Re: MNCL5 really long

* Jeffrey Jones said on 2007-12-26 13:36:53 +0100
> * On Wed, 26 Dec 2007 03:59:12 +0100, taliesin wrote:
> > * Jeffrey Jones said on 2007-12-25 09:54:33 +0100
> > > Note: "medial" is my term for "non-final suffix".
> >
> > > 2. Argument Structure Conflicts
> > Dos 5 allow implicit default (fallback) objects, like: (3rd
> > person) animate for this set of verbs, (3rd person)
> > inanimate for this other set?
>
> I'm not sure what the question is. In most constructions,
> optionally omitted arguments are indefinite. Some are likely
> to be animate while others are likely to be inanimate. Does
> this help?
Part way. You could add more information than definiteness, then
you'd have an implicit object.

Hmpf, what a typo... "dos" indeed, maybe time to reinstall :)

> > > 3. Trivalent Imperatives
> > > (a) a new medial (like the grammatical voice medials, but
> > > used on -u forms instead of non-verb forms) such as -s-
> > > for the 2nd translation of each pair, with the unmarked
> > > form used for the 1st translation, and (b) allow the
> > > existing grammatical voice medial -m- to be used on -u
> > > forms to indicate the 1st translation, with the unmarked
> > > form used for the 2nd translation.
> >
> > Or c), inject something from natural languages (trivalent
> > verbs are rare) and have each verb has a preferred
> > imperative that fits with that verb's meaning, and an
> > inverse marker if you want to preserve the oppsite
> > possibility.
>
> I thought that was what I was doing in (a) and (b). Either
> I've misunderstood or what I wrote wasn't clear.
I meant: treating each trivalent verb as an exception and
tailoring stuff for each of them, not as a group.

> > > 5. Conatives
> > > This deals with the morphosyntax used for expressing
> > > something like "try to", where either success hasn't been
> > > determined or the attempt has failed.
> > >
> > > Another question is for which TAM combinations has the
> > > attempt failed and for which has success not yet been
> > > determined? Complicating this is the fact that tense
> > > marking is relative rather than absolute.
> >
> > You really need to Venn-diagram your verbs to get an
> > overview of the types. Try drawing the semantic map for
> > English TAM to see exactly where 5 differs.
> >
> > Reference: http://www.ling.canterbury.ac.nz/documents/Adams.pdf
>
> Wow, there's a lot of stuff there about conatives and related
> things -- it will take me a while to read it (184 pages) --
I only skimmed it. I no longer have access to the "cool" papers
having graduated and all so is stuck with google and friends.

> but I didn't see anything about Venn- diagrams for TAM (I
> might be able to figure out how for 5, but English is
> definitely too complicated). Was that the link you intended to
> give?
This was more of a general comment to all your questions, you're
mentioning a lot of detail but seem not to have the big view,
which a Venn-diagram or a semantic map might give you.
Basically, group all the verbs by what happens to their meaning
if you add this or that affix/context and see which go together,
then decide what to do where things overlap.

> > > 7. Tetravalent Verbs
> > > Obviously, I'll have to use an adverbial or secondary
> > > predicate final (-i or -in) for the 4th argument. The main
> > > question is which?
> >
> > "bet" is 5-valent, which 4-valent verbs are there in 5?
>
> It is?
I.1 bet you.2 five_dollars.3 on_Daily_Arabian_4 to_win_5

and maybe even add a sixth "by a whole yard.6"

1 to 4 need to be explicit and it, gah, English fails me, it is
debatable whether 4, 5 (and 6) really are a broken complent
sentence ("Daily Arabian will win by a whole yard" -> "I bet you
five dollars that Daily Arabian will win by a whole yard" but
then the 6 looks even more like an adjunct...) and so not proper
etc. etc. but there are so few such verbs anyway that they can
be special-cased all the way to Saturn and back.

> I could only come up with four arguments. I guess "sell/buy"
> could take a 4th argument.
The bartered item/sum of money, right?

> > > 9. Partitive and Superlative Constructions
> > > I came up with some morphosyntactical possibilities for the
> > > partitive construction, but I don't like them.
>
> I had in mind things like "three of the (four big) dogs" --
> specifying a subset, by size, of some defined set. I don't
> know what else to call it.
Have a look at how Finnish uses its partitive - weird.

> > > In some of my other languages, the superlative
> > > construction is formed by adding a simple (lexical)
> > > adjective to the partitive construction. I'm not sure that
> > > will work here.
> >
> > Maybe superlative is not right for this language. Not all
> > langs have it, after all. How would you do without?
>
> I don't know. All the natlangs I know of have either an
> analytic or synthetic superlative.
I found a good book on adjectives at the library once but can't
recall it's name... you'll just have to take my word for it
until I can remember/find the reference :/

> > > 10. Compound Phrases
> > > What I mean is expressions such as "John and Tom". I'm
> > > thinking of creating a new final (maybe -al) to be used for
> > > "and" on each subphrase but the last. The same final might
> > > also be used in compound numbers.
> >
> > Compound number: higher than the base? number+fraction?
>
> something like "forty-five" and more complicated things. I
> guess that would be higher than the base. Number + fraction
> would also qualify, I think.
With the numbers you could simply do nothing, just put them
next to each other in some well defined order: four, five => 45
etc. No need to add extra syllables, save that for fractions and
rare cases.


t.