Differential argument marking
Hi kiddo, do you know what an argument is? It's a noun that does something in a sentence. For example, in the sentence "I eat pizza", "I" is the argument because it's the one doing the eating.
Now, imagine there are two arguments in a sentence: one that does the action (let's call this the agent) and one that the action is being done to (let's call this the patient). For example, in the sentence "Mom gave me a cookie", "Mom" is the agent because she's doing the giving and "me" is the patient because I'm the one receiving the cookie.
In some languages, like English, the way the agent and patient are marked in a sentence doesn't change depending on the sentence structure. But in other languages, there might be different markers used depending on the sentence structure. This is called differential argument marking.
Let's take the language of Hindi as an example. In Hindi, the agent and patient are marked differently depending on whether the sentence is in the active voice (where the agent is doing the action) or the passive voice (where the patient is having the action done to them). In the active voice, the agent is marked with the word "ne" and the patient is marked with the word "ko". So in Hindi, the sentence "I eat pizza" would be "Main pizza khaata hoon" where "Main" is the agent and "Pizza" is the patient marked with "ko". But in the passive voice, the patient is marked with "ne" and the agent is marked with "ko". So the sentence "Mom gave me a cookie" would be "Mujhe ek biscuit di gayi" where "Mujhe" is the patient marked with "ne" and "Mom" is the agent marked with "ko".
So, to put it simply, differential argument marking is when different markers are used in a language to show who is doing the action and who is having the action done to them, depending on the sentence structure.
Now, imagine there are two arguments in a sentence: one that does the action (let's call this the agent) and one that the action is being done to (let's call this the patient). For example, in the sentence "Mom gave me a cookie", "Mom" is the agent because she's doing the giving and "me" is the patient because I'm the one receiving the cookie.
In some languages, like English, the way the agent and patient are marked in a sentence doesn't change depending on the sentence structure. But in other languages, there might be different markers used depending on the sentence structure. This is called differential argument marking.
Let's take the language of Hindi as an example. In Hindi, the agent and patient are marked differently depending on whether the sentence is in the active voice (where the agent is doing the action) or the passive voice (where the patient is having the action done to them). In the active voice, the agent is marked with the word "ne" and the patient is marked with the word "ko". So in Hindi, the sentence "I eat pizza" would be "Main pizza khaata hoon" where "Main" is the agent and "Pizza" is the patient marked with "ko". But in the passive voice, the patient is marked with "ne" and the agent is marked with "ko". So the sentence "Mom gave me a cookie" would be "Mujhe ek biscuit di gayi" where "Mujhe" is the patient marked with "ne" and "Mom" is the agent marked with "ko".
So, to put it simply, differential argument marking is when different markers are used in a language to show who is doing the action and who is having the action done to them, depending on the sentence structure.