* Mia Soderquist said on 2006-12-07 02:40:43 +0100
> While sitting in a waiting room recently, I scribbled out a system of verbs
> where every verb has two parts-- an auxiliary that carries
> tense/aspect/mode/person/number, and then the part that carries the
> content.
Just like Basque!
> I thought about a series of auxiliaries that don't mean anything
> on their own, but do contribute to the meaning of the verb phrase. For
> instance, there would be an auxiliary form that is used with verbs about
> "being", another for "doing",
/../
Basque have at least one for intransitive verbs (izan) which is like "to
be", and one for (di)transitive verbs (ukan) which is like "to have". I
don't know Basque well enough to know whether there are more.
> I thought perhaps the content part could take some marking too. I thought
> perhaps the reflexive could be shown there, for instance. I'll have to
> think on that some more.
Basque shows the difference between infinitive, continuous and
future/conditional/subjunctive on the content-verb.
There are (were?) a guy here who seems to know a lot more about Basque
than me though, and as usual I can't for the life of me remember his
name ('cept it being one normally used by males of the species)...
t.