Re: Help in Determining Asha'ille Typology

Quoting Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>:

> 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
But in principle, split-S languages *don't* have semantic
marking.  It just so happens that there is a strong tendency
for semantic and syntactic features to coincide in this way.
But as far as the system is concerned, semantics have nothing
to do with it. (The case is otherwise in a fluid-S system.)

 =========================================================================
Thomas Wier            "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637

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