Re: ciantwo class system, verbs, & semantic roles

Yes, I had heard of such things; that was what I wanted to go for.

Maybe I can combine these strategies somehow.  I would like to have
an 'inversion' affix.

Perhaps for my "man offers dog a new master" problem I can bring in
the clitics I was talking about earlier; perhaps the lowest role can
be incorporated into the verb via a clitic, leaving a two-role verb
that can be easily inverted if you need it:

Man dog OBL+master HUMAN+offer

where OBL is some kind of "oblique case-like" marker:

The man offers-a-human, that is, a master, to the dog.

This would also be a cheap alternative to using the inverter in the
first place:

Dog OBL+man HUMAN+see

The dog sees-a-human, that is, the man.

This would probably be perceived as more periphrastic than

Dog man INV+see.

The dog sees a man.

+ Ed Heil ---------------------- edheil@postmark.net +
|    "What matter that you understood no word!       |
|    Doubtless I spoke or sang what I had heard      |
|           In broken sentences."  --Yeats           |
+----------------------------------------------------+

Nik Taylor wrote:

> Ed Heil wrote:
> > Any comments or ideas?
>
> The Algonquian languages have something similar to what you have.  They
> have a prefix which means "inverse", that is, they are assigned
> oppositely.  To use one of your examples:
>
> Man dog see = Dog man see = The man sees the dog
>
> Now, to say "the dog sees the man", you could have a prefix meaning
> inverse, thus:
>
> Man dog inv-see = Dog man inv-see = The dog sees the man
>
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