Re: THEORY: accusativity marking [was Re: Viko Notes Question]

En réponse à Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>:

>
> Accusative has a long tradition (about 2000 years) and seems to me
> less
> restrictive in meaning than, say, objective or predicative.   Jim's
> dilemma is
> only a dilemma if we look no further than ancient Greece or Rome.  But
> as
> someone - I think it was Nik - rightly pointed out, Classical Arabic
> used
> its
> accusative case to denote the predicate (as well the direct object).
>
And the subject in sentences introduced by "'in and her sisters" as they are
called in Classical Arabic :) . Actually, in my Teach Yourself Arabic the cases
were called "subject", "direct" and "indirect", probably because it was
directed at people who never heard of cases before :))) . The funny thing in
Classical Arabic is that with some constructions the subject is in the
accusative and the object in the nominative!!! Those IE-oriented case-names
really tend to get overstretched when used with other languages :)) . It's
something to get used to :) .

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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