Primary object languages & pronouns

[David Tuggy]

Not sure what you mean, Matthew, by "not related by rule". Do you mean "the
relation between them is not an absolutely predictive one" or "there is no
relationship between them", or something else?

I would prefer to see them as "alternative syntactic frames" as you do, but
not deny that speakers are aware of (consciously or at some non-conscious
cognitive level) systematic correlations between them.

I'm not sure you're denying such sytematic cognitive correlation--that's
what I'm trying to clarify.

--David Tuggy

-----Original Message-----
From: FUNKNET -- Discussion of issues in Functional Linguistics
[mailto:FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu]On Behalf Of Matthew Dryer
Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2003 11:00 AM
To: FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu
Subject: Re: Primary object languages & pronouns

<snip>

Although I still believe that the notions of primary object and secondary
object are a useful way of viewing languages like Wari', I no longer think
the notion of antidative is a useful notion for describing languages like
English where we find two constructions for semantically ditransitive
clauses.  Rather, the two constructions should simply be analysed as
alternative syntactic frames, not related by rule.

<snap>
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