Re: Need Advice on Syntax & Case System
| From: | Garrett Jones <alkaline@...> |
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| Date: | Thursday, April 25, 2002, 21:53 |
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> 1) Cases
>
> I have gone another step away from the IE commonplaces, and replaced
> the classical Nominative-Accusative-Oblique system of Obrenje with
> something entirely new.
>
> It doesn't fit any of the existing case systems that I know of. I
> have named my cases Nominative, Predicative and Objective.
Your cases actually don't map too much differently than the cases in
Minyeva. The funny thing is you use the same case markers for your two main
cases that i use for the corresponding ones in minyeva :). I just call them
differently (actually, i call them by their semantics, i haven't actually
come up with what case names to call them).
Similarities:
your nominative, my agent: unmarked in both langs
your predicative, my "focus": 'u' in both langs
your objective, my "patient": 'i' in both langs
-my focus is an object unchanged by the action, and the patient is the
intended recipient of change. Here is where our cases coincide:
---
"the man sings a song to the woman."
O: Lonne torav u lawne i fele.
G: Sing:3e man:d PRE song:i OBJ woman:d
M: te vlenu liqega u da liqecu i te nyove.
G: the man sings-to FOC a song PAT the woman.
---
"I give a fruit to the animal."
O:Powze u mej i pandee.
G:give-I PRE fruit OBJ animal.
M:le kavo i te zlone u da pavlo.
G:I has--PAT the animal FOC a fruit.
---
They are different when the object is untouched by the action:
---
"the dog sees you."
O:Kel il warve.
G:sees you(OBJ) dog(NOM).
M:vamo te pleva u si.
G:sees the dog FOC you.
---
i don't have enough data to make other comparisons.
> Question:
>
> - Do you find the description of the cases and their uses
> comprehensible and/or intuitive?
well, i understood it easily because of its similarities with minyeva :) A
specific sentence example i would like to see is a sentence with a verb, a
nominative, and an objective but no predicative, but not using any pronouns.
The sentence "the dog sees you" is close to this, but it has a pronoun (so
prepositional case marking isn't there).
> - Can you think of situations where this case system would fail or
> produce problems?
How do you apply your system to the equivalent of english sentences that
have object compliments? for example:
I called (him) (stupid).
We elected (her) (president).
They found (war) (to be the only possibility).
in minyeva, the first would be the patient and the second would be the
focus.
> - Do you have a better suggestion for naming these cases?
I'm still looking for what to call mine :P
--
Garrett Jones
http://www.alkaline.org