Re: Argument Structures

> Hmm.  Socketable verbs?  (Sorry, all my housemates play Diablo
II...and
> so do I, come to think of it, though not as obsessively.)  You have
> "socketable" weapons in which you can put some combination of gems,
each
> of which has a different effect (e.g. rubies for fire resistance,
> sapphires for cold resistance, etc.--simplified version).  So if you
had
> a "socketable" verb it could take any (or some?) of these varieties
of
> arguments, and the "gem type" (inflection?  particle?  meep? on the
> nouns) would tell you what "effects" you got (reciprocal, etc.).
>
> This is probably a very bad way to express something that's easily
> explained elsewise, but it just occurred to me.  I wouldn't mind
hearing
> other options myself; transitivity was something I never understood
in HS
> (...mainly because grammar wasn't taught, period) and it's something
I
> have trouble dealing with.
>
That's exactly it! Socketable, hmm, not EXACTLY the word I would have
chosen! But hey, it fits :-)

What I'm aiming for is for each verb to have "fittings" indicating
argument structure, voice, tense, aspect, and mood; with the nouns
(optionally) declining into cases that match the argument structure.
In addition cases are available to correspond to English prepositions,
as in (i.e., stolen from) Finnish and others. The goal is a conlang
where one word indicates the maximum amount of information. In
addition, all words are derived from verbs, so there should,
theoretically, be only one class of words. (Oh, apart from numbers, I
suspect.)
This is more an exercise in compressing information than a method of
communication; as I think that the distinctions will be too subtle to
make it easily understood in speech.

Anyone heard of anything similar around?

JJ