Re: Short Question: Actant

Thanks for the reply, Jeffrey.
--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Jeffrey Jones <jsjonesmiami@Y...>
wrote:
> I'll try to duplicate my previous lost reply. It's beginning to
look like I
> did a better job the first time (except for things I just thought
of this
> time), justifying my complaint. But, Tom, your message deserves a
reply.
>
> On Wed, 31 Aug 2005 16:55:02 -0000, tomhchappell
<tomhchappell@Y...>
> wrote:
> >
> > --- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Jeffrey Jones <jsjonesmiami@Y...>
wrote:
> > > Does anybody know the precise definition of "actant"?
> >
> > According to "Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics" by P.H.
Matthews
> > (Oxford Paperback Reference, Oxford University Press 1997,
> > LoC P29.M34 1997, ISBN 0-19-280008-6 (pbk.)),
> >
> > | /actants/ used by L. Tesnie`re, and thence occasionally in
English,
> > | for the elements in a clause that identify the participants in a
> > | process, etc. referred to by a verb.  Thus, in French or
English,
> > | a subject, direct object, and indirect object.
>
> Thanks, Tom! This helps a lot. It looks like what you thought was
right.
> Although it means that "actants" wasn't really the term I was
looking for.
>
> > I would read this as:  "... participatants in a process [or] etc.,
> > referred to by a verb."; and "in English, subject, primary
object, and
> > secondary object.", since to me it seems the preponderance of
credible
> > evidence favors Modern English having the Object of Monotransitive
> > clauses align with the Recipient rather than with the Theme of
> > Ditransitive clauses.
> >
> > This would mean that, in those languages spoken in and near
Georgia
> > and the Caucasus in which some forms of some verbs regularly
> > distinguish between the instigator of an event and its ultimate
> > executor, the Instigator and the Executor would be actants;
splitting
> > between them the role usually referred to as Agent in most
languages
> > (but only when the verb splits that role; otherwise there's just
the
> > Agent).
> >
> > In the same sprachbund several languages have some forms of
> > some verbs distinguish "version", that is, "to whom(?) the action
is
> > oriented/directed".  (In some of them, this is simply a choice
among
> > the other actants; or a choice of person (1st, 2nd, or 3rd); or a
> > combination of the preceding.) In case the verb has a principal
> > beneficiary or maleficiary, that main bene- or male-ficiary is
> > the "person" to "whom" the action is oriented.  Thus a portrait
> > painted on commission, vs. a portrait painted as "art for art's
sake",
> > in one of these languages, will be painted with two different
> > "versions" of the verb "paint", IIUC.  However, even when
> > there is no beneficiary nor maleficiary, the verb may still have a
> > version; "I'll run" is oriented me-ward, since I speak only of my
> > affect on myself alone; while "I'll run this bundt cake over to
Aunt
> > Mabel's" is directed either cake-ward or Mabel-ward.
>
> Interesting. I've been using "version" with its ordinary meaning in
> linguistic contexts, and now I'll have to be careful to not cause
confusion.
>
I don't think you have to be that careful.
AFAIK once you're a thousand miles away from the Caucasus and Georgia,
you never run into that version of "version" again.
If anyone on the list knows otherwise, I hope they tell us.

> > At least one of these languages does both of the above, and so
some of
> > its verbs have some forms that have five (5) actants; the
instigator,
> > the executor, the theme, the recipient, and the main beneficiary.
> >
> > That's assuming I understood everything correctly.
> > My wife is not a member of this group, so it is safe for me to say
> > the following:  I could be wrong.  (She's not supposed to know I
> > know that)
> >
> > > Also, while I'm in question mode, what's the proper linguistic
term
> > > for, not the person/number affixes themselves, but the kind of
thing
> > > they represent, collectively.
> >
> > Three suggestions:  accidents (or accidence), inflections,
desinences.
> >
> > Matthews's "Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics" says of
> >
> > | /accidents/ Ancient term for a variable property of words
> > | belonging to a specific part of speech.  Accidents included
> > | categories of inflection:  e.g. number and case as variable
> > | features of nouns.  They also included any other feature that
> > | might vary:  e.g. the 'quality' of nouns
> > | (lit. their 'what-sort-ness') was an accident initially
> > | distinguishing proper nouns from common nouns.
> > |     Later used especially of categories of inflection:  hence
> > | '/accidence/' is in effect an older term for
> > | inflectional morphology.
>
> Thanks again; "accidents" seems to be the term, since it refers to
> _properties_.
>
> > | /desinence/ An older term for an inflectional ending.  E.g. /-s/
> > | in /books/ is the plural desinence.
> >
> > | /inflection/ Any form or change of form which distinguishes
> > | different grammatical forms of the same lexical unit.
> > | E.g. plural /books/ is distinguished from singular /book/ by the
> > | inflection /-s/, which is by that token a plural inflection.
> > |    The term originally meant 'modification' (lit. 'bending'):
> > | thus /book/ is modified, by addition of /-s/, to /books/.
> >
> > Although I like "accidents", I think it might be "inflections".
> >
> > I have heard several different definitions of the difference
> > between"inflection" and "derivation", and some pairs of them are
> > compatible with each other.
> >
> > Among them are these:
> >
> > "Derivation" is what you do to a "root" to get a "stem";
> > "inflection" is what you do to a "stem".
>
> This one's too simple -- what if you have multiple derivations
and/or
> inflections?
None of these seem to apply to every use by every writer.
There seem to be some uses by some writers that fit more than one,
though.

