Re: LONG: Another new lang

Dr. David E. Bell <dbell@...> wrote:

> Really?  "the man fills the bucket with water" is not strictly speaking
> ditransitive since "water" is an oblique rather than a core argument of=
 the
> predicate ("the man fills the bucket" is quite grammatical.)
Doesn't that distinction depend on the language? What if the verb
glossed 'fill' could actually work like 'feed'? See what happens
in Drasel=E9q:

        I mien  im=E1ld        ren hab=EDnt.
        * water feed/fill.3s man bucket.ACC
        'The man feeds water to the bucket.' (until it's full!)


The particle _i_, among other things, mark the direct objects of
ditransitive verbs, and of perception verbs and many other experiencer-
subject verbs. Syntactically speaking, _i mien_ is an oblique, but
not semantically; all ditrans. DOs are marked like that:

        I hab=EDt  qged    ren sarn.
        * bucket give.3s man 1s.ACC

(while, as you see, the IOs of ditrans. verbs are marked for *accusative*
case, which is for DOs in normal transitive verbs). Oh God, could that be
dechticaetiative? -- all this time and I didn't know! :)


--Pablo Flores
  http://draseleq.conlang.org/pablo-david/