On Tue, 29 Apr 2003 21:55:43 +0200, Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...> wrote:
>Sometimes, I think I've actually never got out of this initial period ;)))) .
Beginners have most of the energy and most of all the fresh and
innocent ideas but also very little experience, of course. I'd like
to become an experienced beginner which is probably much the same as
a grown-up child. *ggg*
>It's funny how the Semitic system of consonantal roots and vocalic
>grammatical patterns attracts beginners. Myself, I have a "youth project"
>somewhat based on this system. It was based on the idea of using the
>consonants of Romance roots and Semitic vowel patterns together to make
>something original. But since I actually didn't know how Semitic patterns
>worked (and was not ready to try arbitrary patterns), the system I evolved
>was more a system of vowel gradations, with each word having both
>consonants and vowels, and the vowels going high or low depending on the
>grammatical function of the word. I don't remember much of the project (and
>I don't know where my notes are) but I think it was called Lin-gwe, with a
>cedilla under the |e| (I had both midhigh and midlow vowels, and IIRC I
>marked the midhigh ones with a dot under |e| or |o| and the midlow ones
>with the cedilla under it).
Inner inflection is elegant to me. And the semitic approach is the
very most innermost inflection that I can imagine! :-)))
>> To create nouns out of the verbal base
>>concepts, every noun has an additional internal case which selects a
>>case role of the verbal root. My example below will make this more
>>understandable. :-)
>
>Basically, deverbal nouns for the agent or patient of the action :))) .
...and for the completive argument
...and for the intransitive gerund (without the causative role implied)
...and for the active transitive gerund (with the causative implied)
...and for the passive transitive gerund (with the causative implied)
Example:
"to be ready for"
Causative: "the one who makes (causes to be) ready"
Patientive: "the one who is ready"
Completive: "that which somebody is ready for"
Intransitive gerund: "the being ready"
Active transitive gerund: "the making ready"
Passive transitive gerund: "the being made ready"
>>The causative case marks the controlling origin of a verb's action. So,
>>in the sentecne "He smashes the window" the window would be in the
>>patientive case whereas "he" would be in the causative case.
>"Causative" normally refers to the cause of the action, not its controlling
>origin. But since your cases are not exactly like usual cases, it's a bit
>difficult to name them. I would use "factitive". It's somewhat related to
>"causative", and fits maybe a bit better the job. Or you could even call it
>"agentive", to show well the opposition with the patientive.
Maybe my terminology is against linguistic common sense. ;-)
I did not strictly think of a self-aware cause for the verb's action.
In the sentence "Art makes him happy" I would mark the causative case
on the word "art" - out of the consideration that "he" would not
become happy (change his state to "happy", if you like) unless there
is "art" to cause this. Thus, take "art" away and the making-happy does
not take place. This way I can have causatives even with so-called
intransitive verbs.
For truly transitive verbs, the cause is also the doer of the action.
Perhaps my verbal system is still somewhat esoteric because verbs
describe "states" as they change or as they remain constant. In the
sentence "I split wood" I am the direct cause for the wood changing
from whatever condition it was in before my action to the condition
(or state) "being split" after my action.
Whew! I have the idea clearly in my head but I have a hard time
describing it succinctly. :-))
Agentive.... *processing*.... *musing*.... *thinking*...
*considering*... *done*... yes, let's call it agentive! :-)))
>>There is one more case that can be considered a basic case in so far
>>that each lexical root defines it according to its own verbal semantics.
>>There is no common rule for what is marked by this case which I call
>>"completive case". This is because it somehow completes the basic
>>argument structure of the verb. In the window-smashing example the
>>tool of smashing would be in the completive case. There are some
>>faint notions of Rick Morneau's focus case role in my completive case.
>
>I suppose this "completive" case would have a dative meaning for a verb
>like "give" (or would it correspond then to the object given? After all,
>giving something to someone alters the state of that person! :)) ).
>"Completive" is a fair name I guess.
Hm... it depends on how I define the lexical root for the concept of
giving. Will I make it "to be given something"? Then the completive
will have a dative meaning in this example. Or will I define it as
"to be given to"? Then the completive will be the destination and
not the gift. I left myself this one general-purpose case to be free
for such arbitration when I come to work on the lexicon. ;-)
The previous paragraph already reveals an odd peculiarity of my
verbal roots. They are passive for action verbs - since they
describe the change that happens to the patient. And they are
active for state verbs where they in fact describe what the patient
"does" or rather which state or change of state he experiences.
Hm... reading over this again I ask myself if anybody could really
understand this. If it sounds weird to you then don't worry too
much... *ggg*
>I think you mean "possessee": that which is possessed. "Possession" is a
>bit ambiguous here because it can refer to the concept of possessing something.
Yes, it is the possessee. That was a typical German mistake! "Besitz"
for possessee and "Besitz" for possession. Easily confused in English.
;-)
>As for the "anti-genitive", you could call it "construct case", as the
>"construct state" of Hebbrew which has basically the same meaning.
>>1) "mahol"
[...]
>"-a-o-" you mean, I suppose :)) .
Yes.
Obviously I didn't even manage to copy a sequence of two letters.
*ggg*
>>2) "jantik"
>>Note, that the root concept "to be in a sitting position" applies to a
>>variety of things: a doll put in a sitting position, our sitting cat, and so
>>on. But the cat is not only the passive experiencer. It is sitting by its
>>own influence over the situation - not because some other person has
>>put the cat into its sitting position. It is "actively" sitting. Thus, the cat
>>is the cause and the patientive at the same time, so we need a reflexive
>>verb. The root concept "j-nt-k" is inflected by the vowel pattern "-a-i-"
>>which gives us a reflexive verb.
>Now *that*'s a strange use of the reflexive! :))) Especially since "to be
>sitting" is quite intransitive, and normally reflexive forms can't be used
>with intransitive verbs. But here it's not a case of identity of the agent
>and patient, but rather that you consider that the experiencer of the state
>is also the agent of this state. But why not just use the causative case in
>this case? Or can it be used with "to be sitting" with a different meaning?
>(now that I say it, I realise that it could refer to someone putting
>something in sitting position...)
Right now as you begin to show me how strange the approach is, I
happen to like it more and more. *hehehe*
>>3) "epason"
[...]
>You contradict yourself here. You said that modifiers precede their head,
>but "something which is above" modifies the verb which is before it. If
>it's a modifier of the verb, it should be in front of it rather than after it.
Hehehe, you are a good observer! German word order played its tricks
on me... most definitely the sentence should be:
"mahol epason enitom jantik"
>It's the strange prepositional system that I find most intriguing... and
>the strange use of the reflexive :)) . I was wondering whether I could
>somehow use the reflexive voice for intransitive verbs in Maggel. You gave
>me a source of new ideas :))) .
>
>
>Christophe Grandsire.
>
http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr
>You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang.