Re: What would you call this?

In a message dated 6/16/2003 11:12:12 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
trwier@UCHICAGO.EDU writes:

>Quoting Garth Wallace <gwalla@...>:
>
>> Peter Bleackley wrote:
>> > I have an idea for a language that achieves free word order by
inflecting
>> > the verb according to whether the subject or object occurs first. In the
>> > default form, the following word orders are possible
>> > VSO
>> > SVO
>> > SOV
>> >
>> > In the marked form, these are possible
>> >
>> > VOS
>> > OVS
>> > OSV
>> >
>> > If the verb is marked, and only one unmarked noun is present, the verb
>> > becomes passive.
>> >
>> > What would the terminology be for such an inflection?
>>
>> So, the inflection swaps the positions of the subject and object? Sounds
>> like inverse voice.
>No, inverse "voice", as traditionally used in Algonkian studies
>at any rate, is not a voice at all, but the only way to express
>certain kinds of grammatical relations.  In Algonkian languages,
>this hierarchy operates something like as follows:
>
>   1, 2 > 3 proximate animate > 3 obviative animate > 3 inanimate
>
>In such languages, the *only* way to say that a 3 obv, say, is
>acting on a first, second, or third prox is to use the inverse
>verb marking.  Otherwise, a direct marker shows that the actants
>are behaving according to (rather than contrary to) the way the
>hierarchy predicts.
Hmm.  It seems to me that what we're discussing here is similiar enough to a
direct/inverse system that I'd call it a variety of direct/inverse.  That is
(correct me if I go wrong here), in Algonkian, in a sentence with two 3rd
person NPs, a direct inflection on the verb means "the proximate NP is acting on
the obviative NP", and an inverse inflection means "the obviative NP is acting
on the proximate NP."  The proposal here is very similar: the "direct"
inflection (if I may call it that) means "the core NP mentioned first is acting on the
core NP mentioned second" while the "inverse" inflection means "the core NP
mentioned second is acting on the core NP mentioned first."

Or, to put it another way, what we're discussing is a direct/inverse system
in which the proximate role is always assigned to the NP that comes first is
the clause.  (This would mean there's no need for morphological marking on NPs
to distinguish obviative from proximate, as there generally is in Algonkian, if
I'm not mistaken.)

Doug

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