Zompist Bboard Again

Yes, I know, another one of these . I'll try to keep it interesting, I promise!

Since around 2011, I've been trying to see if I can get Hiding Waters to lack a morphosyntactic noun/verb distinction. This is somewhat stronger than the claim that gets made about the Salishan family, which (as far as I've found) has to do with the flexibility with which content words can serve either as the predicate of a sentence or as a predicate's argument.

By contrast, what I'm trying to do with HW is make it so that there isn't a meaningful way to look at a sentence and determine that a particular word is "serving" as a predicate or argument in the first place—that is, there is no differentiating morphosyntactic behavior that you could use to identify a sentence's "nouns" and "verbs". And I'm trying to pull this off while still making the language expressive enough to be functional for everyday use.

I'm also trying to be very conscious of the usual way folks get this wrong. Borrowing from the LCK:

zompist's LCK wrote: You can have some fun with this. "The rock is under the tree" could be expressed as something like "There is stonying below the growing, greening, flourishing", or perhaps "It stones whileunder it grows greeningly." If we really encountered a language like this, however, I’d have to wonder whether we weren’t just fooling ourselves. If there’s a word that refers to stones, why translate it as ‘to stone’ rather than simply ‘stone’?

This kind of argument from translation ("No, you see, that word doesn't really mean stone, it means stonying! Therefore it's a verb!") is uninteresting, and I want to make sure that's not what I'm doing. What I want to be doing is arranging the data such that an analysis that doesn't posit separate morphosyntactic categories for "nouns" and "verbs" is the most elegant and effective description one can find—and conversely, positing such separate categories would require making arbitrary distinctions and adding complexity to the analysis without any gain in descriptive power.

I gave a somewhat truncated treatment of my analysis in an article for /r/conlangs' Segments journal (Analyzing Phrasal and Clausal Anaphora in Hiding Waters, Segments #02, pp. 159-176), but I'm worried that paper was a bit...strawmany. In it, I consider a couple of different analyses that try to distinguish noun-behavior from verb-behavior and show why they don't fly, but I wonder if the analyses I considered and discarded are really the best contenders, or if someone with fresh eyes could identify more compelling ones.

And so, that brings me here!

What I hope to do is lay out some data, and my argument for why the best morphosyntactic analysis of it doesn't involve any distinction between nouns and verbs—and then field questions, objections, or counter-proposals from the folks here to see if we can break my analysis or find something better!

List of abbreviations:
To start with, consider...morphology.

§ 1: Evidence from morphology

1) Ịwhilhxk tí?

ịwh<

knife<

i-

IND-

lh

ESSENTIAL

>xk

>

tí

POLAR

Do you have a knife? (lit: 'is there a knife?')

Hiding Waters content words (which my analysis calls "predicates") obligatorily inflect for mood and aspect; here, the "essential" aspect indicates an inherent, essential property of something ("being a knife"). The same morphological shape presents in sentences that are more intuitively verb-ish:

2) Awhulhxurokwhsn.

awh<

raining<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESSENTIAL-

xurokwh

south.LOC

>sn

>

It is rainy to the south.

The essential alternates with other aspects, such as the "stative", which indicates an incidental, non-inherent property:

3) Awhuxxurokwhsn.

awh<

raining<

u-

IND-

x-

STATIVE-

xurokwh

south.LOC

>sn

>

It is raining to the south.

4) Ịwhixlọxk hí?

ịwh<

knife<

i-

IND-

x-

STATIVE-

lọ

CLF(generic).PATIENT

>xk

>

hí

Q

What is that, which (you) are using as a knife?

(Note the addition of -lọ- in (4) compared to (1); this is a referential patient marker, which means the speaker is referring to a specific thing instead of speaking generally. This feature will be particularly important in more complex phrases.)

Apart from the indicative mood, predicates can be marked for a variety of others, such as the "potential":

5) Ịwheị̀kxk tí?

ịwh<

knife<

eị̀-

POT-

k

PFV

>xk

>

tí

POLAR

Is there something that can be made into a knife?

The first key observation about this morphological structure is that it is consistent across all content words in a sentence:

6) Ué ịwheị̀xlọxk hijiklọs ha!

ué

ATTENTION

ịwh<

knife<

eị̀-

POT-

x

STATIVE-

lọ

CLF(generic).PATIENT

>xk

>

h<

searching<

i-

IND-

ji-

1.AGENT-

k-

PFV-

lọ

CLF(generic).PATIENT

>s

>

ha

INTENSIFIER

Look, I found something (we) can use as a knife.

7) Hà hulkuklọkoụ̀n hė ịwhulhloxk.

hà

DM

h<

carry<

u-

IND-

lku-

CLF(male).AGENT-

k-

PFV-

lọ

CLF(generic).PATIENT

>koụ̀n

>

hė

DEF

ịwh<

knife<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESSENTIAL-

lọ

CLF(generic).PATIENT

>xk

>

What he brought was a knife.

In (6), it seems semantically intuitive that ịwheị̀xlọxk ("it can be used as a knife") is the argument of hijiklọs ("I found it"). However, morphologically speaking, the two predicates have precisely the same structure; there is no differentiating structure that manifests specifically in the "argument" or the "predicate".



What do you think so far? Next up I'll present some arguments from syntactic behavior, but first, what open questions does this discussion of morphology leave you with?

I like it so far! I think I need time to look and analyze more. Given my prior effort (Tibetan Dwarvish) and now Jin, I'm interested to see how well justify the argument.

The main question/criticism I'd have is that #2 doesn't seem all that more "verby" to me than #1. Do you have more examples that would illustrate? If not, then to me the "essential aspect" just screams "LOOK AT ME, I'M A NOUN NOW!!!"

Vardelm wrote: ↑Mon Aug 30, 2021 10:10 pm I like it so far! I think I need time to look and analyze more. Given my prior effort (Tibetan Dwarvish) and now Jin, I'm interested to see how well justify the argument.

I remember Tibetan Dwarvish! Is it still coming along? It seems like the Dwarven in your scratchpad is something else—an ancestor of it?

The main question/criticism I'd have is that #2 doesn't seem all that more "verby" to me than #1. Do you have more examples that would illustrate? If not, then to me the "essential aspect" just screams "LOOK AT ME, I'M A NOUN NOW!!!"

Oh that's very fair! Here's some more examples:

8) Kestulhṇọdọq ẹṇulhṇọkwh.

kest<

west<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESSENTIAL-

ṇọ

CLF(familiar).PATIENT

>dọq

>

ẹṇ<

camp<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESSENTIAL-

ṇọ

CLF(familiar).PATIENT

>kwh

>

The camp is west of here.

The essential aspect on kestulhṇọdọq suggests that this is a permanent camp at some kind of fixed resource-gathering area; its location to the west is an inherent property of it, it couldn't be anywhere else.

9) Uá axṭulhlọḷị́wh nȯ ḳulhlọtlh.

uá

SURPRISE

axt<

tall<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESSENTIAL-

lọ

CLF(generic).PATIENT

>ḷị́wh

>

nȯ

DEM(visible)

k<

tree<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESSENTIAL-

lọ

CLF(generic).PATIENT

>tlh

>

Wow, that tree is tall.

Another point against the "-lh- is a nominalizer" theory, I think, is that it doesn't have any apparent impact on syntactic structures. It alternates transparently with other aspects like the stative and perfective:

10) Kestuxlịdọq xụlqulhlịq.

kest<

west<

u-

IND-

x-

STATIVE-

lị

CLF(generic).PATIENT

>dọq

>

xụlq<

hunting<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESSENTIAL-

lị

CLF(generic).PATIENT

>q

>

The hunters are west of here.

The hunters happen to be to the west, but that isn't inherent to their nature—they could just as well be somewhere else.

