Re: Implied verbs

----- Original Message -----
From: "Gary Shannon" <fiziwig@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Wednesday, September 20, 2006 3:59 PM
Subject: Implied verbs


> Do any natlangs make frequent use of implied verbs? I'm playing with an
> unnamed
> sketch that revolves around the idea that prepositions take the form of
> suffixes to the nouns they relate to. In general, words would end in a
> vowel
> and suffixes would begin with a vowel. Otherwise, two vowels are never
> found
> side by side, so the presence of adjacent vowels unambiguously marks the
> attachment of a suffix.
>
> Now suppose that "forest" is "bali" (I haven't actually begun coining
> words
> yet, so this is just a random example), and that "-oso" means "out of,
> outward
> from", "-anu" means "into, entering", and "-aja" means "within" then
> "balioso"
> would mean "out of the forest", "balianu" would mean into the forest, and
> "baliaja" would mean "within the forest". Now supposing "lion" were
> "ranju",
> the sentence "Ranju balioso." ("The lion is coming out of the forest.")
> would
> not require a verb since the action is implied by the prepositional
> suffix.
> Likewise, the sentences "Ranju balianu." and "Ranju baliaja!" ("There is a
> lion
> in the forest!") work well enough without any verb as long as they are
> implying
> a present-tense state of affairs. Past tense could be marked by some word
> of
> relative time, say "ante" for "before the present time". Then "Ranju
> balioso
> ante." ("Lion forest-out-from before-now.") would mean "The lion CAME out
> of
> the forest.", but still without any explicit verb.
>
> Verbs would still exist, and be used in such statements as "I see the lion
> coming out of the forest." (Perhaps something like: "Ma seso ranju
> balioso.")
> but a reasonably large percentage of simple sentences would not have any
> explicit verb.
>
> --gary
>