Re: Verbs derived from noun cases

Hi!

John Cowan <cowan@...> writes:
> Lojban takes the opposite tack: there are only verbs, and nouns are
> phrases meaning "that which falls into case X of verb Y".  So from the
> verb "go/come", which takes five cases, we get five noun phrases
> meaning "goer/comer", "destination", "origin", "route", and "means of going".
Speaking of Lojban, I have a question: how did people assign the
argument structure to verbs, i.e, why does 'go/come' have these and
not more/less?  E.g. more: 'reason', less: 'means of going'?  And a
curious sub-question: What's the maximal valence and why?

I take it that additional adjuncts are possible (like 'because of').
But why is 'means of going' a core argument to 'go/come' and not
realised as an adjunct?  What's the criterion for being a core
argument?

And apart from that, in what way are the arguments ordered?  If I
understand it correctly, the cases are distinguished by position and
when skipping a position for a case, special word has to be used (and
a tail of these words at the end of phrases may be left out).  E.g.

  go/come I Paris SKIP Metz.
  'I went to Paris via Metz.'

Is that correct?  (I took the order from the list on your posting).

How's that order defined?  Why is 'destination' after 'origin'?  Or is
it chaotically lexicalised (unlikely for Lojban, I think).

**Henrik

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