Marcus Smith wrote:
> I've wanted to read about Acehnese ever since you told me about it.
> I found an article that discusses Acehnese case marking in the context
> of a universal theory of case, so I'll have to read it carefully.
Durie is the man on Acehnese. Who's written the article you've found?
Just so I can stay clear of it. Don't want to read something with the
name "universal" and "theory" in the title... ;-)
> (But can you imagine a single theory that derives accusative, ergative,
and
> active languages! It was developed by Ken Hale, who IMNSHO is the most
> brilliant linguist alive today. I wanted to study with him for graduate
> school, but he retired the year before I started applying.)
Yeah, I can actually. I think Dixon has a nice discussion of it
in "Ergativity". I don't know if you can call that a theory in
the sense you're used to, but still.
> > > > What I have discovered is thus that if a full NP is freestanding,
> > > > it is a controlled action. But if it is incorporated it means
> > > > that it is a non-controlled action.
> > > Is this for all sentences or just intransitives?
> > Just intransitives. But if you incorporate a transitive object,
> > that object is always non-controlled by definition, incorporated
> > or not, since it is always P.
> So, in a transitive sentence, is the object required to incorporate? Or
is
> it optional? And if it does have to incorporate, what do you do with the
> indirect object?
Hmm. Originally, incorporation of an object or not had to do with
the definiteness of the object. I have _no_ idea what happens to
indirect objects in transitive clauses. I'll have to think more about
this. Glad you pointed this out, I had completely forgotten about the
indirect objects. :-)
daniel
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<> KATSAYUKNIK PIMAK <> Daniel Andreasson <>