The nephilim language

[Kelandon]

Quote:

Originally written by Thralni, Nephil translators & co.:
EDIT: Kelandon, I looked at your pronunciation page of the Slith language, and saw that you have exactly the same sounds as I want to put in, and partially already have: re, as in German Recht. the RA is exactly the same, only it would be as in German Racht.

Yeah, I know what a uvular trill is. I just want to make sure that you know what a uvular trill is.

My question was this: does the uvular trill only occur when followed by an A? I mean, are they not capable of saying (uvular trill) E? (This is possible, I suppose, but it would be the result of a fairly strange sound change.)

Quote:

Originally written by Thralni, Nephil translators & co.:
2) The main reason I'm making this language, is for a future scenario I'm going to make.

And you haven't let all this discussion of linguistics distract you from your main task, which is making that scenario, right? Make sure that you keep making the scenario while you work on all this stuff. You can make notes to yourself now about places to put in nephil language later once you have things figured out more.

Quote:

I wouldn't know how else to get over this problem, unless I copy kelndon's work, which i don't want to do.

I don't suggest that you copy my work, but you might want to copy my method. I started with phonetics, because I wanted to know the sounds that I had to work with when I was making inflectional endings. I made sure that I had enumerated every last sound in the slith language before I went into creating cases and conjugations.

[Thralni]

I'm planning on putting in a RE sound(not planning, it will be there), I just have difficulty finding a symbol. it appears the keybard can't type the symbol I wanted. I'll manage, though.

 

No, I'm currently busy planning the whole scenario. I won't forget it.

 

By the way, at the moment I'm giving the pronounciation page transformation.

 

EDIT: Oh yes, I wanted to say I changed the exlpanation of the absolutive case, and I wondered if one of you (Kelandon, Slartucker perhap?) could look at it if it's clearer now. I would very much appreciate that.

 

And thanks for editing the link, Kelandon!

[Kelandon]

About verbs: some of the same comments as I made before. The term "postposition" refers to something that is essentially like a preposition, but it comes after the object. I seriously doubt you're using the word correctly in the verb section.

 

The word "than" is used for comparisons, not "then." I know that it's a little hard in a second language, but get it straight.

 

Rather than talking about "modern languages" as if they were a monolithic group, it's probably best to make reference to specific languages or language families ("This is the conjugational system found in most modern Indo-European languages," for example).

 

I really have no idea what most of that page about verbs is supposed to mean. You don't explain what "bipartite" and "multipartite" verbs are or why anyone cares about the difference, so it's a little hard to tell what your purpose in that page is.

 

Many of your oblique cases are still poorly named or poorly described. The so-called "terminative" is definitely an allative. The so-called "ablative-instrumental" is clearly an ablative alone. The "instrumentative" is clearly an instrumental. One would never use the instrumental for "a glass of milk" — one would use the genitive for that, but there's been some confusion as to whether your genitive is a real genitive. Your "locative-terminative" may very well be an adessive, too.

[Thralni]

You clearly didn't get it. The verb part is an introduction. More details about these groups aren't there yet. they will be added when I'm certain comments would be minimal (although I don't know if that is possible with two linguists here). I only tell there about the basics of the verbs, not yet what it all means.

 

The cases. Sigh. Look, I already wrote that that might change as I first will have to experiment with these grammar parts, and modify the cases when necessary.

 

And please, don't stay with Latin and/or Greek and languages based on them all the time! There are other languages in which it may be different. The glass of milk you gave as an example, think of it this way: glass denotes an amount of the milk. It could also have been a bucket or a flask. it denotes the amount of milk, and therefor milk and glass will be in the same case.

 

I have been looking in books about Sumerian and Hurrian to see how they do it. In Sumerian it is not done as you say, also in Hurrian it is not as say it is. I quote from "Hurritisch" by Ilse Wegner:

 

Quote:

The genitive case expresses ownership or "zuhörigkeit"*

*(couldn't really translate that, but it means something belonging to something else, like "The king's son", and not "a glass of milk").

 

What's exactly the difference between an instrumental and instrumentative case? I could have confused two different casenames, and give the wrong instead. What I mean is that it denotes "with what?"

 

About the other comments about the cases I already said what I wanted to say: look at the first lines of this post if you don't know what I'm talking about.

 

However, I'll try to make the verb part clearer. Also, I don't understand the fact that you don't seem to understand what I mean, although others whome I asked to look and read what I wrote (people who know less about linguistics) seemd to understand it enough to know what I'm talking about.

 

About the phonetics: I must say I don't have an idea what a nephil could have said and what not. therefor I decided to look into books and see how the build of a cat's mouth looks like and what a cat can do (with his mouth) and what not (big cats like lions and tigers, I mean). I don't think one can really make the phonetics when one doesn't really get to know the speaker of the language.

[Kelandon]

I understand that the verb stuff is an introduction, but I don't understand what the point of any of it is. Maybe it will become more clear when you write the rest of it.

 

Quote:

And please, don't stay with Latin and/or Greek and languages based on them all the time!

Latin and Greek have nothing to do with it. If your language has a proper genitive, it will express the "of milk" with the genitive. If it doesn't, then your so-called "genitive" is a possessive case. These words mean something independent of the languages in which they are used.

 

Look, if you say that your nephils have males and females, but the males are the ones who get pregnant, bear children, etc., then the very first thing that people are going to say is that you've named the genders incorrectly. In any species, the female is defined as the one that undergoes pregnancy (with one or two really unusual exceptions). This isn't specific to mammals or reptiles or whatever: it's a general biological definition. Likewise, a genitive case must be used at least for the possessive genitive and the partitive genitive to be a real genitive case. It's a linguistic definition that spans all languages. There are languages that don't have real genitive cases; these languages have possessive cases. English is one of them (for pronouns).

 

But my point was that you say under the "instrumentative" case (which isn't a word in English, which is how I know that it has to be an instrumental) that the "instrumentative" isn't used to express "of" things. This is needless and confusing. In no language that I've ever heard of would one use the instrumental to express the partitive genitive.

 

My knowledge of general linguistics is not limited to Latin and Greek, so please disabuse yourself of that notion.

[Thralni]

Quote:

I understand that the verb stuff is an introduction, but I don't understand what the point of any of it is. Maybe it will become more clear when you write the rest of it.

I suggest you do that before jumping to conclusions.

Quote:

Latin and Greek have nothing to do with it. If your language has a proper genitive, it will express the "of milk" with the genitive. If it doesn't, then your so-called "genitive" is a possessive case. These words mean something independent of the languages in which they are used.

Then how come I don't see anything about it in already two or three books?

Quote:

nephils

Nephilim

Quote:

Likewise, a genitive case must be used at least for the possessive genitive and the partitive genitive to be a real genitive case. It's a linguistic definition that spans all languages. There are languages that don't have real genitive cases; these languages have possessive cases. English is one of them (for pronouns).

Okay, but then don't start saying that I have an incorrect genitive. Just say I have to modify the name of the case, and not that I ahve to do it like in other languages. You just said yourself that some languages do it differently.

Quote:

But my point was that you say under the "instrumentative" case (which isn't a word in English, which is how I know that it has to be an instrumental) that the "instrumentative" isn't used to express "of" things. This is needless and confusing. In no language that I've ever heard of would one use the instrumental to express the partitive genitive.

