[Lexicog] accusatory observation?

[David Tuggy]

More exactly, if I get you right, the syntax does not always match the
same piece of the semantics. As you note, the syntax is reflecting the
semantic fact of higher saliency of animates.

Of course you may respond that that is not a semantic fact, but then I
would have to say that neither is the difference between English
"dropped" and the other languages' attribution of subjecthood or
agent-likeness to the object rather than to the hapless person. It
depends on your definition of semantics, of course: all of these are (at
least very nearly) the same as far as truth-conditional semantics will
tell you. (I, as you know, don't think truth-conditional semantics tells
you all that much about the full richness of meanings.)

But your example looks to me like another case (there are many) where a
language obliges you to overtly code in the syntax one piece of the
semantics (meaning) rather than what another language encourages or
requires you to code.

--David Tuggy

Wayne Leman wrote:

> 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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