Re: Requesting some challenging sentences

Hi!

caotope writes:
> > > I always forget what applicatives are and what they're
> > > doing :( I only remember Henrik once explaining me it's
> > > approximately the difference between "We speak about
> > > the book" and "We 'bespeak' the book" (note that that's
> > > grammatical in German).
> >
> > An applicative raises an oblique argument to direct object,
> > thus turning a ditransitive or intransitive clause into a
> > (mono)transitive clause.
>
> Aren't there also restrictions on what semantic role the oblique
> argument may have? I'd be surprized to see eg. source or path raised
> to direct object called an "applicative".
Examples for the path being promoted to direct object exist in German:

  Er schreitet über den Weg.    - He moves along the path.
  Er beschreitet den Weg.       - He (starts to) follow[s] the path.

The latter is often used idiomatically (i.e. ~'He does it that way.')
when talking of the outcome of a decision, which is why I gave 'starts
to ...' (i.e. ~'He decided to do it that way.').  Both sentences are
clearly written language.

For 'source', I only come up with examples where an oblique argument
becomes dative argument:

  Er flieht aus der Stadt.      - He flees from the city.
  Er entflieht der Stadt.       - -"-

Whether this actually is an applicative -- I don't know.  That
probably depends on the formal definition.

> This of course begs a question or two: what else than instruments can
> be applicativized? And what are the voices raising other sorts of
> oblique arguments called?
I think they are all called applicatives.  In my conlang Qthyn|gai,
this operation is productive for all oblique cases and I just call
them like 'locative applicative'.

**Henrik