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Re: CHAT: relative tense

From:Raymond A. Brown <raybrown@...>
Date:Tuesday, March 23, 1999, 7:38
At 9:04 pm -0300 22/3/99, FFlores wrote:
>Boudewijn Rempt <brt@...> wrote:
......
>> agreement systems. Does anyone know of a conlang that has object agreement >> incorporated into the verb? >> > >It depends on what you mean by incorporated.
Presumably as an affix (either prefix, infix or suffix). I can't think off hand of any conlang that does this, but I'd be very surprised if there were none.
> >As for natlangs, Basque does something like that too -- >but I don't know to what extent.
The Bantu languages regularly do this - it comes after the subject and tense-sign prefixes and before the word stem. However, the object affix is not required if the object is a noun but is used if it desired to emphasize the noun. For example, in Swahili Nilikisoma = I read /rEd/ it (i.e. the book) <-- ni [I] + li[past] + ki [it] Umeleta kitabu? Have you brought a book? Umekileta kitabu? Have you brought _the_ book [I wanted]? Ray.