From lojban+bncCJ2UzZHuDRD1xIjeBBoEd94UcA@googlegroups.com Sun Apr 11 12:27:08 2010 Received: from mail-qy0-f166.google.com ([209.85.221.166]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1O12oB-0001MD-2V; Sun, 11 Apr 2010 12:27:07 -0700 Received: by qyk38 with SMTP id 38sf5706382qyk.1 for ; Sun, 11 Apr 2010 12:26:56 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=googlegroups.com; s=beta; h=domainkey-signature:received:x-beenthere:received:received:received :received:received-spf:received:mime-version:received:in-reply-to :references:date:received:message-id:subject:from:to :x-original-authentication-results:x-original-sender:reply-to :precedence:mailing-list:list-id:list-post:list-help:list-archive :x-thread-url:x-message-url:sender:list-subscribe:list-unsubscribe :content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=0mHr66vmX/0lT0E7HQBHrzuCDHjCv/QPty550vAa2C0=; b=oR8GbbfvkLwJjRHqIs7T0gmGqjnSZ461hJrWioUaV9f0520fpxzWDYr/X3jpEf5YVN xz2j056fs1eZ6yWB+qKtN3EJNhz/OuryoFe+Nn1rlL4NLeY6POAgJ3SkELzthxNUgVzH oFuo2NZ7h3bxhfEhlYDfxxEbWRm6KTrlLEqqI= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=googlegroups.com; s=beta; h=x-beenthere:received-spf:mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date :message-id:subject:from:to:x-original-authentication-results :x-original-sender:reply-to:precedence:mailing-list:list-id :list-post:list-help:list-archive:x-thread-url:x-message-url:sender :list-subscribe:list-unsubscribe:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; b=jVpHPk7IeY8STrfLN4d/MLh5FCZ8VyJWs9u2xRoLOFE57sPaFCOOYvir/C73wwnq3x NbqCh8OMvWhd+RkEZhUq7V91WAGmNG07bMrCFZv2+OdSalUTWRsTq3qECyJlz03c/0jP 0bD07KDRi9PgRnDg0YUFa2h7JBGKbIwpoit/w= Received: by 10.224.97.169 with SMTP id l41mr143786qan.5.1271014005241; Sun, 11 Apr 2010 12:26:45 -0700 (PDT) X-BeenThere: lojban@googlegroups.com Received: by 10.224.16.78 with SMTP id n14ls604875qaa.1.p; Sun, 11 Apr 2010 12:26:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.224.59.82 with SMTP id k18mr281483qah.28.1271014003119; Sun, 11 Apr 2010 12:26:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.224.59.82 with SMTP id k18mr281482qah.28.1271014003081; Sun, 11 Apr 2010 12:26:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from qw-out-1920.google.com (qw-out-1920.google.com [74.125.92.149]) by gmr-mx.google.com with ESMTP id 24si496523qyk.6.2010.04.11.12.26.42; Sun, 11 Apr 2010 12:26:42 -0700 (PDT) Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of jjllambias@gmail.com designates 74.125.92.149 as permitted sender) client-ip=74.125.92.149; Received: by qw-out-1920.google.com with SMTP id 5so707967qwc.38 for ; Sun, 11 Apr 2010 12:26:42 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.229.91.212 with HTTP; Sun, 11 Apr 2010 12:26:41 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: References: Date: Sun, 11 Apr 2010 16:26:41 -0300 Received: by 10.229.217.196 with SMTP id hn4mr1768239qcb.94.1271014001974; Sun, 11 Apr 2010 12:26:41 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: Subject: Re: [lojban] Active-stative? From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jorge_Llamb=EDas?= To: lojban@googlegroups.com X-Original-Authentication-Results: gmr-mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of jjllambias@gmail.com designates 74.125.92.149 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=jjllambias@gmail.com; dkim=pass (test mode) header.i=@gmail.com X-Original-Sender: jjllambias@gmail.com Reply-To: lojban@googlegroups.com Precedence: list Mailing-list: list lojban@googlegroups.com; contact lojban+owners@googlegroups.com List-ID: List-Post: , List-Help: , List-Archive: X-Thread-Url: http://groups.google.com/group/lojban/t/cdf18777732f3c27 X-Message-Url: http://groups.google.com/group/lojban/msg/a090ee3782c08d27 Sender: lojban@googlegroups.com List-Subscribe: , List-Unsubscribe: , Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Sun, Apr 11, 2010 at 3:14 PM, Christopher Doty wr= ote: > > Although a very few languages do have alignment based solely on semantic > considerations, most do not. =A0It's almost always the case that alignmen= t has > nothing to do with what is, semantically, the "agent" and what semantical= ly > whatever other theta-role theorists will map onto it; alignment is only > about how the arguments of predicates align with each other syntactically= . Right, so in English "he suffered a blow to the head", "he" has role "A" even though semantically it is a patient, not an agent, and "a blow to the head" has role O. These are syntactic, not semantic roles. > In Lojban, which lacks case marking and relies on word order in order to > determine which slot of the predicate a given argument goes in, it is the > ordering of those elements that tells us about alignment. Lojban does also have optional case marking (fa/fe/fi/fo/fu), which is required when changing the standard order of arguments. > The only way I can think of to get Lojban to have an ergative/absolutive > alignment, given the strict word order, would be to have some gismu which > have two slots syntactically, but only one sematically, so that the first > always has {zo'e}. =A0Or, alternatively, that there are some gismu which > simply can't have any of the arguments in their predicate placed before t= he > verb.* I would say that if "selviska", "seldunda", "seltikpa", "selkalte", "seljgari", etc. were the basic predicates instead of "viska", "dunda", "tikpa", "kalte", "jgari", etc, then we would say that Lojban has ergative/absolutive alignment, simply because for transitive predicates we would call the x1-case O and the x2-case A, and the case that aligned with the single argument predicates in that situation (i.e. the x1-case) would be the one called O. But for Lojban as it is, it is more natural to call the x1-case of transitive predicates A and the x2-case O, which results in nominative/accusative alignment. mu'o mi'e xorxes --=20 You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "= lojban" group. To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to lojban+unsubscribe@googlegrou= ps.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojban= ?hl=3Den.