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Re: Sketch: Tatari Faran

From:H. S. Teoh <hsteoh@...>
Date:Wednesday, October 13, 2004, 19:51
On Wed, Oct 13, 2004 at 09:10:05AM -0500, James W wrote:
> >>>> H. S. Teoh<hsteoh@...> 10/12/2004 6:01:22 PM >>> > >On Tue, Oct 12, 2004 at 11:57:05PM +0200, Steven Williams wrote:
[...]
> >> What are the function of these cases? > > > >The core cases essentially function like Ebisédian, which takes a bit > >of an explanation. Basically, the core case of an NP is chosen > >semantically, depending on the role of the noun relative to the verb. > >The originative is used for source, origin, or active entity; the > >receptive for destination or receiving entity. The conveyant is for > >the transported, or conveyed, entity. This is a bit abstract, so I'll > >use some examples: > > > [snip great examples] > > I've looked at your grammar for Ebisédian, and now the grammar for > Tatari Faran, and I think they are great!
Thanks :-)
> Such a refreshing change from Accusativity, Ergativity, etc.
It was more or less a reaction to what I considered ugly in accusative systems: passives and indirect objects. To me, passives essentially conveyed the same factual content as their active counterparts (X performed some action A on Y), and so I saw no reason why it should be a different syntactical construct. In fact, I saw no reason why passives should exist at all, except to conform to an essentially arbitrary system that requires a subject to be always present. In English, if we don't know X, we have to use a passive and subjectivize Y. Yet if X is known, then regardless of whether Y is known X remains the subject. This asymmetry to me was undesirable. Why not a system where all verb arguments are optional? So if I didn't know X before, I could just state the verb A and the object Y, and once I learn what X is, I simply add X to the sentence without needing to change the verb form. There is no reason to, since it is stating the same facts, just in different degrees of completeness. Indirect objects to me were an afterthought grafted onto an inadequate system---besides playing the "wrong" role (eg. in such verbs as "give", the object should be the recipient, not the thing given, since without a recipient, giving makes no sense). Verbs like "to give" were essentially trivalent; the reason for the ugliness of the indirect object was because it was trying to express a trivalent verb in a divalent system (subject-verb-object). Hence, I concluded that a non-ugly system would have to be trivalent. This led me to consider if it was possible to express all verbs in a trivalent system, unambiguously. After looking at several sample verbs, I realized that the trivalent system I made, which uses "give" as a paradigm for the three verb arguments, had a fixed directionality from the first argument to the third. (I.e., the first argument must be the source, and the third the recipient. I couldn't allow both directions, because that would resurrect the evil passive.) In order for other verbs to fit into such a paradigm, then, the cases must be semantically derived. Thus Ebisédian's case system was born. Of course, this line of thought reflects my personal sense of grammatical aesthetics; it doesn't mean that I'm out to expunge the Evil Passive from language. :-) (You've got to be glad I'm not of the auxlanger persuasion... :-P) The Ebisédian case system acquired 2 more cases afterwards, which in retrospect was an unnecessary complication. Tatari Faran's system is essentially both a return to the original conception of the trivalent system, and a refinement of it, in recognition of the fact that in normal language, the concept of subject is necessary. The solution that presented itself to me, then, was just to make the subject orthogonal to the semantic roles of the nouns.
> I hope you don't mind if I borrow some ideas for my emindahken. :))
[...] Of course I don't mind. As they say on the 'Net, "imitation is the best form of flattery". T -- Everybody talks about it, but nobody does anything about it! -- Mark Twain