Re: Subject: Nounless?

On Fri, 9 Nov 2001 23:44:12 +0100, Kala Tunu <kalatunu@...> wrote:

>Basilius wrote:
>
>Consider-CAT belonging-to-ME (and-)know-HIM
>having-CAUGHT(-something)
>(and-thus-)obtaining-MOUSE.
>
>And there seem to be other interesting possibilities.
>
>What do you think?
>---------------------
>
>I like that kind of syntax very much. Quite a few langs
>replace cases with "verbs"
>The only trouble are ditransitive "minimal" verbs. "X gives
>Y to Z".
Just two of a few possibilities:

consider-X using-Y (and) giving(-it)-to-Z
consider-X giving(-something)-to-Z (which-)affects-Y

(simply to confine to verb tags already mentioned; some 'taking' would
sound more natural than 'using')

In fact, it depends on the available inventory of second-level verbal
forms; in particular, I thought of kinda voices: to-use-X/to-be-used-by-X,
etc.

>What is the verb for "to"? You'll end up with an
>accusative and/or a dative, even though you'll use the
>"verbs" "to affect" and "to address". Whether these tags are
>called verbs or cases won't change much. Don't you think so?
Yes, I do. The fun is in presenting *all* roles in this way. And verbs
can do a lot of things that usual cases cannot (moods, voice
transformations, etc.).

>Having either a dozen preposed verbs or a dozen suffixed
>cases is only a question of dating a Khmer or a Finn. And
>then you'll face the daunting problem of matching "case
>roles" with aspects like in the pair "get/have",
>"be/become", etc.
I don't see much trouble here; semantically these differ in
some component like 'begin to...' or 'act so as to...', which
may be a separate word or an aspectual affix:

...acting so-as-to-have-X
...beginning(-something) so-as-to-be-X

Again, it's a matter of having enough non-finite forms/moods.
Note that not all forms need to support such distinctions
(e. g. 'so as to have...' = 'so as to get...').

>There is also the problem of the actual
>subject of the "participle". Is it the main subject, the
>main verb, the object, the sentence itself?
This seems to be an inventory issue, too. One can use a form
like Russian compredicative (referring to subject of the
upper-level verb), an analog of English -ing-form (mostly
referring to the immediately preceding noun), some third
form referring to the preceding sentence, etc. It would be
interesting, however, to figure out the minimal sufficient
inventory.

The forms needn't to be too cumbersome: for example, CV=verb tag
+ C=form marker (that is, just one syllable added to semantically
nominal stem).

>Regarding the
>chaining of sentences, many langs do that too. But they
>usually order sentences according to chronological
>experience rather than according to cause-effect: "me use ax
>(I) cut tree (it) falls reach ground" for "I cut down the
>tree with an ax".
Such langs usually have poor morphology; if one has forms
like 'in order to do-X', '(thus) having done-X', 'by means of
doing-X', word order can be freer.

>So rather than "nounless" I'd say it's replacing cases onto
>nouns by verbs.
Yes, *underlying* (semantic) nouns remain, as I said. But it's
interesting to see if they can be *totally* eliminated on the
surface.
>
>Mathias

Basilius