Re: Active-Ergative langs (was Re: Ke'kh - degrees of volition)

Danial Andreasson wrote:


>Hmm. Not very often I think. Rather the semantics of the verb.
>Hence that most active langs are head-marking. Though I think
>Marcus Smith could talk quite a bit about the semantics vs.
>the syntax. ;)
Don't get me started! :-)

>And the actual meaning of using either Actor or Undergoer (or
>whatever you'd like to call the hyperroles) is often much more
>subtle and varying than simply vol vs. non-vol or control vs.
>non-control.
Right.  A good example is the marking on words for "like".  The liker does
not necessarily have any "volition" or "control", but is always marked as
if it did.  The liked thing is not "undergoing" anything, yet is marked as
if it were.  In contrast, in a few active languages, the word for "want"
marks the wanter as an undergoer, when it has the same general role as the
liker in the previous example.  The object of "want" in these languages is
left completely unmarked.

> > Is there an active analog to this kind of constraint?  Do any active
> > languages (nat- or con-) impose constraints on clause combination based
> > on relations of semantic roles?  Anyone!
>
>I wish there were! If anyone know of a natlang with active syntax,
>please speak up now! That would be absolute coolness!
I second that!

>He also writes about syntactically active languages that "[t]he
>lack of a real example may be due to my scant knowledge of
>active languages, but it seems more plausible that their
>absence or rarity is not random. The active strategy implies
>two equally important hyperroles, A and U. This is incongruous
>with the idea of absolute saliency of one NP as a syntactic
>pivot." I think Kibrik - sadly - has a major point there.
I'm not so sure about that.  Chickasaw does have syntactic rules which
favor certain NPs as more salient than others, but this is not reflected in
the agreement -- it's reflected instead in case marking and word order
restrictions.  It certainly doesn't have syntactic activity though.


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Marcus Smith
AIM:  Anaakoot
"When you lose a language, it's like
dropping a bomb on a museum."
   -- Kenneth Hale
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