Re: Fluid-S pivot in Old Albic

Hello, Joerg and Henrik and everyone.

Joerg, I am really interested in the Fluid-S Pivot of Old Albic, and
in the Switch-Reference Pronoun with both an Agentive (coreferential
to the last clause's patient) and an Objective (coreferential to the
last clause's agent) Case.

1.) Are you aware of any natlangs that have any parts of Old Albic's
system?

2.) Is Old Albic available for me to peruse on-line?

Thanks.

Tom H.C. in MI

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@W...>
wrote:
> Hallo!
>
> Henrik Theiling wrote:
>
> > Hi!
> >
> > Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@W...> writes:
> > > I briefly mentioned yesterday that Old Albic has a fluid-S
pivot.
> > >...
> > > which can be both.  Fortunately, whether it is active or stative
> > > can be told by the agreement markers it takes. ...
> >
> > Interesting and nice system.  Do you know how fluid-S natlangs
> > actually handle this?  Did you take it from a natlang?
>
> I didn't take it from a particular natlang, but designed it when
> I found that there are languages with non-nominative pivots.
> Note that the pivot of a language often behaves differently
> from the case marking; there are plenty of languages with
> ergative case marking, but a nominative pivot.  I wanted to
> create a language that is purely and thoroughly fluid-S
> - including a fluid-S pivot.
>
> > In Tyl Sjok (also fluid-S), the system is taken from Chinese,
which is
> > accusative, but that doesn't matter: which argument is referred
to is
> > purely determined by semantics
>
> So `The child threw the ball and [] sang' can only mean that the
> child sang because balls (at least, ordinary balls) can't sing...
>
> >       and may become ambiguous.  It is not
> > grammatically defined.
>
> So a sentence like `The child threw the ball and [] fell' is
> ambiguous, because both children and balls can fall?
>
> >       So the system is quite different from Old
> > Albic.
>
> If I remember correctly, Tyl Sjok is isolating, with no kind of
> person-number marking on the verb which makes it clear whether the
> verb is active or stative in Old Albic.  In the first two of my
> examples, the person-number marker is the only thing that's
> different.  How is a sentence such as `A man wrote a letter
> and [] came' resolved in Tyl Sjok?
>
> > > This can be taken even further.  If the second verb is
transitive,
> > > there can be _two_ gaps coreferential with the two arguments of
the
> > > first verb:
> >
> > HAHA!  That's great. :-)
>
> Thanks!
>
> > Anyway, I'd usually expect this to be handled with verb
coordination,
> > but still it's funny.
>
> What do you mean by "verb coordination"?
>
> > My first conlang Fukhian had a double-reference relative clause,
> > BTW. :-)
> >
> > > (3) Agratara              ndero   gratath    a   aracara.
> > >     AOR-write-3SG:P-3SG:A man-AGT letter-OBJ and AOR-rip-3SG:P-
3SG:A
> > >     `A man wrote a letter and [the man] ripped [the letter].'
> >
> > Yeah, that's fun! :-)
> >
> > > To make things more complex, there are also switch-reference
> > > pronouns.  The agentive case of the switch-reference pronoun,
_ra_,
> > > is coreferential to a patient in the preceding clause, while its
> > > objective case, _ram_, is coreferential to an agent.
> >
> > Nice!  Natlangs like to mark this on verbs, but Qthyn|gai, which
also
> > has this, also uses special pronouns.
>
> I am not even sure whether "switch reference" is the correct term
> for it.  The switch reference morphemes in Amerindian languages
> mostly have to do with subordinate clauses, it seems, though
> I haven't really understood those switch reference systems yet.
>
> > I like the system in Old Albic.
>
> Thank you!  I am pleased by your liking it.
>
> >       My languages' grammars are usually
> > less strict -- much has to be inferred from context.  Most
markers are
> > optional and the default is to use context.  Old Albic feels quite
> > different.
>
> The explicitness of the morphology of Old Albic may create the
> impression of a very strictly regulated language, but it frees
> the language in other ways.  For example, word order is almost
> totally free - VSO, SVO, SOV, VOS, OVS and OSV are all equally
> possible (with VSO being the "unmarked" order), adjectives can
> be moved away from the nouns they modify, etc.  The fluid-S
> argument marking on verbs also makes the fluid-S pivot possible
> by eliminating ambiguities as in the example sentence `A man
> wrote a letter and [] came'.  I simply like langauges of the
> "classical" style (like Latin, Greek, Sanskrit or Quenya),
> with a rich inflectional morphology and great freedom in the
> realm of syntax.
>
> Greetings,
>
> Jörg.

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