Re: Active again.

Quoting Sally Caves <scaves@...>:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Peter Clark" <peter-clark@...>
>
> >         Check out Daniel Andreasson's thesis on active languages:
> > http://home.swipnet.se/escape/active.pdf
>
> Very useful.  Thanks.
>
> > > Why "active"?  The term does not seem intuitive.
> >         Because it sounds better than "split intransitive"? :) I
> suppose
> it's because
> > active systems can show the level of activity involved: "He fell,"
> means
> he
> > deliberately fell, while "Him fell," means he slipped on the ice or
> > something.
>
> So in other words, it's linked with intransitivity.   In an active
> language,
> which is a subset of an ergative language, the subject of an
> intransitive
> verb can be treated as an agent if it is performing that intransitive
> action
> in some form of volitionality.  "I looked and listened eagerly."  As
> opposed
> to "me looked and listened eagerly."
I don't see why you should consider activity a subset of ergativity? In active
languages you get sentences "he-A fell", which are very non-ergative.

At any rate, I think you should ask Daniel Andreasson for his article on Active
languages.

                                                   Andreas

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