Re: THEORY nouns and cases (was: Verbs derived from noun cases)

Henrik Theiling scripsit:

> Yes.  Verb A wants two arguments, then word order says which comes
> before A and which one after A.  I did not say anything about what it
> means and whether they are nom, acc, dat or anything.
This is the Lojban view, and more so, that the meaning of each positional
argument (which if moved is marked with a position-based marker only,
saying whether it is the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, ...) is entirely dependent on
the verb.

Randy LaPolla argues, I think successfully, that Chinese doesn't really
have case-2:  in particular, the sentences:

1)	John drops the watermelon and [it] burst
2)	John drops the watermelon and [he] is embarrassed

are both understood pragmatically, whereas a syntactically accusative
(e.g. English) disallows elision like 1, and a syntactically ergative
language (e.g. Basque) disallows elision like 2.  So Chinese is neither.

--
"Clear?  Huh!  Why a four-year-old child        John Cowan
could understand this report.  Run out          jcowan@reutershealth.com
and find me a four-year-old child.  I           http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
can't make head or tail out of it."             http://www.reutershealth.com
        --Rufus T. Firefly on government reports