Re: Vardelm's Scratchpad (NP: Devani OVS order)

[bradrn]

The plan for Dwarven (or maybe its descendant languages) is to make frequent use of consonant mutations. This will primarily be at the start of words like the Celtic languages, but there will also be mutations at or towards the end of words, (probably) more in the style of the Uralic languages.

Wait, Uralic has word-final consonant mutations? Do you have a reference? I’ve been looking for languages with those.

[Vardelm]

Wait, Uralic has word-final consonant mutations? Do you have a reference? I’ve been looking for languages with those.

Perhaps it's more accurate to say "root-final" since I'm looking at the alternations induced by suffixes, such as Finnish sukka - sukan. Whatever. Since it's suffix induced, it will be towards the end of a word rather than the 1st consonant.

The paper I linked to in the consonant mutation thread has some examples of word-final mutations found in the Nilotic languages. There's not much info on their diachronic origin; paper authors attribute it to just featural "affixes" of [+voice], etc. The Historical Origin of Consonant Mutation in the Atlantic Languages

[bradrn]

The paper I linked to in the consonant mutation thread has some examples of word-final mutations found in the Nilotic languages. There's not much info on their diachronic origin; paper authors attribute it to just featural "affixes" of [+voice], etc. The Historical Origin of Consonant Mutation in the Atlantic Languages

Oh, it does? I thought I’d read through there already. I’d better look again more carefully.

[Vardelm]

Devani: Rethinking Realis vs Irrealis Stem Forms

I'm reconsidering the forms of the irrealis stems in verbs, as seen in the previous post on verb stems. I never loved the forms, so now I'm looking at reduplicating either the CV of the first or final syllable. In both cases, the reduplicated segment would be tacked on the end of the verb stem. The table below gives a few verb examples with just the stems and then the volitional, egophoric 3rd person form form comparison.

Realis Stem Realis	+VOL.EGO.3P		Initial CV Irrealis	+VOL.EGO.3P		Final CV Irrealis	+VOL.EGO.3P
tuka	tukava		tukatu	mutkatuva		tukaka	mutkakava
param	paramiva		parampa	maprampava		paramra	mapramrava
krashin	krashiniva		krashinka	makrashinkava		krashinra	makrashinshiva

Ithink I'm leaning towards the initial CV, but it's a very small difference and purely subjective. Now accepting input on this rather trivial matter.

[bradrn]

Devani: Rethinking Realis vs Irrealis Stem Forms

I'm reconsidering the forms of the irrealis stems in verbs, as seen in the previous post on verb stems. I never loved the forms, so now I'm looking at reduplicating either the CV of the first or final syllable. In both cases, the reduplicated segment would be tacked on the end of the verb stem. The table below gives a few verb examples with just the stems and then the volitional, egophoric 3rd person form form comparison.

Realis Stem Realis	+VOL.EGO.3P		Initial CV Irrealis	+VOL.EGO.3P		Final CV Irrealis	+VOL.EGO.3P
tuka	tukava		tukata	mutkatuva		tukaka	mutkakava
param	paramiva		parampa	maprampava		paramra	mapramrava
krashin	krashiniva		krashinka	makrashinkava		krashinra	makrashinshiva

Ithink I'm leaning towards the initial CV, but it's a very small difference and purely subjective. Now accepting input on this rather trivial matter.

I can’t see how initial CV reduplication is supposed to work. Wouldn’t the reduplicated form of tuka be tukatu?

Having said that, I definitely prefer the form with reduplicated initial CV to that with reduplicated final CV.

[Vardelm]

I can’t see how initial CV reduplication is supposed to work. Wouldn’t the reduplicated form of tuka be tukatu?

Having said that, I definitely prefer the form with reduplicated initial CV to that with reduplicated final CV.

Whoops! You are correct that it should be tukatu. Fixed the typo.

Feedback noted & appreciated.

[Zju]

Initial CV reduplication sounds more interesting, but I'm not sure if any natlang puts initial reduplicated syllable at the end of the stem... I find final CV reduplication more realistic.

[Vardelm]

Initial CV reduplication sounds more interesting, but I'm not sure if any natlang puts initial reduplicated syllable at the end of the stem... I find final CV reduplication more realistic.

That's what I would have thought, too! Apparently, Chukchi encodes the absolutive singular using opposite-edge reduplication.

nute- 'ground' → nutenut 'ground (abs. sg.)'

There are a few other languages that do this as well: Madurese & Koryak. See this paper, which mentions that these may be a truncation of previous full-reduplication. That's what I had been thinking about this.

tuka → tukatuka → tukatu

The same-edge reduplication would be much more common, but this is attested. Add this to the entries of "natlang features that wouldn't be believable conlang features".

[Vardelm]

In addition to Devani's irrealis stem form, I've been rethinking directionals, adverbs, & prepositions in Dwarven.


Dwarven: Rethinking Adverbs, etc.

I currently have the following word orders:

noun - adjective

y the.SNG ðalgöch miner njasho old the old miner

verb - adverb

y the.SNG ðalgöch miner chæm-aið run-DUR.PLR kjælship fast The miner runs fast.

preposition - case particle

chæm-ayd walks-SNG.EPI shyna in e at.LOC filnjåd park ... walking in a park.

I think I will change the word order of preposition - case particle to case particle - preposition. To me, this feels more consistent with descriptors following the thing they modify. Case particles are required for oblique arguments, while prepositions then add clarification to the case. Also, this means that every single oblique argument will start with a case particle, rather than some with case & some with a preposition.

I was also considering how to handle adverbs vs obliques such as:

He climbed up the stairs.

VS.

He climbed upwards along the stairs.

I didn't really want to just add a derivational suffix to make the preposition "up" into an adverb. However, with current word order, "up" and "upwards" would be in the same location in the sentence. That's not necessarily a problem, but it didn't sit well with me. Switching the order of the case particle & preposition solves that.

Vardelm Vardelm galty-d climb-SNG.DURATIVE sæf PROLATIVE qis up yr the.PLR taska-ry step.PLR Vardelm climbs up the stairs (part way).

Vardelm Vardelm galty-d climb-SNG.DURATIVE qis up sæf PROLATIVE yr the.PLR taska-ry step.PLR Vardelm climbs upwards along the stairs.

