Re: Making it volitional

----- Original Message -----
From: Sally Caves <scaves@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Monday, August 27, 2001 11:31 PM
Subject: Making it volitional


>  We use the word "subject" to mean agents, participants, and performers of
> transitive as well as intransitive verbs.
Hmm.  I meant "patients," not "participants."  In coming up
with the split nominative, in T., I preferred the term "experiencer,"
as distinct from "patient," which latter term seems more apt for
ergative/absolutive languages. Don't some "active" languages
do what Teonaht does--make a grammatical distinction between
agents and experiencers--i.e., volitional and non-volitional
subjects?  Are the terms "experiencer" and "patient" interchangeable?

Sal

By the way, thank you (firrimby) for all the firrimbies. :)