Re: Telek Verbs

daniel andreasson wrote:

>Yihaa! Another active conlang! :)
Is there anything else worth working on? :-) (My other conlang is accusative.)

Anyway. On to your "problem". In Acehnese
>one actually marks "sneeze", "cough" and "vomit" and similar verbs with A,
>since it is seen as the element of volition is a negative or potential one:
>the activities concerned can be inhibited, delayed or permitted, if not
>completely controlled. The non-volitional derivatives, such as "cough
>uncontrollably" imply a pathological lack of any control, however limited.
That's an interesting take on things.

>So, to sum it up. Telek seems to be fluid-S. The main distinction
>is if the event is controlled or non-controlled ("cough" "die").
>In every other case Telek marks the argument as a Patient. Even
>if the verb is controlled but not an event? So how do you handle
>predicates like "reside", "be prudent" and "be patient"? These
>aren't events, but they are controlled. This seems to be the
>main issue to see if it is control or 'eventiveness' that takes
>precedence.
Right.  Verbs are fluid with the distinction running along control lines.
Uncontrolled actions pattern with non-events, so "reside" and "be patient" are
O-prefix verbs.  The word for "prudent" can take either class, with -A it
means
"act prudently" and with -O it means "be prudent".

>Have you looked at the "activity" of Central Pomo? Okey, it's not
>irregular, but very complicated. It even has to do with empathy
>and affectedness, which differs between 3p and 1+2p and whether
>the speaker feels empathy for the little boy who just fell. :)
>Very cool system.
Thanks, I'll take a look at that.  I'm slowly working on a theory of active
marking -- I'm not satisfied by any of the accounts I've seen so far in the
literature.

>> but to keep this message small, I'll only mention one involving transitive
>> verbs.  _fammi_ "want" is transitive, but takes a class-O prefix for its
>> subject and none for its object.  That means that only inanimates may be
the
>> object of "want": _lufammi_ "I want it/them".  There is no way to use a
1st,
>> 2nd or animate object with the verb -- these ideas must be paraphrased.
>
>Interesting! Any chance the "activity" affects the syntax of Telek?
>For example, in Acehnese the verb "want" requires A - A coreference
>between the clauses. How do you handle these things? (Don't tell
>me it will come with your posting on syntax! ;)
I'm not quite sure what you mean by this.  Are you asking whether or not there
are restrictions/conditions on imbedded or conjoined clauses based on the
active-stative distinction?

If I understand you right, it would be impossible in Acehnese to say "He wants
to die" because there would be coreference, but the embedded sentence would
not
have an agent.  Also, "I want him to run" would be impossible, because
there is
no coreference between the agents.  These concept would require a complicated
structure.

The embedded verb of a "want" sentence takes a different aspect marker
depending on coreference of the subjects.  If the subjects corefer, then the
embedded verb takes a continuous aspect; that is, the verb is not overtly
marked for aspect.  If they do not corefer, the verb must be inflected for the
potential aspect.

na-najlid lu-fammi
1sA-cook 1sO-want
"I want to cook."

lu-haxin lu-fammi
1sO-be.red 1sO-want
"I want to be red."  (I use the strangest examples sometimes.)

ke-najlid-wa lu-fammi
ANIMsA-cook-POT 1sO-want
"I want him to cook."

This is useful for situations where both subjects are 3rd animate.

ke-najlid so-fammi
ANIMsA-cook ANIMsO-want
"He wants to cook."

ke-najlid-wa so-fammi
ANIMsA-cook-POT ANIMsO-want
"He wants him to cook."

"Want" is a vit exceptional in this respect.  In most situations, coreference
between clauses is by use of a switch-reference system -- which is embedded in
a discourse tracking system.  I meant to include a description of it in the
last post, but forgot to.  (I forgot passives too.)  Same subjects between
clauses are marked with one set of suffixes (the last in the verb complex),
and
different subjects are marked with another set.  The switch-reference marking
may only be used when there is a connection between both clauses.  I could say
"He went to the store and he bought food" useing SR, but not "He is my brother
and he bought a car."  Except under special circumstances, there is no
connection between being my brother and buying something.

I'd explain in detail, but I have a difficult midterm to study for.
Neurolinguistics -- what was I thinking? :-)

Marcus