Re: Stupid questions

Not stupid questions at all.

Claudio directs us to Justin Rye's Esperanto page
which sets out the different designations quite nicely
in his colorful section four:  CASES.

I'm familiar, mostly, with the designations Ergative/Absolutive
(Example E on JBR's page: "looking glass logic") where
the subject of a transitive verb, named the "ergative
case," has special marking whereas subjects of intransitive
verbs (experiencers) and patients (objects of verbs) are given
no special marking and treated alike grammatically.

So in other words, just to make it a little clearer for Steve,
WE in "we saw Sam" would be in the ergative case because
its verb takes the object "Sam."  It's "transitive."  But WE
in "we waited" (which is "intransitive" [takes no object] and
US [which is itself an object] in "Sam saw us" would both
be "absolutive," not given special marking, and treated alike.
I think, if it were translated literally from many ergative languages,
and if I am not mistaken and I might be, the form would be "Sam
saw us," and "us waited."

In "nominative" languages, example D on JBR's page (Orthodox
Indo-European), the subject is given no special marking and
represents the "radical" from which all or most other cases
have to be distinguished by case endings (with an exception
in Germanic of the accusative, often marked like the nominative).
And that is true whether or not the subject is an "agent" or an
"experiencer."  This is true of most Indo-European languages;
take Old English:

        stan (stone)  nominative
        stanes    genitive
        stane      dative
        stan        accusative

or better, Latin:

        amicus (friend) nominative
        amici    genitive
        amico   dative
        amicum accusative
        amico  ablative

Teonaht is somewhere between examples D and E
given on JBR's page:  It's mostly the old Orthodox Indo-European
"nominative" language with a twist:  the nominative is either
an "agent" or an "experiencer," but this has nothing to do
with transitivity or intransitivity, which is how JBR and other
linguists usually use this term "experiencer."  For the
Teonim, an "experiencer" is an agent that does something
unintentionally, but it is still marked as a nominative.
Volitionality is a big feature of Teonaht grammar, and
marks important distinctions between "hear"/"listen,"
"see"/"look," "stand"/"stand up," and a host of other
verbs.  Only in one instance does it exhibit a trait of
some ergative languages.  We can say in English on
commercials advertising particularly hearty soups:
"Here's a soup that eats like a meal!"  [a ridiculous
remark if you ask me, since I have always considered
soup to be a meal already].  What this is called is
subject to debate.  Trask wants to call it a medio-passive,
but that rankles with some classicists.  Basically, its an
argument that looks like subject and verb but is really
patient and verb:  the soup is the object of its own verb.
"Here's a soup eaten like a meal" is what this expression
means, along with "the soup cooks nicely" or the "soup
tastes awful."  Somebody else is doing the cooking and
the tasting of the soup.  In Teonaht, you use a special
(old passive) form of the verb and put the "subject" in
the accusative case:  "il korma kwecib"; "the pig cooks"
"the pig is being cooked."  Or sometimes just, "der kwecy,"
"him cooks."  I don't know what you would
call this.

Sally Caves
scaves@frontiernet.net


----- Original Message -----
From: claudio <claudio.soboll@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2001 12:57 PM
Subject: Re: Stupid questions


> it makes more sense to understand and explain cases like ergativity in
> correlation with other similar cases.
> JBR explained it nicely and fool-proof with colors on his  homepage:
> http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/ranto.html#4
> look under the section "CASES" at the bottom of the page.
>
> --
> Agent = "Subject" of a transitive verb ("we saw Sam")
> Experiencer = Argument of an intransitive verb ("we waited")
> Patient = "Object" of a transitive verb ("Sam saw us")
>
> [snip]
>
> D) the orthodox Indo-European approach; two cases, Nominative (=
Nonpatient) versus Accusative (= Patient).
> Agent / Experiencer treated alike as Nominative case
> Patient distinguished as Accusative case
> (In English, for instance, Nominatives go before the verb and Accusatives
after.)
> --
> so in english we dont distinguish between Agent and Experiencer its
> both represented with the nominative case.
>
>
> regards,
> c.s.

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