Re: a grammar sketch...

On Fri, Sep 29, 2000 at 02:11:46PM -0400, Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
[snip]
> 4 cases:
> actor: that which is responsible for what happens
> actee: that which is affected by what happens
> accomplice: that which helps accomplish what happens
> action: that which happens
>
> I suspect there are more standard names I should be using, because this
> is looking like another active case system.  These are shown by inflection.
That sounds like an active system, all right. But my knowledge of active
languages comes only from cursory discussions of it in some of the recent
threads on my conlang, so don't take my word for it :-)

[snip]
> :-/  If this doesn't make sense I'll drop the system.
Don't. Develop it until it *does* make sense, just like I did with my own
conlang's weird case system :-P

>  (Is there a word
> for when you noun a verb, like "Running is fun"?  I can't remember seeing
> it.)
They are called gerunds.

[snip]
> Right now I think of this as a tree:
>
>              action
>          /    |     \
>       actor actee accomplice
>
> A cycle is the organization of up to 4 sentences in the same pattern.
> One sentence functions as an "actor," one as "actee," etc.  If you have
> less than 4 (less than a full cycle) there are "null" utterances that are
> inserted as placeholders (I'm thinking some brief, abbreviated phrases
> invoking Deity or Elements).
[snip]

Wow. Sounds like this language would be more suited for formal rituals
than everyday speech :-P

> From what I'm thinking right now, a "cycle" isn't so much a "paragraph"
> in the English (or French, or German??) sense, as sort of a compounded
> sentence.  I'll have to think about provisions for indicating
> conjunctions.  I visualize a cycle as a trinary tree (depth one) of 4
> trinary trees (of depth one)--a recursive structure.  If I knew more
> about real linguistics I would probably be able to quote Chomsky or
> something at this point.  :-(
*waves sceptre of pedantry* That should be "ternary tree" not "trinary
tree" :-P  *ducks*

[snip]
> A formal/polite speaker, to sound more "legato," might use a reciprocal
> construction to say:
>
> I visited my friend. (action)
> (null-actor)
> She waited for my visit.  (actee)
> (null-accomplice)
>
> I'm sure people in a hurry can ditch this convention.  I'm not all that
> sure it makes sense, but for the moment I like the idea.
Hmm. My conlang actually is tending somewhat in this direction as well,
although it isn't quite that strict. Conversation will almost always start
out with a "nominator sentence" -- which is a single noun or noun-phrase
in the locative case, marking the topic of subsequent discourse. Then a
combination of verbal or stative sentences may follow; and it will be
concluded by one or more "summaritive sentences" -- which use weird
back-referencing relatives (particles) to recapture the main points in the
preceding discourse.

So there's this somewhat a cyclic structure similar to your "cycles":
nominator --> stative/verbal --> [more stative/verbal] --> summaritive

[snip]
> The action not only has the "action" case-marking, it also inflects for
> the position-in-cycle, i.e. whether the sentence is an actor-sentence,
> actee-sentence, etc.
Awesome... this sounds similar to correlatives in (Attic) Greek: whenever
you have two parallel ideas, whether contrasting with each other or just
describing two harmonious sides, you insert the postpositive particle
"me'n" in the first sentence, and "de'" in the second sentence. Although
the convention is to translate "men" and "de" as "on the one hand" and "on
the other hand", the English sounds awkwardly repetitive; but in the
Greek, it gives a very pleasing dual-aspect structure.

In my conlang, I've been toying with a possible extension of this idea:
the native speakers are obsessed with the number 3, which they associate
with the 3 colors red, green and blue. I'm thinking of doing a 3-way
correlative structure, each sentence will be marked with particles
deriving from "red", "green" and "blue", respectively. This seems to be
very similar to your "cycle" idea -- each sentence will bear a particle
that marks its correlation with the other two. I'll probably make this the
popular convention in native poetry...

Furthermore, I'm also thinking of re-using this 3-way correlative idea
*within* a sentence -- perhaps by using slightly modified forms of the
three correlative particles. This would be a way to unambiguously employ
multiple verbs+arguments in a sentence, for example:
1)      She got-up<red> ran<green> to the house gave<blue> him the key.
2)      He looked<red>, saw<green>, and left<blue> to report to the king.

>
> Anyway...just some ideas I've been scribbling to myself.  I have the bad
> feeling I'm attempting to do clumsily, with insufficient "real"
> terminology, what others have probably done before, much more
> gracefully..  Pointers for reading or websites would be appreciated.
[snip]

Bah, don't worry about it. I think I'm worse than you when it comes to
"real" terminology -- I just make everything up :-P  The important thing
IMHO is to get fresh ideas, whether or not you can express them at the
moment, and develop them until they are workable, and then pick up (or
invent!) terminology when the need arises. I'm a firm believer in
following "gut feelings", esp. in artistic things like conlanging. :-)


T