Jerry wrote:
> by DeLancy. He claims that all case
> is at root THEME-LOCATION, spatial; and I am going to try to express
> these cases with an adverbialized format of my own that is similar. So
> far I have found it to be true that one can express case with the just
> the verbs "is_located" and "moves; (dis and pas from my vector space
> grammar) combined with adverbs.
8< 8< 8< 8< 8<
> Will-NOM (ActiveV) past move-toward a mouse [his] eye-ACC
> Will-om (hiah) ad pas-tor ol sur 'ayho-ac.
> Willom hiah ad pastor ol sur 'ayhoac. 12
> Will ad pastor ol sur 'ayho. 8
> Will moved toward a mouse his eyes.
>
> If it is not clear that Will is agent, he can be so
> marked with "hiah". NGL "hiah" identifies grammatical subject
> with the semantic agent.
>
> >"Will saw the mouse." 4
>
> At eyeDAT of Wills was located the (abstract) mouseNOM.
> 'ayhoad Wills pa dis ku id surom. 9
>
> Locative form. Stative verb.
>
> To Will's eyes [past]-move the (abstract) mouse.
> 'ayhoad Wills ad pas ku id sur.
>
> Dynamic form. Eventive verb.
> The abstract object, the image of the mouse, moved to
> Will's eyes, Will is the experiencer. I hope this reflects your
> sense of the event; your desired case semantics.
8< 8< 8<
> In this system there are only two verbs. They are modified with
> tense particles and optionally detachable adverbial suffixes.
> Free standing adverbs together with the "glueable" adverbial
> suffixes carry the cases. Actually case seems to be distributed
> over the sentence, counting words like hiah/sieh, the active/passive
> markers. Case seems to resist being bottled. I think that any case
> has an innate actual or abstract spatial sense, but that is just
> the beginning of the full meaning. Territoriality is the beginning,
> not the end, of case.
This was really interesting. (And I really mean that). As you say,
this helps me to understand cases better, and I'll surely take it
into consideration when trying to decide what to do with the
Rinya cases. But to have only two verbs. Hmm... That seems a little
too unorthodox for me. I don't think I'm capable of making sentences
in that fashion (yet). A bit too abstract for me. But who
knows what will happen with Rinya (or perhaps a totally different
conlang of mine) in the future. In any case :) it seems like a
good idea to play around with these ideas for a while and see
what comes out of it. Thanks.
> Good Luck with your new lang,
Thanks!
> Jerry
Daniel