Re: # of possible verb declensions (was gotten, boughten)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Nik Taylor" <fortytwo@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Tuesday, June 25, 2002 1:17 PM
Subject: Re: # of possible verb declensions (was gotten, boughten)


> Jake X wrote:
> > Assuming you made up that number (there can't be THAT many), I'm
starting to
> > wonder what number of verb forms there ARE for any English verb. Has
anyone
> > actually studied this?
>
> There's not really a single number.  It depends on how you count it.
> For example, is "He used to go" a separate form?  What about "He wants
> to go"?  "He tried to go"?  "He will have been wanting to try to go"?
> :-)
>
> Like English, Uatakassi is fairly ambiguous in numbers of verb forms.
> There are auxiliary verbs that could be analyzed as verb forms, and the
> class is an open one.  Not to mention the clitics that can complicate
> matters.
>
> A rough estimate of the minimal number of forms (i.e., excluding
> auxiliary verbs and clitics):
> Imperative: Bare stem
> Person and aspect (suffixes): 13 persons times 7 aspects = 91 (28
> singular)
> Prefixes
> Voice: 5 (one marked by null)
> Tenses: 3 (one marked by null)
> If/Then: 4 (if, if-contrafactual, then, null)
>
> Reciprocative voice can only be used with non-singular numbers.  Thus,
> ignoring that for a moment:
> 91*4*3*4 = 4368
> Reciprocative:
> 28*3*4 = 336
> Imperative forms: 4 (only voice prefixes can be added to imperative, and
> antipassive isn't used)
> Total: 4708
>
> Altho, some of these verb forms would be extremely rare (how often would
> you need to say "If I will be going to go"?)
>
> Hmm ... if-contrafactual is probably illegal with future tense, in which
> case:
> Person and aspect: 91
> Prefixes
> Voice: 5
> Tense+If/Then: 11 (3*4-1)
> Non-reciprocative = 91*4*11 = 4004
> Reciprocative: 28*11 = 308
> Imperative Forms: 4
> Total: 4316
>
> So, 4316 verb forms.  Good thing it's agglutinating.  :-)  You need only
> learn 4 voice prefixes, 3 if/then, 2 tense, 6 aspect, and 13 personal
> suffixes, that is 4+3+2+6+13 = 28 affixes.
>
> --

On the same thing, English inflects for 3 tenses, 1-3 aspects and 1-3
persons. I count 11 positive verb forms, approximately.  Multiplying by 2 to
account for negation, we have 22 verb forms

go
goes
am going
is going
are going
went
was going
were going
have gone
has gone
will go
do not go
does not go
did not go
am not going
are not going
is not going
will not go
was not going
were not going
have not gone
has not gone

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