>
> > "Derivation" creates, from a word, a new word that is a different
> > part-of-speech than the original word;
> > "Inflection" creates, from a word, a new word that is the same
> > part-of-speech as the original word.
>
> I'm getting the idea that the distinction is language-dependent.
That could be it.  I haven't read the book on "Describing Morphology"
everyone's recommending lately --- it might clear it all up.  Or,
maybe Ray can tell us what Trask has to say on the subject(s).

>
> > "Derivation" creates, from a word, a new word that is notably
> > different in meaning from the original word;
> > "Inflection" creates, from a word, a new word that is notably
> > similar in meaning as the original word.
> >
> > "Derivation" is one or more of:  not transparent (it isn't
> > obvious what the relationship is between the original word and
> > the derived word), or not predictable (the same derivation
> > process doesn't produce the same relationship in meaning when
> > applied to different original words), or not productive (the
> > derivation process cannot be used on new words);
> >
> > "Inflection" is one or more of:  transparent (it is obvious what
> > the relationship is between the original word and the inflected
> > word), or predictable (the same inflection process (almost) always
> > produces (almost) the same relationship in meaning when applied to
> > different original words), or productive (the inflection process
> > can be used on new words).
>
> These last couple ... I can't remember even the gist of what I said.
If I tell you, "That /never/ happens to /me/", what are the odds
you'll believe me?

>
> > I think all of the above descriptions of "inflection" apply to
> > such things as personal affixes, impersonal affixes, construct
> > state, and combined person/number affixes.
> >
> > > I'd like my grammatical explanations to be clear. Thanks to
anyone
> > > who even tries to answer.
> >
> > Well, I gave it a try; you're welcome.
> > I don't feel confident "inflections" is the right answer.
> > Would someone else on the list say?
>
> I don't think "inflections" is the term, either. It also refers to
actual
> affixes or changes in form, rather than properties. I hope some
other chime
> in; so far just you, me, taliesin, and Rene (I think -- I'm offline
doing
> _this_ reply with a text editor with frequent saves to disk).
Well, like I say, I kind of like "accidents".  If you do too, that
makes a community of two so far.

>
> > Incidentally, what's wrong with "desinences" except that it
applies
> > only to endings?
>
> It also seems to refer to the actual endings rather than the
property, e.g.
> |s| instead of pluralization.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I have some comments on the 2nd part.
Great!  Thanks!

> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > While we are on this subject:
> >
> > What /are/ all the accidents of Verbs?
> > Aside from concord with actants in Person, Number, and Gender:
> > Verbs can have:
> > Tense, Aspect, Mood, Voice, Version;
> > and what else?
> > Is Aktionsart ever an inflection, or is it only an accident?
>
> Aktionsart is stuff like process phases, iteratative, and habitual,
isn't
> it? If so, I've used these as inflections (in the definition 4
sense)
> in 'Yemls:
>  {NrM: XbSEL-f.}  "Norma was beginning to sing."
> where {Xb} is the "beginning to" morpheme.
No, as I got it, "Aktionsart" was "type (sort) of 'action'" --
whether or not something was a state, an event, an act, a process,
an achievement, an accomplishment, or (possibly one of the above in
addition to) a cause of one of the above (possibly the cause could be
a different 'sart than the effect).
But, you bring in one I'd forgotten about --- "phase", which is
distinct from "aspect", and which it looks like you morphologize in
your conlang.  I believe the "-esce" desinence (See, Mom! I used my
new vocabulary word!) does something like that in English.
According to Bernard Comrie's "Aspect" (the first, 197x version),
"habitual" is an aspect.  He says the main aspects are Perfective and
Imperfective:  Imperfective can be of two sorts, Habitual and
Continuous:  Continuous can be of two sorts, Progressive and Non-
Progressive.
As for Iterative, he says that is a semantic interpretation of the
Imperfective aspect applied to a "semelfactive" clause.
(A "semelfactive" clause is something that by nature can be done once
(Latin "semel" = "once")-- e.g. "cough".)  Semelfactives are
prototypically Perfective, in which case the interpretation is it
happened once; but if a semelfactive is expressed Imperfectively, the
only interpretation available is "iterative" (from Latin "iterum"
= "again").
BTW I guess the above discussion proves "semelfactive" must be an
Aktionsart.