Did I say that? I thikn I already told you twice it is not like that. I also didn't say it on the website itself (I think I will remove that whole part about the glass of milk. it will only confuse).

Quote:

My knowledge of general linguistics is not limited to Latin and Greek, so please disabuse yourself of that notion.

That is what I figures from your posts. I apologize for that.

[Slawbug]

"You clearly didn't get it. The verb part is an introduction."

— If it's an introduction, then Kel's criticism is even more relevant. The intro is supposed to be clear and easy to understand. If it's confusing, your full text is probably doomed, and you should really fix the introduction before moving on to the more detailed work.

 

"The cases. Sigh. Look, I already wrote that that might change as I first will have to experiment with these grammar parts, and modify the cases when necessary."

— Thralni, you ask us for feedback, and then when you get it you deflect it by saying everything is going to change anyway. If you're not ready to get the feedback yet don't ask for it.

 

"There are other languages in which it may be different."

— Not really. While there are of course differences in how cases are used, the case names are NOT language-specific and are applied based on which one fits best.

 

"I have been looking in books about Sumerian and Hurrian to see how they do it. In Sumerian it is not done as you say, also in Hurrian it is not as say it is."

— NOT TRUE. I don't know about Hurrian, but for Sumerian see for example this partial grammar , which states (my italics): "the genitive case codes any relation between two noun phrases, including possession, location and composition as well as a variety of extended syntactic functions." But I am skeptical, with Kel, that Hurrian scholars would possibly call it the genitive if it is only used for possessive functions!

 

"I don't understand the fact that you don't seem to understand what I mean, although others whome I asked to look and read what I wrote (people who know less about linguistics) seemd to understand it enough to know what I'm talking about."

— Well, we are used to precision in describing language. We understand the basic gist of what you are saying as much as anyone else. However, if you want to produce a grammar that people can use to translate into or out of Nephilian, people will need to get more than just the basic gist! They have to understand the details, too.

 

Looking at the anatomy of a cat's mouth sounds like a cool idea. Don't forget, though, that nephils in A1-4 seem to be capable of producing most English words with minimal phonetic alterations, so their mouth probably isn't too different from a human's.

 

Thralni, I think some of the confusion in your writing is not caused by bad understanding of English, but simply by sloppy translating! In your nouns page by the part on [a] and [ina] markers, you say: "Some cases can only be used with animate, some only with animate, and some with both." I think what you meant to say is "Some NOUNS can only be used with animate, some only with INANIMATE, and some with both."

This is a small error, but these small errors ruin a grammar!

 

Nouns page comments:

It is probably worth noting that most Indo-European languages are Nom-Acc languages, however, the two terms are NOT the same thing, so talking about the enormous difference between ergative and Indo-European languages is really misleading.

 

Verbs:

If I understand you right, the difference between "bipartite" and "multipartite" verbs is that multipartites have 4 possible suffixes, whereas bipartites have 3 -- the person and number suffixes are combined into one. Right? In that case why the HECK are they called BIpartite and MULTIpartite?

 

Like Kel said, you need to stop using postposition. A suffix that indicates person, number, tense, or voice is presumably not ever used as its own word in a sentence, so it is not a postposition! Pro-dropped subjects are not postpositions, either!

 

It seems weird to me that you are using pro-drop on the SUBJECT despite making the language ergative-absolutive. I guess that would make the language one that employs partial ergativity. This is one of the few ways in which ergative languages really *are* messier.

 

Also, in the chart, it looks like you are saying irregular verbs are neither transitive nor intransitive. Is that true? Because that makes no sense!

 

"The difference between the normal bipartite-group and irregular verbs, is the way the stem and the ending are formed. The stem changes, and the ending adapts to that, sometimes getting totally different verbs in comparison to the infinitive."

— Totally different verbs?!? Do you mean "different-looking endings"? This is *really* unclear. If you don't want to explain it better in the introduction, you are better served by just referring the reader to a later section. That last sentence is spectacularly confusing.

 

"Only the four most necessary tenses exist."

— That's a bit of a value judgment. Also, it seems counterintuitive that aspect is only used for the past tense, not for present or future.

 

...Slartucker, who hopes that his comments are helpful, but fears that they are not

[Kelandon]

Thralni: I've been saying the same thing since my first post on the subject: either your genitive includes a partitive genitive, or the your genitive is actually a possessive. Please read more carefully.

 

"Nephils" is correct because the standard English plural (adding -s) is always correct, even if another form is also correct. (See "octopus," "octopuses," "octopodes.")

 

Your website says that the "instrumentative" is not used for a partitive genitive. I'm just saying that you should take that line out, because it isn't necessary: an instrumental is never used for a partitive genitive. The sentence is redundant, not incorrect.

[Slawbug]

Regarding our assertion that the genitive has wider uses, Thralni asked:

"Then how come I don't see anything about it in already two or three books?"

 

My guess would be that you are reading highly technical books about languages like Sumerian and Hurrian, which are read by a very tiny pool of highly specialized scholars! They probably assume a broad base of knowledge both about the ancient near east and about general linguistics.

[Thralni]

Quote:

Thralni: I've been saying the same thing since my first post on the subject: either your genitive includes a partitive genitive, or the your genitive is actually a possessive. Please read more carefully.

I probably misunderstood you then.

Quote:

"Nephils" is correct because the standard English plural (adding -s) is always correct, even if another form is also correct. (See "octopus," "octopuses," "octopodes.")

I know that, but the plural of nephil is "Nephilim." that's just how it is.

Quote:

Your website says that the "instrumentative" is not used for a partitive genitive. I'm just saying that you should take that line out, because it isn't necessary: an instrumental is never used for a partitive genitive. The sentence is redundant, not incorrect.

Sorry. I was to hasty, and didn't saw the "isn't" part. Instead I read "is." I apologize for that.

Quote:

Thralni, you ask us for feedback, and then when you get it you deflect it by saying everything is going to change anyway. If you're not ready to get the feedback yet don't ask for it.

I asked feeback about the absolutive case. Not the terminative, genitive or whatever case. Instead, I get now feedback about the absolutive case, but I get a series of comments about all other cases.

Quote:

— not true. I don't know about Hurrian, but for Sumerian see for example this partial grammar, which states (my italics): "the genitive case codes any relation between two noun phrases, including possession, location and composition as well as a variety of extended syntactic functions." But I am skeptical, with Kel, that Hurrian scholars would possibly call it the genitive if it is only used for possessive functions!

No, that seems to me like nonsense. besides that the books I use say nothing about this (they only speak about ownership and relationship, and these are books with a general overview of the grammar), my mother looked into some Sumerian texts and it is simply not true. If it is true what it says "any gicen relationship between two nouns," then how about locative, comitative relatioships between two nouns? they are wortless then. Take this part of what Cal Jonhson says:

"including possession, location and composition"

How can it be location? they already have a seperate case for that: the locative! The locative would be made useless if this is true.

Then take this Sumerian eaxmple:

dug geshtin = "a jug of whine"

This is absolutely no genitive. the genitive would read "dug geshtina" or something similair to that. I got it straight from my mother, who is a qualified Sumerologist.

Quote:

Looking at the anatomy of a cat's mouth sounds like a cool idea. Don't forget, though, that nephils in A1-4 seem to be capable of producing most English words with minimal phonetic alterations, so their mouth probably isn't too different from a human's.

