Re: Triggeriness ...

On Friday 12 Dec 2003 11:09 pm, you wrote:
> Andreas Johansson wrote:
> > If there's
> > some bizarre language where all verbs are transitive, I can't see how you
> > could classify it as acc or erg.
>
> What a fascinating idea.  Completely counter-Real- World-as-We-Know-It.
>
Gevey comes scarily close to this (I think). Let's try some translations:

> How would it express such concepts as:
> --He died. (?[unknown S] killed him)
>
Ke ta'savente

Ke - he/she/it nominative
Saven - spatial/temporal action (the assumption is that people or animals die
somewhere)
ta' - at, in

Let's add a direct object

He died in his bed
Ke zhuusyuu ken gribdal savente

zhuus - on top of
ken - his/her/its
gribdaluu (yuu gribdal) - bed

The dissociative form of the noun (yuu gribdal) is the accusative form. So, in
Gevey terms "bed" is being used as a direct object (with the preposition
incorporated into the dissociated word - zhuusyuu gribdal)

The locative oblique form "in his bed" (zhuu'gribdaluups ken) is definitely
not used by Gevey speakers in this context.

> --That glass is broken. (?[unknown S] broke it)
>
1. [Somebody] broke that glass
Yuu tuzaa striv shaablate

2. That glass broke
Strivuu tuzaa seduu shablanti

3. That glass is broken
Strifshabluu tuzaa bekasuu
Strifshabluu tuzaa sekasuu

4. That broken glass
Strifshabluu tuzaa

Strivuu (yuu striv) - beaker, glass
Shablan - break
Sekan - be, become
Bekan - be, remain
Tuzaa - that

in 1, "broke" is in the active voice and "glass" is the direct object. The
subject of the sentence is missing

in 2, "glass" is the subject. However, because applicative nouns are not
allowed to use the active voice, "broke" is using the incidental voice
instead.

For 3 and 4, when a verb is used to modify a noun, it gets incorporated into
the noun. In 3, we use the sekan/bekan verbs to indicate whether the breaking
is a new occurance or an older occurance (sekan and bekan are "equative"
verbs which do allow applicative nouns to use them in the active voice).

> --I'm cold. (?cold [affects] me)
> --The soup is cold. (???)
>
Te skugutle sekase
Huuwuu skugutluu sekasuu

Te - I (nominative)
Huuwuu (yuu huuw) - food
Skug - cold

The modifier skug is using the compliment infix - the closest we get to a
modifier acting as a direct object in Gevey.

Thus all-in-all, Gevey does come close to implying that most of its verbs need
a minimum of 2 arguments, and seems to show that intransitive verbs are rare.

Rik