Re: genitive

En réponse à ebera <ebera@...>:

>
> Adjective *is* a noun case. The noun marked at the adjective provides
> an
> additional information on the quality or the state of its referent.
It all depends on the language. You seem to forget one thing: cases are
grammatical features, and thus depend on the language you're talking about.
That's why we also talk of roles. Roles are semantic functions that can be
expressed differently by different languages, but are basically language-
independent. You can talk of the Patient role in any language, whether it has
an overt manner to mark Patients or not. But you cannot talk of the accusative
case in all languages, because there are plenty of languages that just cannot
be described using an accusative case.

It's the same with your so-called "adjective case". My conlang Azak has an
adjective case (I call it "complementative case"), meaning a noun form that is
used to qualify another noun. But a language like Latin which has adjectives
which agree in case with the nouns they complete cannot be said to have
an "adjective case". It's just meaningless. In "bonus vir", "bonus" is not a
noun at the adjective case, just an adjective at the nominative case completing
the noun "vir". Using such a feature as an "adjective case" for it would mean
that this form can be itself declined (or else it will be difficult to
explain "bonum virum", "bono viro", etc...) and that is not overtly marked,
except by ways which are more a matter of semantic derivation rather than
grammatical marking (just like you can't use the word "meaning" alone as an
adjective, you're obliged to derive it into "meaningfull", or "meaningless",
something which is quite obviously semantic derivation).

>
> In most european languages, some specific kind of nouns are left
> unmarked
> at the adjective (like 'blue'), but most nouns/verb roots are
> 'adjectivized' (i.e. marked at the adjective case) by an inflection,
Nope. They are adjectivised by means of a derivative affix, which never gets
the strength of an inflection, since it can often (in cases of languages like
French or German) itself be inflected. Languages that can overdecline their
nouns (i.e. add an inflection to an already inflected form) are rare, and
trying to describe European languages like that is rather counterintuitive, and
shows that you mix completely cases and roles, two very different things.

> even
> when the rest of the language has an isolating structure. This
> specific
> treatment makes it look like a different part of speech, but it is not.
Depends on the language. There are languages indeed where you cannot describe
adjectives as different parts of speech from nouns (and linguists then don't,
referring to a single part of speech called "substantive" - my Moten does that -
), but there are languages which have definitely adjectives behaving
differently than nouns, and thus deserve to have them treated as different
parts of speech. And what about languages in which adjectives are
indistinguishable from verbs? (there are plenty of them, in which relative
clauses and adjectives are just one and the same thing) Your description cannot
take care of them.

> You should abstract yourself a little more from your native language.
> Linguists probably use the term 'adjective' with an hyper-specialized
> definition that conlangers should not need.
>
Yes they should, since it's the only definition that is commonly. If you begin
to change the definitions of all the words we've already been using far before
you came around, don't expect to be understood, and don't expect to say
anything meaningful either. How can you imagine to communicate if you use words
as your personal whim dictates?

> That English speakers imagine adjectives are a different part of
> speech,
> and that they imagine it so much that they create words which are used
> only
> in this case (like 'big') will not make me accept that it is really
> different. In the way they work, adjectives are nouns.
Not in English! In English a noun can be the center of a noun phrase. That's
never the case with adjectives (you need a dummy noun like "one" like in "the
big one" to use the adjective substantively), so in English adjectives are a
different part of speech from nouns. Parts of speech are language-dependent.
The fact that in French adjectives and nouns are basically the same part of
speech doesn't mean it has to be the same in every language. In this case,
*you* should abstract yourself a little more from your native language (as
you've guessed, I'm French too, so i know what I'm talking about).

 I must be more
> 'clever' than natives to avoid my conlang the flaws of English. Here
> I'm
> speaking about implementation issues (conlanging), not natlang
> analysis
> (linguistics).
>
But even in implementation issues, you cannot talk about "flaws". If you want
to do things differently from English, go ahead, but don't say that its way of
doing things is "flawed". It works quite well on the contrary. If it was
flawed, its speakers would have changed it a long time ago.

So if you want your language to have an adjective case, go ahead! Nothing
prevents you to. But remember that it's something which is purely language-
dependent, and that you cannot talk about cases universally. That's why we have
roles.

