Re: Switch Systems and Relative Animacy

>>>> Chris Bates<chris.maths_student@...> 01/19/05 11:00 AM >>>
>On the bus home I was just thinking about replacing the system I
>proposed with full subject agreement (including 4th person), and then
>indicating whether the object was of higher or lower animacy (ie very
>limited object agreement). But the idea of always agreeing with the NP
>of highest animacy (of the two) and indicating whether that is the
>subject or object is interesting (I'm not sure if that's what you were
>proposing). So for example:
>
>I-saw-subj  him
>I saw him
>
>he-saw-subj it
>he saw it
>
>but not:
>
>*he-saw-obj I
>I saw him
>
>because I outranks he in terms of animacy. This wouldn't be a trigger
>system though, since it would apply to subject and object only, and the
>most animate of the two would have to be selected for verbal agreement.
>Is that what you had in mind?
What I was thinking was that the first NP in any sentence would be the one
with the highest animacy, no matter what its role. If it happens to be the
agent, then the verb is unmarked. If it is the patient, then the verb would
be marked for switched animacy. So, an example (in English):

Man bear killed(animacy unmarked)
would mean: 'The man killed the bear.'

Man bear killed(animacy switch marked)
would mean: 'The bear killed the man.'

Since man is higher in the animacy hierarchy than bear.

For pronouns, the situation is different. In sentences like your above
examples, there would be no pronouns present apart from their
verbally affixed forms. Right now my verbal constructions look like:

mode + inv. anim. + stem + A + P + IO + tense

where A, P, IO are agent, patient, indirect object (for not knowing
a better term--oblique?) pronoun affixes. They must always appear
in this order, so the animacy hierarcy doesn't really apply. However,
*all* NPs present in the utterance that are arguments of the verb
must have a pronomial affix in the verb. So to elaborate on my
example above:

Man bear killed.he.it ('The man killed the bear')
Man bear aK.killed.it.he ('The bear killed the man')
'aK' is the animacy switch marker.

I'm not totally satisfied with this system, as it seems overly
redundant. More work is needed, obviously.

> If you just meant that topic normally occurs first, a lot of languages
>employ fronting for this purpose. :) The language I'm currently
>learning, Basque, has the rule that topics come first, and the most
>focused element is immediately pre-verbal. An example (from a Basque song):
>
>Eta nik txoria maite nuen
>And I, I loved *that bird*
>
>Since nik "I" is fronted, it's the topic, and txoria "bird" is
>immediately preverbal, so that's the focus.
Well, the topic doesn't necessarily come first, as shown above. The NP
placement is determined *purely* by animacy. I haven't thought out
what the order will be for 2 NPs of the same animacy; probably agent
first, patient second.

James W.

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