Re: genitive

At 8:16 pm +0200 29/4/02, ebera wrote:
>At 06:00 29/04/02, Ray Brown wrote:
[snip]
>
>Adjective *is* a noun case.
This is not helpful.  I (and, I think, some others) are trying to
understand what you are trying say.  Merely to re-iterate something
dogmatically, and put is an asterisk or two doesn't make a statement one
whit truer (or, for that matter, more false).

"adjective" simply has not been considered a noun case before.  Indeed, in
all the language I know with a case system (and I know quite a few) simply
do not have an 'adjective case'.  I do know of languages whose genitive
behaves like an adjective, but that's a different matter.

I am also aware of the old (now, I think, defunct) terminology whereby the
category "noun" included both what we commonly call 'nouns' today and what
we call adjectives; but this category was subdivided into: "nouns
substantive" (i.e. what we simply call 'nouns' today) and "nouns
adjective".  But these were two subdivision, one was not the case of the
other.

Indeed, in languages that mark case, adjectives commonly have case endings
and 'agree' with the noun they qualify.  Are you seriously saying that it
is possible for an adjective which qualifies a noun in the 'adjective case'
also to be in the 'adjective case'?

[snip]
>
>In most european languages, some specific kind of nouns are left unmarked
>at the adjective (like 'blue'),
This looks like the old 'noun substantive'~'noun adjective' distinction.
Even so, it is not a _case_ distinction.

>....but most nouns/verb roots are
>'adjectivized' (i.e. marked at the adjective case) by an inflection,
Inflexion?  Surely, by derivation through adding a formative affix?

[snip]
>
>You should abstract yourself a little more from your native language.
I find that very offensive!  I will excuse this foolish remark and put it
down to your being new to the list.  For your information, I've been avidly
studying many *quite different* languages for more than 50 years - so don't
ever tell me to abstract myself from my native language.

I am very much aware of the manifold different ways that different
languages treat what we call 'adjectives' in the western languages.  In
some, e.g. they are stative verbs.  It's just that I have not in all this
time come upon an 'adjective _case_'.

>Linguists probably use the term 'adjective' with an hyper-specialized
>definition that conlangers should not need.
If a conlanger is trying to construct a language s/he should learn what
linguistic constructs are.

[snip]
>
[snip]
>
>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.
No - while 'girl' in the second sentence would unquestionably be in the
genitive case in those languages that possess one, the first sentence has
no obvious 'genitive' function.

It appears that in the first sentence 'bikini' is being used as the
qualifier of 'girl', i.e. adjectively.  We can, and very often do, do
exactly that in English: "bikini girl" would not sound at all odd.  But we
would not take it immediately to mean 'a girl in a bikini'; we'd understand
"a girl _characterized by_ a bikini", i.e. she wears one whenever possible/
she has been involved in the promotion of a brand of bikini/she was
involved in a scandal when she was wearing a bikini/ etc etc.

>It is what Chinese does.
Not the Chinese I've come across.

But somewhat closer to home, there is a language which can put the two
words in immediate juxtaposition in exactly the order you gave above,
namely Welsh.

merch bicini = a bikini girl (i.e. a girl characterized by a bikini)
bicini merch = a girl's bikini

But if we put in the definite article, it becomes apparent that the
relation of the first noun to the second is not the same in both sentences,
thus:
y ferch bicini = the bikini girl
bicini'r ferch = the girl's bikini
[_y_ and -'r_ are both shortened forms of _yr_ = 'the']

In the phrases _bicini merch_ and _bicini'r ferch_, mercg/ferch can be
and, indeed, often are said to be 'genitive'.

The genitive construction with the definite article in the first sentence
would be:
_merch y bicini_ which has no more meaning than "the bikini's girl" has in
English.

"the girl in the bikini" BTW is 'y ferch mewn bicini'.

In any case, surely in most languages 'the girl in a bikini' will be the
equivalent of:
"[the] girl [who is] wearing [a] bikini"

[snip]
>
>The problem is, I was talking about cases not roles.
Ok - I was merely trying to be helpful.  So you really are talking about
grammatical cases and about semantic roles. OK.

>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.
No.

[snip]
>
>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.
To put it politely - rubbish!

I am _not_ using "hyper-specialized" vocabulary useful for linguists!  I am
using the mundane vocabulary I once met 52 years ago when I started
learning Latin; it's the vocabulary the generations of school kids learnt.

>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. Then we should not at all talk about cases because it becomes
>pointless, with role being the real name. As I see it, linguists created
>the role terminology to teach students what cases are. Nominative is the
>agent, accusative is the patient. We can't have two terminologies with
>exactly the same definitions.
For goodness sake, they are *NOT* two terminologies with exactly the same
definitions.

I do know the difference between morphology, syntax and semantics.

The 'patient role' and 'the accusative case' are not the same thing.  In
languages like Latin, the two coincide more often than not.  But languages
with undoubted case systems and noun declensions like, e.g. Basque don't
even have an accusative case!

In ergative languages like Basque or Innuit, the 'object' of a transitive
verb (i.e. "accusative") and the 'subject' of an intransitive verb (i.e.
"nominative") are formally put in the _same_ case, which is usually called
the 'absolutive'; whereas the 'subject' of a transitive verb is marked by
the 'agentive case'.  Case systems vary quite a bit in the languages of our
planet.

>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.
...and confusion would reign supreme!  The two concepts are not the same.

>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?
They are cases.

>What other word would I use? Case. I don't need two words for the same thing.
Nor do I. I use 'case' to mean "case", and 'role' to mean "role".

[snip]
>
>A scientist study something. An artist create something. Linguistics is a
>science. Conlanging is an art. Not the same field.
Ach y fi!  How I have grown to detest this mischievous division created in
our western culture!  I refuse to be labelled 'scientist' or 'artist'.  I
have, in fact, two master's degrees: one in the "arts" and another in the
"sciences".  I am a polymath; and it's people with the inquisitive _and_
creative minds like that of Leonardo da Vinci whom I respect.

[snip]
>
>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.
_I_ did make the effort. I am some others have tried to understand what you
are saying; we have tried to meet you half-way.  But all you seem to do is
to re-iterate dogmatically: "Adjective *is* a noun case." and to refuse to
try and meet me or anyone else half-way.

[snip]
>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.
This is simply insulting!!  I have spent a life-time learning to understand
how languages really work, from a creator point of view.

>To conclude, I would say we should stop discussing the merits of the
>scientist vs artist methods.
I never started it; I think the division is at best arbitrary and
needlessly divisive.

You were (and are) using the terms 'genitive' and 'adjective' in a
completely different way to that which I learnt some 50 years ago in school
and with which I have been familiar ever since; so it is hardly surprising
if I (and some others) found what you said difficult to understand.  But at
least we attempted to try.

>It will turn to a flamed thread.
I fear it will, if you persist with dogmatism and argue simply by
patronizing and insulting those who disagree with you.

Ray.





======================
   XRICTOC ANECTH
======================