Re: Tatari Faran: volition, verb complements, phonology update, and more

On Mon, Nov 01, 2004 at 09:43:52PM -0500, Sally Caves wrote:
> Well, you know, Teoh, I'm a great admirer or your inventions, and I
> love all things volitive (as opposed to volatile).  :)  If it has a
> feature that resembles the volitional in Teonaht, then I cannot
> doubt that Tatari Faran will keep me, at least, pleasantly engaged
> on-line! :) :) :)
You flatter me. Teonaht was one of the things that got me going in
terms of conlanging in the first place. I may or may not have
unconsciously copied from it. :-) As far as volition in Tatari Faran
is concerned, it was not so much intentional as a chance realization
when I was working out the case system (more below).


[...]
> >2) Ah yes, volition, the eyebrow-raiser in my subject line. ;-)
>
> Indeed.
>
> >I
> >found out that due to the nature of Tatari Faran's core case system,
> >volitive and involitive meanings of the same verb referent must be
> >realized as distinct verbs. For example, in English we use "smell"
> >both in the volitive sense "smell this and see" and in the involitive
> >sense "I smell something burning". In Tatari Faran, two distinct verbs
> >are necessary:
>
> Also, "The garbage smells bad."  How would you express that?
Hmm. In English we reuse the word "smell" for several things which
Tatari Faran would consider as distinct. You'd just use an adjectival
predicate in this case:

	sitiran   punaras
	trash-ABS stink-ADJ
	"The trash is stinky."


> >huena ... hiim [hMna ... hi:m]
> >To sniff at something (volitive)
> >
> >fahun ... uen [fahun ... Mn]
> >To smell something (involitive)
>
> Different from Teonaht, right there, in providing different words.
Ah. I presume Teonaht achieves the same effect by using different
cases with the same verb?


> >They are necessarily different because of the core cases that are used
> >differently with each verb: for _huena_, the sniffer is marked with
> >the originative case:
> >
> >simani ko  huena huu na  hiim.
> >wolf   ORG smell 1sp RCP COMPL
> >["simani kO "hMna hu: na hi:m]
> >"The wolf smelled me (sniffed at me)."
> >
> >For _fahun_, the smeller is marked with the receptive, since the smell
> >involuntarily arrived at his/her nose:
> >
> >huu na  fahun punareis sa  uen.
> >1sp RCP smell stink    CVY COMPL
> >[hu: na fa"hun puna4ejsa Mn]
> >"I smelt an unpleasant odor."
>
> I may be confirming my recently displayed genius for mathematical
> analysis :) in wondering why the verbs need be different if the core
> case particles are separate from them.  Is there something about
> predication in Tatari Faran that I don't get?
Well, the core case system is essentially lifted from Ebisédian. (Or,
as I prefer to think of it, it's the Ebisédian case system done
right.) Switching case particles alone does not do what one might
think (see below).


> Is it that the verbs themselves, rather than the subjects, determine
> the core cases?
Correct.


> But couldn't the same be expressed by the presence of the case
> markers used with those verbs (or for those originaries/receptives)?
Whether or not an NP is the subject or topic is independent of which
case it is marked with. In Tatari Faran, as in Ebisédian, the active
and passive voices are one and the same. Hence, what you suggested:

> huu na huena punareis sa uen?
... would be understood as "I was sniffed at by means of the bad
odor", which doesn't quite convey what was intended. :-)


> The "na" would indicate that the smeller/smelling is receptive instead of
> originary, right?
The "na" makes the NP a receptive NP, which in the case of the verb
_huena_ makes it the thing being sniffed at, rather than the sniffer.
Given a verb and a set of NP's marked with particular cases, it
doesn't matter how you permute them; the meaning is always the same
except for emphasis. So,

	simani ko  huena huu na  uen
	wolf   ORG sniff 1sp RCP COMPL

means "it is the wolf that sniffs at me"; whereas

	huu na  huena simani ko  uen
	1sp RCP sniff wolf   ORG COMPL

means "it is I at whom the wolf sniffs".

> Don't get me wrong; I love the distinctions you make here in these
> verbs.  It's different.  Maybe I need to revisit Ebisedian.  Is
> Tatari Faran a related language?  (Forgive my not picking this up
> from your earlier postings.)
The only relation that Tatari Faran has with Ebisédian is that it
hoisted Ebisédian's case system, discarded the instrumental and
locative, and replaced them with an unbounded number of postpositions
(of which I should probably post at some juncture). In terms of
internal history, Tatari Faran has nothing to do with Ebisédian, being
for one thing spoken on Earth (gasp!), and therefore sporting a much
more approachable vocabulary.


