Re: grammatical cases & semantic roles (was: ergative/accusative)

Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:
> Hallo!
>
> On Mon, 29 Jan 2007 19:58:26 +0000, R A Brown wrote:
[snip]
>
>>Even so, I find his [Morneau's]use of 'focus' unhelpful in that it already has
>>another linguistic use.
>
>
> Yes.  "Focus", as it is usually understood in linguistics, has nothing to do
> with either cases or semantic roles.  It is a *pragmatic* cateogory.
> (There is a second meaning of "focus", though.  In Austronesian linguistics,
> the word is sometimes used for a noun case whose semantic function is marked
> on the verb.
I know - what I think is best called the 'subject' - and IMO that the
use of 'focus' by some in Austronesian linguistics is also unhelpful (as
is IMO the 'trigger' terminology as well), but we've discussed this many
times before on this list.

> But that isn't what Morneau means, either.)
It certainly isn't. He's added a a third use of the term.

>
>>Personally, i think it can (and does) cause confusion to use 'case' to
>>denote both surface, grammatical features and semantic roles. Although
>>there is some correspondence between the two, it is very far from being
>>identical.
>
>
> Very much so.  In most languages, the connection between grammatical case
> and semantic role is at best a very loose one.
Amen.

>
>>As I said, I agree with you that Rye is using labels wrongly in
>>http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/ranto/r.html
>>
>>His error IMO is his apparent 1 to 1 mapping of grammatical case to
>>semantic role, e.g. that the subject of a transitive verb is always the
>>patient - it ain't.
>
>
> AND what is especially wrong in Rye's article is to call an intransitive
> subject an "experiencer".  Intransitive subjects can be just about
> anything, and experiencers are not typically intransitive subjects
> - the archetypical experiencer is the subject of a verb of perception
> or emotion; some of these verbs are intransitive, others not.
I agree on all points. There is actually a lot one could criticize on
the page, but I don't think it's worth wasting time or bandwidth on it.

> Also, a transitive subject isn't always an agent.
>
> Unfortunately, I have seen Rye's "nonstandard" terminology on many webpages,
> usually ones describing ergative or other non-accusative conlangs.
> If I could have $100 for each repetition of this mistake ...
Quite so - one of the banes of the Internet. Of course in the 'old days'
of the printed text, errors did get copied unquestioningly, but it
happened at a slower pace.

>
>>BTW - Rick Morneau says "All verbs have a patient, whether stated or
>>implied." Is that in fact true?
>>
>>What is the patient of the following
>>LATIN   SPANISH   ESPERANTO   ENGLISH
>>pluit   llueve    pluvas      it's raining
>>niuit   nieva     neghas      it's snowing
>>
>>Of the languages above, only English gives the verb a grammatical
>>subject - the dummy 'it'. What is the patient implied in those and
>>similar verbs?
>
> There is none.
That's what I thought.
==================================

MorphemeAddict@WMCONNECT.COM wrote:
 > In a message dated 1/29/2007 2:11:07 PM Central Standard Time,
 > ray@CAROLANDRAY.PLUS.COM writes:
 >
 >
 >
 >>What is the patient of the following
 >>LATIN   SPANISH   ESPERANTO   ENGLISH
 >>pluit   llueve    pluvas      it's raining
 >>niuit   nieva     neghas      it's snowing
 >>
 >
 > In English cases similar to this RAM has mentioned verbs that are
inherently
 > anti-passive (e.g., "shout").  I believe he would say that these
verbs are
 > inherently middle-voice.

I fail to see how they can be 'middle', at least in the normal use of
the term 'middle'. In fact I've found where RAM does deal with such
verbs; of them he says:
{quote}
Note that verbs in this class can be either static or dynamic. Also note
that, since these verbs describe states or changes of state, they have
an _implied_ patient which is obvious from the context (i.e. the local
environment or current situation). In effect, English uses the pronoun
"it" to represent the implied patient.
{/quote}

IMHO the last sentence smacks horribly of the "English relex" mentality
and in any case the vague 'implied patient which is obvious from the
context' seems to me like forcing a category of verbs to behave in
accordance with a preconceived general theory.

I have no preconceived general theory and I am not at all persuaded that
all verbs must have a patient.

--
Ray
==================================
ray@carolandray.plus.com
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
Nid rhy hen neb i ddysgu.
There's none too old to learn.
[WELSH PROVERB}

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