Please, Nephilim!

That can be, but I think that looking at a cat's mouth will only make it more realistic.

Quote:

Thralni, I think some of the confusion in your writing is not caused by bad understanding of English, but simply by sloppy translating! In your nouns page by the part on [a] and [ina] markers, you say: "Some cases can only be used with animate, some only with animate, and some with both." I think what you meant to say is "Some NOUNS can only be used with animate, some only with INANIMATE, and some with both."
This is a small error, but these small errors ruin a grammar!

Oh, that's stupid. i changed that quite a while ago, but probably didn't change that part. stupid.

Quote:

It is probably worth noting that most Indo-European languages are Nom-Acc languages, however, the two terms are NOT the same thing, so talking about the enormous difference between ergative and Indo-European languages is really misleading.

I didn't say they are the same thing. What exactly is your point?

Quote:

If I understand you right, the difference between "bipartite" and "multipartite" verbs is that multipartites have 4 possible suffixes, whereas bipartites have 3 -- the person and number suffixes are combined into one. Right? In that case why the HECK are they called BIpartite and MULTIpartite?

The site says "under construction." Conclusion: it is not ready yet, and there might come more. They are called bipartite, because there are no seperate suffixes for singular/plural and the person. instead it is combined to one, make the basic structure of the verb without additional suffixes a bipartite combination.

Quote:

Like Kel said, you need to stop using postposition. A suffix that indicates person, number, tense, or voice is presumably not ever used as its own word in a sentence, so it is not a postposition! Pro-dropped subjects are not postpositions, either!

A error I made because I didn't exactly know what a postposition is. I'll fix it, don't worry. Now can you guys please stop commenting on that?

Quote:

It seems weird to me that you are using pro-drop on the SUBJECT despite making the language ergative-absolutive. I guess that would make the language one that employs partial ergativity. This is one of the few ways in which ergative languages really *are* messier.

In hindsite, that was stupid and I should really take it out.

Quote:

Also, in the chart, it looks like you are saying irregular verbs are neither transitive nor intransitive. Is that true? Because that makes no sense!

I thought the chart would be clear enough. What I mean is, is that the irregular verbs, like the transitive and intransitive verbs, form a seperate sub-group in the bipartite-group.

Quote:

"The difference between the normal bipartite-group and irregular verbs, is the way the stem and the ending are formed. The stem changes, and the ending adapts to that, sometimes getting totally different verbs in comparison to the infinitive."
— Totally different verbs?!? Do you mean "different-looking endings"? This is *really* unclear. If you don't want to explain it better in the introduction, you are better served by just referring the reader to a later section. That last sentence is spectacularly confusing.

I agree that this should definetely be described clearer. I will fix that too.

Quote:

"Only the four most necessary tenses exist."
— That's a bit of a value judgment. Also, it seems counterintuitive that aspect is only used for the past tense, not for present or future.

Why do you think that?

Quote:

...Slartucker, who hopes that his comments are helpful, but fears that they are not

Why? (and stop stealing Alo's signature please.)

Quote:

My guess would be that you are reading highly technical books about languages like Sumerian and Hurrian, which are read by a very tiny pool of highly specialized scholars! They probably assume a broad base of knowledge both about the ancient near east and about general linguistics.

I don't think this has got to do with who wrote the books. the books are general overviews of the Hurrian and Sumerian grammar. A first year student should understand it.

Phew, that was quite some writing...

[Kelandon]

Quote:

Originally written by Thralni, Nephil translators & co.:
I know that, but the plural of nephil is "Nephilim." that's just how it is.

Emphatically, no. Foreign words must be italicized in English. Foreign words always take foreign plurals. Fully assimilated borrowed words — words that were previously foreign but are now considered part of the English language — are not italicized. They may take either their original foreign plural ("nephilim") or the standard English plural ("nephils").

Thus, the plural of "stadium" (a Latin word, borrowed from Greek) is either "stadia" or "stadiums," for example.

We know that "nephil" is a borrowed word because it is not italicized. We therefore know that both "nephilim" and "nephils" are correct plurals.

Thralni, will you do something for me? Find a book on English grammar written in Dutch. Find the part on pronoun case (the bit that talks about the difference between "I" and "me"). Tell me what the Dutch name of the case of the word "my" is.

Also, for the record, I've never been responding to your question about what we think of the description of the absolutive case. I've been responding to the errors on your site.

[Slawbug]

Sigh. Okay, a few points:

 

1) Nobody's attacking you. If you don't want any more feedback, then when you post that you have updated the site, I suggest you specify that you don't want feedback. Otherwise, please stop responding to my questions by saying "it's under construction." If it's really *that* unfinished, why are you publicizing it? (Rhetorical question, no need to answer

 

2) Almost any book about ancient near eastern language is written for a specialized audience. General overviews are no exceptions. First-year graduate students in such a field are expected to have (or to very quickly pick up) a WEALTH of knowledge on the subject that 99.99% of the world does not have. It is absurd for you to claim that any material giving technical details about the language is written for a general audience. It's not.

 

(For what it's worth, grad students at uofc aren't even allowed to take Sumerian until they have had a year of Akkadian; the faculty feels the scholarship is significantly more obscure to a newcomer.)

 

3) I am a little confused about this persistent disagreement over the genitive. I assume your mother knows what she's talking about, but it's strange that my sources disagree. Is it possible that this is some kind of discrepancy between English and Dutch? Alternately, can you point me to a bibliographic reference to a book, article, whatever which states that Sumerian has a genitive which is only used for possession?

 

4) Source wrote: "including possession, location and composition" You said: "How can it be location? they already have a seperate case for that: the locative! The locative would be made useless if this is true."

— ALWAYS, in a language, there is more than one way of expressing the same or similar things. Sometimes, one of these ways is specific to the grammar (like a case). Interrogatives are a really good example: many languages have more than one way of marking an utterance as a question, including those that rely on inserting words, on changing word order, on prosody, and so on. Often, these different ways are mostly interchangeable. Does that render any of them useless? No!

 

Languages are subtle creatures. Semantics interfaces with everything; variations on meaning are infinite. So be careful before you go calling a linguistic structure "useless."

 

5) Me: "It is probably worth noting that most Indo-European languages are Nom-Acc languages, however, the two terms are NOT the same thing, so talking about the enormous difference between ergative and Indo-European languages is really misleading."

Thralni: "I didn't say they are the same thing. What exactly is your point?"

 

— Okay, I will try to be clearer. Quoting from your nouns page:

Quote:

It is essential to be aware of the enormous difference between an ergative langauge (like nephilian) and a standard indo-European language. An indo-European language uses in a sentence the nominative to denote the subject, and an accusative to denote the object...

What you go on to contrast here is the difference between an ergative-absolutive language and a nominative-accusative language. However, what you SAY you are contrasting is the difference between an ergative language and "a standard Indo-European language." Basically you say the above phrase in place of saying "a nom-acc language" — very misleading.

 

It's extra misleading because there exist Indo-European languages that are partially ergative. Hindi and Urdu, which are ergative-absolutive in certain situations, are one well-known example.

 

6) "I thought the chart would be clear enough. What I mean is, is that the irregular verbs, like the transitive and intransitive verbs, form a seperate sub-group in the bipartite-group."

