Re: Causative and Aorist usage?

Hi!

Carsten Becker <naranoieati@...> writes:
>...
> Just one question: How else can I use the causative after
> the following definition?
>
> Ayeri Coursebook:
> | The causative shows that something is for a reason or the
> | marked argument causes something.
>
> Currently, the causative ending _-isa_ only appears in
> pronouns like "for this reason" and is used with verbs to
> enable a stative passive. But I haven't managed to use it
> with nouns yet. Or do I constantly confuse it with the
> benefactive which I often quite often? How could you use
> indication of reason on nouns? I mean different than
> "somebody makes somebody do something".
>...
The usual translation would probably be 'because of ...'.  'The tree
broke because of the wind'.  This could have 'wind' in causative case.
This is the usage in Qthen|gai.  The meaning 'make s.o. do s.t.'
could also be causative, of course, where the causer then has control
about the caused event.  Qthen|gai has recently aquired a special case
for causers with control (agitative case), but this is basically a
consequence from having an active case system -- the two could be the
same.

> Maybe I should write the causative survived in some forms,
> but is today not very much used anymore ...
I like it as a productive case.  Very handy.  One reason for keeping
it in Qthen|gai is that I don't have any prepositions or
postpositions, so the only other possibility of expressing modifying
relations is serial verb construction, which involves a lot more
syllables. :-)

>...
> The same thing about the aorist. I've got a slot for the
> aorist tense that can be abandoned easily.
>...
Really?  I liked your grammar for this.  Qthen|gai also has an aorist
tense, which I borrowed from Ancient Greek (of course).  It has a very
restricted meaning expressing explicit timelessness of an event.  Very
handy, I think.  I used it in the Pater Noster recently.

> There are no fixed expressions where the aorist
> could fit in ...
Almost all proverbs could use aorist tense. :-)

**Henrik