11) Kestukṇọdọq ẹṇulhṇọkwh.

kest<

west<

u-

IND-

k-

PFV-

ṇọ

CLF(familiar).PATIENT

>dọq

>

ẹṇ<

camp<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESSENTIAL-

ṇọ

CLF(familiar).PATIENT

>kwh

>

The camp was moved to the west.

12) Ịwhulhlọxk haùklọkoụ̀njụ́.

ịwh<

knife<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESSENTIAL-

lọ

CLF(generic).PATIENT

xk

>

h<

carry<

aù-

IMPERATIVE-

k-

PFV-

lọ

CLF(generic)[/gloss

>koụ̀n

>

-jụ́

-1.LAT

Bring me a knife. (Lit: 'bring me a thing that is, inherently, a knife')

13) Ịwhuxlọxk haùklọkoụ̀njụ́.

ịwh<

knife<

u-

IND-

x-

STATIVE-

lọ

CLF(generic).PATIENT

xk

>

h<

carry<

aù-

IMPERATIVE-

k-

PFV-

lọ

CLF(generic)[/gloss

>koụ̀n

>

-jụ́

-1.LAT

Bring me something to use as a knife. (Lit: 'bring me a thing that is incidentally, though not inherently, a knife')

trailsend wrote: ↑Mon Aug 30, 2021 10:57 pm 8) Kestulhṇọdọq ẹṇulhṇọkwh.

kest<

west<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESSENTIAL-

ṇọ

CLF(familiar).PATIENT

>dọq

>

ẹṇ<

camp<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESSENTIAL-

ṇọ

CLF(familiar).PATIENT

>kwh

>

The camp is west of here.

The essential aspect on kestulhṇọdọq suggests that this is a permanent camp at some kind of fixed resource-gathering area; its location to the west is an inherent property of it, it couldn't be anywhere else.

[...]

Another point against the "-lh- is a nominalizer" theory, I think, is that it doesn't have any apparent impact on syntactic structures. It alternates transparently with other aspects like the stative and perfective:

10) Kestuxlịdọq xụlqulhlịq.

kest<

west<

u-

IND-

x-

STATIVE-

lị

CLF(generic).PATIENT

>dọq

>

xụlq<

hunting<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESSENTIAL-

lị

CLF(generic).PATIENT

>q

>

The hunters are west of here.

The hunters happen to be to the west, but that isn't inherent to their nature—they could just as well be somewhere else.

11) Kestukṇọdọq ẹṇulhṇọkwh.

kest<

west<

u-

IND-

k-

PFV-

ṇọ

CLF(familiar).PATIENT

>dọq

>

ẹṇ<

camp<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESSENTIAL-

ṇọ

CLF(familiar).PATIENT

>kwh

>

The camp was moved to the west.

So let me try to use other aspects with the hunter example (according to your grammar sketch: -s- imperfective, -k- perfective, -ṭė- climactic, -r- inferential, -ḷ- equative). Are the following examples and translations approximately correct?

a) Kestuslịdọq xụlqulhlịq.

kest<

west<

u-

IND-

s-

IPFV-

lị

CLF(generic).PATIENT

>dọq

>

xụlq<

hunting<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESSENTIAL-

lị

CLF(generic).PATIENT

>q

>

The hunters are going west. ~ The hunters are about to be west of here soon.

b) Kestuklịdọq xụlqulhlịq.

kest<

west<

u-

IND-

k-

PFV-

lị

CLF(generic).PATIENT

>dọq

>

xụlq<

hunting<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESSENTIAL-

lị

CLF(generic).PATIENT

>q

>

The hunters have arrived in the west.

c) Kestuṭėlịdọq xụlqulhlịq.

kest<

west<

u-

IND-

ṭė-

CLIM-

lị

CLF(generic).PATIENT

>dọq

>

xụlq<

hunting<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESSENTIAL-

lị

CLF(generic).PATIENT

>q

>

The hunters have indeed appeared west of here (although we expected them to be somewhere else).

d) Kesturlịdọq xụlqulhlịq.

kest<

west<

u-

IND-

r-

INFER-

lị

CLF(generic).PATIENT

>dọq

>

xụlq<

hunting<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESSENTIAL-

lị

CLF(generic).PATIENT

>q

>

The hunters seem to be west of here (based on the available evidence).

e) Kestuḷlịdọq xụlqulhlịq.

kest<

west<

u-

IND-

ḷ-

EQUATIVE-

lị

CLF(generic).PATIENT

>dọq

>

xụlq<

hunting<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESSENTIAL-

lị

CLF(generic).PATIENT

>q

>

The hunters look like they might be associated with the west.

trailsend wrote: ↑Mon Aug 30, 2021 10:57 pm I remember Tibetan Dwarvish! Is it still coming along? It seems like the Dwarven in your scratchpad is something else—an ancestor of it?

T.D. is dormant and/or moribund. I had a hard time making any progress I liked, even after trying to think of proto-langs. Also, I wanted langs for other races, so I stepped back for a while and my current 4 are the result. A future T.D. will probably be some combination of Dwarvish and Devani or their descendants. That will give me the consonant mutation, ergativity and/or Austronesian focus or voices, and evidentials, so some core ideas of T.D. will be there. It probably won't be a "noun/verb merger" type of language, though.

trailsend wrote: ↑Mon Aug 30, 2021 10:57 pm 8) Kestulhṇọdọq ẹṇulhṇọkwh.

kest<

west<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESSENTIAL-

ṇọ

CLF(familiar).PATIENT

>dọq

>

ẹṇ<

camp<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESSENTIAL-

ṇọ

CLF(familiar).PATIENT

>kwh

>

The camp is west of here.

The essential aspect on kestulhṇọdọq suggests that this is a permanent camp at some kind of fixed resource-gathering area; its location to the west is an inherent property of it, it couldn't be anywhere else.

Another point against the "-lh- is a nominalizer" theory, I think, is that it doesn't have any apparent impact on syntactic structures. It alternates transparently with other aspects like the stative and perfective:

10) Kestuxlịdọq xụlqulhlịq.

kest<

west<

u-

IND-

x-

STATIVE-

lị

CLF(generic).PATIENT

>dọq

>

xụlq<

hunting<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESSENTIAL-

lị

CLF(generic).PATIENT

>q

>

The hunters are west of here.

The hunters happen to be to the west, but that isn't inherent to their nature—they could just as well be somewhere else.

OK, these help the argument, I think. I shall continue ruminating on this.

cedh wrote: ↑Tue Aug 31, 2021 4:47 am a) Kestuslịdọq xụlqulhlịq.

kest<

west<

u-

IND-

s-

IPFV-

lị

CLF(generic).PATIENT

>dọq

>

xụlq<

hunting<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESSENTIAL-

lị

CLF(generic).PATIENT

>q

>

The hunters are going west. ~ The hunters are about to be west of here soon.

Precisely! (Although you might swap the patient marker on kestuslịdọq for an agent marker, kestulisdọq. HW's morphosyntactic alignment is active-stative, so (a) has a connotation like "The hunters are being driven westward.")

cedh wrote: ↑Tue Aug 31, 2021 4:47 am b) Kestuklịdọq xụlqulhlịq.

kest<

west<

u-

IND-

k-

PFV-

lị

CLF(generic).PATIENT

>dọq

>

xụlq<

hunting<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESSENTIAL-

lị

CLF(generic).PATIENT

>q

>

The hunters have arrived in the west.

Spot on. (Ditto the above statement about patient/agent marking.)

cedh wrote: ↑Tue Aug 31, 2021 4:47 am c) Kestuṭėlịdọq xụlqulhlịq.

kest<

west<

u-

IND-

ṭė-

CLIM-

lị

CLF(generic).PATIENT

>dọq

>

xụlq<

hunting<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESSENTIAL-

lị

CLF(generic).PATIENT

>q

>

The hunters have indeed appeared west of here (although we expected them to be somewhere else).

