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Re: THEORY: two questions

From:John Cowan <jcowan@...>
Date:Tuesday, March 28, 2000, 14:24
Matt Pearson wrote:

> Depends on who you ask. My definition: A head-marking > language is one which keeps track of arguments (who did > what to whom) primarily by means of agreement on the verb, > while a dependent-marking language keeps track of arguments > primarily by means of case-marking on the noun phrases.
Analogously, languages with genitives are dependent-marking, whereas languages with "construct state" nouns are head-marking? And what are English and Mandarin: neither-marking? They look more like dependent-marking to me, but not according to the above definition. -- Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis um dies! || John Cowan <jcowan@...> Schliesst euer Aug vor heiliger Schau, || http://www.reutershealth.com Denn er genoss vom Honig-Tau, || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan Und trank die Milch vom Paradies. -- Coleridge (tr. Politzer)