Re: Active again.

----- 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."

In the first example, he is an agent in his falling, while in the
> second, he is the recipient of falling.
I guess I would call that "agentive."  Or as Teoh suggests, "volitional."
That's the distinction made in Teonaht in the "Split Nominative": volitional
and non-volitional subjects, regardless of whether they govern transitive or
intransitive verbs.

> >     A language in which subjects of both
> >     transitive and intransitive verbs which
> >     are semantically agents are treated
> >     identically for grammatical purposes
> >     while non-agent subjects and direct
> >     objects are treated differently.
> >
> > From this description, it sounds as though an active language has to be
an
> > off-shoot of an ergative language.
>         Translating Trask:
> 1.      He (agent) shot the deer (patient). (Transitive)
> 2.      He (agent) fell. (Intransitive, subject is agent)
> 3.      Him (patient) fell. (Intransitive, subject is patient)
>
>         So "deer" in #1 and "him" in #3 would be identically marked as
patients.
> Unlike an ergative system, the case of the subject in an intransitive
> sentence can vary.
Based on semantic content.

>
> It goes on:
> >
> >     In some active languages lexical verbs
> >     are rigidly divided into those taking agent
> >     subjects and those taking non-agent
> >     subjects; in others, some lexical verbs
> >     can take either to denote, for example,
> >     differing degrees of control over the action.
> >
> > What would be an example of a non-lexical verb?
>         I don't really understand what he means by "lexical" verbs,
either, but I
> just gave you an example of the second type (i.e., denoting differing
degrees
> of control).
"Lexical (or "full") words" are defined in Trask as:  "A word with real
semantic content, such as "green," "kitchen," and "swim."  Again this brings
up the question of what is not real semantic content.  So I look up
"grammatical word," also known as "empty word," "form word," or the familiar
"function word."  "A word with little or no intrinsic semantic content which
primarily serves some grammatical purpose: of, the."   My confusion has
always been that I considered even function words as serving some semantic
purpose.  I have trouble seeing semantic and grammatical (or syntactical) as
distinct, but I can understand how these terms function within THIS context.

> > Are there any accusative languages that make a distinction between agent
> > and experiencer the way my Teonaht does with its "split nominative"?
>         You'll have to remind me what exactly you mean by "split
nominative." Russian
> (most definitely an accusative language) and many others indicate
experiencer
> by the dative case. So "I'm hot" would be "To me is heat." Is this what
you
> are referring to?
No.  http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/whatsteo.html

Teonaht makes a distinction in its article and in some of its verbs between
a subject that willfully acts as opposed to a subject that merely
experiences.  I'm moving to extend that distinction to the form of the noun
itself;  I've started the process in the pronouns by relying on the
emphasized pronoun, which unlike the regular pronouns does make a
distinction between agent and experiencer:  Yry myeebihs ("I'm all red, I'm
blushing"), and Yryi il lorf rykke, "As for me, I survey the wolf."

> > One thing I was thinking of doing was dropping the final vowel off of
nouns
> > in both the non-agent subject and the patient; most nouns in Teonaht end
in
> > a vowel, as do most vowels:
>         Care to rephrase that part? "Most vowels end in vowels"? I should
hope so! :)

Dittography.  I meant most VERBS.  Yry bom edrim ("me all sleepy").

>         As for dropping endings, Enamyn does that to patientive nouns. As
a general
> rule, the patientive form is the simplest morphologically. Subject is
> indicated by other means (namely, the absolute tense marking), so doesn't
> apply in this case.
Well, Teonaht might be doing that to both patientive and non-agentive
subjects.  But it will remain to some extent schizophrenic, because the
articles will still mark the difference between subject (agentive or
experiential) and patient.  This is because there is a high degree of
irregularity in Teonaht nouns, especially when it comes to indicating (or
not indicating) a form for the patient (there are the Nendeylyt patient
endings, -z, or -p; and the byr/binis words.  Then the high number of words
that end in a vowel that can be dropped.  Then all the rest that don't.)

It's interesting to see Daniel's chart on page 9, with Dixon's terminology.
Dixon makes a distinction between A and S (a subject that governs a
transitive verb and a subject that governs a non-transitive verb).  This is
a distinction I associate with an ergative language, but Teonaht has no such
distinction.  Its agent and experiencer are not related to transitivity.
Only volitionality.  So it doesn't really fit any of the categories on page
nine.  I don't even think it matches Daniel's chart on page 10, because it
hasn't up till now associated the experiencer with the patient.  In making
the change I suggested, dropping lorfa to lorf in non-agentive subjects and
in patients, I'm moving T. towards a known linguistic type.  I can't tell
whether this is an advantage or not.  Part of what I want T. to suggest is
an overlay of two different language types.  It is accusative first, and
volitional second, and moving further towards a more developed sense of
volitionality.

The question is whether Teoh's language has active tendencies if it doesn't,
as he tells us, have a "subject."  He does, however, have an originative.
Can you explain, Teoh, how that's different from an agent?  I (orig.agent)
look at the man (recep/patient), me (recep./patient) sees the man
(orig./agent)?  Hmmm.  Except that the "man" isn't really an agent, is he?
He might not even know he's being looked at.

Nice acknowledgement, Daniel, of Matt Pearson!  I think he once tried to
explain "active" to me as well.  I'll try to keep your thesis on file.  I
hate .pdf files.  (But I'd love to know how to make them. <g>)

Sally Caves
scaves@frontiernet.net
Eskkoat ol ai sendran, rohsan nuehra celyil takrem bomai nakuo.
"My shadow follows me, putting strange, new roses into the world."

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