Re: THEORY: What is an active language (was Re: Active case-marking natlangs)

At 2/6/01 12:33 AM +0100, you wrote:
>daniel andreasson <daniel.andreasson@...> writes:
>
> > [quote from BA thesis snipped]
> >
> > As you can see, I have a very vague definition of "active". I think the
> > main thing that distinguishes active langs from ergative and accusative
> > ones is that there is some kind of semantic reason for marking the S
> > argument as either A or P. The most common ones being Control vs. non-
> > control and event vs. state.
>
>I'd say, "event vs. state" is a bit weak.  The verb "to fall", for
>example, clearly refers to an event, but is its subject an A?
No, it is usually P, but that's because falling is not controlled, which,
as Daniel mentioned, is a common parameter for A vs. P.

> > I don't know if my view on things really matters in this discussion
> > (Marcus doesn't quite agree, having a narrower definition of "active"
>
>Which seems to include the absence of a case system ;-)
You clearly paid very little attention to what I had to say on the matter.
As I said when we discussed activity before, Chickasaw is certainly active,
and it certainly has a case system. But the active marking is distinct from
the case system -- the two co-occur in the same language, and have very
little to no influence on each other.

> > and Matt having a very broad definition (as it seems) and Jörg basing
> > his definition more on animate vs. inanimate)
>
>Well, I'd rather say it is based on volition, which of course implies
>animacy.  But a non-volitional animate is still a P (or an INST, or
>whatever) and not an A, at least as far I understand it.  An inanimate
>entity, in my personal model, can NEVER be an A, though.  But I am not
>so strict so say that anything that doesn't strictly adhere to this
>model is not active.  Hence, I call languages where this holds "strictly
>active", while "active" alone leaves some leeway for things that are not
>allowed in a "strictly active" language, e.g. treating an inanimate
>subject of an active verb (as in the sentence "The stone breaks the
>window") as an A.  I am not sure by myself where to draw the line
>between "active" and a more general "split-S".
>
>But one thing is certain: it doesn't matter whether the language uses
>cases or verb agreement marking to distinguish A and P.  If one says
>"No, this is not active; the examples you gave are simply unergative
>verbs/irregular forms/whatever" merely because the language marks nouns
>for case, I cannot take that seriously.
I have yet to see someone make that proposal.

>And when I
>designed Nur-ellen, I didn't knew that there is a linguistic term for
>such a system.  It just sprang to my mind ans I liked it; hence I just
>did it because it felt right to me.
It's your conlang. You can do whatever you want with it. My language
Igassik does things which I know to be unnatural. It is a system I though
of and liked, so I use it. That's the fun of creation.




Marcus Smith

"Sit down before fact as a little child,
be prepared to give up every preconceived notion,
follow humbly wherever and to whatsoever abysses Nature leads,
or you shall learn nothing."
                -- Thomas Huxley