On Fri, 30 Mar 2001, daniel andreasson wrote:
> Let's say we have the phrase "The brown dog runs". "Be brown"
> is an inherent state and its argument is marked as PAT. "Run"
> OTOH is a controlled event and its argument is thus marked as
> AGT. Now, the syntax of Rinya doesn't allow the subject argument
> of a relative clause to be different from the one in the main
> clause.
Do you mean the subject arguments have to be the same in AGT/PAT or that
they have to refer to the same entity?
Does this hold for sentences where the subjects of the two clauses are not
co-referential, like "The dog that John saw ran."?
> (3) *The dog:AGT [ which:PAT is brown ] runs.
>
> This has led to the creation of two new morphemes: DIFFERENT
> and SAME. Example (3) would be grammatically correct if we
> inserted a DIFF-marker on the subject of the relative clause:
>
> (4) The dog:AGT [ which:PAT:DIFF is brown ] runs.
I'm not sure what DIFFERENT and SAME means exactly. They seem to mark the
fact that the subjects have different/same volitionality. Is that right?
> However. There is another problem. The word order of Rinya is
> PVA, i.e. PAT - VERB - AGT. This is also true for intransitive
> clauses. A PAT argument always precedes its predicate and an
> AGT argument always follows it. This may lead to horrible strings
> of verbs, especially if there is an adverb which modifies the
> main verb (Modifying adverbs aren't morphologically distinguished
> from ordinary verbs). That is, if the main argument is PAT then
> all the verbs will follow it:
>
> (5) The dog:PAT [ which:PAT:SAME browns ] falls quicks.
> P [ P V ] V V:ADV
> 'The brown dog falls quickly.'
What kind of morphology marks an Adverb? It seems to me that the proper
treatment of them could also ease the awkwardness a bit.
> The solution is to insert a pronoun between the REL-clause and
> the verb, but *only* if the main argument is a PAT. If the main
> argument is an AGT it isn't necessary as we saw in (6):
>
> (7) The dog:PAT [ which:PAT:SAME browns ] it falls quicks.
> 'The brown dog falls quickly.'
Have you considered using internally headed relative clauses for this? You
could mark the noun according to the role of the relative clause, then
mark the entire relative clause for the role of the matrix clause.
The dog:PAT browns:PAT falls quicks
The dog:PAT browns:AGT runs quicks
> 8. main=PAT rel=AGT -> _lyn_
> 9. main=PAT rel=PAT -> _le_ [ unmarked ]
> 10. main=AGT rel=AGT -> _lin_ [ most marked ]
> 11. main=AGT rel=PAT -> _ly_
So, when the rel= AGT, the morpheme ends in -n, other
> So what do you guys think? Do you have any comments or
> suggestions?
I like the system. Only additional suggestion: could we see the Rinya next
time? :)
> Did anyone actually read it? ;)
Naturally. ;)
Marcus Smith