From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Mon Jan 27 2003 - 02:10:58 GMT
Erin,
The pragmatist linguist (which Chomsky is not, but never mind) would say
that animate objects are more likely to be subjects because we are more
likely to want to talk about animates than inanimate objects.
In "John sees the tree", "John" is the syntactical subject, but in "The tree
was seen by John", "the tree" is the syntactical subject. That's all I'm
saying. In both cases, John is a metaphysical subject and the tree is a
metaphysical object.
- Scott
----- Original Message -----
From: "Erin N." <enoonan@kent.edu>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 25, 2003 5:22 PM
Subject: RE: MD Question
> >===== Original Message From moq_discuss@moq.org =====
> >DMB, etc,
> >
> >As I've complained before, the words "subject" and "object" used in
> >linguistics have little to do with the same words when used in
metaphysics,
> >eg SOM. In linguistics, "subject" only means "what you are talking
about",
> >and a sentence has a "predicate" (what you are saying about the subject),
> >not an object (though the predicate can contain a "direct object" and/or
an
> >"indirect object"). (In fact Chomsky uses "noun phrase" and "verb phrase"
> >for these roles -- in pragmatic linguistics one uses the words "topic"
and
> >"comment"). In other words, the subject/predicate distinction of
linguistics
> >or logic has nothing to do with the subject/object distinction of SOM.
> >
> >This is not to say that Chomsky has nothing of interest to say about
> >subjects and objects in the metaphysical sense -- I would guess
especially
> >in his book Cartesian Linguistics, which I haven't read, but I don't
know.
> >
> >- Scott
>
>
> I think there is a relationship.
> I think animates are more likely to put as
> subjects and inanimates as the objects because
> it is likely the animate is doing the action.
> English speaking children learn verbs
> like jumping easily but have a little
> more difficulty with verbs like opening ( which causes
> a change of state in the object).
> I don't think you can say that the animate/inanimate
> split is positively due to the Chomsky's idea of
> an innate subject/verb/object grammar
> but it sure makes sense.
> And this animate/inanimate split sure reminds
> me of the dynamic/static split.
> Didn't Sidis have a title about animate and
> inanimate (? can't remember what it was about).
>
>
> Erin
>
>
>
>
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