atw: Re: Apostrophes; long long L-O-N-G [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

Hi Michael

I had a quick look at what I could find about Fillmore's work and must
concede that the word 'case' is used - apparently by a fairly
substantial number of linguists - with reference to function rather than
form. I find it hard to see the benefit of using the terminology like
that, but can't say I've had a chance to come to grips with it, so I
should reserve my judgment. 

In the meantime, I apologise if I criticised your arguments on the basis
of a limited understanding of the theoretical background. 

At the moment, I must admit I'm reluctant to withdraw my comment that
introducing terms like 'dative case' into the kind of discussion we were
having was at best unhelpful - though I'm certainly open to being
persuaded. If the notion of 'deep case' could shed light on a sentence
like 'the man gave the woman a flower' - or on the correct use of the
apostrophe - I'd love to hear more about it. 

Howard

-----Original Message-----
From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Michael Lewis
Sent: Thursday, 19 January 2006 12:18
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: Re: Apostrophes; long long L-O-N-G [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]


More on the matter of form versus function . . . unfortunately I'm in
the wrong office today, so I don't have access to my linguistics
library; I can't give page references or detailed citations. But a quick
look at the work of many grammarians (especially Fillmore's seminal
article "The case for case") makes it clear that modern linguistics
does, indeed, see "case" as a reference to function, not to form.
Granted, the use of the traditional terminology (nominative, accusative,
and so on) can act to cloud the issue. But words like subject, direct
object, indirect object are labels for semantic roles as well as
grammatical functions. That is exactly what we mean by "case". English
and some other languages indicate case by word order (except for the
genitive); many other languages represent case by inflection.

(The misleading term "possessive" instead of genitive is my primary
motivation for using the traditional terminology in this kind of
discussion.)

Similarly, "mood" is not a form, but a function. The representation of
mood choices in English is not the same as in other languages. The fact
that few people now change verb forms to reflect the subjunctive mood
does not mean that the mood (the function of expressing hypotheticality)
doesn't exist; it's just no longer expressed differently from the
indicative.


Michael Lewis
-------------------
Brandle Pty Limited
Sydney, Australia
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