Re: Active, Was: Help with grammar terms

Some replies - I'm sorry for the delay :o

Ed Heil  (Fri, 14 Jan 2000 13:30:43):

<...>
> Could it be Navajo that was used as
> an example of an "active" language?
> Navajo does have an inverse construction -- a prefix that must be
> used on verbs if the agent is not of higher animacy than the patient,
> I believe.
Yes, this resembles very much the situation I tried to recollect. But
I don't remember if the examples were from Navajo. Actually, I am not
sure if all examples were from the same language (since the context
was typological comparison). I read the paper about a decade ago...

> I think "Hettan" might be more commonly referred to in English as
> "Hittite."
Yes, of course. I'm sorry... :o Isn't it also spelled 'Hettite' sometimes?

Lars Henrik Mathiesen (Fri, 14 Jan 2000 21:07:36):

> <...> as I
> saw it described, this is a development internal to Hittite (i.e., not
> found in early sources, and increasing in frequency with time).
It would be no wonder if so, as Hittite was in contact with several
non-nominative languages... (e. g. Hurrite and Urartan - do I use the
right spellings this time ;) ? )

> There are two 'conjugations' in Hittite <...> it is not surprising if
> inanimate subjects would tend to be used only with one of them only.
One more thing I think I can recall on the Amerind side: the intransitive
verbs, too, were used differently with active and inactive subjects.
Something like 'The tree got felled' (was it identical with '[somebody]
felled the tree' ?), but 'The man threw himself down' ('... performed his
own falling' ?).

> As ever, the question of primacy can be debated endlessly: People who
> want the stadial theory to be true (that languages develop from active
> to ergative to accusative type) will have to argue that (late) Hittite
> shows the original state; other people will come to other conclusions,
> depending on how they fit their theories.
I second this. I don't 'believe in' stadialism.

Ed Heil (Fri, 14 Jan 2000 14:23:11):

> OOH OOH!  COOL!  I didn't know about the "Stadial Theory".  Can you
> tell me any more about it?
As Lars already said, stadialists maintain that the mainstream route
of development was nominative < ergative < active (which they often
refer to as 'stages'), all of them stemming from some stage which did not
distinguish roles at all.

One of the most famous advocates of this theory in (ex-) Soviet tradition
was Klimov (who BTW wrote a monograph on the typology of active languages.
Which unfortunately I did not read).

One reason for me to have little sympathy with stadialists is how they
treat obvious examples of the opposite direction of development. For
instance, they insist that modern Indo-Aryan languages (mostly ergative,
but descending from the nominative Sanskrit) are only 'formally', but not
'truly' ergative. One of the favorite stadialist arguments is that
most Indo-Aryan langs have causative, which (in their opinion) a 'truly
ergative' language should not have.

Dirk Elzinga (Fri, 14 Jan 2000 13:42:15):

> In their huge book _Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans_ Gamqrelidze
> and Ivanov also defend the proposal that PIE was active-stative.
Somewhere in the seventies, the non-nominative prehistory of IE was a
voguish topic in Soviet linguistics. (It is partly because of this vogue
that it is difficult for me to remember exactly where I read the examples
I quoted). Are there references on the active in the book? I don't have
a copy to refer to.

> <...> I found it refreshingly straightforward.
Oh, Gamkrelidze and, especially, Ivanov are known 'gurus' ;)

Andrew Smith (Sat, 15 Jan 2000 15:09:17):

> I am still working through the notes I took from the second half of that
> book on semantics as a basis for Vokhoman conculture.  Some of the
> extrapelation seemed a bit left-field to me, but it was so thorough.
Vokhoman... where can I learn more about it?

Daniel Andreasson (Wed, 19 Jan 2000 01:00:22):

>Ed Heil:
>> OOH OOH!  COOL!  I didn't know about the "Stadial Theory".  Can you
>> tell me any more about it?
> Me too! I'm on a major active high right now! I want to
> know everything! And I also want to know more about the
> entire active stuff that's been discussed here a week ago.
> Either if someone could tell me (and Ed and the list)
> some more, or (or better yet, *and*) refer me to some
> good books on the matter, it would be greatly appreciated.
I agree that active is a fascinating topic, and an enlightening thing
for conlanging. I'll try to find some references, and I ask everybody
to tell about whatever you find out (I have little chance to work in
libraries in nearest weeks).

As for the stadial theory... I'm thinking of some *anti-*stadialist
conlanging project, instead ;). It seems to me that the system I've
outlined could develop in a rather natural way from some nominative
language. E. g. from Latin. Anybody interested in the details?

Best wishes,

Basilius