Zompist Bboard Again

bradrn wrote: ↑Tue May 14, 2024 8:54 amIf 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

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.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Wed May 15, 2024 3:41 pm 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?

Ahzoh wrote: ↑Wed May 15, 2024 4:10 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Wed May 15, 2024 3:41 pm 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?

bradrn wrote: ↑Tue May 14, 2024 8:54 amIf 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.

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

Travis B. wrote: ↑Wed May 15, 2024 4:12 pm

Ahzoh wrote: ↑Wed May 15, 2024 4:10 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Wed May 15, 2024 3:41 pm 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?

bradrn wrote: ↑Tue May 14, 2024 8:54 amIf 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.)

bradrn wrote: ↑Wed May 15, 2024 4:46 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Wed May 15, 2024 4:12 pm

Ahzoh wrote: ↑Wed May 15, 2024 4:10 pm
What's that in referrence to?

bradrn wrote: ↑Tue May 14, 2024 8:54 amIf 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!

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).

Travis B. wrote: ↑Wed May 15, 2024 4:55 pm I wasn't accusing you of anything! I was agreeing with you!

Ah, thanks for clarifying!

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.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Wed May 15, 2024 5:07 pmOf 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

jal wrote: ↑Fri May 17, 2024 2:53 am

Travis B. wrote: ↑Wed May 15, 2024 5:07 pmOf 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.

jal wrote: ↑Fri May 17, 2024 2:53 am 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).

Travis B. wrote: ↑Fri May 17, 2024 6:24 amI 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

jal wrote: ↑Fri May 17, 2024 8:33 am

Travis B. wrote: ↑Fri May 17, 2024 6:24 amI 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).

bradrn wrote: ↑Wed May 15, 2024 4:46 pm(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:

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

Travis B. wrote: ↑Fri May 17, 2024 4:16 pm 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.

Ahzoh wrote: ↑Fri May 17, 2024 4:13 pm

bradrn wrote: ↑Wed May 15, 2024 4:46 pm(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.

Ahzoh wrote: ↑Fri May 17, 2024 4:25 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Fri May 17, 2024 4:16 pm 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.)

bradrn wrote: ↑Fri May 17, 2024 4:29 pm

Ahzoh wrote: ↑Fri May 17, 2024 4:13 pm

bradrn wrote: ↑Wed May 15, 2024 4:46 pm(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.