Re: revisions in Tepa number marking

dirk elzinga wrote:

> On Thu, 17 Aug 2000, J Matthew Pearson wrote:
>
> > dirk elzinga wrote:
> >
> > > >   3-happy-SSg     "s/he is happy"
> > > >   3-happy-SPl     "they are happy"
> > > >                    or "s/he is happy (on different occasions)"
> > > >
> > > >   3-sing-ASg      "s/he sings (once)"
> > > >   3-sing-APl      "they sing", "s/he sings (iteratively)"
> > > >
> > > >   3>3-eat-SSg-ASg   "s/he eats it"
> > > >   3>3-eat-SPl-ASg   "s/he eats them (collective)"
> > > >   3>3-eat-SSg-APl   "they eat it"
> > > >   3>3-eat-SPl-APl   "they eat them", "s/he eats them (on
> > > >                         different occasions)"
> > >
> > > This looks like number agreement on an ergative pattern, with the
> > > absolutive argument marked SSg/SPl and the ergative argument marked
> > > ASg/APl. Or am I not understanding it correctly?
> >
> > No.  It's still *events* rather than *individuals* which are being pluralized.  It's
> > just that verbs like "eat" are broken up into two sub-events (the activity of eating,
> > and the resulting state of having been eaten), each of which may be singular or plural
> > independently of the other.
> >
> > Think of it this way:  "X eats Y" can be thought of as meaning "X participates in the
> > activity of eating, and as a result, Y comes to be in the state of having been eaten".
> > In principle, it should be possible to have 'plural' activities leading to a 'singular'
> > state (e.g., many individuals acting together on a single object, or a single person
> > acting many times on a single object), or a 'singular' activity leading to 'plural'
> > states (e.g., a single individual acting on a collection of objects), and so on.  I
> > dunno, it would need to be worked on a bit, but it might be a cool thing to explore...
>
> I think I get it now. I suppose that intransitive predicates could
> also have dual event marking in the case of expressions like 'I
> arrived at the airport' where the first event is the activity of
> travelling and the second event is the state of being at the airport.
> Is that right, or would 'I arrived at the airport' be considered
> transitive in your system?
It's hard to know what to do with predicates like "arrive", which denote an instantaneous
change of state (first you're not there, then you're there).  I suppose that you could add a
third event type, giving Activities, States, and Changes of State--each of which could be
pluralised?  Whew!  My head always starts spinning when I think about these things...

Matt.