Re: A few questions about linguistics concerning my new project

Nick S.:
<<
Between those exact sentences there is no difference in meaning, only in
point of view. I think the biggest difference between the two is that
in 1
you can leave out the accusative and in the second the oblique (or well,
agent).
 >>

The point is that whatever the difference is, the difference will
be similar in a transitive/antipassive pair.  (See also Stevo's reply.)

Nick S.:
<<
And, I think you're right in thinking this is because of conjoining
VPs: The man pushes, kicks and slaps. vs. The panda is pushed, kicked
and
slapped. (I feel here that English is not so happy with the first
sentence...)
 >>

Add an object to the first, and it's fine.  By conjunction, I meant
that if you want to say there's a panda that ate bamboo, and
there was a man that then petted this same panda, it's awkward
to say, "The panda ate bamboo and the man petted the panda".
You can fix it by replacing the last panda with a pronoun (focuses
on two consecutive actions), or use a passive in the second
clause (focuses on things that happened to the panda).

Nick S.:
<<
I understand now why (c) doesn't make much sense, but is an antipassive
without the oblique argument the equivalent? I think there is a
difference
because in that antipassive the agent is in the absolutive and the
verb also
has a specific mark for the situation.
 >>

Equivalent in the sense that the types of arguments that are present
are the same.
Even though the agent is marked with the absolutive, it is still
an agent (or as much of an agent as the subject of a passive is an
object).  Since the original (c) is ungrammatical, you don't really
have to worry about the difference in meaning between (c) and
the grammatical antipassive with the original absolutive argument
dropped.  But, certainly, some marked expression will evoke
something different than an unmarked one.

Nick S.:
<<
Actually, my language is basically SOV, I used that strict SVO word
order
for those examples. Does what you're saying also apply to SOV word
order, or
doesn't this very basic way of describing some syntax apply at all to
ergative languages?
 >>

No, it wouldn't apply to SOV word order (unless there was
something that made it relevant, e.g. if the ergative argument
was an adjunct, and the promoted ergative argument was still
treated like an adjunct, even though it was in the absolutive
case.  Also, if there's verb agreement, that might be a place
where subject sensitivity would show up).  And, of course, if
you subscribe to some kind of syntactic representation with
branches like a tentacled octopus, then it might make a difference
(and if you get a true syntactician to draw it up, they'll provide
you with the difference in meaning between the two structures,
whether it's there or not).

-David
*******************************************************************
"A male love inevivi i'ala'i oku i ue pokulu'ume o heki a."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."

-Jim Morrison

http://dedalvs.free.fr/