Could be, yes! This one depends a lot on context—it signals a major narrative turn or culmination, so probably something like "At last, the hunters finally made it to the west", or "But lo! The hunters were in the west!". (You'd use it in Chapter 99 of Journey to the West, for sure.) The precise interpretation depends on the narrative you situate it in.

cedh wrote: ↑Tue Aug 31, 2021 4:47 am d) Kesturlịdọq xụlqulhlịq.

kest<

west<

u-

IND-

r-

INFER-

lị

CLF(generic).PATIENT

>dọq

>

xụlq<

hunting<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESSENTIAL-

lị

CLF(generic).PATIENT

>q

>

The hunters seem to be west of here (based on the available evidence).

Flawless.

cedh wrote: ↑Tue Aug 31, 2021 4:47 am e) Kestuḷlịdọq xụlqulhlịq.

kest<

west<

u-

IND-

ḷ-

EQUATIVE-

lị

CLF(generic).PATIENT

>dọq

>

xụlq<

hunting<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESSENTIAL-

lị

CLF(generic).PATIENT

>q

>

The hunters look like they might be associated with the west.

Not "associated with", so much—you'd probably also translate this as "The hunters seem to be west of here", or "The hunters seem like they are west of here." The difference with the inferential is that where the inferential indicates that the speaker is drawing a conclusion based on some available signs, the equative only highlights the signs without committing to a conclusion. In (d), the speaker is saying they believe the hunters are in the west, whereas in (e), the speaker might not believe that—they're just pointing out that there are signs suggesting such.

Vardelm wrote: ↑Tue Aug 31, 2021 6:50 am T.D. is dormant and/or moribund. I had a hard time making any progress I liked, even after trying to think of proto-langs. Also, I wanted langs for other races, so I stepped back for a while and my current 4 are the result. A future T.D. will probably be some combination of Dwarvish and Devani or their descendants. That will give me the consonant mutation, ergativity and/or Austronesian focus or voices, and evidentials, so some core ideas of T.D. will be there. It probably won't be a "noun/verb merger" type of language, though.

Ah, I see. I'm sad to see it go, but all of that sounds like very exciting developments! Sounds like I have some reading to do

§ 2: Evidence from constituent order and agent/patient marking

In the absense of differentiating morphological structure, another thing we might consider is constituent order—whether particular positions within a phrase are privileged in some fashion, or serve distinct roles. If we can identify at least two such different roles among content words, it would probably make sense to call one of them 'verb' and one of them 'noun'.

Sentence (6) above provides a semantically transitive statement of the kind one might use to assess basic constituent order. Below are two simplified forms of it, trimmed down to just the content words (this makes them a little less idiomatic, but still perfectly grammatical).

14a) Ịwheị̀xlọxk hijiklọs.

ịwh<

knife<

eị̀-

POT-

x-

STATIVE-

lọ

CLF(generic).PAT

>xk

>

h<

searching<

i-

IND-

ji-

1.AGT

k

PFV

lọ

CLF(generic)

>s

>

I found something that can be used as a knife.

14b) Hijiklọs ịwheị̀xlọxk.

h<

searching<

i-

IND-

ji-

1.AGT

k

PFV

lọ

CLF(generic)

>s

>

ịwh<

knife<

eị̀-

POT-

x-

STATIVE-

lọ

CLF(generic).PAT

>xk

>

I found the thing that can be used as a knife.

The ordering of the constituents doesn't impact the semantic structure of the statement; rather, predicates are arranged within a phrase in decreasing order of "newsworthiness". A predicate has greater newsworthiness if it represents a new topic, or a surprising piece of information, or information the speaker wishes to stress. A predicate has lesser newsworthiness if it represents an established topic or given information.

In (8a), the most newsworthy piece of information is that the found object can be used as a knife. This is what the speaker wants to stress.

In contrast, in (8b) the fact that the object can be used as a knife is given information—perhaps the object had previously been identified and is known to the listener, so the most newsworthy piece of information is that it has now been found again.

15a) xịlhtuṇguklkịq tulhṇgụqạ hulhlkịjunaụ̀wh

xịlht<

bitten<

u-

IND-

ṇgu-

CLF(danger).AGT-

k-

PFV-

lkị

CLF(male).PAT

>q

>

t<

bear<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESS-

ṇgụ

CLF(danger).PAT

>qạ

>

h<

cousin<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESS-

lkị-

CLF(male).PAT-

ju

1.LOC

>naụ̀wh

>

A bear(!) bit(!!) my cousin.

15b) tulhṇgụqạ xịlhtuṇguklkịq hulhlkịjunaụ̀wh

t<

bear<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESS-

ṇgụ

CLF(danger).PAT

>qạ

>

xịlht<

bitten<

u-

IND-

ṇgu-

CLF(danger).AGT-

k-

PFV-

lkị

CLF(male).PAT

>q

>

h<

cousin<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESS-

lkị-

CLF(male).PAT-

ju

1.LOC

>naụ̀wh

>

A bear(!!) bit(!) my cousin.

15c) hulhlkịjunaụ̀wh xịlhtuṇguklkịq tulhṇgụqạ

h<

cousin<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESS-

lkị-

CLF(male).PAT-

ju

1.LOC

>naụ̀wh

>

xịlht<

bitten<

u-

IND-

ṇgu-

CLF(danger).AGT-

k-

PFV-

lkị

CLF(male).PAT

>q

>

t<

bear<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESS-

ṇgụ

CLF(danger).PAT

>qạ

>

The bear bit(!) my cousin(!!).

(15a-c) differ only in how information is stressed, or which information is considered given or remarkable. In lieu of constituent order or something like case marking, the agent and patient relationships in the sentence are indicated by the classifier markings within the predicate: since the dangerous classifier appears as the agent of xịlhtuṇguklkịq ("the dangerous thing bit him") and the patient of tulhṇgụqạ ("the dangerous thing is a bear"), while the male classifier appears as the patient of both xịlhtuṇguklkịq and hulhlkịjunaụ̀wh ("he is my cousin"), we know that the thing which is a bear is the thing that did the biting, and the thing which is my cousin is also the thing that got bitten.

(It's worth noting briefly that HW's classifiers work in a way that makes this generally feasible. Words do not belong to a specific class, and there is a large number of possible classifiers that can be used for an object at any given time. Referents are "assigned" classifiers via particular pragmatic and syntactic structures as they enter conversations, and these assignments can be chosen to avoid ambiguity. It functions somewhat like the system of loci in American Sign Language.)

Thus, constituent order does not produce positions that differ in kind (as an SVO/VSO/etc. pattern might do); we cannot point to the unique behavior of a particular position and say "Here, the constituent that occupies this position and has its related behavior is a Noun, while the constituent that occupies this other position and has its related behavior is a Verb." Instead, the difference encoded by constituent order in Hiding Waters is only one of degree. Each constituent in a phrase, regardless of position, exhibits this uniform behavior: it is less newsworthy than what came before, and more newsworthy than what comes after.


How's that? Next up I'll present some evidence involving phrase expansions, and how other parts of speech like demonstratives and quantifiers interact with predicates. Anything I can clarify about constituent order first? Actually, here's a key question:

Is there evidence you would look for that would support analyzing one of the constituents in (15a-c) as the sentence's verb?

§ 3: Evidence from demonstrative phrases

Continuing with syntax, we can investigate the sorts of phrases that predicates can form—if predicates in a certain position, or with a certain feature, exhibit distinctive behavior with respect to how they combine with other kinds of words, we might be able to identify "noun" and "verb" behavior this way.

One such kind of phrase appeared in (9):

9) Uá axṭulhlọḷị́wh nȯ ḳulhlọtlh.

uá

SURPRISE

axt<

tall<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESS-

lọ

CLF(generic).PAT

>ḷị́wh

>

nȯ

DEM(visible)

k<

tree<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESS-

lọ

CLF(generic).PAT

>tlh

>

Wow, that tree is tall.

