Re: OT: sorta OT: cases: please help...

Quoting Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg.rhiemeier@...>:

> And even in languages like English that don't do this, grammar is not
> entirely blind to such matters.  Ever tried to passivize a stative
> verb (a verb denoting a state rather an action)?  Try, and you'll
> see what I mean.
Well, you'd be surprised.  My Georgian professor (whose big thing
is grammatical relations) has written an article on this subject:

  Howard Aronson. "English as an active language". 1977.
    Lingua, 41:201-216.

I haven't read the article, and I'm not sure that I buy the
apparent claim, but FWIW he has made a plausible sounding case to
me before that English is *not* a nominative/accusative language.

(I, personally, would be scared to publish an article with
that title without first getting some protection from the FBI.
Certainly, the hate-mail would reach the heavens.)

=====================================================================
Thomas Wier <trwier@...> <http://home.uchicago.edu/~trwier>
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