Re: Theta Role Question

Carsten wrote:
<<
How should this construction be analyzed? I would translate
this sentence as

  Tingrāng dikunang  iyaena.
  Music.A  passion.A 3s.m.GEN

Into Ayeri, although I do not feel well with marking both
NPs as Agents. Actually, I think, there is no agent, and
both nouns should be best left unmarked, but that seems odd
as well.
 >>

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?

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

-David
*******************************************************************
"A male love inevivi i'ala'i oku i ue pokulu'ume o heki a."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."

-Jim Morrison

http://dedalvs.free.fr/