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Re: THEORY: Active case-marking natlangs

From:Marcus Smith <smithma@...>
Date:Tuesday, February 6, 2001, 9:04
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.) Take Mohawk for example. This language has two "cases" -- I call them "A" and "O" following the work of Mark Baker. "A" marks the subject of a transitive or an "active" intransitive verb (more on this below), and "O" marks the object of a transitive or subject of a "stative" instransitive verb. No matter what level volitionality and semantics, the subject of a transitive verb does not take anything other than an A-subject. (An exception is the verb for "want", which takes an O-subject and does not have any marking for the object. Wierd, but attested in other language families.) The distinction is not really based on active/stative, as seen by the fact that _royo't^e'_ 'he works' is marked as stative, and _rakowan^_ 'he is big' is marked as active. The same pair shows that volition is also not the proper motivation. These are not isolated examples -- there are others. As a last attempt to get a proper generalization, we can look at the unaccusative/unergative distinction. This doesn't work either. The common assumption about Mohawk incorporation is that only themes can be incorporated into the verb, but there is no correlation between which verbs allow incorporation and which case their subject takes: _ta'kawis^'ne'_ 'the glass fell' (A-subject, incorporated), _teyoa'shara'tsu_ 'The knife is dirty' (O-subject, incorporated). Also, if you take an intransitive verb and add an reflexive or semi-reflexive morpheme, the subject must be marked as "A" no matter what the non-reflexive form takes. Chickasaw shows that active marking is not the same as case marking. Agreement on the verb follows an active pattern (as described above) with the addition of "dative" marking for indirect objects and the subject of experience verbs. (This is arguable. It is also possible to conclude that there is only active and stative case, and that the "dative" marking is only stative case combined with a dative applicative: dative and stative never co-occur, and the "allomorphy" which suggests dative should be a different agreement class/case also occurs when the verb is negated.) Arguments of the verb (both nouns and pronouns) are case marked according to an accusative pattern. If active marking is case like in Tokana or Georgian, how could it co-occur with nominative-accusative marking? The story used for split-ergativity does not work, because pronouns are not distinguished from nouns in this respect. I would not consider Tokana and Nur-Ellen active, because they make use of more cases and degrees of activity/volitionality/etc than do the typical active natlangs. I do not take Georgian to be a counter-example, because the pattern that is described as active only occurs in a specific tense/aspect/mood, not generally thoughout the language. Likewise, the Middle Welsh example that Jörg Rhiemeier gave me is unconvincing because 1) it only occurs in non-finite clauses, and 2) the marking used there never mark subject and object in any other context -- the one marking the active subject is a genitive. Marcus Smith "Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatsoever abysses Nature leads, or you shall learn nothing." -- Thomas Huxley