Re: Tense marked on nouns

Vyko, Remi.  Interesting system.  The famously verbless conlang is Sylvia
Sotomayor's Kelen~.  You might want to get in touch with her; she's back
from Nicaragua. :)

We have a few minor things in common:
Teonaht uses its future tense in polite discourse to express directives,
which sounds "rude" to us: "you [formal] will take the upper road out of the
village..."  You will move your car now to avoid being hit."  The less
polite form is a suffix on the verb itself.  Move your car!  So the verb can
and does suffer suffixes:  for volitionality; for tense and affix (in
subordinate clauses), for the imperatives (you do, let's do, let him do);
and makes prefixes of some of the pronouns.  ly ken, lykken.  "she see."  It
has no morphology for expressing person or number, though.  It does suffix a
volitional particle in the simple present.

And Teonaht DOES have an "r" that is a forward alveolar flap in most common
speech.  Hifalutin' Teonim prefer the trilled r, also the voiceless trilled
hr.

Other than that, Teonaht is very verb happy, with a flourishing stative: she
happies, he absents, it colds... etc.
Sally
http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/whatsteo.html

----- Original Message -----
From: "Remi Villatel" <maxilys@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Sunday, June 06, 2004 10:06 PM
Subject: Re: Tense marked on nouns


> Sally Caves wrote:
>
> > Only in some conlangs? :)  elry krespr, "past-I write"?  (I wrote)
Unless I
> > still misunderstand you here.  When the VERB is marked morphologically,
you
> > say?  or when TENSE is marked morphologically?  Most Teonaht verbs have
next
> > to no tense/aspect/person/number morphology.  Only moveable affixes.
They
> > are marked, however, for volitionality.
>
> This example "past-I write" stroke my eyes. My conlang Shaquelingua also
> uses a clause-level marker which can be used on nouns with an adjectivale
> value. (In Shaquelingua, verbs aren't marked for anything, they don't
> exist.) The marker is a modal+tense compound, with a very large set of
modal
> values.
>
> ve ke-kebis bjó to'kja. [ve: ke:kebis bjO to:.kja]
>
> the (imperative past)-work (descriptor) (indicative future)
>
> = I will do the work that was demanded.
>
> (The "descriptor" means that "work" is a physical object/action undergoing
> manipulation/execution.)
>
> ----------
>
> tu'çaki seje lasjo-kebis tøl'rë filëjhge.
> [tu:Caki seje 4a.sjo:kebis t94(9)rë: fi4Ej.ge]
>
> (indicative distant future)'we own (negative potential future)-work
> (descriptor)'(undefined plural) robot.
>
> = We'll give to robots the work we won't be able (to do).
>
> (The "descriptor" means that "work" is an immaterial object/action that is
> effectively transmitted.)
>
> (And [4] is the japanese r/l, an alveolar flap.)
>
> ----------
>
> Sometimes this modal+tense compound actually behaves like an english modal
> verb. Maybe it was so in an ancient form of Shaquelingua? I don't know, I
> haven't studied much of its history.
>
> do'rja ; kili ; jo'kja. [do:.xja] [ki4i] [jo:.kja]
>
> (conditional future)'thou ; also ; (implicative future)'I
>
> = If you (will) then I (will) too.
>
> ----------
>
> diçreo'rja ; jisjeo'rja. [di.Cxe^o:.xja] [ji.sje^o:.xja]
>
> (conditional volutive atemporal)'thou ;
> (implicative potential atemporal)'thou.
>
> = If you want, (then) you can.
>
> ----------
>
> lako'kaja deo-govilø ! [4ako:kaja: de^o:govil9]
>
> (negative imperative future)'my (conditional atemporal)-friend.
>
> = Don't (do it) if you're my friend!
>
> If you wonder why I use the imperative future, that's because whenever you
> order something to someone, it's always for an action in the future, at
> least after the end of your sentence. A progressive tense much closer to
our
> present exists in Shaquelingua but you won't use it unless you're already
> pushing your (wannabe) friend aside or removing the hands of a child from
> hir plate.
>
> laki'rja ! [4aki:.xja]
>
> (negative imperative progressive retrospective)'thou.
>
> = Stop it!
>
> ----------
>
> ji kaçtólu soe, [ji: ka.CtO4u so^e] (one soon until)
>
> --
> ==================
> Remi Villatel
> maxilys_@_tele2.fr
> ==================
>

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