Re: A Conlang, created by the group?

Carlos Thompson wrote:

>The things I have in mind: not to mimic NGL, not to mimic West IE languages,
>experiment and being able to read it loud.
Exactly!

>As Pablo ask me, my proposal is the following (explain and exemplified):
>* agent: anything causing or controlling a predicate (ergative) THE DOG bit
>me, THE STOPPED CAR is blocking the highway.
>* patient: anything being modified or hold by a predicate (absolutive)  The
>stopped car is blocking THE HIGHWAY, the dog bit ME
>* undergoer: anything pasively being modified or hold by a predicate caused
>for itself.  THE DOG sleeps.
>* theme: anything extending the meaning of a predicate: I read THE BOOK
>* static predicate: a predicate applied but not changing: The stopped car IS
>BLOCKING the highway, the dog SLEEPS
>* dinamic predicate: a predicate meaning a change of state: A car STOPPED
>the highway, The dog BIT me.
>* modifier: any adjective, adverb, etc.
>* clasifier: a modifier which add further information on the modified: the
>BAD dog bit me.
>* determinant: a modifier which help disdinguish the modified (examples:
>posesives) THE STOPPED car is blocking the highway.  the dog OF MY NEIGHBOUR
>bit me
>>and some small particles (prepositions?) to extend some meanings.
>Pre- or post-? I think they should be in the opposite end of the noun
>with respect to case markers (i. e. cases postfixed > prepositions,
>cases prefixed > postpositions).
I agree to this case system. I'm still a bit reluctant to kill the
verb-noun distinction, but it's certainly a good thing, because it
makes it possible to create an inflection which will be useful for
any part of speech. So I agree in principle. I guess practice will show
us if the system is comfortable.

The "modifier" case is sort of a catch-all case. I think we should call
"modifier" what is called "classifier" above, and drop "classifier". Also,
let's have "predicate" alone as a case, and add other inflections to
distinguish between static and dynamic. Carlos? That way we would have:

agent
patient
undergoer
theme
predicate
modifier
determinant

Let's be aware that in this way we could NOT make case agreement unless
we agglutinate the inflections. "The stopped car is blocking the highway"
would have "The stopped" as a determinant, "car" as an agent. "The stopped"
wouldn't be considered part of "the stopped car" as the agent.

If don't set for a fixed word order, we should have some kind of agreement
or parsing scheme. For example, a particle to separate the
determinant/modifier-agent/undergoer part from the predicate-theme/patient
part. If we use SOV in sentences, either we use a fixed order or a particle,
like Japanese "wa", "o", "ni" (pre- or postfixed).

Example sentence:

stopped_determinant car_agent subject_particle   The stopped car  <wa>
highway_patient object_particle                  the highway      <o>
block_predicate_static                           is blocking


How do we make the difference between "stopped_determinant car" (the stopped car)
and "stop_determinant car" (the car that stops [sthg else])? Passive voice?
What happens if you add a passive voice inflection to "car"? Could it be an
indirect reference? The passive voice of a pronoun could be a politeness marker.


>I also proposed (in the examples), that the number could be applied to a
>predicate/verb marked root, with the meaning of iterations:
>  John hits.SING Paul: It is happening one time: not a usual situation
>  John hits.PLU Paul:  it happens many times: a usual situation
>  John hits Paul:     ambigous, context would give a clue
I agree on that. We could have more numbers too. If the number distinction
is not marked, that's also good for "nouns" -- sometimes it's not necessary.

If the proposal of no verb/noun disctintion is accepted, gender (if any)
would be applied to a verb... of course, if we have not yet decide which
genders we will use, we could no be sure what they would mean.

>Tipical noun inflections: gender, number, determination, case, reference
>level
>Tipical verb inflections: tense, aspect, mode, evidence, reference level
>
>Tense and number would be used for any root, with nominal or predicative
>value (I mean: acting as noun or as verb).  Determination and aspect could
>be merged.
>
>Any proposal about reference levels (think thats called: way the speaker
>refferes to the listeners/readers).  I'm pro an igualitarian language, but
>politeness would be usefull. ?
See above. Plus, an extra inflection for added politeness could be devised.

>I propose marking mode of verbs the same way as case of substantives (i.e.
>prefixes if all other marks postfixed) this way:
>
>cases/modes: absolutive, accusative, conditional, copulative, ergative,
>imperative, indicative, subjunctive, unergative.
I don't agree. This is why I'd like to preserve some form of distinction
between nouns and verbs. Some roots should be inherently verbal and some
inherently nominal.

For a verbal system I propose:

Mode:
indicative
conditional
imperative
subjunctive

Tense:
present
past
future
(where number would mean: sing = single action, plural = repeated action)

Aspect:
perfect
progressive

Aspect (II):
static
dynamic

Voice:
active
passive

These distinctions would be for verbal roots only (except for tense and maybe
voice, see above).

>
>Maybe we could merge gender with evidence?
>
We should have other inflections for evidence, and attach them to
"nouns" and/or "verbs"

>>* Adjectives: the only proposal so far is to have them behave like verbs,
>>which also gets rid of copulative "to be" and allows many derivations.
>>I agree on the proposal.
>
>Of course, if verbs and nouns are the same, only recognized by the mode/case
>tag, such disctintions would be irrelevant.
Granted. Given the system we have, there would be a root generally meaning
"red" that could be inflected to mean "to be red", "(which is) red" [determinant]
"red" [modifier], etc.

>I vote for lengthening syllabe, either vouel or consonant (geminate).
>Accenting allways the root at the oposite direction of the case/mode tag
>(final root syllabe in my propossal).
So: stress over the syllable of the root that is farthest from the case/
mode tag? I would agree on that. Or do you mean accenting by means of
lengthening? That would be fine for me too. What do the others say?

>>My idea:
>>6. round, square(d), flat, convex, concave, smooth, rough, big, small,
>>tall, short, wide, narrow, etc. (a logical physical gender, at least for
>>inanimate things, with several dimensions; maybe only optionally marked)
>
>Too many for me.  I would like something very weird.  If we want many
>genders, I would like the subgender system (but not as classificatiorial as
>the first I posted) with only the first level compulsory.
OK, I withdraw my proposal. I liked the ideas of Herman ("north, south,
east, west") or mine ("top, left, bottom, right"), or Carlos's
("red, green, blue"). Could also be "air, fire, earth, metal, wood", or
"heaven, earth" (sort of I-Ching :)
Anyone/thing else?

(I assume we have already decided to have gender and to mark it on
"nouns").

>>* Harmony: nobody mentioned vowel harmony so far. I mentioned nasal
>>harmony (for consonants, not for vowels), i. e. some affixes could
>>have two allophones, one nasal and one oral (for example -pi and -mi)
>>according to the neighbouring consonants.
>
>Or voiced/unvoiced harmony.  Let's try consonant harmony in some way.
I like voice harmony. Count a vote for that.

>For consonant harmony's sake let's [F] voiced/voiceless disctinction
>unnecesary (then krif and kriv would be the same).  And h would not be used
>in syllabe final position.  I would vote for letting only /l/ and not /r/ in
>the [F] position.
Right. Regarding [F], are we writing "aika" or "ajka", "auka" or "awka"?
(I prefer the "aika, auka" form).


--Pablo Flores