Re: Patient marking in active languages

On 2/17/06, Nokta Kanto <red5_2@...> wrote:

> What does an active language do for verbs that (arguably)
> take two patients: own, be inside, overlook, ride, wear?  Do they assign
> the "agent" role to one of the arguments, or use some other noun case, or
> not express such relationships as a verb clause?
gzb has agent and patient case markers, but also several
others, including experiencer and "topic" (which maps to
the actual topic in many sentences, and sometimes means
"on, about, on the subject of" (when marking the object of a
verb like "talk" or "write", for instance), or acts as a generic
subject case when none of the others is quite appropriate.

to own:   owner marked with topic case, owned thing
marked with generic relative case, own-verb in the stative
form.

twax-cu          renx dxiq-i          wunx-van    pq  miq-i.
sentence-system  many relationship-at own-V.STATE 3SG TOP-at

She owns many books.

To be inside: location-verb is stative, thing inside which marked
with spatial postposition, thing which is inside marked with
topic case postposition.

kyl inx    tyn-van        raxm miq-i
box inside place-V.STATE  cat  TOP-at

The cat is inside the box

to overlook: expressed as "to not see", marked like
"see" with the overlooking person marked as
experiencer and the thing overlooked marked
with the attentive case postposition.

raxm  kax-i  riqm-van    henx tq  jqaxr-i.
cat   ATT-at see-V.STATE not  2SG experiencer-at

You didn't see the cat.

to ride: if a horse or bicycle, as Carsten remarked,
the verb is active and the rider is agent.  If riding
a train, plane, car etc as passenger, the passenger
is marked as patient and the agent (the actual driver,
pilot, etc) may be omitted if unknown.

to wear: expressed just like "to be inside".

For more details, see:

http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/gzb/grammar.htm#section5

--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/gzb/gzb.htm