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Attian: Difference between revisions
→Stones can't hit you
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There are several different degrees of animacy, which at times also intertwine with salency. The grading goes from ''Very high'' to ''Very low'' and spans 7 degrees. The top and most animate nouns are humans, and especially men and leaders. Women normally rank as at least as animate as men, but they can in certain circumstances be degraded to indicate inferiority. The least animate substantives are minerals, abstraction and in part; plants. | There are several different degrees of animacy, which at times also intertwine with salency. The grading goes from ''Very high'' to ''Very low'' and spans 7 degrees. The top and most animate nouns are humans, and especially men and leaders. Women normally rank as at least as animate as men, but they can in certain circumstances be degraded to indicate inferiority. The least animate substantives are minerals, abstraction and in part; plants. | ||
==== | ====Don't blaim the stone==== | ||
*'''Men vathim vana''' - ''Don't blaim the stone'', is a well known Attian saying, invented by the Attian grammarian ''Athanir t'Armavir''. It's idiomatic meaning is that one should not blaim the tool when it is not the master of its own actions. It also carries grammatical significance, since the Attian language does not allow inanimate nouns to be the agent of a verb. An equivalent phrase in English would be: ''It isn't the gun that kills, but the one who pulled the trigger''. | |||
Below is an example of someone hit with stones. Here, the subject impossibly could be marked with the agentive, taking their inanimacy in regard. Instead, you may put the subject in the [[Attian#Instrumental|instrumental]] case, and mediopassivise the verb. Alternatively the subject is degraded to an oblique, and a new subject is introduced. | Below is an example of someone hit with stones. Here, the subject impossibly could be marked with the agentive, taking their inanimacy in regard. Instead, you may put the subject in the [[Attian#Instrumental|instrumental]] case, and mediopassivise the verb. Alternatively the subject is degraded to an oblique, and a new subject is introduced. | ||