Re: Help in Determining Asha'ille Typology

Quoting Joe <joe@...>:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Andreas Johansson" <andjo@...>
> To: <CONLANG@...>
> Sent: Thursday, August 07, 2003 10:47 AM
> Subject: Re: Help in Determining Asha'ille Typology
>
>
> > Quoting "Thomas R. Wier" <trwier@...>:
> >
> > > Quoting Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>:
> > >
> > > > > 1) I eat food.
> > > > > 2) I run.
> > > > > 3) I fall.
> > >
> > > [...]
> > >
> > > > What would we call a language that marks "I" from (1) the same as "I"
> in
> > > > (3), and "I" in (2) the same as "food" in (1)? Beyond weird, that is.
> > >
> > > This would still be a split-S language.  Split-S languages are
> > > defined, in contrast to fluid-S languages, by the fact that verbs
> > > simply subcategorize for whether the single argument patterns as
> > > the NP-1 of transitives or NP-2 of transitives.  It is also
> > > characteristic of such languages that many verbs take the unexpected
> > > marking, such as patientive for run or agentive for fall.
> >
> > I didn't state my question clearly enough to exclude the possibility of a
> > language with semantic marking. You could have language that uses
> >
> > I:PAT fall
> >
> > for a voluntary falling and
> >
> > I:AGT fall
> >
> > for involuntary. (Case names assigned to make sense with transitives.)
>
> Wouldn't it be the other way round?  I mean, as far as I can gather, the
> patient is the thing that something happens to, and the agent is what causes
> it to happed.
>
> So, for instance
>
> I.PAT fall
>
> could be said to mean 'I am being caused to fall', whereas
>
> I.AGT fall
>
> would be said to mean 'I am causing myself to fall'.
>
> If the other way around, using the terms 'Agent' and 'Patient', I think,
> would be unsatisfactory.
But if we switched the labels PAT and AGT, the hypothetical language would
express "I eat food" as

I:PAT eat food:AGT

which to my mind is even less satisfactory. One could, of course, simply call
the cases "1" and "2", if one felt like.

                                                Andreas

Reply