Search results for 'tag:Difference between tag:Accusative' matching tags 'Difference between' and 'Accusative'

Re: If I were ...

Avangi — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 20:43:34 GMT

Hi Tanit, Huevos recently made an impassioned plea for the accusative on a thread, "Nominative and Objective Pronouns - - - - - - Confusing!" Did you miss it? - A.

Edit. Ah, I see you're referring only to the third person. Sorry. To my ear, there's no difference between first and third. I'm one of those relics who is still more comfortable using the nominative case in nominative situations.

Re: the middle voice option

MrPedantic — Sun, 25 May 2008 22:49:37 GMT

Hello Dawnstorm,

Dawnstorm

In most of these sentences you could make a case for elided objects, that are taken care off by context (rather than considered irrelevant, as in "I am eating."):

e.g. Yes, I saw X. X = anaphoric; referring to "Did you see X!" or "Omg, X!"

"You push X and I'll lift X." : X is exophoric; determined by a present or imagined contex (e.g. they're standing in front of X).

Yes, I agree; such cases could presumably be classified as "common ambitransitives" (see ex. 4a in my earlier post); or perhaps as "ambiguous ambitransitives" (see ex. 6); thus:

1. You push (it) and I'll lift (it)

But:

2. It lifted quite easily

Dawnstorm

"What should we do when we punish X?" This one's actually more like the "considering irrelevant" I mentioned above, the assumption being that there is one set of answers for all X, so that X doesn't have to be mentioned. (Similarly, "I am eating X," the point I'm making holds for all X.) Note that the listener might enquire, here, "punish who?" or "eat what?"

"Please give X generously.": Here, X usually means "money", but context probably takes care of this (it might mean used clothes, household appliances etc. for flood victims). Here X is not so much irrelevant as implied.

Again, agreed. Presumably therefore "common ambitransitives".

Dawnstorm

I've heard that cognitive linguists often work with an implied object for many "intranstives". So: "I am reading" and "I am eating" always have a hint of "I am reading X" and "I am eating X", which is not expressed. A lot of this has to do with "theta roles"; what parts the verb's arguments are playing.

I am eating (X): Subject = agent

I am dying: Subject = experiencer

***

Yes, agreed. "Eat" is presumably unergative (ex. 4); "die", unaccusative (ex. 2).

I also agree with your inverted commas ("intransitives"), for verbs such as "eat" and "read". In non-metaphorical usage, the objects of "eat" tend to belong to a particular class ("food"), and are therefore to some extent always cognate with "eat"; whereas the objects of e.g. "hit" are not.

Thus "He eats well" does not need a context, for us to understand what the implied object is; but "He hits well" does.

Dawnstorm

Notice, for example, the semantic equivalence, but syntactic difference between:

- The sign reads, "Beware of the dog!"

- The sign says, "Beware of the dog!"

I agree that there's a syntactic difference: the first can't be presented as indirect speech, for example. "Reads" has almost a copulative sense here.

But I find a semantic difference too: the first presents the sign from the point of view of the reader, and the second, from the point of view of the writer.

Dawnstorm

This is the gordian knot that tangles up syntax, semantics and pragmatics. There are a lot of problems:
- The mirror is breaking.
I am dying.

vs.

- Don't break the mirror!
- Don't kill me.

See the problem? It's not only a syntactic but also a lexical problem. Break (intr.):Die (intr.) = Break (tr.):Kill (tr.). Does it make sense to claim that "break" is ergative/unaccusative (I'm still confused by the difference) and "die" isn't, because "die" selects a different lexical item for the transitive?

No, it doesn't make sense; and precisely because of that distinction, I would call "break" here ergative (ex. 5) , and "die" unaccusative (ex. 2).

Dawnstorm

But, again, syntax is not the same as semantics. Take this construction, for example:

"He died a cruel death."

While this assigns subject and object along the formal transitive model, semantically the "agent/patient" distinction breaks down; or rather, the fact that dying is not an action that affects death posits a problem to the "agent/patient" distinction within "voice".

The object here is a cognate object (it is implied in the verb itself) and thus belongs to a slightly different model. (I would say that it only exists to provide an adverbial opportunity: "he died a cruel death" = "he died in a cruel way".)

Dawnstorm

I'm not surprised people run from "ergativity"/"accusativity"; it's a tangle. I don't think that conventional morphological/syntactic analysis can solve the tangle adequately. It's a gordian knot, and all the syntanctician has is Alexander's sword. I'd look for solution in cognitive linguistics, construction grammar, frame semantics etc. These approaches could then help patch holes in syntax.

The terminology is not happy, admittedly; "middle voice" and "ergative" belong to other linguistic contexts, as has been mentioned; but I think it can be disentangled.

It may be the case that "ergative" usage was once much more common in English. Before the rise of the passive present progressive, for instance, an active present progressive often expressed the same meaning. Thus:

3. The house is building (pre-19th century) =
4. The house is being built

Also, although the same few verbs tend to recur as examples in these discussions, actual usage is more imaginative. For instance, last week I heard a sports commentator say:

5. The pitch doesn't look very pretty; but as long as it plays well, that's all that matters.

Best wishes,

MrP

Re: the middle voice option

Dawnstorm — Wed, 21 May 2008 18:05:09 GMT

MrPedantic
1. Yes, I saw.
2. You push and I'll lift.
3. What should we do when we punish?
4. Please give generously.

The problem I see here is a muddle of syntax, pragmatics and semantics.

In most of these sentences you could make a case for elided objects, that are taken care off by context (rather than considered irrelevant, as in "I am eating."):

e.g. Yes, I saw X. X = anaphoric; referring to "Did you see X!" or "Omg, X!"

"You push X and I'll lift X." : X is exophoric; determined by a present or imagined contex (e.g. they're standing in front of X).

"What should we do when we punish X?" This one's actually more like the "considering irrelevant" I mentioned above, the assumption being that there is one set of answers for all X, so that X doesn't have to be mentioned. (Similarly, "I am eating X," the point I'm making holds for all X.) Note that the listener might enquire, here, "punish who?" or "eat what?"

"Please give X generously.": Here, X usually means "money", but context probably takes care of this (it might mean used clothes, household appliances etc. for flood victims). Here X is not so much irrelevant as implied.

I've heard that cognitive linguists often work with an implied object for many "intranstives". So: "I am reading" and "I am eating" always have a hint of "I am reading X" and "I am eating X", which is not expressed. A lot of this has to do with "theta roles"; what parts the verb's arguments are playing.

I am eating (X): Subject = agent

I am dying: Subject = experiencer

***

I read the sign: Subject = agent; Object = patient.

The sign is read: Subject = patient;

The sign reads, "Beware of the Dog!": Subject = ? It's not, strictly speaking, a patient, as the sign isn't affected by the mental act of reading. (This is different from "The food cooks on the oven," as the food undergoes a physical change - so that the "food" can be said to be an experiencer.) Actually, what we have here is an "attribute" of the book.

Notice, for example, the semantic equivalence, but syntactic difference between:

- The sign reads, "Beware of the dog!"

- The sign says, "Beware of the dog!"

This is the gordian knot that tangles up syntax, semantics and pragmatics. There are a lot of problems:

- The mirror is breaking.

- I am dying.

vs.

- Don't break the mirror!

- Don't kill me.

See the problem? It's not only a syntactic but also a lexical problem. Break (intr.):Die (intr.) = Break (tr.):Kill (tr.). Does it make sense to claim that "break" is ergative/unaccusative (I'm still confused by the difference) and "die" isn't, because "die" selects a different lexical item for the transitive? Or should we, perhaps, split the lexical item "break" in two?

Personally, I find comparing "break" (intr.) with "break" (tr.) but not "die" (intr.) with "kill" (tr.) to be imprecise.

But, again, syntax is not the same as semantics. Take this construction, for example:

"He died a cruel death."

While this assigns subject and object along the formal transitive model, semantically the "agent/patient" distinction breaks down; or rather, the fact that dying is not an action that affects death posits a problem to the "agent/patient" distinction within "voice".

I'm not surprised people run from "ergativity"/"accusativity"; it's a tangle. I don't think that conventional morphological/syntactic analysis can solve the tangle adequately. It's a gordian knot, and all the syntanctician has is Alexander's sword. I'd look for solution in cognitive linguistics, construction grammar, frame semantics etc. These approaches could then help patch holes in syntax.

Re: The reform of linguistics

Forbes — Tue, 16 May 2006 14:44:13 GMT

Imagine a language in which:

âThe man hit the table with a stickâ is

âCopoloteko tipadela tisadure asutariki bu.â

In this sentence

co = a classifier indicating that we are talking about something animate

polo = man

te = a nominative case marker

ko = the speaker wishes to emphasise the word âmanâ

ti = a classifier indicating that we are talking about something inanimate

pade = table

la = accusative marker

ti = as above

sadu = stick

re = an instrumental case marker

a = a prefix indicating that the event took place in the recent past

suta = hit

ri = a suffix indicating that the subject of the sentence is animate

ki = a suffix indicating that the object of the sentence is inanimate

bu = a particle showing respect to the person addressed

If we substitute a completely different set of phonemes throughout, so that for example âcopolotekoâ becomes âdasazaviwuâ, the morphology and syntax have not been changed. We can go a step further and make all the syllables closed so that we have âdansaszarvitwunâ, or again go further still and introduce some consonant clusters to produce âdranspaszarvlistwunâ. In each case the phonology of the language is different, but the morphology and syntax are identical.