> >[Sidenote: I don't know whether to translate _simani_ as 'dog' or
> >'wolf', as the inhabitants of Fara keep them as pets. They are
> >ferocious enough to be called wolves in the common sense, but they are
> >also domesticated somewhat.]
>
> How domesticated?  I have a great fascination for wolves and their
> basic undomesticability.  As pups, they can be pets, but not so well
> as adults.  Domestic dogs are always infantilized.  A grown wolf is
> in a pack with his alpha human, a status that is always at risk of
> being challenged.  I read of a man who lived with his pet wolf for
> years, until he became invalided.  Then his wolf turned on him.  He
> was no longer alpha, and the wolf, ever competitive, took over.
Interesting. The people of Fara treat the wolves basically as servants
and slaves rather than peers. So they are not pets in the sense of
being something you'd let the kids hug, but only in the sense that you
have mastery over them. I'm not sure if such a proposition is
workable, however, being unfamiliar with the dynamics of the wolf
pack.


> >More examples of the volitive/involitive split:
> >
> >juerat ... itu [dzM4at itu] - "to look" (the classic example)
> >hamra ... aram [ham4a a4am] - "to see"
>
> This I like; the verbs hamra/aram seem to revolve around the same
> consonants.
Sometimes verb complements have a tendency to do that, yes.


[...]
> >This last pair is interesting, as the originative can be used for
> >_fusitas_ as well:
> >
> >kisa ko  fusitas kin   sa  sohaa.
> >fire ORG burn    stick CVY COMPL
> >"The fire is burning the stick." (Stick is already burning)
> >
> >Note the subtle nuance difference when _habas_ is used:
> >
> >kisa ko  habas  kin   na  saa.
> >fire ORG ignite stick RCP COMPL
> >"The fire ignited the stick." (Stick was not burning before)
> >Or, "the stick caught fire."
>
> Aha!  Now this is the only place where I see a logical use for a
> different verb.  In Teonaht, presumably, one could have the same
> verb for "sniff/smell" based on volition, but a different verb for
> "I smell bad, said the skunk."
Pray elaborate.


> This inceptive use is interesting.
I don't know if it's so much an inceptive usage as a conceptual
distinction between setting something on fire (volitional) and being
passively consumed by fire (involitional). I would imagine to put out
the fire would be one verb, whereas to sit soaking in the puddle of
water would be a different verb.


> >3) More fun with verb complements: I discovered from my informant that
> >verb complements can complement more than just verbs. It's in fact
> >commonly used to turn a noun into zero-valent verb:
>
> I obviously need a review of verb complements in your languages, Teoh.
Which I shall give with pleasure. :-)

Verb complements in Tatari Faran, as far as I know, have no
equivalents in any natlang, which makes them a bit difficult to
explain clearly. They occur only in the indicative mood, and always at
the end of the sentence or clause containing the verb they complement.

I've tried to explain them as being similar to the "up" in the English
phrase "to shut him up". Here, "up" acts as a sort of complement to
"shut".  However, in English "up" is an adposition which the Tatari
Faran verb complement is not.

Another description is, they are re-confirmations of the main verb,
which serve as a re-emphasis of the verb at the end of the sentence.
Arthaey suggested to transliterate the complement as "he/she/it did",
for example:

	huu sa  tapa buara   na  bata.
	I   ORG walk volcano RCP COMPL
	"I walked to the volcano; I did."

	diru kei tsana bata' na  aniin.
	girl ORG speak chief RCP COMPL
	"The girl spoke to the chief; she did."

Or, to impersonate Tweety Bird:

	huu nei     hamra simani ko  aram. Aram, aram!
	I   FEM-RCP see   wolf   ORG COMPL COMPL COMPL
	"I saw a wolf indeed; I did, I did!"

Only, of course, the Tatari Faran verb complement actually carries a
semantic value compatible with the verb, rather than a mere generic
reaffirmation "I did!".

In my Tatari Faran lexicon, I've chosen to gloss verb complements as
auxilliary verbs. For example, _aram_ is glossed as "to behold"; and
_itu_, the complement of _juerat_ "to look", is glossed as "to cast a
glance".

Perhaps the intricacies of the verb _tapa_, "to walk", might yield
some insight into the matter. Normally, the complement of _tapa_ is
_bata_. However, sometimes one uses other complements instead, such as
_ta'an_, meaning "down to the bottom". For example:

	kiran sa  tapa buara   ka  ta'an.
	youth CVY walk volcano ORG COMPL
	"The youth walked to the bottom of the volcano."