— EVERY verb is either transitive, or intransitive. EVERY verb is either regular, or irregular. They are two binary features which are completely unrelated. Your chart clearly suggests that if a verb is irregular, it isn't transitive or intransitive.

 

7) Now that you have explained the meaning of bipartite/multipartite, the names make more sense. It's still a really weird naming convention, and I am confused as to what the discrepancy between those two types of verbs is supposed to add to the language, anyway.

 

--slartucker

[VCH]

Oh my!

 

I can drive the car, but don't ask me how it works.

 

Both of you ^ seem to have an intimate understanding of English. Or you pretend to.

[Dikiyoba]

Quote:

Originally written by VCH:
Oh my!

I can drive the car, but don't ask me how it works.

Both of you ^ seem to have an intimate understanding of English. Or you pretend to.

My thoughts exactly. I'm not understanding half of what is said in this topic. This is either really good or really bad considering that I'm trying to create my own language.

At least Dikiyoba won't be able to confuse people with long linguistic terms.

[Thralni]

Quote:

Emphatically, no. Foreign words must be italicized in English. Foreign words always take foreign plurals. Fully assimilated borrowed words — words that were previously foreign but are now considered part of the English language — are not italicized. They may take either their original foreign plural ("nephilim") or the standard English plural ("nephils").

Okay, but I will keep insisting on nephilim (partly because it think it sounds nicer )

Quote:

Thralni, will you do something for me? Find a book on English grammar written in Dutch. Find the part on pronoun case (the bit that talks about the difference between "I" and "me"). Tell me what the Dutch name of the case of the word "my" is.

Two things:

1) dutch doesn't have cases;
2) We say "een glas melk" (A glass milk), not "een glas van melk" (a glass of milk). If you say that, you actually say that the glass is made of milk. If Dutch would have cases, it is no genitive in Dutch, nor in german (Ein Glass Milch). In french one says un verre d'eau. Now, I'm a bit confused as to whether it's "de" as "of" or just to make it clear that there in no "le", so if it is "A glass water" or " A glass of milk." There are quite a few languages that don't use the genitive for this example of the "glass of milk" you gave me.

Okay, asked me to tell you what the Dutch name of the case that signifies "my." I assume you mean as in "my house." Granted that Dutch would have cases, it would be a possessive case. however, as I already said, there is no use of genetive in Dutch for the "a glass of milk" example. We say "a glass" to denote the amount, and then the amount of what: "Milk" => A glass milk. however, English is different in that case, and in English it is said different. Is this enough proof of the fact one says it differently in other languages?

Then about the latin genitive. there are severaluses of the genitive:

• genitivus possesivus

• genitivus subiectivus/obiectivus

• genitivus qualitatis

• genitivus partitivus

i was wondering if you could imagine the possibility of all these seperate forms to be one? I don't mean to offence, but I'm under the assumption that Latin has to do with this. In the genitive in nephilian, these uses are known:
1) possesion (the house of the man)
2) realtionship (The king's son)
3) with verbs (The beating of the father)

Quote:

Also, for the record, I've never been responding to your question about what we think of the description of the absolutive case. I've been responding to the errors on your site.

In that case you didn't do what I asked. I had changed the description and asked for opinions on it. Instead I get opinions on everything except what I asked for. Did I miss something?

Quote:

Almost any book about ancient near eastern language is written for a specialized audience. General overviews are no exceptions. First-year graduate students in such a field are expected to have (or to very quickly pick up) a WEALTH of knowledge on the subject that 99.99% of the world does not have. It is absurd for you to claim that any material giving technical details about the language is written for a general audience. It's not.

You have no idea about what books I'm talking. I think that with the support I get of my parents I should be able to understand it, don't you think?

Quote:

I am a little confused about this persistent disagreement over the genitive. I assume your mother knows what she's talking about, but it's strange that my sources disagree. Is it possible that this is some kind of discrepancy between English and Dutch? Alternately, can you point me to a bibliographic reference to a book, article, whatever which states that Sumerian has a genitive which is only used for possession?

I explained this above. there is a difference between English and Dutch (german to, mind you). I couldn't find anything on the internet to direct you to. fact is that in numerous Sumerian texts the genitive wasn't used for that specific purpose, although it may be used for that in general terms.

Quote:

Interrogatives are a really good example: many languages have more than one way of marking an utterance as a question, including those that rely on inserting words, on changing word order, on prosody, and so on. Often, these different ways are mostly interchangeable. Does that render any of them useless? No!

Could you give me an example sentence, and not just a whole story saying why it is like that? I'd like to compare to other languages, like Dutch and german.

Quote:

What you go on to contrast here is the difference between an ergative-absolutive language and a nominative-accusative language. However, what you SAY you are contrasting is the difference between an ergative language and "a standard Indo-European language." Basically you say the above phrase in place of saying "a nom-acc language" — very misleading.

Aha. I'll change that.

Quote:

EVERY verb is either transitive, or intransitive. EVERY verb is either regular, or irregular.

I know that, thank you.

Quote:

They are two binary features which are completely unrelated. Your chart clearly suggests that if a verb is irregular, it isn't transitive or intransitive.

I'll ask other people their opinin about this. If there are more people that say the same, I may change it.

Quote:

Now that you have explained the meaning of bipartite/multipartite, the names make more sense. It's still a really weird naming convention, and I am confused as to what the discrepancy between those two types of verbs is supposed to add to the language, anyway.

I'll explain that clearer on the webpage. there definetly is a difference: The multipartite-group verb is the group of finite verbs, while the bipartite-group is more the one of the non-finite verbs. I chose to name the group to their construction instead after what they are.

Ans Slartucker, I kindly ask you to stop using bold and CAPITAL letters. It gives me a feeling of being shouted at. Thanks in advance ( )

EDIT: modified the verb page

[Kelandon]

Thralni: I grow tired of explaining the same thing over and over again, especially since you consistently mis-read what I've said (I asked you the Dutch name of an English pronoun case, not the Dutch name of something in Dutch, etc.). I'll leave it at this: your cases (several of them) are named to suggest uses that are quite different from what your descriptions and examples suggest their uses are. Either your names are misleading, or your descriptions and examples are.

 

I never answered your question because I started critiquing your website before you asked the question. (And the reason that I've been using italics is that you've been giving me the impression that you don't read what I write unless I highlight the important parts. )

 

Likewise, seriously, before you go any farther, give the language a better name than "Nephilian." The name is improper for many reasons, not the least of which is that it sounds terrible and suggests that they're from Nephilia.

 

To answer your question: I think you'd be much better off leaving out the "two-participant" description entirely. Leave it out of the summary and description of the ergative. Also, I'd take out the reference to the nominative, because it doesn't really help either (the whole point is that it's not like a nom-acc language).

 

In your second example sentence for the absolutive, why is "with the dog" even there? Leave it out. It needlessly looks like an object.

 

Give an example sentence under the ergative. It could be the same as before, "The man picks the fruit," but just highlight the subject instead of the object.

 

There are also a number of typos and grammatical errors, but I'm not even going to go there until the rest of it makes sense.

 

But I had a thought: if the nephil word for "nephil" is "nephil," that would almost certainly mean that the nephil plural has to be "nephilim." No English-speaker would invent that plural; it must be borrowed from something. In your version of this history, where does that plural come from?

