Re: Grammatical Summary of Kemata

En réponse à Rune Haugseng <haugrune@...>:

> >
> > Optative (though optative is more "I wish to").
>
> I thought subjunctive meant "wish" and optative "hope", or the other
> way around.
>
No, the subjunctive is more equivalent to "may" as it shows that there's no
security about the reality of the process. That it's used with "wish" (for the
little it's left in English) is only due to the fact that when you wish
something, it normally means that the thing is not there yet, so it's not real,
and thus you have to use the subjunctive. The optative is the proper mood (you
find it in Old Greek) for wishes though.

>
> >
> > > - to indicate voice:
> > >
> > >      Ankila a anerle.
> > >      ankil-ha a aner-le
> > >      kill-Pt  - animal-DSgN
> > >      The animal was killed.
> > >
> > >   (This isn't exactly like voice, of course - you can't
> differentiate
> > >   between "I killed the animal" and "The animal was killed by
> me".)
> >
> > Maybe it's just a kind of copula (after all, all copulae don't need to
> be
> > verbs, in some languages they are prepositions or pronouns). If you
> could
> > use it with other adjectives, it would be a good indication of that.
>
> I don't quite understand what you're saying here: what adjective are
> you talking about?
"Ankila", the passive participle of "kill". Or is it not an adjective?

 Also, I don't think I've quite understood what a
> copula is - I thought it was just something like "to be".
>
Indeed, but a language needn't have only one copula. Spanish has two for
instance: ser and estar, one used for existence and definitive qualities, the
other one for transient qualities (I'm simplifying here, the use of the those
verbs is a little more complicated than that). You could very well have a
copula to link two nouns together, and another one (which doesn't even need to
be a verb, your null pronoun works well) to link a noun and an adjective.

>
> I like the term null pronoun; I think I'll steal it. The null pronoun
> would be used in a sentence like that,
>
> Beinuna aberis.
> beinun-ha   a-beris.
> man-DSgNNeg 0-red
> The man isn't red.
>
> but I've no idea whether that makes it a copula. I've always
> thought of it as a normal sentence with some form of "dal" left out at
> the beginning.
>
That's also possible. But considering the null pronoun as a copula too seems to
fit nicely, isn't it? At least, it could be analysed this way. This doesn't
mean that it has to be true :))) (I like making con-analyses of my languages by
invented linguists in the worlds where they are spoken, but I even like them
more when they are inaccurate :))) ).

>
> Great minds think alike - or maybe it's not-so-great ones :-)
>
Yeah! Yeah! Great minds! :)))

>
> They would be used to disambiguate, if the tense wasn't clear from
> context. I like "anterior" and "posterior", too - you've definite
> given me a lot of terminology here.
>
He he, good to be useful :))) .

> >
> > IIRC, the origin of the relative pronouns in Germanic languages is
> > equivalent, except that they used the demonstrative pronouns. That's
> why
> > for instance in Dutch, the relative pronouns die and dat are identical
> to
> > demonstrative pronouns.
>
> Really? You wouldn't happen to know why the German ones are almost all
> the same as the articles, too?
>
Same reason. And IIRC, the same reason why English has "that" as a
demonstrative, a relative pronoun and a conjunction (though I could be wrong
for the last).

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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