User talk:Lehi

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TheRingess 05:53, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] SOV etc.

Hi Lehi,

Since you reverted my changes to SOV etc. without discussion, I've restored them. I put the changes up for discussion before making them in the first place. Also, the page histories got messed up. The articles need to be moved, not just reverted. kwami 05:42, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree on the necessity of discussion and apologize for my actions. However, I believe that the articles in question must be reverted to their original form before your interference, so as to follow what I think we can both agree is proper procedure.Lehi 23:05, 28 April 2006 (UTC):
I followed proper procedure: I put the topic up for discussion for several days before editing. kwami 05:48, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
No you didn't. Lehi 23:05, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Five days in the standard waiting period. I'm sorry if you didn't see it.
Please read the 'subject' and 'agent' articles so that you are familiar with what those terms mean. They are not the same thing. All languages (probably) have transitive verbs and therefore agents, but a large portion of the world's languages do not have subjects. kwami 05:56, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
I have never encountered a language that used the nominative-accusitive distinction that did not have a subject. I would appreciate it if you could list a few (why not have a link leading of to those that did, or explain about it within the article?). I'm pretty sure that I can safely say that even if there were languages out there without subjects, then they would probably not belong in the same catergory as those that did (And I am absolutley certain that such languages wouln't constitute a large portion).I guess my point is that it confuses people and it forces a template on all languages when it only really aplies to a few of them (along with making the titles loook ugly).Lehi 06:28, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
But a good number of languages do not make use of a basic nominative-accusative distinction
Well then they are a different matter altogether
How? These articles are not defined relative to accusativety, so it is inaccurate to treat them as if they were.
and many Austronesian languages, which some people argue are nominative-accusative, do not have subjects -- or at least no one can agree what the subject is in these languages. Yet Mayan, Austronesian, etc. are given as examples of the various word orders. Nowhere do we say that the word-order typology only applies to nominative-accusative languages, and that is what would be required to make the term 'subject' accurate.
Look, agent and patient used to describe the entire spectrum of languages is just plain bizzare. why should a few tiny languages like Mayan dominate the entire article, when a small section within the article would be much more apropriateLehi 08:04, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
So you decide for the rest of us which languages are important and which aren't? That's quite arrogant, as well as a POV conflict. Also, the "few tiny languages" make up perhaps a third of the world's total (1/4 ergative, plus a thousand Austronesian langs, plus who-knows-what else)
My mistake. I should have said alot of tiny languages.
Tagalog has 80 million speakers. How is that 'tiny'?
Tagalog is VSO.Lehi 06:17, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
What does that matter? kwami 06:34, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

and they're used as illustrations of the word orders in question! We shouldn't use a language as the prototypical example of, say, object-verb-subject if it doesn't have a subject! kwami 10:17, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

A valid point. I will set out to remove those examples from the next edit. Lehi 05:19, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
The point remains that this isn't about nominative-accusative languages, but about languages. If you wish to redefine linguistic typology just to avoid a couple unfamiliar terms, you should at least seek consensus. kwami 05:59, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
No, I take that back. It still wouldn't be accurate, because many nominative-accusative languages have different word orders for transitive and intransitive clauses. kwami 07:17, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Look, I'm getting tired of arguing, and I can only assume that you are too. Why don't we just think up some compromise and leave it at that. I'm Willing to let you do whatever you want with the content of the article as long as the previous title remains. What do you think? Any ideas?Lehi 06:29, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I am too. But then the title won't match the contents, which would be a problem for most everyone else. What if we consolidate all six articles into one, as others have recommended? kwami 06:34, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
It has my vote! Another, admittedly less practical idea, is to have seperate sections for each particular word order within the article on the style of word order. So SVO would be under Nominative-Accusative, AVP would be under Ergative-Absolutive, et cetera.Lehi 06:58, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
I don't like that for three reasons: 1, redundancy (what's the point of consolidating if we're going to repeat ourselves?); 2, it's misleading (AVP is as much Nominative-Accusative as it is Ergative-Absolutive); 3, for a good number of languages (Georgian is one), different authors make different claims about alignment (nom-acc, erg-abs, philippine, act-stat, etc.). A language may have several alignments, and the same word order for all of them.
What should we call the combined article? kwami 01:51, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
List of word orders sounds natural.Lehi 03:57, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
That's a lot more general than just SOV etc. There's also Adj. Noun etc. etc. etc. kwami 04:29, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
When people are looking for word order, there almost always looking for SOV etc. adj. noun. etc would fall under adjective first and last languages respectively. On a somewhat related note, is there an article dealing woth the relaionship between adjectives and nouns a;ready in existence? Lehi 04:55, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
I believe there is one linked from the word-order template.
BTW, in a few hours I'll be gone for a year, so I'll leave it to you to take over. Ciao! kwami 07:41, 7 May 2006 (UTC)