Re: Required Arguments?

En réponse à Joe Fatula :

>We recently discussed verbs that absolutely required arguments (like "kill"
>or "tell") and some that forbade arguments (like "rain" in some languages),
>but I was just thinking... what if you had nouns that required an argument?
>The words "son" and "daughter" are almost like this in English.  You usually
>don't use the word "son" without saying "son of someone" or "someone's son".
>Imagine a language that required an argument to go with "son" like this.
Anadewism again, and we had that discussion not too long ago :))) . Ever
heard the expression "mandatory possession"? ;))) Well, there are quite a
few natlangs (and conlangs too, my Chasmäöcho is an example of it) with a
class of nouns which are mandatorily possessed, i.e. they cannot be used
without a possessor (most often a pronominal affix). It's quite common
throughout the world AFAIK. Depending on the language, this class is more
or less big, but it usually refers to body parts (hands, feet, etc...),
family (with different extensions of the mandatory possession depending on
the language, i.e. there is a language - I've read about it but don't have
my book with me right now, I can check tonight if you want :) - where the
father is mandatorily possessed by the son, but not the mother - and others
where it's the contrary :)) -) and different belongings (in some languages,
a house is mandatorily possessed. In others it's not).
How you do when you want to use a mandatorily possessed noun without
referring to the possessor depends on the language. Some languages use a
second noun, synonym, but not mandatorily possessed. Some others just use
the noun with a 3rd person possessor (that's what I do in Chasmäöcho, where
mandatorily possessed nouns get a 3rd person plural inanimate possessor
suffix when you want to use them without referring to a possessor).

Christophe Grandsire.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang.