Vreleksá

eldin raigmore · Posted: Wed May 23, 2012 10:51 pm Post subject: A Split-A Natlang!

I just got an e-mail from a fieldworker.
She (?) is documenting an unrecorded language.
She is pretty sure it has the "Split-A"* type of ditransitive-to-monotransitive alignment.

Very Happy

*That means that some monotransitive clauses treat their Actor like a ditransitive clause's Donor, and some treat their A like a ditransitive clause's Recipient.
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"We're the healthiest horse in the glue factory" - Erskine Bowles, Co-Chairman of the deficit reduction commission

Kiri · Joined: 13 Jun 2009 Posts: 471 Location: Latvia/Italy

Can you please elaborate on what a Split-A is? (what a Donor is in this sense?)

eldin raigmore · Posted: Thu May 31, 2012 11:24 pm Post subject:

Kiri · Joined: 13 Jun 2009 Posts: 471 Location: Latvia/Italy

Yes, now I understand what "donor", "theme" and "recipient" is, but I still can't penetrate your first post, mainly because I'm an example-oriented person and can't imagine what that would look like. Can you give a conlang (or cypher) example so that my visual cord would have something to process? Smile

eldin raigmore · Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2012 4:35 pm Post subject:

Well, I can't give a natlang example because I don't know any such natlang.

But, let's suppose we had a verb-initial (for instance) sketchlang in which the Donor case-ending was "-a", the Theme case-ending was "-u", and the Recipient case-ending was "-e".

(We'll also suppose monotransitive word-order is VAP (VSO) and ditransitive word-order is VDRT.)

Suppose "Frank gave me money" was
gave Frank-a me-e money-u
give.PST Frank-NOM 1sg-DAT money-ACC

Now consider a monotransitive verb like "help".
Suppose
help-ed Frank-a me-u
and
help-ed Frank-e me-u
were both grammatical, but had different meanings.

I don't know of a natlang like that. That would be a Fluid-A natlang.

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OTOH there are several natlangs in which some monotransitive verbs have Nominative Subjects with Accusative Objects, but other monotransitive verbs have Dative Subjects with Accusative Objects. Faroese appears to be one of these.
Mær dámar føroyskan tónleik
I.DAT like.3S Faroese.ACC music.ACC
‘I like Faroese music.’

Tamil seems to be another.

Those would be Split-A natlangs, but not Fluid-A natlangs.

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In many natlangs with dative subjects, the verb is either intransitive, or the object is nominative rather than accusative. That's one reason it's hard to find natlangish examples of Split-A languages; it's much harder to look up "monotransitive verbs with dative subjects and accusative objects" than just "dative subjects", but the latter gives lots of spurious hits.

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In any case, it would be reasonable to assume that in clauses with a dative agent, the agent is more like an experiencer or recipient, and yet the undergoer or patient is still somehow affected.

"Love" might be a good dative-agent accusative-patient verb.
"Find" might be a good dative-agent accusative-patient verb.
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"We're the healthiest horse in the glue factory" - Erskine Bowles, Co-Chairman of the deficit reduction commission

achemel · Joined: 29 Mar 2009 Posts: 556 Location: up for debate

Your example looks a heck of a lot like the sample sentences in the Navy DLAB (defense language aptitude battery), if you were to read them in a heavy Russian/Arabic accent. I find that kind of awesome.