Re: draqa syntax - help please?

On Tue, Sep 26, 2000 at 01:12:37AM +0200, Kristian Jensen wrote:
[snip]
> Although Draqa syntax is quite out-of-this-world, there is a lot in it
> that reminds me of Boreanesian syntax. Boreanesian is a trigger language,
[...]
> Like Draqa, the concept of subject/object is almost meaningless. Problem is,
> the concept of subject/object is so deeply imbedded in linguistic theory that
> it becomes a necessity to think in those terms.
[...]

Hmm. That could become a problem in my conlang too. My conlang has a
system that looks deceptively like a subject/object system but really
isn't. It's based on a *completely* semantic marking of nouns, and
actually has several different sentence types. The apparent subject/object
similarity is in verbal sentences, so that's what I'll talk about here:

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.

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."
        Here, the originative/receptive coincides with subject/object.
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
        appearance; hence the strange reversal of the expected cases.

Furthermore:
3)      lyy's    pii'z3d3 loo'ru.
        go(verb) man(cvy) countryside(rcp)
        "The man goes into the countryside".
        Here, what English regards as the "subject" is in the conveyant
        case: because the man is in motion.

4)      jul0'r     lyy's    mil3da3'.
        house(org) go(verb) girl(cvy)
        "The girl leaves the house."
        This one proves that the originative isn't the subject...

Another one of my favorite pathological (from the POV of subject/object
systems) cases:
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".

At first, I thought my conlang was an active language -- and indeed, it
does resemble an active language in marking noun cases semantically.
However, there is no case corresponding to agentive / experiencer /
absolutive or anything like that. Depending on the event being described,
the "subject" or "agent" of the sentence could be in any of the five
cases!

So my question is... what *is* this system?? I've read a bit about active
langs, ergative langs, and trigger langs, and my conlang doesn't seem to
fit in any of those categories (although it seems closest to active).

[snip]
> 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.
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 only covers
verbal sentences. There are other sentence types, like the stative which
consists solely of nouns, that just doesn't fit anywhere in this scheme.)

> 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 ;)
[snip]

Hmm... my conlang is intended for humans -- or at least, human-like beings
-- so I'm a bit stuck on this issue. :-(


T