Then of course there's the need to have a directional to change from gnomic to episodic aspect. "Up/upwards" was one of those that was planned as a "directional", rather than an adverb or preposition. However, I had intended (and stated) that "prepositions can also be used as preverbal directionals", which would/could replace a "normal" directional in that spot. If the adverbial and prepositional forms of "up/upwards" are the same, this allows for movement to the preverbal position to allow for the episodic aspect. This position would be sort of the main direction/movement of the phrase.

Vardelm Vardelm qis up.EPI galty-d climb-SNG.DURATIVE sæf PROLATIVE yr the.PLR taska-ry step.PLR Vardelm is climbing up the stairs (part way).

Having consistency in word forms & just using movement in the sentence feels a little better and more syntactically interesting to me. It also means the list of directional isn't limited to a subset of movement adverbs, although there will be some that are used much more frequently than others. There may even be a hierarchy of which adverbs are used, such that maybe an andative "going" and venitive "coming" might have priority over others.

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Related to this, I'm not sure if I want to make a change to the order of adverbs modifying other adverbs. Right now I have:

modifier - adverb

chæm-ayd run-DUR.PLR liŋåv very kjælship fast runs very fast

A move to adverb - modifier might follow the pattern I discussed above where descriptors follow.

chæm-ayd run-DUR.PLR kjælship fast liŋåv very runs very fast

The only thing I'm debating here is if liŋåv "very" feels more like "inflection" to me, such as my voice, aspect, and directional particles coming in preverbal position or more like descriptors like adjectives describing nouns and adverbs describing verbs. (Yes, I know "inflection" isn't accurate here since we're talking particles instead of affixes. Hopefully the gist of my meaning is clear.)

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Finally, one more tangential point. I have 7 telic noun cases and 7 atelic. I had thought that the main distinction between them would be path/motion vs point/location, and the path/motion cases would be used for atelic meanings. Now, my thought is that the telicity distinction may be more prominent. Still sorting this out, but I can use them in some interesting ways. (Maybe it's typical usage & I just haven't seen it before...)

Vardelm Vardelm ða-yd is-SNG.DURATIVE sæf PROLATIVE qis up yr the.PLR taska-ry step.PLR Vardelm is up the stairs (part way).

Vardelm Vardelm ða-yd is-SNG.DURATIVE e LOCATIVE qis up yr the.PLR taska-ry step.PLR Vardelm is up the stairs (all the way at the top).

The sæf prolative particle is the atelic, while the e locative is telic.

[vegfarandi]

Just catching up on this thread.

I think I will change the word order of preposition - case particle to case particle - preposition. To me, this feels more consistent with descriptors following the thing they modify.

Makes a lot of sense.

Vardelm climbs up the stairs (part way).
Vardelm climbs upwards along the stairs.

Having a bit of a hard time parsing the semantic difference between these to. Does it explicitly mean part way when you don't use the prolative particle?

[Vardelm]

Vardelm climbs up the stairs (part way).
Vardelm climbs upwards along the stairs.

Having a bit of a hard time parsing the semantic difference between these to. Does it explicitly mean part way when you don't use the prolative particle?

It's a VERY small difference semantically; probably even smaller than the between the 2 English translations. Actually, you may as well call it identical. I just like being able to have 2 different ways of saying the same thing and with noticeably different syntactic structure.

Using the prolative makes it explicit that it's part way, or at least ambiguous whether the top was reached. The prolative in natlangs is usually use for path/motion instead of a location, so that's why I'm using it in an atelic sense. To be "up the stairs" (at the top) one would use the locative case, which is a destination/point. It's a telic meaning because you're completely at the top.

[Vardelm]

Jin: Active vs Stative Issue

I've run into a bit of an issue in Jin using both active and stative verbs in the predicate. It's a matter of whether the verbs are requiring active or stative arguments and in what order.

buc'adi qam sambiwi buc'ad-i runs-SGT qam that.which.3P.ACT sambi-wi is.boy-the.SGT The boy is running.

sambi ja haququni sambi is.boy ja that.which.3P.STA haqu-qun-i steals-ANP-the.SGT The one that steals (things) is a boy. The thief is a boy.

SGT = singulative (+specific/definite)

Buc'ad "run" is an active, intransitive verb, so it requires a single, active argument. In the 1st example that argument is headed by qam. On the other hand, sambi "is a boy" is stative intransitive, so it requires its sole argument (shown in example #2) to be stative, so ja is used. Note that in example #1, sambi does not have a stative argument of ja+content word following it. The way I have thought about this is that the head determinative pronouns (qam, ja, etc.) act as the 1st argument pronoun for the subordinate verbs. Because those determinative pronouns are required to be active or stative by the predicate verb, that overrides the requirement for being active or stative for the subordinate verbs/content words.

Hopefully that makes sense....

I'm OK with that mismatch or inconsistency if you want to see it as such.

buc'adi qam sambiwi haquwi ja capitu buc'ad-i runs-SGT qam that.which.3P.ACT sambi-wi is.boy-the.SGT haqu-wi steals-the.SGT ja that.which.3P.STA capitu is.fruit The boy that stole fruit is running.

sanza qam sambiwi haquwi ja capitu sanza is.small ja that.which.3P.STA sambi-wi is.boy-the.SGT haqu-wi steals-the.SGT ja that.which.3P.STA capitu is.fruit The boy that stole fruit is small.

So far, so good. Buc'ad is active intransitive, so it takes a single active argument. Sanza is stative intransitive, so it takes a stative argument.

sanzawi buc'adi qam sambiwi haquwi ja capitu sanza-wi is.small-SGT buc'ad-i runs-SGT qam that.which.3P.ACT sambi-wi is.boy-the.SGT haqu-wi steals-the.SGT ja that.which.3P.STA capitu is.fruit The boy that stole fruit is the small one running.

Here's where the issue comes into play. My plan was to allow for verb serialization in the predicate. I think there at least needs to be some way of making predicates that are more complex than a single verb, but I'm not sure what else that would be.

Here sanzawi buc'adi are the serialized verbs in the predicate. My plan was that the first verb would be the one that determined how many arguments there would be and which argument would be active or stative. Active verbs are order Verb-Active-Stative, while stative verbs are Verb-Stative-Active. The serialized verbs that come after the first would need to use the same arguments, and with the same status as active or stative. Here, sanzawi and buc'adi having different requirements, so there is a mismatch.

