Re: New Language Sketch (was Re: Conlang Gender)

Nik Taylor wrote:

> > I dunno... why does Icelandic have one?  Because historically
> > it wasn't so strict, that's why.
>
> True.  But why copy that (presumably) transitional stage in a conlang?
Why not?  As far as I know, Icelandic's case system is under
no imminent threat of deterioration. Besides, there's no
correlation of stage of development with what form of the
language becomes embodied as a standard language.  My
language, Phaleran, became ossified as the planetary standard
language of international discourse while on the way moving
from a highly ergative language to an accusative language.

> > (2) Barninu           batna=F0i             veikin
> >      the.child:DAT  recovered.from the.disease:NOM
> >      "The child recovered from the disease."
>
> Well, dative subjects make sense for some kinds of words.
Yes, but there are lots of other things that could "make sense"
for certain constructions.  The point is not to say something makes
sense, but to explain why the data is the way it is, why the language
acts the way it does.   English no longer uses dative constructions
for sensory verbs; for example,  we say "I think", not "methinks",
something that was still in use in the Early Modern English of
Shakespeare.  The question is why.  One current popular theory of
syntax writes this off as simply being legislated by the internalized
lexical entry we each have for the word -- in Icelandic, "batna=F0i"
simply requires a specifier in the dative, and a complement in the
nominative.  This explains the data perfectly well, and although
it seems quite ad hoc and a little lacking in explanatory force,
in the absence of any more penetrating theory, it does its job.

> > In all of these examples, the first word is the subject -- and yet
> > each verb requires a certain case marking as a lexically determined
> > feature of the verb.  Fun!
>
> Makes perfect sense to me.  Nominative carries connotations of control.
> The main use of it is agent, and an agent is volitional.  So, one could
> argue that the use of nominative in forms like "I like chocolate" or
> "the pain is not noticible" or "she lacks food" is an extension of its
> core function.
Perhaps diachronically, but in the current stage of the language, there
is no easy way to predict which case should be supplied except
simply to say that particular verbs just require dative or genitive or
whatever.

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Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
ICQ#: 4315704   AIM: Deuterotom
Website: <http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/>
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."
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