Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site rlgvax.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!trwatf!rlgvax!jack
From: jack@rlgvax.UUCP (Jack Waugh)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Query on ergative languages
Message-ID: <713@rlgvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 24-Jul-85 21:24:24 EDT
Article-I.D.: rlgvax.713
Posted: Wed Jul 24 21:24:24 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 26-Jul-85 02:13:41 EDT
References: <6312@ucla-cs.ARPA> <853@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Organization: CCI Office Systems Group, Reston, VA
Lines: 12

In a restaurant I saw an advertisement claiming that a
particular meat-like product
"eats like a boneless sparerib".  I wasn't sure how such a rib
eats anything.  Now I suppose it is an ergative construction
meaning "can be eaten as a boneless sparerib could be eaten".
(Of course, the sign is in the Advertisingese dialect of English,
a dialect that seeks to maximize connotation and affect while
giving no denotation at all.)

I have also heard people say a line "scans" or a programming
construction "parses", meaning can be scanned or can be parsed
by the parser we would normally expect to submit it to.