In the phrase nȯ ḳulhlọtlh, the predicate ḳulhlọtlh ("it is a tree") is modified by the demonstrative nȯ, used to direct a reference to something visible. Demonstratives occur most often in classifier-assignment structures, to introduce new referents to the discourse, or in reassignment structures, to switch the reference of a classifier to something else.

Which component of the predicate is being indicated by the demonstrative is usually clear; in (9), the target of nȯ can only be the generic classifier reference -lọ-, since there are no other referents present. When a predicate references multiple referents, however, the situation is more complicated:

16) Nu̇ xịlhtuṇguklkịq tulhṇgụqạ hulhlkịjunaụ̀wh

nú

DEM(visible).LEAD

xịlht<

bitten<

u-

IND-

ṇgu-

CLF(dangerous).AGT.LEAD-

k-

PFV-

lkị

CLF(male).PAT.FOLLOW

>q

>

t<

bear<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESS-

ṇgụ

CLF(dangerous).PAT.LEAD

>qạ

>

h<

cousin<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESS-

lkị-

CLF(male).PAT.FOLLOW-

ju

1.LOC

>naụ̀wh

>

That bear bit my cousin.

In (16), xịlhtuṇguklkịq ("the dangerous thing bit him") contains a reference to both -ṇgu- and -lị-, so a demonstrative attached to the predicate could target either one. However, in this case there is no ambiguity because of an agreement relation: nu̇ is inflected for leading stance (a category whose particulars don't matter too much to this discussion, except insofar as there are different stances that referents can have, which are reflected in various inflections), which means it can only be targeting -ṇgu- (the bear) and not -lkị- (the cousin).

In other scenarios, stance might not be sufficient to disambiguate:

17) Nu̇ xịlhtuṇguklkụq tulhṇgụqạ xụlqulkulhq.

nú

DEM(visible).LEAD

xịlht<

bitten<

u-

IND-

ṇgu-

CLF(dangerous).AGT.LEAD-

k-

PFV-

lkị

CLF(male).PAT.FOLLOW

>q

>

t<

bear<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESS-

ṇgụ

CLF(dangerous).PAT.LEAD

>qạ

>

xụlq<

hunting<

u-

IND-

lku-

CLF(male).PAT.LEAD

lh

ESS-

>q

>

(That?) bear bit (that?) hunter.

In (17), both -ṇgu- and -lku- are marked with leading stance, so the leading stance inflection on nu̇ isn't enough to resolve its referent. In practice, this too probably wouldn't present meaningful ambiguity; demonstratives for the most part only appear when introducing referents to the conversation for the first time, so if one of the two referents had already been introduced previously, it would be clear the demonstrative was indicating the other. If both the bear and the hunter were being introduced at the same time, and both were close to each other within line-of-sight of the speaker and listener, then the single demonstrative nu̇ might suffice to indicate both of them at once.

In the toughest case, when both referents were being introduced for the first time and couldn't be indicated together, the speaker would move the demonstrative onto other predicates that didn't present the ambiguity:

18) Xịlhtuṇguklkụq nu̇ tulhṇgụqạ nu̇ xụlqulkulhq.

xịlht<

bitten<

u-

IND-

ṇgu-

CLF(dangerous).AGT.LEAD-

k-

PFV-

lkị

CLF(male).PAT.FOLLOW

>q

>

nú

DEM(visible).LEAD

t<

bear<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESS-

ṇgụ

CLF(dangerous).PAT.LEAD

>qạ

>

nú

DEM(visible).LEAD

xụlq<

hunting<

u-

IND-

lku-

CLF(male).PAT.LEAD

lh

ESS-

>q

>

That bear over there bit that hunter over there.

(18) also demonstrates that demonstratives are not limited in the predicates they can modify. Any predicate in a phrase can carry a demonstrative, regardless of its position or other inflections. Compare (9) with this alternative:

9b) Uá nȯ axṭulhlọḷị́wh ḳulhlọtlh.

uá

SURPRISE

nȯ

DEM(visible)

axt<

tall<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESS-

lọ

CLF(generic).PAT

>ḷị́wh

>

k<

tree<

u-

IND-

lh-

ESS-

lọ

CLF(generic).PAT

>tlh

>

Wow, that tree is tall.

Most often, demonstratives appear on predicates with agent or patient markings, because of their role in assigning classifiers. However, they can also appear on predicates without agents or patients. In this case, they serve to direct the listener's attention generally, but not to any specific object:

19) Tsu̇ awhussn.

tsu̇

DEM(audible)

awh<

raining<

u-

IND-

s-

IPFV

>sn

>

Listen...it's starting to rain.

20) Ṭï ịwhilhxk tí?

tï

DEM(held)

ịwh<

knife<

i

IND-

lh

ESS

>xk

>

tí

POLAR

Do you have a knife on you? (cf. (1))

Since demonstratives can be applied freely to predicates regardless of their syntactic position or morphological content, the ability to form phrases with demonstratives is not a behavior that can be used to differentiate "noun" constituents from "verb" constituents.

Next, I'll give a similar demonstration with a different kind of syntactic structure. Any commentary before that? My key questions for this section are:

Even though any predicate can take a demonstrative, is there still a way to usefully build a notion of "nouns" around demonstrative-marked predicates?

Is there a way to build a noun/verb analysis out of the way demonstratives can target internal elements of predicates?

(I've added a List of Abbreviations to the first post in the thread; should have had that from the get go. Sorry for the oversight!)

Still working my way through this....

trailsend wrote: ↑Wed Sep 01, 2021 12:49 pm The ordering of the constituents doesn't impact the semantic structure of the statement; rather, predicates are arranged within a phrase in decreasing order of "newsworthiness".

This helps the argument, especially (or only) since the forms aren't changing.

trailsend wrote: ↑Wed Sep 01, 2021 12:49 pm (It's worth noting briefly that HW's classifiers work in a way that makes this generally feasible. Words do not belong to a specific class, and there is a large number of possible classifiers that can be used for an object at any given time. Referents are "assigned" classifiers via particular pragmatic and syntactic structures as they enter conversations, and these assignments can be chosen to avoid ambiguity. It functions somewhat like the system of loci in American Sign Language.)

Cool. I like this.

trailsend wrote: ↑Wed Sep 01, 2021 12:49 pm the agent and patient relationships in the sentence are indicated by the classifier markings within the predicate: since the dangerous classifier appears as the agent of xịlhtuṇguklkịq ("the dangerous thing bit him") and the patient of tulhṇgụqạ ("the dangerous thing is a bear"), while the male classifier appears as the patient of both xịlhtuṇguklkịq and hulhlkịjunaụ̀wh ("he is my cousin"), we know that the thing which is a bear is the thing that did the biting, and the thing which is my cousin is also the thing that got bitten.

So the classifiers basically tell us what the nouns are. Perhaps more precisely they tell us what the noun phrases are, even if you don't have words that are specifically classified as "nouns" or marked differently from other content words in traditional "nouny" ways.

trailsend wrote: ↑Wed Sep 01, 2021 12:49 pm Is there evidence you would look for that would support analyzing one of the constituents in (15a-c) as the sentence's verb?

I would key in on any markings that might indicate objects: classifiers, demonstratives, etc. and check or show how or if they can be used as predicate that are absolutely, definitely not nouns.

:D :D Thanks Vardelm!

Vardelm wrote: ↑Fri Sep 03, 2021 6:50 pm So the classifiers basically tell us what the nouns are. Perhaps more precisely they tell us what the noun phrases are, even if you don't have words that are specifically classified as "nouns" or marked differently from other content words in traditional "nouny" ways.

Can I try to apply this concretely to an example to check if I understand?

