru'' construction and the (modern)

I think at least in modern Japanese this must be -te shimau. Although my
knowledge of Japanese is quite imperfect, I do not believe *-te shimaru
exists as a standard construction. (perhaps it is based on an incorrect
understanding of the continuative form -te shimatte iru?)

As Prof. Witzel pointed out, in old Japanese there is -nu or -tsu (but
these are unrelated historically to -te shimau, of course). [in productive
forms -nu exists only as a negative, with which the old -nu completive
should not be confused.]

Jonathan SILK

jonathan.silk at yale.edu