Re: semantic roles

Ed Heil wrote:
> In case-based languages, these and other roles get bundled together
> in cases.  For example, with most verbs, Agents and Experiencers get
> lumped into the Nominative case.
Experiencers are also frequently placed in an oblique case, such as
dative, as in the following example from Spanish:

A  Juan le     gustan            los perros
To John to.him they-are-pleasing the dogs
(_le_ is a redundant pronoun - tho I wonder if it could be analyzed as a
dative applicative?)

> But with passive verbs, Patients go
> into the Accusative case.
No, patients go into the accusative case in ACTIVE verbs, in passive
verbs they're placed into the nominative case.

> Anything else besides the 'subject' has to be marked in some special
> way to tell what it is.  Usually the second argument of a verb ends up
> in a catch-all category like 'direct object', and if there's a third
> object to a verb it will either be another object (like English's
> 'indirect object') or will be indicated with a special case marker or
> in a prepositional phrase.
I'd just like to share some verb types from Watakassi', tendencies in
case assignment:

"Normal"
Agent: Ergative
Patient/subject[of intransitive verb]: Absolutive

Experiencer-subject (sensory/emotion verbs)
  Experiencer: Ergative
  Object: Absolutive
  Indicates control by experiencer
Experiencer-Object
  Experiencer: Dative
  Object: Absolutive
  Experiencer has little or no control
These can both be used with the same verb, for instance:
  Flassi'tas naDtya'nal pikatu' (Saw John-erg stone = John looked at
the     stone)
  Flassi'tas naDtya'naz pikatu' (Saw John-dat stone = John saw the
stone)
Experiencer-Equal
  Experiencer: Absolutive
  Object: Commitative
  Most common with "state" verbs, like "love"
Mental Action I
  Person: Absolutive
  Object: Dative
  Common with certain emotions
Mental Action II
  Person: Ergative
  Object: Absolutive
  Most common with rational mental actions
Mental Action III
  Person: Dative
  Object: Absolutive
  Suggest that the person is affected by the mental action
Learn and study are indicated by the same verb, _pyasu'n_, in the sense
"learn", MA-II is used, while MA-I is used for "study"
Believe and have faith are also the same verb, _tya'iya_, MA-II is used
of "believe", while MA-III is used for "have faith in"

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