Approaching Māori language through meaning: The predominance of Indo-European models of relationships within propositions

Abstract

In every language, there are relationships between predicators (such as, for example, 'go'/'haere') and arguments (such as, for example, ‘James'/'Hēmi’). One such relationship that has been proposed is that of agency. Thus, in 'James goes'/ ‘E haere ana a Hēmi’), 'James'/'Hēmi' can be said to be the agent of the action 'go'/'haere'. Much of the international literature on relationships of this type is based on research on English and it has been claimed that the relationships that have been identified are universals. However, there may be differences among languages, differences that are attributable to the fact that different languages encode different ways of perceiving divisions in perceptual space. My aim here is to demonstrate, with reference to a number of different models of predicator/ argument relations, that most of them are based on assumptions that derive from the structure of Indo-European languages, English in particular. In Part 2 of this paper (to appear in a subsequent issue of this Journal), the implications of this discussion will be examined with reference to an analysis of Māori in terms of relationships within propositions.