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R: Re: Unaccusative vs unergative ...

From:Mangiat <mangiat@...>
Date:Tuesday, April 17, 2001, 17:18
John wrote:

> Andreas Johansson wrote: > > > > So "to dance" would be an unergative, since in "Jane dances" it's > > Jane(=the subject) that does the dancing, > > That reminds me, I've been wanting to ask: in "Jane danced the rhumba", > what is the role of "the rhumba"? This role, whatever it is, > is in some way tied with so-called "cognate accusatives", as in > "to dance a dance", "to sing a song", and "to walk the walk".
In a still unnamed conlang I'm working at (fromerly called Sirmave, but I don't particularly like the name, so...), this kind of verbs takes the genitive instead of the accusative. For instance: I drink the beer drink.1s ART beer.ACC ---> Griuci o sör. /g*jukI U sY*/ but: Jane danced the rhumba Jane dance.PST.3s ART rhumba.GEN --> Gxein *danzás te rumbem /dZeIn dan'tsas t@ rumb@~/ (allowing two loans: 'danz-' and 'te rumba') Luca