One option is that once the 1st verb of a sentence is uttered, successive serialized verbs in the predicate that are the opposite in terms of active vs stative will need to always use the impersonal voice, which has no arguments. That would sort of get around the argument requirements since it has none.

sanzawi buc'adi qam sambiwi haquwi ja capitu sanza-wi is.small-SGT buc'ad-amas-i runs-IMP-SGT qam that.which.3P.ACT sambi-wi is.boy-the.SGT haqu-wi steals-the.SGT ja that.which.3P.STA capitu is.fruit The boy that stole fruit is the small one running.

IMP = impersonal

I'm not sure I like that, at least for this type of predicate where it's describing something about the subject. If it could be seen as an adverb for the whole sentence (such as "quickly), then I rather like it. But in this example, it just feels wrong somehow.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

[bradrn]

sambiwi ja haququni sambi-wi is.boy-the.SGT ja that.which.3P.STA haqu-qun-i steals-ANP-the.SGT The one that steals (things) is running. The thief is running.

I haven’t read through the whole post yet, but are you sure this translation is correct? I think it should be The thief is a boy.

[Vardelm]

sambiwi ja haququni sambi-wi is.boy-the.SGT ja that.which.3P.STA haqu-qun-i steals-ANP-the.SGT The one that steals (things) is running. The thief is running.

I haven’t read through the whole post yet, but are you sure this translation is correct? I think it should be The thief is a boy.

Yep, thanks for the catch. Doing too much copy/pasting and wasn't careful enough. Fixed now.

[bradrn]

sanzawi buc'adi qam sambiwi haquwi ja capitu sanza-wi is.small-SGT buc'ad-i runs-SGT qam that.which.3P.ACT sambi-wi is.boy-the.SGT haqu-wi steals-the.SGT ja that.which.3P.STA capitu is.fruit The boy that stole fruit is the small one running.

Here's where the issue comes into play. My plan was to allow for verb serialization in the predicate. I think there at least needs to be some way of making predicates that are more complex than a single verb, but I'm not sure what else that would be.

Here sanzawi buc'adi are the serialized verbs in the predicate. My plan was that the first verb would be the one that determined how many arguments there would be and which argument would be active or stative. Active verbs are order Verb-Active-Stative, while stative verbs are Verb-Stative-Active. The serialized verbs that come after the first would need to use the same arguments, and with the same status as active or stative. Here, sanzawi and buc'adi having different requirements, so there is a mismatch.

OK, now to answer the actual question:

Generally speaking, languages simply don’t use verb serialisation for sentences like the one you’ve given. And you’ve already identified the reason why: SVCs are often used for verb sequences which are in some way considered ‘one event’, a requirement which usually cannot be satisfied if the shared argument is active at one point and stative at another. Even some English sentences like this sound a bit odd: compare e.g. the boy that stole fruit is glowing and running. (Though sentences like these aren’t usually encountered anyway, since English doesn’t have many stative verbs in the first place; glow is perhaps one of the only common stative intransitive verbs in English, and even then it’s not all that stative. But I’ve noticed that writers like Douglas Adams actively use these sorts of sentences, precisely due to their incongruity: e.g. Glass glittered, silver shone, gold gleamed, Arthur Dent goggled.)

In Jin, then, it would be natural to restrict SVCs to only verbs where the shared argument has the same activity status. Note that this doesn’t mean you can’t combine active and stative verbs! A particularly common pattern in natlangs, for instance, is to have switch-argument SVCs where one verb’s object is another’s subject:

soldadu

soldier

Indonézia

Indonesia

buti

squeeze

nia

3SG

feen

wife

mate

die

tiha

PERV

The Indonesian soldier strangled his wife to death (Tetun Dili)

jau⁵

have

jan⁴

person

co⁵-laan⁶-zo²

sit-broken-PERV

zoung¹

CL

dang³

chair

Someone has broken the chair by sitting on it (Cantonese)

Tali

Tali

mi-tit

PER-punch

ten̄ten̄

cry.REDUP

Kevin

Kevin

Tali made Kevin cry by punching him (Mwotlap)

(All from Serial Verb Constructions: A Cross-linguistic Typology, ed. Aikhenvald & Dixon 2006.)

This of course works perfectly well in Jin.

[Vardelm]

After thinking about how to handle the examples, I had an idea to modify Jin's inverse and passive voices (both the active and stative versions of each). This is the current system:

Active Direct:

ak'ijuqawi qam magawa ja tumbuwi ak'iju-qa-wi break-ACT.DIR-SGT qam that.which.3P.ACT ndalu-wi is.man-the.SGT ja that.which.3P.STA tumbu-wi is.chair-the.SGT The man broke the chair.

Active Inverse:

ak'ijuzhuwi ja tumbuwi qam magawa ak'iju-zhu-wi break-ACT.INV-SGT ja that.which.3P.STA tumbu-wi is.chair-the.SGT qam that.which.3P.ACT ndalu-wi is.man-the.SGT The chair was broken by the man.

Stative Direct:

lazhinza ja ndaluwi qam tumbuwi lazhi-nza sitting-STA.DIR ja that.which.3P.STA ndalu-wi is.man-the.SGT qam that.which.3P.ACT tumbu-wi is.chair-the.SGT The man is sitting on the chair.

Stative Inverse:

lazhimbu qam tumbuwi ja ndaluwi lazhi-mbu sitting-STA.INV qam that.which.3P.ACT tumbu-wi is.chair-the.SGT ja that.which.3P.STA ndalu-wi is.man-the.SGT The chair is sat-on by the man.

Note that the above current version just adds/changes a voice suffix to the predicate verb and swaps the position of the active and stative arguments. The new version below adds the same suffix. However, the referents change positions, but the inverse argument marking stays in the same order as the direct, unlike the original system.

Active Direct:

ak'ijuqawi qam magawa ja tumbuwi ak'iju-qa-wi break-ACT.DIR-SGT qam that.which.3P.ACT ndalu-wi is.man-the.SGT ja that.which.3P.STA tumbu-wi is.chair-the.SGT The man broke the chair.

