--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, "Harald S." <polysynthetic@I...>
wrote:
>
> A bright and shining hello to the list! :)))
>
> Being a regular reader but rare poster who conlangs to research
language as
> such to discover its mechanisms and paradigms, I herby delurk and
want to
> share one thought about semantics that I have seen mentioned
nowhere else so
> far. I hope it won't be too philosophical and I would be eager to
know
> whether you have chosen one of the following two approaches in a
conlang -
> or even found yet another way to express what I am about to
discuss...
>
> In the sentence "I shouted 'Hello everybody!'", the text 'Hello
everybody!'
> is not the shout itself but rather the wording of my shout (being
the
> acoustic consequence of me shouting) which was set free by me as
the agent.
> Rick Morneau would have called 'Hello everybody!' the focus of the
event
> since it is an elaboration of the event itself and, being a core
argument,
> is neither agent nor patient.
> For speakers of German and English though,
> 'Hello everybody!' has the "look and feel" of the patient case role
Indeed, an effected patient (factitive), rather than a theme or an
affected patient.
> quite
> convincingly because passive voice can be constructed as "'Hello
everybody!'
> was shouted by me" and somehow it appears that "I" is the agent
and 'Hello
> everybody!' is the patient of our example sentence.
>
> But what about the outcome (acoustic in this case) of my event of
shouting?
> If English had a case for it - let's call it "resultive" -, would
(using a
> hypothetical resultive case suffix of "ox") a sentence such as "I
shouted
> 'Hello everybody!' thunderox" mean "I shouted using the
words 'Hello
> everybody!' and my shout was thunder"?
My first guess, in this case, is that "thunder" is the effected
patient (factitive), and 'Hello everybody!' is a nominalized sentence
in the /genitive/; since it is a nounish thing which tells more about
its head noun, the "thunder".
My second guess would be that perhaps 'Hello everybody!' is still the
factitive, and "thunder" is now equative -- tells what class the
factitive was in.
Got to go -- more later maybe.
> If yes, then which kind of case role
> would 'Hello everybody!' be? Certainly not the patient, would it? I
rather
> see notions of instrumentality but still I am not very sure...
>
> Analyzing another example, let us consider "She paints something
red on the
> blackboard". "something red" does not appear to me like a mere
elaboration
> of the event. It rather looks like an object being acted on and,
thus, seems
> to be the patient of the sentence. In my opinion, English and
German have
> quite a strange view on the process being illustrated here. One
could
> understand it as an imaginary object (described as "something red")
being
> moved by painting from an unspecified location within potentiality
to an
> explicit destination in reality, namely the blackboard. But for
such a kind
> of meaning, no "resultive" case role would be implied at all!
>
> Thus my questions: Which approach have you taken in your own
conlang? Is
> there another way to put it? Please let me know...
>
> Cheers and thank you very much,
> Harald
> :))))))
>