At 10:29 PM 1/22/2003 +0100, Christophe Grandsire wrote:
>En réponse à "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh@...>:
>
> > >
> > > Aren't subject or subject universal terms for any language?
> >
>
>Sorry not to reply directly, but I seem to have erased the original post by
>mistake :(( .
Sad fate. :)
>"subject" and "object" aren't language universals. They are frequent, but with
>many languages (trigger languages, but quite a few simply ergative languages
>too) they are just impossible to define properly.
Perhaps I was thinking of agent and patient instead. Aren't subject and
object just a way to make these clear? How are they marked in trigger
(isn't this simply marking the topic's function on the verb?) and ergative
languages then?
>What is universal are
>the "topic" and "comment", with the topic often (but far from always)
>corresponding to the subject in languages where it can be defined.
I see. :)
vaksje.