Re: S7 grammar in a nutshell (long)

Henrik:
> Hi!
>
> And Rosta <a.rosta@...> writes:
> > > Comments appreciated!
> >
> > Case: How many cases?
>
> First of all: thanks for your thorough reading and commenting!
>
> I havn't completed the case system yet.  But I can give you some
> hints:
>
>    - There will be at least five basic spatial cases: locative (at),
>      allative (to), ablative (from), perlative (through),
>      spatiorative (around).  For the latter, I might adjust the
>      name.  Any suggestions?
>
>      Spatial cases will be optionally combinable with other categories
>      proximity modifiers (e.g.  touching vs. on-touching), precision
>      of location (exactly the position vs. vague direction), viewpoint
>      ('in front' from my perspective vs. the perspective of the
>      object), and, of course, the point of relation: in, at, over,
>      under, on.
>
>    - Some cases will be available in different shades and/or will
>      be modifiable, e.g.
>         dative as the general case, benefactive and malefactive
>         as a case that has a conotation.
>
>    - There will be at least causative, genitive (possibly more than
>      one), instrumental, sociative/comitative, essive.
>
>    - I have to think about a system similar to spatial cases for
>      time.
>
> > What is the max number of arguments a predicate can have?
>
> Two: agent and patient.
>
> Further, S7 will add adjuncts and use serial-verb constructions.
I wonder why two cases will not suffice, then. There are infinitely
many semantic roles -- as many semantic roles as there are arguments
of different predicates -- but there is no need to mark them, as
far as I can see.

> > You could, like Livagian, use alternate case frames as a kind of
> > polysemy-generating device.
>
> Is there a webpage describing what Livagian does?
No, but hopefully there will be within the next decade.

> I think S7 valence already works like that: it distinguishes
> semantical and syntactical valence, both of which is marked.  When you
> change the semantical valence, the semantics are probably changed.  I
> havn't decided what will be possible, but at least, you can do
> something like middle constructions with this by eliminating a
> semantical agent.  Also, 'the colour red' and 'to be red' are surely
> the same stem and only distinguished by the semantical valence (first:
> valence 0, latter: valence 1: patient).  Maybe some inherently passive
> words can add a causative by this means.  Then, you'd also regularly
> get 'to make red' (valence 2: agent+patient).
>
> Is this what you meant?
Pretty much. A Livagian example would be that foodstuff predicates
with one argument mean "X is [foodstuff]", while the same word
with two arguments means "X is [foodstuff] eaten by Y".

> > The rest is all very much to my tastes, except:
>
> Ah, thanks! :-)
>
> > Head-first, VOS.
>
> Well, *I* like it! :-)
>
> > I prefer to have all orders possible. This allows information
> > sequencing to be in the domain of pragmatics, and it allows light
> > phrases to be ordered before heavy, thus making sentences more
> > processable.
>
> Yes.  S7 is only *primarily* VOS.  There are already valence markers
> that allow for heavy-NP shift, which will definitely be kept in the
> grammar for non-incorporated arguments (but probably removed for
> incorporated ones).
>
> As to right-dislocating the V-part / fronting A or P, I havn't yet
> decided anything.
I'll be interested to know what you decide.

> I'm aware of needs to shift: Tyl-Sjok suffers from this problem.  It
> cannot easily shift anything, it is embedding (internally headed
> relative clauses) and it has no morphology, so you get more levels in
> the syntax tree.  Further, it is very ambiguous since you can drop
> almost all function words.  I thought it was a simple structure, but
> unfortunately, it is very hard to process.  I suspect I introduced
> some confusion in relay five with this...
>
> > Clitics. I'm not sure what functional virtue these have.
>
> It's probably a misnomer.  I wanted a distinction between affixes,
> which are non directly derived from stems, but a distinct, closed
> lexical class, and stripped stems -- stems without their class prefix.
> I called the latter 'clitics', because there cannot be used in
> isolation, but since that is not the only criterion for clitics, the
> name is probably misleading.
>
> Do you have a good name for it?  'Stripped stem that cannot be used in
> isolation' in one word.
My suggestion would have been "root", but you explain in another
message that that term is already in use. You can't really expect
to have readymade terms to cover the particular peculiarities
of your language. I, when I find myself in that sort of situation,
freely make up English terms, with the eventual aim of replacing
them by Livagian terminology.

