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Re: THEORY: two questions

From:Eric Christopherson <raccoon@...>
Date:Thursday, March 30, 2000, 0:42
At 05:02 PM 3/27/2000 -0600, Matt Pearson wrote:
> >What's head-marking and dependent-marking again? > >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. >That is, "head" = the verb, while "dependents" = the noun >phrases.
Wow, what a coincidence that I read this today, since today Dhak went from being head-marking to dependent-marking virtually instantaneously, and I didn't even know the terminology for that :)
>In a verb-final dependent-marking language, the same >sentence might come out: > > boy-NOM me-DAT books-ACC gave > >with case marking on the nouns (and overt pronouns), and >no agreement (or impoverished agreement) on the verb.
How common are the various kinds of noun parameter marking on verbs in mostly head-marking languages? I.e. many Indo-European languages show subject agreement, but none that I know of have ever shown object agreement; I think I read that Arabic marks the direct object on the verb but not the subject. Would it make much sense to have verbs that only have dative agreement? I might do that in Dhak but leave off the nominative and accusative.