Re: Language Sketch: Gogido

On Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 8:28 PM, Jim Henry <jimhenry1973@...> wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 7:44 PM, Logan Kearsley <chronosurfer@...> wrote:
>> Right. An alternative system (which results in exactly equivalent
>> interpretations for my entire corpus so far, since I haven't taken
>> advantage of the weirder ordering possibilities afforded by this
>> system) is that anything unmarked before the verb is an agent, and
>> anything unmarked after the verb is a patient.
>> Hm. That's probably a better system, actually, since it allows you to
>> elide any component without changing the rest of the sentence. Well,
>> I'll decide for sure when I get to writing something where it actually
>> makes a difference.
>
> Would elided components mean "an unspecified agent did such-and-such
> action to this patient" and "this agent did such-and-such
> action to an unspecified patient" and "this agent did an unspecified
> action to this patient"?
Yes. One could say "I kick the ball" (all components stated), or "I
kick" (patient unspecified) or "Kick the ball" (agent unspecified; the
English makes that into an imperative, though, so it ought to rendered
as the passive "The ball was kicked"). Or one could say "I ball-PAT"
for "I did something to the ball".

In Gogido, those would be "Mi zozi baro", "Mi zozi", "Zozi baro", and
"Mi pa baro", respectively.

> Or are there rules for figuring out a default
> agent, verb, and patient when they're not explicit, e.g. the same
> as in the last sentence?
Nope. Well, unless "do something" counts a default verb.

-l.