Re: cases (nom/acc vs sub/obj)

> Date:         Thu, 14 Sep 2000 09:43:15 +0930
> From:         Adrian Morgan <morg0072@...>
> OK, your answer seems to be that the word 'accusative' implies that it
> needs to be distinguished from a seperate 'dative', whereas 'objective'
> does not. As such, your answer concerns the difference between
> 'accusative' and 'objective' rather than between 'nominative' and
> 'subjective'. You don't mention any distinctions between the former two,
> so I'm left with my original impression that 'the nominative noun' is
> synonymous with 'the subject'.
The two terms aren't synonymous.

> The reason behind my question was that my documentation /does/ use 'the
> nominative noun' to mean simply 'the subject', and I wondered if this was
> misleading. It seems not.
It's not misleading.

I'd better explain. The subject is defined (at least in some theories)
as the noun phrase in the sentence that can co-ordinate, like in

        I-NOM brushed my teeth-ACC and combed my hair-ACC

where the subject 'I' is implicitly repeated in the second half.
(Reflexive constructions also enter the equation).

In languages with a nominative-accusative system, the nominative is
always the subject. (If the sentence has a nominative at all. Some
languages --- Icelandic is the canonical example --- have a few verbs
exceptionally take their subjects in an oblique case, but co-ordinate
as if the subjects were nominative).

However --- you knew there would be a however --- for languages with
ergative-absolutive systems, the situation is more complex. Some of
them treat the ergative noun phrase as the subject:

        I-ERG brushed my teeth-ABS and combed my hair-ABS

and some treat the absolutive that way:

        I-ERG the dog-ABS brushed and my mother-ERG fed

(The word order is not important --- I just had to pick one).

I don't know how the latter two types handle co-ordination between
transitive and intransitive verbs.

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn@...> (Humour NOT marked)