Re: Word Order in typology

Henrik Theiling wrote:
> Hi!
>
> Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> writes:
>
>>Quoting Trebor Jung <treborjung@...>:
>>
>>
>>>Chris írta: "[Why] don't we say AVP instead of SVO etc?"
>>>
>>>The terms "subject" and "object" deal with syntactic roles. OTOH, "agent"
>>>and "patient" deal with argument roles. The terms are not interchangeable,
>>>since in many Western languages at least, subjects can be agents, patients,
>>>or experiencers (even tho they're marked with different cases-- but that's a
>>>different story altogether!).
>>
>>What Western languages can mark subjects with different cases?
>>
>>Basque, of course, and German if you interpret the dative as a subject in
>>sentences like _Mir ist kalt_ - that seems perverse to me, but a sufficient
>>proportion of books do it that I guess there's some tolerably good reason to do
>>it -, anything else?
>
>
> Icelandic has a lot more of the 'Mir ist kalt.' style dative subjects
> and even some accusative ones.
[snip]

> IS: Hana vanta peninga.
>     ACC        ACC
> DE: Mir fehlt  Geld.
>     DAT        ACC.
> EN: I   lack   money.
>     NOM
Something is wrong with this one.  _hana_ means "her".

My favorite is _Mér tekur á bakið_ "My back hurts" but
literally "Me takes at the back", since I had frequent
occasion to use it.

/BP 8^)
--
Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se

         Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant!
                                             (Tacitus)

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