Now of course changes in the phonology of a language go hand in hand with changes in its morphology: a classic case is where case endings for nouns are weakened and eventually dropped. But what you seem to be saying, and please correct me if I am wrong, is that you can predict the morphology and syntax of a language from its phonology. In particular, you seem to be suggesting that if a language has a small inventory of phonemes and a simple phonology (that is all syllables must be of the form V or CV or CVC where the final C is restricted to, say, /m/ /n/ and /Å/) the language must be analytic, isolating, monosyllabic and have significant tonality.

If we take Spanish, it is a language with a comparatively simple phonology. It has only five vowels and the total number of phonemes is about the same as in Mandarin Chinese. The range of consonant clusters is restricted to initial C1C2 where C2 has to be /l/ or /r/. Syllables may only end in a vowel or /Ã°/, /l/, /n/, /r/, /s/ and /Î¸/ and even then the /Ã°/, /r/, and /s/ are weak and even disappear in some speakers/varieties with /Î¸/ becoming /s/. Whilst Spanish is less synthetic than Latin, from which it derives, it is not isolating, certainly not monosyllabic and does not have significant tonality, at least not at the lexical level, though the difference between statements and questions is often marked only by intonation. Thus we have Spanish and Chinese with broadly similar phonologies (except of course that the phoneme inventories are different) but which are otherwise completely different from each other. It may also be noted that whilst French has a far greater number of phonemes and a more complex phonology than Spanish, Spanish and French have a similar morphology and syntax (at least compared to other non-Romance languages).

Unless I have completely misunderstood what you are saying, what seems to be the sum of your argument is that simple phonology equals simple language equals simple mind, which is a contention I cannot possibly accept.

Re: Why put "to" in passive?

paco2004 — Sun, 19 Feb 2006 21:52:51 GMT

Hello guys

Thank you for the replies. All of them are very helpful to me in thinking the problem. I think I had better explain the question more in detail.

Actually the questioner asked at first the semantic difference between "He made her sing" and "He told her to sing". So, at first I explained to the questioner like as follows:

To my knowledge, the difference comes from Old English where they used verbal infinitives in accusative form (which correspond to bare infinitives in modern English) as well as ones in dative form (which correspond to to-infinitives in modern English). So the "sing" in "He made her sing" is taken to carry a sense of accusative case, and as the consequence the sentence can be parsed as "He made her-sing", which means, "her-sing" is an inseparable objective of the verb "make". In contrast, the "to sing" in "He told her to sing" carries a sense of old dative infinitives which were used to mean "towards the said action or activity". In this case, "her" and "to sing" are separable entities, and "to sing" can be taken as a complement of the verbal "tell her" as known from the fact we can say "He told her so" by replacing "to sing" with "so".

This was the first reply I made to the question. Then he (or might be she) asked as follows. "If 'her sing" in the 'made' using construction is really an inseparable entity, why can we make a passive sentence like 'She was made to sing' and why is 'to' inserted in this case?" With this question, I lost for an answer. If my theory is right, it should be impossible to make a passive sentence for "He made her sing".

I feel Endi's reply might contain some clues. I have believed "He made her sing" and "She was made to sing" are the same in the meaning. But I am beginning to feel you native speakers might take them as subtly different in the sense. The active version clearly implies "She actually sang", but how about the passive version? Is it possible to say like "She was made to sing, but she didn't"?

paco

Re: Is this question idiomatic English

paco2004 — Sat, 26 Nov 2005 21:21:55 GMT

Anonymous wrote:
"Ergative" is the same as "unaccusative", isn't it?

Yes you are right. But the term "unaccusative [intransitive] verbs" is a term commonly used to differentiate intransitive uses of ergative verbs from genuine intransitive verbs (=unergative [intransitive] verbs) like dance, jump, run, talk.

