Sanskrit

[Birgit Kellner]

Sandra van de Geer wrote:

> C1 is a bit theoretical; not used in `normal' BBC English. The reason of non-moving/raising etc. is the fact that the loc phrase should have been deprived of the element that makes it a loc phrase if it would function as a subject. In other words, the preposition `into' should be missing. Therefore, C1 is not exactly the same as A (the rev. dumped tea into the ocean) in Deep Structure. `into' in C1 behaves more like a verbal preposition. But this is highly theoretical, especially if we consider the nature of C1.
>
> We're drifting away from the pre-colonial India

If I may be permitted to drift off a bit more, and to also admit to my
utter ignorance of English grammar in the process, here's a simple
question: What precisely ensures that the locative or dative phrase is
in fact deprived of its defining element? Surely, the presence or
absence of prepositions cannot be the decisive criterion. Consider

(a) A friend gave the man a book.
(b) The man was given a book by a friend.

How do I know that "the man" in (b) does NOT function as a dative? In
the analogous German examples

(c) Ein Freund gab dem Mann ein Buch.
(d) Dem Mann wurde von einem Freund ein Buch gegeben.

this is easy to figure out because of the definite article "dem", (using
proper names
in the examples is not such a good idea, by the way, because this point
gets obliterated). So the question is: How can it be known that (b) is
not the exact syntactic equivalent of the German sentence (d), but
actually exhibits loc raising?

by the way, I also get attachments with all your postings; with filename
"part 1,2", and filetype "ms-tnef". I tried to open one of these as a
text-file; it just produces confused characters with "Microsoft Mail"
printed somewhere in the middle. I'm using Windows 95 with Netscape
communicator as e-mail software.

--
birgit kellner
department for indian philosophy
hiroshima university