tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5940197.post6093442107744750557..comments2024-03-25T21:14:49.666-04:00Comments on Joel Swagman (Reviews / TESOL): The Ling Space: How Can We Tell What Roles Nouns Play? Case TheoryJoel Swagmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14948746083822200906noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5940197.post-76703998770447199352017-01-30T03:16:23.209-05:002017-01-30T03:16:23.209-05:00Ah yes, of course, the particles in Japanese. Yes...Ah yes, of course, the particles in Japanese. Yes, I see now. And yes, I think they do mark case in the way you describe. <br />I was thinking of case exclusively in terms of affixes when I asked that question. I understand now.<br /><br />And thank you for walking me through all the rest of it as well. I think I've got it all now.<br />Wow, this stuff gets complicated, huh? But interesting. <br /><br />It's fascinating how much my linguistic system knows about all this, without me consciously being able to figure it out.Joel Swagmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14948746083822200906noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5940197.post-80890310626190563702017-01-30T02:13:54.467-05:002017-01-30T02:13:54.467-05:00Great questions! ^_^
Regarding why "claim&qu...Great questions! ^_^<br /><br />Regarding why "claim" can't assign accusative case to the noun phrase the follows it: we don't really know! This question might not even have a deep answer, beyond being a historical accident. As I'm sure you know, there exists a rich variety of different kinds of verbs, and they can be divided up in many ways. With so-called 'control' verbs like "claim" and "want" and "expect," some can alternate between having a tensed or an untensed clause following them (e.g., "I claim I like borscht" & "I claim to like borscht") and some can't (e.g., "I want I like borscht" vs. "I want to like borscht"); and, as you've seen, some can mark the subject of the following clause as accusative (e.g., "I want them to like borscht"), while some can't (e.g., "I claim them to like borscht"). Some control verbs lack both this tensed/untensed alternation *and* the ability to mark something as accusative (e.g., "I tried to eat borscht" vs. "I tried I eat borscht" or "I tried them to eat borscht"). Why "claim" can alternate, but cannot engage in 'exceptional case-marking' (with "expect" being able to do both) isn't terribly obvious -- at least, not to me.<br /><br />And you're right about "to"; thats what seems to be stopping the "he" from showing up in that example. But to your question of why this verb should alternate at all: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Conceptually, it's a little easier to see the logic behind why "try" works the way it does; the only things that people can try are things they do themselves (i.e., I can't try someone else doing something, I can only try to do something myself). So, it makes intuitive sense that "try" would only ever make use of a silent pronoun that refers back to the subject of the main clause. We can, of course, <i>claim</i> things about people other than ourselves, and <i>want</i> and <i>expect</i> such things, too. But, we can't ever <i>try</i> them. (You could, I suppose, extend this idea to why "claim" has this alternation: with a tensed clause, it's actually ambiguous who "he" refers to, whereas with an untensed one, it's clear the subject is claiming something about himself/herself. But, it should be noted that linguists don't generally gravitate towards these sorts of 'functional' explanations. And it's still an open question as to why it can't mark anything as accusative.)<br /><br />Finally, about Japanese, Moti (a Japanese speaker) included this line himself. I would have to ask to confirm, but I suspect he's using the term "case" here in just about the broadest sense possible. So, not only as a way of referring to affixes, but as a way to talk about any kind of mechanisms that a language uses to distinguish between different nouns or noun phrases (with Japanese employing various particles, like "wa" and "ga" and "o"). If you consider the German example at the start, it's the determiners that are doing the job, not the nouns. And, of course, some languages go on to place this information onto adjectives as well.Stephan Hurtubisehttp://www.thelingspace.comnoreply@blogger.com