>
> What about proximate/obviative agreement? I think Central
Algonquian has
> that somewheres. I haven't tried that, but am considering marking a
> proximal/distal distinction for 3rd person in my new project.
Proximate/obviate or proximative/obviative is something quite
different from proximal/distal.
Proximative/obviative is a "person" distinction between the "main
character" other than the Speaker or Addressee (the Proximative) and
everybody else (anyone not Speaker nor Addressee nor "main character"
is "obviative").  In Cree, only one referent in each sentence -- some
dialects and/or registers, only one referent in each paragraph -- can
be "proximative".  If you shift the antecedent of the "proximative"
pronouns, it means you've switched topics.  (These remarks are not
based on personal knowledge of any language with such a distinction.)

The Proximal/Distal distinction -- which goes out to 5 degrees of
distance, from 2 different "deictic centers" (the Speaker and the
Addressee), in the Kokota language of Santa Isabel, Solomon Islands,
http://www.surrey.ac.uk/lcts/bill.palmer/NWS_site/Kok/gram.htm
apparently in some languages can be applied to things besides
demonstrative pronouns.  I'd like to know the name of this accident,
and all the lexical categories it can be applied to.

>
> > What /are/ all the accidents of Nouns?
> > Gender, of course, which is usually not an inflection of the noun,
> > but rather governs the concord of other words with the noun;
> > Case, Number -- Am I leaving anything out?
> > Where does State fit in?
> > (Definiteness, Referentiality, Specificity, Construct State)
>
> I can think of things that a conlanger might use, but I'm not sure
if
> they're covered by referentiality. Exactly what _is_
referentiality? Does
> it include proximal vs. distal?
No, "referentiality" is this: a word, phrase, or clause
is "referential" if I, the speaker, when I say it, sort of guarantee
that I take it as a matter of fact that some such thing as I am
talking about really exists.
Suppose I say "The successful Democratic presidential nominee for
2008 will be a Hispanic woman who can woo back the party's
traditional labor, Black, and Southern bases, and reconcile them with
each other."  That sentence is non-referential; or at least it was
when I said it.
That's not really a good example, because it gets mixed up with
Irrealis mood.  Or maybe it's my wording of the definition that's not
great.
But if I say "Congress shall make no law regarding the establishment
of a religion", the "no law" part is non-referential.
I think that is a more traditional use of the term.
If anyone out there knows I'm wrong, correct me, please?

>
> BTW, I don't think Construct State belongs in the same list as the
other 3
> since Construct State is when the noun or adjective acts like a
_head_ in
> relation to some word(s) while still being a dependent, and this
marked
> morphologically.
Construct State may not belong with Referentiality and/or Specificity,
and I have no data to suggest it does.

I find it surprising, as apparently so do you, but, as I understand
it, Construct State is referred to by Semitic grammarians as one of
the three States a noun can be in;  Definite State, Indefinite State,
or Construct State.  My example was "The mines, some mines, King
Solomon's mines".  (Just because Solomon was Semitic.)

Again, if a real Semiticist (Semitician? What's the word?) out there
knows I'm wrong, or just wants to refine this, please, chime in.

>
> > What /are/ all the accidents of Adjectives?
> > Aside from Grade or Degree of Comparison
> > (e.g. positive, comparative, superlative), do adjectives have any
> > other accidents other than concord with their head noun in case,
> > gender, and number?
> >
> > What /are/ all the accidents of Pronouns?
> > Obviously Person is the main one; also Case, Number, and Gender;
> > but there must be more.
>
> Any accidents used for agreeing with nouns should be OK.
>
> (I moved the following quote to put pronouns with adjectives)
>
> > Do Adpositions, Conjunctions, and/or Interjections ever have
accidents?
>
> Adpositions are marked for actants in some languages.
Yeah, thanks.  I knew (though I forgot at that time) that in head-
marking languages adpositions might have to agree with
their "objects".

I wonder if they have any accidents of their own, not by concord with
something else that governs it?

I'm curious, also about the conjunctions.  I suppose Subordinating vs.
Coordinating is an accident; I don't know what it's called.  I'd be
surprised, but not astonished, if Conjunctions had any/many
inflections/accidents.

I /would/ be astonished if Interjections had /any/ inflections at all!
Or many accidents.

> This results from
> pronouns getting tacked on, then fusing. Also, some prepositions
are
> participles in origin, which are inflected.
Thanks, Jeff.