Re: inalienable possession
| From: | Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...> |
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| Date: | Tuesday, November 17, 1998, 11:32 |
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At 06:15 17/11/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Christophe Grandsire wrote:
>> It's near the same distinction that occurs between the ergative=
and
>> the nominative: the ergative can be used only with animates, the=
nominative
>> for unvolitional (very useful your word, Sally) animates and for every=
kind
>> of inanimates.
>
>The ergative can be used with inanimates, it's just less common. "The
>disease killed him", disease is inanimate, but it would be ergative, or
>better yet "The rock crushed his head when it fell on him", rock would
>be ergative, yet it's still ergative. It's just that ergative is
>*usually* animate.
No, I meant: _in PL_, the conlang I'm currently inventing, ergative
is used _only_ for animates, as it has a meaning of volitionality. It is
true that in most natlangs, ergative is used also with inanimates (but I
know ergative natlangs that can't use ergative with inanimates, they use an
oblique case for an inanimate subject of a transitive verb. It's generally
the same kind of langs where the order of the participants is subordonned to
the animation of those participants).
This problem of misunderstanding is due to the terms I use, I know
it, but I didn't want to invent new terms for the language I was inventing
(in fact, i just don't know what term I would use). Just remember that when
I speak of PL, the words I use have a very specific meaning that is
sometimes a little different from the common use. I defined the words in my
first post about PL, and I will use always these definitions when I speak
about PL.
>--
>"It has occured to me more than once that holy boredom is good and
>sufficient reason for the invention of free will." - "Lord Leto II"
>(Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert)
>
http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/X-Files/
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