Re: Ebisedian tutorial

 --- "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh@...> wrote:
> > well, i like it. a lot. and it's great to see the
> > transcription in the proper fonts ! makes a HUGE
> > difference . . . ! ( and looks rather pretty )
>
> Yes, it does indeed. The ASCII transcription is very
> ugly, even to me. :-P
>
that's why i avoided non-roman alphabetic letters in
transcribing bac. but it's easy when you're
transcribing an alphabet with 20 letters . . .

> > as to the noun cases, they make perfect sense to
> me.
> > as i haven't studied your verbs yet i'm going to
> have
> > to guess on this, but would i be right in thinking
> > they wouodn't be marked for person. or is this
> pure
> > presumption ?
>
> You're quite right. Verbs aren't marked for person.
> In fact, Ebisedian
> verbs are probably rather different from what you'd
> think of as a verb. It
> describes events rather than state. For state, you'd
> use a gerund/
> participle instead. Anyway, I won't spoil it here.
> You'll just have to
> wait till I get to verbs in the tutorial. ;-)
>
i want them now ! ( okay, i'll have a look at the
grammar . . . )

i can sortof see what you mean about a similarity
between your 'verbs' and mine. both represent abstract
events rather than actions of particular agents.
difference is that yours have a complex coding for the
various participants, whilst mine have core
participants and then get modified by a flotilla of
subordinate verbs to give a full sense-expression.

'he dragged the donkey to the house' would come out in
literal translation as something like :

for him pulling happened donkeyly ( but the donkey
didn't have any choice in the matter ) such that
entering happened housely.

where, incidentally, the word for 'pull' would usually
take two topics, with the meaning 'he and the donkey
pulled agaist each other' and would therefore be
marked weak to indicate loss of one of the topics.
otherwise it would probably mean 'he pulled on the
donkey', with no indication of movement, rendering the
sentence 'he was tugging at the donkey as they
entered' and implying that was the only way to get the
donkey to move.

> > also i find the
> > smooth confusing, but that's cuz i'm used to greek
> > where it goes the other way round . . . !
>
> True, true. But I thought it was more aesthetically
> pleasing this way. ;-)
>
agreed !

> > finally, you have a rogue 1 in the english word
> t1me
> > in the discussion of the locative, but now i'm
> just
> > picking nits !
> [snip]
>
> Well, please do. :-)  I hate spelling mistakes and
> typos, esp. in my own
> writing. And yes, this is another mistake on my
> part... thanks for
> pointing it out. :-)
well, i do enough proofing at work . . . i just can't
help myself ( except, as you'll remember, in my own
texts (!) )

bn

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