Active Inverse:

ak'ijuzhuwi qam tumbuwi ja magawa ak'iju-zhu-wi break-ACT.INV-SGT qam that.which.3P.ACT tumbu-wi is.chair-the.SGT ja that.which.3P.STA ndalu-wi is.man-the.SGT The chair was broken by the man.

Stative Direct:

lazhinza ja ndaluwi qam tumbuwi lazhi-nza sitting-STA.DIR ja that.which.3P.STA ndalu-wi is.man-the.SGT qam that.which.3P.ACT tumbu-wi is.chair-the.SGT The man is sitting on the chair.

Stative Inverse:

lazhimbu ja tumbuwi qam ndaluwi lazhi-mbu sitting-STA.INV ja that.which.3P.STA tumbu-wi is.chair-the.SGT qam that.which.3P.ACT ndalu-wi is.man-the.SGT The chair is sat-on by the man.

This accomplishes 2 things: the inverse voices keep the same word order of the active & stative marking (which I like!) and it allows the possibility of using the inverse voice for verbs that are the opposite to the initial predicate verb in terms of being active vs. stative. See the Jin versions of example serial verbs below.

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soldadu

soldier

Indonézia

Indonesia

buti

squeeze

nia

3SG

feen

wife

mate

die

tiha

PERV

The Indonesian soldier strangled his wife to death (Tetun Dili)

I found that if a sentence like this starts with an active verb (like "strangle, squeeze") and the second verb is a resulting state of the patient, then I can probably use a stative intransitive verb for that second verb since both the transitive patient and the intransitive subject are stative.

mimut ja zunahi mimut dead ja that.which.3P.STA zuna-hi is.wife-the.SGT The wife is dead.

uñgayub-i mimut qam ñgondahi al-ja Indunizha ja zuna al-qasim uñgayub strangles-SGT mimut dead qam that.which.3P.ACT ñgonda-hi is.warrior-the.SGT al-ja of.LNK-that.which.3P.STA Indunizha is.Indonesia ja that.which.3P.STA zuna is.wife al-qasim of.LNK.him.3P.ACT The warrior of Indonesia strangled the wife of him and she is dead. The Indonesian warrior strangled his wife to death.

Another option is using the active direct voice of mimut "dead" to form a 2nd transitive verb since the arguments would be the same.

uñgayub-i mimutaqi qam ñgondahi al-ja Indunizha ja zuna al-qasim uñgayub strangles-SGT mimut-aq-i dead-ACT.DIR-SGT qam that.which.3P.ACT ñgonda-hi is.warrior-the.SGT al-ja of.LNK-that.which.3P.STA Indunizha is.Indonesia ja that.which.3P.STA zuna is.wife al-qasim of.LNK.him.3P.ACT The warrior of Indonesia strangled his wife and killed her.

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jau⁵

have

jan⁴

person

co⁵-laan⁶-zo²

sit-broken-PERV

zoung¹

CL

dang³

chair

Someone has broken the chair by sitting on it (Cantonese)

This example works different in Jin because "break" is active while "sit" is stative. That means the active vs stative marking for the referents is reversed between the 2. The new inverse system comes into play here.

ak'iju ja tumbuwi ak'iju broken ja that.which.3P.STA tumbu-wi is.chair-the.SGT The chair is broken.

ak'ijuqawi qam magawa ja tumbuwi ak'iju-qa-wi break-ACT.DIR-SGT qam that.which.3P.ACT magawa is.unknown ja that.which.3P.STA tumbu-wi is.chair-the.SGT One unknown (person) broke the chair. Someone broke the chair.

lazhi ja magawa lazhi sitting ja that.which.3P.STA magawa is.unknown Someone is sitting.

lazhinza ja magawa qam tumbuwi lazhi-nza sitting-STA.DIR ja that.which.3P.STA magawa is.unknown qam that.which.3P.ACT tumbu-wi is.chair-the.SGT Someone is sitting on the chair.

Simply adding lazhinza "sitting on" does not work because the active/stative marking of the above examples is opposite for the 2 arguments. Both tumbuwi "the chair" and magawa "the unknown" are active in one and stative in the other.

ak'ijuqawi lazhinza qam magawa ja tumbuwi ak'iju-qa-wi break-ACT.DIR-SGT lazhi-nza sitting-STA.DIR qam that.which.3P.ACT magawa is.unknown ja that.which.3P.STA tumbu-wi is.chair-the.SGT One unknown (person) broke the chair. Someone broke the chair and the chair is sitting on him/her/it.

That's obviously non-sensical, unless somehow the result was that the person ended up on the ground and the broken chair was on top of them. That's not what we're aiming for anyway... This is where the new inverse system comes in.

lazhimbu ja tumbuwi qam magawa lazhi-mbu sitting-STA.INV ja that.which.3P.STA tumbu-wi is.chair-the.SGT qam that.which.3P.ACT magawa is.unknown The chair is sat-on by someone.

ak'ijuqawi lazhimbu qam magawa ja tumbuwi ak'iju-qa-wi break-ACT.DIR-SGT lazhi-mbu sitting-STA.INV qam that.which.3P.ACT magawa is.unknown ja that.which.3P.STA tumbu-wi is.chair-the.SGT Someone broke the chair and was sitting on the chair. Someone broke the chair by sitting on it.

You can see that the active and stative assignments agree between those examples, although they are in a different order. I'm not wild about the order difference, but that's OK.

The change in the inverse order/marking works when the serial verbs are reversed as well. I think I like this order a bit better since it is action > result, and matches the 1st example.

ak'ijuzhuwi qam tumbuwi ja magawa ak'iju-qa-wi break-ACT.INV-SGT qam that.which.3P.ACT tumbu-wi is.chair-the.SGT ja that.which.3P.STA magawa is.unknown The chair was broken by someone.

lazhinza ak'ijuzhuwi ja magawa qam tumbuwi lazhi-nza sitting-STA.DIR ak'iju-zhu-wi break-ACT.INV-SGT ja that.which.3P.STA magawa is.unknown qam that.which.3P.ACT tumbu-wi is.chair-the.SGT Someone sat on the chair and broke it.

