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Re: a grammar sketch...

From:Yoon Ha Lee <yl112@...>
Date:Saturday, September 30, 2000, 1:37
On Sat, 30 Sep 2000, =?iso-8859-1?Q?J=F6rg?= Rhiemeier wrote:

> Yoon Ha Lee wrote: > > > > On Sat, 30 Sep 2000, =?iso-8859-1?Q?J=F6rg?= Rhiemeier wrote: > > > > I'm a little lost. What does "head marking" mean? Is that the same as > > when languages put adjectives after the noun, etc.? Or have I gotten > > the terminology reversed? > > Head marking has nothing to do with word order, it means that the > semantic > relations between verbs and nouns are not marked on the noun by cases, > but by agreement on the verb. However, I do not understand head marking > deeply enough to explain properly. Marcus, please?
<puzzled look> If people are too busy, I'll look it up. I'm intrigued but still confused.
> > > > Something like "I gave her flowers" would render casewise: > > > > I: actor > > > > her: actee (the intent of the action is to make "her" a gift-recipient) > > > > flowers: accomplice (the flowers were complicitous in the giving-act) > > > > giving: action > > > > > > Traditionally, "here" is in dative case and "flowers" in accusative, or > > > as > > > we are talking active langs here, objective case. > > > > > > In Nur-ellen, the sentence is > > > > > > Im annent na he ljös. > > > AGT.1SG give-PAST DAT AGT.3SG.FEM OBJ.flower.PL > > > > I thought of that, except (as H.S. Teoh has done, rather more coherently) > > "accusative" and "dative" seem somehow wrong, because the *point* of the > > action is for "her" to have the flower, not for the flower to belong to > > "her," so "her" is in some sense the recipient of the action. :-/ I > > *know* I'm saying this poorly. > > I wasn't intending to say that your "actee" was a dative and the > "accomplice" an accusative or objective. It is rather that your cases > cannot be comfortably matched onto such traditional terms.
Oh, I see what you meant! Sorry for misunderstanding you. YHL