The purpose of inflection is disambiguation: you inflect a verb for
agreement with the principal argument (sometimes more than one) to
make it easy to associate that verb with the correct argument.=20
Sometimes the inflection makes the separate mention of that argument
redundant, as in Latin and Spanish.
Verbs tend to inflect for person probably simply because it's a
really cognitively salient distinction to make. If you're going to
start differentiating arguments, one really easy place to start is
speech act participants. But I'm sure there's no law that says you
*have* to.
+ Ed Heil ---------------------- edheil@postmark.net +
| "What matter that you understood no word! |
| Doubtless I spoke or sang what I had heard |
| In broken sentences." --Yeats |
+----------------------------------------------------+
From Http://Members.Aol.Com/Lassailly/Tunuframe.Html wrote:
> Dans un courrier dat=E9 du 26/06/99 09:41:17 , Nik a =E9crit :
>=20
> > Question: Is it reasonable to have a language whose verbs inflect for
> > number and animacy, but NOT for person? In my current incarnation o=
f
> > Eastern, verbs inflect for voice, mood (both as prefixes) and for
> > singular-animate, singular-inanimate, dual-animate, dual-inanimate,
> > plural-animate, and plural-inanimate. Is this a reasonable distinct=
ion
> > to make? My thought is that nouns replaced pronouns ("my soul" for =
"I",
> > etc.; analogous to the origin of free pronouns in W.), which natural=
ly
> > would take third person agreement, and thus first and second persons
> > were lost.
>=20
> i think sumerian did a bit like that. partial or total reduplication ar=
e
now=20
> considered to have some connection with number and animacy of actors (a=
s
well=20
> as frequency and intensity apparently). tahitian also does that to some=
=20
> extent with partial and total duplication. but still both has/had prono=
uns.
> and what about doing like japanese and replace or support pronouns with=
=20
> directional verbs specially designed to confuse everyone ?
>=20
> mathias
>=20