15a) Xịlhtuṇguklkịq tulhṇgụqạ hulhlkịjunaụ̀wh

xịlhtu<ṇgu>k<lkị>qa

bitten<CLF(danger).AGT><CLF(male).PAT>

tulh<ṇgụ>qạ

bear<CLF(danger).PAT>

hulh<lkị>junaụ̀wh

my.cousin<CLF(male).PAT>

A bear bit my cousin.

(I'm paring down the gloss to only show the agent/patient classifiers, since that's what we care about here.)

The idea is that while individual words may not have "nouny" marking, we may be able to use the classifier markings to identify predicates which constitute noun phrases, right? What would the noun phrases be in this case? Something like:

15a) Xịlhtuṇguklkịq (tulhṇgụqạ) (hulhlkịjunaụ̀wh)

If that's right, can we describe more precisely how to use the classifier marking to identify a noun phrase? I didn't actually lean on the classifiers very much, I just put brackets where they seemed intuitive.

Here's an example where I don't think I could delineate noun phrases intuitively; can the classifier markings give us a way to do it?

21) Squṇguksloq xngulikslosq xịlhtuṇguklịq.

squ<ṇgu>k<slọ>q

eaten<CLF(danger).AGT><CLF(fish).PAT>

xngu<li>k<slo>sq

prepared<CLF(generic).AGT><CLF(fish).PAT>

xịlhtu<ṇgu>k<lị>q

bitten<CLF(danger).AGT><CLF(generic).PAT>

The dangerous animal that ate the fish bit the person who prepared them (the fish).

trailsend wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 8:26 am 21) Squṇguksloq xngulikslosq xịlhtuṇguklịq.

squ<ṇgu>k<slọ>q

eaten<CLF(danger).AGT><CLF(fish).PAT>

xngu<li>k<slo>sq

prepared<CLF(generic).AGT><CLF(fish).PAT>

xịlhtu<ṇgu>k<lị>q

bitten<CLF(danger).AGT><CLF(generic).PAT>

The dangerous animal that ate the fish bit the person who prepared them (the fish).

I’m curious to know if the following would also be an equally good translation of this sentence?

The dangerous animal which bit the person ate the fish which was prepared by them (the person).

Also, I can’t say I’m keeping up too well with everything you’re saying in this thread, but what I do understand leads me to believe that you have indeed managed to successfully erase the predicate/argument distinction — at least on the level of roots. I believe the closest things to ‘nouns’ in Hiding Waters would in fact be the classifier infixes, these being the only parts of the language which refer to specific referents. e.g. in the sentence above, you could easily say that -ṇgu-, -slo-~-slọ-, -li-~-lị- are the arguments, while squ-k-q, xngu-k-sq, xịlhtu-k-q are the predicates — which in fact lines up rather well with both English translations. And actually, now that I think about it some more, it may be that you can analyse all Hiding Waters roots as ‘predicates’ and all Hiding Water classifiers as ‘arguments’, which would mean that it doesn’t so much erase the predicate/argument distinction as much as transposing it onto the syntax/morphology distinction. Though I could be wrong.

(Interestingly, I had a very similar idea a while ago, to create a verb-only language where coreference is tracked purely using pronominal-like forms, and the ‘nouns’ are merely predicates which assign properties to the pronouns. But it never got anywhere.)

EDIT: And now that I think about it even more, Hiding Waters is starting to feel exceedingly reminiscient of predicate calculus: perhaps the most direct translation of the above sentence would be EAT(dangerous,fish)∧PREPARE(generic,fish)∧BIT(dangerous,generic). Maybe Hiding Waters should simply be analysed as a direct linguistic translation of the predicate calculus.

trailsend wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 8:26 am The idea is that while individual words may not have "nouny" marking, we may be able to use the classifier markings to identify predicates which constitute noun phrases, right? What would the noun phrases be in this case? Something like:

15a) Xịlhtuṇguklkịq (tulhṇgụqạ) (hulhlkịjunaụ̀wh)

If that's right, can we describe more precisely how to use the classifier marking to identify a noun phrase? I didn't actually lean on the classifiers very much, I just put brackets where they seemed intuitive.

Yes, this was how I was thinking of it.

trailsend wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 8:26 am Here's an example where I don't think I could delineate noun phrases intuitively; can the classifier markings give us a way to do it?

21) Squṇguksloq xngulikslosq xịlhtuṇguklịq.

squ<ṇgu>k<slọ>q

eaten<CLF(danger).AGT><CLF(fish).PAT>

xngu<li>k<slo>sq

prepared<CLF(generic).AGT><CLF(fish).PAT>

xịlhtu<ṇgu>k<lị>q

bitten<CLF(danger).AGT><CLF(generic).PAT>

The dangerous animal that ate the fish bit the person who prepared them (the fish).

This looks different from the examples you gave previously since you have both agent & patient included in the same word/phrase. To me, this sort of look like noun incorporation. Maybe it would be good to show very simple examples of how & where agents & patients can be included in a sentence, starting with intransitive & working to transitive with the "incorporation" shown here and then in separate phrases. I would also used examples that are as close to each other as possible in terms of content so that it's easy to see what's changing. My main question is when you have "incorporation" like this (agent & patient in same word/phrase) how does that differ in meaning from when they are separate? Is it like typical noun incorporation where the referent is less salient?

---

bradrn wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 8:56 am Also, I can’t say I’m keeping up too well with everything you’re saying in this thread, but what I do understand leads me to believe that you have indeed managed to successfully erase the predicate/argument distinction — at least on the level of roots.

I would agree here, but using the same root for verbs & nouns is not all that hard in my experience. Erasing the divide in morphology isn't too bad either. It's when you get to the syntactic/semantic level that things get really tricky, and fast.

bradrn wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 8:56 am I believe the closest things to ‘nouns’ in Hiding Waters would in fact be the classifier infixes, these being the only parts of the language which refer to specific referents. e.g. in the sentence above, you could easily say that -ṇgu-, -slo-~-slọ-, -li-~-lị- are the arguments, while squ-k-q, xngu-k-sq, xịlhtu-k-q are the predicates — which in fact lines up rather well with both English translations.

This is roughly what I'm thinking so far as well.

bradrn wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 8:56 am And actually, now that I think about it some more, it may be that you can analyse all Hiding Waters roots as ‘predicates’ and all Hiding Water classifiers as ‘arguments’, which would mean that it doesn’t so much erase the predicate/argument distinction as much as transposing it onto the syntax/morphology distinction. Though I could be wrong.

Exactly, which is what makes it a difficult task to accomplish and why (I assume) Trailsend is posting this & requesting feedback.

bradrn wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 8:56 am (Interestingly, I had a very similar idea a while ago, to create a verb-only language where coreference is tracked purely using pronominal-like forms, and the ‘nouns’ are merely predicates which assign properties to the pronouns. But it never got anywhere.)

Jin says hello!

(I got the idea for Jin's structure roughly from Imralu's Ngolu/Iliaqu language, so I'm not claiming too much originality here!)

Thank you both for your comments!

bradrn wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 8:56 am I’m curious to know if the following would also be an equally good translation of this sentence?

The dangerous animal which bit the person ate the fish which was prepared by them (the person).

It would! "Equally good" is a little tricky to gauge; I struggle sometimes to represent the newsworthiness gradient in English. In (21), the eating is the most newsworthy piece of information, and the biting is the least. But there's a number of reasons that could be the case (each of which English would handle differently), and it's hard to tell which ones are at play without more context.

Like: squṇgukslọq might be the most newsworthy because it's being used to shift the topic, in which case a good translation could be Speaking of the dangerous animal that ate the fish, it bit the person that prepared the fish!

Or maybe it's the most newsworthy because the speaker is trying to stress it, in which case a better translation might be It was the dangerous animal that ate the fish that bit the person who prepared the fish.

