Re: Languages without verbs

Fredrik Ekman wrote:
> Henrik wrote:
>
>> If verbs are simply replaced by suffixes, i.e., the word status
>> changed to affix status, then I'd be tempted to call those affixes
>> verbs anyway and simply say that verbs are affixes, not words on their
>> own.
>
> Good point.
Indeed - it also calls into question what we mean by 'word', and also
why the morphemes in question are stated to be affixes. Simply because
one may chose not to put white space between two morphemes does not of
itself mean that one of them is an affix.

If they are truly affixes, doesn't their very affixation give rise to a
new word and would not that word itself then be a verb?

[snip]

> The suffixes are definitely going to be a closed class, probably just a
> few variants as I understand it. These will not quite be comparable with
> Japanese "suru", since the suffix will not alter the meaning to be "to do
> x", but rather "to use x for this or that"
But "to use" is surely verbal! Does not suffixing a morpheme meaning "to
use" then produce a verb?

Also consider polysynthetic languages where often complete sentences are
expressed as a single 'word' (i.e. all the morphemes (or certainly most
of them) are all bound morphemes). Are such languages to be called
verbless? This is not the usual practice.

One also needs to define what is meant by 'verb', not itself a trivial
task. Thomas Payne spends several pages in his "Describing Morphosyntax"
the sort of criteria field workers should use in recognizing verbs in
languages.

[snip]
>
> I am not at all sure if this is logical or possible,
Yes, indeed. As we read in Trask (A Dictionary of Grammatical Terms in
Language) "*verb* ... One of the most important *lexical categories*,
and one which is seemingly universal" it would seem that no known
natural language is without verbs. One should wonder why?

This does, however, mean to say that it is not worthwhile to attempt a
conlang without verb. It should give your youngster a better
understanding of why languages do have verbs.

I still think a good place to start would be to look at conlangs which
have been specifically designed to be verbless. At least three of them,
AllNoun, Kelen and Gladilatian are available online - also with the
latter two we have the advantage that their authors are a list members
and can be questioned    :)

How do these three languages manage to work without verbs? Do they, in
fact, really do this? Or is a different analysis possible? Would, say, a
field worker, who came across one of these languages *without the
author's description*, conclude that s/he had discovered a language with
no verbs?

--
Ray
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