Re: Case

* Mark J. Reed said on 2008-11-11 14:08:50 +0100
> So now I'm curious - how do languages without an instrumental/agentive
> case distinction deal with clauses that require both roles?  I'm
> imagining the game of "Clue(do)", with statements like "Mr. Body was
> killed by Colonel Mustard in the Conservatory with the Knife".  In
> languages where both the murderer and the weapon normally go in the
> same case, how is the distinction made?
Context? Try this:

"Mr. Body was killed by Colonel Mustard in the Conservatory with the Knife"
"Mr. Body was killed by Colonel Mustard in the Conservatory by the Knife"
"Mr. Body was killed with the knife by Colonel Mustard in the Conservatory"
"Mr. Body was killed by the knife by Colonel Mustard in the Conservatory"
"Killed: Mr. Body. Context: knife, Colonel Mustard, Conservatory."

Good English or not, we probably have designated circuits in our
heads to keep track of animates vs. inanimates (even older than
"us" vs. "them"), since that's a very useful thing to have even
for a very primitive animal: "Is it inert or can it deliberately
kill me?" It's only one step above "Is it edible?"

AFMCL, Taruven uses the same case (instrumental), but the actual
morph depends on whether the instrument is animate or not ;)
Anyways, it is not really kosher to show the agent (animate)
when using the "passive" (that is: third person animate subject
with implicit "hearsay"-evidential), since there are other,
better ways to emphasize the patient, like free word order
(putting the patient first), a focus/emphasis-clitic etc.


t.