Re: A Conlang by the group: parts of speech

> Well, we could have original nominal roots, and original verbal roots, bu=
> t
> they could take any part of speech when needed (as Esperanto).
Yes, but some will wonder why noun 'song' is used per si as a verb meaning 'to
sing', not ' to be sung' or 'seat' as 'to sit', not 'to be the seat of', 'food'
as 'to feed oneself', not 'to nurture', etc.

I mean, I would wonder :-)

If I'm the only one and others don't mind and are ready to drop verbal roots, I agree then.

Do they ?


>
>
> [...]
> >>>* Adjectives: the only proposal so far is to have them behave like ver=
> bs,
> >>>which also gets rid of copulative "to be" and allows many derivations.
> >>>I agree on the proposal.
> >>
> >>Of course, if verbs and nouns are the same, only recognized by the
> mode/case
> >>tag, such disctintions would be irrelevant.
> >
> >Granted. Given the system we have, there would be a root generally meani=
> ng
> >"red" that could be inflected to mean "to be red", "(which is) red"
> [determinant]
> >"red" [modifier], etc.
>
> or "red color" [theme, patient or agent]
>
> Alternative:
> No case agreement and semifixed order (never take the modifier or
> determinant too far from the modified word).
I like it better, I don't like heavy case agreement, If you don't mind.

However, not taggin on the modifier where it belongs to is an endless source of
ambiguity in SOV languages unless

you wall up the sub-phrases

you tag the start of a new sub-phrase

but we could try like you say and fix problems later.

>
> Gender agreement of modifiers.
>
> Predicades and predicate modifiers agree with theme.
>
> [...]
> >--Pablo Flores
Then it's not a theme anymore, it's a subject :-)

That's what is good in themes : they are neither patient, agent or else : they are
absolute attributees of the sentence unless shown otherwise :

Hon-wa hito-ga yomu

= book-TOP man-NOM read-PRED

= 'The book, the man reads it.'

The predicate 'read' does not agree with the theme 'book' but with the subject 'man'

ACCUSATIVE '-wo' is implied in TOPIC but may be shown if necessary (not possible at all
in tis case)

*Hon-wo-wa hito-ga yomu

= book-ACC-TOP man-NOM read-PRED

To agree so, the sentence would be passive :

Hon-wa hito-ni yomareru

= book-TOP man-AG read-PASSIVE-PRED

= 'The book, it is read by the man'.

Mathias





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