Re: Evolution of Applicatives

 --- "Thomas R. Wier" <trwier@...> skrev:

>
> > >   (1) a. Liberal activists gave the NEA money.
> > >       b. The NEA was given money.
> > >       c. *The money was given the NEA (where
> "the NEA" is still the
> > >         recipient)
> >
> > But "to the NEA" is grammatical, which means that
> we do have a
> > passivization of the patient, simply with
> different constraints on
> > what happens to the goal.
>
> Again, this isn't relevant. *"The NEA was given
> money to by
> liberal activists" is grossly ungrammatical, and
> that's the analogous
> structure you're invoking.  Again, I repeat, we must
> agree to discuss
> *relevant* grammatical examples.  One cannot just
> say anything.
>
In French, there is no strictly analogous
construction. If we take the example:

Peter was offered a flying ticket by the company
(The company offered a flying ticket to Peter)

the closest equivalent we can imagine would be:
Pierre a recu un billet d'avion en cadeau de la
compagnie (as a present from the company)
(La compagnie a offert un billet d'avion a Pierre)

but definitely not:
*Pierre a été offert un billet d'avion par la
compagnie

But we have another way to say so:
Pierre s'est vu offrir un billet d'avion par la
compagnie (lit. has seen himself being offered a
flying  ticket).

Other verbs can be used, but the meaning is not quite
the same:
Pierre s'est fait offrir un billet (he somehow managed
to get the ticket be offered)
Pierre s'est laissé offrir un billet (he wad offered
the ticket and didn't try to object or refuse it)

The problem is that a construction like "se voir
(faire)" cannot apply to any verb. For ex, it is very
hard to imagine something like "Il s'est vu tuer par
le gangster" (? he has seen himself being killed by
the gangster). Also, "se voir..." normally only
applies to a certain register: se voir décorer (to be
given a medal) but not: *se voir engueuler (to get
reprimanded; pop.). Also, "*se voir arre^ter" (to get
arrested) doesn't sound too nice (it would rather be:
se faire arre^ter), while "se voir condamner" (to get
doomed) is all right...

One can also say "Pierre s'est entendu répondre
que..." (very interesting, meaning that Pierre so to
say answered without intention of doing so; he acted
as if it was somebody else, he heard the words coming
out of his own mouth as if he was a simple witness).
True, this is rather literary.)

(All these examples I gathered in an article entitled
"Verbal desemantization and grammaticalization: '(se)
voir)' used as a tool for redistribution of the
actants)", by Jacques Francois, Caen University. The
abstract begins like this: "Semantic bleaching takes
place at an early stage in the grammaticalization
process during which predicative verbs become
auxiliaries".

Interesting, this phrase: "an early stage in the
grammaticalization process". This means that what is
ungrammatical today might well be grammatical
tomorrow.

Anyway, as far as I am concerned, the semantic need of
expressing things like: "Peter was offered a ticket by
the company" is very clear, whatever means will be
used in a particular language to express it. It seems
abnormal that French hasn't a simple and universal way
of expressing it (so far). How comes ? Perhaps we
should more often be offered flying tickets by
companies.


=====
Philippe Caquant


Ceterum censeo *vi* esse oblitterandum (Me).