tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Nov 23 04:51:28 2009

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Re: The topic marker -'e'

Steven Lytle ([email protected]) 

On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 1:51 AM, Christopher Doty <[email protected]>wrote:
> > Subjects aren't distinct from agents. Both intransitive and transitive
> verbs
> > have subjects. Both transitive ('kill') and intransitive verbs ('run')
> can
> > have agents as subjects.
>
> Dude. I am not getting paid to teach you linguistics.
>
> Subjects and agents are distinct.  In English (and Klingon, and a
> butt-load of other languages), subjects and agents get treated the
> same (he runs, he kills him).  However, there is a second butt-load of
> languages where subjects and OBJECTS are treated the same, and AGENTS
> are treated differently (e.g., if forced to use English, him runs, he
> kills him).  Thus, the 'S' that I was using to gloss that morpheme
> means that it is a prefix which does not indicate an object.  Because
> terms like subject and agent can be surprising loaded, these are often
> simply shorted in linguistics to S, A, and O.
>
> > You equated the subject of a verb with the object, for which there is no
> > justification. I equated two subjects.
>
> Because you decided that Sor was a subject (and a 1pl subject at that)
> a priori.  What I was pointing out is that, if we decide a priori what
> is what, then there is no reason for the "robots" in "We kill robots"
> to be considered an object; it is actually a subject, because I
> decided it is a subject (even though there is no justification for
> this).  So no, I did exactly the same thing.
>
> Chris
>
>
>
> No, I didn't pick their role a priori. "Sor" is a subject because it
follows its verb (you know, OVS, and all that?)
By the same token, objects follow their verb in English.
So it's you who is being arbitrary, not I.
I did one thing, and you did something different.

lay'tel SIvten

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