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Tali

Tali

mi-tit

PER-punch

ten̄ten̄

cry.REDUP

Kevin

Kevin

Tali made Kevin cry by punching him (Mwotlap)

I'm not sure if "crying" would be active or stative. I'm inclined to say "stative", but it might depend on what the root word is and what/if any affixes are used to form it. Assuming stative, it works like the 1st example where the 2nd verb is stative and a result.

!cumba-hi punch-SGT kuyu cry qam that.which.3P.ACT Tali Tali ja that.which.3P.STA Kawin Kevin Tali punched Kevin and he cried.

Note that this is about as close as I can get for now. I don't have causative sentences like "X made Y do Z" worked out yet.

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AND FINALLY.....

What I was getting at in my original post was that I don't currently have a good way of forming equational, copular sentences where the predicate has multiple words/adjectives/descriptors to define the subject. It works if they are all stative or all active, but not a mix due to the requirements for active vs stative marking of the argument. A voice change doesn't work since there's no way to "flip" the marking of 2 arguments. So the question remains, how should I form sentences like:

The boy that stole fruit is the small one running.

The reason I described this in terms of "serial verbs" is because of how Jin is structured, or at least how I'm interpreting/analyzing that structure. Like the Salishan languages, the line between nouns & verbs is extremely thin & blurry, and there is at least flexibility for words to be either arguments or predicates. I will be taking this a bit further in Jin by having all types of verbal marking allowed on the arguments, including tense/aspect. You'll notice that many of them already have voice suffixes. As a result, take this example:

ja sambiwi sanza ja that.which.3P.STA sambi-wi is.boy-the.SGT sanza is.small The small boy...

Because the content words of arguments can be analyzed as verbs (which is what I'm doing because it's the easiest & most consistent way I've found), that means those content words of sambiwi sanza "small boy" can be seen as a serial verb construction. No, it's definitely not (quite?) a serial verb in the typical sense. I'm using the term very loosely here.

In any event, in the course of thinking about the above examples, I realized the new inverse system wouldn't work here, so I got to thinking about other methods. I think for these copular type sentences where I need both active & stative verbs / content words in the predicate, I might add a new determinative pronoun similar to qam and ja, which is used only in a predicate. Something like haj in this example:

haj sanzawi buc'adi qam sambiwi haquwi ja capitu haj that.which.3P.PRED sanza-wi is.small-the.SGT buc'ad-i is.running-the.SGT qam that.which.3P.ACT sambi-wi is.boy-the.SGT haqu-wi steals-the.SGT ja that.which.3P.STA capitu is.fruit That which is a boy and stole fruit is the one that is small and is running. The boy that stole fruit is the small one running.

[bradrn]

Note that the above current version just adds/changes a voice suffix to the predicate verb and swaps the position of the active and stative arguments. The new version below adds the same suffix. However, the referents change positions, but the inverse argument marking stays in the same order as the direct, unlike the original system.

Ah, so Jin now has Austronesian alignment!

(Or at least, as near as makes no difference. It’s only slightly more elaborate than the split-S system of Indonesian-type languages.)

I found that if a sentence like this starts with an active verb (like "strangle, squeeze") and the second verb is a resulting state of the patient, then I can probably use a stative intransitive verb for that second verb since both the transitive patient and the intransitive subject are stative.

Yes, this was precisely the point I was trying to make with my previous post: if you don’t restrict yourself to subject sharing, you can achieve ‘nice’ coreference even between active and stative verbs. In particular, the pattern of [X V₁ Y]—[Y V₂] is really common in SVCs cross-linguistically (which is what I tried to communicate by quoting all those examples), and usually indicates some sort of cause and effect.

jau⁵

have

jan⁴

person

co⁵-laan⁶-zo²

sit-broken-PERV

zoung¹

CL

dang³

chair

Someone has broken the chair by sitting on it (Cantonese)

This example works different in Jin because "break" is active while "sit" is stative. That means the active vs stative marking for the referents is reversed between the 2. The new inverse system comes into play here.

…

ak'ijuqawi lazhimbu qam magawa ja tumbuwi ak'iju-qa-wi break-ACT.DIR-SGT lazhi-mbu sitting-STA.INV qam that.which.3P.ACT magawa is.unknown ja that.which.3P.STA tumbu-wi is.chair-the.SGT Someone broke the chair and was sitting on the chair. Someone broke the chair by sitting on it.

I’m… fairly confused about what you’re trying to do here? You seem to be going for a construction like [someone broke the chair]—[someone sat on the chair], which sorta works… except Cantonese does [someone sat on the chair]—[the chair broke], which as far as I can tell would work perfectly in Jin as is.

(I was also going to say that verbs in an SVC can’t differ in their voice status, but I managed to find a handful of counterexamples from Tolaki and Taba, where one verb was active and another was passive or causative. This seemed pretty uncommon, though, which makes sense considering the sorts of things SVCs get used for.)

Tali

Tali

mi-tit

PER-punch

ten̄ten̄

cry.REDUP

Kevin

Kevin

Tali made Kevin cry by punching him (Mwotlap)

I'm not sure if "crying" would be active or stative. I'm inclined to say "stative", but it might depend on what the root word is and what/if any affixes are used to form it. Assuming stative, it works like the 1st example where the 2nd verb is stative and a result.

!cumba-hi punch-SGT kuyu cry qam that.which.3P.ACT Tali Tali ja that.which.3P.STA Kawin Kevin Tali punched Kevin and he cried.

Note that this is about as close as I can get for now. I don't have causative sentences like "X made Y do Z" worked out yet.

I think it would be hard to get any closer, given that this is precisely parallel to the Mwotlap sentence. As I’ve been saying, switch-subject SVCs often have causative interpretations implicitly.

What I was getting at in my original post was that I don't currently have a good way of forming equational, copular sentences where the predicate has multiple words/adjectives/descriptors to define the subject. It works if they are all stative or all active, but not a mix due to the requirements for active vs stative marking of the argument. A voice change doesn't work since there's no way to "flip" the marking of 2 arguments. So the question remains, how should I form sentences like:

The boy that stole fruit is the small one running.