>
> I have already given examples. If you want me to repeat, me do.
> With the 'head first' word order, we can unmark:
> - 'a girl in bikini' => 'girl bikini'
> - 'the girl's bikini' => 'bikini girl'
> As you see, it fits perfectly with your definition of genitive.
> It is what Chinese does. It is case-marking via word order. Or more
> exactly, it is 'ellipsis of the case marker' by means of word order
> (and
> word meaning).
>
So you want to make a language which in this case works like Chinese. Fine by
me. Just don't try to apply an analysis which can be done only with Chinese and
languages which work the same way. There are plenty of languages which *don't*
work that way.

>
> The problem is, I was talking about cases not roles.
You're rather mixing those two things. You're trying to apply a case analysis
valid for one language to another. It's something impossible. Cases are
language-dependent features that can be described only for what they are *in
one certain language*. The only thing you can discuss about between different
languages is semantic roles, and the way they are handled by different
languages. Basically, cases are the grammatical features a language uses to
express some semantic roles.

 Except if you
> consider
> that the genitive/locative cases are becoming roles when they are not
> marked by a grammatical little word or an inflection.
You really don't have an idea of what you're talking about (it's only a
constatation, and you admitted yourself that you are new to this). I suggest
that you really try to understand what we mean before answering, because right
now you are just misunderstanding everything.

 That cases are
> marked
> by these specialized structures or by different structures that uses
> nouns
> or verbs or else instead doesn't change anything. We are still dealing
> with
> cases.
>
No. What we are always dealing with is roles. You're just trying to discuss
about roles using the terminology of cases. It just cannot work.

> Again, you seem to use hyper-specialized liguistic vocabulary that is
> useful for linguists but that makes things look harder than they are
> for
> conlangers.
>
No. It's just useful *basic* vocabulary necessary to discuss about languages in
a not-too-clumsy way. You just cannot say anything meaningful about languages
without this vocabulary.

> If you consider 'case' is only the name of case-markers and the
> meaning
> they convey in the sentence is 'role', then case-markers should be
> named
> role-markers.
No. Both things refer to two different layers: grammar (for cases) and meaning
(for roles). Grammar is just the way languages express meaning. Both need two
different ways to be discussed about.

 Then we should not at all talk about cases because it
> becomes
> pointless, with role being the real name.
No they're not. You're mixing two different things. Learn to separate them
first. Then you can discuss about them.

 As I see it, linguists
> created
> the role terminology to teach students what cases are.
No they didn't.

 Nominative is
> the
> agent, accusative is the patient. We can't have two terminologies with
> exactly the same definitions.
But they don't have the same definitions. The nominative of the subject of "I
fall" is not an agent. In this case, it's rather the patient, since it
undergoes the action. So you see, cases and roles are not the same thing. In
Basque, the subject of "I fall" doesn't take the same case mark as the subject
of "I eat the cake" (it's an ergative language. You should learn about them, it
would open your vision about the difference between cases and roles). Agent and
patient are roles, nominative and accusative are cases. They are not the same
thing. Even in the languages you know they don't match exactly. That's the main
reason why you have to use different terminologies. They are different things.

 If everyone on this list agree to use
> the
> name role whenever they would have used the name case, then I would
> agree
> to do the same.
We don't. We just use the word "role" when we're talking about roles, and the
word "case" when we're talking about cases.

 But you should tell me what is the name of roles
> associated
> with the following cases: genitive, partitive, adessive, ablative,
> allative, elative, inessive, illative, essive,, translative, abessive,
> comitative, instructive. These Suomi cases probably refer to roles,
> don't they?
>
No, to cases. After all, the object of a verb can be in the partitive case as
well as in the accusative case, depending on the definition of the object,
proving again that cases and roles are *not* interchangeable. It's the simple
fact that you *cannot* simply associate roles with cases that justifies the
existence of both terminologies. They don't refer to the same thing.

> What other word would I use? Case. I don't need two words for the same
> thing.
>
So you need both "role" and "case". They don't refer to the same thing (what do
you think? That we're so stupid that we cannot see when two things are the
same, and that we needed you to realise that?).


> I wouldn't say it's reasonable. Linguists *analyse* already existing
> natlangs. Conlangers *create* languages. For a different activity we
> need
> different tools. For a simpler activity we need simpler tools. A
> chemist
> may need complicated tools to study which elements are in an apple-pie
> and
> make an hypothesis on its original recipe, but my grandmother doesn't
> need
> these tools to make an apple-pie. This is the difference I see between
> linguistics an conlanging.
There's one problem: conlanging is much more complicated than simple cuisine.
You really need to do the complete analysis work if you want your conlang to
work.

