Saturday, October 20, 2012

Snake Phonotactics

In my version of Parseltongue, here are the phonotactics:


(The tap is the alveolar flap and the click is dental.  ugh.)  You can start anywhere.  There is no boundary between words.  Epenthetic 'a's will probably abound.  I need to wrap my head around 's' being the resting sound, like 'uh' in English.

Lexical Intentionality in Fluid-S Alignment

So, I'm imagining a language which uses Nominative (N), Accusative (A), Ergative (E), and Absolutive (B) cases.  The verbs do not inflect for voice, but have a lexically expected case.  For active verbs, this is either N or E.  For stative/descriptive verbs, this is either A or B.   I imagine a good N-verb might be "to eat", an A-verb "to be red", an E-verb "I punch", and a B-verb "to be reddened".  Here goes:

Case Expected
Case Given N A E B
N Normal Intentionality Average Causality Unintentionality Unintentional Causality
A Passive Voice Normal Descriptive Unintentional Passivity Pseudo-Passive Object
E Screaming Intentionality Screaming Causality Strong Intentionality Intentional Causality
B Intentional Passivity Pseudo-Passive Voice Anti-passive Voice Normal Stative
OK, that kinda worked. Let's try it with the verbs I mentioned, imagining an Ergative-Absolutive alignment when needed:
Case Expected
Case Given N A E B
N I ate I made (it) red I punched (him) on accident I was reddened on accident
A I was eaten I am red I was punched (by him) on accident I got reddened
E I ate on purpose I made (it) red on purpose I punched (him) I reddened (it)
B I was eaten in purpose I got (it) red I was punched (by him)* I was reddened
I have no idea if I'm murdering Fluid-S or not. I better ask some people.