I suspect you’re missing something here, which is that most languages don’t have a ‘nice’ way to represent these sorts of things. If you look at the English sentence, for example, running is really a highly reduced relative clause: the small one running is an NP. (Compare e.g. the boy is the small one hungrily eating an apple, where the relative clause status is more obvious.) Languages have lots of ways of dealing with these sentences: they usually co-opt other similar constructions, such as participles or converbs, though more rarely they innovate new ones like English secondary predication. Thinking along these lines, no doubt Jin will end up using SVCs for these some of the time… but probably not for this sentence, for the reason you mention (as well as others that I mention below). It’s hard to say more about this specific case given that I’m not too familiar with Jin grammar, but I can easily imagine bucʼad- being turned into a relative clause as in English, or perhaps an adverb instead. Your haj-construction looks reasonable too.

The reason I described this in terms of "serial verbs" is because of how Jin is structured, or at least how I'm interpreting/analysing that structure. Like the Salishan languages, the line between nouns & verbs is extremely thin & blurry, and there is at least flexibility for words to be either arguments or predicates. I will be taking this a bit further in Jin by having all types of verbal marking allowed on the arguments, including tense/aspect. You'll notice that many of them already have voice suffixes. As a result, take this example:

ja sambiwi sanza ja that.which.3P.STA sambi-wi is.boy-the.SGT sanza is.small The small boy...

Because the content words of arguments can be analysed as verbs (which is what I'm doing because it's the easiest & most consistent way I've found), that means those content words of sambiwi sanza "small boy" can be seen as a serial verb construction. No, it's definitely not (quite?) a serial verb in the typical sense. I'm using the term very loosely here.

Two things here. Firstly, you will find a ridiculous amount of disagreement amongst linguists about what, exactly, qualifies as an SVC. It seems that just about every linguist has a different definition, and is willing to fight all of the others to the death about it. (This is the main reason I complain about the literature so much.) In fact, I’ve seen at least one recent book which consciously abandons the term entirely. So most of the time, it’s safe to refer to things as SVCs if they vaguely agree with previous usage.

Secondly, however, what you have here does not vaguely agree with previous usage. The Jin SVCs you mentioned earlier form a fairly coherent set of constructions, with a certain internal and external structure which can be analysed fairly consistently. Contrast something like sambiwi sanza, which has a completely different internal structure, very different semantics, and is located in a different position in the sentence. It most certainly cannot ‘be seen as a serial verb construction’ — at least, not without drastically weakening the term.

---

A few more points. Firstly, it bears emphasising that serial verb constructions are constructions. To put it another way, they aren’t neutral; an SVC almost never means the same thing as its ‘equivalent’ non-SVC sentence. Each language has its own peculiar patterns specifying which SVCs are natural and which aren’t, and speakers need to choose to use an SVC over other methods of clause combination.

The basic principle behind all this is that, at the most fundamental level, SVCs are used to combine verbs which describe ‘one event’. The most consistent diagnostic features of SVCs follow naturally from this: (a) there is no overt co- or subordination marker, (b) all verbs have the same TAM and negation status, (c) the verbs share arguments in some way, and (d) they are all under one intonation contour. (Almost everyone agrees on at least these conditions, though as I said you will always find some exceptions.)

Syntactically speaking, SVCs are usually rather highly structured: they tend to be closer to verb compounds or affixes than to things like clause coordination. (In fact, if you find yourself translating an SVC using the word ‘and’, it’s worth questioning whether you’re translating it correctly.) Often there are specific patterns for argument sharing and transitivity. As mentioned several times already, [X V₁ Y]—[Y V₂] is particularly common; even more so is [X V₁]—[X V₂], with subject sharing. On the other hand, SVCs just as often are grammaticalised, with one verb undergoing semantic bleaching to become the regular means for marking a particular category.

Finally, I do recommend doing some reading: this is a subtle area, and one which is hard to summarise easily. Since Jin seems to be growing ever closer to Austronesian, I’d recommend starting with ed. Senft’s (open-access!) volume Serial verb constructions in Austronesian and Papuan languages. Its theoretical treatment is perhaps a bit simplistic, but the individual language chapters are excellent. Aikhenvald and Dixon’s Serial Verb Constructions: A Cross-linguistic Typology is also nice if you can get it; it draws from a much broader range of languages for its examples, which again are excellent.

[Vardelm]

Ah, so Jin now has Austronesian alignment!

(Or at least, as near as makes no difference. It’s only slightly more elaborate than the split-S system of Indonesian-type languages.)

Not on purpose! Now that I look at both the current and new systems for the inverse voice, I can see where it could be viewed as an Austronesian symmetrical voice system. Only the inverse and passive voices change with the updated system, so it would have still been Austronesian before. Originally, Jin was conceived as a split-S language, and then I decided I wanted a "passive" voice that was transitive. That's where the direct vs inverse transitive voices come from. If that constitutes "Austronesian", then yeah, I guess it is. Still, it's not quite of the Philippine type. The voices are just several types of "agent" voices and several "patient" ones. It doesn't have the locative, instrumental, or circumstantial voices found in the Philippine langs. See Dwarven for that.

Yes, this was precisely the point I was trying to make with my previous post: if you don’t restrict yourself to subject sharing, you can achieve ‘nice’ coreference even between active and stative verbs. In particular, the pattern of [X V₁ Y]—[Y V₂] is really common in SVCs cross-linguistically (which is what I tried to communicate by quoting all those examples), and usually indicates some sort of cause and effect.

Exellent.

I’m… fairly confused about what you’re trying to do here? You seem to be going for a construction like [someone broke the chair]—[someone sat on the chair], which sorta works… except Cantonese does [someone sat on the chair]—[the chair broke], which as far as I can tell would work perfectly in Jin as is.

If you only use the intransitive or direct voices, it doesn't work in Jin for this example. That's because the "someone" is the active qam argument for [someone broke the chair] but is the stative ja argument in [someone sat on the chair]. The entire point of changing my inverse voices and then using one of those in the sentence is to make the qam argument point to the same referent (the "someone") for both of the predicate verbs, and also the make the ja argument point to the same referent (the chair) for both predicate verbs.

Does that clarify at all? If not, then tonight I can try to find another way to describe it.

I think it would be hard to get any closer, given that this is precisely parallel to the Mwotlap sentence. As I’ve been saying, switch-subject SVCs often have causative interpretations implicitly.

Excellent again.

I suspect you’re missing something here, which is that most languages don’t have a ‘nice’ way to represent these sorts of things.