Xịlhtuṇguklịq might be least-newsworthy because the person getting bitten by the animal is information that the listener already knows, in which case your translation works especially well.

bradrn wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 8:56 am Also, I can’t say I’m keeping up too well with everything you’re saying in this thread, but what I do understand leads me to believe that you have indeed managed to successfully erase the predicate/argument distinction — at least on the level of roots. I believe the closest things to ‘nouns’ in Hiding Waters would in fact be the classifier infixes, these being the only parts of the language which refer to specific referents. e.g. in the sentence above, you could easily say that -ṇgu-, -slo-~-slọ-, -li-~-lị- are the arguments, while squ-k-q, xngu-k-sq, xịlhtu-k-q are the predicates — which in fact lines up rather well with both English translations. And actually, now that I think about it some more, it may be that you can analyse all Hiding Waters roots as ‘predicates’ and all Hiding Water classifiers as ‘arguments’, which would mean that it doesn’t so much erase the predicate/argument distinction as much as transposing it onto the syntax/morphology distinction. Though I could be wrong.

That's a promising idea I think! It's definitely the case that arguments can be marked in Hiding Waters—you're saying you would focus your description on that, conceding that arguments are not represented by syntactic constituents?

Would you still call the classifier infixes "nouns", do you think? Or would just "argument inflections" be better? I think calling them "nouns" likely makes people think of independent syntactic constituents rather than morphological inflections, or things that can be expanded into noun phrases, which these cannot be.

You did say one thing that I think isn't quite true ("...these being the only parts of the language which refer to specific referents..."), which is probably the next interesting body of data to look at. I talk about this more below in response to Vardelm, but it'll need its own post I think.

bradrn wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 8:56 am EDIT: And now that I think about it even more, Hiding Waters is starting to feel exceedingly reminiscient of predicate calculus: perhaps the most direct translation of the above sentence would be EAT(dangerous,fish)∧PREPARE(generic,fish)∧BIT(dangerous,generic). Maybe Hiding Waters should simply be analysed as a direct linguistic translation of the predicate calculus.

There's definitely some resemblance there, although not to the level of Lojban or anything—or at least, I didn't set out to accomplish that, so if the resemblance is stronger than in languages where that was the goal, I'd be very surprised.

Vardelm wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 11:25 am This looks different from the examples you gave previously since you have both agent & patient included in the same word/phrase. To me, this sort of look like noun incorporation. Maybe it would be good to show very simple examples of how & where agents & patients can be included in a sentence, starting with intransitive & working to transitive with the "incorporation" shown here and then in separate phrases. I would also used examples that are as close to each other as possible in terms of content so that it's easy to see what's changing. My main question is when you have "incorporation" like this (agent & patient in same word/phrase) how does that differ in meaning from when they are separate? Is it like typical noun incorporation where the referent is less salient?

Sure! I'll note here that there is also an incorporation mechanism that I haven't talked explicitly about so far, but based on your comment and bradrn's above, sounds like what I should dig into next—I think it may have important ramifications for bradrn's idea about HW nouns manifesting purely morphologically.

Here are some examples of agent and patient marking (again just glossing the agent/patient markers). Each predicate can mark up to one agent and up to one patient.

(I think I should also give a little more detail about how the classifiers work, because it's important for differentiating them from incorporation: any given classifier can be used to reference a great many things. The -lng- classifier used below doesn't necessarily mean a child; it could be a young animal, or a new sapling, or a bag that has been handled recently by children. While the system has a lot of metaphorical extensions, its roots are in the very acute sense of smell the conspecies that speaks the language has—the conceptual core of -lng- is not "child" so much as "thing that smells like children". But when translating a contextless example sentence, I tend to just use the most obvious thing the referent might be.)

(22a-c) show a predicate with just an agent marked, just a patient marked, and then both an agent and patient marked. (22d) shows a two-predicate clause where the less-newsworthy predicate provides more information about a referent in the first.

22a) Ṇulukng.

ṇu<lu>kng

sleeping.PFV<CLF(generic).AGENT>

They went to sleep.

22b) Ṇuklụng.

ṇuk<lụ>ng

sleeping.PFV<CLF(generic).PATIENT>

They fell asleep.

22c) Ṇuluklngụng.

ṇu<lu>k<lngụ>ng

sleeping.PFV<CLF(generic).AGENT><CLF(young).PATIENT>

They put the child to bed. (Lit: 'they made the child sleep')

22d) Ṇuluklngụng hulhlngụjunaụ̀wh.

ṇu<lu>k<lngụ>ng

sleeping.PFV<CLF(generic).AGENT><CLF(young).PATIENT>

hulh<lngụ>junaụ̀wh

my.cousin<CLF(child).PATIENT>

They put my little cousin to bed. (Lit: 'they made the child sleep; the child is my cousin')

(22a) and (22b) show HW's active-stative morphosyntactic alignment at work—whether the single argument is marked as an agent or patient adds or removes a connotation of agency or intent. Given appropriate context, (22a) could also be interpreted as "They caused unspecified others to sleep", and (22b) could mean "They were put to sleep by someone unspecified", but the given translations would be the most common meaning.

(22c) explicitly marks both an agent and a patient, so it unambiguously describes a situation where one party is effecting the sleeping and another party is experiencing it.

(22d) is the same as (22c), except it adds another less-newsworthy predicate that says more about the referent of the -lng- (child) classifier used in the first predicate.

Here's a similar example set:

23a) Hulkuxkoụ̀n.

hu<lku>xkoùn

brought.STAT<CLF(male).AGENT>

He is bringing (unspecified things).

23b) Huxslọkoụ̀n.

hux<slọ>koùn

brought.STAT<CLF(fish).PATIENT>

The fish (or fish-smelling thing) is being brought (by unspecified bringers).

23c) Hulkuxslọkoụ̀n.

hu<lku>x<slọ>koùn

brought.STAT<CLF(male).AGENT><CLF(fish).PATIENT>

He is bringing the fish (or fish-smelling thing).

23d) Hulkuxslọkoụ̀n ịwhulhslọxk.

hu<lku>x<slọ>koùn

brought.STAT<CLF(male).AGENT><CLF(fish).PATIENT>

ịwhulh<slọ>xk

knife<CLF(fish).PATIENT>

He is bringing the knife.

In (23d), the less-newsworthy predicate adds information about the referent of -sl- (fish), saying that it is a knife—one that smells of fish, probably to be used for fish-cleaning.


Does that provide clarity/spark ideas about the agent/patient marking system?

Next I'll talk in detail about the root incorporation mechanism—it's featured quietly in a few of the examples so far, such as in (3) to turn "raining" into "raining in the south", in (12) to turn "bring" into "bring me", and in (15a-c) to turn "cousin" into "my cousin." There are ways in which incorporated roots can refer to specific referents, which is peculiar for noun incorporation, and may be relevant to bradrn's observations.

trailsend wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 6:49 pm

bradrn wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 8:56 am Also, I can’t say I’m keeping up too well with everything you’re saying in this thread, but what I do understand leads me to believe that you have indeed managed to successfully erase the predicate/argument distinction — at least on the level of roots. I believe the closest things to ‘nouns’ in Hiding Waters would in fact be the classifier infixes, these being the only parts of the language which refer to specific referents. e.g. in the sentence above, you could easily say that -ṇgu-, -slo-~-slọ-, -li-~-lị- are the arguments, while squ-k-q, xngu-k-sq, xịlhtu-k-q are the predicates — which in fact lines up rather well with both English translations. And actually, now that I think about it some more, it may be that you can analyse all Hiding Waters roots as ‘predicates’ and all Hiding Water classifiers as ‘arguments’, which would mean that it doesn’t so much erase the predicate/argument distinction as much as transposing it onto the syntax/morphology distinction. Though I could be wrong.

That's a promising idea I think! It's definitely the case that arguments can be marked in Hiding Waters—you're saying you would focus your description on that, conceding that arguments are not represented by syntactic constituents?

Yes, I believe so.

Would you still call the classifier infixes "nouns", do you think? Or would just "argument inflections" be better? I think calling them "nouns" likely makes people think of independent syntactic constituents rather than morphological inflections, or things that can be expanded into noun phrases, which these cannot be.

