Re: Question about case names...

On Sun, 13 Dec 1998, Sam Bryant wrote:

> Alright. I'm making a three-way distinction in LH:
> -subject of transitive verbs
> -subject of intransitive verbs
> -object of transitive verbs.
>
> I'd like to call these ergative, nominative, accusative respectively. But that
> will probably deeply offend people's sensibilities. I could use agentive,
> nominative, accusative. But under no circumstances will I call one of my cases
> agent, patient, or absolutive.
> What do y'all think?
What I think is that you first have to identify what general type your
language is before you can mix nominative and ergative like this, or
so I've come to understand in my lengthy discussions of this topic with
various sage members of this listserv.  Accusative languages have
transitive subjects, but we don't call them "ergative."  And ergative
languages have transitive objects but we don't call them "accusative."
Nominative/Accusative is the nomenclature we use for languages that
make this major distinction and Ergative/Absolutive is used for languages
that make THIS distinction.  But hey, you can break whatever rules you
want in your invented language, but you'll probably get grumbling from
those who think you are using these terms indiscriminately or without
thought to the structure of your conlang.

Out of curiosity, what is your hostility to the terms "agent" "patient"
and "absolutive"?

Sally

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Sally Caves
scaves@frontiernet.net
http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/teonaht.html
http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/contents.html


Li fetil'aiba, dam hoja-le uen.
volwin ly, vul inua aiba bronib.

This leaf, the wind takes her.
She's old, and born this year.
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