Random ideas: Morphosyntax

[Arayaz]

I'm skeptical whether a language would ever have a convention as specific as requiring all nouns to be accompanied by adjectives of material and position in all instances, though.

Imagine: "help, a shark is eating my leg!" - "I'm afraid your sentence is ungrammatical child, and so I do not understand. Please specify, what is the shark made out of and where is it located? Likewise, what is your leg made of and where is it?" - "Just grab the harpoon!" - "I'm sorry, but which harpoon? The steel one, or the bronze one?" - "you only have one fucking spear!!!" - "yes, but grammatically you must specify both the substance and the location!"

I think in practice people would often omit these words. After all, once you've said "the cat is lying on the mat", how often do you need to specify that the cat is a cat made out of cat-material and that the cat is lying ON TOP of the mat (not attached beside it like a clock on the wall) and that the mat itself is positioned horizontally on a surface? Do you need to specify that so often that it's actually work taking the time to always say?

But this full complex would only be used the first time it's mentioned; later, only the minimal information necessary is given

And the first time it's mentioned, yes, one could probably be left out.

However, thank you for your advice; I'll come up with something else.

[Visions1]

Don't languages often include info we in English find totally needless? Navajo's various verbs for carrying dif things, or verb inflection, etc.?
Why not just make it an endless amount of noun classes/modifiers/classifiers? I think that might be it.

[Salmoneus]

Don't languages often include info we in English find totally needless?

Yes, absolutely. Within reason - although the edge of reason may be hard to determine. Iaai (iirc) has over thirty possessive classifiers, and (iirc) some argue that the class of classifiers is actually open. [however, as I say, when your class of classifiers is large enough, it becomes more sensible to just call them nouns; and of course possessive classifiers are only used in a particular circumstance].

And Crey is of course right about obligatory marking of orientation and of shape.

But the more obligatory you make certain information, the more the language is going to respond by grammaticalising it. If, say, orientation information is encoded on each noun by a simple one-syllable suffix, then I'd see no issue at all with it always being obligatory (if there's accomodation for situations where there is no true logical orientation, of course).

[Omzinesý]

yiw waʈa
ᴀɴɪᴍᴀʟ dog
'a/the dog'

waʈara
dog-sᴛᴠ (singulative)
'a/the dog'

What's the difference between these two?


I have also tried to make a classifier system of generic nouns (Aikhenvald definiteness them as a type of classifiers in her broad definition), but I always failed. I started to make the generic nouns have grammatical meanings or derivational meanings and went far from what the system is, just redundant classifiers.

I have to check the grammars you mentioned. I only know Dixon's Yidiny grammar.

[Omzinesý]

What if all location prepositions (they don't have to be such an open class as in English) had a deictic meaning?

Ro bam 'in the house (there)'
Pa bam 'in the house (here)'
But cannot just say 'in the house'.

Maybe it appears in some natlangs?

[Creyeditor]

Closest thing I can think of right now is German varieties that fuse prepositions with articles.

zu-m Haus
to-the.DAT.N house
'to the house'

zu-nem Haus
to-a.DAT.N house
'to a house'

So you need to specify definiteness on the preposition in principle. Well, unless you have a demonstrative/strong article. In that case the two remain unfused. Or in the indefinite plural, where there is no article.

zu dem Haus
to DEM.DAT.N house
'to this/that house'

zu Häusern
to house.PL
'to houses'

[Keenir]

I'm skeptical whether a language would ever have a convention as specific as requiring all nouns to be accompanied by adjectives of material and position in all instances, though.

Imagine: "help, a shark is eating my leg!" - "I'm afraid your sentence is ungrammatical child, and so I do not understand. Please specify, what is the shark made out of and where is it located? Likewise, what is your leg made of and where is it?" - "Just grab the harpoon!" - "I'm sorry, but which harpoon? The steel one, or the bronze one?" - "you only have one fucking spear!!!" - "yes, but grammatically you must specify both the substance and the location!"

One suspects that, ungrammaticallity may be used as emphaticness or alarm...such as the shark eating a leg. One suspects that RL languages which are heavy with evidentiality and such features, are very pro-drop when someone is yelling in pain and panic, to a person close enough to understand the entirety of the message & reply.

[Creyeditor]

Which reminds me of a thought I had recently: v-drop. Some languages can drop arguments if they can be inferred from the context, a v-drop language drops the verb/predicate whenever possible.

Yasa tano _.
I food _
'I (eat) the food.'

Yasa _ lada ko suka.
I _ in the bed
'I (sleep) in the bed.'

I guess this is already done in some contexts in some natlangs but a v-drop languagw would do it whenever possible.

[eldin raigmore]

I understand that African-American Vernacular English sometimes(?) drops the copula*, depending on the aspect.
Does that count as verb-dropping? In English the copula is a verb. (In several other languages, it’s not a verb.)

*(The only example that comes to mind involves telling the addressee where the subject is.)

