Re: Spoken Thoughts ( My second, better formed, non crappy Language)

En réponse à Eruanno none <eruanno@...>:

> First off, I want to ask a few questions:
>
> Could there be a verb in the Subjunctive Imperetive form?
>
> What other forms of the verb are there [ besides Subjunctive ( the
> wishing
> case, I believe ), Imperetive, and the tenses ( past, present, future,
> past
> perfect, future perfect ) ]?
>
Well, I think you're mixing things here. Verb forms belong to categories, in
which the forms are mutually exclusive. Mostly three categories of verb forms
are recognized universally (even if some languages sometimes lack one or the
other, or put them on other types of words): Mood, Tense and Aspect. You can
also add the category of Person for languages where verbs agree in person with
their subject.

The Tense category describes the absolute location in time of the action
(typically past, present and future, even if some languages have more than one
degree in past and/or in future). The Aspect category describes more a relative
relation with time, that's to say whether the action is completed (perfect),
ongoing (progressive), punctual (aorist), still to be done (prospective), etc...
Finally, the Mood category describes the more the opinion of the speaker about
the action, whether it is simply described (indicative), seen subjectively
(subjunctive), wished (optative), ordered (imperative), wanted (desiderative),
hypothetical (conditional), mandatory, possible, probable, etc...

Inside a category, the forms are mutually exclusive: you cannot have a verb at
the same in present and in past. So your question about a subjunctive imperative
form is answered: it is not possible because subjunctive and imperative are both
moods, and thus cannot appear together in the same verb (in fact, there ar even
languages that express order through the subjunctive mood). On the other hand,
you can make as many combinations of forms of the three categories as you want
(even if languages don't always have all: French has a subjunctive past, but not
English, Greek had indicative, subjunctive and optative, while Latin had only
indicative and subjunctive). That's why in English you can have past perfect,
present perfect and future perfect (all of the indicative mood). In written
French we have the past simple (which is a past aorist) as well as the imperfect
(which is really a past progressive). Portuguese opposes an indicative future
with a subjunctive future, and Classicial Latin had an imperative present but
also an imperative future!

As for verb forms in English, you can count all those made through the so-called
modals (you counted the future which is expressed in English by will+verb, so
why not the others?) which correspond to different moods (would for the
conditional for instance).

> I have an intransitive prefix/suffix that makes the verb intransitive.
>
Is it an affix which would allow to say "I eat-affix" instead of "I eat it", or
a passivizer affix making "It eat-affix": "It is eaten" from "I eat it"? I mean,
what's the meaning of the intransitive verb derived from a transitive verb in
this way?

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr