Malat (on behalf of Garrett)
| From: | Jason Hooper <nirgal@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Monday, December 7, 1998, 3:30 |
|---|
(I am sending this on behalf of Garrett, whose outgoing email is
currently experiencing technical
difficulties. He currently still receives email)
Mathias M. Lassailly wrote:
> Charles wrote :
>
> Garrett wrote:
> > >
> > > I've been hard at work on Malat (my logical language)
> >
> I had a good time reading your post. I'm really interested in the
matter you've been dealing with in Malat.
Cool :)
> > > All word roots are a consonant/consonant cluster, then an empty
space, then a
> > > consonant. For example, the word for exchange is "m-d". A vowel is
put in the empty
> > > spot to tell what type of speech the word is ('e' for verb, 'a'
for noun, etc). When
> > > an inherently verbal root is converted to a noun, the meaning is
"a person/thing who
> > > ~s" or "an ~er". For example, med = to exchange, so mad = an
exchanger.
*bookmarked* I will read the whole thing sometime, it looks very
interesting.
> Charles' Tomato sounds more *friendly* because it's plain
vowel+consonant roots.
derivation"
> > as in Esperanto, where a verb becomes a noun as easily as changing
> > socks.
>
> Except that Garrett apparently have made an aspect distinction inside
roots : ongoing patient or agent // patient or agent as a result.
> Problem is, Garrett : what is the resultative patient of *to cut* ?
The wood carved ? The cutting ? Two twigs ? Sawdust ? :-)
This is one of my favorite parts of Malat. There are two types of verbs
in Malat: actions and states. The actions are just pure actions,
describing what the agent does; the resulting state is not stated. So,
to cut is a pure action and has no specific state. The other type is
state verbs,
which describe the resulting state of the patient. So, "to be carved",
"to be split into twigs", "to be turned into sawdust", etc are state
verbs. Malat is constructed so that an action verb and state verb are
easily expressed in a simple sentence. For example, if 'k-t' means to
cut, and
's-d' means "to be sawdust", 't-d' means a tree, -uc is past tense, and
-ed is a modifier meaning "to change to":
aL ketuc itad aseded = I cut the tree into sawdust.
(i- is patient, a- is a verb that is caused by another action).
To say the tree was cut into a board (b-d = to be a board):
aL ketuc itad abeded = I cut the tree into a board.
Without the resulting state expressed, it's either implied or not known
what the resulting state is:
aL ketuc itad = I cut the tree (into what is unknown).
Also, you can leave out the action but have the state:
aL itad abeded = I made the tree into a board (what i did to do that is
unkown).
> > > In malat sentences, there are three types of objects involved: an
agent (causes the
> > > action), a patient (who is affected by the action), and a focus
(which further
> > > elaborates on the action).
> >
> Same in DEL, except that there is an agent (usually the instrument)
and a patient. The patient is antipassive :
> to receive (active) // to be attributed to (antipassive);
> Then there is a factor :
> to make receive (active factitive) = to give to;
> to make be attributed (antipassive factitive) = to give (something).
> Like in Malat, the focus/patient and the agent may be either in
process (processive) or successfully processed (resultative) : *to be
milled* = *to be being milled* (processive) or *to be flour*
(resultative). The agent may also be processive (*to get big*) or
resultative (*to be big*).
I haven't described the following anywhere yet, but here's how the
processive/resultative stuff works in Malat. Malat agent verbs (also
called action verbs) are what the action is in the sentence. The ~n
modifier is used on these verbs:-rn: start doing the action
-an: be in the middle of the action
-in (the default): to be done with the action
With the state verbs, the ~d modifier is used:
-ed: to change to the state (processive)
-ad (the default): the be in the state (resultative)
-ud: go back from the state (to the previous state)
-erd: change from the state (into a new state)
aL ketan ioL atederd abeded = I am cutting it from a tree into a board.
> Some actions and states are transformative, some aren't (like most of
the lative actions and states).
> Sometime it's difficult to say whether the patient is *transformed* in
a result :
> *to turn to* > *to be turned to* = *to be a direction*
> Is a direction a plain patient or a resultative patient ?
For Malat the direction would be the focus of the action, the person
that was turned is the patient, and the person that turns the patient is
the agent. The patient of malat is transformed because of the act; the
focus is unchanged (that's what the focus is).
> This depends whether you take aspective into consideration. If you
make a difference between *to turn to* and *to be directed to* then the
patient may be processive or resultative : *to be turned to* and *to be
the direction of*.
> Same with *to give birth to* // *to be born of*.
if b-th means "giving birth to", beth = to give birth to, and bieth = to
be born of.if t-n means "be in the direction of to", tened = turn (self)
to, tien/aten = be directed to, ten = be in the direction of.
> So your focus is my patient or processed patient, your patient is my
agent or patient and your agent is my factor, and reversely your
patient... ;-) (kidding). But basically I can feel we solved the problem
in a similar way.
>
> > I just downloaded Rick Morneau's latest revision to Lexical
Semantics;
> > is that where you got the focus idea?
> >
> Could you give me that address please ?
ftp://ftp.eskimo.com/u/r/ram/conlang/yes, that's where I got my focus
idea. I started out having my sentences constructed similarly to his,
but diverged off and now malat can expressed action and state at the
same time (I don't remember how Rick did it).
> > > On to what I wanted to explain. I made up a system where the agent
and focus or
> > > agent and patient could be switched.
> >
> This looks like the antipassive voice whereby the patient takes
control of the action. Tomato and DEL work like that : *to go to*
(active) > *to attract* (antipassive).
Malat would go like this: get (to go to) --> [patient] giet/aget (to
move) (here, the giet/aget is the patient's resulting state)to attract
would be something like: aL ioL aget uaL (i make him move to me).
> Sally calls that *volitional*. With your *focus* system you would have
:
> *to be given* > *I have myself be given something*. Then with a
positive shift you would get : *I have myself be given something* > *I
take something*.
> DEL is flawed because many verbs with 3 actors are not factitive par
essence : *to sell* does not equal *to make be sold* nor *to make buy*
and reversely.
> Does it also work like that in Malat ?
Well, cmed = to sell and zed = to own, so:aL cmeduc uoLas ioLes azed (i
sold it to her, making her own it)
aL ioLas acmued (i make it be sold)
They don't have the same meaning i suppose, like DEL, because:
aL ioLas acmued uoLes (i make it be sold by her [i make her sell it])
an equivalent meaning to "to sell" would be:
aL ioLas acmued uaL (i make it be sold by me)
> > > What this system basically is is a passive construction system,
but applied to both
> > > verbs and nouns.
> >
> Maybe an antipassive system.
>
> > Seems workable, maybe even realistic.
> It does work.
>
> You aren't tempted to add
> > ablative, allative, illative, comitative, combative, ... ?
I don't know what those mean, i'll go look them up...
> >
> >
> Lative cases are different from essive or core cases to me.
>
> Mathias
>
> -----
> See the original message at
http://www.egroups.com/list/conlang/?start=18956
--
-Time is what keeps everything from happening at once.
-Garrett Jones aka Alkaline
Rising Sun - C&C2: Tiberian Sun - http://www.cnc2.com/
Malat - http://www.metro.net/3jones/malat/