[Lexicog] accusatory observation?

[Wayne Leman]

Cheyenne:

Literally, "You slipped the pen", that is, the pen slipped from you, but
"you" is the subject and the pen is the object. The Cheyenne verb here could
not be used for the classroom experiment below. It is only used for
accidental dropping of the pen. Functionally, this means "the pen slipped
from you" but this is a translative verb with "you" as subject and the pen
as object. The participant assignments may be required to be this way
because Cheyenne is an Algonquian language and has a person hierarchy that
assigned subjects and object. Animate persons rank higher on the hierarchy
than inanimate objects, so must be assigned to subject. I would think that
an accurate translation of the Cheyenne would be "The pen slipped from you."
in which, due to the person hierarchy, the subject/object roles of the
partipants are reversed. One more example where syntax does not always match
semantics.

Wayne
-----
Wayne Leman
Cheyenne website: http://www.geocities.com/cheyenne_language



>
> Hi all,
> This is only marginally related to lexicography, but then we've had some
> marginal discussions before...
>
> Someone wrote to me:
>
>   He (the teacher had one activity for us (the class) in which he dropped
>   a pen, and then he
>   asked us what we would say to him.  ("You dropped your pen")  Then he
>   asked
>   anyone who spoke another language how they would say it in another
>   language,
>   and what the direct translation was.  (Usually "the pen dropped").  He
>   said
>   that only in English and in German you would say "You dropped the pen",
>   and
>   that ALL OTHER LANGUAGES would say "the pen dropped".  He then went on
>   to
>   say that we can learn things about the culture from the way we say
>   things,
>   and had us come up with words to describe the two types of cultures
>   represented by these two phrases.  The majority of responses had English
>
>   speakers being accusatory, or some other unsavory adjective, and the
>   other
>   speakers being much more polite and sensitive.
>
> Anytime someone claims a universal, my tendency is to say "Oh I bet I can
> find a counterexample." So my question to those of you who are native
> speakers of something other than English or German, what is the most
> NATURAL way to make an observation of someone dropping something, to call
> that person's attention to it? Not what is possible, but the most common
> way of saying it. Facts first, then interpretation...
>
> Mike Cahill



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