I think ‘argument inflections’, or even ‘argument classifiers’, would be a good name — they aren’t really ‘nouns’ per se.

23a) Hulkuxkoụ̀n.

hu<lku>xkoùn

brought.STAT<CLF(male).AGENT>

He is bringing (unspecified things).

23b) Huxslọkoụ̀n.

hux<slọ>koùn

brought.STAT<CLF(fish).PATIENT>

The fish (or fish-smelling thing) is being brought (by unspecified bringers).

23c) Hulkuxslọkoụ̀n.

hu<lku>x<slọ>koùn

brought.STAT<CLF(male).AGENT><CLF(fish).PATIENT>

He is bringing the fish (or fish-smelling thing).

Um… I hate to say it, but this ain’t active-stative alignment. (Though it seems to be a common misconception amongst conlangers. zompist’s Old Skourene does the same thing, though he calls it ‘ergative’, which is at least reliably incorrect terminology.) If all predicates can take both agent and patient marking (and you seem to say that they can), this isn’t split intransitive so much as simply allowing elision of the agent or patient.

22a) Ṇulukng.

ṇu<lu>kng

sleeping.PFV<CLF(generic).AGENT>

They went to sleep.

22b) Ṇuklụng.

ṇuk<lụ>ng

sleeping.PFV<CLF(generic).PATIENT>

They fell asleep.

22c) Ṇuluklngụng.

ṇu<lu>k<lngụ>ng

sleeping.PFV<CLF(generic).AGENT><CLF(young).PATIENT>

They put the child to bed. (Lit: 'they made the child sleep')

… (22a) and (22b) show HW's active-stative morphosyntactic alignment at work—whether the single argument is marked as an agent or patient adds or removes a connotation of agency or intent. Given appropriate context, (22a) could also be interpreted as "They caused unspecified others to sleep", and (22b) could mean "They were put to sleep by someone unspecified", but the given translations would be the most common meaning.

I’m not quite sure how this example is supposed to work — the agents in (22a) and (22c) don’t have the same semantic role. In (22a), the agent is the sleeper; in (22c), it is the causer. Either there’s some sort of zero-derived causative construction happening here, or else… well, else, I’m not even sure what’s happening. (Also, this would imply that nu-k-ng is a true intransitive predicate, which would contradict what you said earlier.)

EDIT: Another possibility: nu-k-ng could be a transitive verb with base meaning ‘sb make sb sleep’, and then (22a) would involve some sort of zero-derived anticausative. Though that just begs the question of why (22a) shouldn’t just mean ‘sb make (unspecified) sleep’.

bradrn wrote: ↑Sun Sep 05, 2021 5:35 am Um… I hate to say it, but this ain’t active-stative alignment. (Though it seems to be a common misconception amongst conlangers. zompist’s Old Skourene does the same thing, though he calls it ‘ergative’, which is at least reliably incorrect terminology.) If all predicates can take both agent and patient marking (and you seem to say that they can), this isn’t split intransitive so much as simply allowing elision of the agent or patient.

Ah, today I learned! To check I understand you: if, in some language, subjects of intransitive verbs were marked like agents to indicate agency and like patients otherwise, you would call its alignment active-stative. But the trouble here is that HW predicates can always take both agent and patient marking, so these are not actually subjects of intransitive verbs? If 'ergative' is reliably incorrect terminology, is there something else you think would be more correct?

bradrn wrote: ↑Sun Sep 05, 2021 5:35 am I’m not quite sure how this example is supposed to work — the agents in (22a) and (22c) don’t have the same semantic role. In (22a), the agent is the sleeper; in (22c), it is the causer. Either there’s some sort of zero-derived causative construction happening here, or else… well, else, I’m not even sure what’s happening. (Also, this would imply that nu-k-ng is a true intransitive predicate, which would contradict what you said earlier.)

EDIT: Another possibility: nu-k-ng could be a transitive verb with base meaning ‘sb make sb sleep’, and then (22a) would involve some sort of zero-derived anticausative. Though that just begs the question of why (22a) shouldn’t just mean ‘sb make (unspecified) sleep’.

Zero-derivation of a causative or anti-causative could be a useful description. The general rule across roots is that a marked agent is effecting the state described by the root, while a marked patient is experiencing it—when both are marked, the agent is effecting the state on the patient. In some contexts, the absence of a second agent/patient marker creates an intransitive interpretation. Like:

24a) Kestulisdọq xụlqulilhq.

kestu<li>sdọq

west.IPFV<CLF(generic).AGENT>

xụlqu<li>lhq

hunt.ESS<CLF(generic).AGENT>

The hunters are making their way westward.

The hunters are marked as agents on kestulisdọq because they are actively going. (Note that I fixed an error I'd made in (10) which made its way into cedh's original version of this: the hunters need to be marked as agents, not patients, of xụlqulilhq to make them professional hunters and not professional prey.)

24b) Kestuslịdọq xụlqulilhq.

kestus<lị>dọq

west.IPFV<CLF(generic).PATIENT>

xụlqu<li>lhq

hunt.ESS<CLF(generic).AGENT>

The hunters are being driven westward.

In (24b) the hunters are marked as patients on kestuslịdọq, which means they aren't effecting the movement westward, just experiencing it—since such things don't just happen, the listener understands that something is driving them. But:

24c) Kestuslọdọq hulhlọwh.

kestus<lọ>dọq

west.IPFV<CLF(generic).PATIENT>

hulh<lọ>wh

wind.ESS<CLF(generic).AGENT>

The wind is blowing to the west.

In (24c) the wind is marked as a patient on kestuslọdọq because it is experiencing the westward motion, not actively effecting it—but no one has to make the wind go anywhere, that just happens, so no effecting agent is assumed.

(24a) could, in the right context, mean "The hunters are driving sb westward", but the more common interpretation would just be that they are going themselves. Here's an example with ṇu~ng, where it's causative despite having only an agent marked:

25) Sì u̇ng laùlkukquọ́qitsị̀lhstẹ, ṇulkulhng hė.

sì

ALAS

u̇ng

NEG

laù<lku>kquọ́qitsị̀lhstẹ

speak.at.feast.IMPERATIVE<CLF(male).AGENT>

ṇu<lku>lhng

sleep.ESS<CLF(male).AGENT>

hė

you_know

Don't let him speak at the feast, he always puts people to sleep.

There might be a way to tease apart whether ṇ~ng is an intransitive root with a zero-derived causative, or a transitive root with a zero-derived anticausative. It's not always the case that a predicate with just an agent or just a patient can be interpreted intransitively. For example, (23a) is definitely interpreted as "he is bringing something", not "he is bringing himself". So, we could group together roots like ṇ~ng and kest~dọq, which can be interpreted intransitively in the right context if only one argument is marked, and call them "intransitive" roots, while roots like h~koụ̀n, which are always interpreted transitively even when only one argument is marked, we could call "transitive."

Do you think that would that work, despite there being situations like (25)? Is "in the right context" too messy a qualification?

bradrn wrote: ↑Sun Sep 05, 2021 5:35 am

trailsend wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 6:49 pm Would you still call the classifier infixes "nouns", do you think? Or would just "argument inflections" be better? I think calling them "nouns" likely makes people think of independent syntactic constituents rather than morphological inflections, or things that can be expanded into noun phrases, which these cannot be.

I think ‘argument inflections’, or even ‘argument classifiers’, would be a good name — they aren’t really ‘nouns’ per se.

Personally, I think "classifiers" works just fine since they are indicating broad groups of referents.

bradrn wrote: ↑Sun Sep 05, 2021 5:35 am Um… I hate to say it, but this ain’t active-stative alignment. (Though it seems to be a common misconception amongst conlangers. zompist’s Old Skourene does the same thing, though he calls it ‘ergative’, which is at least reliably incorrect terminology.) If all predicates can take both agent and patient marking (and you seem to say that they can), this isn’t split intransitive so much as simply allowing elision of the agent or patient.

