Re: deeply embedded VSO nightmare

Josh Roth <Fuscian@...> wrote :

 There's something weird about VSO, or something I don't understand
 anyway. They told us in LIN 101 that a verb and its object form a verb phrase
 together, which makes sense in SVO, SOV, VOS, and OVS languages, where the
 object and the verb are actually next to each other (and therefore you don't
 get ambiguities like the one above). But in VSO and OSV they're not, so I
 don't know how they can make a phrase together if there's a subject in
 between. I asked my prof and he either wasn't too sure or didn't want to get
 into it, but he hinted that maybe there was a transformation going on... how
 screwy though, to need a transformation for every sentence! Maybe in these
 languages it's the subject and verb that form a phrase together ... but that
 doesn't seem too likely (could make a nice alien conlang though). So
 anyway....

Well I think that the verb phrase is just a technique for analysis, more or
less useful according to your purpose, not a language universal. Given that
verbs frequently inflect for subject, or incorporate the subject pronoun
as a clitic or infix of some kind and that this type of marking is often
compulsory, whereas object incorporation is less common and usually
optional, I'd be inclined to say that verbs generally bind more closely
to their subjects than to their objects.

Anyone know of a language where the verb has to incorporate a reference to
its object, but doesn't include it's subject (impersonal forms and middle
voices don't count I think)?

Keith

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