Re: Theta Role Question

From: "David J. Peterson" <dedalvs@...>
Sent: Monday, July 17, 2006 9:39 PM

> I don't think I quite understand the question.  How should
> "Music is his passion" be analyzed in English?  According
> to which theory?  And then, what would that have to do
> with Ayeri?
I just wanted to know whether there are any agents involved
here, or if not, which roles instead, if there are any
semantic roles involved here at all.

> In English, "Music is his passion" wouldn't be very
> different from "Jimmy is a boy".  If you wanted to treat
> both of these sentences the same way in Ayeri, then
> presumably the cases you assign to "Jimmy" and "boy"
> would be the same as for "music" and "his passion".
Another such dilemma. I don't know for sure how to deal
with it. Jimmy doesn't *do* boying, he *is* a boy. Guess
I should add a paragraph about stative verbs to the grammar.

> If you wanted to treat both of these sentences
> differently, though, then...treat them differently.  :)
Heh.

> Semantically, it doesn't appear that there's any agent in
> any of these sentences--that is, neither music, passion,
> the boy or Jimmy is actively doing anything.
That's all I wanted to know. Thanks.

> In both sentences, the second part is a kind of
> description of the first (or perhaps some added
> information about the first).  The difference is that
> being a boy is an inherent part of Jimmy; being someone's
> passion is not an inherent part of music.  So if there
> were to be a difference to latch onto, that might be it
> (or one of them).
Thanks again.


From: "Jonathan Knibb" <j_knibb@...>
Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2006 5:54 PM

> Is "His passion is music." any easier to translate into
> Ayeri?
No, I'm equally challenged.


Ob-Conlang: How do your conlangs treat such stative
constructions -- given that your respective conlangs are
heavily case marking and not using an active/split-S
alignment?

Yours,
Carsten

--
"Miranayam kepauarà naranoaris." (Kalvin nay Hobbes)
Venena, Tyemuyang 9, 2315 ya 11:23:31 pd

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