Re: Requesting some challenging sentences

--- Jonathan Knibb <j_knibb@...> wrote:

> Gary,
>
> fascinating grammar! Would love to see where you go
> with this.
>
<snip>

> Suggestions:
>
> (1) You give the example "I am running." for
> handling progressive aspect,
> which involves a lexical change in the copula and a
> shift of the 'verb' to A
> position. How do you handle this when the verb is
> transitive -- for example,
> "I am eating an apple."?
It seems I have two choices; either alter the grammar
to allow a greater variety of structures, or embed
more information in each word by inflecting them. For
example, using a prefix on O-words to flag their
tense, voice and aspect:

Ku vilero emporu. I run-to (the) market.
Ku pavilero emporu. I ran-to (the) market.
Ku bevilero emporu. I am-running-to (the) market.

That's works nicely, but kinda messes up my original
intention of having no inflections of any kind.

That also imbeds the preposition "to" into the O-word,
perhaps requiring a different O-word for
"run-away-from" and "run" (as for excercise or sport).

It seems I'm not so much simplifying the grammar as
"hiding" the grammer inside the lexicon.

Every time I try to go off in some peculiar direction
and do something original it keeps circling around and
turning into somthing quite ordinary from one natlang
or another. Is there nothing new under the sun? ;-)

--gary

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