Re: a grammar sketch...

Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
>
> On Fri, 29 Sep 2000, The Gray Wizard wrote:
>
  [...]
>
> > Seems like active systems are favorites among the current crop of new
> > conlangs.
Who pioneered that trend?  Or is it impossible to tell?
All I know is that when I started designing Nur-ellen, I hadn't heard
of active languages, nor seen any.  It was just something that spranf
to my mind when trying to understand ergativity, and seemed so natural
that I decided to use it.

> >     I remember not so long ago that ergative systems were the
> > preferred conlang alternative to typical IE nom/acc.  I wonder what will be
> > our next darling.  Maybe we'll have so many active and ergative conlangs
> > that nom/acc will become a welcome change of pace? ;-)
>
> <rueful look>  Well, nom/acc is pretty familiar from German, and I'd read
> about ergative systems...active was the last system I learned about,
> therefore most exotic.  :-p  Also, the active system makes the most, hmm,
> philosophical sense to me.
Exactly!  It does not hang itself up with merely formal "subject/object"
distinctions, regardless of the semantics involved, as accusative
and ergative systems do, but gets right down to the semantics.
I noticed this, and thought that it is exactly the right thing for Elves
to use in their language, considering their deep-thinking nature.
In fact, what buggered me about Tolkien's beautiful Elvish languages
was that they seemed to be plain dumb accusative and not active,
and I frantically searched for evidence in the available material that
they actually were active.  The search, however, was inconclusive:
neither could I find positive evidence that they are active, nor that
they were accusative.

Jörg.