[Slawbug]

Aaaaaaaaaaahhh!!!!!!!!!!

 

Thralni, I am not discussing the genitive further unless you do one of two things:

1) Do what Kelandon asked. Find a book about English grammar which is written in Dutch and report the name of the case of the personal pronoun "my".

2) Do what I asked. Give me a citation for a book or a scholarly article stating that in Sumerian the genitive is only used for possession. That way, I can go look it up in the research archives at the university. It doesn't need to be online. (And if the book or article is not in English, that's fine too.)

 

Quote:

I'll explain that clearer on the webpage. there definetly is a difference: The multipartite-group verb is the group of finite verbs, while the bipartite-group is more the one of the non-finite verbs. I chose to name the group to their construction instead after what they are.

!!!!!!

 

Finite and non-finite are just classifications of different forms of the same verb. This is like talking about "present tense verbs" and "past tense verbs" as two totally different sets of lexical entries, which they are not. They are just different forms of the same verb!

 

The problem is that transitive verbs and intransitive verbs are two different groups of verbs. Regular verbs and irregular verbs are two different groups of verbs. Finite and infinite verbs are two different groups of particular verb forms... but you can't logically separate out types of verbs after you separate out verb forms. Once you separate out groups of verb forms, you are no longer dealing with entire verbs, you are dealing with verb forms!

 

Furthermore... looking at the verb page, it seems that your explanation of what finite and non-finite verbs are is really misleading. A verb form is classified as "finite" or "non-finite" based on the presence of markers specifying person, number, gender, and so on. It does not matter whether the markers are prefixes or suffixes or pronouns! In English, the suffixes are mostly other information. In Nephilian, however, they are always part of the suffixes!

 

Perfect evidence of this confusion is in your table showing how a finite verb is constructed. How can a finite verbal form be an infinitive? That is a contradiction.

[Swimmin' Salmon]

This thread really suffers from lack of a play-by-play announcer. It has all the makings of a grand language spat, but us commoners have little hope of either understanding the rules of engagement or the point scoring system.

 

My thoughts you ask?

1. Thralni - practice the English phrase "Thanks for your help, I appreciate the help you are giving me." You are receiving feedback because the participants find the subject interesting. That means you are creating something that is interesting. Good job! In fact, it is so interesting that these people want to help you make it as good and useful as possible. It is nice to be polite to people that want to help, otherwise they tend to just ignore and not help, which is bad.

2. Slartucker - brick wall

3. Kelandon - brick wall

 

*this message sponsored by Mr Murrow*

[Thralni]

Quote:

Thralni: I grow tired of explaining the same thing over and over again, especially since you consistently mis-read what I've said (I asked you the Dutch name of an English pronoun case, not the Dutch name of something in Dutch, etc.). I'll leave it at this: your cases (several of them) are named to suggest uses that are quite different from what your descriptions and examples suggest their uses are. Either your names are misleading, or your descriptions and examples are.

okay, now I finally understand the main problem. thanks for this explanation that I can finally understand.

Quote:

I never answered your question because I started critiquing your website before you asked the question. (And the reason that I've been using italics is that you've been giving me the impression that you don't read what I write unless I highlight the important parts. [Razz] )

I don't care if you use italics or not, I only care about bold and CAPITAL letters. Use italics when and where you please.

Quote:

Likewise, seriously, before you go any farther, give the language a better name than "Nephilian." The name is improper for many reasons, not the least of which is that it sounds terrible and suggests that they're from Nephilia.

No, this actually does irritate me so extremely much! Ungggh aaaaaaaah! jezus Bok!

Ahem. Sorry, had to let out some energy

I'm certainly not going to call it "The nephil language/tongue", as it sounds rediculous. I'd rather refer to it as "ancient Nephil" instead.

Quote:

To answer your question: I think you'd be much better off leaving out the "two-participant" description entirely. Leave it out of the summary and description of the ergative. Also, I'd take out the reference to the nominative, because it doesn't really help either (the whole point is that it's not like a nom-acc language).

maybe you're right about the two-participant verb. But about the nominative, take it away? I thought Slartucker started complaining that I had to make the difference more clear? Or are you talking about some place completely different then what I'm thinking of at the moment?

Quote:

In your second example sentence for the absolutive, why is "with the dog" even there? Leave it out. It needlessly looks like an object.

I needed an intransitive-like verb, and this was all I could come up with at that moment. However, I do think that there should be an example for an intransitive verb in a sentence there. otherwise people will get confused (strange, me saying that...).

Quote:

Give an example sentence under the ergative. It could be the same as before, "The man picks the fruit," but just highlight the subject instead of the object.

Didn't I do that? *looks at the rgative* No, stupid, when you think about it. i'll change it.

Quote:

But I had a thought: if the nephil word for "nephil" is "nephil," that would almost certainly mean that the nephil plural has to be "nephilim." No English-speaker would invent that plural; it must be borrowed from something. In your version of this history, where does that plural come from?

yes, that's quite a good comment, of which I only thought when I had finished all the suffixes. My thought was like this (mainly an excuse not to have to change everything): If humans spell the nehil names like Frrrrmrrrr, which is absolutely horrible, then I wouldn't be surprised if they can spell the plural of the words correctly and just invented something which would be similair. What do you think? or should I start rewriting everything (O please, nooooo!)

Quote:

Do what I asked. Give me a citation for a book or a scholarly article stating that in Sumerian the genitive is only used for possession. That way, I can go look it up in the research archives at the university. It doesn't need to be online. (And if the book or article is not in English, that's fine too.)

Ah, well, that makes it easier. For clarity: it didn't say that it is used for posession only. I'm a bit confused in rekation to this sentence:

"his palace of kingship"

Is that the same as "a glass of milk," or not? I could have misread it, you know...

Quote:

The problem is that transitive verbs and intransitive verbs are two different groups of verbs. Regular verbs and irregular verbs are two different groups of verbs. Finite and infinite verbs are two different groups of particular verb forms... but you can't logically separate out types of verbs after you separate out verb forms. Once you separate out groups of verb forms, you are no longer dealing with entire verbs, you are dealing with verb forms!

Furthermore... looking at the verb page, it seems that your explanation of what finite and non-finite verbs are is really misleading. A verb form is classified as "finite" or "non-finite" based on the presence of markers specifying person, number, gender, and so on. It does not matter whether the markers are prefixes or suffixes or pronouns! In English, the suffixes are mostly other information. In Nephilian, however, they are always part of the suffixes!

Hmmm... I shall retreat and only come back until I find a better way of putting this. I clearly didn't understand what the book said. I'll also ask my parents about it.

Quote:

Perfect evidence of this confusion is in your table showing how a finite verb is constructed. How can a finite verbal form be an infinitive? That is a contradiction.

It is not an infinitive, it makes it more clear to what group the verb belongs, as I also wrote on the site:

Quote:

All suffixes written above come after the verb, which keeps the infinitive suffix. That is done to make it more clear by which group the verb belongs.

...but I suppose that is also found weird.

Note, though, that that's actually only the multipartite-group verb. if you look at the seperate constructions of the verbs, you'll notice why I said that.

thanks for not using the bold and capital letters. it is already more pleasant to read what you wrote. Just one question: are you frustrated?

wow. I'm mostly talking, but doing nothing with the language itself. Ever since this discussion began, I have done close to nothing about the language, except fixing mistakes.

