Re: Active again.

Peter Clark wrote:

> "Fluid-s" systems have verbs that can take either S(a)
> or S(p), depending on the volition of S in doing the action. Hence the
> "fluid" part.
You seem to be doing fine by yourselves in this discussion
(plus, I made a change some time ago never to discuss active
languages again :). But I have to make some comments.

To name the two types "semantic" and "volitional" is something I don't understand
at all. "Semantic" leads
my thoughts into languages such as Tokana or Ebisedian
which mark semantic roles rather than syntactic function.

And "volitional" seems to imply that active languages
always make a distinction between volitional and non-
volitional actions/events, which is not the case at all.
(Hence the name "active" as in "active vs. stative".

So I think there are two points to be made here. First of
all, there are "fluid-S" and "split-S". One can argue that
fluid-S languages are more semantic than split-S languages
in their marking of the intransitive argument, but split-S
languages base their active marking on semantics as well.
IMHO it's just that the verbal semantics of fluid-S languages
is a bit broader. "Fall" can mean any type of throwing yourself
to the ground in a fluid-S language, and then it's up to the
speaker to say if it's a controlled or non-controlled event.
Split-S languages have two verbs instead. (This is a generalization.)

Then there are control/non-control languages vs. active/stative
languages. That is, what distinction is made by the different
marking of S.

Another point to be made is that it's the verbal semantics
that is important in most active languages, not the semantics
of the NP (i.e. "S"). This is why most active languages
are head-marking and not case-marking (except for Georgian).

Hmm. I'm not sure I'm actually making things clearer.

Oh! And Sally, you should really take a look at Chickasaw!
Besides being "active" in the intransitive sense, they have a three way distinction
with some transitive verbs as well. They can be marked as nominative (your
"agent"), accusative ("patient")
and dative ("experiencer"). The most famous example is that of
the verb "be good".

I be_good:NOM = I act good
I be_good:ACC = I am good
I be_good:DAT = I feel good

Since you seem to have read my so-called thesis, I guess you've
seen this by yourself by now. There are a lot of references to
Chickasaw there as well. Pages 30-31 have some interesting info
on Experiencers and Benefactives, etc.

Daniel Andreasson

Replies