Re: Trigger language?

On Wednesday 22 January 2003 4:32 am, H. S. Teoh wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 21, 2003 at 02:04:15AM -0500, vaksje@GMX.NET wrote:
> [snip]
>
> > >> H. S. Teoh wrote:
> > >
> > >Ebisedian handles this differently, because it has no concept of subject
> > >or object:
> >
> > Aren't subject or subject universal terms for any language?
>
> As far as I can tell, there is no way to tell what is a subject in an
> Ebisedian sentence except by context and semantics.
>
> > After parsing everything, I suppose you can assign the subject or object
> > even if the language doesn't have cases that correspond to them at
> > first.
>
> In that case, I suppose one would have to conclude that in a verbal
> Ebisedian sentence (there are non-verbal sentences, but I won't get into
> that here), the subject must be the verb. I say this because:
>
> 1) In a verbal sentence, it is the only mandatory word. Nouns of any case
>   can be omitted or elided, *even* if it is not implied. E.g., for the
>   verb "to see", you can say
>         "I(rcp) see(v) man(org)"
>   which means "I see a man"; or
>         "I(rcp) see(v)"
>   which means "I see (something)", or
>         "see(v) man(org)"
>   which means "the man was seen", or
>         "see(v)"
>   which means "a sighting happened".
>
> 2) The Ebisedian verb really does behave like the head of the sentence: it
>   *is* the subject about which the sentence speaks. The nouns are just the
>   pawns, the footmen, the parameters, of this subject. It's almost as if
>   you are describing everything from a detached, 3rd-person point of view:
>   a sighting happened; a speaking happened, a meeting happened. The
>   participants (nouns) in the event are, in a sense, auxilliary. The main
>   point is that a speaking happened; and by the way, the speaker is acting
>   as the originator of this speaking, the words are what is conveyed by
>   this speaking, and the listener is acting as the recipient in this
>   speaking.
>
>    This, in a nutshell, is how a Bisedi thinks.
>
> [snip]

Did you see my point that the Verb is a subjective nominal inflected as a verb
unless the conveyant is present?

> > Hence why I used "subject", since I haven't decided on it yet. So like
> > you I don't have the concept of the accusative (object), but I guess I do
> > have a nominative.
>
> Like I said, if Ebisedian ever has a nominative, it would be the verb.
>
> > >        Man(org) tell(v) something(cvy) someone(rcp)
> > >        "The man told something to someone."
> >
> > Now _that's_ exactly what I meant, unfortunately I swapped
> > something/someone in a typical late night action. ;)
>
> Oh, I see. :-)
>
>
> T

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