Re: interesting websites: topic-prominent languages, Lisu, etc.

On Tue, Oct 03, 2000 at 12:24:04AM +0200, Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:
> Estelachan@AOL.COM wrote:
>
> > I'm curious now: my language Finvaran uses a fairly odd system of markers
> > based not on the grade-school-issue subject/direct-object/indirect-object
> > division, but on a more precise
> > agent/patient/goal/recipient/instrument/etc...... division with suffixes
> > designating each.
>
> Sounds like an active system.  It sounds quite similar to what
> I have done in my conlang Nur-ellen.  Tell us more, please!
[snip]

Yet another active conlang! Yeah! :-P

Or could it, by some rare chance, be similar to Yasmin's draqa and my own
conlang, which looks active but isn't really?

> >       Is an "agent-prominent" language considered
> > "subject-prominent"? The distinction is usually not a big deal, but comes up
> > in passive voice: in English, "The house was painted last week" has "the
> > house" as the subject. The Finvaran equivalent has *no* agent.... the house
> > is still the patient of the action "paint (past tense)".
>
> Yes, there is no agent; passivization doesn't change this in the least.
> Active languages tend to lack passive; at any rate, there is no passive
> in Nur-ellen because I feel it doesn't make much sense in a language
> which explicitly mark agents rather than "subjects".  If there is no
> agent, there is no agent; no reason to treat something like an agent
> if it isn't!
[snip]

Yep. Exactly what I've done in my conlang. If it ain't there, no need to
take an existing word and shoe-horn it into an agentive role.


T