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<p>In the Russian media (in Russia), an exact equivalent of the
Hebrew construction cited by David, with an institutional agent,
is more common: <i>V Gosdume zajavili… </i>'in the State Duma
(they) said…', <i>V RPC zajavili… </i>'in the Russian Orthodox
Church they said…' It is commonly used when citing some
spokesperson from said institution, not even necessarily an
official representative. In fact I share Eitan's intuition for
Hebrew that this implies that the action was not taken / the
opinion is not held univocally.<br>
</p>
<p>- Oleg<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">01.06.2023 13:06, Dmitri Sitchinava
пишет:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAHSsr-2UP5vK_zwTCSs5B7hiGobZDmnWZyHUNksGmaMK55bF=w@mail.gmail.com">
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<div dir="ltr">In Ukraine (both in Ukrainian and in Russian) a
popular journalistic construction since 2019 has been <i>U
Zelenskoho zajavyly '</i>At Zelensky's (impersonal) they-said'<i>,
</i>implying that Zelensky was not quite an independent actor
and his spokesmen had a kind of collective institutional
agentivity. Later it was extended to <i>u Putina </i>etc.,
being now a default construction for spokesmen.
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Dmitri</div>
</div>
<div dir="ltr"><br>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">Am Do., 1. Juni 2023 um
09:56 Uhr schrieb Silvia Luraghi <<a
href="mailto:luraghi@unipv.it" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">luraghi@unipv.it</a>>:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>Dear David,</div>
<div>I agree with Chrsitian and Sebastian, this is a way of
deindividualizing the agent and rather than with number it
is connected with collective/institutional referents. In
Italian you find the same, especially in journalistic
discourse, e.g. <br>
</div>
<div>Nel PD ci si interroga sulla linea da tenere</div>
<div>in_the PD one REFL asks on_the line to keep</div>
<div>"In the Democratic Party they wonder what line they
should adopt"</div>
<div>Interestingly, this is ok with collective nouns that
are morphologically singular but with nouns that are
morphologically plural you cannot use plural articles, you
must treat them as if they were not count plurals:</div>
<div>Nella Lega ci si interroga ... OK</div>
<div>in_the(SG) Lega(SG) ...<br>
</div>
<div>
*Nei Fratelli d'Italia ci si interroga... (impossible)</div>
<div>in_the(PL) Fratelli(PL) d'Italia<br>
</div>
<div>In Fratelli d'Italia ci si interroga... OK (here the
preposition in comes without the article)<br>
</div>
<div>Silvia<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature">
<div dir="ltr">Silvia Luraghi<br>
Università di Pavia<br>
Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici, Sezione di
Linguistica <br>
Strada Nuova 65<br>
I-27100 Pavia<br>
tel.: +39/0382/984685
<div>Web page personale: <a
href="https://studiumanistici.unipv.it/?pagina=docenti&id=68"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://studiumanistici.unipv.it/?pagina=docenti&id=68</a></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">Il giorno gio 1 giu 2023
alle ore 09:18 Sebastian Nordhoff <<a
href="mailto:sebastian.nordhoff@glottotopia.de"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">sebastian.nordhoff@glottotopia.de</a>>
ha scritto:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid
rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">Dear David,<br>
in both Sinhala and Sri Lanka Malay, institutional actors
(government, <br>
board, committee, police) are marked with the
instrumental. I suppose <br>
that your Likud examples would get the instrumental as
well in those <br>
languages.<br>
<br>
You write that [number] seems to be the relevant factor.
But if you have <br>
"one baker" and "thirteen bakers", you would probably not
get the <br>
difference. So it might be more the feature
[+institutional] or <br>
[+collective], as you say.<br>
<br>
When looking into the instrumental in the Sri Lankan
languages, I was <br>
wondering whether British English agreement ("The
committee have <br>
discussed ... ") and Dutch feminine institutional
reference ("het <br>
kabinet en haar beleid" 'the cabinet[N] and her[F]
policies') are <br>
actually triggered by the same semantics. I found that
interesting since <br>
this is a grammatical fact that relies on the society
having some kind <br>
of bureaucracy, which poses interesting questions with
regard to innateness.<br>
Best wishes<br>
Sebastian<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
On 6/1/23 06:43, David Gil wrote:<br>
> Hi all,<br>
> <br>
> Is anybody familiar with a case of split ergativity
in which the <br>
> conditioning factor is the number of the Agent NP?<br>
> <br>
> My reason for <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="asking:in">asking:in</a> Hebrew, especially in a
journalese register, in <br>
> a transitive A V P construction, when the A is
semantically plural, <br>
> typically denoting a collective entity, it is often
marked with the <br>
> locative proclitic /b-/ while the verb takes plural
subject agreement in <br>
> an apparent impersonal construction.For example, in a
sentence about the <br>
> Likud political party:<br>
> <br>
> balikud muxanim lidħot et hamahapexa hamišpatit ...<br>
> <br>
> LOC-Likud <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="prepare:3.PLM">prepare:3.PLM</a> INF-postpone ACC
DEF-revolution <br>
> DEF-legislative.F ...<br>
> <br>
> idiomatically: 'The Likud is willing to postpone the
legislative <br>
> revolution ...'<br>
> <br>
> literally: 'In the Likud they're willing to postpone
the legislative <br>
> revolution ...'<br>
> <br>
> Such constructions are extremely widespread in
journalistic writing.The <br>
> above example, part of a newspaper headline, is
followed by a string of <br>
> several clauses all exhibiting the same construction,
each beginning <br>
> with a semantically plural agent marked with locative
/<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="b-:/">b-:/</a> 'in the <br>
> ruling party', 'in closed rooms', 'in the other
side', etc. <br>
> [<a
href="https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/bk5kubsin#autoplay"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/bk5kubsin#autoplay</a>]<br>
> <br>
> In the above construction, the locative proclitic
/b-/ seems to be <br>
> approaching the function of an ergative marker,
albeit a rather atypical <br>
> one: in particular, when the P is definite, as in the
above example, it <br>
> is marked with the definite direct object, thereby
retaining accusative <br>
> alignment.<br>
> <br>
> I wonder whether anybody has come across similar
constructions, in which <br>
> an incipient or apparent ergative case marking system
is licensed by <br>
> number (rather than by more commonly-cited features
such as aspect or <br>
> person).<br>
> <br>
> Thanks,<br>
> <br>
> David<br>
> <br>
> <br>
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