Re: Newbie here

Jesse Bangs wrote:

> > Here, the verb "make" takes "me king" as its complement.  "Me king" is
> what is
> > called a 'small clause'.  A small clause is a clause which lacks
> auxiliaries,
> > tense, and other inflectional material, and in which the subject ("me"
> in this
> > instance) receives its case-marking from a higher verb.  Other
>
> So how would a small clause be defined for languages which don't mark
> case?
In order to explain various unusual properties about noun phrases and their
distribution, generative grammar posits something called "Abstract Case",
which gets assigned to noun phrases even in languages which don't
distinguish cases morphologically.  It's all too complicated to go into, and
anyway I don't know if I even believe in Abstract Case, so I'm not prepared
to defend it.  Anyhow, the definition of small clause is entirely
independent of whether a language has morphological case or not.


> > Turning from linguistics to conlangs:  In Tokana, the expression would
> have
> > the
> > following form:
> >
> >   Sa taksam ia Bob
> >   "They call-me Quot Bob"
> >
> > Here, _ia_ is a special particle used to introduce quoted material,
> and to
> > introduce names and titles in vocative constructions:
>
> I find this *very* elegant and admire it quite a bit.
Thank you!


> Okay, I wrote the previous sentence and *then* realized that I have the
> same thing in my conlang, only under a different name.  Go figure ;).
> In Yivríndil the particle is the less aesthetic 'ef', and the above
> sentence would be:
>
> Al sémayo ef Bob
> I am-called Quot Bob.
>
> >   Sa itse ia hio'
> >   they said Quot yes
> >   "They said yes"
>
> Same deal in Yivríndil:
>
> Ela peyyal ef ké.
> They said Quot yes.
>
> The next one, however, does not happen in Yivríndil:
>
> >   N'afa, ia Bob?
> >   Qu-accompany Quot Bob
> >   "Are you coming along, Bob?"
>
> Nope, can't use 'ef' for vocatives.  Yiv doesn't mark vocatives except
> with the optional use of the 1sg possesive affix, literally "my Bob."
> Applied to 'Bob,' the vocative would be 'Boibeva', which sounds quite
> silly!
Another, perhaps commoner way to form vocatives in Tokana is by juxtaposing
the second person pronoun with a name/title.  So another way to express the
above sentence would be:

  Ku Bob n'afa?
  You Bob Qu-accompany
  "Are you coming, Bob?"

The "ia" construction is necessary only if the person you're addressing does
not him/herself play a role in the sentence:

  N'afan Sakial, ia Bob?
  Qu-accompany-the Sakial Quot Bob
  "Is Sakial coming along, Bob?"


> BTW, I really appreciate the aesthetic flavor of Tokana, Matt.  It's one
> of the prettier conlangs around, IMHO.
Thank you again!  I'm flattered--especially since Tokana is not designed to
be pretty (although it is designed to be aesthetically appealing to me).

Matt.