Re: A tripartite case system

On Wed, 24 Mar 2004 18:52:48 -0500, Trebor Jung <treborjung@...> wrote:

>Since my conlang Tsán is tripartite (with agentive, patientive, and
>experiencer cases, among others [what are some examples of tripartite
>languages?--I just know how the concept works]), you can say
>"He (agent) eats" (because he was hungry), "He (patient) eats" (because
>someone caused (e.g. convinced) him to), and "He (experiencer) eats" (he is
>forced to--he has no choice). Is this reasonable? If so, does it occur in
>any natlangs; which ones?
What you describe is not typically expressed by case. Is 'eat' transitive?
If so, then this doesn't sound plausible; your second case would be
equivalent to "[agent] eats him." The third case would mean "He eats
[patient]" if nominative, or "[agent] eats him" if accusative; I'm not sure
what else it may mean.

Here's the question: What's the difference between "he is eaten" and
"someone made him eat"?