Re: draqa syntax - help please?

a maki ( h.s.teoh, k. jensen) behi:


>A verbal sentence *centers* around an event, which is
>described by one or more verbs. Nouns are the various
>"actors" playing various roles in this event, and are
>marked according to their roles: - nouns that act as
>an origin, source, or cause of the event are marked
>in
>   the *originative*. - nouns that act as the
>destination, goal, or recipient of the event are
>   marked in the *receptive*. - nouns that are
>responsible for the continual progress of the event
>are
>   marked in the *instrumental*. - nouns that are
>being moved, conveyed, or transmitted, are marked in
>the
>   *conveyant*. - nouns that indicate either the
>general location of the event or the
>   specific position of the event at a particular
>time are put into the
>   *locative* case.

This is VERY much the way draqa functions, except that
there is no Noun/ Verb distinction.  There also used
to be case-like inflecting, which has turned into a
derivational system ... the relevance of that in a
min...

Your use of originative, conveyant and locative is
very similar the way draqa uses its directional
metaphor!  Your originative would correspond (roughly)
to 'co-' (originating at/ departing from).  Your
conveyant to 'ei-' (toward) or 'ieh-' (successfully
to).  Your locative to 'hr-' (located at).

On the other hand, these also serve the same type of
prepositional functions as they do in English, i.e.
indication of position or direction.

Your instrumental, corresponds a little more roughly
to the instrumental derivational particle 'ho-', which
though I failed to mention in my original post, is
also useful in indicating the person, place, thing,
manner, action, etc. UTILIZED (even self-utilized) in
making the central idea (the Event- just as in your
lang) manifest.  (Remember, no Noun/ Verb distinction,
so a "Noun" is often an Event, and a "Verb" can be an
Instrument)

Until maybe a year ago, the draqa system worked almost
exclusively this way.  What I have now is mostly a
result of adding simplifying shortcuts, b/c my
intuitive feel for the language has deepened.

>The originative and receptive look deceptively like
>subject/object, but in
>fact, it isn't. For example:
>1)      pii'z3d0 tww'ma     mir33'nu.
>        man(org) talk(verb) children(rcp)
>        "The man talks/chats to the children."
Old:

i biko comadr eicabu:
  talk from-adult towards-children.

New:

i bikoc'madr eicabu:
   talk-man's towards-children.

Both the Old and New forms would be attested and valid
these days, but notice the genitival "-c'-" derived
from the particle "co-".  This was definitely
deliberate.  At this point, however, I'm comfortable
enough to understand "i bikomadr eicabu", the
most casual way of saying.

>BUT:
>2)      mir33'n0      fww't3    pii'z3du.
>        children(org) see(verb) man(rcp)
>        "The man sees the children."
>        The object being seen is regarded as the
>transmitter of its own
In this case, you originative is matched by an
uninflected form in draqa, but the method is similar:

i cabu iehmadr-hrta:
  children to-adult at-eyes


>3)      lyy's    pii'z3d3 loo'ru.
>        go(verb) man(cvy) countryside(rcp)
>        "The man goes into the countryside".
In these cases your conveyant is matched by an
uninflected form, but the methods are still similar:

i madr iehlalan:
  adult to-forest.


>4)      jul0'r     lyy's    mil3da3'.
>        house(org) go(verb) girl(cvy)
>        "The girl leaves the house."
i cabu copiac:
  child from-building.

>5)      byy'jh     pii'z3da   3lymo3'n     biz3tau'.
>        give(verb) man(instr) flowers(cvy) woman(rcp)
>        "The man delivers the flowers to the woman."
>        Why is the man in the instrumental case?
>Because he is the person
>        delivering the flowers sent by somebody else.
>If "man" is put into
>        the originative, the sentence becomes "The
>man gives flowers to
>        the woman".
Exactly a nuance to be found in draqa!

i keoxifa iehmehi hodehi:
   gift-flower  to-3p using-4p (or 4p-instr.)

i keoxifa iehmehi codehi:
   gift-flower to-3p from-4p

Furthermore:

>     biz3t30'   d3m3'l.        woman(org) beauty(cvy)
>        "The woman is beautiful." Literally, "the
>woman shows forth beauty".
Old:

i liax comadr:
   physical-beauty from-adult
   "Beauty comes forth from the woman."


New:

i liaxc'madr:
   physical-beauty-adult's
   "The woman's beauty (is)."

Once again, both Old and New are valid, but in this
instance, since physical beauty is seen as emanating,
(as all other sensory experiences), the Old form
would be much more prevalent.

>        biz3t30'   fww't3    d3m3'l      pii'z3du.
>        woman(org) see(verb) beauty(cvy) man(rcp)
>        "The man sees the woman's beauty", or, "the
>man sees that the
>        woman is beautiful."
Same again :)

i liax comadr iehdir:
physical-beauty from-adult to-4p.


Well, it seems that the main difference (superficially
of course) between our systems is that since draqa has
no Nouns/Verbs, sometimes the central Event in my lang
corresponds to the Conveyor or Originator in your
lang, where a Verb would be the Event.  Cool.

>  Basically, its all a matter of adapting to what
>linguistic theory has to offer. In your case, you
>could say both VSO and VOS, i.e. predicate initial
>with arguments following in any order depending
>on.....   remembering to define the terms to suite
>both your language and linguistic theory.
Well, it would be nice to find a current theory that
such systems would fit into.  The description I posted
before, however, is definitely much more "natively"
intuitable, and would probably representative of the
draqa's theory of their own language.


>This is a hard choice to make. My conlang could be
>any of SVO, VSO, VOS, OVS in its "preferred" word
>order. If you account for moving words around for
>emphasis/focus, it can be any order at all! (And this

With all the word-wrangling possible in draqa, this is
also quite the case...

>  Another alternative, especially as it seems Draqa
>is an alien language, is to make up your own
>theories. In this case, your hands are completely
>free -- and you can just ignore most of what I have
>just written ;)
draqa is definitely meant for humans - for example...
me! :)



a beac,
.yasmin.



__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Photos - 35mm Quality Prints, Now Get 15 Free!
http://photos.yahoo.com/