Re: A Survey

On Mon, 29 Sep 2003 23:41:45 -0400, Rob Haden <magwich78@...> wrote:

>I'm curious to see everyone's answers to the following questions:
>
>1. Does your language(s) distinguish between active ("X breaks Y"), middle
>("X breaks (apart)"), and passive ("X is broken (by Y)")?
WRT {'Yemls}, not quite. It has something that looks like active vs.
passive, but is a bit different. {'Yemls} uses head-marking, so case
depends on 2 things: the head's case-mapping prefix, if it occurs, and the
word class of the head. The main uses of the prefixes are:
1)  when a predicate is used as a "noun" or "adjective, it makes sure that
the relative argument is in the subject position (which would be before the
head if the subject were actually expressed)
2)  when a predicate is used as a coverb, to make sure that it's subject
(not expressed again) coreferences the main verbs's subject
3)  also to make the verb's subject the one the coverbs subject are to
coreference
4)  similarly for infinitive-type syntax
5)  when 2 different types of explicit quantifiers appear, to place the one
with outer scope further left (although this can also be done with the
topic construction)
6)  the unmarked form of some words may be considered reflexive (the
subject has 2 cases); a prefix can be used to separate the cases
7)  to make missing arguments appear
8)  can also be used to allow argument deletion, like passive and
antipassive, when no other considerations apply

I started in with some examples, but deleted them -- they actually weren't
helping! Anyway, this is probably both more and less than you asked for.
Incidentally, the word for "break" probably will be reflexive or middle in
its basic form, not transitive!

>2. If the answer to #1 was "yes," what method(s) does your language(s) use
>to make some/all of the above distinctions?
>
>3. What method(s) does your language(s) use to distinguish between basic
>nouns and verbs of the same root (i.e. "a hit" vs. "he hits")?
Simple. Things such as "a hit" don't exist in {'Yemls}. A situation can be
used as an argument though. (infinitive construction or object clause)

Jeff

>- Rob