[Slawbug]

Mr. Salmon, you speak wisdom.

 

I have one really important question... is "jezus Bok" something in Dutch, or is there now a Christian Vahnatai conspiracy? I knew "Vahnatai Creationism" sounded fishy...

 

About the words Nephilim and Nepharim... it seems reasonable that words like those could have irregular plurals, since they are important and unique. Personally, I always figured that they were words created by humans, either based on misapprehending something a nephil said, or some kind of mage language name for the kitties.

Quote:

For clarity: it didn't say that it is used for posession only.

*facepalm* *facepalm* *facepalm*

Thralni, you do realize that the only reason I was arguing with you about this was because you said its genitive was only used for possession? OY.

[Kelandon]

Quote:

Originally written by Thralni, Nephil translators & co.:

Quote:

Likewise, seriously, before you go any farther, give the language a better name than "Nephilian."

I'm certainly not going to call it "The nephil language/tongue", as it sounds rediculous. I'd rather refer to it as "ancient Nephil" instead.

Call it "Flügenförgen" for all I care. I'm just saying that "Nephilian" sounds really bad.

Quote:

But about the nominative, take it away? I thought Slartucker started complaining that I had to make the difference more clear?

I said that you had to make the difference more clear, but the way that you can make the difference more clear is with examples and fully correct explanations, not bad analogies. (The whole point of an ergative case is that it's not like a nominative case.)

Quote:

However, I do think that there should be an example for an intransitive verb in a sentence there. otherwise people will get confused

Yes. Yes, there should be an example sentence for an intransitive verb. I'm NOT suggesting that you delete the sentence; I AM suggesting that you take out the bit about "with the dog". "I walk" is just as good an example of a sentence with an intransitive verb as "I walk with the dog" — better, because it doesn't throw in other confusing words.

To summarize: the sentence should just say "I walk," not "I walk with the dog."

Quote:

If humans spell the nehil names like Frrrrmrrrr, which is absolutely horrible, then I wouldn't be surprised if they can spell the plural of the words correctly and just invented something which would be similair. What do you think?

Yes, as long as the plural of "nephil" in the nephil language is something that could be interpreted as sounding like "nephilim." That is, "nephilfarh" doesn't sound a heck of a lot like "nephilim," so it's hard to imagine how the two could be confused.

However, you could say that in the later language (when the nephil race actually comes into contact with the human race) the F drops out, and the RH sounded enough like an M by that point that humans heard something more like "nephilam," which they (for ease of pronunciation) turned into "nephilim."

This sort of stretches credibility, but meh.

[Thralni]

Quote:

Thralni - practice the English phrase "Thanks for your help, I appreciate the help you are giving me." You are receiving feedback because the participants find the subject interesting. That means you are creating something that is interesting. Good job! In fact, it is so interesting that these people want to help you make it as good and useful as possible. It is nice to be polite to people that want to help, otherwise they tend to just ignore and not help, which is bad.

You're right, and I do appreciate the help. However, sometimes there are these comments which I simply hate to hear and irritate me nuts.

Quote:

brick wall

??

Quote:

*facepalm* *facepalm* *facepalm*
Thralni, you do realize that the only reason I was arguing with you about this was because you said its genitive was only used for possession? OY.

I suggest we let that topic rest for now.

Quote:

(The whole point of an ergative case is that it's not like a nominative case.)

I know. i just seem to be really bad in explaning things.

Quote:

Yes. Yes, there should be an example sentence for an intransitive verb. I'm NOT suggesting that you delete the sentence; I AM suggesting that you take out the bit about "with the dog". "I walk" is just as good an example of a sentence with an intransitive verb as "I walk with the dog" — better, because it doesn't throw in other confusing words.

To summarize: the sentence should just say "I walk," not "I walk with the dog."

Yes, that's not such a bad idea, actually.

Quote:

Yes, as long as the plural of "nephil" in the nephil language is something that could be interpreted as sounding like "nephilim." That is, "nephilfarh" doesn't sound a heck of a lot like "nephilim," so it's hard to imagine how the two could be confused.

However, you could say that in the later language (when the nephil race actually comes into contact with the human race) the F drops out, and the RH sounded enough like an M by that point that humans heard something more like "nephilam," which they (for ease of pronunciation) turned into "nephilim."

This sort of stretches credibility, but meh.

That was also part of what I thought.

Actually, Slartucker, what you said seems to be more like what I thought it would be. But, do you know anything of irregular plurals in Sumerian, Hurrian or Akadian?

[Thralni]

I completely changed the verb. I actually found it a bit to complicated, and it didn't make sense.

 

EDIT: I was just thinking, Kelandon, that we were so busy talking about ancient nephil, that I actually forgot about the Slith language. How is it going?

[Kelandon]

I'm not working on it much. I know everything I need to know about it, so there's not much point in me making pages about it until I'm ready to release a scenario with it. I've been working on the scenario instead.

 

I did take a quick break from the scenario to make a few more pages, but I'm not sure when I'll put them up, because I'm not sure when I'll finish them. My priority is the scenario.

[Thralni]

Oh, that's too bad. Well, you are the man in charge.

 

Slartucker, you asked for a reference? here it is: Grundriss der Akkadischen Grammatik, by Wolfram von Soden. See paragraph 62 d. There you'll find an example of the Akkadian way to deal with the "glass of milk" example.

 

By the way, I'm not entirely convinced by the fact that english uses a genitive for the "glass of milk exmaple."

[Lilith]

Quote:

Originally written by Thralni, Nephil translators & co.:
By the way, I'm not entirely convinced by the fact that english uses a genitive for the "glass of milk exmaple."

English doesn't, but that's irrelevant. The point is that a case that can serve the same function as the "of" in both "a glass of milk" and "the home of the man" is genitive, and a case that can't isn't.

[Slawbug]

Thralni, I asked for a reference to something very specific. Quoting myself: "Give me a citation for a book or a scholarly article stating that in Sumerian the genitive is only used for possession."

 

Your reference:

- is about Akkadian, not Sumerian

- does not state that any genitive, let alone the Sumerian genitive, is ONLY used for possession. (I spent many hours buried in the G.A.G. learning cuneiform...)

[Thralni]

With all your respect, but isn't it enough that there are numerous examples where it is not used like that? Numerous texts and numerous articles don't mention anything about these uses. Also, how come you want to see a book or article that much? isn't it enough that the head of the IAA (International Association of Assyriology) (my father) told me how it is, and that what that Johnson guy said is nonsense (by the way, he is not a Sumerologist, he is one of the computer-related people of the oriental insitute). I decided to ask somebody else about the Hurrian uses of the genitive, and I'm awaiting her reply (it should come next week). I musst have forgotten about you wanting only a refernce to a Sumerian source. I'm sorry. must have slipped my mind.

 

the fact that you have been burried in G.A.G. learning cuneiform (was it a year? I think you told me that you studied it for a year), is quite irrelevant. My father have been studying it and doing research on it for about 20-25 years (that goes for others whome I asked as well).

 

I'll wait for the reply of the women I also asked about this, and see what she says. In the meantime I'm going to continue with the verb.

