Re: THEORY: accusativity marking [was Re: Viko Notes Question]
| From: | Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> |
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| Date: | Thursday, June 27, 2002, 5:21 |
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On Wednesday, June 26, 2002, at 10:54 , Thomas R. Wier wrote:
> Quoting Jim Grossmann <steven@...>:
>
>> Say, since English accusatives (e.g. us) also serves as predicates,
>> should
>> we still call the case accusative, or should we call it
>> accusative-predicative?
>
> Well, the case is what it is, and whatever name we give to it is
> just a label, a catch-all for describing its functions.
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).
As long as we're not IE-centric, I don't see a problem.
Ray.
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