The difference between unaccusative and unergative verbs is whether we can take the sentential subject as the real agent or voluntary doer of the event. For example, in the sentence "The dog ran in the playing ground", the dog is the voluntary doer of "ran" (an unergative intransitive verb). On the other hand, "The ice melted into water", the ice is not the real agent of "melt" (an unaccusative intransitive verb). There must be some agent that causes the melting of the ice, i.e., some heat. Interestingly intransitive verbs like "die" or "fall" are classed as unaccusative verbs, though they have no transitive counterpart. It is because, "die" in "The soldier died" for example, is not the soldier's voluntary activity, but instead, we can imagine some real causer of his death.

paco

Re: "engative verbs" ?

paco2004 — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 14:36:10 GMT

Hello Roh

I don't think there is a big difference between the definition that I gave and the one that you gave. When ergative verbs are used intransitively, they are called "unaccusative verbs" (definition by Perlmutter). Unaccusative/ergative intransitive verbs are different from other kind of intransitive verbs (unergative verbs) in that the action is initiated not by the subject but we can assume a real agent that causes the intransitive action of the subject. Take "The ice melted". The ice's melting doesnât happen due to the ice's own will. There must be something (like the sun) that caused the ice to melt. So "melt" is an unaccusative/ergative intransitive verb. Take "The boy fell from the tree" as another example. The action of "fall" does not take place because of the boy's will. There must be something that caused the boy to fall. So "fall" is an unaccusative/ergative intransitive verb. Take "dance" in "Mary danced" as an example of unergative intransitive verb. Mary danced because she wanted to dance. The action "dance" was initiated by the subject Mary. So "dance" is not an unaccusative/ergative verb but an unergative intransitive verb.

paco

Re: Much too much much

paco2004 — Wed, 03 Aug 2005 01:38:31 GMT

Hello Roro

Yeah, you are right. The quantifiers in Japanese behave in very peculiar ways. "Kare-wa sanko-no ringo-wo tabe-ta" is "He ate three apples". "Kare-wa ringo-wo sanko tabe-ta". How would you translate it into English? To me the isolated "sanko" sounds like an adverbial noun. So my try could be "He ate apples three-wise". "Sanko kare-wa ringo-wo tabe-ta" could be "Three-wise he ate apples".

What dictionary are you using? I think "We go to church on Sundays" might be natural in BrE as well as in AmE, but I don't think "We go to church Sundays" is an idiomatic phrase even in AmE. I feel the usage of so called "adverbial accusative" is possible only when the time-connoting noun is specified by any determiner.

As for the choice between the bare "next ~day" and the prepositional "on ~day next", there doesn't appear to be a significant difference between AmE and BrE. "See you next Monday" hit 237 in the domain of EDU and 73 in UK. "See you on Monday next" hit 12 in EDU and 7 in UK.

paco

Re: The use of hope

paco2004 — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 23:23:31 GMT

??I want that you clean up your room this instant!

It would not surprise me to learn that it was possible in some NAmE Englishes.

Some Romance language speaking immigrants may speak it.

Quote from Everything2 : The Subjunctive Mood of English

After verbs which formerly used the subjunctive mood, we often find the 'logically odd' but economical construction of the accusative pronoun (or just regular noun) plus the infinitive. Thus we are saved from saying, "I want that he be good today," instead we use, "I want him to be good today." Alternatively, in the negative sentences like, "I don't want him seeing that girl anymore!" the present participle is sometimes found. When you look at the latter sentence from a logical point of view, which is often futile in English grammar altogether, the subject doesn't really want the "object" (him), but rather wishes that the subject of the subjunctive clause exhibit the characteristic of being good. Perhaps on the model of the predicate nominative one could label this phenomenon the "subject accusative". In a modern language that retains the subjunctive such as French we find "Je veux qu'il soit sage," (I want that he be good/behave), whereas the phrase, "Je le veux Ãªtre sage," (I want him to be good/behave) is completely absurd. This illustrates the difference between French and English, which has all but lost its subjunctive form yet still feels a subconscious need to convey the emotion in "I want him to be good," instead of losing it completely in the non-subjunctival construction, "I want (that) he's good."

paco

Re: Possessive before a gerund.

MrPedantic — Thu, 07 Apr 2005 23:16:04 GMT

...whether they just don't fuss about grammar...

BrEs on the whole tend to take the Marlon Brando approach to fussing â 'What are you fussing about?' 'What have you got?' â but I'd say that this particular usage (object pronoun + ING) isn't among the more fussed-about. (Which is surprising, in many respects.)

I find myself that sometimes 'possessive + ING' does seem to suit the sentence; but at other times, 'object + ING' feels more accurate. For instance, in our example, I find a difference between these two:

1. The teacher dislikes the boy whispering to his classmate.
2. The teacher dislikes the boy's whispering to his classmate.

In #1, it seems to me that what the teacher dislikes is 'the-boy-whispering-to-his-classmate'; whereas in #2, it's 'the boy's whispering-to-his-classmate'.

In other words, #2 emphasises the 'whispering'; but in #1, the object of dislike is the whole picture: 'the-boy-whispering'. I would read the ING in #2 as a gerund, and the ING in #1 as a participle.

(I'd be interested to know why a participle string shouldn't follow the object. In Latin or Greek, for instance, the participle would simply be put into the accusative case.)

MrP