Re: THEORY: Active case-marking natlangs

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