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Re: Ergativity

From:Muke Tever <muke@...>
Date:Friday, August 15, 2003, 21:22
From: "Andreas Johansson" <andjo@...>
> Quoting takatunu <takatunu@...>: > > Andreas wrote: > > Note that (2) is ambiguous - it can mean either that Robert is cooking > > something, or that something is cooking Robert. It seems to me the easiest > > to > > say we've simply got two verbs "to cook" here, one a causative, one an > > intransitive. > > >>> > > > > Why not three verbs? > > Because "Robert cooks", to my knowledge, cannot be interpreted in more than > two ways!
Actually, I think that for most animate subjects that "X cooks" cannot be interpreted in more than _one_ way. It's only when animacy is low enough that "X cooks" can be read in middle voice. (A split-system?) *Muke! -- http://frath.net/

Replies

Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>
Nik Taylor <yonjuuni@...>
John Cowan <cowan@...>