Re: THEORY: Re : THEORY: Connolly: Interpreting ergative sentences

Tom Wier wrote:
> Boy, am I happy that my highschool teachers were all either
> linguisticly trained or linguisticly minded!  That sounds like someone
> trying to impose restrictions on the language that simply have never
> existed, a la split infinitives.
I think it was more that she insisted that "break" could only be
transitive, much as "the camels distributed" is ungramatical because
"distribute" is transitive.  So, I suspect it's more a case of who/whom,
that is, retaining an older distinction

--
"[H]e axed after eggys: And the goode wyf answerde, that she coude not
speke no Frenshe ... And then at last a nother sayd that he woulde haue
hadde eyren: then the goode wyf sayd that she vnderstood hym wel." --
William Caxton
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