Re: new parts of speech/cases

Christian Thalmann <cinga@...> wrote:
>>>
 > my feeling is that his system is handy but completely
 > misses the point with important kinds of predicates like "to fill a tank
 > with water", "to plant a garden with flowers", etc, for which it is
hardly
 > easy to tell the focus from the patient.
The Obrenje case system on the other hand works beautifully here --
it's not hard to guess that the predicate should take the predicative
case.  ;-)
<<<
well i have to agree: i tried the Obrenje trick of incorporating an object
and i always pick the "focus". for some reason "to tree-plant garden" sounds
right while "to garden-plant trees" sounds wrong.
your "predicative" case looks pretty much like RM focus case's twin though.

>>>
The object of the verb |tog-| "to eat" could be cast into either the
predicative case or the objective case, depending on whether the
verb action is seen as endocentric or exocentric:

Togoq       salime   i    cikkue.
/tO"gON     sa"li:m  i    sik"ku:/
Eat:LIQ:3e  cat:d    OBJ  mouse:d
"The cat is eating the mouse."
(Exocentric: The eating is directed at a particular mouse.)

Korow    togoq       salime   u    cikku.
/kO"row  tO"gON      sa"li:m  M    "sikkM/
Again    eat:LIQ:3e  cat:d    PRE  mouse:i
"The cat is eating mice again."
(Endocentric: The cat is performing its habit of mouse-eating.)
Does that make sense or did I get the definitions of endo-/exocentric wrong?
<<<
that's exactly it. your use of the word "habit" shows that the endocentric
predicate "to eat mice" makes an action into the attribute of "the cat" like
"to twinkle" is the attribute of a star--or rather, the execution of the
capacity to eat to feed or to twinkle. of course you could say that any
entity born able to eat has the "habit to eat food". that's why RM says that
the object of "to eat" is necessarily a focus. BTW is Obrenje's "the cat" a
plain agent in both case or do you tag it differently too?

>>>
This is exactly the one example I use to illustrate how an object
can take different cases with the same verb depending on its role
in the verb action.  =)
http://catharsis.netpeople.ch/langmaking/cases2.gif
<<<
and switching the multiple meanings of a verb: "to read" = "to use one's
reading ability to acquire a written iformation" or "to tell someone
something written".

<<<
Je          renoze      u    quq.
/jE         r@"no:Z     M    NMN/
PER:3s:OBJ  name:PST:1  PRE  idiot:i
"I call him an idiot."
>>>
somehow i was sure of how Obrenje would deal with that!! :-)
actually RM has a problem here because the subject rob in "rob calls john an
idiot" is a patient, not an agent since rob doesn't truely change john's
state but only john's status (i coined: STATUS = STATe of focUS ;-).
RM analyses the sentence as:
rob calls that--john is an idiot.
patient verb focus--patient verb focus.
but i really don't agree with that because it crams all verbs of assessment
(to measure, to sentence, to consider, etc) in a category of clumsy double
verbs, while i think most natlangs find a way to combine "rob", "john" and
"idiot" as actors of a single predicate.
for instance japanese:
rob-wa john-wo baka-ni omou.
rob john stupid think.
agent patient focus verb.

mathias

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