Re: Case
| From: | Eldin Raigmore <eldin_raigmore@...> |
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| Date: | Monday, November 10, 2008, 22:30 |
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On Mon, 10 Nov 2008 12:49:43 -0800, Campbell Nilsen
<cactus95@...> wrote:
>Right, right. But the instrumental is ONLY used in "by means of"
>consttructions. This case is used for ONLY ONE[save prespositional] PURPOSE.
>[snip]
You're wondering what to do with demoted agents, or rather, what to call
what you do with them.
Most nominative-accusative languages with passivization, in which the
demoted agent may or must be explicit, put it in a case used for something
else as well; instrumental, or perlative, or prolative, or prosecutive, or vialis,
or ...
Some, though, have a case that's used only for demoted agents. I think
you're allowed to call it whatever you want. I vote for "demoted agent case".
Some languages have one-or-more case(s) for Means, Methods, and Modes;
those are good candidates. Others have one-or-more case(s) for Paths,
especially "through" and/or "along"; those are also good. And some have
a "maid-of-all-work" or "jack-of-all-trades" case (like "ablative" in many I-E
languages); that's good, too.
Do you want the case the demoted agents go in to also have another use, or
not?
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