On 3/11/2021 2:03 PM, Andreas_Joswig wrote:
> ...although transitivity of course makes a big difference
> semantically, in very few languages it actually has any formal
> consequences, such as having to use a completely different verbal
> template with an entirely different set of affixes
YMMV--your mileage may of course vary. In languages where both subjects
and objects are marked by inflection on the verb, FLEx will need to know
the transitivity for morphological templates. Languages that do that
include Nahuatl (Aztec) and Mayan languages; the former have accusative
marking, while the latter have ergative marking, but both mark subject
on all verbs, and object on transitive verbs.
If I understand your email correctly, your language does inflectionally
mark a transitivity distinction, in fact a 3-way distinction, on the verb:
--------------
Intransitive: SBJ=(ASP-)STEM(-DIR)(-SBRD) (PART)
Transitive: SBJ=(ASP-)STEM(-DIR)(-SBRD)=OBJ (PART)
Ditransitive: SBJ=(ASP-)STEM(-DIR)(-SBRD)=I.OBJ=D.OBJ (PART)
-------------
Now it looks like you're making a distinction between affixes (your '-'
boundary marker) and clitics (the '=' boundary marker). But if you're
writing those clitics "solid" with their host (no space), then at least
for purposes of morphological parsing you'll need to make a 3-way
transitivity distinction. Clitic vs. affix is a distinction without
meaning, as far as morphological parsing is concerned.
About impersonal verbs: my guess (assuming subjects are inflectionally
marked) is that such verbs will take only a 3rd person subject
inflectional affix, right? Which is a restriction on the morphology, so
you don't get things like *"you rain" or *"you seem that it will work".
So *if* the person of both subjects and objects is inflectionally marked
on transitive verbs (and of course only the subject person on
intransitive verbs), *and if* impersonal verbs can only take 3rd person
subject marking, then it seems to me you would indeed need to
distinguish both 3-way transitivity and the personal vs. impersonal on
verbs in your lexical categories.
About phrasal verbs: I'm assuming this is the 'PART' (particle). It
looks like you're not writing that solid with the verb, that is you have
a space in the written forms. If that's the case, then you don't need
to worry about the particle in the morphology, only in the syntax: the
particle is effectively invisible to the morphological parser. Of
course if you want to do syntactic parsing (maybe using Cheryl Black's
syntactic parsing tools), that's a different question.
Languages are complicated, aren't they? Amazing that children learn them!
What language is this?
--
Mike Maxwell
"Digital objects last forever--or five years,
whichever comes first." --Jeff Rothenberg