Fwd: Re: Nahuatl Dominant Word Order

[Davius Sanctex]

>VSO:  kwa in okichtli in michin 'the man eat the fish'
>VOS: *kwa in michin in okichtli 'the man eat the fish'
>(I am not sure whether these two sentences to be equivalent) ...

>>In that sort of sentence, with no case endings and free word order, how is
>>subject is distinguished from object when the distinction is
>>necessary?

The problem in practices is less accusate; usually a sentence involves two
participants of different animacity and it is usual that subject is higher
in animacity participant.
On the other hand, in many occurrences who is subject and who is object is
determined contextually.

>For example, anyone who has seen "Jaws" will know that the above sentence
>also makes sense with the subject and object
>swopped. And there are many other possible sentences where both
> >alternative parsings make sense, much more so than with this example.

I am not sure is both sentences above are correct with the
sense stated, it is possible to be ambiguous sentences of this
form.


Ma tlakwalkan!
David Sánchez
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