Conlang Random Thread

[jal]

If you define it as ‘verb + object’, you’re forced to conclude that VSO languages don’t have predicates — and therefore their clauses don’t have any head at all! ‘Head’ may be an ill-defined term, but to me, that’s going a bit too far.

Not at all, that's a strawman. What you'd conclude is that you have a split predicate, with a subject in between parts. If you claim that "can eat" in "I can eat the cookie" is the predicate, and you also claim that the predicate must be a single consecutive phrase, you'd have a hard time explaining German and Dutch, that "infix" the object: "ik kan een koekje eten".


JAL

[Travis B.]

I am personally of the view that resorting to logic and theory to justify how languages act, and questioning if something attested in a given language is possible when it does not correspond to said logic and theory, is probably not the greatest of ideas.

[Ahzoh]

I am personally of the view that resorting to logic and theory to justify how languages act, and questioning if something attested in a given language is possible when it does not correspond to said logic and theory, is probably not the greatest of ideas.

What's that in referrence to?

[Travis B.]

I am personally of the view that resorting to logic and theory to justify how languages act, and questioning if something attested in a given language is possible when it does not correspond to said logic and theory, is probably not the greatest of ideas.

What's that in referrence to?

If you define it as ‘verb + object’, you’re forced to conclude that VSO languages don’t have predicates — and therefore their clauses don’t have any head at all! ‘Head’ may be an ill-defined term, but to me, that’s going a bit too far.

I.e. the idea that objects separated from their verbs disprove the idea of a "predicate" in VSO languages.

[Ahzoh]

All I know is that VSO is still VO and therefore head-initial.

[bradrn]

I am personally of the view that resorting to logic and theory to justify how languages act, and questioning if something attested in a given language is possible when it does not correspond to said logic and theory, is probably not the greatest of ideas.

What's that in referrence to?

If you define it as ‘verb + object’, you’re forced to conclude that VSO languages don’t have predicates — and therefore their clauses don’t have any head at all! ‘Head’ may be an ill-defined term, but to me, that’s going a bit too far.

I.e. the idea that objects separated from their verbs disprove the idea of a "predicate" in VSO languages.

I don’t get your point here… I was doing precisely the opposite of what you’re accusing me of! My reasoning there is that, if the theoretical term ‘predicate’ doesn’t apply to VSO languages (which make up a significant proportion of the world’s languages), then that’s a sign that the theory is at fault and that that term probably isn’t meaningful.

(Re Ahzoh and jal’s later posts, I’m still trying to marshal my thoughts on them. I do still mean to reply to them.)

[Travis B.]

What's that in referrence to?

If you define it as ‘verb + object’, you’re forced to conclude that VSO languages don’t have predicates — and therefore their clauses don’t have any head at all! ‘Head’ may be an ill-defined term, but to me, that’s going a bit too far.

I.e. the idea that objects separated from their verbs disprove the idea of a "predicate" in VSO languages.

I don’t get your point here… I was doing precisely the opposite of what you’re accusing me of! My reasoning there is that, if the theoretical term ‘predicate’ doesn’t apply to VSO languages (which make up a significant proportion of the world’s languages), then that’s a sign that the theory is at fault and that that term probably isn’t meaningful.

(Re Ahzoh and jal’s later posts, I’m still trying to marshal my thoughts on them. I do still mean to reply to them.)

I wasn't accusing you of anything! I was agreeing with you!

[Travis B.]

I personally, as you can see from my currently-unnamed new language (but I have used similar schemes in other languages as well), like to have three cases, a direct case, an ergative case (even though I often call it an agentive case), and an accusative case (even though I often call it a patientive case). I decided in this case to not use the agentive/patientive naming, because it makes it harder to explain the direct case than the ergative/accusative naming (where ergative indicates a marked agent and accusative indicates a marked patient, with direct being left to cover the unmarked arguments).

[bradrn]

I wasn't accusing you of anything! I was agreeing with you!

Ah, thanks for clarifying!

[Travis B.]

Of course, I use ergative and accusative in non-standard fashions to refer to marked arguments of intransitive verbs in a fluid-S arrangement along with antipassive and passive verbs, where agentive S is direct for animates and ergative for inanimates and patientive S is accusative for animates and direct for inanimates.

