Re: Eihdan (an explanation)

En réponse à Joseph Fatula <fatula3@...>:

>
> In this sentence, the man has the mushroom in his possession, so they
> are
> related using the preposition |zi|.
>
>    Htoru zi udeihtund.
>
> How do we know that it is the man holding the mushroom, rather than
> the
> other way around?  Because |zi| means that the first noun (X) contains
> or
> holds the second noun (Y).
So |zi| doesn't follow the animacy scale you describe below?

  But what if the man picks up the mushroom?
> He
> isn't holding it at the beginning, but he's holding it at the end of
> the
> action.  So we put an inceptive marker on |zi|, making it |zis|.  But
> we
> need a verb to explain how the mushroom comes to be in the man's
> possession.
> So we use the verb |evban|, meaning to pick up or lift something.
>
>    Htoru zis udeihtund, evban.
>
Interesting that the inceptive marker is on the "preposition", rather than the
verb. It looks to me that this "preposition" could very well be described as
an "auxiliary verb" which gives a broad idea of the relationship between object
and subject, while a "lexical verb" may be added to specify the exact meaning
of that relationship.

>
> There are a number of other prepositions indicating relationships
> between
> two nouns.  If we wanted to say, "I seek the water of the mountain.",
> we
> would express that the water is a member of the parts of the mountain,
> using
> |inda|.  But what of the relationship between me and the water?  It is
> not
> currently the case, but it is possible, once I've found the water.  So
> we
> use |htea| with the prospective marker, |hteähd|, meaning that the
> water
> could be perceived by me at some time.
>
>    Ndëniu inda forhumv, ourul hteähd earh, lhäur.
>
> Literally translated:
>
>    Water member-of mountain, it could-be-perceived-by me, seeking.
>
It fits very well my analysis that your "prepositions" are actually auxiliary
verbs, since you have to translate a noun phrase containing "of" as a separate
clause, of which one part is called by on the principal clause by a pronoun.

>
> |ourul| is a pronoun meaning "it", but specifically a watery "it".
What do you mean by that? Do you have gender classes, of which the form of
pronouns referring to them depend? How would you do then if both the possessor
and possessed noun of the first clause were of the same class? Or does that
never happen?

  If
> we
> wanted to refer to the mountain, we'd use |en|.  In the second part, the
> one
> where something is "seeking", there are two objects: the water |ourul|
> and
> me |earh|.  The one doing the seeking is |earh|, simply because it is
> known
> that I am more likely to be doing something to |ourul| than the other
> way
> around.  Or, to put it another way, the 1st person is more animate
> than
> anything of the "sea" class.
>
So actually, "prepositions" don't mean: "the first noun does something to the
second noun", but rather: "the most animate noun does something to the least
animate one"? Does |htoru zi udeihtund| mean the same as |udeihtund zi htoru|?
According to what you're saying about animacy, it should be so, and it's
actually very naturalistic (IIRC, there was a post about some Native American
language working this way a few days ago on the list).

>
> |teu| makes the less animate noun the actor, and the more animate noun
> the
> one acted upon.  It doesn't matter if the tree is written first or last,
> it
> is less animate than |earh|, and therefore is acted upon, unless |teu|
> is
> present.
>
>    Tëzga vbam earh, nawhe teu.
>    Birch momentarily-contact I, touching reverse.
>    The birch tree touches me.
>
Can |teu| be used even without a verb? Your example |htananh zi htoruiza, na?|
seems to show that it's the case with |na|, so why not with |teu|? If that's
so, then one of your example seems to contradict what you wrote until now.
According to your very first example: |htoruiza hteähd farurh, lhäur teu|,
|farurh| is less animate then |htoru|, which obliges to use |teu| to indicate
that it's the wolf who is looking for the human. But now, you have the sentence
|htoruerha hteaht farurh|, which you translate as "the wolf finds the human".
But according to your rule of animacy, it should mean "the human finds the
wolf", and you should use the |teu| mark to actually translate correctly (and
if it's comparable to |na|, you should be able to use it even without stating
the actual verb).

Or are those suffixes that you still didn't talk about extremely important in
this case? Does the suffix |-erha| change the animacy of the noun it's added
on? The two other suffixes you present in your examples: |-iza| and |-aza|,
don't seem to do so, since you have to use the particle |teu| to make the wolf
the subject of the sentences they appear in. But then, there's the problem of
your example |htananh zi htoruiza, na?|. Clearly a human is more animate than a
place. Is it an idiom then to say that someone "has a place" to mean that he
is "in the place"?

>
> There are other such particles, these being but a sample.  Anyway,
> that's
> about it for today's grammar lesson.  More to follow.
>
I think you need to add a lot more, especially about those suffixes, because
until now what you say doesn't fit with your examples. Now, languages *can*
have contradictory uses of their constructions, as irregularities or even
regularities that need some other rules to explain them. But you always need to
account for them, and you did not yet.

But it all looks like an interesting way to work things out, neither
active/accusative/ergative, nor trigger.

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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