Re: Branching typologies

In a message dated 9/27/01 11:46:10 AM, Dirk_Elzinga@BYU.EDU writes:

<< The resulting
structure is somewhat flat, rather than left- or right-branching.
Since the verb is normally in first position, I suppose you could
call it verb-initial. >>

    How are the morphemes arranged?  In my agglutinating language (is the new
term polysynthetic?), the order goes something like this:

(Subject Status)-(Direct Object/Stimulus)-(Modals)-(Motion/Place
Adverbs)-(Manner Adverbs)-
(Verb ([Agent Marker] Subject) Root)-(Tense)-(Indirect Object)-(Prepositional
Phrases)-(Aspect/Mood)-(Coordination)

    To explain a few of these...
There are 5 subject status markers, such that:
[i] indicates the same subject as the previous utterance/phrase.
[a] indicates that there's a new subject which was the direct object/stimulus
of the previous phrase.
[e] indicates that there's a new subject which was the indirect object of the
previous phrase.
[o] indicates that there's a new subject which was somewhere in the previous
phrase which was not
    the direct object, stimulus or indirect object (e.g., head of a
prepositional phrase).
[u] indicates there's an entirely new subject which hasn't been discussed yet.

    The rest are pretty standard up to the verbal root.
    All verbal roots considered of two syllables which are each CV (oh, the C
can be a cluster of, say, homo-organic nasal+stop/affricate, which we'll see
in the example I'm just about to list...).  So, taking the verb "pantsu", "to
swim", if you wanted to say "I swim" (for purposes of simplicity, I'll strip
off all aspect and tense and everything), the verbal root part would look
like [pawintsu], where [wi] is the first person singular.
    Oh shoot...  Now I'm confused.  I have this thing I've been calling an
agent marker which goes in front of the pronoun, but...you're an agent when
you swim, aren't you?  I mean, you're actively doing it...  I think what I
had in mind was when you act upon something ELSE only...  Is that ergative?
Should I have it as an ergative marker rather agent marker?  Shoot, I think I
did this for another language, too!  After all, who's to say you're not
active when you're walking down the street?  You're certainly not letting
your feet take you anywhere...  Yes!  That is an ergative marker, isn't it?!
Oops!  Well, I have some things to do, in that case...

-David

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