[jal]

Of course, I use ergative and accusative in non-standard fashions to refer to marked arguments of intransitive verbs in a fluid-S arrangement along with antipassive and passive verbs, where agentive S is direct for animates and ergative for inanimates and patientive S is accusative for animates and direct for inanimates.

So if I get this right, you have the following arangements?

S=anim O=anim -> direct + accusative
S=anim O=inanim -> direct + direct
S=inanim O=anim -> ergative + accusative
S=inanim O=inanim -> ergative + direct

Or do you use direct when S=O with regards to animacy?

S=anim O=anim -> direct + direct
S=inanim O=inanim -> direct + direct


JAL

[Travis B.]

Of course, I use ergative and accusative in non-standard fashions to refer to marked arguments of intransitive verbs in a fluid-S arrangement along with antipassive and passive verbs, where agentive S is direct for animates and ergative for inanimates and patientive S is accusative for animates and direct for inanimates.

So if I get this right, you have the following arangements?

S=anim O=anim -> direct + accusative
S=anim O=inanim -> direct + direct
S=inanim O=anim -> ergative + accusative
S=inanim O=inanim -> ergative + direct

I normally do this.

Or do you use direct when S=O with regards to animacy?

S=anim O=anim -> direct + direct
S=inanim O=inanim -> direct + direct

I do this for a small set of verbs such as ta (the equational copula).

Edit: This does not apply to ga (the existential copula), I was half-asleep when writing that (hence my original typos).

[jal]

I normally do this.
I do this fcr a small set of verbs such as ta[/t] (the equational copula) and [i[ga (the existential copula).

Makes sense! Thanks.


JAL

[Travis B.]

I normally do this.
I do this fcr a small set of verbs such as ta[/t] (the equational copula) and [i[ga (the existential copula).

Makes sense! Thanks.

Forget about ga there - ga is intransitive (I was half-asleep when writing that, hence my many typos in my original post).

[Ahzoh]

(Re Ahzoh and jal’s later posts, I’m still trying to marshal my thoughts on them. I do still mean to reply to them.)

So, this is what my table would have to look like in order to be consistent with your analysis while avoiding unnecessary empty cells:

table7.png (22.17 KiB) Viewed 2221 times

It's not very pleasant compared to the my other table:

Nounsinfullness.png (35.18 KiB) Viewed 2219 times

[Travis B.]

The only thing I would criticize about your table there is that I'd call what you call 'intransitive' 'direct' instead.

[Ahzoh]

The only thing I would criticize about your table there is that I'd call what you call 'intransitive' 'direct' instead.

It's the Official(tm) terminology for the S case in tripartite alignment, and Ergative for the A and Accusative for the P/O.

But I like my old table, it's not confusing and doesn't require me to add a table row where 3/4 of the table is just a blank space, nor does it require met to do what the newer table does. Plus I can add the Vocative underneath.

[bradrn]

(Re Ahzoh and jal’s later posts, I’m still trying to marshal my thoughts on them. I do still mean to reply to them.)

So, this is what my table would have to look like in order to be consistent with your analysis while avoiding unnecessary empty cells: […]

It's not very pleasant compared to the my other table: […]

Um… I’m really struggling to understand this. It looks like you moved some of the rows around — why did you do that? I was just suggesting different names you could use for precisely the same case system.

[Travis B.]

The only thing I would criticize about your table there is that I'd call what you call 'intransitive' 'direct' instead.

It's the Official(tm) terminology for the S case in tripartite alignment, and Ergative for the A and Accusative for the P/O.

Thing is, you don't have tripartite alignment. I'm not sure what the name of the alignment is, but there's got to be a name somewhere. (I personally like this alignment and have a tendency to use it, alongside direct-inverse marking, in my languages.)

[Ahzoh]

(Re Ahzoh and jal’s later posts, I’m still trying to marshal my thoughts on them. I do still mean to reply to them.)

So, this is what my table would have to look like in order to be consistent with your analysis while avoiding unnecessary empty cells: […]

It's not very pleasant compared to the my other table: […]

Um… I’m really struggling to understand this. It looks like you moved some of the rows around — why did you do that? I was just suggesting different names you could use for precisely the same case system.

If I call the absolutive an accusative it would have to be on the same row as the animate accusatives, but I would also have to add a nominative row and merge the cells to convey syncretism between the nominative and accusative, like in here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hittite_language#Nouns

Presentation of information is very important and it needs to look good too.