Yes, it is. It's the "fluid-S" subtype of active-stative languages, with the other being "split-S". Dixon describes these in Ergativity (1994), and you can see mention of it many other places. Granted, it's rare, and probably not as clean/uniform/organized as how conlangers usually present it, but that's a separate issue.

bradrn wrote: ↑Sun Sep 05, 2021 5:35 am I’m not quite sure how this example is supposed to work — the agents in (22a) and (22c) don’t have the same semantic role. In (22a), the agent is the sleeper; in (22c), it is the causer. Either there’s some sort of zero-derived causative construction happening here, or else… well, else, I’m not even sure what’s happening. (Also, this would imply that nu-k-ng is a true intransitive predicate, which would contradict what you said earlier.)

The "agents" don't need to have the same semantic role. Technically, we're talking about an intransitive subject that has similarities to either the agent or patient of a transitive sentence. The case assignments for transitives are set to avoid ambiguity, and the semantics of those cases (I.E. control/volition for agents) are then extended to the intransitive subject. Again, Dixon describes this.

trailsend wrote: ↑Sun Sep 05, 2021 9:19 am

bradrn wrote: ↑Sun Sep 05, 2021 5:35 am Um… I hate to say it, but this ain’t active-stative alignment. (Though it seems to be a common misconception amongst conlangers. zompist’s Old Skourene does the same thing, though he calls it ‘ergative’, which is at least reliably incorrect terminology.) If all predicates can take both agent and patient marking (and you seem to say that they can), this isn’t split intransitive so much as simply allowing elision of the agent or patient.

Ah, today I learned! To check I understand you: if, in some language, subjects of intransitive verbs were marked like agents to indicate agency and like patients otherwise, you would call its alignment active-stative.

Yes, exactly. But in your system, agentive and patientive marking don’t just reflect a difference in agentivity: they reflect an elided patient or agent respectively. (I wrote more on active-stativity in my ‘Ergativity for Novices’ thread if you’re interested.)

If 'ergative' is reliably incorrect terminology, is there something else you think would be more correct?

Oh, I just meant that linguists are rather fond of misusing ‘ergative’ to describe all sorts of alignments which are not at all ergative. (e.g. Basque, Georgian, Tibetan, Warlpiri…)

Vardelm wrote: ↑Sun Sep 05, 2021 9:24 am

bradrn wrote: ↑Sun Sep 05, 2021 5:35 am Um… I hate to say it, but this ain’t active-stative alignment. (Though it seems to be a common misconception amongst conlangers. zompist’s Old Skourene does the same thing, though he calls it ‘ergative’, which is at least reliably incorrect terminology.) If all predicates can take both agent and patient marking (and you seem to say that they can), this isn’t split intransitive so much as simply allowing elision of the agent or patient.

Yes, it is. It's the "fluid-S" subtype of active-stative languages, with the other being "split-S". Dixon describes these in Ergativity (1994), and you can see mention of it many other places. Granted, it's rare, and probably not as clean/uniform/organized as how conlangers usually present it, but that's a separate issue.

I am extremely familiar with Dixon’s Ergativity, having read it from cover to cover. (Well, insofar as electronic books have covers.) Actually, these days I have a few quibbles with Ergativity about how it analyses active-stative alignment, though its classification is still entirely correct for the purposes of this discussion.

The "agents" don't need to have the same semantic role.

Yes they do. This is a key part of all known fluid-S systems — agent and patient marking are used on intransitive verbs to specify agentivity rather than semantic role. (The classic example is Tsova-Tush: as vuižnas ‘I fell down [on purpose]’ vs so vožensO ‘I fell down [accidentally]’.) This is also part of why fluid-S systems are so remarkable; otherwise such languages would merely have widespread argument elision, which is not at all strange.

Technically, we're talking about an intransitive subject that has similarities to either the agent or patient of a transitive sentence. The case assignments for transitives are set to avoid ambiguity, and the semantics of those cases (I.E. control/volition for agents) are then extended to the intransitive subject. Again, Dixon describes this.

I would be very interested in a reference to any part of Dixon’s book where he describes a system remotely similar to that of Hiding Waters. (Or Old Skourene, for that matter.)


(Too tired right now to try comprehend the rest of trailsend’s post. Maybe tomorrow.)

bradrn wrote: ↑Sun Sep 05, 2021 9:44 am Yes they do. This is a key part of all known fluid-S systems — agent and patient marking are used on intransitive verbs to specify agentivity rather than semantic role. (The classic example is Tsova-Tush: as vuižnas ‘I fell down [on purpose]’ vs so vožensO ‘I fell down [accidentally]’.) This is also part of why fluid-S systems are so remarkable; otherwise such languages would merely have widespread argument elision, which is not at all strange.

I would be very interested in a reference to any part of Dixon’s book where he describes a system remotely similar to that of Hiding Waters. (Or Old Skourene, for that matter.)

From section 3.1 of Ergativity:

This scheme, which we can call 'fluid S-marking', is found in just a few languages. It is said that in Bats, a Northeast Caucasian language, some intransitive verbs (e.g. 'go', 'play', 'look', 'speak') MUST have a 1st or 2nd person pronominal S NP in ergative case, while others can mark S function by EITHER absolutive case (implying that the action was involuntary) OR by ergative case (implying that the referent of the S NP controlled the activity, or that it was his fault). Verbs in the latter set include 'fall', 'get drunk', 'fear', and 'lie down'.26 The use of ergative or absolutive on an S NP appears to be semantically determined: instead of having to recognize classes among intransitive verbs, we can simply say that ergative case is used for a controlling S, while absolutive case is used for S NP's in other instances. The semantic nature of intransitive verbs dictates that for some the S NP is ALWAYS agentive, for some it CAN BE, and for others it NEVER is. (The ergative case in Bats is seen to be clearly 'marked'; cf. ?2.31.)

"Agentivity" in the intransitive is control/volition of their own action/situation, not a separate referent. If there is an implied 2nd referent that is either an agent or patient, then you're getting into passives or antipassives. There might be zero-derivation there, which complicates things a little bit.


EDIT:

@bradrn: I'll add this as well, from your ergativity thread. This jives with the way I understand split-S vs fluid-S.

bradrn wrote: ↑Fri Feb 28, 2020 10:40 pm So-called fluid-S systems avoid these problems. These fascinating systems are a bit like a more extreme version of split-S systems: in split-S systems, the choice of verb consistently determines whether S is marked like A or O, but in fluid-S systems, S is marked like A or O depending on the agentivity of S in that particular sentence. Fluid-S systems could be considered to be a combination of ‘syntactic-based marking’ (for A and O) and ‘semantically-based marking’ (for S), as the terms were defined in the introductory chapter.

bradrn wrote: ↑Fri Feb 28, 2020 10:40 pm As with split-S languages, fluid-S languages can certainly contain intransitive verbs which are only ever used with one type of marking. However, unlike in split-S languages, this is not due to any inherent property of those words, but rather due to semantic, pragmatic and cultural considerations, as this quote (from Dixon) about Tsova-Tush illustrates:

So, as you say here, the choice of A or O marking is semantic, and within fluid-S languages, that can be the case for 1 verb, as you point out the example of Tsova-Tush.

bradrn wrote: ↑Fri Feb 28, 2020 10:40 pm The most commonly-referenced fluid-S language is probably Tsova-Tush (also known as Bats or Batsbi), from the Northeastern Caucasian family. In Tsova-Tush, the S argument may be marked with either the nominative case (like A) or the absolutive case (like O), depending on the agentivity of S:

∅-txo

ABS-we

naizdrax

to.ground

kxitra

fell

We fell to the ground (and this was unintentional on our part)

a-txo

NOM-we

naizdrax

to.ground

kxitra

fell

We fell to the ground (and we caused this somehow)