Re: THEORY: Meanings of Verbal Accidents.

MorphemeAddict@WMCONNECT.COM wrote:
> In a message dated 8/13/2007 2:16:31 PM Central Daylight Time,
> ray@CAROLANDRAY.PLUS.COM writes:
[snip]

>>It has always seemed to me that Latin is rather more true to reality in
>>giving the verb "to die" passive endings. I have yet to be convinced
>>that 'morior' should be classified as a deponent verb any more that
>>'nascor' (I am being born) should be. The babe that gets thrust into int
>>the world from its mother's womb s hardly the agent. At least with this
>>verb English uses passive forms as well as Latin; yet, strangely
>>anglophone Latin textbooks still list 'nascor' as a deponent - weird!
>>
>
> Just because a verb's subject isn't an agent doesn't mean the verb should be
> passive.  Many subjects are patients, but that doesn't mean they are part of a
> passive construction, e.g., "I see".
I think many people would argue about the semantic role of "I" in "I
see." IIRC it was because of unresolved arguments over this (and
possibly other matters) that the Voksigid group faltered and eventually
broke up - hence the language was never completed.

But "to see" normally has *two* arguments, e.g. "I see a dog" -
*grammatically* it functions as an active verb with subject and object
(whatever the semantic roles of the two arguments might be). This is
*NOT* the same for "to die" and "to be born."

Also, it seems to me that the "he" in "he is dying" and "he is being
born" is significantly different from that in "he sees the dog." In
the latter "he" can change the situation if "he" wishes, e.g. he can
shut his eyes, or he can turn his head so that his field of vision is
elsewhere. In the former example "he" cannot prevent himself either
dying or being born.

Further, I said nowhere that such verbs *should* be passive. That would
have been a silly thing to have said, because it must surely depend upon
the verbal structures of the language in question. All I merely said was
that it seems more true to reality to me that _moritur_ (s/he is dying),
and _nascitur_ (s/he is being born) have passives forms in Latin. I also
pointed out the second verb is treated as passive in English as well.
------------------------------------

Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:
[snip]
> We are getting into the murky waters of morphosyntactic alignment here.
We are indeed, which is why it behoves that what is written
is read carefully. Murky waters can be very tricksy    :)

> Latin is a nominative-accusative language: semantic agency does not
> really matter that much to morphological marking of argumants, but
> rather "subject-hood" does.  There are plenty of stative verbs that take
> active endings even though there is no action involved semantically.
I agree with all this except the emphasis on "subjecthood." Latin has
subjectless verbs a-plenty: e.g. pluit (it's raining), interest (it is
important), opportet (it behoves) etc,. etc., etc. English, in which
verbs must have a grammatical subject, furnishes them with an dummy
"it"; Latin cannot - *_id pluit_ is simply bad and, indeed, meaningless
Latin.

Indeed, Latin goes further and has subjectless passives! E.g. itur (they
go, one goes, people are going etc., etc.), perventum est (they arrived,
we arrived, they arrived, people arrived etc.
---------------------------------------------

Elliott Lash wrote:
 >  Perhaps you are right about the morior and nascor
 > thing. Thank you for providing a more illuminating
 > example.  What I meant about Greek being less
 > systematic is, from what I remember, most verbs are
 > not fully deponent or fully active, rather, they are a
 > mix of both, depending on the principle part. Thus,
 > some verbs can have present active but aorist deponent

You mean, like Latin:
audeo, audere, ausus sum = to dare   ;)

 > principle parts, whereas others can swith it around.

I suspect any examples of this would involve stem suppletion also. I
cannot imagine a verb with deponent present stem then swapping to active
in the aorist with the same stem.

a
 > If this is wrong, then I'll have to go back and look
 > up my Greek deponents again..

But I understand what you're getting at.

The added complications also are that Greek doesn't use just three
simple stems, as Latin verbs do; has different passive and middle
endings in certain forms of the verbs, thus giving rise to some
deponents with passive endings and some with middle endings; the ancient
Greek aorist passives uses active personal endings anyway, whatever the
verb might be!

Yes, there's certainly greater variety with Greek deponents. But the
stricture of less systematization in Greek applies not only to deponent
verbs but to the whole verbal system.

One thing Classical Latin did was certainly to bring a great deal of
systematization the verbal system (which then got undone in Vulgar Latin
- but that's another story   ;)

--
Ray
==================================
ray@carolandray.plus.com
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
Nid rhy hen neb i ddysgu.
There's none too old to learn.
[WELSH PROVERB]