Ælis/Topicalisation

    

    

This page is currently under construction.





Up to here, we have only spoken about the word-level of the language. On the sentence level, word order is completely free for the speaker to choose. In order to allow this, Ælis has a high rate of topicalisation or "function marking". What this means is that words themselves (lexically) indicate role they play in the sentence. This approach is very similar to a languages that use a case system, like Latin or Russian. But there is a difference in a approach. While most languages mark cases through inflection (i.e. modifying a part of a noun or adjective, usually with a suffix), Ælis on the other hand, given the fact that it is a purely analytical language, cannot inflect. Instead, it has a set of root words that have the sole purpose of assigning a specific syntactic role to a word. 



Ideology
Perhaps the hardest trick is to adopt the way of thinking that Ælis syntax functions in. Rather than a subject-verb-object oriented syntax, Ælis bases its syntactic behaviour not in a grammatically predefined way, but on the semantics of the words themselves. This makes Ælis an active-stative language, specifically the Fluid-S subtype. Ælis has 4 primary function markers to assign roles, therefore it considers itself to have 4 word types. To facilitate the understanding, try to rephrase any utterance you might make as follows:

 A exists / is   A occurs / happens A belongs / corresponds There is / there are A

 to B   for B    which affects B

<div style="margin:0em 0.5em;display:flex;justify-content:space-around;align-items:stretch;flex-flow:column wrap;text-shadow:1px 1px 1px hsl(100,100%,35%), 1px -1px 1px hsl(100,100%,35%), -1px 1px 1px hsl(100,100%,35%), -1px -1px 1px hsl(100,100%,35%);color:hsl(100,100%,35%);border-style:none solid;border-width:1px;border-color:silver;font-weight:bold;padding:0em 1em;"> by C   from C    initiated by C    because of C

<div style="margin:0em 0.5em;display:flex;justify-content:space-around;align-items:stretch;flex-flow:column wrap;text-shadow:1px 1px 1px hsl(200,100%,30%), 1px -1px 1px hsl(200,100%,30%), -1px 1px 1px hsl(200,100%,30%), -1px -1px 1px hsl(200,100%,30%);color:hsl(200,100%,30%);border-style:none solid;border-width:1px;border-color:silver;font-weight:bold;padding:0em 1em;"> in context D    Any word type in any sentence is optional; i.e. not all of them have to be present. Sentences may as well look like this:

<p style="margin-bottom:2em;">So now, let's translate this approach on a few basic sentences to see how it works:

<div style="display:flex;width:100%;flex-flow:row nowrap;margin:0.5em 0em;border-style:solid none none none;border-width:1px;border-color:silver"> "My name is Sam" &rArr; <span style="color:hsl(0,100%,40%);white-space:nowrap;">name Sam corresponds <span style="color:hsl(40,100%,40%);white-space:nowrap;">to me 

"She sees a cat" &rArr; <span style="color:hsl(0,100%,40%);white-space:nowrap;">vision (of) cat occurs <span style="color:hsl(40,100%,40%);white-space:nowrap;">to her 

"She watches a cat" &rArr; <span style="color:hsl(0,100%,40%);white-space:nowrap;">vision (of) cat occurs <span style="color:hsl(100,100%,35%);white-space:nowrap;">by her 

"We like the Ælis language" &rArr; <span style="color:hsl(0,100%,40%);white-space:nowrap;">there is good feeling <span style="color:hsl(40,100%,40%);white-space:nowrap;">for us <span style="color:hsl(100,100%,35%);white-space:nowrap;">because of Ælis language 

<div style="display:flex;width:100%;flex-flow:row nowrap;margin:0.5em 0em;border-style:none none solid none;border-width:1px;border-color:silver"> "We used to like the Ælis language" &rArr; <span style="color:hsl(0,100%,40%);white-space:nowrap;">there is good feeling <span style="color:hsl(40,100%,40%);white-space:nowrap;">for us <span style="color:hsl(100,100%,35%);white-space:nowrap;">because of Ælis language <span style="color:hsl(200,100%,30%);white-space:nowrap;">in context past 

<p style="margin:2em 0em;">As every of these words will indicate their role in the sentence, sentences should be interpreted as follows:

<div style="display:flex;width:100%;flex-flow:row nowrap;margin:0.5em 0em;border-style:solid none none none;border-width:1px;border-color:silver"> "My name is Sam" &rArr; <span style="color:hsl(0,100%,40%);white-space:nowrap;">name Sam <span style="color:hsl(40,100%,40%);white-space:nowrap;">me 

"She sees a cat" &rArr; <span style="color:hsl(0,100%,40%);white-space:nowrap;">vision (of) cat <span style="color:hsl(40,100%,40%);white-space:nowrap;">her 

"She watches a cat" &rArr; <span style="color:hsl(0,100%,40%);white-space:nowrap;">vision (of) cat <span style="color:hsl(100,100%,35%);white-space:nowrap;">her 

"We like the Ælis language" &rArr; <span style="color:hsl(0,100%,40%);white-space:nowrap;">good feeling <span style="color:hsl(40,100%,40%);white-space:nowrap;">us <span style="color:hsl(100,100%,35%);white-space:nowrap;">Ælis language 

<div style="display:flex;width:100%;flex-flow:row nowrap;margin:0.5em 0em;border-style:none none solid none;border-width:1px;border-color:silver"> "We used to like the Ælis language" &rArr; <span style="color:hsl(0,100%,40%);white-space:nowrap;">good feeling <span style="color:hsl(40,100%,40%);white-space:nowrap;">us <span style="color:hsl(100,100%,35%);white-space:nowrap;">Ælis language <span style="color:hsl(200,100%,30%);white-space:nowrap;">past 

<p style="margin:2em 0em;">With this taken into account, we can now have a closer look at how there roles are rendered in Ælis.

<p style="margin-bottom:2em;">

The topic-agent-patient triad
<p style="margin-bottom:2em;">

The modifier
<p style="margin-bottom:2em;">

Free function markers
<p style="margin-bottom:2em;">

The sentence bracket
<p style="margin-bottom:2em;">

The separator
<p style="margin-bottom:5em;">

<p style="text-align:center;font-weight:bold;margin-bottom:1em;">Further reading

Main page Reading and writing Morphology Function marking Root word list and vocabulary