Re: HELP: Is this sensible?

From: "Henrik Theiling" <theiling@...>
Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2004 10:53 PM
Subject: Re: HELP: Is this sensible?


> [...]
> > What do you mean with "lexicalized" here?
>
> By this I meant if the lexicon entry for most verbs gives you a fixed
> case-assignment phrase around it, then the assignment of cases would
> be highly lexicalised.  You could look up the word 'to be strange' and
> the lexicon would say that the one how is strange in a sentence would
> be assigned case X.
Up to now, verbs are given in their infinitive form, not in such an
environment dependant form (so only lexicalized, not highly
lexicalized). The infinitive is not used for anything else than saying
"this is the verb in its basical form". I could also give the stems in
the dictionary, because verbs are not lenited and thus the stem is never
changed (only in conditional construction).

> In contrast to that, your language could be highly based on rules that
> apply to every verb.  In such a language, the assignment of case for
> the same verb could be different from sentence to sentence, and it
> could also be regularly inferred.  E.g. in the case of 'to be
> strange', my Tyl Sjok allows two assignments:
>
>   Paul.AGT strange.
>   = Paul is (~behaves) strange.  (he is in control)
>
>   Strange Paul.PAT
>   = Paul is strange. (inherently, he is not in control)
>
> It's simply a matter of definition in your grammar.  If the assignment
> is lexicalised, you can make it as chaotic as you like, of course. :-)
Interesting...

> In this case, your case assignment should be equal to
> that of English, which, I'm sure, you do not want, since adjectives
> can select different cases in your language.
I'd handle the verbs in the examples like English, yes. I guess I still
stick far too much to the IE systems I'm used to. The fact that
adjectives can choose different cases is due to the free word order.
That way you can make clear to which noun the adjective belongs, so
adjectives agree to gender, number *and* case. And yes, of course I want
to try more exotic features!!!

> If you decide to use assignment by control, the first two examples
> select patientive case, while the latter two would select agentive
> case.  The one in the middle may select P or A, depending on language,
> speaker or situation. :-)
That would make it all even more difficult for me ... but it's worth a
thought. Heh, the next two weeks I'm not at home. I'm in Gießen for
having a working practice ("Praktikum") there I must have for school. So
two weeks without my computer, without internet and without the list.
Enough time to try out things like that ;)

>
http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0005A&L=conlang&P=R1
7644
>
http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0102B&L=conlang&P=R1
214

I'll have a look at it.

> >...
> > you will see adjectives are marked depending on whether their noun
> > is (agent, ) patient or something else ("oblique").
> >...
>
> Hmm, assigning oblique case seems strange to be.  Having looked at
> your web-page, I understand that your language is supposed to be
> similar to Tagalog's trigger system.
The similarity to Tagalog has already faded I think. It's getting more
and more IE :( With "oblique" I meant "any other case than agentive and
patientive", as I wrote. AFAIunderstood the definition of "oblique", it
refers to any other cases than nominative. Because I understood the two
main cases of trigger languages to be agent and patient, I broadened the
term a bit and applied it to everything else than TRG and AGT. Sorry if
I hurt terminology by this!

> [...]
>
> Your language seems to be different in structure, in that it has as
> case what Tagalog has as triggers.
Yes, I'm addicted to case ;) *sigh* I thought I would have understood
what triggers are about ... I guess I should read again the debates with
Javier BF in how far Subject equals Agent and read Christophe's
explanations about triggers ...

Carsten

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