Re: ergative? I don't know...

On Sun, 25 Oct 1998, Mathias M. Lassailly wrote:

> Sally wrote :
>
> On Sat, 24 Oct 1998, Mathias M. Lassailly wrote:
> >
> > > 'experience' is the state were you are at a certain stage of a process.
> > > It's like you step outside time. You don't refer to the different stages
> > > of process in time (aspective vision), but to the state in comparison to
> > > other states (unaspective vision). People in active systems find it
> > > difficult to stop referring to process in a phrase. So they go way round
> > > and think : what does embody a state outside time ? A 'noun'. So they
> > > use the noun as an adjective (as Latins did : 'bonus' = 'the good one' >
> > > 'good' as an adjective)
> >
> > I'm having a hard time understanding how this illustrates an active
> > system.  Is Latin an active language simply because it uses substantive
> > adjectives?  German was doing this way back when, and we do it still, only
> > in the plural.  The poor.   How does this prove activeness?
> >
>
> I didn't write that deriving epithete adjectives from substantive is an
> evidence for activeness.
Yes you did... or rather you implied it.  Go reread your message above.
"People in active systems," is the phrase to which "they" refers in your
sentence: "so they use the noun as adjective (as Latins did : 'bonus' =
'the good one')."  "Epithete" isn't in my very thorough Dictionary of
Grammatical Terms in Linguistics--do you mean "epithet"?  A substantive
adjective is exactly what you describe above: an adjective such as "good"
used substantively, i.e., as a noun:  The good.  The poor.  Les
miserables. Le pauvre.  etc. etc. etc.  Since my question was narrowly
about whether T.  incorporated "active" tendencies, I assumed that all of
your answer would pertain to defining "active" tendencies.

> > If I knew what you were expressing I could figure it out.
>
> I'm doing my best. I didn't mean to e offensive. Don't be angry at me,
> I'm always doing my best :-)
That wasn't anger, Mathias... it was genuine bafflement.  I wasn't angry
with you, I was trying to figure you out.  What's baffling is when someone
asks a simple question about active systems, and somebody else answers it
with a flood of irrelevancies about "epithete adjectives," or makes
enigmatic comments like "the unergative is 'oops I didn't mean it.'"  I
really value an ability to get to the point in linguistic explanations.
This is a forum for people with linguistic knowledge to help other people
without it; not to just show off vocabulary.  Forgive me if that's what it
seemed to me that you were doing.

[Just accidentally erased my question that makes sense of your generous
answer]:
> Nothing is 'off the mark' to us conlangers. Maybe because I'm no
> linguist I enjoy transgressing marks all the time with conlangs.
Thank you, that's exactly how I feel as well... or should.  I still want
to thoroughly know the concepts that I'm rejecting or tinkering with.

> Mine
> are unaspective so I need tons of cases and aspectivers and connectives
> but I love it. So why not volition outside unergative case of ergative
> languages and antipassive voice of nom/acc languages ?
My verbs don't express aspect either, except in their "auxiliaries," what
you are calling, I think, "aspectivers and connectives."  A caveat:  I
have found that for dilettante linguists learning a little linguistic
vocabulary can be even more dangerous than learning none.  I'm only saying
this because you have pleaded for me to understand that you are "trying
your very best."  In your case, perhaps--if you want to be clear to the
people you're talking to--try to find the established English term for
concepts like "aspectivers."  Is there such a term or is this misspelled?
And restrict your explanations with the fancy vocabulary to the question
at hand, if a question is asked. That is why I do not want to apply any
fancy terms to structures I'm not thoroughly sure of... like the term
"active."  Ergative I've got a handle on.  Teonaht is definitely not
ergative.  As for "antipassive," this is a term that is used mostly of
ergative languages, as I understand it--to express "partially affected
objects":  "He chopped at the tree," as opposed to "He chopped the tree."
In Teonaht, both would still be in the volitional because V or Non V has
nothing to do with transitive or intransitive verbs.

I just try to
> show you that your volitional system (I call it volitive in my
> languages) is another way of making active verbs from unspective states,
> which is very normal since we all (fortunately) have in brain concepts
> outside time (substantive), time inside concepts (aspective : 'verbs'),
> time inside time (progression), etc. Don't take it awrong :-)
No, I'm not taking it awrong.  But I think it's irrelevant.  Do you mean
"aspectual"?  My volitional verbs have nothing to do with aspectuals
either. Nothing about the *aspect* of a verb in Teonath (its expression of
the durative, the progressive, the habitual and other aspects of
remembered time) affects whether it's volitional or not.

> > For some reason, I am still casting about for a notch to fit this into.
> > I'd like to know of natlangs that do what T. does.  i.e., maintain a basic
> > nominative/accusative structure and still make distinctions between
> > volition and non volition.
> I can't help : no natlangs I know do. My language does but it's not a nom/acc
> language. Slavic have a different verb for transitive (faculty and
> intransitive), Japanese has an antipassive system :
> mieru = to be apparent > miru = to see > miseru = to make it apparent (=to show) >
> misaseru > to make someone see. But nothing to tell 'I see' from 'I look at'
> with the same root.
Sounds interesting.  Maybe we should compare notes, Mathias.
Volitionality in both our conlangs; this issue of the unaspective...
whatever that is... ;-)

Sally
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Sally Caves
scaves@frontiernet.net
http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/teonaht.html

Rin euab ouarjo vopy vytssema tohda uo zef:
ar al aippara brottwav; ad kemban aril yllefo
brotwav fenom; vybbrysan brotwav an; he ad
edirmerem brotwav kronom.

"A cat and a man are not all that different.
Both are on my bed; both lay their head on their
arm; both have mustaches; both purr when they
sleep."
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