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Re: Lïzxvööse Verbs I: Active Tri-Consonantals

From:Yoon Ha Lee <yl112@...>
Date:Sunday, August 12, 2001, 6:20
On Saturday, August 11, 2001, at 12:45 PM, Dan Seriff wrote:

> Lïzxvööse (formerly Glïzxfööse) is a consonant root language, with roots > allowable of one to four consonants. Tri-consonantals are by far the > most common, followed by di-consonantals. There are no monoconsonantal >
<very sheepish look> What do the umlauts signify? I haven't been paying enough attention to this list.
> verbs, since these are usually basic nouns/pronouns and grammatical > particles. Four-consonant verbs (and nouns) are almost always compounds, > and in the case of verbs, are usually conceptuals (like "understanding", > etc.).
What are some compound-forming processes in--err, I'm afraid to attempt those umlauts. <wry look> Are they regular and "productive" (? I seem to remember the term from Payne's _Describing Morphosyntax_) or irregular, or some of both?
> > Lïzxfööse only has two primary tenses, present and future. Past tenses > are marked by circumfixes, and, as a result, are lumped in with aspect > and mood (to be dealt with in a future post). The passive voice is > marked with a prefix ('eng) derived from the verb "to be" (root '-n). >
Question (also possibly pretty ignorant since I haven't been reading enough posts): how is "past" (as mere Yoon Ha's might understand it) expressed, or is it conceptualized in an essentially different manner that does not divide it from present or future?
> 3-consonant roots: > > Present active, example root t-w-zc [t-w-D] - "forcing" > This root is interesting, because of several pronunciation > irregularities involving the semi-vocalic nature of /w/, namely: > /w/ -> [u] / C_#, V_C > /w/ -> [u:] / C_C > Lïzxvööse is full of sound shifts like this that drastically affect the > *pronunciation*, but not the underlying form (or written representation) > of many words. >
Neat...I'd be mispronouncing words all over the place, but neat. :-) Query: how did you choose "zc" for [D]? I would have guessed [tS] or something random from the orthography/transliteration/meep? The sound changes are quite interesting and I would love to hear a spoken sample.
> Future active (technically it's a future participle and "to be" copula), > example root g-d-gg [g-d-g"] - "being excited" (general non-sexual > excitement): > This verb is actually a stative crossover, or a formerly stative verb > (with the meaning "being red"), which has been given an active form, and > an idiomatic meaning. Lïzxvööse has many such crossovers. >
Are color-term crossovers common? YHL

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Dan Seriff <microtonal@...>