From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Mon Feb 16 06:21:34 2009 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Mon, 16 Feb 2009 06:21:34 -0800 (PST) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1LZ4Lm-0001cH-BI for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Mon, 16 Feb 2009 06:21:34 -0800 Received: from mail-ew0-f15.google.com ([209.85.219.15]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1LZ4Li-0001bd-Oi for lojban-list@lojban.org; Mon, 16 Feb 2009 06:21:34 -0800 Received: by ewy8 with SMTP id 8so1932478ewy.10 for ; Mon, 16 Feb 2009 06:21:24 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:received:in-reply-to:references :date:message-id:subject:from:to:content-type; bh=E5IlRUKTmb9S9HJYfGYiTBNeD46GAFDNB9VTMlXbDXg=; b=ctjAGB1LbLhMO5hHbzPcQUSlrM+kYhTJUbAMCoZLLBWx2ircNc5masug3TKU7mWJSd E4zXKm7EZ5ryTzqAj6BQPKH6ihnEtvYexTt6kzsSoQM+4xbm2xLk6OK21Jcgsbu0TUch rVWN580q52rcoib4E9BcEaUFsuWdPwR/+D814= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :content-type; b=YhyUqE03GlYEKI1mQeUu5hy3T0zSAIcejavyC+sRy/HZEvkNrc2zsfpMkNAe/1PXJi HRyv6lKr+UeDr4yg/dqBP7De2dXLLNZhNLr3dI2abV5XAdiV4rGdW35OPm+1p4oQb2tx OwRRsAiic4V2k0eKTXS1ydX2cbsi+lZy0EsAo= MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.210.17.14 with SMTP id 14mr1874447ebq.181.1234794084025; Mon, 16 Feb 2009 06:21:24 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <4de8c3930902160552o4fb16ad9pc70ae12ebc25b153@mail.gmail.com> References: <4de8c3930902160230x66606aaaxb94469b52675addc@mail.gmail.com> <4de8c3930902160432r494df64ftc404d7df21a5a50a@mail.gmail.com> <4de8c3930902160552o4fb16ad9pc70ae12ebc25b153@mail.gmail.com> Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 16:21:23 +0200 Message-ID: Subject: [lojban] Re: nominative-accusative & ergative-absolutive From: Adam Raizen To: lojban-list@lojban.org Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=0015174be6eabfc43a046309e6f6 X-Spam-Score: 0.0 X-Spam-Score-Int: 0 X-Spam-Bar: / X-archive-position: 15321 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: adam.raizen@gmail.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list --0015174be6eabfc43a046309e6f6 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 3:52 PM, tijlan wrote: > Now if > a hypothetical place structure of "viska" is such that the x2 is the > agent of "seeing", it remains as the subject, not the object, despite > the conversion. You mean a selbri with the place structure of 'selviska', but atomic, not derived by conversion? I don't think so. Even though you changed the order of the arguments to something very unconventional, my guess is that the syntactic structure in the heads of people who actually used that word in that language would put the agent as the object. One would have to do linguistic experiments with a native speaker to tell for sure. > Likewise, the hypothetical word order in "klama lo > nanmu" simply means that "lo nanmu" is the agentive subject of > "klama", which could still be used to correspondently translate > sentences of either ergative-absolutive ("Etorri da | gizonak.") or > nominative-accusative ("Ekalvenis | viro."). I don't quite follow you. Is "Etorri da gizonak" good Basque? It looks like it contradicts your above sentence. > The point is that, in > Lojban, speakers of either type can talk without unlearning their > native perspective of the linguistic alignment, apart from the word > order. A Basque speaker sees the argument of an intransitive verb (which is always x1 in Lojban) as occupying the same syntactic role as the object of a transitive verb (which for our purposes we'll say is x2 in Lojban. It certainly isn't x1.) A Lojban speaker, who knows the languages, sees x1 and x2 as syntactically distinct, which is why Lojban's morphosyntactic alignment is different from Basque's. -- Adam Raizen Got sente? --0015174be6eabfc43a046309e6f6 Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 3:52 PM= , tijlan <= pascal.akihiko@gmail.com> wrote:
Now if
a hypothetical place structure of "viska" is such that the x2 is = the
agent of "seeing", it remains as the subject, not the object, des= pite
the conversion.

You mean a selbri with the = place structure of 'selviska', but atomic, not derived by conversio= n? I don't think so. Even though you changed the order of the arguments= to something very unconventional, my guess is that the syntactic structure= in the heads of people who actually used that word in that language would = put the agent as the object. One would have to do linguistic experiments wi= th a native speaker to tell for sure.
 
Likewise, the hypothetica= l word order in "klama lo
nanmu" simply means that "lo nanmu" is the agentive subject = of
"klama", which could still be used to correspondently translate sentences of either ergative-absolutive ("Etorri da | gizonak.") = or
nominative-accusative ("Ekalvenis | viro.").
I don't quite follow you. Is "Etorri da gizonak"= good Basque? It looks like it contradicts your above sentence.
 
The point is that, in
Lojban, speakers of either type can talk without unlearning their
native perspective of the linguistic alignment, apart from the word
order.

A Basque speaker sees the argument o= f an intransitive verb (which is always x1 in Lojban) as occupying the same= syntactic role as the object of a transitive verb (which for our purposes = we'll say is x2 in Lojban. It certainly isn't x1.) A Lojban speaker= , who knows the languages, sees x1 and x2 as syntactically distinct, which = is why Lojban's morphosyntactic alignment is different from Basque'= s.

--
Adam Raizen <adam.raizen@gmail.com>
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