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Re: New Site: New Language: Tyl-Sjok

From:Henrik Theiling <theiling@...>
Date:Wednesday, April 18, 2001, 0:15
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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daniel andreasson <daniel.andreasson@...>