Re: Non-static verbs?

On Thu, 17 Aug 2000, =?iso-8859-1?Q?J=F6rg?= Rhiemeier wrote:

> H. S. Teoh writes:
>
> > There isn't really a difference between active and passive in my conlang.
> > It uses quite a different point of view from the usual subject-object
> > system in Indo-European languages. Nouns cases are:
> > - originative: the noun is the cause/initiator of an event/action
> > - receptive (not sure if this is a good name): the noun is the object
> >   being that the action is directed at. Usually similar to the "object"
> >   (in the sense of subject/object), but not always.
>
> This looks like an active language.  There doesn't seem to be a
> standardized terminology for the cases of such languages; just about
> everyone has his/her
> own terms for them.  Your originative and receptive cases apparently
> correspond to what I call agentive and objective in my own conlang,
> Nur-ellen.
<sigh of relief>  Oh, whew.  I revised the case system in Chevraqis (and
it's subject to further change, and I put the k back in to stand for k,
so now I have to figure out what q sounds like, but it's all good) and
couldn't for the life of me figure out what to call 'em except
in/voluntary agent or experiencer.  Yuck.

> In Nur-ellen, the agentive marks the person or being from which the
> (volitional) action originates; only animate nouns may occur in this
> case.  The objective is used to mark the direct object of an action.
> The argument of an intransitive verb is in agentive if the verb refers
> to a volitional action, while stative verbs such as "to stand", and also
> verbs like "to fall" take the objective case.
My version messed with this somewhat: if you said "rain put the fire out"
(for example--I did some morpheme-generation for a few hours today, and
then burned out!--so the words don't actually exist yet), most Qenaren
(fictitious country) speakers of Chevraqis would mark either "rain" as
voluntary and "fire" as involuntary, or both as voluntary.  Reason: it's
a throwback to the mostly-animistic religious views that prevail in the
area.  An Avren (neighboring fictitious country) would probably mark both
as involuntary.

I don't know if this is allowable, but hey...if I read other people's
posts for long enough (the ones I can understand--I'm quite behind on
terminology) I should eventually catch on.  :-)

Yoon Ha Lee