Re: to be different
| From: | Jeffrey Jones <jsjonesmiami@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Friday, January 19, 2007, 1:18 |
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On Fri, 19 Jan 2007 01:40:45 +0100, Remi Villatel <maxilys@...> wrote:
>On Friday 19 January 2007 00:13, Jeffrey Jones wrote:
>
>> I'm having trouble coming up with the morphosyntax for translating "to be
>> different from" in NYSEC. My problem is that this doesn't seem to fit any
>> existing argument structure category. It has two arguments: what's
>> different and what it's different from. It's not transitive and neither
>> argument is a possessor. The way English does it won't work either. Any
>> ideas?
>
>Why don't you just make it transitive based on "to differ", even if one may
>argue that it's not an action verb?
>
>In fact, it would even be ambitransitive, i.e. transitive or intransitive
>depending on context.
>
>An apple differs-(from) an orange. <-- transitive
>
>That differs. <-- intransitive
Making it transitive would mean making the subject either ergative, which
would be reserved for intentionally being different, or dative, which would be
reserved for expressing point of view.
>Or else, you can consider that "different" is a comparative. To be bigger,
>smaller, more somehow or less somehow, etc, all mean the same thing: to be
>different. You just have to use the same preposition than for a comparison.
>
>The orange is bigger than the apple.
>
>An orange is different *than* an apple.
I might want to say, "A banana is more different from an apple than an orange
is."
>Or else again, to let you find a solution by yourself: What did you do about
>all these adjectives/verbs that require a preposition?
>
>To be opposed to, to be considered as, to depend on, to act as, etc,
>etc. "To be different from" can simply behave the same.
Those are more verbs I have yet to figure out how to handle! I'm not sure
they'll all be done the same way. Good suggestion, though.
Jeff
>--
>==================
>Remi Villatel
>maxilys_@_tele2.fr
>==================
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