Re: THEORY: Active case-marking natlangs

Marcus:
> There are four proto-typical roles
> (ignoring ditransitives and experiencers): Subject of a transitive (S),
> object of a transitive (P), subject of an "active" verb (A), and subject of
> a "stative" verb (O). (Defining "active" and "stative" is not easy, and I'm
> not even going to try here since it is irrelevant.) Accusative languages
> group these four roles as S/A/O (nom) vs P (acc). Ergative languages group
> the roles as P/A/O (erg) vs S (abs). Active languages group them as S/A
> (active) vs P/O (stative). Tokana and Nur-ellen pull S and A apart and have
> a system like S1/A1 vs S2/A2 vs S3/A3 vs P/0. This is why I do not consider
> them active.
Can you explain why? You quite rightly (IMO) define active as S=A, P=O, and
as far as I can see, Tokana conforms to these equations. S and A are always
treated alike. The fact that the S/A function can be taken by NPs with
several different morphological cases should be neither here nor there.

--And.