Degrees of volition in Old Albic (was Re: Linguistic knowledge and conlanging (...))

Hallo!

On Mon, 26 Jul 2004 23:37:03 -0500,
"Thomas R. Wier" <trwier@...> wrote:

> From:    =?iso-8859-1?Q?J=F6rg?= Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...>
> > I came up with when reflecting over ergativity; when I first used
> > it (in Nur-ellen, the predecessor of Albic), I didn't know any
> > natlang with an active-stative system, and I have yet to read
> > about a natlang with a degree-of-volition marking system like
> > the Albic one.
>
> Could you briefly describe how this works in Albic? I've always
> loved split-S phenomena.
Sure.  First of all, Old Albic is a fluid-S language, in which
intransitive subjects are marked like transitive subjects if
they are agents, and like transitive objects if they are not.
(Transitive subjuects are always agentive.)  Examples:

 (1) Obosca         o     ndero.
     AOR-flee-3SG:A M-AGT man-AGT
     `The man fled.'

 (2) Acara         om    nderom.
     AOR-sit-3SG:P M-OBJ man-OBJ
     `The man sat.'

 (3) Ibretara              o     ndero   am    phath.
     AOR-break-3SG:P-3SG:A M-AGT man-AGT I-OBJ knife-OBJ
     `The man broke the knife.'

Some verbs can take either marking, depending on whether the
subject acts out of itself or not:

 (4) Acvamsa        atto       maro.
     AOR-come-3SG:A father-AGT 1SG-GEN-AGT
     `My father came.'

 (5) Acvama         gratath    thas.
     AOR-come-3SG:P letter-OBJ 2SG-GEN-OBJ
     `Your letter came.'

Now to the really juicy part of it all, degrees of volition.
The unmarked degree of volition, expressed by a subject in the
agentive case as in (1), (3) and (4), is full volition, i. e.
the subject acts intendedly.  Another degree of volition is
accidental action, which is marked by putting the subject in
the dative case.  Assume, for example, that the man in example (3)
did not intend to break the knife, but broke it involitionally
(e. g., while cutting something tough with it):

 (6) Ibretara              ona   nderona  am    phath.
     AOR-break-3SG:P-3SG:A M-DAT man-DAT I-OBJ knife-OBJ
     `(It happened to) the man (that he) broke the knife.'

With verbs of perception, dative subjects indicate cursory perception,
and agentive subjects indicate deliberate observation:

 (7) Etersa              ona   nderona am    chvanam.
     AOR-see-3SG:P-3SG:A M-DAT man-DAT C-OBJ dog-OBJ
    `The man saw the dog.'

 (8) Etersa              o     ndero   am    chvanam.
     AOR-see-3SG:P-3SG:A M-AGT man-AGT C-OBJ dog-OBJ
    `The man looked at the dog.'

There is, however, a third degree of volition, which expresses
that the subject acts out of an external cause.  This is marked
with the instrumental case, and the verb (unlike in the other
degrees of volition) does not carry an agent agreement marker.
For inanimate nouns, this is the only possible degree of `volition':
they never have any volition.  (The case paradigm of inanimate nouns
is defective; they have no agentive or dative cases.)  Examples:

 (9) Oboc     ømi    nderømi.
     AOR-flee M-INST man-INST
     `The man was made to flee.'

(10) Ibreta          emi    ønti       am    crañ.
     AOR-break-3SG:P I-INST stone-INST I-OBJ pot-OBJ
     `The stone broke the pot.'

Grammatically, these sentences are zero-agent constructions with
an oblique NP expressing the instrument by which the event occurs.

This system of degrees of volition applies both to active
intransitive and transitive subjects.  It is also independent from
the tense/aspect/mood of the verb (unlike e. g., Georgian),
even though I have consistently used the aorist (the usual form
of narration) in the examples above.

This has become quite lengthy, but well, that's the way it works.
The modern Albic languages have (not yet worked out) similar systems.

Abbreviations:

1       1st person
2       2nd person
3       3rd person
A       agent agreement
AGT     agentive case
AOR     aorist
C       common animate gender
DAT     dative case
GEN     genitive case
I       inanimate gender
INST    instrumental case
M       masculine gender
OBJ     objective case
P       patient agreement
PL      plural
SG      singular

Greetings,

Jörg.