Re: Bowtudgelean

Carl:�<<�1. Bowtudgelean has ten states of definiteness. Most languages only�distinguish
between definite and indefinite; mine distinguishes�different types of
definiteness and inflects nouns, pronouns, and�adjectives accordingly:�
>>��Gundel et al.* identified a maximum of six possible states
of�definiteness�(what they call "givenness"), and all languages encode them
(but�not all the same way, and not all explicitly, of course). So
while�English has simply "a" and "the", it actually has various
strategies�to produce each of the six points on the givenness hierarchy
(as�do all other languages). For more info, there was a discussion
on�Conlang a few years
back:��<http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?�A2=ind0505A&L=CONLANG&P=R169>��It
would seem that the difference in Bowtudgelean is not the�things it encodes,
but how regularly it encodes them (and also�that it treats certain items as
similar that Gundel et al., for�example, would not).��So, with this set
of items:��Carl:�<<�First Person: is or includes the speaker�Second
Person: is or inlcudes the listener�Nominal: the word is a name�Referred:
something recently spoken of�Indicated: a limiting adjective (or phrase)
follows�Local: the thing is near the speaker�Remote: the thing is distant
from the speaker�Past: the thing happened in the past�Future: the thing
happened in the future�Indefinite: indefinite� >>��What if something is
indefinite and in the future (say, a�party that might happen)? Or what about
something�next to the speaker that happened in the past that was�recently
spoken of (say, a guy died next to him twenty�years ago, and someone else was
just talking about him)?�Can you stack these?��*As I said in the original
post way back when, Gundel et al.'s�paper is problematic--not so much in that
their givenness�hierarchy is wrong or uninteresting, but the way they applied
it�to certain natural languages seems
puzzling.��-David�*******************************************************************�"sunly
eleSkarez ygralleryf ydZZixelje je ox2mejze."�"No eternal reward will forgive
us now for wasting the dawn."��-Jim
Morrison��http://dedalvs.free.fr/��On Apr 27, 2008, at 10∞06 AM, Carl
Banks wrote:��> Bimo, dorahay,�>�>�> I have a brief description of
Bowtudgelean (version 0.1) at�>
http://www.aerojockey.com/blog/bowtudgelean1.html�>�> I'm curious how
common some of my "innovations" are. I've read a�> lot of�> conlang
archives and never saw much discussion about these�> particular
ideas.�>�>�> 1. Bowtudgelean has ten states of definiteness. Most
languages only�> distinguish between definite and indefinite; mine
distinguishes�> different types of definiteness and inflects nouns, pronouns,
and�> adjectives accordingly:�>�> First Person: is or includes the
speaker�> Second Person: is or inlcudes the listener�> Nominal: the word is
a name�> Referred: something recently spoken of�> Indicated: a limiting
adjective (or phrase) follows�> Local: the thing is near the speaker�>
Remote: the thing is distant from the speaker�> Past: the thing happened in
the past�> Future: the thing happened in the future�> Indefinite:
indefinite�>�> Adjectives agree with nouns and pronouns in state. That's
why�> there is�> a first person state: the adjective gets a different state
ending in�> that case. There are no nouns in first person state of course
(except�> for appositives; but appositives take adjectival endings).�>�>
I got this idea from Arabic, which has three states. (Though it's not�> the
same thing, because the construct state in Arabic carries no�> semantic
value. Still, construct is somewhat comparable to indicted�> state in
Bowtudgelean.)�>�>�> 2. Bowtudgelan doesn't have any sort of fixed
framework for�> participants�> of actions to fit into. There are no cases;
no agents and�> patients; no�> triggers; not anything like that. Instead,
each verb carries its own�> set of proclitic markers that indicate
participants.�>�> The set of markers a verb uses (called the signature) has
to be�> learned�> as part of the verb, but there are common signatures that
can be�> thought�> of as conjugations. For example, one such conjugation is
for verbs of�> manipulation (where a person physically manipulates an object)
which�> usually use the za-epu- signature. "Za" precedes the manipulator;�>
"epu"�> the thing being manipulated.�>�> For a different verb, the
"agent" might have a different marker�> altoghether. For example, the verb
"azhde" uses the signature�> ar-to-mogi- ("ar" preceding the builder, "tor"
the material used, and�> "mogi" the resulting structure).�>�> I'm pretty
sure this never happens in any natlang (it's probably�> linguistically
unstable). I wonder if there are any other conlangs�> that�> do anything
like this?�>�> I imagine some poeple might wince at this, but I got the
idea from�> computer languages. In Python, when calling a function, the
arguments�> come in a specific order:�>�>
open("somefile.txt","rw")�>�> But it's also possible to use keyword
arguments:�>�> open(filename="somefile.txt",mode="rw")�>�> Furthermore,
the keyword arguments don't need to appear in the same�> order as in the
fixed order call:�>�> open(mode="rw",filename="somefile.txt")�>�>
Translating this idea to human languages I came up with the idea of�>
participant markers.�>�>�> Carl Banks�

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