Your haj-construction looks reasonable too.

If haj looks OK, then I would consider that a "nice" way to represent it! I came up with haj while writing the reply. Before that, I really didn't have ANY way of representing a complex predicate like that, let alone a GOOD way of doing it! I think haj might be the most formal, "correct" way of forming equative copular sentences, but when you have a simple predicate with just 1 word, or perhaps a few that are all stative or active, then haj is just allowed to be dropped. I would probably call haj a copular pronoun, so simple complements for the predicate would allow for a zero copula.

Secondly, however, what you have here does not vaguely agree with previous usage. The Jin SVCs you mentioned earlier form a fairly coherent set of constructions, with a certain internal and external structure which can be analysed fairly consistently. Contrast something like sambiwi sanza, which has a completely different internal structure, very different semantics, and is located in a different position in the sentence. It most certainly cannot ‘be seen as a serial verb construction’ — at least, not without drastically weakening the term.

Yeah, I would agree with that. There is academic debate whether the Salishan languages are truly "nounless" or not. Just for the purposes of this grammar, I'm taking the position of "yes", simply because it makes describing Jin's structure easier. The notion of whether these verbs are "serial" or not rests on that assumption, and even then on a probably loose definition of "serial verbs". Perhaps another term could be used, like "sequential verbs" or "coincident verbs", only some of which might qualify as what (some?) scholars would truly call "serial verbs".

A few more points. Firstly, it bears emphasising that serial verb constructions are constructions. To put it another way, they aren’t neutral; an SVC almost never means the same thing as its ‘equivalent’ non-SVC sentence. Each language has its own peculiar patterns specifying which SVCs are natural and which aren’t, and speakers need to choose to use an SVC over other methods of clause combination.

I haven't figured out any other sort of clause coordination or chaining for Jin (on the "to-do" list), so I definitely don't know what differences these constructions would have from anything else.

The basic principle behind all this is that, at the most fundamental level, SVCs are used to combine verbs which describe ‘one event’. The most consistent diagnostic features of SVCs follow naturally from this: (a) there is no overt co- or subordination marker, (b) all verbs have the same TAM and negation status, (c) the verbs share arguments in some way, and (d) they are all under one intonation contour. (Almost everyone agrees on at least these conditions, though as I said you will always find some exceptions.)

Likewise, I haven't quite figured out all of these. I'd say these constructions in Jin so far definitely have (a) and (c). They probably have (b), but I'm not sure. (d) is something I haven't considered, but it's an interesting one that would probably be answered when I decide on (b) because intonation contour (actually tone register melodies) are what will mark tense in Jin. That is, grammatical tone will be a thing.

Syntactically speaking, SVCs are usually rather highly structured: they tend to be closer to verb compounds or affixes than to things like clause coordination. (In fact, if you find yourself translating an SVC using the word ‘and’, it’s worth questioning whether you’re translating it correctly.) Often there are specific patterns for argument sharing and transitivity. As mentioned several times already, [X V₁ Y]—[Y V₂] is particularly common; even more so is [X V₁]—[X V₂], with subject sharing. On the other hand, SVCs just as often are grammaticalised, with one verb undergoing semantic bleaching to become the regular means for marking a particular category.

Another thing to consider is that Jin (as you've seen) has incorporation, so that might be a more natural way for Jin to express ideas that lend themselves to true serial verbs or compounds.

Senft’s (open-access!) volume

YAY! Excellent. Since I finished grad school last August, I no longer have access to a university library.

[Vardelm]

Jin: Active vs Stative Issue round 2

After some more thinking, I don't like the structure where you could use a verb with active direct voice and then a stative indirect voice and the arguments would simply be reversed for one of them. It's complicated, ugly, & doesn't seem natural.

Also, after doing a little reading in Serial verb constructions in Austronesian and Papuan languages, what I'm picturing with Jin is probably straddling a line between serial verbs and asyndetic coordination. I think I'll take a cue from the journal using an umbrella term - "multi-verb constructions" - and use that label or "multi-verb predicates". Most may be coordination, while some may rise to the level of being called "serial verbs".

Thanks for the link, bradrn!

---

I'm still planning on using the updated voices listed above, but I have also tried to rework the rules for what verbs can be used in Jin's multi-verb predicates (MVPs). There has been several versions already, and I want to simplify them as much as possible. Current version:

1. A sentence can have a maximum of 1 active and 1 stative argument (not considering coordinated arguments).
2. If there are multiple verbs in a predicate, they share their arguments.
3. Once a verb is added to a sentence, a transitive verb of opposite dynamicity (active vs. stative) can’t be used.
4. A transitive verb must be used in a sentence before a verb of the opposite dynamicity (active vs. stative) can be added.
5. None of the above restrictions apply to verbs with active or stative impersonal voice.

---

Verbs with Same Dynamicity

Now for examples! This group is straightforward and much the same as the posts above. 2 verbs are in each predicate and they are either both active or both stative.

ikashadi zhamahi qam ndaluwi ja capituwi ikashid-i peel-SGT zhama-hi eat-SGT qam that,which.3P.ACT ndalu-wi is.man-the.SGT ja that.which.STA.3P capitu-wi is.fruit-the.SGT The man peeled and ate the fruit.

Standard issue here. 2 active verbs, both transitive and sharing both arguments

wandazuzhisi zhamahi qam ndaluwi ja capituwi wandaz-uzhis-i bring-ACT.PAS-SGT zhama-hi eat-SGT qam that,which.3P.ACT ndalu-wi is.man-the.SGT ja that.which.STA.3P capitu-wi is.fruit-the.SGT The man was served and ate the fruit.

Still both active verbs, but wandaz appears with the active passive voice, so the example just shows 2 active verbs with different voice and different transitivity.

Same holds for stative verbs; the order of arguments is just different.

---

Verbs with Different Dynamicity

X lazhi zhamahi ja ndaluwi qam capituwi X lazhi sit zhama-hi eat-SGT ja that.which.STA.3P ndalu-wi is.man-the.SGT qam that,which.3P.ACT capitu-wi is.fruit-the.SGT X The man sat and ate the fruit.

