Re: (tangent thoughts arising from) Active-Ergative langs (discussion)

On Thu, Sep 21, 2000 at 12:50:58AM +0000, Rik Roots wrote:
[snip]
> John kissed Mary and he left [=then left?]
> -> Jone injate ye Marh zhek evda rhaetalta ok
>
> John kissed Mary and she left [=who left?]
> -> Jone injate ye Marh zhek evda rhaetalta oc
>
> The only difference between the two examples being that the last word
> of the relative clause, "ok" tells the listener that the subject of
> the relative clause is the same as the subject of the main clause (ie
> John), while "oc" states that the subject of the relative clause is
> the same as the direct object of the main clause - Mary.
Cool!! I'm still working on an aspect of my conlang called the referential
relatives, which function like your "ok" and "oc" there. I'll keep your
example handy when I work out the details of my system :-)

[snip]
> Completely off-topic, but I hope people don't mind me making selfish
> observations about Gevey in this manner. While I would like to take
> part in many of the debates going on in the mailing list, I feel that
> I have not studied linguistic theory, practice, (jargon, even) in
> sufficient depth.
[snip]

Heh. I've next to no linguistics background at all. I mostly go by "gut
feeling", guesswork, etc.. And my jargon is probably worse than yours, so
we're about in the same boat. :-) That's one thing I like about this list
and conlanging in general -- you get to learn so much about linguistics
from each other and by doing it, not just studying a textbook.


T