The verb complement here doesn't actually have a full adverbial
meaning, however. The sentence above is better translated "the youth
left the volcano (by descending to the bottom)". The verb complement
implies finality, hence it is "to the bottom" rather than "downwards",
as can be seen below:

> >peira. [pej4a] - rain
> >peira ta'an. [pej4a ta?an] - it is raining.
>
> Lovely.  Teonaht, by contrast, has "rain exists" (Tyeel perim), or "rain
> falls" (Tyeel kebon-- non-volitional "fall").
To which I must comment: _perim_ is very reminiscient of the Ebisédian
_Pe'rim_ [p_h&r`im], meaning "universe", and one of its idiomatic uses
is to serve as a replacement of the verb to be (which does not exist
in Ebisédian, ironically enough). One would assert impossibility by
using the nullar locative of _Pe'rim_, essentially saying "in no
universe does this happen!". In the analogous construct with your
Teonaht above, it would mean something like "there is rain in the
universe" -- i.e., rain exists. Interesting coincidence! (Or is it an
actual borrowing? ;-)

> >The complement _ta'an_ is also used with other verbs, such as _tapa_
> >(to walk), to mean "down to the bottom":
>
> So, in hindsight, "rain down[s]."  Or something like that.
Correct. Although, _ta'an_ implies that the rain has fallen to the
ground, not just falling downwards. Being a verb complement (or
finalizer as I first called it), it conveys the sense of finality that
the rain is no longer just droplets somewhere up there, but have
arrived on the ground.


[...]
> >More verb complement examples:
> >
> >baran. [ba4an] - morning
> >baran saan. [ba4an sa:n] - it is morning/daybreak.
>
> What is saan?
It means "brightening" or "daybreak". Carries the connotation of rays
of light breaking forth into the passing night. I surmise that _saan_
would also serve as a complement for the verb _to shine_.


[...]
> >jumba. [dzumba] - a rolling earthquake
> >jumba tsitsin. [dzumba tsi.tsin] - a rolling earthquake is
> >happening.
> >
> >The complement _tsitsin_ is odd, in the sense that it is also an
> >adjective meaning "dizzy".
>
> Makes perfect sense!
Why, thank you. :-) The oddity, I suppose, is the fact that it doubles
as an adjective, whereas most verb complements cannot be turned into
adjectives.


> Will stop here and get back to work, despite the fascinations of phonology.
> BTW, what does /M/ signify, me all ignorant.
[M] is the unrounded close back vowel.


[...]
> >a) The receptive case particle _na_ (and _nei_ and _no_) mutates if it
> >follows a noun that ends with a similar-sounding syllable. E.g.:
> >
> >huna + na -> hunan da [hunanda]
> >hina + nei -> hinan dei [hinandej]
>
> I lied.  Back at it.  A kind of sandhi?
Yes, in fact it is, now that I looked up the word 'sandhi'. :-)


[...]
> These are sound modifications I've considered as well in Teonaht.  I'm a
> little sick of all the long words, and I've contemplated a dialect of
> Teonaht that shortens some of them by a system I thought I had borrowed from
> Irish, but I cannot find it if my life depended on it.  Teonaht is
> overwhelmed by the bysyllabic CVCV noun/verb/adjective that ends in /@/:
> cona, bita, epa, etc.  I thought of mutating them so that final C and V
> switch places: coan, biat, eap, to produce a more diphthongal language.
Good luck with your change. :-)

One of the defining goals in my design of Tatari Faran is to make the
phonology more, er, "smooth"? Unlike the baroque-sounding Ebisédian,
with its complete lack of glides (at least phonemically) and almost
staccato syllables. Well, actually, to be frank, the Ebisédian
phonology is a frankenstein system resulting from my early conlanging
inexperience, where I simply catalogued every sound that I could
pronounce and threw them into Ebisédian (minus [e] and [ej] just for
kicks, but other than that, essentially the extent of my vocalic
capabilities at the time).


> For words like lorfa, milna, etc., where you have CVCCV, the final
> "a" would drop off if the noun is the object or a non-volitional.
> So:
>
>    Lorf elry ken, "I saw a wolf," but Ol lorfa-le ke,  "A wolf sighted me."
Interlinear, please? :-)

Also, do you have a page describing the phonetic inventory of Teonaht
and its orthographical conventions? I seem to remember reading it
somewhere, but now I can't find it on your Teonaht webpage.


> In fact, I've already adopted that rule.  The other is more radical, and a
> component of Menarilihs.
Remind me, is Menarilihs is a dialect of Teonaht? I seem to recall
seeing the name before.


> Meanwhile, do you lose your speech if you see a wolf involuntarily, or if
> the wolf spies you?
[...]

In Tatari Faran, "to see" is inherently non-volitive (its volitive
counterpart being "to look"). This makes for 4 possibilities:

	huu na  hamra simani ko  aram.
	I   RCP see   wolf   ORG COMPL
	"I see the wolf."

	simani ko  hamra huu na  aram.
	wolf   ORG see   I   RCP COMPL
	"The wolf was seen by me."

	huu ka  hamra simanin do  aram.
	I   ORG see   wolf    RCP COMPL
	"I was seen by the wolf."

	simanin do  hamra huu ka  aram.
	wolf    ORG see   I   ORG COMPL
	"The wolf sees me."

:-)


T

--
Never wrestle a pig. You both get covered in mud, and the pig likes it.