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Geoff Hacker <geoff.hacker@hidden.email> wrote: > > For example, why classify verbs according to their case structures > if you still need to use other case tags elsewhere? Why not use > case tags for agent, patient and focus as well, so that you can > use whatever cases you want for the nouns, in whatever order you > want, and then merely distinguish between the static and dynamic > verbs? Not only would this greatly simplify the verb > classification system, but it also would obviate the need for most > of the voice system as well, because of the greater flexibility of > the word order. > All of the non-core-role case tags are derived from verbs. In fact, any verb can be converted to a case tag. Each verb used to create a case tag has its own agent, patient, and/or focus. In other words, there is an important (and, in my opinion, essential) distinction between core roles and derived roles. Your suggestion does not recognize this distinction. To implement your suggestion, I would have to arbitrarily assign case tags for the four core roles. Also, not everything is a verb. We would still have to create argument structure markers and voice markers to handle derivations such as 'employer' vs. 'employee', or to create adjectives with meanings such as 'running', 'broken', or 'imitated'. > > Indeed, the only non-redundant distinction that the voice system > would have left to make is between suppressing a case (e.g. middle > voice) and merely hiding it (e.g. passive voice), and even then, > I'm not really sure that that distinction is meaningful. > I disagree. The distinction between middle and passive is an important one. Regards, Rick Morneau http://www.eskimo.com/~ram