Re: adj.

Shreyas Sampat wrote:
> Rixuli's lazy the same way.  A phrase like 'aruveha durama
> luyisivamaka', 'the green trees began to fall', uses a verb 'dura',
> 'to be green', rather than an adjective.
Utakassí (note the change - G6 marker has gone from Ua- to U-; the /a/
would tend to get lost when following words ending with -a or -u, pretty
common endings) has the best of both worlds.  Adjectives are inflected
like nouns, but you can add the prefix sa- (derived from the archaic
verb sá, to be) to make a verb of it.  You can also add that to nouns.
Thus, one could say:

Guatyántu ufbizíi ufmaisiásai
Guatyá-n     -tu    uf-  bizí-i  uf-  maisiása-i
Fall  -3PlIrr-Incep G6Pl-tree-Pl G6Pl-green   -Pl

Or (altho this would be very rare):
Guatiántu ufbizíi samaisiásanva
Guatiá-n     -tu    uf-  bizí-i  sa-maisiása-n     -va
Fall  -3PlIrr-Incep G6Pl-tree-Pl be-green   -3PlIrr-hab

Sa- is mostly used for constructions like "The trees are green"
Samaisiásanva ufbizíi
Sa-maisiása-n     -va  uf-  bizí-i
Be-green   -3PlIrr-hab G6Pl-tree-Pl

> 'Unfortunately for me, the trees stopped being green and began to
> collapse'
Hmm, perhaps:
Sasuatílki tálwaz pli fasmaisiásanva ku guatiántu
Sa-sauatí     -l       -ki       tálwa-z   pli
Be-unfortunate-3SingIrr-Nonpunct I    -dat SCM
fa-  s(a)-maisiása-n     -va   ku  guatiá-n     -tu
past-be-  green   -3PlIrr-Cess and fall  -3PlIrr-Incep

Lit. "It is unfortunate for me that the trees stopped being green and
began to fall"

Wow!  One of those rare cases where the translation is *shorter* than
the English!  I just discovered how to do sentence adverbs!  I'd never
given them any thought, but it makes a lot of sense this way.

Strangely, I had a word for "unfortunate", but none for "fortunate"!

> which uses the wonderfully useful antibenefactive prefix
Antibenefactive?  Sounds interesting.  Just what is it's usage,
indicating that the action is not beneficial for the speaker?

> Ooh.. adverbs acting like adjectives.. I hadn't even thought of that.
> I've been using a derivational suffix.  I feel guilty. *fix fix*
I use the commitative case of an abstract noun.  "Quickly" = "with
speed", "fortunately" = "with 'fortunateness'".  Diachronically, the
suffix -lá (abstract noun) + -n(an) (commitative case) would probably be
reanalyzed at some point as an adverbial suffix, -lán.  In fact, perhaps
the commitative case might die out except for a few fixed usages like
that in the descendants?  There'll definitely be fewer cases in later
forms.

--
Dievas dave dantis; Dievas duos duonos
God gave teeth; God will give bread - Lithuanian proverb
ICQ: 18656696
AIM Screen-Name: NikTailor