Re: Inverse marking (was: Kijeb text uploaded)

On Sun, 16 Apr 2006 12:42:34 +0200, Benct Philip Jonsson <bpj@...>
wrote:
[snip]
>Originally I had inverse marking whenever the agent was
>higher in the Nominal Hierarchy than the patient, but
>Alex Fink on this list thought that be unrealistic, so
>I changed it so that inverse marking is used only when
>the agent is inanimate and the patient animate
><http://tinyurl.com/njes8>,<http://tinyurl.com/o4mll>,
><http://wiki.frath.net/Nominal_Hierarchy>, but now it
>seems from a remark in Barry Blake's book "Case"
>that there actually are natlangs that operate as I first
>envisaged.  What is your opinion on this?
[snip]

(Assuming the question was addressed to all list members;)

Yes, there are.

See
http://www.ling.udel.edu/bruening/home/SyntacticInversion2.pdf
about Passamaquody and other Algonquian languages

and see
http://www.hrelp.org/events/seminars/ELAP-ELAR/abstracts/zavala_abstract.rtf
about "Several languages of the Mayan, Mixe-Zoquean, and Otomanguean
families spoken in MesoAmerica"

and see the other articles Google returned below:

[PDF] Ditransitive alignment splits and inverse alignment
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML
Siewierska thus regards this as an example of inverse ("hierarchical").
alignment. ... Grammatical voice. Cambridge: Cambridge University ...
www.eva.mpg.de/~haspelmt/DitSplits.pdf - Similar pages

Deixis, Topicality, and the Inverse
Thompson 1990) is used to encode a person-based direct/inverse system and
to ... Semantic and pragmatic inverse: 'Inverse alignment' and 'inverse
voice' in ...
www.uoregon.edu/~delancey/papers/inverse.html - 65k - Cached - Similar
pages

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Possibly, also, one or both of these two hits:

[PDF] Abstract
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML
alignment of scales of the type illustrated in (7). The alternation between
the. direct and inverse voice instantiates one such phenomenon. Consider ...
ifla.uni-stuttgart.de/institut/ mitarbeiter/alexiadou/files/al_an-fhtf.pdf -
 Similar pages

[PDF] Voice Characteristics of MARSEC Speakers
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML
of speech style, with hierarchical clustering grouping voice ...
specification of initial parameters for inverse filters, ...
www.unil.ch/webdav/site/imm/users/ ekeller/public/keller/Keller-03-
VoiceChar-Voqual.pdf - Similar pages

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These languages are a subset of the alignment-type called "hierarchical
alignment". In such languages, the "word"-order of the clause and the
agreement marking on the verb always puts that participant which is highest
in the hierarchy first, regardless of whether it is the agent or the
patient.  Thus some kind of "voice" marking on the verb is necessary to
indicate whether this agreed-with participant is the agent or the patient.

(The hierarchy in question is usually one of agent-potency (that is,
potentiality to be an agent), as opposed to topic-worthiness, according to
M.H.Klaiman.)

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Most languages that have both an "inverse voice and direct voice" system of
grammatical voices, and also an "obviative" person system, have inverse
voice whenever the agent is animate obviative third person and the patient
is animate proximative third person.

That is, if a clause has two animate "third person" participants, one of
which is the "protagonist" and the other a "bit player", Direct voice
indicates that the "protagonist" is the agent, while Inverse voice
indicates that the "protagonist" is the patient.

In such languages, Inverse vs Direct is about persons as well as about
genders (noun classes) or animacy.

Languages with obviatives almost (?) all have an Inverse/Direct Voice
system, and languages with an Inverse/Direct Voice system almost (?) all
have a Hierarchical "alignment" (rather than Accusative/Nominative or
Ergative/Absolutive or Split-S or Active/Stative or Split-Ergative or
Tripartite.)

The "Obviative" is necessary in two-participant clauses in which both
participants are "third persons" -- that is, _not_ speech-act participants -
- and, especially, if also both participants are animate.

Grammarians of these languages basically divide clauses into ten types;
I. One (or fewer) participant.
I.A. The participant is a speech-act-participant (speaker or addressee)
I.B. The clause-participant is an animate "third person".
I.C. The clause-participant is an inanimate "third person".
I.D. There aren't any participants in the clause.

II. Two (or more) participants.
II.A. Every participant is a speech-act-participant (speaker or addressee)
II.B. Every clause participant is an animate "third person".
II.C. Every clause participant is an inanimate "third person".

II.D. At least one clause-participant is a speech-act-participant, and at
least one clause-participant is an animate "third person".

II.E. At least one clause-participant is a speech-act-participant, and at
least one clause-participant is an inanimate "third person".

II.F. At least one clause-participant is an animate "third person", and at
least one clause-participant is an inanimate "third person".

---

It is type II.C. in which obviation is especially important.

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eldin