 

Quote:

The point is that a case that can serve the same function as the "of" in both "a glass of milk" and "the home of the man" is genitive, and a case that can't isn't.

Ah, wait a second here. It can but it doesn't have to, right? If a language doesn't use it, but it can be used for that as an alternative way, then my language has a genitive, no? I can't recall ever saying that my language can't use it, only that they don't use it for that. That's no contradiction what I said.

 

And I hope you people don't assume I'm not grateful for you help? (Although at some occasions I may get irritated)

[Lilith]

Quote:

Originally written by Thralni, Nephil translators & co.:

Quote:

The point is that a case that can serve the same function as the "of" in both "a glass of milk" and "the home of the man" is genitive, and a case that can't isn't.

Ah, wait a second here. It can but it doesn't have to, right? If a language doesn't use it, but it can be used for that as an alternative way, then my language has a genitive, no? I can't recall ever saying that my language can't use it, only that they don't use it for that. That's no contradiction what I said.

Well, if the case is never used to express a partitive relationship, then a speaker who used the case to express a partitive relationship wouldn't be understood, unless it's an archaic usage or something.

Really, though, I'm not sure why all this wrangling is necessary. If you don't want the case to be usable to denote partitive relationships, just call it a possessive case instead of a genitive case. At this point you seem to be more interested in winning an argument than in using the most accurate terms to describe your language.

[Thralni]

All this wrangling is because Kelandon and Slartucker say something completely different about the genitive uses in Sumerian and Hurrian (moslt Slatucker, actually), than people who probably know more about it in those specific languages. They may be right about the genitive in general terms, but in this specific language, hurrian it is I'm talking about (My language was based on hurrian), I'd rather await what experts on the language have to say. if they agree with what slartucker said, okay. Then he was right. If not, the genitive in my language will stay a genitive. I myself actually don't quite understand the extreme need for touchable evidence all the time, instead of having the words of scholars o the field. If anybody could explain this, feel free to explain it.

 

Kelandon: I looked up what you wanted me to look up (How one calls the case signifying "my", remember that?). The book I looked in calls it a genitive, and not a possesive case.

 

Thuryl: The Nephil language is an ancient language, and therefor certain things could have dropped out. however, the language I'm making here, doesn't go as far as the time that language might have had this use of the genitive. In other words: It isn't used anymore in the language I'm making, but could have been used once.

[ef]

Quote:

Also, how come you want to see a book or article that much? isn't it enough that the head of the IAA (International Association of Assyriology) (my father) told me how it is,

No, it is not enough. If you don't know that, then your father will. From a researcher's point of view, Slartucker has nothing but hearsay to guide him right now, and has to trust that you, a non-professional in this area, have fully grasped what you've been told and passed it on correctly. I would call that a scientist's nightmare.

I'm sure your father can provide such a reference easily, and would be happy to do so, were he aware of the deep and genuine involvement of the one who's asking for it.

[Thralni]

I can give tons of references saying what Sumerian uses the genitive for, that is not a problem. What is a problem, is to give references to books, where is said what Sumerian doesn't use the genitive for. I'll await the Hurrian's expert's email, and directly copy and paste it into a post.

[ef]

In the meantime, maybe this link could be useful:

Google Scholar/Sumerian/Genitive

[Slawbug]

First of all, Cale Johnson, the author of the page I linked to, is at UCLA. Are you thinking of Chuck Jones, who used to run the computer lab at the Oriental Institute? Different person, different name.

 

Thralni, I was not shooting down your source. The point of my comment about the GAG was that I know, like, and respect it very much! However, it simply did not address the point in contention *whatsoever*.

 

Quote:

I can give tons of references saying what Sumerian uses the genitive for, that is not a problem. What is a problem, is to give references to books, where is said what Sumerian doesn't use the genitive for. I'll await the Hurrian's expert's email, and directly copy and paste it into a post.

And that *is* the problem, Thralni. I was not complaining about your assertions of what the Sumerian genitive *was* for, those were quite correct. I was complaining about your assertions of what it was *not* for -- which you have just admitted you have no evidence for!

 

Quote:

They may be right about the genitive in general terms, but in this specific language, hurrian it is I'm talking about (My language was based on hurrian), I'd rather await what experts on the language have to say

The point that we have been trying to get across to you is that terms like "genitive" are the same no matter what language you apply them to! The English word "genitive" means one thing and one thing only. It may be that in Dutch, the word used for "genitive" is also used for "possessive" and that distinction is not made. That's why Kelandon asked you to do something very specific in order to clarify the issue.

 

Edit: And you looked it up!!! HALLELUJAH! As we suspected, this is all a translation problem.

 

Thralni: In English, the case "my" is in is NOT called genitive, it is called possessive. In other words, English uses two different words for genitive and possessive, but Dutch uses the same word for both of them. Therefore, if you are writing in Dutch you are correct to use that word to describe a case that only deals with ownership. But if you are writing in English, you need to check whether "genitive" or "possessive" is the correct word to use. If it only deals with ownership, "possessive" is the correct word.

[Thralni]

Ugh. All this misunderstanding is really irritating.

 

okay, I agree with the fact the "genitive" is the same in all languages, but how come that you can't call a certain case a genitive when it doesn't have certain functions a normal genitive would have, although it has more functions than only stating the possessive case.

 

I'm sorry, I have to go. I'll continue this post some other time.

[Kelandon]

I have never said anything about the use of the genitive in Hurrian or Sumerian. I'm not qualified to do so, and honestly, it's not relevant to this discussion. I've spoken about what the phrase "genitive case" means in general linguistics (at least in linguistics conducted in English) in contrast to what the phrase "possessive case" means.

 

Evidently Dutch does not make a distinction between a "possessive case" and a "genitive case," but I can testify to the fact that English does. Since you're writing your description of your language in English, you should abide by English standards.

 

Now, in order that we may figure out what this case really is, explain what the non-possessive uses are. Your example, I believe, once you started to say that it was not use simply for possession was "his palace of kingship." Is that still accurate?

 

EDIT: Thralni, would it make sense to call a case an "accusative" case if it were used for the subject of the sentence? Of course not. So it makes no more sense to call a case a "genitive" case if it isn't used for both the possessive and the partitive functions of a genitive case.

[Thralni]

Quote:

Edit: And you looked it up! As we suspected, this is all a translation problem.

I had looked it up already before you posted that. Unless you where writing that post at the time I posted my post, you could have seen that.

Quote:

In English, the case "my" is in is NOT called genitive, it is called possessive. In other words, English uses two different words for genitive and possessive, but Dutch uses the same word for both of them. Therefore, if you are writing in Dutch you are correct to use that word to describe a case that only deals with ownership. But if you are writing in English, you need to check whether "genitive" or "possessive" is the correct word to use. If it only deals with ownership, "possessive" is the correct word.

It doesn't only deal with possession, as I also said in the modified version of the nouns page (The beating of the father). It is correct that Dutch doesn't do it like that, and I beleive German also doesn't do it like that. However, I'm still awaiting the hurrian's expert's email, and I wonder what she shall say about this. until then, I suggest we stop talking about the genitive, but start disicussing other things, like the "equative" and verb introduction page. If you could do that, I'd be very grateful.

Quote:

Now, in order that we may figure out what this case really is, explain what the non-possessive uses are. Your example, I believe, once you started to say that it was not use simply for possession was "his palace of kingship." Is that still accurate?

