search

aryamanarora / carmls-hi

Hindi SNACS (Semantic Network of Adposition and Case Supersenses; Schneider et al., 2018) annotation scheme and guidelines.
2 stars 3 forks source link

non-agentive Agents #1

Open aryamanarora opened 4 years ago

aryamanarora commented 4 years ago

ने seems to be used for some obviously non-Agent subjects, in the context of certain verbs:

One option is creating a Theme function for these. But purely grammatically, these are definitely not Themes, since ने is so prototypically agentive.

Another option is using Agent, but these are not actually agentive. Nevertheless, Agent is the prototypical function for an ergative-marked subject.

nitinvwaran commented 3 years ago

Just thinking this out, maybe it is possible that the verbs in the above sentences can be interpreted with a different thematic grid, where the subject arguments are all agents. Suggest, a hindi-to-hindi dictionary might help to clarify the meaning (maybe, this one?)

For example, using an online one: 1) सहना , using the first meaning below: बर्दाश्त करना could loosely be translated as 'bear','put up with','stomach','stick','tolerate' [क्रि-स.] - 1. किसी अप्रिय घटना या बात को बर्दाश्त करना; सहन करना, झेलना 2. किसी परिणाम या फल की ज़िम्मेदारी अपने ऊपर लेना, भार वहन करना।

From here: 2) पाना - other than (b) below which has a theme like feel, and (h) which doesn't seem to apply, the other meanings suggest a verb with an 'agent' role feel? a) सुख,दुख आदि सहना b) किसी प्रकार अपने अधिकार में आना c) बराबरी कर सकना d) अपने अधिकार में करना e) मिलना f) वह रुपया जो दूसरे से पाना या प्राप्त करना हो g) पड़ी हुई वस्तु उठाना h) एक हस्तोपकरण जिससे नट,बोल्ट आदि कसते या खोलते हैं i) किसी प्रतियोगिता, परीक्षा आदि में कोई मूल्यांकन, स्थान आदि प्राप्त होना

Couldn't find any hindi-hindi entries for the other two examples, but it might be possible that खाना keeps its meaning the same one as मार खाना, and the former has an agentive feel. The Hindi-Hindi dictionary might help reach a consensus...

aryamanarora commented 3 years ago

I think having the function as Agent for all of these is acceptable; the ergative is generally an agentive marker, it's just here the predicate (the verb) is not very agentive, sort of cancelling out the value of the ergative. And, looking now at what you found, perhaps they are still a bit agentive. Compare these:

The first, with the ergative, certainly seems to emphasize that you did something to earn a reward as opposed to the second. So the first one I would be happy to annotate Recipient\~Agent and the second Recipient\~Recipient (since it's the dative).

Finally, मार खाना seems to be metaphorical. It's sort of like डाँट खाना (Recipient\~Agent, since you are receiving a scolding i.e. an act of communication) but extended to a physical domain. So the literal reading is Recipient\~Agent, and a metaphorical reading would be a Theme. This is often an issue in SNACS, but I believe in these instances we favour the literal reading/source domain reading.

Btw, a great Hindi-Hindi dictionary is हिंदी शब्दसागर, and I think the best Hindi-English one is The Oxford Hindi-English Dictionary.

nitinvwaran commented 3 years ago

Thank you for pointing me to the hindi shabdsaagar, it's wonderful! I have bookmarked it!

So, I would also agree that the 3 verbs above have an agentive feel about them, and maybe the Agent function is acceptable. Just completing the discussion with भुगतना, the third example above. A snippet below that i found from the shabdsaagar:

काम भुगतना = काम निपटाना / निबटाना, निबटाना is translated by the Oxford Hindi-English dictionary as v.t.

  1. to complete; to get through (work).
  2. to settle, to adjust (as a matter, a debt).
nitinvwaran commented 2 years ago

May be worth looking at how unaccusatives fit in the English SNACS model, these examples have an unaccusative feel.