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Re: Grammatical Summary of Kemata

From:Rune Haugseng <haugrune@...>
Date:Thursday, December 13, 2001, 21:01
On Thursday 13 December 2001 08:13, Christophe Grandsire wrote:
> 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.
Thanks for clearing that up, then.
> > > 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?
No, that's just the past tense of ankil, kill. The past active participle would be ankilta; the sentence might then be something like "Anerle ahankilta.", but I'm not sure that's completely grammatical. It could be another way to do passives, though - if I use "wer" as a grammatical adverb meaning "cause", you could even distinguish "I killed the animal" from "The animal was killed by me" as Ankilavai anerle. ankil-ha-v-ai aner-le kill-Pt-1p-M animal-DSgN vs. Tal wervai anerle atankilat. tal wer-v-ai aner-le a-t-ankil-(a)t was cause-1p-M animal-DSgN 0-O-kill-PAP You could even use different tenses for the copula and the participle - could be interesting. I think I'll have to adopt this - thanks for the (unintentional) idea.
> > 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 :))) ).
I suppose it could be analysed like that - perhaps this could be a dialectal or colloquial variation, with the null pronouns (and proverb) taking over the function of the verb "dal". ------------- Rune Haugseng

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Rune Haugseng <haugrune@...>