Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Re: revisions in Tepa number marking

From:J Matthew Pearson <pearson@...>
Date:Thursday, August 17, 2000, 18:04
dirk elzinga wrote:

> Take a sentence with a plural subject in English: > 'The sheep are running around.' In Tepa this becomes: > > lulpa toko > 0- RED- lupa toko > 3- DIST- run sheep > > Notice that the number marking does not mark an entity, but rather an > event; here it shows that the event of running is distributed over a > number of sheep--the implication is that each sheep is running around > independently of her neighbors. In the context of a story, the noun > 'sheep' may be entirely dispensed with, leaving only _lulpa_ 'They > were running around' or even, 'Running around was going on all over.' > > The situation becomes a little more complicated with transitive > predicates. Suppose you have the following Tepa sentence (my apologies > for the violent nature of the example!) > > wanpopti nema > wa- n- RED- poti nema > 1>3- TR- DIST- beat man > > This has three different meanings in English. It could mean: > > i. I beat up the men. > ii. We beat up the man. > iii. We beat up the men. > > Only context can determine which reading is intended since number is > not marked on the noun but only on the predicate. (However, the first > reading is not as likely since the implication of the English sentence > is that the event of beating up happened once to a group of men--that > might be better expressed with a collective verb form: _wanpokti_. It > may be possible to use the distributive for a series of similar events > so a more accurate version of i. would be 'I beat up one man after > another.') > > If this post seems a bit scattered or unorganized then it's an > accurate reflection of my state of mind WRT Tepa. Comments? Questions?
I like it! I can envision two possible ways to reduce the ambiguity generated by this system without losing the spirit of what you're trying to do. I played around with both of these strategies when I was working on a sketch for a conlang a while back, and I came up with a couple ideas that I was fiddling with (the conlang itself didn't go anywhere, but I might return to some of its major design features at a later date): The first thing would be two expand the number of categories in the agreement system. I recall that Tepa agreement prefixes only mark person of subject and object, not number. This is a cool feature, and I presume you would want to keep it in the revised Tepa, but you might consider adding some finer person distinctions than just the standard 1, 2, and 3. For example: 1 me (1st singular) 1+2 me and you, us two (1st dual inclusive) 1+2+3 me and you and other(s) (1st plural inclusive) 1+3 me and other(s) (1st dual/plural exclusive) 2 you (2nd singular, or plural when addressing a group) 2+3 you and other(s) (2nd plural, when addressing part of a group) 3 other(s) (3rd singular/plural) A second strategy would be to break up the number marking on verbs into two domains. Verbal predicates can be grouped into four different categories according to their eventivity and punctuality: state ("alive", "happy") activity ("sing", "eat apples", "hunt for deer") activity leading to change-of-state ("build a house", "eat the apple") You could have two parallel systems of plural marking, which operate separately or together, depending on the semantics of the verb. One marking set indicates singular/plural of states (i.e., multiple states, or a single state shared by a group of entities), while the other set indicates singular/plural of activities (i.e., multiple activities, or a single activity shared by a group of actors). Verbs which denote states or changes of state would take state singular/plural marking (abbreviated SSg/SPl), verbs which denote non-terminal activities would take activity singular/plural marking (abbreviated ASg/APl), and verbs which denote an activity terminating in a change of state in the patient would take both: 3-happy-SSg "s/he is happy" 3-happy-SPl "they are happy" or "s/he is happy (on different occasions)" 3-sing-ASg "s/he sings (once)" 3-sing-APl "they sing", "s/he sings (iteratively)" 3>3-eat-SSg-ASg "s/he eats it" 3>3-eat-SPl-ASg "s/he eats them (collective)" 3>3-eat-SSg-APl "they eat it" 3>3-eat-SPl-APl "they eat them", "s/he eats them (on different occasions)" Just a couple ideas... Matt.