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From: rwojcik@bcsaic.UUCP (Rick Wojcik)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,comp.edu,comp.cog-eng
Subject: Re: Becoming CAI literate (ergative note)
Message-ID: <4378@bcsaic.UUCP>
Date: 8 Mar 88 17:25:13 GMT
References: <776@zippy.eecs.umich.edu> <3316@killer.UUCP> <26@dogie.edu> <27@dogie.edu> <2253@uvacs.CS.VIRGINIA.EDU> <183@glenlivet.hci.hw.ac.uk>
Reply-To: rwojcik@bcsaic.UUCP (Rick Wojcik)
Organization: Boeing Computer Services AI Center, Seattle
Lines: 27

gilbert@hci.hw.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton) writes:
GC> Many Indo-European languages suffer from the pathological antinomy
GC> between subject and object.  Either X effects Y, or Y effects X.  Thus
GC>  ...
GC> Basque has an 'ergative' case, which has been characterised as
GC> carrying the role of a fully co-operating, active object.  In Basque,
GC> 'to teach' takes the ergative.  In this sense of teaching, a computer
GC> could only teach a child IF it was capable of co-operative
GC> interaction.  Watch a good classroom teacher and you will see that

I don't think that there is a real semantic difference between ergative and
accusative languages, as your note suggests.  Both language types have subjects
and direct objects.  The only real difference is in transitive sentences, where
an accusative language marks some relationship (e.g. verbal agreement) between
the verb and subject.  An ergative language marks a relationship between the
verb and direct object.  In fact, the pattern of an active transitive sentence
in an ergative language is similar to a passive sentence in an accusative 
language.  The superficial resemblance derives from the fact that ergative
sentence patterns often originate from passives historically.  But this does
not mean that speakers of ergative languages have a different conception of 
'activeness' of subjects and objects than do speakers of accusative languages.

-- 
Rick Wojcik   csnet:  rwojcik@boeing.com	   
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