Re: "Abilitative" aspect?

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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