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Re: "Abilitative" aspect?

From:Muke Tever <mktvr@...>
Date:Thursday, October 24, 2002, 20:12
From: "JS Bangs" <jaspax@...>
> > Specicifically, I'm conceiving of an aspect that marks having the > > ability to do something. So, it would turn "to run" into "to be able to > > run". There could also be a seperate aspect for being allowed to do > > something, so that it would become "to be allowed to run". And, while > > we're at it, there could be one for willingness ("to be willing to run"). > > > > Does anyone know of an existing language (conlangs included) that marks > > any of these? If not, I nominate the terms abilitative, permissive, > > and... um, I don't know. Any suggestions for the third? > > Yivrian has these and a few others. The one you talk about is called the > abilitive (not abilitATive, since that sounds like too much). I also have > "to want to", called the volitive, and "to have to" called the debitive. > So, yeah, this is a pretty well-established area of conlangery.
_Describing Morphosyntax_ has names for a few of these: abilit[at]ive = "potential" volitive = "optative" debitive = "deontic" Of course, you could have a permissive as its own mood, but then you could also have it as a causative on an abilitive verb, couldntcha... *Muke! -- http://www.frath.net/

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Ian Maxwell <umlaut@...>