Re: Rinya cases

Matt Pearson wrote:

> Hejsan, Daniel!  Hur gaar det med dig?
Tjena Matt! Det =E4r bra tack. Hur =E4r det sj=E4lv? :)
Jag blir lika f=F6rv=E5nad varje g=E5ng n=E5gon visar sig
kunna svenska. Hur m=E5nga =E4r det som kan svenska h=E4r
egentligen?

> The solution you propose above seems reasonable to me.
> As Christophe suggested, you could also use one of your
> preexisting cases (dative or instrumental) to mark objects
> in non-volitional transitive clauses, rather than inventing
> a new case.  If so, then you'd have what I'd call a "covert
> antipassive" construction (i.e. an antipassive construction
> in which the form of the verb does not change).  Since
> antipassivisation is associated with lack of volitionality
> on the part of the agent in lots of ergative natlangs, this
> would work out nicely, I think.
Do you mean that I should use an oblique case
for the object and ABS for the subject to
form this covert antipassive, or the other
way around (Subj=3DOblique and Obj=3DABS as in
Tokana)?

-----------
This part is a bit unrelated to your reply,
but this antipassive got me thinking.

I think I should read up on voice. Unfortunately I didn't
have time to follow the anti-passive/middle-voice thread.
[...long time later...]
Okey. I've tried to read up on some related threads...phew...

So antipassive is a way to make a transitive
verb intransitive, i.e. reduce its valency,
i.e. get rid of the object.

I thought about if I really wanted
an antipassive verbform, how would I do that?

Let's see here...

"He.ERG sells cars.ABS"

If I want to get rid of the object, then I'll
have to make the phrase anti-passive?
I.e. if I still want "He" to be volitional.

"He.ERG sells.A-P"

But what about verbs that can be either vol
or non-vol?

"He.ERG looks at a mouse.ABS" =3D vol.
"He.ABS/INS sees a mouse.OBJ/ABS" =3D non-vol.

That would have to be the same, right?

"He.ERG saw.A-P (it)" deliberately.
"He.ABS saw.A-P (it)" involuntarily.

But how do you form passive sentences in
erglangs?

"A mouse was seen by him."
What cases would the NPs have?

"A mouse.ABS see.A-P" ???

There is probably some obvious reason for the
passive voice not to exist in erglangs, but
this hasn't dawned on me yet.

> In my conlang Tokana, lack of volitionality on the
> part of the agent is marked by having the agent noun phrase
> in the instrumental case rather than the ergative case:
>
>    Na      Tsion kahten      ikei
>    the.Erg John  hit-the.Abs dog
>    "John hit the dog" (intentionally)
>
>    Inan     Tsionne   kahten      ikei
>    the.Inst John-Inst hit-the.Abs dog
>    "John hit the dog" (accidentally)
The instrumental case seems logical to use.
"John" is rather an instrument come to think
of it. But then the "object" still is
in the ABS case. And I want to use ABS for
all experiencers. On the other hand, "John"
isn't really an experiencer in the 2nd example,
is he?

> Note that the instrumental case is mandatory if the actor
> is indefinite, or inanimate, or both:
As is often the case in erglangs as opposed
to acclangs, which do the opposite, right?
Something about a reversed animacy hierachy,
unless my lecturers were generalizing...again.

>    Ne      ikei kahte miohne
>    the.Abs dog  hit   someone-Inst
>    "Someone hit the dog"
>
>    Ne      ikei kahtei       nakane    tiausi
>    the.Abs dog  hit-the.Inst rock-Inst falling
>    "The falling rock hit the dog"
>
> A final note:  Your characterisation of ergative languages
> as "languages which mark semantic roles instead of
> grammatical functions" is not quite right.  In prototypical
> ergative languages (like Basque, Dyirbal, and Tzotzil), the
> ergative case is used for ALL transitive subjects, regardless
> of their semantic role (agent, experiencer, source, theme,
> etc.), while absolutive case is used for ALL intransitive
> subjects and direct objects, again regardless of their
> semantic role.
Yes, I'm beginning to realize that now. All I know about
ergativity is what I learnt last term in linguistics class,
and then experimenting quite a lot for myself. Had I realized
all this on those ergativity lectures I would probably have asked
Generalizing Gunnar and Vague Micke (the lecturers) some
very unpleasant questions... :)
But if I wanted to do what prototypical
erglangs do, I could just make Rinya accusative
anyway. What's the idea of an erglang if I
can't do something with the semantic roles?

> The kind of language you're talking about is
> more properly called an "active" language.
Is that a language which defines its cases
to mark semantic roles whatever their syntactic
functions are? Then I think Rinya should be
more active than ergative.

> Tokana, in which ergative case is used ONLY for definite
> volitional agents, and in which ALL definite volitional agents
> are marked with ergative case (regardless of the transitivity
> of the verb), is an example of an active language.
What do you do with indefinite volitional agents?
Or are all volitional agents definite? (I.e. the
definite article is also a combined case article.)
Oh. Never mind. I read about it in the
Tokana grammar. That's clever!
But I'll try and do it another way, I think.

> One common
> characteristic of such languages is the use of oblique
> ('non-core') cases to mark non-agent subjects.  For example,
> Tokana uses the dative case to mark experiencer subjects of
> transitive and intransitive perception/emotion verbs:
>
>    Ineh    Tsione   kesta
>    the.Dat John-Dat happy
>    "John is happy"
>
>    Ineh    Tsione   hielan      ikei
>    the.Dat John-Dat see-the.Abs dog
>    "John sees the dog"
Hmm... I don't know if I will use oblique
cases or my own "objective" case.
*desperately looking for a magic eight-ball* ;)

> >From what I've seen, Rinya is more like a prototypical
> ergative language, where the distribution of the ergative
> and absolutive cases is determined primarily by valency
> (whether the verb is trans. or intrans.), and only
> secondarily by semantic factors such as volitionality.
> Am I understanding things correctly?
Hmm... yes I think this is the case. I will
have to experiment some more with example
sentences to be really sure, but this seems
likely.

> Matt.
Thank you very much,

Daniel