[Arayaz]

I understand that African-American Vernacular English sometimes(?) drops the copula*, depending on the aspect.
Does that count as verb-dropping? In English the copula is a verb. (In several other languages, it’s not a verb.)

*(The only example that comes to mind involves telling the addressee where the subject is.)

That's not verb-drop, because reintroducing it produces a different meaning.

Edit: Wait, it is, when it's used as a copula. The use/non-use of "be" as an aspectual auxiliary, however, is not verb-drop.

[Visions1]

Instead of a Nom-Acc-Gen or Nom-Acc-Obl distinction,
have an Ablative-Allative-Oblique distinction.

[Omzinesý]

Instead of a Nom-Acc-Gen or Nom-Acc-Obl distinction,
have an Ablative-Allative-Oblique distinction.

Is this an answer to some older discussion?
What do you mean? All languages have to have a subject case.

[Ahzoh]

Instead of a Nom-Acc-Gen or Nom-Acc-Obl distinction,
have an Ablative-Allative-Oblique distinction.

Can't work, at least not with that terminology. The definition of oblique is that it covers everything that isn't nominative (and vocative), absolutive, or direct.

[Creyeditor]

But wouldn't a kind of 'source' vs. 'goal' vs. 'everything else' work? I guess it would amount to a complex combination of Split-S or Fluid-S with differential object marking and secundative alignment. So like the follwing.

Intransitive verbs split according to semantic
S-ABL V (e.g. I snore)
S-ALL V (e.g. I dry up)
S-OBL V (e.g. I walk)

Transitive verbs
A-ABL P-ALL V (e.g. I punch the wall)
A-ABL P-OBL V (e.g. I throw the ball)

Ditransitive verbs
D-ABL R-ALL T-OBL (e.g. I show the picture to my friend)

[Ahzoh]

But wouldn't a kind of 'source' vs. 'goal' vs. 'everything else' work? I guess it would amount to a complex combination of Split-S or Fluid-S with differential object marking and secundative alignment. So like the follwing.

Intransitive verbs split according to semantic
S-ABL V (e.g. I snore)
S-ALL V (e.g. I dry up)
S-OBL V (e.g. I walk)

Transitive verbs
A-ABL P-ALL V (e.g. I punch the wall)
A-ABL P-OBL V (e.g. I throw the ball)

Ditransitive verbs
D-ABL R-ALL T-OBL (e.g. I show the picture to my friend)

That would just end up as ablative, allative, and direct case (which marks core subject and core object).

[Creyeditor]

But what if the direct case is also used for non-core arguments and non-arguments? Like so

ba-ce di fo-gu
I-ABL snore house-OBL
I snore in my house

[Visions1]

Is this an answer to some older discussion?

No, this was just a stupid idea that rolled into my head. It was based on a discussion in the "If Natlangs were Conlangs" thread.

But wouldn't a kind of 'source' vs. 'goal' vs. 'everything else' work? I guess it would amount to a complex combination of Split-S or Fluid-S with differential object marking and secundative alignment. So like the follwing.

Exactly what I was thinking (though if someone has an alternative, that'd also be great).
The way you described it is really cool. I was fiddling around with the idea myself after it occurred to me, and I realized you can also make things causative w' the ABL/ALL:

1-ABL snore 3-ALL - I made him snore
1-ABL dry-up - I made someone dry up
3-ABL dry-up 1-OBL - He dried me up
(Maybe 3-ABL 1-OBL dry-NOM-ALL - He gets me to dry up)

Possession could be interesting. Would it be allative or ablative? (Or just possessive...)

And what about bringing/motion constructions?

[Creyeditor]

1-ABL snore 3-ALL - I made him snore

Why wouldn't this be 'I snored at/to him'?

And what about bringing/motion constructions?

Well, the moved/moving thing (as well as the bringer) should be oblique and the goal should be allative, right?

[Visions1]

Why wouldn't this be 'I snored at/to him'?

Oh. Good point.

[Ahzoh]

I have this idea for Vrkhazhian:

The language has no unmarked ditransitive verbs and the only way to form a true ditransitive is a verb in the applicative voice, of which there are two: the dative and the instrumental (which also double as a benefactive and causative, respectively).

So, you'd have a verb "give", it can only take one argument, either the recipient ("I give (to) John") or the theme ("I give a present (away)"). The other argument would be oblique arguments, either in a dative case ("I give a present John-DAT") or an instrumental one ("I give John a present-INS").

To make "give" a true ditransitive, it must be marked in the applicative voice, probably the dative one. The recipient and the theme would then both be marked with the accusative case, suggesting a double-object construction. So, "I-NOM give-DAT John-ACC present-ACC"

Although, in Vrkhazhian, "give" is supposed to be the instrumental/causative of "have" in the sense of "I make X have Y" > "I give X Y", which means it would involve the instrumental applicative voice. "I-NOM have fish-ACC" > "I-NOM have-INS John-ACC fish-ACC"