Re: OT: CHAT/OT: source/goal survey

On Sun, Sep 10, 2000 at 07:48:59PM +0200, daniel andreasson wrote:
[snip]
> Anyway. We still need some more informants and I was
> wondering if some of you guys would like to do that.
> Since there are people from all around the globe here
> I though I could at least ask. And now I'm talking about
> non-European langs such as Hebrew, Korean, Mandarin,
> Indonesian, North American langs, etc.
I know a bit of Malay (sibling language of Indonesian, if you will)...
I'll try to be of as much help as I can, but I don't promise anything as I
haven't spoken Malay for 7 years now, and a lot of vocabulary is fading
away :-(

[snip]
> ObConlang: I have to make it somewhat on-topic. :)
> How do you express source and goal in your respective
> conlangs?
[snip]

This research of yours is very interesting, 'cos the idea of source and
goal *completely* coincides with the way my conlang works! Source in my
conlang is *always* expressed by a noun in the originative form. Even if
what English speakers would consider as the "subject" isn't the source.
The goal, or destination, is *always* in receptive case, whereas in IE
langs it would sometimes be the object and sometimes the "indirect"
object.

For example:
(1)     jul0'r         lyy's  pii'z3da    loo'ru.
        From the house goes   the man     to the countryside.
        (originative)  (verb) (conveyant) (receptive)
Translation: The man came from the house into the countryside.

(2)     pii'z3d0      buy'jh ly'm3n      biz3tau'.
        The man       gives  the plants  to the woman.
        (originative) (verb) (conveyant) (receptive)

(3)     mil3da0'      tww'ma biz3tau'.
        The girl      speaks to the woman.
        (originative) (verb) (receptive)
Here, "girl" is considered to be the source of the words spoken, and the
woman is the destination of those words.

(4)     m3ng0'        fww't3  pii'z3du.
        The horse     appears to the man.
        (originative) (verb*) (receptive)
Translation: The man sees the horse**.

*The verb fa't3 (fww't3) means "to be seen", but there are no passives in
the lang; the concept is that the object being seen is transmitting the
visual image of itself to the seer; hence the seer is in the receptive,
and the object being seen is in the originative.

**The word mangi' (originative, m3ng0') doesn't really mean horse; it
refers to a creature in my con-universe used for transportation. But horse
gives the right idea :-)

(5)     loo'ru               lyy's  manga'         jolu'r.
        From the countryside goes   by the horse   to the house.
        (originative)        (verb) (instrumental) (receptive)
Translation: the horse was ridden from the countryside to the house.
Here, the sentence simply states that the horse was the instrument of
motion from the countryside to the house; if we wanted to specify the
rider, we'd simply insert a conveyant noun thus:

(5a)    loo'ru               lyy's  manga'          pii'z3d3    jolu'r.
        From the countryside goes   by the horse    the man     to the house.
        (originative)        (verb) (instrumental)  (conveyant) (receptive)
Translation: The man rode the horse from the countryside to the house.

Notice here that both the origin (countryside) and destination (house) are
consistently marked in both sentences. Also notice that (5) is passive in
the English translation whereas (5a) is active; but in the native
language, the only difference is the addition of a conveyant noun in (5a).


T