Re: ergative/accusative

In a message dated 1/27/2007 8:29:59 PM Central Standard Time,
tepples@SPAMCOP.NET writes:


> J. B. Rye wrote a "Ranto", or a rant against the promotion of Esperanto.
> One appendix to the Ranto discusses the case marking systems in various
> languages, and he mentions what he calls "the monster raving loony candidate
> (some Iranian sightings)", but he does not identify the specific language.
> It's not Farsi, is it?
> http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/ranto/r.html
>
>
From that site:

Agent = "Subject" of a transitive verb ("we saw Sam")
Experiencer = Argument of an intransitive verb ("we waited")
Patient = "Object" of a transitive verb ("Sam saw us")

I think Rye is using the labels wrong.
An agent is the subject of a transitive *action* verb ("we ate the food")
The experiencer and the patient are the same thing, and can be either the
subject or (direct) object: ('food' in "we ate the food"), ('we' in "we saw the
food").
What is the 'argument' of an intransitive verb.  In his example it's the
subject.
His example of a patient is wrong too.  The subject "Sam" in "Sam saw us" is
the patient, and "us" is the focus.
Transitive verbs can be action verbs with agents as subject and first object
as patient or focus and a second object as focus (if there was a first
object), or state verbs with patient as subject and focus as object.  No second
objects with state verbs.
Possible verb argument structures are:
active verbs:
Agent + Patient
Agent + Patient + Focus

state verbs
Patient
Patient + Focus

These can simplified to Agent Patient (Focus) and Patient (Focus).  There's
always a Patient, but whether it's subject or object depends on the type of
verb - state or action, respectively.
These four base structures can be modified to remove a given part, e.g., the
patient of Agent + Patient, by passive and/or middle voice derivations.

(I'm basing this on Rick Morneau's "Lexical Semantics", the clearest
explanation of verb arguments I know of.)

stevo

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