Re: arguments
| From: | Sanghyeon Seo <sanxiyn@...> |
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| Date: | Wednesday, March 23, 2005, 1:32 |
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> A verb may agree with the subject, the object, or both depending of the
> language, but would it be possible to have a language that agrees with some
> of the other arguments?
> having a verb inflected to agree with the oblique or the beneficier argument
> would be possible
Yes indeed. Verb can agree with indirect object and oblique,
as already pointed out.
> (Some bizarre agreement rules)
> Is that viable? or illogic? or impossible? or inconsistant?
Hm, but this seems to violate a language universal that has quite good
track record of being near-absolute.
The best source of language universals is "The Universals Archive":
http://ling.uni-konstanz.de:591/Universals/introduction.html
Now I will introduce universal #45:
"If there is a construction in which the verb agrees with some member of the
relational hierarchy Subject > DO > IO > Oblique > [Genitive], then there are
at least some constructions in which the verb agrees with members higher
on that hierarchy." -- Subbarao 1998, Agreement in South Asian languages.
(There is more detailed reference on the site.)
See also #44.
It has a counterexample though:
"Nepali (Indo-Iranian, IE): agreement triggers are Subject and Oblique Object
but not Direct Object nor Indirect Object (Subbarao 1998: 14)"
Hey, from when did we care about language universals?
Seo Sanghyeon
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