Re: [Ladekwa] translate

Thanks for clarifying that issue, Rick. I think that that has sharpened the distinction between Patient and Focus in my mind: if it gets affected, then it's a Patient, and if it doesn't, it's a Focus.

 

I think that that's a trap for young players. I can easily imagine a lot of people getting confused about when a Patient should really be a Focus, especially with verbs like "translate".  

 

It also drives home just how literally you have to think to be able to use the language. The original report remains unaffected by being translated indeed. Even though you could easily imagine a report being affected by having its language changed, the reality would be that a new report would be created in a different language, with the original report staying the same.

 

So, all good. I look forward to seeing the new version, Latejami, in more detail in the days to come.

 

Geoff

 

On 20/11/05, Rick Morneau <ram@hidden.email> wrote:

Geoff Hacker <geoff.hacker@hidden.email> wrote:
>
> If 'translate' is an activity verb (i.e., AP-s), then this will lead
> to inconsistencies in the semantic transformations between different
> activity verbs.
>

I was in a hurry and didn't think this through properly, and I made some
mistakes.  The A/P-d and A/P/F-d forms that I suggested were wrong.

However, I still say that translation is an activity.  If focused, the
focus can represent anything that elaborates the event.  Thus, in "I
translated the French document", the verb is AP/F-s, "I" is the
agent-patient, and "the French document" is the focus.  Note that the
French document is not changed.  It still exists in its original form.

If I want to say "I translated the document from French to Chinese", we
can use the AP/F-s verb (where "the document" is the focus) and the
state case tags "jucawmbume" = 'from' and "cawmbume" = 'to'.  Again,
nothing has changed state.  The focuses of the two case tags are simply
elaborations or referents of implied relationships (depending on how you
look at it).

>
> if you were going to say, 'The student studied French', then this
> would be an AP/F-s verb, with the Agent and Patient both being the
> student.
>

I agree.

>
> I frankly can't think of any other case structure that a word like
> 'study' could have. What would the word become if you tried to make it
> A/P-s, for example?
>

Not very useful.  It would imply that the patient was affected by the
agent's studying.

>
> Now consider trying to use 'translate' as an activity verb. In the
> sentence 'the translator translated', the Agent and the Patient do
> still seem to be the translator. But the second you separate the two
> cases, then suddenly the Patient stops being the translator and
> starts being the thing to be translated, as in the A/P-s sentence 'the
> translator translated the report'.
>

No.  The report has not been affected, so it can't be a patient.  It is
a focus.

In an A/P/F derivation of 'translate', the patient is somehow being
affected by the translation, as in "I translated the report TO BILL",
where "Bill" is the patient.  This is similar to speech acts, as in "I
told a joke to Bill".  Here are the examples using A/P/F forms of
activities at the end of section 2.3 of the reference manual:

   John played Bill three games of chess.
   The athletes ran their sneakers threadbare.
   His wife danced him into a stupor.
   She smoked us out of the house (i.e., her smoking
       caused us to leave).
   The boy read his sister a story.
   The hawk flew the mouse in circles.

>
> In other words, the referent of the Patient across transformations is
> inconsistent between the two so-called activity verbs. If you are
> happy with this inconsistency, then fair enough.
>

I hope I've convinced you that there is no inconsistency, although I
certainly confused the issue with my mistakes.


Regards,

Rick Morneau
http://www.eskimo.com/~ram



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