R: Various stuff

Patrick wrote:

> Some of you might remember me, I was on the list for a few weeks earlier
> this year. Then I removed myself from it so as to not be distracted from
> school. ANyways, I have a couple of questions. And some stuff about my
> language.
>
> Question: What exactly is the ergative case?
An ergative case system is a system where:

1) the subject of transitive verbs takes the ergative case.
2) the object of transitive verbs and the subject of an intransitive verb
take the absolutive case.

Many conlangs work with such a system (my own Vaiysi, the Wizard's Amman
Iar...), which is rather cool.

> About my language, Tierian. I made a relatively large step with my
> language, and this is probably a baby step compared to some of you,
> but I actually got the beginnings of the numbering system, the catch is,
> its not base 10 its base 8. You are going, Why the heck would you use
> base 8? Well here it is.I have this theory, we use base 10 because we
> have 10 fingers, what if we had 8 fingers, well use base 8. So, you
> guessed, Tierians only have 8 fingers, well... 6 fingers, 2 thumbs.
Neat : )

Even if it's not true we count in base 10 only because we have 10 fingers,
that is the main reason, at least IMO. If you have 8 fingers, then it'll be
quite normal counting in base 8.

> They have 8 genders, 5 of which are people related. They are Youth,
> unmarried adult, parent, married adult, and Board member. What if they
> fulfill multiple of these categories? Glad you asked, they go in order
> first to last. If you are a parent but not married, then you use the
parent
> endings, if you are a youth but also a parent, then use the parent, and so
> on.
Nice

> The cases I am still figuring out. Since I only have experience with
> Latin,I am trying to broaden my horizons to grammar and see what I
>can do with it.
Mmm... this is a thing I always say when talking about cases, but I can't
resist: take a look at B. Rempt's Denden'd thirty cases!

Luca

> Patrick
> Blaze your trail
>