[b-greek] Re: But what about prepositions-genitive

From: c stirling bartholomew (cc.constantine@worldnet.att.net)
Date: Wed May 23 2001 - 19:43:43 EDT


on 5/23/01 11:58 AM, Wayne Leman wrote:
>
> No, Randall did not define transitivity, as it is used today by some
> linguists to refer to a scalar value, rather than a polar value (simply
> transitive or instransitive) . . .

Wayne,

Great work! I filed your quotes from Givon away for future reference. I read
Givon a year or two ago but don't have him on hand.

One last question. I have no problem understanding the citation from Givon,
it is lucid. But I still am a little fuzzy about the citation from R. Buth.
Could you risk (very risky!) an attempt at explaining what he means by:

> on 5/23/01 2:00 AM, Randall Buth wrote:

> Possibly exactly opposite the the above quote about the genitive,
>
> the genitive case is LESS TRANSITIVE than the accusative, it carries
>
> less weight and less content than the accusative.

I can understand a Transitive event or degrees of transitivity when speaking
of clauses but the statement above does not seem to fit into this framework.
Saying that "the genitive case is LESS TRANSITIVE than the accusative"
sounds like ultra high frequency apples*.

Clay

--
Clayton Stirling Bartholomew
Three Tree Point
P.O. Box 255 Seahurst WA 98062

* "Atonal apples and amplified hate . . ."
A line from "Pressed Rat and Warthog" Cream, Wheels of Fire, 1968

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