Re: Short Question: Actant

--- 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.

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.

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.

|/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".

"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.

"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).

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?

Incidentally, what's wrong with "desinences" except that it applies
only to endings?

> Jeff
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?

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)

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?

Do Adpositions, Conjunctions, and/or Interjections
ever have accidents?

What /are/ all the accidents of Pronouns?
Obviously Person is the main one; also Case, Number, and Gender;
but there must be more.

Thanks, like Jeff says, to anyone who even attempts to answer any
of the above questions.

Tom H.C. in MI