This example illustrates rule #3. Lazhi is stative, which sets the 1st argument to stative: the man. That is incompatible with the active transitive zhama, which needs the 1st argument (the man) to be active and the 2nd (the fruit) to be stative.

lazhi ja ndaluwi !tuwa zhamahi qasim ja capituwi lazhi sit ja that.which.STA.3P ndalu-wi is.man-the.SGT !tuwa and zhama-hi eat-SGT qasim 3P.ACT ja that.which.STA.3P capitu-wi is.fruit-the.SGT The man sat and he ate the fruit.

What is required to "fix" the above ungrammatical example is to simple break that sentence into 2 coordinated sentences.

lazhi yana wandazuzhisam ja ndaluwi qam umbabima lazhi sit yana see wandaz-uzhis-am bring-ACT.PAS-PLT ja that.which.STA.3P ndalu-wi is.man-the.SGT qam that,which.3P.ACT umbabi-ma merchant-PLT The man sat and watched the merchants each get served.

This example shows rule #4 in action. Once the initial stative intransitive verb lazhi "sit" is uttered, the stative transitive verb yana "see, watch" needs to be used to add the 2nd argument (qam umbabima), which the active intransitive verb wandaz "bring" can then use. This example also shows rule #3 in that the transitive form of wandaz "bring" could not be used since the stative ja argument was already taken.

I'm not sure yet if a verb of the opposite dynamicity could be introduced (like wandaz was here) that would use the 1st argument instead of the 2nd. I'll have to play with that.

---

A few more points:

These multi-verb predicates should be able to convey manner, method, and result, and perhaps other meanings. I think it might not be good at instrumental meanings, and possibly path or purpose/goal. I think those may need to be handled by adjunct phrases (with the linker al-).

Incorporation has covered agent & patient incorporation, and also instrumentals. I like seeing the different strengths between incorporation & MVPs.

I plan on another post that will cover manner/method a bit, and that will involve different constructions with adverbial phrases. I already have a few things worked out on that.

The examples now feel like they are a bit obvious and standard fare, but they are doing it in a way that feels right for Jin. The MVPs are starting to feel a little more systematic rather than just a hodge-podge of guesswork.

[bradrn]

Funny, I could have sworn I already wrote and sent a reply to the post before this… should I be worried? In any case, it would have been mostly invalidated by your latest one. All’s well that ends well, I guess.

After some more thinking, I don't like the structure where you could use a verb with active direct voice and then a stative indirect voice and the arguments would simply be reversed for one of them. It's complicated, ugly, & doesn't seem natural.

I’m not sure I understand. Does this mean you’re sticking with the below-quoted system?

Note that the above current version just adds/changes a voice suffix to the predicate verb and swaps the position of the active and stative arguments. The new version below adds the same suffix. However, the referents change positions, but the inverse argument marking stays in the same order as the direct, unlike the original system.

If so, I can say that this one seems natural enough to me, and not complicated or ugly at all. Certainly, it’s natural enough to have been used in a bunch of Austronesian languages. (Mostly Indonesian ones, since as you noted, Philippine-type languages have a rather more elaborate system.) It helps if you think of the determiners as marking ‘direct’ and ‘oblique’ rather than ‘active’ and ‘stative’ arguments.

Also, after doing a little reading in Serial verb constructions in Austronesian and Papuan languages, what I'm picturing with Jin is probably straddling a line between serial verbs and asyndetic coordination. I think I'll take a cue from the journal using an umbrella term - "multi-verb constructions" - and use that label or "multi-verb predicates". Most may be coordination, while some may rise to the level of being called "serial verbs".

Thanks for the link, bradrn!

You’re welcome! (Though I’ll quibble that the ‘multi-verb constructions’ one was a book, not a journal. An interesting book too, albeit somewhat dense.)

Also, I find myself somewhat suspicious of the term ‘multi-verb predicate’. The whole point of calling things ‘multi-verb constructions’, as opposed to a more specific term, is that we don’t want to care about whether a given phrase is a single ‘predicate’ or not, or for that matter a single ‘clause’ or not. I do wonder if there’s any difference at all between a ‘multi-verb predicate’ and a ‘serial verb construction’, or if they’re not just two names for the same thing.

I'm still planning on using the updated voices listed above, but I have also tried to rework the rules for what verbs can be used in Jin's multi-verb predicates (MVPs). There has been several versions already, and I want to simplify them as much as possible. Current version:

1. A sentence can have a maximum of 1 active and 1 stative argument (not considering coordinated arguments).
2. If there are multiple verbs in a predicate, they share their arguments.
3. Once a verb is added to a sentence, a transitive verb of opposite dynamicity (active vs. stative) can’t be used.
4. A transitive verb must be used in a sentence before a verb of the opposite dynamicity (active vs. stative) can be added.
5. None of the above restrictions apply to verbs with active or stative impersonal voice.

This all seems reasonable to me, although your second requirement makes me again think that ‘SVC’ would be a perfectly good label for all of these constructions.

I also note that the relevant verbs are contiguous in all your examples, so perhaps that should be an additional requirement, especially considering how common non-contiguous SVCs are.

These multi-verb predicates should be able to convey manner, method, and result, and perhaps other meanings. I think it might not be good at instrumental meanings, and possibly path or purpose/goal. I think those may need to be handled by adjunct phrases (with the linker al-).

I see no problem with instrumental meanings — the usual construction is something along the lines of <subject> take <instrument> <verb>, which would be fine in Jin. You wouldn’t be able to add an instrumental argument to a transitive verb, but it would work well enough for intransitives.

Motion serial verbs would also be absolutely fine: you already have postural serialisation (e.g. lazhi yana), which differs minimally from motion or path serialisation. Also note that practically all languages with MVCs have at least motion serialisation. Even English does: I’ll go see it. For whatever reason, it seems to be something people commonly want to express.

The examples now feel like they are a bit obvious and standard fare, but they are doing it in a way that feels right for Jin. The MVPs are starting to feel a little more systematic rather than just a hodge-podge of guesswork.

Glad to hear it!

One more thing to consider: are there any semantic differences between your MVCs/SVCs and the corresponding coordinate constructions? Sometimes there aren’t with MVCs (e.g. in English). But there do tend to be some, particularly when they’re a common construction, and especially when there’s a word-order change as there is in Jin. (Not that I have a reference for that, or even a particularly solid reason, but it at least makes intuitive sense.)