Re: Voices

Hi!

Steven Williams <feurieaux@...> writes:
>  --- Henrik Theiling-ah <theiling@...> idà-i:
> > Tyl-Sjok, which is my insanely pro-drop conlang,
> > drops the particles that structure the sentence.
> > And because nouns are verbs are syntactically the
> > same, you must guess which one is the predicate. Or
> > in relative clauses, which clause modifies which
> > word. There *are* particles for doing this, but
> > they are dropped a lot. :-)
>
> My GOD that's evil! Do you have examples?
Actually, it's not that evil -- I found that in most sentences,
semantical constraints do the work well. :-) (Yes, it's evil, as I
noticed in a relay...)

Even very short sentences are ambiguous:

   good blue book.

(I don't have any colour words yet, so I give the glosses without the
native words only.)

Even assuming the structure (good (blue book)), this is ambiguous.
The following translations are possible, together with the equivalent
in Tyl-Sjok using structuring and requence particles:

   'It is good that the book is blue.'

        Disambiguated: good REF BEGIN blue book.

   'The blue book is good.' or

        Disambiguated: good BEGIN blue REF book.

   'The blue (colour) of the book is good.'

        Disambiguated: good BEGIN REF blue book.

The structure ((good blue) book), which is syntactically feasible, yet
has less possibilities of interpretation, since with 'book' as a
predicate, it makes no good sense.  However, the following reading is
possible:

   'The book is in good blue.'

        Disambiguated: good REF blue END book.

Another example:

   I watch you drive car.

Seems clear, no?  Not really.

(I watch (you drive car)):
   'I watch that you drive a car.'    I watch REF BEGIN you drive car.
   'I watch you, driving a car.'      I watch BEGIN REF you drive car.
   'I watch your car-driving.'        I watch BEGIN you REF drive car.
   'I watch the car you are driving.' I watch BEGIN you drive REF car.

((I watch you) drive car):
   'I, driving a car, watch you.'     REF I watch you END drive car.
   'You, whom I watch, drive a car.'  I watch REF you END drive car.

Eventually, I dropped this approach after introducing more and more
dropping, including dropping the default action for things (e.g. 'car'
= 'the car' or 'drive a car') and now regard Tyl-Sjok as a proto
language that might be the origin for languages with a few more syntax
rules.

**Henrik