Yes. I'll have to modify the nouns page again, i think. Note that "his palace of kingship," is about the same as "his royal palace." This form wouldn't be used too often, but it is used.

[Kelandon]

I have already posted all of my comments on the other cases, the pronunciation page, and the verbs page. If you want to know what I think about them, re-read this thread.

[Thralni]

Were your comments on the verbs page about the new version of the verbs page? i completely changed it, so I'm not sure if your comments are still relevant.

 

The pronunciation page is coming along nicely. I only have to make the descriptions (velar, trill, that sort of stuff).

[Slawbug]

Okay, I am so very done here. Thralni, good luck with the language. I hope you are more receptive to constructive criticism you receive in the future.

[Thralni]

Fine with me, slartucker. I suppose that means you think the verbs are poorly executed. Thta's a pity. I thought we were having a nice discussion, albeit with irritations now and then. oh well. I'll find somebody else to critisize instead. thanks for the help, though.

[Kelandon]

Eh, the verbs page is better now than when I first looked at it. I'd still run it through a spellchecker, though: there are some easy-to-fix typos that distract and make it harder to understand.

 

In the same fashion as before: are you sure that you mean a "past perfective" tense, rather than a "past perfect" tense? Both are possible, but they mean different things. It may be useful to give an example of this form of the past tense.

 

By the way, the vocative case has nothing to do with imperatives.

[Thralni]

You are probably absolutely right about the "past perfect". What I want is like the latin perfectum. How would one call that in english?

 

And you're also right about the vocative and imperative confusion. I went under the assumption, somehow, that a vocative needs the imperative. I'm learning classical languages at school. You would expect that i would know that...

[Kelandon]

Quote:

Originally written by Thralni, The flying Dutchmen:
You are probably absolutely right about the "past perfect". What I want is like the latin perfectum. How would one call that in english?

Well, that's the question, isn't it? What tense does your unmarked "past" correspond to in Latin?

I ask because I think that you may be doing one of two things:
1. Your "past" is like the Latin "perfectum," and your "past perfect" is like the Latin "plusquamperfectum." In this case, your "past" is just a "past" in English, and your "past perfect" is in fact a "past perfect" in English (or a "pluperfect" — they are the same).
OR
2. Your "past" is like the Latin "imperfectum" and your "past perfect" is like the Latin "perfectum." In this case, your "past" should be called the "imperfect," and your "past perfect" should be called the "perfect" (without the word "past").

This is the reason why it may be useful to give examples of both of your past tenses.

[Thralni]

Option 2. Imperfect and perfect: "He threw" and "he has thrown." Thanks. I'm going to change it now.

[Kelandon]

Um, no. "He threw" is simple past. "He has thrown" is present perfect. Those are both encompassed by the Latin perfectum.

 

Imperfect(um) is "He was throwing." Past perfect (plusquamperfectum) is "He had thrown."

[ef]

Quote:

Imperfect(um) is "He was throwing."

Now that is interesting. The german language does not have an equivalent to your '-ing'-form, Dutch hasn't either as far as I know. So within the context of my own language, simple past and imperfect are identical. 'Ich ging' = 'I went' is all there is, 'I was going' needs a workaround to be expressed.

[Alorael at Large]

My knowledge of languages is limited and my knowledge of Latin nil, but wouldn't "he was throwing" be past progressive, "he has thrown" past perfect (or pluperfect), and "he threw" whatever other past tense you want since English doesn't distinguish? "He threw the ball every day" and "he threw the ball last Saturday" are past imperfect and past indefinite (simple past?) respectively in Spanish.

 

—Alorael, who has followed this discussion with interest and almost total lack of comprehension.

[Kelandon]

Alorael: I was debating about how much detail to get into. In a word, yes, mostly.

 

English doesn't have an exact equivalent to an imperfect, but English's past progressive is more equivalent than any other one tense. Yes, the past frequentative ("He threw every day") is also an imperfect, but I wasn't sure how much I wanted to go into the nuts and bolts of the difference between English's tenses and Latin's, given the audience for which I was writing.

 

"He has thrown" is present perfect, though. "He had thrown" is past perfect.

 

If anyone really cares, I can go into all of the tense and aspect issues that arise here and exactly what each thing is called.

 

EDIT: Oh, heck, I'll just do it.

 

My page on the slith verb may be sort of educational as far as what the distinctions are that we're talking about. There's tense, and then there's aspect. Tense conveys when something happens (past, present, future). Aspect conveys something about the manner in which it happens, including:

• true perfective, which indicates action that takes place over one definite period of time and finishes;
• iterative/frequentative (not sure on the distinction), which indicates action that happens often;
• durative, which indicates action that lasts for a long time and may or may not finish;
• inchoative/inceptive, which indicates action beginning
• many, many others (for which I refer you to Wikipedia)

* English has these distinctions: basic tense (past, present, future), progressive or not, and perfect or not.

* Spanish has these distinctions: basic tense (past, present, future), perfect or not, and (only in the past) perfective or imperfective. Note that PERFECTIVE and PERFECT are TWO DIFFERENT THINGS.

* Latin has these distinctions: basic tense (past, present, future), perfect or not (with one exception), and (in the past) perfective or not. Unfortunately, Latin's present perfect and perfective past had collapsed into each other, so that dixi was both "I spoke" and "I have spoken." Those two forms are distinct in English and Spanish.

Now, English's progressive more or less corresponds to a durative aspect (which is distinct in, say, certain situations in certain Slavic languages — the difference between iść and chodzić in Polish) — a durative aspect focuses on doing the action of the verb, rather than on finishing it. It stresses the process. (Your mom tells you to clean your room and you reply: "I'm doing it!" You may not be done, and you may not ever finish, but you're in the process.)

 

English's simple past (non-progressive, non-perfect) generally indicates one-time action ("I threw the ball"), but it can indicate things done routinely ("I threw the ball every Sunday — because I was the quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers"). This is called the frequentative aspect.

 

The problem when using examples is that the imperfect encompasses the frequentative and durative aspects, but the progressive only encompasses the durative aspect. Since Spanish has an imperfect, but English has a progressive, there's no direct equivalence.

 

Basically:

English: simple past = perfective + frequentative; progressive = durative

Spanish: preterite = perfective; imperfect = frequentative + durative

So the frequentative presents an obvious difference between the way that English and Spanish handle tenses.

 

There are other aspectual problems in translation between English and Spanish, but the frequentative problem is the first one that comes to mind.

[Thralni]

Yes, I had forgotten about the differences between dutch and english. I'm now in a total state of confusion. In Dutch, the latin perfectum can be translated as "He has trown" (most often used) and "he threw" (not often used). for this last example ("he threw") we use the latin "Imperfectum."

 

In other words, in dutch it is done like this:

Imperfectum: he threw

Perfectum: he has thrown.

 

If I say that "he threw" is simple past, and "he has thrown" present perfect, am I right then?

 

By the way, as ef already said, Dutch doesn't have the -ing form. If in Dutch you were to say "I'm going," you just say "ik ga" ("I go"). This means Dutch uses the present tense to denote an acyion you are starting at that moment (I go), or an action that is happening at that moment, but started just now (I'm going). I hope one can comprehend that explanation.