Re: THEORY: Why more than two grammatical relations?

On Fri, 19 Oct 2007 13:38:15 -0400, Eldin Raigmore
<eldin_raigmore@...> wrote:
>On Fri, 19 Oct 2007 09:35:57 -0400, J. 'Mach' Wust
><j_mach_wust@...> wrote:
>[snip]
>>The difference between "core" and "oblique" denominates the difference
>>between unmarked and prepositional phrases in English.
>
>In English core arguments (or direct arguments) are expressed without
>adpositions (unless the "to" form of the Indirect Object is a core argument),
>and oblique arguments are expressed with adpositions.
>But that doesn't hold for every language.
>The lower on Keenan&Comrie's "Noun-Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy" an
>argument is, the likelier each particular language is to express it by an
>adposition.
>Many languages have "accusative adpositions", yet their Direct Object is still
>a core argument.  Some languages even have adpositions for their Subjects;
>the "ang" in Tagalog may be both a definite article and a "nominative
>adposition".
>[snip]
I forgot to mention that in many languages with extensive case-morphology on
nouns, many oblique arguments are expressed without any adpositions.

So there are really lots of possibilities, including the following.
* Everything is expressed with an adposition, including all the GRs and all the
Obliques.
* The higher GRs are expressed without adpositions, but the lower GRs and all
the Obliques are expressed with adpositions.
* The GRs are expressed without adpositions, and the Obliques are expressed
with adpositions.
* The GRs and some or
* most or
* all of the Obliques are expressed without adpositions.