Re: THEORY: Active case-marking natlangs

Marcus Smith wrote:

> At 2/4/01 11:06 PM -0800, you wrote:
> >Marcus Smith wrote:
> >
> > > >I acknowledge that languages which are usually called "active" don't
> > > >really work
> > > >like this, but I don't know what else to call the Tokana case-marking
> > pattern.
> > > >Do you have any suggestions?
> > >
> > > You could call it by Dixon's term "Fluid-S". I think that active languages
> > > are a subset of Fluid-S langs, though I think people tend to use the terms
> > > as equivalents. Thus, Tokana, Georgian, Chickasaw, and Mohawk would all be
> > > Fluid-S, but only Chickasaw and Mohawk are active (the latter moreso than
> > > the former). As with any artificial division, I'm not exactly sure where
> > > the line separating active from the rest should be drawn.
> >
> >I guess I have absolutely no idea what you mean by "active", then, and how it
> >differs from the kind of case-marking system found in Tokana.  Please define!
>
> The feature that I find distinctive of "active" and Fluid-S systems like
> that of Tokana is that active languages have a much smaller range of
> "cases". The subject of an active/volitional verb is marked the same as the
> subject of a transitive verb, and the subject of a stative/non-volitional
> verb is marked like the object of a transitive verb. Tokana uses further
> cases to draw even more distinctions that are not found in typical "active"
> languages. (I'm going to continue calling the marking in "active" languages
> "case" even though I believe they are something else.)
[snip rest of explanation]

OK, I think I see what you're getting at.  Tokana is definitely not active in the
Chickasaw/Mohawk sense, I agree.  (There are natlang precedents for a Tokana-like
system, though.  I guess it's basically just 'quirky case' gone awry...)

Another remark:  Earlier I might have given the impression that Tokana
case-marking is entirely driven by semantic notions like volitionality.  This is
not the case.  Really, the only part of the system that's sensitive to
volitionality is the alternation between nominative and ablative/instrumental
case-marking for actor participants.  (Nominative 'case' in Tokana is perhaps best
thought of as a conflation of true case with definiteness and volitionality.)
Other aspects of the system are much less fluid:  For example, unaccusative-type
motion verbs (e.g., "go", "arrive", "leave", "fall", "rise", "return", etc.)
invariably take absolutive case, regardless of whether they denote volitional or
non-volitional actions.

Matt.