Re: THEORY: Active case-marking natlangs

Marcus Smith wrote:

> And wrote:
> >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.
>
> You have a good point, I hadn't considered this. I suppose I'm put off by
> the fact that none of the active natlangs I've worked with make lots of
> distinctions like this. Of the natlangs that do have multiple cases, I've
> only really looked at Georgian, and I'm hestitant to call it active,
> because it is only conforms to an active pattern in the proper
> tense/aspect. I need to think about this more.
The proper generalisation for Tokana seems to be that it is active (a la
Smith-Rosta), but with quasi-semantic (i.e., 'fluid') case-marking of the S/A.
More explicitly, Tokana has an active alignment (in Marcus's sense, where alignment
of grammatical relations is in principle separable from case-marking), and within
that active alignment, the case-marking of the S/A function is partially dependent
on animacy/volitionality and definiteness:

   Grammatical   Case-marking
   relation

   P/O           absolutive

   S/A           nominative (if definite and volitional)
                 ablative (if indefinite and/or animate non-volitional)
                 instrumental (if inanimate)

Matt.