>
> Another example? Writers don't need to take university litterature
> courses
> to write good novels. Some writers may take these courses only because
> they
> like litterature, but their writing abilities are not increased
> through
> this (only reading others' novels can be helpful, and even here I'm
> not
> sure. Once a certain level is reached, only practice is the key).
>
Yep, but it helps to know what a chapter, a paragraph or a sentence is, as well
as what a character or a scene is. That's how basic notions like "case"
and "role" are.

> A scientist study something. An artist create something. Linguistics is
> a
> science. Conlanging is an art. Not the same field.
>
Yep, but your comparison is flawed. Conlanging is much more than literature. If
it can be compared to one art, it's the art of architecture. And in
architecture, you *do* need some training, if only to be sure that your house
won't collapse the moment the last brick is put on. Conlanging is exactly the
same. Of course, you don't need to read books to learn how to conlang (just
like I know architects who never were trained on solid mechanics), but it's
better to know at least the basic vocabulary, if only to understand yourself
what it's all about. You seem to lack that currently.

>
> When I make the effort to define all technical terms I use, I expect
> you
> make the effort to read and memorize (for the time of reading my mail)
> these new (simplified) definitions.
Problem: why should we learn your definitions, which, besides not being simpler
than the ones we already know, are confusing by the simple fact that they are
intrisicly flawed. Sorry to say that, but *who do you think you are?*

 I like to theorize, but not to
> theorize
> with the wrong tools.
The problem is that you're using them right now. learn the right tools, and
later you can theorise.

 If you feel interesting and useful for you to
> learn
> academic linguistics, just do it, but you should not consider it's the
> only
> efficient method. I won't use your methods but I will still study the
> conlangs you obtain with it. The problem is, if you learn to analyse
> and
> compare languages instead of learning to understand how languages
> really
> work, from a creator point of view, I doubt you will create more than
> a
> fictional dialect of a natlang.
>
Just a question: how can you learn how languages work if you don't learn how to
analyse them? How can you understand how something works if you don't analyse
it? How can you describe how something work without using the proper
vocabulary? You seem to take things the wrong way around.

> To conclude, I would say we should stop discussing the merits of the
> scientist vs artist methods. It will turn to a flamed thread.
>
The problem is that it's not what you're discussing. You're just saying that
your way of discussing things works better than the way people have been slowly
building for already two centuries, and give later examples showing a complete
misunderstanding of what it's all about. It's not "scientist vs. artist
methods", it "Ebera's vs. common methods". I'm not saying that your method
won't work with your conlang. But if you intend to communicate with us, better
use the vocabulary we agreed on. Unless you don't want any feedback from us and
don't care if your posts are not read.

>
> PS. Remember I'm French. I have the level in English to convey
> information,
> but not to convey style. So I'm sorry if I sound pretentious, or like
> I
> want to make you think like me. It's not what I meant. It's just about
> sharing information and point of view. About increasing each other's
> level.
>
Of course. But you seem to refuse to increase *your* level, while you made it
clear you were new at this. You did sound pretentious, but it had nothing to do
with your style, just with the contents of your posts. You came here, explained
what you understood about languages, and when we replied, trying to explain you
some basic flaws in your analyses and in your use of words, you just threw at
us that you were using your own definitions, and that if we wanted to
communicate with you we had to use them too. You even claimed that the
definitions we used were flawed and that yours were better, while showing a
complete misunderstanding of what we were trying to say to you. We were trying
to be helpful, you just threw us away. So indeed you sounded pretentious.

I do believe that your intentions were different, but if you intend to
communicate with us, first learn the common definitions of the words you use.
We have no intention to switch from perfectly useful definitions to confusing
and incorrect definitions just because you won't communicate otherwise. Those
ar simply the rules of living in society.

This said, you are welcome on this list, as soon as you stop trying to change
our ways at all costs. We do have reasons to use them, and if you stop thinking
that yours is the only way that matters and try to understand what we say, you
will soon realise that it opens to you things you wouldn't have imagined in
your conlanging. Learning the right word often helps thinking the thing better.

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.