Re: CHAT: natural active case lang

I would say that "syntactic functions" such as "direct object" *are*
semantic roles, at a certain level of abstraction, but they might not
dig that.

OK, a bare ablative in Latin can mark instrument.
A bare ablative or accusative on certain Latin nouns can mark origin
or destination, respectively.

If that's not what you mean by "semantic role," please expand on the
term.

---------------------------------------------------------------
Ed doesn't know everything, but he hasn't figured that out yet.
Please break it to him gently.              edheil@postmark.net
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Daniel Andreasson wrote:

> Hello y'all. (No, I live in Stockholm, not in the south of
> Sweden or the US for that matter... :)
>
> Excuse this off-topic natlangy question, but this is
> getting frustrating. At least five times today, in three
> different classes at uni, we've been discussing case
> and semantic roles. Separately. I've been trying to
> say something about langs that use case to mark
> semantic roles, but then they ask me for examples
> and I can't really say Tokana, now can I? :)
> Then I start rambling about native American langs
> and perhaps Papua New Guinea, but then they
> just laugh. Hmm...
>
> I've had it with this ridicule of me. I don't know
> where to look, so if any of you can give me some
> examples of natlangs and where they are spoken
> I would be ever so grateful.
>
> AFMCL, Rinya also uses case to mark semantic
> roles rather than syntactic function, so I could really
> use some natlang examples to improve the Rinya
> system.
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Daniel Andreasson
> daniel@conlang.nu
>