On Wed, 1 Sep 2004 00:21:05 EDT, David Peterson <ThatBlueCat@...> wrote:
>What you describe sounds like a standard ergative-absolutive system. For
>it to be like your terminology suggests, you'd need the following:
>
>(1) The man-ACT. eats pizza-PAT.
>(2) The man-ACT. ran.
>(3) The man-PAT. appeared yesterday.
The first two are correct. The third one stumps me. For the sentences that
follow, I'm doing the best to channel my inner Minhyan speaker. But some of
these might be wrong.
Any loglang lovers out there, please chime in, since the case system is
meant to a "logical" case system, reflecting semantics.
(3a) !The man-PAT. appeared once the van-AGT. pulled away.
(3b) The man-AGT. appeared at once.
(3c) !The man-PAT. appeared in the transporter beam.
Minhyan doesn't have a passive.
>Some questions that remain...
>
>(4) The man-? loves the dog-?.
The man-AGT. loves the dog-DAT.
"Patients" of verbs of state take the dative, since they are focuses or
referents describing the state.
The dog is a referent of the state of loving.
>(5) The man-? seems upset to the woman-?.
The woman-AGT. believes that the man-AGT. is upset-DAT.
>(6) The man-? cried (on purpose vs. on accident?).
The man-AGT. cried.
The fierce wind-AGT. made the man-AGT. cry.
>(7) I-ACT. asked my father-? for money-?.
I-AGT. asked my father-PAT. for money-DAT.
>(8) I-ACT. gave the man-? a house-?.
I-AGT. gave the man-PAT. a house-DAT.
!The man-PAT. received a house-DAT. from me-AGT.
There's no true passive in Minhyan. You'd have to say:
The man-PAT. gave I-AGT. a house-DAT.
Thanks, I'll go off and read this.
>Page 145 talks about Lakhota. It sounds like what you're
>talking about. Guaymi as well on page 145 and 146.
>Chicasaw, page 148, has a three way system, so it's (without
>duplicating the Chicasaw parts):
>
>I-Marker1 act good. (Volitional.)
>I-Marker2 am good. (Non-volitional.)
>I-Marker3 feel good. (Experiencer.)
>
>So do any of these come close to how your system works?
You lost me. :-) I'm not a linguist. I just play one on TV.
Best regards,
Jeffrey