Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:
>Nur-ellen treats this differently. This is a typical sentence
>of perception, where the perceiving entity goes into the dative
>and the object of perception into the objective:
>
>Na i ben tir i jin.
>DAT the AGT.man see the OBJ.child.PL
Curious usage, but it does make some sense.
>Without the dative preposition, the sentence expresses deliberate
>observation:
>
>I ben tir i jin.
>The AGT.man watch the OBJ.child.PL
>"The man watches the children."
Nice distinction. Telek differentiates "watch" and "see" with different
verbs entirely -- like English.
>In Nur-ellen: instrumental (_ni_ + objective)
> + objective
> + benefactive (_an_ + agentive).
>
>Ni i ven an`n i ljös an i bes.
>INST the OBJ.man give the OBJ.flower.PL BEN the AGT.woman
Why do you treat woman as an agent here?
>It seems to stand on its own. It is none of the ones mentioned.
>No trigger, but also not accusative, not ergative, and also not really
>an active language. At least, nothing I'd recognize as active from
>what little experience I have with relational typology.
>But interesting out of its own right.
>
>It makes the active system in Nur-ellen (or do you find a reason why
>it is not active, Marcus?) look tame, even with its degrees of volition.
Nur-ellen is a fine active language. The only oddities are the use of
agent for a goal and the fact that the marking is on the noun. I would
certainly classify it as active.
>Nur-ellen:
>
>I ves vin.
>the OBJ.woman OBJ.beautiful
>
>Nur-ellen is a zero-copula language; and as "the woman" isn't actively
>doing anything in this sentence, the case marking is objective.
Instead of calling this a zero-copula language, I would say that adjectives
are a sub-class of verbs. Not much of a difference between the two, but it
does "explain" why they both get tense. (But what about predicative nouns?)
>As I said, predicative nouns and adjectives are marked for tense:
Telek has a copula that only shows up in these exact contexts: if you need
to add an affix to the verb (agreement, aspect, etc) then the copula is
used. Otherwise, it isn't.
>Voromir gondirent e Davrob`l.
>OBJ.Boromir OBJ.mayor-PAST GEN.PART OBJ.Tavrob`l
>"Boromir was mayor of Tavrob`l."
>
>(Yes, case and tense markers on the same word! So here is the
>64,000 dollar question: is _gondirent_ a noun or a verb?)
A noun that has been incorporated into a silent verb. :-)
I like the way you put the tense on just _gondirent_ rather than the entire
phrase _gondirent e Davrob'l_.
>Or, with a zero-copula relative clause:
>
>Na i ben tir i ves ji vin.
>DAT the AGT.man see the OBJ.woman REL OBJ.beautiful
Is that an all-purpose relative marker, or does it change according to case?
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Marcus Smith
AIM: Anaakoot
"When you lose a language, it's like
dropping a bomb on a museum."
-- Kenneth Hale
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