Re: GROUPLANG: Pronouns

Charles wrote :
> There is a natlang distinction between and "active" and "passive"
> intransitive, though it is somewhat rare. When the moon rises,
> is it raised or does it rise? (I hope that is a good example,
> but I can't remember a cited one.)
Yes, you're very right :-)
Most intransitive verbs in English are active : to sleep, to fall, etc. Many
transitive verbs are so centered on human experience : I forget, I loose
something.
Well : Koasati (North America) would consider the subject of 'to sleep' and 'to
fall' as a patient (passive) and the subject of 'to run' as an agent (active)
and the subject of 'to loose' a patient and its object an agent : 'something is
lost to me'.
But actually this is because there is no true verb in Koasati, but rather nouns of
agents like 'the lost thing' and nouns of states and actions like the
'falling', 'the running', 'the sleep', etc.
>
> I think computers will have enough trouble with this lang, BTW.
>
I bet so. They wouldn't if this language had enough cases to make any noun into
an agent of each and every step of all the processes and states it is involved
in through human experience. It's at least 12 more cases for each process,
whose 2 last ones are final (FIN) to derive result from agent, and resultative
(RES) to do reversely.
Actually, I believe it's possible to computerize language this way, whereas you NEVER
can do so with a verb-rooting predicate's system.

Mathias



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