Re: Help!

>     Hello everyone. I am constructing my own language and seemed to have
hit a barrier: creating the conditional voice. For example, what is
>"would?" Is it a future tense? What word is it a future tense of? I am
creating a subjunctive/conditional and I would really appreciate it if
anyone >had advice for me, or a webpage that could thoroughly explain this
issue. Thank you so much.

First, some advice: all people here can't read HTML mail. If you know how to
change it to "plain text", please do so .

Conditional is a /mood/, not a voice. "would" is a modal marker, whose
relationship to other verbs is best left untouched, since it'd only confuse
you.*

In English, there are a few instances were a conditional form is used - for
instance in "if I /were/ a rich man".**

In some languages, only one of the verbs in an if-then are marked, in some
both.
"Jos olisin rikas, olisin iloinen"
If I were rich, I were happy"
(ol- = "to be", -isi- = conditional, -n = I, 1st person singular)

While in Swedish, you get:
"Om jag var rik, vore jag glad"***
If I was rich, I were happy"
(only the latter verb, the "then"-part of it, is marked)


Tenses, aspects and voices can mix with moods:
jos olisin saapunut eilen, olisin lähettänyt sen
if had-conditional-I arrived yesterday, had-conditional-I sent it

"If I were given money, I would be happy"
There you have a passive conditional¤.

Of course, some languages have "holes" in this paradigm - Finnish has
present and perfect conditional, but no past conditional#.

Hope that clears it all up.

* IIRC "would" is related to "will" - its subjunctive form.
** This is partially untrue. Were is a subjunctive, iirc. However,
subjunctives are used as conditionals in some languages (At least some
Germanic).
*** Swedes will of course recognize the construction "vore jag rik, vore jag
glad". I'll also admit that I might have the Swedish sample the wrong way
around, but in that case, it serves as an example nevertheless. (My local
Swedish marks both clauses due to Finnish influence, so what I learnt in
school about "correct Swedish" might've been forgotten. For the fans of
Swedish here, a sample'd be "Om ja sku ha hinda, sku ja ha hitta po ä bätär
exämpäl").
¤ explaining more complex voices is difficult without muddying the waters
too much
# Of course, perfect isn't technically a tense, but let's not get into that
can of worms now, shall we?

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