Re: New Site: New Language: Tyl-Sjok

Hi!

Matt Pearson <pearson@...> writes:
> Henrik Theiling wrote:
> > To be (overly?) correct, I decided that the sun is agent, but the moon
> > is patient. :-)
>
> In Tokana, I got around this problem by treating "shine" as a state rather
> than an activity.  Intransitive verbs denoting states take the absolutive
> case in Tokana (unless they denote mental or emotional states, in which
> case they take the dative).
Hmm, yeah, but the agent slot is assigned by control in Tyl-Sjok, not
by whether its a state or dynamic.  E.g. in `Peter is violent' (ok,
you could say that's a durative action (l. violans...)), `Peter' is
agent.  Tyl-Sjok distinguishes this precisely.  Some verbs even have a
floating assignment depending on meaning:

    stupid.VERB peter.PATIENT
    Peter is stupid. (inherently)
vs.
    Peter.AGENT stupid.VERB.
    Peter is stupid. (but he is at least in potential control)

Maybe that's what makes things so tricky.

**Henrik

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