> > Why should evidence be mandatory?
>
> Because I like it. :-)
>
> I should have noted that the primary design goal is personal taste.
> This includes violation of all other design goals...
Personal taste is not to my personal taste... (At least not in
nonnaturalistic conlangs.)

> > Case and valence are necessary for an unambiguous parse, but
> > evidence isn't. I'd have thought it should be unspecified by
> > default.
>
> Yes, very right.  I just wanted a language that has evidence as its
> only 'superfluous' mandatory category.  Maily for fun and experiments.
> In fact, I tried to construct the language in such a way that the
> evidence is hard to drop even if you try.  In S7, the phonetactics
> must be violated to drop the evidence.  I wanted to prevent early loss
> of mandatory evidence when a society starts to speak S7.  I did it on
> purpose!
>
> > I don't see much virtue in derivational morphology; it merely
> > reduplicates syntax, so needlessly complicates the grammar.
>
> That's certainly right.  Although I'd doubt that it is 'needless'
> in all cases.
>
> I wasn't content in some respects with Tyl-Sjok, where I decided
> against having morphology at all.  However, I found it very hard to
> get a language that is very underspecified and isolating and not
> having morphology and where idiomatic vs. generic differences are
> easily expressible:
>
> Ger: 'Rotwein'  vs. 'roter Wein'
>      RED wine       red WINE
>      idiomatic      generic
>
> Mand: 'hongputaojiu' vs. 'hong de putaojiu'
>       RED wine            red WINE
>       idiomatic           generic
>
> Eng: 'hot-dog' vs. 'hot dot'
>
> I wanted a related but yet different level of compositional abilities
> that -- on purpose -- resemble parts of the syntax, but which can be
> used in a more idiomatic way.  Morphology is still lightweight: S7
> drops some markers (class and case) and then agglutinates.  This
> allows for idiomatic expressions to combine 'closer' that with syntax.
>
> This way, I have something powerful between stem (atomic) and
> clause-level (syntax).
>
> You will probably have to put some compounds into the lexicon, since
> the morphological composition is more ambiguous than the syntactical
> one, but that's ok, since it's for more idiomatic things anyways.
>
> Does this convince you or would you suggest other means to do this?
I don't think that compositionality in wordforms is needless. But
I don't think one needs rules of derivational morphology that
productively yield new words with fully compositional or transparent
meanings. My inclination is to allow compounds, blends, portmanteaus,
and suchlike, but to treat these as essentially etymological
-- the products of diachrony rather than synchrony. So the grammar
itself would not contain rules of derivational morphology, but
the phonological constraints on word forms would be liberal enough
to allow compounds/blends/portmanteaus.

> > >     This is to achieve feasibility for both poetry and law.
> >
> > Fine, except that while law requires precision, poetry does
> > not inherently require imprecision. However, *conversation*
> > tends to require imprecision.
>
> Yes, that's right.  It was not a listing of extremes, but a listing of
> examples where it might be useful.
>
> > >   - minimal grammar-only affix inventory, maximal degree of
> > >     lexicon ~ grammar coincedence (e.g. tenses are also
> > >     free-standing words as are aspects etc.)
> >
> > Why have affixes at all?
>
> For the same reason as with resembled syntax in morphology: I was not
> totally convinced by the totally analytic structure of Tyl-Sjok.  Or
> at least wanted something different.  I wanted a clear affix that is
> used for 'past tense' (for example), that is *not* merely the verb 'to
> happen in the past', but which, although related to the lexicon, has
> new function of precifying tense.
I still don't understand why you want to do it this way.

> > My preferences are either (i) all affixes are functional, and there
> > are no function words, or (ii) there are no affixes.
>
> Yes, I understand that.  Tyl-Sjok went way (ii), Fukhian went (i).
>
> > Why are degree infixes not open class words?
>
> Hmm.  I don't really know.  I have to think about that.
>
> > >        a) You want a predicate: add a valence vowel
> > >        b) You don't: add a case vowel
> >
> > It sounds like they're all predicates, but not all predications;
> > that is, valence vowel = predication = has truthvalue; case
> > vowel = argument of a predicate (expressed by the stem) = lacks
> > truthvalue.
>
> Errm, yes.  I understand I used wrong terminology?
>
> The truth value difference is indicted in the following way, too: if
> you add a valence infix, you *must* add an evidence affix.  If you
> don't, you *cannot*.
>
> **Henrik

--And.

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